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

Marie hadn't even noticed the mailbox on her way in, too enamored with the house itself to pay any attention to the list of names posted. Especially when she'd stepped inside and gotten a real look at the place. Fully furnished and decorated as if someone had been there for a while, on the surface it looked like a normal home that she could easily be returning to. Except... there wasn't any food in the kitchen. At all. And there was nothing personal that she could see. No photographs, no mementos, nothing to show that she herself had ever been there before. But this was her house, wasn't it? That's what she'd been told, and the key had fit in the lock.

The sudden sound of a voice calling out startled her perhaps more than it should have. She jumped, nearly knocking over a dining room chair in the process, before quickly turning to peer toward the entry.

"Hello?"

The inside of the house was as foreign to him as the outside had been. If his name hadn't been on the mailbox, he wouldn't have thought this was his place, at all. Not that his name even felt right, either; because it seemed completely off to him.

So far, the one thing that felt even remotely familiar was the scent of the person in the kitchen. It wasn't much; just a vague sense that, yeah, he'd been around her before. At least that was promising.

"Uh... It's just me," he said, coming around the corner into the kitchen. Because yes. That should clear things up for her.

There was something familiar about the man who came around the corner, looking just a little uncomfortable, the vaguest air of hesitation around him. (Or maybe that was Marie projecting her own emotions onto him.) She didn't recognize him, but she felt certain that they knew each other.

"You live here too?" she asked in response, crossing her arms in an effort not to fidget too much. Hopefully he had some answers to the million questions running through her mind. Hell, she'd take just one or two at this point.

That definitely wasn't what he expected to hear. His brows drew together as he gave her a nod, taking in her appearance and trying like hell to get something to click aside from her scent. It wasn't working.

"I'm James." The inflection of his voice almost turned it into a question. "You don't know who I am?"

Shaking her head, Marie shifted slightly, giving him a once-over as she tried to remember... something. Anything. But all she could find was more fog and static.

"If I know you, I don't remember it," she admitted regretfully. "My name's Marie." It didn't matter how many times she said it, it still felt strange on her tongue.

He just assumed these women would know what was going on and be able to fill him in. The implication of what she was saying, however, hit him. Kind of like the another tree.

"Hold on. You don't remember me, or living here? Or both?" Marie did look pretty run down, like maybe she'd just gone through some shit. He healed, and that explained why he wasn't showing any signs of having just been in a motorcycle accident.

"I don't remember either," she confirmed, dropping her arms to her side and leaning back against the kitchen table. "Or much of anything. My name, that I'm a teacher... A few other things that aren't all that comforting."

Letting her head fall forward, she wondered if she looked as lost as she felt. "They said I was in an accident." Did he know that?

"I remember living in a school..." he said, only hesitating a few seconds before he continued. Out on the street and in the hospital, he'd had no qualms about flashing around his claws, so it wasn't a big deal to admit the rest, right? "...A school for mutants."

He took a couple of steps toward her, the furrow of his brows deepening. "I crashed my bike into a tree. Were you with me?"

A school for mutants. That sounded so familiar, but she couldn't--

He'd had an accident as well. Looking up with wide eyes, she shook her head. "I don't know. They didn't tell me and I don't remember anything about it."

She was silent for a moment before quietly asking, "You're a mutant too?" Were there others in the town? Were they able to be open about what they were? Was that why they lived together? Her head was spinning with questions that far outnumbered the answers she had access to.

He balled his fists and swore under his breath, clearly becoming agitated. "If we were both in the same accident, and those fucks in the hospital didn't even tell me about you..." What? What was he going to do, go back and stab them? No. And who was he really more pissed off with; them, or himself? It might have been his fault Marie had been in an accident in the first place.

By way of responding, his claws popped out, though he was careful that they were pointed away from her. He was angry, but this was somebody he didn't want to scare. How he knew that, he had no idea. "You too?"

Despite the fact that a big, somewhat menacing stranger was getting agitated at their situation, Marie wasn't at all wary or frightened of him. There was something in her whispering that he wouldn't hurt her, and since she didn't really have much else to go on, she listened to it. When those claws suddenly came out of nowhere, though? Yeah, she jumped a little.

