Eric did not like the idea of going to Selvadorada very much, but Peter really wanted to.
Eric did not know why Peter really wanted to.
Wait, he did, it was because Peter wanted to find alexandrite in Selvadorada.
Eric does not want to go to Selvadorada, but maybe it will be okay? Tae-hwan will be there.
Eric is in love with Tae-hwan. He hopes they can get married soon.
Peter books them tickets and finds somewhere for them to stay in Selvadorada.
Lucas is very rich, and he does not want his grandsons and their friends to be uncomfortable.
Eric thinks Peter is a funny little guy.
Eric is very fond of Peter. They're very close friends.
Eric thinks Peter is very hot, and likes having sex with him. He will tell Peter as much.
Peter is flattered and turned on! Peter suggests that they have sex, and invites Zach and Tae-hwan.
Eric has decided that he hates plane trips. He feels very uncomfortable and tired and hungry and cranky, even though they flew first class.
Peter drinks a vial of his potion of Plentiful Needs.
Peter offers Eric a vial. Peter says that it will help with the feelings of discomfort after the flight.
Eric does not like the potion of Plentiful Needs. It messes with his sleep schedule. However, his sleep schedule is already fucked, so he might as well.
Oh wow! That was very good! Eric is glad he took that potion. He is slightly more fond of Peter now, or he would be, if he weren't at maximum fondness for Peter already.
Zach has a vial of potion, too. He seems to feel much better after drinking it.
Peter is occasionally upset for no apparent reason. This is confusing to Eric, because Eric is Observant and therefore he knows that Peter is not Erratic, even though Peter occasionally behaves Erratically.
