Zombiedude101

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Hillview High - Mason Square
_{@Surtr Inc@FernStone@Atrophy}

---

“I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that we shouldn’t investigate.” Nate felt Billy's nervous palm clapping him on the shoulder, the beam from their flashlight casting the derelict corridors in new shadows. “What did you see?” he heard another voice ask him, drawing his gaze from where the shadow had been to where Rita was standing.

"I saw-" Nate cut himself off, halfway along. None of the others had seen it? He wasn't going to finish that line with nothing, because it sure wasn't nothing that he'd seen turning back and disappearing out of sight. "I saw someone walking down there. Probably Freddy Krueger, deciding which of us goes first," he shot Billy a brief grin, "Anyone else feeling sleepy?" For emphasis, he loosed off a long, drawn-out yawn, just pitched enough that it echoed down the corridors, accidentally unsettling himself in the process.

It was enough that he almost lost track of some the conversation that was going on with the group again - he recalledthe tail end of Kimberly's musings, "-know all know the mountain, right? There's a rumor - no, an urban-legend - surrounding it - that it's cursed... that anyone who goes near it disappears, and anyone who comes back... comes back wrong."

"What kinda wrong we talkin' about here?" Hagan had asked a question that was rhetorical for most of them, only for Claire to jab at the mural and state the obvious, "This kinda wrong, dumbass." Maybe he had a point, though - mountains didn't just make you disappear unless you were talking about climbing accidents. He'd seen enough of them back in Bellevue whenever he got a good view of the skyline, imposing structures standing vigil over the city that they weren't exactly alien to him, but here, thinking of ut as some kind of omen - it reminded him of the night of the massacre as he'd been making his way to the camp, when he'd seen it in the without any daylight to frame it.

Sharon led them further into the building, more cult graffiti decorating the otherwise barren walls. In hindsight, it was definitely a factor adding to the 'this town is crazy' vibe, allowing him to feel some measure of understanding as to why the old man had moved out early on. Why had Aunt Viv come back here, though? Perhaps he was thinking too much on it - maybe they all had a filter on this kind of shit and maybe they'd just never run into any of the crazy shit he had since the massacre.

Back on track.

The 'Room 108' sign met the light as fast as their guide stopped outside, though her reluctance to enter was obvious. Claire seemed to be in that take-no-shit mood again though, shoving her inside. Everyone else started filing in, varied expressions contorting their faces - Nate followed suit and found himself cringing as he saw the checkerboard of photos adorning the walls wherever there had been space to place them up.

Faces on the photos weren't exactly unfamiliar, either - some he actually recognised, if only from brief glances in classes or because the others seemed to be recognising them. Curiosity seized him, more than the sense of dread at the pit of his stomach, so he followed it along, even taking time to look at the 'eliminated' faces. But something else that he caught, just off the edge of his torchbeam, managed to make his stomach lurch.

It was a yearbook photo, taken long before Nate had been a crude look in his parents' eyes. But it was a face he knew very well.

KENNY WARD - LOW - LOW

It wasn't the only one he recognised. There was another yearbook photo, this time of a girl with a few features that he instantly recognised.

VIVIAN WARD TAYLOR - LOW - LOW

Nate kept on following the trail, looking to confirm his fears. It had to be here, the third photo - he just needed to find it.

Oh.

QUENTIN TAYLOR - LOW - MEDIUM

Naturally, it wasn't a yearbook photo. It wasn't even a personal one that had been stolen off Facebook or anything like that - it was a close up from a PR photo of the whole Sheriff's Department from about a year back, at most. Why was he marked as a threat at all? Because he was a cop? Something deep within him felt a surge of frustration, maybe just a little anger. Without wasting time, Natetore down the three photos that he did recognise, scrunching them up and shoving them into his pockets. Was there anything else? A photo of himself, maybe? He glanced around, searching for one, but he found nothing - it was impossible to tell with the mass of photos spread around.

