sixthiterationlogs | [MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

WHO: Mark Watney
WHERE: Town Hall & Inn
WHEN: 6 September 2018, Evening
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Warn on your threads, please. PTSD is probably a given.
NOTES: Support group mingle! If your character needs some support after the latest meta plot or just generally, send them on over to Town Hall. Also, feel free to do top levels having to do with signing up for a tube monitoring shift. Please let me know if you want a Mark thread, I have notifs off for the post.

So, I have been down to what we all seem to be collectively calling the Bunker. It is... something, to say the least.

For some people it feels like hope and for others despair, and I can honestly see both sides of it. Some people need to feel like they have some control, even if it's illusory — Having a puzzle to possibly solve makes them feel less adrift. For others, it's too much reality, or the perception of, anyway. I can't say I'm personally convinced by any of it.

See, I've been here since the start of whatever this is, with a group that's almost entirely gone now. It's been five months since we were birthed into this expanded world, and I don't know if it's any more real than the last. That isn't me putting on a tin foil hat, that's just respecting the environment. Mars was the same way: You do what you need to do to eke out a life, to survive or even thrive, but it's dangerous to think you have any real control. Everything can go to shit in the blink of eye, and then you're tumbling around in an airlock while your entire food supply is turned to dust.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying people should stop hoping to get home, stop trying to figure it all out. I'm just saying we might all be a little easier mentally if we could express how scary it is to know, deep down, that the rug can be pulled out from under us at any moment... And then to accept that feeling that way is okay.

With that in mind, after a little meditating during my daily work in the fields, I put up two notices on the blackboard in the South Village inn:

Volunteers to monitor the bunker tubes for new arrivals, please sign up for a shift on the paper on the bar.

That's one thing we can do, at least. Just the illusion of control, but still important to some people, and definitely helpful for anybody new.

Below that:

Support Group Tonight
Town Hall - 7:00 PM
Everyone Welcome

I don't know how many people will actually show — We've got a surprisingly stubborn, resilient group, in my experience. But even if it helps just one person, it's worth doing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Frank hands Owen a cup of coffee from the carafe someone had brought over. He's not planning on staying long, but it's obvious the large herd of dogs is with him.

"I've got plenty more where that came from if you come by the house. No swizzle sticks though." Because he doesn't stir his coffee since he puts nothing in it. It's definitely that and not that they're living in a depraved place with no plastic.

"Thanks, I'll save this for next time my bowels back up," he says, somewhat used to being taken at his literal word. Never did work out the tone of voice for jokes, and he's got about two facial expressions to cycle through. Support group, meet your rock.

It's kind of nice to hold onto, even if he wonders what it might do to his insides. The pizza had been an experience. Multiple experiences: good on the way in, less on the way out. Next big shindig, he'll pace himself.

"You live with Kam, right?" He has a few villagers placed, but in the five months since he's arrived--he can't recall a home visit.

It startles a snort out of him, whether Owen is joking or not it's funny. He's not offended in any case, making no move to take the drink back.

"That's right," he manages after studying the man's face and wondering what he's after. "House Six. It's right behind the Inn, pretty much. You'll see the pen outside, we've got one of those cow-things and a zalpaca."

He didn't realize the houses were numbered, and he's glad Frank follows up the designation with some landmarks. Maybe there's call to mark the houses in some way--especially what is and isn't empty. The traps kind of do that for him.

"How is she, after everything?" Whether or not Frank knows Owen dragged her back from the lake that day is up to her, but he'd hope Frank was around in the days after. "This place isn't very kind to any of us, least of all the kids."

He's thought about marking the houses himself, so it isn't so arbitrary, but then he thinks of the big felt "6" on the side of his house in Reims and that's about as far as he gets.

"She's okay. You... saw her, that day?" He lowers his voice. Jessica, Kamala and himself had had their own version of this support group and he thinks they might be due to meet again honestly. Kamala didn't mention who saved her after she escaped Jess' house and Frank had been too busy failing at saving Elena to be around. "Thanks. For lookin' out for her."

Saw her isn't the half of it: he'd spent a good half hour dragging her on a rope, letting her cry and plead and whack at him with her little fists. It's nothing to talk about here--maybe with Frank at all, if it would just do harm. "I just got lucky," he says. "Being there when I was."

Begs the question, and he fixes Frank with a look not unlike the one he was getting earlier. "Did you know what was happening?"

"Yeah. I was in the lake," Frank admits, fear filling up his gaze. "I was with the girl who died... finding the bunker. I tried to save her." He hadn't been as lucky as Owen, that day. But Elena's back now, just like he knew she would be.

It is, perhaps, a lesson in reserving judgment: there were any number of reasons to not be watching Kamala that day, not the least of which is her being at an age where supervision chafes. "I didn't realize how wide the effect was," he says, watching Frank slide back to that moment.

"I'm sorry. I'm sure you did what you could."

Frank nods, he's still sad. He knows Elena will never be the same, but... That's what places like this are for, to test their mettle. He's not surprised by any of the events that unfolded.

"Did it get you? The song?" He still can't figure out how he was able to break free. Is it the vaccine in his system? Is it even still active? Is this even the same body he had when he had been inoculated? Too many questions and as ever, not enough answers.

"I never heard it," he admits. "Not sure I want it to start up again to test the hows or whys." Ravi had found the spores in his body, but they didn't move, didn't seem to assail his mind. Perhaps some interruption in their incubation period. Perhaps he really had been immune, and he could entreat his own guilt and fear with that fantasy: that whatever and whoever he'd been before, he'd contributed.

Now he just has to contend with this place, and the idea that they have the fungus in one of their bunkers or vials. That they do something to recreate the bite, same as they cut two fingers from his right hand.

"I went into the water after her, but even that close--couldn't hear a thing. Just thought people had started to snap."

Immune. He files it away, it might be worth stealing Owen's blood sample as well if he hasn't already taken it for himself. Frank voices none of this, of course.

"Guess you weren't wrong. It got a hold of me, but when I saw that girl start to drown, I dunno. I snapped out of it somehow."

[MINGLE] Post-Bunker Support Group

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