[OPEN] Like the echos in your mind you try to leave them all behind...

[radiopalkiller]

Who: Philip ( radiopalkiller ) & OPEN
Where: A nightmare! That country whose name he doesn't remember anymore! The mines!
When: 3rd to 7th of October, aka. event time (with bonus thread for the week after)
Rating: PG-13 and neighbouring ratings
Summary: Home sweet home! ...Sort of.
The Story:
[ OOC INFO: Open to all, prose and comment spam welcome. Here is a summary of all the days:

#1: Philip will wander the tunnels aimlessly and try to process that he's actually stuck in his own event.
#2: Philip will wander the tunnels deliberately, make a tentative transmission and spend most of the time murdering dogs with zest and That Unsettling Little Spark (TM) in his eyes.
#3: Philip will casually look for tools and spend most of the day sitting by the lake.
#4: Philip will get impatient, look for tools in many more places and gather supplies to make a huge bomb which he hopes will blow open the door to the incinerator, the path he knows leads to the last part of the mines.
#5: A brief public service announcement, followed by broken sobs.]

Comments

٩◔̯◔۶

[eatsyourscience]

Souji thanks him and takes the beaker in both hands. He doesn't want to drop and break it, though really, he's worried more about losing the water than the danger of broken glass.

He gulps most of the water. Normally, he'd pace himself, because he knows the whole thing about making yourself sick if you drink too much, too fast when you're dehydrated. Right now he just doesn't even care. He wants all the water. All of it.

When he finally stops, he takes a deep breath.

"I'm worried. There are people who probably can't handle them."

¯\(º_o)/¯

[radiopalkiller]

"Probably."

Philip grimaces, and before he knows it he's slumped against the wall next to Souji, staring up at the shelves that surround them, remembering how poorly he did the first time, how many close calls he had with everything the mines threw at him.

He forces himself to stop before the scenarios grow too vivid.

"Here, I've got..."

He rummages through his pockets, until he grasps something that gives a rattling sound. Philip pulls out a plastic bottle, and pops open the cap, motioning for Souji to hold out his hand.

"They're for the pain."

How much good they'll do against the infection is another question, but hey, grin and bear it, right?

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

[eatsyourscience]

Souji does hold out his hand and watches a couple of pills roll into it, out of the bottle. He pops them into his mouth without comment and uses the last of the water to wash them down.

"Thanks."

It's a start, at least. If this event doesn't last too much longer, they'll be a big help until he can heal himself. Not that his healing powers would do anything for the infection.

"Where did all of this come from?" He gestures with the empty can in his hand, but he doesn't mean the shelves or anything else in the room. He means the entire mine complex and the event itself.

(ノ・∀・)ノ ︵ ┻━┻

[radiopalkiller]

Two of the pills roll into Philip's palm before he can close the bottle. He holds them between his fingers, and wonders when he stopped popping them like candy. Or why, for that matter, because it sure seems like a great idea now.

"You mean--"

He trails off. Of course he means the event. Otherwise they wouldn't need that moment of awkward silence Philip is clinging to now, would they? How much does Souji know, anyway? Compared to all the confessions he's had to make in Wonderland, compared to everything Philip was forced to admit to somebody sooner or later, talking to him always seemed... easy. Superficial.

So maybe he owes Souji something with more substance this time.

"...It's mine."

...Well. Baby steps.

（╯°-°）╯︵(\ .A.)\

[eatsyourscience]

Souji blinks and looks over at him, surprised, but not alarmed.

"You like holes in the ground, huh?"

He's trying to lift the mood a little, though that's really only likely to get it about a half inch off the ground.

It's hard to blame Philip for what's going on. He doubts Philip had anything to do with these tunnels being like they are, and if they're all having so much trouble, isn't it because Philip went through the same stuff first?

"...Your world is pretty tough."

´♪┏(・o･)┛♪┗ ( ･o･) ┓♪

[radiopalkiller]

Philip huffs a laugh all the same.

"It's an acquired taste."

Just as blaming himself has become a force of habit. Once you go that long with a voice in your head tearing down your every move it's hard not to substitute that dialogue yourself, once the voice is gone. Other people? They usually don't compare to the things Philip is able to do to himself these days.

(The same goes for Souji. Maybe that's worth a small sigh of relief.)

"And this-- Erm, this was something of a, uh, change of pace. I had no idea this place- places like this, I mean, anything like this could possible exist, and I... I doubt most people from my world do either."

The laugh turns sore in his throat.

