#panevent002

[kazxraval]

The Dorms @emreakbar

'You can turn around.' A soft sigh as a swash of two watery currents collided. 'Our scars are kind of in the same place. I won't show mine right now. I wouldn't do that. You're not ready.' Kaz felt a wet hand rest at the middle of his back and he not-so-subtly squirmed away. 'I want to know what happened to you.'

"Wait here," Kaz insisted as he stepped through the doors of the dormitory. Wound tight by the distruption at the end of the night. Unable to shake a featureless figure made of indigo-colored water that followed him for the last hour.

As he knocked on Emre's door, the swishing of water grew close again. A five foot tall wave passed through several adjoining dorms as if walls didn't exist. 'Oh, wow. Got a hoarding situation in some of these rooms. Yikes. Real slobs live around here.' The ghostly swirl appeared beside him, and Kaz did his best to keep it in his peripheral. He blinked with a shake of the head. "I told you to fucking wait outside."

'You can't tell me what to do,' Ani said, gleeful with the knowledge they both knew: Kaz couldn't do much.

Kaz debated knocking again and even raised a fist but stopped as rivulets of water ran over his knuckles and down his arm. 'No one's home,' Ani huffed, as if she read his mind. 'And I'm here. Me! I missed you, Kazzy! Come onnn.' A cuff of water circled around a bicep and tugged. He deliberated by taking a few steps away from Emre's door. Ani persisted. 'I want to talk, Kaz. I've been waiting all this time to talk.'

[kazxraval]

Task 1: Neo, The Matrix (Embellished with mesh shirt and chest harness) What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

[nickambrose]

Location: Arden's house @arden-fischer

There was something inexplicably not fun about having his mum crash. Needling thoughts and wishes of not wanting her to stay for much longer would spring up. Quick as they would come Nick felt the guilt creep in. Shouldn’t he be grateful his mum was here? But there was a gulf that had formed in her two decade long absence, one that Nick wasn’t even sure how to bridge. If her being here was permanent or if this was only going to be fleeting. What if she wasn’t even fucking real to begin with? Just some long drawn out trip from the party, or some trippy electro-fuckery from the tower. 

Nick had snuck out of the house, mum in tow, to go make his way over to Fischer’s place. If the holy-man didn’t have the answers, Nick was never going to forget Tomas in that white suit, then maybe she would. ‘Where are we going?’ It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to know where he was going, there was no secret to it. It was the why. “Err…the doctor’s place figured it would be a good place to start. Figure out what’s happening. Mum, there’s something else I need to tell you about me and Mik…” They’d rounded up to Arden’s place, and Nick knowing full well he didn’t want that conversation within her earshot added. “Later, yeah?” He knocked twice, and then politely waited as much as one could with a floating dead mum. ‘Oh! Is he a handsome doctor?’ 

“Christ mum, no–”

[nickambrose]

Location: Halloween party, or after party @kazxraval

Nights often had a tendency to blur, jag around the edges and sink into endless boozy filled pits. This wasn’t really like any of the others. In the sense that Nick didn’t wake up in bed, nor even on the couch, or anywhere close to home. He reeled, hands sticky from grovelling, as he pushed himself up everything spun into a neon garish blur. “Fuck..” He blinked, steadying himself against the bar. “Mum?” Definitely an apparition, some kind of fucked-up-halloween-scare. His mum stood covered in gore was not the high he wanted to be chasing. The music was still blaring, by all accounts the party was still going. ‘Oh my gosh, kid it’s you isn’t it? It’s really you…’

“Hey––UH…who the fuck turned this into a horror house.” Nick’s gaze scanned the nearby vicinity, landing on one moody dealer-come-goth sci-fi boy who had probable cause. He stalked after Kaz. “Hey, hey, hey!” There was a slight misshapen rhythm to his steps, the galloping walk of someone who’d had one too many drinks and not enough Mik-mandated water breaks. Nick immediately changed tacts upon cornering Kaz. Mostly because his mum had floated up behind Neo-Kaz to say. ‘Please can we just talk?’  “Please tell me you can see her…fuck me…” Nick ran his hands over his face. This had to be a bad trip, there was no way someone could make a projection that spot on, that personalised. 

“I need a fag, wait…” Nick had been so painfully self-absorbed he hadn’t noticed the carnage unfolding all around them. “Is this…is this real?”

[nickambrose]

Location: The Agora, the morning after @tomasespinosa

In Nick’s humble opinion it couldn’t be called a hangover if he hadn’t actually slept. Last night’s spilling of the ether, the other side, whatever one wanted to call it, had left it’s mark on them all. Sleep apparently had been an optional extra. Hunched over in the agora with a cup of fresh coffee – about the only time he could stomach to drink it, in dire emergencies, black and several sugars too many.

Beside him, a voice piped up. ‘Sweetie, what did you say you do around here?’ Nick mindlessly stirred his drink unusually quiet only because his mum floated around to face him, he flinched. He hadn’t gotten used to seeing the gore. It was one thing to read about the crash, they’d never let him see their bodies, and now he understood why. ‘Oh! Who’s that?’ Nick followed the point of her finger. “Tomas.” Wait. “Mum wait here, yeah? I’ll just be a sec.”

Nick sprung up feeling all of a sudden bolstered by a hit of caffeine. “Hey, hey Tomas.” He waved him down, like he was hailing a ride off this damn island. Tomas always seemed to be…put together. Good first port of call for, “what the fuck is happening?”

Apparently, Nick’s simple instruction of wait was insufficient. ‘Hello, Tomas! It’s a pleasure to meet you I'm Nick's mum, Ana.’ His mum had floated on up, all broad smiles as if she was greeting a patron. 'How do you know my son? Oh! Do you two work together?'