LOCKED TO alchemicals

[deaftly]

[He doesn't remember anything. All he knows is that there's a bright light in his face and he just wants to sleep. After a couple of minutes of tossing and turning he finally opens his eyes and sits up. The room he's in is perfectly white, without any sort of interesting features. There's a desk and a chair, but nothing on either of them. They're as white as the walls and floor, and on closer inspection, the bed he's in is just as white and spotless as the rest of the room. The sheets are a bit on the stiff side even though he's been sleeping under them, and the bed is kind of hard for his liking, so he finally squirms out from under the covers and stands.

The clothes he's wearing strike him as being wrong, though he can't recall what the "right" clothes would be. They're white - like everything else - and they're very simple. He doesn't have anything to compare them to, but the material is soft and kind of thin and feels a little odd. He shrugs off his confusion about the clothes and starts for the door. Even the doorknob is white, which strikes him as strange for about half a second before he yanks the door open.

The room that he enters is spacious. Like the room he woke up in, everything is white. There's a sofa, a small table in front of the sofa, and a couple of plush chairs. There's a couple of doors leading elsewhere, and his first order of business is to see where they lead. One leads to a perfectly white kitchen which isn't interesting right now (though some part of him wonders if the food will be just as white) and the other door he comes to is locked. There should be a front door around here somewhere though, right? He doesn't want to be here. He can't remember why he's here (or anything, really) but being here doesn't seem right.]

Comments

[alchemicals]

I don't...

[If it's any consolation, he's right there with you, Naki.]

...Shit, I think it's part of a game I used to play a lot?

[That...sounds right, somehow, and he grins once it's out there.]

Yeah! It's a game I used to play before I came here - you'd be given a bunch of smaller things that's kind of like this, with the bulbs on the end, and you had to take them apart and make a larger structure out of them without wasting too many pieces. They can only join up in certain ways, you can't just do whatever you want, and you only had a certain number of moves to do it in or you'd lose. So it's like a puzzle, only with a sort of timer on it.

It's stupid-complicated, but it's fun once you learn how. This was how to solve one of the harder ones.

[deaftly]

A game?

[Naki listens intently, looking absolutely fascinated with what Kimbley's saying. Admittedly he also looks a little lost as well, but he's trying.]

It sounds a bit too difficult for me, but I bet it'd be fun to watch! You were good at it, weren't you?

[alchemicals]

Yeah, I think so. I mean, if I'm remembering this sort of thing I'd think it's important, right? At least to me. So I'd say I'm probably good at it.

[deaftly]

Yeah! I doubt it'd be something you'd pick up on if it didn't stick out to you somehow, so it must've been something you did a lot!

[alchemicals]

That's what I think, too - I'll probably try to work out some of the rest of it once you're asleep tonight, it'll probably take a while.

[deaftly]

Okay. If you do figure any of it out, you'll have to show me! Though I guess it'll be on the walls so I'll be able to see it anyway...

[He shrugs. It sounds like it's going to go right over his head, but hey, if Kimbley's remembering something - even something minor like this - then that's definitely a good thing!]

[alchemicals]

Nah, I'll probably start it out on paper, at least - there's probably going to be a lot of it, and I don't really remember what sort of stuff I start out with, so it'll take some space to work it out.

I'll show you, though, if you want.

[deaftly]

Yeah, I'd like that! If you use up all the paper they'll probably come in, so... look out for that, I guess. I mean you could always wake me up and we could try to take 'em, but if you don't wanna do that you can hang out in the bedroom. I doubt I'll notice. I think I'm a pretty heavy sleeper.

[alchemicals]

That might be okay, I think.

[He's still not really comfortable with all this, but at least it's something.]

Same goes for you, too - unless you want me to sleep out here while you're up. The couch doesn't suck or anything and I sleep really hard, so it's not like you'd wake me up.

[deaftly]

No way - what if they show up while you're asleep and I can't wake you up? You're probably better off in the bedroom. I mean unless you want to sleep on the couch. I'm really not sure why you would though. That bed's pretty comfy.

[alchemicals]

...Well, yeah, but if I'm in the other room you're going to be dealing with them by yourself. You're okay with that?

[deaftly]

I've got that weird healing shit, remember? I mean, worst case scenario they'd probably just beat me up pretty badly, but I don't think they'd kill me. If they do then they've only got you left, right? So I probably won't be in too much danger!

[alchemicals]

...All right. If that's what we're doing, I think we can each take eight hours asleep? Twenty-four hours in a day will leave us with eight hours where we're both up, then one of us passes out, then the other one. We'll each be awake for sixteen hours, asleep for eight - pretty much a normal schedule as far as what we should be doing. Sound fair?

[deaftly]

Ah, okay, that sounds good.

[It'll be kind of lonely spending eight hours awake by himself, but this is way better than the alternative.]

Okay, so if we do that we're... gonna have to find some way to keep track of time, aren't we? Is there a clock anywhere in here? There's no windows so we can't rely on sunlight or anything.

[alchemicals]

Shit, that's right.

[Goddamn it, the math checks out and everything, there's just no fucking way to enforce it...wait.]

...The stove. It's got to have a timer on it at least; we can set that.

[deaftly]

Oh, does it?

[Naki moves to check, though that's much easier said than done since he's never touched a stove in his life.

????]

[alchemicals]

Well, unless they -

[...dude where are you going

...do you even know what you are looking at]

...I was gonna say, unless they want us to burn something, it should.

[...]

Okay, this is a lot different than the stoves I'm used to.

[deaftly]

Yeah, it's... different...

[Naki reaches out to press something, but hesitates. He's not sure what most of these buttons do, so he's really not sure what he should even press here to see if it'll work.]

[alchemicals]

It's like your scanner thing, isn't it? All...different and stuff.

[No, really, what the hell...]

[deaftly]

It's not like the scanner thing at all, I don't think... I mean, it's definitely different, but not a sort of different I recognize or know how to use.

[Honestly he can't even tell if this is what stoves look like normally. That's pretty creepy all things considered and he doesn't let himself dwell on it for too long.]

[alchemicals]

...Okay, so neither of us know what to do with the damn thing and with our luck we'll set something on fire. Do we have any other ideas?

[deaftly]

Um...

[Naki looks around the kitchen, biting his lower lip as he thinks.]

There's no clock in here at all, so just checking the time is out. Is there some kind of timer somewhere in here? I mean besides the stove. Maybe they left us something else...?

[alchemicals]

I haven't seen any...

[...Oh, god.]

You think they figured we'd do something like this?

[deaftly]

...Ah--

[Naki's eyes widen and once again the sclera shifts colors.]

Shit, no, there's no way...

[Except that's entirely possible and that's really freaking him out.]

Fuck, they could have known, so they-- Fuck!

[alchemicals]

Hey. Don't get upset; it doesn't mean they're mind-readers, it just means they fucking think as much as we do. It'll be fine. We'll just have to work around it.

[He doesn't know where the reasonably calm tone of voice is coming from, but it pleases him in some vague way; he's mad as hell, that much is obvious, but he's not going to give anyone the satisfaction of making him freak out when he's pretty sure they're watching.]

No one's going to fuck with you either way, okay?