PHASE I [ 10 00 ] The “cleansing" doesn't begin too strangely. No, instead it starts with some minor inconveniences. After Mosley's broadcast, anything running on electricity seems to be… mildly on the fritz. Characters will find their home appliances suddenly rebelling just enough to be troublesome. Anything that uses electricity within the bounds of the colony will start suffering from some small malfunctions. (Do we have any cyborgs in the crowd tonight?) Toasters burning your breakfast and shooting the crispy things at you. Televisions suddenly exploding in a haze of smoke before working perfectly fine a moment later. Hair dryers suddenly running a little too hot and whoops, your hair's on fire… Well, this is all still just a small issue. Probably. Here's hoping the fire extinguisher doesn't run on electricity too?
PHASE II [ 1200 ] It's only glitches for a day or so, but by noon the next day, things get a little weird. We interrupt your regularly scheduled routine to bring you this important message: Welcome to ViViD. … Wait, what? Yeah, sorry about that. Whether you wanted to or not, you've found yourself in the virtual simulator… except it doesn't seem very… virtual anymore, no. The monsters look a bit meaner, and they seem to be after you in particular. You might suddenly be glitched into a dead end, or a level that actually doesn't seem to be beatable at all, with people you've never seen before as your party members. Endless mazes! Boss battles with a wooden sword! Dungeons with no walkthroughs! When you finally make it to the end, you might even find a giant wall blocking your way, or a moat where there was once a path. Now that's troublesome.
And make sure you don't get hurt by any of those monsters. Not like it matters, it's just HP, right? Wrong. Rather, it'll actually hurt quite a bit, just as if you were injured in real life.
If you're lucky, you'll find yourself glitched back out maybe half an hour later -- your wounds still fresh from the experience and still bleeding. Just don't die. You don't want to see what will happen if you die.
PHASE III [ 1800 ] It's the day after, and you've survived your unfortunate ViViD runs (though there's no promise that you won't end up there yet again). But for now, you've finished your work day without too many electrical object malfunctions, and you're on your way home. Normally the transit system is so very reliable. From district to district, the metro is your only way of travel and today? Today it's stopping with an ugly screech. Hopefully you don't need to be anywhere because it's safe to say that you're not getting off this ride any time soon. The lights aren't only flickering anymore, they're completely out. The darkness settles in uncomfortably as you're only left with the other people who were making the same trip. A second later, things start to get weird. Cold breath down your neck. The scratch of something sharp and angry against the outside of the cabin. Seconds pass in silence, the presence of something outside growing more and more frightening. If you hold your breath and stay very still, you might make it out just fine. That is until a forceful SLAM sounds behind you and there's something against your window. At least you know what's been making all that noise.
Of course, should you pry open the doors, there's nobody there, but… you couldn't have been imagining that, right?
Looks like the entire city's blacked out… and without the hum of technology and warmth of the advanced lighting system, some ghosts have come out to play. But they can only be seen from the corner of your eye, a glimpse, a breath, a nondescript whisper on the air and then they're gone. Who knows what they want from you…? Either way, they're not saying, staying just out of reach and mostly out of sight… but always there, watching and waiting.
PHASE IV [ 0000 ] Here you are, finally: day 4. You made your way through the dark, avoided the things that go bump in the night and found your apartment. Your pants are gone, your door is locked, and you've managed to stumble right into your bed/nest/cocoon/what-have-you. Your unbearably long day is finally, finally about to come to a close but then something glitches, worse than before. Suddenly you're not all cozy in your bed, but rather suspended in an unidentifiable space. In this darkness, there is screaming and only screaming. You try to move your limbs, use your voice -- and there is nothing. Rather, you can only look on as the space shifts and you see two figures appearing in the darkness, glowing in the same digital blue that lights up the rest of the colony. As you get closer, the screaming grows louder -- a woman's screams, you can hear now. It sounds garbled, like broken pieces of sound bytes. She's being strangled, you can see now. The other figure strangling her is a robot, metallic and ruthless. He turns to see you and his eyes glow with the same blue shine. As the woman -- LILITH, for those who have seen her or heard her voice may recognize -- finally begins to lose her strength to scream, the robot's mouth slowly spreads into a smile as he maintains eye contact, cold and yet somehow pleased.
In the next second, you have been returned to your body, echoes of screaming your only lullaby. Sleep doesn't seem as likely anymore, does it?
BONUS [ whyo'clock ] If at all possible, the darkness just got darker. How, you might ask? Well, it seems like someone just put a bag over your head! That's a little inconvenient, but it looks like you're suffering from an old school kidnapping at some point through these couple of days, complete with your assailants pushing you around asking, “Where the hell is the money?!" As they shove you into their shady kidnapper van, you can hear a certain song playing which is… a bit too on the nose for this situation. As the wheels of the vehicle stop and you're pushed out, the bag comes off and you're facing down your friendly neighborhood debt collector. He's slow to get his words out but they are very menacing indeed, something about threatening your family and sleeping with the alien fishes in the park. When you protest, insisting that you don't owe them any money, they pull out a CereVice and show your bank account, which does indeed seem to be approximately 50 million credits in debt.
They'll do this even if you're not in debt at all, and, in fact, it is impossible for you to be in debt, as CERES doesn't loan money to you people. Looks like the glitching did a number on your bank account though, and the numbers don't lie.
Looks like you're out of luck, friend. Why not have a friendly chat with the other half a dozen people who have been bagged and kidnapped as well? There's even a small table with snacks as you wait. Wait for what, they haven't exactly said yet. Maybe you should just leave through the window.
