A Rude Awakening | Group AMVV

Vinzent Mayer

The next thing he know as Vinzent woke up was that it was not just cold, it was freezing. And he didn’t recall putting on the extra layers, although he was not complaining… Still… A crack. His eyes darted to the source.

And more. This can’t be good at all.

“Uhh.. Shit.”

Vinzent knew he had to leave… It would be very dangerous to walk on the ice already. And the situation was anything but reassuring. So how was he to go ahead? Perhaps if he was to stay lying down and shuffling towards… Once again, he didn’t understand what exactly happened to him, but boy is he grateful for the gloves and coat that he somehow got. Anyway, enough mumbling to himself, it was essential to leave. Until he’s safe. And the closer he shuffled, the closer he saw the silhouette a little clearer. Better than nothing, he supposed.

Melvin Greene

Sleeping on the floor wasn’t anything new to Melvin, but even his apartment wasn’t this cold. And, now that he was conscious enough to be thinking about it, that wasn’t even the weirdest thing about the situation. The coat, red and white and classically Wowitt’s branded? The gloves that were probably far nicer than he should have been able to afford? The…

…

… This wasn’t his apartment. Or his car. Sure didn’t look like much of a train, either. Before he could even try to gain his bearings, the sharp crack startled him into action. It was perhaps for the best that his panicked efforts to get up were met with failure, worn rubber soles finding little purchase on the slippery surface. He wasn’t any kind of freezer scientist, but even he could assume that the continued groaning of the ice meant he had to leave, now now now, go go go, hurry hurry HURRY.

Pick a direction and go!

Cursing up a storm, Melvin scrambled in the first direction he was able to get any traction in, gangly limbs flailing in some approximation of a crawl. It looked like there was something- someone(s?) in the direction he was heading. Maybe they knew more than he did and could get him out of there. Or maybe they were about as clueless as he was and weren’t going to be much help at all. In either case, it was better to know sooner than later.

“YOU, OVER THERE! WHERE THE HELL AM I?”

That’d sure be one way to find out.

Arty Takenaka

A little behind the others—and with a healthy dose of grogginess—the youngest of the group begins to stir. Cold. That’s the first thing Arty registers. Cold and being sprawled flat on an uncomfortable surface. Not a good start. With a groan, she starts to get up; her cheek’s stuck to something, though, and she winces as she peels the side of her face off the ground. It’s then that she notices she’s laying on ice.

What the heck‽

Somehow, she’s wrapped in a coat she doesn’t recognize, which keeps out the worst of the cold, thankfully. But still, how on earth did she wind up here? Last she knew she was stepping onto some Train of Destiny—but she certainly isn’t there anymore. And Arty doesn’t have a memory disorder—as far as she knows, anyway—so this is definitely concerning. This is possibly the absolute worst time to start developing one.

Propped up on hands and knees, Arty realizes another vital component of her current situation: she’s not just laying on ice, but a frozen lake.

Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god. Arty immediately presses herself back onto the ground, her heart hammering. This is not good. Raising her head slightly, she sweeps the area, looking for nearby land. Distressingly, there’s none in sight, but she does see a few shapes in the distance that appear to be… other people? They all look like they’re in the same boat as her, which means they’ll probably be of minimal helpfulness. Great. And on top of that, she has no way of knowing who they are, or if they’re trustworthy. Putting her life into the hands of strangers sounds horrifying. But unfortunately, falling in the water alone is the worse fate. Because—and this is the absolute cherry on top of everything—nobody had ever bothered to teach her how to swim.

With another uneasy glance at the ice below her, Arty begins to drag herself very slowly towards the nearest person. She can only pray that if the ice cracks under her, they’ll be close enough, and more importantly kind enough, to pull her out of the water.

Viper

An outlier on the ice, Viper lay face-down with her coat’s hood flipped over her head. Anyone who looked at her may think she was just a body, until she started to move. The yelling coming from somewhere around her seemed to have stirred her, and the woman flopped over dramatically onto her back, eyes still tightly shut.

