FEBRUARY 2021 EVENT: PART TWO

[robbies]

 

CHAPTER TWO, PART 2: THE LIVING ISLAND

Everything you never wanted to see.

YOU CAN’T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T DO ENOUGH | JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY | DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH | YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH | COME AND PLAY WITH ME

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YOU CAN'T DO A LITTLE BECAUSE YOU CAN'T DO ENOUGH

Perhaps you’ve been on tenterhooks since you woke up to find that your friends, your family, your neighbors somehow went missing in the night. Perhaps you’ve been hitting the pavement and knocking on doors trying to find them. So far, your efforts have been for naught. There’s been neither hide nor hair of the missing, and every attempt to find them has met with a dead end.

Until February 13.

In the afternoon, a strange, unsigned message goes live on the network. What is the meaning of “Living Island”? Does it have anything to do with what’s going on? There’s no elaboration… until midnight, when every neighbor’s television set turns on at full volume, hissing static and garbled noise as the dials turn and adjust. Several disjointed clips follow, ending on a mural that depicts the same words from the post.

“Living Island.”

The following morning, you’ll find that stranger things are beginning to happen. Some of you will be woken up to the blankets and sheets being yanked off your sleeping bodies by a powerful force. Others will find that when they step out of their morning shower, a message has been written in the steam on their medicine cabinet's mirror. Depending on how quickly you shower, you may only be able to see part of the message — but running the hot water longer and allowing the steam to fill the room will reveal it in its entirety:

“LIVING ISLAND.”

As time passes, you’ll find that the same message shows up every time the bathroom steams up, whether you’re in the shower or not. The same force that turned your TV on seems to insist that you pay attention to what it’s trying to show you, and its behavior escalates the longer you refuse. Characters will find that books go flying off of bookshelves, drawers are yanked out of dressers and desks, and breakable objects are smashed. Trying to prevent the spirit from destruction won’t go your way: If you try to catch or grab something that’s about to be thrown, you’ll find it ripped out of your hands anew and smashed anyways. If you tried to take all of your chairs down from where they’ve been stacked on top of the dining room table, you’ll find they’re back atop it the instant you look away.

All that’s to say nothing of the rumbling. It doesn’t start until the end of the first day, but from time to time you’ll feel the house beginning to shake on its foundations, a dull groan as it struggles to keep itself from collapsing in under its own weight. As time goes on, this will get louder and louder until the house seems to roar of its own accord, an unyielding shriek that can’t be stopped until the force causing it backs down.

Attempts to make contact with the spirit will never go well. It does not seem to be able or willing to communicate with you beyond its own tantrums, and characters who try may find that the attempt rapidly goes out of control. Candles flare up and burn wildly, Ouija boards are ripped into pieces and planchettes go flying, offerings of food are knocked over or thrown, and the lights flicker manically in turns. While you may be able to get some sleep at night if you’re lucky, the only thing that will reduce the poltergeist activity is to pay attention to the message it’s sending you and figure out what it means.

