TDM #003

[bequiet]

TEST DRIVE MEME
You wake, standing. A thick, muddy red dust coats your skin and clothes - it sticks to your tongue and blocks your vision. Inhale and it chokes you, exhale and your breath puffs out in front of your face in a transparent maroon cloud. It tastes of copper, tangy and harsh. Movement is difficult, every limb tingles and aches. Look to your left, your right. Evenly spaced in each direction stands another person indistinguishable in every way from the next. You're disoriented and lethargic, unable to grasp onto a single thought. A pinprick of light blooms ahead and grows steadily larger; a door has opened.

Hands grip your wrists, push at the small of your back and guide you out of the darkness into a room with four walls and a thin, sagging ceiling. The plaster is peeling, the air is musty, and the floor is slick. White plastic piping juts up from the center and curves into multiple spouts, clean water flowing in uneven streams. Those hands pull your clothes off and clear the dust from your body, redress you in handsewn jumpsuits.

A finger is pressed to your lips. Kind eyes meet your own and a single word is whispered - hush.

Led out of the room in a line, you’re taken down a short hallway and into another, much larger room. There’s a woman waiting for you there, a child hugging her leg, and a cloth bag in her hands. She reaches in and pulls out a device, passes one to each of you. Once finished, she begins to move both hands in graceful gestures, a language. One of the people who helped you lifts their device and the screen lights up, tracks the woman’s hands. Letters appear on the screen and you understand the device’s purpose. She tells you what she knows and it’s not much.

This world is haunted. Noise attracts them, so it is not allowed. Communication is through body language, soundless writing, and the device. She tells you that your feet must be light and your mouth never used. There is a community outside these doors, where you can survive together, but only if you agree to one thing: complete and total silence. You'll have time to talk it over. Acceptance allows you to journey outside. The ground is marked in pathways of sand, lining the paths to each building and everywhere in between. You notice that the locals hold their devices always, aloft and glance to it often. It will not vibrate or make a sound to signal a message.

Notices appear. Rules. Guidelines. Feet on the sand and never anywhere else. To open a door you brush your fingers along the hinges - oiled and you may enter. If not, take the brush from the can sitting nearby and coat the metal with the dark liquid. You're to settle into your new home.

Caught me unawares
Content Warnings: Confusion, disorientation
Themes: Survival, horror, it's like groundhog day

The ending of the floor has caught me unawares. This must be the reason why I’m falling down the stairs.

That night, when you fall asleep, you dream of your life before The Quiet Place. At first it's the happiest moments of your life played on repeat, over and over. Everything good and sweet and fun. The second night, it's much the same. You go to bed anticipating another restful and pleasant sleep. But on the third night it changes.

For everyone, it starts the same. There's a long hallway with a door at the end. You walk towards it with nowhere else to go. You twist the knob and when you step forward, the floor ends and you fall. Falling lasts for seconds, minutes, or hours and when you land, it's with a jolt and a cloud of red dust all around you. There's someone else next to you, stumbling, coughing and choking on that familiar dirt that coats your tongue and mouth. When your eyes meet, everything blurs and you're falling again - this time, when you land, it's inside that dream from the first night. Only you're not alone. They're with you. The only way out is to experience the dream together. And when you do wake up, for real, that same red dirt is on your hands.

Falling down the stairs
Content Warnings: Confusion, disorientation
Themes: Survival, horror, it's like groundhog day

The ending of the floor has caught me unawares. This must be the reason why I’m falling down the stairs.

That night, when you fall asleep, you dream of your life before The Quiet Place. At first it's the worst moments of your life played on repeat, over and over. Everything bad and sour and awful. The second night, it's much the same. You go to bed anticipating another restless and dreadful sleep. But on the third night it changes.

For everyone, it starts the same. There's a long hallway with a door at the end. You walk towards it with nowhere else to go. You twist the knob and when you step forward, the floor ends and you fall. Falling lasts for seconds, minutes, or hours and when you land, it's with a jolt and a cloud of red dust all around you. There's someone else next to you, stumbling, coughing and choking on that familiar dirt that coats your tongue and mouth. When your eyes meet, everything blurs and you're falling again - this time, when you land, it's inside that nightmare from the first night. Only you're not alone. They're with you. The only way out is to experience the nightmare together. And when you do wake up, for real, that same red dirt is on your hands.