PENALTY [ xxxx ] Should you be unlucky enough to die in ViViD while it is glitching and injuries are being sustained, you will find yourself in a penalty game. Even more than usual penalty games, this one is increasingly unnerving. There is nothing but a dark room, a single light hovering over two masks on a table. One might recognize them as the masks of comedy and tragedy. In front of the player, red words slowly illuminate the room. Pick one. Well, that's an easy penalty game, isn't it?
Yet as you reach for one, the masks will suddenly turn into the faces of the two most important people to you. Their voices whisper, growing distressed as time goes on, “Pick me, pick me, pick me." The red words turn into a countdown if you take too long -- your hand forcibly moved to pick one mask or the other if the timer runs out. Yet once you put on the mask, you will see the person who was not picked, suddenly and brutally murdered right before your eyes by a shadowy figure, wearing the mask you chose.
With that, you will return to the colony, good as new. Though on occasion, you may see the person whose mask was not picked in the corner of your eye, dressed in black and wearing the very same mask of tragedy.
[ Remember to apply proper warnings on threads with sensitive or inappropriate material and do let a mod know if your thread careens off into maiming or canoodling so we can lock the log. ] |
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[closed to yuri]
[there's irony in what happened tonight, a cruel, 'have a free five course sushi dinner on us!' sort of irony. for once, the decision to get a good night's rest happened. the past few days warranted the rest. paperwork could, gasp, wait until morning! madness, truly. no, scratch that, madness was what happened after his head hit the pillow. the horrid screaming, the terrifying murderous scene, lacking a voice to try to somehow, even futilely, attempt to assist: it caused his blood to run cold.
it also threw sleep out the window. flynn gives a small sigh while walking through the streets of the residential district. how long has he been walking aimlessly? a while. fresh air fails to soothe the unease after witnessing that gruesome a scene. his frown deepens and brows furrow. what even was that? it looked real. was someone really in that situation now? if so, why had he seen it? and those screams... flynn feels his hair stand on end upon recalling that unpleasant, unforgettable noise.
rather than continue ahead with no purpose, maybe sitting and just thinking will help. a bench happens to be near by and he plops down on without a second thought. another sigh, one coupled with the rubbing of temples, comes. what a night.
...what's yuri doing now? the thought is the most pleasant one of the evening and results in an appealing idea. seeking out his best friend to discuss whatever that scene was could yield answers. maybe a more selfish reason also underlies the desire to seek yuri out, namely that of not wanting to be alone while so rattled. flynn pulls out the cerevice to type up a quick 'are you awake?'. a moment of hesitation comes at texting this late. should he? screw it, yuri can deal with one sleepless night. if anything, he'll buy him some crepes to make up for it later or, hell, he'll cook them himself. nothing says 'thanks for suffering at work today for me' like a home cooked breakfast! yeah, sending that text.]
no subject
this has been a rough enough night as it is—flynn's definitely not the only one who is both unsettled and concerned about what he saw. and when he needs to clear his head, the first option is always to step outside and walk around for a bit.
it's not as if he expects to find much out on the streets of the colony; not a clue or a sign for what really needs to be done, or what the truth is. it really is all about clearing his head and keeping an eye out for any other potential changes. and maybe he could expect that he's not the only one being put through this, or that his best friend has a similar idea to him. so maybe it's not really all that surprising when he spots that familiar mop of blonde hair atop a guy seated on a bench up ahead. repede sees too, though the mutt doesn't go running ahead or making any indications himself. he knows how yuri operates, after all.
there's a moment of contemplation, where he wonders if he should just make his approach, or if he should about face and go in the other direction. it's not that he doesn't want to deal with flynn, but a situation like this can be a polarizing one, and the fact that they often butt heads on how to approach certain matters can be a problem if he's not in the mood. but before he can come to that decision, he can feel the vibration of the cerevice in his pocket—it doesn't take a genius to know who would be messaging him at thi hour. so even without looking at it, he settles on his decision, stepping forward and making his approach. he's silent as he sits on the bench and leans back.
then? he sighs.] You too, huh.
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between being frazzled from what he'd seen and being preoccupied waiting for that incoming text message, flynn fails to notice someone approach until they actually sit next to him. the individual gets paid no mind. playing the polite knight role can wait until the creepy screams stop playing on repeat in his mind. only when the mystery person speaks does it capture flynn's attention, with his eyes widening before turning toward the exact person he wanted to see.
that surprise quickly shifts into tired smile. the timing is so very yuri that it eases flynn's nerves the slightest bit. leave it to him to having timing this flawless. shame that any comfort stops there. the sigh, the body language and the words spoken: someone else had their sleep ruined tonight and likely due to identical reasons.]
It looks that way.
[impossible as the idea sounds (or sounded, rather. a few weeks in the city changed what fits under that definition), they both experienced the same thing. whether that's comforting or not, flynn really can't tell. right now, it's leaning more toward the latter. had it been simply him, it could've been played off as a bad dream or the result of some exhaustion induced hallucination. both of them experiencing it throws that theory out the window.
on the bright side, discussing it ought to prove easier this way. easier, but flynn'd take being told to get his head checked over yuri also dealing with having seen that. his smile vanishes and is replaced by his prior, more serious expression. flynn gazes down toward the ground while leaning forward, elbows resting on his thighs. similarly to knightly mannerisms, proper posture gets thrown out the window for tonight.]
Do you have any idea what that was?
no subject