November 19, 2022

Wick - [Deleting files]

Cole - What got deleted?

Wick - Don't worry about it. Nothing important

Cole - Why are you deleting files anyways?

Wick - I said don't worry about it.

Cole - I'm worrying about it.

Wick - Don't. And no more messing around with files ok?

Cole - Mkay.

Wick - [353 files successfully deleted]

"Lock?" Oleander walks in Lock’s room. In the center of the room are some of the toys from the toy chest but torn apart. Any stars on the wall up to as far as Lock can reach have been torn down and are laying on the ground. There's a sniffling sound from the closet.

Oleander walks over to the closet and knocks, "Lock?"

Lock instantly gets up from being curled up on the floor and opens the door. It's hard to tell in the lighting but her eyes are a bit sore. She smiles nonetheless "Yes? What is it?"

"Um... are you okay? What's wrong?" He asks softly.

"I'm ok. Just checking for mice in there. Heard something scratching."

Oleander motions to the room. "What happened? Luna said you deleted files?"

"Just fixing a bug that keeps coming up. I should be good now."

Oleander nods, "Okay... anything I can do to help?"

"Not really. I got it all handled," Lock steps out and closes the closet door behind her.

Oleander nods, "Alright, are you hungry?"

"Yeah of course"

"Want pizza rolls?"

"That sounds good"

He leaves the room. Lock takes a deep breath and wipes her eyes before heading out. Lock walks into the livingroom and goes to sit on the sofa.

"Everything ok Lock?" Luna asks from the sofa.

"Yup," Lock nods.

"Just uhhh housekeeping I guess?" Luna guesses.

"What do you mean?" Lock asks.

Cole is pretending to type on a keyboard while humming.

Cole - (Accessing files.)

Wick - [access granted]

Cole - (Checking files that were removed.)

Wick - (Files removed all seem to be relating to removing trust.)

Cole - (Running vision.exe.)

"Just lookin' on Datrrs, you know noticing files being deleted?" Luna takes a breath, "it's not my job to be nosey, just making sure everything's okay on your end."

"Just cleaning up a bug that popped up," Lock responds.

Luna tilts her head, "A bug? That's not good. Did you manage to get rid of it?"

Oleander walks in and hands Lock some pizza rolls. Lock takes them and goes to sit on the floor to eat "Thank you."

Wick - (A visual of what Lock sees is transmitted to Cole when he runs the file. Lock sees everything as 3d rendered and with less detail. Cole is able to access a tagging system that tags others with keywords to help in identification when Lock sees people. As Lock looks at Luna, Luna is tagged purple, cat, human, unaware, blind. As Lock looks at Cole, Cole is tagged white, human, robot, unaware, naive, risk.)

Cole - (Checking for reason behind naive and risk.)

Wick - (Cole finds hidden descriptions for the tags. Naive currently represents her thinking of Cole as innocent, inexperienced, and unknowing.)

Cole - (Checking for reason behind blind.)

Wick - (Blind currently represents ignoring signs or obvious hints.)

Cole - (Checking for reason behind risk.)

Cole's pretend typing has a little bit of anger behind it as he stops humming.

Lock looks over at Cole "What's wrong?"

Oleander sits down and eats some pizza rolls.

Cole looks over at Lock, "nothing, I wouldn't worry about it."

"Hey Lock- do I have anything in my teeth?" Oleander asks while showing his teeth. Lock looks over at him and squints.

Wick - (Risk currently represents friendly or close. Lock looks over at Oleander. Oleander is tagged risk, purple, human, conflict.)

Cole - (Checking for reason behind conflict.)

Wick - (Conflict currently represents drastic or anguish inducing indecision.)

"Nope nothing there," Lock goes back to eating her food.

"Thanks," Oleander looks down and finishes eating. He then leaves the room.

Luna looks over at Cole's 'typing', "whatcha dooooooin?"

"...things..." Cole stops angrily typing

Luna rolls her eyes and sighs, "of course. let sleeping dogs, and dogboys, lie." 

"fine, i'm doing a little bit of coding, some of my code is a little rough around the edges,"

Cole sighs.

"I wasn't trying to be nosey, but I appreciate it," Luna says.

Cole - (Checking parental controls.)

Wick - [Parental control settings

Settings

On

Optionals / for good behavior

Off

Currently set to - On

No yelling indoors

No cursing

Bring tissues to anyone crying

Bring visitors something to drink

No crying in front of company

No showing attitude

No talking back

Do as told

Don't ask for things

Don't sit on the floor

Only sit on the floor when eating

No feet on the sofa

No lying

Be surprised by happy birthdays

No chewing with your mouth open]

Cole - (Changing to Optional

No yelling indoors ON

No cursing OFF

Bring tissues to anyone crying OFF

No crying in front of company ON

No showing attitude ON

No talking back OFF

Do as told OFF

Don't ask for things OFF

Don't sit on the floor OFF

Only sit on the floor when eating OFF

No feet on the sofa OFF

No lying ON

Be surprised by happy birthdays OFF

No chewing with your mouth open ON.)

Wick - [settings applied]

Lock's ear flicks as she glances to the side but shrugs it off.

Cole returns to humming as he continues typing

Cole - (Checking for any other restrictive settings.)

Wick - (Cole finds a rather large file.) [hadal.exe]

Cole's typing has some slight fear behind it.

Cole - (Checking contents of hadel.exe.)

