pineslog | (april intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

(april intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

INTRODUCTION LOG

waking up

There was an accident. That's basically the only thing you know for certain. Maybe a car wreck - metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the screaming. Or maybe there was an explosion. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. You can't can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can remember.

It's also the last thing you remember from before you wake up here.

When you open your eyes, the accident is gone. Instead, you're in a hospital bed. You're sluggish, covered in a scattering of minor injuries you only vaguely remember getting, not to mention the vaguely-healed remnants of any wounds you might've had before.

It's a shame you won't be able to tell the difference between the two. Your memories are an indiscernible fog if not absent altogether, only a few standing out in your mind with any kind of certainty.

Whether or not the room's empty when you wake, it's not for long. Nurses bustle in looking a bit tired and worn at the edges, like a blurred photograph. They take your vitals and ask your name and anything else you might remember with an air of exhausted distraction about them, and maybe even eye your bed with a look of vacant yearning for a moment before managing to rouse themselves again. Welcome to Wayward Pines, 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 placating speculation of head trauma “from the accident”. You'll be told to stay put, not to push yourself, and to wait for the doctor to clear you before you leave... though it might be awhile. Then you'll be left alone. The hospital's population is quadruple the usual, and you get the impression the nurses are working themselves ragged just running damage control. You can even leave your room without much fuss - whichever doctor or nurse intercepts you gets called away almost immediately to deal with something even more pressing.

There was an outbreak last week after all, some of the more chatty staff might be persuaded to share. Oh, nothing to worry about now, it's all been taken care of, but there's always so many details to take care of after a scare like that and, look, you should probably come straight back to the hospital if you start feeling sick, okay? Just in case. But honestly, you have nothing to worry about.

Mingle, visit your fellow patients, worry a bit anyway, even poke around for a few basic answers. Or maybe, maybe just stroll right on out the front door.

heading outside

One step outside and it's perfectly clear that your hospital gown simply isn't going to cut it for long. A crisp winter wind whips at you through the thin cloth and all around your is the slowly melting evidence of an earlier snow storm, clumps of dirty snow along the edges of buildings and sidewalks, sad misshapen snowmen sliding into slush across a few front lawns. You're probably standing in a small puddle right now, just by a simple law of averages. Geez that water's cold.

Trees line the street at regular intervals, carefully manicured and lightly dusted in snow. Cars cruise by at a safe and respectable speed. Pedestrians spare you glances, some wary and some concerned.

This isn't even the picturesque city center, though a colorful nearby sign reads "Main Street" with an arrow pointing due south, followed in smaller font by a list of businesses you don't recognize and one that you might: Wayward Pines Police Department. Whether you asked for yourself or simply overheard, you've likely caught wind by now that all of your earthly possessions now lie with the Sheriff until you see fit to claim them.

Might as well head that way, right?

items reclaimed

So you've visited the Wayward Pines Police Department and reclaimed... well. Most of your stuff, anyway, though you can't quite remember what's missing, and asking the sheriff only gets you a harried look and a form to fill out if you have any concerns. Best to put it out of mind, as you head down the steps toward the Main Street sidewalk. At the very least, pedestrians have stopped looking at you like you're sick or crazy. (Then again, depending on what you're wearing, maybe it's gotten worse.)

The sheriff also forked over what looks like the key to a house ("A cozy place to stay while you're here in town."), and a general direction to start looking for the house that key belongs to, the sheriff pulled away to deal with some other pressing issue before he could give you more detailed instructions. You could check it out, see what kind of digs they're putting you up in. If you can even find it, that is.

Or you could stick around Main Street and sight-see a little. Also a perfectly viable option. Hell, maybe it'll jog your memory a little. A few of the shops do feel inexplicably familiar...

MOD NOTES

Welcome to the third newbie mingle log!

This log is meant to cover characters' first day in Wayward Pines. For the most part, only the five memories detailed in your character's application are remembered throughout the duration of this log, although the first couple of false Wayward Pines memories might begin to surface (in those who've opted to utilize this mechanic) as the day wears on. These memories, as noted in the FAQ, feel very real and are accompanied by as much emotion or sentiment as a real memory would be.

PLEASE INCLUDE IN SUBJECT LINE: Character Name, location, and Open or Closed, to help keep things a bit more organized.

If you have any questions regarding this intro log, feel free to ask them on the FAQ or the relevant plurk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jack remembers everything now--where he comes from, what happened in Pandemonium, where he should be after what had happened in Pandemonium--and cautious compliance is the result. A month has yielded no concrete way out of here, just plenty of examples of why testing the authorities is risky business.

After the sheriff recently hauled both of his roommates to the police station, one for "questioning" and the other under arrest, Jack's felt eyes on him ever since, whether imagined or not. He's been a paragon of good behavior since, head down, mouth shut. It's all pretend, but pretending is the key to blending in around here.

