first truth | first and second level

[truthvalue]

... !?

[Souji wakes and finds himself huddled in a crouch in the middle of an unfamiliar street. The rain pours down, soaking through his clothes. He blinks, taking in his foggy surroundings, and half-remembers something whispered in the mental haze:]

... the fog will come after several days of rain ... [Souji shakes his head, shivering, and

Comments

first level;

[grantmeamiracle]

[MOMO's been wandering around the city, trying to come in contact with the rest of the people she senses. And now! Now she sees an older boy in the distance and, cautiously, approaches.

Oh, he looks kind of lost, doesn't he?]

Hello?

first level;

[truthvalue]

[Oh, it's ... a girl? She looks like a girl, anyway. Souji slows his pace.]

Ah ... hello. [He gives her a small, friendly smile.] Sorry ... are you from around here?

[grantmeamiracle]

[She smiles a little herself, but shakes her head.] No, I... I just got here.

You're not either?

[truthvalue]

[Souji shakes his head by means of replying.] Ah, I'm not ... I'm a bit lost, actually. I don't even know where this - [he gestures to the street around them] - is.

[grantmeamiracle]

[She looks up at the street around them for a moment before looking back up at him.] Me neither. And no one I've met seems to be from this city either.

I think it's abandoned.

[truthvalue]

[Abandoned? An entire city ... that's not a good sign.]

How many others have you seen here? [It's true; for a city this size, it seems grossly underpopulated. And that's worrisome.]

[grantmeamiracle]

Less than ten... I've been able to sense a few others too, but we can't be any more than a few dozen.

[truthvalue]

[So few? That's even more worrisome.]

That doesn't make a lot of sense ...

[And there's another groundstrike that makes impact just to the side of them. Souji jumps.]

We should find somewhere to get inside, out of the rain.

[grantmeamiracle]

I know... But I know we aren't any more than that.

[She jumps as well, eyes fixed on where the strike hit. A moment later, she gestures at the nearest building, a shop, maybe?] Yes! In there?

[truthvalue]

[Souji nods silently, quickly heading toward the shop entrance. The door is unlocked, but the shop is deserted.]

... That's odd.

[grantmeamiracle]

[MOMO follows him inside, carefully peering through dark. She takes another few steps inside, stopping near a wall, running her hand along it.]

It's still stocked. Recently, I think?

[truthvalue]

That's odd.

[He steps cautiously through the darkness, hands out in front of him to alert him to any abrupt changes in the landscape. It takes a minute, but he makes his way to the back of the shop and finds the light switch behind the counter. Good thing he put in all that time at Junes, huh? Too bad the switch does nothing when he flicks it on. He makes a disgruntled, pensive sound.]

Power must be out.

[grantmeamiracle]

[She frowns, moving over to join him near the counter, careful not to trip on anything. She takes a look behind the counter, but nothing catches her attention.]

It... makes sense, I suppose. No one's living here, so no one can keep it running.

But that doesn't explain why the store's stocked...

[truthvalue]

["No one's living here" ... Souji finds the factual way she says this odd. She'd mentioned "sensing" people earlier, too ... ]

No, it doesn't. But how are you so certain we're the only ones here? Maybe there was an emergency evacuation.

[grantmeamiracle]

...Oh. [Right. She keeps forgetting that apparently no one in the city knows about Realians.]

I... I can tell how many of us are here. It's something I can do.

[truthvalue]

Really? [Kind of like Rise's Persona's scanning abilities? But innate. Interesting.] That must be very useful. If you don't mind me asking, how did you learn to do that?