The Quiet Place Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bequiet) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
quietplacememes2018-02-28 08:56 pm
bequiet) wrote in quietplacememes2018-02-28 08:56 pm
Entry tags:
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!
no subject
[Taako glances over at the scene playing out, the rough way that man is handling her...
... and then he pushes her, and those ears of his drop down, his eyes going wide.]
... fuck.
[Jesus christ. Did... she just...?]
... hey, uh... can I just take a hard stance here? Fuck that guy.
no subject
It's nice to be validated.
Sally winces at the crack.] He really fucking sucks, doesn't he?
no subject
[Jesus. He stares, visibly rattled, before he sees her start to bleed, and it's then that he turns his head, his gaze darting from the floor to the... living?... version of her there by his side.]
... so, uh... what does this mean, exactly? I mean-- you... uh... did you-- what happened?
no subject
Danny's at the top of the staircase, calling her name. Sally?
She rolls her eyes at him, glances at her body, and then pats her visitor gently on the arm. It's still weird for her, to be able to really touch people again.]
Yeah, I died. I mean, like dead dead. That's a dead woman lying there. [She takes a step closer, peering down at the tile on the small landing her body's laying on.] He told people I fell. For a long time, I thought I had fallen, too. [She brushes her hands over the blue jumpsuit she's wearing before glancing back at him.] Traumatic events kinda fuck up the dead. So, this is how I died.
And I think I'm alive now, but I mean, I could just be a zombie again. [She forces a grin onto her face as she holds out her hand.] Sally Malik, former ghost.
no subject
[Taako grins, though a bit weakly, and he accepts that hand for a handshake.]
I'm Taako, uh, current elf, and alive, as far as I know? I mean, I've been dead before, sort of, but I got better. And I wound up dating the grim reaper, so, hey... dying's got its perks sometimes, right?
[This is officially the weirdest way he's ever met someone new. He isn't sure what comes next. When he did this himself, he was with someone from home-- not someone he wanted to see his own downfall, but still, it was someone he knew. Being paired with a stranger is... odd.]
no subject
Whoa. He's real? I... sort of was the reaper? Well, I invented a persona that was a reaper, and then found out it was me, and I, uh, kinda shredded a lot of ghosts who probably didn't deserve that. [She points to good ol' Danny boy.] Except him. He deserved it.
[God, this is weird. It's totally weird. She has no idea what to do or say, so she's just blathering on. Being casual about the whole thing is hard. This place is all sorts of wrong. She rubs the back of her neck.] When you say you got better, you didn't try and eat... living things, right?
no subject
And also my boyfriend, so, you know. Bear it in mind.
[He's quick to tack on that last bit, though it's with a big grin.
... wait. Eat living things?]
Uhhh... no? I just stopped being dead after a little while. It's... complicated, there was a weird time thing going on, you know. [He waves a hand as though it's the most casual thing in the world to've died and then... just not been dead suddenly.]
no subject
No worries, I'm not a reaper stealer. [She holds her hands up in front of her. Off limits, she's got it. Besides, the conversation eases her a little bit. She can ignore that she's dead behind her.]
No, totally get it. Remember, former ghost. Former reaper. And former zombie. Current zombie? I mean, it's not like I just - came back? [She reeeaaaaaaally has no idea how any of this has worked out. For her, being dead is - kind of a casual thing to have been dead? She's been a ghost for years. Although, she's not sure how the whole just coming back thing works out.
She's about to comment on that when she sees another door. A weird one, not The Door. It reminds her of the beginning of the dream.] Looks like either the exit showed up, or we're about to take another trip down memory-dream lane.
no subject
[He smiles weakly at her; and then he gestures to the door with a shrug.]
Ladies first.
[You know. Just in case it's not better. He'll be able to get a read pretty fast and... stay out if it's not.]
[And here is the scene she'll walk into.]
no subject
With a deep breath, she squares her shoulders, opens the door...
and she's falling again. She braces for impact as the dust practically reaches up to meet her, and really, you'd think they have a different process to go about this instead of shoving her around here.
But whatever this is, it's not hers. Is that normal? Like there's a grasp of normal around here. Instead, she sees her new friend Taako, but not the Taako that came through the door with her. If her nightmare was anything to go by, she has a feeling this isn't going to be great.]
Oh man, samples. [She holds her stomach. The sensation of being hungry and needing to eat is both so familiar and foreign to her at this point, but she's already thinking of tacos, and there's the scent of chicken on the air.] You think we can eat something in these dreams?
[But even as she asks, the sounds start. The wretching. Vomit.] Oh. [She can't quite watch the scene unfold. This is some serious food poison. She looks at Taako instead.]
no subject
... uh. Sorry you had to see this. I don't know why they keep showing people this, honestly, it's not any of your business in the first fuckin' place.
[He's... hurting. That much is obvious.
In the memory, he and his partner have loaded back into the wagon; instead of staying to help, they're fleeing as quickly as they can, leaving a suffering crowd collapsing in their wake.]
no subject
[It's not as though she's asked for this. And she definitely doesn't want to see vomit-y people. Dying people? Like, holy shit, dude, that's a lot of food poisoning.
But even for someone with as big a mouth as hers, Sally isn't dumb. This is bad. The other Taako is packing up, and she can see why he'd not want anyone to see this. It really isn't anyone's fucking business.
She bites her lip.] I'm sorry you keep having to see it. It's kinda like having your nose rubbed in a puddle of piss.
no subject
[But he didn't cause this. Not... directly. He didn't poison them.]
I mean, uh, I guess, you could... think about it in a super roundabout way and say yeah, maybe still, but I didn't, uh, put the stuff in the food, so...
no subject
And
the most important part is that
he's ashamed of this. Someone who didn't care or didn't want this to not happen? They wouldn't give a shit.]
Yeah, and you also left super fast. They were kind of all alone and had no idea what was happening to them. [She gets that too, watching the people go down. They'd be angry, confused. They probably wouldn't move on right away. But she's not gonna lay that info down on him.] But - I mean, life is about trying to be better. Wanting to be better and doing better, and people slip up. God, do they slip up.
I am so sorry this is late, I got a job lmfskdjfa
[He bets that Sazed doesn't even remember this. He bets he's moved on and totally forgotten about it, that piece of shit.]
hey congrats!!! and no prob. also i'm hella down for keeping this game canon if you'd like?
[Sally's no therapist, but she's gonna guess that it weighs down on him a lot. Not that it doesn't suck. Having shit thrown at you like this, stuff you couldn't control but still have to deal with? She knows what that's like.]
What I'm saying is, some shit you just have to accept has happened.