Event № 2 : March 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 2 : March 2024
Part I; Chapter 4. Stardust on our boots

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. Rooftops are shaking under the pressure of days

March 1st.

CWs: nonfatal earthquake.

On the first of the month, characters are awoken by the ground under their beds—and their beds themselves—shaking with deep tremors, accompanied by a low rumble from deep within the earth. Picture frames fall off shelves, decorative plates crash to the floor, potted plants leap from windowsills and become heaps of potting soil and shattered terra cotta. Dogs bark and howl through the neighborhood. Animals panic. Any lights left on overnight go out; phone lines are dead, switches do nothing.

The earthquake—which experienced characters might be able to ballpark as less than or about equal to a 6 magnitude at most—lasts about fifteen minutes, although the single jolt of a solitary aftershock comes about an hour later. Even once it ends, however, the animals seem just as uneasy. Horses at the riding stable stare at nothing in the horizon, necks upright and rigid, nostrils flaring, bodies stiff. The birds are silent. Dogs pant nervously, hiding or barking incessantly or both—it's probably best to take them outside on a leash, lest they panic and escape the yard. Even as the neighbors step outside to see if everyone's okay, cats hide under beds and dressers, refusing to come out. Though the townies seem a little rattled by the event themselves, none of them remark upon how incredibly unusual, even unheard of, an earthquake in the mid-Atlantic state of Maryland is.

II. That old evil spirit, so deep down in your ground

March 1st.

CWs: dead birds, bird attacks, attacks to face, animal suffering.


Following their eerie silence, numerous pigeons and crows around town begin to behave just as oddly as the domesticated animals on the day of the earthquake: some wander aimlessly in circles, others sit on power lines with their feathers fluffed up, heads pulled back into their bodies, eyes closed to a squint. Some begin to pull out their own feathers until naked pink patches appear within a matter of hours. Handfuls of dead birds appear on roads, in yards, and in the park. Around midday, the most troubling new behavior emerges: some of the birds begin to swoop down and attack visitors to the park, pecking and scratching with a particular affinity for faces, refusing to give up their pursuit until the target has taken shelter indoors. By late afternoon, some of them make their way onto Haven Street and demonstrate the same behavior; characters can barely step outside without being mobbed by a flock of anywhere from five to eight of the birds.

It’s not just pigeons. Particularly unlucky characters may find themselves terrorized by the neighborhood’s resident Red-tailed Hawk, which bites and tears with sickle-like talons and a sharp, hooked beak evolved to rip apart flesh, requiring serious medical attention.

Within a few hours, the emergency radios in characters' homes turn on untouched, all playing the same message: This is Dick Clark, your police chief, with Cecil LaMont, your town animal control officer. This morning's earthquake has passed, and no further aftershocks are anticipated. You may leave shelter, but remain indoors. Animal Control and the police department are aware of strange behavior from local birds and recent attacks in the neighborhood.

The situation is being actively investigated by veterinarians. Birds are carriers of many diseases, and can cause serious damage with beaks and talons. The birds are known to be free of rabies virus. If you are subject to an attack that breaks skin, seek medical attention. If you must leave your home for any reason, park as close to the entrance to buildings as possible, and walk quickly until you are indoors. If birds begin to attack, cover your face to protect your eyes, nose, and mouth. Do not touch any dead animals. If dead birds are found in your yard, contact animal control for removal service.

Keep your home radio tuned to this station for further instructions.

The abnormal behavior of the animals around town, including the feral and wild birds, ends around midnight, and the Sunday paper on the 10th attributes the strange behavior to a non-zoonotic avian influenza that has since been eradicated thanks to quick action on the part of Animal Control and the town veterinarian.

Notes:
— Because power is out, the usual close-captioned television broadcast that has accompanied emergency broadcasts in the past is not available. The only way to receive the message is by audio from the household's cordless emergency radio or by transcription from someone who can hear it. All houses are outfitted with an emergency radio of this type.
—Characters who try to kill the birds with firearms will be re-educated and will have the gun confiscated by the police in addition to being hit with a significant monetary fine. What are you thinking, firing off rounds in the middle of a neighborhood?

III. Welcome to the Twilight Zone

March 2nd.

CWs: none.