"What the fuck is this?" He found himself directing his question towards Sharon, in spite of the onslaught she was facing from Penny. "Why- why would your dad be out to kill everyone? Some of these guys - some of them are guys that I know haven't even been around for all this crazy shit. How's that being a Guardian of... shit, anything?" Engrossed in the moment, he almost missed Penny reaching over a couple of moments too late to stop her from cracking open an ancient pandora's box. Well, it looked ancient.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

For the sake of avoiding confusion the silhouettes/shadows referenced in my post are and have been visible only to Nate.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Hillview High - Mason Square

---

Black skies? Check. Full moon? Check. Dead trees? Check. The place even had boards and fences cordoning it off, which made it the kind of cliched backdrop for a slasher film, a little like how Hulk!Reese had engaged in the massacre at the camp. If they were going to get caught out here, well - it was their own fault, right? His included, for going along with their plans and coming with them - not that he was any worse off than they were, given what he'd figured out how to do so far. And that wasn't even getting into the legal side of things.

Nothing to bring me closer to Uncle Quent like 'breaking and entering' - Nate didn't voice that sentiment, naturally - but it stuck in his mind. It wasn't lost on him either that ever since he'd come to this town, since moving in with Viv and Quent (both law-abiding and in the latter's case, law-enforcing citizens) he'd probably broken more laws in the span of a week than he'd had for the rest of us life, even accounting for all the wonderful content he'd streamed or torrented like the freeloader he was. And he was glad to freeload again when Britney shared out flashlights for those who hadn't prepared for walking through the dark, which in hindsight was a pretty stupid thing to do. Claire so kindly tore the fence a new asshole so they could get onto the school grounds and up towards the entrance, where someone had already been poking around.

Someone had already paid this place a visit, if the open door was anything to go by - which of course instilled more second thoughts at the back of Nate's mind. Cementing those thoughts were the words he found, scrawled across the wall as part of some form of mural.

HE WILL REDEEM US

SAVE US

I WANT TO FEEL YOUR GLOW, I WANT TO FEEL YOUR WARMTH

What the fuck. It was a blunt thought, but the only other way to describe it would have been 'WHAT IS THIS, I DON'T EVEN' which given how serious all this shit was, he did not want to climb aboard that train of thought. Claire's reaction about summed up his own. "... Okay."

Finally, one of them found the words to speak up over this terrifying discovery, "What's all this mean? Seems like some cult logic shit."

"It means," Nate answered, deadly serious, "We're going to turn up on liveleak or something like that when they find our bodies hung from the rooftops and our names written in blood on the wall." He looked at the others, trying to gauge their thoughts, "Really. This is reading like the other stuff, that 'the past is dead and so are they' crap we found in those photos." A chill ran down his spine, causing tiny dots to form along his skin - and he became acutely aware of not just the group, but other figures, distant but definitely there as far as his eyes could tell him. He blinked, rubbing at his eyes to ensure it wasn't a trick.

It wasn't. "Shit, look!"

Shining his torch beam into the open maw that was the school hallway, he saw one distinct silhouette stood there, facing towards him like a shadow that had taken physical form - then turning back and disappearing from view behind a corner he couldn't see.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

The Reid Farmhouse - Garage
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy@FernStone@Prosaic@Mike73}

---

"I won't detonate it while you're in there," Lynette had flatly noted as Rien worked his own abstraction, "Besides, worst comes to worst, I have the tools to save you." Contrary to reassuring him, Nate couldn't help but shoot back a jab of his own. "Right, does that include my hand or will I be lucky to come back with anything past..." He waggled a few fingers over his elbow, the implication clear, but he never got anything back from her and soon figured out why.

Sounds of a thousand flies, wasps, bees - whatever else was floating out there - had rapidly quieted until there was nothing left. Hagan, no big surprise there, took Billy's cue that the coast was clear and practically threw the doors open, letting light spill into the confined space again. Nate squinted for a moment, blinded by the sudden return of the sun's glares, before realising that figure stood in the opening wasn't just his eyes screwing with him. Britney and the others were there, along with the redhead who'd had her arm broken by that tentacled entity.

So they were alive, at least... though he soon found out that one of the others he hadn't really known, Andrea had gotten caught up in that mess. How they'd make any sense of that, explain it to the cops - how he'd put that to Quent - was something he didn't want to face up to right now, but he felt a sickening lurch in his stomach when the reality of it set in. Dead.

As the others cleaned up, so did he with a couple of things, shifting furniture and detritus aside to draw some of his worse thoughts from the situation at hand. Before long they were resting on the porch, nursing their non-existent wounds whilst the redhead (Sharon, he found out) rested her actual injury, which turned out not to be all that much of a big deal when it came to being treated by Isabella. Not that it did the dead ones any good, try fixing that.

