APRIL 3RD - 5TH | AFTER THE ACCIDENT |
There was an accident. The details are hazy and obscure, but it's still the first thing you remember. Maybe a car wreck — metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the
screaming. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. Maybe something less mundane, even impossible seems to have happened to you. You can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can truly remember.
It's also the
last thing you remember from before waking up.
When you open your eyes, the accident is gone, replaced with white sterility. Perhaps somewhat alarming at first, until you blink at your surroundings and realize that you're in a hospital bed. You try to move but are sluggish, covered in a scattering of minor injuries you only vaguely remember receiving, not to mention the possibility of the partially healed remnants of other, seemingly older wounds.
It's a shame you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. Your memories are an indiscernible fog where they're not absent altogether, only a few standing out in your mind with any kind of certainty.
If the room happens to be empty when you wake, it's not for long. Nurses bustle in, taking your vitals and asking your name and anything else you might remember. Don't worry, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here. Much of what you say (especially anything unusual, anything about monsters or magic or outlandish technology) will earn a quiet, pensive look and a gentle suggestion that you avoid trying to force any memories or hazy impressions, that everything will be explained in due time, after you've had the chance to sufficiently recover. You'll be told to stay put, not to push yourself, and to wait for the doctor to clear you before you leave.
Then you'll be left alone. Or maybe you'll find yourself visited by loved ones: family, or friends. Of course you have those things. And of course they already remember you being here, remember visiting you in the hospital while you were still unconscious. You've lived here much or all of your life....
As far as you can tell, anyway.
Either way, the hospital's population is busier than you'd expect in a small town, and you get the impression the nurses are working themselves ragged just running damage control. It seems as though an extremely unlikely number of people were in 'accidents' in the last couple of days, though many patients appeared to be well enough to be released the same day, and the same might be said of you. Or at least the staff doesn't seem to be too concerned. You can even leave your room without much fuss, any doctor or nurse that might try to intercept you getting called away almost immediately to deal with something even more pressing.
Of course, it's not so unusual to settle in until you're discharged, either. You may choose to wait for loved ones to come pick you up, even speak to your fellow patients, whether roommates or others wandering the halls. The more enterprising and suspicious might even consider it an opportunity to poke around for a few basic answers.
APRIL 3RD - 8TH | GETTING USED TO "HOME" AGAIN |
However you get there, outside the birds sing a joyful song, the sky is clear, and the warm sun on your skin is a pleasant contrast to the pervading chill of the hospital now at your back. It's bright enough to make you squint for a moment before you feast your eyes on the quaint little mountain town of Wayward Pines, though that might just be some sort of side effect from your accident.
Fellow pedestrians spare you glances, some wary, others concerned or just friendly. It's as if they're watching for something, or tat least trying to do so without alarming you - watching to see if you're okay, maybe, or to see how you're handling things so far, or maybe just watching to see if you'll realize you've left the hospital without putting on actual clothes. A boy in his late teens is the first to actively engage, standing at the bottom of the hospital steps and handing out fliers to some sort of orientation on Monday in one of the lecture halls down at the U. "Trust me," he says, catching your eye with a look that suggests he absolutely understands how confused you're feeling. "You're gonna want to go to this."
But first it's time to get home, to recover from your ordeal and try to sort through your memories. Do you remember this house, the pictures of family on the walls and how to navigate to the bathroom in the middle of the night? Maybe it's easier with loved ones living with you, helping you get settled, or maybe you're on your own. Either way, over the next few days you'll have plenty of time to try and sort through your confusion and misgivings. Maybe your friends and family in the town are just as confused and unsure as you are, maybe their familiarity is jarring, but somehow still some sort of comfort when
so much still remains unfamiliar and strange to you. Or maybe they take you aside with a knowing look in their eyes and start to explain. The memories and the destruction and the confusion.
Either way, it might be a good idea to get out and finally visit
Main Street if you haven't already. Maybe you even remembered that you work in one of the more familiar sounding shops, or elsewhere in town. Whether you trust those memories or not at this point, it probably wouldn't hurt to get back to work some time soon. Your co-workers might have some explanations for you as well, after all, and you have to be able to put bread on the table
somehow.