That night, characters don't sleep as they usually do. Maybe they don't dream, or maybe they have unusually vivid dreams. Nightmares and night terrors pop up for those who may never have experienced them in their lives. There's one common denominator, however: everyone sleeps, even if they try to stay awake, unable to resist the leaden urge to sit down and close their eyes.

*
On the morning of the second, their new neighbors arrive; in the case of those characters who haven’t moved into an existing household, they take the place of NPC neighbors—waking up in well-lived-in homes without a single trace of the prior inhabitants but quite a few indicators of their own occupancy. Even the refrigerators are stocked with unexpired food—all of which the newly (and oldly) appointed couples, or bachelors, will now need to throw out because power still hasn't returned.

Might as well go say hello, although new characters looking to meet Dr. Ravichandran are out of luck—uncharacteristically, the door to his office, which is usually left bowed in universal academic code for 'knock first', is closed for several days at the beginning of the month, and students who happen to pass him in the hallways of the community college's science department on his rare excursions from his office might notice that some of the friendly, at-ease shine to his deep brown eyes has been replaced with something more serious.

Notes:
—Characters entering an existing household will wake up in the same bed as the current resident, and all of the photographs will now show both of them standing together instead of the single person they showed the day prior.
—Characters who played out arrival threads on the TDM may choose to have their character arrive in this round instead of on February 2nd if they are not keeping any threads from other TDM prompts exclusive to the month of February canon.
—Power and telephone service returns on March 3rd. Characters working at the hospital, or visiting it due to injuries, will notice that the diesel emergency generators fill the air with the same foul chemical smell that filled the supply closet from Ruby's memory on January 1st.

IV. Burned out shell of a Volkswagen

March 3rd.

CWs: sweating, obsessive-compulsive cleaning behavior/paranoia

On the third, in addition to the return of power to the neighborhood, another controlled burn is announced over the radio and close-captioning, and characters are advised to keep their windows shut to keep out “nuisance smoke”—smelling and looking just like it did early last month, carrying faint notes of burning plastic. Characters who have been near a controlled burn or forest fire will note that neither smells like that.

Within about an hour of the smoke drifting in the direction of Haven Street, characters begin to feel a lot hotter under their clothes—even though it’s only 48 degrees outside. Even bare skin feels covered; they sweat, but it’s as though an invisible, unbreathable layer surrounds them, preventing it from evaporating or bringing any cool even once their shirts are soaked through. Even feet sweat, uncomfortably hot; the tops of wellington boots they aren’t wearing brush the tops of their calves every time they take a step.

And characters feel the weight of something: the phantom sensation of metal strapped to their backs, straps digging into their shoulders, thick rubberized material over their bodies, crinkling and pressing into them when they bend even though nothing's there except their nightclothes.

Their thoughts cease to feel entirely their own: characters are struck by a feeling of weariness, looking forward to the end of something, of standing in front of an incredible radiating warmth like a bonfire in any direction they turn. If they shower that night, they may find themselves struck by a feeling that they're not clean, losing themselves in scrubbing at their skin from head to toe for an hour or more, even once the water runs cold.

V. Poisoning pigeons in the park

March 21st-30th.

CWs: historically inspired extermination of birds with strychinine, implied animal suffering

With March comes a gradual warming of the weather in Sweetwater, and although there are isolated bouts of snow showers, it rarely sticks. The earth remains still after the earthquake on the first, and the weather is utterly mundane by mid-Atlantic standards, lack of geological phenomena included. Although the locals can still be seen wearing their sweaters, cardigans, and jackets, the heavier wool and down coats melt away with the snow, giving way to lighter attire more in tune with weather in the high 50s.

Buds begin to form on the leafless trees in the town park, although it isn’t quite warm enough for them to flower. With the melting of the ice and snow Canada Geese return to the pond and begin to nest at its banks—probably best not to disturb them. Pigeons, too, return in unusually large flocks, covering the brick pathways in iridescent purple-gray droves, leaving droppings on benches and playground equipment. It would seem that the avian influenza that affected such a large portion of the town's avian population didn't do "enough", or so the townspeople say as they regard urea-covered cars, sitting places, and awnings.

After several complaints from the locals, animal control announces in the newspaper that control measures will be put in place to cull the population, and, starting on the 21st of the month, deer corn laced with the poison strychinine is scattered around the playground (the 60s are the golden era of child safety!), various benches, and pathways.

