Audio/Action to SL; Day 110; Up and Dead Center

[heroproceeding]

[ You'd think this would be the easy part after working at this and only finally squaring things away.

Truth is? It's not.

Still gotta make this happen.

The audio catches the tail end of an exhale as he finally gets himself to just do it already. ]

So, me and Kain made a detour a while ago at the hospital. I know it might seem in bad taste, but we photographed everyone we found there. I figured it would help to... confirm some things. [ Closure. Evidence. An end to false hope. If that's what they want anyway. He isn't about to speak for them all. ]

It's probably kinda dated now, but we were trying to clean up the distortion some and get as many names down as we could. But honestly, we still don't know everyone we found there. So, if you know anyone we haven't identified, let me know. Thanks.

[ Attached Files: link.jpg, cullenrutherford.jpg (identified by Kain), tadashi.jpg, archer.jpg, fujiwaranomokou.jpg (identified by Kain), marcos.jpg, zelda.jpg, mami.jpg, stiles.jpg (identified by Jim), sans.jpg (identified by Steve), biff.jpg (identified by Angel), freya.jpg, miranda.jpg, sephiroth.jpg ]

Comments

@guardian; text;

[phaseshifter]

[ Oh.

Well. She only has herself to blame for clicking. Stupid girl. ]

Unidentified #5 is Biff.

@dreamsnhonor; text

[heroproceeding]

thanks angel.

how've you been anyway? [ He figures it's been a while. And maybe it'll help detract from the dark, dank, and dreary of what could otherwise be this conversation if they lurk more into photograph land. ]

[phaseshifter]

I've been fine!! Just looking after Rhys, you know?
Fussing comes naturally, so it isn't as if that's very taxing. :P
Hopefully all is well for you too? No fatal accidents involving people getting impaled on your hair or anything??

[ hahahAHA JOKES ]

[heroproceeding]

[ JOKES ARE GOOD. JOKES ARE AN IMPROVEMENT. Especially from thinking about dead friends. ]

oh haha angel. but no. no fatal hair accidents. so far anyway. I might have to keep you updated on that.

what happened to rhys? [ He remembers seeing him talking... oddly the other day. Though at the time, Zack'd been too preoccupied to touch on it. ]

@CaptSteveRogers; voice

[starsandtights]

[His voice is pretty toneless, business-like. Hard to talk about dead people, people they knew—hard on any day, but especially today with the obituary going up.]

Kinda morbid, yes, but I appreciate it. Useful to know for a number of reasons.

...Number four is Sans, Toriel and Frisk's friend.

[Loki isn't there. He must be in the chapel, then.]

@dreamsnhonor; audio

[heroproceeding]

Sans... huh. I'll change that then. [ And he'll take a minute right there and then to adjust and reupload as needed. It still takes him a bit, but he gets it taken care of soon enough. ]

But I agree. I mean I don't blame people for not wanting to see something like this, but I also know if someone was saying someone I knew's been here but now they're gone? ... I'd want some hard evidence. [ Even if it's, well. Harsh evidence. ]

permavoice

[starsandtights]

I figure you've done it so they can make their own choice about it, anyway.

And... yeah. There were three names I recognized on the obituary lists when I first arrived here. Two of them were friends, and... it didn't seem possible for any of them to have been here and died. Drove me a little nuts not knowing if it was a coincidence or if something weirder was going on. Miranda posted photos from the funeral home and... well, recognizing my friends' faces in the morgue was upsetting and strange, but for me, anyway, it's better than not knowing, and I think I learned something about how complex of a multiverse we're dealing with here. ...The third is unaccounted for, I assume he's in the chapel. At this point it seems unlikely for it to be someone else with the same name.

[heroproceeding]

Yeah... At this point, it wouldn't surprise me if it was someone you knew. It does make you wonder what reason whoever's in charge of all this has for taking us all from the same place. I mean I've got atheory, but...

[ He blows out a slow breath, scratching the back of his head. ] It doesn't really make it any more comforting. [ Not to mention it's a theory in the end. Nothing more.

And it doesn't seem to account for everyone. Or... maybe that's not necessarily true. ]

@haurchefant; voice

[silverfuller]

Far too many have fallen. Friends, comrades in arms...

What is it that allows some souls to return but not others?