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JUST A DREAM FROM YESTERDAY

Living Island. If ever there were a first step to stopping this madness, it’s figuring out what those words mean. But starting is always the hardest part, and with nothing else to go by than two seemingly unrelated, nonsensical words left behind by a force you can’t see much less communicate with, an already arduous task seems even more impossible. This is furthered by the reactions you get when you hit the street and start asking people if they know anything about Living Island. Most of them can only look back at you blankly, as if waiting for a punchline that never comes. Others actually take you seriously enough to consider the question, and to their credit, they do take their time racking their brains to remember where they’ve heard that name before, why it sounds so familiar. But the most you’ll get back from them is a sheepish shrug of the shoulders and a reply that it sounds like something from TV. It gets to the point where their answers blend together, each one more unremarkable than the last. Save for the one you get from the last person you haven’t asked. Living Island. I’m sorry, what was that? What the fuck did you just say? Dale Harding and Rosemary Craven might be as far away from each other as possible, doing things around town that couldn’t be more different, but their reactions are the same. When they overhear you asking what feels like the hundredth person you’ve seen that day about Living Island, they look your way — Harding in the middle of his patrol or lunch break, Rosemary in the middle of grocery shopping. Harding looks honest-to-God surprised. Rosemary simply looks confused, even somewhat concerned. That's such a... strange name. Where did you hear that from? When they hear your explanation, they go quiet, mulling it over. Rosemary’s expression turns thoughtful. Harding’s, suspicious. If I remember correctly, that was a clubhouse the children around town used to play in. I haven’t heard about it in… goodness, I can’t even remember. Years, perhaps. It’s a play on “safety island” — another name for a bomb shelter — and the name of this… stupid kids show that used to be popular. I guess they thought it was cute, calling a place like that something fun. But where is it? Well, most of the shelters in town are still in use, and children aren’t allowed in them unless there’s an emergency. The only place I can think of is… The grade school. Administration ran out of funding before they could finish it, so they just scrapped it. Closed it off and just hoped for the best. Didn’t stop people from sneaking in. I used to bust them for playing down there all the time, the little shits. Harding’s mouth twists into a sneer that doesn’t reach his eyes, which are soft and miserable, while Rosemary waits patiently for any other questions and, when you have no others, excuses herself to go back to her groceries. Now you have something even better than an explanation: you have a destination.

Finding Santa Rosita Elementary is as easy as a fifteen minute drive from North Santa Rosita to Shadyside. Getting in is a different story. By day, the school is open for business and humming with activity, so you can’t very well go barging in and not expect to be reprimanded for disrupting class. This leaves you with three options: go before it opens, wait until school is over, or come in the middle of the night. Each have their own pros and cons, but all of them will get you the same result.

After hours, the school is desolate and still. The wind, the occasional slap of a naked branch against a window, and the squeak of your footsteps on the shiny, clean floors are the only sounds you’ll hear as you navigate the empty hallways. Most of the classrooms are locked, and the ones that aren’t don’t have anything any more unique or worthwhile to them than the occasional lunchbox left behind by a student or the classroom frog croaking in its tank. In a way, this is a good thing — it doesn’t leave that many places to investigate and makes your path that much more linear as you finally, inevitably and silently make your way downstairs into the bowels of the school.

The long corridor that awaits you in the basement is, in theory, not very different from the hallways upstairs. There are lockers lining both sides, dented and darkened with age and dust. The tiles are cracked, dirt and pieces of stone kicked up from exposed areas of the floor. Seemingly, this appears to lead to a dead end. But look closely at the wall and you’ll see the impression of a door, painted to match the walls. The lock is flimsy — in fact, depending on when you find it, someone may have already broken it. All that’s left is to enter and descend down the tiny room’s only feature: a ladder under a rusty steel hatch door, stretching down into darkness.

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DARKNESS HELD ITS BREATH

CW: gore, surgery

Stepping into the old shelter, the first thing that hits you is the stale, uncomfortably moist air. This first room is cavernous and dark, and your footsteps and whispers echo in spite of how quiet you might try to be. There’s a faint smell in the air, a trace of copper and rubbing alcohol that might make your eyes water, making your mouth feel unpleasant as it hits your tongue. As you get your bearings and begin to pick your way through the dark, you’ll notice traces of another smell — something simultaneously spicy and cloyingly sweet, a scent that seems to assault your senses and leaves you with a headache pounding at the base of your skull. Thankfully, there isn’t enough to do more than make you nauseous, but the smells warn of what’s still yet to be found.

As you continue through the labyrinthine warren, you’ll begin to find signs of human presence — some of the trashed rooms may be fitted with tables and supplies one might expect to find in a laboratory, meticulously labeled with typewritten strips. Several of these boxes appear to be old, covered in grimy layers of dust, while others are fresh and clean. All of them contain medical supplies. Eagle-eyed investigators might note that the untouched supplies tend to be the type contained in first-aid kits — acetaminophen, antibiotic ointment, simple adhesive bandages — while the ones that have been opened are for heavy duty surgical work — coiled IV lines and tubing, empty syringes, surgical gloves. One room in particular seems to have been fitted out for someone’s personal use, boasting a stripped-down bed, a chair and desk, and a comfortable recliner.

