Season of Reckoning
Ordinary People. Extraordinary Abilities.
Real People. Unreal Adventure.

Episode 4 – Promised Land
Written and directed by: David Justin R. Ples
Co-directed by: Rebecca Yu, Benedict Almirol, and Candy Dacalos

Previously, on SR…

“You’re going after our carnivalettes. That’s cute, Lab-labs. I approve.”
“But they’re not seeing what I’m seeing.”
“This is bitch eat bitch world, Desi.”
“Now I have a plan that will save all your asses from the soup kitchen.”
“I was thinking of teaching Biology to third years here at Philippine Science.”
“You never know what you have until you lose it.”

Now, SR continues.
_______________________________________________________

Wax trickling down the sides. Gray, milky white, black.
A pillar of flames. Rising, falling, silent but passionate. Warm.
The fires mount violently, and intense, encompassing light fills the room, down to its darkest, most secret corners. The flash stitches blindness over his eyes, and he roars in pain.
The most horrible sound she has ever heard.
Cold, unfeeling concrete beneath her palms. Rough, gritty, unchanging and unforgiving. A wall of wood swinging toward her, ending in a terrible din. Latches slipping into place, locks shutting. And the solid, immovable behemoth of her own front door, forever closed.
The most horrible sight she has ever seen.
Twinkling lights, soft, whimsical music, fresh bread – just a fragment of a memory, overshadowed by emotion. A fractured sense of safety. Uncertain footsteps, giving way to breathless sprints. Faster, faster.
But the carnival was gone. And so was everything else. Everything was…over.
A handsome man, his guiding hand; the glint in his eye. His easy words, his easy choices. And a plan unfolding. Years of training, years of deceit.
All for nothing.
Seconds ticking, stretching endlessly into muted forevers. A final warning, a weapon in her hand. Left, right, good, bad, now, never…
She chose them.
Months in a tiny cell, regret dripping down the walls. Acrid echoes keeping her awake at night. Not the tiniest bit of light. Not even in herself.
Then came the eclipse.
Another day, another deal, another set of faces. She’s learned; every fiber in her body is ripe with distrust, and in the darkness of a moon swallowing the sun, she makes her escape. Swimming for hours, water and blood gushing from the side of her mouth.
And now, aimless wandering.
The ink settles on Lydia’s back, washing out over the face of a bespectacled woman, aged far beyond her years. Short, wavy hair, and thick, pouting lips. The tattoo sketches to completion, and the seer is pulled back to the present, decades lost in her shallow exhalation, hundreds of kilometers whizzing by in her mind.
Her hand sweeps across the table involuntarily, and her crystal ball rolls off the table. It shatters into a thousand pieces, and the morning rays streaming in through the window blinds scatter through the shards.
Heavy knocking wakes Lydia from her vision.
“There won’t be a show tonight,” comes Noel’s voice, urgent. “Handle things until Terence and I get back.”
He waits for a response. As he begins to turn around, disappointed, the trailer door snaps open. Lydia pulls the seashell curtains to one side, and walks past him, running her fingers tentatively through her hair.
“I need to talk to Terence first. I’ve an errand for him.”
“Have you found someone to help us?”
The Tattooed Lady stops, and just barely turns her head. From the corner of her lips, she whispers.
“Yes. Her name is Candelen, and she, by far, needs the November Carnival more than anyone else we’ve roped into the ring.”

