quietplacememes | TDM #003

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test drive meme!

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
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NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a. welcome to my world

[Raven isn't one to take situations lying down. Several of the natives will have broken noses and split lips by the time she's done with them. When she wakes to find strange people pawing at her, all the while choking on red dust, her instinct is to retaliate and fight until she can escape. Finally, they'll get her to calm down, but the anger comes again when they try to strip her of her clothes and give her some hideous white jumpsuit.

Problem being the red caked X-men uniform she appears to be wearing? It's not actually a uniform. What use did shapeshifters have for clothes? Finally, she can only sate their insistence by shifting them away to their great surprise. She doesn't need your clothes, thanks. Although they do hand her the jumpsuit, insisting she take it while staring openly at her baffled as well as startled by nakedness.

When she's finally let go, free to roam this new awful place, Raven will exit looking very much unlike her blue self, but blonde and seeming to be wearing a nice fashionable (by 80's standards) acid wash jeans, crimped hair, and Blondie band t-shirt and clutching a white jumpsuit, which she promptly tosses aside.

Now to figure out where she really is. She'll approach the first person she sees, approach purposeful and expression firm as she pulls out her device. No bull-shitting her.] This place. What is it, really?

b. Caught me unawares

[This dream seems like another life at first. One she barely remembers. But it's her. And Charles. She's young, but she's been on the run for so long. No one ever shows her kindness. Not until him.] You're not... scared of me? [She doesn't dare believe it, but Charles is so kind. He doesn't kick her out of his home for stealing. For impersonating his mother just to get some food. Doesn't call her a freak.]

It's an idyllic life or so it seems in this dream. Charles treats her like a sister. But she's not like herself anymore. Blonde... adorable, or so her new mother would call her, pinching her cheeks. They play in the giant mansion. It's her and Charles against the world. She gets to go to school (not quite so fun). But she gets a family. She feels loved.

The next night the dream comes again. She's chasing after Charles in a park, laughing as she goes. She thinks someone might be beside her. The part of her mind that knows this isn't real wonders what it means. But the young Raven turns instead laughing, blonde hair blowing in the wind around her face, as she shoves the person with a hand and takes off to where she's seen Charles running.] Tag! You're it!

c. Falling down the stairs: CW: Death, violence

[The dream of the past few nights comes again. It starts much the same. Charles and her. A nice life she never thought she'd have. But it's colored differently somehow. Instead of all the nostalgia and joy of her time with her brother as a child... all the negative memories start to hold sway and fall down over her like an avalanche and move her forward in time.

Charles makes her hide. She can't be herself. Raven pulls at her blonde hair, yanking out a few strands. She hates it! Why can't she just be herself? Why does everyone fear her? He can't even look at her when she looks like herself. Is she really so hideous?

Then she leaves him, dares to hope in Erik's dream because he doesn't make her hide. She believe in the Brotherhood. But Erik leaves too. Each of the others die. Leaving her behind to pick up the pieces. She's crying, holding tight on a crying bundle in her arms, the rain drenching her a the blue tailed baby just born. People are chasing her, a mob to kill the freak. She needs to run!

Some one is gaining on her and she screams, moving to strike them with her free hand] LEAVE ME ALONE!

Network
UN:darkholme

[She's finally settled in here, but still doesn't quite believe everything she's been told. But clearly the others believe it and she's heard stories of these Sound Eaters ripping people apart. Of the damage they reap. Which is why she's not out in the streets screaming at the top of her lungs just to test the truth of it. But she does have questions.]

What are everyone's theories on what these Sound Eaters are? Were they once human? Thoughts on how we might fight them?

Do you have a theory? If what everyone is saying to be true about them. Fighting them could be tricky. All the sound would alert them.

[ A plan would need to be brought up. Gamora though doesn't have all the details or information. She is glad though that Peter wouldn't be around to play music loudly. It would only make the Sound Eaters come, drawing them towards the noise. She would fight the Sound Eaters though. She would take on anything if it meant protecting everyone else. ]

That's the problem. I don't have any theories other than that maybe these Sound Eaters used to be people. I don't know how we can fight them. So I was hoping someone else might have an idea... [She's only just gotten out of one impossible battle. Maybe if Charles or Jean were here, they might stand a chance.]

