fluxscape | Out Here Alone [OTA]

Entry tags:

Out Here Alone [OTA]

Who: Adam Parrish and you!
What: Daily life
When: Dec 9th/10th
Where: Various places around Wechester
Warnings: Dated views on being gay

a. I'm sending a raven

Working was a good way to distract himself from things. In this case, he had a lot on his plate, even if it'd been over a week. There was always something to be done at the hardware store, and he was busy stocking shelves right now, moving merchandise from boxes to shelves. It was almost enough to make him forget about what had happened the previous month all together. Almost.

Pushing his emotions down and putting on his best customer service smile when he heard footsteps approaching, he offered a friendly, "Hello, can I help you find anything?" before actually looking over to see who was there.

b. Black bird in the sky

He'd just gotten off shift at work at the hardware store and was going to run some miscellaneous errands when he caught sight of one of the new posters. It had to be new because he didn't remember seeing one before and he was pretty sure Wechester didn't have a ski resort. Stopping to study the poster, he squinted at the poster, reading it carefully, and did a double-take when he reached the blurred out portion of it. Something wasn't right about it, and the longer he looked the worse he felt about everything, but he still couldn't read the blurred part. The blur even seemed to shift and move, like it was alive, which was a lot more unsettling than a simple poster with a hard to read section.

His head started to twinge and ache, and he looked away abruptly, blinking rapidly. That didn't make the headache go away, and he felt distinctly like he'd just walked through the security system at the original Barns. Wrapping his arms around himself, he tried to suppress a shiver. His mood, already low, had plummeted, and he couldn't explain why beyond the poster he'd been looking at.

Still, that didn't stop him from glancing back at the poster and then looking around. "Excuse me," he said to someone, anyone, "But does that poster look weird to you?"

c. Sending a signal that I'm here

There were few things that felt more natural and normal than working on cars. It was soothing in a way, and better at distracting himself from things that stocking shelves was. He was dressed for the job, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grease smeared across one cheek, hands dirty. He had a rag nearby for when his hands got too grimy, but he was currently working under a hood, happy as a pig in mud.

Except when he heard someone approaching and looked up too fast, slamming his head into the underside of the hood. "Dammit." He dropped his tools, taking a slightly off balance step back and reaching up to feel the top of his head. The skin hadn't broken, but it sure was tender.

d. Some sign of life [for Tobias]

After packing a small lunch for two, a pair of sandwiches, apples, and bottles of water, into a backpack, Adam set out on his motorcycle to Tobias's meadow. Or rather, his tree, specifically. He parked by the road, hanging his helmet off the handlebars, and headed up to the tree, looking around.

"Tobias?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"The same kind of people who would go through the trouble of bringing people from different worlds here? Assuming that's even the work of people at all."

She continued to look at the poster a moment, watching the blurred out information seemed to pulsate and shimmer on the page. It definitely reminded her of magic, and she found herself starting to feel anxious.

With a short intake of breath, she winced and looked away, suddenly aware of the throbbing in her head. She had to remove her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose to try and alleviate some of the pressure that was building.

Edited 2020-12-12 13:12 (UTC)

He made a thoughtful noise. "But why? Why not omit the information all together or white it out normally?" Why use magic on a piece of paper? It didn't serve any purpose that he could think of, beyond presenting itself as an enigma.

"I'm sorry," he added, realizing she must be suffering the same effects he was, "I should have said something about the strange effect it has." But he hadn't been entirely sure it wasn't just him.

"Hmm...well, if it's anything like the magic back home, maybe whatever information is being omitted will be revealed at a certain time."

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment longer, she then let her glasses fall back to place and gave him a small smile. "Oh no, that's okay. There was probably no way of telling that things would affect multiple people."

"Maybe." But it still seemed like a lot of effort to go through. Unless their captors thought themselves clever and cool.

"I wasn't sure it wasn't just me," he admitted. But now that he knew- "It's almost like they don't want people to notice the blurred out parts, with these effects. Unless it's unintentional." Some kind of unexpected side effect.

