jumpscares | it's a very merry christmas

Entry tags:

it's a very merry christmas

▶ WHO: Everyone!
▶ DATE: 11:11am, Day 6
▶ WARNINGS: FIRE AND DESTRUCTION.
▶ SUMMARY: It's your birthday.

WAKE UP, SUNSHINE!

At 11:11am, there will be a single flash of light, bright enough to show up in the sky over all of California. It won't give you any lasting damage, don't worry. It lasts for a second, if that, and is soon gone.

Only to be followed minutes later by a loud crack that shakes everything.

The sound eventually fades away, leaving a large trail of smoke pouring from some kind of accident.

If characters choose to investigate this, they'll find the remains of a high speed train that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere and had driven directly into a... mountainside. Everything is on fire and nothing is okay—but amazingly, there don't seem to be any people on board. Or, uh, remains of people. Only melting, twisted metal and heat—the train was large, and part of it was driven up the mountain by the sheer force of the hit. It's an immediate danger zone, not something to be trifled with.

Inside the wreckage is a large rate full of walkie talkie type radios. That's it. For a train that was at least three times the height of a normal train, it sure didn't pack much. And once the radios are found, three things will happen.

Zombies will start advancing on the wreckage from all directions. It's not night, so the running screamy zombies aren't around, but oh wow that is a lot of shambling guys...

A male voice can be heard through a speaker hanging half off of the side of the train. "Hey! Hey, look, I know it's all shitty right now—you need to find the s—and wait—go to V—idiot left it there before h—ied, and I'll—you in a few—" before the interference is just too much to hear.

A piece of paper is sitting on top of the crate. It gives clear directions to the new radio tower, situated nearby.

Now you have radios, and a horde is forming right before your eyes.

OOC NOTES.

The train crash is located five or so miles from the compound. The radio tower can hold around 30 characters at once if you squish. How you disperse the zombies and get back to the compound (or wherever you're going) is up to you! Please view the OOC Post for potential plans and strategies, if you'd like!

If you're not interested in anything in this log, you can stay behind—the compound and anywhere nearby might be a little safer for awhile, since the zombies are all flocking to one place.

And while you're exploring the crash/landscape/tower, you might find something... here is the new permanent turn in post!

Any attempts to contact the man from the train speaker will be met with... radio silence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

@ the compound

[ The noise wakes River from her state of near-sleep, difficult to obtain surrounded by foreign thoughts and ideas as she is. Surrounded by danger, well...she's a little used to that.

The brightness in the sky is vivid against her eyelids and she climbs down from the rooftop of one of the buildings and starts to run.]

@ the trainwreck

[ Something has to be here. Something useful, something not on fire. River intends to find it. She'll probably find you instead. ]

[ scott's loitering. there's still people who haven't moved on, and it isn't that scott thinks no one can take care of themselves, but if a shambling herd of zombie starts approaching, chances are scott will hear it before anyone else. he's straining so hard listening for the warning zombie noises that when river brushes by him scott nearly jumps out of his skin. ]

Um. Hi?

[ he ventures, looking down at her. ]

Are you going to take a radio?

[ At Scott's question, River leads trailing fingers across the edge of the crate, stopping only once she cannot reach it any longer. An inquisitive hmm sound and she turned to shrug at him. ]

It all feels like a test. Constructed to deconstruct their problems. So I don't trust their boons, either. What does it take to bring people from other worlds, other times, other realities? What does it take to run a locomotive into a mountain?

[ She makes a face. ]

Should I? How do we know who is whom is speaking?

[ what. ]

Us. [ scott musters after a minute, taking a walkie-talkie out of his backpack. ] So we can talk to each other when we go out. It'll probably be a good thing.

[ probably. scott might not totally be following river's train of thought, but he must agree to a point. he doesn't completely trust whatever brought them here either, but he doesn't think they're in a position to turn down any kind of advantage they come across. ]

...it's just a radio, though. [ Still. She picks one up and compares it to his. The same, except a number somewhere. Maybe. Or maybe she's just assuming there'd be some way of identifying it beyond nailpolish stating this is mine.

River is totally gonna nailpolish hers. Or paint it bizarre colors. Something.

Later.

Now: ] No image, no capture. No messages. Real-time only. What if someone's sleeping? How far apart can it work? There have to be satellites. Something with that would've been better.

Hi, Scott.

We'll have to test them.

[ because scott doesn't know the answers, not yet. how far, how long, things like that are going to be important. scott's forehead wrinkles in thought as he turns one over in his hands, before he looks back to river. ]

Hi River. [ with a small smile, relaxing. ] I didn't know you were coming out here too.

[ but almost everyone had been coming out here. scott doesn't know why he's surprised. ]

Okay.

