sixthiterationlogs | Is this all as strange as it is seeming? Was I dead or was I only dreaming? [OPEN]

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Is this all as strange as it is seeming? Was I dead or was I only dreaming? [OPEN]

WHO: Samantha Moon
WHERE: Around town
WHEN: Post-quake
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Some shell-shock. And because it's Sam, a lot of swearing.

As hard as Sam tried, she couldn't stop thinking about the night of the Rain of Fire. Compared to what had happened to her and the life she knew that night, an earthquake should have seemed like small potatoes. She lived in stupid California, for fuck's sake. This shouldn't have been enough to scratch up memories of the Rain, like a scab being ripped off her elbow. But introspection had never been Sam's greatest talent. So she understood herself less than complex physics or genetic sequencing or the right way to make fun of people who actually liked Walter Keane portraits. And when the memories flooded her brain, she was helpless to stop them, much less understand.

Sam was fast. She’d been fast even before she died. High school track team. Only for a hot minute, it seemed, but it had stuck with her. And it served her well, now, as she raced through the jumbled and ripped up streets of Los Angeles, jumping over steaming craters in the concrete, dodging around debris that was so twisted and mangled that she couldn’t even begin to guess what any of it had originally been. Was that bent metal rod a piece of the international space station? A support beam from a skyscraper? A fender? No way to know, no time to care.

She raced along Vine, her wig tilted to a terrible angle, her clothing ripped and torn. Her shadow stretched out in front of her, illuminated by fires from every direction. No matter which way she turned, she couldn’t erase the image of Sterling Engelhart being sucked down into the earth. “He had a piece of me with him,” Elizabeth kept moaning to Aubrey, before she succumbed to torpor and the hunters opened fire. If Sam believed in miracles, she’d call it one that no one had been shot. She’d separated from Grace and Avery at the Ordo library, then immediately turned tail and started back for home, despite their protestations that she should stay with them.

Even in this state of emergency, Sam was still afraid to reveal her secrets to them. Karen had well-ingrained the notion that no Kindred could really be trusted. The streets were full of the dead, dying, and bewildered. Most of the people that she passed seemed to come to life only when a large chunk of building fell from above. And then there was screaming and running and still more dying, as if they were reliving the first volley of space junk and satellites all over again.

“Joanna!” she heard someone screaming. “Joanna! Where are you?”

Sam did the math in her head. Based on her rough estimates, Los Angeles had probably lost well over one-third of its population tonight. And it was still too soon to make a final call. The looting hadn’t begun yet. And the panic. That too would inevitably raise the death count. And as for the rest of the world? Who knew?

Sam walked to a pile of rubble, leaning over to move a piece. She didn't hear anyone or anything underneath. With a scowl, she kicked it. What had it even been? A shed? A supply store? A fucking outhouse? There was another way this was different from the Rain. The landscape was still alien, whether it was pristine or wrecked. She was an outsider, a foreigner without any landmark to navigate by.

Her walkie crackled from her belt. “Mother to Sleepwalker.” Avery’s voice. He sounded formal. It was the same voice he used when he was in Court. “This is Mother to Sleepwalker. Come in Sleepwalker.”

She yanked it free, bringing it to her mouth. “This is Sleepwalker.” Her voice didn’t tremble too much. That would probably come later.

Avery’s tone softened. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, trying to force herself to believe it.

“I wish you’d stayed.”

“I have to go.”

“Will you at least tell me where you are?”

And there was yet another way this was all different from the Rain. There wasn't anyone around here like Avery, anyone to worry about her whereabouts or even care if she was alive or dead. For all she knew, she was dead and now a fucking ghost, haunting this clown rodeo. Angrily, she pressed the heel of her palm against the side of her head. She wanted to force the memories out. And maybe hide her face a little, as her expression crumpled.

