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Pearl arrives in Boatem not by her own will, but by fate.
She steps off the train- a route taken countless times over the past few months. She knows it as well as she knows her own heart, to be greeted with the front of a sign in what appears to be a quaint coastal town with a population of 2,417.
“WELCOME TO BOATEM” it states in all caps, smarmy red paint chipping from the edges of its words. It’s a name she doesn’t remember seeing even once whilst searching for her stop, not even in passing.
The interior of the train station is cold, yet relatively well-kept, with her every step echoing loudly on the paved floor. A clock on a nearby wall coated in a fine layer of dust reads 6:27pm, approximately three minutes before she was expecting to arrive at her stop. The four other people who prepared to step off the train beside her are nowhere to be seen.
A vague sense of unease creeps into her conscience, but is quickly overshadowed by a sense of urgency to find the nearest timetable and wait for the next train to arrive.
After about fifteen minutes of searching for a timetable to no avail, the telltale rumbling of another train pulling into the station shocks her out of her thoughts. She rushes to the doors, pressing the button and finding a seat in the carriage. It’s similar to the last train she was in with weathered wood being the main material used in its construction, but with a distinct use of deepslate added to the roof. The carriage is dead silent except for the usual noise of the train moving along the tracks. She pulls her phone open to a random app to pass the time and waits.
Thirty minutes of traveling later, Pearl steps off the train to be met with the strange red chipped sign rather than the one that indicates her intended stop.
She blinks in confusion and thinly-veiled unease, rechecks the map saved on her phone, and then looks back up to the sign. There’s nothing about a Boatem listed, and yet here she is standing right in front of it for the second time today.
The station around her is once again empty, with sunset bleeding in through the windows and moths dancing around a nearby lantern acting as her only light sources. Otherwise, the station appears exactly the same as it had 30 minutes ago- void of other passengers and all. Another look at the clock reveals it to be 7:24pm, well past the time she was supposed to arrive at her stop.
She takes a deep breath in and wonders if it’s too late to wait for the next train again or if she’d be better off looking for a place to get dinner and spend the night. Where she was headed wasn’t that important, anyway. A distant part of her wonders if she should be more concerned than she actually is.
The station is silent as it watches her leave.
The town she steps into instantly strikes her as being at least a few centuries old, with tall ornate buildings devoid of paint lining narrow streets. Nothing about it indicative of a modern touch. If she hadn’t spotted the modern streetlamps she’d almost wonder if she’d somehow stepped into another time period entirely. Unease crawls up her spine at the realization that she is completely, utterly alone in a town she has no idea how to navigate.
She begins walking along, taking careful steps into the unknown town and scanning her surroundings for any open shops. To add to the feeling of general wrongness, all the shops and buildings she passes are pitch dark in their interiors, barren and unbreathing in signs of life.
After an indeterminate amount of minutes Pearl runs into a cat- or rather a cat runs into her.
The cat walks down the desolate street in Pearl’s direction with a purpose, only stopping once it’s directly in front of her. It’s small, gray, and white with piercing green eyes, and its coat is in pristine condition with not a speck of dirt despite its clear familiarity with the outdoors. The bell on its collar chimes softly as it situates itself. Waiting for her to answer whatever questions it may have.
Pearl knows it’s just a cat. There’s not much it can do for her. The only English words it knows are probably ‘food’ and whatever its name is, but maybe she can use that to her advantage.
It’s not like she has much other choice.
“Hello.” She crouches down, meeting the cat at a height much more similar to eye level. Its own eyes follow her closely. “I don’t know where I’m going. Do you know where I might be able to get some food?” She makes sure to emphasize the last word of the sentence, banking on her assumption of its familiarity.
The cat’s ears twitch almost as if it were processing her words. It’s eyes boring into her own, and then it bolts off quickly in the direction Pearl had just walked from- great. It stops at the turn onto the next street and looks over its shoulder. Watching.
Her steps patter on the stone as she runs to catch up to it, leaving the desolate street behind.
Pearl runs into some interesting people at the nearest inn.
The cat leads her down 2 or 3 streets before stopping in front of what appears to be a small inn. Unlike all the other buildings a majority of the lights seem to be on judging by the warm glow of the windows.
