silentspringlogs | open — an inspector calls.

Who: Helly and YOU!
When: Last week of Christmas
Where: Your very home...
Open/Closed: Open
Applicable Warnings: n/a, will update as necessary!

You open your door to find a cheery redhead standing on your doorstep with a plate of cookies resting in the palm of her hand. If you look closely at the cookies, it's pretty obvious that they're shortbread from the store and definitely not homemade – but it's rude to stare, so don't scrutinise too closely.

"Hi!" Helly says brightly. "I'm Helly. I live on this street. I just moved here." A meaningful pause, with some deliberate emphasis on that phrase that hopefully makes sense, before she adds, "I was wondering if you wanted a cookie."

Maybe this is a little too close to the memory of the salesman for anyone's comfort, but Helly's thought about this. The only way to go door to door asking questions of people without rousing too much suspicion is to lace it thickly in the false pearly-white cheer of Sweetwater, until she can get some privacy. She rustles the cookies on the plate a little insistently, and lifts her eyebrows in what she hopes is an understandably meaningful way.

OOC — as I said in the CR meme, Helly is going door-to-door to introduce herself and try to suss out who here is in a similar boat to her. You can tag in if you'd like to meet her and thread out a conversation, OR we can just handwave that our characters have met in advance of the event!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The door's answered by a young woman in a plaid skirt and a white blouse with a Peter Pan collar and a few delicate buttons at the top, hair pulled back in a ponytail too messy to pass muster among the cheerleading set at the local high school. (All the kids here - and they are kids somehow, even the ones who're basically her age - brush their hair back until it's smooth. Beth's wisps and waves around her bangless face.) Red lipstick and two arched scars around her eyes complete the look.

Well, red lipstick, scars, and a guarded expression. She doesn't open the door any more than the width of her body. After having to take a knife to a traveling salesman, Beth's disinclined to let anyone into the house ever again.

"Right before Christmas?" is what she asks, without making room for the woman to come in.

Helly can't help but stare at the scars, with the intensity of a child who hasn't yet been told by their mother not to stare at people who look different. She doesn't mean badly by it, but there's a certain lack of self-consciousness that might be extremely uncomfortable.

She'd expected resistance, though, and doesn't mind standing out on the doorstep, at least for now. "Yep," she says, with a shrug and a self-depracating grin. "I guess it's a bad time for it, but... it wasn't exactly my decision."

It's one of those moments when Beth's glad she has long sleeves on, with cuffs that cover the scar on her wrist. She's going to have to find some bracelets for when the weather turns nicer. And maybe concealer for everything on her face - but God, how did everyone just wear that much makeup, back before the turn? Just having lipstick on is distracting, these days.

"You just...came here," she murmurs, taking in the cookies and the woman's smile and the sound of her voice. Something about her seems more connected than their neighbors - or maybe she's just hoping that's the case. Either way, it's freezing out, and in the hand hidden by the door, Beth's holding a knife. She moves out of the way to let her in. "Me, too."

As soon as Helly's over the threshold, she casts a look back over her shoulder to make sure nobody else is peering in. She shifts the plate from one hand to the other, heading a little further inside, with a look of grim apprehension on her face. She hasn't seen anyone in the town injured, and she certainly hasn't seen any of them emanating this level of caution either.

"So, feel free to tell me if I'm wrong," Helly says in a low voice. "But you were somewhere totally different before you were here, right?"

Once the woman's in the door, Beth closes it tight - God, it's cold out there. She doesn't bother hiding the knife or putting it away, letting it hang at her side like it's an extension of her hand; some part of her thinks, maybe it's better if people know she has it. (Which is crazy, you know - but then, so is getting attacked by a vacuum cleaner guy.)

Her eyes grow more intent at the question. "Atlanta. You can come in, if you're not one of them."

She's already in, technically, but Beth's walking toward the kitchen, where they can sit at the table and talk.

"Whoa." That's Helly just now noticing the knife, which freezes her in place for a moment. But she figures if she was gonna get stabbed, it would've happened already – unless Miss Atlanta is waiting to be provoked.

Helly swallows a little, and draws herself up straighter, figuring that she's just going to have to be extra careful about what she does and says going forward. She heads further inside, casting enough of a look around the place to determine that this house is pretty similar to her own – to the one she woke up in. It doesn't entirely feel like her house.

"I'm not one of them. And I think if I was, I would've dismissed you by now, right? You know how they do that? Whenever you say something weird or talk about how this place is fucked up, they ignore you, and then they talk to you like you've lost your mind?"

"Yeah." She's been cautious, talking to them, but she'd had to ask the inevitable question, where are we? to someone. Beth jerks her head toward the kitchen, waiting for the woman - not old, but solidly an adult in a way even Maggie wasn't - to go first. There's no reason to stand out here in the front hallway, if she's normal. "It's like they're looking right through you."

To what, she's not sure, but that vacuum cleaner salesman who wouldn't take no for an answer had done the same thing. "What's your name?"

"Helly." It's not the first time she's said it since she got here, but something about this situation makes her feel a little irritated by the sound of it, almost childish in its inflection. But she's not a Helena, couldn't possibly be, doesn't want to be. So Helly it is.

She heads into the kitchen, peering around again, but the layout is just as similar to the one she's used to that she figures there's nothing much worth looking at, and she doesn't actually want to snoop.

"You?"

"Beth." That "Helly" doesn't really sound like a name is something she knows better than to say, but it is weird. Maybe it's short for something embarrassing. "Are the cookies okay to eat?"

They might as well get comfortable, right?

open — an inspector calls.

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