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sixthiterationlogs2016-07-25 11:29 pm
booklegging) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2016-07-25 11:29 pm
001 ♙ open
WHO: Jess Brightwell.
WHERE: The fountain, the town, and later on, the inn.
WHEN: July 25th.
OPEN TO: Anyone!
WARNINGS: Wet, grumpy teens and probably swearing.
STATUS: Open.
I. Fountain
Jess woke up to bone-chilling darkness. A wet darkness, some part of his mind supplied when a pressure pushed on him from below and he felt his limbs, sluggish and heavy, cut through liquid in an uncoordinated thrash.
Water. He was in water.
The jolting realization came too late to stop himself from doing the one thing he shouldn't do: open his mouth and inhale. The burn of frigid water in his lungs and up his nose instantly woke Jess up, and then panic was setting in for real, colder even than the gloomy water in which he was submerged. Instinct was a screaming voice in his head propelling him in the direction he'd been pushed. Up, he prayed. Let it be up.
Just when Jess thought he couldn't hold back the need to expel his lungs a second longer, he breached the surface, coughing until every muscle in his chest felt like it was spasming. He paddled his arms, fighting to clear his eyes, his movements made extra jerky by an unfamiliar weight on his back. The backpack was hardly as heavy as the fully-stocked travel packs he'd trained with, but between it and getting caught by surprise, he wasn't as graceful pulling himself from the pool as he would've liked. Half-rolling, Jess ended up in a sprawl, caught at an awkward angle on his side because of the backpack like a turtle flipped on its back.
If Glain could see this display, she'd have him running laps around the training field for the rest of his life and then some.
... Glain. The High Garda compound. The barracks.
Now that he wasn't in any immediate danger of drowning in his sleep, the questions were tumbling in. How had he gotten from there to here without waking up? Wherever "here" was.
Instinct told him something was wrong, horribly wrong, eclipsing the sweet relief at having air to gulp down. Wriggling out of the backpack, Jess pulled himself onto his knees and looked down at himself, and what he saw justified the renewed panic beating in his chest like a second heartbeat. He didn't recognize a single thing he was wearing. Where was his uniform? His belt with his tools? Anything? He reached for the bag--also unfamiliar--and tore into it, shoving aside more unfamiliar articles of clothing. Nothing. No knife, no Codex. Things he wouldn't leave behind and people wouldn't dare take from him. What the hell.
This was bad. It certainly couldn't be good.
II. Town
Later in the day, Jess could no longer resist the urge to get out from under prying eyes and take some air by himself, prompting him to head out into town on alone. Seeing was believing, and Jess needed to see what he was up against with his own eyes.
Keeping away from the main drag to avoid notice, he cautiously picked his way along the outer fringe of the settlement. Everything had a threatening newness to it that had Jess on high alert, pausing at every unfamiliar crack of a branch and checking over his shoulder at each turn to make sure he wasn't being followed. The town was larger than he'd expected and had the uncanny appearance of a set piece. Like an elaborate replica of a pioneer village that time had forgotten.
It's strange, ghost-like feel made Jess uneasy, and he put a concentrated effort into avoiding the view of windows, approaching from the rears of building until he was close enough to peer in through them. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet whoever lived in these ramshackle houses, if they were even occupied.
At one house, he tried a side door. The knob turned soundlessly under his hand. It felt like a trap. All of it did. This entire town. He'd never thought he would, but for once he missed his armored uniform and the heavy High Garda weapons that went with it. He'd feel safer with something besides a dull fear pounding in his head.
III. Inn
By all rights, Jess should be dead to the world after this rotten day--the cherry on a shite cake as he hadn't been averaging much sleep in the days proceeding this anyway--but no amount of mental and physical exhaustion could dull Jess' prickling nerves, even after day gave way to late night, and the quiet town grew even quieter.
He'd taken shelter in the inn once it'd started to get dark, seeing no better option, yet he couldn't bring himself to touch the abandoned beds. Eventually Jess crept into the front room and picked a perch near one of the windows, staring out into the inky darkness beyond with restless intensity.
He should rest. He needed to rest. He was running on fumes, stomach churning with hunger and unease both. But he just couldn't. He was used to the noise and bustle of Alexandria and having his fellow recruits around him in the barracks. This place was as quiet as a grave... and that was definitely not a comparison he appreciated, especially with how conveniently timed his abduction was when he considered all the variables at work. They'd been making moves against the Artifex, and suddenly he ended up in the middle of nowhere without his Library identification? Too well-timed.
