There is a crack of thunder as you sit up in your bed, the figure standing at the opposite end of the room is the size of a small child. Their silhouette is cast against the lightning as it brightens the room, it catches the edge of the metal blade in their hand. A laugh echoes through the room, a high pitched echoing laugh that chills your spine. You find yourself unable to move. As the face rises the demonic red eyes meet yours, a smile widening with red and yellow stained teeth. The face seems so young, barely 6 years old but the eyes are ageless and terrifying. You can barely let out a cry before your whole world goes dark.

When you come to the first thing you hear is the caw of a crow, the feel of the cold earth under you. As you sit up you feel dizzy, as though gravity realigned itself to your current position. Around you are a few others, in varying states of consciousness, the ground under your hands is grey, as if the colour had drained long ago. The black skeletons of old trees litter the area, an old stone path runs in several directions, there are no birds singing, no breeze, no horizon, you are not even sure there is a sky.

Looking around the world around seems to face in and out of focus, though they seem to come into clarity at different times. A tree close by remains blurred while the bent and rusted fence next to it is in sharp focus. The ground beneath is cold, broken and cracked bricks that may have once been a path now slowly being lost to the spindly weeds reaching through like fingers. As the wind whispers past they almost seem to be clawing, pulling themselves through the ground.

The trees that litter the area are all without leaves, black and crooked as they twist towards the sky, golden and overcast with clouds racing must faster than the wind around would suggest. You cannot see where the sun is, the golden hue equal from one side to the other. The ground past the path is lit by the same dying yellow light, cracked and the only plants escaping it looking as strangled as the trees that stand like hopeless onlookers to the decaying scenery.

Joe grunted softly as he slowly opened his eyes, wiping away the crud as he sat up. There was a pause, then a swirl of disorientation as nothing was as it had been when he crashed into bed after yet another late night at the garage. "What in the ever-loving fuck?" he rumbled softly...slowly sweeping his head around to take in the place that sure as hell wasn't his bedroom.

First rule...assess the situation..second rule....assess resources.. Joe slowly sat up then stood up, stretching his lanky frame out to it's fullest extent then wandering over to see whether the other bodies around were alive.

Perhaps sensing the presence of the awakened man as he approached, Jemima too, roused from sleep. Gritty bricks and a sharp weed pressed against her cheek. Groggy sleepiness and generic where-have-I-woken up confusion turned to stone cold sobriety and alertness in an instant. She clumsily flipped over into a sitting position, one hand reaching out defensively in front of her towards the man, the other clutching her wrinkled cotton shirt tight around her chest. Later, she might thank goodness she'd passed out before she could get into her jammies. She managed a "Whauugh?", which might have meant, roughly translated from hung-over, 'Who are you, where are we, and how the hell did we get here?'.

In reply to Jemima York (msg # 4):

"Short answer lady, I have no fucking idea." Joe made sure to stay a decent distance away from the female waking up, uncertain of how she'd react once a bit more alert.

"This certainly isn't anything like what normally happens when I'm asleep...for one it's not in  the McLaren garage!"

Keeping half an eye on the lady just waking up, Joe cracked his neck to get rid of what would normally be the usual post sleep stiffness. "You seem to be still getting yourself together, I'm gonna check on the other folks that seems to be here."

Taking a step or two towards one of the other bodies lying on the ground, Joe blinked his eyes several times, trying to make sense of what he was seeing...one of the trees in particular being out of focus despite everything else around it clear and true. Aiming his voice over his shoulder towards the lady waking up "Hey...that tree over there...is it out of focus for you as well?"

Lilith is startled awake be the yelling of a male voice. She sleepily rubs her eyes and yawns. Dried twigs poke her in the back, she squirms around and sits up suddenly.

"Ok who the hell are you and where am I?"

Joe continues to try and focus on the weird-ass out of focus tree for a bit before glancing over to see one of the other bodies sit up...ok second person, another female....could be good...could be bad.

"Where we are, I have no freaking idea because this sure as heck isn't anything normal..."

"Swot I jstakd," Jemima offered groggily as she awkwardly dragged herself onto her feet. She frowned. We can do better than that. "S'what I just asked...", better. A little.
Holding her hand to her throbbing head she looked around, not particularly noting the weird ass tree because from her point of view, everything was a bit blurry. She then voiced the MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION. "Anyone got any coffee?"

In reply to Jemima York (msg # 9):

Lilith smiles wryly, "do i look like i carry coffee around with me?"

She gestures to what she is wearing. Lilith is wearing a black and purple crop top with a unicorn giving a rude gesture design on it. Her leggings are black with a purple racing stripe down the outside of each leg.

Getting up she goes walks over to the other woman and extends her hand to shake.

"Good Morning i guess, I'm Lilith. You can call me Lily if you prefer
This message was last edited by the player at 05:33, Sun 15 Mar 2020.

Jemima offers the mostly-genuine smile of an antiques dealer that has to remain polite in the face of idiots and swindlers, often concurrently. There's more warmth in it than usual however, as she's glad she's not facing this coffeeless nightmare alone.

