sixthiterationlogs | open | she'll always be seventeen; that girl has love

WHO: Kamala Khan
WHERE: Fountain, Inn, around the village(s)
WHEN: June 21-23
OPEN TO: All
WARNINGS: Near-drowning, mentions of potential death scenarios and horror game elements

Fountain-

It feels like a dream at first. Who wakes up underwater without a clue as to how they got there? Anime heroines. Maybe she fell asleep while streaming something, she thinks. Ammi will be mad at her for being wasteful again. It is a short-lived reflection. Kamala quickly focuses on holding her breath once the common-sense kicks in. Now isn’t the time for daydreaming. The unpleasant burn from water filling her nose and ears makes this real enough to take seriously. She pinches her nose with her thumb and index finger to be safe. Precious seconds tick by as she thinks about what she should do. The obvious answer is kick her way to the surface. She might have done it any other time. She knows her own strength. She can take whatever is waiting for her at the surface except for one thing. That is what holds her back. The last time she woke up in a strange place, seemingly unbeatable monsters ripped you bit by bit for making a sound. It is possible they took her back somehow and she ended up in the wrong spot like the others did in that dust storm.

Her heart fills with dread. She needs to shrink. It will minimize the sound; give herself a shot at survival. She closes her eyes and wills it to happen. There is no soft glow or weird sensation that comes with her cells rapidly responding to her will. Okay now she’s panicking. Her heart beats rapidly in her chest as she prays for her body to respond. Go small. It is our best chance. The only response is her lungs burning for air. She must ask herself some very hard questions quickly. Is it selfish to go up there knowing she is going to make noise and get whoever is nearby killed? Is it better to drown than be ripped limb from limb? She must decide which is the least selfish way to die.

In the end, her Ammi decides for her. She can hear her scream for her beta. Maybe this is all a bad dream. She is scaring Ammi with this behavior again. Kamala kicks hard until she reaches the surface and hangs onto the side of the fountain like a lifeline. Water pours from her nose, mouth, and ears as she struggles to breathe. She doesn’t know what will happen next. Will her mother pull her into her arms? Will a monster kill her? The only thing she can control is the need to get air into her lungs. She vomits water along the side to accommodate that need.

Eventually her body starts to settle. The spots behind her eyes fade as oxygen reaches her brain. She looks around, visibly disoriented. Neither outcome has happened. No monsters or mother to greet her. This place isn’t Reims. Is it one of the cities mentioned by the others? Somehow the bugs are still alive there in that case. Kamala has no way of knowing why or how of any of this. She can only proceed cautiously.

Every move is painful to her. She flinches at every slosh of water, at her feet when the touch the ground, and the weight on her back that doesn’t belong there. The clothes, hunter green scrubs of all things, that do not belong to her make noise as she moves. The water dripping from her hair and body does too. She wants to cry. Why not when everything is working against her? At least it will make her feel better. She quickly shoves the thought away. She needs to be brave like that boy who had the creatures running past him and never made a sound. She needs to try even if it feels like she is doomed to fail because of things outside her control.

She moves her soaked hair close to her chest to minimize the dripping noise and very slowly starts to walk. The terror and determination are plain to see on her face as she advances with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Any direction is better than no direction. Proceed with caution when approaching the soaking wet teenager since she is visibly spooked by whatever noise you will make.

Inn –

There is a party outside. People are making noise like it is a given. Kamala is so exhausted by her fear and near-death experience at this point that she doesn’t even try to stop them. She thinks back to her conversation with Frank suddenly. It is difficult to figure out what is real and not. Her answer was so simple yet sincere. It doesn’t matter if you are with the people you love. Her family isn’t here. Nakia and Bruno are not here. It is so exhausting to be strong without them again, she thinks. The fire ahead of her looks comforting even if it is noisy like the people outside. She takes off her backpack and curls in front of it like a child. She just wants to sleep for a while. Why not when everything is already so dangerous? She pulls the backpack into her arms and pretends it’s her sloth as she drifts to sleep.

Whenever someone tries to wake her or comes to close, Kamala quietly asks the same thing without fail. “How can you tell when something is real or not?” Maybe she’s getting a fever. This was not one of her better plans.

Wildcard -

Kamala will be wandering around until she starts to get an idea of what is happening here. Feel free to encounter her around the village or villages as she figures out what exactly is happening here. This can be anywhere from her first through third day. Obviously after the first day she will be in a less depressing state so I would recommend then!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's something about this girl that pulls at a place in Peter that he doesn't like to think about, much less discuss, but there it is. She looks lost and out of place and he feels like he's looking at himself about fifteen years earlier.

