#Apocalypse Unsealed

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔇𝔯𝔬𝔴𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 - 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔉𝔬𝔲𝔫𝔡𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔖𝔱𝔬𝔫𝔢

[nepthys-merenset]

I got this idea for Dmitry and Lane's first kiss in my head, and basically couldn't rest until I got it out of my head. Sooo...here you go--my first fanfiction in literal years. Enjoy my delulu dreams!

Title: "A Search for Understanding"

Pairing: Lane x Dmitry [Heaven's Secret: Requiem]

Word Count: 1,595

Rating: T

Taglist: @rc-catalog

TW: Mild blood, mutual roughness.

“Sit.”

His keen blue eyes tracked her every movement as his voice, cold as ice, shattered the silence in the room. She closed the door gently, as if she could appease him by treating his office with care, and crossed the room, sinking into the chair in front of his desk. He leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest, surveying her silently. Waiting.

Unconsciously, her eyes swept over the desk. Spartan in its cleanliness, it showed that Dmitry—the General, she corrected herself, she had no right to familiarity with him—truly was a military man through and through. Three manila file folders, a letter opener, and a lamp were the only items on its surface.

Her gaze lingered on the letter opener.

Just in case.

***** 

Dmitry had been a military man all his life, long before hellfire rained from the sky and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse walked the earth. The structure made sense to him—added order to his life. As the cataclysms worsened, military discipline and protocol went from rule of law to suggestion to mere relics of the past, but vestiges of the chain of command remained. He clung to the remnants, the last bits of his old life, even as his squad dwindled.

Some deserted, deciding to spend their remaining days with their families. Others were killed. Still more simply vanished, lost to the frozen wasteland.

The files of three such soldiers, their careers tersely summarized in manila folders, lay on his desk. One, he would unseal and finally label “killed in action” when he finished with Lane. Two others were still labeled “missing in action,” a hopeful gesture that he found increasingly inappropriate with every passing day.

He leveled his gaze at Lane. Things had made sense until that goddamn angel had pulled her from the Rift and forced him to save her life. No matter what new nightmare the apocalypse brought, no matter what thinly veiled resentment the immortals showed him on a daily basis, the chain of command between him and the human members of the squad made sense.

He was responsible for Anna, Greg, Lester, Nick, Noah, and the rest of the squad, and he trusted without question that they would obey him. That they respected him as a leader and wouldn’t turn on him.

But you—I can't trust you.

Lane unsettled him. Confused him. He found himself studying her often, trying to find meaning in her fleeting expressions and subtle glances. Sometimes, he could have sworn he saw a glint of red in her eyes, but he forced that thought down whenever it came to him. That was impossible, and besides—he couldn’t possibly be watching her closely enough to notice a thing like that.

Clearing his throat to attract her attention, he flicked the file on top of the pile open and roughly turned it in her direction. “Noah’s file. Years of immaculate service.”

A quick glance—brown, he noticed—before she looked down at the file. His gaze wandered to her lips, following their minute movements as she read.

Stop it.

“No issues worth documenting with any other squad members. And you claim he suddenly attacked you and Boris Romanov with a knife.”

More silence. She only frowned and shook her head slightly, as if to say, I already told you everything.

He cracked, slamming his open palm down over the file. “Explain yourself! What happened in that room?”

She looked at him fleetingly, before her gaze turned left, towards the letter opener—

My gun. She went for my gun the last time—

A quick rustle of fabric as she moved, and he exploded into motion, reaching for her.

*****  

One push.

One push, and she would have the letter opener and her freedom. She launched herself upwards, out of the chair and onto the desk. One knee landed on the desk, the other foot planted firmly on the floor as she grasped wildly for the letter opener.

Her hand closed over it and she brought it to his neck just as his hands closed, viselike, over her wrists. She froze, her hand trembling as the vein below the letter opener pulsed with life.

One push and the life of the man who had saved hers would end.

Indecision paralyzed her. She would be free, but she would be alone. Without the one man who had managed to read her like a book and given her a place in this new world, however begrudgingly.

The blade shook, drawing blood. Her eyes strayed downward.

Red, she noticed. Not like mine.

Unwilling to either continue or relax her grip, she raised her eyes, meeting his cold blue stare. His hands loosened on her wrists but didn’t fall. There would be bruises tomorrow. Of that much, she was sure.

“You could do it,” he murmured, barely moving his lips. His life was in her hands, just as the key to unlocking her past could be in his. “But where would you go from there?”

Anywhere. Or nowhere.

She couldn’t say why she dropped the letter opener, or if it was even a conscious decision. Maybe it was a decision spurred by her longing for connection. Maybe it was the ephemeral memory of the night he’d helped her with her work. Or maybe it was her lost humanity, locked deep below layers of confusion and apathy. But regardless of reason, the blade slipped from her fingers, clattering to the desk with a lingering sense of finality.

Something had changed between them.

They moved as one, both filled with longing—one to understand why she couldn’t take that final step towards freedom, the other to understand why she was the one thing that disrupted the painstakingly maintained order of his life.

He stood, locking his arms underneath her as she raised her other leg, kneeling on the desk. Kicking his chair aside, he turned, pushing her roughly against the window as they thought, unaware, in sync—

I need to understand you.

Her hands tightened around his neck, bringing more blood—red—to the surface. As his life flowed over her fingers, their eyes met—brown and blue. Keen, both searching, both beginning to find what they sought. Answers.

There was nowhere else to go. The room was filled with a sense of inevitability as their lips crashed together in a demanding kiss. She gasped, a tiny little noise, as warmth flowed through her. Her fingers, sticky with his blood, tingled as she locked her hands behind his neck and forgot herself in his embrace.

Is this what it was like before? Before the Rift?

She felt like she was closer to understanding what she had lost—what she may have experienced before those three years had vanished from her life. In his arms, she felt the closest to alive than she had since Cain had pulled her from the Rift. Like a person who actually mattered to someone.

He grunted, adjusting his grip as her back rubbed against the cool glass behind her and her legs wrapped around his waist. He bit her lip sharply. Blood trickled down her chin as she gasped again, tangling her hands in his hair and pulling once, twice. First experimentally, then with force. All the while, their searching lips moved against each other.

A deep, appreciative sound rumbled through the General as he turned again, thrusting her back onto the desk without care. Blood dripped onto the covers of his missing soldiers’ files, marring his perfectly kept records. He didn’t care. He needed to understand her, and he knew he was getting closer.

One arm swept out, clearing the desk, and the lamp flew to the side and shattered against the wall. Consciousness returned along with the crash, loud and abrupt.

With a groan that felt like acknowledgement of the madness that had gripped them, Dmitry pulled back. Lane fought for breath, touching the blood on her chin. Both stared at the broken lamp, its shards glinting reproachfully in the dying sunlight.

What have you done?

He was still the man whose orders she may have to defy one day, the man she may have to betray eventually, to unlock the mysteries of her past.

She was still the woman who may have caused the disappearance of two of his soldiers.

And he was still her superior officer, a man with no order in his life except for the chain of command. His only remaining oath as a soldier.

She hardly dared to move, but she still slid from the desk, and they stepped away from each other. Her hand over her mouth, his hand on his neck. Breathing hard, eyes cautiously trained on each other. Their connection was undeniable, unavoidable, but the distance seemed insurmountable.

He deliberately looked away from her and said flatly, “we’ll discuss this later.” In a vain attempt to convince her that he meant her squadmate’s disappearance, he gestured at Noah’s file, askew on the floor, before dismissing her. “Go back to the estate.” 

She didn’t believe him—she knew he wasn’t thinking about Noah right now—but she grasped at his words like a drowning woman would at a life preserver. She wasn’t ready to explore what had happened, either. But even as she agreed, doubt swirled in her mind. Was he her barrier, or her key?

“Yes, General.”

As she left the room, she glanced behind her. Dmitry dropped heavily into his chair, his head falling into his hands. Light reflected off of the bloody letter opener, still lying just out of his reach, and the door closed behind her.

They would have to continue searching for answers later.

[kunstkombi]

MP100 Fallout AU

I wrote down some headcanons for this AU (& others) in February & well, come April there's suddenly a Fallout TV series? (& there are Magic the Gathering Fallout cards since earlier this year, too??) Well Fallout brainrot is revived, here's long-ass worldbuilding/background ramblings.