On the flip side, the quickest way to draw attention: do what this guy's doing. Whirling away from one of the notice papers with agitation in his face and voice, demanding answers so that people give him a wide berth.

Holy crap.

"Did someone mention jokes? As a joke master, you won't find anyone better at them than me," Jack says, making for the man in the suit in the hopes of intervening before this gets ugly. The cape tied around his neck billows slightly with the movement. It's an eye-catching addition to an otherwise unremarkable fashion ensemble, well-made and a bright, bloody red. The only thing brighter might be the bright smile he fixes on Sam. Play along, play along, play along.

"It's all right, man, maybe you should just--take a breath." His hand hovers near Sam's elbow, an attempt to gently steer him around to face the building and not the eyes of onlookers. Nothing to see here, everybody, nothing at all.

He feels the immediate, defensive need to say he isn't crazy. It's something about the smile, the hand at his elbow, the whole benevolent guidance vibe.

"I can breathe-- I am breathing-- I'm fine." All right, fine, he's not doing a great job of being convincingly un-crazy. He'll take the hint and turn away from the street, take a deep breath... and hold it with a look on his face that says he's liable to go off again at any moment.

Play along. It's Jack's mantra, and he wills this adult to make it his, too, with a smile that's infectiously light. A little too light in the face of Sam's tension, maybe. "Good. Take it from somebody who knows, you don't want to be not fine in front of these people."

On the surface, it's a glib reply, but there's a subtle meaning slipped into the words. Advice, if Sam's in the position to hear it.

But why's this guy acting out all of a sudden? It's been a month or more for those of them who'd woken up after The Accident, the convenient one-size-fits-all cover story. Long enough to learn the authorities aren't fucking around with those dumb rules. Long enough to know making scenes aren't wise. Unless he's decided enough's enough. Or unless--

Oh.

"Haven't seen you around before. Are you... new?" he asks, a new thought creeping over him.

The warning disarms Sam's outrage. He looks the kid over -- really looks -- and notices the cape, which is odd, but what he said was odder, and thus gets primary focus.

So it's not universal. The averted eyes, the unnerved looks, the tight smiles. There are people here who recognize something is... off.

Then Jack goes and asks if he's new, which sets off a fresh wave of anxiety and the sinking loneliness Sam never expected to accompany loss of memory. He has to take a moment and pull himself together, put on the proper performance for someone Jack's age, the lie of self-possession. Which is promptly undermined when he says, "I don't remember."

"It's okay. Don't worry about it. Things will start coming back to you soon." There's a loneliness in remembering, too, but it doesn't filter into Jack's kindly reassurance like he's the one trying to help a lost kid on the street and not the other way around.

Sympathy comes easily when you've been in the other person's shoes and you know exactly how agonizing the fit is.

"How about your name? Do you remember that?" Amiably, he puts out a hand, smile beaming. "I'm Jack. I... had some amnesia issues, too, a while back, but I was lucky enough to have some stuff with my name written on it."

"And what if they don't?"

That is not an appropriate question to ask someone this kid's age. He takes a deep breath - the sort of inhalation that goes on longer than it seems like it should - and lets it out in a sigh as he reaches up to adjust glasses that aren't there. Instead he just... fingers the air near his face for a moment and looks confused.

"Never mind. I do remember that. Samuel Norman Seaborn, though I have to wonder what I ever did to deserve the Norman."

He's about to go off on some tangent, he can feel it coming, when he realizes Jack just said I had some amnesia issues too.

"Amnesia issues? Is this a thing that happens here?"

Yikes, poor guy. Had Jack been this visibly out of sorts when he'd been gluing the pieces of his shattered memory together? He has a sinking suspicion he was. Back then, he'd been scared the intense violence he remembered meant there was something wrong with him and treated everyone around him like mirrors that could hopefully reflect something about himself.

That's the uncanny thing about being here--the way this place gets in your head, turns what you know into a confused medley of half-grasped images and thoughts.

Jack returns his hand to his side whether or not Sam takes him up on the handshake or is too distracted to notice the offer. "Well... kind of? I guess?" That's not very reassuring, is it? "Lots of people in town are pretty accident prone. I was in the hospital last month."

The truth is stranger than he can put into words, even if he could explain the impossibility of his second chance without being recorded by a listening device. His phantoma had been damaged--damaged beyond saving. The only place he should've ended up was a morgue. And yet...

"Don't worry," he says again, injecting confidence into his voice. "I was in a bad way and I turned out fine. The law of averages is on your side."

Sam doesn't notice the hand. He's easily distracted at the best of times, monofocused during the majority of them, and there's far too much going on in his head (right now a cavernous, echoing place, thoughts scattered and bouncing off each other and into walls of blankness).