Explanations chased themselves around his head--how he'd been taken, who would've taken him, who would notice him gone--and ended up at the same dead ends each time. Jess rested his chin on his knees, frustrating with each fruitless loop. The not knowing would kill him if the jaws of the trap he could feel closing around him didn't first.
WHERE: The fountain, the town, and later on, the inn.
WHEN: July 25th.
OPEN TO: Anyone!
WARNINGS: Wet, grumpy teens and probably swearing.
STATUS: Open.
I. Fountain
Jess woke up to bone-chilling darkness. A wet darkness, some part of his mind supplied when a pressure pushed on him from below and he felt his limbs, sluggish and heavy, cut through liquid in an uncoordinated thrash.
Water. He was in water.
The jolting realization came too late to stop himself from doing the one thing he shouldn't do: open his mouth and inhale. The burn of frigid water in his lungs and up his nose instantly woke Jess up, and then panic was setting in for real, colder even than the gloomy water in which he was submerged. Instinct was a screaming voice in his head propelling him in the direction he'd been pushed. Up, he prayed. Let it be up.
Just when Jess thought he couldn't hold back the need to expel his lungs a second longer, he breached the surface, coughing until every muscle in his chest felt like it was spasming. He paddled his arms, fighting to clear his eyes, his movements made extra jerky by an unfamiliar weight on his back. The backpack was hardly as heavy as the fully-stocked travel packs he'd trained with, but between it and getting caught by surprise, he wasn't as graceful pulling himself from the pool as he would've liked. Half-rolling, Jess ended up in a sprawl, caught at an awkward angle on his side because of the backpack like a turtle flipped on its back.
If Glain could see this display, she'd have him running laps around the training field for the rest of his life and then some.
... Glain. The High Garda compound. The barracks.
Now that he wasn't in any immediate danger of drowning in his sleep, the questions were tumbling in. How had he gotten from there to here without waking up? Wherever "here" was.
Instinct told him something was wrong, horribly wrong, eclipsing the sweet relief at having air to gulp down. Wriggling out of the backpack, Jess pulled himself onto his knees and looked down at himself, and what he saw justified the renewed panic beating in his chest like a second heartbeat. He didn't recognize a single thing he was wearing. Where was his uniform? His belt with his tools? Anything? He reached for the bag--also unfamiliar--and tore into it, shoving aside more unfamiliar articles of clothing. Nothing. No knife, no Codex. Things he wouldn't leave behind and people wouldn't dare take from him. What the hell.
This was bad. It certainly couldn't be good.
II. Town
Later in the day, Jess could no longer resist the urge to get out from under prying eyes and take some air by himself, prompting him to head out into town on alone. Seeing was believing, and Jess needed to see what he was up against with his own eyes.
Keeping away from the main drag to avoid notice, he cautiously picked his way along the outer fringe of the settlement. Everything had a threatening newness to it that had Jess on high alert, pausing at every unfamiliar crack of a branch and checking over his shoulder at each turn to make sure he wasn't being followed. The town was larger than he'd expected and had the uncanny appearance of a set piece. Like an elaborate replica of a pioneer village that time had forgotten.
It's strange, ghost-like feel made Jess uneasy, and he put a concentrated effort into avoiding the view of windows, approaching from the rears of building until he was close enough to peer in through them. He wasn't sure he wanted to meet whoever lived in these ramshackle houses, if they were even occupied.
At one house, he tried a side door. The knob turned soundlessly under his hand. It felt like a trap. All of it did. This entire town. He'd never thought he would, but for once he missed his armored uniform and the heavy High Garda weapons that went with it. He'd feel safer with something besides a dull fear pounding in his head.
III. Inn
By all rights, Jess should be dead to the world after this rotten day--the cherry on a shite cake as he hadn't been averaging much sleep in the days proceeding this anyway--but no amount of mental and physical exhaustion could dull Jess' prickling nerves, even after day gave way to late night, and the quiet town grew even quieter.
He'd taken shelter in the inn once it'd started to get dark, seeing no better option, yet he couldn't bring himself to touch the abandoned beds. Eventually Jess crept into the front room and picked a perch near one of the windows, staring out into the inky darkness beyond with restless intensity.