Vault Tec & Claw

Claw existed before the Great War as an organization researching psychic abilities; though in this universe powers initially don't nearly reach the levels of MP100 canon

Toichiro & his wife start working with Vault Tec overseas & are assigned Vault 100, that is just being constructed

They are to conduct experiments with FEV-variants on promising psychics to try & enhance their abilities by new means the vaults offer in the future

Mob is born in 2058

Several years later Toichiro starts to "collect" mostly young espers to populate the vault with; of course the plan of direct & experimentation with yet unknown risks is left out

Parents of the kids he's interested in are offered contracts that promise a safe place for them to survive with the downside of being taken away to 'monitor', but the desperation over the worsening state of the world makes it easy to agree

The Kageyamas even beg for them to take both their sons, not only the one with some innate abilities - and succeed

Toichiro's wife leaves him over the increasingly unethical plans for the vault, but to her dismay their own son stays with his father

Vault Occupancy

In 2072 the contracts take effect & Vault 100 is populated and sealed (with mostly kids from JP & USA families)

Toichiro & the Ultimate 5 are in charge and oversee the vault and experiments

For about two years the vault is operated with its young residents living a pretty standard vault life, they have restricted permission to be in contact with their families

As the experiments so far show no effect & the young population is getting harder to control, the decision is made to make them enter cryosleep early & continue with different lines of experimentation while in this state

In 2074 all residents except the six in charge enter cryosleep, including Toichiro's own son

Correspondence with parents of the kids is fabricated from here on

Many of the kids die in the next few years while supplemented with barely tested substances to increase their affinities

In 2077 on the day of the Great War, Toichiro & the Ultimate 5 enter cryosleep themselves, joining their own experiments as subjects now that the fatality rates have reached 0 & brain scans look promising

They set their own systems to awake at a scheduled point in the future

Post-Apocalypse

It goes as planned; the 6 of them wake up & find themselves enhanced with never before seen psychic powers, marking their final experiments a success

Vault 100 is unsealed & Toichiro wakes only Sho from the remaining children, to take him with him

Sho is initially too weak to fight back but doesn't take to it kindly; as soon as he is able he goes back

He wakes Ritsu first, of course

Together they start waking the remaining kids - some of them, including Ritsu, don't seem to see any changes in their abilities, several of them are incredibly disoriented

However, Mob's cryopod malfunctions and won't release him - they could break it, but can't guarantee his survival should they forcibly remove him

They can only try to look for someone to help, so even if Ritsu has a hard time leaving he and Sho start their wasteland journey with that mission, while Teru stays back to watch over the others and Mob

Unfortunately Toichirou comes back in search of Sho and they are forced to flee, leaving Mob unattended

Reigen & Mob

Not too long after everyone's gone, Reigen instead finds the vault - it looks newly opened which could promise a fortune (& he isn't so wrong about that)

Despite, or because, not knowing what he's doing, he ends up accidentally releasing the single kid left

Mob is fine but overwhelmed & immediately starts frantically looking for Ritsu

Reigen's words don't get through to Mob - he gets some reaction when he talks to him in Japanese, but ultimate can just follow while Mob scours the whole vault

Soon he gets a showcase of Mob's new powers & in their strongest form, while Mob reaches 100% despair

In the explosion, most of the vault is destroyed

Reigen is shocked but fascinated and he stays with Mob and calms him

His initial plan to bring the kid somewhere safe asap change with the idea of taking him with him to profit from these powers - Reigen himself is not the strongest & survives mainly on charisma & luck out there

Reigen lies to him about knowing more than he does & possibly being able to help him find his brother

Throughout Mob's traumatic awakening into an entirely unknown world alone Reigen is his only company & guidance, so Mob trusts him quickly - & Reigen gets attached quickly

Reigen continues lying but his own gains aside, he soon genuinely tries to help Mob find Ritsu as well as the truth

Somewhere along on their journey they meet Dimple, an intelligent super mutant & he tags along, initially also out of interest in Mob's powers

[bakawitch]

Random clashshipping au where Yami Malik secretly has the biggest crush on Yami/Atem the whole time during Battle City. Outwardly, he acts all freaky, but inwardly, he's fan boying the whole time (in his own creepy way...). During the finals where Yugi gets booted from his body, Yami/Atem slowly starts losing himself, and he progressively regresses into his more violent unhinged season 0 self, which Yamima is a huuuuuge fan of and triggers him expressing his affections more openly (in the most unconventional way possible). Anyway, Yami/Atem gets so unfocused that he loses the duel, and Yamima wins! Yay for him, but nay for the rest of the world! He claims the puzzle for himself and with it the Pharaoh's soul. He somehow restores Atem's og body and gives it the puzzle to transfer the spirit inside, and he starts "courting" him. (My guy's unromantic af his advances are gonna be weird and bloody lol.) Yami is mortified, and he's as happy about the whole arrangement as someone forced into a marriage they did not want. He's still more Yami than Atem here, but his past personality (let's say Atem was a very unpleasant character in ancient egypt here) eventually starts resurfacing from all the violence and gore he's witnessing in the mostly apocalyptic world. He sort of starts getting amicable with Yamima, who's delighted about the whole thing, and they eventually enter an agreement that they uncover Yami's real name and Yamima gets to use it to completely unseal the darkness and complete the apocalypse. Yami starts getting his more morbid memories back, and him and Yamima go on a little rampage. They somehow get it, and they rebuild the world into a weird replica of Ancient Egypt to fit their tastes. They sort of end up ruling an apocalypse together. Might put in Yugi and co as freedom fighters who try to save Atem before it's too late and Ryou and tkb as weird little vagrant guys who see the whole thing as a cool, hyper realistic ttrpg they can have fun with. The end =)

[monstersdownthepath]

ridiculous and inadvisable campaign idea:

The players are tasked with unsealing or awakening every ancient evil on Golarion at once in the hopes that their overlapping apocalyptic presence cancel out the BIG apocalypse that's otherwise impossible for the party to stop.

"Awaken the Kaiju to fight one another" but on a global scale.

[the-forest-library]

July 2023 Reads

Will They or Won't They - Ava Wilder

Going Bicoastal - Dahlia Adler

Hello Stranger - Katherine Center

You, With a View - Jessica Joyce

The Seven Year Slip - Ashley Poston

Kit McBride Gets a Wife - Amy Barry

We Could Be So Good - Cat Sebastian

The Duchess Effect - Tracey Livesay

The Prince & the Apocalypse - Kara McDowell

Ghosted - Amanda Quain

End of Story - Kylie Scott

Their Vicious Games - Joelle Wellington

Four Three Two One - Courtney C. Stevens

The First Thing About You - Chaz Hayden

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker

Mooncakes - Suzanne Walker

Sunshine - Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Lucy Maud Montgomery - Isabel Sanchez Vegara

100 Mighty Dragons All Named Broccoli - David LaRochelle & Loan Cho

Beyond the Wand - Tom Felton

Wildflower - Aurora James

Lips Unsealed - Belinda Carlisle

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge - Helen Ellis

Directions to Myself - Heidi Julavits

The Life Council - Laura Tremaine

Everybody's Favorite - Lillian Stone

Life on Delay - John Hendrickson

I Will Teach You to Be Rich - Ramit Sethi

Finance for the People - Paco de Leon

Unmasking Autism - Devon Price

Self-Care for People with ADHD - Sasha Hamdani

Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD - Susan Pinsky

You've Got This - Michaela Dunbar

Easy Crafts for the Insane - Kelly Williams Brown

Pottery for Beginners - Kara Leigh Ford

Conscious Crafts: Pottery - Lucy Davidson

Bold = Highly Recommend Italics = Worth It Crossed out = Nope

Thoughts: 

Lots of good reads this month, but no five stars reads, which I didn't realize until putting this together.

Goodreads Goal: 246/400 

2017 Reads | 2018 Reads | 2019 Reads | 2020 Reads | 2021 Reads| 

2022 Reads | 2023 Reads

[theminecraftbee]

5 and 18 for fic askgame! :)

just answered 18, so for 5...

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

THIS IS ACTUALLY HARD. the obvious answer is magical girl scar because i am not good at really long marathon type fics and i would need that to be SO LONG to actually do everything i want to do with it. actually, that's how a lot of similar aus go - if i cannot condense the fic idea down to a Single Narrative Throughline, then i have trouble writing the fic, no matter how much i really really want to. i'm best at fics that have a defined plot with a beginning, middle, and end! even my more like, emotions-based fics that don't have a major plot driving through them so much as a character arc driving them tend to follow a narrative structure like that. so when, say, i'm like "what if superhero au", i need to come up with a single throughline plot for it, otherwise it falls apart into the ether.

uh anyway some other examples include:

original form of evil x apocalypse au. please don't ask for details it's been like three years just know that at one point it existed, i gave up on it, parts of it were subsumed into stuffed bird.

a few of my dsmp ideas got jossed before they really got off the ground and then i fell out of wanting to write dsmp. i am still VERY fond of the one where techno is an old god that was sealed away on a farm and tommy, fresh out of being banished, accidentally unseals him and Things Ensue, but it both doesn't actually work with basically anything dsmp did AFTER the pogtopia arc (shoutout, for example, to phil, who was a dead legendary trickster god) and would require i have more dsmp writing energy, which if i get back i am spending on a different techno fic.

there are several lab aus i'm unlikely to write. ONE DAY i'll write that id fic that is "oh this guy is a lab experiment and must ESCAPE" but every time i sit down to try i just. don't get anywhere. so the previous ideas are probably scrapped,

basically any au i've posted on the blog in detail and have not said the words "i am writing this" about probably won't be written because i get coy about stuff i'm actually in the process of writing lol.

