lifeaftr | October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

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October Event: Feeling Like a Ghost (Part I)

OCTOBER EVENT: FEELING LIKE A GHOST

Who: Anyone and everyone
What: Your past returns to haunt you
When: October 10th and onward
Where: All over!
Warnings: Character death, as well as potential for discussion of trauma and suicide ideation - please mark as you go!

Try and Hear Me, Then I'm Done

You can find most of the information you need in the OOC info post! In the meantime, feel free to use this log as a catch-all for the duration of the event. While this log will focus on the past portion, you're free to use it for the future portion. As always, you can also make your own logs if that's your preference! Come the 21st, however, we'll likely get an additional log up for those who want to play around with their future echoes as well. Remember also that the present portion will be played out in Mu, during this month's Storytelling.

Remember to let us know if your character dies during this event. Bear in mind, however: death penalties will NOT be reduced for this event.

Event Timeline

[ ♆ ] October 10th: The ghosts of the past appear.
[ ♆ ] October 20th: The warped Storytelling occurs, the Storyteller returns, and those who have died are revived.
[ ♆ ] October 21st: Future echoes replace the ghosts of the past.
[ ♆ ] October 25th: With equilibrium restored, all visions vanish, and life returns to how it was.

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Lack of direct speech was never an obstacle, between them. He can parse what Maine says with the flick of his eyes, the subtle roll of his shoulders. Inclining his chin toward the house they share. Woke up.]

He woke up here. Carolina, he's...

[One hand goes to his throat, two fingers across the place where the worst of the scarring ate into the front of him, to indicate the lack of an injury.]

It's before Spiral.

[It's almost like being blind herself and she grinds her teeth a little, halting the motion when she realizes that she's doing it. Carolina is the type that likes answers. Questions that she wants answered, she'll get done. A part of her mind is ticking off what else she needs to do. Scout and see if anyone else is acting weird. See if there is anything strange in the house that can explain it. Does anyone else see Maine, she wonders? Or is it only Wash? Or, in the alternative, is she the only one that can't see him? Now there's an annoying prospect.

Yet she freezes a little. That flash of emotion over her own face, memory and yes, a little guilt, and even sorrow.]

That's- I see.

[Good? Heck, this is confusing as anything. The Meta hadn't been Maine, that much she knew even as he held her over the cliff. And Maine hadn't been injured yet, or at least the injuries that would lead her to giving him the AI that had been intended for her.]

Wait. He woke up here, as in here here, or here on this island?

He was right next to me.

[Wash glances down at his ka-bar, holds it up. Glances at Maine in unspoken apology. That earns him a roll of his eyes, as if to say: as if you could.]

[(He was about to, that's the thing. If Maine hadn't stopped him.)]

What would you do if you woke up with your dead best friend staring at you?

Probably punch him in the face.

[... if she's being honest here. She'd punched York for less in the past, and screaming isn't exactly her dig. No, she won't deny that she's prone to violence, even though she has learned to temper it. Her getting spooked would likely result in a physical retaliation.]

So no boat or underground cavern?

[Because that will rule out some things, right...?]

[Wash shrugs, a limp little hitch of his shoulders, as if to say well, what else can you do?]

[He'd attacked him, because of course he had. Because Agent Washington has a history of turning on his friends and being turned on by his friends, and after a certain point you get tired of putting the same friends in the dirt and so you see their ghostly apparition materializing beside your fucking bed and you try to drive a knife into their chest to nip this all in the bud before it mushrooms into anything worse.]

[This has been, thus far, unsuccessful.]

Doesn't make any sense. He says he just...you know, like we did. But the timing's off. Beginning of every month, right?

[It is a conundrum. Carolina knows that she hasn't been here that long, that what she has seen is only a drop of water in what has happened, but given what has happened since she has arrived, she can extrapolate enough.

She has no answer.]

This place doesn't play by any rules.

[That much she does know. Nothing makes much sense in this place, although thankfully there is enough that is familiar for her that it isn't completely alien. Well, let's tick off things that can help them try to figure this out.]

Can anyone else see him?

If you can't, then...

[Then why would anyone else? He can't look away. It's him. If it's a hallucination, it's doing a very good job of pretending otherwise; his dazed fever dreams and night terrors are never this sharpened, never feel so solid that they could catch and stop the blade of a ka-bar before it pierces their chest cavity and deadeye him while they force it back, slowly, firm but gentle.]

You're not...seeing anything? Anything weird?

[Which means that no one has been around yet to test it out, because Carolina isn't just going to write that possibility off. She knows that his past haunts him, can see those moments now and then, written across his face. Of Epsilon, and what the AI had done once implanted...

