By: Event (surely crime – Ed) correspondent
Editor’s Foreword: The poster promised Midsommar Day. I saw a copy outside my office. What do you get dear reader when you think of that? Humor me.
What I get is Stone Henge vibes. I think of druids. I get people going with their breasts out at the sunrise. I get drinking and probably I could stretch to imagining magic mushrooms. I don’t normally get, hanging people. But yeah. It’s Hathian and perhaps I was a bit blinkered by the thought that it isn’t Laveau. Then again we do like to compete here…
Event Review
The poster that Daiyu saw and which led me to attend for the Observer promised the sun refusing to set. It promised music, food, alcohol, white clothing and wanted any attending to bring an open mind. It was the kind of soft warning Hathian is good at. They even drew it out on the poster, ‘speak softly, watch closely‘ and for good measure highlighted how not everything that smiles was friendly.
So when I walked over and came near Vudu Spice I was aware of the March incident with a straw wickerman. Daiyu had briefed me on that and it had not done much to help me feel that the Haven group was going to keep this event ‘family friendly’. Still, the Observer goes where the news is, so outside Vudu Spice, beneath a gold sky and a maypole dressed in flowers, the city gathered for what was advertised as a solstice celebration.
For a while, it almost was.
It was almost at the start possible to play ‘poster bingo’. They promised this and did they have it? Surely there were white dresses in the heat, bare feet in the grass, garlands, candles, music, food and drink. It probably did qualify as a ‘feast’. Guests drifted through flowers and wisteria, some curious, some delighted, some already unsettled by the sight of bodies hanging high above the gathering. (Only Some -Ed?) If I might put it into words that are a little poetic… The scene was Hathian beautiful: too bright at the edges, too sweet in the air, and already carrying something rotten underneath.
Near the maypole, the hostess; Priestess Zero, welcomed the crowd with a speech about life, growth, community and the turning of the season. Midsummer, she said, was a time to enjoy warmth, rain and abundance of nature and the ground. People were encouraged to eat, drink, dance, spend time with friends and family, and celebrate the harvest yet to come.
“Tonight is for laughter, good company, and making memories together,” she told them. (Did she have a straight face? -Ed)
Minutes Later: Those Memories Became a Public Killing
Witnesses describe the tone changing when she pointed out a man in the crowd and announced that there was “a volunteer to kiss the earth with their blood.” The man, later identified to the Observer as a Matthew O’Connel, did not appear to understand at first that she meant him. When he realised, he protested. He shouted that he had not volunteered, as if in Hathian the ‘No, no, no’ cries every really work… They don’t in HPD cells, they don’t in dark alleys and they don’t in front of the Priestess and her acolytes.
The ritual did not stop.
According to witness accounts, a man named by the hostess as Koz (Kozzy -Ed) moved in with a cane while another man, called Charlie (Chainsaw swapped it seems – Ed) produced a blade. Matthew was cut, blocked from escape, and surrounded as music and festival chatter continued around him. A woman in white, identified by witnesses as someone called Rakel who our editor doesn’t know, later joined the violence with a boxcutter, screaming for blood as the ritual closed around its victim.
What had been sold as flowers, music and Midsommar had become something else entirely.
A Public Execution
Several witnesses describe Matthew being jostled and hemmed in as the crowd tried to understand whether they were watching a performance, an initiation, or a murder deciding to wear flowers for the afternoon (Apparently Rakel was involved while wearing her white dress -Ed). Screaming can be flirting. Blood can be fake. A ritual can be a party theme (Yes EON, looking at you over in Columtreal).
But then the blade touched Matthew’s skin.
He said he had not volunteered. He said there had been no contract…
Editor’s note: Reader, there was no contract. We know this by now, we know that victimhood comes to those who both expect it, but also those who don’t. We know that Hathian’s message is often deadly. In this case, there was only a crowd, a maypole, and the oldest Hathian rule of all: the person with the knife is your priestess, priest or God (and confessor).
Some guests left. Some froze. Some watched. Some, probably Hoppers, considered if the food was now fresher.
That may be the detail that will stay with me the longest. Not only that this happened, but that it happened in the open, in the sun, while music still played and people still stood in the grass. One woman was heard saying she needed air. Another, visibly pregnant, pulled her companion away and warned that staying might make them accessories to murder. Others looked on with the numb fascination of people desensitised to violence.
Matthew was not allowed to leave.
Priestess Zero watched him go, reportedly remarking that it was “such a lovely day for this.”
Lovely.
That word deserves to be printed by itself and left as the evidence for this event. A man died in the flowers. Blood marked the ground. Those responsible did not scatter in horror. They celebrated. Some of Hathian celebrated with them. Kozzy was heard telling another attendee, “Some people just need to die.” It should also perhaps not have shocked me as much that witnesses also describe Priestess Zero holding what appeared to be a heart, while others spoke openly of the body as if it might be divided, cooked, or otherwise used. (Definitely Hoppers – Ed)
Where Was HPD?
Where was the Hathian PD? That will be the question some ask next, partly as a way to blame them, but also a legitimate question about how shit like this happens during the daylight hours. The Observer understands that much of the department’s attention was elsewhere that day, with Carter Ellis’s funeral drawing officers and mourners into their own grief (or apparently celebration -Ed). But grief does not stop Hathian from happening. Often it exploits it.
There was no Haven from horror at Midsommar Day. Not in the flowers… Not in the white dresses… Not beneath the maypole. Not in the public daylight. The poster warned us, in fairness…
Speak softly.
Watch closely.
The sun sees all.
((With thanks to the Haven, Charlie and others for photos and logs for me to work with. Please accept my apologies for any mistakes made; I enjoy reading logs, but sometimes not being there means I miss a nuance of e.g. physical chat range or proximity. I try to err on the side of caution as to what an NPC journalist might see or hear, but if there are any corrections, ping me and I’ll change!))