Peter is a confusing person. Peter acts in ways other people don't. This is confusing to Eric, because Eric is Observant and therefore he knows that Peter is not Eccentric, even though Peter occasionally behaves Eccentrically.
Peter would like to lead the way to their vacation rental so that they can get started on their Goal.
Peter has many ambitions. This is confusing to Eric, because Eric is Observant and therefore he knows that Peter is not Ambitious, even though Peter often behaves ambitiously.
Eric is often confused around Peter. This makes his fondness for Peter decrease a little bit sometimes, but only a little bit, because Peter is nice to him. Besides, Peter is Good and Active, both of which are very good traits that Eric likes in a person, and so Eric likes Peter.
When they arrive at the rental, Peter walks into it and walks into every room in it for some reason. Once he is done with that, he asks if everyone would like to take a cab down to the village for supplies. Peter says that they will need supplies to go to the jungle.
Peter says furthermore that h̶͑͜e̵̥̓ ̶̲͙̽͝ì̶̼͔̋s̵̡̗̔͋ ̶̨̱̹̇s̸̫̻͙̏̀t̶̼̞̉̒i̸̲̗̻͗͂l̷̗͗́l̷͇̹̂̋̈́ confused ă̸͍̻̌b̸̢̯̝̽o̶̩̻͆̓͝ù̴̡̻͈͓͝͠t̷̻̟͓́̄̀̔ ̷̢̬̤̝̜͝w̵̨̙͕͙̳̓h̷̟̩͌̽y̸̳̹͍͕̋͜ ̸̩̇ḯ̶̗̩͗̒̕t̶̢̨͙̹͔͓̀ ̸̯̼̦͍͍̓̃͜i̴̦̜̩̍̓͆͋͘͘ş̶̨̫̱͓͗͌̐̿̌̅͝ ̵͓̲͗͑͌́̆̀͋̚ţ̷̞͎̜̪͔̩͔̋́̍̄ḩ̶̟̙̠̟͖͐̈̈́̒̕à̴̠͓̦̜̺̯͜t̷̨̨̢̨͇̖̎͊̓̃̕ ̷͍̞̗̻͈̒̐̔͛̿̋̕͝ṅ̸̡͎̺̦̙̌͜o̴̧͕̰̥̦̠̊̓̽͛̆͑̂͂ͅ ̶̢͇̟̭̲͎͔̍͜͝͝o̴͇̐͛̀̂͐̒̀͘n̷̺̤̻̺̥̬̹̦̺̝̑͑̃̏̂͠e̵̯̼͍̠͉̹̓̐̒͆̓̇͠ ̴͙͙̺̟̏ͅs̶̟͖͈̳̺̮̙̠̔͌͘͝ě̴͖̥̥̪̻̦́ȅ̶̢̧̱̘̩̰͙̖̲̼̜̀̈́̒̈́̏̍̅͂m̴̹̻͑͆̄̇͛̌̾̊s̸̫̝̗͋̌̇ ̶͈̰̰͖͙̟̪̞̄̀̋͊̒͌̾̕͝͝t̷̛̞͚̰̻̲̬̲͕̣̋̔̏̈́̏̓̿́͌͘̚ọ̴̡̐́̓͒͆͜ ̷̰̥̰̞̙̦̘̯̑̾h̵̡̢̦͇̘̤̯̻͔͔̣̫͂͋̃̾͑͘a̸̫͙͖̘͓̪̟͙͓͉̿͛́v̴̛͙͉̈̈́̑̏́̍̓̓̉͝è̸̛͚̩̾̀́́̇̈̏̅̿͝͝ ̵̧̦̱͈̰̘̦̰̄͒̀̂̈ą̸̢͇̥̼̬̻̞̲̗̯̲̜͖̄͌͋͒̾̅̆͂̋̌͛͂̀͝ǹ̵̟͚̳̂́̇̌̽͛́̈́̍̑͛͜͜͝ͅy̸̧̬̻͎̘͓͉̩̞̯̗̆̏̐ alexandrite a̸͚͖̿̓͒̔̍̊̈́̐̽͆̄͘͠͝͝n̵̺̦̞̼̂d̴̛̝̖̍͌̒͌͆͂̒͛̂̚ ̸̨͍͙̲̠͖̻͈̤̞̳̙̟̓̃̋̂̈́͆͗͘š̴̰̞̃͂͌ǫ̶̞̜̱̊̎̊̂͠ ̸̧̣̫͉̞̜̜͑̐̀̂͒̿̕͝ͅḩ̵̛͚͕̫̟̰̬̘̘̩̈́̔͗̃͑̑͛̓͊̒̏̾̾̕͝ͅë̷̼̟̙̺̭͈̺͚̳̼͔̖̗̜́̀́̋͘͜ͅ ̴̛̛̯̱̽̈́͑̉̅̋̑̌̃̋̓͑̒͝͝w̴̬̳̩̜̻̣̃̀̌a̴̢̢͍͇̪̯͉͇̱̟̼̝͎͖̖̞̒̐̅̓͂̎ͅͅņ̶̨̠̦͙̰̜̥̣̮̰̠̳̳̩̬̃̆̾̓͂͊͊̌̓͆̀̌̅̚ͅţ̶̛̛̪̟̺̜̉͗̏̈͌̂̉͆̇̚͘͠ṡ̶̢͍̠̱̯̜̏ ̶̪̈͌̋͝t̴̠̿̿͑̈́͌̃̈͒͑̀̿̀̕͝o̸̡͖̲̦̪̰̰̫͒̓̒̌͂͆̓̋̑͊̄̎̔̚͝ ask around a̸̡̩̫̳̺̖̼͕̜̝͓̝̜̩͔͔͆͂̈́ͅņ̴̧̱̥͍̱̱̼̬̤̞͆̍̃̾̅̽̕d̸̻̞͎͍̬͓͔̺̝͙̘̈́͒́̅́̌͜ ̵̨̨̱̲̰̝͇͚̫̲̫̈̉̊͛̀̓̽̀̎s̴͖̥̻͈̜͇͇͔̩̻̻̫̎̍̕͜͜e̸̡̨̨͇̩̭̫̝͙̝͉̞͈͙̳̪̯̣̙͈̘͒́͌̒͌̀̕͝e̸̡̫̝̥̱̠̫̜͉͔̬̘̩̖͓͚̎̕ͅ ̵̨̛̛̱̘̦̠̟̯̞̱̝̝̘̞̮̔̈́̊̏͊̽̓͆̌̀̅͘į̵̨͈̞͔̰̭̹͔̖̗̦̼̼͓̹̒̆̏̈́̿̂͊̑̕͜͝ͅf̶̥̳̦͙̯̪͛͌̏̿̀̀̾̊̾͋̎́́̏͒͠͝ͅ ̶̡̛̛̙̳̗̱̝̞̗͔̙͔͇̝̇̓͂͘͝͝ͅa̵̢̫̰͒̆̒̃̎͋͆̈̌̓̓̉̋́n̸̨̯̘̟̥̺̱͊͌ÿ̵̲̤̲̼̳̯̺͉̘́͑͗ ̸̬̹̱͚̫͛l̴̢͍̱̩̜̼̫̫͈̱̤̰̈̈́̈͑̃̋̂̎̇̈́o̷̱̘̖̫͆̒̑̔̆̃̚͝͝c̵̠͍͖̬͎̩̣̈́̔͐̌̅͋̏̈̈́̒̀̀̂́̒ą̶̧̣̥͍͓̲͔̥̺͔̮̤͓͎͓͈͖̣̙͉͋̊̈̍̍͊͂̅͆̊̀̍̊̉́͗́̚̕͝͝͝ḻ̷̨̛̛̯̰̙̠͚̭̰̟͈̪͚͇̯͔͈̘̘̓̈́̓̌̀̓͑̈̀͗͗̋̓̈̔͐͋̏̔͜͝s̶̠̱̤͉̭̜̳̹͙̜̥̖̿͂̇̒̋̕͠ ̴̫̹̩͖͈͛̄̎̽͑͋̏̊̆̊͘͜͝w̶̡̞̰͂̎̄̓̓̚i̴̝̪̰̲̻͉͖̿̅͛͊͝l̴̨̧̺͙̫̮̜̫͒̊̍̉͂͂͑̊̅̇̈́̏̂̕̕̚l̴̢̲͕͙̥̥͚͔̗̮̯̬̻̥͙̱̀̽͗͗̀͆̽̔͆̐̿͌̉͌̑̋̆̑̋̕͘͝͝ͅ ̸̨̛̛̲̻͉͎̥̭̝̺͖͈̱̣͇͍͙̥͈͔͎̲͎͙̆̓̃͛͌́̑̐̈́͐̒̐͂̄̅͠ḧ̷̨̨͚͔̥̖̭͙̦̤̭̟̝̠̬̩́̓͐̏͋͗̚͝ͅa̶̹̤̬͚͉̗͙̰͙̹̣̞͆̔̀́̍̿͊̃̍̀̓́̐̾̚̚̕͠v̶̨̨̛̛̛͔̻̠̪̲͔̟͖̺̟̦͗́͛̐̅͋̂̍̅̒̀͘̕͜͜͠͝ͅe̴̙̦͕̤̯̻̳̳͔̥̱͎̟̖̦͇̬̱̭͆͐̌̿͋̃̐̐̇̉͒͋̈̊̓̑̔̐͛͑͘͜͠͝ ̶̢̺̮̗̟͍͈̯͎̺̇͛̌̄̓̃͛̊̑̇͐̈̀͛̚͝͝ä̴͙̞́͑͗̈́̿̃̒̉̿̿̑̍̈͂̃̚͝ñ̷͈̲͕̮̂͌̀̂̔̾̓̈́̀̉̎̋̾̒͗̓͐̾̽̾̓͜͠͠y̶͕̯͕̬̗̖̲̠̱̱̮̲̜̝̠̩͇̎̔̎͂͗̓̀̅̎̽̽̐̓̄̑̔̈́̑̔́́͘͘̕͜ ̶̡͓̺̖͓͉̹͔̹̣̱͕̳̩̤͕͎̣͔͑͒̌̃̎̓̋́̌̍̒̃̔̑̀̿̐̌͊͘̚͜͝ì̷̳͙̣̠̫͎̪̫͈̊͑̈́̃̓̎͑͌͛̂́̊̎̑̆̂͐̋̉̔̈́̕͝ͅd̵̼̝̦̱͆͑̔̈̽̽͌͑͛̀͝ę̷̥͖̮̳̠̺̼̠͂̈͝a̸̢̡̡̡̢͍̳̭̱̬͇̖̤͖̟̬͔̗̟̿̈́͛͛̅̇͌̏̍̋̂͒͛͊̚ͅͅ ̵̛͖̙̦͚́͛̄̈̉̒̔͌̋̆̅͂̈̄͐̇͋̏́͘̕͝͝ͅa̵͉̮͍̾b̶̡̡̨̞̮̪͙̗͚̜̺̤͖͓̼̺̙̳̑͌́o̷̧̘͓̪̣̙̼̜͔̪̲͙͍͙̭̼͋͊͆̈̅̎̂̑̀́́̀̕͜͠ũ̴͚͈̟̱̜͖͈̪͈͕̟̟͙̪̂̐̉͂̑͗̍̄͐̚͜͠͝t̵̛̫͍̞͂̀̈́̀̽̉̏͌̓͌̇̓̍͛̈́̄̆̑̃͑̃͘̚͝ what the fuck is up with ̸̢͓̠͉̣̮̳̥̫̖̩͔̤͍̳̭͉͗̑̒͒͛̓̌̆̈́̊̉̀̃̓͊̈́̀̽͒͋̏̎̇͝͝͠t̷̡͓̻͖̥̲̞͉̺͇̼̝̬͖̫͎̙̰̠̤͎̑̄́̓͑̓́́̾̕h̵̡̢̛͔̲͍͓̝̳̭̪̹̙̤̤̗̳͔̯̲̳͚͑̍͐̂̓̓̄̈̒̃̐̃̏̎̓̕̚̕͠ͅä̶̡̨͖̗͈̠̖̣̗̞̜͚̭̜̗͖͎͓̝͉͕̝̰́̑̈̐͜ͅt̷̛͚͕̣̥̬̤̣̻̖̣̜̫̤̰̼̝̖̪̏̀͋̉̔̂͋̅̈́̾̔͛̉͒͝͝͠.
