it must be that old evil spirit

[singmod]

SEPTEMBER 2024 EVENT

PROMPT ONE — PAINFUL REMINDERS: An Aurora briefly connects the Interlopers to their homeworlds, and with it are able to receive items from home — but these ones will bring no comfort to them.

PROMPT TWO — THE ENEMY WITHIN: Strange and familiar occurrences begin in Milton and Lakeside, growing in frequency and danger for the Interlopers. Who can truly be trusted among their numbers?

PROMPT THREE — BAD BLOOD: The Forest Fighters finally come to Milton, and with it: they bring the yawning grave.

PAINFUL REMINDERS

WHEN: 5th - 9th of September.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potentially upsetting themes; themes of loneliness/isolation.

For many, the sight of the Aurora is now one they have become used to. There have been plenty of them over the year that has passed since the Interlopers first came to the Northern Territories. Often, they have been a sign of great danger, with plenty of unsettling and unnatural things happening when the skies light up. Other times they have been the herald of aid — a link between Interlopers and Enola, gifting them with abilities to help them survive in this world. There is no real knowing what kind of force the Aurora is, truly. And there is a tension that holds amongst the Interlopers as the day turns to night and there is the soft sound that grows louder.

The ethereal, high-pitched chorus of sounds, is difficult to place. Perhaps it sounds like voices, or discordant strings. And with it, the low-drone of electrical buzz — punctuated with the echoing pops and sharp cracks. The sky is alive with sound, and with it comes the swirling streaking of colour against the inky black of night, growing brighter and brighter as time goes on — greens, blues, pinks and purples shifting and dancing across the night. And much like every Aurora before this one, the electricals of the world come to life too. Homes, streetlamps, cars long-stranded in the snow. Man’s world comes alive, buzzing and flickering precariously.

But there are no ghosts like there once was a year ago. No terrible weather, no poisonous fog. If one could call it a ‘normal’ Aurora, that’s what it appears to be. But there is something else in amongst all the light and noise. Snatches of things: whispers of conversations, names called, laughter and tears.

You realise you recognise these voices. They are the voices of home. Perhaps you hear your mother, your siblings or friends. Whoever they are, you can hear them. And although they might not be able to hear you — for one brief night, the Aurora has connected you, bridged the gap between your world and this one. You may sit for a while, simply listening to the voices, relishing in hearing those from back home. If others join you, you will find yourself compelled to speak of them: to share in stories about those from back home — the connections you share with them.

It’s strange, though. These voices do not fill you with comfort or joy. Instead you are left with feelings of sadness, anger, and isolation. The Aurora has connected Interlopers, but now you feel so cut off from home, cut off from friends and loved ones — reminded of everything left behind. Everything you long for. Everything you have lost.

Something strange skips through the sky, a warping of the sound. It’s unsettling. Something feels... wrong, somehow.

It’s not just the voices that will remind you of this. Something else comes through the Aurora after that night. A small token will be brought through. Whatever the item may be, when you go to sleep and next wake, you will find said item. It may be placed on your bedside, on your desk or dining room table.

The item, you will find, will bring you a reminder of pain. Of sadness. Of horror. Perhaps it’s something you haven’t thought of in some time. Maybe it is something that has lingered in the back of your mind. Perhaps it is a part of you, waiting to be uncovered. A sign of something to come. A painful reminder of your past, or an ominous omen of your future.

THE ENEMY WITHIN

WHEN: The month of September.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: kidnapping/attempted kidnapping; attempted murder; murder; vandalism; arson; assault; animal mutilation; corpse mutilation/manipulation/desecration; themes of peril/terror; possible character/npc injuries; possible character/npc death.

It starts with strange happenings at night, things left to be found by the next morning. Those within Lakeside many find themselves unsurprised by it, given their location, but the scenes found in Milton are a foreboding sight.

Mutilated bodies of animals: rabbits, ptarmigans, even deer — mangled and strewn about the streets, blood upon the snow. Some may awaken in the middle of the night to the sounds of their windows breaking, with houses on the Outskirts being targeted more than those in the middle of town. There is… a kind of unrest in the world.

