[network] @TW; Video; Day 12 [open, cw for corpses and horrible]

[maskintape]

My voice is back.

[ Though for those who've heard Tim's voice before, it sounds much more hoarse than usual. Still, any voice is better than no voice! ]

I'm gonna - [cough cough] - I'm going to upload a video in a second. Some stuff I found yesterday. Kids shouldn't watch it. People who're already - you know, already freaked out by everything shouldn't watch either. It's not... I mean, it's. It isn't anything good, is what I'm saying. So.

[ He could try and filter the video away from those parties, but the thought doesn't sit well with him. The last time he tried to hide secret video footage from someone it kind of backfired spectactularly and people got killed and Tim got sent here by Tall McDarkandfaceless and everything was awful. He'd rather not repeat that, thanks. ]


[ When the promised video begins, it doesn't look very interesting. The camera is trained on the ground, where someone has been digging at the snow and dirt to reveal a layer of smooth pebbles. The cameraman - Tim, obviously, though he can't be seen - kneels in the snow, picks up a handful of the pebbles and brings them closer to the tablet. It's a little hard to make out since they're covered in dirt, but each of the stones is speckled in something that looks very much like dried blood.

The tablet is then propped up against something on the ground, showing a better view of the surroundings: a park complete with playground equipment. Tim walks back into shot, crouches, and resumes digging. After a minute or two he stops, a puzzled expression on his face, and pulls at something in the hole to get a better look at it.

There's a strangled gasp of breath that might have been an attempt at a scream, and Tim drops the thing like it's on fire. People with sharp eyes (or who pause the footage) will see that it was a human arm, dismembered just above the elbow. Tim scrambles out of view and the video briefly goes black as he turns off the tablet.

When the video resumes, it seems Tim has been busy. The view is panning across the ground again, revealing several patches that have been dug up to reveal frozen corpses. Some are bloody and horribly wounded, while others appear to have died less violently - the only thing they seem to have in common is that they're all remarkably well-preserved. And remarkably dead. That too.

Also worth noting is that the video is distorted badly. It's warped and stretched as if it's being tugged on at the edges, and there's a large amount of visual tearing evident in the footage. There isn't exactly a lot to be heard - wind noises and muted, huffy coughs - but the little audio that's there sounds tinny and distorted as well. It doesn't really make the fact that there's a mass grave in the fucking park any less horrifying, unfortunately.

After half a minute or so, the video cuts out. Mercifully. ]

Comments

[armoured]

I understand what you're trying to do, it's really kind of you.

[Despite his frequent annoyance at Tim, he's not so petty as to ignore when something good has been done. Trying to protect the innocent is a laudable thing, and Al wishes it could be.]

I just don't want anyone to get hurt here because they're missing some of the pieces, no matter how scary those pieces are.

[maskintape]

Yeah, well. They could get hurt because they have all the pieces. Fear makes some people do really dumb things, right?

[ From some people, that could be considered an apology for being a douche. From Tim, it's very clearly not. ]

[armoured]

Fear of the unknown can often be stronger, especially in situations like this. People might push themselves past the curfew looking for clues, but if they knew about this... maybe they'd stay inside out of the danger?

[For once, his tone is mild. He's not an argumentative person by nature, and he's willing to keep trying to keep the peace.]

[maskintape]

I dunno. Pretty sure none of those people were lucky enough to just freeze to death.

[ Unless the idea about the more mutilated bodies being dismembered after death is valid, but. Yeah. ]

Plus we already have plenty of cautionary tales against staying out in the snow too long, so...

[armoured]

...Yeah.

[Tim has a point there, but there still seem to be an inordinate number of people who allow themselves to become trapped out in the snow at night.]

I wonder why these people haven't come back.

[Not that he approves of regeneration, but at least it should be consistent.]

[maskintape]

[ A sudden, horrible thought strikes Tim as he ponders the issue. A thought that becomes more and more horrible the more he thinks about it. ]

Maybe... maybe if bodies are buried, the thing-- whatever brings them back can't find them. So they stay dead.

[ And assuming there are as many bodies there as he thinks there are, that information would have to have been common knowledge amongst the last residents. Right? One person couldn't go around permakilling the whole town and not have the secret get found out.

Christ, what if they weren't all murders. What if some people voluntarily took the only way out that the town offered them? ]

[armoured]

I'm not sure if it would work that way; besides, the snow won't have covered them properly for a few days, surely people would have been able to find them easily if they wanted to?

[It's an interesting theory, though, even if his mind hasn't gone to the horrifying place that Tim's has.]

[maskintape]

Yeah, but--

[ They were buried under a layer of dirt and stones and it'd be easy enough to just scoop some existing snow over them too and if there was a murderer around people would be more likely to not go around looking in spooky parks and then there's the suicide angle and

no.

Nope. Tim isn't doing this. He wants to be wrong, badly, and he isn't going to argue himself into believing this. It's a theory. A stupid dumb theory that's probably as full of holes as every other theory about this dump. ]

-- yeah. Probably. Maybe the revival process just-- maybe it didn't work on those guys for whatever reason.

[armoured]

[Al knows that the logical way to test this would be to leave one of them uncovered and see if they revived, but he can't bring himself to suggest it. To do so would almost be like he was condoning that resurrection, and the guilt of that might be what undid him.]

Or maybe whoever does the reviving chose not to revive them... after all, not everybody who's died here has come back so far.

[Maybe half, or a little more than half, from what he's logged.]

