I am becoming something else.

[youarefalling]

Perhaps my greatest comfort through all of this is that I always knew it would end this way.

Recant. They asked Galileo to recant and he did, but I am not Galileo, and I have nothing left to live for, nothing keeping me here. I have learned things. I have learned that, cruel though it sounds, cruel though it is, that day on the bridge happened so

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[allround_genius]

"You know, it's really difficult to get those stains out," McKay pointed out, something of a disembodied voice as he stood there, just giving this guy a strange look. "Who are you, anyway?"

[youarefalling]

I turn, half-expecting to receive a rifle-butt in the face. But the soldiers are gone.

Well, it's fairly obvious that I'm not where I was, anyway.

I look up at the man. For some reason it does not occur to me to get off my knees. "What stains? Where am I?"

If this is Heaven or anywhere in between, it doesn't look anything like I expected.

[allround_genius]

Oh for...

McKay sighed and really, really wished he hadn't just stumbled on some neophyte who wanted the answers to everything in the universe and then some, because how the hell do you explain Island With No Explanation to a person. "It's a uh...well, it's an Island. You're here. It's strange. Weird things happen. Welcome."

[youarefalling]

I blink. It seems like the sensible thing to do.

I'm supposed to be dead. I'm supposed to be waiting for the end, whatever the end ends up being. Oblivion or union with The Presence, I always believed one of those awaited me. This doesn't feel like either.

"Okay..." I should maybe get to my feet, but my knees seem like as good a place as any right now. "How did I get here?" And then I ask a question that should have an obvious answer, except that I have a feeling that nothing is obvious anymore.

"Am I dead?

[weemanmurray]

The lass had been complaining about the smell of him when he came back from building, so Ian had been trying to take a shower in the afternoon, before he headed back. Rollo had finally put in an appearance, some time while Ian was in the little box with water swilling over tired shoulders, and the wolf is padding at his heels as Ian loped down the steps of the compound, pushing wet hair back from his forehead.

When Ian almost tripped over the guy tucked around the corner, he put up both long fingered hands in apology.

"Sorry," he said, with a bob of his head. "I didna see ye there."

[youarefalling]

I turn, startled, and part of me marvels at the feeling; it's been so long since I was genuinely startled by anything.

I've never seen the boy; he's not an inmate and his clothes are more proof of that than his face. That and the fact that I'm fairly sure I'm no longer anywhere near Judson Ogram. The dog, though... we have have learned to watch for dogs like that. Government-bred. Mistreated. Vicious. If I'm dead it shouldn't matter but I eye it warily all the same.

"It's all right," I say. "I don't..." Still on my knees, I raise my hand to the back of my head, but I feel no wound. "I don't really know where I am."

[weemanmurray]

Ian wiped one hand on his raggy jeans and dropped down into a crouch, putting himself on eye level with the man. Automatically, he took hold of Rollo by the scruff of his neck, not because the dog was vicious, but because he tended to take to strangers too well.

"Let me guess," said Ian, quirking his head on one side. "Ye shoulda be here, aye?"

[youarefalling]

"I can't really answer that, not knowing where 'here' is." The boy seems friendly enough, and even the dog doesn't strike me as an immediate danger. I look down at my hands, still expecting to see them smeared with blood and bits of skull and brain.

"I was... I was in a hospital. A prison." There's really no difference anymore.

[helenhooverb]

Helen Hoover Boyle was in rare form today. With a hop in her step, she actually felt pleasant. Humming an indistinguishable tune, Helen fluffed her pink hair and left the compound.

Helen had plans to head to the beach and get a bit of sun. She had always thought her complexion looked quite good with a bit of a bronze skin.

As she stepped from the Compound, the sun blinded her. Bringing her hand up to shield her eyes, she made out a man kneeling. Thinking it was just a trick of her imagination, Helen continued on her way and didn't think anything of it. Glancing back to double-check however, proved that there was a man. Kneeling.

Helen Hoover Boyle chuckled and hurried over to the man, laughing. "Hahaha! I've never seen anyone arrive before! You're my first!"

[youarefalling]

Of all the things I expected, which is not a long list, this is nowhere on it.

I turn and stare; no soldiers, no high brick walls, no dirty courtyard. A woman with pink hair.

