[Anniversary Event Starting Log] I Awaken To Another Day...

[thepull_mods]

Who: Open Log! This means everybody!
When: September 1st, 1918. Dawn.
Where: Farmer Whitty's Squash Patch, City of Missionworth (Ye Olde... Baseball Diamond?)
Summary: Midnight on New Years Eve finds the entire Newcomer Community thrust backwards in time...oh, 95 years or so?
Warnings: A lot of potentially drunk people are about to land facefirst in a field. Once word is out that a small horde of strangers have mysteriously arrived on the island, Military Forces will be rounding them up for questioning. You be the judge of how badly this goes.



Whether right in the middle of a rowdy parties as toasts are raised with complementary champagne, or having a quiet evening at home on the couch, watching GloTV's annual Auld Lang Syne Countdown Extravaganza, a sickeningly familiar tug of a feeling suddenly wrenches in the gut of every Newcomer on the island who has been brought here by Pull in the past three years.

As fireworks sound over AGI tower and the clock finishes striking twelve, the world spins. For a dazzling colorful moment, flashing scenes from their stay in Port roll backwards like rewound film before their eyes. It becomes a blur, the Pull drawing tighter and tighter, ears might pop and there's a very good chance the contents of their stomachs might be turned out.

And then there is coolness, a brisk breeze, morning dew and damp earth beneath them all.

The newcomers are scattered across a planted field of winding vines and colorful gourds, which won't be ready for harvesting for another month or so. Several startled crows are circling overhead, screaming. There are no tall towers on the skyline, and there are more surrounding trees, particularly toward the western horizon- golds and oranges of early autumn.

To the east, a picturesque early 20th century settlement stretches to the island shoreline, already bustling with traffic and construction in the early dawn's light. There is no putrid, sick-sweet rotting smell which normally lingers for awhile in the morning fog, after the lifting of darkness.

Two young boys stand agape at the edge of the field for several moment, leaning over a fencepost, then turn and tear off towards a homestead not far away, shouting for their papa.

Welcome to the City of Missionworth. Look's like The Core's decided to give you all a history lesson for the New Year.

Comments

[retraced]

"Ahiru!" he shouts as she latches onto him. Though he's relieved, her presence here only really creates more questions. Just how many people have been pulled in here? Is that really what's happened? Where did they even end up this time? But more importantly:

"Are you hurt?"

[motioned]

She shakes her head as soon as he asks the question, though her gaze instinctively moves to a bruise forming near her knee from slipping onto the grass a few moments earlier.

"No, I... It's nothing."

[retraced]

He follows her eyes and frowns at the sight of it. He's got some leaves in his hair from where he'd been lying down a second ago, but aside from that he looks fine. He steps in a little closer, rubs at his forehead.

"Where are we? Wasn't it just striking midnight a second ago...?"

[motioned]

"It had to be, I mean, that's the last thing I remember before this."

Before they inexplicably appeared in a field of squash, that is. She puts her hands against her arms, rubbing up and down a few times to keep out the early autumn chill.

"I don't know where we are."

[retraced]

He glances around briefly as he listens to her talk, but the sight of her rubbing at her arms tears his eyes back away from the dim, unfamiliar landscape. He hadn't been wearing his jacket at home, but he does have a long sleeved dress shirt on with a t-shirt underneath. He doesn't mind the cold, so he starts unbuttoning it and fitting it around her shoulders, hopefully before she has a chance to protest it.

"It felt like the Core, didn't it? The first time it brought us here."

[motioned]

She starts to back out of the shirt as soon as she notices what he's doing, but it's halfhearted at most; her focus is more on the new surroundings they've found themselves dropped into all of a sudden.

"Yeah, it - oh, you aren't sick or anything, are you? Will you be alright?"

She pauses, looking up towards the sky, then towards the unfamiliar buildings in the periphery of the area.

"Do you think we got - like, do you think this is another world? It looks different, but at the same time, um, kind of similar?"

[retraced]

He feels dizzy still, but he doesn't feel like he'll be sick, so he shakes his head. Though he also doesn't trust himself to start off walking one way or the other right away, either, so he just shakes his head squints his eyes to focus on the other side of the squash patch. Around them, others are waking as well, and he can hear a few familiar voices behind some of the obscured areas on the other side of the field.

"You're right....there's something familiar about it."

Except there's no large buildings, there's no hum of technology.

It's too quiet despite the sounds of people shouting.

"The telephone poles..." he mutters under his breath. "They look more like the ones back home."

[motioned]

"What do you think could have happened?"