[maskintape]

Yet.

[ Take note of this brief shining moment, Al. You're about to see a genuinely positive thought from the mind of Timothy Wright. This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff. ]

It's not - like, it isn't a set amount of time before people come back. So. Maybe they just haven't got to some of the dead ones yet.

[armoured]

[How sad that Tim's momentous positive thought isn't a positive one from Al's perspective, as he still isn't at all comfortable with people returning from beyond the grave.]

Mm, I guess you're right.

[He isn't arguing, as he knows how well that went last time, but he still doesn't sound happy about it.]

There has to be a pattern to why some people have come back and others haven't.

[maskintape]

Why? Why does there have to be a pattern?

[ You people and your whole "not understanding that this is totally all the work of a monstrous entity that doesn't play by normal rules" thing. GOSH. ]

We don't -- there's no pattern for why we're all here in the first place, so. It figures that the revivals wouldn't follow any pattern either.

[armoured]

Because everyone does things for a reason - maybe not the reasons that would make sense to us, and maybe not moral or ethical ones, but definitely reasons. There's a reason we're all here, and why, and the type of people brought and when they're needed to be brought in... which means there's a pattern. If we can work out the pattern, we might be able to get closer to finding out the reason.

[maskintape]

[ Urgh. ]

Okay. Imagine you have - like - a stick. And it's got glue or something sticky on the end. And you also have an anthill in your yard. Wait - no - a whole bunch of them. Just a huge mass of anthills.

Also imagine that you're, like - you know the kind of kids who fry bugs in the sun using a magnifying glass? Imagine that's you. And you've got your glued-up stick, and your anthills, and you decide that putting them both together would be great fun because who the hell gives a damn about ants?

So you stab your stick into the first anthill. Some of the ants get stuck to it. Most, uh. Most of them don't. But some do, and because you're a-- a sadistic jerkoff, you dunk the stick and the ants in a bucket of ice water to watch them wriggle around and try to escape before they drown. Then you glue up your stick again and you start doing it to the other anthills, just because you can.

[ He pauses for a moment, letting out a long, slow breath. ]

There's no pattern there, right? No, like - no reason. Just a bastard with a stick torturing some insects.

 

It's a metaphor.

[armoured]

Yeah, I understood that.

[He tries to keep his temper under control, but Tim just seems to aggravate him whenever they speak.]

Maybe that's true, but even if it's subconsciously, that kid will still work to a pattern. Sure, he's doing what he does out of instinct and desire, but that doesn't mean he's mindless. So he picks the hill that's closest, or the one that looks like it has the most ants to torment... maybe he doesn't even realise he's doing it, but he still does make choices and those choices add together to make a pattern.

So even if we're just here because someone likes torturing people, then there'll still be patterns to identify. Like... maybe the reason so many people here are from a place that's heard of America, is because that's the closest world to this one... or it's somehow easier to take people from there. You see?

[maskintape]

Okay.

So the kid is also blindfolded. And - I dunno - sleepwalking? My point is that there doesn't always have to be answers. And if they are, they could be, uh. Beyond human comprehension or whatever. What with our tiny insect brains and all.

[ Hrmm. ]

And not all the America-worlds are the same, just. So you know.

[armoured]

I know that, but it's something they all have in common. Like most people being from a world where this kind of technology is commonplace, things like that are the beginnings to a pattern.

[He's not even going to dignify the sleepwalking theory, since Admin has spoken to them, and interfered by injecting them, directly more than once.]

Maybe it's beyond our comprehension now, but that's why we have to work together to find every tiny clue.

[maskintape]

[ THE SLEEPWALKING WAS ALSO A METAPHOR. ]

Okay, you're just - look, I know I can be kind of a downer about this stuff --

[ Really, Tim

Really ]

-- but I'm not buying this whole knowledge is power thing as much as everybody else seems to. Like, yeah, getting answers would - it'd be great. But even if we somehow miraculously grow to understand the thing, that's - it's not going to help us when it's powerful enough to bring us all here, take that one chick's magic, and basically control everything we do.

[armoured]

[Al actually sounds relatively calm for once, because he feels like Tim is trying to understand his point of view, and he can respect that even if they're not quite agreeing yet.]

Everything has a weakness, so something being powerful shouldn't stop you from trying. Even if it's just that they do think differently to us, that advantage works both ways, they won't be able to tell what escape routes we might conceive of. There was a way in, so there's a way out, and we will find it.

[maskintape]

[ He sighs heavily. Of course the kid doesn't understand. He doesn't know the thing (which is still 100% responsible for all this just fyi) like Tim does.

And that's a good thing. He should remember that instead of bringing people down all the time. ]

Maybe.

I guess thinking positive won't hurt you as long as - as long as you're realistic about it. So.

[armoured]

Right.

[Vaguely surprised, and also pleased, that he seems to have got through to Tim finally. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, fighting all the injustices, and bonding with hope in their hearts?!?!]

...thanks.

[maskintape]

Don't thank me yet. I can still break out the gloom and doom.

[ THIS IS A SRS THREAT ]

[armoured]

[He chuckles, taking it as an attempt at lightening the mood.]

Sure, well... try not to break it out too often, okay?

[maskintape]

No promises. The siren call of being a depressing asshole is pretty hard to resist.

[armoured]

Then I think I'll leave while you're still resisting it.

[He sounds so warm and friendly now, Al doesn't hold grudges.]

Take care of yourself, okay?

[And he hangs up.]