[OPEN] Ready or Not...

[widows_kiss]

Who: Natasha & whichever unlucky souls stumble across her!
Where: the kitchen
When: evening of 4/21
Rating: PG-13ish? There might be cursing but hopefully no violence. Probably. Maybe? >.>
Summary: Hello, Wonderland! There's a spy rooting through your drawers. Wait, that didn't come out right...
The Story:
Natasha knows something is off before she even opens her eyes.

She's slumped over a solid surface, her head cushioned on her arms, toes just barely reaching the floor beneath the stool or whatever it is she's perched on. She goes from the unawareness of sleep - or unconsciousness? - to high alert in the span of a heartbeat, although visibly she doesn't so much as twitch. Her breathing remains calm and even as though she were still deeply asleep, but she's already cataloging what her senses can tell her without the aid of her eyes.

This is not her sofa, where she's fairly certain she'd drifted off a short while earlier. Her thoughts are clear, not clouded or foggy, no telltale traces of a foreign agent responsible for missing time and changed locations. She's unhurt except for the lingering ache of still-healing injuries and as far as she can tell there's nothing restraining her. It's quiet - no hint of anyone else around, although she waits almost a minute to be sure before letting her eyes slide open.

The kitchen's unfamiliar. Large, well-equipped, tall windows letting in the warm rays of a setting sun. There's a bowl of fruit at the other end of the counter, simple and unassuming. Nothing is familiar and nothing stands out as obviously out of place, other than her. It's just a kitchen. One she's got no idea how she arrived in, but at least she's apparently been given the freedom to look around.

Natasha slides off the stool to prowl around the room, checking the windows first but there's no one in sight, just an ornate stretch of gardens outside. Her second task is rooting through the kitchen drawers in search of a knife or anything else she can use as a weapon.

She's not sure why she's here, if she's in danger or not, but she likes to be prepared for anything, just in case. And call it paranoia but waking up somewhere strange and unfamiliar - no matter how pleasant - rarely results in anything good.

On second thought, maybe she'll borrow a few knives...

Comments

[eatsyourscience]

The kitchen is a place where Souji spends a lot of time, despite the fact that he works in an impromptu diner upstairs. He's gotten in the habit of cooking his own meals, even though the dining room is much more convenient, and he's never found a good reason to stop. If nothing else, it was a useful way to meet people.

He's not entirely surprised to find someone he doesn't recognize in the kitchen. It's also not surprising for her to look like she's on edge--arriving does that to most people. It's the people who are calm right off the bat that he has to wonder about.

"Hey." His greeting is accompanied by a lazy wave. He comes further into the kitchen, but doesn't approach her. People, newcomers especially, need space.

[widows_kiss]

Natasha was preparing for a lot of people to come through that door, expecting a confrontation, an explanation, something, but the casual disregard as if nothing were out of the ordinary gave her pause. Her hidden knives stayed sheathed for the moment, out of sight, her posture not threatening, just a little wary.

"Hey yourself." He's young, and not at all what someone would expect of a kidnapper or whatever other reason she's unexpectedly here. He doesn't approach her, keeps a careful distance, and she can appreciate that, but she does wander a little closer, gaze intent.

"Are you the welcome party then, or am I to assume I sleepwalked?" The question is light, almost unconcerned in its humor, her head cocked to the side inquisitively.

[eatsyourscience]

"If I'm the welcome party, I'm a pretty bad one." He offers a small half-smile that's meant to be more consoling than amused.

He crosses the room to rummage in a cupboard. "I can't really tell you how you got here, but I can tell you about the place itself."

Unfortunately, his answer to most of the questions newcomers ask has to be "I don't know." Even after three years, it's been impossible to learn some of the most basic things about this place.

[widows_kiss]

"You're not surprised to see me." It's not a question, merely a curious statement of fact as he carries on in whatever brought him to the kitchen. She hadn't been anticipating anything of the sort, but someone hadn't seen fit to give her a heads up.

Natasha really hated surprises.

"Alright. I'll bite. What can you tell me?"

[eatsyourscience]

He rummages for an unusual amount of time because he can't seem to find a glass that isn't some kind of stemware. The cabinets get finicky sometimes and it's always over the most mundane things.

"People come and go all the time. Especially lately."

With a sigh, he finally gives up and produces something much more ornate than necessary, considering he's about to fill it with soda. Assuming the fridge isn't acting like the cabinets.

"I don't know why it picks the people it does, but most people think it's because this place eats our memories." He looks up from examining the glass and, knowing that alarms some people, he adds, "Not all at once or anything. Just a few words at a time."

[widows_kiss]

Natasha goes still at that, some of her casual humor fading away into a more intent form of consideration. Or skepticism. Or maybe both. 'Alarm' might be stretching things a bit but he's certainly got her full attention.

"This place. As in the room? The building? I think I need you to explain that."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji nods. He probably should have started there. He moves toward the fridge to find the soda he came for.

"It's called Wonderland. It's like a small world all of its own, and the people here are all from different worlds outside of it."

He pauses with the fridge door open and looks over at her to belatedly ask, "Do you want something to drink?"

