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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OOC INFO	premise | rules | faq | taken | applications | hiatus/drop/canon updates | activity check | reserves | mod contact
SETTING INFO	calendar | setting | housing | npcs | death and tranquilizing | the story so far | event suggestions/engagements

Comments

Cards on the Table

[peninhand]

[ Monika stared idly and tiredly at the wall with all the events so far. There was an obvious pattern as far as major happenings were concerned. October, zombie kids. Halloween-themed as far as she was concerned. December, murderous reindeer. Pretty obvious connection to Christmas. And this month... No apparent connection to Valentine's Day, though everything happened right before and right after the 14th. It couldn't be a coincidence, which meant... ]

They'll strike again in April. Most likely around Easter.

[ After that the Summer Solstice in June, and so on. She didn't know if anyone was around and listening. But that was probably important. ]

But this time we'll be ready.

[weifinder]

( He's popped in too, wants to add his own note to Rosemary, only pausing to glance over at the woman who speaks. )

Is this easter another local festival? Who has a, what's the word, the thing people write with here...

( Rosemary Craven: has those she wishes to know died cleanly, whose souls rest peacefully. Is it relevant? He's tempted to think so, particularly if it's as Daylight had intimated before: Craven and Harding were as brought to this place as they, the current newcomers, had been. )

[peninhand]

Easter is a holiday in relation to Christmas. If one exists, so too does the other.

[ She wasn't going to go into the details though. The son of god who's born on Christmas, then killed on a Friday and then returns to life on Easter. Not exactly relevant to the situation since most people celebrate the holidays without really caring for their origin. ]

Here.

[ She hands him over a pen-- She has her own thoughts about Rosemary, and is curious to see what he may have to add to her "profile." ]

[weifinder]

( He accepts the pen, making a noise of acknowledgement akin to an extended "ah" at her information. )

Are there any other related celebrations like those, or are those the only two linked in such a way?

( Next to Rosemary, he sketches out a short note: )

Interest in soothing particular spirits. Wishes for them to be at peace.

[peninhand]

They're all related to a religion so there are more... But I doubt the religion itself is important here.

[ Unless it was, in which case... Well things were about to get a whole lot worse. She did notice what he wrote about Rosemary though. That was new. She clearly was aware on a subconscious level of what was going on. But on a conscious level? ]

I think Rosemary may be an ally... But we need to thread with caution. If we go about it the wrong way, she could feel threatened by us.

[weifinder]

I feel that's the case with anyone aware enough to know something isn't right here. The ones who don't let themselves even acknowledge that much are dangerous in a slightly different manner.

( No one here is harmless is his real thought, which is... well. Harmless and innocent are two vastly different things. Returning the pen to her, he sighs. )

Along those lines, what were you thinking?

[peninhand]

I think she used to know something, but she forgot. Perhaps she was brainwashed. Perhaps she was like us.

[ Or perhaps she's on the verge of an epiphany as she had once been. She shook her head. ]

I don't know. But we need her help somehow.

[sunborne]

[ daylight is entering the study/room of information, as he's come to dubbed it, to quickly scribble something down. he catches most of what monika has to say and easter...?

oh.

oh fuck. she's right. he looks at the timeline of events and winces at the implications. if the pattern holds then next month will be a quiet one but the month after that- ] Something's going to happen. It's involving holidays or something maybe themed to the month. If it's Easter...

Urgh. [ he pinches the bridge of his nose as he walks up to the wall, grabbing a pencil along the way. he quickly jots down the possibility - april: next attack? - and dots question marks under it. ] If the next round of madness involves eggs, in any capacity, then I think I'm done.

[ it's a strange line to draw, daylight, but i guess you gotta have your lines drawn somewhere in the sand. ]

Thanks for pointing that out. [ he looks to her, clearly grateful but also clearly exhausted as he tries to stifle a loud yawn. ] I've been so preoccupied trying to check on the others and setting the house up, I didn't think of what might be coming up next.

[peninhand]

No worries, ahaha.