The trickle of water can be heard in the depths of the shelter, and as you emerge from one corridor that filters into a large chamber, it becomes immediately obvious where you are: This is an operating theater, with a table stationed beneath all manner of lights that can be adjusted and moved. A faucet drips monotonously in the back of the room, over a sink stained with blood with bits of grey, pulpy matter stuck in the drain. A bucket filled with blood and viscera ferments on the ground beside it. There are smears of blood, both dried and fresh, on the cloudy tiles, and a cabinet full of surgical instruments is slightly ajar. Looking at the instruments, characters will find that a couple of scalpels and a pair of tongs have dotted blotches where the metal was cleaned with water; whoever used these tools last didn’t dry them before putting them away. A small table near the operating area has a turntable sitting atop it, with a record already set under the needle: a single of Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel.” There are a few other records sitting in the cabinet beneath it, including Big Mama Thornton’s “Hound Dog,” Frank Sinatra’s “Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely,” and James Brown and the Famous Flames’ “Think!”

In a separate area of this room, an oversized desk is piled with books and empty food containers that look as though they’ve been repurposed for one reason or another. These books are chiefly on anatomy and the medical sciences, though there are a number of books on psychology and how the brain functions. Though some of these books are water-spotted and dog-eared, there aren’t any notes written in the margins, nor are there any papers to be found. You can turn this area as much as you'd like, but all you’ll find is a couple empty cigarette boxes and some broken and bitten pens; the trash can next to the desk, filled with soggy ashes, seems to suggest that any papers that might have given you a lead were destroyed before you got here.

But the lab, with all its instruments, isn’t what you came here to find. There’s still at least one more room to be found…

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YOUR FRIENDS WHEN THINGS GET ROUGH

CW: gore, surgical trauma, amputation, lobotomy, brainwashing and interrogation, mouth trauma, eye trauma, ear trauma, body horror

The missing are being held in small, sturdy cages in a single room connected to the back of the operating room, dim and dank. The cages are placed equidistant around the room, ensuring that even if you try, you can’t reach out and make contact with your neighbors. The missing will find that they wake at approximately the same time, curled up on the ground in uncomfortable positions. Unlike your rescuers, your nightmare began far earlier than when you first awoke in this room, sore and disoriented. In fact, you could argue it started the moment you went to sleep on February 9th, leaving empty beds and concerned family members behind.

With no clocks or watches available to tell the time, you may not be able to tell how long you’ve been here. You sleep and wake, sometimes to a bowl of what looks like sticky rice lying in your cage that wasn’t there before. Sometimes, an overpowering smell will fill the room, faint at first; by the time you register it, it’s already overwhelmed you and sent you into a deep sleep. And when you wake, one cage will be empty. The inhabitant will be returned the next time you go to sleep and wake up, but not quite the same as they were before. They seem heavily drugged, discombobulated — or perhaps there's something visibly different about them. Whoever has taken you is doing a lot of work in their lab — and from the smell of things, meat work — and before long almost all of you will be sporting dressings of some type or other, fresh red seeping through the sterile cloth within a matter of hours.

Maybe you should try to keep each others’ spirits up. You don’t know how long you’ll be here, after all.

All of this goes on for a while — days, although it won’t be easy to count them given that there are no windows in the room. But nearly a week later… you wake to find that the front of your cage is unlocked. Unlatched. Open just an inch. Looking around the room, you’ll find that yours is not the only cage to have been opened — all of your cages have been unlocked.

Is it a mistake? Or are you really free?

