middleofsomewhere | No Place Like Home: The Return

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No Place Like Home: The Return

NO PLACE LIKE HOME: THE RETURN

a silence broken...

It's been a very difficult few days. Rocking and rolling into the void and out again. Watching their friends out of the window as they wander from world to world. Meanwhile those lost on worlds continue to wander unable to return to the train at all.

"All attempts at returning those who left have failed. This voidcraft cannot do it alone. It is lucky that unlike those that have left before them, I can still sense them.

But I cannot bring them back alone. This is perhaps too advanced for Voidtreckers, but you have done the improbable before. You say you wish to help. This is how you help."

Their SCA's light up with a message. Or rather, a series of instructions:

In the unlikely event a tether gets stranded on a liminal space platform or between their own world and the platform space, you should, in the first instance, contact the Void technicians who monitor their non-travelling self. However, in the case they cannot be reached or there is a mass displacement of tether, an anchoring procedure can be carried out.

Ideally, this will involve two fully tethered individuals to retrieve the lost tether. One should be a stationary anchor. They should be outside of their void craft, if possible, and in physical contact with it. The second should be a roaming anchor reaching to draw the tethers back. In situations of mass tether displacement the stationary anchor can hold mutiple roaming anchors but it is recommended to not exceed five. In this situation, it is recommended that anchors rotate between stationary and roaming.

To start an anchoring of this kind, those anchoring should activate their anchoring program. Those staying station should reach out to the tethers of those they plan to steady. This might cause some emotional upheaval, and they will need to stay steady, especially if connecting to more than one roaming tether. Roaming anchors then must hold the person they search for in their thoughts and move towards them. It is recommended that the lost tethers activate their emergency beacon to facilitate being found and returning but this is not a necessity.

Once the roaming anchor has found the lost tethers they must keep hold of them and guide them back towards their craft, the stationary tethers must draw them back, pulling them through.

There is an additional note at the end, in different font.

It is as Anan told you. Your minds should visualise it. Be strong Voidtreckers.

... a short-lived dream

The doors open and anyone who wishes to try this can leave onto the platform. It is empty, devoid of the figures they had seen before; and, beyond the fog, devoid of anything. But searching requires their SCAs, not a path, and as people get into teams, they can activate their anchors and begin.

For those who will roam, their minds become filled, visualising light, void, voices and chaos; their bodies feel less stable, like they might unravel if not careful. But for those who will stay, when they touch the Voidtrecker Express, they will feel more stable, grounded. The fog shifts, but the world moves around them without pulling them in.

Thinking of the person they wish to keep stable, a mental and emotional link will be established, and they will feel each other as the roaming anchor sets off to find their missing crew.

Outside the train...
For those that had left - either by choice or by strange happenings - they have found themselves back at their anchor point during Poi 26, regardless of where they were before. For those unfortunate enough not to have a world to return to, or those who were stuck between in the first place, they will find themselves alone, in a fog filled space where no matter how far they walk, nothing greets them.

All those in fog or back in their world receive the same message from their SCAs.

Hold fast. Press your evacuation button. Your friends come.

RETURNERS: FLEETING HAPPINESS

But it's likely before the message arrived, that something wrong has been noticed by those outside the void. More than the bizarre ability to travel between existences, an inability to move far from where they appear. Back at their anchor points, they may notice - in time - colours sometimes flash across the sky, streaking through clouds or making trails in a night sky. At first not much, something to be easily dismissed but it builds. People talk, wonder at what is happening.

For the colours aren't the only thing. Across worlds, in cities, kingdoms, villages, underworlds and space stations, people are dreaming. Bright colours, vivid dreams. Prophets spring from nowhere, people claim to know the future or to have seen the past. Some talk of places and worlds they could not have seen.

Perhaps at first it can be explained away, there are always such people. But more people talk, from urchin children to commanders, people dream and the colours dance.

ANCHORERS: A STEADY HAND

While the stationeries will feel grounded, they aren't blind to what's happening to their roamer. It's as if they're both linked, intimately, meshing together, and they will need to work to keep their feelings separate; hearing each other's thoughts, their feelings. Images of what the other thinks and memories shared between them.

And then there is the search for their teammates, amongst the multiple of realities. Existences move past the roamer, threatening to lose them in the mess, but they must persevere, keep their thoughts on the individual, their stationary anchor to help them. Until finally, they appear - in a world they perhaps know, don't, the kaleidoscope colours of the void faint above their heads.

