kore_logs | it was all so real to me

Who: Natalie & You
When: Day 206, night.
Where: Around - more exploration.
What: She still can't make heads or tails of this place and doesn't sleep anyway. Plus, anti-social teenagers should try making friends.

Okay, so the numbers of doors down the hallway towards her room change every time she turns a corner. The florescent light heightens the creep factor and tonight, they seem to flicker as she moves away from her room.

"Definitely worse than Black Lodge," Natalie mumbles to herself, swinging her flashlight around her wrist. Another sleepless night better spent learning more about the center, says she.

Since arriving, she had slowly acquired a few clothes - including new pajamas without any blob residue on it - and some supplies to tide her over. No books or anything. If she wasn't so freaked out by the place itself, she thinks she might be bored to death. She shuffles along the hallway, sneakers squeaking on the tiles.

What she doesn't realizes is that she seems to be drawing closer to the machine, so if anyone cares to stop her or accompany her, please do so now.

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"You don't have t- god, what I would give for that kind of ability, being able to function without any sleep." A necessary evil, in her opinion. There were twenty four hours in a day - well, a regular day on the Earth she knows, anyhow. May as well use all of them to her advantage.

"I'm Natalie," she introduces herself with a slight nod of her head. "I - sorry if I disturbed you. I know I shouldn't be walking around, like, by myself."

"Meja." She laughs quietly. "Trust me, after a time, you start to wish you could sleep."

Just the option would be nice. Valkyrie can fall into a deep meditation which is almost like sleep, but not the same by a long shot. Sleep is losing yourself completely. Meditation is being all too aware of the Nine Realms and where you are in them.

Except for here, of course, where she can simply hear the thrum of the Machine instead of the calming silence that comes with Yggdrasil's presence.

"Don't worry about it. Normally, there isn't too much issue with wandering on your own. You simply have to worry about getting lost."

"I honestly don't know how I managed to find my way back to my room, actually," Natalie admits with another shrug of her thin shoulders.

"So, like, have you been here long? You seem to know a lot about the place," she continues curiously, jumping straight to the point. "I've been looking - in vain - for an exit sign like an idiot, or a window, something that'll give me a glimpse into whatever's outside, you know?"

"You get used to it, somehow," the Valkyrie muses. While the halls haven't become normal for Meja, navigating them is just another part of her day, now. A confusing part of her day, but one she eventually gets through. "There might be a door. Sometimes people find one. Of course, it's not really an exit; there's an endless expanse of trees outside."

One Meja would still give anything to find, because it's simply unnatural for a spirit of storms to be cooped up this long.

"I've been here many months, now. Before we were here, in this building. We were all trapped in a town, instead, and our captors lived here. No sign of them now, as I'm certain you've noticed."

"Seriously?" Natalie blurts out.

She shakes her head again, waiting for her to finish. "Who were the captors? D'you know what even happened to them or is that, like, one of the many mysteries of this place?" Her head's been spinning for days trying to figure it out. If only she were the laid back type to go with the flow - it'd probably be better for her health.

The edges of her lips twitch. Explaining the Center and its oddities is always an adventure.

"Seriously," she confirms, her soft Norwegian accent stumbling a little over the word. "We don't know what happened to the scientists, as such, but we think it has to do with the machine that controls this place, now. They were studying it. Our arrival here was something the machine was doing, and still is."

"This is some major science fiction come reality," Natalie mumbles. "I've read a lot of dystopian and utopian literature and I definitely ended up on wikipedia reading about this kind of stuff, article after article. I thought the blobs were weird enough but ..."

She trails off, running a hand through her hair. "How d'you survive?" A pause. "Shit. Sorry. I'm just kind of bombarding you with questions out of the blue."

With a quiet chuckle, she shakes her head. Going through this ritual with anyone new is just another facet of being in the Center. She's glad to help where she can. Finding out the long way — like she and a few others who were still here — had been far more rough than she'd liked.

"No, don't worry about it. This place inspires a great many questions." Meja wonders what a wikipedia is, but decides to leave that question for now. She can answer Natalie's first. "There's a cafeteria with food, and everyone has a room as I'm sure you noticed. But you'll need to exercise some caution in the cafeteria, it... well, not all of it is for human consumption."

"Eugh."

Natalie wrinkles her nose appropriately, shuddering. Her imagination can fill in the blanks. "Thank you, though, for the info," she adds sincerely, letting her facade soften somewhat. It's good to have someone to talk to when you've been alone with your thoughts for a few days.

Meja smiles, amused. "Not all of it is... questionable. Just some of it. And some isn't disgusting just so much as... unknown. We get people from nearly every place you can think of, and our food is the same, it seems. Getting adventurous in the cafeteria can be a good thing, or it can be... potentially dangerous. You simply have to use your best judgment."

Before coming here, Meja wasn't particularly thankful of the fact that she doesn't have to eat. It was simply a fact of her existence. In the town, it had meant she wasn't a drain on resources. Here, it means she doesn't need to play Russian roulette with their food choices.

Natalie snorts and casts Meja a very, very wary but amused look.

"That sounds just a dangerous step below my high school's food," she deadpans, very serious. "I guess I'm just glad that I have some kind of choice as far as living here goes."

"We do have very little choice here, yes," Meja chuckles. "I'd say you get used to it, but... that's not very true. You simply become accustomed to how this place operates. As much as is possible, at least."

There are some twists and turns in this place that no one could predict.

"Sadly, it never becomes all that fun."

"I'm kind of getting that feeling."

Natalie stops herself from asking another question and scrunches her entire face, rubbing the back of her neck under her ponytail. It sounds stupid, but she's young and she can only do so much to occupy herself.

"Is there, like - anything else recreational here?"

Recreational. Meja has to think for just a moment, trying to scrape her memory for something a young woman would find interesting. Sadly, the list of options is limited, aside from the seemingly endless exploration of a building that always changes.

"There isn't much for excitement. We have the library, of course, if you like books." She isn't about to recommend exploration, given the hidden dangers lurking in the Center. It's probably occured to Natalie, anyway, given how they've met. "If you like plants, I've sort of... taken charge of the hydroponics lab. We grow things in there that the scientists left behind. Otherwise... well, it's sparse."

it was all so real to me

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