It escalates.

Some may leave their home for the day and return in the evening to find the place trashed: items broken, precious foodstuffs thrown about the place and destroyed. Those within the Outskirts are once again particularly vulnerable, as are those within Lakeside. Fires are started in some of the abandoned buildings of Milton. Something, someone is targeting the Interlopers.

It is hard to pin-point who exactly, and it only puts the Interlopers on high alert. Nothing like this has never happened before. This is new, especially in Milton.

As the month progresses, the acts become more serious. Fires may be started in the middle of the night in Interlopers’ homes while they sleep. Some are attacked in the night, others are taken from their beds. Some killed within their very homes. Of the Interlopers that go missing, their mutilated remains may be found days later out in the wilds.

In Milton, soon enough, someone is bold enough to come out from the darkness, out from the gloom of the night. Interlopers may be attacked in broad daylight — by those they may recognise as newer Interlopers of the community, who appeared from the wilds: lost and shivering, with nowhere else to go. Some of them have been within Milton for a few months now.

Those in Lakeside will face something similar: Forest Talkers are making a move, rogue and isolated incidents — done with sabotaging attempts at hunting and taking a more direct approach.

They have no qualms about being captured or killed, only determined to get rid of as many of the Interlopers as they can. They whisper, they scream: “You don’t belong here. You should never have come here. It wants you gone, it wants us all gone. The end is here, it’s too late for any of us. Nature must run its course. The yawning grave has been opened.”

The attack is on two fronts: the first of Forest Talkers in Lakeside amplifying their actions. The second in Milton, enemies within the ranks of the Interlopers, Forest Talkers hiding as Interlopers.

Within Milton, newer Interlopers will likely be met with suspicion as being some of the Forest Fighters as a result of these individual acts of violence. As the numbers of Milton have been infiltrated, and it’s easy to have mistrust amongst those newer to the community. In-fighting is likely, and the entire town is stuck in some terrible, tense state — unsure of who to trust within their own numbers. In the days and weeks that follow, it remains like this. Acts of violence and vandalism — chaos and disorder.

BAD BLOOD

WHEN: The night of 27th - 28th September.
WHERE: Milton.
CONTENT WARNINGS: attempted murder; murder; vandalism; arson; assault; mentions of blood; themes of peril/terror; possible character/npc injuries; possible character death/npc death; actual NPC death.

Towards the end of the month, the moon is full. They call it the Harvest Moon, but colour seeps into it — oranges and reds: a blood moon, partially eclipsed. The night is calm and cloudless, but there’s an uneasy feeling in the night.

The earth groans, the rumble of another quake that’s plagued the Northern Territories since the beginning of August. It is the only warning Interlopers will get — if they may realise it as a warning. To some, when they look back, it’s a omen, a starting pistol.

They do not come through the Mines. Thanks to the efforts of Interlopers to guard the entrances of the Milton Mines, they know better. They come to town from the south, not the north.
The quakes of August and September have opened a new way from Lakeside to Milton. They are led by their Leader: a man dressed in white, a large deer skull upon his head. And while their numbers are small in comparison, they come armed and with the determination to get rid of the Interlopers once and for all. As they come into town, they launch their attack.

More fires will be set, Interlopers will be attacked with abandon. Shot at, stabbed, beaten. It is a mass execution. They will not stop until the Interlopers, or them, are dead.

Well, the majority of them. There are just under a dozen teenagers and younger people amongst their ranks who have shown hesitance toward violence in the past. Perhaps they can be reasoned with. Perhaps there may be a way to convince them to abandon their cause. There is fear in their eyes. Some of them do not want to die. They fear the yawning grave.

What will do you then, Interloper? Are you willing to fight for your life? Are you willing to take another’s to save your own, or a friends? Will you hide, or run? What choice will you make? The Forest Talkers have long since made their own choice. Now you must make yours.

