once more with feeling [act 3]

[stagemanagers]

You awake in an unfamiliar bed.

It’s comfortable enough, sure, but it’s certainly not yours. The room, too, is unfamiliar, especially in such heavy darkness. There seems to have been a great effort put into making it a livable space, with fuzzy rugs laid over linoleum, beds arranged as best to fit (and one bunk bed per dorm, rip whoever has the bottom bunk), and a single desk. You've also got individually labelled trunks; if you look inside yours, you'll find a yearbook with mostly blank pages, as well as a few with some interesting information. But even with all these changes it’s clear this room started it’s life as a classroom, every window hidden behind heavy dark green curtains.

To add to the strangeness of it all, your clothes have been swapped for some kind of uniform. It, though fitting your body perfectly, might feel a bit odd to some of you, as the body you have isn’t quite the same as it was before you mysteriously fell unconscious. The other important thing to note is the people in the other beds around you, all wearing the same color-coded uniform.

The hallway outside the dorms is narrow but well-lit, with fresh white walls and some scattered posters advertising some kind of midweek club meeting. The hallway goes on until, for the more contemporary of you, the pieces start to fall together as to your location: a school. Once you leave your rooms you’re free to wander as you wish but pinned up on a corkboard just outside the cafeteria there’s framed information that you might find helpful. If you explore further into the other rooms, in fact, you'll see there's an identical copy outside all of them.

In the lobby there are linoleum floors and fluorescent lighting, and a pair of glass doors that appear to lead outside. You can see out of both of them that the sun is shining brightly and there’s definitely more to see in the distance but the glass is unbreakable; you can't get out that way right now. A rolling metal sheet blocks off the hallway to the west. For the moment, both doors leading outside are locked.

It looks like you’re stuck. But hey - at least you aren’t alone.

Comments

[wanderlusttitania]

Yes! His name is Franz-Josef.

And...your wife. What is her name?

[themuseabandonsyou]

Her name is Eurydice. [ He says, starting to walk off in the direction of the dorms. Most people are still milling around in there, so if they're gonna find their spouses anywhere it'll probably be in one of them? ]

She's wonderful. When we met it was like I'd known her my entire life, and I know she feels the same.

[ He smiles, wistfully, and glances over his shoulder at Elisabeth. ]

What about your husband, though? Tell me about him.

[wanderlusttitania]

Eurydice? That-

[Nope, nope, she already upset this gentleman once, not again!]

-sounds like a lovely name! And...she sounds very lovely too!

[Phew]

Ah, my husband...he's a wonderful man. He cares about his people, and wants to do the best for everyone! And of course, we both love each other very much. We're going to do a lot of things together, I'm sure of it!

[themuseabandonsyou]

Hmm? [ Orpheus glances over at her, frowning a little in confusion. It sounded like she recognized the name? Oh, well. It's probably nothing. ]

She is! She's smart, and clever, and she used to travel all over, so she knows all about all sorts of different people and things.

[ He smiles, wistfully. ]

Your husband sounds like a good man, too! I hope we find them. Maybe they'll have a better idea of what's happening here.

[wanderlusttitania]

I do hope so! Right now I can't make much of it...there's little around here that's recognizable, for one. Like the lights...they're nothing like what we have back home.

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus nods in agreement. ]

Everything seems kind of - not wrong? But strange. The way the building looks, and all the furniture. I think the lights are electric? But they don't look like the ones from back home.

[wanderlusttitania]

Electric?

[Blink blink. Then, a gasp.]

You mean...the lights are powered by electricity?

[themuseabandonsyou]

Probably! It must take a lot to run this whole building.

[ Which he assumes is why Elisabeth is so shocked. ]

We must be somewhere kind of important? Or near a big city. That's the only other time I've seen big buildings lit up like this.

[wanderlusttitania]

My goodness, but not even Vienna has electric lights! How in the world does this place accomplish it when no one else in the world has figured it out...?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ And a pause for Orpheus to think about that. ]

What? I think most cities have at least some electric lights by now. At least in the States?

[ But he's seen pictures of the Eiffel Tower lit up at night, and if Paris has them, why wouldn't the rest of the major European cities? ]

[wanderlusttitania]

...Really?

[Her eyes narrow slightly at this.]

I...I've never heard of such a thing having been achieved by any human, much less a city with electric lights.

[themuseabandonsyou]

What, really?

[ Orpheus frowns, looking perplexed. ]

I think lightbulbs - electric lights - were invented a pretty long time before I was born? But you haven't heard of them? At all?

[wanderlusttitania]

No, I haven't.

[Frown.]

Lightbulbs, you say?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ Orpheus nods. ]

I don't remember who invented them? But they've been around for a while. I think most big cities are replacing their old gas streetlights with electric ones now? Not to mention outfitting buildings with them.

I know they have them in Paris, so it'd be kind of strange if Vienna didn't have them too, right? Is that where you're from? Austria?

[wanderlusttitania]

Yes, that's right...but...no, not even the Schönbrunn has electric lights!

But you do...?

[themuseabandonsyou]

Not in my home? But the train station in the town where I live is electric, and we got electric lights in the bar where I work recently.

[ He frowns, then shakes his head. ]

This doesn't make any sense.

[wanderlusttitania]

No, it doesn't.

...

Unless...unless electric lights just haven't somehow...gotten to Vienna?

[Even as she says this, her face betrays her doubt. After all, Austria is one of the greatest nations on Earth, and Vienna one of the greatest cities. Why wouldn't they have it when Paris had it, when even train stations had them?]

[themuseabandonsyou]

The town I live in is so small it doesn't even have a name. Why would we get electricity first?

[ He frowns, thinking about that. Something occurs to him, and he finds himself asking a question before he can stop and think about how absurd it is. ]

What year is it?

[wanderlusttitania]

April 24th...well, I would assume it's the 25th, now, but April, 1854.

Why?

[themuseabandonsyou]

[ So Orpheus was expecting a strange answer to his question, but this is even stranger than anything he'd braced himself for. He reels back slightly, visibly shocked. ]

No, wait, that's - It's the 5th of Skirophorion waning, 678.2. I thought we might be from different times, somehow? But you can't be from after me. And - April 25th?

[wanderlusttitania]

Wh-I-

[s t a r e]

Y-yes. April...the fourth month of the year.

[themuseabandonsyou]

... The fourth month of the year is Pyanepsion?

[ Okay, time to spend another moment actually thinking about what's going on here. Elisabeth didn't include where in the cycle of years she was, and she's using different months and different days. Clearly there's something wrong here. ]

I think... we might not be talking about the same calendar? [ That complicates things. Orpheus thinks for a moment, then asks, ] How long ago was the United States founded?

[wanderlusttitania]

...about...80 years ago? Almost 80 years ago, I believe. In 1776.

[themuseabandonsyou]

It was a little over 150 years ago, for me. I remember because there was a big celebration when I was twelve? So that would've been...

[ hold on he can do this, math is hard but he's got this-- ]

638.3? I think. But that doesn't make any sense. Even - ignoring that we're counting the years differently, how can we be from so far apart?

[wanderlusttitania]

Wh-that really doesn't make sense! Why would you be counting the years differently? I...unless you are a Jew, I suppose, but I thought their calendar was much older?