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[taking post-quake to mean a few days out, since he was trapped in a cave for awhile]

Enough of his place is trashed that he has to get up from the prescribed bed-rest just to get through his day, and stretching his legs in sunlight that doesn't try to bake him out of his skin feels more important than another round of sleep. It's too nice outside, too much to do in the wake of disaster for him to lay in the window seat watching the hall, or pretend it's worth anything right now to start another batch of paper.

It does get used, he knows. It does disappear from the shelf, but he's really only done it for himself, and maybe at request of one other person.

The hair stands out. He knows who he's coming across as he walks down the path, hands shoved in his pockets, nails biting palm. It's one thing to fail at letting the place get to him, nerves stringing tight at the lack of control there is to be had over anything in this place, but it's another thing to let it show.

He doesn't know what to do with Sam showing it, but it's understandable enough, he doesn't turn off the path and walk another way. For all he knows, that's her house she's standing by. That's her best friend crushed underneath. Nothing about this quake is anything they can walk away from, even if he'd rather go another round in the pitch dark with Credence, where at least he wouldn't have to see anyone's face.

Coming up beside her, he doesn't call attention to her expression, or prod her about her plight. He just picks up the end of a beam and shifts it over end, freeing the piece beneath it as it clatters to one side. "You lose anything in here," is all he asks.

Sam didn't want anyone seeing her like this. Least of all, the jackass from the school. But she supposed it didn't matter. Not if it was him, not if it was anyone else. Because, seriously, who the fuck even cared? Nothing actually mattered. And his question even managed to make her smirk. A little bit. In a painful sort of way.

"You can't really lose anything when you don't fucking have anything to begin with," she said, rubbing her eyes for a second before she looked up. She couldn't quite hide the fact that she'd been making cry-face a second ago. But self-effacing humor was the sharpest tool in her arsenal and she knew how to smile the right way to conjure it.

Sam had reached her street. She turned onto it and found it nearly as bright as the day. The heat from the fires hit her face like sunlight. What had once been two rows of neatly arranged houses was a jumble of disorganized rubble. “I have to go, Mother,” she said, nearly numb with panic.

“Stay safe, Sleepwalker.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “You too…”

It was a struggle to clip her walkie back to her belt. Her hands were shaking like she was still alive. Little was moving on her street. She could see a few people, a block away, digging through the rubble. Were they digging themselves out? Or looking for loved ones? Hope for the best, expect the worst, she supposed, as she forced her legs to move, surging forward toward the pile of ash and concrete that had been her home.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Tina!” she shouted. She wasn’t expecting an answer, but maybe if Tina was alive, she’d hear Sam’s cries. “Tina! I’m here! I’m okay!” She raced into the pile, grabbing anything in her path and throwing it to one side.

The smile faltered. What she wouldn't give to find Tina now. Not that she would wish this hellhole on anyone but...the idea of a Tina. The idea of someone to save. Someone to need her.

Something to lose.

She gestured vaguely to the pile. "It's yours if you wanna claim salvage or something. I guess we're technically in maritime law now."

Jude stops shifting planks and beams at her explanation. No one trapped and nothing lost beneath made it a waste of energy, and he was still recovering his after the cave-in. It's a catch, wanting to help in an abstract way; not wanting to talk about any of the things that might provide a direct approach.

At least she wasn't crying, though he's unsure how long that particular dam will hold. He's new to the village himself, short on friends by virtue of--never being very good for that. By virtue of not wanting to really settle. But he thinks about the beam cracking his tub in half, the bubble of his own house broken with part of its support. The fact of having a house shaken so soon after claiming it.

"Was this your house," he asks, glancing at the pile, making no move to sift the supplies from it.

Sam shook her head. She hadn't really bothered claiming a place for herself. At first, it had been out of a stubborn determination to make it clear to the fuckers in charge that she had no intention of staying, of settling down into their little Skinner Box. But, as with so many instances of her stubborn streak, it eventually deteriorated into simple exhaustion.

Well, ha ha. The joke was on them now. She hadn't lost anything of value in their fucking quake.

