[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]

His gaze draws up, following Bodhi's arm to shoulder, face, as the pull draws his own arm out from his body. As momentum bids him follow. He doesn't question where Bodhi might lead him--nice as it might be, to see the brick house again. Confirm the dog, the tea. Even the bird and its dubious owner.

For a moment, just to make the next breath easier, Jude amuses himself trying to imagine Kira's fussy frame under a beard.

If there isn't firewood, he'll deal with it. If there isn't clothing, isn't a dog, isn't anything but the pair of them and the walls--he'll deal with it. He doesn't need Bodhi to try too hard. "You don't have to be okay with this," he makes himself say, with a fortifying squeeze to Bodhi's hand.

[onlyeverdoubted]

Funny, the things that break a dam. Or maybe not funny at all. Bodhi talks about nothing. No wonder his response to even the shallowest, simplest suggestion that he's allowed to have feelings is enough to snap the flimsy fiction. He stops for a moment, looks back at Jude with his eyes even wider than his natural earnest puppy expression leaves them and a hint of something frantic underneath. "I'm... I'm not," he finally says after a too-long pause, voice thick and halting.

He's not, but what can he do about That? Shouldn't have said anything. Swallowing hard, he turns his feet back toward the house.