15strangers | WEE͠K ̸́4͝

W҉͘E͜͠͝E̕K̡̛͡ ̡͟4̸

[The blight is all-consuming.

Within days dozens are confirmed infected, and you and your unexpected new scientist friend find yourselves trying to work on a cure. If not a cure, a stopgap of some kind. Anything to prevent this thing from destroying everything. It's hard work. It's not going very well. Really, it feels like with every step forward, you're taking ten steps back. Discouraging is an understatement, to say the least.

A week passes, and the death toll rises. It's really starting to look bleak. You constantly second-guess yourself, and even get into a fistfight with your new ally one night. It's getting to the point where you are working on fumes.

Then, unexpectedly, you get a phone call. It's been a long night, and the sun is beginning to rise above the mountains, when it happens.

You and the scientist are not the only ones looking for a cure. In fact, there are at least a dozen others-and they think they may be close to a breakthrough.

But-and you can't believe you're hearing this, after all of the failure you'd experienced throughout this blight-they need your help.]

---

[To say that the end of last week sucked would be an understatement. To say that no one knows what this week will bring is not even in question. Yet even as you wake, you feel a cloud lift from your mind, as one of the truths you've been living with since the beginning has suddenly changed.]

[But is it possible to abide by this new truth? The Hosts, and IT beyond, seem intent on making that impossible. And the rat...well. Obviously the rat's not an ally. Let's not kid ourselves.

There's only one way to find out if more deaths can truly be prevented-and that's to keep going, and hoping that the new floor that has opened up will offer something in the way of an opportunity.

In the meantime.

There are 11 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Once or twice could be coincidence, it just happens with a constant backbeat - but there's something about that moving in time, her wings and that jump both, that's got an alarm bell going off in the back of Jonathan's head.

Only one, though. And it's rather drowned out by the van's song and his sheer bafflement.]

What, they didn't tell you she was here?

[He just gestured at Kurama and Lala, with that.]

I've barely even had the chance to speak to anyone... who even are y—

[Sorry, busy getting literally tackled. Oof.]

I didn't know there was a connection. I'm not going to be bringing your wife up without a good reason, Jonathan, and you know exactly why.

And you might want to warn her that Akira is driving the van.

[Just. Rubbing the bridge of his nose.]

You should warn everyone that Akira is driving the van-lun.

Now, I think Akira did quite well for having to drive through an abyss between the dead and the living.

[His tone is very gentle with Lala even as he loyally defends his boyfriend's skills.]

I... good point. I'll do that.

[But before he does... a question.]

What do you mean with the rhythm?

[Kurama honestly looks a little surprised that someone here needs to ask. He gestures slightly to the City In General.]

With everything about schedules and timing and synchronization? As well, when I had that problem with the TV, the ticking became stronger and more prominent. I'm fairly sure it's all one with the static and the red fog, part of IT's influence.

I didn't realize you didn't know.

Had my suspicions, but I figured it was just to try and drive us crazy so we'd fall in line, not a danger on its own. The radio kinda... pulsed at the same speed when I fell into it. Wasn't just that it got louder, it was....

[Really extra double-mega-ultra-creepifying, which is why he actually shudders, and not in a theatrical way at all.]

[Kurama echoes that shudder, just a tiny bit, because he is hopefully still the only person here who understands exactly what Jonathan means.]

Yes. Exactly. My personal theory is that it's partly a form of immersion therapy. It's not supposed to drive us crazy constantly noticing it. It's supposed to be so ever-present that we start to tune it out, and fall into line with it without noticing.

No way to block it out, either... wait, where you ended up, it was there too!?

[Kurama hesitates slightly before his lips press together thinly and he nods.]

I'm afraid so. There's also a constant feeling of being watched. And worse than that, for me at least, is that the red fog's foothold in my mind is still there.

[Jonathan's only response at first is a slow hiss of breath drawn in through clenched teeth. Words take a second or five.]

So even that much of an execution didn't get rid of it... but that means this place is basically self-contained, right? If even the... local... hereafter is infested. Contaminated? You know what I mean.

No... but if I didn't give in before, I certainly don't plan to now that I'm back with Akira.

I'm not sure self-contained is the word. I was told the other dead, those from the train and mansion, were chased to where we are now.

Were the places they were in destroyed, or did they just have to flee?

[He really doesn't like the implications here....]

Jun didn't say. He said they were chased by dark hands and waves until they ended up here.

That's not exactly encouraging. Waves of what?

..... probably waves of the same howling darkness that nearly got me when I saw IT.

So, the stuff outside the barriers, then? That's... I don't like what this is starting to add up to... but hey, I'm bad at math, I could be wrong!

It felt like......getting ripped apart on every level I can imagine, and a few I can't. But if it....consumed the places they were before, wouldn't that fit with a bunch of other stuff we've learned?

It does. But... God, they can't just be gone, can they?

[By sending them home, had they just doomed everyone who'd been shoved onto the plane as a hostage?]

I don't think so. Charles got totally taken over by the red fog, but he's okay now. IT's power isn't absolute......and there's bound to be solutions.

We're still here, so there's still hope.

I - that's what you meant at the meeting, isn't it? What we all have that It doesn't... it's hope?

I think so? I'm not sure that's all there is to it, he said it was the start... "Remember what hope is, and nothing is impossible."

(no subject)

byanyother_name - 2020-02-21 08:56 (UTC) - Expand

backuphero - 2020-02-21 15:13 (UTC) - Expand

[WHY THIS WHY THIS WHY THIS]

There's a way to fight it. Charles got taken over by it, but he's fully free now, and we should be able to free the Hosts too, and there's supposed to be a special frequency that can fight IT...