BIGSHELL ECO PARK

End of the Road

Revelation Park | Week 3 - Boothill, Leann, & ??

Alhaitham mentions Kallen, and for a split second, Boothill's expression lights up with something like insight, but it's quickly dashed by the sudden, sharp look he shoots Anaxagoras when he coughs. That wasn't a good sign. Could ghosts even get sick? Did ghosts even have a reason to cough?

Not important questions right now, Boothill decides, not when the one-eyed scholar already seems to know what's happening to him.

"You're sayin' we oughta just wait for you to keel over from a cough?" With a bitter laugh, he shakes his head. "This ain't one'a yer experiments, partner. Time's a luxury we don't have right now. Besides, how're we gonna know what happens to ya on the other side?" This time he swings his attention back to Alhaitham. "Right before we found out Kallen had gone missin', I heard a voice tellin' me someone took my place. I wasn't 'boutta believe that 'til I laid eyes on a body though."

With a sigh, he takes the pair of pistols from his belt and sets them down on the grungy, scratched up coffee table in the middle of the room.

"The search turned up nothin' but these pistols. If she's really crossed to the other side by now, she hasn't been able to communicate with us. Y'all got any experience with seances?" Another bitter laugh as he takes his hand off the second gun and looks at them arranged on the table like a mirror reflection of the other.

"Or maybe simulating temporary death's more to your taste."

Infection roll: 4, no infection

vierfacheweisheiten

"I'm already dead, it doesn't matter what happens to me," The frigidness of death burns around him, a body made of memories only held together because there was someone to remember exactly who he had once been. It burns in his left eye, as it has since that day that his own golden blood poured from the wound of his own making.

Death was nothing more than a philosophy, just as philosophy was the inquiry into death. And Anaxagoras did always consider himself a philosopher. He had walked towards death for so many years, accepting it when it had finally come as yet another part of his endless experiments. The seeds of doubt that he would sow in the new world were something he could not achieve when he was alive.

"But this disease does not seem to act as fast as I would like it to, were I to follow through with any sort of plan of crossing over myself," He coughs out a sigh, staring blankly at the pistols that the metallic man places upon the table. He remembers how Kallen had asked about his own gun, how he had promised to tell her about it worked at a later day. How he had promised to answer any and all of her questions with grace.

"As for seances, I do not exactly have experience with that in particular, but..." He doubts his most blasphemous action of all will be much help here, with no Titan to blend his soul with and seemingly no way of communicating with this supposed other side, "I have fused my soul with that of a god's."

Temporary death... as if it could ever be temporary for him. How could a man who swept his own grave and had composed his own epitath want anything so temporary?

"But like you said, we don't have the luxury of time. And any sort of process I can propose would be a lengthy one that requires materials I do not have access to," Anaxagoras lets out a breathy laugh, "At this rate, an attempt at a seance might be one of the only options we have."

"Sea...nce...?"

Leann is looking between the two now, eyebrows raised in something of alarm. If they wanted her help, that certainly was beyond her field of expertise. She already isn't too fond of the casual conversation around death, and certainly not its prospective usages for them.

"I don't know about any voices, but maybe if you're all hearing one then it knows something? Uh..."

A breath rattles in her lungs, her forehead wrinkles with thought. If their ideas have really turned to dying or speaking to the dead, they're definitely running out of options. They have run out, maybe.

"I dunno, how would you even... do something like that though. Talk to the voices in your head, or a dead person for that matter. There's... not been a whole lot of dead people here, have there?"

Not that she's really eager to suggest they go poking around trying to find a corpse to strike up small talk with, but-

"They don't really-" she coughs, "-cover this kind of stuff in wilderness survival training..."

End of the Road

Revelation Park | Week 3 - Boothill, Leann, & ??

When the two scholars begin what sounds to him like utter nonsense, Boothill shoots them both a look that says 'we got better fudgin' things to worry about.' But even in the best of times, his patience for lectures and philosophy wouldn't have been much better. His hand creeps toward the holster of his gun the more excited the one-eyed one starts to get, but then the more taciturn of the two makes an opening for Leann to finally speak up again.

And folds into herself the moment she starts getting anywhere.

"Nah, gal, that ain't how this works." Hand still hovering over his gun, Boothill steps closer to all but loom over her place on the sofa, but he manages to keep his voice an even drawl belying his smoldering frustration. "You don't get that privilege now, not while the rest of us're lookin' death square in the face."

He glances toward Anaxa, then back to Leann with a frown. The conversation hadn't made much sense to him, but hadn't gotten this far in life without forcing some pieces together and getting lucky.

"Are you sayin' this place might be someone's memory? And the place we came from, Empyrea -- that's the part that ain't real. In other words, the pretty veneer to hide all this."

