Journey into the Macabre

This week on Journey into the Macabre, Mae Liang enters into a very interesting part of her past. The part of her past when she went by a different name. Dr. M.S. Rokubi. On this episode, we follow Narrator Mae as she reads through a revitalized story about an internet horror that circled around a small town called Silverwood…

What begins as a collection of recovered transmissions quickly turns into something much stranger.

Years after a catastrophic event left Silverwood permanently scarred, Dr. Rokubi begins revisiting the research that preceded its collapse—and the people who may have played a role in causing it. At the center of everything is a mysterious piece of technology known as the Black Box Recorder, a device capable of observing far more than anyone originally intended.

Through corrupted files, archived recordings, unexplained disappearances, and the work of the late Dr. Moore, Rokubi slowly begins connecting Silverwood’s increasingly disturbing incidents to another experimental device: the Angel Receiver.

But the deeper she digs, the less these events appear to be isolated.

A burned-down hotel.

People returning from places they shouldn’t be able to return from.

Messages from the dead.

Violent crimes with impossible explanations.

Missing residents.

Strange electromagnetic disturbances.

And rifts appearing throughout Silverwood that seem to defy everything Rokubi understands about reality.

All the while, one name continues appearing throughout the investigation:

Dr. Christina Rossi-Silverwood.

Former colleague. Former business partner. And someone Rokubi has spent a very long time trying to understand—and an even longer time trying to forgive.

In Chapters 1–6 of 83: The Aftermath of the Collapse, we descend into the recovered history of Silverwood and uncover the first pieces of a mystery that only becomes more dangerous the closer Rokubi gets to the truth.

Because something happened in Silverwood.

Something was opened.

And whatever was on the other side may already be spreading.

Welcome back to Journey into the Macabre.

And welcome to Silverwood.

What would you do if you woke up one morning… and the sun was simply gone?

In Part One of this deep dive into The Sun Vanished, Mae explores one of the internet’s most beloved and haunting ARGs, following the story from April 30, 2018 through February 5, 2020. Together, we’ll experience the first terrifying days of endless darkness, mysterious strobelights lurking just beyond the trees, unsettling encounters with other survivors, and the slow psychological toll of trying to stay alive in a world that no longer makes sense.

We’ll also meet the people who become the heart of the story—TSV, Nat, Tucker, and Danyon—and begin unraveling the relationships that make this apocalypse feel painfully human. As hope grows thinner and the darkness seems to have plans of its own, one question begins to haunt every decision:

Can you survive the end of the world… without losing yourself first?

This is only the beginning. The deeper we go, the stranger—and far more heartbreaking—the story becomes.

Mae rises before dawn to venture into a strange woodland protected by a childlike cosmic guardian, where she discovers a miraculous collection of plants transformed by the Crimson Overdrift. Returning to camp with newfound mushrooms, herbs, fruits, vegetables, and seeds, she begins teaching four skeptical soldiers that survival beneath the Red Sun depends on understanding the land—not fearing it. As trust slowly replaces suspicion, Mae reveals the hidden storage bunker beneath her cottage, a carefully organized reserve of preserves, fermented foods, dried goods, honey, and years’ worth of preparation that has kept her alive for eight months. Together they spend the afternoon preserving Sunveil Pearmelons into fourteen jars of fruit preserves, while Mae introduces them to the patient rhythm of the Crimson Market’s barter system, proving that in a world transformed by cosmic forces, knowledge may be the most valuable currency of all.

Months after the Red Sun permanently stained the sky crimson, botanist and naturalistic healer Mae Liang has become the unlikely lifeline of a squad of four hardened tactical soldiers who know everything about combat—but almost nothing about surviving the transformed world. As she forages for seeds, mines the newly softened crimson iron into handcrafted trading tabs, and navigates mysterious markets run by towering star-headed merchants, Mae demonstrates that survival now depends on cultivation rather than conquest. While skeptical soldiers question every barter she makes, they slowly witness impossible seeds, cosmic fertilizers, and frozen meat from distant planes exchanged for nothing more than handmade currency and patient understanding of the Market’s strange rules. Returning home with an Astral Veil Grazer Leg, a vial of precious Astral Melt, and the hope of growing the first viable crops beneath the Red Sun, Mae begins teaching her reluctant companions that humanity’s future may not lie in fighting the apocalypse—but in learning how to cultivate life within it before the Crimson Market quietly trades away everything people once knew how to create.