"Yeah," she confirmed with a nod, her eyes still wide and focused on the metal claws. "Are those... part of your mutation?" It sounded half right to her, but there were pieces of the puzzle missing and trying to reach for them through all the fog in her mind just made her head ache.

"The metal's not. It's bone underneath. I remember a lab, where they opened me up." His other hand hovered over his extended claws as he looked up at her and then back down, frowning. "I think the metal is all through me. And they were only able to put it there because of this," he explained, nicking his finger on one of his claws and holding it up for her to see the way it healed almost instantly.

The lab was the first memory that had come back to him when he woke up in the hospital, and it sure as hell hadn't made him happy to be surrounded by medical equipment at the time. Growling under his breath, he tried to force that out of his mind. They had other things to worry about here and now.

"What can you do?"

He could heal himself when he was injured. He had metal throughout his body. All of it sounded absolutely crazy, and yet-- It wasn't. Everything he said registered with her as true and like something she'd heard before. Well, that made sense, since apparently they'd known each other before their accidents. Of course they would have known about their respective mutations.

Marie swallowed thickly before holding up a gloved hand. "When I touch someone with my skin, it-- Something happens. I think I... take part of them into me. I don't remember everything, but I know it could kill someone." That was why she was so completely covered, why she'd been careful whenever she'd gotten close to anyone that day. She didn't want to hurt people.

His gaze focused on her upraised hand for a long moment, before flicking briefly to the white in her hair and then settling on her face. That didn't sound crazy at all. In fact, he was pretty sure he knew somebody--probably Marie, herself--from the school he used to live in, who had those abilities. Based on the fragments of memories from his time there, at the other school, he probably would venture to guess that not much would surprise him, in that regard.

He nodded, accepting her mutation as if it were just a normal thing. Because he thought it probably was. "If you wanna try it out, I'd let you. I can cut myself and heal. I'd let you try your powers on me. Worse has been done to me, before, I think. When they experimented with the adamantium."

Marie could remember teaching at a school with other people like her, but the exact details and any related emotions were too distant for her to reach. Like it had been a long time ago, or that she had been apart from it all, but mixed in was something... unpleasant, an inkling at which she didn't want to look too closely.

"Thank you," she replied with a small smile, truly grateful for the offer. "I appreciate the offer, sugar. I might take you up on it, once I have a better idea of... anything, really." Part of her wanted to try it right then and there, certain that it would help knock something loose in her mind, but she wasn't ready to take a risk like that - because she might not know much, but she did know that it would be a risk. For the both of them.

"Fair enough," he said, retracting his claws. They disappeared back into his arm, and the three cuts they'd left between his knuckles knitted closed withing moments.

Part of him also really wanted her to try it out, to test not only her power, but his own. His body could heal, but from what extent of injuries? The asshole doctors had said nothing about the specifics, of how bad he'd been hurt during his accident; and he didn't have a single bruise to show for it. Had he healed broken bones, torn skin? Or just cuts and bruises? How long had it taken?

So many questions, but she was probably right. It was probably reckless, on his part, even if he was still vaguely entertaining the idea of testing his powers himself later.

"You look at the rest of the house, yet? Somebody else lives here, too, but, uh. I don't know her, either. Someone named Kate?" He gestured beyond the kitchen and took a few steps in that direction. They might as well take the tour together. "We're the only ones here right now, though," he added, almost as an afterthought.

She didn't blink at the way those cuts in his hands healed, didn't even find it all that fascinating, it just seemed... normal. That was the strange part, the unsettling thing about all of this. It all seemed normal, to be talking about things like this with someone. But it would be incredibly reckless to start experimenting when they didn't know how far things could go within the range of safety.

"I haven't been upstairs yet," she said with a shake of her head, "and I haven't seen anyone else here yet either." He could tell that they were alone? Tilting her head in curiosity, she decided just to go ahead and ask. "How can you tell we're the only ones here?"

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(april intro) WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES!

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