audience: emma perkins

[cyclists]

Comments

[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?

[foodbin]

[...]

Before or after everything went to shit?

[cyclists]

...let's go with before.

[foodbin]

[She shrugs.]

It had it's problems, but... I think it was good, overall.

[cyclists]

But what was it like? [They seem kind of intensely curious about that.] What were you doing there before...the after happened?

[foodbin]

Right before? I was working at a coffee shop to put myself through community college. It wasn't that thrilling, but... Definitely better than what came after.

[cyclists]

[Boring as it is, Sol seems to be hanging on to her every single word.]

...it doesn't sound so bad either, actually. I didn't have a job like that, but college wasn't really a thing either. [Sol is not going to ask what college actually is. They can guess.] And the after...was the aliens.

[foodbin]

It wasn't a thing, like you couldn't afford it, or...?

[She nods to his second point, though.]

Yeah, that.

[cyclists]

Sure. [MOVING ON.]

It doesn't sound too different than places I've seen, even with the aliens. But hearing about something a little more average is kinda nice.

[foodbin]

[She nods.]

It was nice, before everything went downhill. I spent a lot of time traveling before I went back to school... South America is really beautiful.

[cyclists]

Never been. [But it sounds cool...] And traveling sounds like it'd be a nice thing to be doing instead of school.

...can you ever go back to that with the way things are now though?

[foodbin]

...It depends on how things end up here.

[cyclists]

Then...we're going to do everything we can to make sure the universe fixes the other worlds when the core's stabilized, too.

[foodbin]

Yeah.

[...]

Can I ask something? I mean, I know I can, it's just kind of a weird question.

[cyclists]

Yeah. [They don't seem to mind it might be weird.] I've asked a lot, so...why not?

[foodbin]

If someone got killed before they came here... If their world was fixed, would they be able to go back, or are they kind of just - temporary?