It is another night of chaos on a town already scarred by the events of June. Interlopers will note two familiar faces in the fray: at some point during the night both Methuselah and Young Bill will arrive. While Methuselah will concentrate on aiding the wounded and trying to shelter Interlopers the best he can, Young Bill will help protect Interlopers from the Forest Talkers with his rifle in hand. But fortunately, it is just for one single night. Ammunition runs out, sides are switched, and people are killed. As dawn approaches, Forest Talker numbers dwindle. Either killed, incapacitated or defected. In the early morning light, bodies lie in the snow both Interloper and Forest Talker alike.

Those trying to hunt down the leader will see him slipping inside an empty cabin, heavily wounded. Following after him, they will find him settling himself down to kneel on the floor. The white of his tactical gear stained red with blood as it blooms from his wounds. Slowly, he removes the deer skull from his head to reveal a clean-shaven man in his late twenties with a shock of white-blond hair. His eyes are blue, calm.

He sets the skull down, panting and sweating. He is dying. He is not afraid.

“My name is Mallory, not that it matters now. We are dead, you and I.” he says softly. “We exist in a dying world.”

He is in much pain from his wounds. He moves again to sit cross-legged on the floor. A hand touches the bloodied fabric of his front and he laughs humourlessly.

“You don’t understand, do you? The end must come. That is the order of things. The end must come so the world can be reborn. That is how it’s always worked. When the world is swallowed, it will grow again from the earth.”

It is a story. The story of the Darkwalker. Some believe it to be the end of the world, but Young Bill had once said there is another telling of the tale. A creation myth. The Darkwalker swallows the world and returns to its slumber within the earth. Within it, everything its swallowed grows again and the world returns.

“We fought against man’s actions to ruin this place, not knowing our true purpose. The Devourer has shown me the truth, and I sought to put that into action.” His head tilts to one side. “The yawning grave is opened. Does new life not grow from the decay? It is a cycle. The grave and the cradle.”

He finds it difficult to breathe, but he presses on.

“You fight to live. You come here and you do not see what you are. You are only delaying the inevitable, perverting the true course. Prolonging the suffering. You are the Interlopers, you are not part of nature’s design. The Darkwalker does not want you here. And where it fails, we have tried to succeed.”

There’s another laugh, something catching in his throat. He coughs, blood bubbling from his lips.

“And failed. For now. The First Cursed cannot hold it forever. She, too, delays the inevitable." Even as he is dying, he still have the energy to sneer. He speaks of Enola. "A woman who plays at being a god. What right does she have? All must go into the Long Dark. ... As will I. Return me to the grave.”

Mallory’s head dips, his body sagging. He inhales once more and then stops.

FAQs

PAINFUL REMINDERS


1. Players must sign up for items. See the toplevel on the plotting post.

2. Items will face the same warps/nerfs as everything else that is brought into the game.

3. Items can be no bigger than something your character can reasonably carry.

4. While items do not have to belong to your character, there has to be a good reason why they’d receive such an item — ie. something related to your character.


THE ENEMY WITHIN

1. The Forest Talkers within Milton are a number of NPCs that have been pre-selected from NPCs who arrived in April and August. Not all of them will show their true intentions as the month goes on but will continue to stay hidden.

2. Two NPCs killed in the June Event were also Forest Talkers. … Good… job?

3. The following NPC Interlopers will out themselves as Forest Talkers at this stage: Devon Busswood; Rita Yee; Realm Lovejoy.


BAD BLOOD

1. Following the events of this prompt, Interlopers now have an additional way into Lakeside. It’s still rather dangerous: it’s through a partially collapsed cave system that ends into abandoned bunker on the Lakeside side. The game map will be marked accordingly in due course.

2. Some Interlopers may recognise a familiar face in the Forest Talker ranks: the man who was kidnapped by Interlopers previously in July has returned. Looks like he made good on his promise. He's come back to cause problems.

3. The following NPC Interlopers will out themselves as Forest Talkers during the attack: Jackie Blackmore; Ross Huguet; Jennifer Kitchen; Daniel Kresco.