“Is this where you wanted me to go?” The cat simply blinks at her, stretches, and lazes over to stand at the door as if waiting to be let in. She rolls her eyes. Typical cat behavior.
“Alright, fine. I guess this is good for both you and me.”
The door creaks loudly as it opens. The cat slinks in with her.
The inside of it is quaint and almost homely, albeit the building appears to be at least a century old, judging by the dip in the ceiling supports. It’s built with a mixture of oak and dark oak wood with some stone bricks thrown in as well. Flowers in vases sit perched on various surfaces and the windows appear to have an inherent slight yellowish tint.
For as empty and cold as the train station was, the place is just as warm and lively even with just a few people inside. Pearl immediately notices a man standing behind the main counter. He is conversing with a man sitting in a wheelchair who is the one doing most of the talking out of the two. Two others are also nearby, one of which is sitting at a table with papers strewn around in half-finished sketches of contraptions Pearl can’t even begin to understand while the other stands perched behind and plucking away stray pencils.
The man behind the counter turns at the sound of the door opening. He strikes Pearl as someone who seems friendly. “Welcome to the Tag and Tegg, how can I help you?” He says almost automatically. His eyes light up upon seeing the cat. “Oh, great, Jellie brought you here?”
“Is that really what this place is called?” The cat- Jellie, bounds over to the man sitting in the wheelchair, who stops whatever rant he was currently on to greet her. “And uh, yeah. Kinda just showed up out of nowhere and I followed.”
“It’s been named that longer than I’ve been here, don’t ask me about it.”
“I’ll take your word for that.”
“Well, Anything I can do to help you?”
“I-” Before Pearl can get another word out, the other man at the counter wheels over to the entrance.
“Greetings! What brings you here on this lovely day in Boatem?” The most distinctive feature is the hat he wears, tall and maroon with a small green accent.
“Scar, you don’t have to do that every single time somebody walks in the door.” The man stealing pencils scoffs. While the man in the wheelchair- Scar, presumably, rolls his eyes.
“Oh come on, I have to make a good first impression, Grian.” Realistically, Pearl knows she would be annoyed under normal circumstances, but for some reason she can't find it in her to be. A small smile creeps onto her face instead.
The arguing is interrupted by the sound of Jellie knocking over something on one of the nearby tables.
“Scar! Control your cat!”
“Oh- Jellie! How many times do we have to talk about this? You know you aren’t supposed to be up there.” If cats could do eye-rolls, Jellie would definitely be doing one right now.
“Ah.. I’m Pearl. Don’t suppose there’s some grub and a room I could nab for the night?”
“Yeah, what can I get for you? ’m Impulse, by the way.” He adds the second sentence after a few seconds of silence.
“Actually, I could go for some food too.”
“Oh great, now suddenly you’re all hungry?” Impulse tuts. “You’re no different than Jellie..”
“Can you blame me?”
“You still owe twenty dollars from the last time you ate here!”
“That was seven months ago!”
The argument continues on. Pearl isn’t really paying attention. Somehow, she finds herself sitting at a table ordering food with these strangers. Somehow, she finds she doesn’t mind.
The food is.. Weird, to say the least. It’s a darker color than expected, almost as if some kind of food dye was put into it, but there couldn’t have been food dye in things such as Mumbo’s salad or Scar’s steak. Whatever the reason, the food is still edible so Pearl doesn’t have much in her to complain. It tastes different than what she’s used to, but she can’t say it tastes bad. The group is content to sit in silence for the most part up until they’re almost done with their food.
"Where are you from?" Scar asks, petting the cat sitting comfortably in his lap. Its eyes are closed in contentment.
Pearl pauses, taking another sip of her soup while mulling over an answer. "Australia." She states, a lilt of hesitation reaching through the back of her mind. "I think."
"You think?" Grian pipes up curiously.
Pearl shrugs. “I suppose.”
“That’s an interesting and very non-committal answer.”
To be honest, Pearl doesn’t actually know. She just assumed that because of her accent she had to have come from Australia. Not like she can remember anything other than the past four months anyways. She’s spent most of that time traveling.
“I’m an interesting person.” She states plainly. “What about you guys? Anything about this town I should know?”
“Hey, you know what?”
“What?”
“Since you’re new here, wanna know something weird about this place?”
“Sure?” The cat’s ears twitch. Someone mutters a ‘here we go again.’.
