Em:
Welcome to BlackwaterDnD, where good friends tell better stories. This series, Afterlight, is a miniseries using Blades in the Dark, and is proudly sponsored by Evil Hat Productions and Bookwyrm Games. As this game falls within a post-apocalyptic horror genre, it may contain themes and depictions that are triggering for some listeners. Please take care of yourself and access safe support as you see fit.

Content warnings for this episode include: complex family dynamics & interpersonal conflict // apocalypse & societal collapse // darkness and shadow // guns as weapons // blood and gore // body horror // violence // grief & loss // death of family members & loved ones // severe injury // needles

So get comfortable, and keep the lights on. Welcome to Afterlight. 

Chapter 4: Leaving a Trail

Si:
You scramble out the rear door of the city library just as the ceiling collapses behind you in a cloud of dust and debris, spilling out and almost chasing after you as you run away and try to get to safety. You clamber over a low fence and down a crumbling set of stairs to get some cover against a wall, and a chance to catch your breath again, and there is a crescendo of noise all around you, like the city is emphatically protesting the commotion, and now that you've made it to the other side of the building you can hear sounds from new directions, echoing in new and unfamiliar ways as the library collapses in on itself. For a moment, it feels like every building is gonna come down around you, and the ground is gonna break apart beneath you as you keep your heads down trying to ride out the storm. And eventually, it passes. The noise and the vibrations subside. The air clears and you take a breath as nightmarish order is restored. At this point you are all at some level of deterioration or injury, but despite that, or maybe because of it, you know you have no choice but to keep going. And as you finally lift your heads to look around, all huddled together against this wall, you see the ominous entrance to the underpass directly ahead of you. A tunnel of pure darkness.

Evlan, you did your best to stagger out the collapsing building, but your head is woozy and you had to let Luce take your weight. It got too much clambering down these steps, and you fell hard to the ground. Danny and Luce were able to act quickly to save your life in the library, but your body is in shock and all strength has left you. Imprinted on your mind is that hellish landscape beyond the mirror, and the inescapable feeling of powerless to avoid it. But amongst the horror, Deckard's voice remains, steady and calming as always. The chest wound Evlan has suffered is serious, and the harm mechanics of the game system are engaged here. The resistance roll you made avoided the absolute worst outcome of a collapsed lung, but I'd like you to mark the chest wound on your character sheet as a severe harm. The consequence of this is that at this moment, you are incapacitated and can't do anything unless you have help from someone else, or you push yourself to perform the action. The pain in your chest has quickly spread to your whole body, and there is now an unbearable tingling sensation in your hands and feet as well. Sounds around you have become muffled, like you are underwater. But all your senses feel overwhelmed by the noise and sheer force of the roiling sky above, erupting in these perpetual cycles of implosion, hitting you in reverberating pulses. You feel connected to it somehow, deep within your chest. And in that muffled quiet in your head, as you sit in that feeling with the hard concrete of the city beneath you and the chaos above, you realize that your heart is beating in time with the dimensional rift. Only every few seconds, synchronized with the pulse. Slow, and deliberate. What do you do?

Amelia:
Who's holding me right now?

Em:
It'll probably be me.

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Just... Leave me.”

Em (as Luce):
“No. Shut up. No”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Hey… It’s too loud.”

Em (as Luce):
“I know… It was always too loud, but... I know. I'm gonna fix you up. 

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I’m sorry.”

Em (as Luce):
“It's okay.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“No, it was stupid.” 

Em (as Luce):
“No…”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“It’s just… Everything feels so real.”

Em (as Luce):
“Well, uh, you are always pretty unreal to me, so, maybe just like hold onto that, okay?”

Amelia (as Evlan): [coughing]
“Okay.”

Em (as Luce):
“Let me see what we're working with here.” 

Em:
And I am going to, like Evlan draped in my lap, I am bleeding from my back, but that is secondary as of right now. I am going to gently pull aside their jacket, and whatever clothing seems to be in the way, and I'm going to take a look at this wound to see if we can pack it, or stitch it, or something, because they have to, we have, I'm not leaving them.

Si:
Evlan’s t-shirt is soaked through with blood, and there is a heavy puncture hole in their chest. The skin is torn, mangled, and it's got that oil smeared on the skin, and on their clothes. It looks bad.

Em (as Luce):
“Do we, um…” 

Em:
I would look to Pen, 

Em (as Luce):
“Do we have any clean bandages at all? And I'm gonna need that alcohol.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, yeah…” 

Gina:
I'm gonna turn and look in my bag, and pull out anything that looks clean. I hand you a pack of, a roll of bandages and a clean t-shirt.

Em (as Luce):
“Okay. I don't know much about medicine. It was never my strong suit. But we can't just sew this. We have to pack it and bind it.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Right, we should also probably look and see if there's anything still in there.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah. Yeah, has anyone got any light? I can take a look.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, um…”

Gina:
Si, what do I- how are my eyes working right now?

Si:
Getting up close to Evlan and Luce, as you're focusing on what's happening, getting the stuff from your bag, studying this wound and the harm and how to deal with it, everything looks as it did close up as when you're focusing on something. It’s pretty much as it was, it's only when you step back a little or look around that things start to seem warped.

Gina:
Okay, okay. I try and I get in as close as I can and I... 

Gina (as Pen):
“Does anyone have a light?”

Sean:
In that last moment before setting the nasty nasty vines on fire, I do believe that Danny gained- filled out his last point of stress.

Si:
Yes, he did. He did, and in Blades in the Dark, when a character reaches the limit of their stress markers, they suffer trauma, which manifests as one of a number of possible trauma conditions potentially affecting that character's behaviour.

Sean:
So, shall we roll to see how Danny's dealing with it all?

Si:
I think we should.

Sean:
I'm gonna roll a d6 in ascending order, and we'll see how Danny's doing. [dice rolling] We got a one, which is paranoid. So, as Danny clicks on his flashlight, we are just out in the open, right?

Si:
Yeah, out in the city, but kind of down in a lower passage, huddled up against a wall for some cover. You've got a little bit of protection from the city, but you can see the sky.

Sean:
Yeah, I think Danny right in this moment is just gonna be keeping his eyes open and just holding the light without speaking.

Em:
As the light clicks on, I take the bandages from Pen and I start to move Evlan's shirt back as much as I can to the front of the wound. Is this wound a through and through, or is it just in the front?

Si:
Just in the front.

Em:
Okay, so I look at this wound, and I'm gonna do my best to see if there is anything that needs removing before I pack this wound and begin to bind them.

Si:
The black oil has got all inside it.

Em:
Yeah, there's not much I can do about that. I don't think cauterizing this will do anything. So I am going to take the alcohol, some of the alcohol that we have, and I'm going to look at Evlan, and I'm going to take the t-shirt and I'm going to pass it up towards their face. 