[ He knows where he is. The decor is different. Older. Subtly ostentatious in a way that Charles never was, for all his fussiness. He was never particularly concerned with impressing anybody. Whoever decorated these rooms definitely was.

He is an intruder, He should do something, let her know that he's there. That he's seeing things he shouldn't. That she never would share with him willingly. But he can't. They're happy. His heart twists in his chest.

They're in the park and he can feel the sunlight on his skin. That old, ugly jealousy flares once before he manages to quell it. This is what it was really like for you? But things were never so simple. If it was, Raven wouldn't have left with him.

They're so young.

He doesn't realize she can see him until she tags him. ]

Raven.

[ He curses under his breath and chases after her. ]

[It's the sort of dream logic that overtakes Raven in that moment. It's Erik, yes, and she's still a child... but she knows him. And sees no problem or anything out of the ordinary in him being there. This is just the way it is supposed to be. Why shouldn't he be there? He's family.

Laughing, she darts away, blonde hair bouncing behind her.] You have to catch me! That's the game, Erik!

[A voice calls to the right, Charles, a boy of nearly thirteen now and in the beginnings of an awkward growth spurt. But it seems he knows Erik too, smile broad, as he peaks out from behind a tree.] Or me!

I don't want to play.

[ His voice is higher, squeakier. His accent much thicker, his mouth and tongue not used to shaping words in English, still trying to force the phonemes into a more familiar, more Teutonic, shape. He looks at his hands, they are thin, as are his wrists and arms and legs and every part of him. The ever-present hunger gnawing at his gut, mixing with the towering rage he's still trying to fit into a manageable shape that he can carry with him without burning himself alive.

This is wrong. He wasn't here. He was in Europe, in a refugee camp, and then once he was released from there left to fend for himself until he was able to get to Israel. Years later.

He certainly didn't know either of them for nearly twenty years. ]

Raven, this is wrong.

[ His tone is as harsh as his accent. He is angry. He is always so angry. ]

[Raven slows to turn around, the little blonde girl is scowling now. It makes her look much more like the Raven he knows. The one that doesn't like to be argued with. She rushes back over to him.] But I tagged you. You're it. Why is it wrong?

We were having fun. Don't you know how to have fun...?

I don't belong here.

[ He insists stubbornly, clenching his fists. ]

This... this isn't real.

[ He doesn't know what it is. He just knows that they're not supposed to know each other. Not yet. Not like this. ]

And you don't look like that. Why are you hiding?

[This is supposed to be a happy dream, Erik, and now you're ruining it. Raven's eyes are going nearly golf ball sized, a pout forming on her lips. The sunshine is starting to dull a bit as a cloud starts moving to overtake it.] It's not safe, Charles says.

Charles says a lot of things. Not all of them are true. [ He wants to shake her. ]

"Hey!" [ Charles protests, his sunny smile disappearing with Raven's. They were happy, until Erik messed it all up. ]

I"m right. [ He insists stubbornly. ] And I should not be here.

[ He looks at his hands. They still look wrong. He tries to will them into a shape like they're supposed to be. ] It's like a bad dream. [ He says to himself quietly. ]

[Raven's eyes are starting to glisten, water threatening. It's only a bad dream because Erik's made it one.] Why are you being so mean? [She changes then, a little girl still. But blue. Not hiding. But the tears are falling openly now and Raven turns and runs away. It's not a game now. Now she's just trying to get away from him. Away from Charles too, she darts into the woods away from the park and everything is growing darker still, night overtaking them.]

[ Raven starts to cry, which only makes Erik angry. All he has is anger. He is fueled by rage and spite and hatred and does not have any other emotion to bring to the situation.

Although his conviction that this is wrong, somehow leads him to chase her. Or some other force compelling him, it's hard to say. There's a logic at work that isn't his, which irritates him. ]

I'm not being mean. I'm telling the truth!

[ He declares with all the conviction of a very angry fifteen year old boy who has yet to learn that truth and cruelty can be one and the same. ]

[When he finally finds her, she's curled up against a tree, arms wrapped around blue legs. But she seems younger now, from back before she met Charles. She's shaking, scared, hungry... and still crying.

