Lost and Found [Mingle]

[ourearth]

Date: 23-30.3.19
Characters: Open

---

It starts slowly, one by one: Items are being returned to people. Specifically, they are delivered to their mailboxes.

The items are very varied, and either pushed through the letter slot in the door or, if they're too big, just left on the doorstep: A wallet that was stolen last year, a coin that was dropped into the sea last week, or a toy that was left on a bus, a time capsule buried in the ground, an unwanted present purposefully forgotten at the train station. The only thing that they have in common that they are never perishables. It's all non-food items.

All items that are being returned must have vanished within the Mossgate Echo Boundary, but they can have vanished long before the person whom they are returned to gained their first echo/got access to the network.

They appear throughout the week, and then abruptly stop the evening before Mother's Day.

Comments

Closed Action + Network OTA

[iamnotgod]

[The 23rd; Closed for Russell]

By now Walter has properly integrated the webcam-and-glasses setup into his daily life, as well as figured out how to adjust the former with minimal movements and attention drawn.

But as he stands outside the door to the flat today, he's forgotten about that, simply staring down at the blue blanket in his hands as if he'd been frozen in time.

"Didn't we give this away?" he asks aloud, not expecting any response. True, he'd never seen what his parents had done with his childhood belongings when they'd left Mossgate, but a furtive dive into his memories and repeated strokings of the soft fabric, the fraying at the edges assure that yes, this is the same blanket he'd had until he was five-

"And how did it even get here?" he asks, louder and more intentionally (and subsequently more rushed).

[The 27th; Network Text]

This isn't city-wide, is it? People having lost items returned?

Because it's starting to get annoying.

[Network, audio]

[scarsolderthanyou]

So it is numbered crap.

Someone or something collected a bunch of my dead wife's belongings and returned them to me.

[He sounds annoyed, too. Maybe a little angry.]

Re: [Network, audio]

[iamnotgod]

That's horrible.

[Walter definitely sounds disturbed by the prospect.]

I'm sorry. ... It wasn't anything from the gravesite, was it?

[Because he can no longer Not Think about things like 'what could possibly make this worse?'

[Network, audio]

[scarsolderthanyou]

No. Just things I gave away or threw out.

She's already been dug up once. If it happened again....

[He can't even finish that. The thought makes him too angry.]

network

[channingchanningchanning]

What items?

[He's lost quite a few much beloved toys over the years! Because his owner deemed them too gross and ruined to keep them. He'd like them back!]

[Audio now, I presume?]

[iamnotgod]

Clothes, pencils... a blanket.

And a mug, though I don't remember exactly keeping that one in the first place.

[If they can be restored still, MAYBE Chad's owner will get an unpleasant surprise???]

yes!

[channingchanningchanning]

Things that you liked?

Network [Text]

[vernal_miss]

My whole family have been getting things back. Some of them were even baby clothes.

I got back a hair bow, a bracelet, and a bunch of stickers.

Re: Network [Text]

[iamnotgod]

Those sound less annoying to have returned. Apart from being disquieting that it makes it seem as if someone's been keeping track of us for all our lives.

[Which, after a thought, is unfair to make Nel consider.]

Apologies; it's been rather disturbing for me personally, is all.

Those wouldn't happen to include any of the stickers you were giving out last year, would they?

[Subject change is very much deliberate.]

[Text] (*My whole family has been)

[vernal_miss]

[The rush of text from Walter, length as much as anything, is another sign to Nel that the continued returns are upsetting to him beyond mere annoyance.]

Maybe since we got our Numbers years ago.

[She doesn’t like that thought either, and moves on.]

I’m sorry. Do have someone to talk to about it?

Maybe? I hadn’t considered they could be. Let me find them and see!

[scarsolderthanyou]

I. Closed probably, unless anybody walks by

Sam wasn't expecting any packages. Really, he didn't do a lot of ordering anymore, preferring to go out and do things instead, and he didn't need much. So stepping outside that morning and finding a box on his doorstep makes him pause, squint, and take a careful sniff.

Doesn't smell like Mr. Evil (harhar, he still doesn't buy that name). Smells like... Amy. He drops to a crouch to tear it open and scowls at the small collection of his wife's things, which he'd donated, sold, or thrown away-- and had honestly not wanted to see again. He stared at it for a long moment, then picked up the box and headed inside.


II. For Family

The box comes with him to Mary Ann's house, where he grouchily drops it on their couch and asks anyone, "Did you send this, or is this numbered crap messing with us again?"


III. OTA

With his family not to blame, the only other option is numbered crap, so Sam is prowling around looking for the source of the non-Amy scents on the box. He knows he's smelled it before... mingled with something less pleasant, but he's unable to put the right memory together just yet. He can be found walking in any part of the township trying to catch a hint of the owner of that smell.