"Oh, um..."

By now she really ought not be surprised. Boothill's proximity earns a rather nervous look from her, though it's far more out of fear for him than herself.

"Well, kind of. It's just a guess... I don't know if that's even possible."

She knows nature, flora and fauna. Not faux-worlds and memory shenanigans, nor how the two could become one another. It puzzles her and, once more, makes her feel a little bit helpless. Maybe if someone older had been here instead, someone who had lived longer to see more of Empyrea before whatever is going on now.

Leann stares up at him and frowns right back.

"It makes sense to me a little bit, though. Whatever was going on in the park seemed... a lot more like a nightmare. There were never really monsters or anything in Empyrea before I don't think. This... it's scary, but mostly it just feels sad."

#[ IC - LEANN ]

End of the Road

Revelation Park | Week 3 - Boothill, Leann, & ??

For once, Boothill is willing to make way for the others. The girl, despite how illness has sapped her strength, has decided she'll help to the best of her ability, and offer up what little information she knows. It isn't much, and as the two scholars join in with their own questions and hypotheses, Boothill realizes that they're all just grasping at straws at this point.

With a sullen look, he stands back, head bent, hat overshadowing his eyes, and considers what they do have, whether it would be a better use of his time to charge back out into the desolated city in search of some way out again.

"Someone makin' a perfect planet - that sounds familiar," he mutters, thinking back to Ena's dream. There were similarities, for sure: sudden changes in the environment, hearing things in your head, hazy unreality. But Leann believes that this place isn't a dreamscape, so for now Boothill will believe her, too.

"What about that researcher guy? Er... Mr. Brown." He means Bronwyn. "Y'ever find out what happened to 'em?" Raising his head, he looked at Leann again, but this time without that smoldering fury from earlier. "'cause ambitious shirtbags like that don't die easy, and I find it hard to believe this place 'n Empyrea ain't related. How else're you gettin' memories of a dead city?"

With a sudden sigh, he shook his head.

"Actually, it don't matter. What's more important is shakin' something useful out of 'em. An evacuation path, for starters."

Infection roll: 4, no infection

vierfacheweisheiten

"We, people and everything else, cannot exist without the seeds of memory," The scholar muses, mostly to himself, as he paces in a small circle, the strange ghost town around him a stark reminder of how different the world was outside of the logic box of Amphoreus. Memories were data, and data was memories. Without data nothing existed.

The scholar lets out a hiss of annoyance, mind stuck racing a mile a minute. If even Leann's memory was unreliable then there was no way for the rest of them to know what was the truth and what was falsehood devised by a foolish world. In some ways, Amphoreus may have been simpler. A clear cut path to the truth and the universe that lay beyond the false sky. Things were not so black and white in a world that was not made up of hundreds and thousands of memories layered upon one another to make the perfect simulation of human life.

"If there is no memories of a place, then it simply shouldn't exist, right? It should be a lie that simply is not true even on the edges of the very universe itself; correct?" The scholar refutes his own words with a sharp laugh, "But consider: if I were to say that is sentence is both true and false; which would it be?"

He chuckles softly, familiar words and theorems coming to him easily, "Both, of course. It is both a lie and a truth until proven otherwise. Following that line of logic, there will always be true statements that will never be able to be proven, meaning we can never know if they will turn out to be false. Perhaps this place exists something like that. A real place, but we will never know if it is real because we will never be able to prove that fact. Every truth can be proven, but you cannot prove a falsehood into reality. Unless of course, every lie you say becomes the truth, but most of us do not have the power to do that."

Infection roll: 4, no infection

silentintuition

Alhaitham nodded, the familiar theorem surfacing in his mind as the other scholar spoke. During his brief but intense fixation on philosophy, this particular theory was considered essential to mathematical philosophy. Of course, this current situation had little to do with mathematics. Regardless, the same thinking could be applied, albeit uselessly— "Following that train of thought, though, would only lead us in a circle of hypotheticals. Which, in this particular instance, is a waste of time," Alhaitham directed at his fellow scholar. He could see the reason Anaxa brought that particular theorem up, but it was ultimately unusable, at least in his eyes.

Leann opens her mouth only to have her answer to Boothill's question swallowed by philosophy. It promptly closes.

"Um... I'm not sure I follow." Awkwardly. She looks a little dizzy from trying to retrace Anaxa's words into something sensible, brows furrowed. "If something can be true and false... neither of those words mean anything anymore."

"I'm sorry, this is all a whole lot bigger than me."

It feels like an excuse, but really it's just honest. She accepts defeat with a slow shake of her head.

"Mr. Boothill, the researcher we were talking about... He died."