Em (as Luce):
“Put this in your mouth. This is gonna hurt like hell.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Be honest, Luce, do you think this one's gonna scar?”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, but it's gonna look really cool.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
Evlan nods and just, I put the t-shirt, bite down as best as I can, all things considered.

Em:
I'm gonna pour alcohol on the wound. And as Evlan grits through that, I am going to take a clean portion of the shirt, and I'm sure there's like shears or, cause I don't want to use my knife on this shirt that I'm going to be putting on an open wound. And I cut a portion of the t-shirt that will fit. And I pack the wound as best I can, and take the remainder of the t-shirt, and I press it down as possible, and you see once that's packed, put Evlan's hands over top to hold it down and you see Luce reach under their shirt, and you hear their hands fiddling with something, and a like, a long compression wrap is like unwound from around her chest. Breast binding has always been the best way, because you never know when and how you're going to need to move, and it's just the easiest. And I take that compression bandage and I wrap it as tight as possible around Evlan's shoulder and their side, and secure it in place.

Em (as Luce):
“I think that's as good as I can get it.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Mmhmm.”

Em (as Luce):
“It's gonna have to do for now until we get you back.”

Amelia:
Evlan just… The hand that's not folded in between the two of you, press it on your cheek, covered in their own blood, and just kind of looks at you for a moment. Then leans forward, says, 

Amelia (as Evlan): [strained]
“All right, this has been fun. We've got a spooky tunnel to descend into, so if it's all right, I'd rather not take the lead right now.”

Em (as Luce):
“Can you still fire?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah!” 

Amelia:
Evlan, kind of hands shaking,

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Just give me a minute. I'll get there.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Pen, you wanna give Evlan a hand, and then Luce and I will take point?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, yeah, I can do that. Yeah.”

Gina:
And I move over to Evlan, and I kind of look between them and Luce.

Gina (as Pen):
“Where do you want me to… Can I?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah, if you come to this side, where there's not the stab wound, yeah.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay. Right, right.” 

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah.”

Gina:
And I awkwardly move over to your side and then put an arm around you, under you, to hold you up.

Amelia:
Evlan slumps their other arm around her shoulder and stumbles to their feet as you rise.

Gina:
And I reached into my bag and I pulled out my little stuffed frog.

Gina (as Pen):
“It's a little wet, but, it still helps.” 

Gina:
And I hand it to you.

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah, fuck it.” 

Amelia:
And I take the frog.

Em:
I look to Danny.

Em (as Luce):
“You got a steady hand on that flashlight there, Danny?”

Sean (as Danny):
“Yes I do. Ah, you, um,”

Sean:
And this is just us, as we have just separated a little bit and we are sort of scoping out this here tunnel.

Sean (as Danny):
“You heard Evlan. They were real quick to tell us to leave them. I don't think they came here to come back.” 


Em (as Luce):
“What are you saying, Danny?”

Sean (as Danny):
“They've been real funny. I think we gotta keep an eye on them. They've been acting real weird this entire time. I think they want to be out here, and I don't know what that means.”

Em (as Luce):
“Okay. Well…”

Em:
I think Luce at this moment clocks that Danny's usually steady demeanour has shifted a little bit, but probably doesn't have a full sense of what's going on, and is still reeling from the giant slash wound on their back that has not been attended to at this point, that they are desperately trying to ignore.

Em (as Luce):
“Let's just keep our eyes forward. Pen's got Evlan. I got your back. You got mine. Okay?”

Sean (as Danny):
“Okay…”

Sean:
And Danny will just look back to everyone as we start heading towards this tunnel, and he's just gonna say,

Sean (as Danny):
“Anything that happens in there is bad. We hear anyone who's not us, it's this fucking place. It's just us out here. Agreed?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Agreed.”

Em (as Luce):
“We should also keep an eye out for Francis. If we see any sign of him or anything that's left of him. We've seen Miles and Henry.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Yeah, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah.”

Si:
Luce, you ignored it when you first saw it, but as Danny's flashlight hit you when you were patching up Evlan, you noticed your hand is bleeding again. Most of the stitches have come loose, and blood is dripping down and as Pen helps Evlan up and you just have that moment to glance down at the damage you, you notice something else. The veins in the back of your hand have darkened, blackened underneath the skin. And you turn your hand over to see dark veins across your palm, on your wrist and up your forearm, a spidery network of lines that makes it look foreign to you. And the skin around the wound has also darkened, it looks grey and necrotic and it's, it's not just blood dripping from it now. The dark grey liquid oozes from the wound and drips onto the floor. And it doesn't hurt anymore. In fact, you can't feel your hand at all anymore. And it's enough to distract you for a few moments before your brain reminds you just how bad your back hurts. You can't see it, but you know you were cut very badly. And you look back to see, you've left a large smear of blood against the wall while you were resting. 

Em (as Luce):
“Fuck.”

Si:
In that moment where you rushed in to save Evlan, you knew that cutting them free would lead to a frenzied violent reaction, and that Evlan would be at risk of being wounded even further. So you put yourself in the way, using your body to protect them. And the cuts and lacerations to your body at this stage are significant, and you'll need to mark them as a harm. The wounds will impair you to such an extent that you will subtract 1d6 from every action roll you make, or you may choose to make a resistance roll to lessen the extent of the harm.

Em:
I think in that moment, I realize I can't feel my hand. And that's my trigger hand, and I tell myself that I can't fire a gun with that hand anymore, because if I can't feel it, I can't control it. So I'm going to have to fire left. And if this is progressing, my back is gonna do the same thing, and I can't let that happen. I think it's in this moment, and after Danny says that about Evlan, that Evlan doesn't plan to make it out of here, Luce realizes that she didn't either. And this confirms it. There's no way that they'd ever let me back inside with this. So, Luce says nothing. You finish the job. You go forward. We find Francis' dog tags. We turn on the breaker. I get them as far as I can. And that's it. So yeah, I'm gonna make that resistance roll. 

Si:
And before you do that, could you also remind us how many stress markers you currently have?

Em:
Okay. So in making this physical resistance roll, I have three dice that I can roll. And I am currently at… Eight, of nine stress.

Si:
Which means that anything less than a six is your highest roll, it means that Luce has also reached the limit of her stress, and will suffer trauma as a result.

Em:
Here goes nothing. [dice rolling] The highest one is a five. So I take one stress, putting me in a trauma condition. Oh, man. So as I push myself to resist this and keep going, I think the physical stays steady, but Luce has always prided herself on not just how quick her body is, but how quick her mind is. And I think something shifts and snaps very briefly, and I think it's primarily because she can't feel her hand, and Luce has always prided herself on being in control. And she is not in control right now, but can't let anyone see it, so I too am going to roll for a trauma condition.

