Thread Roulette: If I Could Turn Back Time

[Event !]

Miles Jones and Macie Wyatt have been tasked with spending two days in this house under the living conditions of a lower-middle class household in the 1890s. No telephone services and no electricity and no running water.

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Is this it?  I've slept in worse for free.  Miles was eager to march through the next 48 hours and get his reward money.  He had saved up some cash before moving to Vermont, which had been dangerously close to running dry for a few days.  Otherwise he wouldn't have consented to being filmed for 48 hours, not to mention the complete stranger he'd be slumming with.  It's only two days, he thought to himself as he stepped through the precipice of his tech-devoid hell.  It'll get you to your next paycheck, and then you don't have to degrade yourself ever again.

    Miles had lived decades without cell phones, and he had slept naked on tile floors in Odarennyi.  What was this compared to that?

    His home for the next two days was a small one room cabin.  To his left was a fireplace, annoyingly devoid of any firewood.  At least it's spring.  In front of him, directly opposite the door, was what he assumed must be a replica of a 19th century kitchen.  To his right were two twin sized beds.  In between them was a medium sized bed table, on which resided a lantern.

    The 42 year old sat down his cloth sack on one of the beds.  The network had given it to him, filled with the supplies he would need.  Apparently a suitcase wouldn't have been "edgy" enough or something.  He hadn't really paid attention to his briefing, which he figured they only put him through for liability reasons. Nor had he given interesting pre-challenge interviews. His answers had been short and sweet, and the producers didn't seem happy with him. He hoped for their sake that his roommate (who they had very carefully kept away from him so far) had been more interesting.   The way he saw it, they'd have to pay him regardless of his marketability.

    Miles wore a scowl as he rummaged through his belongings.  The network had given him a change of clothes, which he hoped weren't quite as itchy as the outfit he was wearing now.  He had also been given flint and steel, a knife, a hat, and some books he probably wouldn't read.  He had been told there would be food in the "kitchen", but he didn't bother looking.

    The camera crew hadn't followed him in, which he momentarily rejoiced over before remembering that there were cameras all over the little cabin.  Not that they would need that many to capture the goings-on.  He could see two in opposite corners of the ceiling.

    Miles pushed his modest pile to the end of the bed and sat against the wall.  With nothing else to do, Miles found himself musing on what sort of roommate he would be getting.  Hopefully someone who wouldn't talk his ears off.  But, with the sort of luck he had, he knew he'd probably be getting some eighteen year old brat who got her first phone when she was in the first grade.  He smirked as he imagined the Prius she must've gotten on her 16th birthday.  This modest little 48 hours would destroy a person like that.  A show like that may not be so bad after all.

[Macie Wyatt]

If anything, Macie had done this to get paid. She knew she probably couldn't even make it one day, she'd been told so, but she was also determined to try. She didn't like small spaces, and she certainly didn't do well with strangers, or without electricity. Her hair tended to get extremely poofy when not dealt with properly and she was sure that she would die when her tablet did. 4G would only last so long and then it would die, along with her soul and her beautiful bouncy hair. Her tablet held all of her to do lists, all of her pinterest favorites. It was her sanctuary.

She wanted to upgrade her apartment, wanted to get new furniture. This was a sure way to do that. Only she wasn't thrilled about being filmed. That was probably the worst part. Could she just sleep the whole time? Would they kick her out for not being entertaining enough? She walked into the small cabin, tablet in hand and turned it on.

"Hello?" she called out, looking down to see it powered up, but there was no service. None at all. Nothing. She spotted a man sitting on one of the two beds and waved shyly to him. And then realized she actually knew him, sort of.

He was also a trainer at Hammel.

[Miles Degrasse Jones]

    Miles stood and forced a friendly smile. He could've gotten a worse roommate.

    He had seen her around campus, mostly just in passing during the school day. They had never said a word to each other. What was her name? Mary? Damn.  He had no idea.  "Um..hi."  The smile he painted on his face felt realistic enough.  "I'm Miles.  I think we've seen each other around, right?"  He was painfully aware of his accent, and he wished more than anything that he could've adopted an English one.  Something more friendly.

     It was odd to him that she had brought a tablet.  Had she expected service out here?  Would she even get paid after bringing the thing in here?  If she had cost him his prize money, things would not go well for them once they got out of this place.

    "I guess I'm not the only one needing a little extra cash."  His fake laugh was an obvious one.  A painfully, awkwardly obvious imitation of what actual human joy sounded like.  He immediately regretted it. Going great so far, Vlad.

[Macie Wyatt]

"I'm Macie," she told him, but was rather confused as to how he didn't know that already. "Yeah, we work together, at Hammel." They were both powers trainers, of course, she was sure their methods were vastly differnent because of their ages. She was trying not to be rude by making eye contact with him, but her eyes were mostly on her tablet, waiting for more service bars to appear.

"No, I think everyone could use a little extra cash," she agreed, but she regarded him with a strange look. He sounded as if he was forcing himself to talk to her, to appeal to her. It was a little awkward. "I have to admit, I'm not really sure I belong in the 1890s."