She does not look particularly sad about this, the result of death in such abundance, perhaps. Her shoulders sag a little, however, and she sinks deeper into the cushions of the couch. "He was the first, before anyone knew what was coming for the rest of them."

And then, as she mulls over the rest of his question, her eyes dart suddenly back to the two scholars.

"Mr. Anaxa, you said nothing can exist without memory. Empyrea's all man-made, so maybe..." The end of her thought is a shallow wheezing sound, she hides in the collar of her shirt to cough again. "Never...mind..."

End of the Road

Revelation Park | Week 3 - Boothill, Leann, & ??

Something had to break the silence. There's no surprise in the fact that it's Boothill, especially not after the last incident. Leann starts at his volume, pulls her shoulders further and further inward as he speaks.

Much like the last incident, he makes good points for all the abrasion in their delivery. Her glasses are cloudy with smudges, but from behind them her gaze sinks away from his face. Unlike before, when she had seen his reason above her fear, there's far less resolve left in her.

But she swallows the blood and bile in her throat, takes a shaky breath, and then lowers her knees to uncover her face. It's hard to look at any one of them, so her gaze settles for her hands in her lap.

"Okay, I'll try."

It takes some effort, to find the words and then the voice for them, but Leann does. She recites the newspaper article she had read to Su before, explains how she remembers it too.

"It doesn't make much sense," she rasps, "but I remember this place like I was a part of it... Even though I grew up h- on Empyrea."

It's honest, as much is plain in the disappointment on her features. It is with herself, for not having a better answer, for not understanding enough to make it clear to them too. Fingers resume destroying the hems of her shorts, which have turned near threadbare since this all began.

"I don't know how we got here... I didn't remember it at all until we were here. There's no town like this in the forest, not on any of the maps. Empyrea's supposed to be perfect, so something like this wouldn't exist on it." Words are broken every few moments by sharp inhales, but she had stopped flinching after the first few. "It's still blurry, all of this. Like I made it all up in a dream, or wasn't supposed to remember..."

silentintuition

There had been more than enough similar incidents in Sumerian records for Alhaitham to at least know where to start. However, many of those events were Akasha related. This, in all its strangeness, did not seem to be Akasha related.

"Have you considered that it could be, in your words, "made up?" He started, "With the way things are going now, I would be far from surprised to learn that this a one-off event." It was a bold assumption, and Alhaitham knew it. But his forte was in words and research, not in odd supernatural happenings in what used to be a forest and humans infected with fungi.

vierfacheweisheiten

Anaxagoras' single eye is devoid of all emotion as he wanders over to the small group gathered, the fragments of memory that made up his body flickering softly with a visage that he did not quite have the name for. He close his eye, and listens.

No town like this. Supposed to be perfect. Blurry. A dream. Wasn't supposed to remember.

Made up.

Anaxagoras, though foolish he may be, was no fool. He had solved the truth of his world - despite certain people not wishing for him to, for it might break everything that they had built - surely a world as simple as this one would be just as easy for him to solve. He knew the truth of Amphoreus, oh how he knew the truth. And he could learn the truth of Empyrea, if he only had enough time.

Time that they are running out of. Time that he does not have.

"I believe my colleague here is correct," The blasphemer says after a long moment, continuing to flicker slightly, "There is something about all this that does not seem right. If this place truly was not here before... no, I doubt that is the case. Towns do not just spring up in the forest from the middle of nowhere."

His thoughts loop back onto themselves over and over again, going around in a myriad of eternal circles that he had no way of control. Anaxagoras grits his teeth. If only he had Cerces here, if only he could use their infinite wisdom as a springboard. If only. If only. If only.

If only he were a little more used to being around other people. Perhaps then he would be able to gather his thoughts easier.

"Empyrea is not like that planet called Penacony right? There is no such dreamscape that could conjure things or make them disappear at will?" He clear his throat, putting up the facade of a perfectly composed and distant scholar, "If not... how odd... what possible way could this have happened..."

Round eyes wander to Alhaitham, Leann’s brow furrowing a moment.

“It could be, but…” There’s a pause now, Anaxa speaks. She mulls over his words a moment too, then shakes her head. “No, not like a dreamscape. I know it’s kind of not real— Empyrea, I mean. Mr. Cranebill makes these big budget reports every year and most of it goes to research and maintenance of the planet itself, since I’m pretty sure it’s all man-made. He’s really proud of it.”

Here, she stops to cough into her sleeve. The little fit turns into a longer one, and it goes on until she can taste copper. Weakly, embarrassed, she covers her mouth with her sleeve.

“Maybe I’m silly,” weakly, “but this feels a lot less made up than… whatever those scary things were in the park…”

End of the Road

Revelation Park | Week 3 - Boothill, Leann, & ??