*****

Chester politely excuses himself between their biology teacher and the man she is talking to, angling his entrance to fit the large object he is carrying under the crook of his arm. He sets the box on their table of six, and pulls the red silk cover away with a flourish.
“Do you guys have any idea how this got into my room?”
Elise unhooks her half of the earphones and returns them to Jethro, who in turn puts away his iPod. Chari manages to break away from the gaggle of guys surrounding her to join them.
“Nice,” says Jethro, giving the cajon a few light taps. Chester sees the wooden sound as concentric rings of light brown and gold. “So this is what you were busy with yesterday. Too bad – we had a good jam session. You should’ve brought this over.”
“I didn’t know what to do with it. It was sitting on my bed together with a painting, of that same beatbox. And lots of colors, just the way I see them.”
“Oh. So you’re still hallucinating,” laughs Jethro.
“I’m not. These colors – whenever something makes noise I can see them. It’s like a superpower, man.”
“Che, maybe you’re just a bit excited. You know. From the carnival and everything. Specials are coming out by the dozens now. Maybe only you can see the colors because you’re forcing yourself to?”
The corners of Elise’s lips slowly fold downward as she surveys the sharp sloping of Chester’s eyebrows, and the adamant look of certainty on Jethro’s face. Chari runs her fingers over the carvings on the wood, and speaks up. The scent of strawberries fills the air.
“You know how to play this?” she asks innocently. Her accent is further obscured by the bubblegum she is chewing on.
“Yeah. Old friends taught me, way back. But I didn’t own one, until yesterday afternoon. I asked all the dormers, and none of them ‘fessed up. They didn’t do it, and they didn’t see who did it.”
The rest of Strontium begins to settle down as Ma’am Dawn enters the room, stomach first. Her smile follows in quick succession, and she steps up onto the platform, pulling down on the projector screen so that it winds back up with a neat snap.
“Okay class, I have an important announcement to make. As you can all see,” she says, turning sideways and giving a little chuckle, “I’m well into my pregnancy. The baby’s doing fine, thanks for asking. We’re going to have a beautiful baby girl.”
Elise leans in to Jethro, resting her chin on his shoulder. “Yeah?”
“I told you she was pregnant,” Elise whispers through pearly whites.
“Okay, so you’re right. I mean, I had a hunch that she was, but it would be totally awkward and rude if I asked her and she wasn’t.”
“Your momma’s so fat we thought she was pregnant.”
Chari bursts into rich, staccato laughter beside her; it was the first time since she’d arrived on campus that she’d made any noise aside from a quiet word or two. All heads turn to look at her, and Ma’am Dawn stops good-naturedly to let her clutch her stomach. Chester grins lazily, and then yawns, plopping his head back on the table.
“Well now, if Miss Beleran is done, I was just about to introduce you to your new substitute teacher. I’m not sure what his credentials are, but he looks decent enough in a labgown. Please welcome Mr. – actually, I’m sorry,” she says, turning to the man entering the room. He tips his fedora to the class. “What was your name?”
“I regret to inform everyone that no matter how you choose to address me, it will always sound awkward. My name is David, but I don’t like my surname, so you can just call me Sir. Everyone clear on that?”
Strontium sits dumbfounded, and a few jumpy nods break up the collective stillness in the room. Ma’am Dawn bids the class goodbye, taking her jar of candies and plastic animal toys with her.

*****

Yvanne dials again, fingers threatening to punch right through her flimsy cellphone. She puts the device to her ear, scowling at the ringback tone, which by now she is impossibly tired of.
The door to her boss’s lounge opens; cold air-conditioning floods the hallway. Desi frowns, gesturing toward the ongoing meeting, but Yvanne puts up her palm – talk to the hand – and continues tapping her stilettos against the marble.
“She’s not picking up. She should’ve told me they had an out-of-town overnight field trip. And now I owe her Php500 in fees. Ugh.”
“You can deal with finding her later. We have to discuss your future,” sneers Desi, smacking Yvanne’s hand with a metallic pointer. The secretary drops her phone, only to catch it in the other hand.
The ladies return to the table, each one primly straightening out suits and blouses. Two other men sit on opposites sides; one looks rather bored, and the other looks rather large and white.
“Yvanne,” begins the corporate leader, “meet Dominic Albao. Domz for short – it’s plural, with a Z, because he’s so large. And I don’t even need to introduce you to Renz Yrlandre Cabanto, who is running for Senator in the upcoming elections.”
Flipping her long, straight hair to the side, Yvanne nods. She bitterly observes how the superior cushioned seat at the head of the table fits Desi’s big mouth and bigger head.
“Over the past few months, I’ve been underground,” Ms. Mina explains. “Making connections, hooking up with allies, and doing a lot of research. Watching, and waiting. The three of you are here today because of what you can do for me, and what I can do for you.”
“Get on with it, Desi,” grumbles Renz, popping the lid off a bottle of sprite. He holds it to his lips, tilting his head back, and takes his blessed time to drink. Gulp, gulp, gulp. When he finishes, the glass breaks from his lips with an exaggerated Ah. Domz’s face contorts with exasperation; Yvanne smirks and thinks how ridiculous this looks.
How ridiculous this all looked.
“It hasn’t been long since posthumans – people with superpowers – revealed themselves to the world. It started with Iego Tan, the winged freak,” and here Desi’s nose wrinkles, “and soon, many others followed. That’s where Renz came in.”
“Yes. He rode the publicity and made empty claims,” shrugs Domz.
“You’re wrong there,” says Renz, standing up, very theatrical. Yvanne waves away the smell of liquor and more recently, sprite, on his breath. “Desi and I pushed for the legislation of a two-part bill. Posthumans are now not allowed to use their powers in public. Read the papers, Albao. And furthermore,” he says with a flourish, creases forming on his square forehead, “there is now a division which handles superhuman affairs. I am the leader of said division.”
“Sit down, Renz.” Desi points at him with her finger, and as she brings her hand down, the politician plops back into his seat. Yvanne’s eyes narrow.
There’s something freaky about Desi. I mean, aside from the obvious.

