INTRO LOG #2

[bequiet]

INTRO LOG #2
Put a Sock in It
Content Warnings: Disorientation, memory loss, confusion
Themes: Arrival, survival, exploration, horror

You wake, standing. A thick, muddy red dust coats your skin and clothes - it sticks to your tongue and blocks your vision. Inhale and it chokes you, exhale and your breath puffs out in front of your face in a transparent maroon cloud. It tastes of copper, tangy and harsh. Movement is difficult, every limb tingles and aches. Look to your left, your right. Evenly spaced in each direction stands another person indistinguishable in every way from the next. You're disoriented and lethargic, unable to grasp onto a single thought. A pinprick of light blooms ahead and grows steadily larger; a door has opened.

Hands grip your wrists, push at the small of your back and guide you out of the darkness into a room with four walls and a thin, sagging ceiling. The plaster is peeling, the air is musty, and the floor is slick. White plastic piping juts up from the center and curves into multiple spouts, clean water flowing in uneven streams. Those hands pull your clothes off and clear the dust from your body, redress you in handsewn jumpsuits. By the time they’re through, you will have begun to come back to yourself.

A finger is pressed to your lips. Kind eyes meet your own and a single word is whispered - hush.

Led out of the room in a line, you’re taken down a short hallway and into another, much larger room. There’s a woman waiting for you there, a child hugging her leg, and a cloth bag in her hands. She reaches in and pulls out a device, passes one to each of you. Once finished, she begins to move both hands in graceful gestures, a language. One of the people who helped you lifts their device and the screen lights up, tracks the woman’s hands. Letters appear on the screen and you understand the device’s purpose. She tells you what she knows and it’s not much.

This world is haunted. Noise attracts them, so it is not allowed. Communication is through body language, soundless writing, and the device. She tells you that your feet must be light and your mouth never used. There is a community outside these doors, where you can survive together, but only if you agree to one thing: complete and total silence. You'll have time to talk it over. You may ask one question and receive one answer.

Acceptance allows you to journey outside. The ground is marked in pathways of sand, lining the paths to each building and everywhere in-between. You notice that the locals hold their devices always, aloft and glance to it often. It will not vibrate or make a sound to signal a message. Notices appear. Rules. Guidelines. Feet on the sand and never anywhere else. To open a door you brush your fingers along the hinges - oiled and you may enter. If not, take the brush from the can sitting nearby and coat the metal with the dark liquid.

Now, you're to settle into your new home – with or without the help of those who have come before you.

The Place Inside
Content Warnings: Disorientation, hallucinations, body horror
Themes: Plot, exploration

Have you been to hell. And more importantly, have you been back. We all know this pain but are too scared to recall. This horror controls us, pulls at our strings to ensure how our life plays out. So, let me rephrase my question: have you been to Ile Lacrox. And more importantly, can you come back.

In the community, if you hear something you're not supposed to hear, you learn to look the other way. If you see something you're not supposed to see, you pretend it never happened. If you feel disappointed, you learn to never ask for more. So, through good times and bad, famine and feast, the natives held fast to their rules until one common day a sly wind blew in from the south...

That same red dust twists through the streets, curling up in faint, little plumes of familiarity. The farther south you go, the thicker it becomes. Those willing to explore far enough will find it coming from an island in the middle of the river. Once there, doting every available surface is the evidence of Sound Eater births, and the closer you are to the island, the harder it is to avoid being coated in red. Even if it's not rubbed into the skin, it doesn't take long for the effects to take over. Every sound is amplified. Your breaths are deafening, the slightest step echoes. But no Sound Eater attacks. Your vision blurs, and it's as if your mouth is sealing itself shut. Those you traveled with seem to be similarly affected, and you know you have to be quiet. Anyone who brought supplies with them might discover that a drink of water subdues the symptoms.

OOC: Only characters who entirely submerge themselves in water will be free of the dust effects. Just remember that noise will attract Sound Eaters.


Liplocked
Content Warnings: Violent tendencies, mind alteration
Themes: Love, romance, obsession, sex

The natives are of French origin, and with that comes a love of romance. Residents will find treats and valentines at their doors. That same night, there will be a small, red-glowing fire built near the fountain. There will be jars pressed into the dirt and filled with a sweet, red liquid. Some natives can be seen drinking it and being very affectionate with one another. Anyone who drinks this is inspired to show endearment or lust to others, and it will wear off after sleeping.

There's also the noticeable addition of a new arrival. They came through the Reset Room just like everybody else. They understand the rules and follow them to a tee. They are the perfect example of what the natives want in their residents. They are charming and captivating. They say nothing, and they don't have to. When your eyes meet, you feel seduced. There's a nervous flutter in your stomach. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat. Pounding, constricting. They smile and then turn away.