"Arrive?" I look around and then back at her. I'm honestly not sure what to do here. Touching the Hand of God was easier than this; all I had to do was sit back and enjoy the ride. Now I can't get past the feeling that I'm supposed to be acting in some way.

I don't move. I want to get the ground under me before I get my legs under me, so to speak.

"Where am I?"

[helenhooverb]

Bringing her hands up quickly to just under her neck, Helen found herself clapping with elementary excitement. "I am so excited you're my first one!" Helen fluffed her pink hair and extended her hand.

"Helen Hoover Boyle here." She winked. "I've been here a few months now and this wonderful island is called Tabula Rasa." Her voice emphasis sounded as though she was selling a car or giving away a prize.

"It's an island that will sort of drive you mad, sort of relax you and will make you stay. For a long time."

[youarefalling]

I'm trying to keep up. I'm used to heavily medicated people with dead eyes, and those are the ones outside the hospital. I'm used to a constant stench of death around me, so constant that everyone goes on about their lives, pretending they don't smell anything at all. Pretending they don't step over corpses on their way to work.

This is nothing like that.

"Island?" I shake my head slowly. "Where? I was..." I glance back at the wall again. "I was in Judson Ogram..."

[texas_forever]

Tim's heading up the path toward the Compound for a shower and he's nearly there, taking his time because there really isn't any kind of hurry in this place. His head drops for half a second, just checking the ground in front of his feet and when it lifts again, there's a flicker and then-- then a man who definitely hadn't been there just a second ago.

At least he's pretty sure of that. Or maybe he really has gone crazy.

His pace slows and his brow furrows as he gets closer, watching the guy carefully as the guy apparently... stares at the wall.

"Hey," he says, quietly, but not exactly friendly from just behind him. "You okay, man?"

[youarefalling]

And that is definitely not a soldier's voice. The ones who get called out after you, most of them are pumped full of die-agra, little blue death-pills, things that make their eyes less dead and more dead at the same time.

I have no idea what's going on. This is not in itself alarming, but it is something to consider.

"I don't know," I says slowly, not turning around. "I think so."

[texas_forever]

His frown deepens then and he stops just a few feet away, still watching him, mostly just looking at the back of the guy's head since he still won't turn around.

It's like he's praying to the Compound and that's one of the strangest things Tim's ever considered. It's a building.

"You just got here," he says then and it sounds partly like a question, but partly not, his eyes narrowing. This has to be a first. Tyra at least hadn't just shown up out of mid air.

[youarefalling]

"As far as I can tell." I turn finally and look up at the man... not a man, really, a boy, tall and broad-shouldered but young, looking at me as though he is as confused as I feel, and a great deal less comfortable with the feeling.

"I think I'm supposed to be dead," I say. I don't feel dead. Though, it should be said, I have no previous first-hand experience of what death feels like.

[katurianx3]

Neither writing nor sleeping was coming easily to Katurian anymore, both filled with memories of things he didn't want to remember, and so all he could do was walk. Circles around the compound, down to the beach and back, anything to stop thinking of what he'd left from. Most days, he tried to stay away from people, it never really seemed to go well when he was around them, but today, as he was heading back into the compound, there was someone just kneeling there, staring. It took him a moment to approach, but finally, he cleared his throat and asked dryly, "Are you okay?"

[youarefalling]

The voice is unfamiliar, and when I turn I see that the face is too. Though it's not unlike faces I have seen, on soldiers and civilians alike. If there is indeed still a difference.

In any case, at least it's keeping with a pattern.

"I think I am," I say, feeling my muscles move slightly under my skin. "I'm alive, anyway." Or something very much like it.

[katurianx3]

Katurian sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. This people appearing out of nowhere thing was getting tiring, but with the state he'd been in when he arrived, it was only fair to explain if it needed explaining. "Let me guess. You were somewhere else and now you're here?" he said carefully, and took a step back to lean against the wall. Something about it seemed just too familiar, but he wasn't about to ask if this person had just died.

[youarefalling]

"I was." Those two things are clear enough and I feel comfortably sure of them. The rest of it is a bit of a different story. "I was in prison. Or a hospital. I don't think it matters now."

I look down at my hands and my knees ache as I slowly push myself up to my feet. "I was going to be..."

The Presence.

Perhaps I've ascended. Like Elijah in the fiery chariot, perhaps I've been lifted up by the very Hand of God and set down... here.