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 Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:15 pm
The text came many days later. After all, Chel had had to track down a new phone, which was hard to convince the higher ups to give her. A runic'd cell phone was not only expensive to make but difficult to craft. Luckily her status as a full hunter and the rest of the money she'd received from capturing a horsemen months prior had been enough persuasion to convince a few money-hungry pockets.medigel Text to Jack: if u sent any texts i didnt get them lol.
She could handle it on her own.
She could handle everything on her own.
Jack's wellbeing was something she couldn't handle though, which made her somewhat frustrated. He still hadn't returned, and any mission that lasted more than a few weeks was one that was going wrong. She was worried, but there were no outlets to admit her frustrations to. She had to be the person who never cared about anything, or she would care too much about everything. If she lost Jack ...
It was a hard task not to worry about herself, considering she felt like at any moment someone was going to force her into a pod for treason. She'd taunted Evan after all. He could easily bust down that door now. He was stronger than her, it would be easy to carry her, the room was only a few doors down now and it wouldn't matter if her bones crunched on the way into the machine-
She looked back at the phone, finding it harder to breathe. She was caught between imagining Jack's death by horsemen and her own death by pod.
It was tiring thinking of death so often.Quote: Text to Jack: u ok? u caht die yet bro haha.
Haha.
Haha.
It was all just a joke. It always had been.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 4:42 pm
chiickadee Text from Automated Services: exclaim The message has failed to deliver.>> Retry >> Send as SMS
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:14 pm
medigel Text to Jack: u a*****e. ******** u. Quote: Text to Jack: text me wheh u can then. even k is fine.
Just in case.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:29 pm
Every time it was the same response after the same thirty seconds. The message has failed to deliver.
The message has failed.
Failed.The phone, much like Jack, didn't coddle when it came to the truth.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:48 pm
Checking for Jack became her solace.
There was no one to talk to but the familiar 30 second delay between responses. The buzz of her phone when the message was denied became a twitch, a pacifier for the directionless sadness she felt.
She was beginning to second guess herself.
Chel had always had dependency problems.medigel Text to Jack: text me wheh u can then. even k is fine.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 6:27 pm
The message has failed to deliver. It looked like a string of nonsense after a while, nonEnglish translated into something else and back. Why not The message has failed to be delivered? Maybe his phone was as bent out of shape as he was. (Maybe she had been reading it wrong.) But it was a lifeline of sorts nevertheless. A thirty second gap where a sliver of hope existed. Sending...
xxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx...
Message failed.Then one day Chel received a different automated response. This number is no longer in service.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 6:51 pm
And it was then that Chel felt crippingly broken.
Truly it was a cripple.
Cripple: cause (someone) to become unable to move or walk properly.
She spent all her days in her room now. She woke up, turned on her gameboy, and repetitively played the same storyline, almost aggressively so. She sometimes remembered to eat. Sometimes an almond would have been more sustenance than she inhaled. The trash in her room started to pile up. She hadn't changed her shirt in .... how long?
Because at this point it was so stupid to even attempt continuing.
To clarify, this was not some lovestruck stupor, it had nothing to do with her relationship to the person who died, but rather, who the person was that died. Jack was infallible. Jack was the beanstalk to her peasant. Jack didn't do things incorrect and Jack didn't allow for error.
Nevada? Nevada had been messy. She was art, she was a museum of paintings that changed and shifted from one day to the next. Jack was the building. Art came and went, changing as moods and opinions and feelings changed but Jack didn't change.
He wasn't supposed to change.
So why should she?
---
Three days later, a full hunter broke down her door. There were insults and orders tossed around. Chel didn't remember them. Something about duties. She performed an act, mimicking whatever came out of the beautiful hunter's mouth and then returned home. The next day the same thing happened. She didn't remember doing any of it. She just returned home with the vague sense that something had been done.
---
Her games had gotten old. She couldn't work up the motivation to go buy new ones. The lighthouse was too far away.
She'd created a new game. She went down the list of hunters on her phone, and texted one of them. Any one of them, and all the message would say was
.
Then she would see who wrote back, what the wrote back, why. Sometimes there would be repeats (as she pointed randomly) and it was funny to watch the reaction of infuriated people. It made her feel as though there were a point to living, although she still hadn't particularly come to agree with it. She just kept thinking how nice it would be to receive a similar message. One with no preface, no associations. Just a strange dot. How might she feel, she wondered? Would she feel anything?
Most likely not.
But it was a fun thought to entertain.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:12 pm
Maybe the delay wasn't noticeable. Stormy had looked at her phone once they reached the base, did a double take, and wondered if it was a mistake. She hadn't really talked to Chel, though she knew of her because of Nevada. The first time she had seen the Sun had been at the Halloween party, when the pair had begun their brief affair, and Stormy herself had not been at her best there either (read: a little drunk and slightly harassed by Jack).
But it was okay to use phones again, and she didn't have much heart to try and text people who had real stakes in her well being because she honestly couldn't answer to that. Chel was a stranger with one flimsy connection between them; it felt safe. If it was anything at all.
chiickadee Text to Chel:Hello? Did you need me?
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:19 pm
Chel stared at her phone, relatively morosely. Stormy's response was boring, unusual.
She went down to the next person on the list.
---
It was only a few hours later that she'd gotten tired of pointing, and she went back to actually examine some of the texts she'd sent. The response from some of them had been hilarious. Her eyes met with Stormy' bland text, and she decided to harass the girl.medigel Text to Stormy: pfft no. just textih random ppl. massup.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:26 pm
"Are you seriously going to text on the job? You're supposed to be watching me flex my toes and fingers. It's riveting stuff."
"Hmm."
"Seriously, look."
Quote: Text to Chel:Uh I'm okay! At a Sahara base with some people, just fought through some stuff.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:29 pm
Sahara?
Wait-
Chel ignored anything Stormy said after that.medigel Text to Stormy: is jack there?
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:44 pm
"Um . . . Hey, d'you know someone named Chel?" Stormy figured she ought to ask before answering.
Jack paused. "Yeah?"
"She's asking about you."
"Ah." On instinct he attempted to glance at her phone, but the bright screen was too much for him at the moment and he backed off with a wince. "Text her for me, my phone's broken and my head hurts."
"Anything specific?" she asked.
"Don't mention the kidnapping part maybe? I have a reputation to keep."
Stormy smiled a little as she messaged Chel back.
Quote: Text to Chel:Yup! He says hi and his phone's broken sorry
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:45 pm
...... medigel Text to Stormy: i need u 2 do me a favor home slice
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:46 pm
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 7:47 pm
Quote: Text to Stormy: ok like im gonna call u and then u answr and put the phoue 2 jacks ear ok??
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