Si:
Luce knows that she has to keep going and keep helping to drag this group towards your objective, but with every wound you feel that getting harder. Everything is getting harder, and you've always felt capable, and you draw so much confidence from that. But, what happens when you become the burden? Or the one that needs help?

Em:
There's a reason the back of my jacket says Luce Cannon. I think maybe it's the desire for some form of blissful ignorance to just how much pain I'm in. And with that comes a lack of considering consequences, and I take on the trauma condition of reckless. As I think that manifests as I gather myself together, I think I kind of slough my jacket as much as I can to cover the wound. I pull the sweater underneath over my hand so nobody sees. I switch the gun to my left hand, knowing I'm not a lefty, but we're just gonna have to make do with it, and I barrage forward. And I begin to walk boldly forward into the dark.

Si:
Ahead of you all is the underpass. A tunnel of brutal concrete leading away, into deeper and deeper darkness. So dark you cannot see the other side of it. This is the first time you have been faced with pitch black out here before. You can make out deep cracks in the concrete walls and pillars, cutting through old graffiti that ignites just enough of a memory of the world you once knew, to make the reminder that it is fully gone all the more painful. On the ground leading into that darkness are dried bloody footprints. And following them, you see there is a devastatingly large patch of dried blood nearby where the footprints start. And you can see other smear marks on the wall a little further along. There's no sign of black oil, no sign of scrape marks on the ground, no spent bullet casings, but definitely signs that people came through here. People that were badly injured, and losing a lot of blood. Pen, as you take Evlan's weight and help them to move, slowly and cautiously, there's an itchiness to your eyes. They feel dry and irritated. And you start to think about what Luce said inside, that you shouldn't look at your reflection for a while. And somehow that's almost as scary as the monsters out here in the world trying to kill you. It feels like all of these things are happening around you and to you, and you have no control over it. And you know, Luce and Evlan are tough, but they are both badly hurt. And there's only so much of this you can all take. In the pitch black of the underpass ahead of you, you can see a faint glow on the ground, only just noticeable. In fact there are patches of it, in clusters. Small pockets of ethereal light, dim and muted, leading away into the dark as far as you can see.

Gina:
I try to get a better look at it. 

Gina (as Pen):
“Do you, do you see that?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“See what?”

Gina (as Pen):
“On the ground. It's glowing.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I really can't see anything. What does it look like? It's glowing?”

Gina:
I squint a little. 

Gina (as Pen):
“It's like… Patches of something. It's glowing!”

Gina:
I point.

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Where?”

Gina (as Pen):
“You don't see that?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“How close is it?”

Gina:
Are we getting close to it, Si?

Si:
Yeah, it starts just a few meters away and stretches as far as you can see into the dark. 

Amelia (as Evlan):
“It's real dark and I've got a migraine like you would not believe so... It's not really... You know.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Right. Right, it's probably, um, it's mushrooms or something.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Mhmm.”

Si:
Pen, as you let your eyes focus on this strange occurrence ahead of you, you begin to notice a kind of movement in the air. Visible ripples like forces moving through the space had created waves that you can now see, even amongst the darkest shadows.

Gina (as Pen):
“Stop, stop.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“You okay?”

Gina:
I call out to the others. 

Gina (as Pen):
“Everybody stop moving.”

Sean (as Danny):
“What is it?”

Gina (as Pen):
“There's something in... Please tell me you can see the glowing patches on the ground? There's something moving in the air. I can see it.”

Em (as Luce):
“I can't see it, Pen.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Oh, shit…”

Sean (as Danny):
“We keep going. We just keep going. This tunnel will end, and then there's the hotel. We just keep going.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay. Okay.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Look, I know things are weird and bad, but we have no idea what's going on here. So don't read into anything. Whatever you can see that anyone else can see, it doesn't mean more than that. It's okay.”

Gina (as Pen):
“You're probably right.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“And hey, if it means something else, we'll figure that out.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah. Is the frog helping?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“The frog is- do you want the frog back?”

Gina (as Pen):
“No, no, it's yours, it's-”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“No, think, I mean,” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Ah, no!”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I think it does more… I've got, hey, I'm holding on to you, so, you can have something to hold on to, too.”

Gina (as Pen):
“We can share it.”

Si:
Pen, you glance over your shoulder to look at the others, and notice more of these ripples in the air, like delicate wisps of displaced pressure, like imprints, but in bigger clusters. And you trace it through the space, and you can see they start at what was the exit to the library, and move all the way to where you stand now.

Gina:
So it looks more like a, like an air current, than something moving? 

Si:
Yeah.

Gina:
Does it look thicker behind us than it does in front of us?

Si:
Yes.

Gina:
So it looks like… Oh this… 

Gina (as Pen):
“I think I know what it is!”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Hmm?”

Gina:
And I look around in the air, tracing the... 

Gina (as Pen):
“It's a tr- it's a trail.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“A trail?”

Gina (as Pen):
“It’s a trail! Oh, no… It’s…”

Gina:
And I turn, sort of turning Evlan's body with me carefully to face back the way that we came.

Gina (as Pen):
“The things that I can see, it's like this glowing, it’s like this glowing matter. It's coming from us.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Like a wake in a pond. Like we're, as we move through it, it's following behind?”

Gina (as Pen):
“No, like it's coming from us. Like we're leaving it behind like slugs.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Like ripples.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Like something we can track.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Like something, something else can track.”

Gina (as Pen):
“And I can see it ahead of us, but it's not as dark, it's not as thick, it’s... Like someone left it a while ago, yeah.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Maybe from the others.”

Em:
Can we hear them having this conversation, Si?

Si:
Yeah, you're all close enough.

Gina:
I'm not saying it quietly.

Em:
Okay.

Amelia (as Evlan):
“And, well, if we follow it, it either takes us closer to the power plant or to the same thing that stopped the group that came before.”

Gina:
Can I see, Si, is there any, can I differentiate any of these trails from any of us? Do any of ours look thicker or different than the others, specifically Danny's? ‘Cause he's the only one that hasn't been injured by this thing yet.

Si:
I don’t think you do. No, you don't notice any difference in the patterns you can see, but they're all clustered together, as you've kind of moved through the same space, and they're just kind of wisps.

Gina:
Right, okay.

Gina (as Pen):
“I think we're moving in the right direction.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Good, good.’

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I don't have a lot of backtracking in me, so…”

Sean (as Danny):
“Whatever these glowing lights are, I want you to focus on the light of my flashlight. That's real. That's what matters. We keep moving forward. All right? 

