[ cw: blood and finger mutilation mentions probably! ]

CLOSED TO ELLIE. Thomas is bleeding. It seemed worse on Erisden, more pressing, but just because the flow has been somewhat halted doesn't make the pain any less. He remembers smashing his one precious bottle of laudanum just a day ago, and wishes he hadn't, wishes it had still been with him, even if taking it until it ran out would only delay the inevitable. But pain or no pain, halfway to healing or not, that doesn't mean he's stopped bleeding.

It's his fingers that are causing the most problems. The wounds in his side have gone dry, but his fingers — or the places where they used to be, the mottled three stumps and the torn flesh of his hand — are still dripping blood, oozing through the makeshift bandage he'd applied. It's easy to ignore the throb of hurt because that's everywhere, universal to his body, but the drip of blood is irritating enough to become torture after long enough. He's made some attempts at exploring this strange town, its steadily relentless rain something of a blessing, but his leg has gone stiff again, and so he stops outside the steps of the town hall and sits himself down.

Along the path he walked up to the hall, dotted here and there over the ground as if they'd been following him, are tiny sprigs of grass growing seemingly out of nowhere, between the cracks in the paving. The blood still dripping steadily from his hand lands on the stone step beside him, but it doesn't have enough time to pool before a slowly spreading patch of moss campion begins to flourish there, first just greenery until it begins to blossom with little pink flowers. Thomas, staring ahead of him, is yet to notice.

TOWN HALL. The rain hasn't let up. It seems like it never will. Thomas doesn't mind it, really, and it certainly won't stop him making a more detailed round of this place. One "night" of what could only loosely be termed sleep wasn't enough to settle him completely, so his first stop is the town hall again, this time to leave a message on the bulletin board. With that done, Thomas starts a more thorough exploration of the town hall, and can be found going from office to office, peering in each door and sometimes stepping inside to take a closer look. There's a distinct air of bafflement on his face as he inspects some of the more modern appliances, especially in the kitchenette, such as the microwave, the fridge, and the coffee machine.

LIBRARY. His next stop is the library. Most of the books at the front half are unfamiliar to him, but it's these rather than the musty old books further back that catch his attention — biographies of people he doesn't know, histories of years that have not yet come to pass for him. He hefts a book on tank warfare in the Second World War (an ominous subject indeed) from the shelf and places it on a table to look through it, but he can't bring himself to crack open the cover. Anyone nearby will find him staring in very deep thought at the cover alone, his brow heavily furrowed.

GENERAL STORE. A lot of the items in this shop are equally unfamiliar to him, and the more he sees of this town, the less he understands of it. Everything is very bright and very colourful, and when he pops open a can of soda with an ingenious ring-pull mechanism in the top and has a very careful sip, he's assaulted by its oversweet taste and fizz. In an extremely undignified manner, Thomas spits out his mouthful of Coke all over the floor.

REEL RENTALS. Thomas has gone methodically from building to building and given each one as thorough an inspection as he can manage, but it's this place that mystifies him more than anything else. It looks at first glance like a bookshop, only the books when opened are not full of pages but a strange device with two holes in it that turn when he sticks his finger in one and pushes. For anyone else looking around in here, he has only one question: "Excuse me. What on earth is this?"

THE GREY GULL. No alcohol. Well, he doesn't know what he expected. Thomas sits down at the bar in any case, elbows on the surface, his forehead resting in his one good hand, looking for all the world like a corpse that died sitting up, held upright by rigor mortis alone. To company, he has only a clipped, slightly hostile stare. Approach warily.

One full day he's been here now, and his sleep was slightly more restful on the second night. He wakes with determination. No more meandering fruitlessly from building to building, assaulted with confusion over practically every object he finds. He heard Jennifer's voice coming from somewhere in the forest, and it would be a betrayal of everything he holds dear to ignore it. Even if it's his own mind, he must rule out every other possibility.

So Thomas gets dressed and heads outside, striding with singleminded purpose to the forest. He'd stumbled out of it two days ago and pushed all thoughts of returning out of his mind, but now there's nothing to do but walk right in.

[ i'm up for just having your character run into thomas in the middle of the street or at the boarding house or something! just hit me up on plurk (crowders) or discord if you wanna plot something, or toss it right in here, no rules just right! ]