[network] @TW; Video; Day 12 [open, cw for corpses and horrible]

[maskintape]

My voice is back.

[ Though for those who've heard Tim's voice before, it sounds much more hoarse than usual. Still, any voice is better than no voice! ]

I'm gonna - [cough cough] - I'm going to upload a video in a second. Some stuff I found yesterday. Kids shouldn't watch it. People who're already - you know, already freaked out by everything shouldn't watch either. It's not... I mean, it's. It isn't anything good, is what I'm saying. So.

[ He could try and filter the video away from those parties, but the thought doesn't sit well with him. The last time he tried to hide secret video footage from someone it kind of backfired spectactularly and people got killed and Tim got sent here by Tall McDarkandfaceless and everything was awful. He'd rather not repeat that, thanks. ]


[ When the promised video begins, it doesn't look very interesting. The camera is trained on the ground, where someone has been digging at the snow and dirt to reveal a layer of smooth pebbles. The cameraman - Tim, obviously, though he can't be seen - kneels in the snow, picks up a handful of the pebbles and brings them closer to the tablet. It's a little hard to make out since they're covered in dirt, but each of the stones is speckled in something that looks very much like dried blood.

The tablet is then propped up against something on the ground, showing a better view of the surroundings: a park complete with playground equipment. Tim walks back into shot, crouches, and resumes digging. After a minute or two he stops, a puzzled expression on his face, and pulls at something in the hole to get a better look at it.

There's a strangled gasp of breath that might have been an attempt at a scream, and Tim drops the thing like it's on fire. People with sharp eyes (or who pause the footage) will see that it was a human arm, dismembered just above the elbow. Tim scrambles out of view and the video briefly goes black as he turns off the tablet.

When the video resumes, it seems Tim has been busy. The view is panning across the ground again, revealing several patches that have been dug up to reveal frozen corpses. Some are bloody and horribly wounded, while others appear to have died less violently - the only thing they seem to have in common is that they're all remarkably well-preserved. And remarkably dead. That too.

Also worth noting is that the video is distorted badly. It's warped and stretched as if it's being tugged on at the edges, and there's a large amount of visual tearing evident in the footage. There isn't exactly a lot to be heard - wind noises and muted, huffy coughs - but the little audio that's there sounds tinny and distorted as well. It doesn't really make the fact that there's a mass grave in the fucking park any less horrifying, unfortunately.

After half a minute or so, the video cuts out. Mercifully. ]

Comments

@MarbleHornets; text

[genreblindness]

[Well, that sure is horrific as fuck! It takes a while for Jay to compose himself after watching that, and even then he's too distraught to respond with video.

How does this place keep getting more horrible every single day? How is that even a thing.]

How many are there?

[maskintape]

idk. didn't exactly want to dig for any more after I found the first five
but I didn't exactly have to look far for those. dug five holes, found five bodies
so

video - @claytonator

[dr_unconscious]

...Judas priest.

[It comes out as more of a whisper, and Clayton looks accordingly baffled. He has a strong stomach--the visceral nature of the video doesn't concern him--but how else is he supposed to react to watching someone discover a mass grave?]

Tim, you alright? Where are ya?

[maskintape]

Still near the - the, uh, park. In the house I crashed in last night, not - not, like, still there.

[ He's not going back there again. FUCK PARKS, MAN. Also not answering the question about whether he's alright or not, because nope ]

voice;

[croi]

[You can practically hear the sound of Lancer thinking as he watched the video. Certain things which didn't make sense suddenly did. Connections were pieced together, sewn together from patchwork into a whole cloth, and he realized-]

That was you?

[Well, at least he hadn't been hearing things.

...

Why is it always Tim, anyway? For being stuck in a snowy dystopian town where they can't easily run into other people, and where the two of them had been quite willing to go their separate ways, they seem to be running into each other a lot.]

[maskintape]

I-- what? Were. Were you there? Were you watching?

[ Because he's been feeling like he's being watched a lot lately. SURELY THIS IS WHY ]

Voice; ID: max;

[feralone]

[That's actually somewhat curious. Horrible, obviously, but it's not just someone wanting to talk about nonsense is the point. So while he's squirreled away in some corner far away from his recent travel "buddies" once they get inside for the night he'll respond out of vague interest.

