Lowering her hand from where she held it above her brows, the person on the boat let out a slow sigh before finally speaking. “Uh, hey...” She started, the greeting flimsy and her voice not carrying at all. She cleared her throat and started again. “Uh, hello–” She brought her hand up and waved it slightly. She didn’t think it would be this hard, seeing all of the girls like this. It was much more intense than when she’d watch them with Thom on those large screens during her lunch break. The sun damage they all had. Sheesh, intense. Stay in character, a part of her brain reminded herself. “My name is Officer Harker. Are you guys okay? Do you speak English?”
SUMMARY: Odessa’s last moments. And a collection of moments before it.
NOTE: This got long. And it wasn’t proofread. 🤪
THE ISLAND, DAY 18, EARLY MORNING
You can control nothing.
Considering how badly Odessa wanted to control so many aspects of her life, she finds it laughable that she goes out trying to fight against a riptide.
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 13, LATE AFTERNOON
“What is going on?”
If anyone saw Odessa right now, they’d think she was fucking crazy. They’d be right to; she was talking to a goddamn tree. But she knew what she was doing. You had to look closely, hidden within the grooves of the trunk. A camera, perfectly disguised, sending feed to a control room that was being monitored by an incompetent simp who put way too much trust into the head of this project.
“Why is the control group here? This wasn’t part of the plan!”
After bitching to the tree, giving Thom and whoever was watching a piece of her mind about the way this experiment was going, Odessa laid her forehead against the trunk, fingers moving up her chest to toy with the heart-shaped locket that rested just below her throat. She was tired. Confused. Fucking exhausted by every unexpected turn this day seemed to take. Mom, if you could see me now... She thought. Her mother would definitely have a thing or two to say about the route her life was taking right now.
Footsteps and the crunch of leaves, Odessa whipped around quickly only to find herself colliding with another body. “Umf–” She was knocked backwards, smacking into the tree.
“Lex?”
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 13, NIGHT
An arm of Odessa’s remained around Izzy, letting a hand run up and down the other girl’s side in a comforting manner. “God, I’m so sorry,” she said, shaking her head. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. The words were running on a loop through her mind.
I’m sorry your parents got you into this mess. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I’m sorry you trust me. I’m sorry I agreed to this. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 13, NIGHT
For someone who liked challenges, facing daunting tasks head on, Odessa was stalling big time right now. Maybe she was just putting too much importance to it in her head. To be someone’s first kiss after a near-death experience was a pretty big ask, wasn’t it? She just wanted to do this justice. At least that’s what she was telling herself so she didn’t have to think of whatever she was trying so hard not to think about right now.
What the fuck are you doing? Odessa thought to herself. This is so beyond inappropriate and should not at all be happening right now. A million thoughts were running through her mind. If she wasn’t cursing herself for her incompetence, she was thinking about what cameras could be on them right now. What Thom could be thinking. What Gretchen could be thinking. God, and what was she thinking? The sad truth was that Odessa wasn’t thinking. Not really. She was so wrapped up in the moment that proper judgment was hard to come by. All she could see were the deep blue of Izzy’s eyes, all she could think about was how she honestly didn’t care what consequences could come from kissing her after the other girl nearly died right in front of her eyes. God, I’m so sorry, she thought back to her words. How badly did she mean it?
And so she did it, closing the distance between their lips in a kiss that was slow and sweet and tender and careful.
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 13, NIGHT
“Not to be like… a ruiner of the moment, but I… really need to pee.” This wasn’t back home. Telling Izzy she had somewhere to be wasn’t plausible. They were on an island with zero responsibilities for God’s sake. But Odessa had to get some space. Even for a bit. Just to screw her head back on right and give herself a little pep talk. “Just… hang here, alright? I’ll be back before you know it.”
Odessa walked and walked, and when no one was looking, she made a turn and headed into the jungle. She moved quickly, practically on auto-pilot, holding in the sob that was threatening to break past her lips. Rushing with haste to a specific tree, she climbed, foot on the right branches until she made her way up top, pulling herself onto the thick bough that grew out of it. Her fingers rummaged desperately against the tree, feeling the fissures and cracks until she came across a small hollow and pulled a phone out of it. Brushing away the dirt and dried leaves, her thumbs tapped quickly to write out a text.
011401: I can’t do this
011401: I want out
You made a commitment :HQ
Remain on assignment :HQ
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 14, MORNING
When the question was turned around to her, Odessa mirrored Jude’s tired sigh. “Well, I don’t exactly have a whole list of things. I’m just really in my head about something.” She trapped her bottom lip beneath her teeth, contemplating how she was going to phrase this without revealing her issues entirely.
