Event № 1 : January 2024

[silentspringmods]

Event № 1 : January 2024
Part I; Chapter 2. Silence tells me secretly everything

universe/setting information, role assignment, and FAQs

I. A Thought Is Haunting Me

January 1st.

CWs: nonconsensual memshare/receiving of memories, flashbacks to combat zone and injury, blood, hearing loss/burst eardrum, panic attacks.

Just in time for New Year's Eve, the town square that held a magnificently decorated 15-foot Christmas tree last week now has a glittering silver ball to rival New York's own waiting atop a flagpole rooted in the same spot. Strings of lanterns illuminate the snowy brick courtyard, lined with stands offering hot cocoa, ciders, and various warm snacks, or perhaps characters are more interested in obtaining a pair or two of silly New Year's glasses that allow them to look through the numerals 1961. Eventually, though, all goes quiet for the exciting countdown.

'Five... four... three... two... one!

The ball drops, and confetti streams down onto the square (and the people standing in it!) as the Sweetwater High School Marching Band picks up a jaunty rendition of the New Year's classic Auld Lang Syne—but characters will likely find themselves distracted by the dark spots that appear in their fields of vision, gradually expanding until everything is eclipsed entirely by soft blackness. They feel less and less of the world around their bodies, numbness starting at their fingertips and toes and creeping up their extremities until they feel touchless, floating, completely absent of sensation. Then something replaces it: fragments, or perhaps all of what follows.

The world flashes black, then returns, hazy and doubled, half obscured by smoke as you lie face down on the hard, rocky earth. One ear shrieks, a whine that grows higher and higher. Hot blood streams down the other earlobe and drips onto your neck, washing off sweat and grime as it trickles toward your collar. Pain slices through what you think must be your eardrum like a jackknife shoved into your skull. You cough, throat burning, ribs protesting the movement. A coppery taste, a warmth, fills your mouth. You check with your tongue and all of your teeth are there; the blood is coming from your broken lip. The hair on top of your head feels hot and wet. You know your cheek is scraped open from the gritty sting taking up most of your face.

The doubled image of a medic gets into your face, his lips silently moving. You try to shake your head, to communicate that you can’t hear him over the shriek of your own tinnitus, but your neck is too stiff. Your brain slams against your skull and your head feels like it’s been hit with a brick. Blood drips off of your brow and into your eye.

The medic squeezes your shoulder and pushes off, scrambling across the debris until he disappears in the gray-brown smoke. There’s a moment of irrational fear: he’s leaving you here to die. You’re hit somewhere and you’re last in triage. You’ve heard about soldiers not feeling the gunshot until much later. When he and his buddy come back with a stretcher, surprise mingles with the dread of being lifted.

You shut your eyes tightly, trying to recalibrate your vision, but it still swims with the pitch and yaw of the rocky earth beneath you. When you open it, he’s trying to look into your eyes, hand on your shoulders, his lips finally moving in a pattern you recognize: Going home. Going home.

Going home.

You close your eyes.

*

You stare at a long tawny finger as you wind it into the red plasticized cord of the phone set, doing nothing when it begins to throb against its tethers, the single physical sensation anchoring you in reality.

“Listen to me. I need you to be calm and handle this. Someone will be there in thirty minutes, Ron. You need to keep it under control until then or we’re going to be in a world of shit you can’t even imagine—Put up roadblocks. Say a convict got loose. I don’t care. Do what you have to. Don’t call me unless it’s resolved or someone’s fucking dying, Ron, do you understand me?”

*

The door opens as the emergency light comes on, flickering. The room fills with the suffocating stench of diesel. A candystriper’s golden-brown hands wrap around your thin wrists, pulling you as she rocks back on the heels of her wet tennis shoes with all of her might. Tears stream down her cheeks, strands of relaxed hair hanging in her eyes. She chokes her words out around sobs of her own, eyes wild with terror, screaming: Miss Ruby, you have to get up! You have to get up, Miss Ruby! But your legs won't move. Your breaths shudder ragged in the air just like the volunteer's.

At 12:01, characters return to consciousness: but there are little changes, twinges that make this a bit realer than a dream. Perhaps their index finger twinges as blood returns to it and the impressions a tight phone cord left on their skin fade, or maybe they find themselves wiping a few droplets of blood from the corner of their jaw. Perhaps their ears ring, gradually giving way to clearer sound—or maybe they awake sitting on the ground with their arms around their bent knees, face wet with tears, overcome with a raw panic unlike anything they’ve ever felt. How very odd.

