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

[nishizono]

[ look, this is too serious. this is supposed to lighten things up.

and apparently it does, somewhat, when the girl's apparent confusion registers. good, tetora thinks, she's not focused on the blood and the mayhem. her hand comes down over his own and squeezes his fingers comfortingly, which - okay, it's something that has never happened to him. not back home, certainly not during situations like this. it's almost funny, really - the first gentle touch he's ever experienced happens in a dream, and while he's bleeding out on the floor. ]

You okay?

[culver]

[Maybe it's because this is a dream that Nill has no reservations about reaching out to touch him. She isn't used to a lot of tactile contact, and rarely reaches to touch someone besides Heine or Naoto. But all she wants to do right now is comfort him--he looks like he might be dying, after all. And he'd also saved her.

She nods, settling on the floor, ignoring the blood on her legs and the hem of her dress. None of that matters to her in this moment. She just holds his hand, nodding at his question even though he really isn't the one who should be asking it. She realizes, belatedly, that he might be looking for a verbal answer--so she vaguely gestures to her throat and mouth, then shakes her head. And, purely on impulse, she uses that free hand to reach out and push his hair from his eyes. Anything to comfort, to make what seems like his impending death at least a little less awful.]

[nishizono]

[ the thing is, he's not dying.

he's in pain, certainly. having your internal organs heal themselves and move back to their original positions is a pretty painful experience, seeing as it normally takes a person months of recuperation to get the job done. tetora winces, gasps, winces once more as sprained and broken ribs right themselves, as internal bleeding clots, stitches back into place.

a gentle hand brushes the hair out from his eyes. cool fingers. they're a relief from the burning inside him, a quick fever that's brought on by the body fixing itself back up. ]

You're way too nice to strangers, you know.

Sorry for throwing you over my shoulder.

[culver]

[Something does seem a little off. Nill has watched people die before. She knows the sounds they make, can spot the waxiness that begins to take over their skin as they lose too much blood. But he seems to be... doing sort of the opposite of that. He's warm, too warm, but he isn't doing the normal things dying people do.

It stumps her, and she can't do much but stare at him as she tries to figure it out.

At least he speaks again, and a slight blush crawls up her neck and cheeks. Well... he'd been bleeding out on the floor after taking the beating meant for her. What was she supposed to do, ignore him? Her wings flap once, showing her embarrassment, and her eyes dart away as she collects herself before returning to his face. A shrug is her only answer. She knows now it had been a selfless act. It really hadn't been that bad.

A beat later, Nill gestures behind her to Mel's corpse and then back to Tetora. Sorry about... that.]