Reggie
[EVENT THREAD]



So, I'm pinging y'all just to get you into this channel. Housekeeping and all that. Here's how it'll go:

It'll be a 24 hour reply period per round, and unless you specifically tell me that you'll need an extra day or that you're just about done at the 24 hour mark I'll be keeping it moving __at__ 5pm PST most days, regardless of who's posted. This isn't to be rude, this is simply wanting to keep the event moving at a reasonable pace. :]

That's about it. See y'all here in a few hours!

[Just. Realized I should have probably put this in
Ramiro
◇ The phantom now had a name, but who had ripped the humanity out of Levi and Basil's hands?

□ Hayley LaFontaine. It was a name that'd made the rounds in the previous weeks around the Cradle, especially in the aftermath of her file being found in a backroom of all places. Once a resident, she'd seemingly disappeared off the radar around the same time as Levi and Basil, but what did that mean? Was there a correlation between the dates? Her powers had pertained to density and black holes, after all, but with how little anyone seemed to know – or was willing to divulge – about the link she had to the tortured pair it was all guesswork. At least, compared to Levi and Basil she was effectively unknown, nothing more than a name and a couple of files in the hands of those who'd been prodding around the library a few weeks prior.

▪︎ The computer lab was open and a soft light radiated from within. Murmurs could be heard. What was cooking...?
David
Sigrún really did not know enough about computers to be here. She was curious enough to burn through a life or two, should satisfaction show itself in the tightly-packed computer lab.

Propping recently-muddy boots painted with wicked-looking teeth against the table she was sitting at, Sig blinked hard and stretched out her long legs so far that her chair nearly tipped too far back. The metal front legs crashed back to the floor a little louder than she intended.

Sharp teeth dug into the ring of hard plastic hanging around her neck, and she swivelled her head away from her screen (open: fifteen tabs of scientific papers about black holes and the Cradle's home page) to see if anyone who knew what the hell they were doing had cracked anything.
Tyisha
Dae-hyun wasn't particularly looking for anything. Nothing, out of the ordinary anyways. The boy was simply looking for a way to spend his time. 

The computer lab was mostly empty, the air fine with dust. The click of Dae-hyun's cane on the concrete floor echoed against the still room. The computers were more modern than he had expected, and he came to the conclusion this would be a perfect place to spend an afternoon finishing an assignment. Of course, Dae-hyun could always work in his dorm, but he found it easier to focus in a less... Comfortable environment. This place surely did the job. 

Despite nothing being *'out of the ordinary,'* Dae-hyun couldn't help but feel a familiar sense of unease taint his stomach with iron weights. 

While scanning the room for a place to sit, a familiar face caught his attention, Sigrún stretched out and leaning back in a chair. He wondered why she was here. Perhaps he was assuming, but she didn't exactly seem like the studious type. Nonetheless, he was happy to see her. 

The lanky boy pulled out a seat next to her, slinging his bag over the back of the chair and making himself comfortable. He gave her a quick smile, and asked a few questions just to get conversation started. 

Nothing out of the ordinary? Right?
Reggie
[Feel free to reply if you wish!]

[Just ping someone at random after your response if you don't mind, eh?]
Jerry
Amelie despite everything was violently tapping away on a computer, slipping off shied coats of secrecy like it was merely another thing to put into the trash. It's just disgusting, truly. Looking through files that were transferred over from that one boy she met in the library. If one were looking they'd see lines and maps of words and numbers floating across her screen like a dream unable to be remembered. 

There was unease to the girl but only in her movements as they jerked across the table she sat at. The tapping of her keyboard loud against the rooms stagnant isolation. Surprisingly enough she'd taken the time to even debug her computer, she hoped it make everything easier and it did, if only for a time. 

She was ignorant of the people that sat feet away from her too focused on dogpiling any information out of something already wrung tight. Again, she made a fruitless promise but may she be damned to a deeper out of hell before she'd break it. Her screen went black for a moment and Amelie hissed something shrewd in her native tongue, slamming her fingers onto abused keys to bring what she had back. 