Notes:
—Characters can experience all of the memories, or players can pick and choose.
—Characters do not have to be in the square to receive the memories.

II. In the Valley of the Dolls We Sleep

January 13-15th.

CWs: violence, entrapment, hypnosis, living mannequins, dismemberment.


'New year, new you!' the cheery saleswoman on the radio and television ads for the local two-story department store proclaims ad-nauseam, becoming more and more of a regular guest in characters' homes as time marches on toward the 15th of the New Year. There are great sales to be had, and would you look at that, characters have a few gift cards to this very store in their respective purses and wallets! Over time, the voice of the young woman in the advertisement almost seems to grow more insistent, even though the same ad plays every time: surely it's just familiarity altering one's perception of her voice, right?

On the morning of the 13th, characters wake up to the sound of every radio and television set in the house turned on and blaring the ad. The saleswoman reminds them that time's running out, and that the sales will only last for another 48 hours before they're gone. If characters can't hear, they only make it as far as the living room before the television screen comes into view, the same message scrolling across the bottom of the screen in large close-captioning... even if they haven't turned it on. This time, something feels different, and characters find themselves compelled as though by a supernatural force to go check out the sales being advertised.

Characters may notice once they're inside of the building that it's only new arrivals here: the townspeople of Sweetwater seem to have already done their shopping! Fortunately, there are still some great items left. It may be when looking at that cashmere sweater or a nice pair of snowshoes that characters catch a tiny flicker of movement out of the corner of their eye: but when they turn in that direction, there's nothing except a faint, nagging sense that something's not right. It happens again as they pass through the store—and then, with no warning, the faceless, eyeless mannequins throughout the store burst into motion at the same time as the sales associates collapse to the floor unconscious, attacking characters with inhuman strength and whatever items they have at their disposal with the intent of bludgeoning them to death.

If characters try to escape from the way they came, they will find that the automatic doors and fire doors are all locked as though from the outside. The windows cannot be opened or broken, nor can the glass of the doors—they're trapped here. Really, truly trapped.

To make matters worse, the mannequins, unlike the salesman, seem truly impervious to... everything. Guns can pierce them, but they have no blood to lose or brain to damage. They can be dismembered, but they're strong, and hard to pull apart; even if a mannequin's head is removed, the body will still function. Characters have one advantage, however: the mannequins are not as intelligent as human beings, and seem to mostly lack object permanence. If characters can stay silent and out of sight after finding somewhere to hide, the mannequins will drop their pursuit after about fifteen minutes of trying to get to them.

The mannequins stay alive for 48 hours, and the doors stay locked for the same amount of time. Characters who do not find a way to sleep risk sleep deprivation symptoms similar to the ones detailed in the explanation of modes of torture in Sweetwater, and will be slower, weaker, and less able to fight off or escape from the mannequins. 48 hours is also a very long time to go without water, which can only be obtained from the sinks in the bathrooms... both of which feature nicely dressed mannequins in one corner.

Notes:
— The departments of the store are as follows:

- Women's Clothing
- Men's Clothing
- Children's Clothing
- Furs
- Baby/young child supplies
- Home appliances
- Kitchen
- Decor
- Furniture
- Toys
- Hunting, Fishing, and Outdoors (hunting-style guns, ammunition, snowshoes, fishing rods, flies/fly-tying equipment, dog beds, hunting blinds)
- Tools ( Limited. There aren't any electric saws or more specialized tools like bolt cutters to be found, but simpler "Little Joey picked this out for you, Dad!" wrench/screwdriver sets, branch loppers, lawnmowers, snowblowers, etc. - in general assume that there aren't any power tools player characters can use to bulldoze the mannequins with, but there might be some tools that could help with other things... )
- Fine Jewelry/Watches
- Ladies' Gloves

— Deaf characters and characters who wear earplugs to bed will be awoken by their spouse moving, or will randomly wake up even though they can't hear the ad.
— Players who wish to opt out can say that their character simply slept through it and woke up after the doors to the department store had already locked.
— The mannequin limbs are inert after they've been removed, but the mannequins can still operate without a head.
— Characters may try to investigate at the risk of leaving cover. If a character is able to get close enough to the service desk on the second floor, they may also notice that one of the customer service associates, a teenage girl, lies slumped over the counter as opposed to on the floor with her coworkers, an unlabeled, recently installed button depressed beneath her shoulder—she was leaning forward before she lost consciousness. If her body is moved, the button stays anchored in place. If characters check it again, hours later, they'll notice that it can't be depressed or lifted, but seems a little higher—almost as if it takes a set amount of time to return to resting.

