THE FUTURE NEEDS YOU.

YES, YOU, RIGHT THERE. COME CLOSER, WOULD YOU?

[afinalstand]

STUNNED- FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE- INTO COMPLETE AND UTTER SILENCE, PARIS SIMPLY OPENS AND CLOSES HIS MOUTH.

Arguments, he decided-- arguments were a great deal more convincing when heard in your own voice, your own inflections, your own way of attributing emotion to words; particularly when they held a certain grain of truth amongst it all.

After all, it was no longer a government secret that these aliens had never only caused destruction- in fact, the first time anyone had ever been aware of them was the support they’d provided. Months of buildup to international conflict- to what could have led to flat-out war had events been allowed to continue further- had been wiped out in days. Weeks, at most. And it wasn’t just that; they’d given support to anywhere else that needed it- food to the starving, water to the thirsty, picked off a few choice prime ministers here and there: “levelling the playing field“, he’d heard it be called once.

The real trouble had only come when it came time to find out quite just what game was actually going to be played.

Was it possible that had all just been... misunderstood? Was murder and bloodshed and torment simply their way of offering more support- of encouraging this development to spread?

Was it possible that had worked?

They’d developed time travel faster than anyone had ever anticipated being possible. They’d constructed laborotories in which to breed hyper-intelligent child soldiers, for fuck’s sake! They’d practically achieved world peace in a matter of years, and wasn’t that simply all thanks to the aliens?

Or...vampires, or whatever they were?

Paris winced. He didn’t like rebellion at the best of times, and he certainly didn’t like it pertaining to thoughts within his own mind. That way, danger lay. And he’d never been a fan of that, either.

Even when dealing in hypotheticals.

❝ I- I THINK I HARDLY WANT TO... ‘BECOME A NEW MAN.’ ❞

[afinalstand]

@faces-of-higher-powers has interrupted the daily broadcast.

❝ IT IS NOT A POINTLESS CAUSE, YOU INHUMAN MONSTER-- ❞

THE VERBAL EQUIVALENT OF A KNEE-JERK REACTION FORCES ITS WAY OUT OF PARIS'S MOUTH FASTER THAN HE COULD EVER CONSIDER STOPPING IT.

It was, by far to him, not the kind of matter that was akin by someone having a difference in preference or belief-- no, Paris reacted more as if he'd just been told the sky had never been blue or fire had never burned. This was in itself a fundamental truth, as simple and as ingrained into him as most fundamental truths were to normal people.

Still, this verbal knee-jerk reaction's quick to turn a lot more literal the moment Rich's fingers make contact with his skin and panic siezes him a little more entirely - death was one thing. Being touched by one of these infected, diseased, horrific abnormalities was by far and by large another, and frankly, it had to be judged from his desperate attempts to evade the other's grasp, that Paris seemed far more terrified of the latter.

Normally, beyond the odd cockroach or parasite or crawling being that Paris frankly didn't care to put a name to, he didn't exactly recieve a lot of physical contact within his life. Frankly, it was beginning to make him wonder quite why this thing had singled him out in the first place.

His own employers didn't want to be around him, to put it bluntly, and yet he was supposed to believe this- this messenger of gods, this holder of fortune- was willing to offer him a deal all for himself?

Paris wasn't the sort of man to be intrigued by things that were so clearly and blatantly traps constructed of utter lies.

But if he was- if he really sat down and thought about it and truly considered his options- then he suspected he might just be taken in by this particular one.

Hypothetically.

❝ What are you- what do you- ❞

He clears his throat, gathering the last shreds of his earlier, more...collected tone of voice.

❝ What would this...this offer even be? ❞

[afinalstand]

"Why, hello, there!" A man's voice boomed into Paris's ears, identical to his own. He maintained a smile that (almost literally) stretched from ear to ear, contorting the rest of his yellowed face. He leaned forward, one arm coming from around his back to extend a perfectly functional hand of... marble, perhaps? "Say, what's a handsome fella like yourself doing holed up in a dark, depressing place like this? Hopelessly shoveling out content you think will save anyone, wouldn't you love to get more out of life?" Beneath square glasses shone twitching, bloodshot eyes, one gold, and one a strange shade of lavender. "I'm Rich! And you can, too, if you follow this one weird trick gifted to me by gods, themselves!" -@faces-of-higher-powers

THE FIRST THING PARIS REALISED WAS THE ABSURD NATURE OF THIS MAN'S SKIN.

The second was that he's going to die.

But the latter came with a strange sense of almost calmness- for, of course, by the time he'd pieced together these dots; that what stood in front of him was by far in no way human, that the yell he'd just released for the sake of sheer panic would be neither heard nor heeded, that his desperate attempts to scramble away ( or, at the very least, to hurriedly slam down the old polaroid he'd been inspecting like his life depended on memorising its every detail / like this creature would even care about its contents ) were doomed to not so much fail but never truly help him now, a small section of his brain seemed to have disconnected from the reality altogether and instead was simply inspecting the scene.

Ah, thought this small part of Paris. Today must be a Wednesday. I always knew I'd die on a Wednesday.

❝ Wh- what? ❞ choked the rest of him ( for it seemed the part of his brain no longer with the rest of his being must have handled the more . . . eloquent side of communication.)

❝ What are you- who are you- what- what are you talking about? ❞

It was the first rule of strange inhuman beings that you never looked them dead in the face. And it was the first rule of people who aren't making any sense that you never held any conversations with them.

But he was doomed anyway, right?

It couldn't hurt.

Besides, he'd never...quite seen something so strange, so weird, so...distorted as the being now before him. He'd never seen anything capable of mimicking his own voice so well, or even ( Paris observed, with no small amount of fear and perhaps a choice sprinkling of awe, as now, for the first time in his life, he truly and utterly looked the subject of his terror in its eyes ) the beginnings of his own face.

He decided this was entirely too disconcerting and proceeded to close his eyes as tightly as was physically possible.

[afinalstand]

❝ HAH! IT WAS A TRICK QUESTION! YOU'RE ALREADY ENLSITED; AS WE ALL HAVE BEEN FROM BIRTH, EVER SINCE THE NATIONAL AGENCY OF INFANT COMANDEERING TOOK CHARGE. NOW, GET UP ON THOSE LINES AND FIGHT FOR THE RIGHT OF HUMANITY, YOU INTRUIGING LITTLE SCAMP, YOU! ❞

[afinalstand]

HI THERE HANDSOME FELLOW HOW ARE YOU DOING I THINK YOU ARE GREAT

❝ A WISE CHOICE! ❞

You're treated to a grin that's really more a flash of teeth; a bow that's really more a practised flourish.

❝ YOU ARE, OF COURSE, CORRECT, BUT I NONETHELESS APPRECIATE THE SENTIMENT. THERE'S FAR TOO MUCH ❝ WE NEED YOU TO MAKE ANOTHER VIDEO ❞ AND ❝ OH GOD STOP HELP ME THE MARTIAN FROM THE SOUTHERN PLANES OF SATURN IS GNAWING MY LEG OFF SOMEONE HELP ❞ AROUND HERE AND NOT NEARLY ENOUGH COMPLIMENTS.

SAY, YOU. . . MIGHT ACTUALLY BE WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR. HOW WOULD YOU FEEL WITH ENTRUSTING YOUR LIFE IN THE HANDS OF A SMALL CHILD AND LEAVING TO FIGHT ON THE FRONTLINES OF A FERVERENT BATTLE AGAINST THE NINE-EYED INVADERS FROM THE PLIEADIES? ❞