Her moral dilemma, her ethics being tested. This inconvenient fondness she’s developed for a few of the Eves that have developed on top of that. It was so easy when it was all on paper. All hypothetical. They were just subjects then, just numbers and observations... Getting on that boat, trying to survive with these people... Seeing their struggle and pain so up close and personal... Maybe she wasn’t as cutthroat as she thought she was. Maybe she couldn’t so easily separate her feelings from her duty. Maybe the ends didn’t justify the means. Maybe this all was just super fucked and she had a serious lapse in judgment after finding out she’d been lied to for most of her life.
//
5 MONTHS AGO, ODESSA’S HOUSE, LATE AFTERNOON
“Odessa?” Her father called out, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it on the coatrack by the door before venturing further into his home. “I picked up that broccolini thing you said you needed for dinner tonight. I can’t believe these things exist. What’s so wrong with regular broccoli? I swear, people complicate things that are perfectly fine the way they are–”
He stopped in his tracks once he stepped into the kitchen, seeing his daughter sitting by the kitchen island with documents he’d tucked away and forgotten in their attic years ago laid out on the marble countertop. He gulped.
“What...” He started.
“What is this?” Odessa finished his words for him.
Isaac’s lips were pressed together. His mind still racing to process that this was actually happening right now. Because it wasn’t supposed to happen. This was never supposed to happen.
Odessa rose from the kitchen stool and marched towards her father. Once in front of him, she shoved the picture into his chest, face pulled into an angry frown as she asked: “Who is that?”
//
3 MONTHS AGO, DINER IN KERNERSVILLE, LATE MORNING
“So... this is... weird.” Odessa was usually far more eloquent but it wasn’t every day you found yourself in a situation like this.
“It certainly is...” The coffee mug was pulled away to reveal a thin-lipped smile.
Blonde hair. Blue eyes. It was safe to say Odessa still hadn’t come to terms with who she was in front of. It all still felt like a cruel joke.
“I’m not trying to like, ‘bond’ or whatever,” Odessa begun. “I just want answers. I don’t trust my dad. Or anything he says. No matter how truthful he’s trying to be. I have no reason to trust you either actually, but strangely enough, you might be the only person alive right now that will tell me something I can actually believe.”
The woman across from her nodded slowly. “I understand. What your father did was... very like him. But I can give you some clarity. Since that’s what you want. And what you deserve. It’s the least that can be done after all of these years.”
There’s a long moment of silence before Odessa builds up the courage to ask what’s been on her mind for months now. “So... is it true? Are you...”
“I gave birth to you, yes,” Gretchen answered.
//
2 MONTHS AGO, RESTAURANT IN KERNERSVILLE, AFTERNOON
“So how are things with your father?” The question wasn’t one Odessa was particularly keen on answering but Gretchen was one of the only people she felt like she could talk to lately.
“It’s still shit. Even worse after finding out about... you know, the money.”
“Ah. Right. Of course.” Gretchen had the decency to press her lips into a line that seemed... apologetic. Odessa didn’t have the energy to decipher if it was sincere. Their entire dynamic was complex and strange. She felt comfortable leaving it that way for the time being, too crushed by the current state of her life to care about things that weren’t absolutely necessary.
After discovering that the mother she’s known her whole life wasn’t her mother at all, Odessa’s relationship with her father only seemed to decline. It turns out, it wasn’t just the real identity of her mother he was concealing but the state of their finances too. UPenn – the dream Odessa’s been working so hard for, built her whole academic career around, was now no longer a possibility. Her father had spent the money ages ago apparently. To ‘help them out of a slump’ or so he said. The man she once so deeply admired revealed himself to be more and more pathetic with each exposed secret. It was so fucking disappointing.
“What about you?” Odessa asked. “How are things with you?” She felt it was only fair. Gretchen did fly out here after all only because Odessa had emailed her about her father’s latest shortcomings and the need to see someone – to talk. Besides, she could use the distraction.
“I’m in the final stages of preparing for a project actually. A very important one. Possibly the most important project I will ever spearhead. If all goes well, it could really change things for me. For the world as we know it.”
