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SIMULATION: ANOTHER BORDER

"I felt in that moment as if it were all a dream—the training, my former life, the world I had left behind. None of that mattered anymore. Only this place mattered, only this moment, and not because the psychologist had hypnotized me. In the grip of that powerful emotion, I stared out toward the coast, through the jagged narrow spaces between the trees. There, a greater darkness gathered, the confluence of the night, the clouds, and the sea. Somewhere beyond, another border."
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

Introduction

April 1st – April 7th, 2022
Welcome to the event log for the "Another Border" simulation.

Twenty years ago, a strange phenomena overtook an undisclosed area of Florida coastline. It manifested as a metaphysical border, visible only as a shimmering halo. Animals, humans, vehicles, radio signals, internet, waves — anything that crosses the border is lost. As far as anyone knows, nothing has ever returned, but year by year, the border creeps forward, engulfing more and more of the land. It could be decades before it reaches the nearest city, but considering it has eluded all understanding thus far, it feels like time is running tight.

Every few years, the government sends new recon parties into "Area X", hoping this team will find the source of the phenomena, return, or simply establish communication from within. And it's time to send in another crew.

If you have any questions about the event, please ask here. You can familiarize yourself with simulation basics on our events page.

1. Entering Area X

Security is tight. There are military checkpoints, final psychological and physical exams, gear to be inventoried and mounted. The plastic sheeting and polished steel, and the air smells of gasoline from the generators and the faintest whiff of rubbing alcohol. Sterile. A world away from the untamed wilds ahead of them.

There's a cold finality to it all: it is very likely that none of these explorers will come back. Is there a glimmer of hope that they will this time, or is it all just rote, we go because we must, because we've been ordered to, because the idea that something more will make the difference? It's hard to say. Someone passes around beers. Some prattle. Some just sit with their thoughts. We all prepare in different ways. Does any of it change the first steps through the shimmering halo of Area X?

Or perhaps you've evaded security entirely — the borders of Area X are ever-growing, and ever harder to police. There is very little beyond common sense preventing people from wading through swamps, boating out just past the coastline, or simply creeping through the vast miles of forest under cover of darkness.

2. Strange Discoveries

The world is full of strange and wonderful things, especially so in a place where the basic building blocks of life intermingle freely and without judgement.

In this way, the strange can become familiar. Millennia ago, before civilization and industry and the written word, a human could wander the forest in the purest state of nature, no different from other animals. That can be true here, too. People have come here in flak jackets and rip-stop and nylon, and the world around them asks them to consider a life without, a world where saplings sprout from deer skulls and you can come home. The roofs of the buildings in an ancient town have collapsed, as nothing here needs a roof over its head. One can press their palms into the earth and feel sustenance without a single morsel passing their lips. You can belong here.

And in another way, the wonderful can become terrifying. Maybe it's the way plants grow into facsimiles of human forms with boughed arms, and if you dare to touch them, they reach to touch you. Maybe it's finding the corpses of past explorers subsumed in fungal growth, human arms wrapped around mushroom and mushroom sprouting from skin. Maybe it's some animal, an alligator possessing human eyes and fingers, birds capable of speech, a manatee that splits open to reveal human organs.

What cannot come along is your damage. It doesn't — shouldn't — matter here, but humans are often too sentimental to let it go. That may be the strangest and most wonderful challenge at all.

3. Annihilation

"That which dies shall still know life in death for all that decays is not forgotten and reanimated it shall walk the world in the bliss of not-knowing. And then there shall be a fire that knows the naming of you, and in the presence of the strangling fruit, its dark flame shall acquire every part of you that remains."
― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

There are countless ways to die in Area X. Even if you evade the refracted wildlife, avoid merging with the flora, or survive encounters with other explorers, you fragment with every step. What's left of you when you're broken down into the base parts of yourself? What can you let go?

It's a truth you'll have to confront, or lose your sense of self to the world around you, yet another explorer swallowed by the wilds beyond the shimmering barrier.

4. Escape

There is no peaceful waking up. Post-death or post-change, awakening is a weightlessness shattered by a hard and sudden connection with the ground.

You wake in your bed or your bunk and, in that first instant, everything is as real as if you're still there. And then, at your own pace, there's a coming down to earth: this is you, these are your memories, and they're different from the ones that have flooded your mind for the past few days. It was real, if only in a dream.

The ship is quiet. The light are dimmed, swelling to life only when someone passes through the area and settling back into darkness on their heels. Many are still asleep in their beds. Their eyes twitch beneath their eyelids, and they move occasionally, shivering, mumbling. They will wake for nothing, not until they've completed their task, as you have.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

1.

Travis has never been a man of the outdoors. His apartment is dark, the windows closed around an air conditioner hosed and duct taped in place, with the curtains drawn overtop. There's the shriveled husk of a plant in a pot, leaving the cat as the only mark of life. Travis goes from that to his beater car to work. The lab is aggressively climate-controlled, kept at the precise temperature ideal for the survival of bacterial samples, and the air pumped through the facility has been filtered so many times that whatever reaches his lungs has quite possibly never brushed up against so much as a blade of grass. At the end of the day, back he goes to the car. Sometimes he goes to the gym, where he gets his requisite 150 minutes of cardio a week, but mostly he goes back to his apartment.