*****

“Why’d we head out to a dump like this, Noel? What’s to see?”
Terence rocks back and forth on his heels, hands stuffed cozily into the pockets of his trousers. He watches, head angled as always so that one side of his body leans forward, while Noel runs some sand through his fingers.
A barren wasteland stretches before them in all directions, rolling high and low in little hills. The landscape is broken up only by several misplaced boulders, probably rolled off from the limestone cliffs which border the area. Vegetation is scarce; all the thorny bushes panting along the dried riverbed droop and sigh under the glare of the afternoon sun.
“I was almost a hundred percent sure that we could win them over,” coughs Noel, running his fingers through his hair as the wind blows. Traces of dust remain there, making him seem much, much older. “The November Carnival is like a dream come true for all of us. But I guess we’ve been…cloistered too long.”
“Well, sure, boss. But it’s the good life, right?”
“Recently I realized that the concept of paradise changes from person to person. Not everyone dreams of running away to the circus. Not everyone wants to keep moving from place to place. They’re like us, Terence, but I’ve been out of touch from the outside so long that I’ve forgotten they’re not like us.”
“So what’re you saying?”
Terence impatiently taps his shoes on the ground; his footprints press into the earth at superspeed, so that the impression begins to dig deeper and deeper.
“They need a home, is what I’m saying,” snaps Noel. “Not a traveling gypsy caravan, not trailers, not hammocks tied between concessions booths. They need…a promised land. Somewhere we can all gather and just sit down on the grass and be home.”
Overhead, a hawk blocks out the sun, casting its shadow on the ground. The outline of its widespread wings flutters over the dirt, coming up to Noel. Terence narrows his eyes, wary of the straight line formed by the ringmaster’s parched lips.
“This is going to be home? It looks just like the carnival grounds.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We have to gather the faithful first, and together, as one family, we will transform the entire earth into our Eden. You’ll see; my vision for our dominion is unlike anything the world has ever seen. Specials are like angels, Dy Echo. We’ve come and said our piece; mankind has been warned. Now it’s time to find our way back to the heaven we deserve.”
Terence merely nods his head. He hated it when Noel talked like that; it was so hard to follow. The old Noel went straight to the point; the old Noel was a man of action.
Standing there, watching the new ringmaster kneeling on the ground, carving who knows what into the ground, Terence wearily comes to a stinging conclusion.
The old Noel was gone.
“Look, boss, it was nice shopping for real estate with you, but Lydia -”
“Go.”
“But how are you going to get back? If we’re away from the carnival for too long, we’re going to -”
“Just go, Terence. Fetch the lady.”
Hacking up some spit and shooting it deftly at the ground before him, Terence turns his back, and zips away, accelerating to seven hundred miles an hour. Noel watches as his outline, fading wisps of distorted air and light, follows after him seconds later, throwing up clouds of dust in its wake.

*****

“The human body,” begins David, pulling back his long sleeves to write on the board, “interacts with its environment via nerve connections and electrical signals. I’m sure Ma’am Dawn covered the basics of the nervous system with you, and since I’m not the type to give quizzes,” he says, trying to goad the kids into smiling, “we’ll just talk about something that has fascinated scientists and the general population for a while now: Synesthesia.”
No matter how hard he tries, Jethro can’t seem to ignore the greenish tinge in the new teacher’s skin. He casually mentions this to Elise, who points out the distressing branch-like state of David’s arm.
“Has anyone here ever heard of the phenomenon?”
A few seconds, and the class awkwardly shakes their heads. Chester opens his eyes long enough to find that he is not the only one with his head on the table.
“Our body perceives the world around us by receiving input through one sense, and then having the brain interpret. Sometimes, though, individuals are born with what you might call ‘different wiring’. Information gets sent to the wrong parts of the brain; it gets processed nonetheless. The result is unique perception – tasting words, feeling smells, seeing sounds as colors.”
Chari gently shakes Chester awake; Jethro locks eyes with him.
“This could be considered similar,” continues David, eyes narrowing and smile widening, “to how snakes can see temperature signals with organs called pits. Or how insects detect each others’ pheromones. Those are interesting, too.”
Elise flips through her hardcore Bio book, and notes that his lecture is not on their list of topics for the week. She says so to Jethro, who practically jumps up in epiphany.
“I’ve seen him before,” he says, half to himself. “From the Company…”
“Yes, Mr. Jamon? Something to share with the class?”
Chester and Jethro exchange glances for the nth time. Elise merely grins.
“No? Well, okay then. Pheromones are chemical messengers that animals release to attract mates and instigate breeding. You can think of them as love perfumes. Females of the species may be able to use these pheromones to manipulate the males into strange mating behaviors.”
The bell rings, and Chari practically flies out the door. Boys from their class and from the lower years down the hall converge, tongues all hanging out in comic fashion.
Elise and Chester follow after her; Jethro innocuously steals a last look at their new substitute.
“So, Jethro. How’s normal life? Get those powers under control yet?”

*****

Desi nimbly flips a remote control around in her palm, and uses it to turn on the projector she has brought to the table. The first slide of her presentation flashes on the wall.
“My father has owned this bank ever since his father passed it on to him. Since then, we’ve made a generous sum, loaning money to non-profit organizations, up and coming businesses, and the intrepid ventures of plucky entrepreneurs. We’ve come to be recognized as the bank, the establishment. And with such high interest rates and reliable security, why shouldn’t we be?”
Pictures flicker onscreen – photos from the day the bank first opened, and various shots of important-looking people shaking hands with Mina Senior. Desi beams at first, but as time passes, her lips sink lower and lower. Yvanne satisfactorily nods her head at this.
“But then we got hit by two storms. The first was recession. Businesses tanked, profits fell off the charts; everyone was just poor all of a sudden. I wasn’t here at the time, of course, for reasons we will never discuss, but the important thing is I’m here now. I can fix up all those bad decisions that you and father made, Yvanne. All that trust you put into bad loans….” she says, tsk-tsk-ing.
“Whatever, Desi. Next slide.”
“Just when you all thought things couldn’t get any worse, that’s when the Icarus Incident happened.” Here Desi starts to laugh vigorously, almost…maniacally. Renz’s eyebrow shoots up, in unison with Domz’s upper lip. Yvanne simply rolls her eyes. “Posthumans were discovered. And as it turns out, there are a lot of specials. When their cover was blown, they all just packed up and left town. Pulled out all their investments. We weren’t getting paid back; we had nothing in our vaults.”
“Our, our, our,” hisses Yvanne. “None of this is yours. Just because you share the same last name with our great president doesn’t mean you can lay claim to all our hard work –”
The secretary stops abruptly; her lips snap shut. Desi has her hand out, fingers pinched together. Yvanne wrestles with the invisible strings silencing her, to no avail.
“Would you shut up and let me have the moment, sweetie? So there. To be clear, I’m a posthuman, too. Questions later. Yvanne, Domz, Renz – you all have something in common; you all need cash. The secretary, the budding inventor, the politician in the running. My plan will put enough cash in our laps to make sure we all retire sipping martinis under Malibu sun.”
Desi’s audience waits, irregular breaths audible against the dull hum of the air-conditioning. The walls heave, as though listening intently.
“Renz, with your efforts we’ve created the Posthuman Crises Aversion Team. Our first mission will be to collect stray posthumans and keep them locked up. We accomplish this by first raiding The Company, which, as I will fully explain later on, is a clandestine organization of pigs and idiot specials. Domz, your inventions, funded by what little is left of the bank, will be of great help in subduing them and countering their powers. Finally, we shall use the mechanics of this bank to create an underground black market.”
“Of what? What are we selling?” inquires Yvanne.
“Powers. We’re going to create a bank system that sells superpowers.”