APRIL 8TH | THE APOCALYPSE AND YOU |
Though the new arrivals tend to still be fairly discombobulated this soon, there's not a chance in hell that they haven't heard
something about the situation at hand (the hospital staff tend to be gentle and ambiguous, but many of the other townsfolk aren't so much), and there's something to be said for giving them any necessary information before they have too much time to wallow in the void of its absence.
This month, they've opted to host an orientation.
It's impossible to miss - flyers and poster-boards all but lead you to Wayward Pines University by the hand, with any number of arrows directing your way to the central lecture halls once you reach the campus. The hall in question is moderate size, with more than enough seating for as many attendees as might decide to come. A table at the door has programs for the orientation, outlining the topics to be addressed:
Wayward Pines: A Haven, An Ark.
Ortech & You.
Our Memories, Explained.
Abberrations: What They Are And Why We Shouldn't Eat Them. Each has a different lecturer listed, most of which are recognizable (to those with relevant false memories, anyway) as well-loved (or at least well-known) local educators from the University itself or the nearby high school.
The orientation lasts about an hour and a half, covering the basics of what's known so far from the perspective of fellow Wayward Pines residents:
- The town is (and was intended to be) the last ark of humanity in an apocalyptic world, meant to be a bastion from which civilization would slowly be rebuilt.
- Ortech are responsible for that ark, and for basically everything inside it, with one primary exception: They seem largely confused about how individuals from other worlds wandered into their cryogenic collection radius. (This implies, the current lecturer noted, that either Ortech isn't being straightforward with them or else the technology that brought them here exists out there, arguably nearby but unaffiliated with Ortech in any way.)
- And yes, to address the elephant in the room, a decent percentage of most of our memories are fabricated. At one point, they seemed to be a means to an end. Now that they aren't, and Ortech seem very willing to assist in removing those memories, but the process is invasive and may destabilize the memories that are supposed to be there. For what it's worth, they've mentioned the memories being fabricated and corroborated by an AI rather than by an actual human being poring over the deepest crevices of our minds.
- Aberrations are pretty much the worst. They're what happens when someone turns an evolutionary mutagen loose on humanity and gives it a thousand years to simmer. They will murder the living hell out of you. Also, exchanging fluids with them in any way (their saliva in your wound, their blood in your wound, any part of their body in your mouth for attempted consumption) has a close to 100% chance of infecting you with that same mutagen. Suffice to say it has produced some deeply unsavory side effects thus far, so if that does come to pass, report back to the hospital ASAP.
Not everything can be covered in such a short time, so they're absolutely handing out a transcript of the
Ortech-released FAQ for further reading before
turning everyone loose to mingle around the spread of veggie platters and mini-sandwiches provided for the occasion.
Those who attempt to ask questions after or during the lectures get the general impression that these individuals are just doing their best to pass on what they've heard. They unanimously seem to recommend some form of, 'Rest and let your memories recover,
then strive for further information. And if you do hear anything new, consider passing on what you've learned," with a gesture to the email address or phone number on the back of one of the programs.
MOD NOTES
Welcome to our first intro mingle log for newbies and oldbies alike!
This log is meant to cover characters' first five days in Wayward Pines. Characters for this round will appear staggered in the hospital between the
3rd and the
5th, and some sort of Happening will appear on the
8th, after everyone has had a suitable amount of time to get settled in town. For the most part, only the five memories detailed in your character's application are remembered throughout the duration of this log, although further real memories + their false Wayward Pines memories may also begin to surface (in those who've opted to utilize this mechanic) as the week wears on. These false memories, as noted in the FAQ, feel very real and are accompanied by as much emotion or sentiment as a real memory would be.
NOTE: As detailed in your acceptance notice, characters can reclaim their belongings + a complimentary smartphone at the hospital's outpatient desk upon departure.