4. As a reminder of numbers: around fifty Forest Talkers will show up for the attack.

5. There is an OOC vote on the fate of the remaining Forest Talkers, the link is here.

PLOTTING POST

Comments

[sputnik]

[ In a rare moment, composure already broken open and leaking a little, the cosmonaut finds himself genuinely startled by the voice. His head turns to the side — another phantom? But this voice isn't like the faint whisper of his mother's, feels too real, and as he continues to turn to look behind him, sees the young man there.

As his eyes widen, he realises they're just slightly wet, a little glossy. No, this young man is real, no ghost (...surely a very ironic observation), and for a long moment Konstantin just stares at him. With that one question, the boy's confirmed a fact — he isn't the only one hearing this. ]

...I don't think so, no. [ It hurts to admit such a thing, and he feels an odd stab of guilt, knowing it will bring the younger man no peace of mind, but he won't lie to him. ]

She hasn't responded to me. I don't think she knows I'm here. [ A slow beat, a tight breath taken before— ] Has yours?

[ His... person. People. Whomever might be haunting this young man sitting there so quietly. ]

[afterdrop]

["Another phantom" is spot-on, actually.]

No. [He shakes his head, leaning back against the tilted, splitting wood of a long-dead utility pole.] Just keep calling my name.

[For hours he'd circled the town, trudged through the woods, farther than he knew was safe. When he'd stopped being able to feel his fingers under their leather gloves, he'd finally given up the chase and dragged himself back to the rotting house he's been squatting in. Since then, he's been sitting on the crumbling stoop, trying to decide what's worse: his best friend's anguished screams, or his own murderers' echoing jeers.]

'S like they're looking for me.

[sputnik]

[ It's familiar, and something in Konstantin's eyes tightens with recognition. Lidia keeps calling his name, too — is she searching for him? What have they told her about her son, back home? What lies have they spun?

He's quiet for a few solemn moments as he lets things sit, soaks in the knowledge that he isn't the only one hearing these voices. In this place, collectively shared experiences aren't atypical, but it's always startling to bump into someone else going through it.

Something sticks out. ]

You hear more than one?

[afterdrop]

[Charles nods, glancing up at the sky. They're quieter now, but he can still pick out the distant tangle of voices.]

My best mate. [A sentiment that should be positive, but seems to hold only the opposite; as far as he knows, he's left Edwin to be dragged back down to Hell, and he's powerless to stop it.] And- just some pricks from school.

[It's bitter, punctuated by a painful swallow. The only saving grace is that he knows the voices aren't all from the present. They'd be grown by now, their voices deeper. Decades since they last uttered his name, he presumes. These voices are from a different time, years ago, and each one feels like a kick to his stomach, a stone hitting his chest. Dirt under his trainers as he tried to escape.]

What about you?

[sputnik]

[ His best friend, and then the opposite of that: both sides of it must be deeply emotionally unpleasant for the poor kid, and the older man's mouth tightens, frown pulling at its corners. It isn't often that he lets himself sit in a place that's so disheartened; his usual method to deal with someone else's misery would be to try to smile, to find something light-hearted, even playful.

But there's none of that now. How can there be? This is just.... awful, the way this place tends to be, and the only thing he can offer is an empathy. It's uncomfortable — exposing any of those soft raw places inside of himself, but if he can give some kind of understanding to this young stranger with the sad eyes, then he has to. ]

Just one. My mother. [ He does offer a smile then, even if it's subdued. Saying it aloud makes him feel young and lost. ]

I thought this place was cruel enough making us hear people we miss, but... it seems especially mean to hear people you don't. [ What a thought — if he were hearing the scientists, the reminders of being treated like something less than human. That would be its own kind of torment. ]

They bullied you?

[afterdrop]

[He imagines, for a moment, what it might be like to hear his own mother. Whether she would be speaking to him from the past, like his cricket mates, or whether it would just be the snippets he's caught in the years since - quiet words to his father, passed gently across the sofa, or over a warm cup of masala chai. A peace he never experienced in a decade-and-a-half between those walls; a peace that they only found in the absence of their only child.]

Not really. [Not until that last, awful evening, when they decided that he wasn't like them, and that he deserved to die for it.] Other people, though.