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COME AND PLAY WITH ME

CW: blood and violence

Whether you’ve released yourself from your cage, or were discovered by a well-meaning friend before you could, or you’ve simply had your fill of exploring the shelter-turned-laboratory, the time has finally come to leave. Unfortunately, if things were that easy, you wouldn’t even be around by the time the scuttling sounds begin — somewhere down the hall, in the room behind you, fleeting and sly. It’s not an animal sound, a creature picking its way through the garbage and debris littered around the shelter. No, with the way it stops and starts every time you start and stop walking, this is a very deliberate, human sound. And if you don’t believe that, you’ll see soon enough when you see the naked, bone-white figure walk into view at the end of the hallway as casual as you please, their body smooth and sexless like a department store mannequin. They turn (your) their head and stare directly at you with (your) their wide, glassy eyes crinkled in thousand-yard delight. You hear your voice echoed back at you, airy and chirpy and so indescribably wrong it makes your blood run cold.

"Hi!"

Much like the Doppelgangers you encountered in January, these ones look and move like dolls, their limbs connected with ball-joints. However, whereas those ones were near perfect imitations of you and your friends, these ones look like they just fell off the assembly line. Their faces are unnaturally flat and plastic, like all the imperfections have been ironed out of them, but they are unmistakably yours. And when they open their mouths to squeal at you before running with all the unnatural speed not having a pair of lungs affords them, you’ll find that even their voices are perfect imitations — and not necessarily of your own either.

There’s no way to tell how many of these Doppelgangers are down here with you, hiding in the dark. They’re stealthy and sneaky, only coming out to attack when they’re sure you’re alone. Even if you’re not, they’re intelligent enough to come up with ways to separate you from your group, calling to you from another part of the shelter, mimicking a voice from someone they know you’ll listen to. Even if there’s no possible way they could be in Santa Rosita.

"Help me!"

"Is that you...? Oh thank God, I've been looking everywhere for you!"

"Please, don't leave me!"

Other times, they’ll take a more aggressive approach, allowing their limbs to pop out of place so they can sprawl on the ground, imitating a heap of discarded doll parts. Once you get close enough or turn your back on them, they’ll pull themselves together and attack, speeding towards you on fours like a crab.

There are two ways out of the shelter. The first one is the hardest: go back the way you came. With the low visibility, the number of Doppelgangers, and the confusing layout of the area, you’re more likely to get turned around and go in circles than you are to find your way back to the ladder — a location made even more difficult to discern since the hatch door has been lowered, blotting out all light from the room above.

The second way is the longest but also the easiest: head deeper into the shelter, past the operating room, through the rooms filled with broken furniture and ruined floors that are very easy to trip on — especially when you’re in the middle of running away. Eventually, you’ll come to another ladder, this one leading to an open hatch that deposits you into a dark passageway. The air up here is more fresh, but not necessarily pleasant smelling. There’s only one way to go — forward.

After what feels like an hour of walking, you’ll see a light at the end of the passage. Follow it and you’ll find yourself exiting a storm drain that drops you into the heart of Old Growth, just outside of West Santa Rosita.

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OOC INFO

Welcome to the second part of February’s event! You can use this entry to top-level for the event, but feel free to utilize the log and network communities as well.

There will be a top-level posted for NPC interaction tied to the second prompt below, wherein you can request to play out your character’s interaction with Harding or Rosemary. If you would like to have your character interact with either one of them, comment to the top-level with the name of the NPC you would like to thread with. You may only thread with one NPC. The mods will respond to NPC tags until February 28th.

Any questions can go in our FAQ thread below. Try to check and see if your question has already been answered on the plotting thread first here.

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Comments

DALE HARDING AND ROSEMARY CRAVEN

[robbies]

Leave a top-level here if you would like to speak with either Rosemary or Harding, and the mods will tag back to you. Please note that these interactions will take place before your character goes to the school.

The mods will accept a total of 10 threads, or 5 requests per NPC. Write in your header which NPC you would like to thread with (HARDING or ROSEMARY). You can only thread with one of them, so choose wisely!

