singillppl | April 2025 Test Drive Meme

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April 2025 Test Drive Meme

APRIL 2025 TDM

PROMPT ONE — ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST: A new group of arrivals find themselves lost in the frozen wilds and vulnerable to the dangers of nature. With luck, they make it to the town of Milton, and to a friendly face offering food, warmth and shelter — and the current inhabitants, their fellow survivors.

PROMPT TWO — THE THING WITH FEATHERS: The Aurora has long since begun to alter the behaviours of animals in the world, and the Interlopers face a threat from above.

PROMPT THREE — MISFIT: Interlopers haven’t been feeling themselves lately. And one day they wake up to find they aren’t themselves at all: they’re someone else.

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

WHEN: Mid-month.
WHERE: Milton, Milton Outskirts.
CONTENT WARNINGS: potential animal attacks, potential injuries, potential cold injuries/hyperthermia risk.

'You are the Interloper. You are not part of nature’s design.'

It’s the last thing you hear. A dark, deep voice. Impossibly ancient. You feel afraid. Maybe you’re dreaming, maybe you’re wide awake. You saw the lights, and then your world went dark. But you hear it in the blackness, you won’t forget those words.

These are the words of the Darkwalker, you’ll soon come to find.

You awaken. You are not where you were before. It’s different for everyone, there doesn’t seem to be much of a pattern in where you find yourself. You may open your eyes to find yourself in a cold, dim and dank cabin. The air is stale, dust hangs in the rays of weak sunlight that shine through the tiny windows. Someone lived here once, but they aren’t to be found. This place has been ransacked, abandoned long ago. It is quiet. The wood creaks around you.

Or perhaps you may awaken to find yourself shivering in the yawning maw of a cave, the freezing stone below you. Or maybe you’re unfortunate enough to sit up to find yourself lying in the snow, in the middle of the wilderness. Snow lies thick around you. It’s freezing out. You haven’t felt a cold like this before in your entire life. Cruel and biting. You have no idea where you are, and what’s worse — you are completely alone.

The sun is bright, enclosed in light fog. It is a strange kind of twilight.

You may feel different, too. Any powers or magics you may have feel... absent. Disconnected. Things that may not have affected you previously now do. Something in you has changed.

You know you can’t stay where you are. You’ll need to move, try to work out where you are and how you came to be here. So you walk, head out into the unknown, in hope of finding a trail or a road. You’ll find one soon enough. It’s here you may find someone else in the same boat as yourself, equally freezing and confused. You’ll both need to keep going. It won’t be easy. You hear howls of wolves around you, and the terrain is difficult: slips and falls are likely. You’re completely vulnerable out here in the open.

Or it’s possible you may come across someone else here. Someone who looks far better prepared to deal with the freezing cold and frozen landscape, out hunting or gathering. They’ll likely offer help and get you into town. However, for the unlucky ones who don’t come across anyone, you’ll carry on until you see it: the lazy trail of smoke rising in the air. Fire. Not just one, but several. Civilization...?

Follow it, and soon enough the way you’ve taken will certainly become a path or road. Unfolding before you in the mountainous forests, you’ll see the most welcome of sights: a small mining town tucked up in the valley. Battered, rusted road signs will direct to “MILTON, POP. 947”. You’re almost there, you keep going, and it looks like other people have had the same idea as you. In fact, you’ll hear the muffled sounds of life. People! In the town!

As you head into the outskirts and then further into town, you’ll find it’s a little easier to walk but the cold has gripped you hard. You’ll find the buildings, both shops and homes, some are dark and lifeless, some of them are boarded up, some of them are occupied. People are going about their business, or stood watching from their tiny porches of their small, timber homes. For a town this big, there doesn’t seem to be many people. Several dozen at most, but no more.

Towards the center of town, you’ll find the building from which the biggest of the smoke trail rises: a school-house of sorts, or some kind of community hall. Perhaps both. You’ll find more and more people all drawn to this place, each and every one of them in the same position as yourself (and your companion, if you’ve found one). Some are in worse states than others: some are bloodied, nursing bite wounds or cuts; others might have some other kind of injury sustained in the journey here from falls. Others may look as if they could faint from the cold at any second.

The door opens, and you’re greeted by the gnarled, wizened face of an elderly man, dressed in thick furs. He has a kind face. He smiles warmly, and with pity, ushering you in with haste.