[Charles pulls his gloved hands out of his pockets, and wraps them across his chest, beneath the underarms of his ratty coat. He's still not used to the cold, after so long without feeling any temperature, and it shows in his thin trousers and exposed neck.]

... This happen a lot, then?

[sputnik]

[ Other people... could that be a connection to this best friend of his, maybe? Is that why this place manifested those specific sets of voices for this young man? Konstantin can't decide which is worse, which is better — if there truly is some reason behind the particular ghosts that this world forces them to be haunted by, or if there is no reason to be found at all.

He watches the boy shift, really takes him in now, with the soft glow of the nearest streetlamp. Thin and not dressed the way someone needs to be, for this kind of environment. ]

This is the first time there have been voices like this. But this place routinely... makes things happen. Conjures up things. It'll make you feel crazy if you aren't careful.

[ A faint smile. He'd long-held onto the concept that they were most likely all being drugged, a part of some overarching experiment, but it's been harder and harder to grasp that notion when he genuinely can't explain some of the things that have occurred here. ]

You're new here?

[afterdrop]

[Charles is used to being at the world's whim, dealing with new supernatural inexplicabilities as they arrive. A monster-of-the-week serial, most of it glancing off of him at most. After all, he's a goddamn detective. If something new and unsettling pops up, he and Edwin investigate it.

And maybe that's the difference, here. Maybe that's why the man's description makes him apprehensive. Edwin isn't with him.]

'Bout a week, now. [He shrugs, best he can with his pretzel of shivering arms.] Can't say I'm warming up to it quite yet.

[Pun absolutely intended.]

[sputnik]

[ He draws in a slow breath through his teeth, a soft hiss of a sound — about a week. Enough time to realise this place has you trapped. Not enough time to know what sorts of horrors truly exist here, not in the long-term.

(Does he have enough food? Clothing? That second part probably speaks for itself, and all he can think about is how most of the cabins have been picked through by now, as well as the old clothing store in town.)

Konstantin's peeling off his own coat, a thick thing with a fur-lined hood, and turns more on his little bench so that he's holding the item off the back of it for just a moment. He's not a small man, athletic, at least a large. The coat'll be big on a thin beanpole of a teenager, but that'll just make it warmer. ]

This might help a little with that warming up. You'll turn blue soon, at this rate. [ He smiles, and won't be giving him a choice as he lifts the coat, giving Charles a couple seconds warning before he tosses it lightly over to him. ]

[afterdrop]

[Those certainly aren’t unfounded worries; since his arrival, Charles has managed to scavenge only a spare shirt and a poorly knitted hat, barely large enough to pull over the tips of his ears. He’d been offered a heavier coat by a kind girl in the meeting hall, but he had left it draped over a chair. At the time he had assumed his stay would be be brief, and that someone else would need it more.

He catches the coat, but his carefully neutral face morphs quickly into one of displeasure.]

Nah, mate, I’m fine. I’ve got layers. [A black coat adorned with pins, heavy enough for an English chill. Beneath it, a Harrington jacket, zipped up to the collar.] Don’t want you to freeze for my same, do I?

[He sticks his hands back out, imploring Konstantin to take back the garment.]

[sputnik]

[ One doesn't need to have been trained (conditioned) for years to be as specifically observant as Konstantin has been, to notice that shift to the younger's expression. It catches his attention in a fresh way; he pauses, looking down to the thing being offered right back.

A hand moves towards it, though not yet grasping the garment — not to refuse, just so that he can add on, first. ]

It's okay — where I'm from, the cold isn't too different from this. I'm old, I've had many years to build up a resistance. [ He gives a chuckle. ]

But you don't have to keep it. Just for now, if you want. Having to listen to the ghosts of the past is bad enough without shivering yourself to death.

[afterdrop]

[Everything in Charles' being wants to refuse, and the internal debate is plain behind a face trying poorly to remain stoic. He knows he's shit at accepting help - always has been, since the dark days of his childhood - and certainly can't think of anything he's done to deserve this stranger's coat.

But the thing is: it's fucking cold. It's fucking cold, even inside the crumbling walls of his cabin, and every shudder that goes through his chest resolves in a building panic, because last time he felt this way...