OOC
From your mods:

Please remember to mark your content in your starters or subject lines as material comes up. The threads on this meme can be used as game canon. Feel free to thread out arrival style meetings as well! If you have questions, pp the mod account, use the faq or comment below. Have fun!

NAVIGATION

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Comments

take 3

[oorah]

[ the message from the new arrival pings his device when they get close enough and frank frowns at it for a moment. it's hard not to think of curtis and the other veterans in group, even if that isn't how this guy lost his arm. ]

un: hotdog
the natives will give you back your items once they're properly soundproofed.

[ he doesn't feel good about feeding bucky a party line, but he certainly doesn't have the skills to fabricate something like that. though between himself and micro... he makes a decision. one that should come as zero shock since it's what he's done here since square one: he decides to take the task upon himself, qualified or super not. ]

me and my brother can get you something temporary until then

god bless

[ex_redact551]

[ he keeps forgetting that he's in the light now. the winter soldier, the man called bucky barnes, whoever he is or was and whoever he will be - they're in the light of day. people know his face. they know his name. they know where he used to live in brooklyn, and there's a section about him in the museums of america's history. people know who he purportedly is.

as a member of the intelligence community, it's a hard pill to swallow. even if he had no choice in getting dragged into public consciousness (or maybe especially so because of it). ]

thanks, i'll take you up on that.
you and your brother got names?

[oorah]

[ micro will recognize bucky immediately, but frank's been literally living under rocks for decades. he's lucky he knows captain america, though he probably wouldn't even know if he were talking to him right now. there's also the presumption with most of the new arrivals that they aren't from his world at all. even if he'd been proven very, very wrong before. frank points micro out then, sitting at a table handing out literature to the newbies with a smile. ]

that's micro. i'm hotdog. [ he offers his hand to shake bucky's, nodding as they make eye contact. it's almost like the words are in his gaze thank you for your service. even if he'd hate hearing them himself; even if he'd never utter them aloud. there are some benefits to this place, he reminds himself. ]

[ex_redact551]

[ he almost huffs a laugh, because the family resemblance is lacking, but then bucky takes in the clues: the solid build, the thousand-yard stare, the shared ties despite being clearly not relation. the shoulder's-distance stance, the instinct to keep one hand out of sight (at attention, officers!), the alertness that takes in everything in a single glance.

bucky's instincts haven't failed him, even when he had no idea whose side he was fighting for. ]

bucky, [ he texts back, before pocketing his device to take the handshake in a firm grip. after the handshake, he takes the device back out again and texts: ] do you understand ASL?

[oorah]

[ like recognizes like, and he knows he's been spotted. it doesn't bother him, not really. if this guy is from his world he probably even knows who frank is, too. their faces have both been plastered all over the news in recent years. he internalizes the name and thinks over the question. he holds up his hand and rocks it back and forth. he can understand more than he can sign, so at least that's good if it's what bucky is more comfortable with. ]

the natives have their own sign language. i'm better with that. but the devices can translate a little so try anyway.

[ex_redact551]

[ he had considered that there would be a system for communicating that's native to the location. it's a possibility, after all, given that the timeline he was given is way off from what he remembers and this city looks nothing like france he's worked in. too much dust, too much red even for him.

he signs with his one hand, do you understand me?, and hopes for the best. ]

[oorah]

[ frank nods after a minute. it takes a moment for his brain to catch up, but he gets the gist and he makes an OK symbol. go on, bro. ]

[ex_redact551]

[ with that signal, bucky carries on as best he can with only one hand. ]

They took my arm. I mean, they took the prosthetic, and I would like to have it back if I could.

Do you know where...?

[oorah]

[ he understands enough, glancing down at the device to fill in the gaps. he nods. ]

The Natives have your stuff. They have to make sure it's soundproofed, but I can help you get it back quick. [ he signs back in native and gestures for bucky to take out his device to translate it. that's about the best he can do right now, but he puts it on his long list of shit to beat up constance about don't u worry ]