"They'll all die, without a single clue. Guess I just got lucky finding out."

y-you win ;;

[eatsyourscience]

Souji leans his head back against the wall and rolls it sideways to look at Philip.

"What is this place? Why were you down here?"

(ﾉ｡◕‿‿◕｡）ﾉ *:･ﾟ'✿,｡･:*:･ﾟ'❁

[radiopalkiller]

This deserves a drawn-out inhale, and the corresponding exhale. He'll tell Souji, but that isn't the problem. The problem-- It, well, it's just that he hasn't told anybody... in a while. Back when he confessed to a select few it was all... it was still happening. It was the adventure he lived, and sharing, even when it was hard, felt somewhat grounding, in a way.

But now Philip knows how the story ends, and that very beginning seems so impossibly far away.

"We're in--"

Already he pauses. Not because he meant to, he's found his angle for a start, but there's a familiar blankness when he tries. That strange feeling of a word just out of reach, the way some piece of information will get sometimes, and you'll mumble a little swear when you think of it again, hours later.

But this is his event. And he'll never think of it again.

"We're in... the Arctic Circle," he finishes grudgingly.

"I found a set of coordinates, and they pointed me here. It was- it was pretty much like this when I got here. It just used to be a mine, but it's been abandoned for a while, and most of it is quite a bit dated. But, er... you saw that already. I was..."

Right, the real question now.

"I was looking for my father."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji feels like he has to grope through the fog in his head with both hands to hang onto what Philip's saying. The pauses make it a little easier, and although he's sure Philip would explain without him asking, to keep himself focused he says, "Was he missing?"

[radiopalkiller]

So I heard you like pauses, well, here's another. If Philip's ever been asked that question before, then he can't remember it. And he definitely can't remember how he answered, because he's pretty sure it's meant to be straightforward, because why look for somebody who isn't missing? But then, Howard was never really missing, he was always just... gone.

"No."

Philip shakes his head more decisively.

"No, he wasn't."

Ah. Right. Elaboration.

"I never met him once in my life. He sent me a letter though, after... almost thirty years, first thing I'd ever heard of him. That's why I ended up here, because..."

He looks at Souji and trails off.

"Because of his letter," he finishes quietly.

That statement could use some polish, or so Philip thinks. At least a quick mention that he didn't come here at, but against his father's explicit request. Same result in the end though, right?

What's more, Philip doesn't think Souji looks in shape for more storytime. He looks at him, and tries not to frown.

"How're you holding up? I can get more water..."

[eatsyourscience]

Souji nods and does his best to hand the can to Philip instead of thrusting it at him.

"Please..."

As Philip's about that, Souji licks his lips, thinking things over.

"My parents aren't around a lot." That isn't really what they were talking about, and it isn't really sure why that's what he chose to say, but he goes with it. "They went away for work and sent me to my uncle's."

[radiopalkiller]

Plain facts shouldn't be that hard to state, but while he watches as the water slowly fills up the container in his hands, Philip can't help but get stuck at the simple truth. He grew up with his mum, she was his family, it was enough. Right up until it wasn't. Right up until it started gnawing at Philip that maybe it had never been, no matter how adamantly and very rationally he kept reassuring himself to the contrary.

"For him it was work too," he finally says, absent-mindedly. "He had to pick one, or so he said, and that's, um... that's what he went with."

Philip hands Souji the water carefully, and sits back down. The urge to say as little about his travel here is somewhat mitigated by seeing an opportunity to change the subject away from Howard. And to warn Souji, he thinks that should probably deserve a mention of sorts.

"There's a research facility further down in the mines. He's been here the whole time."

Philip blinks.

"There, I mean. In the actual--" He waves his hand vaguely. "I just hope the event doesn't let us get that far."

His tone has abandoned lamenting the past. Because this has to be a warning about the future.

[eatsyourscience]

It strikes Souji that, Greenland and mines and strange science aside, Philip is what Souji might be someday. Even when he lives with his parents, they aren't there. Not in the ways that matter. They chose work, too.

He doesn't get the chance to say that, though, and maybe that's for the best. As he drinks, more slowly this time, he peers at Philip over the top of the can.

"What's he researching?"

[radiopalkiller]

It's probably a good thing Souji doesn't, because Philip couldn't with good conscience recommend being Philip. Sure, right up until that last bit he wouldn't have thought about complaining about his life, only in hindsight there are experiences, mistakes he really wouldn't want anyone to repeat.

"I don't think I ever discovered so much as half of it. What I do know is--"

Great, here's another fun bit again. This one comes easier, at least.

"Well, long story short: They were doing excavations here, and they found an ancient tomb. From what I can tell my father warned them not to open it, but they did, anyway. And what they found, it... killed them. Just about all of them."