Now, Odessa didn’t find herself interested in much lately. But to say a project will ‘change the world as we know it’ really intrigued her. She pressed for more. And more Gretchen gave her. With each detail was revealed, Odessa couldn’t ignore how completely unethical it all seemed. But Gretchen seemed to have an impassioned speech prepared for each question Odessa put forward, each time she challenged her ideas. Maybe Odessa was just really mentally fucked in the head given everything that’s happened to her recently, but part of her was actually impressed. And was maybe even convinced to believe in Gretchen’s view that the situation was more controlled than people realized. That the outcome outweighed the risk.
“You know... I could use someone like you for my experiment,” Gretchen said after a moment.
Odessa’s gaze lifted upwards from her plate then, looking at Gretchen with a quirked brow. There was something different in the way she stared at Odessa now. Her features carried this look of... realization. Of regard.
“Someone strong. Smart. Level-headed. Someone who understands that the ends justify the means. That sacrifice is necessary for greatness... I mean, if the way you’ve been preparing for UPenn for years now is anything to go by...”
A soft chuckle left Gretchen and Odessa shifted in her seat, curious to see where this was going.
"How strongly do you still feel about attending UPenn, Odessa?”
//
CURRENT TIME
DAWN OF EVE HQ, DAY 18, MORNING
“A Code Black?!’ The first words Gretchen spoke as she stormed into the room. “I stepped outside for breakfast, Thom. How the hell could this happen?!”
Thom gulped. Tears had welled at his eyes. The grip he had on his tablet was so tight, his knuckles were white and he swore he could snap the device in half.
“Gretchen– I–”
“Who is it? Is it Jude? If it’s Jude, I don’t think David will–”
“It’s Odessa.” It’s the first time Thom has ever cut her off. And he really wished it didn’t have to do it at all. Or for it to be because of this.
“How? How could that– What?”
“It was a riptide. We couldn’t have predicted it. It happened so fast. It was so dark–”
The silence between them was long and so, so heavy. Thom was worried for a moment that Gretchen had gone catatonic. But just as he was about to break the silence and ask his boss if she was okay, Gretchen turned on her heel and marched out of the room, leaving Thom perhaps even more worried than he was before.
Gretchen walked and walked, moving on auto-pilot until she found herself in her office. Sat on her desk chair, she placed her elbows on her desk and pressed her fingers to her mouth. Her mind felt like it was occupied by a room full of people who were talking a mile a minute all at once and she couldn’t for the life of her get them to be quiet. She reached over to the side of her desk and pulled open a drawer, taking something out of it.
A faded picture. A young blonde. A small baby in her arms. A man off to the side with a smile. She stared at it and stared it, trying to recall how it felt to be in that room, on that day, with that baby in her arms. Then she ripped photograph in four and chucked the pieces into the bin by her desk.
//
THE ISLAND, DAY 18, A LITTLE LATER IN THE MORNING
It’s not a sight anyone wants to see. If Odessa had a choice in the matter, it wouldn’t be something she wanted the Eves to see. But it wasn’t like she had any choice in the matter anymore did she?
With the help of the ocean, her lifeless body found its way to the island again, swept to the shore by morning waves. Her body laid there, long departed, bobbing against rocks that littered this part of the shore.
//
For a more fast-paced and real-time experience, we will be using Discord again! Under the IN-CHARACTER category, you’ll find a new channel entitled #day18-odessa where you can post in character. This channel will only be open for a short time, only long enough for the Eves to get their initial reactions to Odessa’s death in. Then further reactions will take place on the dash.
The girls successfully rode out the storm in the cave. Thanks to the game of WNRS they played, they’ve come out knowing and understanding more about each other. Here’s to hoping this means they can get through another day of tasks without any issues arising. (Fingers crossed.)
Thanks to the storm, trees were shaken and new things have washed up. The Food and Inventory girls have come across all sorts of new finds on the beach and in the jungle.
12x coconuts — Food Team (Erin, Halima, Bev, Elise)
8x ripe mangoes — Food Team (Erin, Halima, Bev, Elise)
3x unripe mangoes — Food Team (Erin, Halima, Bev, Elise)
1x bag of Herr’s Salt & Vinegar chips — found by Izzy on the shore
9x crabs — collected by Cherry and Alexa on the shore
1x bag’s worth of calms — collected by Inventory Team on the shore
1x can of Coke Zero — found by Margo on the shore
1x mini bottle of Bombay Sapphire — found by Izzy on the shore
Providing Grace with the excuse of “going to find more branches”, Shane and Jenny hurried to the jungle with the intention of heading to the cave for some ‘private time’. On their way there, they happened to run into the Food and Water groups who appeared to be on their way back to camp but were frozen in place. With a simple turn of their heads, they understood why the others were stunned.