Day in, day out.

Standing on the edge of the Area, he drags in a deep breath. It feels like he hasn't breathed air for years. He stands taller. His chest feels like it's vibrating, and he wonders when he last noticed his own heartbeat. It's life in a way that sterile civilization couldn't hope to match.

"You wish you did this earlier?" he remarks, excitement creeping into his voice.

2.

Life in Area X, however long it has been, is incredible. Even the more terrifying aspects feel like being alive in a way he didn't expect; he used to be Travis *****, but now he's something else. He's not sure what, but it feels like shedding a costume. He was born to do this, actually. Everything behind him was a sham.

Having waded through a swamp, he's found himself dogged by long-legged leeches the size of labradors. Their gelatinous bodies collapse and stretch with every bound. Travis seizes a sturdy tree branch and fends them off with glee. His muscles burn from the exertion after years of lab work, and the sweat pours off his brow, but he lays into the leeches with wild abandon. Swings of the branch do little to harm them until one particularly hard swing catches a body with a sharp edge in the branch, and it breaks the leech's body like a balloon.

Travis, now caked in bright red viscera, continues to swing, at times letting out loud, sporting shouts. His heart is hammering so hard he's near shaking.

He's fucking thrilled.

3.

Somewhere, he'd gone too far. Went too hard. Whatever it was, he's done for now, staggering with a gut wound. It's not that deep. It's not even bleeding that much. Maybe a doctor would scoff at it if he walked into an ER with it, load up him on a local anesthetic and stitch it back together while he prattled on about whatever dumb thing he'd done. Decided he was going to live a little, picked up a skateboard after ten years' hiatus, and wound up on the pavement. Something stupid like that, right?

There is no medical attention here, not that he can imagine. He's been split from the others for so long. Too adamant on being a lone wolf, maybe. Too determined to live it out and not be held back.

Travis collapses in a bed of flowers, stretches out on his back, and stares up at the treetops against the sky. It's near sunset. Somewhere, in a time that feels distant and surreal, he'd read that they can take hours to bleed out. That's fine. The pain is awful, but he's been one of the walking wounded for years, hasn't he?

This way, maybe he'll get to see the stars before he dies.

a. THE WILDS.

There is a boar.

A lot of it is... missing. Its eyes, for one, have sprouted in a strange, horn-like growth, circling hits skull like a white bone crown. Its tongue hangs, long and garish, out of there a lower jaw should be. It stinks sweetly of rot. And it is running.

Ellie has been running as well, but now she stops. Face wet with sweat and blood, she stand in a clearing of black roses. The flowers have the texture of faux leather, smell of rubber, and mark the entrance to a dilapidated building. The peeling sigh reads MILLENNIUM FLORIST.

Ellie has a compression bow in her hand, sleek metal with well-oiled wheels. She pulls back an arrow and lets it fly, but the boar dodges at the last moment, twitching like a swerving car. It keeps running toward her. Ellie notches another bow, and swears.

b. A CAVE.

It's raining again. It has been for a day, maybe two. Time is difficult to track, here, and Ellie has long since given up. She's forgotten what she came here for. There is only the urge, undeniable, to know more. When a moth as large as the one tattooed on her hand flutters by, she follows it out of the rain, but the cave she enters into is different, somehow. The moth disappeared, as though it was never real to begin with, and maybe it wasn't.

The cave is cold and silent, but Ellie doesn't care. Her eye is caught by the markings on the wall, reminding her of a book she once read on cave art. The images are stunningly crude, vague human shapes fighting vague elk and boar shapes. Hand prints. And... words? A long screed scratched into the stone wall...

"I walk through the valley of the shadow of death and I fear no evil..."

c. A TRAP.

Maybe you fought Ellie earlier. Maybe you're minding your own business. Maybe you're just unlucky. Does any reason really hold up to the pain? The trap you're caught in holds tight.

(1.) A bear trap clamps down on one of your legs. Maybe, through some miracle, it misses a major artery. Maybe it doesn't.

(2.) A snare is triggered, and the sharp wire cuts through cloth and skin, holding you in place.

(3.) An explosion goes off, triggered by your movement, and the destruction it wreaks is enough to immobilize you.

You could be stuck in it for hours, before Ellie's form melts out of the growing shadows that spread in dusk. Her eyes are fierce, and she holds herself with a bloody-minded confidence at odds with her small frame. She stands in silence, watching, deliberating.

d. THE LIGHTHOUSE.

Standing like a sun-bleached monument, a lighthouse overlooks the rocky shore. It's the only thing to see for miles, maybe, or perhaps the line of trees moves in tandem with the tide, rushing forward before receding.

(1.) As you approach, something explodes nearby-- no, a bullet. Someone is shooting from the top of the lighthouse, and they missed. If you look, you can see the muzzle of the gun flash in the sunlight.

Ellie reloads.

(2.) Inside, the lighthouse is a mess of vines and moss, a zoo exhibit for a tropical animal, all contained inside this small building. The atmosphere has none of the sharp sea air of outside; it's muggy and humid. The smell of dirt is only matched by the pervasive smell of blood. Blood is smeared on some of the leaves, if you look closely. Something died here, and not long ago.

But the woman at the top of the lighthouse is alive, if breathing heavily. Her hands are covered in blood. She looks confused, distant, almost absent from terrestrial concern.