III. Drill it in like J. Paul Getty

Throughout January.

CWs: torture, non-fatal electrical shock, restraints, medical/psychiatric abuse, nonconsensual drug administration, altered states of consciousness, needles/injections, gaslighting, brainwashing, sleep deprivation torture, antipsychotics overdose, smoking.

Should characters discuss the horrors of the month on the network, over the telephone, or in places where townspeople can hear, they’ll face the consequences. They go to bed the night of the offense as usual—and come into consciousness in a dark room, a basement of some sort, bound to a chair with leather restraints buckled onto their wrists, their ankles. A leather strap runs across their chest, holding it to the back of the hard wooden chair they’re bound to. A few feet away, the static electricity of a television box provides some measure of light as noisy waves ripple across the screen.

Upon further examination, there’s one more thing on characters’ left wrists, directly north of the leather straps holding it to the armrest: a set of electrodes and thin wires that run down and across the room.

“You’re awake. Good morning.” None other than the town’s private practice doctor, Norman Pollock, greets them, with the same matter of fact tone he’d use during a standard physical exam. “You seem to have lost sight of what makes Sweetwater so special, so we’re going to watch some videos, get your head on straight. We can’t have this kind of subversive behavior when the country’s already under attack, Sweetheart.”

He presses a button on the television remote—which characters might notice has a second, less refined one taped to its side—and a program comes on: What Communism Will Take From Us.

For the next 36 hours, the hour-long video plays on repeat, showing idyllic scenes right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, detailing the joys of the American way of life, emphasizing all of the ways subversive thoughts and actions undermine it, and how they hold the door open for the Red Menace. This is what’s at stake, what little towns like Sweetwater, Maryland have to use. Norman sits in a chair nearby, smoking cigarettes, reading issues of the New England Journal of Medicine, the remote never leaving his hand. The moment characters’ eyes close for longer than a single blink, the electrodes on their wrist deliver a nasty shock to help them wake up, growing in intensity with every additional offense. His never do for longer than a regular old blink.

By the end of the 36 hours, characters can expect reality to begin to blur at the edges, and may be experiencing auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and their minds wandering in ways they haven’t before. At 36 hours of sleep deprivation, the body cries out for it, desperate to rest. Maybe they erupt into hysterical laughter, or weep uncontrollably, or panic. Norman is unphased by all of it.

If characters try to fight back, or prove too argumentative and unwilling to learn, Norman will produce a glass syringe and draw up a thick fluid from a dark glass bottle, which, if characters have the necessary visual acuity to see, reads haloperidol. He jams the needle into their gluteus and injects; within 10 minutes, characters will feel very, very sedate, almost catatonic in their stupor. Effects vary from person to person, but it is not a pleasant experience: in addition to the deadness it brings on, hearts race and mouths go dry. It gets harder to swallow, or maybe a character’s vision begins to blur. The limbs contract in fits and jerks in the immediate and for the week the drug lasts. The face twitches uncontrollably, muscles ache in their rigid stiffness, and it becomes hard to stay upright throughout the week as the drug interferes with the character’s balance, making them dizzy and confused.

THE TOE TAG
If characters fight Norman, however, they may find that he backs against the nearby metal filing cabinet–knocking loose a piece of paper hanging from a half-open drawer when he does. It’s recognizable as a photocopy of a toe tag, the kind affixed to corpses in a morgue, but characters have seconds before their vision doubles and blurs too much for it to remain readable. Characters who are injected with haloperidol for subversion, either for talking about the murder or a different offense, may comment to the event post under the designated mod comment to take a shot at reading the tag. Remember, though, it’s probably best not to advertise that they saw anything out of the ordinary, or to even mention what happened to them, on a publicly visible communications channel…

They wake up in their own bed shortly after losing consciousness, and spend the next week corpselike.

IV. It's Freezing and I Am Watching You Shovel Snow

January 7th onwards.

It's a cold winter for Maryland, characters will hear their neighbors complain, and within a few days of the New Year they have reason enough to complain too: the snowstorm everyone's been talking about in the neighborhood clubs comes on the 7th of January, dumping a foot and a half of snow. Better grab that snow shovel, or find someone to help you if you can't! A snowstorm like this takes multiple visits outdoors to keep up with, so maybe now would be a good time to practice divvying up responsibilities with characters' new spouses or children—or for bachelors to seek out the help of a neighbor. Characters may also have to deal with a power outage lasting up to 14 hours—better visit a house that has power if they need anything, but at least this is the kind of experience that brings a parent and child or a new couple or even two members of the same community closer. At least in theory.