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, yeah.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Yeah.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Mhmm.”

Sean (as Danny):
“That's right. All right, come on now.”

Em:
Luce would be walking probably five or six steps, no, five steps in front of Danny, staying on the edge of the corona of the light, and would kind of stop for a second, and looks behind to where Pen is seeing all of this come from, and just having to trust her that this is what she's seeing.

Em (as Luce):
“This world is taking stuff from us. It's part of our lives leaving, being left behind. It's essence, it's… It's our wake in this world. We follow this, we'll find Francis.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I hope so.”

Em (as Luce):
“Evlan always knew more about this than I did. Right?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah, well, we're... Apparently I don't know shit, so…”

Em (as Luce):
“Ah, don't undersell yourself.”

Em:
And Luce keeps moving. Because I think if she stops… It's gonna hurt too much.

Si:
You all move forward, taking care not to be too loud. The city creaks and groans around you, including the occasional sound of bits of concrete crumbling from the underpass itself. The darkening shadows of the tunnel are ominous and oppressively heavy. And while there is noise echoing around the city above you, there is silence in the underpass, a vacuum of light and sound, and on the ground just before it gets too dark to see, the messy patches of dried blood and footprints just separate enough to become clear. And I think you can all recognize that you really only see two sets of footprints going in. Step by step, you get further and further in. Danny, the screech that rang out from the creature beyond the portal when you set it on fire was like nails on a chalkboard, an unmitigated explosion of primal sound. And the violence of those tentacles flailing around the room as they burned was like a tornado. It's a miracle that you weren't hit. But, right beside you, Luce was not so lucky. And as you followed her, dragging Evlan out of the room and out of the library, you also followed the heavy trail of blood they both left in their wake. Somehow, again, you are unscathed by the frantic violence around you while others cannot escape it. And with every blink, you see Henry's eyes looking up at you, glistening the deepest black. And you hear his final gurgled breaths in your head, over and over. And as you move into this tunnel, and the dark begins to surround you, you can see the light of the flashlight is dimming and fading, like it doesn't have the power to overcome the shadow.

Sean:
This isn't simply the batteries are dying, this is something else, right?

Si:
This is something else.

Sean (as Danny):
“Luce, just hold up a step give me two seconds here…” 

Sean:
Uh, and Danny is going to reach into his backpack, he's gonna pull out that WD-40, whatever's left of that, he's gonna take out that uh, that big ol' crowbar that he's got, and uh, I think he's gonna take his over shirt, wrap it around the crowbar, douse it in the WD-40, and make himself a little torch. 

Sean (as Danny):
“It's just getting a little dark for my liking, I figure, if these things don't like being burned, then maybe, maybe they don't like the fire either.” 

Sean:
And I'm gonna light it up and hopefully that'll beat back the dark just a little bit better.

Si:
The fabric catches and the flames spread across it quickly, casting this orange glow over all of you and just a short distance ahead of you in the tunnel. And you've moved forward so far at this point that you are fully engulfed by the darkness. It feels thick, so thick you can almost feel it weighing on your shoulders and slowing your movement. This lit torch that Danny has put together, it lets you see a few steps in front of you, at most, but… It's like the darkness here is darker than anything that you've experienced before. A darkness that's menacing and overwhelming, it feels like the air has been taken from it, starving you of oxygen. Even turning back to see where you've just come from, you see nothing. There's now no light in the distance, no hint of a world beyond the shadow around you. It is just the four of you and the darkness. But Pen, you have something to guide you, something to follow. Like breadcrumbs on a woodland trail, you see these traces on the ground, faint flickers of light, like scattered embers from a fireplace. So you know you're moving in the right direction. And you slowly move forward, not knowing for sure if there's something in here waiting for you, ready to pounce when you are at your most vulnerable. The further you go, the more it feels like you're going deeper and deeper into the depths of some endless infinite space, and the silence is becoming heavier, somehow more silent, until you can hear your heartbeats. Until you can hear the blood pumping in your heads and around your bodies, and the creaking and scraping of your joints as they move. It becomes hard to balance without those audio cues you are used to, and it forces you to move even slower. Whatever pretense you had that you might have any control in this situation slowly peels away the deeper into the dark you go, and you cannot help but be swallowed up by the darkest of thoughts as your mind turns inward on itself. Fear. Anger. Hopelessness. Resentment. The tunnel feels endless. Where do your thoughts turn?

Sean:
I think, in this moment for Danny, he just has this feeling that he is alone in this tunnel. That the people he is with can't be trusted, and that by him agreeing to go on this mission with them, that he has thrown his life away, but he's in this deep. He can't turn back. But they're talking about glowing lights, and talking to mirrors, and talking about how the world is taking things, when there's only the job. He really didn't want to be alone on this mission, but in this moment he very much is.

Em:
Luce has always been someone who relished control. It's the way they've lived most of their life. First by necessity, and then by choice. Setting up their life in so many different ways that the control always fell in their hands, because if you're the one in control, you can leave before people hurt you. You set the tone for how the conversation is going to go, so nobody ever gets to jump on you, nobody ever pulls the rug out from underneath you, nobody abandons you, nobody leaves you. She's the one that does the leaving. There is no desire in Luce's mind to leave at this point, but there is a frantic grasping for a control that just isn't there. She's hurt. Her sister is here. If she doesn't find these fucking dog tags, who knows what they'll do to Joyce? The situation is so far out of Luce's control, it is outside of anything that she has crafted for herself so meticulously for the last, what, ten years? That's why it was fine. Well, not fine, but why it wasn't… As awful as it had been for a lot of people when the world went to shit. Because it was so easy for Luce to establish relationships and jobs and work. That was all under her control. And this is not in her control. It's slipping away so fast. And there's almost nothing she can do to get it back.

Amelia:
Evlan spends a lot of their time, in general, going to pretty dark places in their mind. I think at this point, thinking about Deckard in, uh… I think at this point, thinking about Deckard dying is kind of like, like, doesn't even really… It bothers them, but they've replayed that moment time and time again, wishing that maybe they had done something else, it had turned out different, that Deckard had lived. It feels like a routine, kind of a performance of guilt, and of course that notion in itself makes them feel worse. That the worst thing to ever happen to them could be trivialized even if it's just in their own mind, just from exhaustion of having to work up the pain every time. And then when that subsides, it takes a moment or a minute. They really think about the noise, what they felt when they're out here, the just roiling static in their mind, the pain in their chest, each heaving breath and lumbering heartbeat, now in the silence of darkness, that much more oppressive. And the worst thing is, they are terrified that they're just going to die out here like everybody else that did, that nothing that they felt or experienced… It being real only hurts because it means that just like every moment of their life before it all went to shit, before the world turned bad, when they were just like every other person, that was bearable, but the idea that this could be real, and it could be something, and they could have a connection that they've never felt, despite desperately wanting to and desperately pretending like they didn't give a shit about anything that happened in the world. That being true, and then them just dying from, just what? A chest wound? That is painful. And they're not sure if it's worse, if the vision of Deckard they saw was actually him or not. Because they know it shouldn't be, and they're telling themselves that it isn't, and everything in this world seems to be based on lies. And they know that. But they don't feel it. And Evlan's just worried that that makes them just as much of a... They should be smarter than falling for it. But they're not.