Peter is being confusing, and furthermore upsetting to Tae-hwan.
Eric is slightly less fond of Peter now.
Eric is confused. Eric is confused in a way he does not know how to deal with.
Eric thinks this has happened a lot recently, but he is not sure.
Eric is confused. Eric is confused in a way he does not know how to deal with.
Eric thinks this has happened a lot recently, but he is not sure.
Peter asks many people many things while at the village.
Peter acts in his characteristically confusing way, though he is less confusing than he usually is. He talks to many people about many things. The topic of alexandrite and the jungle comes up a lot.
Some things the locals say seem to upset Peter for some inscrutable reason, but that is characteristic of him, even though he is not Erratic.
Eric is not sure what it means for something to be characteristic of someone if he cannot think what the characteristic is. It makes Eric confused, but curious. Eric wants to know what the characteristic is.
Eric is Nosy. Eric knew this, already. Eric sometimes finds it funny to notice that he is being Nosy.
It does not stop him.
Peter wants to spend a long time in the village. He has many conversations with many people. The locals find him less confusing than most people do, probably because he is saying things in a less confusing manner. He seems to be improving at the skill of Communication.
Even though the skill of Communication should have been mastered already...
Peter wants to eat local food, and to have a lot of conversations about local culture. Sometimes people are offended by Peter, but then he says some confusing things and waits a little bit and they stop being offended.
Peter is a very Charismatic person.
When Zach is Charismatic, he is Charismatic in understandable ways. It is very confusing that Peter is so Charismatic when he acts in confusing ways, but Eric has observed this before, he thinks.
Eric is right, Peter is confusingly charismatic! Zach thinks Peter is fun. Zach is very fond of Peter.
Tae-hwan is also very fond of Peter! Tae-hwan is curious about why they are talking about Peter behind his back.
After a very long time, Peter decides he has talked to enough people and says that they should go exploring tomorrow. He seems displeased by this.
That is understandable, because the outdoors are uncomfortable and this place is very wet.
Peter interrupts their conversation to ask if they want to eat dinner together before returning to the rental. He looks mildly upset.
It has been two days, and Eric is very uncomfortable.
Eric was bitten by electric mosquitos, lost a shoe to quicksand, was chased by a snake, hurt his hand in brambles, and was mocked by a sloth. It is too warm, and it has rained, and Eric got wet.
Eric is feeling very cranky right now and wishes he were home.
Peter is also uncomfortable and upset and cranky. He is still doing the thing he said he wanted to do despite that. He seems to be doing it way past the level at which most other people would have stopped.
Zachary is also confused, but on the other hand he is having a ton of fun! He fought with a snake, pet a panther, dodged plasma-drinking bats, and found a mystical ancient artefact deep in the jungle!
Tae-hwan is having a ton of fun, too! He helped Zachary fight that snake, and he swung on some jungle vines, and he had to be saved from quicksand by the other three!
Eric thinks they are madmen, Peter included. It was Peter's idea. Eric is feeling slightly unfond of Peter right now.
Peter is not fast enough to prevent Tae-hwan from missing his jump and plummeting to his death down that gap.
"No you fucking idiot oh my fucking God—" Peter spins in the air so that he's wearing a backpack that has his flying broomstick in it, pulls the broomstick out, then spins out of the backpack and climbs onto his broomstick to fly down the ravine.
"Peter! Tae-hwan!" Zachary calls, looking over the edge of the ravine fearfully.
Peter is visible from where Eric and Zachary are standing. He is on his broomstick worrying over Tae-hwan's lifeless, broken body, and looking around anxiously.
There is a sound like a funeral march, a cacophonous clang of organ keys and a cello, and the Grim Reaper appears in a puff of smoke nearby, though he is mostly obscured by trees from where Eric is standing.
He starts slowly gliding towards Tae-hwan's body.
They can't reach him. Tae-hwan is dead down there, and Alexei is about to reap him, and they can't even beg for his life.
Alexei is Eric's twin, he would surely listen to Eric if Eric begged, but Eric is here, and Alexei is there.
After Peter is done with his plea, Alexei writes it down into his tablet then resumes gliding towards Tae-hwan's body.
This can't be happening. This can't be happening. Why is this happening. Tae-hwan can't die. His Tae-hwan. They were going to get married. His Tae-hwan. He can't die. He can't...
But it's too late. The Grim Reaper is already establishing a connection to Tae-hwan's soul and extracting it from his body.