@dreamsnhonor; audio

[heroproceeding]

[ Too, too many. That he can definitely agree with. Trying to clean up Tadashi's and Freya's photographs was more than enough to attest to that. Link and Marcos, too, had earned a pang of guilt. It takes him a moment to say something, but when he finally does, his voice carries some of that mild ache. ]

I dunno, man... It's probably up to whoever's sick enough to put this all together in the first place. [ Like that's any comfort or any answer, really. It's frustrating. All of this. ]

@haurchefant; voice

[silverfuller]

For their sakes we must find a way out of this place.

This madness mustn't continue!

[heroproceeding]

No, it can't. [ That much he can definitely agree with. ] There's gotta be something obvious that we're missing. I'm not sure what, but we'll figure it out. [ He hopes so anyway. ]

You had any luck with leads?

@JPHawkins, text/action maybe IDEK

[rattlingthestars]

3 is a guy named Stiles. Met him that time we were all at the store.

[ He looks at the other photos out of some morbid drive - Freya aches. Tadashi... Well, he's closing out of the picture quickly enough that he fumbles his tablet and curses quietly. ] Glad I couldn't see for this one.

@dreamsnhonor; audio/action

[heroproceeding]

stiles. got it.

[ The text is more for quick confirmation on the network. He makes that quick adjustment. Then he's leaning back, sliding down against the wall and breathing out a slow breath before he's glancing Jim's way. ]

Can't say you missed much. It wasn't exactly some leisurely walk through the park. [ He shrugs his shoulders just a little bit where he sits, even as he reads over the next message left. ] Now, I know what it's like to be a Turk. Definitely not my thing.

[rattlingthestars]

Place looks almost as bad as it felt. [ And that had been pretty bad in the antagonizing amount of time it had taken Jim to get out of there. ] You think it'll help people, though? To know where they are?

[heroproceeding]

Some. [ He can't say that holds for everyone, but... He closes his eyes, even as he continues. ] Sometimes it's better than being stuck with that 'What if'... Even if it's not easy, at least then you can try to move on. You can't get stuck in the past.

[ Those words might be straight from the heart. Straight from personal experience. ]

@zd; text

[swatsflies]

[Taking a break while sorting through the the papers and stuff. He's heard his conversation with Jim earlier. After a moment or two, he'll shoot Zack a message.]

Did anyone find where Cissnei is?

[Not saying it out loud because he knows Jim was pretty iffy on her. And Jim might also worry about him.]

@dreamsnhonor; text

[heroproceeding]

[ He visibly freezes for a moment there- because it hurts to mention her, really. But it doesn't stop him from shooting a response in the end. ]

no. I haven't heard any word about her yet.

[ Yet. Because if she hasn't popped out of the cracks of town by now, then she likely did die along with Sephiroth... Still makes him ache thinking about it. Sure, things had been questionable at first, but...

In the end, she'd been a friend. Zack ducks his head to rest it against his tablet. ]

[swatsflies]

Alright.

[Rubbing the back of his head as he looks up at Zack again. She's from his world and they worked in the place. He talked to her as often as Tifa and Jim back then. She was also one of his first friends here in Norfinbury, but it's still not even close to the amount of time Zack had with her.

Maybe some day they'll get confirmation she isn't just hiding out some where.]

@standardissue; text - 1/2

[deus_ex_phs]

I want to say that unidentified number 2 mentioned her name once on the network. Mokou...?

Hang on, I'll see if I can track it down.

@standardissue; text - 2/2

[deus_ex_phs]

[It's a good bit later before he responds again.]

Found it. Her name was Fujiwara no Mokou.

[heroproceeding]

[ Leave it to Kunsel to dig up something he missed. ]

thanks man. that covers almost everyone then. at least from when we last went there.

[ No doubt there's more bodies there now... What a pleasant thought that is, huh. ]

@hsiaoke; voice

[heavensreader]

Oh - you found them in the morgue? [Kesara sounds intrigued, and rather unconcerned for a child looking through pictures of dead bodies. She does have the decency not to comment on the body that appears to be that of a giant rat, at least.] Are you quite sure they were dead, sir?

@dreamsnhonor; audio forever

[heroproceeding]

It's Zack. [ A quick but calm confirmation. She's a kid. It feels weird having a kid call him 'sir'.

But he leaves it quickly at that to continue forward with a shrug. She does seem oddly calm about these things. No different from the children of the slums though, really. ] But yeah, unfortunately, they were. At least all that I accounted for there.

[heavensreader]

Zack, [she repeats, memorizing. She thought he was an officer of some sort, like Kain, but if he insists the same way Kain does...] I know it's a funny sort of question. But people come back, and it gets me to thinking, you know. Maybe they aren't truly dead? How can we know, if they don't rot properly?