Gina:
Pen has always prided herself on being fine. She's always the one to be okay. And if she wasn't okay, just tell herself she's okay. If you say something enough, you can make it true. If you believe something enough, it will be true. She spent so much, so much time telling everyone her sister's her best friend. They love each other, even through the distance. ‘How's school? Great. How's your family? They're doing fine. How's your sister? She's my best friend. How are you? Happy.’ Much like her sister, she has always wanted that control of what is true, and here, now she's realizing that all of that… Was a lie. And she feels Evlan slow their step, just for a moment as they're walking. And she realizes, ‘What am I doing here? We're gonna die here. I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die here, and she's gonna die here, and it will have meant nothing. It'll meant nothing.’ And her breath starts to quicken, and the edges of her vision start to darken even more, and little motes of black start to float across her vision. And she feels this shift. This deadening shift in the back of her mind like a pillow over a vent, a muffling of everything. And it's not a calmness, but it is a familiar numbness, that starts to creep back in. And she sees herself floating above it all like a bird, and she's been here before, this she's good at. This she knows, locking away of that fear, the ignoring of the weight. If you say it, it can be, if you believe it enough in that moment, it can be true. ‘This is fine. I'm fine. We're going to be fine. Everyone's gonna be okay. Things are scary. But we've got guns. We know what to look out for. There is something in this world that only I can do, and that is why I'm here. It’s gonna be okay.’

Si:
At the other end of the underpass, you regain your vision as the thick shadows surrounding you drop away, returning you to the monochrome, gloomy grey of the city. To your right is your next checkpoint. A climbing road leads up to the Greenwood Hotel entrance, with a path flanked by what used to be perfectly manicured shrubs and flowers but are now lifeless, bare roots and spiked dead branches. And can make out a few drops of dried blood as you go, on the floor, also heading in this direction. The road outside the hotel has a huge crack in the concrete, like an earthquake has broken it apart, leaving a gaping chasm that disappears into nothingness. Above you the hotel towers high into the nightmarish sky above. Its facade crumbling and scarred from structural damage, and immense scrape marks that you are now starting to realise were probably caused by a monstrous creature clambering across it. Chunks of fallen debris have left half a dozen craters around you that you have to step around, where bits of wall have plummeted to the ground from above. And looking up, you see that all of the glass in the hotel windows is that strange, cloudy grey, opaque and goopy and thick dark clouds of particles drift up and down its front, almost probing. Searching. At the very top of this tall building, the top two or three floors look a little blurry to you, almost at a strange angle, as if refracted by an unseen filter. As the city continues to make its noises around you, and in the distance, you make your way towards it. And getting closer you see the automatic doors at the entrance to the building must have been powered off, part way open. There's just enough space for you to squeeze in one by one. And a dramatic, bloody smeared handprint marks the white of the door next to the opening. What do you do?

Em:
I think Luce would be the first one through that door. Whether there's light or otherwise. That boldness, that recklessness, not caring if she bashed into the door on the way in, we've already made enough noise, so… Might as well throw a party on the way in.

Gina:
think before Luce moves all the way through the door, if I can, I'd like to just kind of put my hand on her arm somewhere that I can hold her back, just for a second and say, 

Gina (as Pen):
“Hey, when we get inside, I really want to take a look at your back.”

Em:
It's jarring, I think, the way her head snaps back towards you. 

Em (as Luce):
“It's fine, Pen, it's fine. Right? Don't worry about it. There's other things.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I'm sure it's fine, but I, can I just take a look at it to make sure that it's fine?”

Em (as Luce):
“Uh, yeah, I mean if we're not getting fucking jumped on by something, yeah yeah, yeah i'm sure it's okay.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, yeah, I just want to take a look really quick when we get inside.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, okay, yeah, you got it.”

Em:
And then back to task, and Luce would turn ahead and keep going.

Gina:
I’ll turn to Evlan.

Gina (as Pen):
“You think you can squeeze through? Do you want me to try and hold the door open a little bit?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Um… Maybe... Maybe I try and squeeze, you try and push?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay.”

Sean (as Danny):
“I'll help you from this other side. I'll go in first.” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay.”

Sean (as Danny):
“We can sort of sandwich her through.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Mmhm.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Yeah.”

Gina:
I very carefully try and maneuver Evlan through the doors.

Amelia:
I do my best.

Gina:
I guess I'll be the last one, I'll squeeze through too.

Si:
One by one you will make your way in. Luce first. The entrance leads through to a dim, corporate-looking reception, with generic art prints on white walls, grey-patterned carpet and fake decorative plants. A long reception desk sits to the left, and you can see signs to stairs and elevators around the corner. The inside of the hotel is largely preserved, unscathed by the end of the world. But there is a lot of blood on the floor, soaked into the carpet in heavy droplets splattered all over the place, it looks almost black in the gloom. And you follow it to see there's a smear of blood across the top of the reception desk, like someone injured clambered over. And behind the desk, an open door leads to a dark room behind. Pen, as you turn to Luce, as you pause for that moment, and you see her back and the wound. It's a large surface level tear across her skin, a broken line slashed, almost two feet long, diagonally across her back. The cuts has gone straight through the tough fabric of the denim jacket, ripping up much of the embroidery, and you suspect this would have been much, much worse had Luce not been wearing it. But the skin is torn and jagged. You can see the blood is soaked through her clothes. Dripped down to her jeans.

Gina (as Pen):
“How bad does it feel?”

Em (as Luce):
“Uh, I don’t really feel it to be honest. Like it's there and it hurts, but like, I don't really feel it.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay, that's probably the adrenaline.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah. Yeah, sure. Yeah, probably adrenaline.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Um-”

Em (as Luce):
“The jacket helped. So thank you.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, I'm gonna have to fix that when we get back. Shouldn't be too hard. I mean, it'll be good practice for me.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, yeah, it'll need a lot of repair work for sure.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Do you want me to try and stitch up your… It’s just a lot. I can, it just might take a minute.”

Em (as Luce):
“No, they'll pop. Just let it, let it do its thing, I guess. I, um, I don't have another bind, and Evlan's wound is more pressing, so,”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Are you sure you can take the bandages back if you want? A little blood soaked. But that's part of the charm.”