“Ughhh! Why’d you have to wake me upppp…” The woman complained, rather loudly. “That’s the best sleep I’ve had in we-” Her sentence was abruptly cut off by a shrill shriek as the back of her head touched against the freezing ground.

“C-C-Cold!” She yelped, scrabbling onto her knees and giving an accusatory stare at the ground, rubbing at the back of her head that had so rudely been assaulted by the ice. A groan and crack from beneath her was enough to send her scrabbling toward whoever was closest on the ice.

“Whoa- whoa- whoa- this is so not poggers-!” Viper muttered to herself.

Lifting her head, she looked at the others who were nearby,

“H-Hey there y’all! Boy, sure is chilly out here!” Viper was visibly wincing as she reached toward Arty, noticing she was struggling toward her. “C’mon, I sure hope you can swim!” She calls out to her, dropping back onto her stomach as she begins commando-crawling toward Arty to meet in the middle.

“Oi, Pizza boy, Redhead!” She called out, “At least try and get to each other, maybe! Then you can at least try and save each other!” Well, yeah… if they were in pairs, maybe they could stop each other from falling in alright…

Vinzent Mayer

Honestly, Vinzent was both surprised, jumping a bit at the yell, and reassured that he wasn’t alone.

But still… There was now four of them so far, himself included. At the woman’s voice, Vinzent sighed.

“It sure is..! Wait what-”

Pizza boy? Oh that one in red. And the redhead… Was himself? He thought his hair was brown, but… Whatever, there’s an urgent matter right now and he wasn’t going to argue about his hair color. Okay, so essentially, collaboration? Fine, okay, he’s used to it in a way. Crawling closer, not without wincing at the cold ice touching his skin, that’s what happen when you wear ripped jeans. Fashion, yes but at what point. He almost regrets having picked this set of pants that day. Anyway. Without going too close as to not risk the ice breaking further, he went within listening distance to at least talk to the… Pizza man?

“Hey, uh. Okay. To answer your question fast. I don’t know either. But let’s just… Go to the nearest solid ground, I’m sure this isn’t just infinite ice hell on the horizon, or whatever.”

With that said, he kept an eye on the man as he continued to crawl for the safest ground. Between himself, a ridiculous lightweight and this tall man, it was risky if they teamed up together. It’s not that Vinzent didn’t know how to swim, he is decent at it, but he’d honestly rather not fall in cold water with the other and make it worse.

Melvin Greene

Quite suddenly, Melvin wasn’t too sure how to feel about the fact that he wasn’t alone out here. On one hand: help, maybe. On the other hand: nope, they were doomed. Nobody seemed to have a clue where they were or how they got there. Great, he was going to die cold and annoyed. Just perfect. At least one of them seemed to have something resembling a plan, and sure, they had bigger problems, but–

“Don’t call me that!”

Stupid branded pizza coat. The absolute nerve of that kid– wait, oh, god, was he the adult here? It’d sure line up with the way… well, really, the way only one of them was talking. Maybe the rest of them were just short - what kind of jackass would strand a kid out in the middle of a frozen lake? Sure, you still had to be a pretty big jackass to do that to anybody, but high schoolers? C’mon.

At any rate, while he wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of drowning, the bedhead over there wasn’t really the picture of safety either. Melvin wasn’t confident whatsoever that the other guy was even capable of pulling him out should the worst come to pass. Going from ‘certain death by frozen lake’ to ‘probable death by frozen lake’ wasn’t much of an improvement. At least he didn’t have to shout at this range. The other two probably had themselves covered for the time being.

“Well that’s just great. No one’s got a damn clue.”

The idea that grouping up might end up being more dangerous didn’t even occur to him - thankfully, at least there weren’t any holes in his pants that he was aware of, and he was finally getting a grip on relatively efficient ice movement. He wasn’t going to stop, that would be foolish even for him, but he wasn’t certain that this was such a great plan either.

