video;

[screwedontight]

{Open}

[For those that know Seth, he's looking much better than he has for months. Pulled together, all sharp creases and straight lines. There's no dark circles under his eyes and he doesn't seem to have a glass in front of him. At least for now.

He also looks bitterly amused.]

A guy goes out into the woods for one freaking week to try and get his head on straight and you all go nuts. Nice to see that much as some things change, everything else just remains the same.

With a week or so of sobering up and learning my paranoia apparently has jackshit to do with my diet of scotch and whiskey, I had a thought that came to me and if I have to live with these thoughts, so do the rest of you.

How do we know that everyone that vanishes goes home? I mean, what if some of those that are positive about serial killers and criminals in our midst... [Hello, pot? This is the kettle.] ... what if they're right and someone's bumping people off and we just assume they're being sent home like so many others?

After that thought, not sure if sobriety will pay off but we'll see how long it lasts.

{Locked to Chloe}

How are you?

{Locked to Maggie}

Where are you? Are you okay?

Comments

Locked

[talesuntold]

[Maggie, on the contrary, looks worse for wear, tired and a little dirty.]

I could have done without that bit of paranoia, you know. [Mostly because of Buffy. But she knows she isn't the only one who's had a loved one sent home, and it isn't a surprising thought. There's no actual annoyance in her voice.]

I've spent a week on a less voluntary camping trip, but I'm in one piece. I'll be back soon. Give me a chance to get cleaned up and check on a few people, then come over?

Locked

[screwedontight]

Did it get you? I'm hearing that it got into people's heads and sent them after others. It didn't get you, did it?

[Already he's showered, and working on getting his on body weapons back in place. That's what he got for leaving it behind. That's the lesson he's learned. Seth isn't good at lessons.]

Re: Locked

[talesuntold]

It didn't. I'm fine, or will be once I've spent some time around people. I'm don't do well in isolation. Shepard said it can infect technology, so I wasn't even willing to risk messages. [She was lonely, and scared, and she hated it, but those are all easier to recover from than lasting trauma would be.]

video

[testcase]

[She'll just check her notes before responding and breathe a sigh of relief that there's probably not a serial killer on the loose.]

Um, if there was someone like that, wouldn't their victims just come back?

video

[screwedontight]

That depends. I mean, we only know what Wonderland tells us. What if they're in on it together?

Or worse, they're not killing them. You can make a room anything you want. Why not a labyrinth? Why not a prison?

[He snorts.]

I spent a week out in the woods trying to get my head on straight. All I learned is that I think too much.

video

[testcase]

[And there goes that sigh of relief, never to return because that is terrifying.]

Can you really make something like that?

[She really had no idea.]

video;

[eatsyourscience]

Are you thinking that people don't always come back from dying?

[That's a disturbing thought, but not one Souji's quite willing to buy into.]

video;

[screwedontight]

Maybe? Again, it's all Wonderland's words and promises, so I'm not sure what I believe.

But someone got me thinking about what would happen if someone like that came here and what Wonderland might let them get away with. Not like they could let victims walk around telling their story, right?

video;

[eatsyourscience]

So what kind of scenario are you thinking of?

[He can think of a scenario in which a person could be kept "dead" permanently. Something like burying them--they'd revive only to suffocate and die again over and over.]

private video;

[thevulnerability]

Not great, honestly, and that- [ She gestures towards her device with a wave of her hand. ] Didn't really help. If someone was killing people off, and for whatever reason they didn't come back, why does all their stuff disappear? Is your hypothetical killer a kleptomaniac, too?

[ She's super not in the mood for this, Seth. ]

private video;

[screwedontight]

Well none of it is helping me either. Someone put it in my head though, and Evelyn even ... she said something once about her deaths that just always sat with me weird.

I don't know, but I trust Wonderland less and less every day, and this shit they apparently threw at everyone? Kind of did in anything.

[And a ton of it is guilt for being out doing his own shit and not being there for Chloe or Maggie.]

I'd ask if there was anything I can do but I suspect you're a hundred and ten percent done with my shit.

[Again, his own guilt manifesting.]

Which I understand.

private video;

[thevulnerability]

Then why do you do this to yourself? Why do you fixate on things that make you unhappy?

