(no subject)

[silentspringmods]

Memory Bleeds


This is a repository for all of the townspeople's memories that characters in the game have had the opportunity to encounter. They may have experienced some, all, or none of these—it's all up to the player and how they choose to engage with the events.

January 2024
At 12:00 on the dot, New Year's Eve, 1961:
CWs: Flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

February 2024
CW: non-graphic depiction of woman in labor

When characters go to sleep on the night of the 15th, the edges of the town again begin to merge with their unconscious minds as they did on New Year's Eve, a sequence of fragmented images: a beautiful young woman’s face contorts in agony, the bindi above the bridge of her nose crumpling between tight brows as she pants through bared teeth, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. Two older women, both with salt-and-pepper hair, stand on either side of her in an urban hospital room, rubbing her back as it jerks with her weeping. The roots of her hair are drenched with sweat; tears stream around the hand of her mother-in-law as it rests on her flushed cheek. A young woman with hair tucked under a scrub cap leans over one of her elders and says something to the soon-to-be mother.

Two occupied pairs of loafers face each other on a glossy tiled floor. A woman’s voice echoes over a speaker: Now boarding, Flight 17501, DCA to LaGuardia. First-Class passengers on Flight 17501 from DCA to LaGuardia may now board. The same hand that wound into the telephone cord reaches out and shakes a broader one several shades darker, decorated with a proportionally heavy chain-link watch.

“Professor.
My congratulations to your daughter.”

*

A few days later, the televisions downstairs crackle to life, playing in black and white a short video. The young woman from the dream stands in front of the camera in what appears to be a walled garden, wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a plain but brightly colored sari flaring out across it sidha pallu style and holding an infant; her thick black hair is now in a long braid tucked to the right, capped off with trendy Sadhana cut bangs. She waves at the camera, then holds up the baby’s wrist as to wave too. The child is small, and young—maybe one month old.

She says something, her brown eyes warming, although of course the soundless film doesn't capture her words. The camera comes closer to the baby, showing her face, giving different angles, then pans out, sweeping across the garden: well-kept, clearly maintained by someone who cares about it quite a bit. Guava and Chinese hibiscus border the brick wall with a well-pruned mango tree standing sentry, and the compound leaves of a young neem tree sway gently in the breeze in the foreground. One of the women from the delivery room, somewhere in her fifties or sixties, steps into the screen to stand beside the new mother, looking into the camera with the same eyes, her own creased at the edges with decades lived.

Be careful. I love you, she mouths in Hindi, although the video has no sound—and characters, even without any prior knowledge, will find that somehow they know the exact content of what was just expressed—and more than that echoes in their minds.

Be careful.
I love you.
Ishani needs her grandfather.

The young woman smiles a little thinly at the the camera as the video comes to an end, her eyes glistening, and says something in parting, again waving and holding up the baby’s hand as though to wave too; the older woman presses a hand to her lips and blows a kiss with a wistful smile that holds a trace of pain—and briefly, characters look at the screen and realize that her face has metamorphosed into that of someone they care very deeply for, holding direct eye contact with them, visible to any other parties in the room. The video ends, leaving them—and, if they’re unlucky, another member of the household—standing in the living room, staring at a blank screen.

March 2024
CWs: sweating, obsessive-compulsive cleaning behavior/paranoia

On the third, in addition to the return of power to the neighborhood, another controlled burn is announced over the radio and close-captioning, and characters are advised to keep their windows shut to keep out “nuisance smoke”—smelling and looking just like it did early last month, carrying faint notes of burning plastic. Characters who have been near a controlled burn or forest fire will note that neither smells like that.

Within about an hour of the smoke drifting in the direction of Haven Street, characters begin to feel a lot hotter under their clothes—even though it’s only 48 degrees outside. Even bare skin feels covered; they sweat, but it’s as though an invisible, unbreathable layer surrounds them, preventing it from evaporating or bringing any cool even once their shirts are soaked through. Even feet sweat, uncomfortably hot; the tops of wellington boots they aren’t wearing brush the tops of their calves every time they take a step.