Before their very eyes stood 8 boys, looking worse for wear and covered in mud, some carrying spears (one of them with an axe!) and several others sporting nasty injuries.
The vibes I’m going for is this:
The groups look at each other. No one speaks but it wouldn’t take a genius to guess the question on their minds as they stare at each other in a palpable amount of awe:
What the fuck?
So to recap: here are the first bunch to meet the boys! The rest will meet them if the boys are brought back to the beach where the rest of the girls are waiting for the others to return for lunch. So, boys: make a good case that you’re not scary natives, and girls: breathe.
For a more fast-paced and real-time experience, we will be using Discord again! Under the IN-CHARACTER category, you’ll find a new channel entitled #plotdrop-day13 where you can post in character. To post in character, you’ll first have to register your character through Tupper. You can find a tutorial for that HERE and you can register your character and test out Tupper in the #bots channel under the IGNORE-THIS category.
When the storm dies down and the sun comes up, it’s time for the girls to head back to camp. (Or whatever’s left of it.) On the way there, Divya passes by a bush with orange flowers – a marker she uses to determine how to return to the cave – and decides to pick enough for a small bundle. Instead of heading straight back to camp, she decides to make a detour. She walks further away, past camp. When she reaches her destination, she’s stumped. The bundle of flowers fall from her hand.
Quickly, she finds her way back to camp to alert the other survivors. “Guys! Hey, guys! Come! You have to see this,” is what she says when she has all of their attention. With all eyes on her, she urges them to follow and she’ll lead them to where she came from in haste. “Look!” She points. Disregarding the orange flowers she dropped, it’s a mess of sand, seaweed, pebbles and sea shells. At the center of it all, a large ditch. A ditch where a body should be a laid. A ditch where a body isn’t laid.
The girls look at each other. No one speaks but it wouldn’t take a genius to guess the question on their minds.
Control Group: A group used as a standard of comparison in a controlled experiment.
Unbeknownst to the girls, on the other side of the island exists 16 individuals in a situation akin to theirs. The Twilight of Adam was marketed to parents as a weekend retreat designed for boys to strip away distractions and come back to the essence of who they are through the means of vulnerability workshops and male bonding on the shores of Kailua, Hawaii.
Like the girls, their plane suffered ‘aircraft failure’ and ‘violent turbulence’ on the way to their destination. One moment they’re awaiting the dreaded ‘crash’, and the next they’re stirring to consciousness on the gravelly shores of an island with no recollection of how they got there. Coming to the understanding that they’re now marooned with no help in sight, the boys combine efforts to brave their new surroundings despite their differences until ‘rescue’ eventually arrives.
And with that, we give a warm welcome to the boys! AKA Gretchen’s Control Group. Like the girls, they have been on the island for a week. But unlike the girls, their terrain differs. While the girls have access to more of the beach and shore, the boys only have a short range of it. Their main grounds are the jungle.
The Dawn of Eve team has structured the island so that walking its circumference is impossible, the sides blocked by large boulders or other natural obstacles. To get to the other side, one must go through the jungle and without proper navigation, that task itself proves impossible. This keeps the groups separated until the next phase of Gretchen’s experiment can commence.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
Male characters are now officially up for grabs! So if you’re lurking on the main, applying for a Dawn of Eve survivor isn’t your only option now. And if you are an existing member, you can now apply for a Twilight of Adam character, making it so that each mun can have up to 2 muses if they wish.
HOW WILL IT WORK?
Seeing as we want the boys to have time to develop their dynamics, for a designated period of time on the dash, their interactions will function on flashbacks. Once an announcement is made, the two timelines will merge and the boys can interact in current time on the dash.
For TWILIGHT OF ADAM members, kindly format your starters on the dashboard like this:
WHERE: Twilight of Adam side of the island, Beach
WHEN: Day 1 (Flashback)
We should stick to the beach for now, keep the fire going...as of right now — it’s the best option.
After a tumultuous day of highs and lows, the sun goes down and a brisk evening breeze finally settles upon the island. The boys are exhausted, not to mention pissed off that their efforts were in vain. Their one chance at making contact with rescue was now hundreds of feet below, lost to the depths of the sea. With tensions high and Warren being at the top of everyone’s hit list for his fuck-up, it was an easy decision to leave him on the cliff by Sebastian and Callum’s fire for the night while everyone tried to settle their upset back at their camp on the beach.