Mae has survived the end of the world alone in a small greenhouse settlement protected by a mysterious cosmic entity known as Othrys. When Commander Blackbird and his soldiers arrive, they are suspicious of how she has managed to stay alive for so long while the rest of the world has fallen into ruin. Mae eventually reveals that she survives by offering some of her crops and goods to Othrys in exchange for protection. Though terrified and skeptical, the group witnesses Mae summon the cosmic horror into physical form, forcing them to confront a being beyond human understanding.

Othrys appears as a towering void-like figure filled with starlight, speaking directly into the minds of those around it. The soldiers are horrified, but Mae treats Othrys with surprising familiarity and kindness, even reminding it not to damage her crops when its presence begins freezing the greenhouse. Through their conversation, Othrys reveals that it does not see Mae as a servant or possession, but as a “little dove” whose heart and intentions remain pure. It explains that if its protective dome around her home were ever to fade completely, Mae’s soul would be consumed and become part of the cosmic void, though Othrys admits it does not want that fate for her.

As Blackbird listens, he begins to understand that the relationship between Mae and Othrys is not one of worship but of exchange. Mae freely offers crops and preserves, while Othrys protects her home, land, and life from the horrors of the ruined world. Curious whether his own people could receive similar protection, Blackbird negotiates with Othrys on behalf of his settlement. Othrys agrees to consider the offer and, at Mae’s request, grants the soldiers a blessing that allows them to feel and understand the connection between the land, the stars, and the cosmic presence that Mae has lived with for so long.

After experiencing Othrys’ blessing, the soldiers’ fear begins to shift into cautious understanding. Othrys gifts Blackbird a living star, a fragment of its cosmic presence, and instructs him to plant it within his settlement. If Blackbird’s people freely provide offerings and nourishment in return, Othrys will extend its protection over them as well. However, the cosmic horror warns that if they fail to uphold their side of the bargain, the protection will vanish and their souls will eventually be claimed by the void. Despite the frightening terms, Blackbird accepts the responsibility, determined to keep his people—and Mae—safe.

With the agreement made, Mae offers Othrys jars of Dusknana custard, a rare fruit preserve created from plants altered by the apocalypse. Othrys accepts the gift warmly, describing it as a memory of the old world transformed by its touch. Before departing, it promises that Mae and the soldiers will sense its return whenever it comes again. As the cosmic horror fades back into the darkness, Blackbird and his people are left with a new understanding of the world: Othrys is not simply the force that ended civilization, but an ancient cosmic being capable of destruction, protection, and strange forms of respect. And in the midst of it all, Mae remains the bridge between humanity and the unknowable entity that now watches over them.

In the aftermath of The Catalyst, survival is rarely clean—and trust is always conditional.

Part II follows Mae as the outside world presses against the walls of her carefully controlled sanctuary. Jace, a familiar bionic regular, arrives alongside Marcus, a hardened leader from the northern factions, carrying news of a troubling incident. One of Marcus’s patrolmen was attacked in the woods by a Myconid-class organism. He returned alive—but burned, altered, and carrying signs of something far more dangerous than simple injury.

Mae does what she does best: she studies, tests, and distills. Cranky, unapologetic, and firmly indoors, she agrees to craft a soothing balm using the essence of the creature she dissected—but on her terms. If they want it, they’ll come to her. She’s not risking her life for anyone else’s perimeter mistakes.

But this visit is more than business.

In a rare moment of vulnerability, Mae and Marcus cross a line neither of them expected. A shared kiss—quiet, electric, and grounding—briefly lifts Mae out of the constant weight of isolation, reminding her that even in a broken world, connection can still exist.

Yet answers demand more than chemistry. To truly understand the mutated flora behind the attack, Mae calls out to the Greenskins, the forest-bound inhabitants of the Verdant territory. Her plea reaches the Grove Keeper, an ancient, towering arboreal entity bound to the land itself, commanding tribes scattered throughout the wilds.

Mae confesses. She admits to killing one of their own—the Myconid. She does not excuse it.

Instead, she offers knowledge, compassion, fear, and forgiveness.

The forest listens.

Accepted not as an enemy but as a necessary force of balance, Mae earns the Greenskins’ trust—an alliance as fragile as it is powerful.