Speak to each other, keep each other focused, certain, and find who you came to save.

BOTH: HOLDING ON

Searching for individuals, the anchorers will find themselves at a character's anchor point; if they haven't moved far from here or another world, it will be easy to locate them. Now is the time to convince them to come back, and then the eventual work of doing so.

It can be in agreement, or force. Taking a hold of the person, the anchorer can pull them into the mass of chaos. Just like when they helped the guests return to their worlds from the false Diagad, all parties become battered by images, voices. Voices like sirens; 'Just stay,' the voices encourage. 'Just let go and drift into the chaos. It will be easier.'

But they must be strong, move towards their anchor and towards the craft. The crossing doesn't take too long, perhaps ten minutes each way, and once they get to the craft the person they are rescuing glows gold and vanishes. The anchors will know instinctively that they are safe on the train.

And indeed, the rescued will find themselves within the luggage carriage - exhausted, but safe.

TRAIN: AN INEVITABLE RETURN

Exhaustion is something all parties will experience, once everyone is returned to the train and the adrenaline wears off. Those who anchored will be hit with a total exhaustion, leaving them unable to do much more than eat and sleep for a few days. Those rescued won't be as bad, but if they decide to join in with the efforts, they'll too face the soul-tiring experience that other anchorers are.

There's likely to be efforts, to help soothe people over this time. And as people return to their life on the train, they will see the marks of the last few days for those who stayed behind. Broken ceramics, books out of order in the library; the ICPs in the standard coach, storage, sports and games carriages broken, and some damage to furniture.

But for the scars brought on by this event, surely, they will heal - eventually.

OOC NOTES

OOC post. Ask questions here. New second part OOC post here.

First phase of the event took place during Poi 22 to 25; the second phase takes place during Poi 26 to 28 (20-25th February).

VISITING WORLDS: While during Poi 26, it will be possible to go back to wherever they were, or other spaces. However, they will have increasing difficulty doing this, and will feel themselves getting more lost if they try world hopping too much over the next 3 (void) days. It's like something is trying to pull them back, or pull them, but into nowhere.

SCAs: The SCA's comms will not be active at this time.

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It's not possible, for Tidus to do everything he wants. Go in and get everyone, be there in person as much as he'd like. But it's fine; as long as they can get everyone, standing back by the Voidtrecker Express is still its own exhausting work: keeping the line back to the train present, but also aiding Lioriley in finding the guy they were searching for.

Danny.

He thinks about him, but for her, his image of the young man. A decent guy, ordinary-looking who you wouldn't think has the inability to pause once it comes down to business from how easy-going he seems otherwise. The different shades of the same figure he takes: the human, the ghost. Memories of them chatting, hanging out; a guy that Tidus trusts and respects in the way comrades do.

And there's the worry too, of the world that Lior will be heading into: a world of ghosts (which, in Tidus's mind, are taking on a rather unhuman form, because his inner brain is a sunday cartoon like that). That Danny will be throwing himself around in a fight in the worst possible scenario, he won't have anyone to help him, no one will be able to stick by his side.

...but there's the glimmer of a hope that the easy-going Danny is getting to be out, chilling, maybe going to school or hanging out with friends. Images accompany that, but they don't pretend to be of Danny's life - but of a different city, of what Tidus knows a simple life to be.

Hopefully, there's enough for Lioriley to grasp onto, to find Danny's tether and to go to him, and appear nearby to his person.

They were days into the rescue missions, and while Lioriley had not gone out roaming as much as some others, she had done it enough by now to know what it felt like. Well. Sort of what it felt like. It was different every time — unsettling, strange, this fog filled with flashes of worlds she had never seen and likely never would again unless the train decided to stop there some time in the future. And who was the say any of it was real to begin with anyway? She certainly couldn't.

What was real was Danny, and Tidus. And her. She had never met the boy but Tidus' visions were...enough, to fathom a guess. The Lunari did her best to ignore the fleeting glimpses of strange lands, of those ghastly creatures that conjured images of her own world in her mind — inadvertently passed on to Tidus through their mental connection. Creatures of death, skeletal faces engulfed in swirls of pitch black, immaterial and yet still so terrifying. She snapped back quickly; focused. Danny. The young boy with the odd ability to change into...what? She could not quite put to words yet, and could not think too long about the details lest she lose them all entirely.