Not mentioned (although it will be in future rounds) is the fact that
if you've claimed housing for your character, a house key will also be included, along with the address to which it belongs!
PLEASE INCLUDE IN SUBJECT LINE:
Character Name,
date,
location, and
Open or
Closed, to help keep things organized and make your character easy to find.
If you have any questions regarding this intro log, feel free to ask them on the FAQ or the relevant plurk.
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pineslog2019-04-04 02:34 am
INTRODUCTION LOG
Ikrie | Various | Open
[It was the noise of the heart monitor that caused Ikrie's eyes to shoot open. That regular, tinny beep sounded just a little too much like a dangerous machine.
The name for it was lost to her, but she could picture it in her head: A four-legged, cat-like machine with the ability to make itself invisible. It made a noise like that when it was dropping mines around a target, to prevent them from escaping.
Needless to say, there was a little bit of panic to begin with. Even moreso when she realized that she didn't know where she was. If a nurse hadn't chosen to enter the room at around that time, who knows what Ikrie would have done.
Fortunately, a nurse did precisely that. And after an exchange of questions ("do you remember your name?" and "what do you remember" from the nurse, and "what is this place" and "where are my things" from Ikrie) she... Well, she doesn't calm down. Not exactly. But she starts to come up with a plan of action of how to deal with this situation.
Starting with getting her stuff from the front desk.
She makes a bee-line for the desk she's been directed to - pushing past anyone else who might be waiting at the desk for their own belongings.]
Excuse me. Yeah, that's mine - the spear and the blue clothes. Give it here.
[Is this a little rude? Yes. But, in her opinion, not as rude as taking them from her in the first place.
In any case, once she has the plastic tub with her stuff on, she makes her way into an unoccupied corner of the waiting area and just... starts changing into her clothes right there, as quickly as she can. Speed in getting out of this hospital is, apparently, much higher a priority than privacy.]
April 3rd - 8th, Around Town
[Ikrie doesn't like her house.
She remembers liking her house. She remembers growing up in this town, moving from foster house to foster house. She remembers being a troubled kid who developed a sense of responsibility as she grew older. She remembers joining the fire department, and the training and long hours involved. She remembers saving up every penny she got, until finally she could afford this house.
She remembers it not being perfect, but it being her house, something she had never had for herself before. She remembers being happy with this place - her place.
These memories feel real. There are some parts that are a little hazy, but that's probably because of the accident, right? For the most part, though, they come to her as naturally as her memory of waking up in the hospital. The town around her, quiet and empty as it may be, seems to back these memories up.
But now? In the present? She doesn't like her house.
It doesn't feel right to her, in a way that's very difficult to describe. Like there's a second, more ephemeral set of memories rattling around in her head, telling her that these things are unnatural. Like she's spent her whole life living another way.
And so when Ikrie gets out of the hospital, she doesn't go home immediately. She spends very little time there, except to collect whatever belongings she wants to keep and throw them in a backpack.
From the 3rd onward, she can mostly be found wandering around town and sleeping outside, like some kind of spear-wielding vagrant. If she looks at all familiar to you, this... might be some cause for concern.]
april 3rd - if this isn't enough for ikrie to give a fuck about i can do better
his head ducks down between his shoulders, and he sidles off to the side enough that they'll leave him be. his eyes shift to the line (it's long, so long), then to the cat now rubbing urgently on the bars of the carrier and yowling a plaintive yowl. and honestly, lalli's about to make a second attempt when a woman storms up to front of the line and starts making demands.
lalli seizes the opportunity, skittering past the harried receptionist on quick, light steps to snatch the bundle of belongings under one arm while the other hand opens the carrier to snag the cat with the other. (it gets halfway through another very attention-grabbing yowl before he interrupts with a scolding fssst and skitters that much faster.)
he doesn't make it far, ducking just around the corner - still visible from most of the waiting room seating, even if not from the desk - before setting down everything in his arms and hastily changing into his clothes much like the demanding stranger seems to be doing. his hood is quickly pulled up over his head, arms crossing under his chest as he surveys the rest of his belongings with the vague but obvious unease of someone who doesn't 100% recall ever having owned them. ❱
Mrr, ❰ he exhales, palms lifting to press on the sides of his head in irritation. ❱
sorry for the late reply
Obviously he's somewhat in the same boat as her - he woke up here without access to his belongings, and now he wants to get them and get out of here. That certainly raises a few questions, but Ikrie is too occupied getting her own shit together to do more than raise an eyebrow at him.
