libraritology | It Had to Be You, Log 1/??? [Audio]

It Had to Be You, Log 1/??? [Audio]

Hello?

[The audio crackles, buzzes into the correct tuning, and there's the click of a dial. A distinctive, very proper, English voice speaks over the comm unit. At least she's familiar with radio enough to manage this much.]

Is anyone there? This is...my name is Evelyn Carnahan, and this is not Cairo or Hamunaptra.

[A pause.]

I don't know where I am, and I was right in the middle of something very important, and this is exceedingly inconvenient. If someone could-

[Rustling noises.]

-if someone could please tell me what's going on, I need to find my brother, Jonathan, and our guide, Rick, as I was in the midst of an expedition, thank you, I'm in...I think it's a foyer.

...anyone?

[For those interested in seeing Evelyn in person, seeing as the last thing she can remember was falling into a river off of a boat, she's wearing a soaking wet nightgown. This. This will not stand. This is scandalous.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She doesn't believe in God, per se, but right now she's willing to take anything. Evelyn almost drops the radio in surprise.]

Oh, thank Heavens, yes. Yes, it looks like a...a rather large foyer, but a foyer nonetheless.

I'll be down in a minute.

[Getting the tour from someone in person has got to be better than a voice on the radio, right? Right.

If Evelyn stays where she is, Mark will turn up soon enough, looking very nonthreatening and middle-aged.]

[Did we mention that the last thing she remembers is falling into a river? She's still dripping water in her night clothes. On the upside, she stole a tablecloth from one of the sideboards and has wrapped it around her shoulders.

Evelyn gives a little start as a sort-of-rumpled-looking man arrives, and gives him a questioning glance.]

...were you the fellow I spoke with over the radio?

[Well gosh. How awkward. ~~And she's calling him rumpled~~]

That'd be me. Mark Meltzer.

[Have a businesslike handshake, Evelyn. He'll just politely ignore the dripping wet negligee aspect of the affair.]

Let's find you somewhere to dry off.

[It wasn't her fault she was thrown over the side of a boat, thank you very much!]

Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Meltzer.

[She shakes his hand, grimacing apologetically.]

And thank you, I'd be much obliged.

[Boats suck.]

Of course. Follow me?

[She does so, still embarrassed, still wet.]

So you...ah...I haven't been told very much by the people who answered my radio, Mr. Meltzer. Would you mind telling me exactly where I am?

[He'd hoped to set her a bit more at ease first, but all right. He can certainly understand the drive for information.]

It's called Wonderland. Do you have the book where you're from? Alice's Adventures in Wonderland?

[Evelyn prides herself in being patient, but she has just been thrown off a boat and into a mansion. That sort of thing doesn't happen every day.]

By Lewis Carroll, yes. [She nods, shifting the tablecloth tighter.] My mother read it to me once - a fantasy book, wasn't it?

[And here she'd always thought there would be no harm in reading a book.]

...so it's all real?

Not exactly. Or--not at all. Some of the names are the same, and a working knowledge of the text helps a little, but it only takes you so far.

I'm not sure what this place is. An alternate dimension, maybe, or some sort of shared dream, or a mixed up sort of afterlife. But--and please, bear with me here--I have reason to believe that it's sentient.

An alternate dimension?

[Evelyn gives him a pointed look. She can't exactly talk - she herself had been on her way to the fabled City of the Dead, for Heaven's sake. It wasn't supposed to exist at all, except in stories.

She cuts Mark's fervor a little slack a relaxes minutely.]

I've read Jules Verne, Mr. Meltzer, but I've heard nothing like this before.

[It can't possibly be the afterlife, though. She only fell into a river, and she can swim just fine.]

I think so.

[And now it's his turn to shoot Evelyn a glance. Her fiction choices are dating her.]

Miss Carnahan? Can I ask what the date was, by your last count?

[Evelyn eyes him warily. She's only noticed now that his suit doesn't seem quite the right cut. It's very different from her brother's.]

...July 14, 1923.

All right. Well. One thing you should know about Wonderland is that it abducts people from a huge range of times and places. I'm from January of 1969. There's a couple here from the 1400's, and a bunch of people from 2008, 2009, 2010. And that isn't an extensive cross-section.

[The two-thousands. People from completely different centuries. The fourteen-hundreds? Evelyn nods understandingly, and then thanks her lucky stars that they've walked into some kind of parlor, because she doesn't so much as sit as fall on the nearest chair.]

...of course. Of course this has to happen to me, of all people, the one who doesn't...who doesn't even believe in this sort of thing.

[Mark is from 1969. He probably hasn't even been conceived yet.]

It's a lot, I know.

[And that isn't even the half of it, but hey, tea-room. That means Mark can head to the closet and grab a towel for her.]

There's more, but you don't have to have it all at once. See how you feel when you've gotten yourself some dry clothes.

[And he hands the towel over.]

I'll be in the hall. The closet should give you whatever you need.

[Wringing out her hair with the towel, she looks over to the closet.]

Um...

[Well. When in Rome.

Once Mark has left the parlour, Evelyn tries to imagine the clothes she'd be the most comfortable in as she moves to the closet door and opens it.

It's all...miraculously there. She must still be hallucinating. After drying off and changing, she cracks the door open and peers out.]

...Mr. Meltzer?

[Yep, still here.]

Ready?

[She steps out and smoothes the wrinkles from her skirt.]

Yes, thank you. I feel much better.

You're welcome.
Where were we?

Alternate...something-or-other. I believe you said it was dimensions?

[Holding her arms, still feeling damp and far too vulnerable, Evelyn shifts unhappily.]

...there's no way to get back, is there?

Before Wonderland decides to send you back on its own? Not that I know of. But just because no one's figured it out yet doesn't mean there isn't a way.

It sends people back? Are we- Are we trapped here, then, for the most part?

Unfortunately.

...I see.

[DESPAIR. It is now etched onto her face.]

[audio]

[audio]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action] CONSPIRACY THEORIES

[action] YEP.

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action]

[action] lalala 2 diff canon sources give 2 diff dates for Evie, so it's actually 1926 not '23 SORRY

It's cool. I have had that problem with Mark.

no subject