It’s not all near-death experiences, psychological torture, and power outages, though! Characters who find themselves in need of some R&R will be pleased to know that the local fire department has tested the municipal park’s pond and found the ice is now suitably thick for ice skating. Characters will find lace-up leather ice skates in their size hanging from their tied-together laces in the garage, though this probably isn’t the best way to learn to skate if they haven’t before, given the lack of rail to hold on to–unless they have a friend to help them balance?

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Comments

rodion raskolnikov / crime and punishment / husband

[inaxorable]

i. a thought is haunting me.

a. (ota)
[ It’s New Year’s Eve, and Raskolnikov wishes he’d stayed home. Everyone here is stupid on drink and excitement, half the American locals seem to be wearing the most hideous glasses he’s ever seen, and there is so much noise. The noise is perhaps the worst part, and he has the strange, childish urge to put his hands over his ears.

He takes a drink from a stand, not bothering to ask what it is, and wanders through the crowd, snapping at anyone who bumps into him. He’s so wrapped up in his general dislike for everyone here that he stops paying attention to where he’s going, up until he runs into someone.

Still clutching his cup, which miraculously hadn’t spilled, he snaps, ] look where you’re going!


b. (ota)
[ He wakes up on the ground, curled in the fetal position, gasping for air as though he had just run across Petersburg. What had that been? Some sort of hallucination? He’d seen unfamiliar faces, been in an unfamiliar body, and now he feels as though he’s wearing the wrong skin. It’s wrong. This whole thing is wrong, everything about this place is wrong, and —

— he’s panicking, there is blood on his hands and he’s holding an ax, there is a body, two bodies, at his feet —

— he breathes, and that helps a little. He forces himself into a sitting position, even though his head spins and his stomach lurches. He needs to— to do something, to get out of this place. Is he going mad? Is he already mad?

He turns to the nearest person, ignoring how good (or bad) of a condition they’re in. ]

What happened? What is this? Did you see that too?

[ His voice is strained, taut with fear and desperation, and he looks like a madman. Still, there is something about him that is perhaps pitiable. ]

ii. in the valley of the dolls we sleep. (ota)

[ Walking, murderous mannequins. This can’t be normal, even for America.

They’re terrifyingly strong and fast, and some of the others trapped in the store have been fighting them, shooting the unfamiliarly modern guns the store has (what sort of store sells guns?) and wielding all sorts of makeshift weapons. Raskolnikov too has a weapon, a long kitchen knife with a wooden handle and gleaming blade, but he certainly isn’t using it to fight. No, he’s hiding in one of the women’s dressing rooms, clutching it against his chest.

Should someone enter the dressing room, he’ll jump nearly out of his skin and point the knife at them with the sort of terror that betrays his inexperience with fighting. ]

iii. drill it in like j. paul getty.

a. (closed to Agathe)
[ Maybe it’s because he was researching the people he’d seen — the people he’d been — on New Year’s Eve. Maybe it’s because he wanders Sweetwater at all hours of the day, muttering under his breath. Maybe they’ve discovered that he had killed, back in Petersburg. Or maybe it’s just because he’s Russian. That wouldn’t surprise him. But whatever the reason, he goes to sleep in the house that’s supposed to be his and wakes up strapped to a chair.

He panics. What else is he supposed to do? He thrashes against his bonds and shouts at the man in the room with him. At first it’s threats, and then, as time goes on and his pride wears away, he starts begging. Pollock doesn’t listen. Doesn’t even react. Let me go turns into let me sleep, and even that dissolves into incoherent babble. But even after what feels like hours, days, months of sitting awake and staring at the screen, Raskolnikov still talks, arguing with Pollock and with himself and with his mother and sister when they appear in front of him. We’ve missed you, Rodya.

Norman Pollock must grow weary of it, if such a man is capable of growing weary, because the man finally injects him with some sort of drug, and then Raskolnikov couldn’t talk even if he wanted to.

