Open and that's all there was

[surskitty]

((A very delicious OOC thread! Sign-ups are not and will likely never be closed. Feeeel free.

Man I am (or was) so sorry about this being late upon late upon late but I have been HAVING PROBLEMS with WRITING THINGS and I. I just don't know. Oh and then I got distracted and couldn't find things and my PC was being a whiny bitch so it's... yeah. Also I have trouble with opening things and it will probably not be quite so awkward later on but hey. I don't know.))


It's a beautiful day. It's the twelfth of July, the sun is shining, a breeze is blowing, and all seems well. It's certainly cheery, here at the pool, though something seems ... off. The forecast had called for a thunderstorm, but it's common enough that the weather channel's wrong. They're not perfect, after all.

Still, the air seems sweet -- the breeze seems to be coming from the nearby lake and botanical gardens, and it's a low smog day anyway -- and it's quite warm. Shrill screaming and laughing come from the lakefront; there's at least one birthday party going on. The picnic area is also full. It is, after all, quite warm, and there had been rain and rain and hail for most of the season. Maybe hurricanes, too, or there would've been if they were farther south. It's hard to tell at times.

---

One of the lifeguards shifts on her seat awkwardly, foot bouncing off the chair. "It's about that time already...?" she mumbles to a wasp.

The wasp says nothing.

She glances lazily at a watch, then looks at the large analog clock over the snack bar. 3:27 PM.

One, two, three, and -- snap. It sounds almost like stepping on the wrong branch, or maybe like breaking bone, though it's impossible to tell from where.

---

Most visible movement has stopped. The water moves regularly, as do some of the plants and animals and even people, but something froze.

Be careful, now.

 

[Harlequin]

Dave (or more correctly, Trixibell Tralalah, as he was currently dressed in a sequined dress, complete with a beehive wig) was humming "It's Raining Men" as he sketched the ducks in the park. It was one of his favourite things to do (after raucous sex). Already there had been several ignorant persons who had called him names, but he was able to ignore them.

Of course, that might have been something to do with that fact that he was quite cheerfully off his rainbow on vodka, but he was fairly sure it wasn't anything to do with it at all. Or. possibly. Who knew.

"For the first time in history it's gonna start raining meeeeeen!" sung Dave, momentarily stopping his sketching to dance. By now, someone would have said something derogatory. He looked around.

"Oh, hey--" he said, noticing how everyone was ... well, that was the point. Nobody was doing anything, not even the ducks.

 

[Clover]

A bit past the corrugated-tin-covered cluster of splintery picnic tables, on a patch of concrete, Isaac Walters was busy impressing a small group of young children (mostly wearing swimsuits, probably a birthday party) with merely a few lacrosse balls.

He tossed up three in the most basic of throws, and, beaming, called out the names of each trick. "Now, mes amis, are you watching? Cascade!" and the spheres cascaded easily, simply, effortlessly. "Snake! Mills' Mess!" - and though he was forming the gestures, he wouldn't have been able to pull it off without a little mental wrangling. The children laughed with delight as he juggled them higher without missing a beat, he grinned and they clapped and --

And the balls crashed down, bouncing off in different directions as he realized they were paused. Expressions of laughter quite frozen on their faces, and Isaac looked around at the now almost totally silent park, wondered if this was one of those improvisation group pranks, glanced about for the hidden cameras.

 

[H-land]

Lillian Allison was wearing a black one-piece bathing suit, sitting in a deck chair by the side of the pool, with a smear of bright white sunscreen on her nose, doing absolutely nothing at all. She was half asleep in the sun when suddenly, an abrupt silence cut through the warm summer air, startling her awake. She blinked a few times, and sat up. "What the heck is going on?" she asked to nobody in particular, looking around and noticing that not only was the world silent, but still. She donned the light cotton gown next to her, which she had removed to sunbathe, and stood up to see if she could find out what was going on.

