entrancelogs | [open] tonight we are young;

Entry tags:

[open] tonight we are young;

Who: Shaun Mason, Georgia Mason, and YOU.
Where: Lab, et cetera
When: Throughout the event
Rating: PG-PG13
Summary: Shaun and George are small, but they're not going to let that stop them.
The Story:

A - Puzzle Time

George is sitting on the floor, the pieces of the puzzle spread in front of her. "Shaun, I need the edge pieces. Come on. Can you focus for five minutes?" Here she'd thought his attention span was bad when they were grown-ups.

“Huh? Oh.” He looks at the piece in his hand which is… nothing like an edge piece. “Sorry, George. This thing is… really kind of violently colorful isn’t it?”

"It's Wonderland, I'm pretty sure that's on purpose." She takes the piece from his hand, rolling her eyes. The murky light of the lab is dark enough that she's mostly not bothering with her sunglasses, keeping them in her pocket and taking advantage of her weird black zombie eyes and the perfect night vision they give her. "Come on, the sooner we finish this, the sooner we can move on to something hopefully more interesting."

“Something where I get a gun?” Shaun mutters irritably. He hunts down a few edge pieces and offers them to her. They’d been told the creatures aren’t hostile, but Shaun hates being unarmed in unfamiliar surroundings.

"Here's hoping." She takes the pieces and puts them together, frowning down at the puzzle.

B - Vending Machine

They (well, George mostly. Shaun was more of a distraction) had managed to solve one of the puzzles without either of their eyes starting to bleed, and that had led them to a vending machine. The problem with being kids though, is that their reach is significantly diminished. It’s easy to look behind or around or underneath the machine, and of course they can see inside it pretty clearly, but the top is another matter.

“Hey, George. Climb on my shoulders.”

George looks up at the top of the vending machine. Even as an adult, she's not that tall, but she'd be able to get closer. As it is, this seems like the best shot they have. "Okay," she says, turning towards him. "Can you hold me? You're smaller than usual."

He raises an eyebrow at her. “I did when we were this size the first time, didn’t I?”

She rolls her eyes. "That was a long time ago." But she slings her legs over his shoulder anyway, holding onto his head.

He straightens slowly, holding onto her legs to stabilize her. “Do you see anything?”

"Hmm, I'm not high enough. Don't drop me." Carefully, she shifts one foot up to his shoulder, leaning one hand on his head and another on the vending machine as she very carefully stands up so she can peer over the top.

C - Blanket Fort

It's been a few days, and while they've made progress towards getting the keys they need to get their bodies back, they're not there yet. And sleeping in one big room with everyone is… uncomfortable. They've made do pushing two of the beds to the side and sleeping curled around each other, but it's still hard to sleep surrounded by other people.

But now, a few days in, feeling more childlike by the minute, there's a perfect solution to that. George tugs the mattresses off their beds and shoves them underneath the frames, then drapes the blankets off the side. A perfect fort.

“This might be one of the best ideas you’ve ever had, George.” Shaun crawls underneath the blankets and stretches out the mattresses underneath. He hadn’t been comfortable sleeping in the same room as everyone else, and this makes it a lot easier to relax.

"You might not have noticed, but I'm pretty smart." She takes another blanket and drapes it over them, curling up against Shaun's side. "I didn't like being a kid that much the first time. I wanna be big again."

“Same,” Shaun agrees, leaning against her. “But at least Mom and Dad aren’t here to stick cameras in our faces this time around. Silver linings.”

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I did. [So there.] And - why?

[Is people-watching the key to fixing whatever went wrong and turned them all into kids and stuck them in a creepy laboratory full of equipment that looks about ready to vivisect them all in a look?]

[Shaun shrugs again.] Kind of hard to focus through all those puzzles. Personally, I'm hoping to get a hint by watching someone else. Or--have George watch someone else. Since I can't see as well.

I haven't had a headache in days and I can see everything. [She sounds almost gleeful, to the extent George is capable of gleefulness. As far as events go, this one's about as good as it gets. She doesn't love being a kid, except for the ways in which it's kind of fun getting to be a little less responsible than usual. Only a little, she's still Georgia, and no amount of deaging save to actual infant can make her fully let go, but there's a certain giddying freedom that comes with the lack of expectations.

No responsibilities, and light that's perfectly suited to her weird eyes so that she doesn't have to wear sunglasses and can see better than anyone and her head doesn't hurt. Her head never doesn't hurt.]

Also, we're right by the Coke now.

[She has her priorities.]

[Sounds like they had a better childhood than he did. Which - fine. Great. Good for them. He's glad and happy and pleased that not everybody had to live like he did.]

That's - great. I guess.

[He glances nervously over his shoulder, eyes raking over the dark, but there's no sign of anything creeping up to meet him.]

What about actually solving the puzzles? The ones that might actually get us out of here?

I'd rather have coffee, personally, but I'll accept coke as a substitute.

[He makes a face at Tim's suggestion.]

Not really my thing, and I've just been distracting George because I can't sit still. Way too much like work for me.

[Better's a word for it. But their parents aren't here, and they have each other, so things are about as good as they can be.

Then again, everything's relative.

Georgia frowns and puts on her sunglasses. She might not need them to see, but she does need them to look like herself, and Tim's looking twitchy as hell. Maybe it'll help.]

A puzzle led us here. We got a key out of the deal. Now we're taking a break so that Shaun doesn't run head first into one of the monsters we're not supposed to fight just cause he's bored. Then we'll solve more puzzles.

[Right. Great. Wouldn't want Shaun to go running headfirst into anything half-cocked. They're taking a break. That's fine. It's just that he - he can't. Even if it's for good enough reasons, sitting still is never gonna work for him. Not down here.]

