fandomhigh | The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World, Wednesday, Period 4

When the students stepped into the Danger Shop for Reno's class today, they'd find themselves stepping into the lobby of the dormitory all over again, with a few pointed differences. There seemed to be a barricade built against the boarded-up windows, consisting of a good deal of the furniture that had clearly been dragged down from the floors above them. The power to the simulated building had been cut off completely, which meant that they were sitting in near-absolute darkness, because naturally Reno was going to be an ass and set this scenario for the dead of night.

There were cans of food lined up against one wall. There were weapons, what looked to be the entire contents of both the weapons locker and sharpened, weaponized versions of the practise fare from the Salle, laid out against the other. A sign hastily scribbled down on a piece of paper pointed deeper into the building, directing any possible injured to a first-aid station in the rec room.

Reno was sitting in the middle of the floor, grinning up at the students as they came in, legs splayed out in front of him and his elbows on his knees, Danger Shop supplied stun baton in one hand.

"Trust me," he said coolly, nodding back to the doors that closed themselves and instantly fell behind another barricade the moment the last of the students stepped in, "you don't wanna go back out there. This ain't your everyday Fandom invasion, where somethin' shows up, tapdances nasty around us all for a week, an' then gets sent packin'. This is the real friggin' deal, yo. This is your doomsday scenario, where there ain't no cure for bein' dead. Where if you get bit and infected and turn into one of them, you ain't snappin' out of it. Where the weapon that blew up the school took half of you with it, and you don't got time for so much as a head count to figure out who's left."

He leaned back, the cool metal of his baton scraping against the floor of the lobby, playing an eerie harmony to the sounds from outside, which alternated from complete silence to screams to gunfire, to the sound of something not remotely human calling out into the dark, answered by what had to be a hundred more just like it, all converging in on one point: The Dorms.

"I ain't gonna pretend there ain't heroes among you, I ain't gonna sit here and point at you one by one to tell you the likelihood of comin' back alive, either. If you're one of them who's gonna run out there, then there ain't nobody who'll be able to keep you inside. And that'll cost the island one of its first big advantages early on. Because once you guys are dead, what are the people who ain't fighters gonna do?"

And then, all at once in a flash of speed that was jarringly unnatural, Reno was on his feet, baton on his shoulder, and he was prowling back and forth in front of the students.

"What the enemy out there is don't matter in this scenario. What's out there is the predator, that thing that goes bump in the night, that sees you as prey or pest, but whatever the case is, it don't want us here, and it's lettin' us know with extreme prejudice. This is the Danger Shop, so if you go out them doors here, you'll just be steppin' out into the school again. This lesson ain't about fightin'. This is about stayin' alive. Look around. Take in what's been set up, here. Let it sink in that there isn't a single resource in this lobby that'll last even a severely reduced dorm population more'n a few weeks at best. And then, try an' figure out what the hell you're gonna do about it."

[Open! Go nuts!]

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But it was a reasonable one.

Yeul's smile grew slightly, even as her eyes studied Kathy seriously. "A very long time ago, a goddess gave the gift of her eyes to her head priestess, a girl named Yeul, so that Yeul could properly guide her people to the optimal future. Being a gift from a goddess, however, meant that it was a double-edged sword. Yeul would See the future, but every vision had would shorten her life drastically until she died... but once she died, she would be reborn with the same face, same body, same memories, and same power."

She looked down, toying with the brightly coloured beads of one bracelet. "It has been a very long time since I was that Yeul," she said quietly. "The first Yeul, and the ones right after her, they would understand the need to fight and rage against the approach of death. But not me, or any Yeul that will follow me. We have changed, even though we're eternal."

Did that help at all, Kathy? Did it?

...Depends on how you were defined 'help.' It was an explanation, that was certainly true.

"Okay, so I'm trying to follow this," Kathy said, sounding a bit stunned. "You're, like, a million years old, but only in your soul?"

Yeul contemplated trying to explain the realities of her body and decided that, all told, Kathy sounded surprised enough.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "That is... a reasonably accurate accounting of my situation."