It isn't until she passes him on her way to the exit that something really catches her eye.]
...is that a cat?
[Was that just... hanging out by the front desk with all of her stuff? What kind of place is this?]
sorry for the even later one
lalli glances up to her, then down to the cat, then back up to her. ❱
... Yes? ❰ this seems like an obvious question, which means there's some other layer to it that lalli isn't picking up on. ❱
My cat. ❰ a beat. ❱ Probably.
around town.
it's late, and though there's an edge of tiredness, there's a part of peter that says he should be going to bed at a reasonable hour — he has to get up early in the morning for work, after all — there's another part of him that feels a degree of familiarity at being out on the streets at an otherwise (almost) unsociable hour. the feelings — because that's all they are — are things he contemplates momentarily before mentally shoving to one side (he'll think on them later.)
it doesn't take him long to find her; there's a brief moment where he appraises her before: ] Hey. [ a beat and a quirk of a smile. ] Mind if I join you?
Re: around town.
She's looks up at him from her spot on the ground. She hasn't made a fire tonight, so the two of them are lit by only the light of a small lantern.
Peter's always been a good guy, more or less. As a kid, she kind of resented him for that, but that's not a feeling she held onto. As an adult, she likes him well enough. She'd like him a little more if she didn't feel like she was about to get a lecture, but that's alright.]
Sure, if you want. [She pats the ground beside her.] Pull up some dirt.
no subject
—right, frankly.
nevertheless, he takes a seat next to her on the ground, the 'you couldn't have picked somewhere comfier, like a bench?' getting lost somewhere between the thought and the utterance; instead, he goes with the slightly more pressing question of: ] You know you've got a perfectly good bed indoors, right? [ a breath of a pause and peter glances up at the sky. as always, he's amazed at the number of visible stars. he shoots her a glance, sidelong and with a sliver of humour. ] —And you're lucky you've got me, and not my aunt.
no subject
[That isn't meant as an insult or a jab. May is good people, and it's clear that Peter took after her in a lot of ways.]
You don't have to worry about me, I'm just changing stuff up for a little bit. Trying to figure some things out.
no subject
Most people figure things out with a pint of ice cream and bad TV. [ beat. ] Or late night phonecalls and a conversation, not— [ he waves a hand loosely at their surroundings. ] this.
no subject
[Well, not those things specifically. Ikrie's not even sure she has a television in her house, actually.
But all these ammenaties... as familiar as they are, they still feel alien to her somehow. And trying to ignore that feeling, or tell herself that it isn't true, feels just as alien.]
Pete, do you ever feel like you're in the wrong place?
no subject
Yeah, [ he answers at length, with a twist of his lips and a flicker of doubt; he thinks again of that discomfort in a small town, that feeling that he ought to be somewhere bigger, up somewhere higher. ] but that's also known as wanderlust.
no subject
I know what wanderlust is Peter. It's not that.
[She has to pause for a moment, to figure out how to verbalize this feeling in a way that Peter will understand.]
I'm talking about... have you ever needed to be somewhere, and you don't realize until the last second that you had the wrong address? And you aren't in the right place?
It's that feeling. But for everything.
[She sits down on a couch, and it's the wrong place. She goes into a bakery and it's the wrong place. She goes into the building that's supposed to be her house, and it's definitely not the right place.
It's been keeping her up at night. She can't seem to get comfortable anywhere. The only thing that feels right is being out beneath the open sky.]
AFTER LITERAL YEARS...