“You sure we can even make it that far? Looks like it’s gotta be…”

How far away did it look?

“… uh, too far to get there like this. ‘Specially if shit keeps breaking.”

Man, he wished he was back in his car right about now. Not that it would fare any better than they currently were on ice this thin, but if he really gunned it maybe it could outspeed the ice cracking. Like in movies and stuff. That was a thing that happened, right?

Arty Takenaka

With no small amount of relief, Arty is finally managing to approach the nearest person to her. Also relieving is the fact that said person doesn’t seem to be openly hostile, but is rather trying to help them all get to safety. Arty figures it would be very easy to be self-interested out here, just skid off and save yourself, as long as you’re confident navigating the ice. If Arty had that confidence… who knows? It’s not like she knows these people well enough to be necessarily invested in their safety. But it’s a moot point in her case. Maybe it is for the others, too. Or maybe they’re actually just nice people.

“C’mon, I sure hope you can swim!”

Arty’s face blanches at that, her hand reaching out for Viper’s a little more desperately. The last thing she wants is to admit she can’t swim. Another look down at the ice underneath, and she’s grimacing more. Okay. Practice optimism. Maybe she has a secret talent for swimming and she’ll actually be fine when she inevitably falls into the freezing water.

…Yeah, no, she’s definitely not doing the optimism thing right.

Arty is inches away from Viper’s hand when Viper calls out to the others, and—wait, ‘pizza boy’? Her head swivels to the other two people in the distance. That red delivery cap—the pizza place merch, and a scruff of blondish hair. That’s all she needs.

“Roni?? RONI!”

Viper is completely forgotten as Arty, with much less caution than before, scrambles on her hands and knees in Melvin’s direction. She has to get to Roni. Everything else is secondary, as long as they’re both together.

Viper

“Wha- Hey! Come back!” Viper is left… alone, abandoned on the ice. Despite the fact she could probably catch Arty pretty easily, she doesn’t. Making the mistake of looking down, she’s pretty sure she sees something moving beneath the surface. “You can’t just leave me out here on my own, damn it!” Having been so close to at least being near someone in what she assumed was going to be her untimely demise, she clenched her fists with a clear sense of indignant frustration.

“Stupid Pizza boy. ‘Roni.’, huh.” The woman grumbles to herself, (there was time to find it funny later), shivering at the ice-chill that ran through her.

Viper sat, legs stretched out on the ice and for a moment she seemed to have given in to the fact that she was going to die a cold, painful death on this overgrown iceberg. The rest of the group were only seeming further away, but she didn’t really have a choice. If she was going to die here, they would be coming with her.

…Not in an evil way, in an ’I really don’t want to die alone’ way.

Hands gripping at the ice, and slipping uselessly, she wobbled like a newborn deer as she managed to crouch enough to start moving a little quicker than her previous crawl.

“S-S-Some weird train, huh!” Her teeth were starting to chatter as she followed after Arty heading toward the others. “I wonder if it’s called the P-P-Polar express!” …The delivery was a little off, sure, but that was purely because she was cold. Not just because she wasn’t actually that funny. I promise. Now she was utilising both her hands and feet, Viper advanced quickly on the group.

“Hey, kiddo!” She nudged Arty once she was beside her, “Maybe don’t try abandonin’ the one who’s trying to help ya next time, yeah?” Viper grunted, before looking toward the two men.

“Any’a you guys got any smart ideas?” She pointed an accusatory finger at both of them. “And neither of you do what she just did. That’s just a grade A asshole move.”

Vinzent Mayer

Vinzent was surprised to see another person approaching. Oh this can’t be good, too many people in one place is dangerous. And yet, when he thinks back to what the guy with the pizza brand was saying… Looking around, he saw that finally, it wasn’t just an infinite icy horizon. Just that, it’ll take a bit to reach there. Still the panic, and the… Sudden nickname one of them shouted on her way pertubed him. Roni??? Okay, think again, you can’t be this many in the same spot. Plus the girl’s accusatory finger didn’t help in that case, it annoyed him. It’s not like he wanted this to happen! Augh!! Trying to steer away from grouping up on the ice, mainly to avoid putting too much pressure in the same spot, he raised his voice, not with the intent to yell at the group but to get them to move.