He isn’t sure when he finally falls asleep, but he wakes up in his own bed. ]


b. (ota)
[ Whatever it was Pollock had used to sedate him still hasn’t worn off, though it’s been three days. His hands won’t stop twitching, spasming enough to make the muscles ache, and his face and lower limbs have become strangely stiff. He doesn’t want to eat, and even though his mouth is drier than he’s ever felt it, he drinks barely enough to survive.

He spends two days cooped up in his house, a strange restlessness building under his skin, until he can’t take the sitting around and doing nothing. Not knowing what he’s doing or where he’s going, his mind wrapped in the morning fog of Petersburg, he leaves the house and shambles through the town. His movements are stiff, corpse-like, and anyone who sees him will know almost immediately that something is wrong. ]

iv. it’s freezing and i am watching you shovel snow.

a. (ota)
[ Though Raskolnikov hasn’t seen this much snow at once since he lived with his family outside of Saint Petersburg, the cold is something he’s quite used to. The Americans are spoiled here, used to mild winters and electric heating, but he had spent many a night lying on the couch in his closet of an apartment back in Russia, using his ratty coat as a blanket, the cold seeping into his bones. He is experienced with temperatures low enough that tears freeze on faces, and fingers and toes turn blue and then black. This is practically tropical.

He layers up, because he would be a fool not to take advantage of the thick clothes in the house he now lives in, and goes outside. Immediately, the sharp air makes his lungs burn and face redden, and even though the snow reaches past his knees he still manages to tromp a path from the door to the street.

The realization that he’s going to need to shovel this is an unpleasant one, and suddenly he wants to turn around and go back inside. But there are plenty of other people outside, and if the Americans can shovel snow, then so can he. He isn’t very good at it, though, visibly struggling. Things reach a head when the thick, heavy snow manages to break the head of his shovel off. So it’s with quite a bit of reluctance that he goes up to a nearby house. If the family living there is still inside, he’ll knock on the door; otherwise, he’ll tromp right up to them and stand there awkwardly until they acknowledge him. ]


b. (ota)
[ The power goes out, because everything in this town seems to go wrong. Still, this at least is something he knows how to deal with. There are matches around the house, and even a few candles for light. He takes all the blankets off the bed and drags them to the sitting room, putting them on the couch and forming something of a nest. Any food in the refrigerator goes into a spare room in which he’s opened all the windows, so that it stays cold. And then, after a moment of contemplation, he drags the carpets into the sitting room and pins them to the walls for an extra layer of insulation.

There are certainly people in Sweetwater that aren’t as experienced with this sort of thing as he is, though. After a good half-hour of deliberation, complete with pacing and muttering under his breath, he comes to a decision.

Anyone in their houses might hear a knock on their door. Standing outside and bundled up so that only his eyes are showing is Raskolnikov, with a box of candles, matches, and food. ]

Hello. I don’t mean to intrude…I only wanted to offer my services, as they might be called, in case your power is out too. [ The mitten-clad hand not holding the box gestures vaguely. ] I have experience with these matters, you see, and if you need any help…any at all… [ He trails off, feeling quite awkward. ]

v. wildcard.

[ Have an idea for something? Feel free to hit me up! My plurk is chaoticgood, if you’d like to do some plotting over there, or just throw something at me! ]

IIIa

[frauseufzen]

[He awakens to the cool damp of a compress on his forehead, a dark figure looming over him (as she does) with all the tenderness of a vulture. Her lips are pursed in a scowl as she perceives that his eyes have finally opened, and Agathe's first words to him are:]

Don't make a fuss.

[She turns away again to dip the compress in water, long enough for him to clock that he's not restrained, that nothing in the room is amiss apart from his not having been here a moment ago.]

[inaxorable]

[ The first thing he noticed is that his entire body hurts. His limbs feel like solid stone, except for his left arm, which is twitching. He couldn’t make a fuss even if he wanted to. His not-wife is standing above him, sharp eyes peering down. It isn’t a particularly welcome sight, and he thinks that the view is significantly improved when she turns away. ]

Wh’appened?

[ The words come out raspy and slurred together, his tongue heavy and practically useless in his mouth. But as soon as he asks, he remembers: Norman Pollock, the sleep deprivation, the drug. Now he does manage to make a fuss, trying to sit up but only managing to flail about. ]

[frauseufzen]

I said-- [she snaps, and presses a firm hand on his shoulder, but knows better than to try and force someone who's panicking into any position, least of all a supine one.]

You have been gone, [is what Agathe pivots to, releasing her "husband" to wring out the compress, her bearing stern and standoffish as ever.]