Boothill was wearing treads in the threadbare carpet. Back and forth, pacing, muttering under his breath like a scientist on the brink of an epiphany. Except angrier, and without that harried passion that drove those kinds to probe the unknown. Besides, Boothill was no scientist. He was a gunslinger whose talents occupied the physical world, not that of the mind, not that of biology. Here, in an old, forgotten living room filled with choked down coughs and quiet resignation, he was useless, and so here, he was restless.

Their guide had balled herself up in the corner of the lumpy sofa, her breath ragged and her tears spent, unable to bring herself to come close to anyone else again. She was simply waiting, now. They all were. But if Boothill was the type of person to simply sit on his hands until the end finally came for him, he would have been dead years ago, not because he held any particular attachment to his empty, eroded life, but because he was too vindictive to roll over and let it go. Death had missed all of its shots so far; he wasn't about to be an easy target now.

"Tour guide gal," he barked when the tension finally got to be too much for him, whirling on the girl suddenly. His face came alive in a strange dance between irate and compassionate. Or maybe simply passionate.

"What happened to all those pretty promises y'made back at camp? There's still a tour group here waitin' on ya, so there's still a job to be done. Unless you can look me straight in the eye 'n tell me that dyin' right here, right now, ain't gonna leave ya with any regrets."

He stepped up to her challengingly, but unlike when they'd set out after Kallen, he didn't draw his gun on her this time. This was, however, not a mercy.

"Back where I come from, there ain't a nobler death for a gunslinger than dyin' with his boots on 'n his gun drawn. Maybe none of our efforts'll make a difference, but sittin' here wallowin' in guilt's as good as bein' dead. That goes for all y'all." He swept his gaze out over the others gathered in the room with them, and then turned back to Leann.

"So what you're gonna do now is tell me everything you know about this place, and how we got here. Cities don't just spring up on their own, and you seem mighty familiar with this one."

Infection roll: 3, no infection

@revelation-park

"Okay, I'll try."

It takes some effort, to find the words and then the voice for them, but Leann does. She recites the newspaper article she had read to Su before, explains how she remembers it too.

"It doesn't make much sense," she rasps, "but I remember this place like I was a part of it... Even though I grew up h- on Empyrea."

@arboriter asked:

“Leann, I can’t get sick. Please let me get closer.” Su’s voice is quiet, trying to slip past the notice of the other members of the group as they inevitably wait for the End. Whatever last glimmer of struggle they might have seen when they first arrived has all but faded, and his eyes remain firmly closed. The last thing he offers is an attempt to comfort the sick, to adhere to a promise he cannot truly keep by not allowing her to die with no one by her side. But he waits for her permission nonetheless, because he knows what it is like to lack control. Investigation/Healing Roll: 9, 7 Infection Roll: 4

Round eyes peer up from over her knees, and she seems to weigh this reasoning very carefully. Can't get sick, she supposes there is nothing to contest that. There hadn't exactly been previous cases on ghosts, or whatever it is that Su actually is.

Even still, she hesitates. Because if he's wrong then it will be her fault for not protecting him. It's evident in her expression how she weighs the merit of either option before, finally, nodding.

"Just don't-" her voice is hardly more than a rasp, she winces when she inhales on her pause, "stay around too long..."

#REVELATIONPark2025: Week 3 Start!

( Alhaitham, Anaxagoras, Argenti, Boothill, Kallen Kaslana, Kujou Sara, Su )

You manage to regroup, still in this odd town and with no signs of returning to that which you recall to be Empyrea. No matter how far you walk, there is no sign of the same forest from which you came, no returning to that campsite. At the very least, there are no monsters here. Even as the sun sinks behind the skyline for the second time since your arrival, there is silence. Perhaps because there is something worse here with you, something you cannot kill. Something inevitable. Leann has distributed masks to all of you. They are thin and uncomfortable, but they are all you have. The ghosts of plenty of old homes exist for you to haunt, and so you hole up in one with chipping paint and a door that takes two sets of hands to lock. You have nowhere to go, only however long it takes for you all to die. "I'm sorry," the girl is worsening terribly, limbs weak and breaths too shallow, but she refuses to come within even an arms distance of any of you now. She sinks into the corner of a moth-bitten sofa and draws her knees to her chest. "I'm... sorry."

What is there to do?

While you could just bide your time until the end, you probably shouldn't. Whether or not you can escape this place is one question, but you certainly won't be doing anything of the sort if you die first. Your goal is a cure, or at least an effort to find one.