Before too long, the poison has its intended effect, and the park becomes quiet, decorated with the limp bodies of dead pigeons. The townspeople seem strangely unreactive to the sight, although on one occasion characters may notice Ruby and her husband Leland bringing their one-year-old son to the park. Both of them seem visibly disturbed.

Animal control is offering some pocket change to anyone who volunteers to help clean them up, but rubber or latex gloves must be worn, and characters are not allowed to keep the bodies. What a great way to bond with the neighbors - or take a closer look?

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Comments

[workingthenumbers]

Numbers can't even bring himself to make a sarcastic remark about his partner's stripped-down appearance, about how lanky he is without all those layers and joke about whether or not he's fed himself lately. All he can manage is a somewhat frantic Same, between the two of them. He feels like he's suffocating, as if the heat is pressing in all around him. His breaths are shallow, and even though, logically, he could take a deeper breath, he's almost afraid that breathing in too deeply might make it feel like he was burning from the inside out. It doesn't help that his arm is still heavily bandaged and his face covered in gauze, his talon-induced wounds now being soaked and his protective gauze being ruined.

This is NOT working, Numbers signs one-handed, somewhat haphazardly, other hand too focused on gripping the hose in the right position. His face is set in a grimace. He staggers towards Wrench, the hose slowly uncoiling from its reel attached to the side of the wall. He pants like a dog trapped on an asphalt strip in the middle of summer.

Come here! Come here!!! Helplessly, he holds the still-flowing hose out to his partner. Hoping it might be of some relief. That maybe whatever he's experiencing can be fixed.

[wwrench]

It's better that he doesn't ask, because no, Wrench hasn't been looking after himself much lately. Upon waking to find his previously-inhabited home vacated and the space around him transformed into a lavish bachelor pad, the man has lost some of his will to fit in and go along with this whole charade. He might've taken to the woods already. Perhaps stripped off the last bit of propriety he's managed to maintain and run through the neighborhood with a rifle, hunting errant squirrels if he weren't so dissuaded by the promise of a syringe in his vein.

Now is not the time to say that it doesn't look like Numbers is faring much better. That's not just down to the fact that the man is soaking wet, though the loss of his usually-coiffed hair doesn't help matters much at all. He looks torn to shreds. Any other time that might put a pang in Wrench. It might inspire some amber glow of protective anger against whoever or whatever managed to hurt Numbers. Right now, though, all he can think of is the fact that he's being roasted from the inside out.

Instinctively, he knows the water won't cure whatever's wrong, but he goes anyway. Wrench crowds himself against the spray from the hose and lets it soak into him, hoping that it'll make some kind of difference, but all it does is make his clothes cling to his skin with a heaviness that seems to double the weary ache in his muscles.

This is worse, he insists. Feels like I'm being burned alive.

[workingthenumbers]

Numbers can't even enjoy the stupidity of two grown men standing under a hose like a couple of schoolkids trying to stay cool on a hot day. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots one of their neighbors walking down the street, arms full of groceries. She stares in their direction. Numbers turns his head to stare back. She looks away, walking faster to get away from the scene as quickly as possible.

And now he's made a fool out of himself. Great. Numbers scowls, turning back to face Wrench.

What the fuck do we do, then?!

Think, idiot, think. On New Year's Eve, he had experienced phantom memories, sensations and feelings that weren't his. But there was no obvious trigger for that, no obvious reason as to why it had ended. Perhaps this is the same--to a lesser degree, maybe, as he's still able to be aware of his surroundings, visually.

He drops the hose on the ground, hurriedly turning the valve off. He feels warmer than ever, despite the fact that he's completely soaked to the bone.

It's like New Year's. But different. They can't stand here and figure this out. Is it just his imagination, or can he feel the eyes of the whole neighborhood upon the two of them? We need to get inside, too many people watching.

[wwrench]

People are always watching, Wrench thinks to himself. That didn't just kick up when the two of them got dropped in the middle of this impossible trait. In fact, if there's been one constant in the men's conjoined existence, Wrench thinks it's the fact that he's always had a way of drawing eyes to the two of them. Maybe if he'd been a little less tall, or maybe if his particular language was not so kinetic, maybe then they would've have caught the bullies' eyes who in turn caught Hanzee's eye all those years ago.