[iepurasdepraf]

Here's that part 2. More to come. Ok, I love you. Part 3 soon. Bye bye.

“Oh, come on…” You were standing on the rusted out running board of the truck, fighting with your oversized and overfilled rucksack that was a challenge to get around on it’s own, but now it was also tangled up in the content’s of the truck bed. Ropes, burlap, several unsealed first aid kits, one had blood on it, some old moldy moving boxes, tarps. hoses, beat to hell tool boxes, what looked like some kind of pump- you didn’t want to think about it. You closed your eyes to force yourself to stop taking inventory and focus.

Finally, it came loose from whatever it was stuck on and you gasped, opening your eyes and trying to maintain your balance on the untrustworthy running board only to choke on your own spit seeing Crane on the other side of the truck, leaning down on his forearms. It was at that moment you realized how tall he was. The very top of the side panel only came up to his low chest. He was standing flat footed on the ground and could not just see, but see in just fine, but could probably reach the middle of the bed and then some with those long arms. He could probably grab you from there if he was in the mood to try. When had he gotten out of the cab? You couldn’t remember hearing him get out? 

Trying to choke those rattling nerves down with the most pleasantly chirped “Were you an eagle scout? You look prepared for anything short of the apocalypse!” only to receive a hum and him looking away from you for the first time since he’d gotten out of the truck so he could look down into the bed. You chose to take that as him agreeing with your observation. In the past few hours of in person interaction, you’d mostly been talking at him while he gave you the Kubrick stare. The way people talked about him online you thought he’d have been enjoying the sound of his own voice. Then again, what did true crime people actually know? It gave you hope. Maybe they were wrong about him in a few ways, in enough ways for it to matter.

You hupped and lifted the rucksack up and let it do a, partially, controlled fall to the gravel parking spot that was more mud than anything which made you groan because it was brand new, but really that was it’s purpose, wasn’t it? Bound to get dirty sometime. Out of breath, you got that heavy pack to the patio and thunk thunk thunk’ed it up the too tall diy project steps onto the patio. Old paint crunching under your shoes and then the rucksack when you dragged it across the planks to the door. The owner had said the hide a key was in the plant pot by the door, but you couldn’t see anything that looked out of place in the odd sort of tiny pine tree’s cracked fancy pot. 

“Do you see a-” You looked beside you thinking he'd be standing there, but he wasn't, which somehow made you jump harder than if he'd been there. Your first instinct after that was to look behind you, he wasn't there either. "Dr. Crane?" you whispered. Where did he go? Looking around you eventually found him. Lurking at the bottom of the steps to the porch. You couldn't even really see him, just the corduroy pants covering his knees down to the struggling to stay together old work boots on his feet  in the lowlight of the dim porch lamp. Finding him made you jump harder than him just not being where you thought he was. "Jesus Christ!" "Mm?" The vaguely questioning sound he produced made you realize he'd not heard you or had and just hadn't answered. You couldn't tell. Maybe he thought it was funny. “What are you doing down there?” No answer. “Can you help me find the hide a key?” Again, nothing, he did join you on the porch however. Stepping over the steps you’d had to climb.

It only took him a second. Seemingly finding it at a glance among the perfectly similar riverstone rocks scattered in the pot. After fishing it out, he used the ragged hem of his faded olive colored sweater to wipe the dirt off before handing it to you. That was sweet of him. You made sure to say thank you.He smiled slightly, you caught it out of the corner of your eye. The door was finicky. You thought the key was going to snap before you managed to get it right where it wanted to be to unlock the door, but the moment that lock clicked the door was yanked from your hand. Swinging violently open to crash into whatever was behind it. Rattling the glass window in the door itself so hard that you were shocked it didn’t shatter.

You froze, struggling to breathe. You managed to look to Crane. For what you weren’t sure. He was playing with a lock of his hair, making it curl around his finger. He looked like his favorite tv show was on rather than disturbed.

“A draft.” He offered. “Yeah,” You looked into the house then after you just couldn’t look into the abyss anymore you looked back to him. “A draft.” When you didn’t move he took the initiative. Walking into the house like he owned it, taking your rucksack with him. Making you do a double take when he picked it up without strain singlehanded. All the way to the other side of the living room to the dining room where he sat the bag down on the table and thoughtfully turned on the overhead light. It flickered before slowly easing to it’s full brightness that only illuminated the table itself and maybe a foot around it making it an island in a inky sea of nothing, but vague shadow. 

You should have gone with him. You should have, but you didn’t and now there was an insidious moat between you and him. All you had to do was join him. Go through that not so narrow unlit area. There was nothing there. Maybe a rug. One of those weird floor sockets for lamps. Crane stood patiently watching you stickbug in the doorframe trying to psych yourself up to go inside. You’d ridden out into the middle of nowhere with one of the most dangerous men in Gotham on a Friday night to some guy you’d found on Craig’s list house to find a ghost because he’d told you his grandpa died there in a hunting accident or some shit. The man watching you oscillate just got out of an insane asylum. Just go in the house. Why are you afraid of the dark?

So you closed your eyes tight and ran. Into the house, through the dark moat around the kitchen, and right into Crane. He stumbled back slightly when you two collided with him and offered a steadying hand on your shoulder. “Sssorry.” You eek out peaking up at him. All you got was a scoff of a laugh from him. The look on his face felt it was saying it was fine. You were quick to give him his space, but he didn’t come across as particularly opposed to you being close to him and that meant a lot to you because from the moment you met him he’d made it absolutely clear he did not want anyone to touch him, look at him, even be near him. To the point where he’d refused to approach when someone had tried to be polite and hold a door open for him at the diner earlier. You’d expected him to move away or move you away. Maybe not being shoved off of him was a reward for facing your fear. Maybe you’d watched too many Youtube videos and overthought everything always. 

You metaphorically grab yourself by the back of the head and forced you to fight the straps to get in your bag so you could start unpacking. After setting your flashlights and your recorder you realized you were fucking up. Pay attention, explain things to him. Show him there’s a process. So, um, a…well,” You cleared your throat “So it’s a kind of some now and some later kind of thing.” “Mhm.” Oh, you actually had his attention. “Because while we can, hopefully get some responses in the moment, there will be some things we’ll have to go over in the recordings for. Like recorded voices we couldn’t hear or, ah, you know.” He tilted his head slightly, not knowing in the slightest. “Shadow people or apparitions. Things like that.” A soft snort. “Don’t laugh!” A little poorly suppressed jack-o-lantern-esque cracked his thin lips. He was somehow more and less creepy when he smiled at the same time. It was like he really didn’t know how. A spidery hand came up quickly to cover his mouth with his fingers, apparently conscious of this. “I’m not.” He rasped in assurance unconvincingly. 

After cutting him with a side eye, you went back to unpacking. Apparently, feeling a little more silly, he moved to hover behind you to see over your shoulder. Curious. Picking up the K2 meter and turning it over in his hand then jumping a little when he turned it on and it beeped loudly once before he turned it back off. “We can’t use that in the kitchen.” You say making sure all three of the flashlights had batteries in them. “It detects electromagnetic fields. It’ll give a false positive in a spot with a lot of electricity running through it.” 

He made no comment, but he did turn it back on and test that for himself. Waltzing around the kitchen to see what and where set it off and what didn’t while you make sure your video camera had nothing embarrassing on it in case he got curious. It seemed like mostly old videos of your cat and that was just fine for him to see. You turned to say something and jumped. He’d at some point moved to stand beside you, but you couldn’t even give what you were going to say a second try because a loud crunch sent a shiver down your spine and an echo cascading out into the otherwise silent house. It had come from Crane. Which didn’t make it less ominous, but he’d found a bag of Goldfish crackers somewhere and was munching away like he’d not just eaten a big supper an hour or so ago. 

“You can’t just eat that.” You protested. “It’s not…” Then you saw the date on the bag. 03/17/2014. “Oh my God.” He had to have seen that. You know he saw that.The look on his face when he realized you’d seen it told you he had. At the very least they had to be incredibly stale, at the worst they’d gone bad. “Jonathan.” His eyebrows shot up. First name? Bold, very bold. “Stop!” Another handful. “They’ll make you sick!” He rolled his eyes in a bored way and that’s when he noticed the camera. Side stepping quickly so he’d be out of the shot. If it was so no one saw him eating decade old Goldfish or for some other reason you weren’t sure.

