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The Quiet Place Mods ([personal profile] bequiet) wrote in [community profile] 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!

NAVIGATION



998: (this is too many feelings)

[personal profile] 998 2018-03-07 09:11 am (UTC)(link)
[it occurs to him it could have been her mother or his using the name 'ladystark' and he feels briefly guilty he didn't think of that, but mostly he's just glad--and relieved--to hear from her.]

Sansa. :) I'm coming to get you. It's hard to make my way without Ghost.

[he snaps (not literally, the camera mechanism is silent) a picture of his surroundings and adds it to the message.]

I'm well enough. I'd be better if I had my sword. Longclaw's missing and they won't give me anything to use in the meantime. Are you all right?

[he assumes she is, or she would have asked for help, but it's hard to know sometimes, since she got back from the eyrie.]
Edited 2018-03-07 09:12 (UTC)
isherarmor: (My bones will freeze)

[personal profile] isherarmor 2018-03-07 04:27 pm (UTC)(link)
[It might be, it could be - (he knows the faces!) - the Jon she's come to know from Clock - even though it's always Jon no matter what - but her heart swells a little with this, with the possibility of relief that she won't have to answer so many questions - that some things can just be that he'll---

(what if he doesn't remember? if he's been somewhere terrible since? what if--- stop it. she'll deal with that as it comes, there's no point in this line of thinking.)]


I'm by a fountain. I've been quiet as instructed. I don't think it's a lie, but it could be. :-?

I don't like that they would leave us without defense. Lady's not with me, either. Nor the blade that you gave me. Do you remember giving me it?


[And the lessons? And ...all of it, really. And she doesn't like the idea of rendering people weaponless. It's ...unfair. Which WELP - she almost laughs aloud at because of all the things these places can and have been - fair's not really on the list.]
998: (ok lemme think)

[personal profile] 998 2018-03-08 06:34 am (UTC)(link)
[he squints off into the distance for a fountain and, once located, tries not to trudge toward it too heavily. soft shoes are strange on his feet.]

Of course. Did you give it a name? We should have saved Needle for you. :)

They're afraid. The fear isn't a lie. I don't know that they have weapons to give us. Even stone blades need an edge knocked off.
[ygritte had made arrowheads this way. he thinks he could do it, if he had to.] A forge is a noisy place. And then they say these things are too quick to be cut. But they haven't tried. That's what worries me. They couldn't tell me anything about them. Or they wouldn't.

[he comes to the fountain and takes a breath. he doesn't like that he can't call out to her. it feels too much like sneaking. he'd feel awful if he startled sansa. so he awkwardly raises his hand, like he might hail his rangers. it has a big stick in it.]