 

[Elfin]

((*rereads first post* Wow.. stupid moment. LET'S TRY THIS AGAIN, SHALL WE?))
Leah yawned and tossed her book back into her bag. It was a bit hard to read here, from the noise, plus, it was a stupid book. She glanced down and wrapped her towel around herself. Why on earth was she even here? She looked completely ridiculous in bikinis, particularly the ones with BUBBLEGUM-PINK PANDAS ON THEM.
"Man, what was I even thinki-"
Everything was suddenly quiet. All the little kids that had been screaming and annoying Leah were completely silent. There was no sound at all..
"What the heck is going on?"
Another girl asked. Leah looked up at her in confusion. So, everyone was frozen or something except them.
"Is this some kinda prank? Very funny.. stop it.."
But there was no way this was a prank. There was no way this whole place could be so completely silent all of a sudden..
"What's happening..?"

 

[nastypass]

"Ugh, not again."

Was it the fourth or fifth time today that Hal's wallet was stolen by that same duck? He'd lost count. It wasn't usually that hard to get it back, seeing as ducks aren't the best fliers in the world when they have a wallet about two-thirds their size in their bill, just time-consuming. This time it looked as if it was going to fly to the other side of the bi-weekly bike race, not realizing it would likely pass by the time Hal reached it. Hal, being smart enough to realize that they would pass, ignored the bikes altogether.

Of course, he also managed to ignore the sharp snap and the fact that the duck (now resting at the base of an oak), his wallet, and the bikes had all come to a dead stop and he was running headlong into several steel-frame mountain bikes (what a group of mountain bikers were doing racing in a city park, he would never know).

Smash!

The bikes, their riders, and Hal all came tumbling down in one of the less... graceful bicycle accidents any of them had been in. The expressions of the riders, their owners being stuck in place by something, didn't change in the least. Hal got up and spouted a string of unintelligible, apologetic babble that anyone who didn't know him for more than five minutes would have confused for enraged swearing.

It took Hal at least five minutes to realize that the riders he had just crashed into were frozen in time and, of course, neither heard nor cared about his apologies.

 

[Zuu]

Under the far-reaching branches of an oak tree sat Gregory, cross-legged, with his guitar lain down beside him on the thick, green net of grass that grew across the entire park. He had been lazily watching (with his eyes half closed) a casually dressed performer juggle three lacrosse balls without seemingly making any effort. He had been quite contented, skipping work like this, jamming in the green and watching all of the people around him, when suddenly the same performer dropped all of the balls and looked around with a perplexed expression on his face, particularly in the direction of the now oddly silent children.

Greg reached out for his guitar, stood up, carefully pushed his tie-dye bandanna out of his eyes, and began walking slowly towards the child's party, squinting in order to get a better look at whatever was going on. As the musician reached the congregation, he realized that the children were completely motionless. Mouth agape, he looked back and forth from the children to the performer, half-heartedly pointing a finger in accusation.

"What the hell happened here?"

 

[Clover]

Isaac's dark green eyes darted from a tall tree branch, trying to spot any tell-tale dark boxes, reflections of a camera lens - to his fluorescently colored juggling balls, calling them to about-face and roll slowly back to his spot, to save him from running around like a fool - to the irate-looking man pointing a finger toward him (rather rudely, in his opinion), demanding to know what was going on.

Isaac gently placed his hand over the man's own and lowered it, noting his callused fingertips and the acoustic guitar he held. "Calm yourself, man!" he said with a smile. "Haven't you heard of those flash mobs, ones that make arrangements over the internet to gather in large numbers, then stop everything for a few minutes to the befuddlement of the bystanders?" He turned away from the man and children and threw up his arms in excitement with a chuckle. "Dynamic living statues! A fine show of modern art; a consciousness-raising metaphor for the tizzy of today's culture!"

He faced the group again, squatting beside a young boy. He placed a finger under his chin, lifting it slightly with no resistance. Raising an eyebrow in amusement, he continued, "I am impressed with the patience even these young ones show, for the name of art." While squatting, he picked up the balls that had since returned and zipped them safely in a dark red nylon backpack, which he slung over his shoulder. "Just wait, we shall see all this on the six o'clock news!" He stood and grinned congenially to the bandana-wearing man, making eye contact while sticking out a hand to shake. "Ah, I have misplaced my manners, blathering without even an introduction. Isaac, Isaac Walters. And yourself, my good man?"

