Victoria Crossroads

[Frozen Smoke]

((Daniel Newhouse - Start!))

It wasn’t a good feeling to look at the list he’d scratched in the light blue paint of the wall, and know for a fact it was far, far too short. He’d tried his best to keep an eye on everyone during the kidnapping, figure out who was with him, but it had happened so quickly, and the repeated lapses hadn’t been kind to his memory. Still, he could think of a few friends, and that was a place to start.

Dan
Rue
Kian
Galahad
Fisher
Nastya
Sebbo
Molly
Freya

There were other faces in his memory, and he poked at the rotting wood as he tried to put names to them, the knife they’d given him feeling decidedly impotent as it failed to do much more than scratch the surface.

Hopefully that wouldn’t matter too much.

People would be scared, sure, but they were made of sterner stuff than the Yanks. They weren’t about to shoot their classmates just because someone with a lot of medals and a gun told them to. That was just wasn’t how they did things. Besides, he wasn’t their enemy - The enemy was the people around them, pointing guns at them and telling them to kill one another. If they couldn’t see that, then, well…

His expression shifted to the side, as he tried to think about what that might mean. Nothing good, that was for sure. He swallowed, and returned to looking at the wall, trying to put that question out of his mind.

He didn’t want to leave anyone behind, and the earlier he got this done, the less likely he was to forget someone.

[Irina Ivanov]

F09: Lucy Arkwright: Start

All of this...it was unbelievable, absolutely. This was something that didn't happen in real life outside of America, it only happened in stories. Tales of mutual slaughter, tales of forced murder. They were horrible stories that Lucy didn't like to touch, even though everything else on that bookshelf was rapidly used almost daily. Lucy liked fantasy and really didn't care much for what might happen between the pages, but even those books were too much for her to stomach.

And now, she was a part of that story. And no matter what, she wasn't going to escape. It only all led to a bad ending, there wasn't a good ending in anything like this.

Lucy sat there, holding her useless weapon, staring off into space behind a stall. Unreal. All of it. But, as unreal as it was, it's happened. Teacher dies, kidnapped by an evil country, forced to kill, assigned a useless weapon that only set her inevitable death in stone. She accepted that all numbly, like she was someone watching this, instead being in it. This wasn't good...but she could stay like this for just a bit longer, right?

Maybe she just didn't want to do anything right now. That was fine for her. It was normal. Even though she was in a life or death situation (Ok, death situation.), Lucy still acted like the way she was. And...

Ah, right! She could do something about that 'weapon' of hers! Feeling a massive amount of energy all of a sudden, Lucy smiled, and put her hand in her hair,(hitting her hand really hard against the stall in the process, creating a loud sound.) Searching for something. It should be there...

There it was, her butterfly pin. It looked a bit dull, since half of the butterfly pin fell off when she fell over during the bomb siren, but looks didn't matter here. She looked mad as can be with all of her hair falling over her face (to go with her wide, spacey eyes), but she was still gleaming, staring at her pin. This pin was metal, and sharp to boot. It was going to be a better weapon then her hammer would ever be. And that was all the motivation she needed. Standing up, Lucy grabbed her pin and her green bag. She was going to move somewhere more sheltered, and then...

...Who was that boy? Lucy didn't seem to quite remember him. Was he a friend or foe?

[Frozen Smoke]

Daniel tapped the blade against the wood some more, small chunks of the paint flaking off around the tip of the knife as he poked again and again and the same point. He could still bring to mind some of the people he'd seen during the kidnapping clearly, mixtures of hair colours, eye colours and terrified expressions - But he couldn't figure out how many of them there'd been. There'd been a small group to start with, people in his class, and then another group that they'd mixed in - but some hadn't made the transition, and then there'd been the one brave bastard who took a bullet trying to make a break for it. Had there been other ones?

His musing was interrupted by a rustling behind him, far too concentrated to be the coastal wind that was gently wafting the terrible scent of rotting, abandoned fish shit. He turned around to face it, trying to figure out what to do for a moment, wondering just who it was. He wouldn't put it past them to throw any of the Americans the SAS hadn't got back into the game, and he couldn't trust those fucks as far as he could throw 'em.

That face however, he recognised from the abduction. He couldn't place a name to it still, but she was friendly, for sure. Her curly brown hair looked even more tangled and ratty than before, and her wide eyes looked even wider with panic, but he knew her. He reached the hand holding his knife into the air and waved at her, showing both that he was weakly armed, and that he was friendly.

"Hey, uh, what's your name, love?"

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy hadn't noticed the knife before, this was bad. Her widened eyes had went from wild excitement and nervous energy, to wild panic when he caught sight of her. He had a knife, she had a metal pin. This wasn't about to end well if it went that uh...route. Will it go to that route, actually? Probably not, she's never gotten into a physical fight before, espically not with weapons, but Lucy had never seen anyone, not in real life, or in television, having have gotten into a fight just through an introduction. It was either no fight, or no introduction.

Then again, she didn't know this boy, maybe that's how things will turn out. She shuffled her feet away from Daniel subtly, and prepared to run. Lucy couldn't fight, and this boy wasn't ever on her list, she didn't think so anyways. So there was no benefit to hanging around him, because he was boring back in the real world. The real world, not here though.

That might change though, maybe he'll just decide to become a hero, or a villian, or do something interesting. Might as well be nice, try to avoid conflict. Maybe he might be her friend. Okay, maybe that was taking it a bit far....on second thoughts, Lucy decided that, maybe she could stick around with Daniel, atleast for a little while. Looking in confusion at Daniel waving at her with a knife (Was that a threat or a greeting?), Lucy tried to return the wave, by holding her pin up in the air and awkwardly waving it about.

".....Love? What kind of name is that? It's Lucy. Lucy Arkwright. What's your name again?"

Be polite, be friendly. And most of all, try to be 'normal'. That was what Lucy was repeating to herself in her head. Lucy gave Daniel a tiny smile, an attempt at friendliness. Or really, because Lucy couldn't be bothered to give a full smile in case the guy in front of him got creeped out by it, like how people got creeped out half the time when trying to weasel herself out of explaining why she was in a bush with a camera by smiling and running.

[Frozen Smoke]

Dan raised an eyebrow at her for a moment at that response, mouth hanging open for a moment as a question as to exactly how many digits her IQ was counted on died in the back of his throat, deciding that it probably wasn't a good idea. After all, if they were going to be stuck together here for however long it took until their rescue squad arrived, it was probably a bad idea to start pissing people off now. His expression returned back to the neutral smile mirroring her own, and he responded quickly. It was only polite.

"Dan. Newhouse, that is. Not the other Dan." he said, thinking for a moment. He was pretty sure he hadn't seen Danny in the group, but he wasn't entirely sure, and well - Best to make sure she knew exactly, right?

There was a pause there, as the two of them looked at one another, the only noise being the wind. Things felt a little awkward. It wasn't like either of them really had an expectation for what to say in a situation like this, though. His mind eventually wandered back to his original task, figuring out who was on the island to be saved. Maybe Lucy could help?

"Hey, uh, do you remember the names of anyone else? - Who's here, that is, who got taken."

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy gave Dan a somewhat confused look. Did she not handle that perfectly normally? Or was she actually that out of it that she couldn't keep up with normal conversation? Or maybe the other guy was just being impolite, probably that's it. She returned to her normal mood, a not smiling but not frowning expression.

"Oh. Okay. I've only ever really heard of the other Danny. I don't hear about you too much. Don't think he was in our class when...this happened. So...nice to meet you? I don't think I've ever said anything to you before, so this must be our first time meeting."

Or that she just had a memory that went into borderline-alzheimer's.

He was...asking for who else was here? That might be hard, given how she didn't dwell on memories for long. But surely, she could remember what happened there? Even though, her memory after the gunshots were fuzzy, in fact, even her memory after the alarm was somewhat fuzzy. This situation was so..strange. It felt like she was experiencing this through someone else, like this was her in this, it wasn't her who was kidnapped.

She'll to remember though. Lucy walked a little closer, looking at the scratched wall over there. What could they be....Ah, her memory was coming back. She just needed a few keywords...she tried to think of whoever she had been collecting infomation. Who was she following back home before yesterday? Who was she staring at in that class? Think of the most interesting people in that class, who she was likely writing notes on instead of the subject itself...

".....Ah! MichelleLenaAshSofiaKatPennyandPhoebe!"

