Repose

[There's a ripple in the woods. It starts because the hunter's gone in to check out why the birds don't sing and the deer aren't featuring. It's a shock-wave running outward when someone who is creaky, rusty in old power starts turning on the switches and shaking out stiff limbs. It's hunter and she's really not sure about the woods thing which means it's questioning, pushy against boundaries. And by the time it's done, a full day of searching out dark spots, there's a rusty truck on its way out of town and headed for the highway.]

book recs?

[Public: anon]

Hey alpha.

[Public - as Sid S]

[Much later than the first]

Gotta say I've had better bedtime stories, even if the delivery was world-class novelty, sport.

Is this a new normal?

How do you get blood out of sheets?

There’s so much of it

Asking for a friend.

[Rory B/Hannah S]
You still around, little bird?

[Rory B/"Sparkles"]
Went by the club and didn't see you there. Day off or kiss off for good, kid? Just tell me you didn't get eaten by a dog.

[Rory B/Claire J]
I appreciate the help. Let me make it up to you sometime.

[Rory B/Janus A]
Surely you're still around. Your knack for self-preservation surpasses the shelf life of a fucking nuclear twinkie. Tell me what I missed.

[Posted public, but anonymously]
Say, did anyone happen to go missing in the last two months? [...] Asking for a friend.

I'm seeking a missing person. If anyone here is good at finding people, I can pay.

[Public, anon]

Whoever the hell is Alpha here, we need to talk.

[There's more than one wolf sighting during the full moon.

This wolf is large, old, grizzled and grey. There's no clothing found anywhere to indicate that it's anything more than just a wolf that wandered toward the town lights. It prowls the town's main streets and growls and snaps at anyone that comes close, and by the time animal control is called it has moved on past the tracks. It howls at passing freight trains, and it spends a few hours lying near the entrance of the trailer park, under a double-wide, ears swiveling whenever someone new comes by to score.

In the end, the old wolf does "attack" someone, or that's what the police label the incident, which really involves a teenager and a BB gun. The teen claims the wolf pounced him, and the teen's definitely been clawed by something, but there are no bitemarks (lucky kid!).]

[In keeping with the moon and getting the hell out of crazy town into the woods where at least the likelihood is fewer people directly interacting, the shudder through graveyard, woods and the limn of town is the sensation of being hunted. Not her fault, folks, can't switch it off, can't do anything about it, but it's like knowing you're being watched. Super creepy on top of all the super creepy, amirite?]

OMG is there anywhere else for a visitor to sleep besides this shitty motel? (No offence to the fine owners of said shitty motel.)

[Public]

Help wanted! Various small to medium odd jobs. Please respond with a list of your skills and availability, or drop by Lavinia Leonne Couture on Main Street to discuss opportunities in person.

[locked to the gunster siblings]

[She sends a picture of the voucher for laser tag for the four of them.] when r we going!!!??!!

[public]

u all think i culd sell 1 of these letters on etsy for hella money?? its vintage*~*~*~

[Santa has no idea, but Sid seems like the type that would like a leather jacket. The card asks "Good choice/bad choice?" and has boxes at the bottom for her to check, yes, no and not sure.]

[Dahlia H]

We do gifts now?

Merry Christmas.

[Locked to Cat C]
Hello, Cat.

[Locked to Louis D]
Happy early Christmas, Louis.

[Locked to Cisco D]
Hello, Cisco. Are you well?

[Public]
[Posted anonymously, much later.]

There's a hunter in town.

Everyone implying the weirdness of Repose is a bad thing is fucked in the head. Since it came back this place has been very entertaining. Pretty sure there was a ghost in my room the other night. That or someone was casing the joint to rob me. Either way, excitement to be had.

In other news, one of these dancers is my spirit animal. I'll leave you to guess which one.

[There's a ripple effect feeling for some: old, sensitive-types, the kind that can feel what it feels to be in proximity to the hunters. Wolves, vampires, it doesn't matter or it didn't matter to the old, old families in the villages of Europe to distinguish between one type of kill and the next. It turns up at the moon, a faint presence like oil sitting on the surface of water: a sensation of being seen, a faint chill and a smell of iron. It passes quickly, proximity is proximity and it leaves the woods and the town as quickly as it is felt. But it registers for those who can pick it up.]

[Cat C.]

It's probably a bad sign that the drugged up snowflakes aren't working on me, right?

[Damian W.]

I'm cured. But, I'm sure you've already figured that out. Did we all survive?

[Public]

Ugly holiday sweater contest at the arcade. Winner gets 500 tokens and a fruitcake so old you could throw it through a glass window. Perfect for your holiday shopping.

Yet another poem. I've decided to continue to share them regardless of their reception. Interpret their meaning as you will.


I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

The Darkling Thrush
Thomas Hardy 1840 - 1928