G-great. Then I'll go - look for the other ones.

[He can't just keep sitting around down here. He can't.]

[Shaun peers down at him with interest.]

Yeah? You got some clues to where the other ones might be?

[Georgia sighs and sits up as best she can in the little bit of room on top of the vending machine and whacks Shaun's leg. Clearly, that's a no on being okay. Which means the break is over.]

Time to come up with a way down. [She glances over at Tim.] Give us a sec.

[When they're in the field, and being on top of a vending machine in a creepy lab probably counts as in the field, Shaun's the one in charge unless George is calling for a full retreat. Doing stupid shit and living to tell the tale is his whole thing. He'll probably have a good way down. She might hate it, but it'll probably work.]

[No idea, actually. He doesn't have an answer to the query; merely ducks his head, hands creeping around his shoulders to rub at himself, as though cold.

Really just - wishing there was someone here who could - who could help. Don't be stupid, though. No one's here for that. No one's here for his garbage.

So try and be useful, for once.]

Do you need, um...help?

Uh. Hang on. [He crawls over the edge of the vending machine and drops so that he's hanging by his fingertips, then lets go and falls the rest of the way. He lands a little hard and falls down, but he bounces back up immediately and goes to stand against the machine.]

George, if you do what I did, you can probably use me as a ladder to get down. Tim--if you could just spot her to make sure she doesn't fall and brain herself or something?

I'm not gonna brain myself. [She tugs her sunglasses back off so she can look over at Tim and roll her eyes. Shaun is a little overprotective sometimes. Not that she blames him. Still, she dangles her legs off the edge and waits for Tim to come over before she starts to get down. Overprotective or not, having someone else there just in case is smart. She's always in favor of smart.]

So are you still...zombies? Or - maybe zombies?

[Just checking, that is, even if he listens to Shaun passively (it's what he does best, passive) and loops around to make sure she isn't about to break any bones dropping down. If she does end up braining herself, he'd like to know if that's going to lead to her wanting more brains to compensate.]

Uh. [Shaun glances down at himself. He's not a huge kid or anything, but he's not that little either. Probably eight or so. Definitely more than forty pounds.]

That's a definite yes.

Infected. [Georgia is never not a bit of a know-it-all, but she really sounds it as an eight year old. She turns around, holding onto the edge of the vending machine as she slowly lowers herself, trusting Shaun to help guide her as soon as she's in reach.]

Every mammal is. And anything over 40 pounds can amplify. [She frowns, questing for Shaun with her foot.] Then again, we're all clones, right? So maybe not. Depends if they cloned the disease too. But my eyes are still messed up, so I guess they must've.

So - so especially don't die.

[He can't keep the nervous undercurrent from the words, the way his eyes dart between the pair of them, even as George sounds - god, she sounds just like the know-it-all she is. The hope's that he'd be better at hiding this shit if he weren't stuck in this kid's body, but - who knows, really?

Still, he's keeping an eye out. Making sure no one's falling and cracking their head open. He doubts he could outrun either of them in this state.]

Well, that's kind of the plan. [Shaun grabs George's foot and moves it so that if she drops down just a bit more, she'll land on his shoulder.] Since dying sucks, and I don't have a gun to keep anyone from amplifying.

[Once her foot's on Shaun's shoulder, she doesn't have much trouble placing the other, and from there, it's just a matter of sliding down til she's on his shoulders.]

I wouldn't really want to die even if I wouldn't turn into a zombie. [She swings her legs off of Shaun so she can jump the rest of the way to the ground.] And I guess I won't for now.

[Dying's not so bad.

Drowning was easier than living. But that'd be creepy, creepy to think and even creepier to say, and he should stop thinking about it now, before he sets himself off thinking about...things.]

So we're...we're good. You're good. [If it sounds like he's reassuring himself more than anyone else, that'd be the correct assumption.

He's on edge. Can you blame him?]

[Shaun grins and gives him a double thumbs up.]

We're great. Everyone's still breathing, and no one has an appetite for tasty, tasty human flesh.

[George puts a thumb up as well and nods seriously.]

We've had this virus our whole lives. We're pretty good at not dying.

[Well, except for that time Georgia did die, or will, but that was special circumstances.]

So. Puzzles? Or do you need a minute?

Puzzles.

[He doesn't wanna think about it. Not any of it. Not even with how weirdly in sync the pair of them are. He's just gonna pick a random direction and start walking, head lowered, eyes darting, unless either one of the Masons have an argument with that.]

[Shaun is willing enough to let Tim take the lead for now--he doesn't have any better ideas himself, so this is fine. He doesn't exactly think Tim has any idea where he's going or what he's doing either, though, so he does glance quickly at George, raising an eyebrow.]

[George meets Shaun's eyes and shrugs a shoulder. Tim doesn't seem to have much idea of what he's doing, but right now George is worried less about solving puzzles and getting their bodies back and more about how poorly Tim seems to be handling this. This event hasn't been terrible compared to the other ones. She didn't particularly miss being a child, but she still has access to coke and she remembers who she is. That's about the best she can ask for in an event.

Plus, the whole being able to see without agonizing pain thing? Seriously underrated. Why can't all events be this poorly lit?

She skips ahead a few steps so that she's walking next to Tim.]

So, you... really want out of here, huh?

[He keeps an eye out for the brightly multicolored puzzle pieces - at least they stand out against the gloom. But a few seconds of tense, brusque walking don't reveal anything besides the same grim-colored tile and green-tinted walls he's been seeing this whole time.

He glances to one side to meet her eyes, briefly, before his gaze skates away.]

Don't - don't you?

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