Item 1 - Video!

[sneakykidwiththehair]

[Public]

[Video clicks on, and lo! It's a teenage boy with a shock of grey hair. He's walking as he talks, wandering the halls of the Barge apparently aimlessly.]

Uh, hey, I don't wanna cause a stink, but there's been some kind of terrible mistake here. My- uh, my parents, are going to be losing their minds back home in New Jersey...

[There might be something ever so slightly shifty about how he says this, but then again, he is a recently deceased teenage boy. He could easily just be nervous.]

All of this-- this inmate stuff? Yeah, you definitely got the wrong guy for that. I got a perfectly normal, crime free life, back home with my family. Yes, we cheat on our taxes and have the occasional three am family-document-shredding-party, but who doesn't? By nine am we're back to pancakes and oatmeal, and that, [decisive finger jab at the screen.] Is how you live the American dream, right?

[Private to Inmates]

So, does anyone ever actually escape from this place?

Comments

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

Well, that all depends what you mean by escape.

Hello, lad. I'm Mason. I'm your friendly neighborhood grim reaper.

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

I mean getting off this hunk of junk and not coming back, by some means other than being thrown over the side in itty bitty pieces.

Hi.

[Pause]

Shouldn't you have a scythe or something?

[patheticvillain]

Where in Jersey? I might be able to get a message to them.

[Probably not, honestly, but. He's curious.]

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

There's graduation, 'course. An'...no, that's all the ways I know.

Left it at home, I'm afraid. What's your name?

private

[versusnurture]

Not on purpose.

[sneakykidwiththehair]

[This is the problem with his plan. He doesn't know jack about the geography of New Jersey, because seriously, who cares? So he picke one fact he knows about where New Jersey is, and blags away merrily.]

It's a little town called Newhamston, just across the Hudson river. It was like living in a suburb of a suburb of New York.

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Seriously? No one's ever managed it? You don't even have, like, rumors about old timers doing it way back when?

Yeah, I bet, along with your big black cloak and your skeletal horse, right?

It's Dash.

private

[sneakykidwiththehair]

How do you accidentally escape from a place like this?

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

Lad, I've been here a handful of months. I'm always drunk, I don't know where the fuck I am half the time. Don't fuckin' ask me complicated questions.

Dash. Dashie, my boy. You know nothing of death.

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

So? It doesn't seem like knowing about it has done you any favors.

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

I am a rare exception to the reaper rule. I did things that no one ought to do. Learn from my mistakes.

[patheticvillain]

Newhamston? Seriously. I've never heard of that.

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

If you doing those things are a rare exception, then what makes you think I'd do 'em anyway?

[He laughs, in a way that sounds like he's actually saying the words: Heh, heh, heh.]

So what was your big mistake, Slick? No, wait, lemme guess... did you shoot President Kennedy?

[sneakykidwiththehair]

What am I, your A to Z? I don't care if you've never heard of it.

How could you get a message to them?

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

Nah. Nah, wasn't even in fuckin' America. Wasn't even dead yet.

I killed someone. Someone whose time was not quite up yet. You don't do that as a rule, gen'rally.

But here, let's not get off-topic. You're a new one.

Re: [Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

You say some-one, I hear some-president.

Yeah, I'm new, but what with my newness being a pretty boring topic, we're probably better off sticking with you being a murderer.

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

Reapers don't kill people. Not usually. We only take their souls once they've died. Don't they teach you anything?

Anyway. I only murdered one person.

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Yeah, no. No one taught me the job description of the embodiments of death.

I think even only doing it once is usually enough for stuff like that.

private

[versusnurture]

Sometimes people just disappear and nobody can do anything about it.

[Private to Inmates]

[maced_eggs]

That's because you're a know-nothing little twerp.

private

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Huh. Written out. Makes sense, I guess.

You're an inmate here as well?

[Private to Inmates]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Aw, come on, don't be like that. Hey, if it makes you feel better, I'm pretty sure none of us are actually real, so you probably never actually killed anyone.

[fireincarnate]

[Jean looks skeptical - because come on, kid - but she's smiling.]

Yeah? I don't think my parents ever did that. Pretty sure my professor engaged in some tax fraud, though. [For the greater good!!]

[strangehistorian]

I wouldn't know about that, but we're not permitted to release inmates.

Inmates

[darknessb4me]

No.

Please don't assume you're the exception to the rule and drag us into some kind of tiresome breach again.