He didn’t want to be recorded? That was fine with you. You turned it so you were the focus. “It’s not recording, don’t worry.” “Mm.” To ease his concern you held it out to him. “Here, this way you won’t have to worry.” An incredulous glance, but after a moment or two of you not changing your mind he finished his last handful of Goldfish, dusted the crumbs off on his pants, and took the camera. He was so careful when he did. Like he was worried your hand would snap off like a porcelain doll’s if he was too rough. After sussing out how it worked, he had it focused on you with the red light on, recording already. 

At least he couldn’t eat the Goldfish anymore.

You smiled at the camera, at him. Holding up one of the flashlights you presented to him “Uv light.” then another “Infralight.” then the last one “This is just a mag light, but!” You lightly tapped the camera once you’d sat the flashlight down next to the bag of Goldfish that would haunt your nightmares. “That’s a full spectrum camera! So hopefully it’ll get anything-” “And where,” “We might…” “Did you get all of this?” You were struck dumb. That was the longest sentence he’d ever said to you in person. It hadn’t been half a day of knowing him in person so that wasn’t really saying much, but still/ Unfortunately you knew your answer wasn’t a winning one the moment you went to answer it. “Am…” His eyebrow arched “Amazon?” You managed to get out with all the authority of a parrot saying “Bottle.”

He looked away, sucked on his bottom lip then let it go with a loud pop while moving his now free hand to touch his chest then only looked back at you after letting out a long breath that would have been some kind of prolonged stress sigh if he was more annoyed. He wasn’t annoyed though, but you also couldn’t tell exactly what emotion was. Looked back at you, but ultimately returned to his silence even though for a moment it seemed like he wanted to say something. At least he didn’t laugh. Just slow blinked at you like your cat did sometimes.

“What?” He shook his head “I know you want to.” That made him give you an amused look. You decided to take it as him being tickled you claimed you could tell. “I’m just admiring your…resourcefulness.” You, not believing that for a minute, threw a side eye at his head, but ultimately decided to go back to unpacking anyway. If only out of spite at the moment. “You could be  a little more grateful, you know? I spent a lot of money on this stuff for us.I know you think it’s silly, but-” It was money you didn’t really have either, not for this at least.“You didn’t already have this?” “No?” His good humor hit the floor like a lead balloon. “Why?” “Because I promised you I would?” He threw his hand up. You were a little shocked he didn’t accidentally fling the camera from how quick and instinctual the gesture was “But the cost?” He didn’t raise his voice even in spite of the clear agitation or at least disgruntled confusion. Still nearly whispering which made the fact that you’d bothered him in some way a lot less terrifying than it probably should have been. You kinda felt like a librarian that told him he couldn’t check out any more books until he paid his late fees.

“I don’t care about that.” You laughed a little saying that and it did nothing to soothe his consternation. “You don’t care?” “Why would I care about that?” It was a genuine question that he seemed completely boggled by “None of this,” He waved the camera to give an example “Could have been cheap. Pumpkin, you got scammed. You know-” “No.” You quickly put a finger up and to his credit he took being interrupted like a champ. Just going quiet again with a soft huff. “If you think, genuinely think, that this is entirely about proving ghosts are real to you then maybe that sweater is a little too tight in the neck.” It wasn’t, it was so loose at this point you could see his adams apple and where his clavicals started. “You wouldn’t chastise me for buying a badminton net, would you? That’s all this is.” You got the feeling he would have chastised you for that too, but maybe that was just his generally miserly vibe. He nearly seemed like he was buffering on that statement until you added “It is a bonus though. Proving ghosts are real, I mean.” “Even if you do find something, no one will believe you.” Crane actually frowned a little then you heard why “Not with me here.” 

“Well,” You put a hand on your hip and puffed yourself up “I’d rather have you here than anyone believe me anyway.” That sent him into an odd state of awed confusion apparently. “Besides, you’re the only person I care about believing me. It’s not like I’m doing this for anyone else. It’s just us here.” There was a split second where he looked like he was about to throw up, but he choked whatever emotion that was bubbling up with a forced cough before holding the camera back up with that unreadable expression right back up where it was before. He didn’t argue, weirdly. He loved arguing. Maybe you’d won for once? He’d stopped fussing that’s what mattered. 

You’d forgotten what you were doing during that. You must have looked lost because he motioned at the rucksack and all the stuff on the table. “Oh! Right, right, right. Anyway, that’s a full spectrum camera. So it should be able to pick up anything we miss. I wanted to get a thermal camera, but I ran out of money. Aahahaa-” He didn’t laugh, but he did smile a little. 

Maybe those little smiles made this whole goofy adventure worth it in the end? They did to you at least.

[tartrazeen]

Thinking about Fallout vaults in a mildly evil Vault-Tec mood, and thinking I would've liked a crawl mechanic in one of the games. What's cool is that I think this even fits within the very, very, very original Fallout 1 concept for these vaults, too.

That's because I'd like a vault where every single room was separated by a long hall.

When the vault dwellers are first sealed in, it's presented as a weirdly and almost wasteful design: what should be a quick walk down a corridor in any other place has been stretched out to be six times as long here. There's nothing added along the way - these are just unnecessarily long halls.

Even within living quarters, there isn't just a bathroom leading into a bedroom. It's another long hallway in-between. And another between the bedroom and the living room, and another between that and the kitchen.

Any distinguishable 'room' in this place is always, always connected by a long hall. And there's one room that each dweller must abide above all others:

Keep the halls clear.

And this rule is enforced.

Some residents try to capitalize on the 'extra space' by putting some furniture in there. Unfortunately for them, every night, an automated scan is made to check whether the halls are clear.

If even a single hall is obstructed - by anything from a couch to an errant sock - the emergency lights switch on, sirens blare, and the broadcast system screeches that an "obstruction in the [hall ID number] is detected". This goes out across the entirety of the vault and in every room, forcing residents awake and everyone into action until whatever hallway it is has been cleared.

The sirens do not stop until the Overseer manually initiates another check. If that hallway is clear, the sirens stop and the lights return to normal. If there's still an obstruction, everything continues. If there was actually more than one hallway obstructed, then even if the one that was originally identified is now clear, everything continues but now it IDs the next hall that it's found a problem with. It continues going one by one until every single hallway is clear.

This, obviously, is not fun to deal with, and the residents quickly recognize how important it'll be to keep all their shit out of the halls. Even the idiots who try to skirt past the rule by 'just' hanging a picture frame realize that yes, that counts too.

In the first month, this is all it is. Scan happens at midnight, sirens go off, hallway is cleared. Everyone learns to check every hall in their area, and thinks begin to loosely organize a larger division of the vault for teams to check. Since the hall IDs are called for everyone to hear, there's an easy way to know who's slacking off on checking and whose fault it is this time - especially if it's in somebody's living quarters. They get the most shit for not just keeping the damn halls clear.

Ultimately, everyone falls into the new pattern. With an apocalypse outside and this being the only price for safety, it's not that bad of a deal.

And then the second month rolls along.

At midnight, the entrance and exit to each hall - every single one in the vault - is sealed by a thick, metal wall. Massive rumblings occur over the next hour, vibrations shaking everything and a clear sense of movement overtakes the residents, trapped in whatever room they'd been in at that time. After probably twenty minutes of this (but a sheer eternity for people who just ran into this place to avoid having bombs dropped on their head), the rumbling stops and the hallways are unsealed.

The residents go to look inside.

There are no longer any neat, straight hallways. They've shifted into modulated levels. Some are now gigantic stairs, requiring people to climb more than step over. Some are broken into tall segments with ladders now protruding from the sides to get up. Some, most frustratingly, are simply steep inclines. There's nothing for residents to hold onto, and not everyone's hands and feet are grippy enough to get up and down.

This is, for all intents and purposes, total horseshit.

The residents storm the Overseer's office, demanding answers, but there aren't any for the Overseer to provide. The only information that Vault-Tec gave was a "Resident Assistance Mode" to use if the Overseer determined the residents were having too much trouble following the rule (i.e. keeping the halls clear). But that's for an emergency, and ultimately not the problem they're facing right now, which is that Little Timmy's too short to get up the massive steps to pee, and Granny's too frail to climb the ladders down to the kitchen.

People eventually come up with solutions. Batman-esque plungers are used for the steep slopes. Pulleys and ropes are used to help lower others up and down. Ladders are set up where their halls didn't produce them. Of course, all of this has to be removed before midnight or they'll set the sirens off. There are a surprising number of people who fail to do that, raising everyone's stress and anger throughout the vault when it happens. But they figure it out. Keeping the halls clear becomes everyone's top priority, and the first night where there are no alarms is like music to everyone's ears.

Month three.

It is 8 AM.

The lights switch over. The sirens go off. An obstruction has been detected in hall ID (whatever).

There's confusion, obviously, and even more after they take down the ladder in one family's 'front door' hall and the sirens go off to panic about another hall immediately after. It's a full scan. Every hall's being checked like it's midnight. It doesn't take long for everyone to realize this and put everything away until the scan's complete.