As they're walking, you notice you're not the only one looking at them, and in their expression, you see your own mirrored. What started as sweet infatuation and longing dissolves into a jealousy unlike any you've ever known. All you understand now is that to win their affections you have to come out on top—so you're the only one they see. Your actions are not your own, but they're still yours.

OOC: There are two ways to break the "spell". Your character fights it out with someone else who is feeling the same way OR they're approached and physically touched by someone who isn't affected by the newcomer. A third of the community will be completely unaffected (everyone else is affected unless the player is uncomfortable with playing out the scenarios). The newcomer can be of any gender the player wishes. For those partaking in drinking, the players can choose what effects it has; it can inspire feelings of lust or boost paternal/maternal instincts or devotion towards friends.

OOC
From your mods:

Please be mindful of content - if something triggery comes up or if it goes up a rating to say, something sexy, mark your threads in the subject line. We're very flexible and allow any material; we just want our players to be respectful of each other. If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment to the appropriate post below. Have fun!

NAVIGATION

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Comments

[deadboywalking]

[The question gets a barely audible exhale, half a gasp, half a laugh, and Will gestures short and quick at the general surroundings. Everything. Everything's wrong, see? The movement has the sleeve of his jumpsuit falling back, and he can see on himself, for the first time, the marks left from the clothesline back home, red and bright around his wrists.

Funny. He can't remember that. He must've been tied up, must've had to have been, for his own safety. He doesn't have the hospital gown he arrived in, but the bruises are still there.

Will drops his hand, tucks in on himself again and runs his fingers through his hair once. Twice. Trying to focus on the simple gesture to calm himself.]

[swill]

[He's not gonna make it. Him, he means, not the kid.

No, the kid's got the right idea.

There's a strangled cry of raw frustration pounding at Hawkeye's every nerve and he isn't entirely sure he's got the know-how for how to stave it off. Permanently. You think!? You think this place is shit? Hawk's shoulders tense and it almost hurts to have his body seize up like that-- but he knows it; it's the kind of tension that would hit like a train when a shell would hit an arm's length away. It's the perfectly natural phenomenon known as a flight reflex... and having nowhere to really fly off to. The kid gestures around and Hawkeye is, moronically, powerless to stop himself from giving their surroundings a second and third look-see.

And he doesn't really have the idea to do it but his response is to channel his might into broadcasting one thing:

Oh.

Like he'd never noticed just how large the backyard of the new house was until the sweetheart pointed it out. Something entirely harmless and domestic like that.

The-- everything about him relaxes, he feels the bridge of his nose begin to burn and he wonders when he'd stopped breathing. Who had this kid restrained like that? Was it rabid? But Hawk's trying very hard not to think, not to feel, (it's so hard, it's not fair) and it's

muscle memory, or something, that makes him reach out to nudge the boy's upper arms. And it's not that he's unfeeling, it's just that his face is a decent mask of portraying so. He's had practice. So sue him.

And listen.

Because breathing can only ever benefit them both. God damn anxiety ridden messes-- can he be reassigned to a different ward? Anyway. Kid. Look. Listen. He'll demonstrate.

Breath in through your nose. Fill your lungs, put effort into making your chest expand. Fill them from the bottom up. Hold the air in there-- three seconds. Not long. Breathe out through tight lips. No gasping. No pulling. Hey. Are you listening? Then do as he says, damn it, or they'll both be here past the last bell.]

[deadboywalking]

[The nudge almost gets a sound, a softly indignant one, but Will swallows it just in time. He's not loud by nature, he's quiet, he's good at hiding, he's good at disappearing, but right now he wants to scream. Maybe that'll make the world split apart, maybe it'll hurtle them all into someplace different. Maybe it'll just mean him dying.

Does it matter, if he's already dead?

But he doesn't, because there are other people here. There's this man who's holding himself together with tense shoulders and held breath, and Will doesn't know him and Will doesn't trust him, but Will also doesn't want to put him in any danger.

And then the man breathes and Will hadn't realized he'd forgotten to. He follows, automatically -- in, hold, hold, hold, out -- and he can remember waking up screaming, forgetting how to do this most basic thing and he can hear Joyce's voice, soft and soothing and exhausted, breathe, baby, just breathe, it's okay, it's okay, you're safe now, you're safe.

He's not. Neither of them are. But Will's turned fully towards the man now, watching him breathe in and out, following along as best as he can. See? He's good at following directions.]