(bg:"https://file.garden/aOfBtIHwq2KYQkQr/background%20assets/forest")+
(text-style:"italic","underline","fidget")[(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")["We met up in Needlepoint. Gray had reserved plane tickets for all of us a month in advance. We got there and we were all sort of taken back by how everybody else looked. Gray was, like, fifteen. Was really small, too. We elected to refer to each other by our actual names because it's really fucking awkward to refer to someone you're talking to in real life as "blanche". Nobody's ever had that name.]
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(text-style:"buoy")[(text-colour:cyan)[Grayeagle: Patrick Girard
macro-blanche: Madeline Henry
POWPOWD3RKEG: Fred Slater
Honeycrispy: Evan Jones]]
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(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[Madeline--Blanche--rented out a log cabin just out of Needlepoint. Said it used to belong to a grandmother and her granddaughter. What was the granddaughter's name again? Carla? You guys have the technology, you can check it out. Hardly matters, don't it?]
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(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[We get there and I get this particular chill in my spine. I don't really believe in intuition, you know? It just sounds hokey. But I swear to you that something was wrong about that place. Really wrong. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess, but this felt like more than that.]
(align:"=><=")+(box:"=XXX=")[I don't really bring it up. It's sort of stupid. GOD do I wish I ran through the woods that day. Should'a ran like hell."]]
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I don't care if I would've looked retarded.
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It doesn't matter to me anymore.
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I thought I knew what I had signed up for.
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I thought it would be smooth sailing
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especially without Aegis there.
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I'm such an idiot.
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