"It made me do it."

E. wildcard.

[im up for anything lets get weird.]

Edited 2022-04-02 23:39 (UTC)

1.
[This is, quite obviously, someone who should not be here and does not belong here. But it's far too late for that, isn't it? Theo is here now. He can't believe he's made it. He managed to just squeeze in past some patrols, in some of the thickest part of the swamps, and has arrived a soaking wet and nervous mess.

The thin young man, no older than 25, looks momentarily petrified when spotted. But what's the worst that someone could happen to him now? He was in. This was it.

Was that a good thing, though?

To some, this man bears a strong resemblance to someone they once knew, someone who disappeared forever into these wilds. Theo looks like someone tried to photocopy his older brother but accidentally set the machine to 50% size. That brother was Corporal Gregory Creighton, sent into Area X a little over two years ago and was, of course, never heard from again. Someone his superiors would chalk up to him going MIA working overseas. The retired officer had talked fondly and worriedly about this kid, about how smart and studious but emotionally volatile he was, how he felt like there wasn't much he could do to help him anymore. Greg took the substantial payout he was given for this mission to make sure his lonely little brother could get through college and live a good life. A life without his only family member left, who saw himself as a burden thanks to some old injuries that were causing Greg to deteriorate, who would eventually have to halt Theo's life needing to be cared for. Greg couldn't let that happen. So into Area X he went.

And now, so did Theo. Theo, who never gave up hope of bringing his brother home, and ceaselessly dug for the clues to his whereabouts. Or Theo, who wasted the sacrifice his brother made by turning up here. It's all a matter of perspective. There's a good chance the weary young academic has no real idea of what it is he's in for, or why his brother decided to come to this place. Little did he know that ignorance was bliss.]

2.
[Theo stands in a small open field, covered in tall, soft blades of grass that alternate colors of green, bright red and deep black. It's an almost dizzying effect, and it covers the small area thickly. In the middle of the field are 4 figures, still vaguely humanoid but shaped from vines in the same colors.

So far, Theo had found no signs of his brother anywhere. Or much sign of anyone else who had been here previously, either. Theo is looking more pale and gaunt than ever after a few days in Area X, but he's been trying not to notice. There was work to do. He's absorbed in this scene, and he finally gathers up enough courage to approach them.

There is absolutely no way to tell who these once were, if indeed they were ever anyone to begin with, but he had to check. He had to know. He'd come so far, he couldn't turn back now.

As he gets close, something stirs inside one of the figures, rattling the vines and leaves. Theo scrambles a few steps back.]

3.
[It's no surprise that this runt of a city kid wasn't making it far. Theo is under a tree, his breathing ragged, and bleeding all over. A few gunshots had alerted you to his location, but by the time you come across him, it's far too late. When you start to approach, he has a hard time talking, but he shakes his head and holds out a hand trying to signal you to stop.

That's when the culprit appears. Something that used to be a Florida panther emerges from the brush several yards away. Its mane of scales and distended jaw of alligator teeth have turn an already fearsome predator into something much more dangerous. It's been awhile since it's had such interesting prey, and now its sights are set on you.]

Edited 2022-04-03 01:25 (UTC)

1. Entering Area X

[ Theon knows that the amount of devices he has on him will never get him past even the first checkpoint, and that’s what makes it all so perfect. It’s two for the price of one: he gets to film himself being totally awesome and evading security, and he gets to film the elusive Area X. If this won’t get his numbers back up, nothing will.

So he’s paid off a man with a boat to take him as close as possible. He’s always been an excellent swimmer, so making the rest of the way on his own isn’t difficult, and he follows that up with a lovely midnight trek through the forest, capturing all of it on video. ]

Check this out, guys. Creepy, huh?

[ He speaks quietly to his camera, then turns the viewfinder to scan the dark trees. Truth be told, he’s disappointed. Isn’t this place supposed to be crawling with all sorts of creepy shit? Where is it? He’ll have to take matters into his own hands. So purposefully, out of view of the camera, he snaps a twig loudly across his knee. ]

Whoa, the fuck was that?

[ To the camera again, always to the camera. ]

2. Strange Discoveries

[ Theon’s boredom hasn’t lasted for long. He films everything he possibly can with a manic sort of glee, replacing battery after battery as he drains them. He must have days worst of footage. He’s captured strange animals, plant life that has snapped at him with very humanlike teeth, as well as actual humans who have gone half mad and spend their days ranting and raving. The latter is the most amusing by far, but Theon is practically vibrating with excitement. There’s no way he isn’t going to pull massive numbers with this material.

For someone who spends half their life viewing things through a camera, he’s done quite well for himself. Despite getting as close to the wildlife as he possibly can and despite trekking through the woods almost always on his own, he’s escaped thus far with minimal scrapes and bruises. It isn’t good for his ego, which is already way too bloated. ]

Fuck yes.

[ He knows why he lost subscribers to begin with, but that doesn’t stop him from inching closer to what’s caught his eye: some strange combination of a human corpse, an alligator, and mushrooms. Barely even human anymore, he assures himself as he crouches down and zooms his camera in. So it shouldn’t count this time. ]

That’s gnarly.

