Chapter Text
Gaze upon the hero of our story.
As far as the situation goes, it wouldn’t be a stretch to describe him as currently feeling
His memory isn’t what it used to be. At this rate, not even the puzzle stack modus may be enough to keep his brain in a constant state of exercise. Not when he’s wasting all that brainpower with overpriced alien wine and fat cigars. Hm. He’s fairly sure cigars weren’t all passed hand to hand last night, but he’d rather not dwell on it. His phone is buzzing somewhere, at random intervals— the telltale sign he has unread messages and should pay attention to them. He has programmed his mobile device to grow a little more forceful with each hour spent accumulating unread texts.
Precaution measures that had to be taken for particular reasons, ‘particularly’ those pertaining his habit of being avoidant and it always, without fail, coming back to bite him straight on the ass.
At the current stage, it sounds a little bit like a construction tool hammering away at fragile porcelain.
Jesus Stomping Christ, does his head hurt. Even his thoughts seem to cause physical damage. They could bear to be quieter.
Maybe just a little bit more.
Perfect.
Now for the post-disaster procedures.
Your name is JAKE ENGLISH. You are brand spankin' 23 years old! ...and aren't wearing any pants. Your head feels as heavy as planet jupiter, not that such thing even exists anymore. You have absolutely no idea in whose bathroom you passed out last night, but it's certainly not yours. You vaguely recall locking yourself up in said bathroom hours prior —baked out of your mind with a smokable hallucinogen baptised in your namesake. Some funky little ringer to do with ‘hope’, you bet, as you are this realm’s friendly neighborhood GOD of HOPE. Your regular title would be 'page', but it never quite stuck as well as the former. Not as sexy, they say.
That's quite enough of second person inferences to juggle his memory.
Jake stumbles to get up from the floor, head spinning, and attempts to access the situation. He's equal parts not sure and entirely TOO sure of how he keeps falling back into these murky situations, but the larger part of his mind prefers to feign ignorance. No, he’s not lonely! He can’t be, with all the fine folks just outside. No, he’s definitely not a sad sack, given how hard he can party after a few drinks! The problem surely must have been some pesky little dream he had balls deep into paranoia.
No, not a dream.
Gosh, that sounds so silly. but he’s certain he had a terrible, foreboding nightmare. If he could only remember...
>BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Ah, he has to catch that first.
>BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
But where even is his phone in this hellhole?
>OPEN SUSPICIOUS SHOWER CURTAIN.
It's morning, Jake duly notes as his eyes shrink in on themselves & spontaneously combust with the force of a thousand suns. At least that might start up his engines quicker than usual. The audience isn't surprised when he does not acknowledge the large, nonsensical title covering half of his person, that might or might not be an insult directed at him. It depends on your concept of "Manlet".
There we are. just a little stuck up on some… ordinary nondescript liquid.
>GRAB PHONE. IT'S NOT GOING TO GRAB ITSELF.
Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happening right now. All going smoothly. God, who am i kidding, this is disgusting. This is going up somewhere along his 10 most dreadful moments, right next to the 10 most embarrassing ones and the top 10 anxiety flashes that give him incurable insomnia.
>He has now acquired the phone!
That's a striking troll girl if he's ever seen one, but he definitely does not remember who in Sam Hill this is supposed to be. Funny how this works. You get just a little bit knocked out at a party like any fellow in good adventurous swing would do, and all of a sudden people are all up in your possessions. No pants, no phone, no shoes! And if he's being quite honest with himself here, he knows he didn't come in wearing this T-shirt getup.
Hey, That's not so bad for a good ol' party night inbox! Let's see these messages, in order of most concerning to least concerning.
There's a couple messages from your HOT n' COLD pal DIRK. Some others from your DARLING CHUM, ROXY. And what appears to be a few status reports that require your attention about the COMPANY YOU OWN, SKAIANET SYSTEMS INC. Sorting from 'most concerning to least concerning' leaves you with only one obvious course of action in this case. It's a no-brainer.
>HOVER FINGER SLIGHTLY ABOVE THE CONCORD NOTIFICATION CONTAINING DIRK'S CORRESPONDENCE, LIKE YOU DON'T REALLY MEAN TO OPEN IT, BUT ARE CURIOUS ENOUGH TO GET A TASTE OF WHAT'S INSIDE. ALRIGHT, MAYBE YOU WANT TO KNOW, BUT YOU DON'T WANT HIM TO KNOW YOU WANT TO KNOW.
TT: What the fuck?
This can't be any better as a full message log. It seems... he’s exchanged more than friendly virtual hugs last night. That can't be good, can it? Drinking and texting never spells anything nice in these parts. But now here's the pickle: if he clicks to open the cursed correspondence, Dirk's going to know he opened it, and then he'll have a good 2 minute window to answer something nice and decent sounding to calm the lion dens before they're set loose on his panty-clad golden ass.
But doing that before he's figured out how he's gotten here? Oh no, no way. He'll have to knock around his mindmaze for extensive context on his nightly harlequinade before he even thinks of solving this riddle. And then there is also the matter of avoiding all house inhabitants and sneaking out before anyone has the displeasure of knocking in an emergency to use the loo.
JAKE: Oh screw me sideways to sunday and call me Mandy.
>JAKE: TAKE A SKINNY DIP DOWN MEMORY LANE.