October Intro: Louder than Sirens, Louder than Bells

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: OCTOBER

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: October 3rd
Where: Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

The Beach: For All the Rest
The shores of Ensō are far from the tranquil, almost idyllic tropical backdrop that they should be. And so it is that while you fish, or perhaps as you go about your daily business on the islets, the first thing you will note is the persistent sound hammering at the back of your skull.

A drumming.

And it's growing louder.

The source of the drumming will, like it or not, soon become apparent. At the fringes of the trees, wielding slings and hollow, wooden pistols, is a group of large and very displeased simians who have every intent of claiming this spot of beach - yes, traveler, this spot of beach you're standing on right now! - for their own, and by any means necessary.

And they certainly don't look interested in diplomacy.
If you came armed, you might be in luck, because this conflict will require your steady hand in its resolution. If you did not...well, you may be better suited to run, or risk capture at the hands of warriors skilled, cunning, and incredibly vicious. Laugh at their monkey business all you like; they are ingenious fighters and, what's more, they're just as good at killing as they are at capture.

For the uninitiated, this particular brand of chaos doesn't usually sweep across the entire island the way it has. But those who have been here for some time will recognize the monkeys in question, and might even recognize this for what it is: revenge.

Group I: The Squeakquel
Looks like your monkeying around last month has landed you and everyone else in a spot of trouble. The monkeys in question certainly weren't happy to be confronted with others on their lands, nor are they willing to share their territory. While you may have triumphed last time you confronted them, the apes have been planning their revenge in the meantime.

Some of you were unlucky enough to become targets. Overnight, a great deal of them silently invaded the islets. Their blow-dart guns are equipped with a fairly powerful sedative that is more than capable of knocking most living creatures out - and those that were immune were simply snatched up, gagged, and bundled away.

However, it seems that some of their prisoners didn't suit their purposes, for one way or another, and thus weren't retrieved with the intention of long-term capture. Which is why a number of you will awaken in regions of the island that you've already explored.

...the really, really dangerous ones.

Whether it's a Center of Gravity, a parade of centipuppies, a contingent of Lungblossoms, a Fustercluck, or something else entirely, one thing is certain: the monkeys wanted you out of their way.

So get ready to fight for your life.

Group II: Ape Escape
If you're not one of the slightly luckier newcomers that materializes on the shore, then you're one of the unlucky ones that's managed to materialize square in the middle of the jungle. Or rather, in the middle of one of the denser, more populated parts of the jungle. The abodes woven into the canopy are crude, built of mud and sticks, but they're nonetheless sturdy.

And, as an important note - they are also swarming with monkeys. Snarling, baying, armed monkeys. Perhaps they'd be more hostile toward an interloper...if you weren't already in a cage, along with several others.

Fortunately for the newbies, they've all got something the monkeys didn't anticipate, aside from the element of surprise. Most prisoners don't arrive with knapsacks full of newly-acquired gear, and it's a good thing, too - you may very well need it, and the help of the new arrivals, to escape this place. You could always wait for the cavalry to come, but are you really willing to take that risk?

Group III: Pot Luck
As for you, you terribly fortunate third group?

You'll find yourselves suspended in wooden cages as well, though this time, to the hot curtain of whitish steam clouding your vision. It smells an awful lot like smoke down there. An awful lot like something...burning? Unlike your fellows over in the second group, these cages aren't simply a means of containing you, no. These cages are currently hanging over what might be the largest cast iron cauldron you've ever seen. All of this is, of course, for one simple reason:

Some species of monkeys are carnivores.
The acrid scent of smoke is already hot and rancid in your nostrils; the pyre beneath you has been lit, and the hungry flames are beginning to boil the water below quite eagerly. We'd suggest you hurry up in freeing yourself and your fellows - being boiled alive is not a particularly pleasant way to go. At least the monkeys weren't expecting quite so many main courses so soon, which allows you the element of surprise.

---

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks with their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can be found below!