“Ah. Once more, you poor souls come.” he nods gravely. No, this is not the first time that this has happened. “I am Methuselah. I welcome you, Newcomer, although I’m sorry for how you’ve come to find yourself here. You are not the only one, the lights are changing things. Come. Mother Nature has not been kind to you, but there are plenty here to help.”

The room is dim, lit only by natural daylight through the windows. A roaring fire sits at one end of the huge hall. It crackles, bright and cheerful... and warm. Even as big as this place is, the room is pleasantly warm. You’ll also find basic cots set up down one side of the hall, and while it seems there's a few people already living here, there's enough space for those in need of them. There's places to rest for a moment and get your bearings, or just trying to recover from the cold. Down the other side are tables and chairs, and long tables laden with food, drinks and bottled water similar to one might find at a soup kitchen. Once again, Methuselah offers a feast, aided by some of the other Interlopers.

There are canisters with hot herbal teas, mostly. But some coffee can be found. There’s also soup and stew and trays of charred deer and rabbit meats, plus some grilled fish. It’s very basic, but it’s hot and filling. A feast for those who have battled the cold to come here.

Methuselah will continue to busy himself, still; there is plenty to do. He will fetch blankets, tend to wounds, serve food and drinks — aided by a handful of others in the Hall. Your fellow survivors, but those who have been here for some time now. He does not have much time to talk. More and more people seem to be coming in from the cold. He will not stop to sit and rest until everyone is seen to, taking up a place by the fire to gaze silently into its flames.

He will encourage newcomers to get warm and eat, and when they are ready to — they can explore the town and find one of the many empty homes to call their own. He will not speak much, but gesture to your fellow survivors. They will have better answers than him.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

WHEN: Throughout the month.
WHERE: Milton area.
CONTENT WARNINGS: animal attacks, altered wildlife, gore, possible character injury/death, possible animal injury/death.

It is no secret that nature has been warped here somehow. Interlopers discovered this in the very early days of their time in the Northern Territories, when packs of wolves descended upon Milton. A frightening and terrible thing to try and survive — plenty were injured in the attack, a few unlucky Interlopers even lost their lives during that time.

There have been other ways in which the world around them has become strange: extreme weather, shifts to the flora of the world, changes in native animal behaviour, supernatural creatures, beats from the world’s old stories—

It is hard to tell what may happen next.

The flocks of crows are common sight enough, soaring through the skies, and often the heralds of death: a body, human or animal is close by. But soon enough, the crows began to gather in large groups around Milton. They watch the Interlopers with interest, and seem less easily scared by the people around them. That is the start of things.

Over time, their behaviour grows… unsettling. Interlopers who attempt to chase, scare or even hunt the birds will be met with squawks and even attempts to divebomb. Crows are very intelligent creatures, after all. They recognise the fact that someone is trying to harm them. An Interloper might even kill a crow will be met with raucous anger with their fallen fellow crow. They Will Remember That.

But what is stranger still is to see the birds fighting amongst themselves whilst in flight.

It’s hard to tell why the crows fight one another, but it’s a startling sight to see: the birds tackling into one another, talons trying to rip one another to shreds as they swoop and rise in the chilly air. Some will die, too, and even if one misses such fights in the skies — it is common to find the bloodied remains in the snow, feathers strewn about.

Soon enough, Interlopers may find themselves jumping at the sudden sound of something quick slamming against a door, a window, a roof, a half-buried car in the ground. Investigating will find freshly-dead crows with broken necks, glass cracked where their beaks have struck glass, blood upon wood.

And in time, the birds will stop their assault against themselves. They will turn their attentions to those below: other animals, and to the Interlopers themselves — flocking in huge groups to divebomb the unsuspecting below.

To be set upon is to be met with beaks and claws: the birds are set upon tearing you to shreds, a fluttering fury whirling around you. The best you can do is to try and protect your body from the attack, or run. The birds will be kept back by flames, filling the air with burning feathers as they try to flee — but the best that can be done is Interlopers find somewhere indoors to hide. At the very least, these birds are no stronger than usual animals changed by the Aurora — but they will likely cause some damage to buildings, particularly windows, as they try to get themselves inside.

In time, they will give up their pursuit, finding something else to focus their attention on — whether it be another unfortunate Interloper or some other poor animal.

