[ 001 ]

[bytheirhand]

Characters: Czeslaw Meyer and YOU.
Setting: Room 3-08 and floors 1, 5, 14 & 22
Format: Starting with action, but I'll follow your lead!
Summary: Czes wakes up, is overjoyed to learn that his world has been destroyed and proceeds to explore the tower!
Warnings: Being Czeslaw is suffering. There's a bit of blood and gore in the first cut and more will likely be present in the comments. I'll update this as needed.


Room 3-08

[The last thing Czes remembered was being dragged along the train tracks and getting his limbs shaved off one at a time. He lost consciousness a little bit after he'd been secured to the underside of the train. So when he woke up it wasn't the sleep paralysis that got his attention -- he didn't expect to be able to move, after all. What he noticed was that he was in one piece again and, more importantly, he wasn't on the train anymore.

Correction. He wasn't under the train anymore.

So where was he?

As soon as he's able to move he pulls himself off the bed. Not content in staying in such strange clothing his first priority was to find proper attire. Thankfully, it wasn't difficult to find and minutes later he's dressed and far more comfortable.

Next on the list was the note on the nightstand that caught his eye. He climbs back on the bed, reaching over to grab the paper and carefully unfolding it.

Wait. Wait, wait, wait.

His world was... gone?]

Wha... what?


Floor One

[Eat the oatmeal, they said. It'll be good for you, they said. You need to eat it if you want to be able to eat anything else.

A half hour later and he was no closer to finishing it. He sits at the table, arms folded over his chest, lip sticking out in a furious pout. There had to be a way around eating this god awful concoction.]


Floor Five

[He must have looked ten times by now. His world. Dead. Destroyed. Gone. He couldn't believe it at first, it seemed so unreal. But... there it was.

Everyone was dead.

Everyone was dead. Everyone who could hurt him was gone. He was safe. He was safe.

He steps away from the viewing station, hiccuping as tears stream down his face. They were all dead.]


Floor Fourteen

[He's been to a movie theater before, but these screens were just... so small in comparison! There was just so much here that he'd never seen before! He wanders around the room with a childlike curiosity -- pressing buttons to see what they do, picking up controllers and remotes and fiddling with them, rifling through the selection of DVDs and video games with a small sense of awe.

There's a good chance he might accidentally shut of the TV, or stop the movie you were so close to the end of, or reset the game you were playing for hours just before you had a chance to save.

Whoops.]


Floor Twenty-Two

[Czes finds himself spending a good deal of time on this floor. There's a surprising amount of artwork that he recognizes lining the walls. It was almost strange to see a little piece of home here.

It's possible to find him simply admiring the artwork. Or you might find him running down the hall screaming in terror. Apparently he ran into some... less tasteful pieces.]

Comments

BURSTS THROUGH THE DOOR of floor five

[funnystory]

[Ellen approaches Czes, regarding him with a look that might be a kind of subtle confusion. Rather than ask what he's crying over, she instead chooses to turn her head to the viewing station, peers through a nearby one. It's a dusty wasteland, completely devoid of any life. That must be why he's crying.

She looks back to to him.]

It's gone.

[It doesn't sound as though this bothers her very much.]

OH MAN

[bytheirhand]

[Very astute. That is why he's crying, but not for the reasons she's thinking.

He wipes furiously at his face with the back of his hand, nodding.]

Everyone... everyone's gone...

[And despite his heartbroken tone he couldn't be happier.]

[funnystory]

[She blinks, considering that statement. There's no one she feels the need to mourn from back home, although perhaps it would be convenient if Viola were gone.]

Maybe they followed you here. There are a lot of people who've been saved.

[It's not really meant to be comforting or discouraging, really. It's just a statement.]

[bytheirhand]

[Well that sobers him up pretty fast.

No. No, no, no, no, no. He didn't want anyone else to be here. He was perfectly fine being the only person from his world here. It was preferred, actually.]

That's happened? More than one person from the same world getting... getting saved?

[funnystory]

...I don't know. I think some of them knew each other before they were brought here.

[That's what she gathers from poking around on the network, at least.]

There's no one that I know.

[She knows that, because there's only one person that she does know; her true body. If Viola were here, she would have already begun crawling after her with that worthless body.]

[bytheirhand]

Is there a way to find out?

[Someone hasn't discovered the network yet.]

[funnystory]

Um...I think they call it the "network." You could ask on there, but they might not want to be found.