Last time he felt this way, he never got warm again.]

Don't be hard on yourself, mate - you don't look that old.

[A jab to cover the almost sheepish way that he reaches forward, taking the coat again. It takes him a good few moments to get the damn thing on, with shaking arms and stiff fingers, and actually closing up the front is a lost cause that he's not willing to embarrass himself on. When he's in it, though, he holds out his arms as if to say, Happy now?]

[sputnik]

[ Even in the middle of this lonesome, heavy night and the strangeness of it (he can still hear his mother's whispers, still hear a Kostya every now and then) Konstantin's able to take a moment to realise how strange talking to this person in particular is. How... unsettling in a very particular way. He hides it well, the way he always does, but it's there, maybe weirdly exacerbated by the thought he offended the kid somehow. (A devastating concept, for some reason. The youth before him is more 'man' than 'boy'; Alexsei's only seven... or eight by now. Not every lost boy is his lost boy. He projects, he knows he does. He has the self-awareness to stop himself every time it happens.)

That doesn't mean there isn't some odd, pressing sting, like a finger pressing against a bruise. He'll be eaten alive by his own guilty conscience, someday. For now— there's a weird sweep of relief when the stranger accepts his coat, like he's done something good. It shouldn't be about that, but some part of it is.

Everything's still too heavy for his smile to fully reach his eyes, but delight still manages to shine there. ] Rubbing it in.... how I'll be fully grey in no time.

[ There's grey at his temples, and patches throughout. Back home, they add to his public image, make him seem seasoned, trustworthy. Here, no one knows who he is. ]

Looks great on you. [ Konstantin smiles again, good-natured — yes he's happy now, and maybe it's stupid, but he genuinely is. He looks the boy over; it has to feel better, having the thick padding of a coat like that. ]

Now that I think about it, there aren't many of you young people around this place. Might be some things actually left at the store in town that fit.

[ Kieren's probably the only other boy around his age, and of his build — lanky, tall-looking. ]

cw child abuse

[afterdrop]

[In life, Charles’ youth sometimes felt like a curse; something he wasn’t allowed to enjoy, and was only allowed to be punished for. He dreamed constantly of adulthood, of the day he could meet his father eye-to-eye, man-to-man, and flaunt his own power for once. A grown body, unbroken and free of the bruises he used to wear like brands.

He never got that. And honestly, most days Charles’ eternal, unshakable youth feels like a gift. Is a childhood he didn’t get to cherish in life. It’s freedom, and it’s fun, and the world is so much bigger than it was when he was truly young.

But then sometimes, he looks up at a man’s graying temples and a hole opens up in his stomach, shaped like a life he will never get to know.]

Met a couple other teenagers, I think. I’m not a great judge of age.

[Kieren, pale and soft, and Lyanna with her pretty red hair.]

I didn’t want to take up the good shit, anyway. Thought I wouldn’t be here for long.

[sputnik]

There's a little handful, I think. Scattered around. [ Age can be difficult to determine, but when the young man says it that way — 'other teenagers' — it clarifies something important. He really is still just a kid, probably around the same age the boys Konstantin trained back in his military days were. Back then, he didn't even realise how young they really were. Now that time has passed, he can see how they were still just kids in so many ways.

There's another smile, but this one fainter. He thought he wouldn't be here for long either, and he spent so much time thinking that, didn't settle into anything, kept some... distance, one that felt necessary. Even now, he probably only knows less than half of the people in this place.

He swallows back thoughts of escape (and how he's failed to find it here after months), not wanting to make anything heavier on the poor guy while tonight's already such a strange, exhausting thing. Instead— ]

Where're you from?

[afterdrop]

[Despite his chronological age, after the last thirty-five years "teenager" has become more of an identity than a life stage. It's what Charles will always be, for as long as he haunts the Earth, and as long as he exists in whatever comes next. He's a boy in stasis, in none of the ways that youth entails growing, or beginning. He barely started life, and he will always have barely started life.]

Southall. West London. [He smiles, pushing through a spark of homesickness, not just from the weeks he's spent here but from his time in Port Townsend.] Got a flat in the city with a mate awhile back, though.

