letsplayamurder | Week one

Entry tags:

week 1,
weekly log

Week one

You've all met Athena, and she's made her point quite clear. She's fully committed to making this world better, and you're the ones who agreed to lend a hand. Something she's obviously quite thankful for.

It's really not so bad around here. Despite the sky, and the state of the land, things are fairly calm. You've got plenty of time to get used to it, and each other. Maybe this'll be easier than it seems.

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[Wendy has been relatively calm compared to Alex this week, at least on the surface. She didn't really want to get labeled as hysterical again... so she hid her panic, pressing it down and aside.

There hadn't been any real omens yet, anyway. So, why would she--then she saw the CD. She didn't recognize it; well the particular disc anyway. Everyone and their grandma had a copy of a Have a Nice Decade CD... but the contents of it, the way it was clearly warped by heat...

Love Rollercoaster by the Ohio Players. I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor. Superstition by Stevie Wonder. You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet by the Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

It made her skin crawl. She managed to get the CD back from Vanity but she couldn't take her eyes off it. So she wandered. Wandered and almost ran into Alex. She jumped, startled like a deer in the headlights of a speeding car.]

Alex...god, Alex... something is going to happen...! Look--

[She shoves the CD into his sweaty hands.]

[ Alex doesn't recognize what Wendy shoves at him, not with any real significance. He doesn't know this particular CD either, but he does see it's melted, which has him on edge, and he does see those song titles.

He puts out his hands to right Wendy, while he asks— ]

An omen. You recognize this?

[ It sucks that he doesn't sound really surprised, just disappointed. ]

[She points out Love Rollercoaster. But she shakes her head...then adds:]

There was a fire at a tanning salon. Those places have CDs all over the place for the clients to use while they're tanning... I didn't ever see the fire itself and that's not the, um, omen I saw for them but...

[She had went to a tanning salon with Julie the year before grad night. It was a sister's thing, they were going to the coast to visit relatives. Julie wasn't going with Amber or Perry so she wanted Wendy to try it. She felt silly in a bathing suit but... she remembered there was a CD player. It made sense that those poor girls... She swallowed.]

[ Alex grimaces. A fire at the tanning salon. Yeah, that sure sounds like Death. ]

But it was there. You can feel it, can't you?

[ From his pocket, Alex withdraws the magazine scrap he'd gotten back from Vanity. He holds it in one cupped hand. 'Tod.' ]

Mine was more direct. This is the first sign I really saw, and knew what it meant.

[ The same fucking kind of message. ]

[She doesn't know the details. She wasn't there like the other deaths but she can guess... Ashley and Ashlyn didn't deserve that.]

Yeah. Yeah, I can. I can't tell you why but--you get it.

[For once she doesn't have to explain. She takes a deep breath. Tod Wagner.]

I... mine were photos I took of people at Grad Night.

Photos. And they had something in 'em that you could follow after, when you looked later?

[ Huh. That's different. But then, Alex thinks he's kind of... ]

I saw flashes of stuff, other times. Like a...reflection that wasn't there. Or lightning in fire.

[ His skin's crawling. Wendy knows. Wendy's like him. She saw it, like him. But still, he feels like it's wrong to be talking to anyone else about this but Clear. ]

Yeah. I was looking at the one I took of Ashley and Ashlyn... they had this stupid inflatable palm tree they won at a carnival game. Like the stupid cheesy decorations you find at tanning salons and the flash had made them all washed out as if the scene...

[She swallowed. Hard.] Like they were on fire. I knew something was going to happen but I was already too late.

[Something she wouldn't have taken notice of before, just a bad picture. But afterwards. It was clear.]

Like... weird songs, too? Or noticing coincidences?

[She understands. It's... like maybe Alex will laugh at her. Call her hysterical. He wasn't there like Kevin was... even Julie hadn't trusted her.]

[ Very low, a hand on her arm, Alex assures: ] I was too late with mine too. Tod was my best friend.

[ It hurts. It hurts to think of. But it's less sharp than it used to be. Not when he barely had time to grieve. Not when he couldn't even attend his funeral. ]

I get it. [ He's not empathetic, not like Clear. But he can tell, they're feeling the same thing. ] If I ever hear "Rocky Mountain High" again I'm running for the hills.

...I get it, too. [She doesn't move his hand away.] I couldn't get my best friend off the rollercoaster. She probably thought I was having a panic attack.

[Jason thought something was up but... Carrie had seen her react badly to things before. She wasn't unempathetic but she was there the last time Wendy had 'freaked' out. She probably thought it was nothing.

Carrie... was stupidly rational sometimes. The fact she didn't try to get off the ride was something Wendy would never forget.]

...If I hear the words 'there is someone walking behind you' on the radio again, I'm right with you.

That's what everyone thought about me, pretty much. [ It's perhaps because of this newfound camaraderie that he admits, softly, heavy— ] Tod only got off the plane 'cause...his brother said he should go check on me.

I...barely saw him, between that and when he died. His dad was pissed. Blamed me for George. Made it look like...

[ He hasn't talked about it before. He didn't need to with Clear. She just...she knew what he felt, without words. Not just from living it, she knew. So the words feel weird, rough out his mouth.

In the end, he can't finish saying. ]

...They were puttin' him in the body bag right when I got there.

It was a double date. All night Carrie, our boyfriends, and me… the three of them rode rides while I took pictures for the yearbook. We were supposed to ride it together but I didn’t want to ride in the front so Carrie and Jason took the front while Kevin and I sat in the back. [For a moment she’s back at grad night. The boys were arguing while Carrie rolled her eyes at them. She swallows hard.] Jason was my boyfriend. I—

[She swallowed hard. She imagines he relives that night over and over, too.]

I couldn’t even talk to their families afterwards. Even if no one blamed me for the derailment, I knew I could have done more. [She didn’t think that anymore. She took a long breath.]

I’m sorry, Alex. For both George and Tod. Death… really is cruel. Vicious.

[ Palpable grief. Her boyfriend? God, that must have sucked. Ached. If she had the same thoughts he did. The same horrific dreams, the burning silhouettes, the bodies of those he couldn't save. ]

I'm sorry, too. For Carrie and Jason and...all of it.

[ He lets out a soft breath. ]

Death's not here. According to Athena. But...we're still seeing...things. Something's coming.

[Some part of them never moved on from those terrible nights. Some days she still smells the scent of fried twinkies and popcorn... then motor oil and blood. She practically has to shake herself to continue talking.]

...Thanks, Alex. It's not much but... thanks.

[Right.]

Right... something is going to happen. Maybe not tomorrow but soon. It's... not good.

...All we can do is be prepared for anything.

[ Oh, just that, huh? ]

Trust our instincts and...and if you see anything else, find me.

[ It's a stark contrast to his quiet plea for her to stay away if she sees signs of Death. But if Death really isn't here, isn't haunting their footsteps... Two heads really are better than one. ]

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Week one

take me home country roads... that is wildcard.

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cw allusions to suicide but only vaguely

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