TEAM STATUS:

Alhaitham: 10/10HP (Uninfected) Anaxagoras: 9/10HP (Uninfected) Argenti: 10/10HP (Uninfected) Boothill: 10/10HP (Uninfected) Kujou Sara: 10/10HP (INFECTED) Su: 10/10HP (Uninfected) Leann: 6/10HP (INFECTED)

Investigation: Roll 1d20 per post in thread. ( 1-5: -2HP, roll 1d5 for infection | 5-10: -1HP, roll 1d10 for infection | 11-15: nothing happens | 16-19: +1 to Aid | 20: +3 to Aid )

Infection: - When rolling for infection, player becomes infected on 1. - When interacting with someone who is already infected, roll 1d5 for infection per post. - Infected players take -2HP at the end of every day ( 11:59 PM EST ) - Aid can be used to restore a player's HP for every point of it used.

At 0/10HP, your muse will die. Please keep track of HP, Aid, and Infection Status.

You have until Friday 6/27 at 11:59 PM EST for this segment.

You are welcome to continue wrapping up any interim interactions, anything started prior to this post will not be affected by the above mechanics.

#REVELATIONPark2025

“...Thank you.” He reads much the same, peering over her shoulder. It’s not the same situation as his- for one, they know of the source, simply that they couldn’t react in time. His gaze turns briefly to his own arms, bare of any markings, of signs of hardship. Then to her, wondering if she will share the fate of another, a guardian angel in death.

There had to be someone willing to let her make that sacrifice, someone skilled enough to know what to search for and how to extract it- and, as she had said only minutes earlier, he had no hands.

He lets the story settle in silence with the dust, to grant her a moment of breath and himself a moment of thoughtful recollection, before he nods, as if to shake himself free of the past, “I’ll search the rest of the store.”

Despite his prior luck, the rest of the pharmacy remains thoroughly looted- anything that had not been hidden in that nook taken away, found some use by someone at some point prior. When he returns to her side, he takes one more look at her condition, and sighs.

“Let’s get these back to the group, shall we? The faster they put these on, the less likely they are to breathe the spores accidentally.”

Leann does her best to poke around as well, but that moment's breath of spring begins to wither away again. Mostly it is an effort of nudging empty boxes and poking around deserted shelves. There's not much, her assumption had been right.

When Su speaks again, she nods her head once. "Okay, let's do that."

The sun is still high outside of the pharmacy. It's not a necessary thing to do, no one is coming, but she pushes the door closed on their way out regardless. It feels wrong, to leave this place any different than how they found it. At least where it can be helped.

She'll lead her company back towards where they came from, but only after a moment's pause. She looks to him, then up at the sky.

"I'm glad at least that you can't get sick," a thought mused aloud before her gaze falls, the toe of her boot nudging a stray chunk of sidewalk. "I hope the others will understand, that they won't be too mad..."

At her, for this. As though it is her fault-- but isn't it?

"Thank you, Mr. Su. For checking on me. It's really good that everyone here has someone as nice as you, smart too. You and Ms. Sara..." And Ms. Kallen, but she swallows the words with a cough.

“Alright. Be careful,” In regards to the glass and all else that could be dangerous in a building so ransacked, Su makes sure not to move too far away from his ward. At least he doesn’t have to worry about a careless movement of his causing himself harm, and the empty store means he wouldn’t have to worry about moving aside obstacles.

He also- perhaps unsurprisingly at this point, makes no outward reaction to the mention of his incorporeality.

“Over here,” But either way, he calls to her a few moments after their entrance, by the rusting metal of a shelf long since unused. Tucked beneath a tilted surface is a lucky find, an unopened box of masks and a bottle of expired medication. Given the location, he wouldn’t doubt if eventually someone tucked them in to come back for later.

He doesn’t want to suggest using the medicine (wasn’t this the same as the cans they had found at the start of their trip?), but still something for Leann to tuck away.

Then, something useless, discarded by the many who had come and gone, searching for hope in these dusty corners- an old newspaper, a blaring headline:

ESTEEMED RESEARCHER IN CRITICAL CONDITION! EXPERIMENT GONE WRONG..?

He waits until she is finished, before directing her attention to it, “Could you open this so I can read it?”

Her head swivels from what she had been poking around in herself, and she moves quickly to sweep Su's finds into her little bag. What it is doesn't matter to her, as long as it's something. It makes her feel like she's helping.

"Oh, this?"

Very, very carefully she plucks one of the newspapers from the stand. Leann wrinkles her nose as a cloud of dust comes with, then carefully smooths her palm over the front cover to work at the even thicker layer still left on it.

"Yeah, it's like I was telling you. Umm..." She scans the text, squints a little. "Page... oh, here."

The paper unfurls in her hands, parts of it falling to the floor. She's found the page in question, and holds it up to her nose to read the tiny text.