[ She hoped she was wrong. But even without the holidays, it was obvious there was going to be more happening. At least they could get prepared, somewhat. ]

There's also April's fool. I don't usually care about that day, but... [A pause.] I think everyone should stay home for it that year.

[ She would most certainly stay home on her end. ]

I'm Monika by the way.

[ She didn't remember ever having talked to him and the network discussion didn't have little pictures. ]

[sunborne]

Daylight. [ he flashes her a smile. or, well, tries to. it’s been an exhausting several days and he thinks it’s a miracle that he’s still standing and having a coherent conversation with someone. ] It’s nice to meet you, Monika.

Wish we could have met under better circumstances but what can you do? [ besides plan ahead.

he adds a note of both april's fools, be careful! and bomb shelter — occupied, useful info(?) on the wall, looking thoughtful as he takes a step back to weigh their possible options for it. ]

So... The police are acting like nothing is wrong. The shelter still stands. [ he folds his arms over his chest, trying to rack his brain for ideas. ] I guess... We could try to clear it out. See what’s in there.

[peninhand]

[ That sounded familiar... Yes! Yes of course, the one who'd informed them all of the disappearances in the first place. ]

Oh! We've talked before. I was "lilmonix3" on the network. [Kind of an embarrassing handle to have picked.] It's nice meeting you too. Sorry if I worried you back then.

[ She nodded. ]

I agree. [A group could go in there, perhaps. With enough fighters to fend off any troubles.] We can't rely on the "natives" to help, so it's up to us if we want to see anything done. Except...

[ Rosemary. She could help. Had she forgotten, had she been brainwashed? She didn't know, but she was clearly important. ]

I think Rosemary is important. I don't think she's withholding information from us purposefully. [A pause.] She told me she feels as though something is wrong. As if her reality could fall apart anytime. And how unsettling she finds it to be the only one who feels that way. She's not like the other natives.

[apodictic]

[ angelo reads the notes on the wall. harding can do something, huh. interesting.

he lingers around to listen to conversation and look at the board with interest, for the most part, until he hears them talk about rosemary. angelo raises an eyebrow. ]

... that means nothing, in the scheme of things. That she is not like the other neighbours is hardly worth rejoicing over or considering her as an ally. If anything, it just means that she is certainly someone to watch out for.

[ angelo stares at the note that daylight had written. ]

Clearing out something as expansive as the shelter will take a lot of effort and attract a lot of attention. We already know that our enemies are capable of taking residents without so much as a fuss. It is reckless.

[ he swirls the liquid in his cup, tapping fingers on the rim. ]

But the shelter is an anomaly. Harding said it's been decades since he was down there because of kids trying to sneak in to it. [ that's not the kind of behaviour you'd expect from the neighbourhood police, who keeps acting like nothing is wrong.

this, however, angelo is certain about, despite lack of evidence - ]

Something happened in there before it was completely abandoned.

[peninhand]

[ She turned when she heard the new voice. She could agree that the shelter was an anomaly. Everything else though...? Sounded a tad too extreme and pessimistic for her liking. ]

I am not saying we should consider her an ally, but we should not go to the other end, either. There is no saying what we could earn from convincing her to help us.

[ She wasn't about to explain her reasoning, though. Her reasons for trying to get closer to Rosemary were personal, too personal to be discussed with a stranger. And about clearing the shelter-- ]

What's your alternative? We wait till they kidnap some of us into that shelter once more?

[apodictic]

[ angelo frowns. ]

Harding never liked the fact that we knew about the shelter when I spoke to him. I don't think this was something we were meant to find, and I think it was something they were content to leave on the wayside, until it became relevant recently.

My alternative is to wait. We don't know how they'll react after. They can ignore a kidnapping, certainly, but it'll take a lot more effort to ignore physical changes in daily lives that's outside of what's normal for Santa Clarita. We'll see how that goes.

[ rather thoughtfully, ] We know very little about this town. We should start looking for things. Make them think that we're ignoring the shelter - for now.

And we should take care of the others. [ he points at the notes daylight made of harding. ] We don't want to be vulnerable to whatever he can ... do to people, any more than we are now.