 

[Keta]

She had come to the lakeside on her own accord; what else was there to do? Being cramped up in an aunt's suburban home for a few weeks was stifling, and life felt much more inconvenient in this middle of nowhere, where no one could imagine living without a car. And so, the only place that she was able to walk to was the lakefront. Nice breezes of fresh air swept the lakefront, nothing like the winds stinking of car exhaust or trash that dominated the city. The way the locals were running about was itself relaxing to see, neither hectic nor harried like the city adults were all the time.

Now what was she to do at the park? The short girl paused and narrowed her dark eyes at the sun above. Its glaring rays highlighted her hair, a light brown streaked with stray white hairs that should have belonged to someone several decades older. She had considered dying it over at her aunt's house... but decided to leave the job for later. Besides, it was mildly entertaining to see people try to guess her real age. Cheryl Linden didn't have any particular objective in mind; she just wanted to kill some time, watch some people, take a walk for the time being.

Then something felt different. Cheryl blinked.

"God daaaaamn..." She drew out the last word, then sucked in her breath. The merry-go-round of a happy summer scene had stopped all of a sudden, the mouths open and eyes in half-blink of children and adults alike. And even stranger were those who had been spared.

"What the hell happened here?" An angry male voice. The bandana man who had been playing guitar, standing up and pointing.

"Dynamic living statues! A fine show of modern art; a consciousness-raising metaphor for the tizzy of today's culture!" declared another male's voice, decidedly different, exuberantly cheerful and loud. The performer, gathering the lacrosse balls which had scattered every which way.

"This is an impressive job if it's just an improv group," Cheryl called back, loudly, raising an eyebrow at the antics of the performing man. "Mr. Walters, was it?" she asked, as she strode across the grass towards the man.

 

[surskitty]

((... I was going to post with SUSPICIOUSLY UNFROZEN LIFEGUARD NPC and actually try to move forward a bit, but you guys seem to be doing your own thing at the moment which is fine [IT JUST MAKES ME NEED TO CHANGE THIIIIIINGS orz I haven't tried to actually DM before] but. Have an incredibly short post. D< Guys I am feeling swamped D:))

One of the mostly-stationary ducks in the lake -- the water moves enough for them to bobble, but they're certainly not moving on their own -- vanishes with a soft "plup", though it's very audible what with the lack of other noise. There is nothing immediately visible in the lake, but it's very murky. Supposedly it's a foot deep, but....

 

[Harlequin]

He'd been up for hours by this point, so perhaps it wasn't entirely surprising that he was imagining things, but Dave could swear one of the ducks had disappeared. A little drunk, maybe, but he certainly shouldn't be hallucinating. God, he hadn't taken MDMA in ages...

Sticking his sketchbook under one arm and jamming his pencil into his beehive, Dave strode over to where he could see actual people moving. Maybe the ducks had just all spontaneously died. Yeah, that made sense. Ducks did that, right? ... not in his own experience, admittedly, but ... well... to be fair he was usually drunk and/or high.

He adjusted his boobs before sauntering up to where the three people stood talking. When he got there, he blinked. Repeatedly. He even forgot that blinking too much would ruin his mascara, not to mention the tragedies it would do to his eyeliner. There were children. Sitting quietly. What's more, they were still. He'd never seen such a thing! In his experience, children were loud, fidgetty and often both.

"If you don't mind me asking, my lovelies," he said, putting on his best Trixibell voice, "what in the name of God's mighty clash is happening?"

He pursed his lips and waited, with one hand on his hip and the other holding his sketchbook in place, for someone to answer.

 

[Clover]

He turned his head to the feminine voice that had called his name. Aha, it /was/ a woman! He half-skipped, half-jumped to meet her across the stretch of grass. Upon reaching her a foot away, Isaac took her right hand gently in his, lowering - almost having to kneel - himself to her eye level. He gently raised her nails to his lips, and spoke softly, locking his eyes to her dark chocolate ones.

"Enchanté, madame. That is correct; Isaac Walters, at your service. Might I be informed as to your own? That is, your name, and if there exist any plans that might defer you from joining me for a c--"

And then /someone/ interrupted him. He slightly pouted, let go of the lady's hand and rose to face the... Well. She. The. Woman? who had interrupted. She looked entirely put-out, as if it was the world's fault that she was inconvenienced and wanted to know just what it planned to do to fix it. For some reason, he felt not compelled, as he did with most everyone of the opposite sex ever, but repulsed from this figure with the blackened hairstyle the size of her head.