Though it's audio only the man on the other end doesn't seem the least bit affected by the sight. Max has seen worse to be honest. He's done worse.]

Where is that? Which park?

[Max has been through one of the parks, but he's not sure if it's the same place.]

[maskintape]

It's like - it's by the walls. In the north-west. A day north of the, uh, the morgue?

[ More or less, anyway. And it's not exactly likely that the guy wants exact directions. ]

@cgriffin, video

[coleader]

Oh my god.

[ Clarke's reasonably composed, but rest assured, she's internally screaming. She does her best to remain calm in the face of horror, but the park is a gravesite. The playground juxtaposed with the bloodied bodies nearly makes bile rise in her throat. Too many corpses, she thinks as memories of innocent children slumped over in the dining room, skin badly burned, flash behind her eyes. Clarke, if we do this, there's no going back.

She clears her throat. ]

—You can talk, [ she offers as a way of looking on the bright side, but it sounds more like avoiding reality. ] They have a cemetery, why would they— is this where all the old residents are?

[maskintape]

I dunno. It - I don't know.

[ He's not even sure which question he's answering. ]

I dug five holes and found five of them, so - so either I got really lucky or there are. There's - you know, there's enough of them to...

[ ...cover the ground like some kind of corpse carpet?

Ugh. He's really not feeling so great right now. ]

{ video | @Lavellan }

[carrywithyou]

[ Well that's morbid. And horrifying. Really, as horrifying as anything else Ellana sees on a daily basis in Thedas, but still. It seems no place is free of corpses on the ground. On right under the ground. She is intrigued about how he did that -- showing the past as if it's happening now -- but she still needs to figure out what recording is herself. ]

Tim, are you all right? It looks like you had no idea you'd find bodies when you went digging.

[maskintape]

Yeah, it. It's not normal even for this place. I mean, it's a playground, it's for kids.

[ What if some of the corpses were kids.

Nope nope not going there nopE NOPE NOPE ]

video; @Chillinski

[figureitout]

Oh my god.

[There would be keysmashing if Stiles was responding with text instead of video, but as it is, the only keysmashing is happening inside his head right now. Because-- jesus that is horrible and gruesome and also really, really interesting.]

Wow, okay, remind me to never ever go digging in a park. Ever.

[Except in this case, it's actually good that Tim did, because this might yield some kind of answers... or more questions, but at least it's new questions.] So, any ideas as to what killed them? Anything they have in common? Were there a lot of them or were those the only ones? [Horrible, yes, but what doesn't kill you can traumatize you beyond repair makes you stronger and wiser or at least makes you ask the right questions.]

[maskintape]

[ That is a lot of questions about corpses. If Tim weren't still thoroughly rattled about the whole thing, he might be slightly disturbed.

As things are, his disturbed-o-meter is already at max capacity and Stiles just gets a Look. ]

Uhhhh - it - no. I only uncovered those five, and, uh. I mean, you can see some of them were cut up or something, and there was one with his neck broken, and. The others just looked, you know. Natural.

[ He kind of wants to gag, but coughs a little instead. AN ADEQUATE SUBSTITUTE. ]

I'm guessing there are more, 'cause, you know. It's not like I had to look hard for those ones.

Video | @DIO

[itsasteamroller]

Ah...hmm. [That's a macabre development, if he's ever seen one. And he's only been here a day!]

That explains one mystery then, I guess.

[maskintape]

It does? I - like, as far as I can see it just makes things weirder. I mean... a mass grave in a playground?

[ No matter how many times he says that out loud, it never stops sounding surreal. And horrid. Like, really super horrid. ]

@LELRIC; voice only

[armoured]

[Tim might be the most frustrating person that Al has met here, but that doesn't mean that Al still doesn't worry and wouldn't help him if he could. To hear his voice back is a good thing, and he's about to say so when...

Oh...

Al watches the video the whole way through without balking, committing each poor frozen face to his memory and then saving the clip into his archive. When he responds, his voice is sad, but not overly disturbed. He hates what he has seen, but he has seen too much death in his life for it to terrify him.]

I don't recognise any of those people, do you?

