Zenith : In Character → Threads, Logs, Events

Who: Jack and Daphne
When: Morning
Where: Their room

( Read more... )

Who: Avram and Aspen
Where: The gallery
When: A little before noon
Content warning: discussion of spousal abuse, implied sexual assault/abuse

( The rest of the morning had been spent in the shade down on the beach, curled in tight on herself, until it began to rain in earnest. )

Who: Avram
Where: His room
When: Middle of the night, and then around 9 am

( blink your eyes once for yes, two for no )

Who: Jim
Where: His room
When: Late at night, and then at 7:45am

( get thee behind me )

Who: Lennon and Tobias
Where: the guesthouse
When: morning

( drifting off and waking up again )

Who: Juno and Jim
Where: Their room
When: Around 1:45pmish

( let it pour )

Who: Erran & Marco
When: Around 2 pm
Where: Erran's room

( So not freaking out wasn't exactly an option today. )

Who: Erran and Gemma
When: Early morning
Where: Their room
What: Freaking out and an unfortunate coincidence

( Creeper von Spookerstein )

Who: Marco and Juno
Where: Marco's room
When: Around 10ish

( scream queens )

Who: Pam
When: Late at night
Where: Her bed

( Why did it look like Fletcher's silhouette? )

Who: Edwin & Georgie
When: Late morning
Where: Their room

( Was it real? )

Who: Oliver and Kate
When: Early morning!
Where: Oliver's room
What: Freaking the fuck out

( click meeeee )

Who: Kiley and Chase
When: Morning
where: Chase's Room

( Waking up is hard to do )

Who: Cecilia and Owen (and Neptune, obvs)
When: Morning
Where: Their room

( In this place, anything was possible. )

Day 38.

Weather: Another day in paradise. Hey… wait a second...

Events: So, yeah. About that. It is possible that the holiday was celebrated a bit early, because before the sun even comes up, most in the house will be in agreement that today’s antics are much more in keeping with what one expect from a Mount Zenith Halloween. That’s right, boys and girls, before the sun has even risen everyone will have had the first of many encounters with a real life, walking nightmare. Hurray!

Here’s the deal. Everyone in the house will sleep at some point between the hours of midnight and five AM. Everyone, even those who meant or attempted to stay awake for any reason, will at some point during those hours feel naturally sleepy and eventually drift off. And once that’s happened, everyone is in store for one of two delightful Halloween terrors. In some cases, complete with demons. How festive!

Scenario One
Anyone sleeping in the same room as another person will experience this scenario. In this scenario, one individual will be the one to actually experience it, while the other(s) will sleep through. Players may decide amongst themselves which character(s) remain asleep, and which character wakes.

The individual will wake up in a state of almost total paralysis. They will find they are incapable of speech, or any form of movement beyond their eyes. While they can blink and move their eyes, there is absolutely nothing else they can do, not even opening or closing their mouths or turning their heads. They will be on their back, and they will feel as though there is an invisible weight on their chest. It is not affecting their ability to breathe, but they aren’t capable of altering their own breathing patterns. Their breath will be slow and even. In fact, it may add to the terror of the experience that despite any emotion they experience, their breathing will stay even, their heart rate slow and steady. It’s as though there has been a total disconnect from the waking mind, and the sleeping body.

It feels like a while before anything happens. The individual will have enough time for their eyes to adjust to the darkness before they can hear movement beyond their vision. In most cases, this sound is coming from inside the room or perhaps the closet. It’s a human sound. The creaking of floorboards, objects being shifted. A strange tinkling of glass? A rustling of old papers. After what feels like an eternity, the plague doctor will approach the foot of the bed. It’s the same individual Experiment B was able to witness moving around the house some time ago. He stands at seven feet tall, and there’s not so much as a speck of skin showing. His clothing is all very old, not that you can get much of a sense of that in the dark. He carries a very old doctor's bag in his right hand. Even if the waking/paralysed character is not sleeping in the bed (for example, if they chose to sleep on the floor or in a chair instead), the plague doctor still stands at the foot of the bed. For now, he will entirely ignore anyone not in the bed.

