Today In Misery

Lot 47

I've began to notice that most people keep track of when Colem Arth dies somewhere. When I asked why, they turned me to the dark science majors who live in Aspen Ward.

The dark scientists have discovered a weird side effect to Colem's curse. When he dies 4 times in a single place, nothing else can die in that place. They have extra stipulations, such as:

Dying 2 feet away from the location of the first death counts as dying there

The effect covers a maximum of 2 acres

The effect doesn't prevent woundings, unless the wound in and of itself would prove fatal.

Though they aren't prevented, wounds are meaningless. Fingers can be reattached, and cuts close immediately. The wounds are only permanent if they are still there when the victim leaves said area, upon which normal healing resumes.

This has only happened three times. The first place is, obviously, Colem Arth's house. They say he uses it as a safety zone when he gets sick of the whole dying thing, and that sometimes when he's absent he's just hiding at home to avoid getting hit by a truck or something equally terrible.

The second one the dark scientists refuse to tell me about. They gave no reason why.

The third site is the most well known location and the site where the 2 acre rule was discovered.

This is site is called Lot 47.

Lot 47 is a vacant field outside of Marcus Ward that was supposed to be a new shopping centre to attract tourists, but lost it's funding at the last moment. Now it's over grown, reclaimed by the woods and littered with random steel pipes and piles of cinder blocks.

Kids use it for LARPing.

"What? That can't be right." I wasn't sure I heard the dark scientists correctly.

But they confirmed it. The day before the weekend, starting from right when school ends to when the sun sets, ayone from fhe sixth grade and below uses the Lot as the site of war games and intense LARPs. Since the plants there never die and are also subject to the healing rule, they don't have to worry about set up and clean up only involves reattaching severed limbs, which is why its so popular, or so the dark scientists claim.

(A few even admit to having played there when they were at MSAA, and that the only reason the sunset rule exists is because Demon Collectives like to stalk the Lot at night.)

Still sensing my disbelief, the dark scientists told me that there was Capture the Flag scheduled the coming weekend, and told me to be there and I would see. They refused to answer my questions about why Colem was at Lot 47 enough times for it to be a "No-Kill Zone" or what even causes the effect. I was left with more questions than answers.

Instead, I simply went to Lot 47 the day of Capture the Flag.

They brought actual weapons. Sharpened swords, axes, pocket knives, one kid brought a bow and arrows without practice tips. No one was allowed to unsheathe their weapons until they passed a (presumably) stolen street sign with '47' spray painted on it. They quickly broke up into teams and ran into the Lot. A few moments later, an airhorn broke the silence, and the games began.

I simply wandered around the Lot, observing. The kids did hack each other to pieces....sort of. Cuts didn't bleed. Limbs fell off, and the person who lost it would just groan or give their attacker a stink eye and pick up the limb, then run away. One sixth grader got his head cut off. His attacker helped him fix it on, the previously beheaded kid simply said thanks, then ran away.

The bow and arrow kid shot me by mistake. It hit me in the thigh, and I cried out from shock. But....I didn't feel it. There was no pain or anything. I could feel it wiggling around inside of me, but it was more like having a finger pressed really hard on my thigh than being stabbed. The kid ran up, said "You aren't playing right?" And asked for his arrow back. I pulled it out no problem, and there was no blood on it. I checked my thigh, and there was no wound. All the damage it did was saved for my jeans. The kid gave me a quick sorry and ran off to rejoin the fight.

As promised, the end of the game was signaled by another airhorn when the sun began to set. At this point I was hanging closer to the edge to avois getting accidentally maimed again, but as the airhorn went off, I noticed a few figures beginning to approach. Shadowy, indescript figures with a bunch of red dots across their form, slowly approaching the Lot....

I got pulled away by a larger sixth grader who said we had to go "NOW". He pulled me away, back towards where the kids had entered the Lot, and I could still feel the shadows watching us leave....

The coming school day I asked Mr. Lingua the talking aardvark about Lot 47. He kind of shrugged and said "No ones getting hurt." Which I guess is sort of right....

The older adults in town seem to want to forget about Lot 47 in general....

"This isn't magic. This is the dark science--it's perfectly quantifiable.

....It's mostly quantifiable."

~Said by a cheerleader to a goth girl on how to summon a star god for their sociology project

Today in Misery

As school ended and all of the students left their respective buildings, a murder of crows descended and swarmed around a random student, carrying her away. No one seemed to register what was happening, even as she struggled and and kicked and screamed for help.

When I asked Julia what the fuck just happened, she informed me "That's just Margo. This happens every day."

