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

[patheticvillain]

Hey, it's not my problem what they think. I just said I'd get 'em a message.

private

[versusnurture]

. . . A script.

Are you insane? [Curious rather than accusatory.]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

I guess I could say I was off to seek my fortune or something.

I'll try and think of something to say to them.

[Something to pretend he wants to send to his none-existent parents, in order to keep his shitty life secret.]

private

[sneakykidwiththehair]

See, here's what I don't get. We're on a magic, floating, time travelling prison, and we're all dead.

And you think I'm insane for not thinking it's real.

Inmates

[sneakykidwiththehair]

[Dash stops talking, and gestures to Arthas to continue, still staring at him.

Give him the information. Guide him.]

Inmates

[darknessb4me]

Oh, you actually did. Interesting.

We all know either you don't have parents or they don't care, for one. You're a terrible liar. It doesn't matter if you don't deserve to be an inmate, because you can't change it now. Likewise, it doesn't matter if none of this is real. It's where you are now. Deal with it.

Inmates

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Deal with it how?

[Some of what Arthas has just said, he'll take to heart. Much of it, he'll ignore, but Arthas has been here a while, and Dash does not at all get just accepting this place.]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

You don't see much of it here though, I guess.

[sneakykidwiththehair]

That's very hush hush. Confidential, ya know?

[Private to Mason alone!]

[maced_eggs]

[Mason is riveted.

And scared shitless]

Hang on. Hang on, no, that can't be fuckin' right. Someone's having a laugh, playing a trick on you, mate. That's not real. I mean, your not thinking it's real, that's not real.

Inmates

[darknessb4me]

I don't care. Escape, rebel, kill someone, lock yourself in your room, whatever. But don't sit around and wait for the fact that you think it's not real save you from it.

[strangehistorian]

Not really! As I said, there is no one formula for an inmate's rehabilitation!

[Private to Mason alone!]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Oh, come on! I saw the whole town rolled past me as backdrops and cardboard set pieces! It's the rest of this junk that's tricking us.

[Dash shrugs his shoulders.]

Believe it or don't. You might not even have a choice. All depends on the script, I guess.

[sneakykidwiththehair]

So, do you have an inmate? What's the formula for him?

[Private to Mason alone!]

[maced_eggs]

I don't believe you.

I don't believe I could have gone 60 bloody years without knowing whether something's real or not.

Inmates

[sneakykidwiththehair]

I don't think you get it. I'm not expecting to wake up one day in the real world, I don't even think it's possible. This place, the whole universe not being real? How is that gonna save me from jack?

But, y'know, once you know something... [He shrugs a full body shrug, lifting his hands up to ear-height as he does so.] ...can't exactly stop knowing it.

But hey: Shut up, and don't expect to be saved. Good advice.

[He's not even sassing you, Arthas. He's treading too carefully for that.]

Thanks.

Inmate filter

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Doesn't sound like anyone's tried lately, either.

Uh, what's with the... [He gestures vaguely towards the hat, then down to the necklace of bone.]

Private

[sneakykidwiththehair]

Is it better than where you came from?

[Private to Mason alone!]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

But you're not real either, so how could you be expected to know?

We are not real. None of us. None of this.

[strangehistorian]

Her!

Well, obviously that is a private matter between myself and my inmate but learning to accept that life won't always be terrible is a good start!

Inmate filter

[changeitroundsome]

Don't seem that way.

[He blinks, glancing down.] My outfit? It's just what I wear. Got to look the part a little, my line of work.

Private

[walkthedarkpath]

Neither here nor there. I do not care much either way for here or there.

[ He shrugged some. He was full of shit but he hid that well.]

[Private to Mason alone!]

[maced_eggs]

'Course I'm bloody real. I have a life. A whole fuckin' life that I remember, an' a death that I remember after it, too.

[Private to Mason alone!]

[sneakykidwiththehair]

And what did you do in your life that some hack in Hollywood couldn't have just made up? What'd you do in your afterlife that some kid with a typewriter in a studio couldn't have just cooked up?

Inmate filter

[sneakykidwiththehair]

And just what is your line of work, Mister?