[Closed] The sweetest summer gift of all

[talesuntold]

Who: After the End Times staff
Where: Floor 9, room 69.
When: 10/19
Rating: PG/PG-13
Summary: Auntie Maggie summons everybody over for dinner and movies.
The Story:

Everyone on the After the End Times staff received a message this morning.

Hello After the End Times staff,

I'm Maggie Garcia, and I've taken over as head of the Fictional department.

I still haven't met all of you, and with our crew as small as it is here in Wonderland, that hardly seems reasonable. Come by floor 9, room 69 this evening for a very informal staff meeting. Introductions, dinner, and a relaxing movie night. I'm currently taking requests for both food and films, though I reserve the right to veto the latter. I have to draw the line somewhere.

See you later, darlings!

--

True to her word, Maggie spent the afternoon cooking. (She likes cooking; why order from the closets what she could make herself?) A meal is laid out honoring any requests she got, and the public half of her room has its usual assortment of comfortable antique chairs and couches, plus a projector screen set up for movies once they're done eating and talking.

She also has a popcorn maker and plenty of ammunition for it. No movie night is complete without popcorn.

((Feel free to use this post as a mingle. Post top levels, tag around, etc! If anyone wants to respond to Maggie's initial message, you're also welcome to do that, just specify in the subject line.))

Comments

[burntvideocassette]

[Tim told him it was alive.]

[Not a huge jump from there to here.]

Why? I don't mean, "Why are you saying that?" I mean, "Why would it want us to know that one thing?" Is it just keeping us scared, or..? Or I guess maybe it's not true in the first place. Like maybe we came to a wrong conclusion it liked, and it tried to encourage us to run with it.

Or...might be overthinking this, I dunno.

[choosetruth]

No such thing.

[Georgia's a firm believer in thinking as much as possible about everything, and honestly Jay could use a little overthinking.]

But the fact is we only can theorize unless we find some way to actually communicate with the place.

[burntvideocassette]

[He hadn't even considered that.]

[Granted, back home, "just talk to it" isn't really an option.]

I guess you could say it talks to us. I mean, with the events. But--but yeah, that makes sense, trying to find a way to maybe talk to it so we we get more back than just "Yeah, there you go. You're someplace new now. Have a godawful weekend."

[choosetruth]

You've heard the message from last year, right?

[Just in case he hasn't, she sends an audio clip.]

[burntvideocassette]

[Jay's heart rate speeds up the longer he listens.]

[And, for one hysterical moment, he forces down the urge to say something stupid about cake.]

So that's... [His eyes dart along the edges of the walls.] ...for sure, that's...

[One thing in particular catches his attention, so he tries to narrow his focus to that, at least at first.]

It said, "Welcome back," and--and, "Time after time again." [The next words come out quiet, hesitant. It's clear he's already jumped to the worst possible conclusion.] Who's it talking to?

[choosetruth]

Us, presumably. [She hadn't been there at the time, but she knows the general gist of what happened.] I mean, we're the ones who received it.

[burntvideocassette]

Alright...alright.

Right.

[He looks away, thinking.]

So, I--I know for sure I've been here before. I don't remember it, but I've been here before. [He should be used to it by now. Maybe you never get used to stuff like this.] Once since Tim got here and--and other times before then.

What if that's the case for all of us?

[choosetruth]

It could be. I know I was here before as well. Alone, that time, not with Shaun. But that's only what I could find in recent history. The archive becomes harder to search if you go back far enough.

[Which is to say, it's entirely possible. She hesitates, then adds:]

There was an event the spring of last year as well. I wasn't there yet, but it was documented. Stars fell from the sky containing memories of a Wonderland past.

[.....she hates that that's a sentence she can say with a straight face now.]

A lot of current residents were there. None of them remembered. Except, possibly, Alice.

[burntvideocassette]

So we need to talk to Alice.

[The scope of all this is terrifying.]

[And, in its own way, oddly comforting. He's been here before. Maybe he'll be here again.]

[If this place sends him "home," maybe he won't be stuck there forever, paused on the brink of death, head full of static as the atmosphere shivers and warps and he can't be thinking about this right now.]

[Maybe he'll just keep coming back here, where things are...not safe by any stretch of the imagination, but better.]