hadriel_logs | Event Log: End of Arc 2

Entry tags:

Event Log: End of Arc 2

Who: All characters
What: The event log for the End of Arc 2
Where: All over the city
When: November 25th-December 12th
Warnings: A full-scale battle, including character death, NPC death, and various other ways to suffer

It was bound to happen. The Null warned you, after all, and this has been building for awhile - and now it's here. First comes the initial attack, the agents of the Null attacking Hope's temple. Then, an SOS, warning the city of what's happened: a betrayal, and Hope being injured. Luckily for everyone, thanks to the actions of his guards Hope survives the attack. Unluckily, his attacker, the goddess Delight, escapes and lets the Null in.

Flooding into the cave, the Null will attack anyone who they believe is resisting them. They'll destroy buildings and deploy dangerous crowd control weapons, in addition to their sheer strength and speed. Confusion empties the monsters in the tunnels into the city, to help distract the Null. Some gods fight, others provide safe havens, but everyone is in danger.

After about a week and a half of the attack, Fear summons enough power to teleport the city. This stops any new Null from arriving through the tunnels, but the remaining Null must be hunted down and destroyed, or else they'll signal their location to the rest of their species. The danger will lessen as Null are taken out, but things won't really be safe until Fear moves the city again, so don't get too comfortable.

What will you do? Run and hide? Fight? Help the fighters? Turn on the gods yourself? Whatever you do, it's time to make a decision.

► This log covers November 25th-December 12th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you get taken out by the Null, please let us know here.

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I'm not sleeping, and I'm not closing my eyes. [God, what is the deal, here? The moment he sits down she gets up, as if moving might wear down some of the exhaustion she's feeling.

How is she supposed to sleep like this? How is she meant to rest when every nerve feels like a coiled spring? She's seen people catching the odd hour or two of sleep and she feels jealous that they can manage to shut their minds off for even that long.]

No offence, but I don't know you well enough to trust you. Not yet.

[Yikes. He knows everyones' nerves are frayed to breaking point, but she seems so much worse than most. He doesn't move and just watches her calmly, letting her move away if she wants to.]

None taken. Perhaps I was too presumptuous, and for that, I apologise. [A beat, then--] Perhaps we could just... sit and talk?

[About what, he doesn't really care, but even just having some company might ease a bit of her anxiety, when compared to being left alone with her thoughts.]

... Okay.

[Sit and talk? She can sit and talk. After a few moments of fidgeting, she sits down again and huffs out an agitated sigh. Okay, she's sitting down.

Being left alone with her thoughts has been the root cause of more of her agitation than she'd like to admit, and she is certainly more grateful for his company than she'd admit, also.]

So, what do you want to talk about?

You could start with telling me a little about yourself? I'll do the same.

[The parts that aren't difficult for her to talk about, anyway. He doesn't want to force her to talk about anything that makes her uncomfortable.]

About myself? [Pfffh, alright. She scrapes a hand through her hair, pulling most of it around to one shoulder to keep it out of the way.]

Okay, well, my full name is Julie Bastet Grigio, but I'm going to change my last name to Cabernet in a couple of years. I'm nineteen. No brothers, no sisters. I live in an enclave outside of Seattle, Washington, in the former United States of America.

[She smiles wryly.]

Sounds like I'm writing one of those penpal letters they made us do in third grade.

[Yusuke chuckles a little, pulling up his mask to the top of his head so she can look at him a little better. Talking to a kitsune mask is probably a little distracting.]

Well... Maybe we could have been penpals, under different circumstances. I'm Yusuke Kitagawa. I live in Tokyo, Japan, and I'm a second year student enrolled in the fine arts department of Kosei High School. [A beat, and then he realises he should explain--] "Second year" in Japan means my penultimate year of school. I'm sixteen.

I didn't get to finish school. Not really.

[The stadium's version of school didn't really cover conventional topics of education, but knowing all of America's presidents or being able to calculate simultaneous equations didn't really have much use in a world where your biggest threat was the walking dead and society on the whole didn't really exist anymore.

She smiles again, though there's no humour in it.]

What's Japan like? I never got to visit.

Ah, I see.

[He won't ask her to elaborate any further on it, when he's supposed to be taking her mind off of difficult subjects, not adding to them. To her question, though, he pauses in thought.]

I've only been outside of Japan once, to Hawaii, so I don't have much of a point of comparison... Tokyo is a very large and crowded place to live, and there's a great deal of social unrest in the country as things stand. Still, for an artist, I'm fortunate. Japanese aesthetics are unrivalled in their beauty and simplicity.

I'm used to crowded. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.

[Hard to get more crowded than hundreds of people piled on top of each other, trying to eke out some kind of existence worth having in a fortified baseball stadium.]

Didn't know you were an artist. [Or something. She's sort of got the idea.] What's that like?

