Dawn bloomed, sending pale winter light sinking over everything. Shia could barely see it, the stream was too strong today. Not the grey quiet like usual though, with barely audible echoes eddying around her ankles.
No. This was different. The fresh wound on her back had told her that much. It explained the red misty fog that had settled over everything in her sight. Death omens hanging heavy in the air. Someone was going to bleed today. She just wasn’t sure who.
Shia had dressed in the dark, layer after layer. Every last one of her knives, big and small strapped along her arms, her ribs, her legs. A small pistol tucked into the back of her jeans. The vision hadn’t shown her much, but it was enough.
So she was there when they assaulted the Monolith, its dark finger reaching towards the sun trying to blot it out. The gates blew up and she rushed past them, past empty staircases and doors that led up or down.
She wasn’t sure if anyone was with her, or if she moved alone. Only of the handle of the blade in her hand, and the moaning voices that danced along the walls in horror. She had seen this. She was going the right way.
She heard them before she saw them. A screaming maw of voices curling up from the well in the floor. She recognized it from the flashes, felt the new wound in her back remind her that she was actually here. This was Now, and this was where she’d been meant to go.
Souls spiraled up from the vicious rent in the floor, and even before the bones began to clatter she could feel it. Death omens all around her from the red fog that hadn’t cleared when she’d returned to the Now, just no telling if it would her death, or theirs.
The feeling comes right before his hand settles on the door.
It’s a familiar thing. It’s a house too quiet, the light out over the kitchen sink when Claire always left it on for him. It’s broken glass on his living room floor, a picture shattered that echoes the broken family he comes home to. The unease is the same. The sense of dread, crawling slowly up his spine. Barely able to breathe, because he’s waiting for the next painful blow to fall.
His hand hovers over the door. His skin left crawling, because he knows he will open it, and everything will change.
It makes Daniel want to turn around, to leave and go back the way he came. Retreat down the hallway, find Ezra, gather Naomi back into his arms. Her blood is still staining the floor on the other side of the door. He still feel the life leaving her small frame, the sensation of blood spilling over his fingers no matter how hard he tried to press it back into her veins. And that alone is enough to make him want to run, because he can barely feel anything but that awful sinking sensation, and he thinks now that it’s death breathing down the back of his neck. Something is wrong. Everything is wrong.
His fingers tighten on the door. His heart thunders in his chest, he can hear his own blood rushing in his ears. He turns the handle and pushes it open.
-blood, staining the carpet-
There’s blood on the floor. He sees that first, a flicker of red at his feet that he saw slip from between Naomi’s hands before she fell like a broken bird before him. His gaze follows it, only now there’s more of it, a wider trail winding its way past the couch. Too much, thick and dark, smeared across the ground by someone’s worn soles, all of it ending at the only inevitable conclusion. The dark lump near the bed.
Somewhere outside the window a cloud shifts, moonlight slips through and silver light settles on crumpled mass.
His eyes catch that bright blonde hair first. Splayed across the floor and streaked with red, and it's painful just how familiar that image is. Her eyes are open, orbs like frosted, shattered glass. A bright red line drawn across her throat, covered by someone else's calloused fingers. Her hands are still grasping at Ezra’s arms.
They’re curved protectively around her, one hand still trying to hold the wound across her neck closed. Daniel's eyes find his in the darkness, searching for that light to shine back at him. But there’s nothing, eyes just as wide, just as open and dead. The same red line across his throat, and his gaze shifts away. Finds the tattoo on his neck instead, traces the path of them, memorizes every sharp curve with a forced detachment because it’s easier than looking at his face.
The scene’s familiar. Every part of it, they way they curl against each other, the coldness in the air from the absence of life or breath.
He could run to them, but they’re already dead.
Daniel doesn’t move. He stays in the doorway, gaze skating away from the fallen bodies, because he doesn’t want to see anymore. He doesn’t want that image in his head, when he knows it isn’t real.
That at least, he knows with absolute certainty.
If it were he'd already be screaming, grasping at the bodies and begging them not to leave him. Not to be the only one left in this wasteland, that bracelet around his wrist and pale memories left to hold onto. He doesn't want this one added to it. He lets out a breath, shuts it away, lets his gaze skate across the bloody stain on the floor, because even that isn’t real.
And then something changes.
The atmosphere shifts. It’s a subtle change, but he’s too aware of it, brow furrowing as he watches the light in the room seem to waver. Like someone changing channels, a flicker across his vision, a moment out of time that he’s missed.