Lucy said it as fast as she could, coming from her sudden jog in memory. Of course, it was also because that her memory would go away just as fast as she said it. Hopefully, Dan got most of them, because Lucy sure as heck won't be able to remember in a little while.

[Frozen Smoke]

Dan turned back to the wall, nodding at what she said as he scratched another name in;

Ms Shell

His knife began to carve in a second name, but it got lost in the rush of words that poured from the girls mouth, and there was no way he could remember all of those names anyway. Was "Enaashs" a real name? He wasn't sure? Was she just making things up?

He hoped not. She was probably just scared, which, well - It made sense. But he did need her to get a hold of herself. They were all in this together, after all.

"Hey uh, can you go again, but like, slower please." he said, trying to sound apologetic as he pointed the tiny blade of the pocket knife at the chipped paint "Ain't exactly working with the best of 'Paper' here."

[Irina Ivanov]

Ms....Shell? That wasn't right, did she really say that? Thought she said...Mis...shell? Ah! Michelle!

"I think I didn't see any teachers. Sorry...I'm trying to think....I said Michelle. Oops, uhh...cross Miss Shell out."

Lucy looked at the pocket knife for a moment, and got nervous in that moment. But Lucy told herself: He was just using it to put people's names on, not in a bad way. In fact, she herself had done this before. Sure, it was a simple Lucy loves...whoever, and then carved around those words was a heart, so it wasn't really the same as this. But hey, it was kinda the same thing. Taking a deep breath, Lucy tried to let some oxygen in her brain, to calm herself down.

So...he asked what other names she said? Well, that was a problem, since Lucy had entirely forgotten that line of thought, since she was thinking about that knife. So...how could she remember? It was hard, but she'll try.

"Mishelenashsoficatpenfeebee..."

Repeating that over and over, Lucy was trying to remember what she said, Lucy mumbled out gibberish, trying to remember the basic sounds of what she said before. Maybe it sounded like useless gibberish to others, but for Lucy, it most definitely was not. She just needed a few well said vowels and consonants, and...

Ah! There was the names, sitting right on her tongue. Lucy tried her best to say it as slowly as possible, but it was still in her fast, nervous tone.

"Lena. Ash. Sof..ia, Kat. Penny. AndPhe...oby?"

Now that she had time to register the names she said, Lucy finally began to remember other people. Well, parts of it, at the very least.

[Frozen Smoke]

Dan               Ms Shell
Rue                Ash
Kian               Sophia
Galahad         Cat
Fisher            Penny
Nastya           Fobi
Sebbo            Michelle
Molly
Freya

15 people. Was that it? There felt like there should have been more, but it was a start, he supposed.

He looked at the scratches in the paint that he'd left and rubbed his his forehead, thumb and forefinger moving together and apart as he tried to concentrate, thinking things through. There weren't too many of them, that was kind of good, and kind of bad. They could probably all get along, and not fight each other, if they were able to get together early enough. But would they be able to do anything? How long would it take people back home to figure out they'd gone missing? How long would the Americans wait before they just shot them all?

He looked over at Lucy, realising he hadn't really responded to her own little introduction, having been far too busy taking down the names she rattled off and trying to understand them. If they were going to get through this, he probably needed to start on the best foot with her, too.

"Thanks, uh - I think this is our first time talking, but I've seen you 'round." he said, as he folded the knife away, and tucked it in his pocket. "Wish it wasn't such a shit time to be meeting yah, you know."

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy stared, and grinned nervously at the spelling mistakes. Sure, he got most of them right, but...Lucy, as a girl who made sure every school work she actually cared to do was perfect, this was...kinda hurting to look at. Was there anyone called Fobi or Cat at school? But she didn't say anything. She couldn't be rude. Being rude was bad, and didn't help when it came to getting new friends. Talking about friends....Lucy realised that she was frowning and staring at two names espicially; Molly and Sebbo. Two people who uh...didn't like her very much. Molly was the one who uh...Didn't really want to think about it. Maybe later, but it was too exhausting to think of it right now.

"I'm sure there's more people here, since our class definitely didn't have so little students."

Blurting that out briefly to try and bring herself out of a thought trance, Lucy listened to Daniel's introduction (even if she wasn't looking.) Her body froze up.