The light of something unmeant for her lit up her tired eyes again and incessant scrolling greeted her ears once more like a irritating melody.
Connie
Tiffany has not been involved in anything, really, until now when it comes to Armando. Her fascination was grabbed previously, and she promised she'd help. So she *Will.*

Even if she's not the smartest. Or anywhere near *Smart.*

Her arms are crosses, and she stands off to the side a bit compared to everyone else. Tiff is really out of her element here..
Ray
: ̗̀➛✯ Vi real!! She's doing homework, actually. Aside from eavesdropping on anyone else in the room, a page of algebra (which is dead easy, by the way) is sprawled in front of her, beside a group of tabs that seemed to resemble Sig's. Black holes, theories and physics.
Things that she could wrap her head around, sure.

: ̗̀➛✯ Her boot's heel clicks against the floor idly, her attention span ran thin as the wonderweb used to take up the hem of her dungarees, which arrived far too long.
Leaned back in her chair was Sig, and Vi toyed with the idea of trying to do a similar chair propping- something she definitely didn't have the balance or dignity to be doing in that moment... It's all so boring. And confusing. And mundane. You get the picture.

: ̗̀➛✯ She hates to butt in, but what choice does she have? Even just listening in on whatever Dae Hyun and Sig were up to would be far more entertaining than the quadratics that she could finish in 5 minutes in the comfort of her own dorm anyways.
She shuffles a little bit closer to them in her seat, sort of just eavesdropping. As one does.

: ̗̀➛✯ She flashes a smile at Tiff, who as far as Vi is aware, is a pretty sweet girl, actually.
Jason
It was the same as before with Yarimiel. She hung over the others on grotesquely extended limbs. Bones and ligaments jutting out in exaggerated manners to keep her stable. Spiked hair, odd face. The usual. She was late, but her thin limbs and transformative ability still allowed her to ignore the fact that she was short, and late to the party.

Other than this, she remained silent, not all too interested in opening her mouth or making the effort to vocalize cohenrently- even her thoughts were quiet, focused only on retaining any information she received at the moment.
Ramiro
○ It was a good thing Amelie had retained those files. She had the answers at her fingertips, and fortunately she had the files in relatively normal formats.

□ The only issue, though, was the encoding. Somewhere along the way things had been scrambled, perhaps as a result of the incident that had knocked the power out, and now the data was seemingly jumbled. She could open a file, but heads was impossible to tell from tails. Up became down; apex became prey. Through all the confusion though came blips of normalcy, ten seconds where the computer didn't immediately connect and disconnect her USB stick with an infuriating pair of tones that'd likely caught the others' attentions.

▪︎ Computerized noises had a way of annoying even the most level-headed of people after enough times of it repeating.

□ Dae-Hyun's computer was fine. Sigrún's was fine. Vi's was a little messed up but not terribly so. What had happened to Amelie's? Or was it something else afoot?

▪︎ Somehow, they'd have to get that USB to work. The information lived and died with it.
David
Ah, friendly faces here aplenty, which was nice. Dae-hyun got a few half-formed responses out of her scattered train of thought before it was interrupted completely—the noises coming from Amelie's computer were *Deliciously* Awful, Sigrún mused, making no efforts at subtlety as she leaned over to look over her shoulder. 

*Wow. With a mess like that, something* Good *Is in there.*

"Wonder if you should turn the antivirus off."

Half a joke. She gnawed on her necklace a little harder.
Tyisha
Dae-hyun stayed quiet throughout it all. He was never really the type to be loud, or assert himself past a passive presence. Sigrún had already said something, so all he had to do was sit and watch. 

Amelie's computer was acting up, and his deep midnight eyes were fixated on it. He wasn't sure what was going on. 

So there the boy sat, watching and ready to do anything if need be. He leaned softly against Sigrún in an attempt to see a little better, hopefully she didn't mind. 

Maybe Amelie deserved some privacy but Sigrún had broken that barrier down, and Dae-hyun wasn't the type to turn a blind eye to anything weird going around. Especially with everything happening with Basil and Levi.
Jerry
Amelie felt something snap under her finger, it flung itself off the measly hold it had on the keyboard. A key, more specifically the letter S had been broken off. She too a moment to place it back onto it's rightful place before typing again. 

"***Quiet.***"

She said with a hiss, quite vulgar if you ask her. She essentially raised what hackles she had to growl at the people around her. She didn't know them, nor did she want to. 

Amelie started copy and pasting things and fixing them into manageable words for her to read. Her shoulders high and broad almost covering the screen she was so enamoured with. 

The screen snaps and flickers and she is able to read words that may help, she growls at the USB groaning in it's work. She might just put a hole though this computer.
Ramiro
◇ Idle chit-chat between friends. Wallflowers curiously looking on. A demented – albeit beloved – German slamming a key back into place with the strength of an actual old God.

□ This might've seemed weird to onlookers, but the motley crew that'd gathered around and taken at least some notice of Amelie's frustrated scrabble with the computer she'd picked out. Still fried from the previous week's outage, its screen flickered and blipped, yet occasionally would come into focus, and these bliss states showed a file in the middle of being reconstructed and reclaimed from the garbage text that'd wound up interspersed within. 

▪︎ Frantic typing. Swearing. Inhuman noises. Sigrún and Dae-Hyun chattering while Tiff stood steady against a wall and Yarimiel hovered overhead a phantom. Soon enough Amelie would find them the answers they likely all sought, and find them she did.

▪︎ Then, Sigrún's computer also began to act wonky. Weird colours, a little flashing. Dimming and the like. What was even afoot...?
Reggie
48 hour reply period! And yes, I know, things are slow, but. Just trust. :] Birch - She/They
Ray
: ̗̀➛✯ Violetta's attention shifts bacm and forth between each interaction in the room, she peers over Amelie's shoulder, and the same soon goes for many others, the eavesdropping and watching over is intense, but expected from Violetta. Her presence was that of quiet companionship, not made glaringly obvious, but she's a quiet sort of ambient sound in a movie scene, or a jukebox idly swaying it's same 4 songs.

: ̗̀➛✯ Violetta was simply there, and she was soon to sling a couple words out- her attention caught in a wire trap of curiousity by the reconstructing file on Amelie's screen.

: ̗̀➛✯ "Sig, your computer is playing up as well. That's 2 messed up computers... Oh dear." Knowing damn well everyone was probably aware, Vi still alerts in a just above her usual mumble volume.
"Perhaps... Trouble is afoot." Atop her eyes, the thick brows form a gentle frown; it didnt hold frustration, but more so a pondering...

: ̗̀➛✯ "Hmmm"
Hmmm indeed

FORGOT WHO TO PING SIRENS WAIL
Or if i was supposed to spond yet at all oops
Reggie
[Howdy. Yeah, just ping someone, Theo. Anyone. Chuck a dart at the map.]
Connie
Tiff's brain feels like it's imploding, and this hasn't even started. Did she seriously think she could be useful?

*'Course I can be useful I just... Uh...*

Damn.
Okay.

"If there's like, physical trouble, I can deal with it."
I mean that may be true, but still..
Tiff refuses to accept idleness, though, walking around the room a little until she begins to approach Amelie. 

Her warning to be quiet had no impact on this bull whatsoever.

Tiff spies over Amelie's shoulder- she never suspected how broad they'd be! Wow!- at the computer. 

"Maybe it's slow cause there's too many computers on." That. Okay. Nice try?
Ramiro
▪︎ [presuming/hoping the pacing just needs some speed.]

▪︎ After a couple more moments of fighting, Amelie finally got through to the computer.

□ Six or seven flips of the USB later, her computer – *Deliciously awful,* As described by Sigrún nearby – finally registered the stick. *Properly,* This time, without any weird interference from whatever had thrashed the computer's insides prior. Two irritating squawks let loose from the speakers, and the contents popped up:

□ **INCIDENT_COMPENDIUM_20009** Sat at the top of the list, almost eyeing Amelie down, but peculiarly the file on Hayley specifically wasn't present. Sigrún's computer continued to worsen, though it never became more than off colours or artifacts of previous programs stuck on screen. The lights stayed dim, and really it was as if nothing was happening at all.

▪︎ Nothing, that is, except for what Amelie had found. All she had to do was click, open, and see what the Cradle had been hiding from its residents.

▪︎ [48hr reply window, but also. A poll: is everyone still in the place to continue on with an event? 

🇾 - yes
🇳 - no

- Birch (She/They)]
Jerry
Amelie's fingers clenched and heaved with force, digging into the mental desk and leaving small indentions behind. Everything was here... Except for that girl. But, she knew what she could. It's a little unfair that it got taken so soon. Faintly remembering the faded and crisp picture of the smiling "Fourth wright YouTuber."

She clicks and opens what has been hidden for quite some time, her eye widening slightly and her shoulder tensing so violently it almost hurt. She scrolled through it bit by bit, ignoring the dimming of sigrúns computer because she wouldn't hold herself back from firing a snarl and a whitty take. 

The squeals exiting from the speakers doing nothing to deter her from what she was rightful owed.
David
Sigrún watched three pictures of black holes dance with each other on her screen; numbers and letters blurred in and out of focus, and she made a game of the static. She squinted at magenta, then green, then yellow, and so on, tasting the light as it writhed and shivered. There was really nothing else to do.

Whatever was in that mysterious USB was something that the two of them... Wanted people to find? The world had splintered like this the last time they had made contact, pointing them toward something. Was it excitement, clouding the screens? Dread, perhaps? 

There wasn't much of a difference. Sigrún remained strangely quiet as Amelie's computer struggled to present her with whatever it had, peacefully gnawing on her necklace. There wasn't much sense in losing her mind right this minute—that happened next, if this was good.
Jason
More nonsense. She begins to tire of this charade. Why is she even here? She's better off letting them figure it out... Yeah. This wasn't worth the wait, especially if she didn't even know what the hell she was looking at, let alone what *For*.

The sounds of flesh and bone warping emanated from her limbs and body, and soon she just made her way out. She didn't say a word nor did she look at anyone. What was notable was the complete lack of emotion on her face. It wasn't the robotic perception from before, this was truly blank. The lights were *Off*. *No one* Was home.
Ramiro
◇ Amelie's bony finger tapped the mouse twice, and the first file opened up after a couple of.

□ *INCIDENT_COMPENDIUM_2009.Txt.* It was one half of why people were gathered, and as Amelie – or any curious soul – began to read through the text, it'd quickly unveil itself as a complicated trove of information. Arranged neatly and subdivided by week and month, the file had been dredged out of the depths of the librarian's desktop, and though mostly intact it seemed as though its stint in the depths of the librarian's desktop had taken its toll. The text inside had degraded slightly, a few characters here and there replaced with various ASCII marks, yet it had remained legible.

▪︎ And as the group read over it, they'd notice one particular lightly chopped incident dated to June 27th, 2009.

★ ```"INCIDENT REPORT 3914A: LAFONTAINE AND KOWALEWICZ

June 27th, 2009.

While undergoing training, Cradle resident Hayley LaFontaine (PID 038299401) suffered an incident resulting in loss of control over her abilities. 

At the time of the incident (3:38pm CET) she was under the supervision of one Jan Kowalewicz, who was there to assist in the improvement of her control over her abilities. As per his report, she had been attempting to nullify the effects of gravity on a miniature refrigerator, and initially seemed to be having some success. At roughly 22 feet in the air, however, she was reported as suddenly being afflicted with a splitting headache and muscle weakness, which led to the object falling from a great height.

Impacting the ground with a staggering amount of force caused by the sudden reassertion of gravity's influence, the refrigerator caught fire upon impact, spewing out flammable refrigerant in multiple directions from the crumpled and busted tube work behind the fridge. Already weakened and dealing with a splitting headache, Hayley had to be pulled out of the gymnasium by Kowalewicz as refrigerant spilled from within and caught fire. Though no explosi

On occurred the fire itself spread far enough along the wooden floor of the gymnasium that the Cradle's smoke detectors were triggered, leading to the full temporary evacuation of its roughly four hundred residents and the gymnasium being closed off for three weeks as work was conducted.

Hayley LaFontaine was reported to have been guilt-stricken over causing such a mess in the aftermath. She was reprimanded lightly due to her lack of intention to cause the incident described, being tasked with helping the work crew brought in to fix the gymnasium.```

○ There. They had their first real hint. But what did it mean...?

▪︎ [72hr reply period, screw it. Have fun. - Birch (She/They)]
Jerry
Amelie mumbled something, her fingers crossing over the computer screen itself as if to touch the words that bring itself to tie into the world with nessesity and force. To be subjected to this utter nessesity and unreasonable force to drive half if not everyone into a dissociative squabble. She has gotten into many a mockery of an argument over little things due to this. To say the void and what it has done is selfish? Quite the understatement. But, to be forced to the brink is to show that the human needs are indeed selfish, to fend for oneself and the one you truly believe and put your all into if just to spite everything and what you once were. 

Hayley LaFontaine had been losing control over her abilities as well as Levi? Hath this make no sense? Two mishapen rotting people in one being as well as basil... Whom detests her. Something clearly went wrong, perhaps she had been planning to only trap Levi but it grew distorted and hungry when basil wished to go with him? She couldn't control it. It was obvious. 

Amelie had a definitive answer, she mumbles in her native tongue all possible things. This isn't quite about figuring out how to bring them out, but... Why would they need to figure out whom they once were to help them. In the back of her mind there was something screaming about the snapping and twisting of both bone, flesh, and skin. How it wrapped and bled deep into the soul. It yelled and clawed at her that the veins of Amelie's hand and arm twitched and bulged in ways that strained the flesh, the bandages over the back of her hand move with it. She winced but continued to push onward despite the resolute motions of mindless feeling that tore at her mind. She knew it was them, she knew there was an audience. They're with her... Not quite permanently but they still beckon like any other thing she has listened to. 

It drives her **Mad.** 
There is a squeal as the plastic of the mouse groans and cracks under the force which she unknowingly gave it.

.

Why do we need to retrace their steps? It seems a little unjustly to pick up their pieces after such an affair of what they did. To fix something like them. They cannot, only they can fix themselves as hypocritical as that is to speak of. 
That clawing speaks of deeper things, something that festers in it's shadowed whisper that Amelie cannot decipher just *Yet*. 

Amelie groaned and rubbed her temple with the hand which was not spasming uncontrollably. She has to figure this out.
"*Das ist ein Schmerz in meinem Arsch.*"
Speaking her woes in a hushed whisper that move to dance back into Amelies thought. 

Perhaps if we can get Hayley to assert herself again once more they could... Create a loophole and the two black holes can cancel themselves, eating at eachother until they both die. 
That would be preferred but she isn't even sure that'd work. It might make everything worse, it might destroy a piece of this place once more in a joyous recreation of the disaster that was here ten years ago.
David
Sigrún's jaw clamped hard on her necklace now, cursing herself for skipping words and forgetting sentences when the urgency was eating her alive—any minute now, the screen would shit itself and this new scrap would be gone, and Sig's eyes fought to focus on it. It felt the effects of not sleeping well as acutely as it felt the reasons why, and it was feeling almost too sorry for itself to absorb anything. Almost.

*Headache. Weakness. Refrigerator-explosion-__Kowalewicz__ (remember names, those are important)-*

Hayley was doomed from the start, and Amelie's mouse squeals and dies beneath her cold claw.

None of those kids knew what they were *Doing*. Nobody really knew how to help. For the first time since Sigrún darkened the doorstep of that place, it felt dangerous, out of control—the ease of which she could seemingly destroy it was as tantalizing as the thought of what could happen if someone else beat her to it was terrifying.

The distorted zone and its screaming inhabitants, thought she, were testaments to her wardens' failures. *Devil in Hell.*
Reggie
[Just letting y'all know, this event is being canned. I am absolutely not able to do any sort of event justice right now and it's been weighing on me, but I promise everything to do with Hayley and whatnot will come out sooner (hopefully) than later! I just need a break, I guess.

Apologies. Have a blessed night.