[Which is of course not to mention the years between that he spent up at St. Hil's, nicking fancy clothes and trying to hide his accent.]

Yourself?

[sputnik]

[ It's been a long time since he asked someone where they were from, Konstantin realises. Not simply for the fact he hasn't met a new Interloper in some time — even before then, it's a subject he's been almost too-careful to approach in others. ]

Russia — Moscow. It's where my mother lives too, though I don't get to see her as often as I like. My job requires I live at a sort of... closed campus.

[ Present tense, not past. He knows he can't really return there — he's dead, or so he desperately fucking hopes — but that's a pill some part of him is still trying very hard not to swallow. His job is over, he'll never see his mother again. It's too many things to mourn. ]

Is it— the same mate as now? [ The same best friend he'd mentioned quietly haunting him. ]

[afterdrop]

[Charles has slowly taken to the opposite, over the last three decades. Across London, his mother is still alive and well in his childhood home, sipping tea and watching telly as her hair gets greyer. For awhile, he fantasized that he could visit her one day, somehow become tangible and let her know that he's okay, that while his life ended in the attic of St. Hilarion's, he didn't.

He let go of that a long time ago. His parents are a piece of the past, and that's how he speaks of them.]

Yeah. Edwin. [Despite everything, the corner of his mouth tugs up into a smile. He says the name like it's a treasured secret, something he's letting Konstantin in on.] We met at school. Started a business together after we left.

[Which he definitely looks too young to have done, but who's counting?]

What's your job, then?

[sputnik]

[ Names are... difficult things to share, to voice. Konstantin hasn't been able to say the ones that hurt the most — Lidia, Alexsei. Even Tatiana is a name he's given to only one other person here, and it was because that person reminded him so much of her, that for a moment, he thought she had arrived to this place. Let something slip through the cracks, let his heart be exposed before he could stop it.

It's almost just as rare for people to give names to him, too. In a place like this, where a person is suddenly wrenched from home and the things they hold most dear, maybe it's just as painful for any of them.

He doesn't take it lightly, and he won't forget the name shared with him now. Edwin. ]

I'm a cosmonaut — an astronaut, as the Americans would say. [ A wry little smile. ]

When we're not up there, we live in a place called Star City. It's like its own little world — not open to the public, everything contained within. When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to live there. It seemed like a dream world.

[ To be like Gagarin, his hero — everyone's hero. And then he had. And he only had to give up every single thing to do it. ]

A businessman, though? That's very ambitious for someone who can't be more than... twenty? [ He's probably younger than that, but Konstantin aims high. There's a period of time when it's difficult to tell, when a kid still looks like a kid but they're old enough to be a man, go to war, start a life. ]

[afterdrop]

Somewhere around that.

[Charles’ boyish smile is somewhere at the borderline of joking, one eyebrow tilted like he’s bemused by the man’s guess. Even though the doubt is clear in Konstantin’s eyes, it’s refreshing to hear someone aim at a different decade than usual. For a moment he can almost pretend that it’s a serious suggestion, that he’s passed for something other than a gangly child.

An astronaut, though. He leans in against the bench, interest piqued. It was never quite his niche, growing up - he preferred music and stories to science - but that isn’t to say he didn’t pay attention.]

We learned about the American space stuff in secondary school. Challenger blowing up, and all that.

[He still isn’t used to the notion of living people being from different years.]

Now they’re sticking shit on Mars. Bloody brilliant.

[sputnik]

[ Mentioning "fellow teens" a few beats before pegged him somewhere to be sure, though Konstantin's definitely fishing for an exact age, here. Ways to find out information without directly asking — and he still won't ask directly, meeting that bemused smile with a softer one of his own. Already this strange, awful night has drawn out personal details and he of all people knows what it is to be cautious with what's given out.