Almost immediately, she found a hand sticking up from the debris. She cleared what she could away and discovered the remains of what had once been Tina’s friend Joshua. A stitcher. He used to bring Tina’s costume designs to life. He loved to tell jokes, and he would conjure up different accents that only made them funnier. Sometimes, Sam would laugh so hard that she’d forget that she wasn’t alive. He’d come to LA after his ultra-conservative parents threw him out. He’d come looking for a home, a place to belong, a family.

She found Robyn a short while later. Well, she found Robyn’s head. The rest of her body was too deep in the ruins of the house for Sam to see. Robyn had taken such pride in her long, flowing blond hair. Now it was matted and hard with blood. She used to tease Sam, promising that, one day, she’d find out what color was hiding under the blue wig. She’d been friends with Tina in college. The two of them hoped to work on movies together someday. Costuming and hair. No competition between them, which is why they were such great friends.

All of Tina’s friends. They’d been so vibrant, so full of life and creativity and energy. They had been more to her than just a…what was that word the Kindred used? Herd? More than a herd. They’d been her friends. Her final tether to the human world. Now they were scattered in pieces, like something that Sam would paint. In a way, that made it all easier to take in. To imagine herself inside of one of her paintings. Instead of inside of her own life.

"Dunno what it was," she said, looking down at the pile.

Wanda had found herself trapped beneath rubble on the first day of the earthquake. It'd pulled at darker memories, things that she'd almost forgotten since joining the Avengers. It hurt and now, days after she'd freed herself from the fallen house, she heard her brothers voice echoing softly in her ear.

'It'll be okay.'

How many times had he said that? His words had been her strength even though neither of them had believed him at the time. Each minute felt like hours and days like eternity. Was she any stronger now? Was anything any different? One shift in the rumble and everything would be over.

Wanda closed her eyes and inhaled focusing on the fresh taste in the air. That was one thing about the village that Wanda felt the most unsettling. No chemicals or pollutants filtered through the air. The one mark that people were here at all was the town and that was now broke and torn.

She paused when she realized that she wasn't alone amidst the rumble. The blue haired girl she'd first met. Wanda didn't know to much about her except that she was a scientist of some sort. They all had their own demons haunting them and Wanda could tell that Sam was similarly fighting a battle inside of her head. There was nothing Wanda could do, except what her brother had done for her. She walked up towards the woman, her voice soft when she spoke.

"It'll be okay." Wanda didn't remember her voice ever sounding so weak. The anger had fled from her while fear pulsed uncomfortably beneath the surface. This place had taken so much from her but she had to believe she could fight back; against it and the memories raging in her head. She had to hold onto something.

Sam wasn't much for comforting. Mostly because she'd never really gotten much of it as a child. That's what happened when you were the foster kid nobody wanted, the freakazoid who woke up at night screaming from nightmares. Robert and Anne had done their best. So had Tina, in her own way. But Sam was so used to tough love that she usually applied it to herself, before anyone could disappoint her with it.

Which was to say, she didn't have a very good way to react to Wanda and the words of comfort she was offering. It'll be okay? No. No, it was not fucking okay. She was still kidnapped. Still helpless. Still alone.

Still haunted, too, it seemed.

Sam had reached her street. She turned onto it and found it nearly as bright as the day. The heat from the fires hit her face like sunlight. What had once been two rows of neatly arranged houses was a jumble of disorganized rubble. “I have to go, Mother,” she said, nearly numb with panic.

“Stay safe, Sleepwalker.”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “You too…”

It was a struggle to clip her walkie back to her belt. Her hands were shaking like she was still alive. Little was moving on her street. She could see a few people, a block away, digging through the rubble. Were they digging themselves out? Or looking for loved ones? Hope for the best, expect the worst, she supposed, as she forced her legs to move, surging forward toward the pile of ash and concrete that had been her home.

She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Tina!” she shouted. She wasn’t expecting an answer, but maybe if Tina was alive, she’d hear Sam’s cries. “Tina! I’m here! I’m okay!” She raced into the pile, grabbing anything in her path and throwing it to one side.

