2019-08-25 - Fractured Island

Eleanor rings out the last of the registers and calls to her evening manager, "Hey Matias, why don't you head out? I can finish locking up. I have a couple things to do in the back office before I leave." She's in denim shorts and a cute pale green peasant blouse, with her hair back in a messy bun, and sandals on her feet.

"You got it boss," the handsome man, a local artist as well as barista, replies. He gets his things and heads out the front door, flipping the sign from open to closed for her.

Ellie heads into her little office in the back and puts the cash in the small safe. She'll drop it off at the bank tomorrow at lunch time. She settles into her desk chair and pulls up her accounting software to input the day's totals.

This gives Eleanor pause. She is one of the town weirdness researchers, and she is always wary of things that Glimmer. How did this get in here though? She is fairly sure none of her employees Glimmer. She made sure of that when she hired them. She doesn't even like to talk about incidents in her place of business, keeping this as a sort of safe space from all things weird or from Over There.

She gets up slowly, pushing her glasses up on her nose, having ditched her contacts a few hours back for comfort. She shuffles over to the shelf with small steps, almost circling to come at the object from the side, squinting to try and read the spine of the book.

"Fractured Island?" Eleanor asks no one but the empty office, or perhaps the book itself. She can't help it though, her curiosity has won out over her caution in this case. It's a book, it can't be that dangerous, right? She reaches on pale hand for it, to try and pull it from the shelf.

When nothing malicious happens and she doesn't get zapped, Eleanor relaxes a fraction, taking the book back over to her desk and setting it down. She pulls out her phone to take pictures of the cover and the spine, to document them, before she carefully opens to the front page.

Eleanor's eyes go wide in her mind, but in this altered reality, they simply fix on Marilyn Gray as she nods. She follows Agent K and the nurse, even as the alarms in the back of her subconscious go off warning her this is not normal at all. She looks down at herself, to see what she's wearing, if she's still a she, and reaches a hand to touch her own hair to check it out.

This is somewhat terrifying for the paranoid conspiracy theorist, but also exhilarating. Like being in one of the stories she so enjoys reading. Thrillers, mysteries. She decides to play along. "The file, please, Doctor L. How long ago did four-five-two-oh escape?"

Dr. Louis scowls. "I can run my operation just fine without you people breathing down my neck. Walter is harmless. " But between 'Agent A's ' words and Agent K staring him down with those dark eyes, the doctor starts moving towards a room, taking a key out of his pocket. Agent K follows and Eleanor feels herself following as well.

The room is small, barren except for 6 filing cabinets, 5 drawers each, one drawer for each letter of the alphabet. Guess you can't keep the sort of research he does on the computer. Even completely locked down there's a chance of a leak, and no one wants a leak of this information. The good doctor pulls open drawer 'H' and skims through until a file is produced for one Walter Haven. Patient 4520.

The file is handed out for one of them to take. It looks like Agent K is starting to reach for it, but Eleanor could try and make a grab for it too. In either case, she would be able to see the inside of the file since Agent K would share it with her. A photo of a young guy, no more than 18 years old, is stapled to a background sheet. The information seems kind of supernatural. Like Walter possesses some kind of ability to harness and discharge massive amounts of energy based on his mood.

The ground trembles and even though they're on the second floor of the hospital, it's felt slightly. Eleanor makes to easily keep her footing, as does Agent K. Doctor Louis stumbles a touch but he's got the cabinets to lean on. Agent K looks over to the doctor sharply. "Are earthquakes common with these kinds of storms?" Doctor Louis LOOKS like he's going to try lying. But hey, Agent K is an intimidating dude! Instead he just quietly shakes his head. "Fuckin' A." Agent K scowls and looks over to Eleanor. "We're gonna have to go out in the storm and find this kid, aren't we?"

Eleanor let's K take the file and just reads over his shoulder. She skims it, noting the abilities and name of the patient. At K's question she nods. "Looks like we are. Do we have some form of non-lethal weaponry to take him down if he decides to get moody on us?" she asks.

Eleanor checks herself for said stunner, in the hopes somehow she knows how to use it. She pauses a second though, because she feels that deepening of this story, and her sinking into it further. She keeps a mental eye on the book itself, preparing to close it if it starts seeming too far away. Then she follows K once more. "How do you want to handle this?" she asks him.

"The...the woods?" Eleanor asks, coming to a full stop at the ATVs "I...I can't. I can't go into the woods." She can't, her whole body locking up in fear. Forests are the thing she fears more than anything else. It's where she was dragged as a kid, into the woods of a Jotunn, a creature who left the terrible scar on her back, who poisoned her best friend who died within a year of them escaping.

Eleanor gasps, panting, feeling the cold sweat on her brow from the very idea of wandering into a forest that is likely part of the Dream. Modr could be there, waiting, luring her in. She swallows and carefully puts the book into her bag. She needs to take it home and talk to August about it.