"But I still don't understand why," Kathy protested. "Not just the why of why it happened, but why give up? I mean, you said the visions shorten your lifespan, which sucks, but..."

She wasn't seeing the connection between dying because of visions and just sitting there waiting for death. Especially in a simulation.

"I just don't get it. I'm sorry, but I don't."

"That's alright," Yeul said, smiling at Kathy. "I do not expect you to get it. It is my lives, not yours, but... I suppose it is a matter of pain builds up, over time. Imagine that this simulation is your reality, and so you fight, and then you die. And then you get to do it over again. Fight, and die. And then again."

And again, and again, and again.

"After a while, it hurts to keep fighting. So I chose not to, to spare myself self-inflicted pain. The things the world throws at me, I will either endure, or I will die from it. Why should I hurt myself with my thoughts on top of that?"

...Kathy couldn't really argue with that.

"Can I ask why you're in this class?" she asked, tentatively. "I mean, this class seems to be all about wailing against the dying of the light. If that's not for you, then why...?"

"It was a paperwork error," she said easily, unbothered by it. "I signed up for Professor Pie's Fun & Games, and Professor Lyman's These United States."

One involved travel and learning new things, the other was nothing but games. Both were clearly more Yeul's speed than... this.

Kathy nodded, making a note to talk to Yeul more in Professor Lyman's class. She'd noticed her there--it was hard not to notice someone dressed the way Yeul was--but hadn't thought to make the effort.

Which she instantly felt bad about. She knew what it was like to be the quiet and overlooked girl in class.

"Okay, so I get why you don't want to fight against death," she said, hesitantly. Intellectually, anyway. But Yeul herself had said it had taken a few lifetimes for her to get to this point, so hopefully she wouldn't take it amiss that it was only an intellectual exercise for Kathy at this point. "But does that hold true for all of our deaths, too? I mean, you'll come back. We won't. Once we die, that's it." Unless you believed in reincarnation and Kathy was not up for adding that topic to this one. "Would it bother you to help us survive? Even if it's just pointing out obvious flaws in our plans or something? I mean, you've lived for however many hundreds of lifetimes. That's a lot of worldly experience most of us don't have."

Yeul hesitated over how to answer that question. In some ways, it was more complicated to answer than the ones about her own life.

“When you look out for someone,” she said slowly, “when you help someone, it means that you care. Even if you do not like them, the fact that you are there, aiding them, is an act of care. It has been a very long time since I have cared about many people. My Guardian, Caius, is immortal.” Yeul smiled at Kathy. “He is the only one I can say I love and has been for thousands upon thousands of years.”

Yeul paused for a moment, picking the way she wanted to carry on from there. “The lives I lead with Caius are generally isolated ones, for several reasons,” most of them sad, though Yeul truly did enjoy wandering, “and in coming here, it has been the first time I have spent significant amount of time around people my own age. Making… friends. I am not used to that, to caring. My… closest friend left at the start of the semester, and it hurt to see her go.” She shook her head slightly. “It was a surprise. I had forgotten that sort of pain, and I shouldn’t have.”

She glanced up at Kathy. “Everyone will die,” she said, very quietly. “No one stays. It is hard to care, and lose, and care, and lose.”

Wow. And ouch. There was a lot to think about there and a lot of hurt, too.

What to say to that? I'm sorry? That was trite. That sucks? Talk about an understatement. But think of all the good things you're missing out on? Kathy guessed that Yeul had weighed those objectives long ago.

"I think...I think I might still ask you, from time to time, if you have anything that will help?" she said finally, weighing every word. "I just feel weird ignoring you and, well, I'm pretty committed to finding ways to overcome the kinds of obstacles we're supposed to face in class. But I won't demand that you help, or expect you to, okay?" She paused. "And I don't think I can leave you behind if we decide to make a run for it. I'm just not built that way. I'm sorry in advance, for that."

The Day After Doomsday: Getting By In a Post-Apocalyptic World, Wednesday, Period 4

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