It takes all the way until 10:34 - surprisingly quick for the number of halls there are to deal with, but exhaustingly slow for a vault of people who've been doing so well at this for so long. It seems like when everyone's forced to start clearing things at the same time, rather than just whatever time they need to be ready before midnight, the obvious differences in how fast different families can move sinks in. There's more frustration, but they do it. The sirens are off.

It is 11 AM.

The lights switch over. The sirens go off. An obstruction has been detected in hall ID (whatever).

They all move much faster this time, since most people hadn't even put their ropes and ladders back up yet. They're done at 11:19.

It is 12 PM.

The Overseer has no answers for why scans are now happening hourly, but the reality is that they are, so at least they know what to do: keep the halls clear. It's not that bad, after all. It's a whole hour. How long does it take to cross one of these hallways?

The "Resident Assistance Mode" is not mentioned to any of them.

Eventually, everyone sort of... sucks it up. Every hour - okay, fine. At least they know now. Anything used to help anybody else now has to come with them out of the halls each time. It's a pain in the ass, especially for the people who need the help to get up and down, but they can manage for the most part. The grimly good news about running to the vault is that it self-selected for people who could make the trek, or specifically had somebody to help them.

Month four.

At midnight, the hallways seal. The residents had been partly expecting this, and many bets are won.

Once the halls open, residents are horrified to learn that the frustrating ladders and slopes have morphed into full-on obstacle courses. Forget Granny or Little Timmy getting through - Mommy and Daddy now have to balance across a beam over a deep pit, slide down and then climb back up a pole, and embrace what's essentially a bouldering wall just to take a piss in the middle of the night.

The only reason the Overseer's office isn't rushed this time is because of the monkey bars they have to get past. Good news: enough still manage to figure it out. Humanity's fuelled by the magic of wanting to kick someone's ass.

Things are fundamentally the same as it ever was. If they don't want to hear the sirens, deal with the obstacle course. Yes, it's awful, but what are they supposed to do? No one wants to hear, but there's nothing else to be said.

The workarounds are different this time. Now, the residents are looking at trade-offs between the halls. There are work- and ration-based incentives for families to switch living quarters with each other to give easier halls to those who can't manage the ones they've been stuck with. Significantly more coordination goes into 'entering' each room, with one resident trekking over to get whatever a whole group might need. New roles are developed based purely on their ability to do this too, with a schedule in place to say when they'll arrive to an area and fetch things for other people. It's a lot of waiting, but at least the option exists at all. It's especially helpful for when the injuries pile up.

For some, the idea of traversing halls dies forever. They can't do it. It isn't worth it. Either a room is 'closed off' because hey, they didn't really need a third classroom, or things are set up to be closer. Maybe they'll have to wait for a trek team before they can get any Vault-Tec milk from their fridge, but they can pull a table into their bedroom and keep non-perishables in there. It can be a tight fit sometimes, but they can do it to cut down on having to go to other rooms at all.

Those who truly can't get around decide to branch out from their quarters. That old classroom that no one can really get to? With enough determination, one family moves in there. They might be more or less trapped within this one room now, but Granny was trapped as soon as the scans became hourly, so at least this prison cell's more spacious.

Changes like that get made throughout the vault as much as possible, with certain families willing (and forced) to forgo certain amenities in favour of leaving their quarters for a newly repurposed room. But those are for the more permanent changes. For the people who simply slip and break a leg, it doesn't seem 'worth the effort' to move when they'll be back on their feet in a month. They can tough it out.

Month five.

It is 9:15 AM.

Once the sirens stop, everyone agrees to stay the fuck out of the hallways until they come up with a plan. If someone really can't move their ass to the other side in fifteen minutes without something else helping them, then don't move. Stay home. You're making it everybody else's problem.

Because the thing about these sirens isn't just that they're based on inanimate objects. They're based on people, too. Nobody realized this when the scans only happened once a night, when everyone was already out of the hallways anyway. More people caught on once it was hourly, but since most of those who needed more time than what was left in the hour to get across had been the ones trying to cross with some sort of equipment, the blame still fell onto that. But with scans now happening every fifteen minutes, and sirens going off when someone is casually crossing without holding anything else, it's finally clear: yes, they count too.

And this is untenable. The hardship trapping some people at home during hourly scans was something they could live with, but for the alarms to be tripped by people who are supposed to be able to cross? No way. They aren't dealing with that hassle anymore. Something must be done. This time, even the Overseer agrees.

The "Resident Assistance Mode" is activated.

As pissy as some folks are that it wasn't activated sooner, back when Granny needed it, they rest of them are just happy it's running now. There doesn't seem to be much change, especially since the halls were clear before they switched it on, but later that day, they finally hear it:

"Obstruction cleared in [Hall ID]."

And that's it.

No sirens, no lights, no nothing else. The relief goes out across the vault, and while there are bound to be conversations on whether this Overseer should stay the one in charge, they're happy to save it for later. It's over. Finally.

Right until one resident happens to ask, "Hey, what does it mean by 'cleared'?"

They check the hall that had been called out. It's sealed. Just that one. It doesn't open again for hours, and while they wait, there are two other obstructions cleared in two other halls. Both are sealed now as well.

The first fear they have is that the hall is lost to them forever. The thought of someone being trapped on the other side and left to rot, or some critical infrastructure room being permanently cut off, brings on a simmer of quiet panic. But eventually the halls re-open. That's good news. Great news.

The second fear they have is the hall itself. It hasn't physically changed - it's still a funhouse in there. But it is...

... warmer.

And clear.

Dots are quickly connected. "Resident Assistance Mode" was meant to help them keep the halls clear. It's doing exactly that - through a brand-new self-cleaning mode, just like they have on their standard-issue Vault-Tec ovens.

The panic reaches a fever pitch: they're trapped in a nightmare that'll cook them to charcoal if they run over the 15-minute timer to get across.

Is there a way to shut it off? To please, please shut it off?

Apparently that feature was still "Coming Soon!"

So no. There was no shutting it off.

Month six.

Residents were expecting more rumblings. There aren't any. The halls stay as complicated as they are, but don't get worse. Unbeknownst to them just yet, there are two changes made to the vault this time.

The first is the automated voice. Its update got an update. At 1:37 PM, the vault hears, "Obstruction cleared." No hall ID to go with it. No way to check which hall it was other than to manually check which one was sealed or at least warm, and even then, it'd be hard to know what obstruction was cleared until some equipment was missing - or until someone was conspicuously absent.

The second was on the Overseer's terminal. Part two of the experiment had begun.

More changes and adaptations were being made across the vault to deal with their new reality. The atrium - the largest single space between any of the halls - was converted to a mass shelter for the injured. There was only so much space to go around, so it was given to those who needed to recover from their injuries, and who weren't yet set-up to live by themselves. Beds were scarce, as it often took longer than 15 minutes to get one across particular halls. But having people stay in one more than one place meant asking the trek teams to go to more than one place, and going anywhere had become of a gamble than ever. If someone needed help, they were going to have to migrate to the group, or else barter to convince someone they were worth the gamble.

As fast as they could, people were organized by their ability to traverse the halls. Those who could were given their pick of the rooms. The assumption was that they would take the places with the most complicated halls.

This is not what unfolded.

Those who couldn't get through the halls too well couldn't really go anywhere on their own, could they? In that case, why waste the 'good' halls on them just for those who could get around to be stuck with the 'bad' ones? Since the fitter residents were expected to move around the most, it made sense for them to live where the halls were the easiest to get through. It'd cut down on injuries, and it'd save their energy and concentration for the complicated halls later.

After all, if the normal residents got hurt trying to climb everywhere just because they technically could, how were they supposed to help the - uh...

... the other residents?

Everyone who showed up to discuss this liked the idea very much.

It was decided, then. Those who could more easily move around were given the easier halls to match how often they needed to travel. Those who were slower were moved to live in groups by the moderately more difficult halls. Those who insisted on staying where they were had to prove they had friends or family willing to brave the dangers. But if they did have friends and family to help, clearly they didn't need such an easy hall, since they still wouldn't be the one going up down that obstable course. So they would be moved accordingly anyway. Where this ended up affecting their friends' and family's ability to help, well - didn't that just prove the point of needing to move them?

Things were falling neatly into place.

As the month came to a close, the Overseer (the same one) called for a vault meeting. Given the timing, it was important to be there. Everyone who was anyone made sure to show up - and on behalf of their families too, of course, if someone they knew couldn't attend.

The Overseer explained that there was a new option set up for them. The option was labelled "Scan Interval", which was broken out into three frequencies: 24 hours, 1 hour, and 15 minutes. Before more of this could be explained, the present residents screamed to have it set to 24 hours. But not so fast, the Overseer said, because it wasn't a choice of frequencies. It was an order.

Next month, they would be back to one scan every 24 hours. Two months later, it would be one scan every hour. Two months after that, it would be every 15 minutes, the same as it was now. They had a choice of making the intervals play out in a different order, and the Overseer barely got to say anything else before everyone clamoured for 24 hours again.