"Some of it's real messed up, let me see...

"Mr. Bronwyn was found in his lab this evening by officials after reports from his assistants that he had not been heard from in 24 hours. He was rushed to the hospital immediately, having been barely breathing when aid arrived at the scene. Investigators believe that the cause for his condition traces back to inhaled spores from his latest development in creating the "ultimate panacea." When interviewed, members of his staff have expressed recent concern for Mr. Bronwyn's mental health, as his dedication to this project has begun to spiral into obsession."

Here, Leann stops to look at Su. "It was all too quick to get printed after this, I think... All the people who went to his lab, all of his doctors... They didn't know, and neither did anyone else who came into contact with them. Nobody really worries about getting papers out to little towns like this when they're too afraid of being next."

@immovablewill asked:

Nightfall comes too soon, and Sara has run out of excuses to hide behind. She doesn’t mean to avoid Leann—doesn’t mean to be such a coward. But every time she looks at the girl, all she sees is her own failure staring back, and it only makes breathing all the more difficult. Only makes the voices in her head sound louder, repeating again and again and again in an endless loop, how she should have noticed sooner. How she should have done better. Watched over her more. But she failed. And now Leann is sick. Not broken—never broken, because the girl’s much too stubborn for that—but dimmed. Leann still smiles, still acts like she’s fine, but either the effort is too obvious or it feels as though even she isn’t yet aware how worn she’s become; how her clumsy smiles don’t quite reach her eyes as they used to. She’s still Leann—stubborn, sharp-eyed, forcing herself to keep up—but it’s hard not to see the changes. Hard not to notice how she’s much quieter than usual now, only perking up when approached, only for even that to slip away every now and then. “I had thought you’d still be awake,” Sara says, forcing her words to sound neutral, if not much softer. Even her words feel brittle on her lips, a poor imitation of the reassurance she wants to give. She wills herself to smile when Leann looks up at her, the weight in her chest only growing heavier by the second. “I would normally scold my recruits when I catch them still awake when they should be resting, but today was a lot, wasn’t it?” Settling herself beside the girl, she pulls a piece of candy from her pocket. Though unlike before, rather than just placing it in the guide’s palm, Sara slowly unwraps it, the crinkling of plastic too loud in the quiet between them. “This is the last grape-flavoured candy I have, so you will have to share with me. You said you like it, didn’t you? I do, too.” She splits it into two, the sugar sticking to her fingers. Stubborn, just like Leann. “Here. It’s your reward for your help today, Leann.” She holds out the bigger half, willing her voice not to crack. Her smile not to falter. “Thank you for your hard work.”

Though she starts at the sound of the older girl's voice, Leann relaxes again immediately after. She smiles back, small and sad, because she thinks she knows that Sara's is the same.

A quiet mm is her response to the question. Today had been a lot, every day seems to have been a lot since all of this started. The company is welcomed, and she breathes a soft sigh at the weight that settles beside her. She is as afraid as any other child would be, but with Sara at least she has begun to feel she does not have to be so much so.

By evening, her chest has begun to ache worse. It wears in the discoloration under her eyes, in the way her voice is hoarse when she opens her mouth to reply finally.

"What about your reward?"

It does not slip past her, the bigger piece. The tone that the conversation has taken, one much more like mourning than the last time they had it. She is young but she is not blind to the way that everyone has begun to handle her as though she is dying. She might be, but they might all be. It's not fair.

Carefully, Leann reaches for the other's hand. She folds Sara's fingers gently over the piece of candy she had been offering, looks up at her and shakes her head once.

"It's your favorite, so you should have it." The way she smiles tries to promise that this is not generosity to indicate sacrifice. "There will be plenty of sweet things we can share later, when all of this is over."

And she says it like she believes it, because she does. Even as she jerks away to cough into her sleeve, as she swallows the taste of copper in her mouth.

"I didn't get to thank you," quieter, this, "for protecting me... You're a really good person, Ms. Sara."

This is the moment she had hoped for, only she had wished it might have come without either of them in pain. Without the aftertaste of blood and the nearing sunrise feeling less hopeful than inevitable.

"Don't forget to take care of yourself, looking out for everyone else..."

“...Ah.” Su also doesn’t press that thought, that there may be no one left other than their small party (one short, still- was she still on Empyrea?), even if it doesn’t bring him any amount of fear anymore. He will be fine, though those left alive may not- he wonders if he will see civilization rise here again.

Looting and hoarding- inevitable, an ugly facet of fear that many will find comfort in, the last act of control in a world beyond their understanding. It only brings more harm, but it could not be easily avoided or reasoned away.

