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.]

Re: [Network, audio]

[iamnotgod]

[Walter sighs.]

I'd better not have jinxed it for you.

Is it only things you gave away during your time here in Mossgate, too?

[Network, audio]

[scarsolderthanyou]

I never gave away any of her things when she was alive, so yeah, it's all from Mossgate. From a less than a year ago, but before this numbered crap started up.

Re: [Network, audio]

[iamnotgod]

[...]

You may get some calls wondering where those things went, soon.

[Which will increase the Unfortunateness Factor of this whole thing even more.]

Assuming people don't just conclude they've misplaced them to begin with.

[Network, audio]

[scarsolderthanyou]

They might. Though probably not the things I threw out, and the stuff I donated nobody's going to call me about it. I don't remember where most of these might've come from, at this point.

Re: [Network, audio]

[iamnotgod]

[Well, that was one way things couldn't necessarily get worse.]

Would- would putting them away somewhere again help?

[It feels wrong, how he's asking, but he can't not ask, not try and offer something.]

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?

Re: yes!

[iamnotgod]

Not necessarily.

[Considering it only seemed to be Things Lost in Mossgate, however, it was something of a relief compared to what else Walter could have gotten back.]

[channingchanningchanning]

...But also things that you liked?

[Just tell him that he can hope!]

[iamnotgod]

That I once liked, yes.

[That's probably the best way for him to put it. He's not certain how he feels about the blanket now.]

[channingchanningchanning]

[That doesn't sound good at all.]

And who returned all those things to you?

[iamnotgod]

An unknown - and how they know these things belong to us is just as unknown.

[But it definitely is the things that were lost, not copies.]

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!

Re: [Text] (*My whole family has been)

[iamnotgod]

These would have been from before then, though, in my case. I wasn't in Mossgate when I received my Number.

[Or would 'activate' be a more accurate term? Not that Walter much likes it.]

A few.

And that would be interesting to know, frankly.

[Deliberate subject shift continues to be deliberate.]

[Text forever]

[vernal_miss]

Maybe they knew you would be.

[Nel would not mind being a friendly ear, but adults are funny about not wanting to talk about certain things to kids.]

You should call one. Or maybe visit. It might help you feel a little better.

[Stickers retrieved, she sorts through the handful of them and studies each one carefully to try to spark a memory of using them. Some she readily identifies, others she barely recalls having seen before.]

I think I gave one of these stickers out that day people were signing their names.

Re: [Text forever]

[iamnotgod]

As in, predestination?

[He is not entirely certain that's what you're on about, Nel.]

You're likely right.

[Still, he doesn't go much further on that conversational avenue.]

So it's not a unified collection, then.]

[vernal_miss]

What’s that?

[ That is not a word she recognizes, so she cannot support it as her intention. What she can support is Walter finding emotional comfort in someone he can trust.]

Good! You should ask them now about having a talk later.

Not really. They didn’t come from the same sheet or anything either.

[iamnotgod]

Predestination is the idea that some Creator decided in advance how all things are and will be, whether individual people are comfortable with their end 'positions' or not.

[Awww, Nel. ;;]

I'll make sure to do that, then.

That's odd. Wonder why those were the ones deemed 'lost' and not belonging to someone else?