on an island in the sun, we'll be playing and having fun

[poorlycopingstrategist]

WHO: Jamie and anyone who feels like dealing with this disaster
WHERE: his labyrinth, which is a beautiful tropical island and he hates it.
WHEN: anytime between July 1-3, i guess?
WHAT: Jamie is dismayed to discover that he possesses emotions.
WARNINGS: nothing in particular


He doesn't know how he wound up back here, but that's not surprising, really.

For several long moments Jamie stands blinking stupidly in the sun, staring out over the gently-rolling ocean as it laps at the toes of his shoes. It feels like a million years since he's been on this beach, but it feels exactly the same as it ever did. He wonders if he's dreaming, but - no. The breeze in his hair, the tang of salt tickling his nose, the way the sunlight reflects off the water: it's all too real to be a dream.

Besides, this is almost pleasant and his dreams, of late, almost never are.

He needs to find the island's other residents, the people he'd left behind when he'd been pulled away from here. Jamie turns from the water and breaks into an easy lope along the damp, firm sand, heading toward the village, but when he finds it he comes to an abrupt halt. It...doesn't look the way he remembers it. He's pretty sure that storefront looked different, for example, and the diner wasn't next door to the first aid station, and the bar didn't have all that kitschy boat-themed crap out front, did it? The residences are different, too, something about the size of the buildings or the slope of their roofs, or the way they're arranged in relation to each other. Everything looks wrong, and he doesn't like it. Then again, it has been a while since he was here; maybe things just...changed. Or maybe his memories were all wrong, distorted by time or trauma or any number of other things. There's an explanation for why nothing here matches up, he's sure.

But what he can't get past is the fact that the village is completely empty. There's no one moving amongst the buildings; shops stand with their doors open to the cool seaside breeze, but nobody is inside. The huts are empty, or at least if anyone's home, they're ignoring his attempts to get their attention. Jamie doesn't know which option is worse.

Jamie doesn't like being alone. He's never been alone, or at least not to this extent. It feels like he's wandering through a ghost town - or maybe that he's the ghost, cursed to never make contact with the living. Fear and despair feel like they're trying to sink their claws into his brain and devour him alive, and the thought of giving in to it terrifies him even more - like this might be the thing that pushes him over the edge into complete insanity.

But there's nothing to distract him from it, no one to talk to, nothing to do. If he just had something to occupy his attention a little, he could handle this, he thinks - if there was some kind of actual, physical problem to address, something that he could concentrate on fixing, then maybe he - is that a dirtbike.

It isn't very long at all before he's scrounged up a set of tools and the dirtbike is half dismantled, parts spread out in neat arrays around him. Who cares if it wasn't broken before, he's going to fix it anyway.

Comments

[brightspot]

Five hasn't been back into the spirit realm since her own labyrinth, but she knows that other people can wind up trapped in their own labyrinths in here too, and there's a part of her that keeps hoping to find someone she recognizes, someone from the Raza crew.

She doesn't expect to wind up on a tropical island, and after some walking she eventually pulls off her jacket to tie around her waist. It's a little worrying to be here because she's not sure how well she knows how to swim, and the psychics on the network had predicted tentacles and drowning this month. So when she arrives at a village, it's a relief. It's mostly deserted, so that's scary, but still kind of a relief.

Wait, not deserted. There's someone messing with some sort of vehicle... A bike? She can't remember seeing one of those before, but that name does sound accurate in her head.

"Hi!" She yells out as she hurries forward, boots kicking up sand as she makes a beeline towards Jamie. "That looks cool. What is it?"

The funny thing is, despite not knowing the name, she'd probably be just as adept at taking it apart and putting it back together as Jamie is. So, hey, new friends with similar skill sets maybe?

[poorlycopingstrategist]

At the sound of a human voice, Jamie's head snaps up and he gapes in surprise for a moment. Only a moment, though, and then he breaks into a relived grin. He doesn't recognize the young woman heading toward him, but she's another person to talk to, and she doesn't seem hostile. This is a marked improvement over being alone with his thoughts.

"Hi," he calls back, leaning back to wipe some sweat off his forehead (and instead smudge some grease up there). "This is a dirtbike. It's a machine you can ride to get around places faster than you can on foot." It's a pretty crude explanation, but he's prepared to go into more detail if the girl wants him to.

[brightspot]

She can't help but smile when he smudges grease on his forehead, but she doesn't mention it. Honestly, to her, it's not like it's a bad look or anything. It's fine.

