IN THE NIGHT IC INBOX

[beaconkeeper]

@keeper

Hi! I looove chatting so please come talk to me any time!

Comments

[webshoots]

[ there's a silence, then a noise that is almost definitely an uuuugh, and then the most put upon sigh. is he throwing his hands up in exasperation? yes, quite possibly. ] Fine. Fine. But if you're not fine and you die, I'm definitely getting in an 'I told you so' or three. If it wasn't so logistically difficult, this'd be a very different conversation, by the way.

...Riku seems to think they were trying to tell us something. Maybe what happened to Beacon before? [ beat. ] You said there was someone here from then — have they told you anything about what happened?

[beaconkeeper]

[It's a long while before she responds.]

Thanks, Peter.

[There's another pause, though this one much shorter.]

But don't worry. :P I'm not gonna die. Me dying would be reeeeeeally bad news for you guys, and I'm not gonna do that to you.

Wait, he does? Why??

Uhh, she's told me some stuff... and I have access to some of the town's historical records up here. I know that the portal got opened, and the World Eaters came through, I think, but not right away? It took a while for the world to die... That's so freaky, isn't it?

[webshoots]

[ the wait makes peter feel a little antsy, truth be told, so when the message does come, he feels a little more relieved than he thinks he has any right to be. ]

Thanks, Peter—? You don't need to thank me. You've been here the longest out of all of us. You know the risks. I'm not going to say I'm always going to agree with you, or that you can always win me over with your endearing use of common sense and rationality, but sometimes? Sure.

All I need from you is for you to remember that just because you're alone, doesn't mean you've got to be alone.

—And maybe someone to laugh at my jokes.

[ a pause. ]

When you were on, uh, forced vacation, they posted a bulletin. I only saw it after I woke up, so I'm not sure of the logistics and if anything went down that wasn't on the network, but after speaking with Riku— they seemed pretty worked up about the people that didn't eat. He thinks it was maybe their way of trying to communicate with us because we don't share a common language. They know we've got questions, so they tried to answer them the only way they know how.

Which means that anyone who didn't eat caused some mass offence and— [ he exhales, audibly. ] Something about dying teaching us a lesson. They're probably not wrong, it probably should, but... People are stubborn, right?

[ another pause on his end. this one's longer, and there's the subtle sound of movement. ]

...Yeah. Pretty freaky. [ beat. ] We found a note in the church. "We're all going to die". There were markings in the stairwell up to the belltower, and on the trapdoor. They must've been terrified.

—Do you ever think it wasn't just the World Eaters that killed this world?