What is it like? Hmm... [He repeats the question back at her, thoughtful. So many people have stereotypes, or at least preconceptions, of what being an artist is like, they instantly make judgements without needing to ask him. So he takes a long moment to consider his answer.]

I can think of no other way of living, when art enriches my life so greatly. Art is about seeing the beauty and struggles in life, harnessing the emotions and thoughts of the artist, and conveying them to the viewer on canvas. It can be taxing, particularly if I lose inspiration... but my desire to enrich the lives of others encourages me to continue.

[He pauses, looking at Julie with a sympathetic expression.] I suppose in a world like yours, setting time aside to enjoy art must seem frivolous. But I promise you, art is always worthy of enjoyment, even in the most dire of circumstances.

[He might think that, but Julie shakes her head emphatically.]

People like my dad would say that art is a waste of time, but-- [Ah, but this stings. She hesitates for a moment, but pushes on.]

My mother... she wouldn't have agreed with him. And he wasn't always like that, either. He used to play the guitar.

[All that stopped after the outbreak, when all he became was a soldier and nothing more. It wouldn't have been so bad, if he didn't suck the creative ambition out of everyone around him as well.]

And my boyfriend, Perry... He wanted to be a writer.

Art has a way to inspire people, to keep them hopeful that the future can be better. It's a pity your father came to think that way... Not everything should be a struggle to survive.

[He pauses, then asks cautiously:] Your mother and boyfriend, are they... still around?

[If she doesn't want to talk about it, he'll understand, too.]

... No.

[At least it's not talking about what's going on right now. Julie frowns a little, but she doesn't halt his questions.] Mom died when I was twelve.

[It's easier to say it that way, than to say she lost all hope and walked off to the nearest zombie horde. Easier to say she died than she committed suicide.]

Perry... a couple of weeks before I got here. A zombie got him.

...I'm sorry. I lost my mother when I was very young, myself.

[So he understands her loss, at least a little. But it was better to have asked and been sure, than to have made assumptions, and perhaps said something insensitive.]

You needn't say any more, if this is difficult for you.

No, it's fine.

[She waves his concern off with a small gesture, shaking her head. Perry's death doesn't sting as much as she thought it might. She's sad about it, but by the end, it felt like he wanted to die. Her mother's death was seven years ago, and she still doesn't understand fully how the woman could walk away from her family the way that she did.

But lingering on it had turned her father into a walking shell. She wouldn't let that happen to herself.]

I guess... I just got used to losing people.

That's not something anyone should have to become accustomed to, but I understand. The mind can adapt to even seemingly unbearable situations as a means to protect itself...

[He sighs, looking down at his hands. If only he could help make things better for her, yet he can't, when they're not from the same world. But-- struck by an idea, he looks up, meeting Julie's eye.]

If there are those precious to you here... I give you my word, I will help you protect them. You don't have to lose anyone else.

What do I care if I do?

[Julie mutters to herself with a frown. She kicks out at a small stone on the ground near her foot, sending it spinning away from them, then leans forward to prop her chin up in her hands.]

Does this place even matter, really?

[Speaking of adapting...]

Does anything that happen here matter?

[He starts, visibly taken aback, then moves to study her expression as if he can't quite believe what she just said.]

Of course it matters! Why would everyone be fighting so hard if it didn't?

Instinct. People want to stay alive. [... Most people do, anyway.] Because if you don't, then what's the point at all.

[She shifts in place, shrugging slightly.]

But this isn't--... When we leave here, we forget about it. So, does it matter?

Yes, it matters. Even if I forget, it doesn't invalidate what I think or feel here, nor the thoughts or feelings of my friends. If I were to leave tomorrow, I'd want to be sure I'd done all I could to have fought to keep everyone safe and happy. And it's not just about fighting: even if I'm gone, all the art I have created will remain.

[He looks away, a distant expression on his face.]

In the end, every artist must grapple with the fact things end, and that they may eventually be forgotten, or that their own existence will someday vanish. Art is a means of preserving what otherwise would be lost.

[She knows he believes what he's saying. She just wishes she could believe it, too. Years of the kind of conditions she's been living in have all but beaten it out of her.]

Well, I'm no artist, so what's there for me in all that?

You don't have to be an artist to care for those still here, or to leave things behind for them to cherish. I can't tell you where to direct your energy, but I'm sure there are things here that are precious to you in that way.

[He doesn't know Julie well enough to offer more specific advice, particularly when he can only offer the philosophical perspective of an artist, but it feels like the right thing to say.]

... When things settle down, please allow me to draw you something. Then, whatever becomes of me, you'll have a small token to remember this conversation by.

[Things that are precious to her...

Sure, maybe. She's not looking to get attached to this place. As soon as she can, she'll be one of the first through the door out. Julie doesn't want this place to matter. It's so much easier if it doesn't.]

... Yeah, okay. Sounds nice.

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Event Log: End of Arc 2

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