elytra
a beetle may or may not be inferior to a man
Current Chapter: Chapter 1, The Thing in the Woods
Event Countdown: N/A
Event Post Links: N/A
Recap Links: N/A
Introduction:
One common mistake made by folks, when referring to a town on the Maine coast called Providence, was that it was a ‘small town’. By textbook definition, a small town is under 10,000 people, but above around 1,500 people, which it really wasn’t; the area sat soundly on a population around 960, constituting it as a village. Most were hesitant to call it this because the word invoked a sort of medieval image in people’s minds, but the facts were the facts. If you were to go by societal definition- which was that big places were cities and small places were towns, and there wasn’t a true inbetween -Providence still wouldn’t have been lumped in with small towns, because while its consistent population was 960, its visitor count drove it well above that. The reality was that it was a tourist town, the type advertised on TV and radio, and the sort of place to be in a magazine article labeled ‘most scenic areas in America’, of which it would probably be #5 for a number of years.
This was what it made it so normal. It was your typical, cookie-cutter town, with a general store and a toyshop and kind townspeople. It had festivals and ‘things you can take your kids to!’ and an entire brochure dedicated to places and events you could go to with a perfect family of four, for a small price of $12 or $30 or $100 dollars. The trash was removed quickly when most people were asleep, the streets were cleaned regularly, and anything un-photogenic hidden well.
What was also hidden well was the fact that Providence, the completely normal tourist attraction in the middle of nowhere, sat atop a hotspot for accessing the realm of dreams.
It started with a group of people who called themselves the Wizards of Oz. Before that, they had other names, but they weren’t particularly important until the 1900s. They dedicated their lives to studying the dream realm, setting up shop in Brextly, as it was called at the time, due to claims that the veil between worlds was thinner there. Of course, there wasn’t much they could do without physically visiting the realm, and so in 1903, the Gifted in the group banded together and tore a hole, big enough to function as a gateway between the physical world and the dream realm. This caused a domino-effect situation, and in 1910, the group disbanded due to tensions between members among other things, and the tear, while not closed, was hidden. This didn’t stop from knowledge of its existence from being known.
Finding it has become a scavenger hunt of sorts. Different groups came and went from the area in hopes of finding it, either to close it, use it, or go through it. No one, to public knowledge, succeeded, but it had become just a common reason for being around that the town settled into an uneasy sort of normal. The sort of normal where you wouldn’t trust anyone you didn’t know well, but you could leave your door unlocked at night without worry. That quickly changed around the time of the disappearance of the Jameson’s boy.
Halloween, 3 years ago. The Wicker family came to find their crops poisoned, and blamed it on the Jameson family, a competing farm. Michael Wicker, though it was a stormy night and the streets were flooded, made his way to the Wicker farm to confront them, only to find both Mr. and Mrs. Jameson dead, murdered by hatchet, and their boy, Ramiel, missing. This caused a search party to be sent out, and 4 days later, a body was found in a cave after yelling had been heard from within. After this, weird things started happening. People began getting lost in the woods and not coming back, things were stalking the streets at night, and there were rumors of attacks. People began blaming each other, but there was no real way to pinpoint what was happening, nor how to stop it, so things just continued to get worse.
Welcome to Providence, and be sure to enjoy your stay.
OWRMJK SY GVCAX DECHZT, NEQBU IF LSP
Last edited:
