Something's ... Not Right (Open)

[true_noir]

WHO: Chloe and You!
WHERE: In and around Recolle
WHEN: 4/6-4/12
WHAT: Awkwardness as Chloe notices some things are not right with her body
WARNINGS: Nup

Option 1) It was a Thursday, like any other Thursday since she'd gotten this silly app on her phone. She was trying to keep her life normal and together, and doing a good job of it. In fact, following through with Yu and Naoto's request had helped a little, taking some of the worry away from her life. Having just finished her shift, she was walking back towards the bus station to get a ride home when it happened. There at the cross-walk, maybe she was a bit tired, but she started to cross before it was her light. There was a honk of distress from a car and Chloe acted.

Really, she wasn't in any danger. The driver was over-reacting and swerving successfully to miss her. But, the honk caused an immediate reaction. Her body launched back without her thinking, leaping up and into the air, sommersaulting back and landing lightly on her feet. The motion was far too limber for what she should have been able to do. It wasn't like she was in poor shape, but leaping like that in the air felt beyond her. As she landed, her eyes widened and she took two or three shaky steps back before falling unceremoniously on her butt.

"What... just happened?" she said, looking around in shock.

Option 2) When she wasn't helping out with the play, Chloe had a couple of days off on the weekend. She tried to visit the local gym to get a bit of the stress out. There was a horse set up there for those who wished to practice gymnastics, and she found herself staring at it with a nervous look in her eyes. Biting her lips, she walked over and patted it, reaching up to scratch at the back of her head.

"Should I?" she asked, wondering for a moment before going to put chalk on her hands. There was only one way to find out if the strange itching sensation in her arms and legs was real. She was feeling restless, restless like her body wasn't moving the way that it should, that it needed to move.

Option 3) There was bad news on Friday, news she did not want to hear. It had her in Starbucks, fumbling for a drink of mint tea. She wanted to calm her jangled nerves. There had to be a logical explanation for any of this. She was tempted to ask on the network, but at this point she wasn't even carrying her phone with her. She'd warned her boss that if he needed her to call the land-line, that she was trying to test out what happened if she didn't use the network. She wasn't going to break that promise.

She had to know if this was affected by the app, or if it was simply happening. But, as it stood, she was getting nervous and worried... and the tea was only helping a little.

Wildcard (Anything that you want can be managed. Chloe is off network for this week, helping out at the play and frequenting work. She has just experienced the return of her natural athleticism and agility, along with the realization that her hair color actually changed last month and wasn't dyed while drunk like she thought. It's causing her to start to freak out again. Either way, if your character wants to meet up with her, we can handwave that they left a message on her answering machine at home.)

Comments

[megabond]

He is surprised at the question she gave to him. Then again, this confirms his suspicions that she is a Retrospec user as well.

"Yes, every detail of it as well with the fruits." One of the main advantages of being a professor or animal biology is that he learns of the appearance of horses even after the strange changes that caused them to be replaced by Chocobos. "May I take a seat?"

If she says yes, he then sits down on one of the empty seats at her table as he puts down his cup of cream latte on it. While he wants to ask about her involvement with the site, he wants to wait for her answer as he is still worried about her state.

[true_noir]

She motioned to the seat across from him and waited for the man to sit down before sighing and setting her tea on the table. She seemed to visibly relax at his reply and settled back some, looking up at the ceiling. "I don't ask that of everyone, but I thought your face was familiar... It's a good way to be sure," she said, closing her eyes and grunting. "I am not especially well, no. I got some bad news today. Apparently this... is not a dye job."

She reached up and held a lock of purple hair between her fingers for him to see.

[megabond]

So in that case, he can also guess that he might chatted with her at the site a few times now. "It's alright. But I have to admit, that is a good way to know which ones are the Retrospec users."

As for how she explained her situation, he managed to believe her words as he heard some similar cases of the users' physical appearances changing. "So you're affected just like the other users, huh? I can believe you on that one. There are many posts about other users' appearances changing without any explanation or warning ever since." Not to mention that it only affects the user of Retrospec so far. "When did your hair color changed and what color it was beforehand?"

This question not only gives him an idea of what happened to her but also to know what she was from her profile picture.

[true_noir]

"A simple way to ask, and I can brush it off as something weird I've heard from someone the other day," she said, nodding. "It has its uses."

She sighed and shook her head. "As for when, I think it was around Mardi Gras. I had originally thought I had dyed it and been too tired to remember," she said. Yes, 'tired.' That was what she was going to say about her Mardi Gras. She was 'tired.' "But there are no dark roots and it is purple all the way to the base. I had a doctor look at it."

"Normally it should be black, so this change isn't huge. It was easy to mistake as dye."

[megabond]

Now that he took a closer look at her hair, it is easily mistaken as as dye. Also, while he can remember that Mardi Gras can sometimes be a craziest time of the year, he doesn't know if her hair was changed from when she was 'tired'.

"I see. Does anything else happened that are out of the ordinary? Like more visions or abilities popping out?"

[true_noir]

Well, she wasn't exactly going to fill him in on the blanks of why she wasn't sure that it was a dye job for several weeks. That would involve admitting to being more than a little drunk then, after all.

"I have been noticing more changes, yes," she said, shaking her head. "My body seems more limber, acrobatic than it was. There is this sort of nervous energy to me of late, like I want to be moving, much more than I used to. That, and several of the visions thus far."

[megabond]

While her words may feel like she was making it up, Augustine has no position on a lack of belief as it already happened to Ainsley. Along with the other users posting about learning something of nowhere and having strange abilities, it was enough for him to know that it is spreading around the site now.

"Really? Like you're more acrobatic on par with any professional gymnast?

I know we're starting to get more of these strange visions each day, but I can't believe you were able to learn that overnight."

[true_noir]

She shrugged, a look of being unsure there on her features. "I haven't tested it enough to be sure. I had thought about going to the gym, but I am also a little afraid to know the truth." She didn't want to be that acrobatic, after all. It implied things about herself that she was not entirely comfortable with finding out. "But I know that I was able to sommersault through the air. That is not normal of most people."

She shook her head. "It isn't exactly as if I have complete control, but I am not the only one. A friend of mine can break concrete with her fists."

[megabond]

Considering how she became very limber and acrobatic overnight, he can't able to ask more about this out of her feelings regarding what she been through. "I see. Do you think your sudden acrobatic abilities might be connected to your visions?"

As for her friend, he is surprised that she knows a friend who had the same situation as hers. "Really? As in she somehow gain superhuman strength?"

He doesn't know much about this superhero comic fandom and such, but he knew that would be too impossible for anyone to break concrete with their bare hands. Then again, everything starts to stop being impossible when this app was released a few months ago.

[true_noir]

"Almost certainly. I haven't recalled actually being that kind of limber in them, but the confidence I remember feeling certainly would suit this sort of thing," she said, glancing back at her drink and not meeting his eyes. "And yes, the strength she and another had was well beyond what a human should possess. I've heard of others showing powers that aren't natural, but all of them have the app."

[megabond]

Once he heard this, he realizes that this sounds like a mysterious plague happening in a site. And the strange thing is that it somehow affecting only the Retrospec users in the city.

"The more I hear about all of this, the more I think that our reality is starting to break... Just what is happening to us right now?"

[true_noir]

"I ... truly wish to believe that it is not quite so dramatic, but I can't argue that it isn't very alarming," she said, closing her eyes. After all, she was having enough strange visions these days on top of everything else. It was difficult not to take all of this as a sign that reality was in danger.

"But at the same time, it certainly feels as if something is intensely wrong with this situation, does it not?"

[megabond]

"Yes. The horses being replaced by Chocobo creatures, the dancing fruits, the glitches from the app... I can't still quite place why are these events happening, but I feel all of them as connected to something."

After all, he can theorize that everything has happened all because of the Retrospec app. And then there are these visions, namely a theory revolving around them as their repressive memories. Yet the question on his mind is what kind of memories are they and if these are memories, then why did they lose them in the first place or why did they have these memories right now?

As he thinks about these questions, he feels that he's starting to get a headache from thinking most of them.

"If I know the reason behind the app's launch, maybe we might find out why."

[true_noir]

"The reason for the app's launch might very well hold the key to what we are going through, so if we could determine this it would be very helpful," she agreed readily. The headache for her was by now a persistent sort of issue. But it wasn't something she could truly address.

She considered for a moment and shrugged. "But I think what ties all of this together is the app itself. I am not sure that the giant birds and fruit that dances really seem to fit with each other, unless we are actually supposed to be living in a silly little mad house."

[megabond]

She is right. It's not because of the app's launch that began a strange phenomenon of visions and weird changes, but it's because its existence that continues to persist every strange event he can think of. It's not only that, though...

"Speaking of our silly little mad house, have you noticed something strange regarding any contacts outside Recolle lately?"

[true_noir]

"Strange? No, my mother has been fine and my girlfriend has not been out of sorts, though we have been growing more distant the more that I have trouble speaking to her of my life here. But France is very far removed, so that may be it. Why do you ask?"

[megabond]

"You've gone to France? So you know French then?"

So she has no problems with her contacts at France so far. However, he is still worried since he still getting low call quality and dropped calls for the past month now.

"It's because that I've been having calls with low quality whenever I contact my friends in Paris and some of them were dropped calls. I checked with my subscriber and they said their outside calls were okay and didn't receive any problems with them."

[true_noir]

"Ah, I shall take this as a complement," she said, smiling at him. "I try not to let my accent get in the way too much, and I've lived here for a few years in fact, but I was born in France and raised in the lee of the pyrenees." As she spoke, she let more of that accent come out, the h's fading and the r's rolling more obviously.

"I wonder then, whether it is related. I should look into it. I know that I have had only minimal problems, but when I asked about a visit perhaps this summer from my mother, she demured. There is a lot going on there. I do not think she will be coming over here anytime soon."

[megabond]

That makes sense as he's Japanese-French living in Recolle until he temporarily left to go to college in Paris. "I can see why. I'm actually a Japanese and French descent, but since I lived in Recolle during my whole life. I only left the city since I have to go to college in Paris."

As for the outside calls problem, he starts to wonder about more than the calls once Chloe mentioned her mother has no plans to coming to Recolle very soon. "Really? Now that you've mentioned it, did you see anyone from outside the city? Like any tourists and foreigners from other cities?"

[true_noir]

"No. I certainly have met people who were from outside town, but I do not think I have met anyone that recently traveled to the city," she said, shaking her head, though there was no worry there because of what was said next. "But it is a metropolitan area, yes? We would expect to hear if there was a sudden drop in tourism, given that Recolle does thrive on a bit of this, no? It is just hard to keep track of them all, surely."

[megabond]

"You've made your point." She's right. Figuring out about the state of tourism is like finding a needle in a big haystack. It might take days for him to even search more about how many tourists come and go around the city.

"Still, there is something bothering me. Like do you even meet a Retrospec user from outside Recolle? So far, the people I met including you so far are all users of that app. Also, there is a fact that non-users can't even see the app when we even show it to them."

[true_noir]

"No, I do think that I see yours as well. I have yet to hear of a user outside of this city, and nobody ever seems to leave. It is as if the problem was solely here. And, though my mother has always known of Chocobo, it is as if the insanity of this city is unknown to them." She shook her head. "There are parts of this situation that do not feel like it is really a phone app, more like magic, yes?"

[megabond]

Well, that's one farfetched theory she made. Yet, every events and changes they've encountered were out of any rational explanation and impossibility, so he might give it a chance for now.

"Magic, eh? So you're trying to say that this app is somehow protecting us from the strange changes happening around the city like an amulet or a magic spell?"

He didn't want to believe this, but what choice does he have now? He has a real-life dragon living in his capsule ball and his friend able to create sparkles whenever she's happy. There is no way to ignore them.

[true_noir]

Less a real theory, more an observation that 'computer programs don't uninstall themselves like that.' "Well... perhaps not magic. But something that defies normal explanation at least. It's why I used the word. I wouldn't quite go so far as to attempt to explain it more than that."

She shook her head. "There are simply things about what is happening that do not fit any sort of logic I was raised to know. What is happening should be impossible, but clearly is not."

[megabond]

She may have a point. Even if they call it magic or not, he feels that these strange phenomenon isn't going to end yet. "That's true. And maybe this may apply to our visions. I still don't know how we gain or trigger them, but the connections of them and Retrospec made it very clear they are not just plain coincidences."