His gaze moves back to the bodies.
And his blood runs cold. This time, it’s a more familiar sight. This time, it’s Claire. Smooth, dark skin, curls splayed across the ground, the rest matted to the side of her head with blood. She’s still wearing his tee shirt, soft gray heather, Batman symbol emblazoned on the front, checkered pajama shorts, ring around her finger.
His chest constricts tightly, and he knows this isn’t real either. She’s already dead and gone. He knows it’s just as much of an illusion as the sight of Ezra lying in her place.
But it’s the first time he’s seen her in years. And he misses her. The sound of her voice, quietly singing beneath her breath. The softness of her hands, thumbs smoothing the lines between his brow, interrupting the fierce concentration he devoted to files filled with bloodied portraits of death.
Some desperate part of him wants to close that space between them, as if this time when his hand grasps at her shoulder it’ll be enough to wake her back up.
It’ll be enough to save her.
Only his gaze shifts, follows the curve of her arm, the way it wraps around the body of their son, and the urge to wail follow. His boy. His son, the kid that used to clamber onto his shoulders, fingers grasping too tightly at his hair. The child that used to laugh too loudly, genuine glee lighting up his face, sparking in eyes the same shade as his mother’s. And now they’re the same kind of empty.
-at this point the son attempted to hide under the bed, while Claire-
-don’t-
He can’t breathe. He knows it isn’t real. He knows this has already happened, and there’s nothing here that he hasn’t seen before. But it still hurts, he still feels like screaming, he still can’t tear his gaze away from the yellow and black pattern of his child’s pajamas.
-while the mother went for the gun kept in the top drawer of the dresser. the assailant caught up to her before she could get the case unlocked, stabbing her three times in the lower back before she collapsed-
-the son must have cried out at that point, evidence suggesting he was then dragged out from underneath the bed. judging by the blood trail and the wounds on her hands, we believe the mother then attacked her assailant. she was stabbed again in the abdomen-
-he then turned the knife on the boy-
-his throat cut from ear to ear-
-the mother’s hand was still on his neck in an attempt to hold the blood in when their attacker slit her throat-
The image in front of him isn’t real. Daniel knows that. Even through the aching breaths he struggles to draw, he knows none of this isn’t real.
The memory is.
He holds onto it for too long, like some form of self-punishment, and then he shuts them tightly. Blocks out the image, shuts down all the grief and the pain that threatens to come crashing down around him all over again. None of it is real. Everything in this place is wrong.
And it’s with his eyes closed that he becomes slowly aware that he isn’t alone in this room.
It isn’t the bodies he thinks will still be there when he opens them. It’s something else, the presence of someone else. Like quiet breaths, the sound of white static on a dead television, an electronic hum that echoes through telephone wires. Someone else is in the room.
His eyes slide open. There’s still blood on the floor. It’s Ezra and Naomi curled around each other near the bed. His gaze skates over them, past them. To the bed sitting empty, back over the blood stains to the couch sitting in the middle of the room, the chair arranged next to it. The shadows that seem somehow thicker, somehow darker.
“Who’s here?” he demands.
His own voice almost startles him with how loud it is, enough to crack ice, and he’s aware of an abrupt silence following. His fingers settle on the handle of his gun, thumb unlatching the holster.
“I know someone’s here,” he tries again. “Show yourself.”
Another breath of silence. A heartbeat. He stands, tense and anxious, gaze darting around the room for that something, that sign that he isn’t alone here.
The man appears in the blink of an eye. Daniel’s lids slide closed, and when they open again someone is sitting in the chair next to the couch. He knows him the second he lays eyes on him, or at least who he’s supposed to be. And the thoughts are at odds with each other, something surreal and supernatural about every second ticking by in this room.
He looks like Sykes. He holds himself the same, smiles the same. He looks like he did his last night on earth, cocky, self-assured, watching Daniel with a vague curiosity reflecting back at him, as if daring him to step outside the hard lines drawn around him.
“Hello detective,” he says.
Daniel’s fingers don’t stray from his gun. “Who are you?"
Laughter greets him. He winces at the sound of it, because it’s a grating thing, nails over a chalkboard, the snapping of guitar strings. “That’s it? No hello, no nice to see you?”
Once he might’ve played alone. When he’d been Detective Tseng, the man who hadn’t already lost everything at the hands of the monster standing in front of him. He can’t summon anything now except that same question. “Who are you?”
