snowblindrpg | [network] @Enoch; No angels to turn back time [open] [Day 11/12] [eventual character death on 11]

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[network] @Enoch; No angels to turn back time [open] [Day 11/12] [eventual character death on 11]

Day 11, night

[The recording's field of vision is too low, moving oddly - the tablet has been tied to his stomach as he walks down the corridors of the school. He turns for brief moments sometimes, the camera lingering on deepening shadows, which ripple wildly as they pass out of sight, but he does not slow, or stop. There is a mechanical humming sound that he doesn't seem to react to, either.]

I can't control my legs. I can't keep myself from walking. Whatever force is at play here, they can ignore our free will, and they do not want us remaining here.

[There is a note of fear to his voice, but his tone is determined, and maybe defiant. He has found something, albeit indirectly. When he is forced out of the school, he begins to run, changing direction the moment he spots the shed and leaning into the run, going as fast as he can. The recording continues for the rest of the hour, a whole lot of bouncing and the sound of his heavy breathing as he pushes himself to his now all-too-human limits, but to no avail. His breath ragged after a run that would have been inconsequential less than two weeks ago, he reaches out to open the door of the storage shed and, it being locked, slams right into it instead, staggering back and landing in the snow, unable to keep himself upright.

After many long moments of trying to catch his breath, obviously dazed by hitting the door, he speaks again, but not to the network.]

Helel, what time is it?

[It is 8:05 PM, says a strong, masculine voice very close to the microphone, in the pleasant computer-neutral tone of a digital assistant with no assigned personality. He says something under his breath, the sound lost in the rapidly-intensifying wind.]

Well... [he says to the network again after a pause, still out of breath from his long run.] I suppose that...

[He begins half-crawling, half-dragging himself off to the side of the shed, sitting against its side, not curling up as he should to preserve himself, but sitting with his legs straight out, the camera given as unobstructed a view as he can give it. He knows he's not likely to survive anyway. The hard run was taxing enough on his insufficient diet and sleep that between exhaustion and runner's high, there is a hollowly mellow sort of acceptance where the fear of death might have been.]

...I do not think I would get very far, in my condition, if I tried to find shelter now. Would someone mind speaking with me tonight?

[Even after he died, if there was anyone still watching, there was something to see.]

Day 12, afternoon

[It's quiet. It's stifling. There's an aura of wrongness crowding in on the fog of unconsciousness, and he takes a sharp breath and it hurts, a stabbing pain that shoots through his chest and he sits bolt upright. He just barely misses hitting his head on the top of the compartment as the drawer slides open and he falls out, body bag and all, onto the hard floor with a thud and a grunt of pain. Fumbling with his surroundings, he finds the zipper and yanks it down so hard it breaks, leaving him to claw the hole he made open until he's crawled his way out, a naked heap on the floor panting for air and looking around wildly like a rabbit sensing a nearby fox.

Though his initial fear eases soon, the suffocating atmosphere does not let up, and Helel's artificial voice telling him he should leave doesn't help. He silences the tablet as soon as he is able and pulls his gathered clothes on, his hands' trembling calming slowly as, little by little, he is made less vulnerable. The feeling of familiar denim on his legs does a lot to ease his mind, and soon he's doing his best to shrug off the feeling of not being welcome here and searching for anything of use. It feels like the place is trying to get rid of him. That means something, right?

But when he comes across the bathroom, he doesn't even get to discover the sinks run. As he approaches them, movement from an unfamiliar source catches his eye, and he starts, turning to face...a face he doesn't know. He opens his mouth to offer a greeting instinctively, and realizes in the split second he sees the "other" open his mouth at the same time that he's facing a wall. A mirror.

And yet, there is nothing familiar about the face in front of him. He doesn't know his own face.

He has to get out of here.]

Helel, video, on me. I need to talk-... [There's a brief pause, on which he opens the door and the assistant obliges, starting the network feed on a shot from just below his face, which is visible because he didn't even put up either the hood of his raincoat or his cloak over it, in his hurry to leave. He raises the tablet as he quickly walks, clearly shaken. The funeral home quickly disappears into the background of snow behind him as he asks:]

Everyone...do I look-...do I look any different to any of you?

[He pauses, as he realizes that sounds ridiculous.]

I'm sorry, I'll reply - and explain - when I've found someplace safe.

[All responses will happen in the early evening.]

Day 12, night

[It's getting fairly late, too, but Enoch is not even remotely tired. He's wound up tight and frightened from everything, especially since he's now had the time to review the video he'd recorded the night before. He'd died. He'd died, he'd seen the camera's rise and fall with his breath cease and stay ceased until he was moved.

