> Ami: Reach out. ( text | @aa )

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Like most, Ami arrives confused and afraid. As soothing as Idris Elba's deep British voiceover is, the video still raises at least as many questions as it answers. First off, why is it Idris Elba? And if the very first room is in disrepair - there's exactly one living plant, incongruously - how much of the rest was false advertising, too?

The simplest and safest first step, though, is to grab a communicator and start skimming through the messages. One is like three hours long, she skips that for now... something something wreckage... something something antique documents... (Where are the timestamps? How old are these messages?) Ultimately, though, an audio post keeps her attention - a woman, terrified, being pursued by something inhuman.

By the time the sound cuts out, Ami's heart is racing. Suddenly, she's very glad she didn't go straight to exploring. ]

hello?
if anyone is out there, please respond!
my name's Ami Aihara, from Recolle, USA.
I don't know how I got here or what's going on
but I don't think it's safe for me to leave by myself.
I'm in the Idris Elba room. please help!!!

Comments

[itsnotaonesie]

[It's fiiiine, he's already done some radioactive kitten scans. Besides, he's more radioactive than the kitten anyway.

Which is. Fine.]

Nah, they're not like, instant death. What happens is they uh... The clouds change shape. They turn into stuff, and it seems to be different for everyone who comes in contact with them. So far the only consistent uh, I guess theme is that they always turn into something like, dangerous or- or something meant to scare the crap out of you. As for what you should do, just run. They won't follow you into the light.

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Ami nods solemnly, taking mental notes. Actually, wait... why isn't she taking physical notes? She pulls her backpack around front and digs around for a sec. ]

Hang on, I should be writing this down.

[ Jesus get a fucking pen. She pulls out a pen and a spiral notebook (labeled "Algebra 1") and starts scribbling notes on the back pages. ]

"Death clouds... run." Okay. Anything else I should be watching out for?

[itsnotaonesie]

[Oh man, Peter remembers Algebra 1. He was like fourteen when he had that class, jesus christ that already felt like a lifetime ago. More alarming yet is that fact that he has just realized that he isn't the youngest person here anymore. Which. Isn't good. This is no place for kids, man. (Why no he doesn't consider himself a kid at all, don't be silly.)]

Uh. Well, I was gonna tell you not to order anything from the robot at the bar, but I don't think that'll be a problem. So, uh, let's see. Don't go into the Agricultural area alone, there's some crazy animals up there that will eat you. If you ever end up leaving the station for any reason, don't go out without protective gear. The planet is like super radioactive. Also there's freaky, mutated animals out there. They will also eat you.

[livingdeadgirl]

[ She dutifully notes those down as well. Funny... this morning, all she had to worry about were finals, yet here she is taking notes on how to survive in an extraterrestrial nuclear wasteland. It's kind of surreal. ]

Heh. Seems like there's a lot of that going around. [ Eating her, that is. ]

[ And there she goes again, she realizes - joking around like this is all no big deal. She pauses, her pen halfway through "radioactive." This is all pretty fucked, actually? Shouldn't she still be freaking out? There's still that tiny, critical detail that they don't know how to go home. She could die here!

... She shuts her eyes, forces herself to take a deep breath. Okay, cool, freakout centers are in fact still working. ]

[itsnotaonesie]

[Oh yeah, the freakouts always catch up to you eventually. When Peter's finally rolls in it's gonna be a doozy.]

...You need a minute?

[She can have all the time to freak out as she needs, Peter is very patient.]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ She does need a minute, but she only takes about half of one, getting her breathing under control. ]

Yeah, no, I'm... [ long exhale. ] I'm okay. I'm okay.

[ She examines her paper for a second, and finishes writing "ctive". ]

This is just... pretty wild, you know? I mean, of course you know, you're the one telling me about it. Can we walk? Maybe it'll help if we're going somewhere.

[itsnotaonesie]

Of course, yeah, let's walk.

[He has no idea where to go, but picking a direction and just heading that way is a good start. So he does that.]

But yeah, it really is pretty wild. Especially if this is the first time you've had to deal with the whole "hey, I just woke up somewhere weird with a bunch of weirdos" thing.

[livingdeadgirl]

[ She follows, assuming that he has some kind of destination in mind. Peter seems to have his shit together said no one ever. ]

That can happen more than once??

[ Like, outside the context of a mafia kidnapping for bloodsports? (That's probably a thing the mafia would do, right?) ]

[itsnotaonesie]

[SAID. NO ONE. EVER. Fake it til you make it know what I mean.

Honestly Peter's probably just going to end up heading back to his place because he knows it and also Ami can meet Poison and the freaky cats??? Everyone likes cats.]

Oh yeah. Found that out the hard way. Hell, this is the third place my roommate's been stuck. Honestly though, I think this kind of thing happening more than once is pretty rare, much less happening at all. Like, you probably never heard about this kind of thing happening to people when you were back home, right? I know I didn't.