Or maybe he's just miserable right now, and it's leading to this bout of self-pity. It seems likely enough, since Wrench can't help but wonder what the flames of Hell itself must be like if this is so damn unpleasant. He's glad of Numbers' guidance and for once too eager for any respite to fight or argue with it, though the moment doesn't pass without at least one scornful comment.

Yeah, so what else is new?

They make at least as much of a scene going back in, the pair of them half-stripped and dripping wet, but at least with the door bolted behind them they can think without the distraction. Wrench takes the bait of their private moment and sheds the soaked undershirt, leaving him bare and scarred in front of the man who wasn't there for the newest additions to that particular collection.

On New Year it just went away on its own. Do you think that's what we do? Wait for it to pass?

[workingthenumbers]

Maybe in another life, they could have escaped the notice of watchful eyes and continued to live their miserable lives in the Midwest. What the hell would that have even looked like? Numbers would be known as Grady, and Wrench would be known as Wes. Numbers would continue with school, potentially--though, realistically, he would've dropped out. And there would be no future for him in that shitty little town. Without any real prospects, he'd inevitably turn to crime and wind up exactly where he was now, except maybe without the support and safety net of the crime family. Not that the family prevented him from dying in the first place. Maybe he was just doomed. Doomed to be bad, doomed to die crooked. At least here, in this life, he still had Wrench.

Each step Numbers takes towards the window is laborious, but he's able to draw the curtains and shield the two of them from prying eyes. When he turns back towards Wrench, he's found that the man has taken off his shirt. He raises his eyebrows in surprise--not at Wrench's bare chest, but towards the scars that he hasn't seen before. He once knew this man's body better than his own. But between those and the scars on Wrench's hand, it's another reminder of the gap in time between the two of them.

I guess. He seems frustrated. Numbers forgoes the couch entirely and simply sits on the carpet, trying not to resign himself to lying down and staring at the ceiling, waiting for this to end. His normally perfectly sculpted hair has been flattened, making him look more like a drowned rat. Unless you have any better ideas.

He undoes a few buttons on his own shirt, though he knows it won't help. He still feels as though he's being suffocated. His head lolls back to look up at Wrench, and he points towards the scars.

Were you going to tell me about those, too?

[wwrench]

Does he have any better ideas? How long ago exactly did Wrench give up on having ideas altogether? He doesn't need to think too hard at that one. The big man knows instinctively even as he poses the question to himself that it must've happened at the exact moment of Numbers' death. Everything since then could best be described as subsistence. Truthfully, he thinks he spent the last decade of his life waking up each day and putting one foot in front of the other more out of habit than any real desire. Laying down might've been easier, but it just wasn't natural. Besides, what's the first of Newton's laws? A body in motion will stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force.

There's simply been no force great enough to stop Wrench in his tracks. Not yet.

Logically, he knows the carpet will feel like its own kind of hell on his drenched skin, but the fabric already clinging to his legs isn't much better. So Wrench decides the best way to tackle the question is on eye-level with his partner. He hunkers down to the ground, compressing a way that nearly hides the brutal, puckered scar from the bullet wound on his right side. Of all his scars he thinks of that one as the worst of them. It is gnarly, even when compared to some of the others, but it carries that particular distinction not because of the way it looks, but because it's intrinsically connected to the loss of the man at his side right now.

Numbers' last great idea was for them to go the fuck home. He should have listened.

I still don't know what to say. Have you ever had a dream that felt real, but then you realized all of a sudden that you were dreaming, and that's all it took to wake you up? It's like that. I'm afraid if I look at all of this too hard, I'll wake back up.

[workingthenumbers]

Numbers lets out a snort, grimacing. How do you think I feel? I'm the one who's supposed to be dead! His signing is jerky and fast, flipping his palms and practically slamming them down in the air for "dead". If this is a dream, you'd think that my brain would come up with something less stupid than being attacked by a fucking bird.

He scratches at the bandages on his arm, wincing. The added itchiness of the carpet with the sensation of rubber pressed against his legs is way too much. He shifts in his seat, placing his hand on the nearby couch to push himself up, but his arm twinges and he gives up, sliding back down again. Fucking shit. He lets out a sharp grumble, resigned to remain on the floor for now. At least here, he can get a good look at Wrench's scars.

Whatever. This looks real enough to me.

He reaches out to touch the bullet scar, but stops short. The added heat from his hand might make the situation worse. He raises his eyebrows, looking up at Wrench and inclining his head slightly for permission.