Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket | OPEN

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE and all the stars in the sky
Where: Mostly on the grounds, though some have crashed through windows and walls.
When: 2/29 → 3/6
Rating: PG-13, label it if you're gonna go higher.
Summary: Shooting stars have fallen in Wonderland, and they're bringing with them glimmers of Wonderyears past! A catch all log for the fallen star holograms.
The Story:

Each glittering, golden star brings the woosh of a sonic boom and there are impacts that shake the whole world. They crash hard into the snow, the trees, and even break through a few windows. None of them leave behind meteors or space debris, but instead just a glimmering cloud at each point of impact. In each gold light is a projection, a scene lit by starlight and moondust, a memory of years ago. Even if someone were to be struck by one, it would simply pass through them.

These are just the first stars to fall. More will come the next night, and the night after that, and perhaps even more. When budding astronomers look upward, they will notice fewer and fewer constellations dot the night sky with each passing day.

All memories are semi-opaque, and will play in a loop in one spot the whole time. Most stars will have landed somewhere on the grounds, but some might have crashed through a window, playing their memory inside the mansion. Characters can listen to and watch the scenes as many times as they like, but they will be unable to influence or interact with the memories in any way.

You can make a top level comment with all the scenes people will get to see. Please include who is in your memory and where it can be found somewhere in your top level. Either prose or [action brackets] are welcome! And finally, check out our plotting post for reminders on what everyone's doing, or ideas for the finishing touches on your memories or the most recent event announcement for more on the falling stars.

Comments

ALEX KRALIE + BRIAN THOMAS | GROUNDS

[rosswood]

"You're not gonna chip in?" A college-aged guy scrubs a hand across his brow, leaning against a stack of lumber, presumably for the mansion-to-be. He looks to Alex inquisitively, his face friendly and earnest.

Alex looks like those who know him might expect him to look, but his hair is longer, his glasses less scuffed, his clothes less matted and creased with neglect. The hard edge of contempt and hostility is all but absent as he sits on the ground, tinkering with a camera. Unsuspecting, innocent. Normal.

"Why?" He shrugs. "They've got plenty of other people to do the heavy-lifting. I'm more of a conceptualist." He forms a rectangle with the thumb and forefinger of his hands and stretches it out in front of him, framing the sky.

The other man - Brian - shakes his head with a low chuckle. "God, you're a nerd."

"Better a nerd than a sell-out." Alex drops his hands and scrutinizes his friend quizzically. "You're seriously going to help them?"

"Well, sure," says Brian, as though the thought of not helping frankly never occurred to him. "They could use the extra hands."

"Whatever, dude." Alex returns to fiddling with the camera in his hands - the markedly static-free, fully-functional camera. "Go. Be the Mr. Rogers wannabe we all know you are."

The memory fades out to the sound of Brian's laughter, spins itself back, and resets to play again.

[luckynumberthree]

Simon's been wandering through the grounds and the house, watching the memories play out here and there out of wild curiosity more than anything. There's a lot of familiar faces - some he knows are longer here, but there's an equal measure of ones he hasn't encountered before and he pays those just as much attention as he wonders who they are and when they were here.

He pauses beside this one, crouching down beside the image of a man and a camera, watching the scene play out with an intrigued expression play out on his face. He doesn't recognize either of them, but he's been caught up in other things lately and hasn't gotten around to meet as many of the new faces as he normally gets to. Nothing about the image lets him know if they were people still here, or just memories caught in a time other than now.

[rosswood]

He's hovered at the memory's very edge for some time, watching with mingled disbelief and...wistfulness, as he stares at that blissfully unaware, younger, happier version of himself toy with a camera, right next to one of the few people Alex remembers being able to call his friend. That didn't make him special, of course. Brian was friends with everyone. But the sentiment still meant something, to an earlier self before that thing with no face happened along and changed everything. Ruined everything.

When someone else stops to stare, Alex's expression contorts briefly, surprise marred with revulsion, but simply shooing people away would probably raise more questions than it solves. So he comes from the side, stands beside the stranger, and folds his arms.