Harding

[feudalladyshandmaid]

["What the fuck did you just say?"

Cassandra's last few days have been quiet with anxiety, and fraught with weird occurrences. Who knew that strange message on the network was only the beginning? From her sheets being yanked off, drawers and books flying around, and that word. The one turning up on her mirror, and on the network the day before...

It's only natural that Cassandra starts searching around. But try as she might, no answers! Two words, so innocuous that they may as well have been gibberish. Any books she could get her hands on yielded no answers. The locals were no better, playing a range from polite confusion to just... confusion at her questioning. Would she ever find the answer?

...Well, the answer to that question came from a place she least expected.]

Officer Harding? [She turns on her feet, face him fully and letting the last poor robbie that she'd been questioning get on his merry way.] Uh, I said "Living Island".

[helloneighbor]

Yeah, and I asked you where you heard it from.

[Turning to fully face Cassandra, the totality of Harding's judgement bores into her. He's carrying a plastic cup of coffee with him, takeout from the Blue Moon. His grip on it is tight, dark brown liquid welling up from the hole in the lid. There's a sharp, accusatory note in his tone, like he's unsure if this is the world's worst joke (probable, given the track record of some of these people, like the little shit-for-brains that keyed his car.]

[feudalladyshandmaid]

[There's a look and a tone she's bore witness to hundreds of times in the past; either from the king himself, or her own father. The tone itself barely fazes her, but the reaction at all instantly garners her full interest.]

Heard it on... the TV, last night. On a show.

[Technically not untrue? She hardly feels like dumping all of her notes and evidence on a man that might be, while the best lead she's found so far, still part of the problem.]

I'm not familiar with the term. Thought I'd ask around.

[helloneighbor]

[And the answer, it would seem, is an acceptable one. Harding is still watching her closely, though, pausing to think about how he should answer. He eventually goes with shaking his head like he can't believe this is happening but is going to roll with it anyway.]

It's from a kid's show called The Wonderful World of Zig-Zag, about a kid who gets lost in another world. The Living Island was where it took place.

[He raises the coffee cup to his lips, adding] Cute show. Used to play all the time on TV, two years ago.

[Calmly, he takes a sip and waits to see how Cassandra will react.]

Rosemary

[peninhand]

[ Grocery shopping. Of all the things she had expected for Rosemary to be doing, that was the last one. No matter. She'd finally found her. Now was the time for things to get serious. Before approaching her, Monika sent two messages. She couldn't do this alone, she didn't have any "powers" to convince her if she was too stubborn to talk. Her "husband" though, he looked like he could hold his own in a fight. And the one who had informed her about Sayori's disappearance in the first place deserved to know, too.

Considering she's been looking for her non-stop for quite a few days by then, Monika is sleep-deprived, barely able to keep her eyes open. Only kept awake by the belief that finding that woman will somehow give her the answer ]

Rosemary... I mean, Mrs Craven.

[ She marked a pause, trying to get her bearings. Now wasn't the time to fall asleep. ]

She's gone... Sayori is gone. [Would that even make any sense to Rosemary? God only knew.] Not just her... Papyrus. Kiara. Okuyasu. So many others, they've all disappeared! You- Please help us...!

previously discussed, hope it's okay!

[hoshikiri]

[The request was all it took, but the distraught state Monika was in, along with concerns from Daylight and Sans, was added reasoning. Since the disappearances Takame hasn't slept much either, but he was better at hiding it than the young lady was.

His was a contrasting presence to Monika's. Passive, calm and unreadable unless you knew what to look for, the bristling nerves shown in the twitches of his tail. He was here for 'support' but also for 'incentive'. He didn't need to do much to look imposing in front of Rosemary with his great height and horns. He wanted answers just as badly as Monika did, but he would make no moves. Not yet.]

not a problem!

[helloneighbor]

[Hey, everybody needs groceries from time to time.