So it was decided. Months seven and eight would scan the hallways every 24 hours, months nine and ten would scan hourly, and months eleven and twelve would come back to every fifteen minutes. That would give them time to prepare. They could absolutely pull this off. Beds could be properly moved, residents could be reunited with their families, and those who needed support could be made more accessible to trek teams during the 15-minute intervals.

Month seven began with the hallways sealed.

The rumblings sent sheer terror through everybody. The screams and prayers faded quickly into overwhelmed and silent waiting. Eventually, the rumblings stopped and the rooms stilled, and the halls re-opened.

Staring at them all, in every one of them, were perfectly straight but oddly long corridors.

The celebration was louder than the sirens had ever been. They were free. Perhaps only for two months, but that was better than nothing. The joy kept them going throughout the weeks as they worked, reorganizing everyone's living situations, atrium-based shelters, rations and supplies for those they expected to be trapped again, and plenty of cardio and strength-training.

Some jobs, like those assigned to keep generators running, were moving refrigerators and beds into corners of those rooms. If - when - the halls shifted again, they weren't going to take the risk of being cut off from those machines. There were some risks of crowding in those places, but none compared to something breaking behind a hall that no one could get through.

Eventually, and just before the month was over, the work was finished. Assuming the hallways changed again, and changed into the same configuration as before, they would be ready. It was the most anyone could do given this environment.

Month eight, as was expected, sealed the halls. Once they'd re-opened, the residents saw the same, frustrating halls as last time. Not as bad as the ones in month four, since these are back to the month two halls with the too-large stairs and steep slopes, but the loss of the straight corridors is upsetting. Still, there aren't any pits to balance over, and they have a whole day to work. Knowing that the more complicated halls are likely to come back later on - which, by their calculations, should be month ten - helps them get a plan together for that too. They'll only have fifteen minutes to deal with those, and those are the hardest ones.

There's a focus on getting survival stations prepared. Everyone remembers which halls were abandoned last time; do they have better strategies this time, or do they just accept that those will be closed off too? What can they rearrange? What can they clear out into 'storage'? Priorities are changed and redefined now that they see how things will unfold.

Those who can't travel again have the supplies they need to hold out until help arrives. But there's a worry in the air about that. 'Until help arrives'. With the "Resident Assistance Mode" turned on, any trek team that falls behind won't just be dealing with angry noises. And their failure means others will be left behind. This is solved by giving them some extra supplies, but for those relying on others in vault, it feels like a band-aid stuck over the problem.

Month nine brings them back to hourly scans at last. The residents test this with some scrap; sure enough, and on the hour, that hallway seals and "Obstruction cleared" rings out. With everyone where they need to be, however, things go smoothly.

There are one or two close calls. Trek teams only enter a hall at the start of the hour to give themselves the full 60 minutes to pass through. It's considered excessive at first, since it's a five minute journey at best, but when someone goes alone, slips, and breaks a leg, they're endlessly grateful to have had fifty minutes to crawl to safety. Someone else was grateful to have had thirty minutes to call for help, and twenty to be evacuated.

The vault agrees that no one, not even those who were physically fit, should be going through the halls alone. A buddy system is put into place. Whistles are used to signal an 'all clear' as one reaches the other side. It's a good way to keep everybody calm. It doesn't quite stop the renewed understanding that if someone slips in months eleven or twelve, there won't be a point in blowing a whistle except to say goodbye.

Month ten.

The hallways seal.

Fortunately, the configurations are the same as last time.

This is also unfortunate, but beyond the residents' control.

With the funhouse style of hallways back in place, the vault pushes through as much of their daily lives as they can. Folks who are trapped stay hunkered down, with enough resources to last to the middle of a month. That many supplies is a good balance between how much a person or family needs, and how trek team can carry when they tick over to the 15-minute intervals next month. It isn't perfect, but it'll keep them going. Food has to be distributed evenly over the next twenty years that they're in here, so there's reluctance to give everyone who's confined to a room enough for a full month. They'll need to be resupplied anyway, and if things really are that dire, those residents should be moved into groups again.

'Moved into groups' shouldn't have sounded like a threat, but it seems efficient at ending the conversation.

Month eleven is what they had prepared for. Bad luck reared its head again, however. "Obstruction cleared" rings out for those trek teams they lost, and for the supplies that had to be sacrificed to clear the room. It's obvious that two weeks' worth of supplies is too much to carry. At the town hall, the residents present agree to reduce it to one week's worth. Yes, it'll mean more frequent trips, but the quality - the success rate - is what tips the focus away from the quantity.

It's a bit of surprise when fewer supplies are delivered. There's only so much that can be said, but it is said. Unfortunately it's up to the trek teams to carry that message back, and the message is either waved off as unavoidable or misattributed as whining, if not greed. So long as everyone does their part, they'll be fine. If those living are their own are so worried...

The complaints don't disappear, but they do get quiet.

Month. Twelve.

Last time, on month six, there'd been a change to the automated announcements. Residents weren't sure what it could be changed to this time. No announcements at all, perhaps? The ones they had weren't very good. Knowing an obstruction was cleared but not where left people wondering who they'd lost and if they were going to be able to eat.

They aren't sure if the announcements have changed, but at midnight, that ends up being their last concern.

Because the hallways are sealed.

And they are moving.

The rumbling takes well over an hour this time - the longest it's been. There's an unbearable dread looming over them. With it comes some delirious hope - maybe it's a good thing! Maybe the halls will be a regular size for once.

They aren't.

When the hallways re-open, they offer a new wave of fresh fucking hell.

Some halls have had their ceilings lowered to just over a foot high. Some twist like vent shafts, at sharp 90° and even 120° angles. Some are just a smooth, spiral slide up. Some have ladders, and the rungs are barbed.

And there are 15 minutes between each scan.

They're trapped. They're all trapped. There's a point where they start disposing of corpses in the hall; they have kids to feed. Some families try to avoid the topic from the start by rolling the dice on the hallways anyway. If they make it through, they'll return with supplies. If they don't, at least there's one less mouth to manage.

An obstruction is cleared almost every day. The delirious hope helps those who stay behind pretend it's for someone else. There's always that chance. They'll know once the month is over.

More survive than they expected.

But it doesn't really say that much.

It doesn't occur to them that the new year's rumblings is supposed to be good news. The hallways seal at the start of month thirteen, and the hallways restraighten into straightforward corridors.

There's no celebration this time. What unfolds is a dark march from room to room to see who didn't make it. They're able to confirm that the intervals are back to 24 hours by piling the corpses into the halls and waiting. The obstructions are cleared at midnight, per the vault's Resident Assistance Mode.

Everyone keeps the halls clear after that, 24 hours or not.

A few days pass before the Overseer is seen, looking surprisingly health for someone who'd been trapped like they'd been. The Overseer explains this as having been able to get through the nearby halls and finding supplies. Unfortunately the other halls were too difficult to travese. This answer's accepted, begrudgingly.

The attention sombrely moves to preparing for the next round of hallways and scans intervals. The Overseer has more bad news: they've missed their chance to change the order of the intervals. It needed to happen during month twelve, and the Overseer's office was too far to get to.

Fortunately, it seems they've been given an option to pick the order of the hallways. Knowing that scans will be in order of 24 hours, hourly, and every 15 minutes should help in deciding when the halls should be in first, second, third or fourth position; in other words, one month of straight corridors, two months with big slopes and stairs, two months as funhouse-style, and one month of the hell that's left them all so devastated.

They're committed to this month being their one month of straight corridors. Changing that would've had to happened in month twelve, too. But they can still change the order of the other ones. There's more flexibility with the halls than with the order of the intervals. Maybe one month of hell would be easier to endure if they'd had a full day to get through.

It's something for everyone to consider.

In fact, there are many combinations to consider.

With so many dangers outside - radiation, rubble, disasters both natural and manmade - there was plenty to learn from a group made to choose the best combination for their society's needs. Especially as more vault dwellers were injured, where would the decisions be led? What solutions would they create? Which areas would be abandoned? Which people?

The experiment would continue for years, perhaps. Living spaces would logically shrink for those who couldn't make it through certain halls, and order was often established not just by detaining someone, but by giving them an undesirable hall. What that implies to those who were purposely assigned those halls from the outset is left unsaid among the residents, but actively noted for Vault-Tec.

Communications are limited in many ways, as the vault's walls couldn't be drilled through and new wires couldn't be strung up, but lights, instruments, banging, and good old fashioned yells helped during the worst of the halls and most disconnected of families and friends. The problem of how to survive when a person had no families and friends was left to solve itself.

Eventually, an optimal combination is found. The trek teams know the routes, supplies are adequately stocked, residents are sufficiently relocated. Two complete cycles pass without any obstructions.

The halls are decidedly kept clear.

