[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: 6I Fountain Park & Elsewhere
WHEN: April 1
OPEN TO: ALL - Mingle
WARNINGS: N/A

---

In the snug circle of an old park, a fountain sits burbling beneath a broad, midday sky.

Once-neat paving stones have buckled and cracked from the slow nudge of wayward roots. Benches stand covered in lichen and rust. Three paths push into the underbrush like the spokes on a wheel, the encroaching forest creating lush tunnels through the dark.

But the fountain stands singular and pristine, brightly splashing in open rebellion of the deep, muffled sounds of a place long ago gone to seed. A vibration hums through the ground, there and quickly gone, and the water in the fountain trembles, lapping against the high walls of its cool, pale reservoir.

Far, far away, in a place that isn't really there, people begin to blink out of existance.

It is the first of April.

It is precisely ten o'clock in the morning.



[Please see event details and guidelines here.]

Comments

[3ofswords]

Kira isn't surprised to have her back; he's been to the inn and returned with another batch of towels, occupying himself now with shaking them out in the air. There's a layer of dust over everything, and no one's day is going to improve with a dead moth or spider in their hair.

With a firm shake, he drops the towel to halves along its edges, folding it back up to put in his makeshift sled. "I dinged an elbow on the thing rolling out of it, but I haven't seen anything worse than that. Hasn't that always kind of been the case, with the fountain?"

When he'd arrived, his stitches had been replaced with new scar tissue, weeks compressed to moments.

[ethnobotany]

She does the same with hers, making a note to wash them as soon as she has a real chance to do so. It's like none of their cleaning efforts actually did anything or something's grown a lot of dust in a short time.

"It has, but this is the Observers we're talking about," she points out. "It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for them to change the rules at the worst time. I'd rather be prepared and not be needed."

[3ofswords]

Since he has a closet full of hoarded supplies for a very similar reason, he can't fault her logic. "We should send someone to see if the spring is still there," he points out, casting a look in what he thinks to be its general direction. "Ravi said the canyon's gone, or at least, no one can see the walls over the trees anymore."

Once that fact was established, he'd put his glasses back in his pocket; the long hair is enough tickling and weighting on his face for today. Any more change and he might actually let slip some composure.

"I don't know about the fountain, but something's definitely changed."

[ethnobotany]

"This isn't the first time they've changed the environment," she points out matter-of-factly, "and it likely won't be the last." For now, she leaves off the theory that everything's been just an extremely complex holodeck simulation. Best not to go down that explanation line until the crisis at hand is over.

"I'm sure there will be plenty of volunteers once everyone is sure their friends and family have all come through. I wouldn't mind doing a little exploring myself."

[3ofswords]

Mark already has Kira well on-board with that, though he's heard his first simulated copy didn't take the theory all that well. At this point, he'll take anything over time-and-dimensional-travel, and the specimen room he'd checked out with Karen had introduced uncomfortable medical experiments to the mix.

Every day could be a crisis of some sort, if you were bad enough at compartmentalizing.

"You're right; I'm not sure it's even the first time they fixed something." He's read a lot of notes over the last few months; not all of them stick in his head as much as fluorescent blood vial rooms or Mark's version of The Matrix. "It's just--boxes of new supplies, buildings covered in dust, and this--" he thrusts out his hand, showing off the wrist band. "Feels like the game changed."

[ethnobotany]

"It definitely did," she agrees fervently. "We just don't know the rules yet and that's the most worrisome thought of all."

Knowing the Observers, they'll find out at the worst time what those new rules are. These people aren't the type to ease them into anything. A crisis will hit and it will hit hard. The only problem is whether or not they'll be ready for it.

"On the plus side, my garden seems to be exactly as I left it, so at least we've got something in the way of herbal remedies if we need them."

[3ofswords]

For all its usefulness, for all his time spent with Mark and the simple plants that used to cover his kitchen at home--he hasn't occupied himself with gardening since his arrival. Maybe it was just the weather, or the lack of pots he was so accustomed to. "So the garden's tended but the houses are filthy," he notes aloud, looking around the overgrown park again.

A puzzle for later. "Anything in that garden to punch up what we're already eating? Nobody seems hurt, but I definitely feel like I need a few vitamins more than I did yesterday."

With the adrenaline of necessity wearing off, he's starting to feel how heavy everything hangs on his frame, and he wonders if what they really need is more to do with fat than vitamins.

[ethnobotany]

She offers something of a helpless shrug. "Everything's in the right place and it seems to be at the same stage of growth." Eerily so. And the sight did nothing to quell her holodeck theory.

"There might be a few things that will work," she muses, her mind already thinking back to her garden. She'll have to make sure it's all actually okay to eat and not just looking like it's the way it should be, but she's fairly sure she can find something to help out a bit. "Are you feeling any specific symptoms? Fatigue, nausea? Or is it more general?"

[3ofswords]

"A little of column A, a little of column C," he answers, managing a shrug. "I'm not ready to fall over or anything, it's just--you know when you sleep too much? Or you've been sick for awhile, and you just start getting back to your life?"

Crawling out of the fountain had been harder than the first time, and not because of the cold. There's a general ache, like it's the first activity he's had in ages. Not that he'd been in the greatest shape, but he'd been making hikes with Mark and Karen before this. "Probably related to all of this," he adds, gesturing to the new length of hair framing his face.

[ethnobotany]

"I wouldn't doubt it," Beverly agrees, gesturing at her own mottled mess of hair. Who knows how long they've really been sitting around or why? There's no telling what their bodies have really been doing while their minds were hooked up somewhere else.

Of course, there's no telling if they're even really awake right now.

"Try to take it slowly for now, eat as well as possible, and I'll see what I can find to help our diets."

They don't exactly have the best nutrition available, but if they at least try to keep eating as well as possible, that will also help. And she'll just have to spend a little more time in her garden to help make up the rest of it.