Something kept tugging at him from the corner of his eye - Nate shifted his gaze just a couple degrees over towards the edge of the property. For just a second, colour bled from sight as the world shifted towards a monochrome - in the field stood a silhouette. It was too distant to make out with any sense of clarity, but... he blinked and it was there still. And closer to them, another silhouette - just in the yard outside the house, though that one disappeared quick. His attention was on the field, when the colour seeped back into view. "Did you guys see that?"

Whatever it was, he'd been distracted from the conversation now that Sharon was up and about. Like the rest, Nate listened, trying to push the silhouette to the back of his mind for now.

"We got attacked by William Birkin just for coming here, but I'm sure it won't happen again - just see how excited we are to go!" Sarcasm oozed from his every word, "But, what do I know, I'm just the guy who keeps getting shit phasing through me. Sure, let's go, it's nothing touching me."

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

The Reid Farmhouse - Garage
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy@FernStone@Prosaic@Mike73}

---

More had filed in to help haul the truck in front of the door and keep it from opening back up to unleash the swarm upon them, but Nate all the same kept his body pressed against it just in case that tiny little gap he'd sworn he could make in the door wasn't tiny enough to keep out a dozen or so bees, wasps or whatever from stinging or biting them until their throats closed up and they all died a horrible, painful death. Nope was his answer to that.

Most of those who'd been helping secure the door melted away when a commotion arise from the back of the garage - voices? Nate gave thought to it, wondering just where the hell they'd come from and if that meant there was another way in for the bugs. Assorted junk was pushed or otherwise kicked aside, allowing the voices coming from beneath to pop open a hatch and emerge - Hagan came first, followed soon after by Paige, Calea and Lynn - the latter of whom he at least somewhat knew from their past encounter in which her flying chunk of rock had been ready to cave his skull in. That was at least somewhat relieving, given the kind of stunts he knew she could pull - but that relief had almost entirely drained away once he realised a swarm of bugs had managed to follow them up.

Nate glanced between the truck and the stricken group, ready to intervene just as Jordan tripped over - he realised that the bugs had frozen. Not as in ice-cold frozen but literally frozen in place, which in turn gave the others (props to Hagan and Lynn) time to deal with them. Another abstraction? These people were full of surprises.

"Okay, we need a plan, and we need a good one." Lynette had already started cutting into the thick of it, "What's everyone's abstractions, and does anyone have anything useful they'd like to let the group know?"

"You should know since you almost missed me," Nate impulsively remarked, "Dunno if that means I can walk through the bugs or anything." Part of him wasn't exactly eager to test that out, either - but she kept on going with her ideas. She gave Rien a look, "I got all the fire we need... but, what you could draw was something to burn. Something like cloth or wood. Then that brings me to you..."

Nate felt her grinning face staring at him, "You can phase it through the floor, and then I ignite it. That'll produce enough smoke to clear the tunnels. Or burn enough of them alive. When we were in the tunnel, I heard the insects coming down a separate path - so that must mean there's a way out of here."

"Shit, can't you make some kind of bug spray spell?" Nate asked, already aware of the kind of answer to expect - none of this would be easy, "I mean, I'll do it - just don't want to go up in smoke." His abstraction would let him do that at least, right? It beat dying trapped in here and so, reluctantly, he volunteered for the job.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

@FernStone I posted just after you did last night and only just saw, so I've edited my post.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

The Reid Farmhouse - Garage
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy@FernStone}

---

"It's a good chance," Kimberly seemed to be running along the same train of thought as Nate, or at least somewhere close, "But we also have to keep in mind that there's an equal chance that this could be someone's hitlist." Which was what he'd said, pretty much - why else would all the faces be crossed off with something like that written next to it?

"These photos are so old, that Reese wasn't even a thought when they were taken," Her friend, Jordan said to him, "He probably wasn't even swimming in his daddy's nutsack." Kimberly didn't seem to find it quite as funny, but Nate couldn't help but let loose a snort at that one - but her next point was equally unsettling as her last had been amusing. What if Scott Reese wasn't the first to go on a murder spree? What if there were others like him? And why would John keep this list? Just as Nate was about to make his own little pitch... "What if John was the one doing the killing?"