[peninhand]

[ "Wait..." Monika didn't like that word, not one bit. Nor did she think whoever had done this would be fooled by them pretending to ignore that shelter. ]

I went down in that bunker looking for my best friend.

[ As had many others. But... ]

I found her, after a while. She was still alive but I don't know if she'll ever be the same again. [She tilted her head down.] Because you see, before finding her I found the literal piece of her brain they'd carelessly removed and thrown into the sink afterward.

[ She looked back at the wall with all the information they'd gathered so far. She marked a bit of a pause before finishing. Had it not been for Sans's advice, she'd have burned the place to the ground.]

I will not wait till they decide to open her head again.

[apodictic]

[ angelo looks at her thoughtfully at that statement. ]

.... a piece of her brain, you say. But not the one they needed, apparently, for whatever reason they decided to take it for.

[ a tilt of the head. ] And one for a jaw, another for a throat, and another for a lung.

What does that sound to you?

content warning: description of graphic violence.

[sunborne]

I can get behind that theory. [ daylight rubs his eyes, trying to fight against exhaustion that threatens him at every turn these days. ] There's no way they would just give it up in one go. I had an uncle who specalised in civil defence for our hometown. The stuff down there? That's a lot of time and manpower and, most importantly, resources poured into its construction.

No way they'll abandon it at first signs of trouble.

[ not unless they were forced to. or were confronted with something that made them decided the losses were worth facing. ]

That said... I gotta say, man, I don't like the idea of not doing something to the shelter. If we can only do one thing, I think it wouldn't hurt to restrict access to it. [ be it ensuring it's difficult to get in or get out. the latter, especially.

his fingers twitch when he remembers the feel of the bat in his head when he had to stove in his uncle leeds' doppleganger's head, the deafening crunch as he broke through 'skin' and 'bone' of the thing posing as his long-dead guardian. he remembers fighting off a wave of nausea as he tries to ignore his its panicked cries, the one good eye, though cracked and fractured, swivelling desperately around and around in its broken socket.

daylight's flinch comes and goes, plain as, well, day, but he tries to power on: ]

Want to hear your opinion on this angle- Do you think we can find any records of the shelter? Find out anything about it and who might be connected to it? [ opr would those be long gone at this point? something the town wiped away, tidying up unseemly things they didn't want seen? ]

[apodictic]

Resources ignored, [ angelo reminds him. ] until there was another purpose found for it. There was a room there that was for someone to stay in that's not kept in a cell.

[ angelo thinks about it, and then he says, ] The town hall, perhaps. The library can't be relied on because it barely has anything up to date at all.

[sunborne]

The town hall...

[ daylight closes his eyes. not just because he's tired, needing a second to rest his eyes, but because he's trying to remember where he had seen it during his rounds.

that's right- north santa rosita. the one that was connected to the clock tower. ]

A lot of people always there and have to contend with an 'Ethel' to get a meeting with Mayor Clarke. If you or others plan to go there for the records, however you do it, you gotta be careful. [ he hadn't met her personally, this ethel, but he heard the strange way she laughed and spoke when he biked by. he sometimes turned his head towards the source, drawn, and caught a glimpse of a too-bright smile and wide, wide eyes.

she was one fo them. ]

[apodictic]

The list for the tour is always full, as well. You can't tell me that every single person in this town wants to have a tour of that damned town hall.

[ it's one curiosity out of many in this town, it can't be the only thing everyone wants to visit? that's crazy to him. ]

[sunborne]

Oh! You’re lilmonix3?

[ hearing the name aloud is both fascinating — so that’s how you say it aloud! huh. you learn something new every day. — and a relief for daylight. considering their last talk and all, he was worried for the user and wondered if they were doing okay.

clearly, she’s in one piece and that’s a victory daylight will take. ]

Oh man! Hey there, buddy! [ he smiles at her and it’s brighter, clearly one of relief as he lets out a sudden and happy sigh. ] I was hoping you were alright since you went to look for Rosemary. Good to see you here.

