( 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

[maddeninghatter]

[ Now he looks as if he'd just bitten into a vegetable. ]

Mister Cecil...

[ Somebody's still sore about the Shoe Incident. But he doesn't elaborate, instead allowing himself to be tugged along. ]

Yes, yes, okay, okay.

[soul_sister]

[The look doesn't really pass unnoticed, but...]

Did he try to lecture you too? Just pull on his face, he stops after a lot of flailing. -Mind the root there.-

BUT! We can explore first.

[maddeninghatter]

[ He imagines Rosette pulling forcefully on Kevin's face and the inevitable, ensuing fit... and it's enough to make him smile. Horribly. Thus the root almost catches him by surprise; her warning allows him to recover, however, with only a graceless bobble.

He twists his sleeve out her grasp, gently, and reaches for her elbow instead. ]

What is this place?

[soul_sister]

[As if it's the most natural thing in the world- out here, it really was. A subtle gesture from her brother to keep himself going when he was tired. - She simply crooks her elbow for a steadier hold, her hand covering his over the glove.]

We grew up here. ... The orphanage was just a few miles west from here... but it was far enough for us to play where no one could find us. We used to spend all day thinking up new games and pretending this was a wild, fantasy world.

[maddeninghatter]

[ She's an orphan.... of course. This is why she's so reckless, so careless with her own life and safety. She'd grown up abandoned. There'd been no one to make her feel special, or that her life was worth anything. It's the sort of thing that's commonplace, but even so...

Now all of her sunshine and bravado seem terribly sad. ]

Games and wild fantasies. Why am I not surprised?

[soul_sister]

You shouldn't be!

[She lets out a huff on a long exhale. She stops, her arm moves as if she's craning to look at something. The faint smell of fresh water and mud is clear now, the gentle lap of waves closer now, and the wind stirs reeds in a rickety chorus as well as the hissing rustle of grass.]

I was pretty normal back then. My brother was the special one.

It's something all kids do, you know? Make forts out of branches and pretend there's a real dragon over the hill.

[maddeninghatter]

[ He can follow much more easily when he's holding on, rather than being tugged along. Besides, he wouldn't put it past her to get into trouble even in a VR room, and this way she's under closer supervision!

He stops just after she does, tilting his head to one side and listening. ]

I don't believe a word of it. Somebody like you must have been "special" her whooole life.

[ "My brother was." Past tense. She'd lost mother and father, perhaps her brother too. He recalls, in that instant, how it had felt to lose everybody, except for one precious person... and then to lose that person, too. His fingers twitch involuntarily at her elbow. ]

By the way, if you've built a dragon into this fantasy world, I'm leaving!

[soul_sister]

["Special" huh.]

Don't think I wont push you in this lake.

[It turns out, the only dragon in the room is Rosette's temper.]

[maddeninghatter]

My dear, you ripped my shirt off. I wouldn't put anything past you.

[ He breaks off, awkwardly. There's an obvious question — what happened to your brother? — but he holds off. It's got to be an unhappy memory. And yet, she is talking about him spontaneously, so... ]

Tell me about him. Your brother, I mean.

[soul_sister]

[She's quiet a long moment, organizing her thoughts. This isn't really a view where the bad memories are allowed in. Even the pitched roof of the orphanage, the only reminder, can't even be seen from this vantage point - or perhaps was left out.]

Joshua... Joshua would really, really be excited to be here now. On the moon, surrounded by a room like this. He was smarter than I was - I used to get so mad at him when he would catch me making up words when I read stories to the other kids. But he read all the time, fantasy, science fiction, detective novels... we'd come out here to play them out. When we were 15, we were going to go out and be adventurers.

See things no one else had ever seen before. Meet the thunderbird or go to the Astral Line.

We never even TALKED about the moon.

[maddeninghatter]

[ He listens to all of this, nodding, and doesn't reply straight away. It's a sweet memory, but also very sad. Birds twitter. Somewhere, a frog leaps. Splash.

Suddenly he kicks off his boots, bends down to roll up his trousers, and then sets about wading into the lake. The water is cool, and the soft silt oozes up between his toes. ]

Did Chrono play adventure games with the two of you, as well?

[ He is still trying to work out their association. ]

[soul_sister]

[Rosette isn't as guarded with it, and she trusts Break far, far more. Her reply comes with some easy laughter.]

Oh, not at first. We'd have to coax him out here even in the first place. He wouldn't play, or sing. And sometimes, I thought he just wanted us to go away.

But he'd always be somewhere we could find him easily the next day.

Eventually, he started making up games too.