The smile widens. Silence greets him for a moment, a beat out of time. “You don’t recognize me?” His head tilts to the side, and then he’s pressing himself from the chair. The motion slow, and he thinks it’s a purposeful thing, because the urge to draw that weapon at his side is stronger than it’s ever been. “Maybe this will jog your memory.”
His head straightens. Red begins to bloom across his chest.
-the muzzle flash is bright and loud in the dark alleyway, three quick blasts that echo off the walls, the scent of gunsmoke hanging thick and heavy in the aftermath. they punch holes in his chest, the man crying out in pain, feet stumbling backwards-
-it isn’t enough. there are still bullets in his gun, the man’s still struggling for air, his family’s still dead, they’re dead at his hands, his son’s throat cut open.-
-the next two punch holes in his stomach. Sykes falls to his knees after that. he says something, it might be a plea for mercy, it might be curses, Daniel never hears any of it. the next shot tears a hole through his neck. blood hits the ground in brighter waves after that. he’s stepping closer, he pulls the trigger again, there’s a bullet tearing through the man’s forehead, blood and brain matter scattering across the ground behind him. he shoots him again, and again, and again-
-and he should be satisfied, it should count for something, but he doesn’t feel anything-
They appear one by one, wounds inflicted by Daniel’s gun, at Daniel’s hands, flesh melting as he mimics the bullet that tore through his throat, a hole appearing in his forehead. Another through his eye. He’s rotting in front of him, the body of a dead murderer standing in front of him. A haunting image that shouldn’t exist.
And it doesn’t. None of it’s real. At least, none of what he sees, but there’s an awful pressure bearing down on him, the certainty that someone or something is standing there in front of him. The rest is just a show, and Daniel holds his gaze and his voice steady.
“Sykes is gone. Who are you?”
There’s a flicker, something like fury slipping across the face of Jeffery Sykes, a crack in that illusion that he can’t tell is revealed intentionally or not. It shifts, contorts, like a black-eyed man who didn’t know how to wear human skin. And the voice that comes from his throat sounds nothing like his rasping tones. It’s something far worse. “I am the road into madness, child. To gaze upon me is to gaze into the abyss.”
Daniel’s spine stiffens the moment he hears that voice. Something inhuman, ancient and old, and there’s a fierce and violent reaction somewhere inside his chest. A sensation that’s becoming more and more familiar, something set aflame behind his ribs
His eyes slide closed, the rush of blood in his ears trying to combat the screeching of something metallic and discordant ringing in his ears.
He isn’t aware of it, but when his eyes open they’re burning gold.
And he can see.
Everything shifts, an illusion stripped away, and it isn’t a welcoming, clean room anymore. The floors are stained with red and black, old blood long dried and covered again with fresh crimson until the ground’s made tacky with it. The walls are shredded, lines drawn over and over again against its surface like someone or countless someones trying to claw their way free. The bed is rotted, the couches the same, and the room smells like sulfur and ash.
It isn’t a man that stands in front of him. He doesn’t look like Sykes anymore. It resembles a man only in the most basic sense, the limbs all in the same place, the head where it’s meant to be. Those feel like the only similarities, because when his mouth curves in a smile, it’s something wicked and feral, the edges of his mouth dragging up too far, until his skull itself looks split in half. Features barely visible behind the shadows that rise and collect around him, like smoke rising off a burning ember.
His eyes, the gaze that greets Daniel’s, are burning red pits, and he thinks yes, this is what it means to gaze into the abyss. Because there is only death and horror reflecting back at him, the murder of his child committed a thousand times. Ezra’s father, his mother, his brother, the two women that took him and claimed him as their own, slaughtered again and again. Naomi’s mother, sliding that knife in between her ribs until there is only red staining her hands.
It’s the screaming of dying loved ones, trapped in flames. It’s every parent that abused their child, and left them huddled and terrified with too many scars littering their skin. It’s the death of everyone here, everyone they ever knew, a thousand ghosts dancing in those red flames.
He can taste the ash on the air, falling slowly from the ceiling, and it’s a long time before the question finally escapes him, some odd role reversal taking place.
"What are you?
The creature takes a step forward. His spine stiffens, hand curving tighter around the gun at his side. Black malevolence rising off it in waves, and he can feel it, spreading through the house, playing at the edges of every thought and every sight he’s witnessing now. “I am a Marquis of Hell.” There’s a shaking in the walls when he speaks. Another step forward, that pressure bearing down on Daniel’s shoulders until he can barely breathe. “You should kneel before me.”