He pauses though, something snagging and catching, tugging him to a thought. Challenger? He's familiar with the craft; part of the race with the Americans involved both sides being privy to one another's business. Challenging each other, inspiring one another. It was a new project, part of their Space Shuttle system. But it hasn't... crashed. In his time, the orbiter is set for liftoff... in a few months, actually. ]

It blew up, [ he echoes back — visibly stunned, but the concept of being from different times is something that he's very aware of by this point. Konstantin lowers his arm from where it'd been casually propped against the back of the bench, sitting up straighter. ]

What... year did that happen? Do you know?

[afterdrop]

[Oh. Shit.]

Like, 1985, maybe? '86? I think I was in year eight. [He hadn't switched schools yet, he knows, but that's about it.] Sorry, I should've- asked, or something.

[Which is a ridiculous notion, honestly. How do you ask if someone was alive for a historic event before you bring it up? He's still barely used to the notion that not everyone in this town was dragged here from the same present-day. Bloody hell, Edwin would love trying to wrap his big ghost brain around that.]

There was another one back in the 2000s. Another C-name, my mate was reading all the news articles. But now it's been, like, almost twenty years since that one, and they're all doing fine, aren't they? Nothing to worry about. Just cool robots on Mars, and shit.

[sputnik]

[ 85, 86.... So not too long after his... ending. Konstantin runs his hand down over his mouth again, wide-eyed and thoughtful, before lowering it. Fuck....

There's something else. Something his mathematically-inclined brain catches even through his own startle by the news, times that don't seem to quite add up. "Back in the 2000's".... If this kid was alive in 1986, in school.... (and twenty years since the 2000's? Just what year is he from? How old is he?)

His closest frame of reference for people "time-skipping" (which is what he automatically thinks to) is, ironically, his own dead roommate — or rather, undead. Vasiliy was... resurrected? Reanimated? Konstantin still isn't sure. He isn't sure what to make of this either, though he's not about to make assumptions. Who knows what kind of world this stranger might be from? He shifts more to attention, and for the first time tonight forgets about the whispering calls of his mother, even if just for a few moments. ]

It was 1983 for me, before I was brought here. [ He finally replies. ] You're.... you lived in the eighties? It seems rare to meet anyone else here who did.

[ He never had the pleasure of meeting Eddie Munson.. ]

[afterdrop]

[Charles' mind isn't as patient and orderly as his other half's, but he's right clever, even if he doesn't often recognize it himself. He catches details others don't, parsing through context with ease. It's for that reason that Konstantin's intentions, hidden behind an innocuous question, reads plain as day.

He nods simply.]

Turned sixteen in '89.

[And died just weeks later.

He could wax about the decade for hours, about the music and the films that colored his youth, about what Konstantin has to look forward to (ha). He could talk about the rave scene, the drugs, the gaudy fashion. The rage and the rebellion, and the vibrance of the world opening up in front of him.

But he doesn't; he knows that isn't what Konstantin is asking.]

That was a long time ago, though. Came here from 2023. [Less than forty years, but he knows it sounds abstract, like something out of film.] Look good for my age, don't I?

cw: suicide things but nondescriptive

[sputnik]

[ He's only so recently found out about Vasiliy's... situation, whatever it really is, and it's still a strange sort of wound.

(It's also a terrifying one. The... thought of it. Konstantin made sure he would die, back home. And then he ended up not dead, ended up here instead, heart still beating and still home to a monster. What if he can never die? Or... can never stay dead? That's a horror he can't even begin to contend with. The final piece of his autonomy stripped from him.)

He doesn't know the exact colour of this boy's situation, but it's... something. Something odd, maybe in the way Vasiliy's something is odd. Or Kieren's. Or maybe something else entirely. (Maybe he doesn't physically age anymore? Maybe he can move through time. Or maybe he's the product of some... fucking 80's experimentation, too. The cosmonaut's recent experience isn't far from some abstract film concept, itself.

Hell, maybe the kid isn't even human at all. That's always a possibility, too.) ]

You'd better keep it a secret, or else everyone will be hounding you to know your methods for looking so young. [ A playful smile; he's good at that, at making some strange, serious situation seem softer. ]

Your friend — Edwin. He's like you? [ Existed as a kid for... too many years than should make sense. That's what some of the details mentioned would suggest, anyway. The timeline — the span of it. ]