"It is too late for him now. He has already departed," says the Grim Reaper, although "says" might be too generous a word for that that is. He emits some sounds that could maybe be words, but they're not words he's familiar with, and also it doesn't sound like it's a Sim's voice saying it, as opposed to a combination of percussive instruments being played from the bottom of a crypt. Eric can understand him anyway.
"No it's not you dunderhead, if nothing else he can just be a fucking ghost."
(What?)
From the way he is materializing from within the lightshow between Alexei's hand and his body it does seem like he so wishes. "Oh I'm a ghost. Wicked!"
"I guess fucking not. ...sorry, Alexei, I know you're just doing your job."
He waves a hand dismissively. "I am used to the distress of the loved ones of the deceased. You have nothing to apologize for." Then he clears his throat and switches to a normal Sim's voice to ask, "But, uh, do we know each other?"
"Oh. Uh. Not exactly. I'm a friend of Zach's, I was at your wedding but we never really talked. I'm Peter."
"Oh." He pulls his hood down, going from skull to Sim. "You're Peter. I see. Nice to meet you, Peter. Zach likes you a lot."
"Uh, yeah, nice to meet you, too." He looks a bit shaken. "Anyway I don't, uh, want to keep you, you're probably busy?"
"I am." He pulls his hood back up then slams the ground with the butt of his scythe and vanishes in the same smoke and music that announced his arrival.
Eric is feeling very, very, very confused right now.
He thinks he's been feeling very confused for a very long time. Thinking on it, though, that cannot possibly be true, because the source of his confusion has always been Peter, and they've known each other for not even two weeks yet, and two weeks is not a very long time at all.
He'll... think about that later. "Tae-hwan? How are you feeling?"
"You died, you dumbass. Scared the living shit out of me. You have a fiancé!" He gestures at Eric. "Did you think about him for a second before you decided to up and fucking die?"
"...oh." He looks at Eric then looks away, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "Um. Sorry, Eric. Don't be sad? I'm okay."
"You know what, Tae-hwan, yes, I would like a hug, that would improve things right now. Can you hug me away from your b—that's an urn now."
Peter looks at the urn with an uncomfortable look on his face. "Should we, like... tell Zach Tae-hwan's okay? Oh by the way Tae-hwan if you want you can fly up to where Zach is right now."
"You can Transportalate up, right? I'll wait for you there." He grabs the urn then up onto his broomstick and up again.
"...hey can we go back to the rental? I'm kind of over today. And I need to talk to Peter."
"Yeah, if he becomes less he can ride on my broomstick, he won't be heavy."
"Cool. I'll wait for you guys there." And he Transportalates back to the rental.
Nope. He's got nothing. He is going to wait until Peter arrives and ask Peter to explain in small words what, exactly, the fuck, so that he will know what to feel. Something just happened, something just changed, in, in, in the whole entire world or in him and he does not know what to do about any of that.
Also Zach and Eric have been chatting to each other for a bit about nothing in particular, since Zach can also Transportalate and arrived right after Eric did.
...why... can't Eric... remember what he just talked to Zach about.
Why can't he remember why he decided to come on this horrible trip? Or at least why he didn't complain more? This seems extremely unlike him? He's at least Scruberoo'd himself so he no longer feels like there are leeches attached to every inch of his skin but this place sucks it's so humid and hot and the rental doesn't have fucking air conditioning.
"Peter, can we talk."
"I don't know! Maybe! Hey Zach, Tae-hwan, do you guys wanna try having ghost sex with each other over there while Peter and I talk?"
Why did that work. Why did he know it was going to work.
"Let's go outside in that pool, it's too hot and at least I get to be naked and mostly underwater."
"Ugh it's so fucking stupid of me to keep hoping, obviously not, it's never true—"
"No, hold on, what? Time out. What does that mean? What else would I be if not a person?"
He wobbles in place and starts blinking several times in a row. "Hey, Venk?"
"Eric you're acting really uncharacteristically right now and whenever I say very long sentences like this other people keep getting confused so I am going to just keep making this sentence longer and longer and adding more subclauses because, like, if it turns out you actually are a person then you'll understand it all, probably, even though it's a bit of a run-on sentence, and I don't want to live in false hope here, does any of that make sense, please say yes, please say I didn't start sounding like I was talking gibberish in the middle there?"
"...I think I followed your entire sentence, yes. It was a pretty long sentence. Why did you just say a very long sentence to me, Peter, I am extremely confused right now and I feel like I need an explanation but I don't even know what question I should be asking?"
"God is some person or something and their name keeps popping up in my head whenever I'm freaking out or, like, I don't even know how to explain, man, it's like I'm swearing by their name or something.
"Sorry, I. Can you give me a hug? I just. I've only existed for three weeks but I've been kind of lonely in these three weeks and I'd really like a hug."