But then, he gave it a little more thought. "If this guy went around murdering all these people, how'd he end up dead when someone like Reese just tanks everything or runs? Why leave all that stuff behind for- shit!" Nate was jerked from finishing his line by a sudden boom outside. Before long, a few of the others had already gone out to investigate - he quickly joined them in time to see Claire wrestling with some kind of... tentacle? Justin lay unconscious on the ground, whilst a redhead he didn't know frantically dove out of a trashed minivan, only for her arm to get twisted at an angle that anyone could've figured for a break.

"Shit, shit - what do we do?" he asked, a question directed towards nobody in particular.

It looked like that thing was about to come down on all of them, only to Britney to step back into the spotlight and spear the ghost-thing straight through with a giant stake. When it dissipated, he felt a brief pang of relief - that thing had come straight out of one of the countless games he'd played, like a cleaner looking version ofs William Birkin's final stage, except this wasn't a game. This was real, so was that fight and so was that girl's broken arm - they could die in this. He could die. It was a sobering thought, one that proved difficult to dislodge - and soon that possibility was altogether removed. A low buzz in the distance, which had originally escaped Nate's concentration whilst he was thinking on these things, had grown lowder.

Insects. Flies, bees, wasps - anything that could fly, even bite and sting - masses of them were approaching from the air. Oh fuck. Nate gulped, reflexively yanking up his hood as they closed in, other voices speaking up. Over the cacophony, he could just about make out Britney's voice calling out to them.

"... She Awakened! She's sending a swarm towards us unconsciously!"

He didn't stop to ask questions, "Close the doors!" Jordan was with him, rushing back towards the garage - Nate might not have been in the best of shape, but his movement wasn't at a limp and he just about managed to overtake her after the first couple of strides. "Shit, shit - close it, fucking close it!" Once they were back in, he practically slammed the doors shut with all the might in his arms, desperate to seal out the coming swarm.

“Use this to jam the door closed.” Rien sounded off, “Someone help me move this, we can use it to properly block the door. Hopefully that’ll keep out the bugs and dog, with tentacle creature dealt with.” That looked like a better bet - but as their little group would find out as Nate joined them in pushing it towards the entrance, it wouldn't budge. "It's stuck!" He wheeled back around to the front, "Shit, why isn't-"

Great. Through the window, he could see that the handbrake was on. Obviously. He'd have to bust it to get inside - he reared an arm back, bracing for it, then slammed an elbow against the glass. "This is probably gonna break my-"

It harmlessly passed through as though it were water and instead of a thunk or a crack, Nate felt the colour bleeding from his vision. "Oh, right. Even better!" He leaned further into the truck, half his body past the shoulder sinking through the metal until he looked as though he'd merged with the cab, just in far enough that he could reach the handbrakd. Please work, please work...

Fingers felt rubber and plastic - a thumb found the buttton and depressed it, allowing him to release the lever. The truck began to roll forward. "Fuck yes!" Nate echoed in the cab, oblivious to the fact that his voice was muffled to the others by the enclosed space.

Colour seeped back into the world as the rest of his body began to pull free. "C'mon, keep pushing!"

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

The Reid Farmhouse - Garage
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy@FernStone}

---

"That’s so cool, can you walk through walls like ghosts do in the movies? Wow.” For the first time, Nate was surprised to find someone at least somewhat impressed by his new trick, his 'abstraction' as it was supposed to be called. To what extent it lay, he wasn't too sure. "Probably," he gave a shrug towards RIen, "Though I'm not too sure on if I can float around and stick goo everywhere. Not sure people would take too kindly to that-"

"Ha ha," someone else remarked - Jordan, the dark-skinned girl who walked with a bit of a limp - maybe that was why she'd taken such a dull tone to his remark, with her own footing and all? "“I dunno dude, it looks a little fake. We should probably just stick with the sheet," at least Billy hadn't been such a killjoy about it - the guy even seemed a little amused by the suggestion, or maybe it was the fact he'd stuck his foot in the ground. "A sheet?" Nate shot back, laying the faux-incredulity thick, "Nah, c'mon - you gotta be really edgy these days, just throw on a clown mask or a bag with a GoPro stuck on top and you're good."

