TEST DRIVE MEME #2

[sailmods]

1. this hotel room got a lot of stuff

[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 aboard! We're so glad to have you!

[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. and a touch-tone phone

[chatterbox isn't exactly the most popular venue onboard. it probably has something to do with the distinct lack of open liquor bottles. so, nothing personal. except it seems that it's decided to take it that way, suddenly.

anyone enjoying the other amenities of deck five will feel the distinct sensation of being watched while they do so. the kind of feeling a prey animal gets while being stalked on the grasslands. something may slither by their foot, or past their elbow while they rest it on the bar, but nothing appears to be there when they look.

until there is.

a black electrical cord originating from somewhere will, first, wrap around their ankle, tugging in a very clear "follow" instruction. should this instruction be ignored, a second cord will wrap around their other ankle, and, once again, tug. should this clear final warning be ignored... well, now they're being dragged down the promenade, and that's really their own fault, isn't it. don't struggle. struggling means more cords show up. and none of them seem terribly aware that most species need to expand their lungs to live.

their final destination, no matter the journey, is chatterbox's main stage, where the karaoke machine awaits. the cords place a microphone in their hand; the mic's cords bind it tightly to their hand.

they don't have to pick a song. there isn't an actual gun to their head, in any literal sense. it's just, those cords really don't seem that interested in letting go until they do.

and if you were heading to chatterbox anyway? welcome to the weirdest goddamn karaoke night you've ever seen.]

3. and a bucket of ice (cw: cannibalism mention)

[no longer will scoops be bound by the shackles of only having 31 flavors. for this month, and this month only, a sign that very much looks like Friday hand-wrote it announces, they will have 32!

what is that mysterious 32nd flavor? it depends, really: the letters on the display case seem to shift and change with each new pair of eyes that fall upon them, with the contents changing along with it. someone from the capital wasteland might find some Nuka-Cola ™ branded ice cream. twilight town residents will be thrilled to find sea salt on the menu. and a frankly concerning amount of people bring out a flavor that only describes itself as "long pig." it's a weird off-white color. don't think about it too hard.]

Comments

[opheliac]

( again, she is being touched by this stranger. it's one thing for venti or fio to do this and even with them, it's... something she's still trying to warm up to. but it's just so strange how someone is just willingly to do this with her. but she doesn't yank her hand away. instead, she just lets it happen because she's unsure what the right thing is to do here.

are people and beings always this...friendly in other worlds? so in silence, jinx simply follows along behind her. )

[barfeathers]

[ She retraces her steps back to the room she came out of to the best of her ability. Which is to say... there's a lot of pauses, and glancing around. It's hard to tell, sometimes, if she even remembers what she's doing at all. She recalls Friday telling her that the app on her phone will open the door, so she's sort of just pressing the button on her phone until she hears the click of a lock, or full on just seeing a door open somewhere.

She gets there. Eventually. Hope bombs are worth the time this birdbrain wasted. ]

Here. Found it. [ She lets go of Jinx's hand now to tail inside, going over to the bed she awoke on and crawling onto the floor so she could procure the thermals that she shoved under it earlier. Unfortunately, these are not full-on bombs, but they are the explosive parts of them. If Jinx is able to make an initiator, then she'll have three fully functional bombs on her hands. ]

I don't know how big of a boom these make. But they were meant to take down the concrete structure of a building, if that helps.

[opheliac]

( thank goodness she finally let go of her hand. jinx wasn't sure how much she was willing to hold out with this stranger being physical with her like that. she tilts her head as she watches her search around and at the sight of the parts, she beams.

sure, it's not hers and the hold and design are different but... it's still something. )

Sounds preetty perfect to me...!

[barfeathers]

[ She would apologize, but she absolutely hates not being close to people. Once she gets her bearings here on the cruise, she's likely to make amends. For now, she compliantly hands over the explosives, all of them in small boxes. ]

If you end up using them, do let me know. I love a good show.