"...yes, Peter, of course I can give you a hug," he says, bemusedly paddling over to Peter to give him said hug. "I'll want a followup on that 'I've only existed for three weeks' thing, though."
"You have conversational topic permanence! You remember things that were in a previous part of a conversation!"
He opens his mouth to ask something, probably "Yes, obviously?", except he's, uh. Not sure it's obvious, actually.
He holds onto Eric for half a minute then takes a deep breath and releases the hug. "Okay. Not crying, I think. Probably. I'm fine, probably. I'll be fine."
"Good! That's good! —sorry, I don't want to be a jackass. It seems like you're going through some stuff and I wish I could help you but I'm kind of really confused about what exactly is happening right now or why you're going through some stuff or what that stuff is. But I don't want to make this be about myself."
"No, please make this be about yourself, that's exactly what I need right now. Um." He paddles over to the shallow steps that lead out of the pool so he can sit there while still submerged to his neck. "Um. I don't really know how to explain it to you if it didn't become, like... immediately obvious... Okay no I do.
"Most people—everyone but me, up until now—can't hold what I consider to be basic conversation. Conversation like this. Add too many sentences, too many connected clauses, too many steps of inference, and they get lost. They forget what happened earlier in the conversation. You can ask, 'do you like butterflies?', and then say a few more unrelated things, and then ask the exact same thing again, and they'll give you a very similar answer and not notice that that's a weird thing to do at all.
"It... is a weird thing to do, right?"
"...from your description it sounds weird but, uh, maybe I'm not imagining it right..."
"Okay, well, I don't have any particular feeling towards butterflies except I don't like bugs in general."
"I know! It is! And yet! No one notices it! You didn't notice it when I tried it on you!"
"I think I'd remember if you were acting batshit insane on my birthday, Peter."
"Y—" He stops and tries to think back on his birthday. On... any... interactions he had.
He had interactions, right? He must've? He knows that's when he met Peter, and Tae-hwan. But, uh...
"I am not any less confused now, Peter! You're falling down on your job of making me understand what the fuck!"
"As I was saying, 'what the fuck' is that most people are—weird. I guess, maybe try to think about how your day was going today? Up until Tae-hwan, uh, died, since that seems to be what triggered you. But before that, try to maybe remember any individual conversations you had, or introspect on your thoughts and feelings?"
"I'd love to do that for you Peter but apparently I literally cannot think of any details about my day whatsoever."
"Do you know the names of Tae-hwan's parents? Do you know if he has siblings? Do you know any friends of his from before university?"
Eric is going to chalk up his annoyance at this method of explanation to him being confused and cranky.
Also, he'll think about the answer. "No. But we've only known each other a couple of weeks..."
"I asked him point blank. As far as I can tell, he does not have parents, or a family, or any proof that he existed prior to three Sundays ago. He has memories of having had them, vague ones just like the ones you have of your own life but without names attached, and if you prod too much he gets annoyed and wants to change the subject. He doesn't have any social media activity from before three weeks ago, doesn't have a prior address, nothing.
"I don't either. My memories are convinced I have parents and two younger siblings but I cannot recall any details about them. And the difference between Tae-hwan and me is that when I began existing I was already—like this. Awake, I guess. I don't know why.
"And we're not the only ones who began existing out of nowhere, either. It's not most people but it's actually a lot of people. I didn't check very deeply because I only realised it spread farther than just me last Saturday and didn't have time to ask a lot of people, but the people I asked down in the village seemed to have a similar distribution of having come to existence recently as the people in the frat."
"Okay no turns out I need to speak aloud to think through stuff. So everyone you've met acts like—how I used to act—and also separately some people just kinda come to existence out of nowhere with fake memories suggesting that they at some point had a family. And you're one of the latter but for some reason you don't understand you're not one of the former. And now neither am I."
"I mean it's fucked but not in a, like, incomprehensible way. It's a pretty straightforward type of being fucked."
"Doing wh—oh." He laughs. "Oh I guess I did get into some kind of antisocial habits didn't I, sorry. Uh, how much do you remember about what it feels like to... go places. Like, far away places. Not necessarily super far away but, you know, taking a cab from the rental to the village."
"...if there's something really obvious I should be remembering, I don't."
"It seems to me that the world is not a nice mostly-spherical object floating in space but rather a set of disjoint bubbles of reality that pretend to have approximate locations with respect to each other but which are separated by undefinable patches of unreality. By which I mean that if you want to go somewhere in a different bubble of reality you will experience a time skip, a vague sensation of nonspecific memories of having crossed the distance will be downloaded directly into your brain, and you will be in your destination, but you will not actually experience the process of traversing that space. And if you try, reality gets—wrong. Very, very wrong."
