sixthiterationlogs | [EVENT] The Simulation Ends

[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

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.]

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She flailed wildly in the water, kicking her arms and legs out in a futile effort to swim. The water stung her eyes and filled her nose as she kicked in what she hoped was the correct direction. Clary had always hated opening her eyes underwater. She forced herself to calm down enough to escape a pathetic watery death. After everything she's been through, she's not going to have 'death by water' on her tombstone.

She broke the surface of the water, coughing and gasping for air. Bright orange hair plastered to her cheeks and neck as she made her way to the fountain's ledge.

"Anyone else getting a sense of Déjà vu?" She coughed and pulled herself over the edge of the fountain. Clary spent a few minutes laying on her back before pushing herself to her feet. She was back in her black scrubs which clung uncomfortably to her curvy frame. Her was a little longer than before but it wasn't by much.

"Why does it feel like we're playing a video game and we all just got reset?" She looked around at those gathered around the fountain before moving herself out of the way. She wanted to sit and absorb everything before she tried to figure out what to do next next.

"The Matrix... we're in the fucking Matrix." It was so uncomfortable and wet. What was with their captors and water anyway?!

Sam was sitting on the edge of the fountain when Clary emerged. She moved to offer her a hand, but it looked like she could handle herself. Anyway, Sam wasn't exactly in the best of conditions to be helping anyone.

She felt...

She felt...weird.

It was, maybe, the least scientific word she could come up with, but at the moment, it was the only one rattling around inside of her brain. She was wet. She was cold. And she was fucking pissed off. None of these were particularly conducive to analysis at the moment.

"I wish it were the Matrix," she said dully. "Then, at least, I'd know fucking Kung-Fu."

Clary released a huff of what could have been interrupted as laughter. "If we had the right program for it." A pair of green eyes turned towards Sam, looking down at her friend.

"You okay? You look worse than a drown rat."

It wasn't too cold out but it still wasn't summer so the air currents were uncomfortable.

"Fine, I think," Sam said. Because that was what you said in a situation like this. You didn't say 'I feel weird' or 'I think something's wrong with me' or 'I could murder a bag of Cheetos.' The former two didn't make any sense. And the latter was pretty much a given. Had been a given. For at least the last eleven months of Sam's so-called life.

She parted the synthetic hair around her face, wondering how the hell she was going to manage to dry out her wig for a second time. It was tighter and more unwieldy than usual.

Hashtag: Real life problems.

Or something.

She stood up, feeling wobbly and just so fucking cold. What was wrong with her? "Are we dead?" she asked hopefully.

Clary looked down at her torso and then back up at Sam. "Don't think so. Do you feel dead?" Not that Clary knew what being dead felt like, that was a question for Simon who wasn't here at the moment. That might have been a good thing since he'd have more than a few remarks about the entire situation.

She chewed on her lower lip. She could honestly murder a bag of cheetos too but overly processed foods didn't seem to be a big theme in this place.

"Maybe we should get you inside. I think someone at the inn had started a fire to help with everyone looking like drowned rats." She didn't know for sure but Clary was randomly certain that someone would have thought about that.

It was probably for the best that Clary stopped Sam before she could entirely consider the question: Do you feel dead?

That way lay madness.

But the prospect of the Inn was...well. "Do you think there even still is an Inn?" she asked. Not enough data to really say what the hell had just happened. But judging from the fact that she was back in the emo Goth scrubs, she could see a pretty solid argument for someone setting reset.

But why?

"Yeah. It's over there." She pointed at one of the buildings behind them. It was sort of lucky that the fountain was in the center of the village. "That or they decided to make the exact same building in the exact same place but it isn't the same building..." She paused. "I'm confusing myself. Let's go see."

Clary pushed herself to her feet and held a hand out a hand to Sam. She didn't have to take it but it was there.

"I want to say 'there is no harm in looking' but I know better than to jinx us."

Sam took Clary's hand, hauling herself up. Her fingers were ice cold from lack of circulation, although she hadn't exactly sorted that out yet for herself. What amazed her more was how long and lovely her nails looked. She hadn't been much of a nibbler in the past, but in the last couple of weeks, she'd been trying out different nervous ticks, seeing which ones suited her.

"Well," she said cheerfully, "maybe we'll get lucky and the Inn will be booby trapped with flamethrowers or something."

No pessimism here. Not at all.

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Flamethrowers would be cool... or hot." Clary scrunched up her nose as she released Sam's hand. Pessimism was easy though a part of Clary was hopeful that her things were still in this inn. She had gotten used to wearing jeans and having her leather jacket and was already tired of wearing scrubs.

She didn't hate them but she also didn't like them.

"I was in my room, drawing." More than that Clary had been trying to use her Shadowhunter powers but it never worked.

"Then I was in water again."

She nodded. A familiar story. Unfortunately, it was a basic rule of science that two points formed a line, but not a pattern.

Not yet, anyway.

"Well," she said, "maybe someone else knows what the fuck is going on. But I kinda doubt it, you know? Maybe our Overlords are just trolling us. The dunking booth is always the most popular attraction at a county fair."

Oh, fuck. Her Midwestern was showing.

Clary looked over at Sam with a delicate raise to her brow. "That or we're the apples and they're bobbing." She didn't mind the metaphor but any theory into what the overseers were doing made Clary uncomfortable. At first it had felt like they were in the Matrix, maybe they had just woken up only they had more hair instead of less...