'I'm okay' was as much of a lie now as it had been that night.

"I'm okay," Sam said, scrubbing her eyes with the heel of her palm, to smear out any trace of emotion.

"You just pissed at it for falling down," he asks, looking from the beam to the booted foot that kicked it. His gaze keeps trailing the ground, back up along the trees to the horizon, given meaning again by a sun that rises and sets. Jude knows about shit you say and shit you don't, actions that don't make sense to anybody else. He's not going to drag it out of her.

But maybe there are better things to do with it than look at the wreckage.

"I'm gonna loop back to the inn and see what's left over from lunch," he says. "If you aren't out here 'cause you need anything, you can come with."

His observation elicited a single, dry chuckle from Sam. Pissed at it for falling down? That actually sounded about right. Because when things fell down, she always inevitably ended up back in that night, it seemed.

And then it happened. She started laughing. She started laughing hysterically, digging her fingers into the pressure points of her face, doubling over to rest her forehead against her knees. The world had ended. And somehow she, the least deserving, had survived. Unfair didn’t even do justice to the notion.

“Sam?”

Sharply, she looked up, turning to crane her neck over her shoulder. Silhouetted against the blaze of distant fires, she thought she saw an angel. One that had taken the likeness of Tina. But angels were cold and distant. And suddenly, Sam felt warm arms around her and warm tears that flowed freely as Tina held her. As they held each other, Sam laughing, Tina crying. Once upon a time, she thought that seeing Tom killed would be the worst thing the two of them had to live through.

Well. At least she still had inappropriate laughter. Nothing could that take from her. It wasn't exactly the kind of consolation prize that actually offered any consolation, but Sam had to take her victories where she could get them.

She looked across the line of her shoulder at him, eyebrows disappearing beneath the fringe of her wig at the invitation. Seemed like just the other day, she'd been the one talking to someone who didn't want to talk. Well. Up was down. Down was up. Left was right. Kittens were having puppies. Blah, blah, blah...

"You think they even bothered to make anything?"

Jude raises his brows right back, the offer not one often made and easily rescinded if she isn't inclined. Socializing has never been a natural thing, or--the natural way he did it hasn't always worked. It had been easier on campus, where there were people who found every odd thing funny or interesting, had dragged him into things on their own whims.

He's not going to drag anyone; he's just going to start walking, let her follow.

"They have been. People lost homes, inn already serves meals. Got to feed people if they're going to run around fixing anything."

It wasn't much of a surprise that Sam hadn't given much thought to food. She still just wasn't in the habit of eating it all that much. Which probably accounted for her bonier-than-usual appearance, along with the sharp lines of her cheekbones. Biologically speaking, she knew it was a habit she would have to improve. But the clusterfuck that was her mind was another matter.

Against her better judgment, she followed after him. Anything to banish the memories of the Rain. And she was gratified when they eased up a little.

Oh, they were still there, lingering in the back of her mind. But at least they weren't amped up to eleven any more.

"Yeah," she said, struggling to make any decent conversation. "I guess that makes sense."

Wanda wouldn’t press or force anything from Sam. Something haunted the other woman, like a shadow looming behind her. They all had their shadows, their darkness, but it was how they faced those weaknesses that showed the world who they were. There were those who crumpled under the weight and those who didn’t.

In Wanda’s mind it was that simple.

Her statement had been specifically phrased, like everything that Wanda said. It will be okay. That didn’t mean that it was okay now or that it had to be okay now. Just that there was a promise of tomorrow and the day after and then after that. As long as you didn’t stop fighting, there would always be more days.

Wanda wasn’t sure if it was for better or worse but it was something.

"Do you need help finding anything?" She stepped forward and then faltered. Wanda knew that she’d hurt her ankle but she hadn’t realized how bad it had been injured. When she put her weight on it she felt her body almost buckle, barely catching herself before she hit the ground.

So much for comforting words.