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Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[postictal]

[No. No, god, he - right out of the wake of that? Right after the memory of Tim charging him with a battered chunk of piping, ready to brain him over the skull? Only - fuck - only to watch him impact the pavement with the sickening crack of bone against concrete anyway, because Tim rushed him?]

[A trembling fist presses up against Tim’s open mouth, his shoulders quivering.]

I didn’t know, [He whispers, like that makes it right.] I didn’t know it was you.

[thejaw]

[Maybe for Tim, despite the distance between then and now, this still feels fresh. Painful. For Brian, it's different. He knew what was coming. He felt it, like a presence closing in. Like a timer over his head. There were, he thinks, only so many people it could be. Tim was always a possibility.

Brian wants to ask if that would have made a difference. If Tim even knows what he would have done with that knowledge. Has he thought about it? Has he thought about him- not him, the Brian from before, Brian who smiled and spoke and had a beating human heart- since then? How often?

In the end, though, he just shrugs helplessly. What does it matter? It doesn't. It happened, it's over, and it turns out death has far less permanence than they'd always been lead to believe. He doesn't understand, of course, that his cavalier response may be read as a distant rejection of Tim's explanation.

I don't care, he thinks. Part of the plan. Move myself like a pawn. The castle falls. The knight moves on.

Ignore the voice that argues. Quieten it. Don't replay the sound of Tim screaming, over and over again in your mind, that he will kill you. The feeling of knowing he means it. The sensation of laying motionless, awake and broken, as the last friend you ever had empties your pockets of the memories you clung to even when you weren't you anymore. The boy in those tapes was dead, and you were jealous of him, but you weren't far behind.

His eyes are miles away as he tugs away from Tim with more finality, this time. It's fine. He doesn't care.]

[postictal]

You can't just go!

[It's louder this time. More insistent. Brian shrugs, letting it all roll aside like none of it mattered, like maybe he expected this, like it's completely inconsequential. Is it pretending? Is it - is this something, too, that was done to him?]

[What happens to someone that turns them into that? What kind of proximity, what kind of concentrated involvement, what kind of life was allowed to happen to him for so long.]

[(Your fault.)]

You can't just leave, like none of it happened!

[thejaw]

[He heaves in a heavy, frustrated breath, and gestures to Tim with both of his arms spread wide before him.

What then? What else does he want? What more does he want from him? Brian can't talk about it- not just in the literal sense, not just because of the cement he laid across his own tongue, deliberate and painful. He can't talk about it, because he can't stand the possibility of Tim speaking to him like he and the Brian from before are one and the same, and he can't stand the possibility of Tim talking to him like a stranger.

Both are horrifying in their own right. Both are possible. One is a surety- or so Brian thinks, in any case. His hands are still shaking.]

[postictal]

I haven't seen you in years, and then you show up, and it's just...

[What does he say? What does he say in response to the whirlwind of utterly unbearable emotions steaming in his guts? How the fuck does he put that into words? How does he shake him and curse him for being a thieving asshole and tell him he missed him and tell him he's sorry and tell him fuck you, fuck you a million times over for never once thinking that there was nothing I would not have done for you and all you needed to do was fucking ask - ]

[Start...small.]

[Start with what you can do.]

We need to get you outta here.

[thejaw]

[He sinks. Feels the frustration fold like paper and give way to something Brian doesn't have a name for. Something sharper, and sadder, and the resignation is still there, but there's a stupid pinprick of hope, as well. He hates hates hates it.

Brian nods sullenly, but doesn't move. He doesn't know anything about where they are. If they're sticking together, if this is 'we' now, Tim needs to lead the way.]

[postictal]

[That's fine. He can lead the fucking way, like he didn't lead Jay to his death, like he didn't facilitate Brian's death, like he didn't stab Alex to fucking death and watched him bleed out, like he hasn't fucked up every single goddamn thing where other people are concerned - ]

[He starts making a beeline for the exit to the compound. He hacked his way in - he can climb his way back out again.]

[After that, well.]

[He can't really say what comes after that.]