Days.

mild emetophobia cw

[inaxorable]

[ It takes his sluggish mind a handful of seconds to parse her words, but when he does, he immediately stills. Only his arm — wait no, the twitch has migrated up to his jaw, how lovely — moves. Days. He’d spent days in that place. Days being restrained, shocked, and drugged. He thinks he might throw up. ]

Where? [ His voice is soft, plaintive. There is something distinctly childlike about him in this moment. ]

[frauseufzen]

[Perhaps she's responding to that pathetic twinge, or perhaps he's already been through enough: Agathe is inscrutable, but her voice softens ever so slightly.]

Shh, dämlich. I don't know.

[She offers him the compress, stiff-armed.]

You talk too much.

[inaxorable]

[ He manages to raise an equally stiff arm to take the compress, and promptly drops it on himself as his entire hand spasms. It’s frustrating, even more so when paired with Agathe’s admission of ignorance; he feels helpless, barely able to move, his mind unable to think more than one thought at a time. ]

I do, [ he agrees, because that is certainly true. That’s presumably why Pollock had drugged him in the first place, after all, and he makes a weak, miserable noise as he remembers. ] Too much, too many thoughts…

[frauseufzen]

Then be silent.

[It's not that that will help him, per se, but it will keep him from being too excessively annoying, which is equally important in this scenario. Agathe leaves the room briefly, returning a moment later with a bowl of steaming broth on a tray.]

Eat, [she instructs, setting it atop his lap and then stepping back, hands on her hips. She will brook no argument.]

[inaxorable]

[ Unable to think of a retort, he shut his mouth and gives her a weak glare. The glare persists even as she leaves the room, his eyes narrowed at nothing in particular, but then she returns with soup, and the glare morphs into confusion. Food? Why is she feeding him? Come to think of it, why is she doing any of this at all? It seems incredibly contrary to her character! It’s as if she were…

Well.

It’s as if she were Razumikhin, taking care of him while he was ill. That couldn’t have been more than a few weeks ago, when he was back in Russia. He had been sick, feverish with guilt stress and nerves. It had been after he had done that thing.

He’d mentioned the illness to Agathe, hadn’t he? He thinks he might of, but he can’t really remember, and an increasingly large part of his mind is in his apartment in Petersburg. ]

‘M not hungry, [ he says, ignoring the aching pit in his stomach. When was the last time he’d eaten? ] Just leave me alone.

[frauseufzen]

Fine.

[Leaving the tray where it is, Agathe turns away with an irritated sneer and stalks for the door. DIE THEN]

[inaxorable]

[ He blinks blearily after her. He’d wanted to be left alone in his misery, and yet. As she leaves, his stomach twists in a knot that has nothing to do with hunger. ]

Wait! [ For the second time in their short relationship, he finds himself calling after her. ]

ib

[carniravenous]

[Sokka has been trying to get a grip on himself, but he can't seem to stop crying; every time he wipes his tears away, more fall, and at this point, he knows it isn't about the vision anymore. It's about something else — someone else, the memory of whom has him looking up at the sky, even though this moon is not his moon.

It actually helps to have someone entirely ignore the fact that he's crying, because it snaps him back into the present moment and makes him realize that sitting around like this isn't going to get him anywhere. He hurries to wipe his face one last time, then focuses on the guy who's addressing him.]

What — [His voice is hoarse so he tries to clear his throat before speaking again.] What did you see? [But his brain is slowly coming back to life, and so immediately after asking that question, his eyes widen and he blurts:] Nothing! Right? It was just a nap. A nice little nap for... [He glances around.] a lot of us. [Sokka was knee-deep in enemy territory before arriving here, and before that he was in a place that did a lot of the whole there-are-no-problems-in-this-place nonsense that he's noticed here, so he decides the smart thing to do is to give an overdramatic yawn and pretend he's sleepy.]

[inaxorable]

[ The person he’d addressed — a boy, really, with a strange hairstyle and tears running down his cheeks — responds with a scratchy, hoarse voice, as though he’d been swallowing glass. It’s directly at odds with what he says, it was just a nap, as though he thinks Raskolnikov is stupid. The yawn isn’t any more convincing, not when paired with the tears on his face and the way he had asked what did you see before seeming to have changed his mind.

It’s entirely possible, in theory, that the boy had conveniently taken a nap just as Raskolnikov — and plenty others, it seems — had some strange vision. But just because something is possible doesn’t make it likely, and Raskolnikov thinks that the boy’s story is incredibly unlikely.