So much for his assumption those who were heard from again were merely said to have died. The obituary with his name on it was both chilling and darkly amusing, considering he'd been dead less than a day. Less than half a day, even.

So he returns to the network, with a math book open in front of him, the tablet was tied to his body again so anyone on the other end was looking on with him, as if they were beside him. He desperately needed that illusion right now. Additionally, there is a jar of formaldehyde next to the book.]

Hello, again. I'm sorry for abruptly leaving before, but I...well, I looked into a mirror in the place I woke, and [his throat tightens and the remainder of the explanation is audibly forced.] ...and I couldn't...I didn't know my own face until I moved. In any case, I...I found some things. What can anyone tell me about this book? Or this substance? Both are quite unfamiliar to me.

Please, I- I need something else to speak of and I can't sleep. I'm sorry for imposing on your courtesy once more.

[There's one more statement, barely audible and clearly not meant for the network.]

I'm...I feel so...

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[Voices can be quite expressionable, and as much as Max always went down the antisocial route it didn't mean he was fully incapable of understanding, picking up on emotional clues, sounds or otherwise. He had once been capable of showing such emotion on a much grander scale... long ago. But that was an entirely different story.

The point was he heard the distress in Enoch's voice and it made him uncomfortable. Sympathizing was something Max purposefully avoided. Comforting people wasn't his forte.

His response was awkward, clearly uncomfortable, and punctuated by odd throat-clearing sounds at strange times.]

I wouldn't know. I don't know what you're talking about. [Maybe we shouldn't be talking about this at all.] Hmmm. What else happened? What did you do earlier? Find anything?

Ah... [The change of subject is appreciated, but his mind flounders a little, searching for a way to describe the book he found in the distraction of the sheer cold.] I-I found a book. It taught some form of complex mathematics, and...ah, well I suppose what makes it interesting is that apparently these tablets were common items, used in instruction often enough for the book to reference them.

[...Which is only really interesting to someone so far back in time he wouldn't have even been able to conceive of the tablets in the first place without outside help.]

Paper seems in high supply, too, even now. [Not that it wasn't already kind of obvious but the school really drove that home.]

Standard.

[The tablets may have been less common in his time but technology and paper were fairly standard overall. Well, before the wars. But he knew the standard of living in a place like this from before.]

You're not used to that.

[It was stated as an observation but it might as well been a prompt to expand upon as a question would have. ]

No. I'm from a year long before...most here, if not all. Paper was costly to make, I only saw it in large quantities...in a place where it wasn't so difficult at all.

["Where it could be made with a thought", is what he wanted to say, but reflexively, he veers away from explaining Heaven, knowing being from a time long ago is strange enough to most people. Like Alphonse volunteering alchemy, he will wait for someone to say they're used to the supernatural first before even trying. Even the mind-numbing cold seeping into his bones isn't enough to make him think otherwise.]

[A good precaution. Magic and supernatural things were fantasy and fiction in his world as far as he knew. Only the superstitious believed in such things. He had a few ghosts but logically Max knew it was all in his head. And he tried not to think about it.]

Hmmm. Strange.

[This whole place. Everything here, all the variances. People from different times and seemingly different worlds altogether even. It was a bit much. More things he wasn't used to thinking about very much, things he'd probably rather not account for too much.]

Yes, strange...I am stranger to this place than most others, aren't I?

[His legs, visible at the bottom of the video, keep shifting. His instinct is to curl up, but he knows that will block the view, and it could miss something important that way. He's still shivering, it's audible and visible when his hands come into view for a moment as he clasps them, trying to warm them.]

There's nobody else here from where or when I am from...

[Max was silent for a moment. Not quite what he had meant but he wasn't going to correct Enoch. If the man took offense there wasn't anything Max could do about it, and he wasn't the apologizing sort. He just went on.]

I don't know anyone. Don't know if that means there's no one else from my...time. [Or whatever we're calling it. But seriously, it's not like he would recognize everyone from his world were anyone from there here. There might be signs, factors that could lead to the conclusion that they came from the same or a similar world to one another but. well. no guarantee.

But in Max's case, he also really didn't care. It wouldn't make a difference for him.]

[He wasn't offended at all. He's well aware of the large displacement of time, much more so by the book of pictures of old ruins in his backpack.]

And I couldn't recognize the signs of your time to help.

[He adds a weak little laugh, trying to mask encroaching anxiety; his hands feel like mostly-numb blocks now and he has no way of knowing if he'll ever properly feel them - or anything - again. He's lived too long, but at the same time does not want to die.

On the other hand, if he does die, maybe he can see about getting aid from Heaven. There's no way this is part of any grand plan.

The fact that there's anything positive he can think of about dying is scary in its own right.]

