audio ↪ un: 012601

[craters]

We've all had some time to settle in. Hopefully everyone's holding up all right!

For those of you I haven't spoken with, my name's Sakura. I'm both a doctor and healer and I have a little ad hoc clinic down by the docks. （ a helpful location ping follows this. ） If you ever find yourself needing medical care, please reach out and let me know. There's at least one other person here with medical experience that I know of as well, but I'll let them speak up if they want to make themselves known — and I'm happy to collaborate with anyone else, none of us can be everywhere at once.

（ paging terraria, party of bird. ）

As for my reason for addressing you all... I'm looking to keep blood on hand for medical emergencies, transfusions and any surgeries that may be necessary. If anyone is willing to come down to the clinic and give a donation, it'd be very appreciated. I promise it only hurts a little! And you'll even get a candy afterwards! While supplies last.

Those with O-negative and O-positive types would be ideal. If you don't happen to know what your blood-type is, I can run a test for you.

Thanks everyone!

（ she's almost finished, and it seems like that might have been the last thing... but a few minutes later, she clicks the feed on again: ）

I'm still looking for information on anyone who's undergone the soulbond as well. Purely for research purposes. You can reply anonymously if you'd like, or privately if that's easier. I promise anything you say will be kept confidential.

Comments

[fawcetted]

Really? I mean, I guess in the grand scheme of things that makes a lotta sense. It's just — back home, there's this idea about soulmates that's like ... you and one other person, you know? Like once you've found that one person who completes you, that's it. You're good. And you find them in this life and every life after that, and probably every life before it too.

[ Real romantic, fairytale, Hollywood-movie trope bullshit, probably. But Steve believed in it. Steve believed in it so hard despite himself. ]

I think I legitimately died, yeah, and that's how I got here. It's kind of a long story, I guess, involving this creepy duded in a haunted mansion with a clock, and this girl with superpowers ... anyway.

Why? Did you — not come here totally in danger too?

[craters]

I think the issue lies in thinking of it as 'soulmate'. My culture has something similar to your concept, but that's not how I'm choosing to see this bond.

（ deliberately choosing not to, in matter of fact. ）

I wasn't in any danger to speak of, which is the same for several other individuals I know...

[fawcetted]

O ... kay. So how exactly are you understanding this whole soulmate-bond thing? They do call it a soulmate here, don't they?

[ pls teach him your ways, Sakura-sensei

But, no. For real. He can't seem to get over his hangup about the traditional Hollywood definition of a soulmate. He could use a new perspective. ]

Please tell me you weren't just ... I don't know, sleeping, and then you woke up here.

[craters]

Mm... I guess I'm looking at it more like something that helps us survive. It's a tool in this place, and it just happens to be representative of a bond that happens to be associated most strongly with romance.

（ and sakura, who has loved love as long as she can remember, has set some things aside. ）

Ah — no, I was on the steps of the hospital where I work.

[fawcetted]

Yeah, I guess that's ... a different way of looking at it.

[ But he has yet to put that traditional notion aside. He'll work on it though. From this moment onwards, he's gonna work on it. And just to test that out: ]

So it's just — a bond. Not especially romantic, not especially anything. It's just a way to help us not go totally nuts or whatever.

[ If he repeats himself enough, surely he'll believe it. ]

The steps? But like, not in a fight, not near dying, not bleeding out ... right?

[craters]

No, nothing like that. I was having lunch, actually.

（ cute little onigiri shapes, made by the nice lady in the hospital mess, who's taken such a liking to her after she helped her son. ）

No blood, no near-death, no fighting. Doctor's word!

[fawcetted]

Having ... lunch.

[ He can't believe it. ]

What the hell? How do you get to have lunch while I'm getting strangled by some creep's ... tentacle-arm things? Like, I'm pretty sure that's how I wound up here at all, but how does that work when you're having lunch?

Unless you ... choked on something?

[craters]

（ wow, steve, do you mind. ）

I didn't choke on anything!! That's not even an elegant way for a woman to die! I mean that I don't think I was dead!

that icon dlskfjlg

[fawcetted]

[ Gettin' real #himbo up in here. ]

Sorry! [ Oops. ] Sorry, I guess I just thought ... you know, we're all in hell or whatever, the only way to get here is by dying somehow.

she's so scandalized

[craters]

We're told we're in hell. It's not the same thing as being there.

look,,,

[fawcetted]

This place feels a lot like what hell would be. What makes you think it's not?

no u look!!

[craters]

（ because of edo tensei. but she can't exactly say that. that time all the powerful dead of my village were resurrected in a war against us. just sounds strange to the uninformed. ）

Not every culture represented by those that are here has an iteration of a 'hell' in their religion or beliefs. I don't, at least not like this. Also, my home was at war not too long ago. If this place were hell, and a universal experience, I would expect to see more of my countrymen here.

（ that's vague enough it could be anything, really. no one needs to know her role in the war. ）

[fawcetted]

[ There's a pause, like Steve's mulling over her words.

And then, because he can't really find fault in her explanation, he responds: ]

Yeah — okay. Okay, I guess I can't really argue with that.

[craters]

Then, there you go.

Some of us may have experienced death in our worlds, but I don't think everyone has.

[fawcetted]

What? Like, you died and something pulled you back?

Or are you talking about your life flashing before your eyes, maybe a white light, but then you decide to stick around?

[craters]

（ she could always ask naruto what that's like, but... ）

No, I mean, it seems like some people recall dying just before waking up here.