Seeing as Warren would have to rejoin the rest of the group in the morning, Sawyer opted to stay behind and keep him company to help carry him down when the sun rose the next day. Warren, not wanting Sawyer to off him in his sleep, decided the day would be best be put to rest with a night-cap, offering up his cognac-filled flask as an olive branch. Seeing as there was nothing better around, Sawyer accepted. After sharing some conversation and Warren expressing his regret over the lost radio, the two drifted to sleep by the warmth of the crackling fire.
In the early morning, Sawyer woke to find the fire had fizzled into cold embers and the space across from him was empty. Where was Warren? With his injured ankle in even worse condition after trying to struggle up the cliff’s edge, he was surprised the boy was capable of moving at all. Figuring that Warren might have just wandered away to relieve himself, Sawyer took the opportunity to take a leak himself and wandered over to the cliff’s edge to pee. As he was doing so, something unusual caught his eye. He wondered if it was just sleep he needed to rub away from his eyes, but after tucking himself in and giving his head a shake, he refocused his gaze and was shocked when he realized what he’d come across.
Holy fuckin’ shit...
Running back to camp as quick as he could, he woke the boys smelling of booze and with urgency and panic in his voice. He rushed them to the cliff and led them to the edge, pointing with utter disbelief at a figure in the distance – face down. Easily distinguished by his horrific Gucci track pants, the boys were in shock. They travelled downwards to the spot they saw in the distance to confirm their suspicions and found Warren’s lifeless body bobbling in the water, kept in place by jagged rocks. They hurried over to his body and brought it to the safety of shore to see if they could save him. But when they turned him over, they found him with his eyes glazed over and his neck covered in large bruises in the shape of hands.
The boys look at each other. No one speaks but it wouldn’t take a genius to guess the question on their minds:
What happened to Warren?
HOW WILL THIS WORK?
For a more fast-paced and real-time experience, we will be using Discord again! Under the IN-CHARACTER category, you’ll find a new channel entitled #toa-day3 where you can post in character.
To post in character, you’ll first have to register your character through Tupper. You can find a tutorial for that HERE and you can register your character and test out Tupper in the #bots channel under the IGNORE-THIS category.
KEY THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT WARREN’S BODY
His body is battered and broken (obviously, he fell off a cliff)
His neck is covered in a large bruises in the shape of hands
His Versace watch is broken (presumably upon impact) and the hands read 1:49AM
Unlike Sawyer, he doesn’t smell of alcohol
His iconic Givenchy body bag isn’t on his person like it usually is (dun dun dunnnn)
It’s later in the day when the girls realize it. They haven’t seen the soccer captain all morning. Jenny begins to ask around but no one seems to have the response they want. One by the one, the girls grow concerned. They stroll along the beach, have a look along the treeline, eyes out for the New Yorker but it seems to be no of use. Shane is nowhere to be found.
The girls look at each other. No one speaks but it wouldn’t take a genius to guess the question on their minds:
With Shane nowhere to be found, the girls decide to venture further into the island in search of her. They walk in a line, calling out her name, hoping that if they scream it enough times, the New Yorker will answer back.
For a more fast-paced and real-time experience, we will be using Discord again! Under the IN-CHARACTER category, you’ll find a new channel entitled #plotdrop-shane where you can post in character.
To post in character, you’ll first have to register your character through Tupper. You can find a tutorial for that HERE and you can register your character and test out Tupper in the #bots channel under the IGNORE-THIS category.
” Can you guys get your shit together? Jesus. I need to piss. You all better not still be bitching at each other when I get back. “
Jillian barely gets five feet away from the group before she clutches her side and falls to the sand. The pain she had assumed was nothing was anything but.
When Jillian came to on the island, she saw another survivor being pulled out by strong waves and ran to save them. She managed to help them to shore but due to her bad knee fell victim to the crash of harsh waves herself, falling forward on her side ( hard ) against a huddle of small boulders. Jill thought she’d only sustained a head injury when she managed to get away, blood seeping down the side of her forehead, but little did she know the ache at her side was far more serious than she thought.
As the girls will soon learn upon lifting Jillian’s shirt where she was clutching it, she was bleeding internally from her collision with the boulders. Her right side is decorated with hues of purple and deep red. They check her pulse and try to bring her back to consciousness with CPR but the efforts prove useless. Anyone with eyes and a working brain could tell: Jillian is dead.
Jillian’s phone is drained of battery, the screen damaged beyond repair, but her phone case that doubles as a mirror proves to be interesting... The girls look at each other. No one speaks but it wouldn’t take a genius to guess the question on their minds.