"He was never here," says Alex, pointing at Brian. He's not actually sure if he ever was, but if no one here remembers him, same difference, right? "What a goody two-shoes, right?"

[luckynumberthree]

Simon pushes himself up to his feet again when someone crosses to join him and he's quick to recognize the solid presence at his side as a version of the one in the memory playing out on repeat in front of him.

"I dunno," he comments mildly, watching the pair interact again before casting a sideways glance at the person standing beside him. His lips quirk into a good-natured smirk as he lifts one shoulder in a shrug. "Seems bent on being helpful, it's true. That's not always a bad thing."

[rosswood]

"Sure," and that word is just dripping with sarcasm. "If you like getting bitten in the ass."

Speaking from experience, maybe? Alex shuffles that aside, turning to look at the spectators with a hard glint in his eye. Challenging. Wary.

"What're you doing, getting off watching this crap, anyway?" It's a valid question. Alex doesn't remember seeing this guy before. "Doesn't concern you."

[luckynumberthree]

"Only if they ask first," Simon quips with cheerful sarcasm, flashing the man an easy smirk that has somehow perfected being all mischief.

"And nah, not this. Found some familiar faces in a few of them of people that've have been gone a while. It was good to see them again, even if it was only in a piece of memory. Been wandering around to see if I could find others. I didn't mean to intrude on your private moment."

[rosswood]

"'S not private," says Alex, looking away. Not anymore, anyway. His back-and-forth-ing skills are top notch today. "It never happened. That's the thing."

Since when does Wonderland need a bigger-ass mansion? Since when was Brian here? Since when was Alex from before a point in his life where everything sucked?

Since never.

[luckynumberthree]

"Maybe," Simon replies agreeably, letting his gaze flick back to the scene playing out in front of them. "This place is uncannily good at making you think something's real when it's not. It's also damn good at making you forget something if it's convenient for whatever it's purposes are. Who knows which one is real? Hell. Maybe it's both."

[rosswood]

"Yeah well, I'm sick of this place and its goddamn mind games," Alex snaps, any projected friendliness dissolving on the spot. He waves a hand through the gold-spun projection playing out in front of him, trying to disperse it, but to no avail. It keeps playing, oblivious.

"God, you're a nerd," Brian is saying for the millionth time, and Alex's teeth clench so hard they hurt.

"Shut up," he tells the hologram, stupidly.

[luckynumberthree]

"Hey," Simon interrupts him, reaching out a hand although he makes no move to physically stop him or even intercept him. "Easy. It's just a hologram. Come on. Come take a walk with me. Clearing your head somewhere that's not here is probably a smart idea right now, yeah?"

[rosswood]

"What d'you know about it?" says Alex, rounding on the other man with a glare. "This place has got a real fucked up sense of humor, you know that?"

Brian laughs.

Brian laughs like Alex didn't leave him for dead on the floor of an empty, burned-out building. Like he didn't deserve it. Like he wasn't another symptom of the cause like everyone else.

Brian laughs, and Alex huffs out a cold sound as he walks away from the scene playing over and over again behind him.

"Fine."

[luckynumberthree]

"Yeah, I know it," Simon agrees mildly, turning and walking away with him, falling into step beside him as he doesn't look back, not taking the flare of anger or the glare personally. He knew better than anyone how scenes like that could shake you up, stab deeper than any knife.

"Been here just shy of two years now. You see a lot of fucked up in that time. Wonderland's got a particular twisted knack for it."

[rosswood]

"I'll fucking say," Alex snorts, passing a hand through his hair. "How do you handle it? This crap getting thrown at you every week or two?"

He said he prefers this place to home. And he's not lying, for the most part. But when past memories get dredged up and dragged through the mud? Hoo boy, he minds. He minds a whole lot.

[luckynumberthree]

Simon debates that answer for a long moment before answering.