[widows_kiss]

She waves off the offer with an absent motion of her hand. "There's a sink. I'll just get some water. Thank you though." Besides, the other part of her answer has her more intrigued. "Wonderland. As in... the real Wonderland? From a book?" The different worlds idea isn't entirely foreign - they'd seen just how real those were last summer, as if meeting Thor himself hadn't been a big enough clue.

"So you're saying we've been plucked from our own worlds and brought here so that some fairy tale land can feed on our memories."

She let the words hang there in the air for a moment, and yeah they sounded just as ridiculous spoken out loud as she'd feared.

"I think I'm going to need something stronger to drink than water."

[eatsyourscience]

"It's not exactly like the book. But it's...similar."

The fridge has blessed Souji with a bottle of soda, which he pours into his very strange glass. As he waits for the fizz to go down, he gestures at the cabinets.

"If you think of what you want, you can get it in here. Usually." He takes a swallow of his drink. "The closets around the Mansion do the same thing, except with more than just food and dishes."

[widows_kiss]

"Can you tell me how it feeds on memories?" Because that's the more troubling of the problems he's mentioned, at least for her. "Are we trapped here?" She doubted people willingly volunteered for this - she certainly hadn't - but it was interesting that it seemed they weren't being strictly contained. Especially with what he'd added next.

"You can... what. Wish things into being?" Natasha eyes the cabinets with a skeptical look.

[eatsyourscience]

"If you mean how it affects us, we lose a few words at a time. Sometimes you don't even figure out which ones for a long time."

He still isn't sure what exactly he's lost and he frowns into his drink thinking about that.

"But yeah, we are trapped. Or at least, no one's ever figured out how to leave." He nods at her last question and then again toward the cabinets, urging her to give it a try. "Since we don't want to be here in the first place, I guess the place is trying to keep us as happy as it can. Or something."

[widows_kiss]

"You lose words," she echoes that thoughtfully, mulling it over a moment. "And the memories associated to that word, I take it?" Since losing words was a little strange but not that impactful. At least, not until you were here for a long time - which she hoped she wouldn't be. There were a lot of words to go through.

She forgoes the cabinets and heads to the fridge instead. She'd seen him pull out his bottle of soda and forgoes the glass, thinking very hard about what she wanted before opening the fridge door. She'd been specific and apparently whatever ran this place was feeling generous. Or, at the very least, indulgent. She pulled out the bottle of iced tea, the brand being one she could only find at the little corner market around the block from her apartment.

"Well. That is strangely useful."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji eyes the fridge. It was once his favorite appliance, but if it keeps playing favorites, that might change.

"Kind of. One of the things I lost--I can still picture it, but I have no idea what it's called."

This leads them to another important topic, though. "The memory loss always comes with an event. That's what we call them, anyway. I think they're also called crashes, but I'm not completely sure why."

[widows_kiss]

Well, that was at least a little reassuring. There was very little she could call wholly her own but her memories, the ones she had, were things she was possessive of. She popped the cap of her bottle of tea and took a sip, relieved when it tasted exactly the same as it was supposed to. Whatever magic was at work here, at least it was thorough.

"What's an event?"

[eatsyourscience]

"It's when Wonderland recreates someone's memories. It's usually not completely accurate, and it can take a lot of forms. The Mansion might change, or everyone might be forced to act different from normal."

He pauses to take a drink of soda and then continues. "But it happens pretty regularly. Every few weeks, usually."

[widows_kiss]

"Recreates... You mean we live out an event from someone else's memories?"

What a chilling thought, she didn't have many that were safe enough for that. And she didn't particularly enjoy sharing.

"Sounds... unpleasant. But thank you for the warning."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji nods and finishes his soda. "They're not all bad, but even the ones that aren't can be hard if you're not ready for them."

He moves to the sink to wash the glass, even though the Mansion would take care of it if he were to just leave it sitting around. As he's reaching for a cloth to dry it on, it occurs to him that he hasn't actually introduced himself and he looks over at her.

"I'm Souji, by the way."

[widows_kiss]

"People rarely like surprises, unpleasant or otherwise," she agreed, smiling faintly.

She leans her hip against the counter and takes another sip of her tea. "Souji," she echoes, making note of it. "A pleasure. I'm Natasha."

[eatsyourscience]

"Nice to meet you. And um, welcome to Wonderland, I guess." He dries out his glass and sticks it back in a cupboard that he's pretty sure isn't the one it came from.

"I've been here about three years. If you have other questions, I'll do my best to answer them."

[widows_kiss]

"Three...!" She starts a little at that, her gaze darting back to him. "That's a long time to be away from home."

[eatsyourscience]

"Yeah." He leans against the edge of the counter. "Most people don't stay that long, at least. And nothing will be different when I get back."

[widows_kiss]

That has her tilting her head to the side, puzzling those words over for a moment. "What does that mean?"

[eatsyourscience]

"When we leave home, time stops there. When we go back, we go back to the same moment and we don't remember anything."

[widows_kiss]

She opens her mouth and then closes it, needing a moment to digest that, think about the consequences. "So no one will know we are even gone, and when we're returned, neither will we," she muses, frowning. "You know this for certain?"

[eatsyourscience]

"Yeah. People can come from the same world, but from different points in time. No one ever remembers them going missing, though."