And she pauses. She can see people moving around who look familiar, people she knows from the Port, calling to other people she knows. Even if they were taken to a new world, most of them seem to have their memories, if they remember enough to call for friends they've met here. Speaking of memories and friends, though, she looks back towards him with a worried expression.

"Do you think everyone showed up here with us, or just some of them?"

[retraced]

"It looks like there's a lot of them, at least."

He coughs and then reaches into his pocket, searching for his NV, but lo and behold, there's nothing there. He's sure he had it with him when he'd been walking upstairs.

"Huh - my NV is gone?!"

[motioned]

Instinctively, she reaches towards where her NV would normally have been, but - dress. No pockets, and she had left her purse at the bag check when she came in. She runs a hand through her hair with a sigh, blinking in surprise when there are small pieces of grass caught between her fingers afterwards.

"I don't have mine either, but - is there something in my hair?"

[retraced]

"In your-?"

He glances down at her and has to hold back a laugh at the sight of her pulling grass out of her hair, despite the strange situation that they'd found themselves in. He reaches over and pulls a bit more from the back of her head, dropping it onto the ground. Panicking can wait one more second.

"It's just some grass."

[motioned]

She combs through her hair a few more times with her fingers as she looks around, still looking around the squash field curiously.

"Do you see Oz yet?"

[retraced]

He frowns and turns to look behind himself. It's mostly trees that way, and a hint of a horizon line that also looks oddly familiar. But seeing Ahiru and some other vaguely familiar faces now staggering out of the squash patch puts his mind at ease a bit. If they're okay, then Oz definitely is too.

"Come on, let's see who else we can find," he says as he puts a hand on her shoulder and leads her down the middle of a few colorful pumpkins.

"We weren't sent home...at least, not to our own."

[motioned]

She moves away from his touch slightly, letting his hand drop from her shoulder so she can reach out and take it with her own hand instead, giving it a squeeze.

"Yeah. It looks more like back home, but it's still not the same."

She looks at the ground thoughtfully. Even though this is all new and a bit frightening, it's some small relief that they weren't all sent home.

[retraced]

He lets her take his hand without complaint. He even reaches over with his other hand to hold on top of hers to warm it up. Though, it doesn't feel quite as cold as it had been back in Siren's Port; this feels more like early fall than mid-winter. Still, it's definitely not summer weather by any means.

He shoves through a bush to start cutting through the middle of the field. A boy nearby springs to his feet and runs away before he has a chance to stop and ask if he's all right.

"H-hey!" he snaps, but the boy doesn't even turn to look back at them.

[motioned]

She follows after him, holding tight to his hand, only pausing when the boy moves away from them so quickly.

"Ah-!"

She reaches out a hand, trying to signal to him that he doesn't have to run, but he doesn't even look back as he sprints away. She watches his retreating back for a moment before looking back towards Gilbert.

"Will he be okay? Should we follow him?"

[retraced]

They should be looking for others, but they need answers, too! He grasps her hand a little tighter and nods, starting to rush as quickly as he dares while still pulling her along.

"Hold on a second!"

[motioned]

"Please, mister, I promise we aren't going to hurt you or anything!"

She tries to hurry, but her shoes aren't really the most practical to run in. After a moment, she stops, peeling both of them off, setting them down on the field with a look of regret that only lasts a minute before she starts to run again.

[retraced]

"Hey - "

He's about to insist that she just pick them up and carry them, but they can always come back and get them once they get some answers. He takes off again across the field, where the boy has actually stopped to watch them, thinking that they'd given up. But upon seeing them, he starts running again.

"We just want to know where we are!"

[motioned]

She slows a bit again, sighing and looking after the boy's back as he runs again.

"Dad, I think we're scaring him, maybe we should try and find someone else."

[retraced]

"...Then let's at least follow him and see where he goes. There has to be someone here who can help us."

Though he's still looking across the field for another familiar face as he starts forward again.

[motioned]

She nods and gives his hand a squeeze, looking up towards him with concern.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Dad."

[retraced]

It's better that they're all together rather than apart, that's true, but if they'd been brought to this world, and it ended up being a worse situation than the last, then they might not be able to count themselves lucky for very long.

But he doesn't share this pessimistic thought with her; he only nods, tries to smile, and then says, "Do your feet hurt? I can carry you if you need."

[motioned]

She looks down, a bit self conscious all of a sudden.

"They don't, but - I'm not slowing you down, am I?"

[retraced]

"No, I - just don't want your feet to hurt."

They're not chasing the kid anymore; they can take it at a slower pace now, but the ground might still hurt.