“There should be no harm in checking the pharmacy…” Su agrees, though a look of concern suggests that he does not exactly believe it. The ghost of a hand passes over her shoulder, the semblance of an act of comfort. “If we take the proper precautions, we can… reduce the chances of spread.”

It wasn’t a lie.

“Make sure not to push yourself,” He adds, conscious of how frayed she had become (in just a day, in just a few hours), “I’ll stay by your side.”

Proper precautions, Leann nods at the words. She'll do whatever she has to, and the way he says it makes her feel as though there might be hope in it. Even though her every memory would have her think there's not.

"I'll be okay," she says, "I promise."

But she's glad for the company. Stepping out of the makeshift clinic and back into the sun, Leann tucks her little bag of treasures under her arm and points up the street a ways. "It's not far, just on that corner."

Not that Su has to worry so much about picking where he steps over myriad obstacles in the road. Fallen branches, roots that have risen through the concrete. Shattered glass from a few of the near stores crunches under her hiking boots, she frowns.

The pharmacy's door is, at least, in tact. It does not slide open automatically as it is supposed to, however, so Leann grunts as she pries it open. As she had suspected, it looks thoroughly pilfered. A nod to Su.

"Tell me if you find anything, since you're not... You don't really have hands."

“This is not Empyrea,” Su echoes. Every word she speaks confirms what he had guessed, telling a story beyond what he could piece together simply by looking. The mention that those in the park were different- was that an advanced stage? A different evolution, or something else entirely?

But such questions had no answer that mattered. (There was no such thing as the kindest choice.)

She gives him the pieces to an unfinished puzzle and he cannot piece it all together. He knows this- he knows the story of this destroyed planet, can guess at the reasons why it might have spread so fast, become so dangerous it couldn’t be contained. He can guess at reasons why she may have memories of this planet despite only knowing of Empyrea, but he cannot know for certain.

Su has never thought himself as the wisest of the thirteen.

“Guess that would do it, right? Thinking you're above the inevitable…”

He startles, a human gesture, one that easily could be misattributed to her sudden movement, shuffling through the very drawers that she had directed him to originally. Delaying the inevitable, fighting the impossible- that which he had dedicated his life towards.

“Thank you, Leann.” His voice is warm, and he opens his eyes to ensure he remembers the image of the girl who tries to be brave in the face of the inescapable, “Is there any other place that might have supplies nearby?”

If she takes any particular note of the movement from him, Leann does not make as much clear. She blinks at him, like she's trying to understand something, then seems to decide there's no need.

"You have pretty eyes," she does not question why this is the first time she is seeing them, but manages a small smile for him. "Let me think..."

A little fishing around lands them with a plastic shopping bag for her to stash their current supplies and leave room for potentially more. She pops up from behind the counter where she had found it and furrows her brows.

"There was a grocery store up the block, but I don't think it'll be much good. Before there was..." her face pales, "no one left, people turned to looting and hoarding stuff pretty quick."

No one is said with uncertainty, because surely there is someone other than them. Because she doesn't know if there really is no one, and because she doesn't want to.

"It's probably worse at the pharmacy... We can go, though. Better to look than not to! And I..." That momentary return of her previously chipper attitude wavers almost immediately. "I don't want to get anyone else sick."

@vierfacheweisheiten asked:

"Leann," The scholars voice is sharp as always, though there is an unmistakable softness behind it as he addresses the young girl. He can practically hear what Cerces would say now: You've gone soft, Anaxagoras. This gentleness is wholly unlike you. To which the foolish man would reply: And since when have you known if this is completely unlike me? Go digging through my memories again; why don't you? I'm sure you'll find your answer there. He cannot touch her to feel if her forehead is burning hot, cannot pat her head in reassurance that she would be alright as his sister had done for him in days long past when he had fallen ill. Instead he can only offer his shallow words, "If you are sick, you must take care of yourself," He thinks of Hyacinthia, and her desire to write the stories of those on the edges of history, the great powers of healing that she possessed within her small body. Anaxagoras was not Hyacinthia, and he had never been very good at taking care of others, "We wouldn't want you to fall dead now. I may know the ritual steps, but that does not mean I am prepared to make the sacrifice it would take to bring someone back fully from the beyond. If there even is truly an equivalent change for an entire human life, it would be a great cost that I'm certain none of us here now could bear. The only solution then is to rest and make sure that you live; understand?" Ah... what a hypocrite he was...

Gentle eyes turn upon the man. Mr. Anaxagoras, she remembers, and though he addresses her with a curtness much more befitting of a teacher to scold her than a parent to comfort, Leann does not flinch or look at him any differently. Whatever it is he might say, she is determined to face.