And what sort of phrase was /that/?

He tried to keep his manners at the forefront of his mind, and answered in an even tone, "I believe it is an impressive showing of a group of improvisational thespians' skills, ma'am." It... had been quite a long time since they started, hadn't it? He knotted his eyebrows and cast his eyes to the ground, swayed back on his heels, bit his bottom lip, and stuck his thumbs in his beltloops - the picture of uncertainty. "At least... there's no better answer I can come up with..."

 

[Zuu]

Gregory had little time to charm the overly polite performer or even grace him with his name, as before he could stammer out a sarcastic reply their company was joined by two women. One of them was dressed quite extravagantly, to the point where it looked somewhat foolish in Rohleder's eyes; the other one was - as far as he could tell - younger than the other, though she sported grey streaks in her hair. He mentally commented positively on her looks whilst the three conversed before jumping back into the fray.

"That's a cute explanation and all, sirs and madams," he said pointedly, with a scalding look at the glittery woman, "though I really doubt it is one of merit. These kids have been standing here for quite a while. Even without the mild case of ADHD most of them probably have, I don't think any child has that kind of patience."

 

[nastypass]

After getting himself up from his rather embarrassing incident with the frozen, for lack of a better term, cyclists, Hal looked up to see that the mischievous duck from earlier had vanished- along with his wallet.

Ah hell, now where's that little bugger run off to? Hal climbed over the tangled mess of bicycles and riders, who seemed a lot more willing to be stepped on now that they had no idea that it was happening. No sign of any duck or wallet behind the tree, in the tree, or anywhere else it could have run off to. It wasn't until he had finally given up on his search that he noticed- it wasn't just the bike race that was stopped- everything from cars going down the street to the traffic lights had stopped dead in their tracks. He looked over at the clocks set up around the park, and as he half-expected, none of their seconds hands were moving.

It was eerily silent for about a minute as everything sank in. Hal had seen some freaky shit in his days, but this was definitely a 9.7 on his weird shit-o-meter. The silence was broken after about a minute when he heard a few voices behind him. He turned around and quickly made his way to a group of people who stood out in that they were not frozen in time like himself. "I believe it is an impressive showing of a group of improvisational thespians' skills, ma'am," he overheard a young man, probably in his early twenties. "At least... there's no better answer I can come up with..."

"That's a cute explanation and all, sirs and madams," said a man in a bandanna standing with him, probably a similar age (although Hal wasn't the best judge of age in the world), "though I really doubt it is one of merit. These kids have been standing here for quite a while. Even without the mild case of ADHD most of them probably have, I don't think any child has that kind of patience."

"I have to agree with the man in the bandanna on this one," Hal interrupted. "I just ran straight into a bike race over there- none of the racers seem to have noticed a thing. Besides, look at those." Hal pointed to the clocks stationed around the park.

 

[H-land]

As she looked around, Lillian noticed only a few people moving, among them and closest to her were a girl in a towel and a pink bikini, and the lifeguard who sat in her chair above the pool, observing the mostly stagnant swimmers in the nearly motionless pool while kicking her legs idly. The lifeguard doesn't seem upset at all, Lillian thought to herself. Maybe she knows what's going on.
"Hey," she said, walking toward the lifeguard's chair, "do you have any idea what's going on here?" She was vaguely aware, even as she asked this, of some conversation going on in the park near the pool, from which she could hear voices, but not make out words. "Because if you wouldn't mind telling me, then... I'd sort of like to know."

 

[Harlequin]

Oh, my, thought Dave. These people did have a point. Still, though, it had to be some sort of trick - a masterfully orchestrated one, of course, but that certainly did not make it any less of a trick.

He was slightly annoyed by the man's reaction to him - despite his politeness, Dave couldn't help but feel somewhat as if he wasn't quite welcome. Oh, well. That's what happened when one dressed as an over-the-top woman called Trixibell Tralalah but he'd thought he'd done well that day. Some people would never get over drag artists, it seemed.

And this new fellow, the one with the claim that clocks had stopped working... yes, he seemed uncaring, which was good.

Perhaps he should have dressed as Dave that day.