But Rosemary isn't expecting Monika to run up to her raving, and her surprise will be apparent on her face as she twists around to see her. She's holding a tin of canned fruit in her hand, but as she takes in Monika's expression and Takame behind her, her expression turns from surprise to concerned determination and she sets the tin back on the shelf.]

Mrs. Kesi--please, start from the beginning. People have disappeared? [She works through the names.] Both the Knochenmuses? What about their son?

How many of-- [A slight pause, then she starts again:] How many are gone?

[peninhand]

[ Thank goodness she's not just dismissing them. Perhaps it meant her hunch had been right. Hopefully. ]

I don't know, I ran to find help as soon as I got the news.

[ She hadn't kept up with anything on the network after she'd heard about Sayori's disappearance. Her husband may know more. ]

I think it was around five or six... But people were reporting more. It may be a dozen by now.

Harding

[sunborne]

[ daylight furious jots down the notes on the loose leafs of paper had grabbed from his house before he rushed out. when he finds that he's running out of space on the last piece of paper and still needs to note some things down, he just... tugs up his sleeve with his teeth to expose his forearm and starts writing there. he'll start sharing this with the others as soon as he can.

when he's done writing it all down and has tucked the paper away safely in his jacket, he looks back (and down) at Harding and nods in thanks for the information. ]

Thank you, Chief Harding. This will help me and the others a lot. [ he pauses, then decides to press on with something that's been on his mind for a while: ] I do want to ask you a couple of questions and bring something to your attention- All about your men.

[helloneighbor]

[Harding inhales through his nose. He feels a bit like a yo-yo, jumbled nerves that rise and fall no matter how hard he clenches his jaw or tries to force the calm over him by sheer force of will. If he acts like everything okay, maybe he'll believe it. Maybe it'll even come true.]

And what would that be? [In a better mood, he might sound like he doesn't particularly care. Right now, though, he sounds like he's getting very irritated very quickly.]

[sunborne]

[ might as well get to the point: ]

Why aren't they taking the mass disappearances seriously? [ he gestures to their surroundings as a whole, trying to keep his temper and wits in check. he's not going to help agatha or kiara or okuyasu or anyone else if he starts shit. ] Between them suggesting a group of more than nine people is playing a prank to giving me lectures if I try to press the subject, you've got to admit this is strange.

At least one kid is missing. A kid. For several days straight. With no response to any attempts to reach him or any concrete sightings from anyone. [ he makes another gesture with his hands, clearly frustrated but trying to find some way to appeal to harding.

his expression softens, letting the exhaustion and desperation of the last few days seep through. ] That warrants a response, surely.

[helloneighbor]

[Harding is very, very quiet and stays very, very quiet well after Daylight finishes his rant — at least for a full five seconds. He takes a deep breath, lets it out on the second syllable of the first word.]

Okay, number one? [He slowly shakes his head, pushing out a half-formed laugh as he adds,] I don't care how worried you are. You don't get to talk to me that way.

[This isn't up for debate, Harding's forcibly calm tone implicitly says. Like Daylight, his own tension is seeping into his words, his posture, his eyes. Unlike Daylight, he's fighting it every step of the way.]

Number two, I don't give a flying fuck who you spoke to and what they said. [The calm wavers. He glares at Daylight, seething.] What makes you think for one second that I don't care?

HARDING

[blackscales]

[ Wrathion has, under Daylight's patient instructions, played nice.

He doesn't want to play nice, he wants to rip the entire town to shreds, but Daylight had pointed out doing so might lead to... repercussions. Ones that might impact Anduin, had he not been found by the end of the destructive spree.

Harding is, at least a blessing. He's not even caught out eating this time, just walking the roads on whatever passes for security detail in this place. Questioning other townsfolk had given him some basic information -- the symbol indicates a shelter, there are several in the area, the name means nothing. That's better progress than none, but so far the other shelters had been useless.

Wrathion is starting to feel desperate.