Another step, and instead Daniel’s drawing his gun. “You should put your hands on your head.”
A noise rips from the throat of the thing in front of him. Something like laughter, awful and vicious as it shakes the foundations of the house. “You dare? You are nothing to me. You worry for that blonde child of yours? You worry for how much she sees?” He tips his head forward, the flash of white teeth in the darkness. “I’ll tear her eyes from her skull. I’ll break every bone in her body and leave her helpless and blind until the hounds of hell devour her.”
There’s another step forward. It’s an effort to hold his place, but there’s a dull burning fury roaring to life in his chest. Something violent and cold, the certainty that some things were too dangerous to let live.
“The man you brought back here. You want his heart? I’ll rip it from his chest, and then I will feed it to you a piece at a ti-”
It’s enough. He doesn’t wait for the words to finish falling like an order of execution. The second he shifts closer Daniel is pulling the trigger. Three quick shots, fired into his chest, the blast bright and loud, echoing in his ears afterwards.
Black scatters away from the bullets, like firing into shadow.
It looks down at the steaming holes before his head lifts again, skull splitting open in that awful grin again. Before a clawed hand reaches out, and he feels something slam with violent force into his chest. His feet leave the ground, and then there’s the bright, violent pain of his back crashing into the wall behind him, head snapping against plaster before he’s falling again, body collapsing to the ground.
Location: Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office & Police Academy
Event: Para Event
Time: Saturday 11/25 & Sunday 11/26
→ the mission
Three miles away from Colt’s Neck high school lies the Monmouth County Sheriff’s office and Police Academy. It offers the perfect opportunity to restock on weapons and ammo, as well as a more defensible location for the group to hole up in. There’s only one problem: it’s already overrun by monsters. A horrifying collection of them, pulled straight out of urban legends and darkest parts of folklore. If the group wants to get their hands on any of the supplies inside, they’ll have to clear the halls of both buildings first.
FOR THE PLAYERS:
LIKE this post if you’d like to participate, please COMMENT if you’d like to participate with more than one character.
Details on the monsters will be posted when assigned partners are posted.
The event will take place over the course of twenty-four hours, but may be finished up whenever threads are over. Due to the holiday event paras may be started Saturday or Sunday.
Please remember to prioritize your event para, as it will affect other characters and the group as a whole.
Any major injuries, character death, possessions, infections, or other major plot devices must be approved by an admin first.
Feel free to contact either admin if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss!
Event: Out of Character Christmas Event !
Time: December 25th
→ for the players
An out-of-character secret santa gift exchange, any player that signs up will be responsible for making something for their recipient! This can be anything, graphics, gifs, playlists, moodboards, aesthetics, or anything else for the other player!
Just LIKE this post if you’d like to participate. Please make sure to sign up as soon as possible, as names will be distributed Friday (12/15) evening.
Names will be drawn, and the name of your recipient will be sent via submit so please make sure you keep your submit box open!
If a player has multiple characters, you are not required to make a gift for all of them. (However you can if you’d like to!)
Gifts may be posted at any point on Christmas Day.
Most of all Have Fun!
Feel free to contact either admin if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss!
Location: Monmouth County Sheriff’s Office & Police Academy
Event: Para Event
Time: Any time Saturday 11/25 & Sunday 11/26
→ partners
Zeke & Lowell - the bogeyman
Nora & Naomi - a skinwalker
Helaine & Leon - the bell witch
Ezra & Samson - the mothman
Dash & Wes - the jersey devil
Charlie & Zoe - the beast of bladenboro
Deacon & Christian - a boo hag
Eli & Violet - a tall man
Daniel & Ellie - the goatman
Bryce & Nate - a wendigo
Max & Justin - shadow people
FOR THE PLAYERS:
Information on monsters may be found here.
The event will take place over the course of twenty-four hours, but may be finished up whenever threads are over. Due to the holiday event paras may be started Saturday or Sunday.
Please remember to prioritize your event para, as it will affect other characters and the group as a whole.
Any major injuries, character death, possessions, infections, or other major plot devices must be approved by an admin first.
Feel free to contact either admin if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss!
