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Entry tags:
TEST DRIVE MEME #5
1. not subtle revealings
[you wake up.
it doesn't matter where you were before. going to bed? dying? opening the door to face a great evil? same result. you wake up in a soft bed with starched sheets in a cool, darkened room, sunlight peeking out from behind thick curtains. maybe you're alone; maybe you aren't. maybe you immediately notice the folded paper on the bedside table near your head. if you don't, you better fix that real quick: you won't be able to even open the door before you read it.
the note itself is written in a neat hand on white card stock; there is a stylized logo of a ship with the words SERENA ETERNA printed underneath. the note reads as follows:
Dear Passenger(s),
As your cruise director, it is my great honor to welcome you aboard the Serena Eterna, your destination for fun and adventure! We know you could have chosen any cruise line for your vacation, and we're very grateful you chose ours! On behalf of the Captain, I would like to assure each and every passenger that will we do whatever it takes to fulfill all your needs and desires during your journey with us.
At your earliest possible convenience, please attend the mandatory lifeboat drill by the end of the day. I'm sure everyone is very eager to get started on all the fun and sun, but safety always comes first! You can find your life jacket in your cabin's closet; carry it to your assigned muster station on deck one, where I will take you through the drill. If you can't find me in the crowd, just look for the gal with the winning smile!
See You Real Soon!
Sincerely,
Gal Friday
you walk to deck one. you have no other choice: every time you try to step in a direction some unseen being considers "not towards deck one," you find your legs no longer move, staying stock still, frozen. whether compelled quickly by curiosity, or delayed by pure stubbornness, the result is the same, and you are left milling around with other similarly curious or stubborn people.
you see someone in uniform near the front of the crowd. she seems to be a gal, but is missing the winning smile, along with most of her other features. she seems to see you, though, rushing to your side and placing a lei around your neck with great formality. a voice, cheery but artificial, sees to come from nowhere and everywhere.]
Welcome! I'm very glad to have you aboard!
[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.
after the drill is completed, you are seemingly free to go. or, well, your legs work, now. and maybe that's as good as it's gonna get.]
2. a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling
[the reflections are missing. all of them. in mirrors. in television screens. on the backs of spoons. nothing looks back at you.
then, figures do show up. not your own, like you'd expect. thin, wispy apparitions, people with pleading eyes and hands, reaching out to place their palms against the surface, from their own end. faces familiar and not, beckoning, mouthing words you just can't quite make out. help me, it might be. get me out, perhaps. just until you're close enough, until your skin warms the surface of whatever it is you're peering into. and then, those same hands wrap, all too real, burning-cold against your flesh, and pull, trying to drag you through the surface, making up for their lack of strength with desperation. any flesh unlucky enough to enter the reflection comes back bone-white and cold, all sensation dead, though it will fade within a few hours.
in retrospect, it looks a bit more like they were saying something different. something more like, better you than me. or maybe it's not even words at all. they look a bit more like they're laughing.]
3. complex mementos
[but, hey. sometimes changes are good! like, today, in Playback, there's a brand-new game available for all the children to play! it's an old-fashioned sort of claw machine, the type that's so large, a particularly dedicated kindergartner could wriggle their way inside. the prizes vary, and sit loose: bags of candy, stuffed toys, firearms, painfully early-00s electronics, actually that one just looks like a dead iguana, tiny ship-branded knickknacks... like all the other games in the arcade, the game starts up automatically upon being touched; lack of quarters shouldn't keep you from having fun! pro tip: they are loaded, and they will go off if you suck at claw games and let it fall.]
the unsubtle option
sure, during the "off season" between being asked to sufferbleeddie at the whims of their captor, it was a bit less commonplace. enough so that through the smear of horrible tommy bahama florals and athleisure, blood and gore still command the line of eyesight and leads to outright staring from the masses. and where repulsions might drive others to give him a wide berth, it's every ounce of nosy commander and over-caring former healer candidate that has clarke griffin putting down whatever horribly written novel she's snagged from the library lately, and gravitating towards the gore-covered newcomer like a moon circles a planet.
...before colliding into it, to continue the metaphor. what actually happens is there's suddenly a 5'5" blonde girl stepping directly in vance's path as he departs from the muster station. )
— yeah, that doesn't matter anymore.
( spoken like someone well convinced she died before waking up tucked into down covers and a pillow top mattress, and riddled in radiation burns. but beyond what may or may not have been clarke's last breath on earth, there are plenty of former dearly departed here, commanded back to the realm of the living. she's unbothered by the tail end of his sentiment, having something of a habit of collecting dead children (friendly) (not creepyily, i promise). after the immediate dismissal, appraising eyes give him a full scale once over. head to toe, lingering on every bloody smear. )
...Is all this yours?
no subject
Of course not. Some of it's his.