MISFIT

WHEN: Throughout the month of April.
WHERE: Everywhere.
CONTENT WARNINGS: personality shifts; body-swapping; possible themes of body dysmorphia; potential body horror, of a sort.

In the month of April, Interlopers have days when they feel….. off. It’s in little ways, at first. Maybe you don’t feel as brave as you normally are, or feel a little more melancholy when your spirit is usually upbeat. Changes in your personality. Little things.

Or perhaps it’s particular habits you keep. Maybe you find yourself not liking your tea the usual way like it. Maybe you find yourself less of an early bird, or prefer to sleep in a different position that you usually do. Those sorts of things.

It is really all that strange, considering the circumstances? Far from friends, family? Stranded in an unfamiliar place, with little-to-no luxuries or even the most basic amenities? Cold and hungry and afraid? God forbid someone feel unlike themselves for existing in this place, just trying to survive.

Eventually, you realise, something is far more wrong than those little shifts in personality or in personal habits. One morning you wake up and you feel… physically different. The weight of you shifts differently, and as you pull yourself out of bed, your perspective is different. Your limbs don’t feel like your own, and as you look at yourself— it doesn’t look like you.

It’s only when you find yourself a mirror do you really realise: you aren’t you at all, you’re someone else.

You’re in someone else’s body.

How do you broach this new existence? Do you roll with it? Do you recognise who you’ve become? Do you feel shame, embarrassment, or an opportunity to cause a little chaos? Are you curious, or very much determined to put an end to this nonsense? Are you horrified? Feeling a deep and strange feeling of wrongness?

Go look, and you’ll…. Well, find yourself. Eventually, somewhere in town is the person whose body you’re currently stuck in, now stuck in yours.

Good luck dealing with that, Interloper.

It’s not permanent, though. Probably. Maybe.

What’s that old saying? Something about walking a mile in someone else’s shoes? That might have something to it.

FAQs

ARRIVAL: METHUSELAH'S FEAST

1. Arrival threads can be treated as game canon.

2. Items characters have brought from home can be found either strewn around them when they awaken, or in the community hall — as if someone left them out for them to collect. Methuselah will not know how they got there, and will be quite bemused by the happenings.

3. Reminder that all characters are now depowered upon arrival. They can choose not to notice it at first, or can immediately sense something is different about them.

4. If asked any personal questions, Methuselah will smile and say "Oh, you don't want to know about an old man like me. But I have lived all over in these parts for all my life." He will be more concerned with trying to help Newcomers, and is genuinely concerned for them and their well-being. Other Interlopers will say much of the same — there's little to know about him.

5. More information about Milton can be found here.

THE THING WITH FEATHERS

1. Interlopers who have hunted the crows previously will find themselves subject to more aggression in their attacks, and the crows will be less likely to give up their hunt for them if they choose to hide.

2. Which... yes, you can eat the crows. It isn't recommended, as they are carrion birds.

MISFIT

1. This prompt is pretty flexible in how players wish to approach this! Interlopers can wake up in the other's home in the other's body and come face to face with a stranger's home and potential housemates. Alternatively, they can find themselves in their own homes but their body has swapped. This would also mean that whatever clothes they happened to wear to bed that night would now not properly fit them. Oops.

2. Interlopers can undo the body swap by talking it out and trying to reach a moment of empathy and understanding with the other.

3. If Interlopers don't reach that understanding, the 'curse' will eventually run its course after 72 hours.

TALES FROM THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES NEWSLETTER

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh cool, that's godawful even if it's true. Charlie's been operating on the assumption that Kayne sent him here, but... well, this is certainly a fucking explanation for the voice he heard, he supposes.

A few different things pass over his thawing face: a suspicious glance from Arthur up to John and back again; a grimace that turns into a false grin, like he's going to try to make light of it; and finally a look that of 'oh no, not again' that would suit a bowl of petunias.

"Brought us for what?" He leans forwards a little in his John-and-laundry bundle, looking at Arthur very seriously despite the trouble his eyes are having focusing.

Charlie's starting to be little more lucid, so John decides that... perhaps he can speak now. But he's watching Charlie to make sure it doesn't send him reeling, not too far.

"We don't know," John says quietly, "but... I am not what I was, in this place. With a physical form comes... physical limitations. The need to eat. Sleep."

