savetheearth | Fourteenth Message [Text | Handwritten -> Video

[Slow and steadily handwritten text in pen:]

This is Anthony. I apologize to anyone who it bothers. However, I am going to switch to video. Excuse me, please.

[The words stay in place with no change in the transmission for between four and five seconds.

It shifts to visual with a hoarse and mumbled "Hello."

When it switches to video Anthony looks no different than he did in his last message - except, of course, rather more composed. At the least relatively - he still looks uneasy. Shoulders distinctly hunched making himself not timidly but anxiously somewhat small in the frame. Eyes don't go fully unlidded, blinking rapid, less-obviously brow slightly knitted and eyes themselves wandering one way and then the other.

His fingers are laced and hands resting from where he had them clasped in front of them before shifting method of communication - also not-so-obvious twitch in his face that'd be a little too quick to catch as some misgiving polite obligatory smile even if his face was in the state it was in April.]

-- I er...

-- thought it - may - be - good -- to mention... that I... -- know from experience that I -- cannot die. -- Normally... [This is cagier than he hopes it sounds, as it's more than he can actually claim to know for a fact.] If -- ...there's a fight -- any time soon -- ...if - we're -- ge - getting attacked, again, I, erm. ... -- Won't mind -- if I can -- ...be - there.

[Less-than-forthright way to say that he hopes to.]

Uhm. That's all -- thank - ...Thank you...

[In a moment his shoulders hunch even deeper and he cringes away from the screen before dusting the page aside and cutting the feed.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Pause. Fidgeting with the pen...]

I am a zombie now... Are you connecting on a flat surface? I could connect visually and show you.

Give me a moment.

[She turns herself and her mobile so that only the dark night outside of the bus can see the screen, and then holds the mobile in her lap so there can be no reflection.

Then a second message.] Now. Don't speak.

[He's curious why he oughtn't - doesn't question; tosses and turns on how to change the connection without his voice, but then, he was told not to speak. Some very subtle sound subtle sound should be safe enough - his mind blanks before he can ask to clarify, and momentarily there's a pressurized, muffled, barely-voiced throat-clearing sort of cough. It's caught, and visual comes on.

He's gaping at the screen a bit too so-to-speak hunted-looking and tense in a way of resigning to some impending judgment, less dumb to be deer-in-the-headlights. Eyes whited-out. Hair lifeless. Skin gray-green chalky, face rotting to bloody-looking holes and a lopsided eaten-open Glasgow grin.

An anxious first-presentation - what he's subconsciously waiting for in response is to be told to switch back.]

[a very long simple stare, and then there is a minute nod from the young woman sitting in what is clearly a seat in public transportation, lights flickering from streetlamps passing by outside. The motion should be enough for him to see but not enough to draw attention from the other people on the bus, and then she types a reply, sending them back to text.]

All of that returned in one go? [She would have kept the video, to see more, but on the bus that would be a bad idea. Not a conversation to have with people around her possibly listening.]

[And he stares back - in a similar fashion; thinks he understands why he was told not to speak, without the brighter and more conscious part of his brain remembering that not just anyone can supposedly see anything transmitted on the network, waits for a cue or change from her.

Answers the shift back to text with his face twitching in a remote restless flinch.]

No! It did not, thankfully... It has been developing in "stages", and began in June. The [Brief flick of the pen.] near-death experience was before then. I did not know what it may be connected to at the time.

...That is not a long time to adjust to it, still.

[More time would be better, enough time to figure out how to earn a living in a world where one cannot show their face to 99% of the people in the city... She still does not have the slightest bit of an idea what might happen to her, but she worries more with every new option that she encounters. Not that that discomfort will be put on display on the network more than absolutely necessary.]

It did force some quick change... It was slow enough that with help, I was able to be seen in order to take care of something in July. However, I will admit that I do wish I had seen more warning in my pulses... [That is - probably a disconcerting thing to say...] They were there! Still, I did not focus on them.

How were there warnings in them?

[Though she does not blame him for not focusing on them, becoming a zombie is not really something that one would expect.]

I have had visions involving occult magic. In my first one, a spell was cast on the person who I have been seeing as. My visions have not been long enough for me to see what any of the spells do... However, now I think that I should have guessed that it could have been "necromancy" after what happened when I almost died.

"Should have"s are not a useful, unless a similar situation will arise in the future.

[She waits for a moment with typing more, listening to the announcement of the next station. Three left.]

And it sounds like, at that time, you lacked the dots to connect those pieces of information. [A cautionary tale, though. So far, she has not received any memories, at least not from what she can tell and that should be obvious, right? But when it happens... look at the memory even from the most unlikely angles possible.]

Fourteenth Message [Text | Handwritten -> Video | Sheet of Paper]

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