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

[He just sighs.]

We can talk about this later.

Glad you can hope there'll be a later for both of us... ugh, forget I said that! It's a date!

[Not the best phrasing, with the grin he's got forced onto his face right now, but it's not like he did something cheesy and winked or anythi -

Oh. Oh dear. It was a reflex! IT WAS A REFLEX - why is his sense of humor like this - somehow, Hiyori ignoring him to keep needling at Caleb feels safer right now than the alternative.

Plus, if he's focused on talking to Caleb, that means he's not focused on his axe. (Maybe. Hopefully.) Heading his way and trying to yank it away with the whip would be simple under normal circumstances, but this definitely isn't normal....]

Edited (extra phrasing.) 2020-02-19 22:12 (UTC)

[The words "It's a date" so cheekily inflected got Hiyori's head to turn in Jonathan's direction, so he's staring blankly and holding on tightly to the axe flat horizontal across both hands, though the whip cleanly wraps around it.]

...Jonathan Morris, you have to understand by now that it matters very little whether I'm actually holding the axe or not, right?

[Jonathan meets that uncanny, pupilless gaze - but Hiyori looks startled, almost. He can't look away now.]

What do you expect me to do when you show up armed at a time like this?! I'm not - you really think I know how to turn the other cheek anymore?!

[This isn't how Jonathan wanted anything to go. His temper is getting the better of him, but as familiar as that is, as horribly comforting it might be, he can't let it. The fog will come back, if he does.

It takes an effort to pull back from the edge of blind rage. He forces himself to stand straight, not braced for a fight, and with a few flicks of his wrist the whip withdraws. He coils it without looking down.]

...nice tie.

No, actually. [He hooks one elbow underneath the axe so he can rhythmically tap his finger against the handle.] But I did think you knew that what you really have to fear is t̶̨̩̫͓̹̟̼̰̦͉͔̲̮̖͂̀̀̾͒̓̐̊͗̿̕͝͠͝h̶̢͕̫̬͔̺̖̿̽̏̈́̃̓ĭ̵̛͚̱͎̠̳̹̀̓̔̈̐̀̎́̎ş̸̛̥̬̀́̍͆̃̏̅̃͊͘ͅͅ. Right now's not scheduled to be a special time, so it isn't. At any given moment, our collective could overwhelm you. I'm sure there's some verse about that.

[He lifts his hand all the way up to get two fingers classically enveloping the necktie, sighing.]

Prince Eric gave it to me. I thought putting it on would pacify him without causing further repercussions. You can leave me gifts or visit our apartment too if you want. We know what nice manners you were raised with; you might even leave it outside the door if we aren't there.

I know better than to go sneaking in when someone's not home, yeah. If you really appreciate old-fashioned things, I could even leave a calling card if I missed you....

[There are verses about Legion, true. Not the ball of corpses, but myriad demons... Jonathan just sighs heavily, trying to breathe out old terror.]

I did think it was pretty weird we only saw you and him this whole time. Makes sense you would have backup waiting in the wings - is there a "special time" on the schedule where we will be seeing the collective, then?

Please don't get ahead of yourself. I think you recall very well how either era of civilization can end up hideously chaotic without IT's influence.

[He rolls his eyes.]

You can probably look at the calendar and make an educated guess about your last "independence day", but don't get too hung up on the precise form that the collective will take - or has already taken, for that matter. The left hand doesn't always know what the right hand is doing.

[Hiyori is the sinister hand in this sentence, it appears, though he steers the axe in place as everything else with his right.]

Oh, I can look well enough to know it won't be the Fourth of July, that's for sure, even if there are... fireworks planned.

[If Jonathan thought of himself as ~~cute enough for~~ capable of getting away with it, he'd probably have batted his eyelashes coquettishly with that. He can look guileless without that oversell, though. Big blue eyes like his don't need anything fluttered in front of them to seem like there's nothing going on behind them.

Besides, from the sound of things Hiyori probably does remember him as the kind of naive idiot who wouldn't have set out to burden that sentence with any implications.]

But from how you're talking it sure does sound like "no man may know the hour" applies to you and Link, too. Even if the past "games" all had a time limit, and they all matched up... you're not sure what's going to become of us either. Are you.

Of course I don't know for sure! Why on Earth would I talk to you so much if I didn't think I needed to influence the outcome at all?

[this is just like
actually not a rhetorical question. Literally why would anyone talk to Hiyori]

Don't get me wrong. If I thought there were even the slightest possibility of the pretty picnic you're imagining that all the past games actually ended in, I'd be acting very differently. But you're not buying anything we're selling! So it doesn't matter. I'm sure Link will be preparing the sandwiches right on schedule.

["I'm sure" once again implying he doesn't actually know...?]

I don't know why you'd bother with the likes of me for anything. But you did. Really, just to influence the outcome?

[There is disgust in his voice, but it is obviously aimed at his own self. This isn't what he wanted from today. It may be early yet, but this... it's too much.

Jonathan steps back, and looks away. He knows whe he's been dismissed.]

You should check with your wife first!

[Not the point, Caleb.]

It's a figure of speech... and damn it, she's my wife< not my chaperone!

[Also not the point, but he's almost beginning to develop a complex about that.]

I was just joking.

[Geez.]

WEE͠K ̸́4͝

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...mods? Lenga? Both/all?

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