azume | Restart.

APOCALYPSE.

It's difficult to say how long you're unconscious.

Whenever you do wake up, it's warm; your limbs will probably feel a bit heavy, and it might take a while for you to come back into yourself fully - whatever just happened, it's disorienting, weighing heavily on your body and leaving a heavy fog over your senses, and for a long moment it may be tempting to go back to sleep.

Slowly, though, everything will start to seep back in. The confrontation with Cyrus. Countless beams of light smashing down to earth, tearing everything in their path away. Judgement.

The end of the world.

The ruins still seem, miraculously, to be intact; pushing yourself up to sit up and look around will make it clear that whatever protected you from the attack on the world is still present, a swirling field of white light encapsulating the area and forming a protective shield around your group. The Lake Guardians are present for a brief moment, hovering overhead in a manner that's easily read as concerned, but as soon as enough of you are awake they'll take their leave - it's difficult to say where they're going and why, given that they don't offer an explanation, but all three of them are together still, having seemed to have found each other eventually over the past little while.

Their protection vanishes with them, and their departure may leave you feeling empty; on the other hand, it may not affect you at all, seeing as you have other things to worry about. Leaving the ruins themselves and returning to the center of Celestic Town, it will be immediately obvious that something is very, very wrong.

The first noticeable difference is in the people of the town; it seems that Cyrus adhered to his word in that everyone is alive, having been reborn after the world was destroyed. But there's something unwelcome and familiar about them now - the inability to process very much, the staring with nothing behind it, the lack of drive or desire to do anything for themselves, it seems that everything about them that made them a person has once again been torn away from them, leaving them dead-eyed and spiritless.

The other differences are less noticeable, but as the day goes on, something seems...off. Not just with the people, but with the world as a whole.

The passage of time and the expansion of space are things that everyone takes for granted; as long as the day passes by, the sun moving across the sky to fade into night, it can be assumed that everything is working as it should be. But the longer you spend here, the more it becomes obvious that something feels wrong; the sun continues to pass overhead, night will eventually fall, but there's an undeniable sense that nothing is really happening. The perceived passage of time seems more and more irrelevant to you, giving way to a notion that you're just...stuck, somehow. That nothing is changing, despite evidence that it should be; that everything is strange and stagnant and still despite the fact that you're still moving forward.

It's this, maybe, that makes you realize why Lucas is twelve at the oldest, despite the passage of at least five years; the flow of time, the expansion of space... Both have been disrupted and brought to a standstill.

Take the day to get used to your new reality; it might take some time to get accustomed to.

[OOC: Welcome to the start of Week 14, the end of the world, and the beginning of the second half of the game!

No NPC response will be given to this post, though you can thread here amongst yourselves if you wish; we'll see you tomorrow at noon with a new log for your further adventures!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[It takes him a moment, but he finally nods.]

Yeah. It's not like I blame Flynn for not noticing what Alexei was up to, and Flynn had to deal with the guy way more often than I did. It's just... frustrating, that all that happened. Estelle's seemed okay since we rescued her, but I never really did sit down and ask her how she was doing or anything.

[They were busy and it wasn't like they really had a lot of time to just sit and talk about their feelings. It's not like Yuri would normally want to do anything like that anyway?? But...]

I guess that's just how things go, though. You get some distance from it and you can tear it apart, find every little thing you should've done differently to change the outcome.

Things will be okay back home. And we'll make things right here and put a stop to Cyrus. We know what to expect now.

...Hopefully it won't be any more of that Judgement bullshit. I have no fucking idea what that was supposed to be, but at the very least we've got to keep him from doing that again.

I guess the second we see him make a move, we all rush him.

[...He says, in a complete deadpan.]

But more seriously, maybe we'll learn more about what that was and how to stop it if we find those others Cynthia mentioned.

Yeah. I'm kind of guessing that that came from the creator everyone keeps mentioning? But I figure finding the others can't hurt.

We'll figure something out. We're a group of crazy, determined people who all really hate what Cyrus has done to this world, so I've got no doubts that we're going to keep going until we've found a solution. It's not going to be easy, but I can't imagine a single person here would want to give up.

Yeah, exactly.

[...]

You ever need anything, though, between then and now - you can let me know, okay?

Thanks, Jake.

[...]

Same goes for you, you know. I really do appreciate you sitting with me for awhile, but this isn't easy for you either, yeah?

[Do you... want to talk about it...?]

[He shrugs a bit.]

Like I said, you don't have to worry about me. I'm okay.

Hey, c'mon, you worried about me for a bit, let me return it.

[...]

Though if you don't want to talk about it right now that's fine, it's still a lot to process.

I just don't want you thinking you've gotta keep everything to yourself.

I don't...

[Mnnngh.]

I don't really know what I'm feeling about any of that right now? There isn't really anything going on in the feelings department right now.

Sometimes that happens, I think. Stuff just gets so bad and you just sorta... shut all that off for a little bit, until you've had some time and some distance from it.

Yeah.

[...]

I'm pretty used to it being like that all the time, you know? Not that I try to shut that shit off, exactly, but more like I don't have time to deal with stuff. I can't really waste time on being upset or freaked out or fucked up over things, because there's usually something or someone else trying to kill me right after the last thing went down.

Yeah, it sounds like things were really bad for you for awhile there. You've gotta do what you can to keep moving, especially if your life's on the line.

It's good of you to try to look after other people, though. Just don't forget we're gonna try to keep an eye on you too, okay?

[There are a lot of things he could say to that - about how no one needs to worry about him, how it's not necessary, it doesn't matter - but...]

...You guys are good to me like that. It kinda weirds me out, honestly.

Friends do try to look out for each other, you know. Try not to make any of us worry too much.

[It's light, but it's still serious.]

God, Michael worries about me. That's usually when I know I've fucked up somehow.

Oh absolutely. If you've got Michael worrying about you then you've definitely screwed up. Try to avoid doing that, yeah? He's already got the ghosts to worry about.

It's not like it's my fault.

[jake.]

...He's a pretty all right guy, though. Michael.

Yeah, definitely. Everyone here's pretty great, honestly. It's not often you run into so many people who are this much fun.

It's been kinda nice, actually.

[It's almost going to suck when this is over? He kind of can't stay here, so...]

[He absolutely understands...]

It's also been fun getting to know our partners and watching 'em grow. I kind of have a hard time saying I'm glad I was dragged here, giving the timing of things, but I've had a lot of fun.

[When we aren't dealing with Uxie or Cyrus literally ending the world, at least.]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Hell of a lot better than the last goddamn adventure I was on, that's for sure.

[You know, with the, uh. ...Everything Chrysalid decided to be.]

Yeah, definitely. At least here you can relax a little sometimes.

I guess.

[...]

Thanks. For talking to me about this shit.

I should be thanking you. I thought I wanted to be alone, but talking to you has been a lot better. I feel a little less stabby now.

[...listen he tried to be serious about it for like, two seconds, surely that's good enough...]

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