3. Annihilation

[ Theon has always been far too stubborn for his own good. Perhaps that’s why he refuses to let anything go. This place wants him to give something up, he can just tell, and he isn’t going to let that happen. He will stay, unmovingly, as Theon as he possibly can.

But unfortunately, he’s stuck his nose in one too many places it doesn’t belong. That may be coming back to bite him now. ]

My last battery’s died.

[ He laughs, or perhaps it’s a sob. It’s a broken sound either way, made all the more confusing by the way the young man smiles. He’s disheveled and looks as pale as death, the front of his shirt stained with blood from a deep wound in his neck. ]

Please—you’ve got a phone, haven’t you? Everyone’s got a phone.

[ His hands shake horribly as he reaches out, hoping to have a device placed in his palm. ]

Let me—let me borrow it. Just for a moment. Don’t you know who I am? I’m about to be the most famous man on the internet. The numbers I’m doing are insane, don’t you understand? They’re gonna skyrocket.

4. Wildcard

[ Anything and everything! Feel free to catch him post-awakening too, or find me at

muttonchops if you want to figure something out together. ]

( It was the night before. Jason sat in a beat-up recliner, cigarette shoved into his lips, whiskey to his side. He was only nineteen but he acted somewhere around forty. They both had to, you know. Grow up fast. The draft letter was pinched between his fingers as they kept turning flipping it around in idle motion. Eyes flicked up to his sister with a sigh. He puts the paper down, butts out his smoke, and takes a good swallow of that amber liquid before rising to his feet. )

You know I have to. ( She hadn't said anything but he felt the impulse. ) Our parents, what if I can find them, what if I can find several people who never came back? I have to try. ( Because, if Jason thought about it, he felt guilty. Leaving her here like their parents left them. He'd been angry about it for a long time. Still was, and maybe that in part drove him too. )

Jason, this is crazy. There is no option in which you come back out of there alive. No one ever has. You're not going to be different! You're just going to be... dead! What is the point of this?

[ She stands there, hugging her arms to herself, feeling for all the world like she's trying to make a convincing argument to a brick wall. Not an unusual feeling, where trying to control her little brother is involved. ]

Are you really going in there to try to find something? Or are you just running away?

1. Entering

Loki is not equipped for this. Well, he is, very thoroughly and heavily, but in the emotional sense he is in no way prepared. There's no turning back, now. No avoiding his reasons for volunteering. This is, in a very real sense, suicide. He doesn't need to be psychic to see that.

He might not be psychic at all.

It's strange, admitting to himself that he has no idea what he's walking into. Area X is one thing he'd never been able to get a reading on, of course, but usually when he ran into such roadblocks he simply avoided whatever it was. And yet he'd sent Alice right into it.

When he and his group finally cross the barrier into Area X, it's almost anticlimactic. Here, at least, it looks much the same as the area leading up to it. Pine trees everywhere. Humidity rising. He glances around at the group, flashing a grin that comes automatically in the face of social awkwardness.

"Just like a hike, right?"

Denial slips over him all too easily.

2. Exploring

The facade of normalcy falls away only a mile or so in, when they encounter their first ruin. A vacation home so broken-down it would be easy to assume it was built centuries before he was born, if it weren't for the remnants of modern day life. A flat-screen TV lays face-down in front of the wall it had hung from before the building began to collapse. A foul-smelling fluorescent orange fungus covers the ATV out back.

Loki is so distracted by sorting through a strangely intact set of encyclopedias that he doesn't notice the weeds beside him beginning to move of their own accord, lifting up out of the ground into a crouching shape a few yards to his right.

3. Camp

Nowhere is safe, they realize now. Two of their number is dead already, in ways none of them could really understand. But they have to rest. Even if they all argue for the right to stand watch first.

Loki gets a shift in the early hours, and he's glad for the respite from pretending to sleep. He spends it sitting on a rock on the edge of the sand. They'd thought-- likely foolishly, of course --that keeping the ocean at their backs limited opportunities for surprises. But Loki isn't so sure, now. He sits with one eye on the ocean, which glows with an eerie light that must come from within given the moonless sky, the other aimed inland.

He starts shuffling the cards almost out of habit, out of a nervous need to do something with his hands, to hear a noise that isn't that incessant buzzing of insects or the ocean rolling closer (though surely that's just his eyes playing tricks?). But eventually it clears his mind enough to try, at least. He hasn't done a proper reading in months. Surely here, of all places, he should be able to get something useful, right? A way forward. A sign.

He deals three-- past, present, future --and hesitates with his hand over the first. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe, here, it'll just be twisted anyway.

He's still trying to decide when an approaching noise breaks his silence and he turns, brandishing the gun he should absolutely not have and aiming it at the sound as if he could really shoot it.

4. Lost [CW: suicidal ideation]

In the end, he runs. He's a coward and a liar and a fake and he's good for nothing but self-preservation. He'd found her, seen what she'd become, seen there was no her left anymore, and he'd run. Run until his legs gave out and he came to his knees, gasping and trembling.

He'd lost his gun along the way. Too bad. He'd known he would likely die in here. He hadn't known it was going to be this horrible. This out of his control.

Nothing ever was though, was it?

Eventually his senses return enough for him to take in his surroundings. He's stopped on the bank of a waterway. Perhaps it's deep enough. It will be horrible, but all his options here would be. At least the act of stepping in would be a courageous one, right?