*****

Lydia slips a shawl over her shoulders and steps into the harsh sunlight. She can feel ink oozing through the pores on her back, a blinking, moving radar warning her of an approaching posthuman. The map tattoo on her back vanishes, just as a blast of wind signals Terence’s arrival. Her trailer door flips open, and she rushes back inside.
“You said she was gonna be trouble,” sneers Terence. He shakes his head in disdain. “Didn’t put up a fight. Too slow.”
“Well I’m glad that you’ve discovered you move faster than light. Now, if you don’t mind, give us some space.”
The messenger leaves a translucent trail behind him as he goes, frames of himself left behind in his departure. The liquid light evaporates seconds later, following after him.
Lydia surveys the crumpled mess on her bed, barely breathing. Cuts ran along the length of her arms; her face was smeared with jungle dirt. She notes how the woman’s body is much leaner than in her visions – she hadn’t been eating properly. One of the lenses in her spectacles was cracked.
“Candy. Wake up.”
At the sound of her name, the fugitive bucks, throwing her arms up. Lydia falters, raising her hands over her eyes, but the light Candy emits is pathetically weak – the equivalent of a candle’s illumination.
Kicking against the sheets, Candy edges toward the corner, bracing herself.
“I’m not going to hurt you. You know me, Candelen.”
The fugitive draws in breath, eyes scanning the trailer for exits.
“Perhaps you need help remembering,” Lydia adds, inching closer. Candy sticks her hand out, powering up another attack, but the Tattooed Lady grasps her palm tightly. Too tired to struggle, the fugitive merely cries out as ink streams from Lydia’s fingers into her arm.
A pair of twin tattoos forms on each of their arms – crowned women carrying broadswords, surrounded by a twisting pillar of flames.
The Magician.
“Your mind is…in disarray,” says Lydia, struggling. “Have to dig deeper…. Just one memory….”
Images flash around her, forgotten pasts, fragments of better times. Traces of feelings buried deep within the fugitive’s subconscious. The Tattooed Lady wades deeper into Candy’s mind, her soul, and the vicious hatred wells up again.
Lydia is thrown back, smashing into her bedside wardrobe. She sinks to the floor, panting, and arches in pain. The new tattoo on her arm sizzles away like a crisp ember.
“If you come near me again,” mutters Candy, hugging her knees, “I will gouge your eyes out with my nails.”
The Tattooed Lady ignores the threat, straightening up. Her knees nearly give way to the weight of Candy’s memories, still fresh in her mind.
“Remember. One late November night. You came to us with your family. I met you at the gates. We talked; we shared popcorn. Then you looked up at my face and asked me why I had this leaf tattoo over my eye. Do you remember what I said?”
Candy hesitates, as Lydia rests against the side of her trailer.
“…to remind you how much time has passed.”
“That’s right. Seasons change, and so does this tattoo.”
Lydia brushes back her hair, and the intricate veins of the ilang-ilang leaf stitched across her cheek pulsate with autumn oranges and faint greens.
“That was a long time ago. People change too.”
“Maybe in the way they look, or how heavy their heart is,” says Lydia, drawing closer. Tears begin to stream down Candy’s face, and she fights them off, vigorously rubbing against them with her wrists. “But what’s inside stays the same. Your light, Candelen… You’ve been running for long as you can remember. Isn’t it time to come home?”
“I have no home. I have no family. Twice promised, twice denied. No more.”
“It’s fine. You don’t need to accept my offer right now. Just…rest up. You have food waiting for you outside. All you need to do is ask. You might not be home just yet, but for now, you are safe.”
Lydia picks herself up, and hobbles down the steps to the door. She’d forgotten the sting of physical pain; Noel had always been there to take it away.
Not this time.
Silently she wishes Candelen untroubled dreams.