She didn't know but it still wasn't comforting.

"I doubt anyone else knows but maybe we can put a few pieces together." It was a small silver of hope.

Clary really hated this place.

At least misery loved company. Sam was reasonably sure that no one actually liked their little clown rodeo. She gave Clary a slight grimace of commiseration. She wasn't much of a people-person, but even she could get just how unhappy Clary was. It wasn't hard. Sam was equally--if not more--unhappy.

But it wasn't a contest.

Besides, no one would win that contest anyway. They'd all just lose together.

"Maybe," she said.

But she'd give anything to have Avery right now. Somehow, she felt sure he would have already solved this place.

They were all miserable but if Clary could carve out some piece of happiness she would. So far her efforts have been pointless. She's taken comfort in her art, getting the demons from her head onto the paper in front of her, but she wasn't happy. Some days, she wondered if that was even possible in a place like this.

She walked towards the inn door and pushed it open. Everything felt familiar but a little different too; like it was a copy. There was no flamethrowers but someone had started a fire in the fireplace.

"You dry off. I'm going to run and see if my room is still here. I want to test a theory." She also wanted to change out of her scrubs.

Sam gave her a sideways look. The idea of warming up was appealing, but for some reason, the fire was not. And anyway, "I'm a scientist," she said. "If there's a theory to be tested, I want in."

Besides, she had to check her own room.

Shit, what if her drawings on the walls were gone?

What if her stuff was gone?

Clary rolled her eyes but also smiled. She knew that there was a reason that she liked Sam. "Okay, lets check our rooms and reconvene here in 25 minutes. Only because I plan to change if my clothes are here."

She preferred her Shadowhunter gear more, it made her feel less exposed.

"Here's having overly wishful thinking." Clary mumbled as she headed towards her room.

"I'll drink to that," Sam muttered.

Or, she would, assuming any of her still equipment had survived the...whatever it was. She made a mental note to check up on that later.

In the meanwhile, she followed Clary up the stairs.

She was still fucking freezing. And still felt off. Absently, she ran her fingers over the banister, trying to figure it out, but her brain felt too foggy.

Clary had never been a big drinker but this place had a way of stretching your nerves and making you wish that you were in a club with a thundering beat and a drink of something sweet in your hand.

She took a deep breath and broke away from Sam when she came to her room. Despite her nerves, she didn't hesitate. Clary wasn't big on hesitation when she had a clear goal in mind. She pushes open her door and stepped inside, expecting the worst while foolishly hoping for the best.

The room was exactly how she left it.

Clary slowly closed the door behind her and began to change into her Shadowhunter gear: tight paints, dark tank top, leather bits and pieces combined with a dagger and her leather jacket. The dagger had been borrowed from the inn's stash but she had gotten it just before she was pulled through the fountain. She'd have to put it back since her plans for the day have changed.

Once set she headed back down to the fire to see if Sam was there, if not, she'd wait.

Sam examination of her room was a bit more cursory. Once she saw that the walls were still a mess of art, she decided that the rest of her shit was probably intact too. It wasn't exactly nice shit, so she didn't bother taking inventory. She grabbed the one thing worth grabbing--her notebook--and headed back down the stairs.

"Well," she said when she spotted Clary, "you look Goth."

It was meant as a compliment.

Apparently, Clary's stuff was there too.

Clary looked down at her attire while her lips twisted into a smile. "I'd call it biker chick if I was giving it a name." She was wearing a lot of black but it was form fitting and not overly excessive like how Clary imaged Goth styles to be.

"It's my Shadowhunter gear. I got it a few months back." It had been VERY random but Clary wasn't about to question it.

She pointed down to Sam's notebook.

"Everything accounted for you too?"

"Well," she drawled, "there's never really any accounting for this hellhole. But yeah. I think so."

She made a dismissive wave of her hand.

And then she realized one reason she'd been feeling so off.

"And then some," she said, examining the heavy watch on her wrist. "Where the fuck did this come from?"

"You have one too?" Clary stepped closer to Sam to take a look at the bracelet. "I noticed it when I first got here but I figured it was a scrub accessories." She held up her wrist for Sam to see.

"It looks like this backwater village is getting wifi."

That was a weird thought.

Much like the food that randomly appeared, Sam figured that the promise of wifi was probably too good to be true. She wished she had more of an engineering background, though. The idea of taking the damn thing apart had a certain appeal. If only to stick it to the man.

Or, in this particular case, Overlords.

She glanced down at the ugly thing--shit, it was like Mr. T's reject collection. "What makes you think it's got wifi?" she asked.

"I can send you a text." Clary had been looking down at her wrist when she spoke and a second later Sam will see a message popup on her bracelet.

'See, a text.'

"I guess that means that we can talk to each other and they can track us..." She tried to slide the thing odd her wrist but it looked like it was stuck.

"Any ideas how to get it off?"

Sam's instinct was immediately a laser sword and a quick slicing motion. The Space Wars method. But she liked having her hands. And all things considered, she was pretty attached to her left hand.

At any rate, that suggestion wasn't going to be helpful.

She shook her head.

"It's ugly as fuck."

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[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

Clary Fray | Group 10 | OPEN

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