One of the others, Kimberly - dark-haired girl with glasses, took the initiative and went up ahead with her phone - prompting him to whip out his own device and use the flashlight app to get a better view as he followed suit with the others. A pickup that had seen better days... a muscle-wagon that had definitely seen better days, with both wheels and engine absent and about a dozen or more sets of rusty old tools left lying around that gave him the vibe of one of his old man's garage haunts from when he used to get dragged along on a business trip - Mister Ward was, after all, a fan of what he thought of as 'good cars', this kind counted among them. So was Quent, for that matter.

At any rate, Nate wasn't sure if this guy was going for a rustic backwoods vibe or was actually a genuine grease-monkey who'd left this stuff to rot. This whole 'guardian' thing by itself was a clusterfuck to make sense of. Kimberly made a fair suggestion on checking out the cars - maybe there was something in the glove compartment? Billy had quickly dove headfirst into the muscle car, in the process complaining about what a piece of shit it was and that the whole thing was stripped bare, finally catching what he could only assume was the release lever for the trunk. Huh. Guess these old cars don't need electronics to unlock.

Kimberly not-so-subtly urged them to get a move on - Nate idly wandered around with the torch, peering into the occasional nook or cranny here and there, trying to spy anything of use to no avail. They got into a conversation about this John Reid guy being one of those dads who liked to get their hands on cars - so he had a daughter? That would've sucked for her, coming back home to find out her old man was dead. Nate knew that feeling from the opposite side of the coin, near enough - nobody deserved it, not like that. Even if it was the other way around, Nate still wouldn't have wanted it, for all the problems he had with his dad...

"Guys, I got something!" He spun around, catching Kim and Jordan with a colletion of photographs in hand. Stepping in close, with his phone's light at the ready to help illuminate the scene, he leaned in to get a glimpse of his own.

A key, bundled with some old photographs - the kind that looked to date at least thirty years or more, all the way back to the 80s. A lot of them were of highschoolers by the looks of it - many of their faces had been crossed off with a red marker. Definitely a backwoods killer vibe.

THE PAST IS DEAD, AND SO ARE THEY

"What is this?

It was a line which they were all probably reading out in their heads.

“This is just a shot in the dark, but the weird god child said something about a previous generation of Awakened,” Rien pointed to the last photograph. “Do you think that’s them?”

"I guess, it could be," Nate nodded, inclined to agree with them, "But what's with the creepy serial killer vibe? If these guys - they were all like us, powers and shit, what happened to them? Why are they dead?" Truthfully, it made his gut sink just a little. "It looks too old for Cousin Reese's murder-spree to have happened, and that isn't the guy's style, right? He's all smash-smash stab-stab, but he stops to mark these guys off? No, this isn't right. Someone else has been doing this - maybe the same person who killed this John Reid guy?"

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

The Reid Farmhouse - Mason Square
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy}

---

Things had happened fast when they'd hit the Cafe, almost a blur. Nate had come along for the ride in Claire's truck, ostensibly to help out the others... somehow? It wasn't like going Casper the not-so-dead-but-not-particularly-friendly ghost on Reese would have really done much good, would it? He didn't know - he was still figuring this out, one step at a time.

One little piece of action he had seen was Reese going full-hulkmode, practically leaping into the air like he was only halfway tethered to the laws of gravity and landing on an adjacent rooftop. Claire, of all people, had responded to this retreat by shouting at the mass-murderer for being a coward, all-too-comfortable with that crimson hue that surrounded her frame. If Reese had thought 'fuck it', turned around and gone straight for her? He figured she'd have had less of a hard time dealing with it than the other, but still... dumb idea.

Nate, for one had not complained. When he'd climbed out of that truck cab, he'd found their group had grown just a little with a few faces he didn't quite recognise. And, having took off straight after the God-Kid had showed up, Penny now looked like she'd run a mile on a train track and was nursing a cigarette. She too seemed pissed off about the situation, but at least in her case she had gone up against Reese with her tampon-shooting abstraction and maybe part of that was the reason why the guy bugged out.

Figured this was a fight he couldn't win?

It didn't matter - they were, more or less, alive - particularly himself. Claire began to explain the situation to the new faces, a circumstance where if Nate hadn't seen for himself with his own eyes would've called it out as bullshit. Soon enough, more of them turned out to be the 'Awakened' that the God-Kid and the dream had spoken about, complete with the wierd brands. It reminded Nate of his own awkward situation and how Viv and Quent had yet to find it and, now that he knew this, never would.

