[network] @whatisthis; morning 212; video [open]

[godsspeed]

[ The message goes up early in the day, almost immediately after Castiel wakes up. He's careful to hold his tablet the correct distance away and have it pointed at him before he starts recording - this is important, and he doesn't want anyone to be sidetracked by his confusion regarding these devices. ]

Those of you who stepped into the role of this town's Prophet last night; I need you to tell me what the beings with lights in their mouths looked like to you.

[ It's a demand as much as it is a request. He has to know if the others were being made to kill angelic effigies, immediately. Facial expressions are still something he has to make a conscious effort to preform most of the time, but even with his body language at its usual formal-neutral, there's a noticeable undercurrent of rattled desperation to his tone. Clearly the dream didn't treat him well. ]

Comments

@Spoiler ; video

[spoileralert]

Like drug-induced nightmares, mostly. Eyes, faces, hands, spider legs. Sometimes they looked familiar, sometimes they looked like something dreamed up by psychopaths.

@whatisthis; video

[godsspeed]

[ That... is how some have described the angelic form, yes. But it's not conclusive. There's one thing that unites all of them and is fairly difficult to miss. ]

Did any of them have wings?

video

[spoileralert]

Wings? Not that I remember.

[godsspeed]

[ Castiel relaxes slightly - not very much, but enough that his relief is obvious. ]

Then I was seeing something else entirely. Thank you.

[spoileralert]

No problem. [ She blinks, suddenly a little concerned. ]

Are you okay?

[godsspeed]

Yes. I am okay. Just... unnerved.

How often does this kind of thing happen?

[spoileralert]

Often.

Something weird happens at least every two weeks. The last time everyone woke up someplace wrong was 192.

[godsspeed]

[ Castiel takes a moment to process that. That's... very frequent. Unsettlingly so. ]

Does anyone know what causes it? [ Because it sounds to him like the work of a witch or a trickster, and didn't The Cat say something similar? His memories of the vision are a little vague, but he distinctly remembers that. ]

[spoileralert]

No way of knowing for sure.

Some of the stuff that happens seems scripted. We think maybe one time we were living Andromeda's memories, and I suspect we're reliving some of what happened in the town itself with all the Prophet stuff.

Other times it seems random, like the anomalies showing up or changing like they do sometimes.

My theory is, the thing under the town is some sort of eldritch god, and its assimilated the people who used to live here. Now we're caught in some kind of time loop, or a half-reality created by its powers anchored here by whatever dumbass decided to ignore centuries of conventional wisdom stating "don't screw around with things you can't control".

[godsspeed]

Yes. I spoke to one of the others about that theory earlier. Gods vary considerably in their habits, but if this is indeed the work of one I would expect it to be a war or harvest deity. They are normally the ones most likely to expect regular sacrifice, and given the cycle of famine and conflict present in this place either would be a logical conclusion.

This has happened before? With others pulled from different universes, the same as we were?

[spoileralert]

Supposedly it's happened before here. But mostly eldritch horrors wreaking havoc are a big theme in sci-fi horror books.

[godsspeed]

I can confirm that this is something an old god desperate for attention and resentful of abandonment would do. [ He says this with about the same tone one might expect a seasoned police officer looking at a hotwired car lodged in a ditch with the driver's side window smashed in to say "Ah yes, teenagers." ] None should be powerful enough to pull people from across universes, but the rest is consistent.

[spoileralert]

[ She can't help a snicker at his tone. That's kind of how she feels about the idea of someone summoning that sort of being on purpose. ]

I'm not sure how much "shoulds" apply in this case, considering some of the other stuff that happens here.

[godsspeed]

[ Castiel doesn't really understand what's so funny about what he just said, but the laughter only gives him some slight pause. Sam and Dean found things he did that weren't jokes humorous all the time - he's just sort of accepted that that's what talking to humans is like. ]

True. It may be foolish to assume things are as I expect them to be to begin with. But there's a pattern here that I recognize, the unusual strength behind it aside.

[spoileralert]

Yeah, it's hard to get used to. But nothing here is ever what you expect it to be.