“There’s a well in the center of town.”
“What’s so weird about that?”
“Grian thinks it’s haunted or something.”
Pearl hums in interest.
“Mostly, we just sit and goof around when we’re there. You wanna see?”
“A haunted well? Of course I want to see that.”
After they finish eating and cleaning up, they begin walking toward the center of the town. Pearl catches a few glimpses of Jellie following after.
Scar, Mumbo, and Grian trail a couple steps behind talking amongst themselves, so Pearl takes a chance to ask Impulse some questions. “So why does Grian think the well’s haunted?”
“He thinks it has something to do with the train.”
“The train.”
“Yep.” Impulse enunciates the end of the word.
“You mean the big weird train that won’t let us leave?”
“Exactly that one.” Impulse pauses at a street corner before taking a left turn. “Personally, I think it has something to do with the moon.”
“What? Why do you think that?”
He shrugs. “Just feels right. Scar’s theory is that everyone who’s dropped off by train is a past resident who’s had their memories wiped or something like that. His proof is that some bigwig in town went missing a while back who looked pretty similar to him and apparently also had a cat like Jellie, but he’s more than likely making things up. He does that a lot.”
“Could you go into more detail as to why you think it’s the moon?” Pearl steps over a stray rock. “I’m still confused about that part.”
“It’s because he’s a spaceman who came here by spaceship, obviously.” At some point Grian had apparently drifted over to listen in on their conversation and was standing behind them.
“What? No- I did not come here by spaceship!”
They pass down a few winding streets where all the buildings blend into each other. By now orange dusk bleeds into pale night, the moon just beginning to be visible at the disbursement of clouds. “Might not seem like it, but we’re almost there.”
“Are you sure? Every street looks the same, this town isn’t laid out very well.” She can think of a million things just off the top of her head she would do differently if she were to be put in charge of designing the layout of this place.
“Do you like architecture?”
“I’m pretty fond of it.” She answers. “Dunno why, It’s just something I’ve always felt drawn to.”
“I see, we’re all drawn to different things.” Mumbo nods. “Say, what do you think of plants?”
“I think some of them are pretty cool. Why?”
“He’s asking because of that.” Scar points toward what appears to be a weed growing through the pavement. It’s curled inward toward the direction the group is walking in. “That one there’s a deadly poison you can only find in Boatem.”
“It Isn’t.” Mumbo sighs defeatedly.
“It is, and you can’t disprove it!”
It’s actually very easy to disprove!”
“Oh lies, lies, lies!”
To be honest Pearl doesn’t listen to the conversation from that point on. From what she can gather it eventually devolves into Grian and Scar making up increasingly nonsensical lies about the town and its residents while Mumbo interjects with either corrections when the topic of plants comes up or additional silliness. Impulse laughs along and occasionally adds onto it as well. Eventually they come across an open area where Pearl’s attention is instantly drawn toward the center.
Pearl is standing in front of a well.
There’s not really much to say about the exterior of it. It’s.. a well. Simple and made of several different types of stone like patchwork stitched into clothing. Some of it jagged and recently broken while other areas are smoothed and worn-down with age.
The inside is what’s interesting about it.
As she gazes down into the well, she feels something akin to a tugging on her soul. Something beckoning her to return home. Not that she's ever known what home felt like, but it must feel similar to the emptiness that makes itself known from the very corners of her consciousness, always there yet dug so deep down as to be essentially dormant.
She’s not sure how long she spends staring, but it’s long enough that a new thought eventually finds its way to her.
“Jump in” it whispers.
She blinks. Shaking herself away from her staring and the thought is gone. The feeling that lingers behind is one that she chooses to ignore.
Instead, she drops a small coin into the well and watches it fall until it’s out of sight. The well must be pretty deep, because she doesn’t hear the coin land.
She lets her wish find its way to the bottom of the well and turns to look at her new- albeit strange, friends.
“Alright, let this meeting commence!” Grian claps his hands together proudly. “First order of business is Pearl’s initiation.”
Boatem watches her laugh and turn back to join them.
When Pearl arrived in Boatem, she wasn't expecting to make friends. Honestly, she’d never even heard of the place before, let alone expected herself to end up there.
Where is she now, exactly?