[ she accepts this - they'll test them, and they'll spread the word somehow. or maybe others will think to test it too.

at the mention of coming out she shrugs. he came out. so many of them did. most of the ones who could fight and who were nosy enough, those who put that above an interest in staying safe in the more familiar. ]

Have you tried going home yet?

I don't think where I live exists here.

[ scott answers, because what else could she mean? he woke up in a small room, on a bed that smelled like death and rot. this might be california, but it doesn't have beacon hills.

or it's easier to think that beacon hills just doesn't exist rather than to consider that it's completely overrun and whoever had been there, his mom, stiles, derek, were all dead or part of the hoard. ]

Can you get home from here? Do you know the way?

It's... [ a sigh. she flails her hands in immediate frustration. ] It's another planet she called home once and home now is Serenity, a ship, in space, far far from Earth. If it exists, it can't reach here, and here is not now but past, too far past, the technology and the history all gone.

Home doesn't exist here for her either. So she wants to see what happened elsewhere. The cities.

[ thomas had ran straight past the zombie horde; ducking, jumping, weaving, occasionally whacking at heads with the handle end of the shotgun he carries. he's still not feeling too great about shooting these things. these... once-people. they remind him too much of home. of denver, of newt.

instead, he dives himself right through a train car window, turning around to shove up a broken off passenger seat against the opening behind him, and when he jerks around to start exploring around, it's to a body already in the train and standing upright. which, has him raising the gun up again (like it's a bat more than a gun), until he sees who exactly that body is, gun lowering and relieved exhale deflating him. ]

River. Hi. [ he glances around, and then looks her over for a second. ] How'd you get in already?

[ River is making a face. A face that is clearly directed at Thomas and his wielding of the not-a-bat-definitely-a-shotgun apparatus he has going there.

It's a face that asks 'water u doin?' ]

If you go up - [ She points, helpfully, towards the ceiling, ] - it's easier to come down.

There's no one here. No one else. Just everyone who came running.

[ there's a moment of awkward glancing at the shotgun, and feeling stupid, before letting it hang limp at his side. shh don't judge him. he doesn't like using the other end.

following her gesture upwards, he sees where she dropped in. ]

Oh.

[ good idea. he should probably stop standing around. they won't have a lot of time with the zombies starting to gather. ]

Not everyone who came running is that friendly. Are you gonna be okay?

[ okay, so she smiles a little at that. ] Baseball bat might be better.

[ she nods, quickly. ] There's only bits and pieces here. No souls to inquire. We should leave, go to the tower.

Probably now.

Didn't have any on hand. [ a bat he'd prefer, honestly. a gun is smarter. though he's loathe to use it unless he has to.

no sould to inquire. no people. right. tower? ]

What tower? Where?

[ Aradia loves loud noises. They're signals of destruction, of chaos. Loud noises means something interesting is about to happen, and she can't wait to see what it is. She's taken off running in the direction of the sound. She'll hover over the ground every so often, but she doesn't want to fly. She has the feeling that whatever is happening is at ground level. After all, the ground did shake. ]

Isn't this great? [ You'd think she was off to a party, the way she's grinning. Hello, new friend. Ready to explore the apocalypse? ]

[ river glances at the hovering mixed with the running, and the horns, and just...everything, in a blink, and gives aradia a smile. ]

It's something! Change begets chaos, controlled or variable, and in change maybe we can learn something new.

Or not. Could be a trap, too.

[Alex has been keeping to herself, skirting along the length of the train a good ways from the rest of the crowd, looking for hints of anything useful. So far, just the radios. She's nearly to the worst part of the crash, where the train hit the mountainside, when she notices the thing on her wrist flashing, warning her that there are zombies nearby.

Drawing her gun, she rounds the nearest train car and sees a group of them, about fifteen feet away, shuffling towards the wreck. She quickly turns back, hoping to find some cover before they spot her, and almost runs smack into a total stranger. While she would prefer to stay on her own, she's not going to leave this girl to get eaten by zombies. She reaches out to grab River's arm.] Come on, they're coming.

Edited (for some reason i thought 15ft was a much longer distance than it really is) 2015-08-15 10:43 (UTC)

I know, [ River says with a distracted sort of air, like she's only half listening. The device Alex holds gets a glance, a furrowed brow. ] They have their own sound. This wasn't a disease...it happened all at once, maybe. An event. A tragedy. Mass death...

Is that how you know? [ she gestures at Alex's wrist. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

it's a very merry christmas

River Tam ; Firefly : ota

omg :3 hi river. let's say trainwreck.

hiiiiii omg so excite!!

already my fave scoops up river

she'd ride around on his shoulders lbr

the best vantage point for zombie look out of course.

hehehehehehhehhe

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trainwreck!

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why not the compound. let's mix things up

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the trainwreck!

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