"The place I come from? Shit's over there. Everything went south. I'm not sure there's enough left to salvage or enough people left alive to salvage it. Crap got thrown at us every minute of the day there. There was always some impending disaster looming on the horizon, some loss to deal with, some new terrifying threat we had no options of avoiding. It gives you a different perspective on things. Here? This shit's temporary, man. If things suck today? Wait three days and you might be having a blast with someone you never would have met where you came from. There's gonna be shit. If there's anything I've learned from being here is that no universe, no alternate world, is perfect. Not even Wonderland's an exception. But I will take temporary crap over permanent crap any day of the week."

[rosswood]

Alex grunts, digesting that little shpiel silently. Give credit where credit's due, a whole lot of that makes sense. It's why he's mostly okay with being here. Mostly. No awful thing in a suit looming over with its faceless face, leering at him out from the shadows and driving him insane. No more dead friends.

No more than usual, anyway.

"You sure all that shit's temporary?" he fires back, arching an eyebrow. "How d'you know this place isn't draining all your gray matter, memories and stuff?"

[luckynumberthree]

"I don't," Simon answers honestly, one shoulder lifting in a shrug. "If it is, it's taking it's sweet time about it. Not gonna lie, there's quite a few memories I wouldn't exactlymind losing."

A sentiment around here that not everyone appreciated, so he didn't normally voice it.

[rosswood]

"You got me there," Alex grunts, crossing his arms across his chest in a manner that ends up being more self-conscious than aloof like he'd been springing for. "Wouldn't mind that either. Provided it's the right ones."

He wouldn't purge any of his memories of Amy from his mind, no matter how much he was offered for them. Recollections of leaving Seth and Brian and Sarah to die in abandoned buildings, however?

He'd rather live without those.

[luckynumberthree]

"Sounds like you had a rough time before you fell down the rabbit hole too," Simon observes, casting a sideways glance over at him in curiosity.

[rosswood]

"College was rough," Alex says shortly, which makes his life seem like some absurdist hipster drama when it was really the furthest thing from. More along the lines of horror-thriller-mystery, if he's honest. Not that he's about to admit it.

"What about you? Come from some crapshoot world? Seems to be a trend around here."

[luckynumberthree]

"Zombies," Simon replies with a cheeky sense of cheerfulness as he tucks his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. "Nasty buggers. Make a right mess of everything. I don't recommend them."

[rosswood]

"Jesus, you too?" Alex snorts and shakes his head. That particular answer seems to be bordering on trendy at this point.

"Seems like just about everyone here comes from some kind of apocalypse or another. What was it this time, huh? Virus? Rabies? Cure for cancer?"

[luckynumberthree]

"Cure for mortality, actually." Simon scoffs, his expression wry. "Which.... sorta worked, but really didn't. I don't think the zombies were actually what they had in mind when it came to... not dying. Spread with a virus, though. People thought it was the flu, at first. Till their neighbors tried to take bites out of them, anyway. The rest is pretty B-movie predictable."

At least until you got to the mind-control and rocket launchers part.

"We have a grand little post-apocalypse club forming here," he jokes. "The sort that would fight tooth and nail to stay here as long as possible."

[rosswood]

Damn right. One side of Alex's mouth twists in revulsion. The whole "humanity shouldn't try to play god" storyline, huh. Yeah, that one never works out well.

"It sucks, but it's not terrible," he says with a shrug. "Better than the apocalypse, anyway. Better than where I was."

Which sounds sort of tame compared to the zombie apocalypse, but it's the truth. Living in constant fear that what he did might not be enough, and his worst nightmare would be coming for him anyway - it meant he'd have to die too. And he's not ready for that. Again.

[luckynumberthree]

Simon casts him a sideways glance, studying him thoughtfully a moment. "Can I ask what you left behind?" he ventures after a moment. "You don't have to answer if that pries too deeply, mind."

[rosswood]

He shrugs, a little tiredly. "Just a girlfriend."

A girlfriend he desperately tried to protect, and had burned away all evidence of to keep any unwanted outside eyes from prying. Everything was fine, though, right? He settled down with her, all those memories and horrors left behind. Safe. Escaped.