"Of course, I think you're right," said Dave, momentarily forgetting his female voice and speaking in his usual baritone. "Children are ghastly creatures, but if this isn't an elabourate farce then what, pray tell, is it?"

 

[octobr]

So he pulled off his shoes and stuck his feet in the water.

Well, wait, let's back up a little first.

All that happens is people stop talking so much and then all the sudden people are talking a lot more! All the ducks stopped making that funny noise they do and the other kids stopped playing catch, which was really all right, but then all these adults decide they have to take charge and they ruin the moment which wasn't so bad cause it gave him time to look at things and they were kinda nice if you got down to it, since there were lots of trees and little bugs and stuff that crawled out of nooks in bark. But they started talking and then he got all distracted and lost that ant!

So he'd stood up from the ground under the tree and looked around at the world like it was its fault for making the adults be so annoying.

Nothing, though, nothing really happened. Just more old people. In dresses or weird shirts and other things that aren't good for summery days like this. Rocket stared at them for a while, absorbing their babbling -- madam this, kids are dumb that -- before making a face and walking straight past them to the lake. Actually walked straight through them. It was a shorter path to squeeze between the shiny woman and the showy guy who he'd watched a while earlier. Rocket spared them a short "'scuse me" as he pushed them out of his way.

It -- the lake -- looked really nice and cool with all the waves and ducks and like the sand underneath it was gonna just swallow him up. So he pulled off his shoes and stuck his feet in the water. The ducks sort of bobbled with the ripples from the splash and he started to kick his feet a little to watch them tumble around.

 

[Elfin]

Hey, do you have any idea what's going on here?"
The other girl asked the apparently unfrozen life guard exactly what Leah had been thinking. So the three of them were apparently the only ones who were still moving around, although she thought she heard voices far off somewhere. Maybe the prank was on them. Or the life guard was the one pulling the prank. She didn't seem upset at all. Yes, this was some kind of trick, like one of those hidden-camera shows that her mom always complained about, saying they were cruel. And yet..
Leah glanced over at the swimmers, idly wondering how they kept from drowning. Somehow, she got the impression that that sort of thing would ruin a prank.

 

[Keta]

An interesting crowd had assembled now, their defining characteristics the slight nervousness and curiosity for the strange happening around them; this was definitely not the summer vacation she had expected to encounter on the lakefront. Her black eyes, squinting in the sunlight, searched the group, a motley assembly of people who had little in common, nothing totally out of the ordinary, except some people were giving the drag lady funny looks.

As for Issac, Cheryl was tempted to give him the middle finger, or do something likewise impulsive and sudden. She did not enjoy being hit upon, although the perpetrator in question was not a bad-looking guy. Next to her skirt, her fingers twitched a little in anticipation, the psychokinetic energy at her fingertips. But she held back, and, instead, looked the man in the eyes and frowned thoughtfully.

"My name is Cheryl Linden," she answered to Issac.

 

[surskitty]

((... My mental picture is not quite matching up with what I actually post agh. Feel free to ask for clarification on anything because er. Yeah. ALSO I am really swamped but tryiiiiiing man I am not doing this again without a defined posting order /)_(\ ))

There's something decidedly off about the hazy air, even ignoring the sudden stillness. Most of the other people unaffected -- not that there are many (maybe two and a half dozen people total within a mile and a half radius) -- seem to have barely noticed. On closer inspection, no one is completely stopped: people breathe, if extremely slowly, and the swimmers seem to be floating. Apparently this was timed for no one to be underwater.

---


The lifeguard freezes for a second, then turns towards the girl.

"Ah? N-no, not really," she says carefully. "It's happened three times in the past two weeks, though, at least -- as far as I know. I can't even begin to say why." The girl fidgets, then leaps down onto the pavement. "I think it usually passed within a few minutes, though? Quickly enough, anyway."

It's a bit hard to gauge her age or height once she's standing, but what's visible of her hair under her hat is disheveled. She looks exhausted, though she hadn't needed to do much all day. "I think..." She trails off absently. "... we should check over there? And see who else." She looks meaningfully at the two at the pool, then points towards a small door in the fence between the pool and the park. The group at the lake is vaguely visible, from this range, if not that clear.