animus_network | ⇝002 // voice

Hello. You've been brought to a tower. Can you describe where you are? Maybe I can help.

Not that. I've been here before.

_{I haven't really left. I don't think. I don't remember leaving. Could I have left..?}

I went walking. Now, I think I'm lost.

All right. Sorry, I misunderstood. So please, tell me what your surroundings look like. I'll try to find you.

Stars. So many pretty little lights. Stars and planets and worlds.

..Do you think anyone lives on these worlds? They don't look inhabited. _{Earth doesn't, either. Maybe they are. Millions of tiny little lives, and they just.. keep... ending.}

[That wasn't difficult to decode. Signless steps onto floor twelve and looks around until he finds a human. He smiles cautiously, not baring his teeth too much. The man seemed... unbalanced]

Hello there. Are you the man who called for help?

_{[he doesn't look up at Signless; he just listens, watching the floor, sitting where he is against a nonexistent wall - leaning against it, knees up, arms on top of them. a short giggle.]}

Do you think... they know?

Edited 2012-02-25 06:46 (UTC)

[Signless crouches next to him, concerned] Who?

_{{a little handwave at all the stars on the walls around them.]}

All those people. On all those planets.

I don't know. [He looks up at the wall, expression pained] I hope not. Assuming that it's not all just an elaborate lie. It could just be a projection.

You feeling any better now, Franken...?

Better...?

_{[enjoy the quiet laughter.]}

There isn't any better. _{Not when she's hanging over my shoulder like this.}

Oh! We're still feeling a bit c-creepy, got it!

...I wish Marie were here. She'd actually be able to help, I think. [He hopes.]

Marie? _{Marie wouldn't help me. Marie's dead.}

Didn't you know that? She's gone. _{Gone.

[way to hurt his feelings, Birkin. at first he's really quiet, somber. then, he starts to giggle again.]}

She'd be so disappointed. Wouldn't she.

Dead!? B-but she... I. I remember - [Oh, right. Their world did technically get destroyed, didn't it? Yeah, Birkin... Has been trying not to focus on that. Or at least, that's what he's assuming what Stein's talking about.]

It's not your fault.

She was right there. Right in front of me. She smiled.

_{She looked so sad.

I should...

Why didn't I do something.}

H-hey! Hey, hey hey... Don't think about it so much, alright? We all do stupid shit in life that we regret, you know?

Like that time we blew up the White House. Remember that? Now that was an awful fucking plan...

...Y-you do remember that right, Stein?

No.

_{Should I...?}

W-well... Well maybe not that because you were still slightly insane when all that was going on - I had just taken you out of your universe because of something or other that happened up in the Arctic. So before that! We'll go earlier! You remember when we went out to dinner and I monitored your brain activity while twisting your bolt?

O-or if you can't remember that maybe it's just because it was a while ago - it was a while ago - and why would you remember that anyway, it's stupid... Don't you remember when you promised you wouldn't forget about me when Wesker left? Can't you at least remember that? [He sounds like he's starting to get genuinely upset. He might start crying even.]

[There's a barely audible irritated sigh, and she sounds tired. So tired...] Where did you wander off to this time? [She's somewhere between angry and just wanting to break down and sob hysterically. And try as she might, it still shows in her voice.]

Dunno. It's different here.

_{It's not like the hallway at all.}

Tell me what's around you, then. Books? Flowers? I need more of a description than "different".

Right... now...

_{[he starts talking, low and fast, under his breath; she'll have to strain to hear him, but if she does:]

Planets, planets surrounded by planets, and stars, everywhere. Kind of like looking at the sky but I feel like I'm in the sky, floating and watching and- oh. Oh no. It's happening again. I don't know why it happens or why it won't stop happening but it keeps going, it keeps- everything flexes and vibrates and dies, and all those people, all those places, they all just disappear--

[he starts to giggle, and it gets loud and high-pitched before cutting off. his frantic breathing can be heard for a second, and a loud swallow.]}

They never really had a chance. They never really do. I keep watching them all die, over and over again. All those pretty planets and stars. Gone. All gone.

[She thinks, trying to overlay what she knew about the tower from exploring - and searching for him. Or tailing him to make sure he didn't get hurt or hurt someone else - with what she could hear him rambling about. She knew the floor he was probably talking about, unless the ranting about astronomy was just a hallucination, in which case, she'd just need to search the entire tower top to bottom.]

Don't move, I'll be right there.

I... can't. I can't move.

_{[a little giggle.]}

Can't move. Can't do it. Won't. Scared.

_{What if I fall into all those stars. What if I die with everyone else?

[snicker.]

I don't think it'd be all that bad.}

[She knows, logically, that won't happen. She knows, logically, that he's not going to go anywhere. When he gets too lost, he always waits around for her to guide him back home. But she still feels her heartbeat quicken and the panic rise in her soul, and she starts running up flights of stairs, skipping over steps, two, three at a time.

And somewhere behind all that, a desire to laugh, to giggle, to just... Give up and let it infect her as badly as it has done to him.

She pushes past it, she always does, and makes it up to the twelfth floor. Slowly, she walks towards him, like she was approaching an injured animal (she was, maybe, in a way) and gently puts a hand on his shoulder.]

It's okay, I'm here now.

But you've found your way to a network station?

[There's an arch note in L's tone.]

Above me.

step 1 look away from the computer screen

step 1 point 5 wait for your eyes to adjust because i'm sure it'll take a minute

step 2 you can't read because you looked away from the screen if you're listening

you are now no longer lost because you realized you are still in the tower ヽ(｀◇´)/

lol 10/10

If I were you, I would keep my "lol"s to myself. Assuming I wanted to keep my vital organs where they were, at least. [Because 'stfu' just didn't quite cut it.]

Lost in it. Didn't ever leave.

oh, huh. that makes sense since we're stuck in it and all but i dunno whatever okay

new shiny revised steps

steps 1b look for stairs

step 2b climb up and down them until you find somewhere familiar

the new become unlost plan by sayaka miki, guaranteed to work ヽ(｀◇´)/

[Oh hey there roommate, haven't seen you around much at all.]

You've come to the library, idiot.

Where..?

Who are you.

Ankh. You're Stein I take it.

The library. The place with the computers and books. Too hard to understand?

⇝002 // voice

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