open—

[itio]

Who: James T. Kirk & anyone!
What: A few open prompts, feat. the fog, Kirk's journal, his growing beard, etc.
When: Month of April
Where: Milton, mostly outside and the Community Hall

Content Warnings: None for the moment, but will edit if need be.

— the fog
— downtime at the community hall

Comments

[itio]

[ Jim all but stumbles through the door as soon as Levi opens it for him. He's just going to lean into the nearest wall, panting heavily for breath, just glad that he managed not to pass out on the way. ]

Thanks. [ He manages eventually, though his breathing's still quick and his heart's still racing. ]

[solitarysoul]

[Levi closes the door quickly once he and Jim get inside.]

Might be better to move further from the door, just in case

[He hadn't seen much fog creep inside but he knows these doors weren't meant to keep air or gasses out.]

[itio]

[ Jim nods, still panting slightly, but he pushes himself off the wall as soon as he can manage even some semblance of balance. He's still a little wobbly, but he can manage, and once they start walking further into the Hall and closer to any source of warmth, he'll start discarding his outer layers. ]

Are you alright?

[solitarysoul]

[Levi offers to help Jim but won't push it.]

Yeah...I wasn't out for long this time. Were you out for a reason or did it just surprise you?

[Somehow the fog was able to surprise him. You wouldn't think fog could do that, but things were weird here.]

[itio]

[ Now they're indoors, Jim does feel a little better. So he doesn't need to lean on Levi so much. ]

Well, we can't just lock ourselves up indefinitely. I just wasn't expecting the fog to come down so heavily.

[solitarysoul]

Yeah...that's happened to me too. Thankfully I've found places to shelter so far...

[So far. Maybe not in the future. He sighs.]

I wonder how long it will last.

[itio]

That is, if it even lets up.

[ Because at this point he wouldn't be surprised if it became something they had to learn to live with. Or all die eventually. ]

Wonder if this is what happened to the locals.

[solitarysoul]

Everything else has. No reason to belive this won't...eventually.

It wasn't.

[He knows what happened to the locals. They were able to see each over when the ghosts were killing each other.]

[itio]

I do prefer an optimistic outlook.

[ Still, it wouldn't hurt to think about the worst happening. ]

I'm still gathering information. But I know the... bodies were still here, when the first Interlopers arrived. [ He imagines that's why Levi sounds so sure of that. ]

[solitarysoul]

Yeah, and for awhile when the auroras came they brought, uh, ghosts. Sort of. Like filmstrip of what they were doing at the end, but not on a screen just in the air.

[itio]

Like holograms. [ Jim says thoughtfully, more to himself than to Levi necessarily. ] I'm guessing you couldn't communicate with them. Can you describe what they were doing, just before— how they died?

cw: suicide/murder

[solitarysoul]

Uh, I guess so.

[Another word he doesn't know.]

T-they were...they were panicking. Try to get away...and fighting with each other. There were a lot of people who killed each other or themselves. Others just kind of fell over. So maybe it was something like the Darkwalker...I'm not sure how long it'd been since they died and when we showed up. The cold makes it hard to tell.

[itio]

[ Jim frowns, the whole description only concerning him further. No reason, no explanation for all that panic, all that violence. Given what he experienced firsthand when the Darkwalker came, he has no doubt that the creature would be capable of instilling those feelings on the population here.

It makes him wonder if it's only a matter of time before that happens to all of them, too. ]

Seems strange that Methuselah wouldn't know more about it. He was around, right?

[solitarysoul]

He might have been in the woods; he's somewhere out there most of the time. But I can't imagine whatever caused everything here didn't reach outside of town.

[Well, Lakeside got something else apparently. But that's further away.]

He never answers questions though. I don't trust him.

[itio]

From all I've heard so far, it seems like whatever happened here was more or less global.

[ If not the whole world, then the continent, at the very least. ]

No. I don't think anyone among us does. [ Nor should they, given his unwillingness to actually tell them much of anything. ] The Forest Talkers probably know something too. If only they were more inclined to talk, rather than shoot.

[solitarysoul]

Yeah...it's been months, if just this island went dark someone would have come to check on it by now.

Bill didn't seem to know anything but maybe I just don't know the right questions to ask.

[itio]

Same could be said for almost anyone we run into here. [ Though Jim does think "What happened here?" is pretty straightforward. ]

Well, not much we can do about it right now. I could go for a cup of tea, you?

[solitarysoul]

Mm. It doesn't help to just keep going around in circles about all of it.

Oh! Um, I should have offered you some, since you were in trouble before you got here. But, uh, sure. Tea sounds good.

[Warm anything usually did.]

[itio]

No, it's fine. [ He shakes his head, still a bit breathless but at least managing to walk on his own two feet. ] I'll bounce back. I'm tougher than I look.

[ A little joke, just to lighten the mood. ]

[solitarysoul]

That's good, we seem to need that here.

[Levi himself was too dumb to just stop and lay down.]