She doesn’t remember exactly how it happened, just that one minute the group was talking, and the next they were falling through the well. Somewhere between that something must’ve happened though. Maybe someone suggested they all jump in, she can’t be entirely sure.
Pearl remembers her eyes locking with Jellies while she fell, only losing sight of her when she’d fallen deep enough to disappear into nothing.
The inky black surroundings she falls past envelop her, disorientating her to what is up and down and to the meaning of the words entirely.
She falls forever, and yet she falls for no time at all. She is alone.
Pearl lands on.. Nothing. No, really, it’s nothing. Well, it has to be something, because if it was nothing then Pearl wouldn’t have landed on it. But she’s not sure she’s ever experienced anything like this ‘something’ before.
It’s so soft it becomes sharp- a liquid that is split into so many fragments it cuts painlessly into the bottom of her boots and sends her from one step to the next without giving her even a chance to move on her own. It holds just enough shape in the vast nothingness it inhabits to keep her afloat and moving along seamlessly into the unknown, yet not enough for her to grasp what it truly is.
She lets it control every atom of her being, and finds comfort in the very contradiction it is.
The further along she bends, the more reality seems to bend and change with her. Up flows into what is down and spins into north and south and east and west like a morbid dancer.
She’s not sure when her mind starts to catch up with her body, but although the flow of time seems to have changed beyond familiarity some distant part of her finds a ledge of convergence to grasp onto.
At first, there are no words to describe the feeling that creeps its way into her heart. She’s not sure if she ever finds the words for it, really. All she knows is that she’s existed without this feeling all her life up until now.
The reason for her continued existence weaves its way through her soul. Real, imaginary. Real, Imaginary. She is both at once so strongly that she becomes neither, and then both again. All the while she drowns back to life in solid air.
Eventually- as if the concept of time means anything anymore, a different something in the darkness passes her by. It is as unrecognizable as much as it is everything Pearl has ever known. She would recognize it anywhere.
Boatem itself surrounds her, Scar, Mumbo, Impulse, and Grian as if it were the only thing ever to exist.
More vague time passes and more about the true nature of her existence comes back to her. This is not the first time they have been here, and it will not be the last. No matter what will happen, she will always find herself back here.
They are Boatem. It’s past, It's present, It’s future. They are everything it ever was and ever will be. They were always going to return to the end and start of everything.
Deep in the dark nothing, Pearl feels an infinite amount of eyes staring at her. She stares back.
As warped beyond comprehension they may be, she would recognize them anywhere- the only constants in this loop of remembering and forgetting. They arrive in Boatem. They meet, and then they fall. That’s always how it goes.
A warmth blooms in the vaguely heart shaped organ of her vaguely human shaped body at the thought of meeting here again.
Eventually the forms of her and her friends materialize enough to come into view. She smiles longingly at them and can tell they feel much the same she does.
Pearl understands all that she is capable of understanding in this form, and she is content with that.
“Thank you for the knowledge about the world you have brought me.” Boatem’s whispers reverberate through their incomplete forms. “We’re one step closer to where we need to be. I will send you back out into the world to gather more.”
When the world goes dark and Pearl forgets everything, her friends are there to forget with her.
Boatem however, doesn’t.
The cycle begins again.
Someone new arrives at the train station. Pearl is there to greet them.
Moths dance around her like they would a candlelight as she stands in the darkness waiting. The stranger looks around in confusion before walking up to her.
“Do you know where I am?” The confusion in their eyes mirrors the same emotion in Pearl’s own the first time she arrived here. It’s familiar. They are familiar.
“No.” She admits in a similar wave of confusion. “I thought this was a stop to somewhere else.”
“Yes! I’ve tried boarding another train three times already, but I always end up back here.” They fiddle with the sleeve of their shirt. “I’m not sure what to do now.”
A part of Pearl feels like she should be more concerned about this than she is. “There’s no timetable, either.” A glance over to a clock on a nearby wall coated in a thick layer of dust reads 8:33pm. “I’m.. probably going to find somewhere to sleep and try again tomorrow.”
Some kind of emotion flashes briefly in the other person’s eyes. Fear? Recognition? “Would you mind if I joined you then?”
Realistically, Pearl should say no. But the words that leave her mouth instead are “I would be okay with that.”
“I’m Gem.”
“I’m Pearl.” She holds her hand out for a handshake.
The station is silent as it watches them leave.