Em (as Luce):
“No. No. No. No. We're good. You take it. I'm okay.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Show off.”

Gina:
Frustratedly, I take my backpack and I slam it on the reception desk. and I just start taking things out. Things that I've packed. 

Gina (as Pen):
“They didn't give us any more bandages, they didn’t give us any, there’s no pills in here, I can probably, I brought another shirt, can, I can tear it-”

Em:
I think I reach over at this point and I put my hand on Pen's arm. And at this point, I'm also not thinking. I'm just trying to calm her worry. And I put the hand that is not my hand, at this point, on her arm. It feels foreign. And I don't clock it until my hand is like a centimeter above her arm, but I do it anyway.

Gina:
My eyes are locked on that hand. 

Em (as Luce):
“Look, Pen,”

Gina (as Pen):
“It’s gotten worse…”

Em (as Luce):
“They didn't give us a machine gun. They could have given us a machine gun.”

Gina:
I pick up your hand as you're talking and I'm looking at it.

Si:
It is ice cold.

Em (as Luce):
“No, don't, don't.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Your stitches popped.”

Em (as Luce):
“Don't worry about it.” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Flex your hand for me.”

Em (as Luce):
“Don't worry about it, Pen. Please don't.”

Gina:
And I look and see the gun in your other hand.

Em (as Luce):
“Just-”

Gina (as Pen):
“You're not going to say anything about that?”

Em (as Luce):
“Look, our job is to go turn on the switch. We're gonna go turn on the switch. If they didn't give us a machine gun, there is a high likelihood they didn't think any of us were gonna make it back, and I'm not saying that we're not going to, but our job is to turn on the switch.”

Gina:
What do her eyes look like, Si?

Si:
Her eyes are clear, except for little spots of black in the corners, like bloodshot, but the blood vessels are dark.

Em:
I see her studying my face and my hand.

Em (as Luce):
“Pen, there's no way they're gonna let me back in after this.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Of course they are.”

Em (as Luce):
“No, they're not. Not in any way that's like my life used to be. If they do let me back in, they'll take me in and start to fucking study me like a science experiment. And I don't want that.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Then they're gonna have to take you back because we're all gonna go back together, and we're all gonna be able to tell them exactly what we saw. And they're gonna listen.”

Em (as Luce):
“They don't care, Pen.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Of course they do.”

Em (as Luce):
“No they don’t.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Pen, we turn on the lights, the whole block comes up. We don't have anything that we can do to help Luce right now, but if we turn on the block, all the scaries run away and we can look for a hospital or something. Everything we need to fix things is where we're going. Do you think you can do that?” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Yes.”

Sean (as Danny):
“You came here to do a job, right? You wanna do that job?” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Yes.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Me too. That way is the park and the facility. That's it. Let's turn on a light, y'all.”

Gina:
Pen just nods. Danny’s never spoken to her like that before.

Em:
Luce clocks it. He's never spoken to anybody like that before, not in Luce's presence. I think she slowly kind of turns her back to Danny, so it's just in a moment of an aside with her sister.

Em (as Luce):
“You are the most caring person that I know. And I know that you would do anything to bring us all back. So we'll try for that. But at the end of the day, that is not the job that we signed up for. Our job is to turn on the power station.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Bringing you back is the job I signed up for. Why do you think…? We're gonna turn on the lights. We're gonna get there and we're all gonna go home.”

Em (as Luce):
“I know you came because you wanted to protect me. I know you came because you love me. And I don't say it enough, but I love you too. I don't say it at all, and I'm sorry for that.” 

Gina (as Pen):
“I’ve always known.”

Em (as Luce):
“Doesn't mean I shouldn't say it more. It's not your fault. All of it. Everything. It's not. And too many people made it your fault. And I'm sorry for that, too.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I’m sorry I wasn't there for you and you needed me to be. I should have been. It can keep being my fault if that means that you come home with me.”

Em (as Luce):
“Shoulds will kill you, Pen. There is no ‘should’ anymore. It’s just ‘can’ and ‘will’ or ‘won't’ and ‘can't’.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I'm not leaving you, so.”

Em (as Luce):
“I know.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I told you we'd be spending more time together. I meant it.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah. I'm grateful for it.”

Gina:
And I sort of wipe at my face a little bit, and I look kind of out of the corner of my eye over to Evlan is probably leaning up against something, and I drop my voice real quiet and I just say...

Gina (as Pen):
“So are you gonna tell Evlan how you feel, or what?”

Em (as Luce):
“The last time I did that, Evlan left.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I don't think they can go very far now.”

Em (as Luce):
“And I'm not about to trap them in something they don't want to be trapped in. They know. But that was a long time ago.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Might be nice to hear, anyway.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, maybe. I'm gonna go check on Evlan, okay?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay.”

Em (as Luce):
“Okay.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Hey, Luce?”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah?”

Gina (as Pen):
“I love you, too.”

Em (as Luce):
“Careful, you might make me go all mushy and nobody wants that. I'm already leaking everywhere, so I probably shouldn’t start crying, right?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Somebody really smart told me that crying is good. Gets all the gunk out.”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, well I don't got black shit in my eyes, so… It's gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay.”

Gina (as Pen):
“One thing at a time, right?”

Em (as Luce):
“One thing at a time.”

Si:
Luce, as you break away from Pen, you glance down at your arm. Without the focus being on it and Pen asking you to flex your hand, just makes you that little bit curious. It is monstrous looking by this point. Your skin has paled to be almost completely white. The veins have darkened underneath. It feels heavier, like the density of the bones inside your forearm and hand has increased. But you still have no sensation, no feeling in your fingers or your palm. The  wound on the back of your hand has almost completely blackened, and as you flex your fingers and make a fist, you see the muscles in your forearm contract and kind of bulge in weird ways, and you feel the extra weight in your arm as they do, and your fingers look like they lengthen slightly. In fact, your whole arm looks like it just gets a little bigger. It feels like something that is no longer you, is attached to your body just below the shoulder. And I would like Luce to take a skill point in wreck, please.

Em: [laughing]
The one thing in prowess I don't yet have a point in. So, it's nice to round out the category. Oh, boy. I think as I desperately try and figure out the limitations and the boundaries of what is mine and what is no longer mine, my feet are betraying me, and I am walking over to Evlan.

Em (as Luce):
“So… If you start feeling like that side of your body is not yours, gotta tell me, okay?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Okay… Are you feeling..?”

Em (as Luce):
“Yeah, so…”

Amelia:
And kind of just look at your arm.

Amelia (as Evlan):
“What does it feel like?”

Em (as Luce):
“Like an anchor. It feels dead. I can't feel it. But it doesn't hurt.”