“H-hang on, guys! This is a bad idea to be all together RIGHT NOW! Shit, we’d better go to the solid ground as soon as possible! Just. Let’s move now.”

Quick, he had to find a safe spot so they don’t risk falling underwater. Speaking of, if the worst had to happen… Either way, he continued crawling, in part to lessen the risks of all them potentially falling in the water.

… Maybe he ought to ask in the meantime.

“By the way, how many of you here know how to swim?”

They’ll be in deep shit if Vinzent was the only one who did.

Melvin Greene

When Arty called out, he looked over to Vinzent, assuming that he must have been Roni. The kid wouldn’t be hurrying away from someone she recognized, and he sure didn’t have any clue who any of these people were. But now Bedhead was scurrying away, and looking back, that other girl was still headed this way. Both of them were, actually.

That didn’t make much sense. If Bedhead wasn’t Roni, and Two-Tone wasn’t Roni… he paused while his train of thought was catching up to him. Looking over his other shoulder in case there was some fifth person off in the distance he hadn’t seen, there was nothing there but more ice. Even still, it took him a moment longer than it should have to process what that meant, just. Kneeling there befuddled all the while. Melvin finally realized he should ask:

“Wait, are you talking to me?”

He didn’t have much time to think about whether or not he was supposed to know her, or why she called him that. Vinzent was making space, the other two were closing the gap, and if the ice was supposed to be falling out from under them right about now it sure didn’t seem to be doing that. Almost the opposite, really. Not that he’d notice the physical improbability himself. Sure, Viper, point at him like that and ask if he’s got any smart ideas. Does it look like he knows anything?

“Jeez, lady, calm down. You’re not the only one who doesn’t know what the hell’s going on here, alright?"

Between that and the Pizza Boy nonsense, she was already getting on his nerves. At least Bedhead seemed to have something to add, even if it was just more questions. He had to think about it for a moment, and his response was sort of half-mumbled.

“… wasn’t completely hopeless last I checked.”

Maybe just don’t ask him when that was.

Arty Takenaka

Arty has tunnel vision as she closes in on the person she believes to be her sibling. She has to get there as fast as possible, to help Roni if ze’s hurt or in danger, and to let Roni protect her in turn, because hir sibling is the only person here Arty can absolutely, 100% trust.

But she doesn’t get much farther before she realizes that she’s horribly mistaken. The pizza deliverer in front of her has almost a foot of height, a decade of age, and one whole arm on her sibling. His hair is darker and more limp, and he looks more bedraggled, all of which serves a vague impression of a Roni who was put through the wash. Arty can’t stifle the wave of disappointment that crashes over her in that moment. In its aftermath, she now feels lonelier than if she’d never let herself believe Roni was here at all. It just reminds her that she’s surrounded by strangers, none of whom can be relied upon to be in her corner the way her sibling can. She might as well just be alone.

Arty lets herself flop back onto her stomach on the ice, her arms folded in front of her face, covering most of it except for where her eyes peek up to look shamefully at the others. She is extremely embarrassed, especially when she realizes that she abandoned Viper in her haste to get to her sibling. Jeez, was she that quick to leave a fellow human being to die? What would Roni say about that?

“Sorry. I thought you were… someone else,” she mumbles almost inaudibly into her crossed arms. And then, even more quietly: “…no, I can’t swim.” Maybe they’ll just leave her here to die. It would probably be less embarrassing than this.

Viper

Perhaps Viper would have stomped her foot indignantly were she not on thin ice, quite literally, right now. Melvin earns himself a long, hard stare alongside a grumble of acknowledgement. …Yeah, he was right. She wasn’t the only clueless one, but hey, she had a right to be touchy! She very nearly died out there! A tad dramatic, sure, but where’s the fun in being a normal level of upset and freaked out.