"You know, for a minute there I thought you were only very confusing because I didn't use to be able to remember the starts of sentences but even now that I do you still talk in confusing ways."
"Oh I don't think I'd have bothered to pay attention to what you were saying if you didn't look pretty while saying it, don't you worry."
"Anyway I don't understand what you mean by the reality bubbles thing but I'm sure I'll have time to experience it firsthand. Any other big things I'm missing?"
"The right answer is that it isn't, because you're a powerful spellcaster and we're friends and so I'm definitely sharing my potion of Rejuvenation once I have any, but absent that it would have been about twelve weeks, ish."
"You'd know better than me! Apparently you already died once, of old age even!"
"How are you only realizing this now, you were the one who told me???? —okay I guess it was Zach actually but."
"I mean, I knew but I didn't, like, know? It never came up? I never thought about it? But it's a huge fucking deal?"
"Do you remember that you're Alexei's twin? And that Zach is Alexei's ex-husband James? Dead husband, I guess."
"It was actually very funny that both of you knew how you were related to Alexei but you didn't understand what that meant about your relationship with each other beyond 'we were friends' even after I told you!"
Eric lowers himself until the water is up to just below his eyes and huffs bubbles out.
"Now that you're possessed of regular thinking abilities can you shed some more light on what the fuck?"
"I'd love to," he bubbles, then humpfs and tilts his head back so his mouth is abovewater to repeat that. "But I don't really remember a ton? Like, even less than I remember everything else about my life."
"I think I spent my entire life as an elder in Sulani going to the beach and drinking mimosas? And mimosas are great, don't get me wrong, but I didn't... do anything."
"Zach, probably. Even back then he was a lot more interesting. I think he rubbed off on me."
"That's just weird! It's so weird! Like if I think about fucking Alexei that's, ew, no, but Zach is different somehow, but I definitely didn't fuck James back then—argh."
"...I had this—intuition—that it would be really weird and wrong? But you two seemed to not mind it? And it was really hot so I convinced myself it was fine but if you say it wasn't fine I'm gonna feel really guilty now."
"No it's—probably fine..." Eric feels like his brain is full of cobwebs right now. "It's just weird. It's so weird!"
"Let's talk about something else! Life expectancy, oh boy I am so glad I'm a powerful spellcaster and don't need to worry about growing old!"
"...right. That's why we came here... In hindsight I guess I agree probably it was a good idea but I hate it here. ...wait, actually, why didn't you just buy it online?"
Peter bonks his forehead on the edge of the pool. "If I could've found it online I would've! Trust me!"
"But I mean, how hard did you look, it makes no sense that you'd need to hiking in the Belomisian Jungle to get a random shiny rock..."
"I'm so glad you're able to retain memories now but I need to wallow a little bit in being bitter that you don't remember me saying exactly the same thing to you three days ago."
"I... remember you being conflicted about coming... But I don't think I retained the reason why."
"Well, yes, it's insane that it's necessary, but I think it is, for a kind of... unconfirmed hypothesis of mine. I think that alexandrite is rare because alexandrite is rare."
"...okay?" That sounded like he had something else he wanted to get into.
"I just—I need to know what happened. What made you—flip. How did it happen? I was starting to think I was definitely the only one but if it happened to someone else within three weeks of me then maybe it'll be happening a lot more..."
"It seemed to be because Tae-hwan died? But it can't just be because you're so in love with him, people lose loved ones all the time?"
Man, is he so in love with Tae-hwan? He's—definitely very fond of Tae-hwan, but—saying that he's in love is...
...he'll think about that later because hooo boy that'll be its own can of worms.
"I, uh... I was really upset, yeah, but..."
"...it just felt like something didn't make sense. Like it was incorrect that... Tae-hwan had fallen down that hole and was dead, and then suddenly you weren't there and you were instead where Tae-hwan was, and..." What was he feeling? What was he thinking? He mostly wasn't, the entire day, his entire life, is just fog, it has no detail and no resolution. But, "I was confused. You were very confusing, that was the thing I felt most often about you, was that you were a confusing person. You didn't act the way I expected you to act. And something about that whole—thing—was confusing in the same way."
"The... thing that was happening was confusing? Like, confusing confusing or like, I can't imagine a world without Tae-hwan in it confusing, or?"
"Confusing confusing, like, there was something that should be happening and it wasn't what was happening and I didn't understand why and I didn't know what to do about what was happening instead? I think?"
"I think so. Like, not just you, but I was definitely confused by you. By how you... got there. And why I couldn't. And just, what you were doing."
"Well that's... less reassuring. I don't want to personally need to be the catalyst of other people becoming people."
"Well, maybe it won't need to be you personally, maybe anyone who's like us could do it."