She nodded as she adjusted her glasses slightly. "I'd believe either one, at this point." Glancing at the flyer again briefly, she shook her head a little. "Though the fact that it looks like it's moving on its own doesn't really help if they didn't want people to notice it."

"It's not exactly inconspicuous once you notice it." Maybe they'd been banking on people not noticing? But that would still be weird. Why go through the efforts of making a poster, that you presumably wanted people to see, and include something you didn't want them to pay attention to. It wasn't like it was a typo or something else simple.

"Either way, someone made the decision to include this, for whatever reason." Now he was wondering who had made the posters and if it would be possible to find them and question them.

"Just another mystery," Rosabella murmured thoughtfully, mostly to herself. Making sure not to look at it too much, she couldn't help reaching out slowly, letting her fingertips brush over the blurred part of the flyer.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting - maybe to feel a spark of something, or see it affected by her touch. But all she felt was plain paper, even as the blur kept shimmering and shifting in its own way.

He craned his neck to try and hear what she said, but he turned his right ear towards her too late, leaving him guessing instead.

"This place keeps doing things like this," he said, rather than asking her to repeat herself, "The trash that goes nowhere. Changing from a beach town to this, things appearing where they weren't before, the whole...fiasco that happened a few weeks ago. I'm tired of having all of these questions with no answers."

She nodded. "And trying to look up anything just leads to a lot of dead ends," she added with a sigh. "Not a trace of anything unusual, which is pretty unusual in itself."

"Exactly." He nodded. "But there has to be some kind of lead somewhere. Eventually, all of these mysteries will unravel." He was determined, and he'd solved his fair share of mysteries before. He was half tempted to break into the Wechester building and see if someone there had answers he could pry out of them.

"Right," she agreed. She wasn't one to give up on something either, once she set her mind to it. "It's just a matter of finding the right clues, or a starting point to go from."

"I bet someone at Wechester knows something," he mused aloud. "Or they know someone who knows something." The building was too suspicious for the people who worked at the top to be clueless.

"Wechester? You mean Wechester Enterprises, that really big building that lots of people go in and out of everyday?" She hadn't tried going into the building herself, but she did notice there seemed to be a lot of activity around it.

"Yeah." He nodded. "It just feels suspicious." Maybe he was being paranoid, or maybe he was onto something--only time would tell. "I could be wrong, but there's only one way to find out. And that's sneaking in somehow."

"Sneaking in?" She couldn't help the feeling of it being wrong, but she couldn't exactly disagree, especially with how much security the building seemed to have. "It does seem like they're hiding something there, doesn't it?"

Adam had done worse things than considering sneaking into a building, but all for a good reason. "It does," he agreed. "Some of their floors are open to the public though. I'd start there."

"So go as far as they'll let you, and then try to sneak past to get farther. Sounds straight-forward enough." She considered this for a moment. "A distraction could also help."

"A distraction could help a lot," he said, nodding. That was the kind of thing he could talk to Ronan about; Ronan wouldn't care if he got in trouble (probably), and Adam wasn't going to make assumptions about this girl risking getting into trouble just to help him out with a suspicion. "Maybe getting a hold of someone's keys or ID card, too," he mused aloud. That part would be harder though.

It definitely wasn't something that Rosabella would normally do, but if she had an idea of what was happening, she could at least try to help. "It might be easier to get something like that during the distraction. But the problem would be if there was a lot of security. A building like that probably has a ton for things like that."

"You're right. This is something I'm going to have to think on for a while." To come up with a better plan that wasn't 'charge in, create a distraction, and try to sneak around'.

"It's definitely a good idea to have a plan. If you need a little help, let me know. I'm pretty good at organizing things."

"Thank you." He'd keep that offer in mind. It would also be easier to get in touch with her again if he actually introduced himself. "I'm Adam, by the way," he added.

She smiled. "I'm Rosabella. It's nice to meet you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Out Here Alone [OTA]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject