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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.]
Ben Gunn | Legends of Treasure Island
[ When he first wakes up, Ben spends a fair amount of time bouncing on the bed. He's never encountered one this soft and springy before, and he'll be damned if he's gonna waste that.
Eventually he looks at the note though, and, seeing nothing better to do, puts on the life jacket and leaves the room. He makes a few failed attempts to explore the place, before finally following his feet to deck one and the safety drill. ]
Glad to be aboard! [ he's not. Or well, he is. Maybe. He's not sure yet, there's more people here than he's seen in a very long time, and everything looks a bit odd, but what else is he supposed to say to the woman who's just given him a very nice necklace?
Once she's gone, he licks the lei, just to see what it is. And not just the white fragments either, but the seeds and feathers too.
After the drill, he races to the railing and leans over, looking out into the distance for any sign of, well, anything. Treasure Island, the Hispaniola, molten lava where Treasure Island used to be, something.
Oh well, he's here now, may as well make the most of it. ]
This is nice, isn't it? [ he grins at whoever's closest, and shoves his paw at them. Probably to shake ] The name's Ben Gunn, pleased to meet you!
2. A Permanent Reminder of a Temporary Feeling
[ The mirrors made him curious, if anything was going to convince him this ship was some strange working of Treasure Island that he'd somehow not encountered until now (maybe it's because the place had self destructed, that hadn't happened before, it follows that something new and equally weird would result), it was the strange ways the mirrors were behaving.
Find him staring transfixed at his lack of reflection, or clutching his now bone white arm against his chest and yelling at the nearest reflective surface ]
You won't fool me again, no you won't. Like a leech you are! Like. A. Leech.
3. Complex Mementos
[ Ben has no idea what a claw machine is when it's at home, but he does know he wants that lizard. The complex workings of such a machine are a bit beyond him, so he's taking a very thorough approach to working it out. Including, but not limited too: jabbing at the controls, kicking the sides, and, of course, trying to worm his way in through the prize slot.
Come by bit later and all you'll see is a beaten up straw hat in amongst the other prizes. ]
2
She's not sure what she was expecting, but it's not a...well, she's not certain what to call the person in front of her. She stills again and clears her throat, a way of letting him know that someone else is there. "Are you quite alright, darling." But then she sees his arm.
Well, that's unusual. Maybe it was always like that? But she's certain he wouldn't be holding it against his chest otherwise.
no subject
"I'm fine. Or I will be. Don't touch the mirror by the way, those tricksy spirits inside aren't as friendly as they look."
He sticks out his
pawhand, pulls a face at the snow white fur, then quickly hides it behind his back and sticks out the other one for Maeve to shake instead"Ben Gunn," he says with a grin, "Who're you?"
no subject
"I'll keep that in mind. I haven't looked directly into any of the mirrors outside of the one in the washroom. I haven't seen my reflection, but I didn't stare for terribly long. It must be some doing of the Captain." He is always doing unusual things anyway.
She takes the second hand offered and shakes it. "A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gunn. I'm Maeve Millay."
no subject
His grin doesn't fade for an uncomfortably long time, he just keeps standing there, grinning at Maeve and shaking her hand just that bit too hard, until he's finally finished processing the first thing she said
"The Captain? Is that Flint, Smollett, or Silver?"
Flint seemed the most likely, dead though he may be. Smollett wouldn't know what to do with magic if it tried to kick him in the teeth. And Long John Silver was, well, Long John Silver. Although there's always the chance it was really that crafty rat Pew pulling the strings with him, and that was dangerous. Could be someone else of course, but seemed even less likely to Ben.
no subject
"I don't believe either of those are his name, but there is a possibility I'm mistaken." She's not certain. "I believe he said his name was Hiram." She isn't sure how he'll take the news, but she's not hiding the truth from him all the same.