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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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She taps her chin with her fingers as she considers. "Yeah...in a way. They're just more pocket realities--or whatever you want to call them--that he makes himself specifically for the occasion." Well, the diner was a bit different since he supposedly repurposed that reality, but ultimately it functions the same. "As long as I've been here, there's been an island, some forest training camp, and that 'fifties' diner."
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"Really. Weird. Do we know why he does it? Just for kicks?"
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At least that question's easy. "As far as we know, two reasons: he's an Earth-obsessed weirdo, and he uses our suffering to power his magic. As for why he needs that, or this whole reality? If only I knew." Rita is nowhere close to being a particularly informed passenger as far as the captain's intentions go, in large part because she has no patience for dealing with him.
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"I met a guy once who was a sort of energy vampire. He operated in a lot of the same ways. Minus the Earth obsession." Maldis doesn't have family, does he?
"So, I take it we all have to put up with being toys in his sandbox until...what? Do people ever get to leave?"
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Now, that? That gets Rita's interest once again, because she can't imagine the captain is the only one of his kind across every universe. "Seriously? You have?" She considers his next question before she responds pointedly with her own. "Did that guy let his prisoners leave?"
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For now, she shrugs. "Then you have your answer, don't you? The captain doesn't let people go willingly--except Jenny, I guess, but from what I heard, she paid a hell of a price." In fact, she's just going to continue on as if that's probably not a topic he'll want to hear more about. "Anyway, sometimes people do disappear, but...it's not by anyone's choice."
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Instead, she settles for a half-truth. "The captain imprisoned her brothers' souls somewhere on the ship, or something...? I didn't get all the details, since it was...a lot happened." That is, Rita didn't walk away from her confrontation with the captain that happened the same month, and so she had to be filled in--even then, the details are only half-remembered.
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"I'd never do that to my sisters. Not in a hundred years."
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"So in the end, she isn't even that free."
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"I guess she isn't. But, how does she keep getting here? I don't even know how I got here."
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A beat later, she remembers another detail, so she just casually adds, "Oh, but she'll probably be back--not just for her brothers, but she has a thing for Friday, or something."
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"Friday? The faceless lady? Seriously?"
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It's his response to magic that gets her shrugging. "So, what, you're another one who's never seen magic before?"
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