hadriel_logs | Event Log: Dead Men Walking

Entry tags:

Event Log: Dead Men Walking

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Dead Men Walking event!
Where: All around the city
When: September 14th-September 20th
Warnings: Zombies. Walkers. The Infected. Zeds. The undead. Risen.

Everything seems more or less normal in Hadriel on the 14th - at least at first. But wait, who's that over there? Why are they walking so weird? Are they feeling okay? Wow, did they just try to bite you? Oh shit, you might've seen a movie like this before. That was definitely a zombie.

But hey, it's no big deal. A few zombies here and there are pretty easy to avoid, especially when you can outrun them without too much trouble. They're only really dangerous if they're fast or if there are a lot of them, and they sure aren't fast! Only - well, before long, there are a lot of them. You can hardly go outside without running into one, and mobs form quickly. Went out for supplies? Let's hope they didn't follow you - you might get stuck in that shop, mobile corpses pounding on the door. Oh, and don't stand too close to the windows of your house. They'll be more than happy to smash the glass trying to get you.

Don't worry, though! A hard blow to the head will take these zombies out, and you'll be sitting pretty, as long as none of them bite you. None of them bit you... right? Wow, what a relief. We're all glad you're not concealing a life-threatening zombie bite from your friends! Who would do that, anyway? Now if you can manage that until the 20th, you'll be safe and sound as the zombies shamble out of the city. Hopefully you won't be shambling with them.

► This log covers September 14th-September 20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you join the zombie party, please let us know here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Firo blinks a few times and doesn't really bother trying to figure out how that'd work. It's nothing like what happens with immortals. "What? That sounds crazy."

Not that vacuuming up Szilard and all his lifetimes is any more normal, but he still has a hard time wrapping his head around what Rey's saying.

Did she not explain properly?

Shit, of course she didn't. She never does. Rey just huffs before helping herself to another shot, figuring that perhaps it would help her focus.

It doesn't. But she's at least willing to give this another try. Long, personal anecdotes were never really her thing.

"Let me put it this way." She lifts her index finger from the shotglass she's holding, casting a curious glance towards Firo. "Do you believe in, or at least understand, the concept of a soul?"

"Believe in it? No. But I do know what it is." Maybe 'not really' would be more accurate. He hasn't thought about it too much, but he has to wonder what it is that immortals transfer to each other with their memories... He brushes the thought aside. "I'm gonna guess you do?"

It isn't about what Rey believes, so much as how to make this easier to explain to someone from a complete different decade and background. She has a feeling that most of what she is about to say wouldn't resonate with Firo otherwise.

She shrugs. "Not particularly." That would involve acknowledging all that crazy shit IV was spewing about an 'Artificial Soul' before skewering Rey, and she can't have that. "But it is a similar concept, if you think of my data and memories as a soul. Or possibly a number of souls, depending on how you look at it."

Though she's never considered her previous selves to be individual 'souls', it would make sense. Or as much sense as any of this can make.

"Anyway, if you consider it like this: When the body dies, some people believe that the soul is sent to somewhere else. Others think it ceases to exist entirely," Rey explains, speaking slow for Firo to hopefully better follow along. "When I've died, mine -- if you think of the data as a 'soul' -- doesn't do either of those things, and instead stays in the body until it's transferred into a new one, or the old one is fixed. Every time, a new identity is written on top of the old one. Someone new, with different experiences and memories. Though, suppose the memories aren't written over so much as they're locked away. And locks can be opened -- or broken."

One can assume which word best applies to what happened to her.

"Huh. Sounds almost familiar, actually."

He'd assume from the information given that she wasn't at all an active participant in acquiring these memories, so that's different from Szilard. And from himself as well. Still, it's similar enough to the actual process.

"So why don't you lock it away again?" He asks without any judgement. Inside he knows that the strategy he claims to use isn't 100% perfect. But it works well enough, right?

Familiar, huh? That does seem like a rather odd thing to say. Rey starts to ask, but then Firo's question about her memories strikes an unpleasant nerve. One that she suppresses an inward flinch and reminds herself that he doesn't know.

Still, she grits her teeth for a moment before she musters a civil response.

"Because, I would be dead without them. Their experiences, no matter how terrible, have also sometimes helped save my life."

Not to mention all those weeks she had spent in near-complete isolation. It had been those memories and her own cognitive ability to synchronize with them all at once that kept her alive.

Edited 2016-11-06 02:30 (UTC)

Firo continues, seemingly oblivious to her annoyance. He's noticed, but he's not yet going to start walking on eggshells. "And you can't just pick and choose? Sounds like you got a raw deal."

He has some control over Szilard's, at least. If he's quick enough and stubborn enough, he can dip in to them without too much leaking over. The problem comes when he needs to really search for something--the deeper he goes, the more washes over him. And none of it's pleasant.

Still. For the sake of appearances, he thinks it's all mostly fine for him. Perhaps that's one benefit to being here--there's no way Szilard could use his body to hurt his family if Firo ever did become too influenced by the memories. Of course, he'd still have to worry about Muscovy...

The obvious lack of knowledge is the one thing keeping Rey's emotions grounded for the time being. All things considered, Firo has done nothing to warrant any sort of outburst besides not having endured the same things as she's had. And, really, why would she desire anything different? Why hope for commiseration over one of the worst years she's ever suffered through?

