Hong Kong, Tuesday evening

[lovemykilt]

"Look," Priestly said. He'd finally managed to scrape together enough money for a long distance phone card and had, naturally, immediately called the Beach City Grill. "You guys can't keep sending me money. You're both broke, too. Unless Trucker decided to give you raises."

"Who?" asked Jen. Priestly pinched his nose and successfully resisted the urge to throw his phone against a wall.

"Is Priestly talking about his imaginary friends again?" asked Tish in the background.

"They're not -- aaaaggggh!" Priestly groaned. It was no use, he'd tried explaining it to them any number of times before, ever since they first started denying the existence of his mother. "Look, is Zo around? Does she still exist?"

"The crystal lady across the street?"

Priestly pumped his fist in the air.

"We haven't seen her in weeks. She put up a sign saying 'closed for the apocalypse' and stopped coming in."

The fist came back down. Priestly gaped at the phone.

"How are you doing on getting home? We're really worried about you, Priestly. Even Tish."

"Not 'cause I like you or anything!" Tish called in the background.

"I'm in Hong Kong," Priestly said. "I managed to hop a boat. I'm going to see if I can make it to Japan. I may or may not have a friend there, depending on the dimensions."

Jen sighed. Talking about dimensions wasn't helping her thinking he'd had a psychotic break. "Maybe you should just try to get deported."

"Maybe you should try figuring out where my mom and dad, Mr. Julius, Camille, Trucker, and half the population of Santa Cruz went."

"I'm serious, Priestly."

"I'm running out of minutes."

"Well, call us back when you've figured out what you're doing next, okay?"

"I told you, I'm going to Japan."

"I don't know where that is. Priestly? Priestly, are you still there? Priestly?"

Priestly stopped banging his head on the wall. "Yeah, Jen. I'm still here. Even if no one else is."

[ooc: It's fun to be evil! Open for any pan-dimensional phone calls.]

Comments

[vanillajello]

So, what did you do when it started to look really likely that you'd be soon moving to Japan? Why, you called one of the people you knew were somewhere out in the world (possibly in Asia, even!) and checked in to see where exactly they were.

Ring ring, Priestly.

[lovemykilt]

Priestly checked the caller ID, then answered.

"Kate! You still exist!"

[vanillajello]

... Uh, okay then.

"Is that some less than subtle dig at how lousy I am at staying in touch?"

[lovemykilt]

"No, that's me celebrating the fact that you haven't gone the way of half the people I know." Priestly shrugged. Because she could totally hear that over the phone. "How's it going?"

[vanillajello]

"I think I might be moving to Japan for a while," Kate replied, but a little absently because she was curious. "Gone the way half the people you know, how?"

[lovemykilt]

"You've heard of Japan!" Priestly cheered. Yeah, that wasn't going to help her follow his end of the conversation. "And I don't know, they're just gone. Seriously. Poof. And no one's noticed but me."

[vanillajello]

"What do you mean gone?" Kate asked, unsurprisingly. "Of course I've heard of Japan, it's a country with over 127 million people in it!"

Someone had been learning facts about it, yeah.

[lovemykilt]

"I don't know, most of them are half a world away! But my noodle cart boss was totally AWOL after Homecoming, and now Jen says she's never heard of Japan. Despite the fact that they quite possibly made half her electrical equipment."

[vanillajello]

"Huh." Yeah, she was frowning now. "That's... weird. Like, even weirder than we're used to."

[lovemykilt]

"I know, right? Dinah said people were disappearing from her world, too." Priestly rubbed his neck. "But, hey, sounds like yours is okay."

[vanillajello]

"Yeah," Kate agreed, if a bit slowly, as this did not mean she wouldn't be a little paranoid. Her boyfriend had vanished into thin air for half a week, once. It was not unfounded.

"We have Japan, at least."

[lovemykilt]

"And you're moving there!" Priestly went for cheerful, and maybe missed just a tiny bit. "That's cool."

[vanillajello]

"It's not, like, a hundred percent sure yet," Kate replied, trying to get back to her groove about being excited. "I still gotta sort some of the money stuff, but yeah. That's the plan. Teaching English for like six months or something."

[heromaniac]

Momoko was totally his friend no matter what dimension he was in. And she was calling, in fact, to see what was up. And maaaaybe to make sure he still existed.

Wherever he was, today.

So, ring ring?

[lovemykilt]

"Momoko! You're still around!"

It was a good day for confirming that about his off world friends.

[heromaniac]

"I am! And so are you! Thank goodness!" She laughed and typed his name on her spreadsheet; one more person that hadn't disappeared, yay! "Well, at least I think you are. Are you still in my side of the world or have you moved on to Antarctica or something?"

She'd get to the scary stuff in a minute, honest.

[lovemykilt]

"Hong Kong. So getting closer. Except I'm nooooot entirely sure that my world's version of your side of the world is entirely still intact."

Jen had never heard of Japan, after all.

[heromaniac]

"Oh sure, Priestly, get all scary and to the point on me," Momoko sighed and switched to the other spreadsheet. "First, are you okay? Dinah was here last weekend and she said... your mom... is gone?"

[lovemykilt]

"Sorry. It's kind of on my brain." Priestly sighed. "Uh, yeah. She was one of the first casualties of . . . whatever this is."

[heromaniac]

"It's totally taken over my life," Momoko gave a soft chuckle. "But if it's your mom, I can believe you're thinking about it a lot. She was first? You've had more? Do the others remember them? No one here remembers anyone who's gone. It's like I'm going crazy, even if I know I'm not."

[lovemykilt]

"Exactly! Jen and Tish don't remember them at all. If it weren't for Dinah I'd wonder if I had gone crazy."

[heromaniac]

"Same here; finding out similar stuff was happening to her totally made me cry in relief. Even if it wasn't exactly the same, it was good to have someone else remember what I did. Something even disappeared while she was here, so it wasn't just me!"

[lovemykilt]

"Yeah? How's she doing? I haven't had the money to call her in a little while." Fun with essentially living as a migrant worker.

[heromaniac]

"Besides totally freaked out? Fine!" Momoko smiled. Barely. "Are you doing okay? I can totally help if you need something? I have a job and everything, now!"

[lovemykilt]

"Oh hey, what kind of job?" It was nice to talk about something normal for once.