Wouldn't bother. Probably not pleasant.

[With a very few exceptions Max could not think of the benefits to anyone from his world being here. They would all be aggressive, possessive, and probably dying already with their half-life, or all three. Granted, Max himself wasn't much better.]

Not pleasant? You mean the people from your time?

[It almost feels like his mind is numbing, too, really, with how long it took him to make something of that sparse statement.]

That's a rather broad statement to make, isn't it?

It's how the world is.

[He said it so flippantly, casually. It was simply matter-of-fact and nothing more. His world was full of unpleasant people that murdered, pillaged, and took what they wanted when they wanted. All to survive. To be on top.

It's just how it was.]

That's all.

It is impossible for all the people in a world to be so unpleasant.

[Also matter of fact, not an invitation to argue - in fact it lacked much of the strength of an argument.

People were basically good. This is a belief of his that nothing, not even the essence of corruption, could shake. He would be glad to actually debate it, if he were safe and not...freezing to death.]

[Max wouldn't debate it so much as refuse to believe it. He was too weary from what his world had turned into to believe it.]

They're the only ones left who survive.

[...And yet, here he is debating anyway. He can't summon much passion for his voice when he's mostly focusing on ordering his thoughts into words and being heard over the wind, though. It's surprising how much effort that takes in these conditions.]

Not for long. Nations may be born and gain strength through conflict. But without the cooperation of their citizens, they would not survive. Humanity does not survive without cooperation.

[He snorted.]

The world is dead. There are no nations. Scavengers flock but have little care for one another. Tribes beat down each other.

And humanity is already dead. [Dying. Slowly but surely. Radiation poisoning did that to a species, Enoch.]

The 'wasteland', I presume?

[He sounds tired, and it's hard to tell if it's the "tired of this thing" tired or just normal drowsy-tired. It's probably a safe bet to assume both.

He does recognize that Max has a different accent, at least, so he doesn't assume he's from where Hope came from - but it's probably the same time period.]

Tribes are the beginning of nations. We are hardy. We are not dead so long as there is at least one man and one woman among us.

[He knows absolutely nothing about radiation poisoning. But even if he did, it wouldn't change his outlook much. All it would change is he would specify the prerequisite two be able to have children.]

[Max himself could, technically, procreate. He was of a rare few that was untainted by the radiation poisoning. But that wasn't going to happen so humanity was SoL on that front. No gene contributions from him, sadly.]

Hmph. Tell that to those living a half live.

[Those that were poisoned from birth and already dying the moment they came into the world. Those that suffered from genetic mutations and dangerous cancer growths. Those that wouldn't last long in the world through no fault of their own.]

[There's a long pause. It doesn't immediately occur to him what Max has done - that is, take a general statement about humanity as a whole and focus on the unfortunate individuals, however many there may be.

So for a long, quiet moment, he's utterly confused. That's...unfortunate, and he doesn't really understand the implications, knowing nothing about radiation and thinking instead they were doomed to die young in a more general sense. But...it's not really a response to what he'd said, in his mind.]

What do you mean? Unless all of humanity, without exception...

Poisoned by radiation. Dying slowly from degradation of... [He has to search for an appropriate word. It's from the world before it died, back when science ruled and had all the answers. Except how not to kill each other.] ...genes.

[If there were some sort of translation convention at work and everyone was hearing their own language, there might have only been a misunderstanding of an unfamiliar concept. But this was English, all of it, without exception, and "genes", a word he doesn't know, sounds exactly like "jeans", a word he does know.]

I must have misheard you...the wind, perhaps. [He's not speaking so clearly anymore, himself. The tablet will still more or less faithfully translate his words to text, though, if Max needs to double check.] Doesn't make any sense...

[Max growled at the tablet, fully recognizing and understanding what was happening to Enoch locked out in the freezing snow. Slower responses, broken sentences, trailing off... As much as they were common parlances for Max they were not for Enoch. They were signs that the man was freezing to death.

He was going to die and there was nothing Max could do about it.]

Doubt it's just the wind. Can't do any more for you.

[Way to be coldly blunt, Max.]

Mm.

[That sort of gets through to him, if the way he half-curls against the side of the shed says anything. Max can't see it, but he's hugging himself tightly for whatever extra warmth he can provide.]

Thank you for... [his mind gropes for the way to describe what he's done.] ...for doing this.

[He has a little ways yet, but it's sure to be a far less dignified, far less coherent route to travel within the hour. He's not aware of this in any significant way, but he does know what he's asked of his fellow prisoners could make them uncomfortable. Of course he's still thinking of others so prominently.]

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[network] @Enoch; No angels to turn back time [open] [Day 11/12] [eventual character death on 11]

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