So part three of the experiment begins.

The first month of this next cycle is a restocking and training month. Straight corridors, fifteen minutes, in and out to resupply everyone and train the new trek teams on their routes. The long, straight halls are excellent practice for speed and basic hand-off coordination. This will be followed by one month of hell, where everyone returns to hiding - to 'get it over with' - where no one will bother venturing out into different rooms. After that is two months of hourly scans of second-position halls, and then two months of third-position halls with daily scans. Having just completed a cycle with that very combination, the residents are excited for a moderately fresh breath of air.

Imagine their suprise when the month begins with daily scans at the hellish fourth-position halls. An hour isn't enough to traverse many of the gauntlets they're facing.

Their screaming has to wait until the next month, whereupon the halls move to their third position - another bad choice for hourly scans when they so badly need to resupply. The Overseer's office is rushed, and the news is delivered:

The system has rejected a third iteration of the same cycle, and in lieu of more appropriate input, has randomized the newly remaining choices. The cycle pattern they've been relying on will no longer be accepted.

The Overseer is sorry.

And, let it be known, healthy.

It isn't just the fact that the Overseer appears to be fed. That was answered long ago: that area has traversable halls. Of course no one else is camping in the area to confirm it, but there have been some brave souls to make it through during a period of fourth-position halls during hourly scans. Fifteen minutes, albeit a lofty goal, isn't an impossible one when fuelled by such desperate adrenaline.

But even the best of trek teams have...

... wounds.

Scratches. Scrapes. Bumps from the suddenly tight turns. Red eyes from dust. Strain from training.

Fear.

The Overseer seems healthy in a way that none of the trek teams can understand. It's a conversation for later, but one they intend on coming back to.

They need to survive.

But buried in the plan that gets them through this is a plot to learn what exactly the Overseer knows.

The next round has the vault dwellers meeting the fourth-cycle with new purpose: not to escape the terror of being shut in, but the confidence in knowing they've shut the Overseer out. They do camp in the Overseer's office, and they enjoy one month of unfettered access to the central terminal. There's little information on the halls other than reports on which configurations they've previously picked, but there are other options listed that the Overseer apparently hadn't seen fit to reveal.

More bets were made, with the team that had volunteered expecting to find something like a series of tunnels. They're correct in a small sense, as there is a passage hidden under the desk, but the guesses fall short of what's truly underneath.

Dials.

In one row of three, and one row of four.

Each dial is the top row of three is labelled with "1440," "60," and "15" as options. The bottom row of four dials has "1," "2," "3," and "4". Currently, the top three are turned to "60," "1440," and "15" respectively. The bottom four are set to "4," "3," "1," and "2."

The handful of volunteers review these and realize that this is where the configurations were actually made. The terminal upstairs was a log of the choices, but these were the true inputs.

There's another terminal in this secret room that lists instructions intended for the Overseer's eyes. They explain how the vault will be sealed for the next forty years. There are timelines strewn across various files, but after piecing it together, it's clear what they've been brought here to do:

The first ten years will be spent letting residents freely choose a combination of scan intervals and hallway positions. Every year after this will impose new restrictions. They've been introduced to one of them already: a combination can only be repeated once. But there are more to come, and they're chosen at random from a pre-made list of Vault-Tec options.

In fact, the next cycle's restriction has already been identified: any obstructions found in one hall will trigger a full flush of all halls. The condition for this was having activated the Resident Assistance Mode. There are other restrictions with their own conditions; the Overseer is meant to update the terminal with other choices the residents make to grow the pool of new possible disasters.

It's why the Overseer looked so well-fed and healthy. It wasn't anything to do with traversing the halls. The perk of the job was just knowing when it was time to stock up on supplies.

Supplies that, they remember, are meant to last for twenty years.

Assuming everybody shares, of course.

Assuming everybody survives.

When the month ends and the Overseer's supplies are reclaimed, and the Overseer is cleared from the hall, there's a new tension within the vault that follows them like an endless hum. It's the sound of decisions and priorities, of reorganization and reallocation, and of hard truths and deaf ears.

Centuries later, a small group finds and opens the vault to explore. While it's odd that every room is hidden behind claustrophobic and twisting hallways, it's odder how clean each hall is - compared to the frail corpses they find alone in beds, or the great Xs marked at the other end of halls that would have led to them.

If part of this group hadn't been burned to a crisp after taking too long to get through - just 15 minutes, only because someone's buckle was caught on a barbed ladder rung - they would've been able to explore the rest.

They would've found an armed group seemingly trapped at the farthest end of the vault, blasted with holes and ripped to pieces, as if some had been turned into food for the others by force. One would have been tied up and left in a corner, as if in punishment, and as if it had died first. As if it died before the others in that room realized they still needed to eat.

They would've also found the Overseer's office with three bodies huddled together, with enough supplies to have kept them alive for weeks.

Last, they would have found the hidden room with its two rows of dials. The dials themselves would appear to have been snapped off, and the claw marks and smears around them would have suggested that this had not been the plan. According to the terminal, the final options selected were all either "15" or "4". It was as if someone hadn't known which dials corresponded to each option, and realized too late that the answer couldn't be changed midway through.

They wouldn't have known if there had only ever been three bodies in that office, or if others had tried to make their own journey.

Instead of exploring, instead of finding any of this, the remaining group of wasteland explorers retreat and set up a sign saying the halls are deadly. "You have 15 minutes," the signs might say.

After that, it'd be up to whoever still thought it was worth the effort to venture inside.

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔇𝔯𝔬𝔴𝔫𝔦𝔫𝔤 - 𝔄𝔭𝔬𝔠𝔞𝔩𝔶𝔭𝔰𝔢 𝔘𝔫𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔩𝔢𝔡

[gear-project]

Annon-Guy: We all know that Sol is the main protagonist while Ky is the deuteragonist, but why is the main tritagonist ALWAYS swapped around in the Guilty Gear series? Case in point;

The Missing Link: Doesn't really have one, but I saw Kilff is the tritagonist here.

X, X2 and Accent Core: Dizzy

2 Overture and Xrd Series: Sin and Ramlethal

SrtIVe: Jack-O'

Most of this revolves around the central plots involving Guilty Gear, so it's not so easy to answer it.

But, to sum up events in a short manner:

GG1: It was a "revisit" to the past events via a scheme from the Conclave in an attempt to capture Justice for their own ends. So, of course Kliff couldn't stand idly by. He was trapped and killed by Testament however. The reason it's called the "Missing Link" is because Sol had long been absent from history by that point, and no one expected him to step out of the shadows and kill Justice (whom the world was worried about unsealing to start a fresh war).

GGX: The focus is mostly based on events that happen AFTER the war with Justice and those who survived. The legacy of Justice just happened to fall in Dizzy's hands mostly.

GGXX: The "Midnight Carnival" is the opening "stage" for I-No... who has her own role to play in the history of the Backyard. You could say this part of the story is I-No's playground, but it is also a key facet to past "transgressions" that happened long before Guilty Gear began.

GGXXAC: The "Accentuated Core" of connected events slowly coming together. Those involved are mainly the Postwar Administration Bureau... a group notoriously connected with the Conclave who bears strong connections not just to Justice, but also the Assassins and the Japanese, among many other dark secrets. While I-No is just one part of the problem, she is only the "result" of past sins... the Bureau are also "born from the past sins" born from the Conclave's intentions, but they are still only a small portion of the grander mystery of the dark history of the Crusades.

GG2 Overture: Simply the beginning of a deeper plot. It all began with Valentine, though Sin was involved with those events, Valentine is (despite appearances) the "victim" of this event. She is killed like Justice by Sol Badguy... leaving behind more mystery behind the "culprit" who has yet to be revealed.

Just who is Valentine's "Mother"?

Xrd Sign: The beginning of the End. War is declared by Ramlethal Valentine, the "sister" of the original Valentine... and it is clear that Mother is waging war on humanity... but for what purpose?

Will Ramlethal become the next "victim" at Sol's hands?

But, in a turn of events, the real victim was Ramlethal's Sister: Elphelt Valentine.

She was taken by Mother to become the "Next" incarnation of Justice.

Xrd Revelator: After so much "dark history" has occurred, it is revealed that the Conclave are simply being manipulated by Ariels the Merciless Apocalypse... the Universal Will.

But, Ariels herself reveals an even more sinister "sin": Humans created her. One human in particular, who orchestrated many of these events (including I-No's origins).

Sol, Ky, and even Sin among friends battle to save Elphelt... and the final confrontation with Ariels begins.

Guilty Gear STRIVE: The history of Humans is the history of greed and ambition. That much is made clear by one Happy Chaos.

Greed for War, Greed for Weapons, Greed for Gears, Greed for Humanity, almost like an unchanging LOOP.

The Greed created a Sickness that became I-No. A glitch in the system.

The Greed created Hope for a Better Future: Axl Low.