"You were in the hospital." Deep breath, quiet exhale, lips bit together in a habitual motion. He barely notices his own actions. "Right. Just like everyone else, apparently. And why, by the way, should I not express how blatantly ridiculous these guidelines are?"

The guy's forgiven. Jack can hardly blame someone for not having either the willingness or the stomach to play along with the everything-is-rosy welcome wagon. It just so happens Jack can, with the right mix of well-practiced smiles and experience acting normal while under surveillance.

He doesn't have an answer for why they have to act a part, just that it might save their skins. Why is why he desperately hopes the stranger will hold his tongue before he blurts something out that could lead to a confrontation with the sheriff. Jack's had his own run-ins with the man--a bit too pudgy around his waistline to be a fighter, by all rights, but he's an enforcer, and he has resources at his beck and call that could make life hard for a person.

Harder.

It's chancy, what he does next, given it could just as easily work the man up even further, but in the event the other hasn't seen the cameras yet, a warning is better than letting him continue on in ignorance. Jack puts a finger to his lips while continuing on as if nothing's amiss. "Because you can never be sure who's listening and they take rule-breaking seriously around these parts."

Something else Sam says sticks out--"everyone else"? One guy acting fresh off the boat could be coincidence. But if there are more...

Sam stares at him. Just. Stares at him. There's a funny ringing in his ears.

"You can't be saying what I think you're saying. Where are we? Is this the Cold War, because it sounds like you're telling me people around here enjoy punishing each other for thought crimes!"

If Jack were a golden retriever, his ears would perk up at the word war, given it's been a global hobby of his world's as long as he can remember. Still, that's not one he's heard of before.

"The Cold War?" His eyebrows perk up, if not his ears. Is that a real thing, or a Wayward Pines thing? Shit, better not to ask--he's getting them off topic.

There's a brief, considering pause before Jack slowly starts to nod. "Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying, actually. I mean, not the thinking part, but the vocal part. That's why people are give you a wide berth." Huh. This guy's pretty quick on the draw. Jack been ready for a hair-tearing, clothes-rending, lack-of-indoor-voice meltdown, but maybe this dude'll catch on by himself.

At no point just Jack try to justify that this is normal, because it sure as hell isn't that, but it's necessary to keep a low profile. Playing along seems like the safest best when the people in charge have every tactical advantage, up to and including the ability to fiddle with people's minds.

Edited 2017-04-21 09:17 (UTC)

Alas, it is but the calm before the storm.

Sam takes a deep breath. Closes his eyes. Opens them.

"The right to free speech is fundamental-- it's the most basic-- it's the First Amendment! Restrictions against freedom of speech are unconstitutional. You know what another word for that is? Felonious! As in federally criminal and prime to be overturned by even a state-wide court of appeals!"

He doesn't know how he knows this but he knows this. "Those signs, those rules, cannot be legally enforced."

Well, the man's taking his deep breaths, at least? That's something.

Jack looks around them, not so much checking for people who have overheard them (that's a given by now) as he is looking for someone who knows what Sam's talking about in the hopes of making eye contact and having someone explain. No such luck, just like every class room lecture Jack's ever attended and found himself confused in.

Honesty hour: "I don't really know what any of that means, but--" An optimistic but spoken in the vein of a student hoping to salvage their grade on a pop quiz, "--people with the means to enforce what they want get to decide the law. These people have the means, so you wanna be careful you don't get your idea of the law confused with theirs... you know?"

He's giving Sam a significant look as he says it. Jack's been on the receiving end of government oversight gone wrong, he knows a noose around his neck when he feels one. Whatever safety net the man thinks is there Jack thinks was cut free a while ago.

Nodding his head at a park bench nearby, he waves Sam over. "Come on, I'll show you. You might have a better view from over there." With this cryptic suggestion, he starts forward, looking over his shoulder in clear hope Sam will follow him.

No! No they don't! They--

[ His protests dwindle as Jack moves away and Sam considers what the boy says a little more carefully.

Jack is, to some degree, right.

Sam hates that. He follows, gathering his argument again. ]

Law should be a tool to protect those without power, an equalizer in a world of inequality. No man should be above it, and no community oppressed by it. That's what we work for, that's why we--

[ We who? He stops, realizing again he has no idea where he's getting all of this from. ]

"I know what you mean, but..." Hold that thought, mister.

Jack approaches the bench, but not to sit--he reaches for the snow-dusted bushes behind the bench, spreading the thick cluster of bare branches to reveal something small and black hidden within: a listening device.

"This is one of those situations where reality doesn't quite live up to a person's ideals," he explains ruefully, still calm, even borderline-flippant for the grave situation he's peeling back the layers to expose. But again, Sam gets a hopeful look. Maybe now he'll get it?

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(april intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

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