—this is home. it's a small town, it's not always (rarely) exciting, but it is what it is—
(isn't it?)
he stretches his legs out in front of himself, remaining silent for a few moments longer before exhaling. it's audible, almost a sigh, before finally— ] Everything? [ as if to confirm, because he's still not really sure how he's supposed to respond; a glance. ] Except camping in your back yard.
It's okay! I've been busy as well.
It's not that she doesn't think he's taking her seriously. He's a kind person, and he wouldn't be sitting down with her if he wasn't genuinely concerned. But ever since they were kids, his first reflex has always been to just... deflect a little bit. Like a shrug and a smile, maybe a little joke, will keep things from being not okay.
It doesn't take very long for him to give her an actual response, though. And his question actually gives her a little pause.
Why does she feel better sleeping outdoors? Inside the house feels wrong, of course, but so does the rest of the town. Shouldn't she feel just as out of place out here?
There's a moment of contemplation, as she considers this, before Peter gets his response.]
...just about everything, yeah.
[She turns her gaze away from Pete and up to the night sky.
There's a familiarity there, between the stars and herself, that Ikrie doesn't quite understand.]
The stars are fine, though. They feel right.
no subject
the stars. okay, well that's — something. his gaze flickers upwards for a moment and he leans backwards. ] Is this where you tell me you're getting into astrology? It's fine, I know I'm a libra. [ pause. there had been a brief period of time, when peter had been a boy, where he'd imagined being an astronaut, where he'd imagined when he was an adult humanity would have found a way to travel to distant worlds and stars.
occasionally that idea doesn't feel as it nonsensical as it sounds. ] —Did you ever learn the names of the constellations?
around town
he deals with this looming sense of wrongness the same way he deals with most troublesome things, he avoids it. the house becomes more of a closet or waystation than a place to sleep, stopping in just long enough to soak himself pruney in a bath and change his clothes before he's out and roaming the streets again, long into the nights.
the first time he winds up sleeping outside on a park bench is the first time things start to feel more normal, and even then there's something so clean about this place that it still manages to feel a bit unnatural.
at least outside he can breathe.
it doesn't take him very long to realize he's not the only weirdo haunting the streets, and after he crosses paths with ikrie for the third time in as many days he stops short of moving on, leans back against a lamppost and pulls out a pack of cigarettes, body language open and relaxed. ]
Re: around town
It's kind of a relief, to be honest. Plenty of the town's population has been treating her like she's in the middle of having some kind of breakdown, or like her willing decent into vagrancy has turned her into some kind of undesirable. It's good to know that someone else, at least, doesn't feel right about living where they're supposed to in this town.
The third time they cross paths, she seems him open up a bit. She's able to take a hint, and so she takes her backpack off and sits down on a bench not far from Klaus's lamp post.
She doesn't say anything at first, just reaches into her pack and takes out a small bag of jerky. She takes a piece for herself and then extends the bag in her temporary companion's direction.]
no subject
Want some? I promise it's the good stuff.
[ he dangles the flask invitingly between them with one hand and fiddles about a bit clumsily with the other to fish out a single cigarette from its case, place it in his mouth, and successfully light it all without dropping any of them. it's only experience that makes any of this possible, and even then he very nearly flubs the return of the lighter and cigarette case to his jacket pocket.
and then he makes a show of waving the now empty hand about as if he's meant to do all that as some sort of very strange show. ] Ta-dah~
no subject
Its not that she doesn't drink, or that she can't hold her liquor, mind you.
It's just that lately, ever since her 'accident' that ended with her in the hospital, the whole town feels... off. Wrong in a way that's hard to describe.
She grew up here, of course. And, after spending her whole life in Wayward Pines, she can't remember a time when it was ever a dangerous place. But still, a nagging feeling in her gut demands that she keep her wits about her.]
...Not tonight, bur thanks.
[His little trick with the lighter and the cigarette case earn him a small, amused smirk.]
Do you do tricks to impress everyone you meet, or just your fellow vagrants?
no subject
he grins wide and easy at ikrie in response to her question and winks in an exaggerated fashion that makes it clear the gesture isn't any sort of effort in flirtation. ] Only the especially stunning ones.