[She doesn't want to be. Then, as an afterthought,]

It won't work if you want to find them first, either.

floor one

[prayed]

[Guess what, Czes. You now have a fourteen year old red head flopping in the chair across from you, biting into a chocolate-filled waffle succeeding in getting crumbs everywhere. She's got a small stack of them sitting on a plate--more than a girl her size should be able to eat in one sitting, really.

She looks from him to the oatmeal to back to Czes.]

It's gonna get cold if you don't eat it up fast, y'know.

[bytheirhand]

[He squirms in his seat, still pouting before he looks up and --

oh. that was. a lot of red. A lot of red.

He feels his stomach twist. He'll never be able to disassociate red hair from... from him. The Rail Tracer. The monster that put him through hell. ]

... It's gross.

[prayed]

[She rolls her eyes, props her elbow on the table and leans into her palm.]

It's food, isn't it?

[bytheirhand]

Are you sure? It doesn't look like it or taste like it.

[poking at it pathetically with his spoon]

[prayed]

It tastes fine.

[Though everything tastes fine to her, really.]

Besides, you only gotta eat it once, so why not just hurry up and get it over with? You're just making it worse on yourself by putting it off, y'know.

[bytheirhand]

But... but it's really gross.

floor five

[colonial]

[America didn't like this floor--he'd looked through the viewfinders once and it had been such a painful experience he'd decided never to do it again. He's just passing through, really, when he hears the crying. Assuming someone else made the same unfortunate decision he made a while ago, he approaches cautiously.

He relaxes a bit to see another kid. They looked older than him, but that never really meant much to America.]

Hey. Hey, are you okay?

[bytheirhand]

[Czes wipes at his face, nodding his head.]

Y-yeah. Yeah, I'm ok. It's... it's just hard to believe that everyone... everyone's gone.

[Quite frankly it was the best thing that could have happened, but this kid doesn't need to know that.]

[colonial]

[America, of course, assumes the other boy is crying because this is a bad thing, and attempts to help out.]

Well we don't know if things really all got destroyed! That's just what the bad guys say.

[bytheirhand]

[What no this is not the information he wanted to hear. He wipes at his face again, confused.]

W-what do you mean? I... I just looked and... and it's all gone.

[colonial]

Well, yeah... [America spares a nervous, troubled look at the viewfinders.] But that doesn't mean they couldn't be making it up!

[bytheirhand]

You think so?

[Looking pretty unsure of that. After all, after what he just saw it doesn't seem too likely.]

Floor Fourteen

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch has taken to the music in this room at times, though how unfamiliar the music was saw to it being rather rare.

But he's on a beanbag chair, curled up with a pair of headphones...not quite over his ears. He opens his eyes to see the child making his way through the room, smiles a little at his curiosity and settles down again to listen. The kid is safe with him here, after all, and he's probably here to take his mind off things too.

...Well, his relaxation lasts about as long as it takes for Czes to manage to turn off the stereo said headphones were attached to. Enoch pulls off the headphones and straightens up. Well, given the way he was poking around earlier, it seems fairly obvious now that he wasn't looking for something to do, so much as trying to understand things. Why else would he have turned that off?*

You've never seen these things before either, have you?

[bytheirhand]

[Czes hadn't noticed Enoch when he first came in. He was too busy marveling at... well, everything. He jumps a little at the sound of his voice, turning around quickly. He stands there looking with the remote to the stereo clutched in his hands, looking incredibly guilty even though he's not sure what he did wrong.]

No, sir! I'm sorry, did I mess something up? I didn't mean to, sir, honest!

[warriorscribe]

*Enoch just smiles. He'd probably warm even more to Czes if he knew he was an immortal too, but...he has a soft spot for children any way you look at it.*

It's all right, you did nothing wrong. All of this was new to me when I first came here, too.

[bytheirhand]

[He bites his lip, bringing the remote over to him and holding it out.]

Can you tell me what this does?

[warriorscribe]

It controls this device here. *Enoch gestures to the CD player.*

The labels are mostly obvious, but it took me some time, and practicing just as you are, to determine the rest. They play these discs here... *He picks up a CD from a pile someone left behind, opening the box to show Czes.* ...But not all of them. I've found the ones that have cases that list their song titles on the back are the ones that this will play. The others are meant for other devices.

[bytheirhand]

These play music? So they're sort of like... tiny records?