prompt
Prompt 4: The mail is always bad this time of year, but it seems like something's gone a little extra wrong. An old letter arrives shows up with no return address, no name on it; it's impossible to tell who it is from or how it got there, given that it might have arrived in your mailbox, your front door, or maybe it even just showed up inside your house. If you open it, the letter is dated from decades ago and contains some surprising information; it is a letter lost to time and contains some secret. The content of the letter are up to the player; it might contain a confession of love, an admission of guilt, the secret of some crime--no matter what the letter contains, it leaves you with news to reflect on. Do you try to seek out anyone mentioned in the letter? Do you investigate or try to hand the letter over to someone else? Does the content of the letter reflect your life in some way? ...Do you have to worry about someone breaking into your house to leave strangely coded messages?
Calaverite smeared the heels of his palms against his eyes, yawning loudly as he sat up in bed- only to be tugged down by his hair being pinned beneath him. He let out a startled squeak, then began the tedious process of wrestling all the tangled, midnight ends into some semblance of a bedraggled ponytail, safe from being immediately yanked as he pulled himself out of bed.
He almost thought to complain about how unruly corrupt hair was. He didn't remember having so much trouble with it before.
But it had always been long, and he'd certainly slept on it before. It was just that while he lived in the halfway house, there was usually someone there to brush it for him or braid it so it stayed out of his way... Since he'd run away, that sort of task seemed way too time consuming for Cala to want to take on. He picked thoughtfully through tangles that were really starting to resemble mats. His brows pursed, and his lips set in a confused line.
Had he liked when people played with his hair? Calaverite didn't think he had any bad memories of it. Not in the way he had bad memories of other activities... Maybe he should see if he could find a friend here who would take care of that for him, because he certainly didn't want to do it himself.
It seemed unlikely his general would be interested in such a task.
Rakovanite probably wouldn't be, either.
Maybe a kitty could make him something to do it for him. Or maybe... maybe if he asked nicely, any of the other agents he'd met might not mind. Not very many of them had very long hair, so they should like to play with his. Yep, that seemed like the most reasonable thing Calaverite could possibly think. That's what he should do today! Find a friend who could take care of this for him.
He bounced up from his bed, giving a quick twirl up on his toes as he stretched out his arms above and around him. When Cala dropped back he threw out a hand to brace against his little nightstand for balance, and-
Something was there that wasn't there before.
Calaverite blinked.
He jealously hoarded things that were of interest to him. He liked Legos and creatures and candy and when he found these things, he collected them and took them home with him. He did not usually collect blank envelopes, though, so it seemed pretty unlikely that he'd left a letter on the nightstand and forgotten about it.
That it was here, in his room at all, was strange. Mail didn't get delivered to the Negaverse barracks. And even if it did, Cala couldn't remember anyone writing to him ever in his life. He'd never received a letter, not even from his family after he'd been left at the halfway house. Was this supposed to be his? Who had left it here? How had it gotten into his room? Should he- should he open it?
The envelope was blank, besides being slightly yellowed. There was no stamp, no address, no sender name or recipient name. No sticker on the back to hold the envelope flap closed.
Calaverite peeked around quickly, as if someone might see him opening a letter in his room and decide that wasn't allowed, but of course there was no one. He picked open the flap cautiously and dumped the contents onto his nightstand: a letter written in cursive- a long letter, ********, was Cala supposed to read all of that?- and a single photo printed on shiny paper.
Calaverite's lip curled as he squinted at the three pages of letter.
He didn't know if this was for him, but if it was, it was from someone who didn't know him at all. Cala could read, but he didn't like to. It took too long, and so much of what was written was boring. People should just say what they wanted to say instead of expecting him to take time to read it!
He flicked it with two fingers, sending it to the edge of the nightstand where it slipped down between the wall and the furniture, to be forgotten about.
Instead, Calaverite's focus went to the photo, where three people smiled brightly at the camera. One was a man, a scraggly, pale thing with light hair and red eyes- Like Cala's! Then there was a baby, small and pudgy and dark haired, with one fist curled and waving in delight. Last was a woman, a slender thing with wide eyes and long, spilling dark hair.
She was prettier than Cala, he thought, and there was something about her that seemed... not foreign. Like he'd met her before somewhere, and he just couldn't remember where.
He wanted to remember.
He thought he had a good feeling about her.
He just couldn't remember from where or why. He rubbed his thumb over her face in the photo. She was pretty. Her face kind of even looked like his, he thought. Cala could be pretty if he wanted to be... He could be pretty like that. He cradled the photo to his chest and stepped toward the long, thin mirror that was hung just at the end of his bed.
When he looked at it, he saw a mane of tangled hair, a gaunt face, wild eyes: nowhere near as pretty as the woman...
He wedged the picture up into the corner of the mirror and stared unblinkingly at it for several long seconds. But he still wanted to go see if he could find a friend today, even more so now. Cala didn't want to be standing here forever. The picture could stay where it was, and maybe if he felt like it later, he could see if anyone knew of how the envelope had ended up in his room.
WC: 987