Sam shook her head. "I didn't have anything to lose. I guess that's one of the advantages of--"

Socially inept though Sam could sometimes be--and make no mistake, she was a fucking trainwreck--she wasn't stupid enough to miss important details. For instance, the way Wanda was favoring her leg.

"Hey," she said, a line forming between her eyes, "you should probably get off of that."

It was a small thing, really. And what was a sprained ankle or whatever, compared to the devastation around them? But for some sick and twisted reason, it helped Sam. It helped her banish the trembling memories of her past--like shaky images of a video-recorded Bigfoot encounter--from the forefront of her mind.

That was the thing. Give her a problem she could solve. She'd solve it.

"It's about the only thing here that does," he agrees.

Maybe that doubt was what had her such a skinny thing; maybe she was like him, slipping in late and scavenging what was left, and she was waiting a little too long to get at it. Maybe there's a kind of vanity that goes with wearing a wig in a closed canyon. She wouldn't be the only one, he's seen ladies in fairy-tale gowns sewing up the hems when there's crops to tend and animals to feed.

There's time in the day for both, he imagines, earthquakes notwithstanding.

They walk a time in silence, whatever weighs on her starting to weigh on them both. He doesn't know what he's supposed to say: with Parker he never had to say anything, just put him in the passenger seat and drive until he came back from wherever his head went. Food was usually part of that too. Instead, when it sits heavy enough, he just says the first thing in his head: "You're not doing real great here, are you."

Wanda didn’t know what it was like to have nothing to lose. She thought she did but there were things that were important to her, even if she didn’t realized it at the time. Her brother had been one of those things and losing him had been more painful than she could have imagined.

She had never thought she’d loose him. That it would be her and her brother forever.

She clenched her teeth before speaking though the words sounded stressed and forced. "Im fine." It was a lie and a very bad one. Wanda could hear it in her tone and before Sam could call her out on it she continued.

"I don’t want to do nothing." She admitted as her green eyes looked over the devastated village.

Every step away from the pile of ruin was a step away from remembering the night of the Rain. At least, that was what Sam managed to convince herself. She was a big believer in mind over matter. Maybe the social sciences were complete hokum, but there was a lot to be said for pure self-delusion.

She focused, instead, on the way the guy's heel rose and fell in front of her, with every step. She watched motes of dust swirl beneath his feet, scattered and crushed, but never destroyed, with every step.

Her attention grew so narrow that she was startled by his question. Twice, actually. First by the words themselves. Second by their candor.

The corner of her lip twitched. "I'm not sure we're supposed to be doing great here," she said.

It was a lie. Sam knew it was a lie. Wanda knew that Sam knew it was a lie. And Sam knew that Wanda knew that Sam knew it was a lie. Between the two of them, they were a very knowledgeable pair.

The thought threatened to make Sam smile.

Only just.

"Of course you don't," she said, walking over to Wanda's side and kneeling down by the bad ankle. "It's not really in human nature to sit still." Herself included in that category, strange though it seemed. "We probably have more in common with sharks than with apes. If we stop swimming, we'll die."

"But some people do," he answers, trying to follow the thought where it goes, trying not to guess the right thing or clamp up when he can't find it. He was in a cave for two days and no one was looking for him: that's a scary thing, even if he wasn't looking for friends. Not knowing how to talk to people didn't stop it mattering when you come back from the dead and find yourself surprised anyone cares enough to take some care. "I guess it helps if they come in with people they know."

The lady by the fountain, she seemed fine, here with her sister and friends. She probably made friends easy too--she'd gotten him to talk about New York and Pennsylvania, like he wouldn't dismiss every topic as pointless otherwise. "I just mean, you're not going to make it living on the fringe." He isn't either, and he's surprised to want to.

That was quite the thing to hear from emo boy. Sam almost, almost, almost wanted to smile. Which was saying something, for a girl who hadn't laughed in a very, very long time. At least she could still appreciate irony, or something.

