quietplacememes | TDM #003

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Arrival;

[Justine is calm when she first opens her eyes. She inhales a short breath, feeling the red dust embed itself into her lungs. She doesn't cough or turn away, the only change is the flinch that follows the burning pain at the dusts presences. She exhales a long breath next and the pain begins to ebb. In and out; she slowly finds a cadence.

Her fingers move next, twitching at her side as her thoughts struggled to pull into clarity. Justine feels the familiar darkness at the edge of her mind. Dark words and desires are whispered too her; confusion and panic mingling with anger and hate. She slowly pushes the hazy voices away but with nothing else to focus on she struggles. The voice's aren't as clear as usual and Justine finds a balance just as she's pulled away from the red dust and washed. A dark calculating stare sweeps over the new setting as the fabric of the jumpsuit clings to her curvy frame. The device is placed in her hand and Justine looks down at the screen.

'No voices, no talking, only the insanity of complete silence.'

Justine doesn't know what hell she's found herself in but one name balances on her lips.]

Thomas. [Will it be the last time she's able to say his name aloud? Her voice is filled with longing, regret and pain. She'd endure anything for him, even what lays before her here.]

Caught me unawares

[Nightmares are a constant in Justine's life but she isn't ready for the dreams that plague her in the Quiet Place. They were... happy.

The first night begins with her and Thomas, alone in his room. They're sitting together on his bed and talking about books: The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Anne Rice and so on. Justine is wearing one of Thomas's shirts that has Buffy the Vampire Slayer written over top of a picture of a spunky blonde teen. Thomas is in his underwear and lounging lazily across the bed. His hair is dark like Justine's and his skin pale. He's shaped like an adonis, carved perfectly from stone.

Justine watches the memory from the corner, her dark eyes unfocused as she watches the simple moment.

This happiness won't last.]

Wild Card

[ooc: Feel free to run into Justine anywhere. Also if you want to experience one of her nightmares I'd be down for writing that up. It'll involve vampires, torture, sex, mind control and things like that. I'm easy and up for whatever. I'm also on plur

mizuyoko. For those who know the canon, Justine is taken right before Thomas almost kills her.]

[ Before the group of people leaves the room, Margo hears the young woman next to her utter a name – Thomas. She can’t help but wonder who he is to her, but she makes the assumption that he’s the man she loves. Lord knows that Seth is on Margo’s mind. It’s something that she can understand, for sure.

When they step outside, Margo has the boldness to put a hand on the young woman’s shoulder. She frowns somewhat sympathetically. Knowing that not everyone can communicate by facial expressions alone, she pulls out her device and begins to type on it. A message pops up from the username bonnie. ]

I know what it’s like to miss someone important. Who’s Thomas?

[Justine follows the group without uttering another word. It's somehow better, if Thomas's name is the last word her lips form before she's set to face whatever silent horrors lie in front of her. He will never be completely from her thoughts but then, she owes him everything. Her life will always belong to him.

Her head turns when she sees the other woman pausing next to her. Justine is very skilled at reading people though she feigns innocence as Margo reaches for her phone to text. Dark eyes skim the sentence and then the question before Justine begins to form a reply.]

It's complicated but Thomas needs me.

[The user name is simply Justine's name]

TDM #003

Justine | the Dresden Files

arrival

arrival