encounter ✗ ; ¿ days

[lostandfinder]

Characters: Sefton (lostandfinder) & Chivy (polarisation).
Location: Nondescript city; starts in a nondescript house and will work its way from there.
Time: April 28th, early morning.
Summary: Sefton wakes up to a... startling predicament, and quickly contacts Chivy.
Warnings: Excessive bickering.

Sefton awoke, strangely uncomfortable. It took him a few moments to figure out why: not only was he not where he had fallen asleep (a fire escape), but something was wrong. His skin felt as though a sheet of plastic had been wrapped over it and replaced his usual sense of touch.

He jolted up, feeling out at the back of the couch he found himself situated on. Where was he? The living room looked innocuous enough, but it was unfamiliar. More than that, it was... lived-in. Homely. Recently occupied. Somewhere, he knew it was dumb to jump to conclusions, but Sefton couldn't help the paranoia creeping into his veins like searing fire. It goaded him into moving, heading for the doorway he hoped was the exit. (Thankfully, it was early enough morning that it sounded like no one else was awake. It could have been all for show, but even still, it calmed a few nerves.)

Then, he stopped. In the hallway across from the doorway was a mirror. The reflection staring back at him...

... was Chivy.

"What?" he found himself saying aloud, then saw Chivy's—his?—eyes widen as he recognized the voice. That was him. He was Chivy. It didn't entirely register - it was just too bizarre - but, even so, Sefton found himself worrying for his friend. If he was Chivy... then where had Chivy gone?

Something in the reflection caught his eye, and he whirled around to make sure he wasn't imagining it. There! A phone! Perfect. Checking the hallway confirmed that no one was up and about yet to see Chivy running around like a paranoid lunatic, which Sefton figured was probably a good thing. With that taken care of, he lunged for the phone and begun dialing.

Pick up... pick up, Chivy!

Comments

[polarization]

Waking up where you don't expect to is bad enough. Waking up on a fire escape with an unrecognizable phone ringing at you and feeling like you'd only just gotten to the good part of sleeping... is rather worse. It took Chivy a few, long moments to realize just what that strange sound was and where it was coming from, and he almost dropped it trying to find a way to shut it off or do whatever it was the noise meant he should do.

He was so focused on answering it, in fact, that once he had, he simply put it to his ear, blinking sleepily and wondering why someone would be calling him.

[lostandfinder]

Sefton frowned into the receiver when no answer came after someone had definitely picked up. "Hello?" he tried, ignoring the foreignness of his own voice. "Who's this?"

[polarization]

"You called," Chivy pointed out, rather intelligently, he felt. He rubbed his free hand over his face, giving it a puzzled look as he realized it felt... different, but not paying too much mind to it. "Chivy." After a moment, he sat up straighter, muttering to himself, "Where'd I get a phone?"

[lostandfinder]

Hesitation. It wasn't possible - there was just no way it was possible - and yet here they were. Sefton, listening to his own voice, while speaking in one that wasn't his. Taking a deep breath, Sefton instructed, "Meet me in the park soon as you can, okay, Chivy?"

And then he hung up.

[polarization]

Chivy nodded, pocketing the phone and reaching for his knapsack. He actually hit something that resembled awake when he realized that: a) his knapsack was nowhere in sight, b) Sefton's bag was, c) his feet were cold, and d) his feet were cold because he had on Sefton's shoes. With all of that accomplished, another half dozen things that were just plain wrong with the situation vied for his attention, the loudest of which being that he had just spoken with someone who sounded eerily like himself on a phone that should belong to Sefton.

The only way he could have gotten down from the fire escape faster would have been to jump (although he did fall a good part of the way), and he was running toward the park almost before he hit the ground.

[lostandfinder]

Sefton had already begun to hurry there. After some fumbling around while looking for Chivy's bag and trying not to wake up the residents of the house, he slipped out as quietly as he could. Everything felt wrong. He just couldn't get over it. Even running was hard: the balance, the height, the—the feel.

That was probably the worst of it. He couldn't even begin to imagine why it was different - all he knew was that it was and he would have to deal with it later. Right now, he needed to find Chivy.

Getting to the park even from his unfamiliar location hadn't been hard, it was basically in the center of the city. Pausing for a moment - when had that headache started up? Ugh - he leaned himself against the stalker fountain to catch his breath and press a weary hand to his temple.

[polarization]

Chivy wasn't yet awake enough for everything that should be distracting him to be doing so, and he found the park through what amounted to blind luck — not paying attention wasn't the best plan, but there were too many things wrong all at once for his attention to be where it should be.

His startled conclusion wasn't enough to prepare him for actually seeing himself, and he stopped a short distance from Sefton, catching his breath and staring.

[lostandfinder]

It took Sefton a moment to lift his head and notice the one staring at him. Himself. Chivy. Chivy inside his body, staring at him and being stared at in return.

This was so wrong, on every single level. It almost felt like a nightmare, but Sefton never had dreams as vivid as this.

"Chivy?" His voice was a bit strained, from stress and confusion. The headache really wasn't helping matters, either.

[polarization]

"Sefton," Chivy replied, having a hard time finding the right words. "What... what happened?" It was likely Sefton didn't know, either, but it would be so nice if the answer were that easy.

[lostandfinder]

"Dunno," Sefton admitted. He wanted to believe it was the Plane (that place was responsible for 85% of the weird in his entire life, which was certainly saying something), but was that even possible? Sure, it had returned him to childhood, trapped him inside a hot spring and a magic maze, but those things seemed... related, in a way he couldn't explain. Actually switching people between bodies seemed too much to consider. "I just woke up like this. It's—it's weird. Everything."

[polarization]

Chivy couldn't do much more than nod to that. Weird seemed like the perfect word for the situation. "What do we do?"

[lostandfinder]

"Well," Sefton started, not entirely sure himself. There wasn't a whole lot they could do, was there? The best he could come up with was to put the strangeness aside for now and focus on what it actually meant for the two of them. "First thing's first... you gotta leave town soon."

[polarization]

Chivy didn't see any connection between the situation and Sefton's declaration. "What? Why?"

[lostandfinder]

"What d'you mean, why? 'Cause," Sefton explained, as if it shouldn't have been hard to figure out, "I—I mean, you've been here long enough already."

[polarization]

"Long enough for what?" He didn't see any reason to leave, especially since they were both together. They needed to figure out what was going on, not try finding somewhere else to be.

[lostandfinder]

Sefton gave Chivy something of a look. "Long enough for... whoever-it-is to find me. Remember?"

[polarization]

"But why does that—" He stopped, trying to reorient his thought processes. "Oh. Oh. We should still stick together."

[lostandfinder]

"We should?" Sefton asked, letting it fall into a half-statement.

[polarization]

"So that we can figure out how to change things back." He shifted, suddenly noticing the shoes for the second time that morning. He bent down, pulling at them and frowning. "I don't know how you wear these, I feel like I need thicker socks."

[lostandfinder]

"S' not that bad," Sefton said indifferently. Suddenly reminded of the cold around his hands, he crossed and placed them under his arms. "Y' think there's a way to fix this?"

[polarization]

Chivy straightened, nodding. "Sure. If it happened, there's got to be a way to make it unhappen. Or to make it happen the opposite way."

[lostandfinder]

Sefton, meanwhile, slowly began to pace, his attention seemingly drawn elsewhere. "What if there isn't?" he posed. "What if we've just gotta wait it out?"

[polarization]

Chivy considered that, but shook his head. "It'd still be better to stay close. It might not switch back if we're too far apart."

[lostandfinder]

"So I'll go with you," Sefton said with a small shrug.

[polarization]

That was easier than he had dared hope. "Good. I should..." he trailed off, giving Sefton a worried look as something occurred to him. "Did you say goodbye to Mrs. Leighton?"