She saw him, she thought, finally after what felt like ages of moving through sludge. "Danny?" called out, dark eyes flickering along the twisted and intermingled landscapes in the fog. "You do not know me, but I have come from the train — we need to go back. It is not safe here."

Danny pauses, wavering slightly with exhaustion. It seemed like he'd been constantly on the move for days now, and it didn't see like it was going to slow down any time soon

"Of course its not safe here! This is Amity Park, and its in the middle of a ghost invasion." He pauses. "Invasions."

He staggers a little as he tries to focus.

"Wait? The train? What's happening? Is everyone okay?"

Yup, that's Danny. Lioriley hasn't asked for a confirmation, but Tidus can hear the other guy talking. It's nothing tired, nothing of the sort, and Tidus doesn't let himself get too lost in focusing on the other guy, not to pay attention to Lioriley. To keep the way travelled opened, his presence lingering with her; a door open at her back, waiting for her.

'Doesn't he know about his body?' still comes through, a thought in Lioriley's own - that might also be heard by Danny. An acknowledgement following not even a second later: 'That wouldn't stop him.'

Why worry about something you can't do anything about when everything around you is going crazy, right.

Confirmation was good to have regardless, on the very off chance that active boy yelling about ghosts wasn't the one she had seen in Tidus's mind.

"They will be." She said, sounding confident enough, brows furrowing when she heard the question echoing in her mind. 'Such is the way of heroes' came an unconscious reply. "It cannot move, and those like yourself that returned to their worlds are in need of aid. You need to come back, or you will be lost to the void."

Danny pauses.

"How big of a chance are we talking about here? Because my world here is still kind of a mess. So if its more of a maybe and everyone back there is okay, I should probably stay a little longer."

Apparently things really did fall apart without him there, which was not a realization that he liked to think about too hard. Because that way lay wonderings about his future that he had always made a point of avoiding.

'We'll come help it, Danny - we'll tell the train come fix it!' There's a desperation, an attempt to actually speak to Danny that hadn't been done before, and it may come across not only in Lioriley's mind but in Danny's too - a voice, familiar. Thoughts too of the people that've disappeared over their time on the train, leaving through the gates, the turnstiles - lost.

'I don't know what's happening, but the train is losing you, and we don't know what happens -'

He pauses, just trying to find in his own thoughts what he wants to say; but realising in that moment too, it's probably not working. So he quiets, not meaning to fill Lioriley's head with his sudden emotions, an apology as he recedes and allows her room to think and speak.

The intensity of Tidus' emotional response was enough to make Lioriley wince, like the shout had been done directly in her ear. 'You should not vow such things' a reprimand; soft as it was, because getting someone's hopes up now could likely even more emotional upheaval. Besides...he could not promise that. No one could.

Then, to Danny: "I am sorry for the state of your world, but there is a certainty that staying here will not be beneficial for anyone. Have you not seen it - the cracks, the distortions? We cannot remain. We must return to the train. Together."

A beat. "And if we linger much longer, I fear Tidus may try and bring you back himself." it was...kind of a joke? Tidus had made it sound like they were well acquainted.

Danny blinks and shakes his head. That had come through loud and clear.

"Tidus?"

He reaches for it, but it was gone now. But the sense of panic remained. He still...

Danny, having lived with a portal to a void dimension in his basement, had never developed a healthy fear of the Void. But if there was one way to get through to him, it was to convince him that his friends were worrying.

"Yeah," he says to Lioriley. "But this is Amity Park. That isn't actually that unusual here." He grimaces and his expression shifts into guilt. "But if I'm the reason this is happening. I guess I have to go and hope they can handle the rest."

He sounds more than a little skeptical. With the way his world had fallen apart, it was hard to see how they'd do any better now.

"...He would, wouldn't he."

She tells him not to make such promises, but there's a bubble of emotion - something defiant, a disagreement, but nothing as heightened as before. Tidus knows this isn't the time, but he's not dissuaded; only, he'll keep it locked up, focus on what's important now.

Like getting Danny back, safely. Letting Lioriley speak, and some emotion does spring up to the remark - the equivalent of a You bet! that only grows to Danny's input.