Edited 2025-04-08 19:01 (UTC)

"John's cranky he actually has to sleep now," Arthur says lightly, a gentle tease with a brief smirk, though it goes away all too quickly.

"Everyone who comes here - a lot of people had powers, of sorts. O-or they're from worlds with other kinds of magic, other... strangeness. But none of that matters here - everyone who gets dragged here can't use them anymore."

He glances back at John. "Maybe that's why John's body is so different. But it's- only a guess, really."

Noel's glad John spoke, even if it makes weird things happen in his limbic system. He wasn't sure exactly how to read the guy's silence other than as a shame, now that John can speak freely. And don't get him wrong, to hear John's voice is fucking strange, but for...

Hm. For two reasons. One's obvious and worse, and we don't need to talk about that one. The other is that when Noel heard John before, John himself, at the Order, he was fire and bellowing and magnificence; here he's quiet and gentle and -- now that Noel's lucid enough to think about things, he supposes this might be how John usually was, in Arthur's head, when Arthur was repeating his words as best he could, and that's strange as well but in a way that feels like a silver lining.

A silver lining and a strange place to anchor his feet. The King was bored by mothering. This would all have an edge of mockery to it, or else he wouldn't be existing in it, only moving through as if from one scene to another. Focus on that. Don't think about the similarities. Don't throw out two years of progress just because you nearly jumped off a fucking balcony. Be cool maybe.

...All the same, he's regained enough lucidity that he feels the need to stay a step ahead (of Arthur Lester? Jesus, no pressure), so, quickfire round:

1. At least he's not by his own fucking self this time!
1a. And they are both absolutely killing it re: adapting to a hostile and uncertain new world, can he just give that feedback.
2. For them it's been a month or more, but they remember a brother in arms that they knew for two bare days, the way a soldier would.
3. If they all had to suffer it anyway, he cannot think of two people he'd rather be kidnapped by an entity with. Weird as that might be, because again, two bare days.
4. Now that John's spoken, and done it so gently and carefully, Noel thinks he knows why he fell silent.

He listens to them quietly, and then he says "huh", and then he's quiet for a little bit longer because the ol' processor is still whirring on the slow side, and then he looks up (and up!) at John's face(?), and says like it's the most interesting thing in the world: "Found any recipes you like?"

Edited 2025-04-09 15:23 (UTC)

Arthur had gotten to feel it but here, now, he'll get to see it and so will Charlie: the way that focus on him takes his entire attention. How the whole world seems narrowed down to that moment, immediate and bright, and while Arthur can't feel that John's heart beats a little faster, Charlie might feel it even through the cloth.

His voice, when he speaks, is that same halting tone he'd had when Charlie had asked him how it felt. He's not used to people knowing or caring he exists, let alone caring what he thinks. Arthur is Arthur. And Arthur never... focused on him like this. They never much had the time.

"I... like the tea, actually. It's like I can taste the scent of the wind over the trees, green and dark, accented with something brighter, sharper; it's even better with a bit of sweetness. Sometimes I just like the feeling of it warm between my hands, the steam filling my senses." The tone had started to become reverent, and that continues. "It's dark now, but in the light, it's turns the water the pale gold of morning before gaining depth, richness, to look more like a sunset. It was the first thing I tried but I still... find myself fond of it."

Arthur has nothing to add to that. He can't even mind not being the centre of attention, when Charlie's working through something and John's getting attention - from someone that knows him, knew him before and knows just how much that fucking matters.

So he's... oddly content, of all things, and he lets them have their little moment, while instead he starts fussing with his bag, pulling out the clothes he grabbed for Charlie and reorganising everything else.

Charlie considers himself a pretty situationally aware sort of guy, but the intensity of John's attention throws a spotlight down on him that makes it hard to see anything else. John's new physical heartbeat is speeding up, and so is Charlie's because he has temporarily forgotten to breathe. He's pinned like a butterfly.

John's awe over tea is... unashamedly genuine. It reminds Charlie of the first cup of coffee he ever ordered in New York (it made him cry in a corner booth, from gratitude). John's ode to his beverage has more poetry, though (Charlie's mostly had snot). He can imagine the King stealing, coveting, displaying, inspiring, performing poetry, but not creating it. The King never sounded reverent about anything besides himself.

The pin hurts, but he's transfixed, and it doesn't occur to him to remove it. What a hell of an experience, to go from a being of ultimate power, to a pair of eyes and a nearly-silent voice, to something that needs to eat and sleep with the rest of the regular joes. Something maybe mortal, running with humans on their invisible timeline.

