september 2020. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Monthly Mingle
When: The Month of September 2020
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. the shuffling.

It's dark.

No, like, really dark.

Not only have the lights of the suns been extinguished, but the lights of Anchor are fading as well. It seems the skies are shifting again, and taking Anchor's solar power with them, again. The lights don't fade entirely, leaving Anchor basked in a grayish glow with shadows painting unpleasant shapes along the walls. In parts of Anchor, the emergency lights have come on, illuminating the areas around them in red.

You could be forgiven for assuming the first shadow you see moving is your imagination. But the second or third? And what's that soft moaning noise coming from some of the vents? At first, there's no answer to that question. Then they start appearing.

Zombies. It seems that the cemetery outside was occupied after all. Though not brain-eating, fast-moving zombies, they move in packs, and they're smart. The more of them in one place, the more intelligent their hunting and planning seems to be. Get cornered, and you might find yourself in pieces, in need of new limbs or, y'know, a new life...

If they get a bite in, it's not as bad as your typical zombie apocalypse, but you're in for an unpleasant ride - hallucinations of people you hate will drive you to attack anyone and anything that comes near you. Either that, or visions of people you've failed or disappointed will haunt you. These hallucinations are invisible to everyone else, and last no less than a day.

b. somebody to love.

Maybe the worst part of the zombie invasion, though, is that these are people you recognize. Not all of them, many of the faces of the shambling dead will be completely unfamiliar, but a lot of them are people from home. Loved ones, mortal enemies, and everyone in between. If they get close to you, their almost-familiar voices will start calling your name. Are they still in there? Is it worth finding out?

It's not just faces from home, either. The man from the welcome video shows up in zombie form frequently enough that there has to be more than one, and there's even multiple versions of Creepy Joe limping around, body unmarred by tentacles. Every now and again, pink-haired woman with a familiar voice and a long white dress will shamble out of seemingly nowhere. Endless double-faces, a city's worth of doppelgangers. Some of them seem drawn to places that were significant to them. Others wander aimlessly, making low, sad moaning sounds.

c. home sweet home.

One of the zombies has done the residents of Anchor a favor, though. It walked straight into one of the power generators and shorted it out, releasing the locks on the doors to the fancy apartments down at the base of the city, near the park.

These are multi-level condos with windows that face toward the park and gardens. Each suite has a private bathroom including a tub and shower, a miniature kitchen, and two to three bedrooms. Each one is furnished in soothing pale colors with high-quality furniture.

They're all fit to inhabit, too - if you don't mind the occasional laser scoring on the wall, or that streak of perfectly preserved dried blood. It seems even this place wasn't immune to what happened in the rest of the colony. But there's no sign of anyone being locked in, either. No bodies, no rotting smells, not even dried husks. Just colonial luxury splashed with violence. And the occasional lost zombie.

d. the walking robo-dead.

Even the robots aren't immune to what's going on, it seems. Whenever one comes into contact with a zombie, it seems to short out, going offline until the offending monster has left the area. When it slowly comes back to life, it rolls about drunkenly, slamming into walls, people, and guard rails with equal lazy force. Sooner or later most of the bots in Anchor are affected, wandering aimlessly, trying to serve you sluggishly and usually doing it wrong, or - oh dear, that one's rolling to the edge of one of the upper walkways. You should probably stop it.

Unless you're Kabal or Starscream, then you can just watch it roll over the edge and smash into a million pieces at the bottom, you animal.

Navigation.

Comments

[tsuyoi_ame]

Yamamoto can not hear those words, or he would tell Hayatao how wrong they are; he is fierce, reliable; he is impressive, and the baseball player knows no one better if you ask him. When the bomber cares, when he opens up, he has so much to give, and he has grown, so much from the young man he met that first day. He is not just useful; he is irreplaceable within the family, and within Yamamoto Takeshi's heart, call him young, say he can not know, but he does. There is no doubt in his mind that he can never, will never, have loved someone as much as he does Hayato; he was too late if he had been faster. Had he taken less time to be carefree, laughing, smiling as he worked his way through hordes, then maybe, just maybe he could have been there when Bel fell through that ceiling or perhaps he could have been in the range for his flames to reach.

Instead, now he is watching his heart die before his very eyes and saying the words he feels in his heart. He just wanted to keep him safe, he promised Hayato he would, that they would be together. That he wouldn't let anything tear them apart and yet, here, he sits, letting that exact thing happen.

Please forgive him, please let him learn to forgive himself for what he has done. Why didn't he get here sooner, but that is his pain to face, right now, now it is about the young man in front of him, the young man he aches to take hin his arms once last time.

But they don't have that luxury, do they, whatever is infecting his blood is moving too quickly, and if Hayato is going to die himself, then there is no time to hold him, to tell him everything he wants to say, to beg him to be his forever. To say to him that no matter what happened with the collar, he loves him, he will always love him.

"I won't go anywhere, I promise, don't worry about me." Through the tears, he lights up with that bright smile of his, forgive him that his eyes still show his pain, that he still aches so deep inside and is unable to do anything about it. "I'll be at the base, waiting for you, that's where we'll meet okay, and I'll check my device every hour of every day in case you call for me." He wants to tell Hayato to stop, that he does not have to be the one to do this, but he knows that offering will only lead to an argument, and he wants the last words they say to be the ones they mean the most.

"I love you. I will always love you and only you."

His body pulls tight at the clenched fist; he knows what Hayato has to do, he knows what he is willing to life inside himself, and it is killing Yamamoto, he can not breathe, he can not move, he can not look away. He can not do anything; he is completely and utterly useless. All he can do is wait, wait, and then make sure that no matter what, Hayato does not become one of those creatures outside the door.