[ Not that she can talk lately. Chloe has always been good at blocking out the things that hurt, the things she doesn't want to think about. Wonderland makes that hard, though, with all the killing. Not like at home, not the victims she can feel bad for, the strangers that she can distance herself from just enough to make it tolerable.

No. Wonderland just kills the people she loves. ]

I'm not done, Seth, I just... With what happened in the last event, this is the last thing I want to think about.

[ He's not the only one dealing with guilt, after all. ]

[Audio]

[shslliar]

[Okay... The Network isn't brainwashing people anymore...]

[Good. He'll just use audio, then. Ignore the shuffling of objects in the background.]

Ya know, you should probably ask someone who had actually went poof for a bit and came back? Because I've been there.

[Audio]

[screwedontight]

Oh I've talked to them. Talked to a lot of them since over half this place has apparently died at one time or another.

I'm thinking those we can't talk to, and we assume went back to our own worlds. That's what's gotten in my head. Took some time for myself and my mind got to overthinking things. I accept that.

[Audio]

[shslliar]

Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure there isn't a serial killer murdering people. Otherwise, we'd have a lot of evidence left behind from when people leave.

[His killing game experience taught him that.]

[lifeisntfun]

WOW, you are a ray of sunshine.

But, if it's a serial killer, where are all the bodies? Are we going to open one of these magic closets and find a ton of corpses?

You've given me way too much to think about.

[screwedontight]

Yeah, that's me. Mister Positivity.

Sadly I had that in my head too. Not a good thought either.

We can turn our rooms into anything, right? Which means the doorways may not be seen, and who knows what's in them. All of them. Or how many there actually are.

video;

[endingpoint]

We all have pretty much taken Wonderland and other people's experiences at face value.

[ Jane pauses, wetting her lips a little and shaking her head. ]

I was killed by a person, but it was during an event. So obviously, you mean someone who isn't being controlled or directed. You mean if Ted Bundy showed up and was one of us?

[ Just to clarify. ]

video;

[screwedontight]

Yeah, that's kinda what got into my head. We're told we die and come back, but what proof do we have telling us that's all it is? We just accept that because it's shitty enough on its own, right?

[And not thoughts he needed, but being the dick he is, he shares to try and help himself. Even if it may mess up others.]

Yeah, like that. I mean, not saying I'm straight and proper back in my own life, but my gig wasn't killing people for fun. [Profit could turn things, but not fun, and not much profit in Wonderland.]

So what happens then? If someone like that shows up?

[video]

[punful]

[With total, complete exhaustion,] ignorance is bliss, my dude.

[video]

[screwedontight]

Sure, maybe.

Or people we love don't end up back in our lives or some shit.

Besides ignorance here means them wiping your memories. You want that?

video;

[insincerecharm]

[Both brows arch toward her hairline as she listens to the thoughts he chooses to share with the masses at large. Becks understands paranoia, and she hardly can blame him for that. But this isn't a line of thought she had reached just yet and she's a bit torn between being impressed and appalled.]

To be real plain and blunt, I think we're fucked if a serial killer shows up here.

As for what happens to people-- [A wave of her hand.] I'm too new to know much beyond the basics, but my understanding is people have more or less confirmed that they do, in fact, go home. Because of the whole bouncing back and forth and sometimes having the memories of being here before thing.

video;

[screwedontight]

Yeah, pretty much what I got to thinking too. I blame some new guy for putting it in my head.

[And one day he might have to pay that man back. After all that he's had haunting his thoughts? Definitely.]

That's the thing though. We know most do. We can't confirm all though. I've never been here before, best we can tell. My brother and our Kate hasn't come back. Others never come back. So it's not either or, but maybe both?

video;

[saunteredvaguelydownwards]

I'd notice a serial killer. [Crowley says this quite bluntly, though he doesn't go on to fill Seth in on whether or not there actually is one of them around at the moment.

The last time he saw Seth was... well, 'awkward' isn't exactly the word for it, but it's actually something of a relief to see that the guy has his face back. And isn't singing anymore. He thinks the second part of that is actually the best.]

Teetotal now, are you?

video;

[screwedontight]

Wait, no, you don't get to change subjects on that.

[Sorry, Crowley, he has to push that one.]

Like you would notice what they're doing, or if you look at them you would know what they were and had done? Do you know that about people?

And no. Not. No. Just got sober because I couldn't remember the last time I had been sober.