His throat reopens and he pulls in air, hoping it'll pass as a reaction to the cold (he's still shaking, still aching and swimming).

"It sounds real good," he says, warm, the syllables a little blurred. Not as smooth as the first conversation they had. Equally as focused. "That's... that sort of thing's important. Gonna appreciate it even more now, least when I manage to get some in me instead of all over me."

Edited 2025-04-10 08:25 (UTC)

"We'll work on that."

Gentle and wry and very fond. Just a little bit of a shit as well even as those golden eyes peer into Charlie's.

There's even a soft chuckle from Arthur as well.

"The fire here usually stays maintained, so when you're feeling alive again-" he picks up a jacket to flap it out a little. "Let's get you out of those goddamn robes and into something warm while we fix up the fire in our house."

Without a shadow of a doubt in his mind that Charlie would want to live anywhere else. Presumptuous? Sure. But this is the second time he's been sucked into another world and the first time he has friends there to anchor him, and he doubts the man wants to lose that do quickly.

"We're only a street or two over, so John can carry you there quickly as hell if you're too tired to walk."

Charlie isn't too stunned to feel like he's distinctly on the back foot. The feeling comes in the form of a horrible little alarm bell, only countered by the fond teasing in John's voice. The King's vocal cords. John's voice. Yin and fucking Yang.

Arthur's voice breaks the spell, and his presumption is 100% on the money. It feels as natural a suggestion as if they'd agreed on it beforehand. What the hell else would even make sense?

"Oh yeah," he says, more than readily, "use this fuckin' robe for kindling while you're at it." Charlie starts uncurling himself from the blanket to begin with -- slowly, but relieved to find that his fingers are starting to halfway almost grip again. He might make a crack about taking clothes off, except the hat thing didn't stick in his memory.

"Got any kinda timeline on when I should stop shaking? Getting pretty sick and tired of it." It's just chatter, pushing off exhaustion and anxiety with light words. "Think the fire here might be broken."

"I don't know," John admits, "...I found someone on the way in. He let me rest and warm up on the way to town, so I wasn't doing as badly when I got here. And-" a flickering glance at Arthur, because he hates this fact, "I wasn't there when Arthur came in."

He glances over at Arthur.

"...fire can be broken?"

Arthur can't help a short chuckle at John's befuddlement.

"It's a joke, John, he's just fucking cold." He holds out the jacket for Charlie so he can get his arms in the sleeves without having to muddle around with four pounds of lined wool. "Sorry, Charlie, it'll be a while longer yet. And I'm afraid we can't let you sleep until the worst of it dies down. But we'll get the fire, some tea, we'll bring the blankets down from the loft - you'll be back to normal before you know it."

While Charlie tends to keep his feelings in the basement, he's full of so much fondness and gratitude for these two at the moment that he can actually feel it lapping up the stairs.

John's befuddlement, like that of a child asking about the world, catches Charlie off guard and makes him grin genuinely as he struggles into the jacket. (It would be a lot harder without Arthur's help; everything seems to use all of his energy, and take forever.) They didn't tell him the manifestation of the fracture of a terrible deity was cute.

"Lucky me. And hot cocoa and marshmallows?"

Edited 2025-04-11 14:43 (UTC)

"Do we have those?" John asks immediately, because if he can get those, he will. He hasn't heard of them, or heard of someone having them, but he'll go ask around if it means making this less awful.

"Not in our house, no. Maybe there'll be some in another abandoned house that haven't gone completely moldy," he comments dryly, pulling a scarf from his pile and draping it around Charlie's neck. And then leaning up again to fix the knit cap that he hasn't managed to wiggle entirely out from underneath yet. "But we can get drag that tub out from the bathroom and stick it by the fireplace to keep warming you up, Charlie."

It's not much; it's certainly not hot cocoa and privacy. But it's keeping him warm, which is keeping him alive, so Arthur will take whatever wins he can get.

"Heaven."

Charlie's got a strange relationship with privacy these days, after ten years both alone and not and constantly observed. The privacy he worries about is privacy inside his own head; physical privacy is a distant enough second that he sees no reason for it to get in the way of a good hot bath. He wraps the scarf more thoroughly around himself, willing it to warm up and warm him up in turn. How come he's in the middle of this pile of clothes and arms and fire and still shaking with fucking cold, that's what he'd like to take up with God right now.