[ ...But most of it is Vance's own. Sure, he got in a couple lucky scratches and even a bite here and there, but he was overpowered in the end. ]
Are you dead, too? [ Maybe everyone's dead here. Maybe the afterlife is some tacky cruise ship. ]
no subject
still, clarke's giving a noncommittal half-shrug half-nod. )
Technically, yes. I died, I came here, I died again and again, and came back each time. ( she's honestly positing over which his this new stranger is reffering to, constantly on edge and assuming there's some newly arrived threat on the ship she just hasn't found yet. last time clarke was covered in some strangers blood intermingled with her own... yeah, that guy'd been dangerous in the moment. anyways, her mouth is running a little, more generous with retellings of personal torment than usual. )
...death doesn't mean the same thing here as it does everywhere else, it's — complicated.
no subject
[ He throws his hands up in the air, exasperated. Once was bad enough. Twice, three times, more - no thanks. ]
What does it mean here, then?
sorry for the delay, vacation hiatus wrung me out
clarke pauses for a beat, trying to summarize all they've learned on the ship in the past few months into something that doesn't sound absolutely bonkers insane. but she comes up with zero ideas on how to sugar coat this, and thus dives straight in. )
We were all brought here by the Captain, who intends to use our suffering and souls to fuel this ship and whatever latest magical project he's working on. Us dying and reviving here is entirely for his benefit; we're meant to be lab rats and him the scientist.
no worries!
But there's only one way he knows of to deal with a problem like this, so it's what he immediately resorts to: ]
Where is he? I'll kill him.
no subject
No. ( that's firm and final sounding, like a command as she doggedly shakes her head. the follow up is a bit more gentle, kid gloves for the newcomers no matter how bloodied they arrive. )
You can't, okay? No one's been able to deal out any sort of real damage against him, and harming just the body he presents us has been useless. Sometimes he's intangible, and sometimes just threatening him gets you burnt alive. So —
( there's a vague handflap. chill out, slow down. or just: )
No.
no subject
Then what? We just sit here like scared little rabbits?
no subject
anyways, hope you're not too adverse to infringing on personal boundaries, vance, because clarke tends to use that trick as half weapon and half invitation into camradarie. she takes a step forward, crowding in and dropping her voice by several levels of volume. )
Also no. No one around here is just sitting idly by and waiting for the worst of the worst. But we've already tried killing him, just like hundreds of people before us. It doesn't work, so we need to focus on beating him at his own game.
no subject
[ Well, sort of. He's at least familiar with the need for teamwork, and the fact that sometimes you can't just beat the bastard to death yourself.
The intrusion into his personal space doesn't seem to bother him any. ]
So what've you got to go on so far?
no subject
Slow down a second.
( the captain doesn't leave the ship much, and despite the seeming movement of the serena eterna cutting paths through ocean water, it never seems to be going anywhere specific. and dried or not, that's a lot of blood on ya, buddy — which clarke pointedly looks at before looking right back into vance's eyes. )
Are you actively hurt? Do you need a doctor right now, I mean.
no subject
[ He looks down at himself, realizing that he still looks pretty damn wounded. It doesn't hurt, it hasn't hurt since he died, but now that he's somewhat tangible here he realizes that his open wounds must have been healed on the way in. Now all he has are scars. ]
These're all from months ago.
no subject
suspicious squint. because months ago, and he's still wearing the same clothes that look like they've just crusted over in blood a few days ago? not saying showers in the apocalypse were a common occurrence, and she's not one to talk having arrived in a hazmat suit and covered in radiation burns but... that doesn't make this any less weird. or concerning.
yet in the same breath, he best friends here are a vampire and a jellyfish; going with the flow and not questioning too much until answers became necessary had worked for her so far. )
Okay. ( spoken dubiously. ) ...then how about we start with your name? ( don't collaborate with strangers, like mama said. (abby griffin has never —) )
no subject
[ He notices the look of suspicion, and the tone in her voice, and he just sighs. That's probably going to be a regular occurrence here, isn't it?
He holds up one hand and it sort of fades away, still visible but only half there. ] I'm a ghost. I'm dead.
no subject
clarke nods, files away any spooky shivers running up her spine to be addressed later (aka never). )
Right. So you're ready to accept a lot of things about death and magic here really quickly, right? It'd save us some time.
no subject
[ He goes solid again. It's useful to be a ghost sometimes, but he doesn't exactly like it so he's not going to prolong the experience. ]