@stephen.strange | via morningstar network, a couple of days after cassius' post

[rehandle]

[ It isn't real. That's a fact upon a fact: none of it is real, but this even less so.

Usually, knowledge matters. It had for a while here too. Taken him from staggering frantically down part-collapsed tunnels over obstacles whose names he didn't know, calls giving way to bellows, in search first of life and then just of obstacles whose names he did know— to sitting quietly, raking thick air into his lungs, body too beleaguered to be good for more than waiting for the day to end.

And eventually he'd slept. And the day did end. And when he woke and turned on his flashlight to gear himself up for greeting the millions who ought now to be staggering back down into the tunnels, fresh from their reset - he'd found them exactly where he'd left them.

This will not be ending soon. This will not be over until somebody makes it so. But his thoughts won't be gathered into shape. The wall at his back is still hot from the blast. The air is cloying. His skin sloughs under his touch.

The quiet is too heavy. He needs the reminder. ]



Talk to me
Please



[ ooc: for those in the sim, none of the things described in the above brackets will be visible to anyone but him, but Stephen will have been seen by some about half a day before this post searching haphazardly around the tunnels, calling both in general and then specifically for people, then staring very intently with varying expressions of grim hopelessness at patches of nothing, and eventually giving that up for sitting very quietly on the ground in a tunnel somewhere. He's non-responsive to attempts to interact with him throughout and wouldn't previously have been replying to any attempts to contact him via the network either.

Feel free to assume your character has spotted him or been aggressively bumped into by him or heard about him being Weird, or on the flipside to have no idea he's been acting like he's having a really bad trip. ]

Comments

[angerberg]

There must be a way to make it more permanent.

[ looking at him like this leaves her exhausted and furious, makes more pronounced the powerlessness of their circumstances. she won't be powerless again. she didn't give up everything about her life just to be powerless. ]

[rehandle]

It'll be permanent when we're all out.

[angerberg]

There's nothing noble in suffering for suffering's sake.

[rehandle]

Even less so when there's nothing else to be done.

I'll be out when there's a way out. Until then, I'll survive.

[ Or he won't. Over and over, one way or another, he'll be here when it's done. So, on that note. ]

There's no food or water here that I can find.

[ If he can't get out, he's going to need to find a way to accept practical help. ]

[angerberg]

If you're asking me for something, then ask.

[ she would have protected his dignity if he'd had the sense to prioritize himself getting out for a more substantial time. ]

[rehandle]

[ The need for dignity is long dead. There's no trace of annoyance on his face, no hesitation. If she does this it'll be a favor on top of a great debt. ]

Water, please.

[angerberg]

Will you know to swallow it? I've no desire to help you drown yourself.

[ and he certainly seems in the state for it. if he's going to ask her to mercy kill him, he can ask properly. not aspirate on water. ]

[rehandle]

I'll try touching it first. If that works it should be safe enough

[angerberg]

[ she moves carefully. covers her hand with her sleeve before she takes his wrist to set his hand on her canteen as she hands it off to him. she doesn't let it go right away, ready for the possibility that he won't feel it at all. he seems so gone to her, this body entirely separate from the man she speaks to. but she tries. ]