1st Kick | [audio]

[windsorknot]

[Voice]

[The tone is calm and measured, each word enunciated as clearly as possible.]So I take it that it's normal for people to just appear out of thin air in this city

Comments

audio ][

[the_alice]

What are you curious about?

audio ][

[windsorknot]

The nature of this place. I've heard that everyone here comes from a different world. Where I come from we know of different planets out beyond our own, but nothing quite like this.

audio ][

[the_alice]

What you've heard is the truth, though perhaps difficult to believe.

I didn't find it so, but...

I think that a lot of how much you do believe it often depends on how long one remains here. There are people who say they have been here for years.

But time isn't supposed to pass where you come from.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

I find that hard to believe. So far everyone I've encountered here speaks the same language as me. Everyone here seems to be comfortable in this atmosphere, which as far as I can tell matches Earth's very closely. Entirely different worlds would imply a greater degree of variety in the populace, I'd think.

Time slows down? Or it simply doesn't pass at all?

audio ][

[the_alice]

There are many kinds of beings here---nonhuman if that's what you mean. Though they might not speak to you, the longer you're here you are bound to see them eventually. Some are more obvious than others.

It doesn't move. For example, if you left on a Wednesday at eight o'clock, you would return to that moment precisely even if you have been here for much longer.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

I'll take your word for it.

People have verified this? In order to know something like that, wouldn't someone have to leave this place first?

audio ][

[the_alice]

You don't have to. A great number of people hold quite fast to their skepticism.

I do think it makes it easier to believe this place is real, however, safer.

[ pause ]

People have left and returned, and they all seem to share that belief, at least. Perhaps it is because if time did progress without us, someone would notice we were missing and go looking.

I do have the feeling that this place is supposed to feel untouchable.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

I can only believe what I see, and so far I've yet to see anything non human here. That's not to say that I'm not open to the possibility, however.

It seems real enough.

So people can leave and return, then. I'd assumed it was a one-way trip that could only happen twice. You're right, though. If no one notices we're gone, there's no chance of them somehow finding their way here voluntarily.

audio ][

[the_alice]

Sometimes, they look like us too.

[ pause ]

Though when people leave it isn't their choice. Some know ahead of time and make plans if they have plans to make. Others are simply there one day and gone the next.

Tarrant, before.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

The most familiar can sometimes be the most uncanny.

[He'd be smiling, if this wasn't just audio]

Is there anything specific they do before leaving? Like... [a pause as though he's trying to think of something] jumping off of a tall building or letting themselves fall, somehow?

audio ][

[the_alice]

I can honestly say that I wouldn't be surprised.

[ ... well. That's a curiouser question though and she pauses a bit longer here. ]

No, there doesn't seem to be any record of that kind of pattern. Sometimes people walk through a door, and sometimes they are just there and then not, without moving at all.

I know that when someone I knew left before there was nothing...severe about it.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

So it can be a completely random event. That's rather jarring, to know that you could be here one second and then gone the next. Or that you could even come back to this place.

Do people remember anything when they get back to their worlds? I'd think that they wouldn't, as it'd present the same problem as anyone noticing they'd left in the first place.

audio ][

[the_alice]

Or nothing at all.

[ pause ]

Some people say you remember, but that the memory tends to be distorted in one way or another, a bit like a dream instead of a memory.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

Like when you're trying to remember the details of a dream soon after you've woken up?

audio ][

[the_alice]

[ pause again because on this she can't be sure---never having left herself, but she does have experience with dreams and how they may end up not having been dreams at all, but quite real ]

Possibly. I'm not altogether certain from a firsthand experience, here.

audio ][

[windsorknot]

It sounds like it, anyway.

Would you happen to know anyone who's managed to leave this place and return?