Premise
You have a strange urge to look outside.
On September 29th, at 6:14 AM Central Standard Time, something entered the sky over Louisiana, the United States, and indeed the entire Western hemisphere. It arrived suddenly and without warning, preceded only by a dark blot in the night sky that steadily blocked more and more stars, its coming foreseen by very few and kept a well-guarded secret by those it stunned into silence. What it was, nobody could quite say, thanks to the thick storm clouds that amassed to veil the heavens.
Nevertheless, that instant was the beginning of the end of civilization as humanity knew it. Within minutes, most of continental North and South America went dark. Confusion and panic spread like wildfire, taking the rest of the globe by storm. Worldwide news networks were unable make contact with the affected areas, and social media offered very little in the way of concrete information. Speculation ran wild. Was it meteors? Violent weather? Alien attacks? Nuclear war? Nobody knew. The most anyone got were vague warnings for people to stay inside. And over the course of the next twelve hours, the steady rotation of planet Earth introduced the same phenomenon to every corner of the globe.
This story covers just one tiny part of the world: an affordable apartment community called Drakes Landing, not too far from the renowned State University in the balmy city of Baton Rouge, capital of Louisiana, sitting pretty on the banks of the Mississippi River in the subtropical deep south of the United States. It stars a handful of ordinary people from different walks of life, who awoke on that fateful day to find their world -and maybe themselves- forever changed. The power's still on. The water still flows. And the internet still functions, even if strange plant roots seem to be sprouting from all the computers, tablets, and phones, and a haggard voice leaks unprompted from speakers and headsets alike to assure those huddled in the dark that this will all blow over in fifteen days. Warning them to hide indoors, block their windows, and not. Look. Outside.
So...did you?
What happens if you look outside?
Anyone (whether human or animal) who witnesses the sky in any capacity, including a reflection, an image, a painting, or even a vivid description, no matter how cloudy the sky is, is subject to dramatic and often horrific transformation. These mutations are infinitely variable. They can take place over the course of seconds, hours, or even days, depending on the severity of exposure. One's mental state is also a factor; the more you panic, the worse it gets. The transformation isn't purely random, though. They can seemingly be based on specific themes, like teeth, hands, creatures, art forms, and more, potentially linked to the victim's thoughts at the time. Witnesses can also merge with foreign objects in their vicinity while transforming, which affect their final form. The same person can take different forms depending on their circumstances.
Once witnesses reach their final form, they're essentially inoculated against further transformation caused by viewing the sky again.
A small subset of witnesses become infectors. This usually takes the form of a transmittable disease or parasitization of some kind. Infectors can change other living things independently of Cursed transformation, creating amalgams. Unfortunately, this means that even if you do manage to avoid looking outside, you can still fall prey to an infector. Maybe a mutant wasp slipped in overnight and stung you while you slept, converting you gradually into a living hive.
An even smaller subset of witnesses become warpers, who somehow inadvertently affect reality itself in an area around where they transformed. This can range from merely making an apartment bigger on the inside, to creating infinite corridors, to making indoor jungles, underwater apartments, or even war zones. It's weird.
Some witnesses gain abilities that their new biologies (and even modern science) simply do not explain, like illusions, invisibility, and mental suggestion. The most common is shapeshifting to some degree, with rare cases even able to affect a mostly human appearance again. This is even less common than becoming a hundred-headed monstrosity the size of a building, though. Most Cursed don't become that much physically stronger or tougher, and are vulnerable to conventional weapons and even certain household items.
The Curse really is a lottery, and very few people win.
Becoming Cursed also tends to affect your mind. About 30% of witnesses suffer a total loss of sanity, either as a result of their minds physically becoming inhuman, or due to the sheer mental stress of their drastic and illogical transformation, and these Cursed usually become mindlessly violent. About 40% are mentally altered to some capacity, resulting in alien emotions, changes in functionality, and possible violent tendencies. About 30% remain 'lucid', although depression, anxiety, dysphoria, self-loathing, instability, and stress are all pretty normal responses to what they experience.
The RP
This ought to be a relatively short-form, character-driven RP. I'm not planning for this to be an extremely long-form RP like my other RP, World of Light. If you know me, though, you know I don't half-ass RPs. The task is to survive for fifteen days, exploring Drakes Landing and the areas around it as much as possible, collecting supplies and dealing with all kinds of messed-up stuff, including combat. Once the fifteen days are up, the RP will be done. Still, I'd be looking for as many players as possible willing to commit for the whole period, with no limit on applicants. I'd be willing for players to have up to two characters apiece. In order to get off the ground, I'd like to have six confirmed players. Requirements would be pretty chill in terms of length, but for consistency one post a week would be ideal. I'd probably update on Wednesday evenings.
At the start of the RP, you can start yourself off at basically any time in the morning of September 29th, depending on what angle you want to take for your character. Maybe you're an ambitious young business owner already out of bed and on your way to work when the sky changed. Maybe you're a shut-in out of a job and fresh from a bad breakup, and you slept in 'til 10 AM, unaware that anything happened until a horror busts down your door. You can start at the moment you're transformed, or start a few hours into the apocalypse, whether already Cursed or not. Depending on what you want for your character, you can include the various facets pre-change or post-change in your sheet, or both. If you want to apply with two characters, they can be roommates, family members, a couple, an owner and a pet, or whatever. You can also coordinate backstories with another player. You're the boss.
Final note: the theme of the RP isn't horror or torture, but the power community and compassion to overcome even the darkest of circumstances. It's inspired by the excellent game made by Francis Coulombe. Any questions?