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Actually she's already meeting Poison for the first time in another later thread but yes, cats, excellent ]

No, never. [ As far as she knows. ] But how would you know? People go missing without a trace all the time, and now that interplanetary abduction is an option that's on the table, there's really no way to prove it's not that.

[itsnotaonesie]

[wibbly wobbly timey wimey shenanigans CATS EXCELLENT]

...Okay, well you've just out-logic'd my attempt at making this seem less bad, and everything you've just said is pretty on point.

[HE'S GOT NOTHIN' MAN YOU BEAT HIM]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ AMI AIHARA, TIME RUINER. ]

Oh, whoops.

[itsnotaonesie]

It's not bad, though. I mean, maybe we've just solved one of the universe's biggest mysteries.

...Which. We very well may have? It would be cool if it wasn't so freaky.

[So awkward pause time is now I guess, because THAT'S WHAT'S HAPPENING.]

...So uh. Freshman? [when in doubt, talk about school??????]

[livingdeadgirl]

Huh? Oh, yeah. [ What a way to switch mental gears! ] Well, just finishing freshman year. It's finals week.

[ For all her classmates. ]

... I guess I'm gonna have to make those up.

[itsnotaonesie]

[Peter Parker, master of distraction.]

Oh no, dude! That's the worst!

...Man, I woulda been a Junior this year. Wild.

[if he was y'know STILL ALIVE but hey.]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ I DUNNO MAN, "WORST" IS KIND OF RELATIVE AT THIS POINT. ]

You said you've been here a month, right? Where were you before that? [ It sounds like he's been out of school a while, when he says it all wistfully like that... ]

[itsnotaonesie]

[MISSING FINALS IS THE LITERAL WORST]

Hadriel. I was there for about a year. It was a city ruled by these uh... beings that like, fed off our emotions and stuff? Also there were killer robots. It was super weird.

[And super horrible. This place is actually really chill in comparison.]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ peter are you one of those "you could get us killed, or worse, expelled" types. is this what she's gonna have to deal with. ]

It sounds weird. [ Frankly, Ami has a hard time picturing it. How would that even work? Magic? Is magic a thing now too? She has so many questions, and yet...

... maybe she shouldn't pry. ]

And then one day you were just here instead?

[itsnotaonesie]

[In some ways that his him exactly but in some ways he is so not even close to that. it's complicated]

Well. Kind of. See, we'd figured out how to go home. There was a... a magic door that we had to fix, and we did, so. So we all started going home. Except instead of that, a few of us ended up here. I don't know if the door just sent us to the wrong place, or if the portal here somehow like, intercepted us mid-teleportation or whatever, but. I mean, it is what it is, I guess.

[SHRUG, what can you do? Destiny gonna do what destiny gonna do.]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Her face falls. ] Oh, no... that really is the worst.

[ You're trapped in an alternate dimension. You figure out how to escape, how to go home. You get your hopes up. You say your goodbyes. You're all set to see your family and friends again ...

... only for the rug to get yanked out from under you. The whole process starts over again, rinse and repeat. Jesus, that's the most demoralizing thing she can imagine. ]

[itsnotaonesie]

[Now, as far as Peter knows, he wouldn't have been able to go home anyway. He can deal with this. Everyone else that had tried to go home that had ended up here, though, he feels super bad for. Because this is some bullshit.]

Yeah, it's... not really ideal. But hey. Could always be worse.

[Nothing he can do about it but shrug. So he does.]

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Noooo Peter you just jinxed it!!! He's not wrong, though, Ami can certainly imagine a lot of ways this could be worse. She also gets the feeling that voicing those many, many ways would not be helpful. So instead, she just echoes his shrug. ]

Sometimes the best you can do is keep a positive attitude, huh?

[itsnotaonesie]

[How many times has he said almost those exact words to people?? God, so many times. Just. SO many.]

Yeah, that's uh. Kind of what I've been shooting for. It seems to sort of help the like, general morale of the people I'm around, so I must be doing something right.

[livingdeadgirl]

[ Ami nods, managing a smile. It's gotta be incredibly difficult, cheering everybody else up after you've been through a lot yourself. Maybe she can't personally relate yet, but she can see how that could get heavy. ]

It's an important job! And in my opinion, you're doing great.

[ She gives him a friendly pat on the shoulder. I mean, he dropped whatever he was doing to come and help her through this frightening experience, and so far she's been able to avoid a complete mental breakdown, so... good work!

Anyway, this seems like a good time to talk about something else. Like, uh... the view from this particular walkway, now that they've moved to a spot where it's easier to see. Ami takes a few steps in that direction, though she's careful not to get too close to the edge. ]

Is this the, uh... [ she snaps her fingers a few times. ] The open part. The hole. Atrium! That's it.

[itsnotaonesie]

[It's all good man, Peter's really good at lifting heavy stuff. Figuratively and literally. The reassurance that he's doing good at being the... local like, morale guy, is definitely helping.

He nods in reply to that, but he's also more than happy to change the subject. With seemingly far less caution than Ami, Peter strolls right up to the edge of the walkway to look down.]

I dunno, I like just "the hole" better. It's fitting, y'know?