As for seeing anything weird... She could say that he might qualify for that, but she knows what he is actually asking. Her eyes do flirt around, focusing here and there, before shaking her head.]

No. There's nothing out of place.

[It's just him. Again. Again. It's just him, his mind breaking at the fissures he'd thought were scabbed over and smoothed away, but they're not, they're clearly not, because his subjective reality is now vastly, vastly different from Carolina's.]

[Resist the urge to laugh and laugh and laugh at the bitter familiarity of it. Lose your mind all over again.]

Should've seen this coming, huh?

Hey.

[That firmness to her voice that is echoed in her face as well. If anything, Carolina will say that it is this place, that whatever it is, that she's not going anywhere. He's not going to be left alone as the whole that they knew crumbles. She hadn't spared two seconds after she fell off of the cliff to worry about anyone, but not now. No, she'll be there.]

It's- he's not threatening you or hurting you, right?

No. He's just...standing there.

[It would be easier if he was. It would be easier if this was...chartable, if this was something he could pick apart easily, but it's not. There's just the rawness of new old grief, scraped bare, a scab picked fresh and peeled away.]

I don't get it. What's he want?

Is he just planning on following you around all day?

[As Maine or whatever it is should be able to give some sort of indication as to that, no?]

Are you?

[He says it to Maine, who deadeyes him. Yes. It's probably a bad sign, how easily Wash translates it, sighs, and turns to Carolina with a long-suffering pull to one side of his mouth.]

He says yes.

Okay. So the next question, why?

[And it better not be that Wash is the only one that can see him... It is hit and miss, Carolina realizes, what she would do if not everyone could see her. In all honesty, she'd likely keep track of who could, see if anyone else could, and try to figure out what the heck was going on.]

I'd guess it has something to do with the Storyteller. With...they said things would start getting strange without them, right?

[Maine nudges him, causing him to stumble slightly. The visual must seem strange; Wash, struggling to right his balance from no visible disturbance.]

You're not seeing anyone...strange? Anything?

No.

[Is it something that has to do with how long someone has been here? Something that comes with the prolonged length of time? Wash had been further along in the illness that had hit than Carolina had been, so maybe Carolina will?]

Not yet, anyway. Has it happened before, the Storyteller?

Allegedly. I wasn't around for it.

[It's just you. No, it's - it's not consistent with the kind of audiovisual hallucinatory bullshit he typically gets, nor would it be.]

You remember...last week, right? Felt like there was stuff in the corner of your eye? Like things weren't all there? [Was that just him too?]

[It is annoying that there isn't some detailed account of- well, everything. Not that Carolina would believe everything that was written down, as she knows that the facts aren't always true, but there are days when she misses Epsilon. Not just for what he could do, as his companionship had been a warmth for her, but yes, she wouldn't complain about having his abilities here.]

Hn. I remember. Thought people were- [Just imagining things...] I saw them, or saw something, eventually.

It felt like that. At least at first. Until...

[Until they stopped being shapes and started being for real. Really for real. If he closes his eyes, tries to shut it out - he can't. The heavy fucking weight and density of another presence so close by is unbearable.]

What if that was part of it?

[Until-? Her gaze is focused on him, acutely, aware, watching. It turns contemplative for a moment. It had been strange, like too little sleep and seeing things just out of her peripheral vision.]

Then he could be a figment of this place.

[Brought on by Wash's memories, and should leave in time? Or, there is some clue to follow to have them leave, like the flower illness?]

Yeah, but if I'm the only one seeing him - I mean, you're not seeing anyone. Is anyone else seeing...?

[He presses the knuckles of one fist up against his temple, as though kneading the skin there would make any of this ache any less. As if it would make any of this make sense. The headache doesn't dim, and Maine doesn't fade away. He simply watches, his expression withering.]

None of this makes sense.

We can ask CT when we see her, and ask around from others.

[It's not exactly something that some people would keep secret. She has found that people here tend to answer whatever questions that Carolina has asked of them. Not that it necessarily means that she will believe the answer straight out, but she doubts that someone would lie about this. What would be gained?]

[...C.T.]

[He stills, swallows, glances at the house. Maine is tearing at his vision, a white bulwark that's sending static flickers pulsing out across his eyes - ]

If she's seeing someone too... Carolina, she's fucked.

It is an if, not a certainty.

[Which means that maybe she isn't, or like Carolina, maybe it will affect her later. She has learned that you can drive yourself crazy trying to think about what ifs, things that might happen, that could possibly happen... One step at a time though.]

Do you know who she's missing? Who she'd give anything to -

[Fuck. Fuck. Fuck this - he's ducking Maine's stare and moving straight for the fucking house. Assuming she's not already gone.]

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