...Lucy had never even talked to Dan before, or if she did, it wasn't important enough to go into her memory system. And in fact, Lucy hadn't even seen Daniel all that often. In fact, the most she's seen of him were from her looking for someone and looked for them through a crowd, so Daniel registered about as much as a ghost from a crowd. Faceless, bundled up so much as to seem like a bundle of a few sticks.

So where did Dan see her? Unless he was stealing glances at her while she wasn't looking. (Not likely, people didn't look at her often for some reason. Even when she was talking to them, how rude!) Thoughts that bordered on paranoia began to form.

"...Where have you seen me before? I'm...not in view of others all that often. I don't even show up in some compulsory events if there's too many people, much less any social events."

Well, of course she did attend events. Just uninvited and hiding. Lucy calmed herself down, or tried to. Surely, Dan didn't catch her in an act, surely? He didn't even know the rumours around her anyways, so he didn't see her hiding with a camera or anything, right? Lucy kind of noticed she must have looked like she was suddenly going into an minor anxiety attack in front of Dan, but she wouldn't be assured until the words came out of Dan himself.

[Frozen Smoke]

Dan blinked a few times. He had definitely not talked to Lucy before, he was sure of that now. He'd have remembered it. She looked nervous in between her moments of speech, and somehow managed to sound more nervous when she was speaking, like she was afraid that he was going to attack her.

Maybe she was, after all, she didn't know him. Or recognise him, apparently. Maybe she was just one of those kids who had their eyes glued to their phones all day, it explained why she didn't recognise him, and why she seemed so nervous. Probably suffering from screen withdrawal, or something like that. They said that you could suffer from that, right? Addiction to social media and stuff.

He tried his best to soften his expression as he replied.

"You know, just like, around and stuff. Hallways and lunch and that. I ain't got a good memory for names, but I remember faces pretty well."

He softened his voice and expression after that, adding a tinge of concern to the mix as he continued.

"Are you like, okay? I mean uh..." he stopped himself short of bringing attention to how decidedly not-okay their current situation was, but found nothing to replace it. He shrugged emphatically to show he'd lost his train of thought, adding a curt "Shit, I dunno." to cap it off with.

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy honestly couldn't remember faces for the life of her (Not that she was going to have one soon). They were like books in a library. Even if Lucy was a regular there, she certainly couldn't remember all of them, much less put a name to it. There would be only a few she would pay attention to, turning her back to even to the popular rack. After all, isn't that normal? To only have a few types that she would borrow? Dan was one of those dull, trending novels that she would acknowledge, and pass by. Surely, she could be forgiven for not knowing dull as beans Dan.

Wait, she couldn't think like that. That was normal Dan, and this was anything but normal.

Strangely, Lucy felt she should be feeling, reacting more. She was in a new country, and she won't be living much longer. She should be feeling something that wasn't emptiness! She wanted to, even. Even crying and hysterics were better then the hole in her emotions. That hole, now having have recovered from a wave of paranoia, was growing bigger. And she wanted it to stop. Oh. He was replying. Good. That was something.

"Oh. Okay. I don't remember people all that well, really, I'm like, an introvert. A good book is more exciting then some people, you know?"

He was showing concern for her? Oh, cool. Lucy stayed silent for a while, matching with her blank face. What should she say? It should make him feel better, if she said yes, right? And if she stayed cheerful as well? Yeah, that should work. Lucy, like an actress, smiled suddenly, pitched her voice to a sweeter, higher tone, and tilted her head to one side. Her posture forcefully went passive, and Lucy cupped her hands over each other like a lady.

"Mm! Yep, I'm perfectly fine, I'm not really super duper upset right now, really....Always have to try and stay positive, right? Right?"

She wasn't feeling it, or anything, really. Dang. She wished she was upset, angry, happy, anything really, negative emotions weren't no emotions, after all. Well, that should make him feel better. Or worse, maybe, if her being chipper was really that creepy.

[Frozen Smoke]

Dan nodded as he disagreed. Books were boring as shit. People were infinitely better by virtue of being, well, people. They moved and did things and were interesting. Books just sat around gathering dust, or levelling off wonky tables, or being read by people with no friends. But if Lucy enjoyed them, well, whatever floated her boat.