[ and speaking of mrs. carver— ] Sounds like this bit is stronger than ever.

[ daylight taps the ‘one of us?’ and adds a little plus sign to it, a sign of point being in her favour. ]

Do you think she’s gone native after being here for so long? During the New Year, when we saw 1961 loopback to the start, Kiara and I were talking about the possibility. Of others being brought before us. Sort of like test trials. [ because if you think about it: their arrival, the removal of their powers, and the attempts to falsify their lives here was way too smooth to be the first round. ]

[peninhand]

[ She beamed. lilmonix3 had been a great twitter handle! Unfortunately, it sounded absolutely ridiculous when spoken aloud. Perhaps she really should have reconsidered it when first sending a message here... ]

No worries, it went really well, ahaha! I'm sorry if I worried you too much. She was really kind and understanding. Too much so, really. [A pause.] She seemed so... Distressed that she couldn't understand why she felt that way.

[ She had reasons to trust that Rosemary could be of help. But she wouldn't share them. Much too personal. ]

Someone else mentioned that possibility to me... It could be so. There are other options, too. She could have been one of those behind this place, but then she had second thoughts and the others brainwashed her before she could stop them. Or she could have been created to make this place feel alive, but she's gaining awareness...

[ Kind of like herself. She shook her head. ]

We have too little to go on. And I'm afraid if we push her, she may feel threatened and close herself up entirely.

[sunborne]

Can’t blame her, really? [ he adds that warning of monika on his wall — do not push, might clam up — as he talks. We must have brought a lot of chaos with us when we all came in and refused to play along.

though honestly, he thinks to himself with annoyance, can you blame them? waking up in different bodies, powers stripped away from you, taken away from loved ones… not the best way to endear one’s self to majority of the individuals you’ve decided to bring over to bump up the numbers of the town.

the flash of aggression is tempered with shame, remembering his conversation in the church— is it really that bad here? why not stay for a while? had been more or less asked to him, making him realise that some preferred this than what they had prior to their arrival.

which he admits makes sense with how going back home won’t be promising for some of them... the likes agatha and wrathion come to mind. ]

—Do you think there are more like her? People we can talk to and see if we can shake information out of? [ he taps at the section he had written up on chief harding, the part of him being possibly one of them. ]

I think he’s our best bet from what Takame and Sans told me. Maybe.

[peninhand]

[ Monika couldn't blame anyone who'd refused to play along, herself included to an extent. On her own, she would probably have gone along with the flow in this place, but... It was hell. Only people whose home were even worse would be happy in this place. And obviously enough, worse hell than this were rare.

She's just unfortunate enough to come from one of these rare places. Perhaps she should meet those other people who don't want to go back home, either. Ideally, they'd find a way for people to go back to whatever world they choose, should they find a way out.

But happy endings like that? Don't exist. ]

I haven't met him yet, but...

[ If Takame and Sans thought so, then she had no doubt they were on to something. And Daylight, too. ]

Yes, possibly. They're likely to be in positions that stand out. Chief of Police. Head of the HHA. [President of the Literature Club.] Positions that foster a greater sense of individuality. Positions where the standard emotionless and thoughtless behavior wouldn't work.

[sunborne]

So we have two, three options to reach out to for help.

[ the mayor, if the pattern holds up, and the chief police and the head of the hha. considering his talk with the chief of police, daylight is leaning into the idea of reaching out to chief harding. at the very least, trying to find someone a lot more diplomatic than himself to try and reach some common ground.

remembering the conversation, daylight can’t help but wonder how it went for monika. wouldn’t hurt to ask: ]

How was it? The conversation with her? [ daylight’s expression takes a worried and concerned one now, remembering the spike of panic and uncertainty he felt when he realised li— when he realised monika wouldn’t be replying to his messages anymore. he is pretty relieved she seems to be in one piece but never hurts to get verbal confirmation, you know? ]

Did anything stand out to you when you were speaking with her? You mentioned not wanting to push her too hard so I guess that there was a chance of that happening when you were talking.