#my cb deluxe edition just arrived this week so this seems like a fitting time to drop the new fic :)

[strawberrah]

Same Old Story - Part 1 of Discordant Days

Chapter 1: The Stranger

Rating: Teen and Up

Characters: Player Character, Kayleigh, Dr. Pensby

Warnings: N/A

Summary:

| Well, we all fall in love, but we disregard the danger Though we share so many secrets, there are some we never tell | When Cass awakens to find themselves stranded on the strange and fantastical New Wirral island where man and monster intertwine, they soon become entangled in their new friends' longing to find a gateway back to their home worlds, and escape this land once and for all. Their only clue? The fractured song of a fractured being-Morgante, an Archangel with desires of her own-whose lonely music leads Cass and their companions on a journey across New Wirral that will change the fabric of this world, and their lives, forever. ...That is one version of the story. But Cass doesn't know where "home" is. In fact, they can't even remember who they are. And as they struggle to find their identity in a world suspended in animation, they may just discover that their story-this same, old story-stretches across time in ways they could never have imagined.

Read on AO3

Well, I guess we're doing Cassette Beasts now

Preview under the cut

The morning The Stranger came to town was the morning the light fell not-quite-right on the gleaming pearl of New Wirral island. Lonely in the ocean, awash in air of a milky blue tint that was held as still and bracing as breath between teeth, it swelled imperceptibly–anticipatory, but of what?–the ground rising and stirring and groaning softly with the ache of forgotten motions. Within it, something pressed under the skin. Its pressure cracked the ground. Softened like sores left untreated and rotting, the earth bucked and crumbled away in soft black chunks with grass tearing like tangled hair and from under it cold masses budded and rose–

–and just as suddenly, an unseen palm opened and pressed the ground back into shape. Its fingers curled and, finding what it was looking for, gently cradled the figure lying alone on the shore.

“It’s time to go,” it seemed to whisper. “It’s time for us to begin.”

The Stranger awoke. 

Immediately, they clutched their stomach and retched a gutful of saltwater onto the sand, clouded with mucus and blood and tasting like a sour wound. They gasped for breath. Salt heaved in their lungs and stung where it rubbed against the cracks in their lips; when they were finally empty they massaged their sore throat, wincing at the long, scratched-up streaks they could feel running down to the pit of their stomach. How much water had they swallowed? Or, better question, when had they even swallowed it?

Why couldn’t they remember?

Why, when they wiped their mouth with the back of their sleeve, was the fabric completely dry despite the waves that had torn their stomach and still now lapped at the back of their heels?

They shook their head in an attempt to clear it. There had to be something inside to uncover, something that would tell them where they were, how they’d landed alone in the sand surrounded by dried beachwood and limpid seaweed strips and pieces of shells as fractured as their own memory. But there was nothing. They were alone, even inside their own mind. The only company they kept was the whistle of wind that curved under their ear and along the line of their jaw towards their chin, lifting it up with the gentle touch of a friend saying, “Look. Come see the world that you now live in.”

The world….

It was dawn and everything was soft. The sandbanks rolling into hills of sweet grass and flowers were sparkling pink with white particles like flecks of glass or snow, above which trees fluttered teal-shaded leaves and bushels of pine that crispened the air with their sharp smell. Undergrowth leapt between their roots. Fresh, spring green, they were filled with babish curls of new growth and the small heads of newborn anemones already taking on their distinctive star-like shape, mingling with dog rose and daisies in a bed of leaves that intertwined like hands and fingers searching for the comfort of a warm grasp. 

Sometimes there’d be a twitch of a petal or the clatter of a pebble tumbling down the side of the dunes. Birds twittered, but there wasn’t once a flash of wings. Insects buzzed in their ears, and yet not a fly came to land on the stinking pool of blood and vomit beneath them. Here they were seeing the world, but somehow they seemed to exist just outside of it, like a hasty scribble etched into the wrong layer. 

Really, the only proof they had that this wasn’t some elaborate farce or hallucination was…

…well, there was none.

All they could do was trust their senses as they flooded, renewed, into their body. Lifting their head, they sniffed the air for anything other than brine or blood or plant decay, but the thickness of the odor swamped everything. Even if there was civilization close by they wouldn’t be able to catch scent nor sound of it until they got away from the roar of the sea and its bubbling, crashing, hissing waves. Squinting past the salt that fuzzed up their vision, they glanced around. To their right, the line of beach ended in a wall of craggy cliff rising high enough above the sea to vanish into the thick soup of early-morning fog. Not ideal. To their left, though, it seemed to go out much farther, and in the not-so-distant distance three shapes of a strikingly bold orange stood out against the dimmer, more natural colours of their surroundings. Could they be man-made? A sign that there were people close by, that they weren’t totally alone in the wilderness?

It was worth a try.

The Stranger staggered to their feet and began to drag themselves across the sand. Their body ached as if it’d been pummeled by the waves for hours, a strangely uniform pain that pulsed through their muscles just beneath the unbroken skin. Every now and again they felt something fidget inside them. The twitch of an organ, maybe, the righting of a rib knocked askew. They tried to slow and give their insides a chance to reassemble themselves, but found themself quickening anyway when the objects ahead came into sharp enough focus for them to make out their distinctive, pyramid-like shape.

Traffic cones. Unexciting on their own, but a sign of life. Just not the kind of life they were expecting.

The Stranger came to an abrupt spot as the traffic cone closest began to quiver. Its base lifted up like a flap on a jack-in-the-box and from within it two large, almond-shaped claws emerged, guided by a sickly green flame of an eye lit up with a supernatural intensity. The creature stared at them, motionless. They stared back. Was it intelligence they saw in that glimmering, bulb-like eye? Or was it aggression clacking along those sharp, ridged claws? They couldn’t quite tell, but either way they didn’t like it when the creature began to creep towards them.

“Greetings,” they said. “Get out of my way.”

As if in answer, the creature’s eye flooded a nasty-looking red.

“Fine. If that is what you wish.”