[of our own device]

Who: Justice and Colton
Where: the hedge maze
When: late morning
What: a random meeting. snark, no bloodshed.
Status: complete

( restless )

Who: Justice, Katya, Nisha and Cameron
When: 6:40 pm
Where: the other elevator car!

Justice’s schedule had gotten off track again. Although, as he’d often pondered during his decades here, what difference did it make when he did what? He’d slept most of the day away, and after getting up and taking a cursory shower—his hair was barely toweled dry and stood up damp and spiky on his head, and he hadn’t bothered to shave his scruff, but he was clean enough—he’d left his room and padded down to the elevator. Time for some food. It was dinnertime, but he hadn’t eaten since about 2 a.m. He didn’t especially care what he had, but he was feeling a bit overdue for nourishment of some sort.

There were other people getting onto the elevator when he did, but he wouldn’t have to endure them for that long, Justice thought as he got on last and poked at the button for the first floor, which was already lit up. He was aware that punching the damn thing wouldn’t make the door close faster, but he always felt inclined to do it anyway. Finally the door eased closed and the elevator started to move. It was business as usual until, with an abrupt jolt, the car stopped halfway down and the lights went out, leaving them illuminated by a faint red glow.

Justice, with his superior sense of patience, rammed the heel of his hand into the control panel. “C’mon, fucker,” he demanded.

WHO. Seth & Justice
WHERE. Morningstar
WHEN. Late Morning / Brunch


Seth stared at the table in front of him, at the plate of food he'd ordered, before he leaned back. What was this place? He'd been to plenty of four star resorts in his time. This one took the cake. Everything was free. At first, he'd wondered if there was going to be a clever time share presentation included somewhere.

But then, the realization crept up onto him with horror. He stared down at the yellow eggs, the slice of wheat toast. The half-drank glass of coffee. He picked up the coffee cup, stared at it for a moment before he drained the bitter black liquid back, and then threw the mug down against the floor.

It shattered in a satisfying way and he stared at it, feeling his heart start to race. He was trapped. They were all trapped here. He couldn't leave. If he walked outside the door, if he tried to leave, he was certain that somehow, someway, he would end up right back here. His jaw clenched, he waited to see if anyone would react to his outburst.

He was calm on the outside, but inside, that panic tightened like a knot.

Who: Regan and Justice.
Where: Serenity Garden.
When: Early evening.

People might come out to walk through this garden at any moment, take advantage of the peace and quiet the name implied but they wouldn’t find it and the -- for the time being, at least -- sole occupant very little for the disruption his presence caused. Serenity Garden, what a stupid name. The first time he’d heard it he’d been caught between absolute disbelief and plain old amusement, he’d laughed, he remembered that much, but couldn’t for the life of him recall if he’d continued to laugh or remarked on the idiocy of it. Regan couldn’t imagine himself not making some kind of comment on the absurdity of the name in conjunction with this place and the way it worked, how it basically held people prisoner until they got over whatever issues it was holding them here in the first place. And if you couldn’t get over your issues? Didn’t want to? Didn’t believe you had issues to begin with? Well, then you were here to stay, like it or not.

Regan had grown complacent over the years, it certainly could have been worse, he’d had no home to go back to and no connections he was eager to keep alive and so he had no real motivation to better himself. He scoffed at that after lighting a cigarette and taking the first drag off it, pocketing his lighter again before reaching out to take hold of the golf club he’d propped up against a raised flower bed a few moments before. Better himself, that sounded like something from a light night infomercial or some crap a televangelist might spout in the middle of an over exuberant sermon. Bullshit. That was all it was, plain and simple. All of it. From the needlessly cheery welcome you received in the lobby when you first walked through the doors to the reminder day in and day out that you could never leave, not if you didn’t change. Regan didn’t want to change, didn’t think he needed to.

When he swung the club and sent the small white ball flying through the air he hoped there was some ignorant bastard on the receiving end of it when it finally came careening down after its short but swift flight. Already he was retrieving another ball from the container he’d brought out with him, dropping it down on the ground, freeing up his hand to take another drag from his cigarette. If he hadn’t hit anyone with that first ball, it was only a matter of time.

Who: Lina and open!
When: Mid-late morning
Where: Outside, near the boundary

Despite indeed drinking herself stupid the previous night and waking up with a hangover from hell, Lina actually felt steadier. Thinking about her situation still occasionally brought up bouts of nausea, but they were short-lived and easily ignored next to the hangover itself. And now that she felt she could start to deal with whatever the hell was going on, she was determined to do exactly that, no matter how crappy she felt. At least the effects of last night's drinking were a familiar sort of discomfort.

Feeling it was the best place to start, Lina went investigating outside. She'd asked someone - a maintenance worker, she thought - how to know when she was getting close to the 'danger zone.' He had laughed and told her she'd feel it long before she got there, but to look for white rocks and flowers. Sure enough, if she walked out far enough, eventually Lina came to brief patches where desert sands gave way to bits of green, and flowers she had no name for. She would occasionally walk too close and feel waves of dizziness, or a general heavy sensation. Heavy eyes, heavy limbs, heavy heart... heavy everything. In those times she would scramble back, drink from her bottle of water, and wait for it to all pass. As long as she didn't press it and try to cross that invisible line, she could keep going.

The idea that there was a weak point in it somewhere was honestly laughable. If such a thing existed, someone would have found it by now. But Lina didn't have any other ideas, so she set out circling the hotel, testing the force every step of the way. She was halfway done when it all became too much, and she had to back off and plunk down on her butt in the grass. Lina breathed deeply and waited for it to pass again. Well, shit, she thought. She took another sip of water, already thinking she should have gone for a beer instead.