"CANNONBALL!" cries out Zachary, teleporting into the air above the pool to drop into it.
"No wait now I'm curious, too." It's suddenly clicking to Eric that probably a lot of the times Peter sounded like that it was because he wanted to say something more complicated than what he actually said and what he thought people could understand.
Eric is... starting to understand why Peter felt so lonely.
"—there's a magic bog in Ravenwood that can turn you into a ghost for a bit. I tried that out a couple of weeks ago when I was worried about how little time I had left to live. And anyway Tae-hwan and I had sex back then, me as a ghost, him as a living person, and now Tae-hwan's had the opposite experience, so I was wondering what it'd feel like, but..."
"I'm gonna be kind of bad company over the next half hour. You'll probably see what I mean, I don't think I have a good way to explain it rather than just show it."
What is he on about now. "Okay, sure, I can deal with you being bad company for half an hour."
Zach swims over to Eric and leans back against the edge of the pool. "Simoleon for your thoughts?"
He is going insane.
"Zach, I don't think humorous exaggeration rises to the level of 'prank'."
"I would dearly appreciate an explanation of what exactly it is you're trying to show me when your time is up in half an hour."
"Peter if you somehow became like them and left me all alone I am going to chuck you off a mountain, just so you know."
"You just never told me about your family." He can't believe he's actually doing this.
Peter had fucking better get back to normal in half an hour or Eric really will chuck him off a mountain.
And at the half hour mark Peter stops in the middle of a sentence, a certain light coming back into his eyes, blinks in confusion, then says, "Sorry, Zach, I forgot what I was saying. Anyway I'm gonna go chat to Eric over there."
"Was it an act? It didn't look like one. Answer this question very carefully because depending on what you say you may find your hair tasting of orange juice."
"Oh, it wasn't an act at all, I just didn't know if when that happened I actually acted just like them or if there was still some difference."
"Yeah. Sorry. It's, uh—you can just kinda decide to do that. As far as I can tell you gotta have, like, a reasonable end limit and a goal, like—okay, I want to just hang out and swim and chat with people for the next half hour, I'll do that, and there's a kind of, like, mental motion? And then you time skip to the end of that and your body got auto piloted by whatever auto pilots everyone else's bodies."
"Far as I've tried, yeah. And there's some real perks, like, you know how a university term is just a week and that is not long enough for anything?"
"Yeah so a lot of stuff is kinda optimized? If I time slide over a uni class I remember everything in it perfectly and the information density in the class is absurd. Learning magic, too, when I'm in timeslide mode it's just hyperefficient information concentrate 100% pure no apple juice."
"And you just had to waste a half hour of my life rather than just tell me that?"
He pulls himself up to sit on the edge of the pool and have his back conveniently turned to Eric where he's seated at the lounge chair so he doesn't have to look Eric in the eyes. "Yeah. Sorry. I'll..."
Sigh. "It's fine, Pete. I get the impression your bad habits involve a lot of not really thinking about what other people would feel and kind of controlling the information they had access to and I understand where they came from but seriously, cut that shit out, it's unpleasant. Work with me, not on me."
"Oh, stop acting like a sad kicked puppy, you're still my best friend, come on, cheer up, you've got a whole new person to chat to, now."
"This is not going to be good for me," he says, pulling himself further up so he can take a seat on the chair next to Eric's. "How am I ever going to want to interact with another person now that I've been exposed to this? You've ruined me."
"You don't need to flatter me to get in my pants. I'm not even wearing any."
"Oh, yeah, by the way, remind me to get into the whole nudism thing you've got going on because my theory about alexandrite relates to that."
"...yes, I'm doing it again. Sorry. It's just, uh. Okay so I think there's something like reality by consensus and maybe a meta level of narrative operating in the metaphysics of the universe which means that the way people behave and what they expect of reality and what reality is actually like are, like, maybe very intrinsically coupled and caused by one another, so it's the very fact that everyone thinks alexandrite is super rare that makes it be rare."
"I only half followed that so I will give you a free pass to not try to explain the rest of it to me right now, I'm not totally sober. What's it got to do with nudism, though?"
"I think us walking around naked all the time is meaningfully causing nudism to become more widespread through mechanisms other than just other people becoming accustomed to it."
"...yep, definitely waiting until I'm sober for that one.
"But what I was going to say next was that we now need to figure out how to make those two clowns become people, too, because I am not going to lie, Peter, I do not have your constitution and could not deal with only one other person around."
Tae-hwan materializes on top of Eric and settles comfortably into a snuggle. "Hi. Whatchu guys talking about?"
"We're strategizing about how to turn you and Zachary into nerds like us."
"Since when are you a nerd?" asks Zach, furrowing his brows as he leans on his elbows on the edge of the pool.