He should rest. He needed to rest. He was running on fumes, stomach churning with hunger and unease both. But he just couldn't. He was used to the noise and bustle of Alexandria and having his fellow recruits around him in the barracks. This place was as quiet as a grave... and that was definitely not a comparison he appreciated, especially with how conveniently timed his abduction was when he considered all the variables at work. They'd been making moves against the Artifex, and suddenly he ended up in the middle of nowhere without his Library identification? Too well-timed.
Explanations chased themselves around his head--how he'd been taken, who would've taken him, who would notice him gone--and ended up at the same dead ends each time. Jess rested his chin on his knees, frustrating with each fruitless loop. The not knowing would kill him if the jaws of the trap he could feel closing around him didn't first.
no subject
Before his High Garda conditioning, he wouldn't have made it after already nearly choking, but Jess is able to circle the bottom, guided by his hands which look for anything out of place. After his second circuit and still nothing, Jess has to admit defeat. He's on the fast track to blacking out at this rate.
He comes up gasping air into his much-abused lungs to find the girl from before still waiting. He can't tell if that's a good or a bad thing.
"All right," Jess says as he swims for the fountain's edge, "you have my attention."
Please, explain.
no subject
"You know, apart from the whole diving back into the mystery fountain bit, you're taking this surprisingly well," Veronica says. She's leaned over, watching him with a faint smirk through the curtain of her dark hair, but is, in actuality, profoundly relieved that he came back up again.
"Welcome to nowhere," she says, and rocks back onto her feet again, looking for all the world like an escapee from a mental hospital with her rolled-up scrubs pants and tank top. "I should probably start by saying that it's doubtful you're going to like what I'm about to tell you."
She'd thought explaining to Thorfinn had been difficult, but being able to use plain words is somehow worse. There's nothing to hide behind or get lost in translation. No buffer, just one more person floating in a fountain.
"You can't get back through there," she says with a nod to the water. "As far as we can tell, you can't get back anywhere."
no subject
"You think so?" He rakes wet hair back, pulling in air in the hopes his chest will stop feeling like it's on the verge of collapse.
He'd had the same conversation with Khalila the day he'd her the friend they'd assumed dead might still be alive. You seem very calm.
Do I?
In hindsight, Jess could understand her reaction now that he's fighting not to lose his grip and shout for an explanation, or pull his hair, or both. It'd been shock freezing her in place like granite, probably. He knows the feeling.
"We're past that now that I've been soaked to the bone and robbed blind," is his bland reply. A glance at her arms--no Library band visible on her, either. "Back? Back through what, a hatch at the bottom?" He hadn't considered that he'd come up through the fountain, but now her implication makes him look at it in an insane new light. "Better start from the beginning. Like who you are and why nowhere looks like a park."
no subject
She tilts her head, squinting at him in the sunlight. "Where are you from?"
no subject
Immediately, he pictures the Artifex, the old man's cold, clear eyes sitting like chips of ice in his stony face. And then the Archivist. There are only so many people with the power to snatch people up, strip them of their identities, make them disappear in the dead of night like they'd never existed--and the Artifex and the Archivist are two of them.
That's what this sounds like: kidnapping. What else can he call it besides what it is? A shiver crawls up his spine, and not just because of the cold water dripping from his back, though the latter is a big factor in the gooseflesh prickling to life on his arms. The temperature feels unseasonably cold on his skin. That shouldn't be. It shouldn't be this cold.
"Alexandria." His accent points to England, but he's been away from home long enough that he'd gotten used to Egypt's scorching climate. He can't remember the air ever feeling this chill and dry in the summertime. Dreading the answer, he says, "This is still Alexandria, isn't it?"
no subject
"Virginia? No," Veronica replies with a shake of her head. She's watching him carefully now, his eyes and hands and shoulders, looking for the signs of the frustration, helplessness, annoyance, anger that they all eventually went through after finding themselves in this place.
"It might be a prison," she concedes, despite that she hasn't thought about it in such concrete terms before now. Prisons are about deprivation, and there's just not enough of that here. This place feels more sadistic than the word 'prison' allows for. "No one has been able to find a way out yet."
She eyes him a moment more, head tilted with concern, and then motions over her shoulder. "Look, why don't we go over to the inn and get you dry and something to eat, and I can tell you what I know."
no subject
Jess feels every one of the jumbled emotions Veronica is looking for like a fist around his heart, squeezing painfully, but they don't make it to his face. That part of him is as flat as a blank slate. Anger is the closest to the surface; a flare of it makes his fingers of one hand clench as he looks at the strange logo on the bag at his feet, close but not quite the same as a Medical symbol.
