WEE͠K ̸́4͝

[strangerpeople]

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.]

Comments

[byanyother_name]

[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.

[backuphero]

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

[byanyother_name]

[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.

[backuphero]

[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.

[byanyother_name]

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.

[backuphero]

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

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

[byanyother_name]

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

[backuphero]

That's not exactly encouraging. Waves of what?

[incendiarize]

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

[backuphero]

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!

[incendiarize]

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?

[backuphero]

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?]

[incendiarize]

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.

[backuphero]

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

[incendiarize]

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."

[byanyother_name]

I might have an idea... Jonathan, after the radio, you managed to free yourself entirely.

I still haven't, after trying twice to pry it loose. But I was furiously angry and afraid, focused on how much I hated that invasion. All negative emotion, the kind of feelings Noise thrive on and induce. What were you focused on?

Hope is a positive emotion, the exact opposite. Hope, love, belief, feelings of that type might be what is needed to combat IT.

[backuphero]

Makes sense to me. It wasn't just those, though, I...

[It has been a crazy few weeks. It's hard to straighten out his memories and figure out how to describe that - fight isn't the word for it, not really. He takes a deep breath, and pauses for a few seconds before he answers in a rush.]

It was like the fog was offering me undisturbed peace, but it was fake. I remember thinking about the things keeping me tied to life, the people I love, the triumphs and wonders we've come through and seen and done. The things I have to do back home, too, that only I can do. So... hope, and love, and faith, and duty, yeah, but...

But when you get down to it, not being able to tell the difference between good and sublime, not having any sense of "bad" to contrast with "good", that felt like dying to me, and that's all it could promise, and I didn't want to die. Unending "peace" is the same as unending despair, really. Or... if everything is good nothing is. Am I even making sense?

[touchsensors]

[WHY THIS WHY THIS WHY THIS]

[incendiarize]

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...