You are likely to never forget the sound of skin being shredded by broken teeth, nor cartilage cracking, nor bones crunching; a quick spray of blood flies above the heads of the horde and then nothing. The screaming has stopped. Your friend’s suffering has come to an end, no thanks to you—you are long gone, escaped with the others. You run across scorched earth until your legs give out, until you lose sight of the mountain, until you lose sight of hope and despair takes hold of the lot of you that lived. You start to fall apart.
The days come and go, as they have been—but they’re worse now, you had no idea how good you had it up there on the mountain; you’re getting much thinner, they’re getting much thinner and you’re all getting desperate. You’re not sleeping very much, either. You know what happens when you sleep. You dream of heaven and it turns to hell. There’s also a massive horde of your undead loved ones out there, somewhere; probably close, probably hunting you. You all start to lose touch with reality and although most of you were once friends, you start to turn on one another; it comes to a head when the Black finally snaps and attacks the Chestnut. Murders them. Feasts on them. You try to stop it, but you can’t. You’re too weak and too sick to do anything at all. The Black sets its sights on you, then. Decides if it’s going to eat one of you, it might as well eat all of you.
You do your best to fight back, you really do.
The world shatters right before The Black can deliver the killing blow, it cracks beneath your hooves and falls like shards of glass into inky blackness and stars; it takes your ‘friend’ with it and you’re grateful to see The Black go, though its screams cause you to shiver. You wonder if you’re falling, too, but you cannot tell; not here, not when you’re caught between worlds in darkness and there is nothing but endless space and constellations as far as your eyes can see.
“Pick a number,” It says, startling you.
You do not know what It means, but you say the first number that comes to mind….
You’re kicking, thrashing around—screaming, running, at least you think you’re running. You’re actually lying on the ground, safely tucked into a little nook that you found for yourself after spending the last month or so on the mountain. All is well, or so it seems. You have only been dreaming again. It takes a moment before you can make that shaky climb to your feet and that’s when you notice something is wrong with the others. They’re too quiet, too still to be asleep. So you go about checking all of them, touching their cold clammy skin and urgently trying to wake them up—but it’s no use. They’re dead. Your friends are dead. All of them are dead.
The days come and go, as they have been—but these are terribly lonely days and the smell coming off the bodies eventually forces you to move to the other side of the mountain. The food grows back in abundance now that there aren’t so many relying on it; but you’ve lost your appetite, you start to grow thin and weary. You can drink as much as you want now, but the entire thing seems pointless. You start to mutter to yourself to keep the quiet at bay, but it’s no use; you have only your own thoughts and memories to keep you entertained and try as you might to focus on the good, the bad always comes to the forefront. Your mind is the next thing to go. Whenever you close your eyes, you can see the ones you’ve lost; sometimes, you can even almost swear their eyes are black.
You start picking at yourself, gnawing little bits here and there until you get used to it and start liking the taste of your own skin; infection sets in, it hurts, but you cannot find it in you to stop.
And that’s when a little voice whispers in your ear: “Pick a number.”
You don’t know what It means, but you say the first number that comes to mind….
You throw yourself to the wolves, prepare yourself for the pain to come and wait to be torn apart—but that’s when you come to, that’s when you realize, that’s when you taste it on the tip of your tongue and a shiver rattles down your spine. There is blood on your face, blood on your chest, blood on your legs and the rest; you watch the life fade from one of your friend’s eyes. You’re aware that there is screaming, there is panic, there is a rush of movement all around you but you do not understand what is happening until the last second: There is no horde, and you have just murdered one of your best friends.
There is a chunk of meat in your mouth, in fact, and you spit it out on the ground—much to the horror of everyone else. You don’t like the way they’re looking at you, though; it angers you, it feels you up with terrible thoughts and your immediate reaction is to lash out, to hurt them. You cannot help yourself. It’s almost as if someone or something else is controlling you. You kill some, you maim others, but the strongest of them manage to chase you off the mountain and you run home—what’s left of home, anyways.
The days come and go, as they always have—but these are different.
You have become something horrible.
You feed on the creatures that escaped the fire, mostly mice and rats.
But one day an unlucky little fawn crosses your path, and, well…
You are hungry.
It’s during your feast that a little voice comes to you on the wind, it’s small, quiet; you almost think you’ve imagined it but then it repeats itself. Stronger, this time, It says: “Pick a number.”
You do not know what It means, but you say the first number that comes to mind….
- I want everyone who killed the Gray to describe being on the run from the horde. Describe the days they spent starving and thirsty, describe what led up to the escalation and the Black attacking the Chestnut. Describe the Black attacking your character and the subsequent struggle. Did the Black attack others in the group? What was it like watching the world fall apart? What does the voice sound like to your character?
- I want everyone who killed the Chestnut to describe their characters' waking up and finding everyone dead, then write about their move to the other side of the mountain and how loneliness caused their descent into madness. What else did they do to cope before they finally snapped? What were they feeling, thinking, seeing? Did they hallucinate beyond seeing their friends' and loved ones' faces with black eyes? Why did they start tearing themselves apart? What does the voice sound like to your character?
- If your character sacrificed itself, I want you to describe the attack, describe what your character was seeing, thinking, feeling when it turned on everyone else. Does it regret what it's doing? Is it concerned at all that it feels like it's being controlled? Is it afraid? Does it want to stop? Describe hunting the fawn and killing it. What does the voice sound like to your character?
- Your character must pick a number between one and eight. These numbers will determine elimination.
- Your character cannot pick the same number as another character, so everyone please mark your number with a red font color so others can skim quickly.
- The first horse to respond is immune from elimination in the next round, unless mistakes are made.
- You have 48 hours from the time my post hits the boards, failure to respond will result in elimination and a defect.