second shot ☢ VOICE - VIDEO (open to seelie & unseelie)

[mixcds]

[It's take a lot of building himself up to making this broadcast. First, he starts with voice. ]

Err - listen, Jem, if you're listening in, close your locket over.

[It's an odd thing to say, but when Kieren switches to video, it should become apparent why. He's bare faced, eyes white with star burst pupils. The more they get used to the light, the more they'll start to look like pin-pricks as the video goes on. There's dark, purple-blue circles under his eyes and a yellowish tint around them. His mouth is blue and slightly black at the sides. He swallows out of habit, the feeling of a phantom lump lingering in his throat.

He looks like death, quite literally. There's a reason he's been mostly using the audio option to communicate. ]

I guess I just wanted to offer full disclosure here. To both courts, really.

[He chews his lower lip. ] So, some of you know my sister already? I don't know how much she's told you about home, if she has at all. But she might have mentioned something called 'The Rising'. You can probably tell where this is going.

[He has no idea how Simon can be so confident about what he is, at home. He wishes he were here now, for support. ]

If she hasn't, well - the dead rose from their graves and started eating brains for a while. It was - well. It wasn't really ideal. I was one of them.

[Well - it feels sort of good to have that off his chest. ] I'm better now, obviously. No brain eating or anything like that. No eating much of anything, really. I just wanted to be honest, I suppose. Better that than keeping it a dirty secret.

[He sucks in a breath. ] So yeah. That's that, then.

Comments

[Video]

[fell_to_hell]

[Nico really isn't surprised. The guy looked like death when he first met him, and, honestly, Nico never looks anything better than ghostly. So. Good company, right?]

Uh...question. And you seriously don't have to answer it if you don't want to.

[How does he question about something that might be uncomfortable?]

How do you become a zombie in your world?

[Like. A lot of the movies are total sacred cow dung when it comes to it and his zombie thing seems way different than Kieran's. Especially since. Kieran has intelligence and maybe a soul...?]

[Video]

[mixcds]

You don't really become one? It's not contagious. The movies are shite, trust me.

[He pauses. ]

People who died in 2009 are the only people who rose out of their graves, if they weren't completely decomposed. Biting, scratches - they didn't really do anything, except cause mild inflammation if you managed to get away.

[He sounds so boring. ]

video; private.

[jaywalks]

[ oh.

um. ]

... Just brains?

[ because, okay — skipping the whole, previously dead, then... un...deaded? thing? why, there are totally better places on... mammals to eat. hypothetically speaking.

and also this sounds like a face stealer thing, but... not. ]

video; private.

[mixcds]

Just brains. We can't digest anything else.

video; private.

[jaywalks]

That's... really specific.

[Video]

[scramasax]

[Eyes = caught. Eyes - blinked a tad wide. Not shocked, not staring, but piqued? Aye.

Living dead bound to their bodies. That too's proven to have happened on other planes, has it. But - he shakes his head a moment to dislodge that something's off, not lining up properly, before he speaks up, bit soft and a bit ambivalently low.]

My -- apologies, but you don't look as if... you're - "better". ...Exactly...

[He wouldn't dream of saying that out of anything but uneasy interest, he's got a chill reflecting on what feel comes with that look at all.]

[Video]

[mixcds]

[He laughs, just a little. ]

The medicine we take only restores brain cells. I'm still dead, technically. The stuff in my veins that keeps me moving isn't even blood anymore.

[Video]

[scramasax]

[And he twitches an ambiguous uneven something-like-a small crooked tic of a smile, good that that wasn't a case of misspeaking, at least...]

Odd -- though... I thought that those of us who've died in the past were, ah - restored - here.

Unless, uh -- for those whose souls are still in touch with their bodies it wasn't a need. [Those whose souls are still physically in touch and are consciously in tact, for that matter.]

[Audio]

[prinsects]

[She vaguely picks out the voice, and on her end of the line, she raises a brow. She's asking cadenced and clearly, very, but unconcerned.]

Was this "Rising" result of - shall we say a virus's spread, or other infection?