"Can you just 'pick and choose' which things to remember and forget?" she retorts. "Even if it were possible, it wouldn't be on the table. No one is fucking with my head like that again, regardless of whether it's me or someone else doing it."

Because that would require having trust in herself not to just fuck herself up more than she already is.

"Not completely," he replies, more candidly than he would normally. "But I can pick what I think about and what I don't. That's not messin' with your own head."

There's truth in it. He can pick what he thinks about if he's quick enough. Sometimes.

"It isn't always that simple. These aren't just normal thoughts that you can choose not to think about."

Actually, Rey isn't sure what they are.

Memories? A separate consciousness? She could drive herself mad trying to figure it out.

"Then what are they?"

Even more similar than he thought, maybe. He's never been totally sure if what he got from Szilard ended with memories or if there was something else mixed in.

He brings his drink back up to his lips quickly. Don't want to think too long on that part.

"They're..." She stops and thinks. How is she supposed to explain this to someone she isn't even sure will understand, given how much she has had to tell him already? Rey swallows another shot, a bit of her brain too numb to care as the alcohol finally runs through her system. "They're people. With their own lives and thoughts and feelings about the things they've all endured. They're not just memories. And some of their experiences are important to me, because without them, I'd be empty. And if I don't remember them, then they may as well not have existed at all -- and that isn't right, either."

So what if Firo doesn't get it? Rey just has to live with it.

Firo feels a chill slide down his spine when she talks about it. Don't think about Szilard or any of the others.

"Why not? You have yourself still." That's hardly 'empty' in Firo's book. You need nothing else. "What do you owe to those guys? So what if they're forgotten? It happens to everybody sooner or later."

"Because they're also me."

For Rey, it isn't that simple. She wouldn't have fought to live so hard if it hadn't been for those memories, those experiences. In a way, she'd be dead without them.

She shakes her head. "I owe them everything. The skills I have, the knowledge... How do you think I managed to help build the dam? Or fight? It's all them."

Both of his eyebrows bounce up. Is it really all them? That almost reminds him more of Ennis than of his own situation; much of her knowledge flowed into her from Szilard. At least until recently. He finds himself a little skeptical that Rey would be so lacking in her own experiences, but he still doesn't have the whole story. "Sounds like you get a lot out of it."

So does he. He reminds himself that he never would've been able to save Ennis without Szilard's knowledge.

One could argue (or at least Rey most definitely can) that what few personal experiences she does have aren't worth keeping. Firo had seen how things started out for her, and that isn't a mental space she ever wants to go back to.

"You could say that we all do. Every one of them is part of me in some way or another. Horrible as it was at first, things got... clearer, after a few years."

Which goes to say that those were likely, without a doubt, the hardest years of her entire lives.

He shakes his head slowly. Is he even understanding what she's getting at? He doesn't think that even he could be confused with how simply she's explaining it, but the conclusion seems so strange to him. "It still seems weird to think you're sharin' your head with people. Not just memories, but... actual people."

"And yet you said that it sounded 'familiar' a moment ago."

Yeah, Firo. What was up with that?

He cants his head to the side. It's true what she says, but how best to put it? He supposes the ship has sailed on keeping anything hidden about this situation. "It's the way you talk about it that's weird. I've got other people's memories in my head too. Szilard and everybody he 'ate.'"

In the few seconds it takes him to take a drink, he realizes how weird that sounds.

"Not like he actually ate 'em. It's something different that comes with being an immortal."

It's good of Firo to clarify. If she didn't know him any better, she might've just assumed he was bullshitting and stick to the cannibal theory as the more viable truth.

Strange. Other than Nick, Rey never would've thought she'd meet another person who has dealt with similar problems. And he's always seemed to have his head on straight, too. Then again, so does Nick. What must it have been like for both of them?

"So, immortals can 'eat' people? How does that work?"

Better explain this one, Firo.

Firo holds his right hand up. "You use your right hand. And then... it's like they just get sucked into it. It only works on other immortals."

Ladd had been hungry for this information, believing it might help him kill Huey. Firo assumes Rey doesn't have the same interest.

It's good to know that Firo a.) isn't a cannibal, and b.) not the type of guy who would go around sucking people into his hand. And that the latter ability is limited.

She does wonder if this would apply to the other immortals Rey knows of in this place, though. Not that she can see him going on an immortal-eating spree.

"And you get their memories this way?"

"Yeah. Their whole lives, even anything they'd learned."

He shrugs one shoulder. "You can even learn physical skills they had. Sometimes it comes in handy."

Even Firo has to admit that. He's dipped into Szilard's knowledge or had it spring to mind when he needed it.

It really doesn't sound much different from what Rey has had to live with. The skills she had learned from those memories she has is ultimately what helped her survive, kept her alive and pressing forward in more recent years.

"How many are there? People, whose memories you can remember?"

Eighteen of Maiza's fellow alchemists, Barnes, Scott, and Szilard himself. Those are the ones that come to mind most easily, given that Szilard boasted about it soon before he died. Firo doesn't care to dig any deeper.

"21, give or take. It's a little hard to keep track of."

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