No matter how hard he is pushed, Yamamoto is not going. He will take a burn mark, he will hurt for this, but he will move from Hayato's side unless he is dead himself. The sounds take over his mind, his eyes locked in terror on his boyfriend's face, and for a moment, Yamamoto is frozen there, held in a moment and ready to follow his love off this mortal coil because the very thought of leaving this room without him is more than he can stand.

A strangled sob when rings tumble to the floor, and he lunges forward, fingers capturing that precious face in his hands. He loses himself; it is no more than a second because he knows he does not have long, Jirou's whine behind him as he nudges Yamamoto, Shigure Kintoki in his mouth tells the swordsman the truth, and yet, how does he do it, how can he possibly take the blade his father gave him and use it on the person who holds his heart, he shudders at the thought his body and mind at war, one knowing what needs to be done, the other refused.

"I love you...." He says the words to a now empty room, a now-empty existence because if Hayato does not come back, he has nothing left.

"Come back to me..." With that, his blade goes from bamboo to steel, the eyes of his close as the tip reaches the point it needs to before he can, he kisses Hayato's forehead one last time.

"Forgive me for failing you...."

The motion is swift; the blade enters and severs the brain stem instantly, as quickly as it did to the zombie of his former mentor. The difference is, this slide of the blade, the sound as it enters, as it pulls free, the fluid on it when it drops to the ground at his side and falls forward, barely missing falling on top of what remains of his boyfriend, these are the sights and sounds that will haunt his dreams, he does not know that he will ever escape them.

[bakudan_bambino]

Gokudera feels he should blame himself for what has happened. If he hadn't gone off on his own, he wouldn't have been alone, trapped in a hallway between zombies and... more zombies. He should have reached out to Takeshi sooner. They were both fine, could have found each other sooner if he'd stayed put. But he's never been one to be keen on waiting for other people, for depending on anyone other than himself.

And now he's sorry that Takeshi has to watch him, is with him while this is happening. Each time Gokudera had been left on his own, Takeshi simply vanished. No trace. If he were killed in fighting the zombies, or done something like this on his own, he'd hope for the other to not see him. True, it would be painful to not say goodbye, but Gokudera has never gotten the chance to do so.

Despite the pain roaring through him with like literal fire, he clings onto the words he hears. Even if he comes back and doesn't remember this feeling, so long as he comes back... that's all that matters. It's too hot to cry, too painful and sudden to make a noise, and the scene he leaves behind is even worse.

Gokudera's body is crumbling, little more than an ash left of his ribs when his head is taken, kissed, and his brain forces him to try and bite. He feels nothing, of course, and the severing draws a blank, confused expression to his face, eyes half open. Takeshi will find that all he can hold onto is literally the head of his boyfriend. Everything else save for his rings disintegrating, turning to ash.

And there's still some weight left to what is left of him. The flames are gone, but Gokudera's will had been to destroy the disease completely. Despite his zombie brain being destroyed, every bit of him is turning to ash. There is no more fire, or heat. Takeshi is grasping skin, fine hair, a face that once smiled at him, and it's all going gray and crumbling.

There is nothing left except his rings to his weapons, the collar in Takeshi's hand, and scorch marks on the couch. It may still be warm, but there is nothing else, no noise aside from the shuffling of zombies on the other side of the door, smelling and searching Takeshi out.

The rings are inactive, but the collar faintly glows, registering recognition at the swordsman's touch. Takeshi may be able to feel an electric current, as though it is searching for the chip that was destroyed in Gokudera's neck.

[tsuyoi_ame]

Yamamoto would never accept that; he should have protected the other. He failed, and nothing will change his mind; in this moment, the heartache they are both going through is because he failed in the one thing that meant more to him than anything, keeping the person he loves more than life itself safe. It does not matter that Hayato did not wait for him; Yamamoto knows the young man he fell in love with and would never expect anything less of him; he was not one to sit and wait; he is a fighter. Always has been long before Yamamoto Takeshi picked up a sword for what he thought was a game.

If this has to happen, there is nowhere else Yamamoto would want to be; this is where he belongs. Wherever Hayato is, that is where he belongs, now, tomorrow, forever, there is no other place for Yamamoto in this world but at his boyfriend's side, and now he has to find a way to move forward even for a limited time without him. He has no idea how to do this; the grief is all-consuming, sinking in and bleeding the life from his body.

Hayato can come back with no memory of them, but Yamamoto will not forget, and he will win him over again; he will not let go. No matter the state the bomber returns to him in, Yamamoto will love him and find a way for them to build their life together, the life Hayato deserves, the life he promised him.

But first, he has to survive his boyfriend, literally slipping through his fingers and turning into nothing more than the things he left behind, not even ash for Yamaoto to reach out and touch; it is all gone, everything and for a moment, he can do nothing more than fall forward, his heart sobbing from him onto the couch in this abandoned apartment, the joy fading from his eyes as slowly, piece by piece he begins to shut himself off. He cries till there is nothing left, he cries as he picks up the collar, unable to snap it around his neck the way his bomber wore it. Instead he winds it around his arm, numb, unaware of any electrical hum as it searches for the same thing his heart searches for, Hayato. He gathers those rings and places them into his pocket.

He takes one breath and the he prepares to do the only thing he can, fight till he is so exhausted he can pass out and hope that soon Hayato returns, because he does not know if he can endure what he feels inside. Instead, he flicks a switch, shuts himself down, and goes into battle mode; there is no other choice.


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