all_inclusive | (no subject)

Frannie wasn't sure how long she stood in her bedroom with the door handle in her hand. All she knew was that her jaw ached from holding it open for so long.

She also knew that she was standing in her bedroom. Her old one, in Ogunquit, with the same posters and trophies it had held since she left for college years ago. A lifetime ago. Before the end of the world.

Eventually, when her brain processed what she was seeing, she started thinking. As much as she wanted to rush out into the house, and into...into the garden...she was afraid of what she'd see there, too. Afraid she'd see her father, alive but sick. Afraid she'd see his grave.

Afraid she'd see that it had been disturbed somehow.

Afraid that if the door she still held closed, she'd be stuck here in her old house alone again. Alone in Maine with everyone she knew on the other side of the country. Alone in the world.

Once the first tremors of fear passed her, she realized something else. She was standing in a world that had been toxic to 99% of it's residents....and she held the door open, spilling that air into the hotel.

Before that thought even finished forming, Frannie stepped back into Nexus and slammed the door as hard as she could and pressed her back against it.

"Anyone got a hammer? Some nails maybe?" she called out to anyone that could hear her voice.

Threaded | Flat

Raleigh actually has both since he's been spending most of his free time in the hotel doing repair work to keep him in pocket change. He guesses he could try to trade in his ration cards but he likes the mental break of working hard all day and then relaxing at night...when he's not heading back to the Shatterdome, that is.

"Yeah, I've got both. Something broken? I can probably get it fixed for you."

Olaf has been blitzed on some prime weed from Bali for what feels like a week. Or maybe it's only been a few minutes. The point is that he's been generally chilling out at the Nexus after Mike started bitching about 'not drinking all the alcohol in his bar' again and when someone wanders out of a door asking for a hammer, Olaf's first instinct is that he's seeing shit.

"Are you real?" he asks, reaching a hand out and pressing his splayed fingers over her face. "Hammer girl," he says, in awe. "What are you fixing?"

The call of Frannie's voice would have been enough to put Larry in motion, but there was a particular quality to it that managed to shoot straight through him. A barely-controlled waver, the attempt to mask a fear perhaps not obvious to anyone but himself. He knew that fear, had heard that waver in his own voice.

A quick sprint down the hall found her leaned against a closed door, her pregnant belly jutting gently out before her like a life preserver. Fortunately, she appeared shaken but unhurt.

"What happened?" he hurriedly asked, eyes jumping from Fran to the door she was guarding.