Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

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Comments

[wwrench]

The half-second it takes Numbers to transform from a half-zombified state to shoving at Wrench like he's itching for a fight is enough to give the tall man whiplash. He's so immersed in trying to figure out what the hell is going on that he recoils visibly from the smack, and then crab walks himself out of his partner's path entirely when Numbers comes up swinging a second time.

Whatever memory has suddenly jolted him loose from the fog, it's still coming. Bits and pieces of the story emerge from Numbers like he, too, is sorting through the rubble of something he's only just starting to put back into place. So despite the flash of annoyance that runs hot through him and the knee-jerk desire to pin the man into one place, Wrench lets him go. Lets the story come out however it needs to.

When it does, his face shapes into a hard scowl. Without me? Wrench seems surprised by that, unaware of how much of a theme it will become over the next few weeks. Why? It might seem like he's asking why he wasn't included, but too soon he's clarifying. Why the fuck would you go to the police?

[workingthenumbers]

"Without me?" hurts more than he thought it would. Numbers feels like he's being scolded, reprimanded. And perhaps he ought to be. It was a stupid move, upon reflection, but what was his other option? To just sit here in suburban hell, waiting for whatever would happen next?

I wanted-- As he signs "WANT", his clawed hands inadvertently seize up into fists. Jaw still clenched, he focuses on keeping his answers as short and to the point as possible. He shakes his head unevenly, then tries again. I wanted to do something. I wanted to get out. So I went.

In theory, it would be like jostling the hive to try and scope out the queen. But rarely did things go the way that Numbers planned. He simmers, his hands moving jerkily as he gestures towards Wrench in an accusatory manner. When he's too stubborn to accept his own flaws, Numbers instinctively pushes the blame towards Wrench.

You just wanted to sit and wait. But for how long? Don't you want to leave?

[wwrench]

It's instinct to want to shield himself against the barbs of that hurled accusation, but the truth is that Numbers isn't wrong. He's known where his partner stood from the very beginning. It had been Numbers who'd insisted they find a way out as quickly as possible, and Wrench who'd waffled. He's been waffling ever since, playing househusband and burying his head in the sand, pretending that his inaction will somehow manage to avoid further scrutiny. Truthfully, Wrench shouldn't be surprised by this.

Maybe this time he should listen. Maybe if he'd listened the last time around, when Numbers had wearily insisted they finish the job and get the hell out of town... But he hadn't, had he? Wrench had to be the one to barter for thoroughness, to demand they take their time. And that had been, he thinks, the last worst mistake he'd ever made.

The weight of the memory strikes him so quickly and so harshly he finds the air caught in his lungs. Even though Numbers is sitting directly in front of him, in Wrench's memory the man is dead and long gone. He finds his own hands tensing into fists, and in the effort not to let it all out, something slips past the walls. Wrench shakes his head no.

Leave for where? You forget, we're not from the same place. What if we leave and my future's the one we go back to? Fuck no, I don't want that.

[workingthenumbers]

Numbers blinks. The severity in which Wrench conveys his words seems to startle him. The implication that, should they leave, Numbers would be as he was before--dead and rotting in the ground. Christ, Wrench probably didn't even know where he was buried, if the police had recovered his body.

Their options seemed to be twofold--continue to masquerade in this shitty facade of a town with the guarantee that they'll be together (or at least in proximity to each other), or find a way out and potentially lose him again. What kind of a choice was that? Numbers slumps forward in his seat. Whatever energy that allowed him to converse in a reasonably lucid manner has been sapped from him again. He places a hand on his face, squeezing his eyes shut and trying to ride out the sudden wave of exhaustion washing over him. His arms tremble more than ever.

After a few moments, he looks back up and manages to muster a reply. He seems almost fearful, a rare show of vulnerability in Numbers. It's hard to keep up a mask when you're half an inch from collapsing.