How long had she had to fend for herself before Charles? Years, since she could talk, practically. Her parents had left her for dead and there'd been no one to protect her. She peers up at him when he approaches, flinching slightly like she expects he might strike her.] I just want to be n-normal...

[Kara's flying back in a hurry from the warehouse to the reset room when she picks up on all the commotion across town. There's a sound of fighting, and not the muffled, soundproofed punches that come from fight club or anyone else sparring either, but fighting. She lands silently just outside the door just as someone walks out and a white jumpsuit lands in her face.

Okay, rude. Kara balls the jumpsuit in her arms and follows after the woman, speeding by her until she can swing around to face her. That's when she sees the woman's message. So, she is new. How does she have... real clothes...?]

It's an alternate dimension of Earth. On this version, there are monsters that are blind but chase sound. They're called Sound Eaters, and we have to be quiet here because of them. Who are you?

[Raven only seems momentarily startled by Kara's sudden appearance in front of her. Try hanging out with Peter Maximoff for any period of time and someone speeding around turns mundane very quickly. Ha.

The outfit though. Mystique is going to eye that for a bit. It's a bit more showy and colorful than any of the X-men uniforms or even the ones the Brotherhood used to wear.] So those people told me, but I didn't know whether to believe them. [Or Kara for that matter. But if she asks enough people and they all say the same, it will add more credence to the idea.] I'm Raven... who are you? [It's hard to get cattiness and irritation across via message, but it's clear from her expression that Raven is less than pleased and being a little shitty with Kara because of it.]

[Kara's going to ignore the salty expression. #RiseAbove]

I'm Supergirl. I heard a lot of fighting in there. Is everyone okay?

Everything's fine. I just don't like strangers grabbing me. And I made sure they didn't like it either. [She can see the concern and judgmental look as it begins.] They'll be okay. Only a broken nose... or two.

You shouldn't HURT them just because you can. They're doing what they think is best to keep us alive.

[Raven is just going to take a moment to just openly stare at Kara. She didn't realize someone this self-righteous actually existed in real life. It's truly a marvel.]

And tell me how I was meant to know that when I only just woke up here and I'd every reason to think they were my captors? Thank you very much for the ethics lesson though, 'Supergirl'.

Do you always punch first and ask questions later?

[Heck, Kara loves to punch, but come on.]

You don't need the quotation marks by the way. That's my name.

Edited (SHE ALREADY SAID HER NAME. I'M A CHAMP.) 2018-03-25 21:47 (UTC)

[Raven probably doesn't have any room to talk where ridiculous superhero names were concerned. But Mystique is better than Supergirl, at the very least.... right?] Yes, I suppose it is. Maybe you should call me Punchgirl?

Why would I do that? That's stu -

[Kara erases the message, an angry frown on her face as she taps heavily at her device. It's already cracked. She doesn't need more damage to it.]

I'll call you Raven. Because that's RESPECTFUL.

[It seems very easy to push this girl's buttons, Raven's noticing. It honestly makes her want to keep at it. She's good enough at reading people to know that this Supergirl isn't likely to retaliate unless Raven gives her more than catty backtalk as cause. At least not any retaliation that will do lasting damage.] If you say so.

So what all makes you super, Supergirl? I assume it's more than just that you move fast.

[Kara doesn't hide her eyeroll. She usually has no problem explaining her powers, but ugh. This lady just broke noses! She should probably go check on them, but she also kind of wants to keep an eye on Raven. Just in case she gets punchy again.]

I'm an alien. I have lots of superpowers, blah blah blah, it's all pretty standard stuff. Flight, strength, I'm sure you know the drill.

What about you? Are you "super"?

[if she gets an honest answer, maybe she can gauge just how worried she should be about the natives.]

[An alien. That is a new one on Raven. She'll take a moment to be surprised, but quickly recovers.] I'm a mutant. From Earth... I don't know what qualifies as super. But I have powers. [She shrugs. Is she expecting a show? Raven shakes her head after a moment, fine whatever she'll tell her. Or show her. More like.

There's a ripple of blue scales the run up Raven from her feet all the way to her head. And standing before Kara now is a perfect replica of herself, right down to the cape and outfit.]

TDM #003

Raven Darkholme | X-men Movie Universe | ota

un: gamora

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