[They're not ones that have ever been on the network.]

I'm sorry... I'm sorry you had to see that.

[maskintape]

I said kids shouldn't watch.

[ He's not scolding or anything. He just sounds sort of... flat. ]

But nah. Nobody I know. No ID on them, either. They're from before, I guess.

text; @alayne

[mislike]

[The dead does not frighten her as much as it should. When she was made to look at her father and his household's head on a pike, keeping a straight face in the sight of something so graphic is not so hard.]

What does it mean?

[maskintape]

it could mean lots of things. but I guess two of them are pretty certain
it means that the last people who were here didn't escape
and that we're disposable

and that the cold and the shadows and the needles waking us all up now and then aren't the only things we have to worry about

@Enoch, video (night)

[warriorscribe]

[...Well he wasn't going to sleep tonight anyway.]

What in the world...is that why we've never found human bodies? Are they all...

[All right under their feet? It's such a disturbing thought he doesn't want to finish that sentence.]

[maskintape]

It, uh. It doesn't look good, huh.

[ He does try to force a little humourless laugh, but it comes out sounding more like a really rubbish little cough. It's not easy to be okay with any of this at night. Not when he's still staying pretty near to Deathpark Central. ]

Hopefully it's only the park and not - not everywhere that's like that.

voice; @nanny

[jinxings]

[ .. well, as if there weren't enough weird things about this place already.

Thankfully Haku's seen a lot of dead people already, been hardened by his way of living, so he doesn't really bat too much of an eyelash at the sight. Instead he keeps watching, trying to make sure to take in every detail. Is that what happened to the people who were here before..? ]

The cold must've preserved them.. but that means there's no way of telling how long they have been there.

[ You know, casual business conversation. Haku is more the type to jump to this than to freak out. ]

[maskintape]

[ There's a slight delay before Tim responds, because even in his current state he has to stop and blink a little at someone with the username "nanny" not being an old-fashioned British lady.

As far as he knows, anyway. It doesn't seem to be Mary Poppins he's speaking to, but whatever. ]

-- uh. Yeah. Can't even tell if they were all buried at the same time, I guess. Since, you know - different causes of death and stuff. No ID, either.

voice; @suregi

[fauxtality]

[Eiri is another one of those people who doesn't bat an eye at dead bodies, and his voice, when he eventually gets around to answering this, confirms that with how calm and steady it is.

Not that he's calm and steady because, seriously, dead bodies in a mass grave are never a good sign.]

Do you recognize any of them as us? Or do you think they're all from before?

[It's weird to consider himself part of this larger group of abductees, but it's not like he's not part of the group, either.]

Your video is damaged, as well. Are the tablets acting up again?

[maskintape]

I -- I don't think any of them look familiar. Not going to cross-reference them with any bodies that're unaccounted for, though.

[ That'd involve going back there, and FUCK THAT NOISE. ]

And the video, it - it went, uh, weird whenever I pointed the tablet at the bodies. So. Gonna just blame that on spooky stuff. I mean, it's fine now, so...

[ hahaha the majority of the distortion totally didn't come from him hahahaha HAHAHAHAHAaaa ]

video; @fullmetal

[forfeits]

What the hell was that?

[ He's not unused to seeing death, but it doesn't make it anymore palatable. He's only just gotten here, after all, and that certainly wasn't a great introduction. By all rights, he's just a kid himself, but he's seen far worse. ]

Some of them didn't even look whole, like they're being used for something. [ The missing limbs, the frozen corpses. He can't fathom why anyone would do this. ] Who did this?

[maskintape]

If the arm was - if it was anything to go by, then the other parts are... they're still around. Just. Separate. Not exactly a a comfort, but. Yeah.

[ He's squinting a little disapprovingly at the feed, because. KID. HE SAID KIDS SHOULDN'T WATCH WHAT'S WITH YOU REBELLIOUS LIL JERKS ]

As for who, I... guess your guess is as good as mine.

@Greed

[ossifragant]

What...... what the...

What happened here?

[maskintape]

I don't - I dunno. Impossible to tell, I guess, I mean...

[ He throws up his hands helplessly. ]

Bad stuff, I guess. Even by this place's standards.