Wick - (There's a large variety of restrictive settings and experimental settings all for preventing hadal effects or hadal related emotional outbursts. The system seems to put these files at top priority, there is a setting that nothing else is allowed to run if this exe is inactive.)

Spider who has been watching tilts her head slightly at Cole, "You alright over there?"

Cole nods as he continues typing. Cole types a few more things then seems to push the keyboard away as he takes a deep breath.

Lock looks over at Cole again, "You sure you're good?"

Cole nods as he shoves his hands into his pockets, "Mhm, I'm fine just saw something that spooked me a little."

"In your own code?" Luna asks.

"...yup," Cole nods.

"Uhhh... sure dude," Luna shrugs.

Cole takes a deep breath and walks to the kitchen. He sees his boyfriend Isaac sitting at the table. Cole walks in and sits at the table as he rests his head on his own hand.

Isaac leaned back in the chair "How's it goin?"

"good I guess," Cole sighs and looks at the table.

Isaac leans forward and rests his head on the table as he watches him "You don't look it."

"What do you mean? I look fine?" Cole looks up from the table and at Isaac.

"The sigh, besides I know you well by now."

"...fine," Cole's voice drops to a whisper, "I was snooping in Lock's files and found a file called hadel dot exe and it restricts Lock's hadal powers and and it scares me to think what would happen if that file is removed " Cole's breathing quickens as he speaks.

"I mean we've seen hadals without anything like that. What's the big deal?"

"Because it's Lock...she's impulsive, she's hyper, she's unpredictable..." Cole's breathing quickens again as his eyes dart around the room.

"Well yeah, she hasn't had a chance to do whatever she wants. I would be the same too if I had a mom like that."

"what if she kills everyone while I'm sleeping and leaves me with nothing..." Cole whispers as his eyes fill with tears.

"Hm," Isaac sits up "I think you just don't trust her yet."

"What makes you think that?" Cole wipes the tears from his eyes.

"Well trusting someone means you know them, you know what they might do or what you can trust them with. Maybe you think she's unpredictable cuz you can't understand her yet."

"..." Cole thinks as he goes back to looking at the table.

"Everyone has their own reasoning for everything. I'm sure she has her own that in her head makes perfect sense."

"But....I don't have reasoning for almost everything I do, I just do it because it...it feels good? i don't know" Cole puts his head down and buries his head in his arms.

"Unconscious decisions you mean?"

"...sure we'll go with that," Cole lifts his head out of his arms with a sigh.

"Any way I can get your mind off it for a bit?"

Cole shrugs and sighs, "I'm not sure." Cole buries his head in his arms again, making his voice muffled, "I wish I wasn't this smart..."

Isaac moves to the chair next to him and puts an arm around him, "And why is that?"

Cole sighs and scoots slightly closer to Isaac, "It makes me overthink everything, I get trapped in my own head about problems and don't let anyone help me with it," Cole's voice gets slightly quieter.

Isaac looks down for a moment, "Yeah. You can always talk to me when you're ready to though."

Cole sighs, "thank you, Isaac." Cole's voice goes back to it's normal volume, "Can we uhm can we...have a campfire or something? something else to focus on?"

"That sounds like a great idea" Isaac gets up. Cole gets up and stretches a little as he groans quietly. Isaac heads outside as Cole follows.

Meanwhile in the woods Oleander is taking a walk. Soon enough he feels like he's being watched. They turn, looking to see what's watching. Nyx is standing there and smiles "Look who have here."

Oleander immediately looks away from her eyes, "What do you want?"

"A little bird told me something happened?"

Oleander scoffs, "Yeah and who's the bird?"

"The soul."

Oleander stares at her incredulously, "Huh."

"So what do you think of it all? What are you going to do about it?"

"Do about what?" They ask, crossing their arms.

"She's already doing it again. She's already starting to toss you aside."

Oleander clenches their fists and turns around. "Shut up. No she isnt-"

"Then what was that back there?"

He doesn't respond, just staring at the dirt. "Why does it matter to you?"

"I'm poking at the weaknesses. Like a white hat hacker."

"For what end? What's your goal?" Oleander asks, still facing away from her.

"Make the game end whether I'm on the winning or losing side. I'm sure the conduit following her around has warned you already but I figured I would be a bit more blunt of a warning."

"So that's what was under her bed?" They mumble, "Wouldn't killing us be more efficient?"

"Conduits are only here to warn. Besides you're the risen. Without you it may never end."

"Interesting," Oleander says, "But you want to weaken us? If you weaken us then how would the game end?"

"Not weaken, poke at weaknesses. Either way this is all besides the point here. I'm here to warn you again about Lock. Currently things are starting to look a bit rough."

"Rough how so?"

"I know about the files. She was crying before you walked in. I fear she is trying to throw you and everyone else in the house away."

"Did I do something wrong? Why does she want to throw us away-" They hold back tears.

"It's the only way she knows to deal with it. Maybe if you asked her you could get a more precise answer. Before she's gone that is."

"Is there any way to stop her?" Oleander asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

"In a way... that's part of the game" Nyx pauses a moment. She sounds understanding for this brief moment "I don't really know if it's possible. Worth a shot in the dark though."

Oleander nods, pausing for a moment before speaking. "Thank you," He says simply.

"I wish you luck. I see hope in you" Nyx gives a rare genuine smile whether he can see it or not.

They pause, looking back at her but avoiding her eyes. Her words clearly moved him. He's speechless. Nyx fades into the shadows. Oleandr blinks and walks away, her words on his mind.

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