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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.]
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[This is actually the first time he's met a brand new person who arrive after him, but if people are turning up weekly? That sounds about right.
Thankfully for Hero, Ryan assumes the weirdness is from coming back from college.]
Yeah, going back home after being gone forever is super weird. Not that I've ever been to college - is it as much of a party as everyone says it is?
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[Hero has gotten used to crowds now that he's been in college for a year, but it's still funny to think how many people there are here, and how few people he was used to seeing day by day in his quiet little town.
There were so few people there... in some ways, he hadn't even had a reason to go back-
He shoves that thought into the furthest reaches of his mind, bringing his earnest charisma back to the foreground. Talking about parties is something he can do. Easy, especially with how much of his time was usually spent observing them from the background.]
It depends which circles you hang around in. If you're there to have parties, it's easy enough to find them. I really didn't know what to expect when I went to my first one. I had brought board games and cupcakes, like it was a party back home... I think I'm still missing my copy of Catan. [He laughs weakly.] Now I just bring stuff like asprin and hair elastics so no one is too miserable the next morning.
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Wow, talk about culture shock. Sounds like it was a good time though? I've been to a few, but usually I was the entertainment.
[Meaning: a single guitar player tucked in the corner of a room because college kids couldn't afford more than that. A sucker that agreed to half pay and a case of beer because he had literally no other gigs lined up.
Background noise no one was really listening to.]
Parties need guys like you though. I mean, someone's gotta take care of everybody, right?
[They finally make it over to the elevator, and Ryan hits the down button. It isn't far, but stairs seem like a bad plan.]
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[It gave him something to do, which kept him very clearly distracted from anything else that might have still been begging for his attention...
He shakes his head as if to dislodge that thought and laughs softly.]
I guess so? I just had friends that were younger than me back home, so I'm used to kind of being the responsible one. I'd say entertainment is more important! Did you play music or...?
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Yeah, man! I'm the guitarist for Chicken Choice Judy, and my best friend Min-Gi is on keyboard. Back then I was solo but now we're on tour together and it's amazing. He's so good
[But then, he remembers their current predicament and sighs.]
Well...it was good. Now we're stupid on some weird boat for who knows how long, so. Tour's postponed, I guess?
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[He has no idea. He hasn't really been paying much attention to where he's been going either.]
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[There's a thought he'll stir in his head for a while.]
We'll have to get Min a keyboard here, but we can totally figure that part out.
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If you needed someone to help organize, I'd be around...
[Just... gonna cling onto this for something to work on, even if that's logically a bad idea when he's still pretty badly roughed up.]
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Uh....yeeeeah, let's worry about getting you patched up first, okay buddy?
[They're almost to the sundries shop by now anyway. So close to finally getting Hero some bandages]
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[He is. Not really paying attention to himself right now, huh? Not that he ever does, but at this point, he has to try to at least keep appearances up.]
Do you have money for the shop? I probably have my wallet somewhere...