He gives the boy the most distrustful look he can manage, which is quite distrustful indeed. ]

Am I supposed to believe you? [ He realizes that is perhaps not the best way to get this boy to be honest, so he amends, ] I mean no offense, of course! Perhaps you define nap differently than I do. Do your naps usually involve such strange…hallucinations?

[carniravenous]

[Sokka didn't think that this guy was stupid before, but he kind of does now. At least, he has to resist the desire to slap his forehead out of frustration upon hearing that reply. He used to think it was difficult reminding a group of children to keep their voices down while they were traveling in enemy territory, but his sister and their friends have nothing on some of the adults of this place. It seems entirely logical to him that it's not safe to have open conversations about anything where the enemy (aka anyone who isn't a new arrival, and maybe even some new arrivals, too) can possibly hear, but judging by this guy and the other people stirring into conversation around them, he's an odd one out.

Sokka tends to run paranoid and skeptical, so under normal circumstances, might consider that this guy is being intentionally obtuse to get information out of him, but he doesn't sound like a local, and his reaction to his "nap" seems pretty genuine. That distrustful look is also kind of what Sokka is going for here, though he thinks it should be leveled at this place at large, rather than himself.

He gives the guy an incredulous look, though the effect is probably lessened by the fact that his cheeks are still dampened with drying tears.]

You mean dreams? I dream all the time! [He says this slowly, enunciating each word with emphasis, trying to encourage the guy to run with what he's saying.

At least he's getting information out of this; namely, further confirmation of the vision/hallucination/memory mix that still has Sokka's chest feeling a little heavy. He does want to know what the guy saw, so he tries:]

Last night I had a dream that a talking — [he almost says koala sheep, but he has recently learned that animals are different here, and so he amends it to simply:] sheep led me far away from here, to a room where we were all alone.

[He raises his eyebrows and leans in a little, expression intense. Get it?]

[inaxorable]

[ Raskolnikov isn’t entirely an idiot. The boy is speaking with strange emphases that are clearly trying to convey a message, and the determination to make this seem like a dream…for whatever reason, he doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that something incredibly strange just happened. (That body hadn’t been his, and everything feels wrong, and he wants to lie down and never get up.) ]

You’re right, [ he tells Sokka slowly, looking around to make sure nobody had been listening to their conversation. ] A dream, of course, just a dream. I don’t know what I was saying.

[ He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. ] The…move here has left me tired. Because I’ve just moved here. It seems that a lot of people have, from various places. [ The unspoken question: are you one of us? ]

[carniravenous]

[Some of the tension in Sokka's chest eases when the guy starts to pick up on what he's trying to impart. The last thing he wants is to be accidentally responsible for someone attracting too much attention to themselves; and even though Sokka doesn't know a thing about this guy, aside from him likely not being from around here, he feels vaguely responsible for his temporary well-being now.]

Dreams can be confusing. [Sokka nods sagely (well, he tries to be sagely, once again it's probably too dramatic and too ruined by his overall state), trying to make it clear that they're on the same wavelength now.] I'm new, too. [He pushes himself to his feet, albeit a little shakily.] Let's go for a walk. We can talk about our dreams and big moves. [Far, far away from anyone resembling a local. After his own "dream," Sokka would prefer to be away from this town square entirely.] I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be home by now, anyway. [Not because of his government-assigned parent, who doesn't seem to mind that Sokka goes off and does his own thing, but because the locals tend to give him Looks if he's out too late, since they treat him like he's a kid incapable of doing anything worthwhile.]

iv a

[workingthenumbers]

[Perhaps unfortunately, Raskolnikov has knocked on Numbers' door. Numbers has barely dug out the pathway to his door, instead apparently excavating just enough to allow the door to swing open and for him to trudge outside, but not enough to make it easy for others to come visit. Which is the way that he likes it.

So he's a bit startled when someone knocks. He peers out the peephole, assessing Raskolnikov for a moment. After a minute or two, he opens the door, looking down at him and giving him a blank stare.]

What do you want?

[inaxorable]

[ Oh. It’s him.

Raskolnikov is tempted, very tempted, to turn around and leave. This man had know something was amiss with him, back when they were hiding from a bomb that had never come. All of those probing questions — You’re a student? and What did you think I was implying? — had made it clear that Numbers had some sort of investigatory nature, and that is the exact opposite of what Raskolnikov needs right now.