"After the Bible Lilith? Always was a fan. I'm Jemima," taking that offered hand, she gives it a business-like shake.

She herself is wearing a grey suit, blouse, skirt with kitten heels. She'd look professional if everything wasn't extremely rumpled, with a few small globs of what, on close inspection, might reveal itself to be sweet and sour sauce.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:41, Sun 15 Mar 2020.

" Yup," Lilith chuckles, "After the Bible Lilith, my parents at the very least had a sense of humour!"

Lilith looks over the the man that was yelling.

"So what's your name? and also what are you going on...." She stops mid sentence and starts to wander over to the blurry tree.

"That's so interesting!!"

Joe holds an arm out, blocking the lady who called herself Lilith from getting closer to the weird ass tree.

"People mostly call me Irish, and I wouldn't go too close to that thing until everybody's a little more clear headed"

Julien had been awake moments longer than he might have made out, watching and listening to those around him as they woke. Finally he sat up, snatching his tophat from the ground where it had rolled from his head. Part of the left side of his head was shaved short, the rest of his hair grown long and swept to the right. It was naturally black, but the length of it was dyed electric blue, only the roots and the shaved part jet black.

He was dressed, clearly, for clubbing, in a black jacket that seemed to be styled after a straight jacket, if somewhat stylised. It hugged his narrow waist and metal buckles on black strapping rattled as he moved. One leg of his straight-legged pants was black, an angled silver zipper on the thigh and another on the shin, plus a blue tartan pocket on the outside of the knee. The other leg was, conversely, blue tartan a black pocket, zippers mirrored on the thigh and shin. His boots were heavy, combat-style and decorated with rings and straps.

Settling his hat back on his head, his green, heavily kholed eyes took in those around him and one leg bent at the knee, his forearm draping over it. Long, beringed fingers dangled lazily, his body language unconcerned.

He couldn't remember taking anything. Hell, he hadn't taken anything for months. But this sure seemed like... Well, maybe it wasn't drug-induced. That wasn't beyond the realms of possibility either. And he had been pretty drunk. Clearly drunk enough to not have managed to get undressed. Or maybe he hadn't even made it home. Or maybe he hadn't even made it out of the club.

Everything was pretty vague... almost as vague as this... wherever they were.

"Got-any-coffee-Jemima," he drawled, British accent thick and appealing as his loosely-hanging hand indicated her. "From-the-Bible-Lilith," A wave towards her as well. "And Mostly-Call-Me-Irish... got it."

He could have gone some coffee himself, actually, he thought as he rolled to his feet, long legs splayed and hands on hips, his fingerless leather gloves creaking a little.

"I'm Julien." He tipped the tophat slightly, offering a smile. "Charmed, I'm sure."

Bloody hell, god only knows what the fuck is going on and I'm here with some fucking Brit club poser!

Joe nodded an acknowledgement at Julian. "Welcome to who knows the hell what!"

Looking over at the Lilith and Jemima, Joe twisted his features into a scowl. "Does anybody have any idea what the heck happened other than it seems like we were all sleeping and now we're....wherever and whatever this place is?"

The group of people stood under the shadow of the blurred tree, its pale bark different from the blackened thin ones that littered the area. Its branches reached to the sky like apathetic limbs without energy or care of the air of confusion brought by the humans scattered at its roots. But although the trees themselves had no eyes to see there was at least one set that observed the group with a casual glance, a soft chuckle leaving invisible lips as it moved closer.

Julien grinned at Joe.

"Thank you. The welcome is appreciated," he said, his voice teasing.

He cast his gaze around, noting the difference between the tree they were standing under and the other ones both nearby and far. He took a step closer, drawing up beside Lilith. "I agree with From-the-Bible. It's jolly interesting." He patted her shoulder lightly, if she didn't move out of his reach.

"No idea what happened. Can't even remember if I made it home..." he added, reaching out to hook a midnight-blue fingernail behind a strip of papery bark and tugging a little to see if it would tear free.

Artsy types..all the same sometimes...anything out of the ordinary and it's moths to a flame.

"Not quite sure that's what I'd call it"

Joe moved away from the funny looking tree and did a small circuit around the group, looking to see if there was anything else different from the rest of this weird landscape, or if there was any sign of other things moving around.

The young mans hand did indeed connect with the tree, though it seemed that little bit too close and yet to far at the same time. His hand did touch something solid, solid enough to take off a piece of bark that he was able to hold. But just like the tree it was as though he was looking past the bark, feeling it in his fingers but it looking as if it wasn't in them at all.

For the Irish man, looking around the landscape let him see what lay beyond this seemingly dead place. The crossroads they stood on seemed to branch out in several directions, while a few seemed to wander jaggedly into distance, one headed towards a more lively looking forest where the green of the treetops was offset by the golden hue of the sky. While another seemed to head towards a more sparse area, in the distance seeing the shape of what looked like a castle spire. In the branch of the blurred tree was a pair of green eyes. Beyond the tree, a fair way away was a tall forest where the trees reminded one of the ones from old stories, frightening looking branches that intertwined to block out all the light. The eyes were gone now. At the beginning of the roads were signposts that were broken, the remains of the signs shattered on the ground.