This chapter of Mae in The Catalyst explores intimacy, consequence, and the dangerous act of asking forgiveness from a world that no longer owes humanity anything.

They say the world ended in 2032, but that’s not quite right.

It changed—violently, permanently—when an experiment beneath the France–Switzerland border tore reality open and pulled the plug on civilization. The EMP came first. Then the nuclear silos woke up. We call it The Catalyst, because everything that survived it was forced to become something else.

I’m Mae. I’m human. I’m 25. And I refuse to go outside unless I absolutely have to.

After the fallout reshaped continents and turned forests into glowing nightmares, the survivors fractured into factions, each convinced they have the right answer for a broken world. I don’t belong to any of them. I live in the Verdant Wilds, on the outskirts of the settlement, where the plants still grow—wrong, luminous, and useful if you know what you’re doing.

I’m an apothecary. I make medicines, tonics, stabilizers—things that keep people alive when their bodies start doing things bodies were never meant to do. Mutations. Radiation sickness. Abilities that burn their owners from the inside out. I work with pre-Catalyst knowledge and post-Catalyst flora, blending science, instinct, and stubborn refusal to die.

My shop is indoors. My farms are indoors. My life is indoors.

Because outside is full of teeth, spores, and people who think neutrality is weakness.

I don’t talk to factions unless they’re here to trade. I’m shy, not stupid—and I’m definitely not here for anyone’s bullshit.

Mae in The Catalyst is a survival story told from behind locked doors and reinforced glass. It’s about quiet resilience in a loud apocalypse, about healing in a world obsessed with power, and about what it means to stay human when humanity itself has mutated beyond recognition.

This is my world now.

Welcome to it.

Journey into the Macabre plunges listeners into a frozen world on the brink of rebirth—and ruin.

In “Mae in The Myconid Bloom,” Dr. Mae, a virologist and survivor of humanity’s last scientific stand, joins a fractured expedition to the abandoned Mount Baker Weather Station. Their objective is as dangerous as it is divisive: locate the fungal hivemind known as the Bloom—the infection that ended civilization and rewrote what it means to be human.

The Bloom does not merely kill. It converts. Those it touches become nodes in a vast mycelial network—violent at first, then subsumed into a single alien intelligence of chilling precision. High in the mountains, the cold has kept the infected dormant, buying the expedition precious time to observe, argue, and prepare. But spring is coming, and with it the thaw… and the Bloom’s awakening.

The team is unraveling. Their former leader fell to infection and was executed in the snow by Major Samantha Voss, the group’s sole military presence and keeper of the locked weapons crates. With no official second-in-command, tensions rise as epidemiologist Erica Novak grows increasingly forceful, while mycologist Dr. Alan Reese—once dismissed as a madman—seems willing to risk everything to understand the fungal hivemind rather than destroy it.

As the mountain warms and loyalties fracture, Dr. Mae is caught between science, survival, and the terrifying possibility that the Bloom may not be an enemy at all.

There are no clean choices.

Only time running out.

In this segment of Journey into the Macabre, titled Oathbound in Havenreach, we follow Mae Liang, a Tiefling Paladin whose courage and skill have already saved the lives of the city guard and their captain. As she navigates the tense political waters of meeting the King for approval, Mae seeks guidance from her captain about the sprawling, shadowed underbelly of Havenreach—a labyrinth of danger, secrets, and forgotten corners beneath the city streets.

Amid the weight of her oath and the looming perils of the sewers, Mae discovers an unexpected connection: another Tiefling, Vixen Troughleaf, whose warmth, understanding, and shared heritage offer a rare moment of solace. Through whispered confidences and stolen moments of sweetness in a cozy bakery, Mae finds not only comfort and nourishment, but a reminder that even in the darkest, most treacherous paths, bonds of kinship and kindness can illuminate the way forward.

This episode weaves tension, heart, and quiet revelation, exploring what it means to bear duty, seek justice, and find unexpected companionship in a world that often misunderstands those who are different.

Long awaited lore drop on two of my friends who turned out for the damn worse. Thank you, @TeoRacks / Matteo for allowing me to name drop him to give credit where it’s due and providing the necessary screenshots. But at the end of the day, I lost two people and gained a whole group of friends. Enjoy the rollercoaster of emotions I had to deal with.