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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.]
no subject
Which is... not great, for the situation back home. To put it lightly. Especially if Eddie is here too, because if he's here then he's also dead. Steve doesn't doubt Nance and Robin's monster slaying skills but god he's not sure if they can do it on their own.
He leans forward and taps the glass of the claw machine like it's an aquarium, then glances back at Eddie. ]
How are you here?
no subject
[In fact, it's very not good. The last thing Eddie remembers is following the gang through the gate in his trailer and back into Hawkins proper, so Steve being here, now, wondering if he's dead can only mean that something must have happened.
It's on the tip of his tongue to ask, because it feels like something he should know- but at the same time, Eddie's not entirely sure he wants that knowledge. Finding Chrissy here had been one thing. He'd had a front row seat to her destruction. Steve, though? He was fine the last time Eddie saw him.
The question earns Steve a shrug.]
You know, I'm still trying to work that out, man. Kinda thought I was dead or hallucinating when I first got here.
no subject
[ He shrugs, running a hand through his (floppy — he hasn't found hairspray yet) hair. ]
I think there would be more... like, creepy shit. If it was him.
[ And so, the logical conclusion is death. Even in a world where horrifying alternate dimensions exist just beneath the surface of your quaint small town, justifying teleporting to somewhere else entirely is a challenge. ]
Hey, what's the last thing you remember?
no subject
[Because honestly, isn't Vecna's whole thing just ... showing people things that scare them? This is just a weird cruise ship. Eddie's never even been on a cruise ship so Vecna'd have to try a bit harder on that one.]
I mean... probably. And this place is pretty weird, but it doesn't exactly scream mindfuck prison?
[In his defense, Eddie's never been a target. For some reason, his dismal existence hadn't even made the cut, but people like Chrissy were prime candidates. Maybe he'll never be over it.]
Oh. You know... Climbing through the big-ass hole that fucker left in my trailer.
no subject
[ Steve claps his hands together excitedly like Eddie had just cracked the code to the meaning of life. ]
Me too! Nance had just snapped out of her Vecna trance and climbed through. I was following her, and bam! I'm here on a vacation I definitely don't remember signing up for. I thought I might have, I don't know, cracked my neck when I fell through the gate.
[ Not a fitting end for a guy who used to regularly equate his skills to those of a ninja. ]
Maybe the gate broke or something. Like, it can send us to the Upside Down so why can't it send us here? Right?
[ It sounds like a theory Dustin would come up with, at least to Steve, so he feels like he's onto something even though he is most definitely not onto anything. He hasn't been here long enough yet to simply accept that sometimes you are transported to a weird-ass cruise ship for absolutely no reason and there's no need to try to figure out why. ]
lmao well don't feel bad! I thought I'd hit this back days ago.
[It's mostly rhetorical- he's not actually expecting Steve to have any answers for him. Eddie certainly hasn't been able to find any. Maybe that's just the way this place is, though.
Either way, Eddie hates it. Hates being here so much, even if the alternative- being back there- isn't appealing, either. And there are certainly things he doesn't hate about this place.]
What are the odds of that happening, though? We don't know much about this place, but I'm pretty sure it's somewhere completely new.
[It's not a bad theory by any stretch of the imagination. Eddie just wonders how likely it is that one of Vecna's gates would decide to randomly toss them someplace else.]
no worries!
I don't know, man. I've known about this crazy shit for like three years now and I still don't understand it.
[ If the gate did this then that's... well, not good, because he doesn't know how to fix it, but it's better than if it's something else. Because at least if it's the gate that means they have a chance of finding another gate and making it back. ]
Wait. When did you get here, exactly?
[ That thing on the deck, the safety drill thing, seemed to be an event for new arrivals, and Steve hadn't recognized anyone in the crowd. ]
no subject
[Eddie's relatively new to the knowledge that all of this shit exists, and he's still trying to wrap his head around it all. Then again, if the gate was responsible for them being here, it stands to reason that maybe they could find another gate and get home. Possibly?
The question makes him shrug.]
Uh... like a month ago? Chrissy's been here for about the same amount of time. Haven't seen anyone else though.
no subject
Chrissy? As in Chrissy Cunningham?
[ Is what he settles for, because that seems slightly more pressing than the whole bit about how Eddie's been here for an entire month while Steve's only been here for a couple of days so far.
If Chrissy is here then that has to settle it, right? They're dead. Or Vecna is fucking with them. There's no other explanation. ]