Harding, however, is a jackpot. He recognises the name. Wrathion repeats it, patiently, explains he believes some prank is being pulled on him. Foolish kids, you know how it is, they mentioned the name and planning to go there. He thought they might have invented it. Turns out the place does exist!

The smile Wrathion offers meets his eyes no more than Harding's sneer does.

Yet Harding does, at least, describe the location. It takes all of Wrathion's willpower not to immediately bolt, but he needs as much information as he can get. So her persists. ]

They told me it might be haunted.

[ Wrathion flicks a faint smile again, as if the idea is particularly funny -- of course it isn't haunted, how silly children are! ]

I'm sure that isn't true, but I'm worried if they find this island that it will be... dangerous. I wouldn't want them to get hurt.

[helloneighbor]

[He considers Wrathion with no small amount of scrutiny, like he's trying (and failing) to read his mind — or barring that, at least read between the lines with what he's getting at. That smile is more phony than a three dollar bill. Harding doesn't believe him for a minute.]

Good, because you shouldn't. [He takes a sip from his cup of takeout coffee, casual and slow, but his eyes never leave Wrathion's face.] It's a half-finished bunker. There's rusty metal and old survival gear all over the place, and parts of the floor are ripped up. Lotta rats, too.

[He takes another shorter sip.]

Who knows how much worse it's gotten over the years.

[blackscales]

[ Parts of the floor ripped up? That does sound like a significant hazard. ]

A strange place for people to play. What sort of games does a half-finished bunker full of rusty equipment attract?

[helloneighbor]

[Harding doesn't smile, but there's faint amusement in his voice.]

Haven't been around many kids, huh?

[It's just their nature. Just like Wrathion can't help being a dragon, or Harding can't help sleeping until 2PM on a Monday, kids can't help going where they're not supposed to go. It's coded in their DNA.]

Put yourself in their shoes. It's dark, hidden in a secret place nobody else knows about, full of stuff you could pretend is buried treasure, and off limits.

Who wouldn't want to sneak into that shit? [He takes another drink of coffee.]

HARDING

[apodictic]

[ but where is it, so the question goes, and harding replies, and angelo looks thoughtful at his answer. a half-finished bunker left by the administration to rot - that does sound more like what he expected it to be following conversations online. likely going along with government requirements, but civilians can never be trusted with projects like these; angelo thinks santa rosita was just overwhelmed by the amount of details that were needed to actually make it functional along with the cost, which of course isn't cheap, and decided to just leave it be.

which tells him the capacity of the bunker is limited, at the very least. large enough to get lost in if you're unfamiliar, but not large enough to be a problem - the officer says he chases people out of there all the time, he assumes that means they were able to get in and out easily when they wished. ]

Hardly the kind of project that seems to belongs here. [ though he supposes if it's out of sight - then the HHA won't have anything to say about it. ]

You said 'used to'. Did the kids learn their lesson, or do you still have to check in on that bunker often?

[helloneighbor]

[Harding doesn't reply, looking away like he's seriously, genuinely thinking of what to say. Eventually, he gives his head a single shake, slowly.]

I haven't been down there for years. [His tone is firm and decisive — honest — but unenthusiastic. He talks like he's poking at an old, sore wound, a place that hasn't healed right and still hurts if you prod at it a certain way. It's just something you live with.]

Once the... [He trails, trying to think of the right word,] shininess wore off, they stopped going. Found another game to play.

[apodictic]

[ years, he says, but that can mean anything in this town. it could be a situation like with rosemary craven who had a sense of time but couldn't grasp it.

it's easy enough to imagine that the kids grew up and found something else to bother themselves with; the novelty of a half-finished bunker can easily wear off once it's been explored, after all, and it's not really constructed to entertain. but the way he speaks about it is curious; it's just a bunker, isn't it? why that tone. ]

It is certainly not the kind of thing to be trifling with, [ angelo says slowly, figuring out how best to approach this topic properly. ] It's not a playground, after all; I imagine it's easy to get lost and trapped if one isn't careful. Those children are lucky to have someone who cares enough to keep them out of trouble.