Hope and Excess... which Ariels despised in Humans... unlimited possibilities.

The Greed created monsters like Bedman and survivors like his Sister Delilah... victims of the war.

Jack-O' was also a "victim". Forced to play a role in the past she never asked for. But even as a Valentine, she had a destiny that was her choice to accept or reject.

Sol however, felt that Destiny is something you break with your own hands. And Asuka R. Kreutz agreed.

The "First Transgressor" turned out to the be the one designated to save the world: The Original Sage, now become Happy Chaos.

They would have to "strive" to break more tragedy from here on out, that is, if they wanted to "save the future".

No more "STEEL Victims" from here on out... if Sol can help it at least.

[voxofthevoid]

Writing Log: April 2023

I managed to write fairly consistently this month (24/30 days); it's also about the only thing I did consistently, which makes sense when you factor in that, the more stressed I am, the more I drown myself in whatever hobby's got my balls in its grip.

The JJK/goyuu madness continues. Some of these fics are the shortest I've written for this fandom, so I wound up working on four different stories this month.

the way it follows you home, the stories i never told [JJK, goyuu, time travel fic featuring a threesome involving adult!Goju/adult!Yuuji/teen!Gojou]: 33,533

your body language on me tells me to be unholy [JJK, goyuu, a pwp piece involving public groping that turns into semi-public sex]: 12,840

i'm starving, darling, let me put my lips to something [JJK, goyuu, a pwp devoted to appreciating Gojou's tits post-unsealing]: 8,460

your resistance, prophetic self-destruction [JJK, chosoita and goyuu, consensual vore turns into incestuous sex, and Gojou's the ghost in the story until he isn't]: 5,605

Total: 60,438

Posted word count: 6,244 (goyuu post-apocalypse fic) + 5,078 (goyuu basement training fic) + 11,770 (bleach vampire/shifter fic) + 8,104* (goyuu tit-fucking) + 3,613 (stucky merman darkfic): 34,809

*yes, this one lost around 400 words in the editing process

[navy-leader]

Ok. Now onto the earlier stick oc I designed:

Apocalypse Maiden aka Poppy May

Weapons:

None. If she ever got isekaid to the RHG Cier world, the closest to consider her weapon is the "magic" pencil.

Scarf and cape that complement each other for constant flight. Cape can also shapeshift into two, useful shapes. Cape shapechanging is based from Gris, a game that Poppy would visit to love the visuals and music. Scarf is from Journey Thatgamecompany. Cape is from Sky Children of the light.

Charm on belt allows for shielding, but for at least three, consecutive hits from armored handed punches enough to break it temporarily. Even with the shield, though, a hit can briefly stun her if caught unaware. This is based from Laya's Horizon, one of the games she enters to race with Barry.

Powers:

Screams that force its targets into a state of decay, it's scale is large and direct.

Gifted with the power of life from her sister. But rather than using the gift for healing, she uses song to breath a spark into the drawings, mostly animals, whenever she needs muscle.

Strengths:

Better in long and maybe mid range combat.

Her powers gradually grow and strengthen against the her sister's seal, making her a force better avoided than face for combat.

Might be able to create a "shadow" form that's giant.

Shape changing cape allows her to adapt to different environments, such as swimming in water. Makes for great body slams.

Good drawer.

Fast reflexes and maneuverability, especially while in the gaming worlds where she needs to hide and dodge antagonistic forces.

Maximum length of powerful scream is 20 feet long. Fastest to kill and turn an opponent to

Weaknesses:

She has no control over her powers activating at varying times. They'd often act on their own based on her emotions. Doesn't help that she doesn't know all of nor the full potential to her powers by the team her creator forcefully sealed her. But her unsealed power level would basically be similar to orange, including the telepathy.

Because her powers are the opposite of Orange, unless the drawings are objects or simple body parts like a hand, the drawings end up "stillbirth." So, she's got to sing quickly. But the larger the drawing in mass, the longer and stronger the song needs to make them fully awake.

She never learned to fight, so she's practically defenseless without her powers.

Scarf is vulnerable to serious ice to the point of losing magic. More fragile to the point of tearing like a regular scarf. Being submerged in water also drains its juice slowly.

Also, if she overuses her scarf and cape, she'll need to touch ground or fire to recharge them.

Giant "Shadow" form renders her unconscious after one use like for a scream.

Scream is one direction only, in both her sealed and unsealed state.

Personality:

Self depreciating/self loathing

artistic

Curious

Sensitive

Character arc is similar to Teen Titan's Terra.

NOTE: Before Barrior Maiden, I considered putting Apocalypse Maiden in Cier as an inbetween arc to her life in her creator's desktop, as well as apprenticeship under Victim in Stick City. However, because of her lack in combat experience and likelihood to avoid fights, I created Barrier Maiden as her muscle. But Barrier Maiden already proved to hold on her own, so I split them.

Love these girlies,,, theyd make such a banger story and id love to inspect them like insects under a microscope.

[a23n7l19y79]

🌿🌷❤️Ancient Truth of ELOHIM❤️🌷🌿 taught by the END TIME MESSENGER of ELOHIM - Seraphim Samuel/ Archangel Abbadiel - 5th Angel of the End Time Apocalypse. 📜🌿🔑🔐:

There are many more links...please visit Seraphim Samuel 🐦🌾page, Archangel Raphael page on facebook.

Join our group on fb -

🌿 "The Earth is Splitting Apart".

🌿 "New Yahrushalayim has drawn Nearer".

🌿 "The Last Days on Earth - Divine Signs Explained".

🌿 "The Ancient Truth of ELOHIM - The Unsealed Scrolls of Daniel the Prophet".

🌿 "Look up! The Ancient Truth is being revealed".

🌿 "The Oil of Salvation is ELOHIM'S ANCIENT TRUTH".

Seraphim Samuel 🐦🌾 Prophecies unfolding exactly as he spoke on his live videos.

True Salvation Message is found & given freely only on Seraphim Samuel 🐦🌾 Archangel Abbadiel, Archangel Raphael & Steve Imanuel pages on facebook.

You can also visit these Bitchute channels, where the Messenger's live videos are uploaded. Liisten to his teachings & take notes of everything. :---👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=5592247504136156&id=100000528852682

Below links are Playlists shared by Commander Cleopatrael Samson 👇👇👇👇👇👇👇👇

PLAYLIST COMPILATIONS OF THE ANCIENT TRUTH OF ELOHIM 💗

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4R05BnM5IAtGYbI4GFZaIdVszTAMis8B

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4R05BnM5IAuOYC16ctuV1quQpUo_bZdj

🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐🌿🔐

[inscrutable-shadow]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love❤

thanks anon!

For whump fans:

hollow me out (and fill me with rage) - 5k, complete. how does a mad doctor feel when, this time, the subject vivisects them?

Trials of Thanatos - 8k, in progress. in which thanatos has a very bad several months

For smut fans:

In the Hall of Reality - 5.8k, wip. A vampire courts a god who, while inexperienced, gives very good head.

General stuff:

Ash - very short story about unsealing things that should maybe stay sealed

Artis and Janus - slightly longer short story about an apocalypse

[notapocalypse]

✧ THE STARS ARE AS DISTANT AS ALWAYS ―

independent. selective. honkai: star rail multimuse. feat. void archives & luocha. written by seth.

home ✧ rules ✧ muse list ✧ mobile summary under the cut

GUIDELINES

My name is Seth! I'm 25+ years old and use He/Him.

Standard roleplaying etiquette please!

Multi-ship; every ship is implied to be in its own AU.

May write triggering content; tags are #tw: trigger

NO sexual roleplays. NO real-life faceclaims.

I don't follow personal blogs.

I always read rules, but never send in passwords.

CANON MUSES

Originally from Honkai: Impact 3rd. Heavily headcanon-based.

The 1st Divine Key, the Key of Revelation. A super artificial intelligence with his own will and sense of self. Created by a woman named Vill-V in the Previous Era, but never fully completed, out of fear of the potential power and destruction he could bring upon humanity, the Void Archives was sealed away. Over 50,000 years later, a boy named Otto Apocalypse would unseal the Divine Key, as the gears of fate turned. 500 years sealed within Otto's mind made the man rub off on the Divine Key, but in the end, Void Archives finally gained freedom in a body of his own-- a clone of Otto made out of the nanotech metal soulium. With an undying body and an undying mind, Void Archives sought out a certain Welt Yang for his own plots. Various things happened, eventually leading to Void Archives and Welt Yang drifting through the universe, where they were eventually picked up by Himeko on the Astral Express. Now though, it's been a very long time since he had stepped off.

Interpretation subject to change depending on new released content.

A mysterious interstellar merchant, who seems to know more than he lets on. The most eye-catching thing about him is the ornate white casket he carries around with him. Although he is gentlemanly and calm, glad to respond to questions and conversation, people often walk away not realizing that they don't actually know much about him at all.