audience: emma perkins

[cyclists]

Comments

[cyclists]

Believe me, if there was I'd stop it by now. [Discontent.]

...which one's worse? The nightmares or the memories?

[foodbin]

Why does it matter? They both suck.

[cyclists]

I've answered a lot of your questions. You can at least answer one of mine.

[foodbin]

Mine weren't that personal.

[...But, anyways.]

The nightmares.

[cyclists]

[Understandable.]

Dreams...are a really weird thing. [That's pretty obvious.] But at least they're just dreams most of the time.

[foodbin]

Yeah, well, you're lucky that you aren't getting these. They don't feel like dreams.

[cyclists]

...what do they feel like then? [They seem weirdly interested in that.]

[foodbin]

I mean, considering we had a vision about how someone actually died... You get how it might be hard to tell the difference, right?

[cyclists]

[The long lull of silence basically indicates that no, not really.]

Yeah.

[foodbin]

You say that, and yet I feel like you don't.

[cyclists]

I haven't really had dreams for a long time. [They sound sort of embarrassed.] And the ones I did have were definitely dreams.

[foodbin]

Well... Here, let me explain it this way.

[She pauses.]

Imagine you had a dream of something really awful happening, and you woke up and found out it was true, because it was some kind of vision, and the next few days made it seem like it would happen again. Then imagine that you had a dream that was almost exactly the same just a few days later. Wouldn't you be unsure about whether or not it was real?

[cyclists]

Ohh...[That somehow makes more sense.] I guess so, yeah. Because then it's more like a memory than a dream. Remembering something you've seen before, but with different people there.

[There's a long moment like they'll say something profound.]

...the universe kind of sucks.

[foodbin]

[With a small exhale of amusement:]

If there's one thing I've learned in my lifetime, it's that the universe sucks so much.

[cyclists]

But why? [They're still on their back staring at the sky. If Emma looks down, she'll still see a black void where their face should be. The hood is large.] I get that the worlds all have different ideas and stuff but the order of things doesn't always make sense.

[foodbin]

The order? What do you mean?

[cyclists]

Why certain worlds are affected by stuff and others aren't. That's the thing I'll never really understand. What really causes those worlds to have the potential? Why were your worlds the ones this universe contacted to bring you all here?

...not that I expect you to have answers, but it's stuff I wonder. Why dreams as a punishment instead of something else? Why...her? [Her, of course, being Mary.]

[foodbin]

Well. You said the universe feels like a 'them' instead of an 'it', right?

[...]

Maybe they're just an asshole.

[cyclists]

Yeah, that's looking more and more likely. [Sigh.] But how we fix that, that's where I'm stuck.

[foodbin]

I guess destroying the darkness...? I wish there was a less shitty way to do that.

[cyclists]

...there are some places where there's a lot of worlds lost because of the darkness. So I think that makes the most sense, but even after that, the universe will want it to balance.

[foodbin]

[Hm. Bad.]

Entire worlds?

[cyclists]

Uh huh. It's possible to get them back but I'd rather not lose them in the first place. That's why finding a way to guide and grow the core is so important.

[foodbin]

[She nods.]

Well, again, if you ever find a more solid way for me to help...

[cyclists]

...Emma can I ask you something? [And without really waiting for an answer:] What was your world actually like?