[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

[theintercessor]

"I mean," he starts, looking between their wrists. Only one way to find out, and he doesn't think it'll take another meeting. Jude taps the word signal on the screen, and Bela's watch changes again, a vibration even Jude can hear.

"That's my name," he says, reading it upside-down. Scrolling along the display, there are numbers, directions, measured in feet and inches. "Is that--"

He moves in to see better, and the number reduces. "I think it's how close you are to me." When he looks up, a few others are looking in their direction, up from their own devices. "I think it's telling everyone how close they are to me."

[cleptes]

She is happy to let Jude have a look at the devices and see if he can figure out how they work or what they were capable of.

Bela is surprised by the sudden vibration, looking at the screen with interest and wondering what the numbers meant - probably best to wait on something else to happen before drawing any conclusions.

"Well, would you look at that." Bela exclaims softly, marveling at what she just saw. "Suppose they want it to make it easier for people to find each other. A good thing if any of us happen to get lost." She briefly glances at the rest of the group, then back at Jude.

"Do you think we can take them off?"

[theintercessor]

The watch doesn't remind him of anything in the village--even with the bands matching scrubs. It reminds him of the room tucked in the now disappeared cavern, the computer sitting between coolers and fluorescent lights.

Dropping his gaze, he thinks of the vials, the initials, the colors on each label. He thinks of the sun failing to set and the canyon opening into an identical village across the way.

"No, I don't think we'll manage that," he says, voice thinning as his mouth dries.