And characters feel the weight of something: the phantom sensation of metal strapped to their backs, straps digging into their shoulders, thick rubberized material over their bodies, crinkling and pressing into them when they bend even though nothing's there except their nightclothes.

Their thoughts cease to feel entirely their own: characters are struck by a feeling of weariness, looking forward to the end of something, of standing in front of an incredible radiating warmth like a bonfire in any direction they turn. If they shower that night, they may find themselves struck by a feeling that they're not clean, losing themselves in scrubbing at their skin from head to toe for an hour or more, even once the water runs cold.

April 2024
CW: SEMI-GRAPHIC SUICIDE, dead bodies.

For a fleeting moment, before police arrive, characters who have come out in the first few minutes hear a voice: the same man older arrivals heard over the phone on New Year's Eve, hysterical with emotion. "No. No. Fuck! Fuck! Motherfucker! Son of a fucking bitch! Motherfucking son of a fucking bitch! Cowardly fucking son of a bitch! Worthless shiteating Commie bastard!" He lets out a single shout after that, echoing through witnesses' brains, the only sound other than hushed words in the background, inaudible but serious, delivered like order—"Fuck!"—and then the memory takes on sight as he slams a recognizable hand down on the shiny black hood of a car. The skin on the outside of some characters' hands even sears and burns, like they themselves have held the outside of their fist on metal heated by Maryland's late summer sun, leaving something a little more minor than a large oven burn.

His sight eclipses the gore in the middle of the street entirely, until it blots out everything around the characters who see the vision: a middle aged man behind the steering wheel of a car, his head tilted back against his stationwagon's bloody headrest, mouth hanging open, eyes half-lidded and glassy like a supermarket fish, not having even had time for their finite well of tears to evaporate.

"You've killed us," they feel themselves tell the corpse in the same man's voice, now laden with a new, hollow calm, and let out a disbelieving laugh. "You've fucking killed all of us."

And then they're staring at the body of the man in the suit again, their mouths never having opened.

June 2024
CWs: poisoning, dead bodies/death by suicide, graphic/callous discussion of death by suicide.

But those who aren’t so lucky may briefly black out if they breathe the fog long enough, and when that happens, they return to consciousness but not wakefulness, instead finding themselves frozen in place in a chill room, staring at the wrinkled bare soles of a pair of gray-blue feet belonging to the naked body of a man lying motionless on a flat steel table. A cardstock tag, identical to the photocopy found by Bucky Barnes in January, hangs from one big toe.



Characters’ line of sight doesn’t extend much higher than eye level with the cadaver, but they can see enough to register that both parties, standing with the autopsy table between them, are wearing isolation suits like the man who committed suicide in the middle of the street on that sunny April morning, a stark contrast to the vulnerability of the corpse’s nakedness between them. They seem to be completely unaware of the third presence in the room.

When one of them speaks, it’s the all-too-familiar voice of the town private practice doctor, Norman Pollock.

“Nothing. Not a single thing. He’s healthy. An ordinary 56-year-old man who blew his brains out."

There's a long pause. Then comes the voice of the man whose memory of a telephone conversation some characters shared on New Year’s, and again shortly after the man in the isolation suit pulled the trigger: "The motherfucker. They searched his house and his office. Questioned the wife too. Not a damn thing. Nobody knows shit."

July 2024
CWs: flashbacks to combat situations, graphic character death, blood, (censored) use of g slur during Korean War, WWII-typical use of derogatory term for Germans.

Understandably, the fireworks display that was scheduled for the 4th is put off a day, but what characters get in the grassy town square on the night of the 5th is no less grand than what was planned for the previous day. Firefighters pass out sparklers for the kids and families bring picnic baskets and blankets to sit on while they watch the show—it's best to get to the park a little early if you want to be sure to get a good spot!

The fire department sets off fireworks on the little dock at the pond, the first one whistling as it shoots up into the sky and explodes in a blossom of brilliant green shimmer that cascades down like snowflakes and fades out—and then characters lose consciousness, their bodies going limp, minds and bodies overtaken with memories that aren't theirs.

It happens in a second.