So he stands, staring out at the water, preparing himself for the unknown.

"You'd have to be mad not to," comes a careful voice from a few yards further along at the back of the cave, just before it begins to twist into darkness. He blends in a bit with it, easy to miss with his dark tactical gear and equally dark hair. Settled on the ground with his back against a cave wall, an elbow on one knee and the other leg stretched out long, looking rather worse for the wear.

Felt like the right thing to do, speaking up to let her know she's not alone in here rather than being a creeper waiting to get spotted. "Fear evil, I mean. This entire bloody place is evil. It deserves to be feared."

Things have not... been going well, thanks for asking.

They won't be going much better soon enough, either, as soon as they find out what's waiting deeper in that cave.

ARRIVAL

I. The first sight of the veil renders her speechless mid-conversation. Amanda has seen Area X's oil-slicked dome constantly, through the screen of her phone, or by the light of her computer and television. It is a thousand times more beautiful in real life, and just as awful. Her mouth is slack. She's been acting out a part ever since she arrived, but this part isn't performance.

"... Have you ever seen anything like it?" It's not in relation to anything she was just saying, but surely she'll be forgiven for that.

II. She doesn't join in with the beer, the meal-sharing, or chatter. Amanda waits until everybody is sleeping to take her quiet leave, rolling up her sleeping bag and tucking it down into her pack with slow, strong movements. Maybe you catch her rifling through your bag on her way out, palming cans of food, or spot her shadow as she steals away from the edge of the group. Maybe you decide to follow her for a bit to see where she thinks she's going without any company, or protection.

She's shed her meager disguise by this point: the security pass and badge sporting her name and picture. She's wearing plain clothes, next to nothing by way of armor. There is a hunting knife at her hip, but she's small, and curved when she sneaks around, crouched.

SACRIFICE (cw body horror/desecration of bodies/violence)

I. The bodies swirled together with those of plants fascinate Amanda the most, especially the ones that bend at the knees, arms held above their blooming heads in grotesque prayer. She envies these people, selected and chosen. Area X grows inside of them. Some of them point, so she follows where they tell her to go.

She can be found collecting from these figures, little trophies from each of them, flaps of skin, or finger-bones. One corpse she stumbles upon in a clearing is impossibly new, warm when she touches it, and she takes the time to rearrange it in a way that she thinks Area X will find pleasing. She drags the body toward a river, feeling the pull in her shoulders, and it's perfect, the way she arranges each limb with artful precision.

II. Offering help to those run down by the flora or fauna is a double-edged sword; you're free from what was chasing you, and immediately find yourself at the mercy of Amanda's hunting knife the moment the danger has passed.

"Are you gonna fight?" Her voice is soft, smooth, "You should. It'll be better if you fight."

Because then she gets to watch you bleed.

GAME OVER (cw injury/suicide ideation)

I. The end comes so much quicker than she thought it would, less triumphantly, in a haze of pain and confusion. It's difficult to know how much time has passed. Years could have passed; it's hard not to feel abandoned by everything she believes in, but maybe she didn't work hard enough to show that she deserves to belong.

Her mouth is wet with blood. She was in a fight that she didn't win.

"Come with me." There's no point in saving her. Not much left to save, and besides, she wants to go.

WILDCARD

Up for anything, come at me!

Amanda has no idea if the steel jaws miss a major artery or not, she's too busy screaming.

Not the best idea out in the thick of the forest when half the trees are growing fleshy ears, but the pain in her leg is hot and sick and she isn't strong enough to pry the trap off. Its teeth are buried deep in her calf. Her blood-slick hands slip off the jaws on her first try, and she wails when they clench fully shut, chest heaving as she prepares to try again.

There's no glory in this, no beautiful ending. The unfairness makes her pause, and sob. It was supposed to feel like coming home.

Just a hike. As if she hasn't been waiting for this with bated breath, her true purpose, a divine calling. Amanda the 'researcher' doesn't feel this way about the Area. Amanda the researcher is a neutral figure, who swallows her sarcasm, and doesn't wince when it scrapes going down. She is here to record.

She knows the man beside her. She wonders if he knows her. They run in adjacent circles. She's seen him working at conventions and retreats, and, casting her eyes down, can guess where he hides his cards in a pocket close to his body.

Neither of them have said anything to mark the other, so she can keep playing the game.

"Just a hike," she echoes, and hitches the strap of her bag up. The flat of the hunting knife on her belt bumps reassuringly against the outside of her thigh as she walks. "Our last one. Better enjoy it."

[ Rhys stands nearby, backpack of supplies slung over his good shoulder as he stares up at the shimmering wall of moving light in front of them. It reminds him of soap bubbles, with its swirling colours.

He takes a deep breath. He doesn't want to do this. ]

Are you seriously excited about this?

Entering area X

[ Rhys stares up at the stars, surrounded by the cobbled together team he's been assigned to as they make camp for the night right at the boarder of the Shimmer. One last night before he makes the biggest bet of his life, he can't afford to think about it being a losing one. So while there's a constant undercurrent of anxiety about what's to come running through him, he's going to have a good time until tomorrow morning.

He cracks his second beer, plunking his ass beside whoever seems willing to socialize (or maybe they're unwilling, but Rhys will ignore those cues) ]

So, what are you gonna do with all the money you make from this gig?