He is so ready to get them both back to the train, safe and sound. (Did Lioriley need such an emotionally expressive person in her head? Unfortunately, such is her fate.)

Well that...tracked, she supposed. Some worlds very well might have been closer to the void than her own, and it stood to reason that the oddity might not be so odd to them at all.

"It would be best for you and your people. Again, I am sorry that it must come to this, but please. Come with me." she extended her hand toward him, solid enough in the strange fog of the void, her smile as soft as she could manage while dealing with the added emotional weight of Tidus's own thoughts in her head.

"He is waiting for you, and he likely will not be pleased if I come back empty handed."

Danny casts one more reluctant (and somewhat-guilt-ridden) look back, and then he takes her hand. His own hand is noticeably cold.

"So... how do we do this again?"

Tidus will apologise one day for being a Lot in one's head (and i he ever knows). But as Danny takes Lioriley's hand, the other's presence - far, yet near somehow too - became more notable. A feeling of Tidus close, even if he can't be seen.

But, he can surely be felt. Danny will be able to see a fog around Lioriley's back, some far distant view of a vehicle if he peers for long. But the fog widens as Tidus hears Danny agreement to return, and Tidus focuses his thoughts on the both of them, Lioriley and Danny.

They'll hear a whistle, and a path of sun-yellow appears within the way through the void to help guide them back.

They just have to focus on it, and not have their attention dragged by the void's own ghosts.

Cold was not a bother to her, supernatural or otherwise, so Lioriley took Danny's hand and gripped as tightly as her slender fingers would allow; unwavering and determined.

"We return." She said, taking a careful step back toward the obvious beacon that was their companion. "Do not let go, and do not focus on anything but me and Tidus. The voices calling to you mean to keep you here — but they are nothing but siren songs."

"Right," Danny says again. "Don't listen to the voices. I can handle that."

Probably.

"If there is one you can focus on - let it be mine." Maybe if they tried to talk along the way it wouldn't be so easy to distract them.

Lioriley carefully moved them back, keeping her grip tight on Danny for the duration of the trip back to the train. It wasn't far, in theory, but it felt like hours as she pulled him along.

Danny's gaze flickers around nervously as he follows her. He could feel voices, familiar voices, but too muffled to understand.

At first, that was. But as they get closer to the train, the voices get louder and harder for him to ignore.

He turns sharply at one all too familiar voice.

"What are you?" it asks with mock sympathy. "A ghost pretending to be human? Or some creepy little boy with creepy little powers. Not a ghost, not a boy. Who cares for a thing like you?"

Edited 2022-03-05 22:51 (UTC)

'Don't listen.' There's no body to his voice, but Tidus is firm, sharp in the instruction - disagreeable to the words spoken. Lioriley a better guide in person, and Tidus must keep his mind on her, on them both. Keeping the path they're taking open, a light at the end for them to reach.

And he doesn't think it to any particular person, but there's a lingering thought that comes from his mind, the memory touching on something personal. So what you're not human, you're not the same as others - you're still you. It's still a life.

That, Tidus believes deeply, intimately.

Lioriley could feel the pull, the urge to stay, but she could also hear Tidus and Danny and the whirlwind of emotions stirring around inside all of them all at once. And weirdly enough - it was far easier to focus on the latter. Probably because she had heard disembodied voices before, calling and toying with her mind, and knew better than to linger.

Her grip on Danny's hand was tight, a hard squeeze indicating some attempt to draw him back to reality.

"So brazen to choose something so easily disproven." She said, almost rolling her eyes. "You know well enough how many care for you." She had met the one already - the young man currently holding them both to the train with his mind. Lioriley suspected there were plenty more that cared about Danny.

With some effort, Danny wrenches his mind away from the memory. It wasn't true, he knew that. But Spectra had always known how to find the words and doubts that hurt the most. And fearing that he could never truly be accepted in his world... well, that was a hard one not to believe.

He holds on to her hands, focusing on the feeling to center himself.

"I got that. I'm good."

But even saying that didn't make the whispers stop. He tries to ignore them... but when he hears the voices of his parents he can't help himself but listen.

"I'm just saying, if we could find that ghost at Jazz's school we could peel it apart like an onion!"

"Well we can't completely vaporize it. Don't you want to examine the remains?"

Danny stiffens at the half-remembered conversation he'd once overheard and draws back.

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No Place Like Home: The Return

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