Arthur's choice of venue for where they might get marshmallows is... notable. Abandoned house. Huh. He doesn't like the sound of it.

"You, uh, get banned from the grocer's or what?" he says, misgivings on his face.

~~Look, God's a little broken up right now...~~

John, for his part, looks over to Arthur. He knows about grocers, sure, but they're certainly not a major component of how the world works in his experience. How do they want to break the reality of Milton, etc. to Charlie?

Well he'd been hoping to save this until Charlie was a little more present, but if he's coherent enough to question it now it might well be the best time they'll get.

"We have one, but right now someone's using it as their own home base," he comments ruefully, shifting to sit slightly closer to the fire, so he's facing Charlie more head-on. "Look, this town we've landed in, Milton - there's no power here. And no access to the greater world, between the mines, the forests, t-the mountains around us - it's just us, all the people that've been brought here. The only supplies we have are the ones we can make, o-or salvage. Food is, er." His mouth tightens, but he takes a breath and continues easily enough, "It's whatever we can hunt, or gather for ourselves. So things tend to be... limited, across the board."

He's coherent enough to ask, but it's still uphill work to take all of that in, and even more if he wants to turn it over in his head, think through the implications. And he does want to, just. Give him a minute.

Food, or more precisely the way Arthur says it and the way he looks while saying it, is the part he understands immediately and reacts to with the most definition. His eyes unglaze for the time it takes Arthur to explain, and his face is frozen. Then he covers it with an exhausted sort of rueful grin. As if he's been trudging uphill instead of just sitting talking, the strength drains out of his body, and he gives up the work of staying upright completely to John again for a bit. His eyes are faintly crossed and heavily blinking.

"Alright. Alright, that's... alright."

Could be worse! Could be worse! Could be worse!

That response is... Not. Great. John picks up the slack, keeping Charlie upright and close, keeping his tentacles combined into something that looks like a claw, and he doesn't say anything for a long moment. Finally-

"We do all right. I'll show you all the food we've had. It's... It's good. It's new, for me, but it's still good."

"It's okay, Charlie," he says gently, leaning in to grip his friend's forearm lightly. "It- it's fish, mostly, my friend Konstantin and I go fishing nearly every other day. Some of the others trap rabbits, o-or birds, people are trying to raise chickens - occasionally people even bring down deer or a moose, so we have red meat for a while."

He tries to give an encouraging smile. "Sometimes it's just scarce, that's all. But we're doing alright for now, a-and we've got some aside for when things get tight again."

"I ain't worried," he lies. Livestock is good. Fishing and game is good. Arthur hasn't exactly put on weight but the two of them aren't visibly dying of hunger. There are beds for the infirm and a communal fire. Nobody's tearing each other apart over scraps, at least not in his current eyeline.

"I'm just fuckin' tired." This is not a lie. He's half convinced the shaking is going to kill him before the cold would've.

It feels a lot more stable when they're touching him, one hand on his arm and two propping him up.

"You should focus on healing," he says, only a little grumpy. It's not at anyone, just at Charlie feeling poorly, Charlie being in a bad state. He doesn't like it. It makes him feel like a failure. "Resting. Recovering from the cold and the blood loss. We can talk about... how to handle everything later."

"There's nothing for blood loss except proper rest and maybe red meat, to get the iron back," he says idly, grabbing a dislodged blanket with one hand to try and drape it around Charlie's shoulders again. "But we'll get you back to temperature again in no time, a-and some hot food in you to help."

He looks back at John. "D'you think you can get him home soon? Straight up to the loft, keep him rugged up while I get the fire and a bath started."

Again, there's something settling about being manhandled but not hurt: hands fussing at him and hands supporting him and hands of exhaustion gently but insistently pulling him backwards. John's voice rumbling around him and Arthur's voice chattering to them both and if the first one makes him shake harder now that he's starting to float in earnest again, it's hard to even tell when his insides still feel like a block of ice despite the burning and sweat on his skin.

He sees himself beside himself, shouting mutely at himself to stay awake, but sadly that guy doesn't always call the shots.

He says something like "chickens take the cold well," more specifically chiiiins tay the coh weh, eyes closed, head sunk, breathing laboured, going, going.

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