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

[353]

...El.

[ It's funny - it's almost as though she's transforming in front of him, her hair becoming long again and he's seen her like this before, in Reims, but it still takes some getting used to, all the curls atop her head. ]

Are we alone now? [ He's still looking around, worried by that scream she made earlier, until he focuses on her hand and how scared she looks to touch him. Brow furrowing, he puts his hand over hers and presses her palm against his cheek. He doesn't vanish, nor does her hand pass through him the same way he passed through her and the men earlier. He's real. ]

Hey. [ He manages a smile, glad to see her and happy to be able to actually talk. ]

[voidmage]

[That's where El has the advantage - for three hundred and fifty-three days she got to see Mike so there's nothing to get used to on her end. But he says her name and it's the best feeling in the whole world.

So many times she wanted to call out to him, to answer his questions or just let him know she was okay.]

Yes, it's gone now. [Because the demogorgon is the one to fear at the moment. Then it doesn't matter because her hand is touching him, caught between his and his cheek. Solid warmth pressing against her flesh and he doesn't turn to smoke. El couldn't stop the smile that grows even if she wanted to.]

Hi. You okay? [She has to make sure. Doesn't matter if she's the one reliving her worst memories.]

[353]

[ She's not the only one who has a thing about hearing his own name. She says his with such soft wonder. After living in silence for months, her voice is the one he misses the most. It's strange how he can miss the voice of someone who rarely talked - though more so around him than anyone else - but he does. ]

You made it go away? [ Again. Mike lets out a sigh of relief, relaxing now he doesn't have to worry about the demogorgon ruining this moment. ]

I'm okay. [ He won't be as soon as he wakes up from this and sees she's not there - but he's okay, for now. Keeping his hand over hers, he quietly confesses: ] I miss you.

[voidmage]

[It sucks, being told to stay away - to not contact him because it's not safe. Sometimes she hates Hopper and his rules that keep her apart from her friends. Hates living in that shack with nothing but the television for company during the long hours of the day. It's not like the week El spent in Mike's basement.]

It wasn't here. [Not really, not the way Mike is.] Just a bad dream.

[Granted, a very realistic one but a dream nonetheless.]

Promise? [El's glad one of them is okay because she's not. Not completely, anyway. Being with Mike makes it better.] Me too.

[353]

Oh... okay.

[ He nods at her. ] Promise. [ And he starts to gather her into a hug. And because he doesn't want the hug to end once he starts talking, he'll keep hugging her while he speaks, his mouth against her curls because there's that small height difference between them now. ]

It might be a while until we get to be together again... [ Maybe another three hundred and fifty-three days... ] But I'll wait for you.

[voidmage]

[Mike doesn't make promises he doesn't mean to keep. If he says he's okay, then El believes him. That doesn't mean she won't take the opportunity to cling to him anyway. Hanging on to him as if she never wants to let him go again. Maybe if she does, they won't have to be separated again.

El shifts enough to be able to press her forehead against his and look him straight in the eyes.]

I'll find you. [There's no time limit added because "soon" is not soon enough for her taste.] I promise.

[To do that she will rip holes in the world to be with him again... only maybe not because they don't need more problems.]