He gave her a smile back as she took up a pose that was as practised as one for picture day, looking almost like a picture from a Women's Auxiliary poster, only the unkempt hair and school uniform distinguishing her from it. And the nervous look in her eye as she bore holes back into him. Her hands were shaking too. Or maybe it was all just the light? He appreciated her trying to put on a brave face, at least.

"Yeah." he said, sounding a little more wistful and quiet than he'd intended. He swallowed, hoping she hadn't heard it before trying for another "Yeah!" that had some genuine fake enthusiasm in it. Dan shoved one hand in his pocket, leaning to the side slightly as he paused for a moment, looking off to the side. It was hard to keep smiling at her, it felt so fake, but he didn't want her to worry.

"So, uh, you want to try and find the rest of the class?" he suggested, simply.

[Irina Ivanov]

Lucy noticed that Dan returned the smile, the two in a locked state of not so happy smiles. Lucy knew that her smile as formed out of nervousness, fear, and...who was she kidding. It was formed because really, she had nothing else she could put on. Expressions of anger? Sadness? Nope. She was...numb to all this. Well, mostly, Lucy couldn't deny that she was pretty dang scared. But like how she could experience nightmares with a somewhat straight face, this was her reaction to all this. It felt like a nightmare; un-vivid, scary, but not in a truly terrifying way. She wasn't truly in this place, she would wake up, she would find that nothing happened.

Of course, Lucy knew that was false, and that she was truly stuck here, with certain death coming for her. But after that brief adrenaline spike earlier...her 'emotions' weren't really correlating with logic. Sure. She was dead meat. But really...that realisation didn't get to her in full. It felt more like a fact, just like a fact from a textbook.

Lucy dropped her pose after Dan looked off to the side. Sure, she stopped smiling after he said 'Yeah' (twice for some reason, as if she didn't get it the first time). Lucy was reassured by at first, but after a while, his smile just became normal, and she wasn't reassured anymore. Not that she was scared or worried, but not the inverse either.

"....."

Lucy remained silent, just standing there with nary an expression. Finding the rest of the class....sure, it might help her out of this really unpleasantly empty feeling denial/dissociation. And besides, she knew it was mental to think about, but now that everything has changed (except for her), maybe...some people were worth following around, or maybe just talking to now. It was insane sure, since uh, creeping around people she liked like she used to was a really bad idea, but hey, she was bound to die with her weapon and all, why not start checking people off? How crazy of her, she thought, but she didn't shut the idea down either.

So to find the class or not?....Yeah, sure. Lucy would like someone she could be friends with, even if everyone else started...doing that, surely, there were a few good classmates. She was willing to trade safety if she could have someone to talk to, to fill that empty hole in her emotions. She replied to Dan, being candid in her speech now, which was to say, she was sounding completely unattached and neither happy nor sad.

"Yep. Sure, let's go. I'll follow you. I can't say I'll help relations between people though. So I'll just be lurking behind you and anyone you find. Is that fine?"

[Frozen Smoke]

That was the spirit, or well - The opposite of the spirit, really, her voice had exactly zero fighting spirit in it - But the words matched what he'd hoped she'd say well enough and that was acceptable. It wasn't like he was going to ask her to lead the way when she was clearly about to jump out of her skin with fright, he didn't want her scaring someone who had a gun or something, that would probably end badly.

"No worries, I gotcha." he said, putting on a smile, before a thought crossed his mind. "One sec." he added, holding up a finger, before walking a few steps back to the wall where he'd put the list of names and pulling the knife out of his pocket, adding to it one last time.

Fuck the yanks - add urself

Dan               Ms Shell
Rue                Ash
Kian               Sophia
Galahad         Cat
Fisher            Penny
Nastya           Fobi
Sebbo            Michelle
Molly
Freya

With that crude addition, maybe in a few days when they came back they'd be able to see if they'd missed anyone. Fuck the yanks would make it clear what they were signing up for, he hoped.

"Alright... This way, I guess." Daniel said, as he confidently picked a road to follow down, without knowing really where it was sending them. It didn't matter at the end of the day, they just needed to find more of their friends. Strength in numbers. They'd figure a way out of this, or a way to hold on, at least.

((Daniel Newhouse continued Elsewhere))