| Date: 15 January 2008
Characters: Owen Harper, Susan Foreman Location: outside Link to IJ: thread #36999 |
 Owen ran a hand through his hair and closed the text book. There were only so many muscles he could memorise at a time and he'd reached that limit five muscles ago, at gluteus maximus.He grabbed his jacket and his mobile phone. Knowing his mates, they'd be in a pub somewhere. He'd text them on a way, he decided, and left the small apartment he rented near the hospital Ð and stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn't stepped out on the stairs, he'd stepped outside. His apartment was on the second floor. And the outside wasn't Cardiff, either, it was a village. A village with grass and smell and countryside. "What the fuck?" Owen asked and turned around. His door was gone. |
 "A bit disorienting, isn't it?"The girl that had address him couldn't have been more than eighteen years old, sitting with her back against the side of a building and looking up at the spot that he was standing on almost as if she'd been expecting him to appear there. She hadn't. But it was an interesting thing to make note of, how he'd just stepped right into an area that didn't have any apparent means of entrance. |
| Owen stared at her. "What?" he asked, blinking. "Okay, wait, rewind. Who are you and what is this and where is this? And where the hell is the door to my apartment?" he growled. He must have fallen asleep over his textbook. That was the only possible explanation. |
| Susan smiled up at him, patting the ground next to her, "Have a sit. It might make this a bit easier to grasp if you're not up and looking for a way back out in the mean time," She said, her voice staying even and understanding despite his tone. "My name is Susan. Susan Foreman. What this is and where it is are much more complex questions. Ones that I'm assuming would probably require advanced temporal theory, experimental universe models, and some rather large charts and graphics to properly answer. But I'm not going to bother with all of that. To put it simply, you are no-where and no-when, and this appears to be some sort of pocket universe that is seated on some kind of faultline across all threads of reality." "Do you need me to repeat any of that?" |
| Owen let himself fall to the ground, a few feet away from the girl, Susan. "Uh-huh," he uttered and shook his head. His dreams were getting weirder and weirder every time. "I haven't got a clue what you're talking about," he said conversationally. He looked around. It looked normal enough, really. For the country, anyway. |
| "Ah, yes, well," Susan said, clearing her throat for a moment. "In even simpler terms, you've fallen outside of your own timestream and into a dimension in which time does not exist and reality is relative. You do know what timestream, dimension, and relative mean, yes?" |
| "I know what the words mean, thank you very much. It's just the order you put them in that doesn't make any sense." Owen rubbed one hand over his face. It didn't feel like a dream (he seriously doubted his subconscious could make up a countryside this detailed), but that was the only explanation. "I'll just wait until I wake up," he told Susan and leaned back. |
| "Oh. Oh, dear. You're not asleep," Susan said, frowning softly over at Owen as she pushed herself onto her knees and crawled toward him, reaching out and pinching his shoulder. "You're very much awake, I'm afraid." |
| "Bullshit," Owen said reflexly. Susan looked serious, though, and the pinching had hurt. It didn't make any sense. "I can't be in the middle of no-where, especially not in the bloody country. I have exams coming up. I fell asleep on the text book, okay? No idea why my brain would come up with this shit, but whatever." |
| Susan just frowned as she settled back, sitting down and shifting to knock the dust off of her knees, "What sort of exams?" |
| "Medical exams. Anatomy's in two days, I really can't miss that." And he hadn't even studied enough. |
| "You won't," Susan said, looking up at him with a slight smile. "Even if you stay here a year. Though, it's hard to say what a year would be in a place where there is no accurate measure of time." "Are you wearing a watch? If you are, it should have stopped the second that you arrived." |
| Owen took out his mobile phone. It still showed the same time as when he'd left his apartment. It didn't have any coverage, either. "I hate the countryside," he muttered darkly. |
| Susan chuckled softly, "That feeling is mutual. I'm a city girl myself. But, I suppose, you get used to it after awhile." |
| Owen tipped his head back and sighed. "There's no way back, is there?" He gestured to the empty space where his door had been. |
| "Not an automatic one, no. But they do pop up now and again at random intervals," Susan said, turning to stare at the empty space. "I've seen a lot, but I think that was the first time I've ever seen anyone step out of thin air." |
| "I didn't step out of thin air, I stepped out of my apartment door. Big difference." Owen mulled things over in his head. "So, where does everyone stay? Assuming there's more than just you. And me, now. And are there any locals? Do I need a job? Money?" |
| "To my perspective, you stepped out of thin air," Susan said, glancing over at him with a slight smile. "There's a few hotels around and plenty of shops. Oddly enough, though, they don't really charge. You just...take as you need." |
| "Yeah, whatever," Owen shrugged. "Strange place, this. And you say this is... outside of time or something?" He waved a hand around vaguely. "How's that work, anyway?" |
| "To be honest, I'm not sure," Susan said, shrugging. "But all bounds of my knowledge, it shouldn't. But this place clearly exists. Unless this is all one long, odd coma-fantasy. But frankly, this isn't exactly where I'd want to end up when knocked unconscious." |
| Owen tried to come up with a good response to that, but his head was still reeling. All it came back to was "Bloody countryside." He looked around a bit, stood up. "I'm going to explore a bit. You want to show me around?" |
| Susan concealed her grin at the countryside comment before bouncing to her feet and nodding, beaming at him, "I'd be happy to," She said, pivoting on her heel. "The main hotel building is this way, if you want to pick out a room before anymore people decide to drop in." |
| "Yeah, that's probably a good idea," Owen nodded. "Besides, free hotel rooms. Don't get that one very often. Are they any good?" |
| "They're pretty decent. Not fancy, but they're not ratholes, either," Susan said, grinning over at him. |
| "Good," Owen grumbled. "If I'm stuck at this place - or time, or whatever, I don't want to have to stay in some pisshole." |
| "There's a bar on the first floor, too. If you need something to take the edge off," Susan said, grinning over at him. |
| "Good to know," Owen nodded. He'd definitely find his way to that bar later on. "Drink might make this," he gestured vaguely with one hand, "easier to accept. I still think I'm just dreaming, by the way." Owen paused for a moment and then grinned cheekily. "Though if I were, you'd probably be naked by now." |
| Susan paused as she turned to stare at Owen, lifting an eyebrow at him before snorting a bit, "Careful. I'm not as harmless as I look," She said, smirking at him. "And sorry to disappoint, but my clothes are staying rather firmly on my back." |