Britney had quickly takenthe reigns again, steering their group down towards a lead she'd mentioned before - this John Reid guy, the one who'd written a diary about the whole situation which, somehow, conveniently explained most of it for them. Bullshit in any other situation, but witnessing the day's events alone had eaten away at his skepticism on such a matter. This time, they'd be going to the guy's farmhouse - wasn't that criminal tresspass? Not to mention a whole slew of other things that could potentially get them into shit - breaking and entering, possession of a deadly weapon (what else would you call something that could shoot out tampons at a deadly speed) and so forth. Quent would've really loved him for that.

Yet all the same, Nate went along with it. First, he dropped by his home, grabbed a quick change of clothes and picked up a few other things that would probably come in handy (his multi-tool included) and set off for the Farmhouse on-foot, having no car, bike or easy pickup option to hitchhike around on.

Getting onto the property was easy enough - their already-assembled group had found that the gate hadn't been locked and, stepping onto the property, found the place to be almost a cliche in its own right, down to the enormous red barn or the pristine-white coat of paint across the planks that formed the exterior of the house. All this space... Justin had made a pretty good point - there were no crops, no animals - not even that lingering smell of shit you'd sometimes get out in the open driving past cattle farms.

To the topic at hand... Nate was more than content to go with the flow and walk alongside whoever needed him. And, at least Britney hadn't outright said 'let's split up and look for clues' - that would have been inviting trouble, one way or another. No, it was Billy's movie-making suggestion that finally elicited a brief chuckle from him and prompted him to break the silence.

"I mean hey, if you're looking for a ghost..." Nate took a step forward, the tip of his shoe sinking into the softened mud. He subtly gestured to himself with a tilted nod at that same shoe.

Vivid Recollections: Into the World Unknown (Season 1 COMPLETE)

Grand Ridge - Conference Room - ???
_{@Surtr Inc@Atrophy}

---

Perhaps to Nate's slight disappointment, Penny hadn't taken the bait, only further serving to piss off half the room as she dug her hole. In fact, the only one he'd seen yet that hadn't outright laid into her was a skinny little blonde girl with some kind of Eurotown accent, who'd cut into the argument with a cold demand that she leave. And then - oh shit - Claire's temper flared. It wasn't wasn't even a metaphor - the space around her form had literally transitioned to a crimson flare, right at the point where somehow, this girl had managed to break off the edges of the table with her bare fucking hands.

Her abstraction?

Either way, he almost (or, maybe really) felt himself slipping a foot halfway through the damned floor when she lunged forth, restrained only by Justin at her shoulders. The guy was trying to talk her out of it but she wasn't buying it - the fuse had been lit. With what she could do... Nate dreaded to think, having just seen her handiwork on that table. Then Justin got pushed aside and Claire looked set to tear Penny a new asshole (she'd definitely need those tampons then) as she set into her rant, which raised another point - Nate himself had seen her abstraction in action, what if she decided to pick up a chair or table or something and toss that at her? No doubt they'd all go the same way he went when Lynn had nearly smashed his head in with her little graffiti trick - only they didn't have the luxury of being able to phase through shit. Maybe he didn't, this time - maybe it wouldn't work and he'd get fucked just like the rest of them.

"Would all of you..." Britney's voice rose, "fucking stop?!"

Another blackout slammed into them. Same thing again? Nate felt his stomach threatening to turn over nonetheless, disoriented by the sudden sensory deprivation - but the luminescent glow that returned to them [i]definitely[i] left him feeling a knot in his insides. What? Where? Those two thoughts came to mind - there was no sense of time or place here, just... space. The surface on which they stood was transparent, as were others in the group who could spot each other through the crowd. Even Nate himself could just about look through his arm - which was an experience he'd admittedly hoped he'd never have to go through if he could do anything about it. Some things were too weird for people to process.

Definitely unlike the blackout, though - this place hadn't disappeared and gone back to normal in the blink of an eye. They were still here - and the others were equally confused as he was, by the looks of things. How had they even ended up here? Nate's thoughts drifted with Aliana, towards Britney having a clue to that - but as she quickly explained, that was a dead end. Figures.

