eden acacia (seisms) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-11-13 13:26:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! log, eden acacia, sol tyler |
WHO: Eden Acacia and Solomon Tyler
WHEN: Lunchtime, Tuesday, November 13
WHERE: Cafeteria
WHAT: Cousins catch up
STATUS: Complete
Chainsaws. Eden hated chainsaws. She recalled so clearly turning around to see the man with the chainsaw, his arms raised, before falling conveniently into one of the potholes she had just created. The zombies that were now stuck with the man were being hacked up, their blood squirting up above to the level ground. Eden cringed at the memory, but that’s why she was here now, both laughing and consoling his cousin who had a much tougher dreamworld to deal with than her own. They had spent the entirety of their lunch, talking about the Egyptian mummy and the insane asylum. She tried to make light of her dreamworld the most and tried to focus moreso on where Solomon had thought he had been for the past four days. “So you believed it?” she asked quietly, not that anyone was close enough to be eavesdropping. A normal Eden would have avoided asking these kind of questions, but she knew that Solomon would also. He needed to talk about this, with her, with a counselor, anyone. At least they had Marine tell them about this being a dream fairly early on, he didn’t have that. Eden vaguely wondered if she would’ve been easy to believe or would have resisted until the very end. She supposed she wouldn’t ever really know. Her cousin idly shoved food around with his fork, letting a potato chase a piece of meat around the circumference of his plate. Solomon thought eating again would be easy -- that his body would be starved for solid foods after four days being hooked up to fluid IVs, that his mind would crave variety and flavour after the soul-crushing blandness of the asylum food and the hunger of shivering in the woods. But oddly enough, he wasn’t hungry. The IVI cafeteria with its white walls, long rows of tables, and chattering inmates reminded himself too much of another, similar room. “Didn’t believe it at first,” Sol admitted. He’d noticed that their conversation had slipped in tone somewhere over the last three minutes, shifting from their off-colour jokes and towards a more serious deconstruction of their experiences. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for this. “Because it was fuckin’ nonsense, innit? ‘All of your shared memories are a lie.’ Seemed impossible, when all of us knew the same people and remembered the same shit.” A pause. “But then our powers were gone. And it was obviously not IVI. And they had actual video of family members talking about shit that hadn’t happened, and even photographs of us with ‘em. There was a picture of you and me together when you were younger -- mebbe sixteen? Which as far as I knew hadn’t happened.” Her brows knitted together as she looked down at his plate of food. Eden had finished hers, but now her lunch felt stuck in her esophagus, like nothing was digesting. Laughing was a decent remedy, albeit temporary. “So did Cooper generate that or --” Eden shrugged at herself, her eyes still fixed on his plate. “I don’t know. That’s pretty detailed.” “Reckon so. But maybe it’s easy when you’re already in our heads, like. Just rile through the memories like a rolodex and pull out whatever y’need.” It was the first time he’d stopped to consider the mechanics of the dream, the how and why; the rest of the weekend had been so consumed with crippling self-doubt, then base survival. “And they -- whoever they were, figments of our fucking imagination, those fake doctors -- had some good points. It was...” But then that looming doubt nudged at the back of his head again. A tiny voice that whispered ’Unless. Unless, unless unless.’ The boy shot a look around the rest of the cafeteria, taking in all the faces and running through their names in his head. The dimensions of the room didn’t stretch. It was nice and orderly. Militant. Clean and unsuspicious in most ways, unlike the rusted locks and mildewed walls of that rotting asylum. Unless this was part of the-- He had to articulate this. It was relevant to her. Sol knew he had to force his way through this roadblock, spit out the words somehow. “They pointed out,” he said, carefully, “how bloody unlikely it was. That you and I should just run into each other here. Not knowing we were vols. Not knowing we were related until after we’d already met. Not even knowing your latest surname, for Jesus’ sake.” “Hey,” Eden said sternly, her voice even. “Don’t doubt yourself, ‘kay? It must’ve been a mindfuck, the world as you know it being a figment of your imagination. But it wasn’t. George Cooper is dead.” She let her words sink in before leaning back slightly, the certain ease that only Eden could play off was back. “And plus, it makes sense. Us being related, having such similar powers.” Her last sentence lingered, as if she had something to add. For a moment she looked deep in thought, though her smile was light-hearted, like her tone. "It’d be too convenient.. this being made up.” Eden wasn’t a girl who regretted having her powers. It made her who she was, it set her apart. She never did fit in, and it made her feel powerful, to be able to defend herself if something ever went wrong. That she could protect her mom, if it ever came down to it. And having Solomon here was just an added bonus, something that she had yet to take for granted. Family was never a term she had used, it had always just been her mom and her. But now, now she was starting to realize the gravity of it. Having someone to relate to unconditionally because blood tied them together. Now that would’ve been a mindfuck, them not being related and just some tricks being used. She internally scoffed away the thought. “Well. That’s the point, get me? That it’s so convenient.” His food was rapidly cooling, but Solomon had long since stopped caring. One night of restless, fitful sleep hadn’t been enough to banish all their demons just yet -- and god knew he was still dreading today’s mandatory counselling session. He’d had too much fucking counselling lately, too many hours listening to bespectacled doctors rifling through his life bit-by-bit. “You weren’t a vol in that... world. You were just a normal kid. My