(no subject)
Mar. 14th, 2024 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
celery_coolThere are questions Abbie should have asked before this experiment occurred. Some had felt too personal, or simply not worth voicing in light of their own working understanding of the town. If Mount Absalom's ghosts aren't ghosts — if they don't rise from the grave under their own power, driven by their own motivations — then what they really need to consider are the potential motivations of the entity that brought Norah here in the first place. Questions like 'why is this so important to you?' or 'are you sure this is necessary?' — too personal, but also misaligned. Norah isn't the one they want to interrogate, and her answers (if she had answers readily available) might not have been useful.
'Why Omega Centauri?' might have been worth voicing, though. A data point that might have explained why one disappointing star cluster is worth such a monumental fucking meltdown.
The floor trembles. The air vibrates with echoes. Marisol stands frozen, her phone dipping under the onslaught, probably getting a decent shot of Norah's knees.
And Norah is unresponsive, bent over the eyepiece like a limb that something else is flexing.
"Norah — Norah, listen to me," Abbie says, to her, to whatever might be listening. "There are other star clusters, right? There's an entire night sky full of other star clusters! There's a universe of other star clusters! You can find another one—"
"It's empty!" Norah gasps, halfway to a sob. Abbie hates the sound of it. Desolate. Petulant, like a fucking child. She deserves better than this.
A statistical unlikelihood of echoes cry out: WHO ARE WE?
Norah straightens. She doesn't look at either of them. "I don't know," she answers. And then she's gone.
"Norah!" Abbie's voice echoes, uncaught, through the silence that Norah left behind. Shit. Shit.
And then the floor begins to shake in earnest. Abbie moves, finally, darting towards the telescope as one of the far walls begins to buckle.
"Abbie, we need to get out of here," Marisol starts. Windows shatter, one by one. "I don't like what's—"
"Help me get the lens!" Abbie says, hurrying to unscrew the drawtube lock. If they can just access it, if Marisol can get the eyepiece loose...
"What?" Marisol asks, unhelpfully.
"Of the telescope!" They have to shout to be heard over the storm outside, over the sound of the Observatory's ongoing implosion. "We need to take it!"
"This is super fucking dangerous," Marisol shouts back, in lieu of fucking helping. "We need to leave now!"
She doesn't understand. There needs to be something left. This can't just be a failed experiment. "They worked so hard!"
"Abbie!"
"She and Rudy worked so hard to build this! She’ll want it when she comes back!"
If she comes back.
Their hands are shaking, inefficient. The lens is still out of reach. A piece of the ceiling falls with a deafening crash, and Abbie flinches in spite of themself, curling over the eyepiece.
And then, for the second time, the cacophony abruptly subsides.
Abbie cracks their eyes open, then straightens by slow, stunned degrees. The Observatory is gone — not in the way it was working towards, just gone. The telescope, Marisol, both comprehensively erased and overwritten by an unfamiliar city block: sidewalk, cars, shop fronts. Pedestrians that don't look twice at them until they eject an alarmed, "What the fuck?!" That earns them a few looks, startled and disapproving.
They're dead. They're dying, and instead of cliché visions of white light or departed loved ones, the last desperate firing of their neural synapses is granting them a vivid hallucinatory approximation of being rude in public. Why not?
It's startlingly realistic, they'll give themself that much. They categorize the sensations with distant, intellectual fascination: the faint breeze, the hum of traffic and voices, the smell of exhaust and damp spring earth and a hint of salt, the marked chill of the cool air against their cheeks. (Are those tears? Mortifying.) The unanticipated weight of the object they're mindlessly clutching in their right hand. Abbie looks down, uncurls their fingers, and looks at the other thing they've been granted.
Nestled in their palm is Norah's lens.
'Why Omega Centauri?' might have been worth voicing, though. A data point that might have explained why one disappointing star cluster is worth such a monumental fucking meltdown.
The floor trembles. The air vibrates with echoes. Marisol stands frozen, her phone dipping under the onslaught, probably getting a decent shot of Norah's knees.
And Norah is unresponsive, bent over the eyepiece like a limb that something else is flexing.
"Norah — Norah, listen to me," Abbie says, to her, to whatever might be listening. "There are other star clusters, right? There's an entire night sky full of other star clusters! There's a universe of other star clusters! You can find another one—"
"It's empty!" Norah gasps, halfway to a sob. Abbie hates the sound of it. Desolate. Petulant, like a fucking child. She deserves better than this.