This is sure a mess he's gotten into, and he's not even sure what shape or size of mess it is. But he's been living on a knife's edge too long as it is; it sure seems like he's slipped and fallen on the sharp side. It was bound to happen, he just hadn't been expecting to be half-drowned and nearly stripped naked when it did.
"Dry would be good," he answers, swallowing those thoughts and rising to his feet. "Since you're right, I doubt I'm going to like what I hear."
no subject
"What's your name?" she asks with a glance over her shoulder, trying to keep her expression mildly curious, although she's not unaware that her eyes likely give away her concern. She honestly isn't sure what to think of her new friend's carefully-controlled exterior, aside from that one of them them is a very good actor and it's definitely not her.
no subject
And it looks like just that: a normal park, benches and flowering trees and all. He looks back and the fountain still looks like just what it is, too. A fountain you could find in any park in any part of the world.
If not for the water still dripping off of him, swimming out of it would have seemed like nothing more than a strange dream. The girl starts down one of the paths, and Jess follows for lack of anyone else to question. If she weren't here, this really would feel like a dream.
"Jess Brightwell," he answers mechanically, an automatic answer he doesn't really have to think about. "So where do you come from to get here?" By her accent, he'd peg her as American, but nothing about her is familiar aside from the fact they're wearing the same style of clothing. The idea of someone stripping him out of one uniform to put him in another makes his skin physically crawl.
no subject
"Everybody got one. I guess the good news is that if it gets cold, we won't freeze to death because we've only got scrubs to wear. And I'm from Ohio. In the U.S. No place worth mentioning, honestly."
no subject
Given that, Jess can't tell if the girl's being facetious about freezing or not. It feels pretty damn cold, but the trepidation icing over in his stomach might have something to do with that.
"I guess my next question is what two people from completely different parts of the world have in common to end up here." He follows close behind, watching her now. He doesn't pick up any deception. "Or does that fall under 'why this place is the way it is'?"
no subject
She's still not completely sold on that one, despite that within this context she really has no reason not to. There are people here who swear up and down that they've gone hopping across realities, but if there's one thing Veronica feels sure about, it's that a healthy does of skepticism is seldom a bad thing.
They've reached the inn, and she motions Jess inside after her, frowning when she sees that there's no one inside. Still, there might be something in the kitchen, and she's learned how to start a fire.
"There should be dry clothes in your pack, if you want to go upstairs and change," she says with a motion toward the stairs. "I'm going to see if anybody left any firewood in the kitchen."
no subject
"I must still have water in my ears." Because he couldn't have heard that right. He's pretty sure she'd said alternate universes. Yeah, that definitely falls on the unexpected side... and compels him to watch his guide a little more closely. He can accept willingness as an answer, but nonsense is in the outer regions of his limits.
The park gives way to a sad state of affairs: hard-packed dirt roads and buildings that look like they haven't been touched in centuries. The architecture screams rustic to his eyes, accentuated by the green veil of forest he can make out at the end of the street. Not a person in sight. No carriages, no signage. If it weren't for his boot treats leaving damp impressions in the dirt, he could almost convince himself he'd gotten up for recruit training and stepped onto just authentic-looking training set.
Except he isn't a recruit anymore, and this isn't a simulation.
The very real danger pushes in on him from all sides, and he starts to slow on the way into one of the old, ramshackle buildings (the inn, he surmises), checking his blind spots before following the girl inside. He blinks, giving his eyes a moment to adjust from the brightness of the outside to the dimness within.
"Who else is here?" With the way he doesn't move from the front mat and checks the visible rooms, he's clearly reluctant to move.
no subject
She waits a moment more and then takes a few steps back into the middle of the room. "I know this has happened crazy fast and you've got no reason to trust me," she began, spreading her hands haplessly before her. "But none of the people here are going to hurt you. We're all in this weird-ass boat together."
no subject
That person isn't Veronica. It's not just because she seems upfront in what she has to say; she doesn't move like someone trained to fight, either, and he'd had plenty of chances to get the drop on her when her back at been turned to him. She doesn't strike him as a danger so much as a precarious source of information.
"In general. Just curious what to expect." He puts one on to show he has no plans to go ballistic on her in a moment of upset. "I'm not fond of surprises," and then lifting up his arm with its wet sleeve, he adds, "I guess it's not my lucky day."