TEST DRIVE MEME #5

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[prince_of_beasts]

You're damn right he's going to be Helped. Dimitri cracks a threadbare smile. "My condolences. I have some experience with curses, though none, I think, as severe as yours."

At least, Dimitri is reasonably sure he can die. It's not as if it's ever happened. The thought is alarming, and he crams it into the back of his skull with everything else he doesn't think about.

His expression turns stern. "Then you should eat something, regardless. There's no cost to the meals here, and it doesn't run out. There's no need to suffer hunger when there's food freely available." Pot, meet disregulated-eating-habits kettle. But Dimitri catches the poet's wrist -- the man hadn't seemed to mind being touched earlier -- and pulls him along, forging towards Windjammer with steely determination. "This way."

[screwtapethered]

The man follows, keeping perfect pace, making no audible protest, and yet still, he manages to communicate being dragged kicking and screaming into being Helped. But then, as he registers what Dimitri's said-

"Free meals, huh? And they never run out?" And you would never expect that this much spite could fit into those benign words, this much anger and frustration. He knows this, somehow. Or knows something like it. And he continues, and that voice- "The sweetest smell's in the serpent's mouth / We come like pigs to the feeding trough / Then we're swallowed down inside it-" -reverberates in Dimitri's head, like the resentment of all his time here is being pulled back out of his memory with every word.

"So what's the catch? The food is free- / But we are not, it's plain to see / If suffering's what this place needs / Then how do we provide it?"

[prince_of_beasts]

Dimitri sighs through grit teeth, a growl rattling in the back of his throat. "I'm well aware, my friend. Prize cuts of meat come from cattle who live better than the farmers who raise them. Still -- starve yourself to spite him, and you'll only serve his ends." Now Dimitri wonders if anyone has tried a hunger strike. What their fate was. He suspects, if they had, they'd waste away into one of the ship's endless complement of shades.

"You've seen how he manufactures suffering. Before the mirrors, there was a month of rain that would compel you to speak truth or lies; you'd only realize what you'd said after the compulsion wore off." Dimitri pauses. "Though I'm told that was the result of a spell he meant to cast on himself gone awry, so perhaps it doesn't count. Regardless -- before I arrived here there, there was a battle royale. Passengers forced to kill each other. And just recently ... "

His pace falters, slows, as memory catches up with him.

" ... there were these things ... 'zombies'. Corpses, animate. They wore the clothes of people we knew. People we loved."

The Captain's been on a kick of that lately.

[screwtapethered]

The poet scowls, slings his guitar back into his hands. He starts strumming on it. Dimitri could swear he sees a sheen of gold reflecting off of its strings. A terrible familiarity resonates in that angry, powerful voice. "So they've tried to break your hearts / By takin' memories from their graves? / Go anywhere, it's all the same / The tricks the big men choose- / You see, the ones who deal the cards / They always get the ace of spades / There's few ways to win a game / and a million ways to lose... / Way down / way down / way down / way down / way, way, way, way down in the belly of the beast..."