quietplacememes | TDM #004

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. The bulletin board feed lights up so you can read about the history. 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.

Take a peep
Content Warnings: Possible animal-thing death
Themes: Slice of life, it's like gremlins... kinda

On the first of April, small piles of dust with brightly colored eggs at the center will spring up over night. After a few hours the eggs will begin to hatch and out will come the smallest and brightest bunny-like creatures (the only notable differences from regular bunnies are the colors, size, and that they make no noise). They're friendly and immediately attach themselves (bond) to the first person to pick them up. One of the natives calls them "peeps" because they don't make a sound. All with unique personalities, the creatures can be found nibbling on the dust and needing no other form of food, and will shy away from any and all water sources.

If, however, any of them get wet - there will be a sudden and brief rain shower at noon - the creatures fur will turn black and they will begin attacking the others that didn't get wet. Stopping them is key, and the black creatures will either dash away from the community if given the chance or will need to be stopped.

OOC: All characters can keep a Peep! Any color! They are palm-sized and never grow larger than an adult hand.

OOC
From your mods:

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NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Small multiverse. Were you local or an Earth import?

Proud child of Earth, here.

Brakebills grad?

[Another guess, but then, if she says no it's either Poppy or Anaïs, and if she doesn't know the word she's probably a Chatwin.]

[ She pauses, if only to gawk at her device for a second or two. ]

Okay, this is getting really fucking weird. Who is this?

I used to teach there. Quentin Coldwater.

Q???

[ That's it. She can only manage one letter. Is this future Quentin? And he taught at Brakebills? ]

Yeah. Who is this, though?

Margo! Jesus, how are you? How is everyone?

[O...Kay. Margo.]

I'm sorry, I'm having trouble placing where I know you from?

You're joking, right?

[ He has to be. And it's not funny. Stop joking, Coldwater. ]

I'm sorry. I've got a terrible memory for names. Were we in first year together?

[He's definitely forgotten some of the students from his original cohort, before first year Quentin and Alice were skipped ahead.]

I'm sure this is some kind of alternate universe bullshit, but for the record? I am really fucking offended.

[ No, Quentin, it's nothing you did or didn't do. Margo just has a fragile ego and you... Well, a version of you is one of her best friends. ]

Could be a timeline thing, too- but that's kind of a long story. Look, I'm a shit texter. Is there anywhere we can actually talk?

Find me at House Six. I'll kick my guy out and we can talk in my room. It's soundproof.

[He disconnects, and does as he's told, wandering the town and trying to orient himself, then texting;]

Knock knock.

[ Margo opens the door with a smile, expecting to see her Quentin, but she sees... Actually, who is this?

She nods her head for him to come inside, smile faded. ]

[He's staring back, too, taking her in- there's something so almost about here. Not quite, not there, but- recognition fills his expression and he starts through the doorway.]

[ She closes the door behind him and sighs. Well, there goes the hope that he would actually look like her Quentin. ]

It's safe to talk, just... Not too loudly.

You could be Janet Puchinski's sister.

[He says, softly.]

You're not from a different timeline, you're from a different world.

[ Her eyes narrow slightly. She remembers that name. Well, sort of. ]

The Neitherlands librarian called me Janet.

Best friends with Eliot Waugh. Good with ice. Um. [How to put this.] Fighty?

Edited 2018-04-18 03:57 (UTC)

[ She puts her hands on her hips. ]

That's me. I'm... Janet?

Yeah. Parents are big Hollywood lawyers. Ridiculously competitive. Uh-

[And one of the parties to the worst mistake in Quentin's life, though he figures he doesn't need to raise cheating on Alice right off the bat.]

I'm still called Quentin in your world?

God. I was named Janet.

[ She shakes her head and huffs quietly. ]

Yeah, you were. Quentin Coldwater. Cute, loyal, slightly emotionally unbalanced king of Fillory.

Yeah, that's all depressingly spot on.

[And, drawing his hand over his face.]

We've gotta hope Eliot shows up, you realize? You and I are fucked if we're on our own.

[Without their mediator, lynchpin, whatever you want to call him.]

(no subject)

ibiza - 2018-04-19 04:50 (UTC) - Expand

magician_king - 2018-04-19 05:11 (UTC) - Expand