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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jax doesn't know what the fuck is happening. He'd gotten used to the village being a fucking nightmare nine days out of ten and he'd gotten used to not having anything approaching normal conveniences; he's done enough stints in jail and prison to be used to lockdown and no tv, it's not like he can't handle it.

What he can't handle is a goddamn mind fuck and after climbing out of the fountain for the second time since coming to this place, he scans the grounds for a face he knows. Claire is the first one he picks out and it's a good thing - he likes Claire and knows she doesn't tolerate bullshit.

"What the fuck is this," Jax says, coming close to her. "I've been here for a fucking year, trapped, and now it's all a dream?"

When Claire hears Jax's voice, she turns and sees him, dripping wet and remembers almost immediately his disdain for cold weather. Oh, she can only imagine how pissed he is and it would be an outright lie if she didn't say her infamous New York temper was ramping up. You wouldn't know it though.

She moves towards him, pulling a folded blanket out from under her arm to drape over his shoulders.

"Sure looks that way." Claire answers, unfolding the towel next she grabs from a nearby pile brought over by Kira. She hands it to him. "Here, try and dry off as best as you can. You and your California blood won't do well against hypothermia."

She smirks. Just a little teasing. Enough to maybe get him to not lose his shit completely.

“Yeah, gonna freeze my balls off otherwise,” Jax says, taking the towel gratefully. His hair’s longer than it’s ever been before and he needs to at least trim his beard if not shave it off outright. He looks like an asshole without facial hair but this itchy, scraggly shit is not going to work.

“You look a hell of a lot better than I do right now, I bet. Don’t have a mirror but I think I probably look ten miles down the road past shitty.”

He’s a little vain, after all.

Luckily for him, she's able to do basic haircuts as a result of the single semester of cosmetology she took back in high school. She also had a decent pair of scissors that could do for trimming his beard, too.

Claire can't help but laugh. "My face does, but my legs are looking pretty manly."

It's not as bad as she's saying it is, but the point is everyone is definitely missing some time.

Unfolding the blanket, she steps closer and pulls the blanket around him and over his shoulders.

"As far as I can tell, everyone's houses are still standing and our things have been somehow ported over, too. You should go put something dry on."

"Well, thank god for that. I spent a long time getting that shit together." It's not the best he could do but he'd hustled for everything he had and it's been a while since he's been stuck with scrubs. He looks down, expecting black, and he's shocked to see red instead. Huh.

"I think they got the wrong color for the scrubs. I've always had black ones," he points out. "Never had any red ones. Never fucked anyone with red ones, either, so I don't know how I would have ended up with any."

Claire looked down at his scrubs, narrowing her eyes a little at the dark, wet material that was no doubt going to dry as red. She had her light grey scrubs, same as the first time she crawled out of the fountain but hadn't heard anything about people having this particular problem.

"Really?" she looked at him, brows lifting in surprise. She suddenly remembered something else. "Oh, and the thing on your wrist seems to be a communication device of sorts. You can't remove it. I've tried."

She takes another look at the fountain and then back to Jax. "Come on, we'll talk as we walk."

The man needed to get out of his wet clothes.

Jax is fine with walking and talking and, as he does, he fiddles with the wristband. It doesn't seem to be coming off and it does seem to be red. He doesn't know how he's gotten thrown into this camp but he guesses it's no different than the black. It's still a shitty color and a shitty division of the group that probably means less than nothing. He's been in prison often enough to know how these things go.

"Glad you came back through. You're one of the only people here who has any sense," Jax says. He likes Claire. She doesn't take bullshit, no, but she also seems to understand what it's like to live in a world that isn't some medieval shit or spaceships - her shit is real and tangible.

The colours didn't make much sense to her either and she often forgot about them altogether most days. But seeing people in their scrubs reminded her of them and it was too random to not mean something. But like all the other puzzles and the reason for all the weird happenings in the last place, answers weren't likely to show themselves.

His compliment had her turning her head again to look at him. It came as a surprise; a very nice one and she smiled, genuinely touched.

"I can think of a few places I'd rather be," Claire laughed. "Thanks, I am pretty glad you came back through, too."

A pause and she nods before looking ahead again.

"You remind me of home."

Jax smiles a little at that. He's mostly a pain in the ass, if someone was asking for a self-assessment, but if Claire thinks he seems a little like home he's happy to be that for her. She's a little like home for him too even if her home's across the country from his.

"Who'd ever think a boy from Cali and a girl from New York would think of one another as home, right? Isn't there supposed to be some kind of east coast, west coast hate?"

Claire laughed softly. "Hey, they're both in the same country so I'll take what I can get. Anyway, it's only a hate thing when discussing sports. So, if you're a fan, then maybe we can't be friends after all."

She was teasing and that was pretty obvious.

"Don't care about sports so I guess we're good," Jax says. He has no fucks for the Dodgers or the Yankees or whoever else might be in some kind of rivalry and if he's too busy for that shit, he can imagine a nurse is a hell of a lot busier than someone like him. All he does is run illegal guns and porn studios. She actually saves lives.

Now he doesn't do anything at all.

"Gotta say, you're gonna be stuck with me, Claire."

Claire gives him a smile and a laugh. For some reason, there's some relief in knowing that. Even despite the fact that this place, if it's anything like the last place (which it is but in a weirdly different kind of way) then nothing is certain.

Her smile fades a little and she looks away briefly before bringing her eyes back.

"Careful, I'm going to hold you to that."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[EVENT] The Simulation Ends

15 minutes later

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