cousin, no powers. We met up again ‘cos aunt Candace was payin’ for all the bills. And they said I made up a different reason for our seeing each other again after so long, and that imaginary reason was that we were both superpowered students way out in this treck.” Sol gestured at the cafeteria around them, and then instinctively flexed his hand; his glass started shaking on the table, letting off a high-pitched vibrating dinnnng that rang out across their empty table. It turned a couple heads from the next row over. Satisfied, he let it lapse. Eden laughed, mostly involuntarily, though didn’t stop herself either. “Mom? Pay for all the bills?” In what world would she voluntarily do that? There was nothing that tied the two families together, not really. And Candace was in heaven, living in Beverly Hills. She would be surprised if her mom had even realized that she hadn’t contacted her at all for a week, or if she would even be phased by the media attention that this whole Cooper thing was getting. But then her laugh faded, and she looked fondly at her older cousin who reminded her so much of her uncle. She tried to put herself in his shoes, but knew it was impossible. “I wish I was there with you,” she finally said, “in the asylum shit.” Makes me feel useless just watching you go through this alone, was unsaid, but clearly implied. The sudden laughter drew him up short -- Sol stared at her for a moment, perplexed, before his cousin’s amusement melted through his shell. Some of that nagging doubt was punctured, deflating. “Oh,” he said. “I s’pose that makes sense. Candace the Scrooge.” And then, simple as that, Solomon burst into his own chuckling laughter. It was exactly like waking up after a nightmare: what made perfect sense in the dream was suddenly ludicrous in the light of day, faulty logic shattered in one easy blow by Eden. Of course his gold-digging aunt wouldn’t have shelled out for a nephew she barely knew. Of course. After a long pause while he mulled over her proposition, he admitted, “I wish you were, too. Would’ve been an anchor. I didn’t really know any of ‘em who were there.” An inextricable link bound them now, however, a braided knot that words couldn’t quite express. How did you articulate a bond like that? They hadn’t simply been through hell together, but deconstructive psychological hell. Funny, how that worked when the groups seemed random and haphazard, as if George Cooper had simply thrown everyone to the winds and have at. (Though perhaps there had been some shared kernel in the asylum, some throbbing wound in all of them, some ache that called to ache.) “What was your group like?” “Like some nightmare mission from IVI. But we knew, like day one. We knew that this wasn’t real and not to get hurt so it’s not like we became best buds of anything. It was just another -- weird Vol shit.” Her heart dropped again. She felt for Sol, for his group. Fucking George Cooper, at least she could live with the satisfaction that she made him fall straight on his face. She knew she didn’t kill Cooper, but she’d go check to make sure his nose was broken. That would’ve been her doing. It would be her own way of coping with all this shit, and for whatever Solomon was going through, would go through. That asshole. Eden didn’t know how long they had been sitting there, in the cafeteria. Talking about things they had already talked about, laughing then growing solemn again. Divulging more information and learning new things about each other, but Eden didn’t want to leave. She didn’t want to leave Solomon alone, and she definitely didn’t want him talking too much to his group. It could be helpful, yes, but it could also be detrimental, couldn’t it? For them to express their doubts still wouldn’t help him any. “Wanna watch a movie or something? Or play chess?” She quickly took it back. “Nevermind, I’m shit at chess. Something else. Something fun.” Another abrupt laugh. “Yeah, I’m rubbish. Not got the attention span for it. Let’s grab some snacks from the store and cotch in one of the lounges. With some awful film with no fucking horror in it. Mebbe some Monty Python?” Set free from IVI’s strict and mandatory schedule, which normally chugged on hour after hour, he found himself at a surprising loss re: what to do with all this newfound free time. Part of him just wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep, but Solomon was forcing himself to keep moving, stay active, remain social. He rose from his seat, shoving his cutlery aside and sweeping the tray back into his hands, ready to bus the remains of their meal. Unconsciously, he rubbed at his thigh. It had been healed by Anthony (properly, this time) and there was no mark, nothing to show that he’d been gored just the day before, but the idea of it still lingered. The smile that drew itself on Eden’s face was one of reserved tenderness. Monty Python. He really was her cousin. “Sounds great. Or ace, or whatever you say.” She gathered her empty plate as well, noting full well that he had barely touched his food, and stood up, waiting for his lead. Eden would let Solomon pick out the snacks so he could eat something. To be honest, she wanted to go on a field trip with Sol to see George Cooper’s ugly-ass dead body, but thought it be best she go on her own. If he’d known her morbid intentions, he might have burst into a delighted cackle -- little baby coz, all grown up and well fucked up, but for that moment, their minds were two ships passing in the night. The thought of visiting the boy’s corpse simply hadn’t occurred to Sol. He hadn’t been able to find George in the carnival melee after his one brief glimpse of him -- so if there was any corpse that Solomon wanted to scrutinise in clinical detail, it was the boneless, jelly-limbed body he’d left behind in the dreamscape. For want of a corpse, however, a movie would have to make do. Sol took point, dumping his plates on the moving conveyor belt at the side of the cafeteria, and left the room with his younger cousin in tow. A phantom ache still plagued his leg -- along with the sense that there was, perhaps, something he’d forgotten -- but Solomon forcibly brushed that worry aside. It was like a pebble caught in his shoe, a nagging little sensation that, he thought, he would have to accustom himself to soon enough. Such was life. |