towerofanimus | SEVENTEENTH STAFF ♞ interrupted reverie

Characters: Sayaka & pals (you are the pals) (it's you)
Setting: literally every floor because wtf tower??
Format: i start prose habitually but i'll match ya
Summary: Sayaka Miki (+5 years) realizes there is a disparity in the tower that ISN'T just effecting people. Where did floor 100 go?!
Warnings: Sayaka's been effected by the event, and will be notably different than usual (as in hi have a twenty year old with a self-done haircut and and a lot of issues).

She can't recall what exactly it was that made her think "hey, wait a moment, the tower isn't the same as it was yesterday," but here she was, at the lowest floor they were allowed on, taking the staircase up two at a time, because like she gives a damn about falling.

"One," "two," "three," "four," "five--" she firmly states the number of a floor aloud, when she crests the staircase to the next.

The first five floors are the same as usual, though they're serving something different than the last time she was down at the cafeteria - maybe the month had turned and she hadn't noticed. ..Again. She spares a moment for a viewing station on floor five - yeah, home's the same wasteland it always is, not a single blasted rock out of place. It hasn't changed since she was last back out there herself, kicking over wreckage and wishing the world would be ended enough that she didn't have to be here in it.

Six, seven, eightnineten--

This forest is boring. The pool she gives a once-over to, wondering if she could spot a friend in there - but regardless, Sayaka moves on. Having to go through the maze is a stupid dumb waste of time (she never liked randomly generated games, anyway) and the aquarium doesn't hold much fascination for her anymore. She could cheat and just take the stairs down from the dorms, but what if she's wrong and all those floors just got mixed up, rather than just being gone? It'd be a real Riki thing to do.

All the way through eleven-twelve-thirteen-fourteen-fifteen-sixteen-seventeen-eighteen-nineteen-twenty-twenty one is uneventful, but on twenty two she stares up at the hole in the ceiling going to the next place up and frowns. She always remembered there being something - off, at this part, but she shrugs it off and climbs anyway.

When Sayaka's finally made it to the very tip top of the tower, she immediately goes for the elevator to count the buttons. There's not enough. Either she's crazy, or the tower is missing about fifty floors that were there all fine 'n dandy the last time she looked. And while she's never been one to dismiss the possibility that yeah, she's finally lost that last marble -

"What the hell!"

She punches the button panel, and the doors start to slide closed. Wherever it arrives will soon be audience to an aggravated girl.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It would be kind of a lie to say that he wasn't mildly entertained by Sayaka barely making it out of the elevator, but Jin was going to keep the mild bemusement to himself like he usually did.

"In the flesh, as far as I know," He idly joked, tugging at his collar and extending his arm to look at his (covered) forearm as if to confirm it. At the least, he'd be able to report he didn't get sunburn.

Anyways, he turned his attention back to her with a quirk of an eyebrow. "You seem surprised." He wasn't gone for THAT long, and his stuff was still here, geez.

"Are you kidding me? I..."

Sayaka lapses into a mumble, midsentence. _{"Someone's kidding me, anyway."} But she does want to be convinced.

"When did you get back? I've been running up and down the stairs half the day, so - no, nevermind," don't push at the props too much or they'll fall over, "I mean--"

She doesn't know what she means. She's tripping over half of everything she's trying to say.

Yeah, he...Sayaka wasn't exactly the most eloquent person he knew, but she wasn't usually this much all over the place. If it was possible, his eyebrow was just climbing further and further up his forehead.

"Today. What's your problem?" More Tower shenanigans?

~~Jin, careful there, or your eyebrow might just strike out on its own to take to the skies and battle the space whales.~~

"Hold on a sec."

By now, Sayaka's at least had a day or so to piece together some of the current situation in the tower - namely, the remaining populace has been grossly mismatched along what she can piece together of the timeline (which isn't much, when you've been almost a non-participant in a lot of that timeline) and those fifty floors are still on the lam.

Her problem is, as usual, the tower.

With all that in mind, she circles Jin once - and comes to a stop more out of sorts than when she started. Still looks pretty damn real. That's when she stumbles upon a thought.

Well, if there's people saying they're from different times, why wouldn't the tower have just tossed in a Jin from the past? She might as well test the theory.

"Got any clue how long you were out? There's been, um, a recordkeeping issue."

~~He will become the looney tune character and be crazy and alone.~~

Well it certainly just kept getting weirder, and he half-followed Sayaka as she circled around him, though Jin himself remained in one place. This was...a little bit uncomfortable, to say the least. And awkward.

"I dunno... A month? Maybe more. Desolate wastelands ain't really the best for secretary work."

So she's right, and whenever this mess inevitably clears up, she's pretty certain who's going to be cleared right back out with it -

"Oh. Okay. I think I get it."

Her pensive expression persists for a moment longer - then she cracks an actual smile, breaking the strange mood she'd been in.

...Well, everything here is temporary, after all. Usually, she's just gloomy about that thought - but why not enjoy having her friend back while it lasts? She can deal with the profound, spiritual-crushing sadness later.

"There's some weird time thing going on, so I thought it'd be longer! That's not so bad, though."

Alright, now things were getting creepy. Unless Sayaka had become bipolar in a month, she didn't usually have giant grinning mood swings. ~~Or maybe he's just not used to being smiled at.~~

"'Longer'?" Cue the wary tone, 'cause uh...Jin didn't really like the sound of that at all. "Sayaka Miki getting something within a five minute span? The hell is going on with you?"

"Maybe I got smarter!"

...Okay, not even seconds later and she can't keep a straight face after saying that, and snickers. Once she's recovered her composure, Sayaka offers a... semi-decent response:

"I think they broke time. Somehow. There's a bunch of floors missing and people who look wayyy different ages than they did last weekend, so..."

Alright, not even Jin can keep a straight face with a set up like that. He even deigns to let out a small chuckle of amusement while Sayaka's regaining her composure. "Yeah, maybe in Wonderland."

"'Broke time'?" Well that sounded concerning! "Are you losing it? They can't just lose a whole block of floors like that."

Then again, new floors usually appeared over night, so maybe it wasn't THAT unreasonable.

"Oh, sure. Been thinking I was losing it since I woke up this morning. But anyway--"

To be more honest, she's been thinking she was losing it for this whole conversation.

"They've already broke everything else to see what happens, so why not crunch down a bunch of years and like fifty floors?"

"They've never reduced the number of floors before, though. Why would they?"

Sayaka seemed pretty convinced though, so this was...kind of moving away from hilarious and more towards concerning.

"Are you imagining things?" Probably the work of another experiment, if he had to guess, but...

SEVENTEENTH STAFF ♞ interrupted reverie

the Elevator would be a bombin' name for a night club

it'd be stupidly tall and narrow and sway upsettingly; perfect

it's like the tower but a night club and not horrifying. so really nothing like it

so it's the tower's sissier R-18 spin-off that no one wanted

assuming the horror here isn't R-18 anyway

tru enuff

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