Amelia:
I reach out and just place my hand gently around her forearm. 

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Nothing?”

Em (as Luce):
“No.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I would ask how you're doing, but I already know.”

Em (as Luce):
“Probably about the same as you.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“You seem to... At least have, general idea where you start and end. I feel very blurry. Kind of have for a long time.”

Em (as Luce):
“Okay. Is there a way I can help make things clearer for you?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I don't think so.”

Em (as Luce):
“Let me know if there is.”

Amelia:
You like, lean in. 

Amelia (as Evlan):
“You know, she's not half as bad as made her out to be.” 

Amelia:
Looking at Pen.

Em (as Luce):
“We all have our monsters in the dark. My family is mine.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Fair enough. Thank you, by the way. I think I actually said it earlier.”

Em (as Luce):
“You're good.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“No, you are good.”

Em (as Luce):
“Well… You know I'd never leave you out here, right?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“That's what I'm worried about.”

Em (as Luce):
“Well, they're not gonna let either of us back in, so.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I'm not leaving you either.”

Em:
If you still have your hand on Luce's arm, it tenses, but it's not her doing it.

Amelia:
Evlan feels the tensing and their hand becomes firm, not squeezing but just bracing against that. And if you don't feel their hand, you can feel the tension. It's like when you're dancing with a partner and both of you press against each other, and for a moment there's like a, a force that's pressing you together and pulling you apart, which I think has always been whatever it is that exists between Evlan and Luce. And Evlan says,

Amelia (as Evlan):
“I mean it. I'm not gonna leave you.” 

Em (as Luce):
“Okay. But if it comes to it, and you have to, I need you to know that I will be having that conversation with you, because she won't be able to hear it.”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Understood.”

Em (as Luce):
“And vice versa, okay?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Okay.”

Em:
And I think I remove my arm out from under Evlan's hand, and I give them a nod and a bit of a smirk, and I go start trying to like, take a moment to redress my wounds or whatever I need to do. I think Luce's had enough social interaction for, enough emotional social interaction for the next twelve years. So, they're going to take a minute and reconvene with themself, I think.

Amelia:
I think as you go away, Evlan is just sort of, kind of sitting up on a table against a wall, just leans their head back and is just trying to tread water in the boiling chaos of their still overstimulated mind.

Si:
Evlan, ever since the library, your heart has been beating slowly. Like just a strange rhythmic pulse, far slower than any normal, natural, healthy heartbeat should. Like something has taken over your chest, but as Luce turns and moves away, you realize that for that moment, it had just briefly sped up. But it begins to slow back down as you return to your thoughts, processing the noise and the reverberations in your head.

Gina:
Watching my sister move over to Evlan to have that conversation, I'm going look back at Danny,  make my way over to where he's standing, sidle up next to him.

Gina (as Pen):
“So did you hear the one about the monster who ate a bunch of houses?”

Sean (as Danny):
“Not yet.”

Gina (as Pen):
“He got really homesick.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Ah… [Pen chuckles] What… What do you see in this room now?”

Gina:
I look at him for another minute before looking around the room. What do I see?

Si:
You see more of the ripples in the air. There's wisps of activity, changes of pressure that enter from the entrance that you came through, and you can see the cluster from the group of you following all of your movements so far in this hotel reception space, but there's one faint ripple that breaks away. You can see the air has shifted above and behind the reception desk, and disappears into the room beyond, and Pen also sees on the floor, more of those faint hazy glowing clusters, just little pockets of light, and here inside this building and inside this room, with a chance to look more closely, you can see that they follow where there are drops of blood on the ground. Traces of a person, and I think looking more closely, I think Pen would also have the realization here that you can only see traces of one person.

Gina (as Pen):
“I can still see the, those trails, ours, I see all of ours. And… It's better lit in here. I can, those patches that I saw in the tunnel there, they match up with drops of blood? But I can only see one, one trail in here that doesn't seem like it's ours. I think only one person made it here.”

Sean (as Danny):
“No, I don't think that's what that means. We would have found him in the tunnel. We were following it. There's two footprints. I think that means… There's someone left alive up ahead, and we're still following the track.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Maybe. Danny, you look… How are you doing? I mean everything is-”

Sean (as Danny):
“That's an insane question. But I appreciate it. I think we can do this. I think we can do what we came here to do. I think that's possible. And once we get the lights on, then we can figure out how we feel. That sound about right?”

Gina (as Pen):
“I think we can too. I just… I just worry about you.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Why do you worry about me?”

Gina (as Pen):
“Because I care about you.”

Sean (as Danny):
“And what'll the worrying do for me?”

Gina (as Pen):
“I think sometimes when we worry about the people that we care about, that helps us to be more alert and responsive, and tuned in to… I just… You kinda… Snapped at me back there, and you've never talked to me that way before and I just... It's okay, I know that I can be, I know I can be a lot. So, I get it, I just... It's unlike you. And I know that things are not like they... Usually are, out here. I just… I just wanted to check in. That's all.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Yeah. I, I appreciate the check, I just… I did a lot of worrying. And it didn't help. And I think everybody in the world was worrying, and now the world's gone. And so I just don't… I guess I worry that the worrying's not the thing, but I think I see what you're trying to say. Or maybe I don't, I don't know. I just, I think… I think I have to keep going. I think we gotta do what we came here to do.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Can I…”


Gina:
And I take a little half step towards you.

Gina (as Pen):
“Can I give you a hug?”

Sean (as Danny):
“No, no no no no no. I think we're good just here.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Okay. I think worrying means you care. It means it's important to you.”

Sean (as Danny):
“I don't think you can trust that here. I think this place affects us, and I think it will play with the things that matter to you. I think the only thing we can care about right now is the light. Because otherwise things come out of the mirrors, or sound like people we know. And that's not, that's not what we're here to do.”

Gina (as Pen):
“But this is real. Right now. You talking to me, me talking to you, us standing here, this is… This is real.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Maybe. Maybe. It’ll be realer with the lights on. Okay?” 

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah.”

Sean (as Danny):
“If you're ready to go, I'm ready to go.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Yeah, I'm ready to go.”

Sean (as Danny):
And when Pen turns, Danny's just gonna do a real quick inventory, just to see if she... Touched him anywhere, and if there's any of that black oil residue anywhere.

Si:
You don't find any.

Sean:
Good. It seems clear to Danny that there is a change happening in the rest, and he doesn't know what it means, but we don't have that far to go. And so maybe, if we keep moving we can get where we need to go while everyone's still more or less them. But the longer we stay here, I think the more we lose from whatever is changing them. And so he’s going to head in along whatever map they gave us, in the direction of the park, if everyone else is ready to come along.

