after the event

[hoponpop]

[ Hopper looks kind of desperate when he appears on the network mirrors. ]

Someone tell me someone has some cigarettes. I need one. Or a dozen.

Comments

[hoponpop]

That's how I ended up here, too. I thought it was because El was shutting the gate between worlds at the time, though.

[wheyoftheadept]

Could be. The first time I got yeeted through dimensions, it was cause of a real big magical explosion. Your thing sounds kinda like that?

[hoponpop]

Yup. Except, it would have been more like an implosion than an explosion.

[wheyoftheadept]

So long as it was generating enough magical force to pierce the barrier between worlds, it coulda served as transport. I am completely bullshitting right now, 'cause I ain't even a mage, just best friends with one, but maybe you got caught in the shockwave? Thrown back, only through realities instead regular space.

[hoponpop]

Yeah. Makes sense to me.

I hope El got out of there okay. Since I wasn't there when she finished it.

[wheyoftheadept]

I don't know if my people back home are okay, either. It's hard. Not knowing.

[hoponpop]

You're right, it is.

[ He frowns to himself, and with the prospect of a future pipe in mind, decides to grab up another cigarette. ]

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday smokes with him in peace for a while, savoring her cigarette. then she asks what may be an awkward question, in an apologetic tone.]

So who's El? If you wanna talk about it.

[hoponpop]

[ He pauses, then sighs. ]

It's fine. She was a girl, that had been kept at the lab in town. Illegally. They kept her as a test subject; that's all she'd ever known. El is short for Eleven, you see. That's all she was to them.

And then she escaped. She helped the town with the monster that came in from another dimension. The lab had developed powers in her, you see. She could seal and unseal the hole between dimensions. Eventually I ended up taking her in.

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday nods, as if hearing a completely normal story. apparently the thought of government labs and superpowers and dimensional rifts doesn't phase her]

Good on you. Poor kid. The lab get moved or did you manage to shut it down?

[hoponpop]

Everyone inside died when the monsters attacked.

[wheyoftheadept]

Well, play stupid games... [she doesn't seem to find the outcome shocking, or even that distressing] Hopefully you at least got some hush money for your trouble?

[hoponpop]

Enough to raise her as my daughter. Though, honestly, as long as she were safe I wouldn't care that much about the money.

[wheyoftheadept]

Well, yeah, but money sure damn helps with the safety thing. I bet El was SINless, too, or - uh, whatever you got over where you're from that makes people like, legally a person who exists?