Shit.

When she's curled up on her bag and says something about real or not, Peter decides he'll speak up.

"Hey, for me? I like to just pretend that everything's a fantasy until proven otherwise. Usually works out okay."

Kamala blinks up at him. That actually isn't the worst advice she's gotten. That nap has actually done a lot to recharge her. She sits up, ready to end her pity party for now. "So I should pretend this is a weird fantasy movie?" She leans against the nearest surface, humming thoughtfully. "Like what kind? The kind of dark 80s kind? Or the more upbeat late 90s/early 2000s kind?" Unfortunately she forgot one of the most important rules of waking up in a weird place: no one knows your references. Whoops? She'll catch herself later.

"I don't know anything after about 83, myself, but if you want to pretend this is Star Wars, go for it. Anything you want. You get to be the star of your own action film," Peter says. It's possibly a juvenile way of coping but he has found it works for him and maybe the method doesn't have to be the most mature. Maybe it just has to be the one that works.

"Point is, this place? No telling why we're here or how to get out, from my limited experience with it. I say roll with it and take each day as it comes. If you dwell on it and nothing changes, you're just going to be miserable."

It sounds silly and romantic to Kamala. She doesn't think she could actually follow the advice he's giving her, but she gets it. She appreciates it deeply. It still doesn't cease to amaze her the way some people step up when these things happen. There are parts of it she can use. That last part especially seems important to remember. There is one problem with it though. As long as Peter is in the mood to give advice, she has to ask it.

"What do you do about the people you're missing?" Which is kind of assuming a lot on her part. She knew so many people in Reims, France who literally had no one worth going home to. She needs to rephrase that. "Are there people you should be with right now too?"

"I have a family. It's not the one I was born to," Peter says, thinking of the other Guardians, but they are his family all the same. He doesn't think he'd count anyone else as family unless his Mom came back.

"They're all really capable people. I know they can take care of themselves even if I'm not there. I miss them like crazy? But I know they're probably all right."

Kamala listens to him with her head resting on her fist. The families you aren't born into has always been a story she can get. Bruno became part of hers when they were little. In Reims so many came together to form little families of their own including her. It's because she can relate that she takes him seriously. Well that and what else can she do? She can't sulk forever about being lost again.

"I should think of it that way. My family will be okay without me. There's so many people who will protect them if things ever get bad there too." It still hurts, but it's not like Peter said it wouldn't. He misses his family too. She smiles weakly. "You're really smart."

Peter makes a soft noise, something between a laugh and a cough. "I'm pretty sure I need to record you saying that so that when I get home, I can play it for my friends. They'd never believe it."

He's never been known as a books kind of guy but he guesses he's smart enough not to have died and to only be thrown in the Kyln once so that's smart enough. Different ways to survive, he guesses.

"But yeah, they'll miss you - I'm sure mine misses me - but they'll get by. You gotta have some faith."

Have faith, huh? Kamala is actually very good at that. This is the kind of advice she can lean into. Her smile becomes a little more genuine as she lets that settle into her head. "Well you've been really nice so consider it a done deal. I'll totally let you use my voice for that." It's another fun story to tell her family too once this is all over.

"Good. Now, if I can find a way to record that, we might be in business," Peter says. There's nothing here that seems further along in technology other than, say, Amish, and it makes communicating hard. There's the little wristbands but they're not good for more than a few words here or there.

"You notice this place seems a little...old-fashioned?"

Kamala blinks twice. She's been throwing herself an epic pity party, but she's a teenager from vaguely 2015/2016. Of course she noticed the technology here seemed kind of dated. "Now that you mention it..." She glances around to confirm what she's already worked out for herself. "I thought maybe it was an aesthetic thing, but it's really old-fashioned here, huh?"

"Really old fashioned," Peter echoes. "I have electricity in my house but I noticed a lot of other people don't - and it's not like the electricity is anything great. I only have three appliances."

Even Earth has it better off than this place.

"Usually if I'm stuck somewhere, it's because I need a ship repair - not because I'm literally somewhere with no ships."

Kamala blinks twice. This sounds like a horror movie to her. "We have no electricity in most places? For real? Is this like the Dark Ages or something?" She might be more interested in the ship comment if she doesn't think of ships as you know ones that go on the ocean.

open | she'll always be seventeen; that girl has love

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