Day 3(?)

[ He got separated. Of course he got separated. Rhys holds his phone in front of him, compass app open as the needle dances all over the place. ]

Hellooooooo? Hey! ESS OH ESS!

[ The battery icon in the top corner of his screen blinks, low on power again, and he grumbles as he stops to kneel and get a charging pack out of his backpack.

He's rummaging through his bag (stupid thing must be at the bottom) when something blue and blinding flashes in the left side of his periferral vision, causing him to yelp, a protective hand coming up to cover his eye. What follows is pain, the feeling of something warm and wet dripping down his cheek, and hen he finally removes it his hand comes back red. ]

Oh. Oh fuck.

Final day (Annihilation?)

[ It's almost like having his arm back, the way muscle and sinew have grown over the prosthetic, intertwining with the metal and plastic that made up his right arm. But then again, noooo it's really not. It's gross, for starters, Rhys can't stand to look at it. And it hurts, every movement feels like a raw scrape.

He's been limping through the wilderness for what feels like hours, the plant-life feels like it holds him back every step, catching at his feet and legs as if it doesn't want him to leave, he hears whispers on the wind about resting. But Rhys is stubborn, and though he'd gone into this with the knowledge that it was dangerous, that others hadn't come out, he didn't want to believe the same fate awaited him.

He was going to survive this, he was going to get his cash out and he was going to pay off his debt and...and.... Vaughn was dead, his job was gone, he could survive but what life was he going back to, even if he was free? ...No, no, can't think like that, gotta think about buying a Porsche, about long iced tea's on the beach of some tropical island. He'd be alone but he'd be ok.

He tries (and fails) to suppress a full body sob. ]

"Yeah," he replies.

He doesn't even look aside at the guy speaking to him; he's dragging in that air and imagining it imbuing every molecule of his body with energy. He is going into the unknown. He is going to live in it and thrive.

"Why the fuck are you coming if you're not?"

1 | somewhere past the border;

[It's chance that he finds an old camp, molded over with brightly colored tarps so filthy they're almost invisible. A hushed stillness hangs over it like a post-apocalyptic snapshot and Aki briefly imagines eyes past the perimeter, something wild skulking in the trees.

It spurs him to set upon the camp with an almost systematic recklessness, dumping aside piles of scraps, some of them relics of a time he's not old enough to remember: pen caps and tangled shoelaces, cassette tapes so rotten the labels are illegible, half-eaten church keys.

Eventually, he heads for the makeshift lean-to. It's overgrown, wrapped so tightly with fungi and flora it's nigh impenetrable like a fucked up, implausible cocoon. And Aki, in one of his stupider moments, puts his foot through it.

It screams.]

2 | fox eye (fyi you can kill the fox);

[He gravitates towards the ruins, pulled into their orbit by something unnamed. What he finds are wreaths of green and flowers, strung from the ground up in a mockery of humanity. Desiccated animals, almost mummified and implausible in the damp wetlands.

A fox with a third eye.

He loses track of time, how long they stare in stalemate, neither willing to move until they're startled by a sound. Aki and the fox turn as one, heads moving in uncanny synchronization. The fox snarls. Aki stands, too fast for it not to look threatening.]

3 | eye-related body horror;

[It's dark on the beach and Aki scrambles up the shore out of the bioluminescent tide. He'd gone too far out before it came in and now he's dripping, shaking like there's something at his heels (maybe there is).

He's mostly silhouette, but his right eye glows, blue ringed thrice with feral yellow, and there are two weeping gashes along his cheek and a third above his eyebrow. They're bright slashes in the night and, if you watch long enough, they might blink—or maybe it's just an impossible trick.

He has a rifle carried at the ready and he points it when he hears movement ahead, the still-human half of his face shell-shocked. 50/50 chance the gun was underwater too long to fire.]

4 | wildcard

[Let's do something fucked up. hmu on plurk or @ his plotting comment if u wanna brainstorm first; otherwise, I'll just roll w it. btw he has short hair bc he has no AU impetus for his canon haircut and also both arms ~~for now~~.]

Edited (i can count) 2022-04-04 04:40 (UTC)

[ A nervous chuckle. ]

What can I say? The payout is great.

[ And god, could he use that payout. He literally cannot afford not to go. ]

Worst case scenario is that we die which is uh- unideal. But I've got a good feeling about our odds, and until then am gonna look forward to the "after" part of all this.

I. Suitcase of Memories
The night before when the members of her expedition gather beneath the sharp flood lights to find their courage in bottles of beers to the hum of the generators, Blue slips away outside the confines of the camp.

On her way, a soldier with an automatic rifle that somehow looks more real than he does, takes a step in her path, unsure if he needs to stop people from leaving as well as coming in.

Blue tilts her palmed pack of cigarettes his way and he relaxes visibly, taking a step out of her way with a mumbled and rote:

"Don't take too long, ma'am."

The smile Blue flashes him must look like a promise, because he nods as she walks past.

She walks until she finds twilight between the floodlights and the uninterrupted darkness beyond, until she can draw a deep breath and the swallow of air isn't laced with gasoline and antiseptics.

