[OPEN] Out of Sync with Reality

Eric turns back to "Naked Snake" to make a plan on entering the dorms, and catches the tail-end of his arse as he runs off.

Oh shit.

Isolated. Naked. In the courtyard. Students on all sides. What the fuck do I do?!

Eric begins to panic, then hears a familiar purring. Lenin steps inside the bush looking healthier than ever.... not even a stench of rotting flesh.

"Lenin? Is that you?" the cat purrs in response. "You look.. different. It's like your actually a cat and not.. dead."

A frown appears on Eric's forehead. The cat then scampers out and begins yowling at the top of its lungs, attracting the attention of many of the students who gather around the cat. Eric seizes his chance and sprints across the courtyard and dives into the window he saw Wade disappear into.

'Finally! What took you so long?!?' Wade scoffs at Eric as he sees him entering the window. Luckily, the dorm appears to be completely empty. Regardless, "Naked Snake" continues his sneaking mission until he actually gets to his dorm room on the second floor... and suddenly realizes he lacks his key. 'Shit... Okay, so much for that plan... I might be able to pick the lock with something - a hairpin or something. Go steal one from the girls' dorm, Raiden!'

Eric simply leans over and pushes the door open.

"I guess you left it open." He says as he rolls his eyes and pushes his way into the room.

'Huh, seriously?' Wade asks as his eyes open wide. He's absolutely, 100% sure that he locked the door before leaving. After all, he was pretty certain that he was going to his death, and it wouldn't make sense for him to be leaving it unlocked. Something very odd is going on around here, but it's not like Wade is complaining about this particular inconsistency. He stands up and walks inside the room, then quickly shuts the door down after Eric does too.

'Alright, excellent! Mission complete! No detection and no killing bonus! Rank: Big Boss!' he chuckles and gives a thumbs up, then opens his wardrobe and quickly begins putting some underwear on. 'Ah, finally... Okay, go ahead and take whatever you think would be your size. There's nothing inside that's irreplaceable. Except for the green hoodie. I'm dressed with it on my avatar to the right, so you can say it's kinda like my trademark now'

Having never played video games in his life, Eric simply stares blankly at Wade. "No killing.. bonus? What?" He says, confused.

Eric picks up the first pair of underwear he can find and opts for a simple pair of black trousers and a black shirt. As he pulls on the shirt he actually looks at his own figure for the first time since waking up in the forest.

My scars... they're gone..

Normally Eric would have large scars on his back and chest from his mother's unfair treatment of him, as well as large scars on his forearms which he created himself. also missing was the tally-chart on his chest which kept a track of all the people he had killed in his lifetime to sustain his health.

"Wade... Something is seriously wrong. All of my scars are gone. I had literally hundreds and I'm... clean."

This didn't sit well with Eric at all. The tally charts were the last thing his victims had in this world - without the scars there was nothing to remember them by. Even more morbidly each some scars represented a great victory - often he killed the criminals and scum of the earth.

"Wade... Make an internet search of Serj Kronstandt."

'Serj who-now?' Wade scratches his head, but ultimately complies and pulls out his cell phone. Without looking, he expands the hologram until it's big enough for both of them to see clearly, then opens up the browser, which automatically reopens his last session... Which just so happens to be a page from a yaoi manga. Wade gasps a bit and quickly turned the tab off, acting as if a police officer had just saw him injecting heroin. 'YOU SAW NOTHING!' the boy hisses out, then opens up Google and types up the name. 'Serj... Kronstandt... Did I spell that right? Okay, let's take a look...'

A few seconds later, they have about a thousand hits. Wade clicks the first result. 'There we go, Serj Kronstandt gets 30 years...' he reads out the title and starts skimming through the article. 'Bla bla bla... Assault charges... Bla bla bla... Daughter in police custody... Bla bla bla... Maximum security prison... Eric, why are we looking at this? It has nothing to do with us whatsoever! Just some random guy who got arrested for bitch-slapping his daughter or something! How is this related to us ending up naked in the forest for no reason?'

"I was staying with him when I lived in New York." Eric says flatly, staring at the article. "I walked in on him doing much more than slapping his daughter."

Eric all of a sudden looks very queasy and his legs buckle, with him ending up on the bed. "I killed him. He was the first one. I killed him outright.... and now he's alive, and in prison."

What the hell is going on... first we end up in a forest, then my cybernetic limbs disappear, everything at the school is as if nothing happened, and now it appears my whole life has been rewritten...

Eric grabs the phone from Wade and makes a search of his own, typing his own name into the browser. When nothing turns up he searches Elodien Vasburg.

A large "missing" photo pops up on the hologram, with a much younger looking Eric on it. A small article describes how "Elodien Vasburg" left his trailer park home in the middle of the night. No mention of his strange practices or the frequent arguments with his mother; he is even desribed as "a normal, happy school-boy".

Eric's face goes hard. He gets up and begins breathing heavily, before grabbing Wade by the shoulders, hard. "Is this some sort of fucking joke? Have you rigged your phone?!"

Wade simply watches with his mouth gaping wide open as Eric explains about his first kill. 'D-dude, why would I rig the phone?!? We were together, and then came straight here, remember?' he says and leans back against the wall, suddenly feeling his knees getting weak. All the questions just keep piling up with no answer in sight. As far as he knows, there's only one person who can possibly make sense out of this situation - his older sister. He turns the hologram off and starts looking through his contacts, but finds no sign of Andrea, or her number. 'No... No, no, no, NO! What the fuck?!? My sister... My sister's phone isn't here! It was here, I'm sure of it! I called her before we entered the inn!'

Eric's frown develops into a grimace.

"This is fucked up. My entire life has been rewritten..." Eric sighs. "My mother used to beat me regularly, scarring my horribly. They're gone. I found solace in necromancy. That's gone. I escaped my mother's tyranny and made her suffer for the years she tortured me. Apparently not; I apparently let her walk all over me. ran away to New York and I fuelled my own body with the blood of the damned to justify my murders. They're probably all alive, and more than likely to have gone on to commit more heinous acts. I again found a calling in life with a cross between cybernetics and necromancy... and that's gone too."

Erics mood turns to black, and a wave of pure fury descends upon him. He punches the wall in anger, then yelps in pain as his hand comes away bruised, "This is BULLSHIT! Everything I've held dear to me these past few years is GONE. Even Lenin is a normal cat now, all cute and fluffy..."

He glances up at Wade, "We have to go to the inn and demand answers from Takeshi, whatever crazy voodoo magic he's done on us is WRONG."

'Yeah... Yeah, answers! Okay, I like that!' Wade smiles faintly, still incredibly concerned about his sister. 'But there's no point in both of us going. You can get there with your eyes closed, so you go and demand some answers. I'll stay here and snoop around the school for some details. We can't be the only ones experiencing this... Whatever the hell it is. I'll try to get in touch with Satoshi and the others, see what has changed for them. We'll get to the bottom of this!' Wade says confidently and walks over to one of his drawers, then pulls out a cell phone identical to his own and passes it over to Eric. 'That's my backup cell. We'll use this to communicate. I have its number, so I'll call you up sometime to check up on you. And remember - we still have a truce in effect, so no backstabbing!'

Eric nods and replies: "Good plan Naked Snake. When I find Takeshi.... he'll have hell to pay "
With that Eric sweeps out the room and takes off at a run down the corridor and into the woods.