Then the space they were in - the luminescent blue haze which surrounded them - faded away into another blackout, before transitioning to a more familiar sight. Market Square. Only, this wasn't a picture show - this was a snuff film, showing a guy getting pulled into an alleyway by Scott Reese and brutally murdering him with a bladed weapon. Though he'd seen it in media countless times, perhaps even seen it from a distance at the camp and snuck past the bodies - there wasn't quite something as sobering as watching a guy, the same kind of guy at his age, minding his own business, get pulled into an alleyway and butchered alive, his body twitching for a couple of moments after. And the guy he killed had a brand on him - almost like the one he'd found on the back of his own neck - like the others, too.

Abstraction. Awakened. Right.

It struck home the point that had been raised about Reese being a danger to this whole town. To people like them, to people like his Uncle Quent - just dying pointlessly to this asshole who had picked up a thing for burning off their brands, somehow. It left much to stew in the depths of his own mind.

"Nate?" A familiar voice whispered behind him.

The almost picturesque snuff scene faded into dust, transitioning to a view that struck him as something out of a post-apocalyptic film rather than Farmer's Hill, Montana. It took him a moment, no - a few moments - to process it. Market Square again, but halfway along to being torn down, with buildings falling apart or outright destroyed. The sky was a crimson hue, clogged with thick, darkened clouds. That wasn't the worst of it though.

No, the worst of it came in the form of bodies piled onto the streets, hundreds upon potentially thousand of them to form a literal floorspace of dead meat - some bodies of still writhing before finding relief in death. And for him, lined in a neat row... he recognised three of the bodies. Even as beat-up and mangled as they were, there was no mistaking them.

Quent? Viv? Dad? Nate blinked and, for a moment, thought he saw Mom, too - but the body slumped in a heap on the ground had a face which he definitely didn't recognise. Now you're just crazy. Quent's body was practically draped over Viv's, the overturned husk of a police cruiser resting close by. Protecting her, at least. He figured that's what he'd have done, what he would do if it came to it. As for his Dad, well - that perhaps was a little surprise given how little often he was around, though he didn't take seeing the old man dead on the ground in such a good light. Nobody should - or should have died. Was this even real? Part of him wanted to rush up to the bodies, to shake them back to life, but...

Nate sucked in a breath through his teeth, blinked, almost felt himself reaching into a space which was outside the realm of physical touch, the colour bleeding from his vision as his feet sank a few inches into the ground. At the foot of each body was a humanoid silhouette, faceless, almost formless. At the bodies of the people he recognised - his family, they seemed to stare straight at him, though they never wore eyes nor anything to suggest or hint at expression. Were these ghosts? Claire didn't seem to think so, running over towards the lifeless body of girl with a gaping hole in her torso, one who looked as though she'd been speared. Others didn't seem far off that line of thinking either, but they didn't see the silhouettes - the shadows of the dead as he saw them.

"... This is what the Glutton will do to this town," A voice spoke from behind the entirety of the group, almost childlike in its nature, but at the same time resonant - as though it were speaking with a hundred mouths at the exact same time so that they melded to form a single, unified voice. A kid, by the look of their shape - though kids didn't usually have an all-white, straight white appearance. Something else to throw into it all. He wasn't a believer in a God, nevermind the God - but this guy... thing, fit the bill. "This is what what he wants you to do; fight each other instead of him." Even sounds like it.

"You must reconsider your actions, and connect with one another. Or he'll win. Each day, he grows more powerful, and hungrier for your Gift. So tell me... will you stop him? For me? For everyone here?" For a moment, this God-kid appeared to be staring straight at him, which put the thought in his head - the thoughts he'd had before. He? Scott Reese could do all that? Not just the people he'd murdered already, but the whole town? More?

The prospect of it scared him, but the alternative - the idea of losing people, losing more people he cared about was scarier. Terrifying. Impossible. Viv, Quent... those two more than anything were the only real family he had around anymore. But what could he do?

"I... look, you uh..." Nate found himself at a stumbling block, addressing the God-kid, "God-kid, okay? That's all I can think to call you - how can we stop him? This uh - this awakening crap, it doesn't come with instructions, okay? We can't just say 'by the power of jesus' and just expect something to work, connecting like you said." Could he even handle the job? He wasn't exactly in great shape like some of these other guys were. Was he even worth this thing's time?