But he’d stomped through knee-deep snow to get here, and if he leaves now, then the man would certainly know something is wrong. So he pulls the scarf wrapped around his face down just enough to uncover his mouth, and responds. ]

Is your power out, by any chance?

[workingthenumbers]

[He remembers this man. He squirmed easily under some probing questions. Numbers gives a sidelong glance back into his home. Living on his own has somewhat made him lazy about keeping the house presentable. If Raskolnikov cares to peer past the man, he'll see quite a few dirty dishes and bags of trash piling up on whatever surfaces are available. The fireplace is lit, but there's ash spilling out of the opening onto the horrendously green carpet. The only light that's on is the kitchen light, illuminating the sink full of dirty dishes.]

No. [Said with a flat tone. After a pause, he asks:] Is yours?

[He raises a single eyebrow, standing at attention.]

[inaxorable]

Oh. Yes. It’s been out for some time now. [ Long enough that he’d been feeling the loss of the electric fan system that had kept the house warm. ] I assume it has something to do with the snow.

[ He hopes it’s fixable. Does this always happen with electricity? Is it common? He’d still been using candles and oil lamps in Petersburg, not electric anything. For all he knows, losing power is a regular occurrence.

He doesn’t say any of that, though. Numbers doesn’t need to know how out of his depth he is here, a century later than he should be, surrounded by technology and people that don’t make sense. ]

[workingthenumbers]

Storm probably knocked out the power lines. It happens. [Stated in a very matter-of-fact sort of tone. He can feel himself instinctively sliding into a practiced rhythm of patter, the sort of thing you'd talk about with small town folks.] Didn't exactly this weather in Maryland, though.

[Numbers pauses, considering his next move. From what he understands, this man is a stranger to this town, same as he is. As antisocial as he is inclined, it would be beneficial to poke him for more information. Especially given the fact that the man seemed to be hiding something in their last encounter.

The cold claws viciously at Numbers' exposed face. If the stranger has no electricity, he has no heat--besides the fireplace, but you'd need to make sure the flue wasn't clogged up with snow. Numbers could take the opportunity to invite him in and try and get him to talk more. Perhaps exchange information about the town, itself.]

So it seems like your options are to stay in your cold, cold house, or to take shelter in a neighbor's home until the power is restored.

[After a beat, the corners of his mouth twitch upwards into a plastic smile.]

Would you like to come inside?

[inaxorable]

[ Between staying outside with the cold nipping at his skin even under his many layers, and going inside where it’s presumably warm, it doesn’t take him long to make a decision. He thinks briefly of Agathe, wonders if he should go fetch her — she’s alone in their cold, powerless house, after all — but then decides that the woman can take care of herself. Besides, she would do the exact same thing were she in his place, surely.

With that, he makes up his mind, returning Number’s smile with an equally forced one of his own. ]

Well. I certainly won’t argue, if you’re inviting me in…

[ Already, even as he’s talking, he’s sliding past Numbers into the house, stomping his feet in the entryway to knock some of the snow off his boots. ]

[workingthenumbers]

[Welcome to his awful abode, Raskolnikov. As stated previously, it's a whole ass mess in here. Numbers silently watches the man enter the house before closing the door behind him.

Numbers doesn't move from his position in front of the door, standing at attention with his hands tucked into his pockets. He regards Raskolnikov with a watchful eye, then carefully tilts his head to the side.]

I saw you in the fallout bunker, didn't I? Last month. The law student?

[The question feels rhetorical, laying the groundwork for future questioning. He sounds casual enough as he speaks.]

[inaxorable]

[ He looks around cautiously. The house isn’t what he would call neat, but Raskolnikov has also seen far worse. Still, it’s a little surprising to see; for reasons he isn’t sure of, he had assumed Numbers would be more tidy. ]

Yes, yes. [ It isn’t something he likes to be reminded of. He’d been high-strung and nervous, then — well, even more high-strung and nervous than he is now, which is saying something — and had made a fool of himself. ] That was me. And you were the one from…small soda, was it?

[workingthenumbers]

[Numbers is rather exacting about his appearance and how he grooms himself, and that tends to extend to his surroundings. But admittedly, Numbers is still recovering from Dr. Pollock's Bad Time and the consequences of that. He raises an eyebrow before realizing what Raskolnikov is trying to say.]

Minnesota. [Stated flatly.] You've been in town over the last month. You must've seen the mannequins and what happened with that. Have you heard or seen any sort of response from those in charge of this town?

[His attitude has immediately shifted to that of an interrogation.]