*****

Chester sleepily drags his bag across the uneven table surface, blocking himself from their chemistry teacher’s view. He lays his head on the table, listening to the colored trills of birds outside.
A hand slams a piece of paper onto his desk; he looks up to see Jethro brandishing his most recent test score. The numbers flash bright green – a decent 34. The boy’s smile flashes just as bright.
Turning over his crumpled answer sheet, Chester yawns. Yet another over-perfect score. Jethro’s face turns about as red as the 43/40. He groans loudly, face squelching, and jabs his friend in the arm. Elise laughs, giving him a comforting hug, which does what she intends it to do. She then places her paper beside his, a 39, and chortles, rolling over on the ground.
Over his shoulder, Chester sees Chari smiling serenely at her own paper. She was sitting nearest the door, as usual, farthest away from the blackboard. He supposes she is trying to avoid attention, but notes in his head that she isn’t doing a very good job.
“Hey,” he calls in a low voice, swinging over. He pulls up a creaky old stool, and takes a seat. “How’d you do?”
Chari meekly slips her test toward him. 38.
“I didn’t know you were a Chem nerd,” he says, laughing. Chari’s lips purse tightly, and surprisingly, her eyebrows come together in an angry knot.
“Well of course not,” she hisses. “I’m supposed to be the pretty girl, not the smart one. It would be totally out of character for me to get good grades.”
Chester tilts his head back, and fixes a steady gaze on her. He waits for her to continue, but instead she gets up and glides silently out the door. Heads turn to follow her, but she flashes them a sharp, warning smile, holding up her hand. Moments later she has disappeared down the corridor.
“Do you like it here?” Chester asks, catching up to her in the front lobby. She was sitting on one of the benches, swatting at her admirers with her fan. Chester defensively places his cajon between them, and the bystanders finally take a hint, scowling as they trudge away.
“What?” stammers Chari, looking up. “Yes, of course. The food is…unique, and the dorms are…comfortable. Everything’s fine.”
“Then what was that about, in the Chem room?”
“Nothing. I just thought…” Chari says, before stopping abruptly. “I shouldn’t be telling you this. Everyone likes the pretty girl until she starts to talk.”
“I couldn’t care less what you look like. And I like that accent. Keep talking.”
A dainty patch of red surfaces on the newcomer’s cheeks, and Chester scoots over. He stretches, and as his left arm comes down, he rests it on the table behind her.
“I guess I kind of tricked myself into thinking I could reinvent myself,” Chari mutters. “At my old school, people were tripping all over their words trying to talk to me. It was cute for awhile but then I realized I had no one to talk to. At all.”
“But now you have me.”
“Yeah,” she says. “I guess I do. But I just wished, for so long, that I could be the sporty girl, or the leader, or the girl who can balance chemical equations like a pro. But no one stops to ask me what my score is. So I’m still just the pretty girl.”
“I know what it’s like to be stereotyped. Trust me,” Chester adds. “They’re always pointing at me, discreetly, saying things like, ‘Oh, he’s a slacker, he’ll never get anywhere’. But look at me now. Cream of the cream of the crop. I think you and I are cool like that. We get to be bigger than the people they want us to be.”
Chester sets his cajon on the ground, and hops on. His legs straddle the sides, like a cowboy saddling onto his bronco. He taps the sides a few times.
“I’m still a bit rusty. Tell you what: hum me that tune, the one I heard when we were at the rails today. I can drum a beat for that.”
“It’s an old song my grandmother used to sing me to sleep, back in the province.”
Chari puts her fan down, and folds one leg at an angle over the other. She takes a deep breath, and begins to hum. Her throat reverberates with memories of old gongs and mountain air.
A few uncertain thumps. Chester watches the rings of dark red blend into the steady stream of green light emanating from Chari’s lips. The colors wash into one another, generating hues and shades he’d never seen before – neon browns, purple-greens, red-yellows. Something stirs in his bones.
He picks up the pace, clenched fists flying up and down the wood. The arcs and waves of color intensify, and where they intercept each other, searing flashes of light erupt. The whole front lobby is intoxicated by the rhythm; upper years, lowers years, even the security guards at the desk and the accountants in the adjacent building were wandering towards him, a dazed look on their faces.
More appreciators pour out of the SHB, gathering in a tight half-circle in front of Chester, who by now can see nothing but the intense ocean of colors. Chari continues to croon behind him, and her own pink lights join the fray.
The drum beats slow down as the wood tires out. Chester’s hands drop to his side; sweat cascades in torrents down his back and along his sideburns. Chari lays a hand on his shoulder, fanning him.
Looking up, they finally notice the crowd gathered before them. Elise and Jethro stand at the forefront, utter astonishment on their faces. The final notes trill into silence, and Chester is left to gape at all the unfamiliar faces, who all stare wordlessly back.