"I thought it might be a type of bike. I've never seen one exactly like this. Was something wrong with it?" She motions at where he's apparently been doing some sort of work on it.

[poorlycopingstrategist]

"Ahhh...not exactly," Jamie hedges. "But! - it's a good idea to break machinery down and make sure all the parts are in working order, every now and then." Which isn't totally a lie, it just doesn't generally apply to things like vehicles.

He gestures for her to sit down and join him, if she's so inclined. "So they don't have things like this where you're from? Do they have, y'know. Machines?" It's asked with genuine curiosity, not as a dig - he's used to speaking with people from worlds with a lower level of technology than his own. The girl's clothes don't look totally archaic, but in his experience there's still a decent chance she might be from someplace that hasn't developed motors of any kind.

[brightspot]

She takes the offer and has a seat, crossing her legs over one another. Even if he were lying, she wouldn't really call him on it considering she often likes to break stuff down that doesn't technically need to be, just to look inside it and see how it works and if she can put it back together.

"They probably do have these things, I just can't remember? My memories are... They're a little weird right now." To put it in the most uncomplicated way possible. "Mostly the machines and stuff I've seen aren't powered like that, though. We used more electricity and less..." She peers closer at the bike and takes an educated guess. "Combustion?"

To be fair, there are probably plenty of places in the whole wide galaxy that still used stuff like that, mining colonies and places without the money of corporations behind them.

[poorlycopingstrategist]

Jamie raises his eyebrows just a tetch but doesn't comment on the memories thing for now. It's...concerning, though. Instead he bobs his head a little at her assessment of how the bike operates. "Yeah, tech like this uses a flammable liquid as a power source. It pumps in here..." And he launches into a brief but detailed description of how internal combustion engines work, pointing out different parts of the bike as he goes.

"It's not what we use where I'm from, either, but this kind of thing is pretty common around here," he finishes. He glances up at the girl, briefly. "So are you new? You sound kinda like you're not from around here."

[brightspot]

Even as he's explaining it to her, something about it feels familiar. Maybe at some point she'd learned this, worked with this sort of thing, she's not really sure. She nods along with his explanation anyway.

Ah. Does he know he's in the Spirit Realm? Maybe not. Five hadn't known either, exactly, when she had been in her Labyrinth version of the Raza. Given she hadn't remembered being anywhere near it before she wound up in there though definitely had been a clue. As had all the notes telling her she wasn't old enough to do anything on the Raza.

"I'm not from around here... exactly, but... Well, I don't think we're where you think we are, either?" Hm. Maybe that's a little vague. "This place makes you see somewhere you remember but it's kind of off? Like it's not exactly like you remember it?"

[poorlycopingstrategist]

Jamie, lining up the tools he'd been using just to double-check they're all still there, pauses as the girl speaks. Just for a moment, though, and then he's back to fidgeting with the tools, not really wanting to contemplate what she's saying. He's quiet for a few long moments.

"I thought - well, I hadn't been back here for a while. I figured things had just...changed since then, places do that when you go away sometimes, y'know. But - " He gazes off into the distance, toward the empty, silent village. The fear starts to well up in him again, and he tamps it down fiercely.

"So where are we." His voice is flat and his expression, when he glances back at her, is carefully closed off.

[brightspot]

Places do change over time, but... They're also the only people here. Obviously that's something he would have realized by now. This place looks like it should be populated, so the fact that it's not... That's strange, right?

"It's called the Spirit Realm. You got pulled in here from your world. I did too, and so have others... When we first arrive it looks like this, like a place we remember, but different. There is a way out, but it won't be back to where you came from..." She's speaking very gently, her face sad like she knows, at least somewhat, what he's going through, because she also went through it. Is still going through it, in the way that she's still waiting for a way to get back home. "The way out leads to a city called Kaisou, on 21st century Earth."

[poorlycopingstrategist]

His eyes flick up sharply at the phrase "Spirit Realm." Does that mean he really is dead, after all? But the rest of what the girl is saying doesn't seem to suggest that; it sounds more like he's just. Been sucked into yet another universe, or whatever. He's getting sort of tired of that.

Jamie goes quiet for a bit longer, nudging the handle of a wrench with one fingertip, fractions of an inch this way and that. What she's saying makes sense, and he hates that it does. Any normal, sane person would protest this a little more, he's sure. But he's accepted that, by this point, he's neither normal nor entirely sane.