Fellow Numbered people will probably recognize the determined look on his face as him hunting.

III

[saveournpcs]

Out near the pier, a man is crouching in front of a crying child, speaking to the little boy in soft tones.

As he's upwind of Sam, the widower might get a wiff of his scent - and it is the exact scent that he is looking for. The wind also carries pieces of what the man and the child are saying, making it clear that he's trying to help the child to find his parents, with little success.

[scarsolderthanyou]

Interesting. Not as immediately off-putting as Mr-I'm-too-stupid-to-come-up-with-a-decent-name, at least. Sam doesn't even hesitate, he just heads right over to join the conversation. Maybe he'll even recognize the kid, and be able to help. "There a problem over here?"

[saveournpcs]

"This young fellow here seems to have lost his parents." The man has a light local accent, just strong enough to be identifiable but light enough that there are no issues with understanding it at all.

II

[vernal_miss]

When her grandfather arrives, Nel is laying upside down on the couch with her head off the front of the cushion, hair draping down, and feet on the back as she watches the telly. Although her initial impulse is to smile, that vanishes when she reads his body language as he walks over. Quick to sit herself upright, she swings her feet down the other way to sit properly and look as he drops the box on a cushion. Leaning over on one hand to peer inside, she examines the items it contains without touching them, and frowns slightly. The items are not familiar to her, faded as her memories of Amy are by now.

As such, she has very little to offer in answer, “…no? Maybe the Numbers… But what are these, Grandpa?”

[scarsolderthanyou]

"I didn't think you would have, but maybe your mother," Sam allows. He drops to sit on the other side of the box from Nel, frowning, but maybe a little bit less so. "These come from your grandmother. My wife. I pawned them or donated them or just plain threw them out over the past couple of years, and they showed up in a box on my doorstep this morning."

[vernal_miss]

The association of the items as belonging to her grandmother is unexpected. Brows lifting, Nel looks far more attentively into the box a second time with the items inside observed for more details while she touches the top edge of the box with one hand. Grandpa may have sent them away but the items, both precious and mundane, had been gathered and returned. While she appreciates the opportunity to see something more from her grandmother, it strikes her as more odd than what their household has been experiencing collectively.

“We’ve been getting things back too... Everyday almost, but not in a box like this,” Nel reports.

[lovedramamoron]

1.
Jimmy had taken on a seat on the front steps of his host family's house as he investigates the box that had appeared. To his left is a small and growing pile of objects. A box of pencils, a hairbrush, a left glove and a small stack of notebooks and paperback novels.

2. Network
So this is kind of weird. Did anyone else get a box with a lot things you've lost inside it?

[Text]

[iamnotgod]

Box, no. Things, yes.

At least it's not extending to food so far, though.

[It's a very minimum standard, because otherwise their homes would really look like reverse garbage cans, and... they could probably do without that.]

Re: [Text]

[lovedramamoron]

I got a bunch of things in a box. I had no idea I'd misplaced this many things since I got here.

Re: [Text]

[iamnotgod]

It is surprising, in some cases. Though, most of these things are easily replaced. That reduces the shock value for those who haven't been here long.

[Or, uh... had to bury a loved one here. Because that's a thing.]

2

[catted]

We keep getting onsies that may or may not have lived in this household once.

[She doesn't really remember every single piece of children's clothing that were ever put on her children.]

Re: 2

[lovedramamoron]

So its not just me. I'm not sure whether that is reassuring or worrying.

[catted]

It's like a more individualised version of the coal we got for Christmas.

Open Action; happy to plot other scenarios (28th March)

[warped_replica]

Nearing two years of living in Mossgate, Benjiro has lost a few items here and there during his day to day routine. Nothing particularly missed. Even so, he takes notice of the odd bits he finds in the mailbox when he checks it each day coming home from school or work. Such items include pens, a pencil, several tiny screws used for computer hardware, a fistful of odd socks, and even a crumpled up paper with discarded design calculations. The paper gives him a small amount of pause. It is nothing harmful, and yet, it feels intrusive to have something so personal returned when it has nothing more than his handwriting style to match it to him.

Then, returning home Thursday after school, he checks in the mailbox and immediately feels his heart skip a beat in his chest with a wash of nausea following. Reluctantly, he fishes out the tooth and pockets it. Feeling the shape and size, he confirms his initial recognition of it as one of the last human teeth he pulled during the previous summer. Benjiro had dropped it down the sink drain when fumbling from fatigue and had expected it to be gone for good. Especially after he had practically dismantled the accessible pipes to search for it.

Rather than heading inside, he wheels his bike into the storage shed and leaves the door raised as he sets to work on a smaller project with a text to his great aunts to alert them to his activity in the shed. Anyone that walks by that afternoon into the evening in Moss Manor might spot him tinkering away.