“Huh? What? Can I swim?” …Viper takes too long considering her answer. “…Errrr.”

Admit you can’t swim and accept help? Or Say you can swim, only to fail miserably when you fall in and end up drowning anyway?

One of those answers sounded significantly better for her. The other, for her pride.

“…I can’t swim. I’m kinda like… A rock. I just sink.” Not entirely true, but she was already feeling humiliated enough without admitting that she flailed around like an absolute loser as soon as she was waist-deep in water.

“Ugh… let’s just go this way!” Viper took an awkward half-shuffle-run and skidded herself along the ice a little, spraying up shavings with her boots. It wasn’t glamorous, but marginally quicker than she’d been moving before. She was starting to think that maybe this ice had more give than they credited it for. “It may be ice, ice, and more ice each way, but one way’s gotta have some solid ground!”

She glances over her shoulder at the rest of the group.

“Maybe I’ll forgive y’all- well, her, if we get movin’!” To be quite honest, they could follow her or not, she didn’t care that much, but Viper was determined she was at least going to get herself to solid ground, even if it meant stepping up to the plate with some initiative. Perhaps she just wanted to take over the leadership.

Vinzent Mayer

Wasn’t completely hopeless.

Can’t swim, can’t swim.

… Oh boy, by the looks of it, Vinzent was the only one who knew how to swim well enough, while not being a pro by any means. On one hand, he was glad he asked, but on the other hand… He doesn’t have the strength to help everyone in case something went to shit. Ah well! There’s at least initiative from the girl with the cool coat, and frankly he’s glad that she said that. As he started to move again, not without a glance at the other girl who was lying down. Approaching her, he spoke gently in her direction.

“Hey… C’mon, let’s go. The faster we get on solid ground, the faster we’ll be safe. Okay?”

Maybe a nudge of encouragement will get her to move, plus Vinzent doesn’t mind being the last one to arrive on solid ground if needed.

Melvin Greene

It was almost impressive how quickly that got awkward. Melvin didn’t really get mistaken for other people that often - he’d almost have to feel sorry for Roni, whoever that was, if the poor schmuck looked that much like him. Not like he really cared.

“….. Okay? It happens.”

It wasn’t like it was that big a deal or anything. He’d slipped up on people’s identities worse than that on his first few deliveries and he hadn’t gotten fired about it or anything. And hey wow, look at that, the rude one was on to something. They should actually get back to ‘not dying.` It looked like what’s-his-name had the situation with what’s-her-name under control so he could comfortably get a move on after her. Even if his pace was more of a trudge than anything.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re coming.”

Eventually. He didn’t really want to deal with either Viper or whatever had Arty in such a state right then. (Vinzent seemed alright, maybe, but also wasn’t his problem. He said he could swim. He’d be fine.)

… Man, he hoped that land wasn’t as far away as it looked.

Arty Takenaka

Arty looks up at Vinzent. She’s almost confused at the way he’s approaching her, as if the kindness is foreign somehow—or just surprising. “…Yeah,” she sighs after a moment, starting to get up. Guess they weren’t going to leave her after all.

The way others have started walking on the ice so casually gives Arty pause; after having to practically do an army crawl just to keep it from cracking before, she wasn’t expecting it to get much easier anytime soon. But sure enough, the ground looked sturdier now. They must have ended up in a more stable spot at some point, and Arty was only just now noticing. Slowly, she puts one foot underneath her and starts to rise up on one (slightly shaky) knee. The ice doesn’t give, or even crack. She exhales and gets up the rest of the way.

Guess we better start walking.

It was going to be slow going—no way was she going to risk even a fast walk—but at least they were able to travel somewhat safely now. Still, she shadows Vinzent, staying only slightly out of an arm’s reach of him. You know, just in case.