And what he does surprises her. The severity of it, as though a command, hollow beneath that shell to leave room for what she thinks might be compassion. Her head dips in a dutiful nod.

"I understand. Um... not about the ritual part, really, but I think I get the rest."

When she looks at him again there are traces of a small, sad smile on her features. One meant to comfort, to reassure. One that does not deny the fear that she cannot do as he asks, but remains brave in the face of it.

"Thank you, Mr. Anaxagoras. I'll do my best, I promise."

“Could you tell me more?” Su prods, still keeping a carefully level voice and soft tone. “What do you remember about the illness?”

How long have you had it?

A search of the premises proves unsuccessful, with no records kept within this particular facility. Too desperate or too inexperienced, he hears the echo of another doctor’s voice; I would have told others to give up, and focus on EOLC. Perhaps it was much the same here- there is no need to keep record if it was impossible. All of the others had eventually discarded the past, as well.

He hadn't- but that was why he was stuck like this, wasn't it?

“I don’t,” Su acknowledges, peering into the container. He cannot pick up anything within, so he just lingers above it. Useless, helpless. “I simply hope that some of this can help slow the spread of the disease to the… others.”

Hope. Is that all he can offer now?

“How long has… this been going on?” A gesture to the town at large. “Was what we saw in the park a symptom?”

She thinks for a long moment, stares at her hands, her knees, the floor. There are too many questions and not enough sense to be made of the mess in her mind, but she can't leave them all unanswered. It wouldn't be fair-- she's all he has to look towards, after all.

"The park... It was different. This is not Empyrea."

The way she speaks is troubled, the words wobbly with uncertainty even though she knows them to be true. "I grew up on that planet, I've never been anywhere else, but I know this place. I remember it. Kind of."

Fingertips worry the hems of her shorts, pick for loose threads that aren't there until they are. Something to look at, to focus on.

"It was really fast, the sickness. At first no one was all that worried, it came from some super rare plant. I think it was a famous guy, I remember everyone said he had it coming for sticking his nose where he shouldn't... Nobody thought it'd be them, too."

Leann's lips press thin. She's relaxed since her breathing has evened, speaks though what she recalls slowly, as though the recollections only come as her voice finds them.

"Guess that would do it, right? Thinking you're above the inevitable..."

Suddenly, she stands up. Su can't carry the supplies, so she busies herself with the container she had only just pointed out. Takes from it the supplies they can use, speaking all the while.

"It was from a plant, like the park, I think. But the guy who got it first was messing around with engineering new ones, for medicine. My momma said he was too rich, that it made him stupid. But nobody ever became... like they were in the park."

To her company, she presents a few face masks and some gloves.

"We can take these back to the others."

“...When?” Su prompts, gently. This paradise does not match the one in his memories, pristine and welcoming- the one he remembers from before climbing the mountain in the park. The trees grow through the cracks in the pavement, some of them decorated with their own fungal infections. Though normally he would pay it no mind, he dawdles for a moment, waiting for Leann to head a few steps forward in her somewhat confused state, before sending one of his own flowers into one layer, cracking it off.

It falls off, and he inspects it from its place on the ground before heading towards Leann once again. It was living, thriving even- not unheard of given the state of the place, but what they had learned about the creatures on the mountain means he only grows ill at ease, keeping note of how many other trees sprouted this appendage.

He appears back by her side, as if he hadn't left, “When people started… what?”

But they enter a makeshift clinic before he can get answers, one that confirms that she knows something that he does not (and he wonders- do the rest of the living similarly have memories that he is lacking, or is it Leann only?), and he directs her to sit on an empty cot. “I am searching for many things, but primarily either medical records, or masks and gloves.”

A pause. Then, he reaches up, as if to pluck a leaf within the building that was not yet taken over by vegetation, a golden fragment of another world, before blowing it at her. Less of a cure, and more of a temporary measure, but for a moment, the echo of a kinder world grants her breath again.

"Falling ill," she murmurs in response to the second prodding of the question. It comes like an instinct, a response so common that it has become a second nature.

Leann follows Su's direction with only a bit of hesitance. The way her gaze flits to the surrounding room and how she idles as though contemplating argument betrays that she does not want to. There is the voice of Mr. Boothill in her mind, the reminder that this is all her fault. Or perhaps not this, but that the others had been dragged into it.

"It all happened really fast, I think." Carefully she tests the cot, which protests against her weight but only just slightly so. The ghost before her moves oddly, and curiosity rounds her eyes before a warmth whistles over her skin like the first breaths of spring. When she breathes next, it does not hurt so, and relief softens her expression into a smile.

"Thank you." She points at a yellowing plastic bin behind what used to have been a repair counter. "There, if there are gloves and stuff left. Um, though do you really... need them?"