Head tilted back to look at the stars, she tucks the cigarettes back into her pocket and pulls out her phone instead. It's been a long time since she last smoked -- the pack is an old habit, dying hard -- but it's a convenient excuse at times.

The call goes straight to voicemail and Blue feels a wash of relief, immediately contradicted by a prickle of concern: What if he changed his number? What if she's leaving a message behind to a disconnected line, or worse: a stranger?

"Hi Conner," she says into the phone, a soft apology in her voice. They both know she shouldn't be calling. Maybe that's what steals her words away and leaves a pause populated only by her breathing and a soft swallow.

She should have rehearsed this first.

Should have thought about it beyond the instinct.

There are things she can't say because they're classified, and things she won't say because they're too true (It feels like the kind of night when you're supposed to call a loved one, and you're the closest thing I have.)

She heaves a heavy breath and cuts her gaze down from the stars.

"I just wanted to-- I'm headed into a new adventure." Blue scuffs an army issued boot against the soft ground. Mud and leaves cake against the leather tip. It looks better like that. Less pristine. Less obvious that it is as new to her as she is to this. "I can't tell you much."

Classified, and he probably wouldn't want to hear it anyway.

"But this might be what I've always been looking for. I wanted to let you know, and--" She draws in a slow breath, building courage. "Y'know. Say goodbye."

Another pause filled with words she wishes she would have said to him back when it would have meant something. Maybe there's a moment, or two, where it sounds like she might say something else. Something old. Something new. Something that matters.

But all alone in a field, on the verge of what she thinks might be her greatest adventure yet, her courage fails her and she ends the call with a quick and insufficient:

"Goodbye, Conner."

Perhaps the recording catches the song of the cicadas in the sticky Florida night before she thumbs the disconnect button and ends the call. A moment of hesitation, and then she turns her phone off for the last time.

It's better like this. A message in a bottle rather than two way communication.

When she slips her phone back into her pocket, it bumps against the pack of Marlboros, and her fingers itch with the memory of holding a cigarette between them, the ghost of smoke prickling at her lungs. For a moment, she toys with the idea of pulling one out, her hand lingering around the pack.

The moment passes quickly, and she trudges back to the camp. Past the soldier from earlier who gives her a nod. Maybe he will remember her afterwards.

Back at the camp, she finds a bottle of beer to hold as she joins the dwindling conversation, staying on the edges of the group as it slowly disintegrates; its members heading off to bed one after one. Like any of them might sleep well before morning.

If someone addresses her, she may startle, and ask them to repeat themselves with an embarrassed smile.

II. Secrets Stolen from Deep Inside
They are not the first expedition to enter Area X. They will not be the last.

Perhaps they can accomplish something that no one before them could. Perhaps Blue is the only one who truly thinks that.

They step through the Shimmer, and there's something familiar to the forest they find inside. When the wind blows through the tree branches, the rustle of the leaves sound almost like voices. Like if Blue just strains her ears and listens hard enough she might be able to make out words.

Time stretches and bubbles. Repeats.

This too feels familiar.

The deeper they travel, the more familiar it feels. Until finally, it feels more like home than anywhere Blue has ever travelled before.

Blue isn't sure when it turns to horror. Perhaps when the first of their expedition succumbs to the elements -- torn apart by what one of them swears is a particularly vicious bush, while another sees an alligator -- or perhaps it is two days later when he returns, his skin gnarled with scales, his jaw hanging loose and hungry, something wild in his eyes.

Perhaps it's when the captain puts a bullet in his forehead and another in his heart for good measure.

Perhaps it is when, with red-rimmed eyes and a tight jaw, she digs a shallow grave for him, refusing any and all help. It's her duty as his captain.

Perhaps it is that night when Blue hears the captain's muffled tears turn into a howled grief that pierces the dark.

Perhaps it is in the morning when they find the captain's neatly packed backpack sitting just outside her empty tent with zero trace of her.

They search for hours. But in the end, the only choice left is to keep going.

It keeps being the only choice and they keep having to dig fresh graves.

"I feel like we've been here before," Blue says one day, sweat pearling at the nape of her neck as she pushes a shovel into the soft ground, grunting when it hits a complicated system of roots. She moves to the side, tries again.

III(ish). Time After Time
Blue Sargent is not an easy woman to love.

It is a fact that has been drilled into her with each man who tried. Her eyes are always on the horizon, one foot already poised to take the next step away. It's like, they say, she is never fully there.

Alone in the forest, it's where her thoughts keep returning. Like a bicycle wheel spinning in circles.

Without much of a family -- they all existed, of course, but it was perhaps the sense of family that she lacked; between the long hours her father put in at the office and her mother's long bouts with depression, Blue grew up drifting -- she made herself an island, making sure she grew each resource she might need within the boundaries of her own shore.

Some (like her teachers ranging from elementary right up to high school) might call it lonely. But Blue always called it self-sufficient. What room is there for anyone else when she already has everything she needs within herself?

In a reflecting pool in the little clearing her boots keep leading her back to, Blue watches her past relationships play themselves out. All of them following the same pattern.

Her high school sweetheart and his disappointment when she applied to colleges outside his reach, picking one half a continent away from his.

The TA in college who thought she might bring him home to meet her parents in the summer only to find her taking an unpaid internship to the California redwoods.

A handful of colleagues thereafter. Everyone somehow surprised when her path took her away from them.