Jackson's talking to you, laughing, telling a story about the time he tried to steal some girl's frilly pink brassiere off of the clothesline back home and failed miserably, complete with the family dog tearing his pants. And then he has half a face, and your ears are ringing, and you stand frozen, staring in open-mouthed horror as his body collapses into the mud, his blood running down your neck, your arms, soaking the front of your fatigues, dripping off of your brows into your eyes.

Jacks, you want to scream at the top of your lungs, but you can't make sound. You can't move, even though you know you should be grabbing your gun and guys are hauling ass all around you and returning fire, loading the stovepipes, and you're trying to run through the process you learned in basic, but now it's real, and your first friend here's blood is all over you, and he didn't even get to finish his sentence.

Grab your gun.

You have to grab your gun.

You're going to die if you stand here.

Grab your gun.

"Clark! Get your ass behind that bank before the Krauts blow your head off! Get your ass behind that bank! Medic! MEDIC!"

*

The black expanse of empty air around you is thick and humid as your legs and his hang over the Willys’ back tailgate. At least the smoke trailing up from the cherry of your cigarette keeps the mosquitoes away from your bare arms, you think as you study it, though you’ve obviously still been taking your chloroquine anyways.
Another rocket streaks across the sky beyond the foothills behind camp. The night sky above them, its stars mostly obscured by diffuse smoke, flashes orange.

“That one was close,” he says.

“No closer than the last few.”

“Think the g—s will try something?”

You shrug. “They might. What are you going to do about it?”

“Not finish this beer.”

“Jesus, Walter, finish it, will you? What is it, three ounces left? Like it or not, we have to live here when we’re not on duty, too.” You take a drag off your cigarette and exhale smoke, not as smooth as your Old Golds, before you continue your monologue. “‘Will the g—s do this, will the g—s do that.”

There’s a long silence. Finally the brown hand that isn’t resting on the lip of the tailgate beside yours wraps around the neck of the bottle and the corporal finishes it. There’s a silence after he sets the empty bottle back down, golden light from the lamppost outside of the mess glinting in big dark eyes as he regards you.

At last: “Why’d you enlist, Norm? That’s the one thing I just can’t figure. Most of the doctors here were drafted. Most of the guys, too. And the ones who Uncle Sam didn’t tell to come down here… they’re not like you. You could’ve stayed in Connecticut. Had a real comfortable life. Had daddy buy you out if they did draft you, shit.”

Another barrage of artillery shakes the hills, this time closer and brighter. “Don’t know,” you muse, breaking eye contact to stare back up at the mess of the sky. “What about you? You telling me your life’s dream is to fix jeeps?”

“Yessir. Or some kind of car. I’ve liked taking things apart and puttin’ em back together since I can remember. Used to do surgery on the T.V. remote.”

“Jesus.” An easy silence follows the words, filled by the quiet hum of generators and the pops of distant ordinance. “We’re some pair, Walter from Alabama.”

“Finish your drink, Captain. Shit’s getting brighter. They’re comin’.”

*

“Jesus, Marjorie.” You utter, staring in disbelief at the scene before you, even though it doesn’t materialize in concrete detail. You keep forgetting to blink. “I don’t even know what I can…” She lets out another pitiful, choked sob into the backs of the fingers pressed to her mouth and you reformulate your answer, pivoting. “I can try to…” You raise a hand to your forehead, pressing it into your hairline and pushing a dent into pomaded black hair, and sigh. “Christ, Marge, This is a real mess you’ve created. You have no idea.”

“Yes,” she croaks, staring straight into you with red-rimmed eyes. She doesn’t speak up as much as she needs to in her tearful state, but you can make out the outlines of her words, your mind retroactively filling in the ones you miss based on the context of what follows. “Yes I do. That’s why I’m asking for your help, Dick. Not Norm’s. Not anyone else’s in this town. I came to you. Do you understand? I came to you, Dick. I need you. to help me.”

When characters wake, they feel slightly different—maybe just off in a very generic way, like they’ve awoken from a deep nap. Or maybe they can taste beer and cigarette smoke, or their shoulders feel ten times heavier, their chests tighter.

Maybe they go to wipe the dampness off of their face and their hand comes back with a few brilliant red droplets of someone else's blood smeared across unbroken skin.