8th Fire Started

[paintme_crimson]

[phone - morning]

Is everyone in this town completely stupid? Because if there are masses and masses of us saying 'uh, I'm not gone, I'm still here, this is the real me,' won't you all eventually figure out that the town is playing some kinda shit game with you?

[There's a pause.]

That said...I doubt there's a lot of people out there whose panties'll

Comments

[answerer_sword]

[Another construct is trying to make the still sentient residents believe that there have been in fact no replacements. It is frustrating, to say the least.]

The more you talk, the less convincing you sound.

[paintme_crimson]

[She just groans.]

Yeah, yeah, lady. Shove it where the sun don't shine.

[answerer_sword]

You are awfully rude for a mere copy. It seems Mayfield decided to go for variety this time.

[paintme_crimson]

I'm always rude. And despite that you won't believe me, I feel the need to say again that I'm not a fucking copy.

[answerer_sword]

[She frowns and tries to piece together aspects of the puzzle. Mayfield losing its energy...people being persuaded to erase themselves to save the others...their replacements who act strangely like the remaining sentient residents of Mayfield...the town actually sending out a notification that people had been replaced...]

Then what would you say you are? If you are the person you claim to be, then why do you feel like yet another Mayfield construct?

[paintme_crimson]

If you're asking for my species, I'm a human being. If you're asking for my nature, I'm the original. Mentally, in the very least.

Dunno. Magic? I'm not the most well-versed in the field, but maybe they're putting up some kind of cloaking shit. For all of us that wanted to be erased.

[answerer_sword]

...

[She had not considered that option. From the start, the possibility that the people on the list had never been replaced had not crossed her mind. If what the girl said was true, then it meant for the past days, she had been leading herself on a wild goose chase and wasting her efforts in the wrong places. Still, she cannot be sure whether or not this is just another trick from the copies. If she still had her magic circuits, she might have been able to tell, but as a simple human, she cannot decide.]

What about our memories? Some of us are forgetting our comrades.

[paintme_crimson]

Maybe we really are being erased.

[answerer_sword]

But you exist. You are speaking to me right now. Assuming what you say is true, has there ever been a precedence for the town attacking memories by erasing nothing but memories of a specific individual?

[If what this girl is saying is true, then perhaps this "setup" is not so much about finding her comrades physically, as it is to recover her memories of them.]

[paintme_crimson]

[There's a pause.]

Maybe I haven't been affected yet. Maybe it's being done group by group. I can't give a steady answer. I'd be lying if I said whatever motives this town has were even a smidge clear.

[answerer_sword]

That is regrettable.

[She still has some doubts about the girl on the other end.]

So, do you have any way to prove that you are definitely not a construct?

[paintme_crimson]

I still have the powers this town gave me back, through the mail.

[answerer_sword]

And what would they be?

[Drones, to her knowledge, typically did not display their previous powers. She does not know about the previous dopplegangers, but it seems that Mayfield's constructs, as a default, did not have special powers. Perhaps the girl is telling the truth after all about being the original.]

[paintme_crimson]

Pyrokinesis. Flight. Flame-proof skin.

[answerer_sword]

I suppose I'll take your word for that...

So supposing that you are right and the unnatural feeling comes from a cloaking effect, then how do you perceive other cloaked beings?

[paintme_crimson]

Like the creepy zombies everyone seems to see me as. Just the same crap.