He stands in quiet regard of the subject(s) in bed, still as a statue, for at least thirty seconds. Eventually, he will move to the side of the sleeping individual. He will set his bag down at the foot of the bed, and carefully roll the sleeper onto their back (if they weren’t in that position already). He will then touch their neck to take their pulse, holding it for a full minute. The plague doctor will perform a slow examination of the individual. He will look in their ears and mouths. He will feel along their throats to check their glands and lymph nodes. He will take an antique stethoscope out of his bag and listen to their hearts, and then their stomachs. He will do an abdominal exam, palpating along the body with his hands. He’ll then put his stethoscope away, and remove three small glass jars from his bag. He will take his time and set them out neatly on a nightstand, or whatever bit of furniture is nearest. First, he’ll take a small swab from his bag, open the sleeper’s mouth, run it along the inside of their cheek, and place the swab in a glass jar, which he’ll immediately close. Then he’ll produce a much longer qtip, and take a sample from the inside of their nose. Once again, it goes in the jar, the jar is immediately sealed. He then pulls a new tool out of his bag and oh hey, would you look at that. It’s a goddamn straight razor.

The plague doctor will then turn the sleeper’s head to the side, and use the razor to remove a small section of hair. This sample goes into the third jar, and then hurray, the razor is put away, as are the jars. He’ll produce a particularly ancient looking notepad and pen and jot down a few notes, often punctuated by long periods of looming over his ‘patient.’ He may check their pulse again, or move their heads some more, but eventually he will be satisfied in his work and decide to move on. Then and only then will he look directly at the waking/paralysed subject. Up until this point he has ignored them entirely, and the subject has been able to do little more than watch their companion’s exam in silence. The plague doctor will take his bag and move to their side, and bend over them to look closely at them, though their eyes cannot be seen through the mask. The doctor will cock his head to the side, and then flick them on the forehead a couple of times, as if they’re a bit of malfunctioning equipment he doesn’t understand. He will feel around the back of their neck, and apply pressure to the site where their implant is. He’ll poke, prod, and pinch the site for a good minute before giving it up, and rooting in his bag. He will then produce an unlabeled glass bottle and a cloth. He’ll wet the cloth, and casually drape it over the individual’s face. There will be a strong chemical odor, and within ten seconds, they’ll be out cold.

Scenario Two
Anyone sleeping in a room alone will experience this scenario, even those that were originally assigned roommates, but have been sleeping apart. They, too, will experience sleep paralysis. Their symptoms will be the same as the waking individual from the previous scenario - with a few extra bonus points. That’s because any individual subjected to this scenario is going to have a much more authentic experience with sleep paralysis. They’ll feel something like a strong physical current moving through their upper body, but the bigger concern is going to be the absolutely terrifying hallucinations. The hallucinations vary from person to person, but there are several frequent themes. Many who suffer from sleep paralysis report hallucinations of demons or other creatures actually sitting on the individual's chest, and another common theme involves intruders (both human and supernatural) entering the room, or lurking around outside the window. There is an intense feeling of dread, and what's more: every individual's hallucination is somehow going to incorporate their greatest fear, no matter how abstract that representation may be. These hallucinations last for about an hour, and eventually the person will simply succumb back into sleep.

A couple of hours later, when people begin naturally waking, they might not immediately remember what happened. In fact, they might feel pretty chilled out and well rested. At any point from five minutes to half an hour later, the memory of what happened will hit them like a truck. And while some may try to write it off as a simple nightmare, half of the individuals from the first scenario will be able to find where a lock of their hair has been removed.

So, okay. That’s fucked up. But can’t you just hear the ghost of Billy Mays, floating in to assure you, but wait, there’s more!

The morning starts off like any other has here in the villa, at least as far as the weather goes. Sunny skies, hot temperatures, the occasional comfortable and gentle breeze. At 11 AM, the weather is no different from any other day here. At 11:30, clouds begin swiftly rolling in. Winds gradually begin to pick up as temperatures slowly dip. There’s a real charge in the air. By noon, it’s a torrential downpour. It is the swiftest and most drastic change of weather anyone in this experiment has experienced so far, and it would be very easy for a lot of people to think it just doesn’t feel right.

The storm makes things tricky in the house, with all of the halls and walkways being open. There are screens and shutters discretely hidden, and pulling them all will help, but not entirely eliminate the problem of the weather. The rain is going to get in in these areas, so one should tread carefully. The winds are so fierce that some of these measures may be damaged, and navigating outside is going to be tough.

By one in the afternoon, the storm is still going strong, and it’s already nearly full dark. At about 1:16PM, there’s a lightning strike, a massive rumbling BOOM of thunder, and the power goes out. It does not come back on, nor does the storm ever slow or stop. After this point, if anyone goes up on the roof to try and survey the island, they’ll be able to see that the path to the beach has been overcome by a mudslide, and there are trees down everywhere. Leaving the villa is not a possibility.