open to all 30+; the vibes are from here but basically it's a cult thread with inspo from yellowjackets and can go any direction
After everything that happened, Temperance was lost. She tried to live normally for a while. She even became a successful architect and designed houses for many notable celebrities. But her nightmares never left. And when they got worse, she sought help. Temperance just hadn't expected the help to come from another teammate who survive the crash from all those years ago, Sarah. Temperance found peace as long as she was following the doctrine which was truly wholesome. It was all about positivity, accepting the darkness, and treating their bodies right.
It was basically a commune, really. With a few rules and a rather uninteresting name: Children of the Pine. The name came from their location within the forest at a summer camp that was upgraded and made incredibly nicer. Due to their past friendship and her wholehearted acceptance of everything Sarah asked of her, Temperance rose through the ranks quickly. She had a favorable position of spiritual advisor as well as introducing new members to the wonderful world they were living in. No punishments, all pleasantries.
Temperance knocked on the door of their cabin then stood back. Her outfit, all in bright jewel tones, signified her high level in the group. Everyone else wore pale colors or neutrals. "Good morning." Temperance said when they opened the door. "Morning devotional is in half an hour. I thought we could go for a walk around the lake and then go together."
Hugo always thought that the plane crash was their collective crash. The horrors they endured, and worse; the ones they created, were unfathomable, too evil to be spoken aloud, lest they follow him into his adult life. But he learned, as he grew, that the real crash was when they arrived home. The group landed back in their home town like a bomb, and splintered every which way, once pieces of a harmonious machine were now torn asunder, never whole enough to be reassembled. He watched, for years, as each piece of their machine re-adjusted to life at home. Some coped with substances, some coped with creating a reality that made sense to them, and some didn’t cope at all. He slowly turned away from them all, scared that he would always be too busy trying to save them to ever save himself. He went to a rehab facility, got clean, met a woman and had a child, divorced that woman when she couldn’t handle the undercurrent of his trauma, and settled in nicely as a khaki-wearing divorcee, working as an accountant for a non-profit. Even the hard parts of this life were a comfort to him— they were normal. Something he’d seen in a million tv shows, something he could wrap his head around. He would take a nasty divorce and tense custody arrangements over his past any day. But there was one person he could never turn away from— Temperance.
He thought of her often, especially in rehab. Temperance was a big word, there. Moderation and self-restraint. Abstinence. She was strength, embodied, to Hugo. And there would always be a young, terrified kid inside of him, clinging to her strength as if it were the source of his own. The only water left in the desert.
Perhaps that’s why he ended up here, confused and curious. When Sarah, a formidable force all her own, and her wellness group showed up in a text from another piece of the machine, his eyes darted straight to the background of the photo, to see the undeniable image of Temperance. He wasted no time, put in for time off work, making arrangements for his daughter, and heading off to the children of the pine. The name sent shivers down his spine, too reminiscent of their time in the woods.
He’d been pacing around his cabin all night long, the sterile environment making him feel understimulated in the worst way, and he’d just recently begun to relax into the overstuffed arm chair in his room when he got a knock on the door.
“Oh, I- I’d like that. Maybe you can catch me up. T-tell me how things work around here.” He responded with a tired, shaking voice. Everything about their interactions felt antiseptic, almost like speaking with a stranger wearing a suit made of someone he’d loved for twenty years. “Let me get my shoes, real quick. Would you like a water? Or a tea?”