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

[When the disorientation and lethargy clear, Spock is certain of only one thing: he is a long way from home. He has too many questions, and the woman had too few answers. A haunted world... It seems impossible. Should be impossible. Ghosts are not real. Monsters are not real (at least not in the fantastical sense of boogeymen). Even if he isn't in his own reality, having somehow slipped between dimensions, science and logic should prevail. There is a scientific, logical explanation for everything.

Still, he accepts the condition of total silence, and it isn't long before he's walking one of the sand-covered paths with the intention of exploring. The red color of it reminds him of home, and he can't stifle the muted, bittersweet ache that constricts his chest.]

FALLING DOWN THE STAIRS

[Spock rarely dreams, let alone has nightmares, so when he has the first one, he assumes it's due to stress and takes time to meditate the next day. When the nightmare occurs a second time, he meditates again, attempting to sort through his thoughts to find the cause.

It doesn't work, of course.

In the nightmares he's on Vulcan. Red sand whips through the air. There's a general sense of panic, of chaos. The planet is dying; they have to evacuate. His mother is right there, then he blinks and she's too far away. He reaches out. The ground falls away. His hand closes on empty air. The scene abruptly shifts and he's on the Enterprise, outside the warp core. Jim is lying there, lifeless. His hand is pressed to the cold reinforced glass separating them. He can't even get his body out until the radiation is low enough. Grief and rage burn through him.

Every night is the same, until the third. Upon approaching the door, Spock thinks perhaps he's solved the problem, or at least changed something. He twists the knob, steps forward and then he's falling, twisting through the darkness seemingly endlessly — except it does end, and for several moments Spock thinks he's back on Vulcan, with the red sand whipping through the air. He turns, eyes wide, expecting to see his mother.]

WILDCARD

[ya idk insert something else here? XD]

Edited 2018-03-02 03:08 (UTC)

[New arrival day - it comes around just like Sora expected it would. Which means he's heading for the arrival room, ready to lend his healing magic if needed or just answer questions. And maybe to see if any familiar faces pop up in the new batch.

Sora's heading towards it, which means he just so happens to see someone in his direction. Away from the room. He lifts a hand as a silent greeting before pulling out his communicator. The username that pops up is sol.]

Hey, you're new, right?

[Spock slows to a stop upon spotting someone else. He raises his hand in return. There's no ping or other noise to indicate a message and yet he glances at his device all the same, remembering the rule for silence.

His own username is cdrspock.]

It would seem I am. My name is Spock. Who are you?

[After spending three years in the Facility, Sora's used to not getting a ping or anything to say when he's got a message. He simply checks it all of the time. There are also other ways to communicate but he's only learned a few words of the native sign language.]

Welcome to Reims. I'm Sora. I've only been here a month but if you have any questions, I can try to answer them for you.

Thank you.

[He needs time to sort his thoughts, gather questions, but one does come to mind.]

What is the current year?

[A nod of his head as he waits for Spock to ask his questions.]

We don't know, not even the natives know. After the Sound Eaters arrived the people were more concerned about survival than keeping track of the years. Not to mention that a lot of people died at the beginning.

Though a lot of people seem comfortable with the level of tech available here. The old woman who greeted you, Constance, heard stories about the Sound Eaters from her great grandmother.

I see. You mentioned the level of tech. Are these devices the only technology available?

[He's wondering if the natives were capable of space travel prior to the arrival of the apparent Sound Eaters. Perhaps, if some of that technology is left... there was a chance for escape. He doubted it though. People were still here, after all; they hadn't evacuated the planet, though it was possible they simply hadn't been able to due to the nature of their circumstance.]

Edited 2018-03-02 08:30 (UTC)

Not really. Some places have electricty but the natives don't tend to use it. There are cars but most are abandoned. Computers, medical equipment, televisions, washing machines and dryers are all things they don't really use but are around. Practical things like solar panels, stoves, refrigerators are more common.

But they know how to build something like a stasis pod. [A small shrug of his shoulders.]

But we've got people looking for ships, others are building their own tech. Exploration is limited because the sand paths only go so far.

[It makes sense. Most electronics make some level of noise, after all. Particularly larger ones. A ship would undoubtedly attract unwanted attention. And speaking of that unwanted attention...]

Have you actually seen a Sound Eater?

[That is the problem. Soundproofing in houses can only muffle so much noise and if the recent information is correct, they can bypass silly things like walls.]

Not in person yet. We recently uncovered some footage of them that gave us a pretty good look at them. News broadcasts, notes by researchers - things like that.

[ wind, red sand and heat the likes of which she’s never felt. is there more than one sun in the sky? hard to tell. doesn’t matter, because she’s busy coughing, spitting the red dirt out of her mouth. it takes her a second to get to her feet, but it’s only then that she spots the silhouette of a man nearby and takes a reflective step backward. ]

What is this?

[ it’s shouted over the weather. maybe he’ll have the answers she’s seeking. ]

[Taako, meanwhile, is in a sour-ass mood over this whole thing. Not because logic doesn't apply to it-- his boyfriend is the grim reaper, he's honestly up for anything at this point-- but because he doesn't know why he's here, not really, and he doesn't have any of his stuff, not even his Umbra Staff, which he kind of needs.

The silence requirement here is... well. It's not that Taako is bad at keeping quiet, though he kind of is... it's more that he's not really sure how else to communicate in the first place. Sure, he has his Band of Projected Thought, but he's not even sure that'll work on half of these chucklefucks.

... he's a little surprised when he runs across someone else with pointed ears, though. They aren't elf ears, not like his, but, still, where he's from, that's a pretty clear racial marker, and he can't help but feel curious about this guy. He waves a bit to catch his eye-- and then, if he manages to, he'll point at one of his own long ears, twitching it up illustratively and smirking.

Me too!]

[OOC: Is it alright if Taako uses the Band of Projected Thought? ... would it even work on Spock?]

TDM #003

Spock || Star Trek (AOS)

arrival~

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falling down

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