In a horrifying and roundabout way, at least.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji lowers the empty can, holding it in both hands so he can feel the lingering coolness in the metal. His arm throbs all the way down to the tips of his fingers.

"What was it?"

[radiopalkiller]

"Long story short? A virus."

Philip doesn't hesitate. In the end the Tuurngait hardly ever felt like more than that, in the end he always felt sick and wrong, and their enlightenment was so little more than a fever dream that had to be ended.

"The things here, the dogs and--" Never mind, no need to make a list. "They're all infected, as far as I can tell."

Just to give Souji an idea of-- Wait, that might've been the wrong idea, actually.

"But, erm, as far as I can tell it's also... not actually possible to catch it from them, at least I'd think you- we would, er... We'd notice."

Not that it makes their attacks any better, he thinks with a glance at Souji's arms, managing not to frown at the sight. With all the rust and rot, there's enough other things down here that can get you.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji's looking at his arms, too. "So how do you get it is not like this?"

He puts a hand over that particularly bad spider bite. It burns under his fingers like a little flesh volcano.

[radiopalkiller]

Philip groans quietly. They're gradually leaving the land of things he doesn't want to talk about to have a stroll in areas he can't talk about, simply because he hasn't got a clue of how they actually work. It's not much of an improvement to the scenery.

"It's possible that it doesn't jump species," he ventures slowly. "But, er, to be honest..."

To be honest he finds himself trailing off, and staring despite telling himself to look away. For all the things the virus is, that isn't one of them, and he wishes he could point that out as something to take comfort in. Hey Souji, looks like good, old blood poisoning to me. Bummer, huh? But hey, at least you're not hearing voices, right?

"...I could, er, I could go and find some bandages for that, maybe they've got a... a proper first aid kit somewhere around here?"

[eatsyourscience]

Souji considers, or tries to, but it's like groping around in fog without his glasses.

It would be nice to have a first aid kit. He might be able to at least keep this from getting any worse than it is now. But Philip would have to leave. Then what? What if he didn't come back?

Souji doesn't normally cling to others, but right now he'd really like to.

"...Is that a good idea?"

[radiopalkiller]

That's about where Philip's train of thought accidentally drives down the wrong track. His concern doesn't have much to do with the ifs of returning from an errand in the mines (because of course he would, why wouldn't he; and of course he could, he's done it before, when he was in worse shape): It's the when that troubles him a bit, because when he gets back, what's he really supposed to do?

Short of a few basics of first aid he's utterly out of his element, and his skill tree in that area has 'just wrap it up and get it to somebody who knows what they're doing asap' written all over it, and that right there is one angry red and oozing problem he doesn't think he can solve properly.

"It's... still better than nothing, right?"

At least he couldn't think of a way to make it worse with the attempt, at least not unless Souji thinks the best call is to sit this one out, and in a way Philip couldn't blame him, four days already, there's got to be an end to this ahead, right? Unless--

"Or did you- did you want me to try and find one of the doctors?"

He tries not to grimace at the idea of voluntarily looking for more company, but if it helps then it's the least he can do.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji shakes his head. "No...no. It's fine. As soon as this is over, I can heal myself."

He can't heal an infection, but at least it won't be an open wound anymore.

"If you think you can find a first aid kit, I'll wait here."

[radiopalkiller]

Philip nods, with all the vigor and conviction of somebody adamant to express that this is not only a good, but a great idea, and anyway, it's going to be fine, and nobody involved will die a horrible death.

Hell, there's probably even going to be cake at the end of this.

"It's nearby, and unless we've got another pack on the way I already got rid of the dogs in those tunnels."

He stands up, and fetches another helping of water, just in case. Putting it down at Souji's side he heads for the door.

"I won't be long, promise."

And this time he's at least intent on trying to make that the truth.

[eatsyourscience]

Souji puts his hand on the can of water, but doesn't pick it up yet.

"Okay. I'll be here."

Part of him knows that, realistically, Philip probably won't be back, and likely through no fault of his own. The rest of him believes Philip without question.

[radiopalkiller]

Part of Philip knows that, realistically, something is bound to go wrong, because it always does, especially when he needs it to go right. But the rest of him walks out through the door with an encouraging smile, beelining to his destination as quick as he can.

He reaches the right room in no time, and sighs with relief at the bandages and ointments in his hands. He turns to head back and--

--and finds himself trapped alone in front of an all too familiar door, when the fourth day of the event turns to the fifth.

Well, at least he really did try this time...