Or - was it paranormal in nature.

[Audio]

[mixcds]

No one knows. Even I'm not sure? What I am - it's not contagious. I can't spread it. I died and then a few weeks later, I came up out of me grave.

[Audio]

[prinsects]

[Tone settled into a buoyancy.] Well, I would assume study was performed. Was not even a clue found of what it was?

video.

[vrykolakas]

[The Brucolac clicks on video while Kieren is still on voice, so you get to see his delighted double take when Kieren's face becomes visible—a full-body change of posture, from leaning back with hands behind his head, to sitting up straight with an expression of pleased interest.]

You recovered.

Congratulations. I hadn't thought zombies could be restored to sentience.

video.

[mixcds]

Anythings possible.

[The pleased look is a little unsettling. It shifts, just a little and shrugs. ]

Thanks. I think.

[munies]

I'm glad to hear you're better.

[ yikes. but wait- ]

Does that mean you were dead? At home, before you rose up again? Or did something make you change to be like them, like a sickness?

[ it's no the Flare, she knows it isn't, but still. maybe she's curious to know if other people died before coming here, too. ]

[mixcds]

I was already dead.

[Wryly:] Got a second chance, despite the temporary cannibalism.

videoooo;

[greenies]

[ you can basically hear the !!!!!!!!!!! over thomas's head. this man--his first thought is that he looks like a crank, and the barest similarities that he and jem had talked about between their worlds made this post incredibly important.

he can't look, at first--wheat blonde hair, the accent, please tommy please--but once he's calmed himself down, he responds with a sense of faint urgency. ]

They found you a cure?

videoooo;

[mixcds]

Sort of. I'm still dead.

[He pauses. Considers his next words; he promised himself to be honest here. He looks vaguely uncomfortable. ]

I could still revert back, if I don't take my medication or if it stops working for some reason. It's not a cure, it's - a treatment.

video.

[powerful]

( cassie's just gonna stare for a second. but, actually, she's seen someone come back from the dead before so she's not as horrified as she could be. still, the fact that he's retained his sentience and isn't operating solely on demonic possession? little bit jarring. )

So you were a zombie, and now you're not a zombie. Which means, clearly, that you've got some sort of voodoo magic. Right?

( she wipes the surprise from her face and tries really hard to smile because he seems like a nice guy, really. )

video.

[mixcds]

Erm. No, I'm pretty normal. No magic here.

[god. GOD. Wouldn't that solve all his problems. ]

Video;

[choreographics]

[He should be more surprised that zombies are real, but considering he's in a fantasy land it's not too shocking.

But it's still enough to comment on because Ryan's nosy.]

So wait a minute, how did this Rising thing happen? [Better than asking "why are you a zombie" he supposes.]

Video;

[mixcds]

Magic. God's wrath. Unfortunate effects of global warming? I don't know.

[HE WISHES ... HE KNEW... WHY...]

text.

[smallshoes]

You ate people?

[She's not usually big on texting, but she doesn't know if she can bear to have this conversation any other way. She's encountered monsters exactly like what he's describing. She's killed them, in fact. But if he's all right... If he's not terrible anymore, what if the things she killed really were people?]

text.

[mixcds]

Yeah. I did.

[He's been expecting a lot of questions; he tries not to be too brusque or even rude. These people haven't lived through it, like at home. They're clueless.]

audio;

[invernale]

[ Harry opts for audio because he's livid and anxious enough at the thought of zombies that he knows he'll get downright rude in his expressions. He's also the type to hear a person out first, though (most of the time), so he tries to limit his bad behavior. ]

Thanks for being honest, I guess. So is this something magical? Or like one of the movies with viruses or electrodes?

audio;

[mixcds]

I don't know.

[It sounds so inane, saying it. He feels so repetitive; wishes he had answers. He wishes he knew why the whole happened, but he's just happy that it did. He's got a second chance now, to make up for everything.

His voice sounds a little tight. ]

No one knows why it happened, I think. I just know that I died and then I came back.

[He hesitates. ]

There were experiments on people like me. There must have been, or we wouldn't have the medication.