It’s a common misconception that Comic-Con begins and ends at the San Diego Convention Center. For over a decade, the surrounding Gaslamp Quarter has been filled with activations or attractions that are designed to put fans in the world of their favorite shows and movies. These special events allow both the organizers and the participants to blur the line between fiction and reality… for a time. And at this year’s Comic-Con, Fandom was invited to take part in a truly unique activation for the Audible Original series, Impact Winter.
Within the world of Impact Winter, a comet strike has radically changed life on Earth. The sun has been permanently blacked out of the sky by the cloud cover, and no one has seen sunlight since impact. The vampires used the opportunity to make this planet their own. The monstrous Blighters are the vampires’ foot soldiers, while the human-like Shades can pass as ordinary men and women until the time of their choosing. The third kind of vampire is a powerful and rare variant called Overlords. If vampires rule the world, then the Overlords rule them under the guidance of their queen.
Darcy Dunraven was once like us, and a hero to her people until she was taken by an Overlord named Rook and transformed into an Overlord — or Anointed One – herself. Rook and others like him believe that Darcy is the fabled Winter Childe who can end the queen’s reign and save both humans and vampires. Darcy’s younger sister, Hope Dunraven, now attempts to fill her sister’s role as a protector while desperately hoping to reunite with Darcy.
The second season was recently released on Audible, and that’s where this activation began. The invitation arrived in the form of an engraved box that included a portable radio with two recorded messages. The first recording was an account of the grave winter weather, while the second was an invitation to attend dinner at the request of the vampires.
Because the events of this dinner took place within the world of Impact Winter, so too will this account. The following events occurred exactly as described, and any survivors from the activation can confirm — if you can find them, that is.
The Arrival
At the appointed hour, I arrived at the location along with approximately 49 other invited guests. In the first unnerving moment of the evening, one of the attendants knew me by face despite the fact that I was wearing a mask and that there were only a few pictures of me even before the disaster. Once we were invited inside, the first sight that greeted us was a reminder that we are simply cattle to our vampire rulers.
Blood bags hung from the ceiling as we walked down the corridor to the dining area. Perhaps as a joke, we were handed blood bags of our own to drink while passing the time. I wasn’t laughing, even though the liquid inside wasn’t blood. With nothing else to occupy ourselves, we took in the opulence of a world that now seemed so foreign to us.
The Walking Dead co-creator Robert Kirkman was among the guests, and he had to appreciate the irony of living in a post-apocalypse filled with vampires instead of zombies. The same had to be true for Travis Beacham (Pacific Rim, Carnival Row), who created this world and now found himself living in it for the duration of the night.
Model and actress Jacki Jing was also amused by the setup and posed for pictures while we awaited dinner.
Each guest had an assigned seat that was only known to us by the chalices engraved with our names.
While searching for our respective chalices, the unnamed Host made a point of speaking to nearly every guest at least once.
The Agenda
At the appointed time, the Host told us why we had been summoned. He said that he represents the group of vampires who believe that Darcy can bring down the other Overlords and their queen, but that they needed our help and our information to do so. This seemed dubious from the start, because they not only had recordings of the Council discussing what they should do with Darcy, they also had audio of Darcy herself sharing her most intimate thoughts and also training with Rook’s maker, Fionnuir. If they knew so much more than we did, then what did they need us for? I barely touched the first course as I pondered that question.
I should have known, of course. What other reason would vampires invite humans to dinner? They put food on our plates and placed drinks in our hands, but we are their sustenance. And sure enough, they led some of our party out of the room for extended periods. When the guests were returned, no effort was made to hide their newly created bite marks, nor was the blood wiped from their throats.
A coughing fit forced me to retreat from the table, and I briefly caught a glimpse of the room where the others had been taken. I soon learned that during my absence from the table, our hosts began “smelling us” and leading more guests away. My obvious illness may have saved me from a similar fate.
The Host’s demeanor grew increasingly agitated as the evening wore on, and he seemed to drop the pretense that we truly mattered to him. At one point, the Host loudly identified two men as spies, and had them ejected from the room. One of them was the man sitting right across from me. And as he was led away, the man hissed like a great beast.
“He was my friend!,” exclaimed the woman to my left.
“He was my ride home,” I quipped. And he never returned to the table.
Escape Room
The benefit of not being famous like Kirkman, Beacham, and Jing is that our hosts barely noticed me except when I coughed. I used this to my advantage late in the evening by making a coughing fit appear worse than it actually was. This allowed me to excuse myself from the table without suspicion.
Unfortunately, my attempt to find the room where the guests had been taken ended in failure. Under the relentless red lights and shadows, I simply couldn’t find it again. And even if I had, it might have been an inadvisable course of action. Almost as a reminder of how little we could affect them, an audio clip was played that built up the threat of Humble Jon, a Blighter created by the queen herself.
Whether these vampires were truly aligned with Darcy was never confirmed. But even if they were, they had proven themselves to be untrustworthy allies at best, and dangerous enemies at worst. I left my dessert untouched as I looked for a way out. The opportunity finally arrived when the Host declared that dinner was over, and we were free to mingle.
Free to mingle with vampires? No thanks. I’ve already seen what happens with that. Instead, I took the engraved goblet in case I needed a weapon, and found my way back to the room of blood bags and left the way I came. No attempt was made to stop me. As I alluded to earlier, sometimes it’s better to be anonymous when among a group of celebrities.
Back to Reality
Leaving that extended bit of dinner theater behind, I had one last surprise waiting for me outside: A gift bag from Audible that included Skybound’s Impact Winter comic one-shot, a poster, and a thermos that looked like a canister of blood.
However, the story is far from over. Audible has announced that Impact Winter season 3 is in the works, and we’re dying to hear the next chapter in the lives of Darcy and Hope.
Listen to Season 1 and Season 2 of Impact Winter now on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.