"I thought, for a little while, when there was nobody here - " he ventures. It's uncomfortable, divulging his feelings like this, and anyway it's not going to accomplish anything, so might as well move past it. He forces a tight, humorless grin. "Well. I thought maybe I'd finally died and this was whatever afterlife I'd earned. Glad that's not the case."

He pushes himself to his feet, brushing sand off the seat of his pants and staring off once again toward the village - or whatever the thing is that's standing in for the village. Everything still feels real to him: the sun, the distant crash of ocean waves, the tang of salt and heavy damp scent of dense jungle foliage. He feels a sudden surge of insane hatred for whatever's doing this to him, but when he turns to look back at his companion, he's schooled his features into a neutral expression once again.

"What happens if we stay here?" he asks. "Is it...safe, for people like us? Back in this city?" Last time he visited Earth things got sort of ugly. He's not exactly eager to throw himself on the mercy of Earth humans again anytime soon, if he can help it.

[brightspot]

As Jamie seems to be quietly taking in all that she's said, fidgeting with one of the wrenches, Five tilts her head a little and studies him. It makes sense he's not all cheerful or whatever. It's hard being pulled away from your home.

Her eyebrows furrow in with concern as he talks about being dead, the afterlife. It's not an insane thought to have, given everything. Especially if before he arrived he was in some kind of dangerous situation, like Five had been. Still, the way he says it, that grin, is concerning.

She watches him stand up, then follows suit, dusting the sand off her patterned leggings.

His question confuses her for a moment. "Yes? Uh, there's this group, Zodiac, who are studying the Spirit Realm because not a whole lot is known about it yet, and they're looking for a way to send us back, but they'll give you an apartment to stay in in the meantime. That's what they did for me." She gives a little shrug. "Most of us don't fully trust them, but you have to do what you have to in order to survive, right?"

[poorlycopingstrategist]

That earns another twist of his lip, something closer to a baring of teeth than any expression of humor. "I guess so. For now."

It's there and gone, though, and then Jamie begins walking, a sort of slow aimless meander. He glances back at the girl. "How do we get out of this...Spirit Realm, thing? Is it always empty like this, or are there things living here?"

[brightspot]

Five isn't sure whether it would be a comfort or not for him to know he's not the only one who feels exactly like that about trusting Zodiac. It's not quite as bad for Five yet, personally, but she's seen people being really mad at them. Anyway, she keeps it to herself for now and follows his wandering stride.

"To be honest, this is my first time here since I was in my own labyrinth. Which is what they call it when you're first brought here and it shows you somewhere you're familiar with? So I don't really know a whole lot about it. I've heard that staying too long can be dangerous though, and that there are bad things living in the Spirit Realm. But in my own I think I was there for several hours before I found my way out."

She's not certain how many hours or even if it was hours or days, because there was no way for her to tell the time. Things were broken in the Raza and nothing would work for her because she "wasn't old enough." That had been frustrating to the point of tears eventually.

Five is giving a brief look around the place suddenly, head turning this way and that.

"We could try heading the way I think I came from...?"

Which is an excellent idea except she's not certain now which way she did come from.

[poorlycopingstrategist]

Jamie's brow wrinkles as he listens to her explanation. None of it makes logical sense, but he's seen enough weird stuff in the past few years to know that there are parts of existence that don't care about logic and will happily prove it in the worst ways imaginable, so he accepts what she tells him.

"So we should definitely get out of here and back to this city, huh." He guesses being among humans, or at least mortal beings, is better than staying someplace where ghosts or demons or something might devour his soul, or whatever it is the Spirit Realm denizens want to do to him.

"Which way did you come from? Over here?" He changes his trajectory slightly to head the way he saw her approach from. "How'd you get out of yours?" He's a little curious about what her labyrinth had looked like, but isn't certain that asking would be welcome. Maybe labyrinths are personal, or something.

[brightspot]

It's interesting to her that he either is very readily believing what she says, or he's just going with the flow for the sake of seeing what happens next. Or maybe both.

"I didn't really do anything specific to get out of mine. I just had to wander around? Mine was based on my ship, the Raza. Um, a ship for space, not water. But the layout wasn't the same. It was like... Distorted and confusing, so I kept getting lost. Which I guess is why they call it your labyrinth."

She explains this all as they walk, still a little disappointed they won't get to play with the bike anymore but it really is probably for the best that they leave as soon as they can.