"Unfortunately," she said, in a lazy drawl, "in the game of Survivor that is life, no one wants to make an alliance with the blue-haired chick who's more comfortable with a microscope than a hammer and nails."

Which was to say, she was running pretty low on marketable skills.

It's the way he thought when he arrived--and he's met other people who do it, trade favors, expect something for their assistance. In a survival of the fittest situation, it would make perfect sense, and she'd have to find something to offer.

But he saw the way people worried after Credence, and he'd dug him out of the cave without expecting anything in return. He can't imagine the purpose Credence would ever serve to him.

"I don't think people here care about that," he says, feeling the words out as he says them. His speech is often a bit slow--measured and rusty. "I mean, you have plenty of time to learn what you need, if you bother with it. But I don't think it matters. I don't think anyone's playing a game, here, they're just getting by, and part of getting by is knowing people."

Even back home, things hadn't gotten really bad until he locked himself in the dorm and stopped going out.

It was a Kindred mindset. Social Darwinism. Sam recognized it for what it was and she hated the fact that it had been imprinted on her personality. But there was nothing she could do to unlearn what she knew, to unlive what she'd been through. Maybe she wasn't Kindred any more. But three years might as well have been a lifetime.

She shook her head slightly, her synthetic curls bouncing off of the planes of her face. It was tempting to begin with something like, 'As one high school loner to another...' But she stopped herself.

Probably wasn't safe to assume.

"Getting to know people," she repeated, like she was committing the advice to memory. "Well, we could start with your name."

Did he not give her a name the last time? Gaps in his memory are so common he's learned to accept whatever sounds most like himself in explanation, and it's plausible. Hers doesn't come to mind either--he's just been putting paper in the storeroom as he makes it, aware of the need.

Girl in the blue wig was odd enough out from the village, it probably worked better than a name if he wanted to find her.

"It's Jude," he says, stepping onto a log fallen or rolled onto the path, sunk enough in mud that it's probably more of a pain to move than a necessity. Turning, he offers her a hand up.

She was all set to say something like 'Hey Jude,' but then she figured he'd probably heard that a million times already. If the Beatles existed in his world. And if they didn't, it wouldn't make sense. So, really, it was a lose-lose joke.

She bit it back.

Politely declining his hand, she stepped up onto the log. Maybe she didn't have her superpowers any more, but she figured she could handle that much.

"I'm Sam," she said. It was the first time her voice was...well. Genuine. There was nothing to be snarky about, really. It was actually kind of nice to get a simple answer to a simple question. Nothing else was ever simple.

Dismissed, the hand lifts on the wrist, points the fingers out, and curls back in just as easy. It pulls the cut on his palm just enough to remind him it's there, and maybe he shouldn't be offering it anyway. "Nice to meet you, Sam."

If the silence he lapses into along the path is awkward, he doesn't notice. It's always seemed a problem for other people, and not his to deal with. When a thought occurs to him to speak, he speaks: "I've been leaving paper at the inn; did you find it?"

Silence was always something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it wasn't what society taught her was normal. On the other hand, if you didn't talk, you didn't have to lie. Avery often lapsed into uncanny silences. At least before the Rain of Fire. After that, he could barely sit still, much less keep his trap shut.

Sometimes, Sam missed those good old days.

More than sometimes.

She was trembling on the brink of remembering too much again, but was saved by Jude. She blinked in puzzlement, looking up at him. "No," she admitted. "I didn't."

Looking back, he can see how he's caught her out of something, but he doesn't know and won't ask what. She didn't want a hand up, she probably doesn't want much else, and it isn't the kind of thing he's good at with people he knows far better.

But if it was the paper that helped, he can keep digging that vein. "I put it upstairs in the storeroom, it looks like where they dump extra blankets and clothes when people disappear. I'll show you when we get there.

"What did you want it all for, anyway?"

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Is this all as strange as it is seeming? Was I dead or was I only dreaming? [OPEN]

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July 3rd Okay?

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