Then what do we do?

fair warning: taking the liberty of some headcanons like whoa

[wwrench]

Wrench knows it's a losing proposition to act like he can keep avoiding this conversation forever, but right now he's selfishly grateful for the other man's lack of lucidity. If whatever's been done to him means that Wrench doesn't have to spend any amount of time right now accounting for the last ten years, that's for the better. He doesn't know how he'll ever explain to the man what happened in the aftermath. That the same man who put the blade to Numbers' throat tossed a key on Wrench's bed and granted him his freedom. That he'd tried first to do exactly that — to locate the body and to get it in the ground as fast as fucking possible.

By then a day had already passed, and Wrench had carried that guilt for years after. Not only was Numbers dead, they'd probably cremated his remains in some incinerator, and it had probably taken longer than 24 hours. There'd been no time for mourning; certainly as hell no fucking Shiva. Wrench had left the hospital and he'd run and run and never stopped running until they fucking caught him.

Again, thoughts of the past threaten to overwhelm him, even with Numbers sitting in front of him, very much alive and probably very likely to hit him if Wrench were to talk about funeral rites. I don't know, he admits instead, blankly. We have to be smart. We need more information. When we leave, we have to know where we're headed for. O-K?

Come on, you want to lay down?

listen these guys are only in so many episodes. we have permission to make up things no matter what

[workingthenumbers]

Numbers nods, numbly--in agreement of knowing where they're headed when they leave, as well as Wrench's suggestion to lie down. His glass, half-empty, still sits between his feet on the carpet, forgotten. He's already spent half of his brainpower on this conversation, and right now, he'd really like to be horizontal. He moves to try and stand, but then kicks the glass with his foot, causing it to spill onto the ground.

"Shit--god dammit--!" he says out loud in surprise, stumbling to the side and catching himself against the arm of the couch. He collapses back into an approximate sitting position, trying to reach down and save the drink, but it's too late--all of its contents have spilled, the alcohol beginning to seep into the carpet. After a few moments of fumbling, he gives up.

Sorry. Sorry. Numbers looks like he's going to wear a hole in his chest as he repeats the sign, holding out his other arm for Wrench to help him up.

🤟🤟🤟

[wwrench]

Watching Numbers flounder like this reminds Wrench of too many times before. Times when they were still just kids and lightheaded from too many shared swigs of stolen beer. Times when one or the other of them had just been fed the fist of some schoolyard bully and was struggling to hold the blood back into their nose. And times, too, when they were a little older, and those missteps weren't nearly so benign. Playing field medic with whatever they could find in an old tacklebox, one dragging the other from the latest misstep.

It had been too easy to assume they were invincible, somehow, when they'd always seemed to come out on top. Maybe a little banged up and worse for the wear, but always still kicking. The last time Numbers had fallen, Wrench hadn't been there. This time, he lifts him up almost too quickly.

You're fine, it's fine. At this proximity, Wrench taps his thumb on Numbers' chest instead of his own, using his partner's body to complete the sign. It's not necessary, but it's easy to do. Easy to feel, too, so the man can keep his eyes half closed as Wrench drags him along to the bedroom, leaving the spilled glass for the carpet to soak up and focusing instead on helping the man lie down. Granting him some comfort he couldn't ten years ago.

[workingthenumbers]

They stumble down the hallway, Numbers dragging his feet as he tries to keep himself upright. He feels Wrench's thumb tap against his chest, and a little sound escapes from his throat--somewhere between an incomprehensible mumble and pained whine. When was the last time Wrench dragged Numbers' sorry, half-dead ass to safety? His head swims and his skull prickles with pain, his limbs still not entirely under his control.

Numbers had been lonely, sitting by himself in that stupid, empty house. The loneliness had only been exacerbated upon finding out that Wrench was here, in town, and it gnawed at his chest the more time he spent away from him. It was painful to sit and know that Wrench was in a house just across the way, masquerading as Mr. John Doe for the sake of propriety, and that Numbers couldn't simply wedge himself into their household without the HOA raising their eyebrows.

In his addled state, Numbers finds himself reluctant to let go of Wrench. He's fairly certain they've crossed the threshold into the bedroom, but he clings even tighter to his partner's arm, blearily looking up at him.