Location: 86 Montrose Rd, Colt’s Neck, New Jersey
Event: Self-para challenge
Time: Sunday 10/15 - Tuesday 10/31
→ relocation
On the morning of Friday the 13th, the group sets out for the mansion located on Montrose Road. They find a house in surprisingly good condition, three well maintained ponds on the ground around it, a fountain set just beyond a stone courtyard. The inside is equally well maintained, with six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a massive living room with a roaring fireplace. The water still runs thanks to the well it’s connected to, and they even find the kitchen pantry almost fully stocked with non-perishables.
Everything about it appears to be in surprisingly good condition, the rooms looking untouched by raiders hands or torn apart by the dead. Almost unnervingly idyllic.
→ trigger warnings
As this is a mature RP, trigger warnings are not usually required beyond those stated in our rules. However because of the nature of this event, I’d like to encourage players to keep the majority of their self-paras under a [read more], and utilize any tw tags they feel may be applicable. (i.e. any forms of abuse, drug use, animal abuse, self harm, death, suicide) I appreciate everyone’s cooperation in this, to keep everyone safe while still remaining true to their characters.
→ schedule
10/15 - Patty Mercado, Elijah Gray
10/16 - Violet Clarke
10/17 - Christian Shaw, Deacon Hughes
10/18 - Jae Macleod, Carver Bernard
10/19 - Zoe Bishop, Ezekiel Bishop
10/20 - Ezra Burk Ackerman
10/21 - Samson Gray, Milah Chou
10/22 - Ellie Finnegan, Roman Alza
10/23 - Bryce Edwards, Leon Taylor
10/24 - Wesley Kelley, Maite Merciata
10/25 - Nate Cross
10/26 - Max Price, Carter Hawthorne
10/27 - Ayden Cross, Rowdy Wilkins
10/28 - Delsin Rhodes, Charlie Hall
10/29 - Naomi Harper, Helaine Murali
10/30 - Nora Judd
10/31 - Daniel Tseng
PLEASE REMEMBER:
You may switch a day with another player if both agree to it, however if you miss your day then the opportunity is gone and you will not be permitted to reschedule.
The event will take place between 10/15 - 10/31. Please be respectful of other players when it’s their day to post, and try to help each other in the aftermath.
Any major injuries, character death, possessions, infections, or other major plot devices must be approved by the admin first.
Feel free to contact Admin Marie if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to discuss!
Location: Woodbridge Animal Group, Sewaren, New Jersey
Event: Para Event
Time: Beginning Saturday, 9/16, at 6AM EST
→ the rescue
With the help of a little witchcraft, those taken during the raid on the Hampton have been found. Their location pinpointed, there only remains the question of what kind of health they’re in, if any of them are still alive. A week is a long time in the enemy’s hands, even if they had their numbers cut in half during the violent raid.
The rescue mission is set for Saturday, gathering together any volunteers willing to go reclaim their fallen, or at least inflict some vengeance on those who took them.
FOR THE PLAYERS:
LIKE this post if you’d like to participate, please COMMENT if you’d like to participate with more than one character. Any characters who have been captured will be automatically added to the event, so please contact an admin if you are unable to participate with them.
The event will take place over the course of twenty-four hours, but may be finished up whenever threads are over.
Please remember to prioritize your event para, as it will affect other characters and the group as a whole.
Any major injuries, character death, possessions, infections, or other major plot devices must be approved by an admin first.
Feel free to contact either admin if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss!
Location: Hampton Inn, Linden New Jersey
Event: Para Event
Time: Beginning Saturday, 9/9, at 8AM EST
The first sign of approach is the roaring of truck engines, the source unknown until five of them are pulling to a stop outside the Hampton. Outfitted with spiked brush guards, chains around the tires, and spikes lining the sides, it isn’t revenants or vampires that come armed and ready. It’s humans, faces painted and weapons in hand as they jump from the sides, humans made wild and feral.
And it’s a human witch that casts a spell from the safety of a truck bed, one that tears a rift in the side of the Hampton Inn. It allows the others to pour through, stealing supplies, ripping through rooms, attacking anyone that gets in their way without mercy or hesitation.
FOR THE PLAYERS:
LIKE this post if you’d like to participate, please COMMENT if you’d like to participate with more than one character.
The event will take place over the course of twenty-four hours, but may be finished up whenever threads are over.
Please remember to prioritize your event para, as it will affect other characters and the group as a whole.
Any major injuries, character death, possessions, infections, or other major plot devices should be run by an admin first.
Feel free to send an ask to the admins if you have any ideas you’d like to discuss!