Em:
As Danny starts to make his way towards the door, having kind of watched Pen's eyes move behind the desk, and seeing that there's kind of a room back there that is in close proximity, I am gonna, after getting up and kind of righting myself and rearranging my jacket, and still deeply trying to ignore the pain or not pain that is coming from my back, I'm gonna walk around the desk and I mean, I grab the flashlight from my bag, and I'm going to shine it into the back room.

Si:
It is darker in there. The shadows cling to surfaces. Deeper in the building, the gloom seems to have more of a chokehold on the space. Through the door behind the reception desk is just a management office. You see computers and files. Notices on the walls. A small luggage area with some suitcases. It's small with a few desks. But a little in from the door on the left hand side there is a large pool of blood soaked into the carpet next to a wall with a large smear of blood on it, low to the ground, like someone was slumped down leaning against the wall. There's so much blood here but… There is no body.

Em:
Can I follow any trail that might be there, or anything that shows where this person who was obviously here has gone?

Si:
The room is incredibly dark, but you can make out a few drops of dark patches on the carpet. Droplets that move away from that huge mark, that huge puddle on the floor, and they lead out a door at the rear of this office, leading away and up the corridor.

Em:
I would turn and holler back to the rest of them. 

Em (as Luce):
“I think I got something. And there's uh, there’s unopened luggage in here. Might be something usable.”

Em:
As I would follow my instincts and begin to walk down the corridor. Flashlight in hand. In my right. Feels strange holding the light in a hand that isn't mine, but the gun in my left.

Si:
A few short steps beyond the office, the trail stops on the ground. And you turn to see a bloody handprint has dried on the handle to the stairwell.

Em:
Now I might be feeling reckless, but I'm not stupid. I would come back a few steps. Wait for the rest of them to catch up. Still in the lead, but not going alone.

Gina:
I’ll move to Evlan.

Gina (as Pen):
“Ready for me to help you up?”

Amelia (as Evlan):
“Well… Got nothing better to do.”

Gina (as Pen):
“Come here,“

Gina:
And I'll move and put an arm under them, and help them stand.

Si:
Danny, you had seen from a fire exit map on the wall that the route to the rear exit of the building was through a corridor to the right hand side, past the conference room, and through what was marked on the map as some service area. That is your destination, that is the direction of your objective. And so you start moving that way, but you see the others begin gathering and moving deeper into the hotel.

Sean (as Danny):
“Luce, where you going?”

Em (as Luce):
“There's um, there’s luggage here, Danny. We're gonna need more bandages. Clothes make good bandages. And if Francis is down this hallway and he's dead, I need that fucker's dog tags. [Danny sighs with exasperation] Stay with Pen and Evlan if you need to, or go without me, but I need this fucker's dog tags.”

Gina (as Pen):
“I think I should go with you. I can see- I can see where they've been.”

Sean (as Danny):
“Ah, no, I’ll come, I'll come with you.”

Em (as Luce):
“I mean come if you're coming, but if he's dead, I'll just take his tags. If he's not, at least I've seen him, and if he's something else, then we just fucking run.”

Sean (as Danny):
“It's a bad plan, but we stick together I guess.”

Em (as Luce):
“I'm sorry.”

Sean (as Danny):
“No you're not, but let's do this.”

Em (as Luce):
“You're right, I'm not.”

Em:
I quickly rifle through the luggage and I wrench it open and grab whatever is useful in there. Cotton t-shirts, any socks, knowing that luggage is mostly clean clothes anyway. Not that cleanliness really matters now, but that feels important for some reason. And then as everyone catches up, I continue following the trail down the corridor, towards the stairwell. To where I saw the prints.

Si:
It's a heavy door and the handle creaks as you turn it and pull the door slowly, and inside it's so dark, more of that thick oppressive darkness that seems to just weigh you down. But, one by one you go through the door, Pen helping Evlan move, and you follow the trail up the stairs, slowly moving step by step, scanning for traces, and there are only occasional spots of blood now, occasional signs that a person had come through. But you stop when you notice another dark smear marks the door handle leading to the second floor corridor.

Em:
In for a penny, in for a pound at this point. I start moving forward, towards it.

Gina:
Can we hear anything as we're moving? Any sound of movement up above us, around us?

Si:
No. Not with all the doors closed in the stairwell, it's like you're trapped in this dark box, like a sensory deprivation chamber. Just following these little clues that you have, hoping they lead somewhere. And hinges creak once more as you gently pull the door open to the second floor, and peer around to see you are at the very top of a corridor stretching out ahead of you. It is long, full of shadows. Part of the ceiling has collapsed about halfway down, leaving a mound of rubble partially blocking the way. There are cracks in the walls and plaster is broken off. The hotel has been deathly quiet, with every move you make puncturing the silence, but as you stand in this corridor holding your breath and listening, you now hear a sound drifting in the air from somewhere up ahead of you. It's a song, sung by a single voice, low and haunting.

Em: 
Afterlight is performed by Amelia Som as Evlan, Em Carlson as Luce, Gina Susanna as Pen, Sean Depner as Danny, and Si Rutherford as our Game Master. Special thanks to our campaign artists. Hannah Harder, who did our cover design, and Lesly Oh, who did our character portraits. Editing, sound design and original music by Si Rutherford. For more stories, come follow us everywhere at @blackwaterdnd, and make sure you check out our Main Campaign on Monday nights at 8pm PST at twitch.tv/blackwaterdnd, as well as our library of campaigns on both youtube and your favourite podcast platform. This show is made possible by our sponsors, who really should have reminded us to bring a torch for this journey out into the endless dark. We are grateful to be sponsored by Evil Hat Productions, publishers of Blades in the Dark, along with other incredible titles such as Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Scum & Villainy, Girl by Moonlight, and so many more. With compelling mechanics, stunning art, and rich lore for whatever world you choose to bring towards the apocalypse, head on over to evilhat.com to shed some light on new games to bring to your table. This show is also sponsored by Bookwyrm Games, a Canadian tabletop company bringing you the finest in gaming essentials and accessories. Activate your senses with candles, tea, and coffee to help set the scene in your campaign, ensure your party is rolling with stellar dice at a custom table, or leave the adventure to them with their series of Quest Chests and Quest Coins. Whatever you need to bring your table to the next level, Chester the Dragon and the folks at Bookwrym have you covered. Check them out over at bookwyrmgames.com and let them know Blackwater sent you. Finally, we’re thankful for our Patrons for joining us on this journey outside the Safe Zone. You too can come join us on Patreon, where you can check out behind the scenes info, our talkbacks, exclusive Afterlight content and so much more. Head on over to patreon.com/blackwaterdnd for all the info. See you next time, and keep the lights on!