A statistical unlikelihood of echoes cry out: WHO ARE WE?
Norah straightens. She doesn't look at either of them. "I don't know," she answers. And then she's gone.
"Norah!" Abbie's voice echoes, uncaught, through the silence that Norah left behind. Shit. Shit.
And then the floor begins to shake in earnest. Abbie moves, finally, darting towards the telescope as one of the far walls begins to buckle.
"Abbie, we need to get out of here," Marisol starts. Windows shatter, one by one. "I don't like what's—"
"Help me get the lens!" Abbie says, hurrying to unscrew the drawtube lock. If they can just access it, if Marisol can get the eyepiece loose...
"What?" Marisol asks, unhelpfully.
"Of the telescope!" They have to shout to be heard over the storm outside, over the sound of the Observatory's ongoing implosion. "We need to take it!"
"This is super fucking dangerous," Marisol shouts back, in lieu of fucking helping. "We need to leave now!"
She doesn't understand. There needs to be something left. This can't just be a failed experiment. "They worked so hard!"
"Abbie!"
"She and Rudy worked so hard to build this! She’ll want it when she comes back!"
If she comes back.
Their hands are shaking, inefficient. The lens is still out of reach. A piece of the ceiling falls with a deafening crash, and Abbie flinches in spite of themself, curling over the eyepiece.
And then, for the second time, the cacophony abruptly subsides.
Abbie cracks their eyes open, then straightens by slow, stunned degrees. The Observatory is gone — not in the way it was working towards, just gone. The telescope, Marisol, both comprehensively erased and overwritten by an unfamiliar city block: sidewalk, cars, shop fronts. Pedestrians that don't look twice at them until they eject an alarmed, "What the fuck?!" That earns them a few looks, startled and disapproving.
They're dead. They're dying, and instead of cliché visions of white light or departed loved ones, the last desperate firing of their neural synapses is granting them a vivid hallucinatory approximation of being rude in public. Why not?
It's startlingly realistic, they'll give themself that much. They categorize the sensations with distant, intellectual fascination: the faint breeze, the hum of traffic and voices, the smell of exhaust and damp spring earth and a hint of salt, the marked chill of the cool air against their cheeks. (Are those tears? Mortifying.) The unanticipated weight of the object they're mindlessly clutching in their right hand. Abbie looks down, uncurls their fingers, and looks at the other thing they've been granted.
Nestled in their palm is Norah's lens.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-03-29 10:51 pm (UTC)He sighs and motions for them to follow him as he starts out in the train station's direction. "It's more of an abduction," he says, "and subsequent imprisonment. This city is called Darrow, and as far as I know, it doesn't exist where any of us come from. It sort of acts like a small American city, erm... I think I remember someone comparing it to New Jersey? But it's just... odd. Different. Whatever's behind it — and I tend to think of it as the city itself — it's been pulling people in like this for a very long time now. It doesn't let us leave unless it decides to send us home. And in the meantime, for better or worse, it wants us to feel comfortable."
Christ, it's been a long time since he really confronted the whole truth of the situation, without any sugar coating. It really is incredibly sinister, isn't it. He winces and continues, "A lot of people end up at the train station, for whatever reason. I did. So that's where they keep the, erm... welcome packets."
(no subject)
Date: 2024-04-27 09:00 pm (UTC)"Welcome packets," they repeat, brow furrowed. "Those are... standard? What's in them?" It's not hard to imagine the potential contents — maps, some pamphlets, maybe a coupon book — as much as it's hard to imagine not wanting to hurl said packet at the head of whatever hapless city employee is handing them out. No welcome packet is going to make being abducted by a sentient locality any easier.
(no subject)
Date: 2024-05-29 12:41 pm (UTC)"Map of the city," he begins with an air of memorized recitation, "money — Darrow has its own form of paper money and coins, similar to American, but not the same. You'll have a bank account, so all the paperwork with that, a card and a checkbook. The account comes with 1200 in it and they give you 300 in cash broken into a sensible series of smaller bills. It's all very sensible." He says that with some dry bitterness. "Keys. One to your new apartment, to which you've automatically been assigned, and one to your mailbox at the city post office. There'll be a card with your new address on it. If you have a mobile phone, you'll find it's swapped to Darrow's service, and if not, the packet will have a phone for you as well."
He thinks that covers everything. Apart from the worst thing.
"And a photo ID," he says. "With a photo of you. As you are right now. Which was, personally speaking, my least favorite part."