Then Conner.

The one who mattered.

The look on his face when he realized that this was it -- the last time she walked out his door, the bag hitched high on her shoulder the last one he would ever have to watch her pack -- that hurt most of all.

This is me, she told him, unable to keep the wound out of her voice. This was always me.

It's not as if she kept it from him -- or anyone -- her transient nature. How the forests of the world have always called her name, and how she's never been able to resist their call. It was never a secret, played close to her chest. It was emblazoned across her being for everyone to read.

The trees call to her now. Their branches reaching out as if the pull her into an embrace and she yearns to let them envelope her and press against their bark until her blood slows and thickens into sap.

Blue keeps treading the same path. Walking through the same memories. It all starts the same: at the reflecting pool, then walking down the path into the heart of the forest, her momentum slowing with each step as roots grow from her matted army issue boots into the dirt, until finally she is home.

Then the cycle starts over.

Repeats.

Like part of her is waiting for something before she lets herself rest.

She may be interrupted at any point in her journey. By a wild animal. By someone. By an unexpected fork in the road.

Maybe this time it will be what breaks the cycle.

Or maybe it will be what finally ends it.

IV. the Drum Beats out of Time
Wildcard! Happy to plot over plurk or just hit me with something. I'll roll with it.

[ He'd run into Theon a while back, the two of them wandering aimless and away from their respective groups. There'd been momentary confusion about what the guy who had been plaguing his For You page was doing in here before understanding his angle. What could Rhys say? He respected that kind of hustle.

Now though....it had been what felt like hours, or maybe days? Time strung together in a way Rhys's mind couldn't make sense of here, and the delirium was starting to show. In both of them. ]

Hell no, I'm down to my last charge and I'm not wasting it on your future click bait.

There's a flicker of confusion.

"After? The fuck you mean, after? No one comes back from this place. That's the whole point."

He'd sold everything he owned and blew the money on some bullshit last hurrah. Why wouldn't he? He wouldn't need any of it in here, in the real world.

Whatever kindness he meant, Ellie still whips around too quickly, briefly wild-eyed. For a moment, another, a moment too long, Ellie stays there, frozen between fight and flight. Her hand is a fist wrapped tight around a switchblade, pulled from her belt.

When she relaxes, it seems to take genuine physical effort. Her expression is still distant, mistrustful. "Is that a hint?"

Ellie watches the woman struggle. Distantly, she's aware she should feel bad about this. Some part of her would have, once, she's sure of it. But now... she only feels curiosity, distant as the stars.

"You can do it," Ellie whispers, wanting to be pulled from this stoic undercurrent. "Try harder."

"Help me." Voice thick with tears, "Please."

But surely she didn't think this would be easy, or that the Area would open its arms to her; there is a test. She has to prove her strength and loyalty, and she has to do it alone.

The teeth are deep in her muscle of her leg. Amanda stares at her heel resting on the plate of the trap, breathing high-pitched, shallow with pain, and wipes her bloody palms off on her trousers. Gets them as tacky as she can, before she fits them to the jaws.

She goes for the springs this time, arms straining.

This dislodges something. No one's ever begged her for help. The feeling of power is... intoxicating.

(She thinks of a creature she saw through foliage-- an alligator with flowers blooming blood red between its scales. It was sunning itself on a rock, its mouth open, and a bird landed between its teeth. The gator let it settle there, let it fly away. Mercy on its own suffrage. Power.)

(Stability.)

Ellie swears, and the spell is broken. She feels the adrenaline rush through her, seizing her body like a flame. She pushes herself to work past it, to ignore it like every other one of life's disappointments. "Fuck. Shit. Okay."

Maybe, maybe if she doesn't tell the woman it's her trap, maybe they can be friends.

She puts her hands around the woman's leg, higher up, trying to staunch the flow of blood. "Take it slow," she says, "you can do it."

Pain makes Amanda the most honest version of herself.

Her arms threaten to buckle when hands tourniquet her leg; if she'd worn her other pair of boots, half the jaw would have snarled into leather instead of denim and skin. She can't get the thought out of her head, blood-wet and intrusive. Taunting.

But the other woman believes in her, which brings Amanda a trembling moment of peace, an eye in the roaring storm of her mind as she struggles with the tension in the springs. You can do it. She is trying harder than she ever has.

Slowly, the jaw unhinges. Amanda pants as she presses each side flat.

Snatching back her ruined leg is part victory, part wrenching sob.

Is wandering away from her group wise? No. Is calling out her husband's name, when she has no idea where he could be, smart? No. Alone is never right, and she's told everyone else that a hundred times over the years, but here she is. Alone, tired, desperate.

But she spots a lone figure and for a moment, her heart and hopes soar.

"Robbie?"

Her tired footsteps pick up, but she quickly sees it's just--someone else.

"Oh."

Sound more disappointed, Claire.

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SIMULATION: ANOTHER BORDER

cw gross leech killing, gut wounds

violence, blood, probably body horror and gore eventually...

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cw for blood and also for like...the way youtube influencers behave lmao

For Grace -- Pre-Entering & Entering Area X.

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cw: discussion of suicide, suicidal ideation

B

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C1 (for irony)

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cw body horror, blood, eye trauma

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cw: existential dread and body horror possible

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