Put on a Happy Face!

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                     ❝  Vanessa! There you are!  ❞

The shrill greeting echoes through the station corridors, Kevin’s (terrifying) smile only growing wider as he strides to meet his friend. Once upon a time he might have stopped to talk with some of the employees he passed, but under Strexcorp management there wasn’t a moment to waste! People didn’t have time for idle chitchat anymore: all that mattered was becoming a number on an efficiency spreadsheet and avoiding becoming a bloodstain on Kevin’s shirt.

But Vanessa? Vanessa was different! She was a hard worker, a friend, someone he’d never pass up the chance to start a conversation with.

                     ❝  Where have you been hiding? I’ve been asking around the whole station all day, but not a single person knew where you were.  ❞

Bernadette  -  IAMX winding down our emotions / family and friends becoming ghosts to dream of / and pass on, time will erase every faith, every name / we are alone, no one to blame

Worlds In-Between  -  Rufus Rex I have seen things that you have only dreamed / but maybe they are nightmares of worlds in-between / here there be monsters and beasts unknown, and they’re never, ever, ever gonna leave me alone

Can You Feel the Sun  -  MISSIO below the willow tree is where I hide the darkest parts of me / they're hiding underneath the broken lies that I just still believe / below the willow tree I search to find some sense of identity / this weeping willow tree sits in silence, sheds no tears for me

Happy Face  -  Jagwar Twin flip the switch, flip the stove, world gone mad, let's start the show / get your kicks and let's go, if you're sad don't let it show /  hey, put on a happy face, then everything's okay!

The Angel.     Eternity has given you the skills to blend in, but the otherness is a pit inside of you. For some reason you are trapped here and you are making the most of it. There is a stubborn determination to make this place as much a home as you can, and now you have become defensive over it and yourself. No, it is not heaven, but you are free and you are whole and and you have a place here. Be brave and gracious to these mortals, who all one day will die and leave you here. 

Demanding a voice, demanding a prophet, not taking no as an answer - while the name sounded distinctly Flesh, it was too uncomfortably close to the Eye, the Web, for his comfort. Especially when he had just been tossed out of a space where the entities had free reign - of his own doing. At least on the surface, Jon’s old position as Head Archivist lined up somewhat well with the position of radio host, he supposed. Not that Jon likes how much Kevin has delved back into the notion that he is here for a long time, and his hands curl into fists at his side. 

Surely the Eye and the Web wouldn’t have shown him everything if it had allowed him to be whisked away so easily? 

His position in the Institute had never been joyous either, serving community meant little to someone who had never had one to begin with, and while Jon grits his teeth to keep from snapping back too much, he knows that there is not much else he will be able to do. Swallowing, Jon tries to keep his tone level as he shakes his head, says, “I don’t think I will fit in at all, actually.” This isn’t his world, he had left people behind that he needed to fix things for.

The next question tumbles out of him without much thought, an unconscious action to quell the way his stomach flipped, the slight tremble that had started as he has his hands curled into fists. “Do you serve the Eye?” He is so desperate for any sense of familiarity, for an anchor, that Jon is taken aback by the lack of response that his body has to the Compulsion. The tape recorders don’t rise in static the way he is used to, and asking the question alone only gets his hands to stop shaking for a moment, though that could just have been from him finally releasing his grip. 

“I- There’s- What-?” Several other questions start to push themselves forward to the tip of his tongue, but none of them stick as something that would be beneficial to ask Kevin. A hand moves to angrily card through his hair, brushing it back as he lets out a groan. “Your little town, your God, is- It’s-” It’s not right, but it is. “I don’t suppose it’s all the product of some… Single completed ritual?” None of them truly fit, but he will throw a few names out. “The Unknowing? Last Feast? The Great Twisting? I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where she decided to hurl me as a last fuck you-” 

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                     ❝  I don’t serve anyone.  ❞ The response is immediate, no need for hesitation when it’s the only truth available. Kevin already knows what it’s like to serve, how it feels to be anything other than the ultimate authority, and he’s not keen to repeat the experience any time soon. Technically he served his god, but even then he was placed on a pedestal above others: a chosen prophet compared to the billions of mindless acolytes.

But now the question still remains, hanging unanswered in the air. Was Desert Bluffs Too the result of a ritual? There were many things here that didn’t make total sense, and of course the very nature of Kevin’s role as a prophet meant he’d designed and completed more than one ritual out in the endless sands, a cry for a deity’s attention that never went ignored. If he wanted, Kevin could easily spend hours discussing all of the things that had been done in pursuit of his perfect town, sharing his thought process behind each new devotional process and the results he’d gained.

But Kevin was feeling playful, as he so often did. And unfortunately for everyone else, Kevin’s playfulness was synonymous with being generally unhelpful.

                     ❝  Wellllll, that depends! No one really knows much about this Otherworld or what happened before we got here, so it might have been the result of a completed ritual. Why does the sun never set? Why are we surrounded by mountains and an unoccupied lighthouse, placed possibly hundreds of miles away from any shoreline? Why do we see ominous, shadowy figures appear in our mirror reflections if we look for too long? No one knows!  ❞

It didn’t matter much, anyway. Things just were, they existed in all of their strange and nonsensical glory, and Kevin had never thought to question it. It’s not anything would change.

Instead, his attention was grabbed by all of the listed ritual names. The Last Feast? How fun! The only Last feast he knew of would come when their deity decided to finally devour the world, swallowing up everything in its twisting, winding path until nothing remained but the god itself. Maybe then it’d turn on its own body, decide to swallow down its tail like the coiled Ouroboros until that insatiable appetite was satisfied.

The excitement was palpable as he stepped forward, well past the boundary of polite personal space, hands squeezing into tight, white-knuckled fists at his sides. People could be iffy about contact, he’d learned, but it was hard having to restrain his natural urges to reach out.

                     ❝  Those names sound like something straight out of the Book of Devouring.  ❞ He would know, he wrote it.

                     ❝  How fascinating! If you’d like to hear more about the great twisting visage of our Smiling God, or at least some depictions of it, you should check out the Temple services schedule! We have lots of spaces open for newcomers-  ❞

What small amount of hope that had built up is being taken out from under him just as quickly as it had come. His confidence fell, shoulders hunching slightly as Kevin describes the being, then a scowl takes up residence on his features at the next lot of interesting, terribly familiar details roll by. 

“Christ…” He mumbles, suddenly wishing he had paid more attention to what the other man was thinking in the moments between this all. Jon didn’t want to respond to that assumption either, confirm that it was correct, and entirely too on the nose for his comfort. The admittance still forces itself out of him though, as he scuffs a shoe on the ground. “Unfortunately, that is the one thing I am far more familiar with than I want to be.” 

Could it be that he also was some agent of the Eye? There were far too many things being said that anyone else shouldn’t know, unless it was just a very, very good guess. It wouldn’t surprise him either, truly, but there was only one good way to check.

He does have to make good on that unspoken promise, and though formalities seem hardly necessary, they still come with his reply. “Jonathan Sims. The, ah, Archivist.” 

If that phrase, that title, held any weight here, it would make itself known soon enough. Straightening himself as a wave of paranoia washes over him, Jon absently pats both his pockets. Each had a familiar, rectangular shape in them, and in keeping his left hand steady for a moment, he confirms what he had already thought.

The tape recorder had started to record - quietly though, thank God - and it settled the wave of fear quickly enough. The quiet is becoming uncomfortable again, however, and he quickly adds in. “Radio host and a… Temple founder seem like an odd combination.” 

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An odd combination indeed! In his vainer moments Kevin likes to think of himself as one of a kind, the only person capable of wielding two immensely powerful social positions, so it comes as no surprise that his dual roles may seem a little unorthodox at first. Even within a place as unique as Desert Bluffs Too, people tended to dedicate themselves to one career. Life was easier that way, a single simple checklist of to-dos to keep progress pushing forward.

He doesn’t consider himself a conceited man, but knowing that he was special in that sense made Kevin beam almost as bright as the never-setting sun above them. 

                     ❝  Oh, I didn’t choose those positions! No one ever does. The town demanded a voice and our God demanded a prophet, and who am I to deny either call? I couldn’t have denied it even I’d wanted to - the Devourer isn’t known for taking ‘no’ as an answer, and the radio hosting just... happened.  ❞

His smile falters, confusion quickly overwhelming his expression. Memories were difficult, especially when he had to think about a time before being on the air... Had there ever been a time? Maybe his whole life had just been this, speaking into a microphone and soothing his streets full of listeners. Maybe he’d been born specifically for this purpose. Maybe he’d been radio hosting even before his conception. He couldn’t remember, had long since given up trying to rearrange the fuzziness into some sort of coherent order.

A minute shake of the head is all it takes to get crash that train of thought, his familiar cheeriness coming back full throttle now he’s no longer bogged down by the past. Like he’d said, it just happened. There was no need to think about the whens or whys.

                     ❝  How we got to our careers doesn’t matter: fulfilling our responsibilities is what makes us happy! A busy life is a joyous life, and there’s no greater cause than serving our little community here.                      And as for being an archivist, well! We’ve all been archivists at one point or another in our lives.You’ll fit right in.  ❞

Probably. Maybe. Kevin doesn’t quite know what an “Archivist” is supposed to do, and since the city is currently lacking an archive there’s no one he could ask about the position. But... it sounds important, and Kevin is no stranger to important roles. He likely already shares lots of responsibilities with Jonathan, even if he couldn’t say exactly what it is their jobs have in common.

Despite how nonchalantly he brushes away the title, there’s something about it that sticks in his mind. It does sound important, terribly so. It sounds like something he should already be aware of, like an unspoken code passing between them, and it’s frustrating to admit that he can’t understand why he’s feeling this way. 

                     ❝  Since you’ve been asking the questions so far, did you have any others? I’m an open book!  ❞