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:

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NAVIGATION

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Comments

[clawings]

[ Erik angles his head down and looks at this woman, with her southern drawl and her shock of white hair. He's noticed the shifting with her hands, and decides to keep that in mind, for whatever. ]

Wanna expand on that?

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ Her first instinct is to show him, to reach across a mental connection and hold some of the less gruesome images out for examination. But that link isn't there, he isn't part of the Nest, and it's strange to realize how much she misses it. Misses the other Hosts. At least the good they did for her still remains, making it so much easier than it ever was before to just simply state the facts of her past. ]

I was a prisoner of war for three years. The Geneva Conventions were very much not applied.

[ Her tone is even and her expression remains the same, open but not wide-eyed. She's not asking for pity or sympathy; he'd stated an opinion and she's sharing the reasons for her own. ]

[clawings]

[ Well. Erik has been in the military long enough, done enough ops and black bag shit, that he knows the truth in her words once he hears them. She gets a nod, an acknowledgment that she's seen and dealt with some shit and thus? Would actually have something worth saying. ]

Fair.

[theycalledmeacurse]

[ There's the barest smile of gratitude at that acknowledgment, an appreciation of his understanding and acceptance of her experiences. It's more than most would have given.

But that's all she needs to say on that matter, and so she takes a deep breath and moves on to other matters. ]

Just because we don't have the answers you want now, doesn't mean we can't find them in time. The people here live in fear because this is the world they've always known - you can't really blame them for not wanting to risk their lives in what might be a fruitless effort at change. But so long as we're careful and don't put these people in harm's way, there's no reason we can't try to make things better for them.

[clawings]

[ There's an arched eyebrow but no comment immediately made. Erik considers this must really be Hell, or at the least Purgatory; why is he expected to help these people? Maybe they all need to be wiped off the map with a fresh start, he doesn't know just from this.

Instead, Erik looks around at all the people collected here, talking amongst themselves, before looking back at her. ]

Guess there are worse things.