I AM NOT WHAT YOU THINK I AM. -CB

A PSA

All bathroom cabinets in Marcus Ward will be leaking black sludge from 2am to 6pm. Do not look at the sludge. Do not interact the sludge. We know that it smells bad. But there are dire consequences for those who ignore our instructions. The sludge will be gone at the scheduled time.

Another billboard has come to life and is currently on the loose. This billboard has been dubbed with the name Kyle, and exhibits an ability to change the poster displayed on its face at will. It was last seen with a "Tchivsky's Levitation Night" poster in Avery Ward. Report any signs of movement.

The Underground Tunnels are closed for repair. It is recommended that you learn teleportation, or learn the Old Crow Song until the Tunnels reopen.

--Taken from the community billboard in the Rec Center. There are no Underground Tunnels...right?

The Town Called Misery 2

Now....let me tell you about where I live.

I live in the Avery Ward, to the South East of Misery. It's...a trailer park. The neighborhood comprises of mobile homes, abandoned metal barns, and ruined or half built gas stations and strip malls, of which only three are functional. The sky in the Avery District was a muted grey [a deviation of the perpetual white sky in Misery, instead of the normal blue]. The neighborhood was dreary...but it was also full of -life-. The people here were happy, there was almost no crime, and the community here was much closer to each other than in the other wards.

My neighbors include Oisin, who lives in the shed next to our trailer. He always wears a skirt, and gives really bad life advice. The Sisters of Clemency live next to him; they're all nuns from the Houses of Ten (there are 8 of them; the other two live in their temples, as their doctrine dictates). All of them are super nice, and only Charity, who follows Astros, tries to convert me.

Behind us lives Anthony and Aiseline. They're a couple in their mid 60s who, despite mirroring each other, aren't related but are married. They claim to be able to speak to vehicles, but say that lawn mowers and pogo sticks can't talk and aren't alive.

Next to them lives Whistle. Whistle is pretty ordinary looking, but is also very open about his profession in the buying and selling of drugs. The police keep catching him, but he always gets out within a few hours. How? He won't tell me; he just winks, then takes a hit of whatever he bought.

The crown jewel of my neighbors, though, is a boy by the name of Micah Prince. He's a junior at MSAA, and his brother Enos is a sixth grader. Micah Prince is infamous; what for, though, no one will tell me. When prompted, they ask me if I know "What the Blood Parade is"; when I told them that I didn't, they immediately clammed up. I would have asked him myself, but every time the thought crossed my mind, I would freeze, or the hair on my arms would rise. -This is a very bad idea-, my body would tell me. And so, even though he was in five of my classes, I never said a word to him.

Of note, though, there is one other person in his trailer other than his mom and his brother. A meek, small girl who was about my age; she seemed familiar, but I didn't know why...

"Mommy, why does that boy keep dying?"

"I think it's more of an accident than a statement now."

~After Colem got struck by lightning

"The red skull favours those who consort with beasts and corpses."

~Told to me by a flagpole with a face

is you dead misery?

((Not dead. Just busy))

The Mists of Misery

Misery was built somewhere on the Northern Rock Coast [not on the Horn, but close], and has two beaches--the aptly named Rock Coast to the west, which despite consisting of broken and shattered stones, remains evermore popular than the Sand Coast to the south. And maybe the town's proximity to the ocean can explain away the daily presence of the all consuming mists...but that doesn't explain its, dare I say, predatory behavior.

In Misery, every night from sunset to approximately six in the morning, pure white mist blossoms from the center of the town and engulfs everything. My neighbors claim that the mists are searching for something, but exactly what, they aren't sure.

My first night in Misery, I watched the mists' approach. It did not float, or hover, or even roll over the dimly lit streets. No, these mists slithered; they snaked over the asphalt and concrete, prowling, -watching-. As I stared, I could tell that the mists weren't vapours. They were....ethereal. The mists were barely real--they were like an optical illusion, or as if something flat suddenly decided it didn't want to be anymore, and actively fought to become 3 dimensional.

As I watched, a sharp pain grew in the back of my head. I couldn't tear my eyes away from them--my mind was trying to cope with the fact that this thing that defied the laws of physics sat before my very eyes. And as I stared, I felt something, deep within the mists, stare back.

I ran away that night, and only watched the mists from the safety of my room. But I wasn't safe; as long as those mists were there, no one was safe.

No one spoke of the mists. None of my teachers would talk about it; the library didn't have an in depth study on them. They were simply a fact of life--the mists had been here since when Misery was just a small collection of hamlets, and probably before then.

No one would explain why the mists came from the center of town, which happened to be the center of Misery's School of All Ages courtyard, instead of rolling in from the oceans. And no one would explain how they both had and lacked substance at the same time. And their eyes averted when I asked about the watching, and the hunting. They winced when I compared the mists to a predator in wait.

The message was clear.

No one talked about the mists.