(Untitled)

[slc_bob]

It wasn’t like I went to see him ‘cause I missed him or something. It’s kinda hard to miss your old man when you don’t even know who the fuck he is half the time. You never know if the bastard will smile and remember your name, scream and beat the shit out of you, or start talking out his ass about the fuckin’ CIA or whoever’s watching him this

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[lt_blade]

Any soldier will tell, or rather they won't tell, that sometimes there are moments when it just becomes too much. That sometimes the most tempting thing to do is to just say 'fuck it' and bail, even though it's wrong and cowardly.

It's certainly what Sonya's thinking. She's also thinking that the compound is too crowded, she who's spent years in military bases, that she finds herself heading outside.

She's not sure of what to make of the man sitting on the steps. Years of caution are hard to ignore, and yet, after Outworld, she knows enough not to go by appearance alone. Sonya decides to give him the benefit of a doubt, acknowledging him with a nod, before taking a seat on the stairs, and pulling out a small pad of paper from her cargo shorts.

Sonya's not even sure what she's sketching, only it's something to keep her hands busy.

[slc_bob]

There's this woman watching me now, and it's making me nervous. I'm used to being stared at- I usually enjoy it. I enjoy tearing apart the perfect little world people think they live in. I like being a reminder to people that the world is fucked up.

But this place, man. This place. I've only been here a few hours and I can't seem to calm down. I'm shaking a little and when I'm not shaking I'm rocking.

I wish Steve-o was here.

I stare right back at her though, and when she nods I sort of nod in return.

[lt_blade]

The sketch is starting to take the form of jagged mountains, the sort that look more like teeth than mountains. Instead of snow or clouds, she just focuses on the 'ground' with it's stones, sand...and occasional stake jutting out of the ground.

It takes her a moment to realize that what's coming on the page is a rough sketch of the Outworld Wasteland. She rips the paper off from the pad and crumples it up in her fist.

Maybe she should just take up knitting.

[slc_bob]

When she doesn't actually say anything, I watch her crumple the paper and then look away bored.

I'm not the kind of guy who'll just walk up to people, and I never walk up to women. I'm not Eddie.

[lt_blade]

She's amazed that even on the island, with this many people, there could be silence. Sometimes it's a blessing, sometimes-like now-she can barely tolerate it.

Sonya looked at him a moment. "I'm gonna take a shot in the dark, and say that you're new." It was is hair mostly that gave it away, it was too neatly shaved for him to have been here long.

[slc_bob]

I'm still rocking a little, and when she starts to talk, I narrow my eyes a bit. "Yeah, maybe. What's it to you?" I ask, taking another long drag on my cigarette.

[lt_blade]

She shrugged. "Nothing, just a common question that's asked here." She said, more or less off-offhandedly.

Sonya's been around here long enough to know that there are only three groups of people that smoke like it's going out of style: the stressed, those that have some to spare, or new arrivals that haven't been told so.

The only thing she could tell about this guy was that he was stressed.

[slc_bob]

"Oh," I reply, looking down at the ground as I slowly stop rocking and finish my cigarette. "I think asking common questions is just an easy way to conform to social, uh, normality, or whatever," I tell her. "Does it matter if I'm new or if I've been here five years? Or where I come from or what my name is? I could be lying or something anyway. You'd never know."

[lt_blade]

At his question of normality, Sonya breaks out laughing.

"If it's social norms you're trying to avoid, you might actually like this place." She calmed down a bit. "You live here long enough, you realize that "normality" and such things really don't mean shit. Hell, it took me only a week to figure it out."

She calmed down a bit. "True, you could be lying, but I don't see how it really matters here. They call this place, Tabula Rasa, Blank Slate, a chance for people to start over." Not that Sonya believed that everyone wanted to start over.

[slc_bob]

"I didn't want a blank slate, I liked my life. I liked my friends," I reply simply, because it's the truth. I didn't ask to come here. I didn't want a new life.

[lt_blade]

Sonya took a deep breath, as she stopped laughing.

"Sorry," she meant it too. Sonya wasn't one to say 'sorry' just as an empty word. "I had friends back home too, had some resemblance of a life." Fucked up as it was. "The best advice I can give, if you chose to take it, is to not keep hoping you'll wake up back home, or you'll just drive yourself crazy. I've spoken to people that've been here for a year..two years..all the signs point to us staying here." She thought of Cain..of Surreal. "Unless the island decides to send you back, but that's a matter of 'when'.

It wasn't so much that she sounded cynical, just rather..tired almost.

[slc_bob]

I frown a little at that, fidgeting for a moment before resting my elbows on my knees and relaxing again. "So, like, there's no, uh, science or whatever to it? Like, something that people do that sends them home?"

[lt_blade]

She shook her head. "Not to my knowledge. The guy that makes Friday dinner, Bill Weasley, he's been here for a few years, he'll be better at answering questions-if nothing else, he's a great cook too.

Sonya tried to be optimistic, for her anyway. "It's not so bad, for being on an island in the middle of nowhere-atleast there's shelter, food and means of medical treatment. It's really just a matter of finding ways to keeping yourself busy.

[slc_bob]

I dunno who that is, but I don't say as much, I just nod and let her keep talking. Conversation was never one of my stronger skills, but I can listen.

"Yeah, I saw that stuff. This girl- Or, like, this woman, I mean, she showed me around."

[lt_blade]

"In that case, you may want to ease up on those." She pointed to the smoking stub in his hand. "The only means of getting cigarettes here are the ones people are willing to give you, or drying your own tobacco and making hand rolled ones."

Back home, Sonya would usually carry a lighter on her, not because she herself smoked, but because there was always one soldier in her regiment that did and yet couldn't find a light.