What happened the last time you were down there?

[helloneighbor]

[Harding's gazing off in another direction while he faces Angelo, listening to him. He has a pensive, distracted look on his face like's only half paying attention, but his eyes come alive again when Angelo asks his question, sharply darting in his direction.]

Nothing.

[His shoulders rise and his head shakes again, like he's trying to shake the word off.]

You're asking me to remember something that happened decades ago. I think I'd remember— [he takes a final sip of the coffee he's been drinking and throws the cup out, tossing it into a trashcan they aren't standing far away from,] —if it was important.

[His tone turns brisk, back to business.]

Why do you care so much?

HARDING

[m1895]

[ Their shifts overlap fairly routinely, now, but Vasiliy knows better than to push for interaction with a man who is disinterested on the whole. Such a violation of social norms would raise suspicion, and he wouldn't particularly enjoy it himself if he were in Harding's shoes. But this is different - judging by what happened on Halloween, this could very well be a mass casualty event, and there's something human and feeling behind his eyes that isn't apparent in the other neighbors' glassy stares.

He hooks the thumb of the hand that isn't occupied with mug and cigarette in the belt holding up his uniform pants, the same dark navy the others at the firehouse wear. And he approaches, keeping his voice low and sincere. ]

Chief Harding, I need you to help me.

[helloneighbor]

[After the morning Harding has had, he already looks like he's ready to call it a day and go hide in his car. That same car is what he's standing in front of when Vasiliy finds it parked on the outskirts of North Santa Rosita, Harding leaned over the hood. He's bracing himself against it with both arms, as if he's stopped to catch his breath. His head is bowed; it snaps up when Vasiliy calls out to him, his eyes widening in mortification before he quickly and brutally suppresses it.]

Nope, [Harding says simply, doing a fantastic impression of an apathetic man despite how thick and strained his tone sounds. His hands slide off the hood as he pushes off against it, speed walking to the driver's side.] No, nuh-uh, fuck no. Get away from me.

[m1895]

[ Vasiliy feels it, loudly, like a shark must feel gallons of blood dumped off the side of a fishing vessel or a scenthound a vat of perfume soaked into the ground over its trail: the exhaustion, the attempts to tape together something dangerously close to crumbling, the ugly asymmetry of the sort of human imperfection that even the most carefully finessed machine or simulation, Robbies included, cannot hope to convincingly emulate.

It has all at once become a certainty, not a suspicion, that Harding is different from the other people here, and he has walked in on a moment that is horribly private.

He doesn't pursue him on his way to the driver's side, because he knows people on the whole well enough by now to recognize that chasing anyone has never, in the history of diplomatic action, ended with the desired outcome. So he just stands there where he is, his thigh against the front bumper, which will have to come forward if Harding leaves the parking spot. Vasiliy lets some of the determination fall from his face for a few seconds as he reaches into the breast pocket of his uniform shirt and taps a cigarette out of the half-finished pack of Luckies.

He holds it out, an attempt at an olive branch for the time being. ]

Sorry.

[ He doesn't elaborate on the apology, doesn't draw attention to what he's interrupted or the implications behind acknowledging why it's a violation. That would only be a further offense. ]

Sorry for the wait, neighbor!

[helloneighbor]

[Harding's face is flushed and his eyes look glassy. He stops with his hand on the door and looks between Vasiliy and the cigarette, not quite studying the man's expression so much as considering his own options. It seems to work, though; whatever is clawing around in his head seems to still long enough for him to let go of the door handle and reach out to take the cigarette.]

... Thanks.

[He fishes his lighter out of his pocket. The cigarette trembles in his grip as he puts it to his mouth and tries — unsuccessfully — to get a light going, striking the flint wheel with his thumb over and over and not getting anything but a few sparks to show for it. He mumbles something that sounds like shit as he keeps at it.]