( open )

[overclocking]

Date & Time: Several days after the necromorph outbreak
Location: A VR room
Characters: Chrono + Rosette + open!
Summary: Lil bit of coping in-between zombie apocalypses and civil wars, nbd
Warnings: None! KEVIN AND BREAK
Notes: Feel free to tag around also! ♥


[ Chrono doesn't bother to close the door when he finally decides to try one of these rooms for himself. Something about the last few days (weeks) (months) has left him unwilling to stay in enclosed spaces too long, with no obvious path of exist. Too much like a lab or an undead-lined hallway.

But these concerns slowly melt away as he sets about instructing the AI, and the room gives way to a place that isn't a room at all.

Mountains rise up in the distance, framing a blue, clear sky, and a faint breeze rustles the treetops of a thick Michigan forest. Birdcalls ride that wind, and the air smells cleaner, fresher, than any moon base could reasonably boast. Where the blanket of trees ends, a large, glassy lake gleams in the sunlight. He takes care with this part—instructs the AI to make the water a temperature a bit too low to be entirely comfortable for swimming, knowing full well that this won't actually be a deterrent. But it wouldn't be right, otherwise.

He takes his time strolling from one familiar landmark to the next, having the computer make adjustments as necessary. He doesn't miss details, either; for all the times that Rosette brought him to this very place, his eyes had missed nothing. They were wide and all-absorbing, like someone who had been born anew and was discovering the world for the first time.

(Likely because, in all honesty, he had been.)

He stops once he circles back around to the open door—a black silhouette hanging oddly in the landscape, and the only giveaway that none of this is real. It's here that he surveys the scene as a whole, the sum of all its little memory-parts. ]

Perfect.

[ Well. There's still a thing or two missing. ]

... Almost.

Comments

[resolve]

[In between the chaos surrounding her (re)arrival, a part of her, somewhere in there, had vaguely wondered about Oz. Wondered if he'd still been around. If he'd been safe.

The thought hadn't received a great deal of attention at first, not when other things were a more immediate demand to focus. But now, as she spots a familiar form a small distance away, it floats to the forefront of her mind.

Something drives her to take steps away from the solitude she might ordinarily prefer in a situation like this. Toward slow, quiet approach. Maybe she feels accountable, in some strange way. Has ever since she pulled him out of the hospital, just as the bombs were starting to fall. Since she did for him what she couldn't do for the people in District 8 -

It isn't long before she's standing next to him.]

Hey.

[velveteened]

( her quiet approach goes unnoticed, so isn't before she's close and spoken up that he realizes — recognizes — her presence. )

Katniss?

( it's all wide eyes and a quick turn towards her, disbelieving, because it's been months since he's seen her or heard her voice, and while her return was never impossible or even unlikely, her remembering — as she must, because there's no way at all she would approach him if she didn't — is something he's been too afraid to hope for. )

[resolve]

[He looks well, other than taking on the characteristics of someone who's seen a ghost. That's her first assessment when he turns toward her, and with it comes a certain relief. Her efforts hadn't been for nothing.

She doesn't smile; it'd take another person entirely to do that. But when she speaks, her voice is as quiet as her steps had been. Reassuring, even almost gentle. ... In its own way.]

It's me.

[velveteened]

( he — sucks in a breath, and smiles in a way that actually isn't insincere. rueful, perhaps, but that he has in spades as it is. )

It's good to see you. ( and maybe a little tremulous too, once the words are allowed to hang in the air. ) Though it's not a good place for you to come back to.