TEST DRIVE MEME #7

[sailmods]

1. before she hung up, she said she was a skeleton

[there is no note in your cabin. no forces stall your legs if you decide to walk anywhere but the atrium. in fact, for the first time in hundreds of years, newly arrived passengers on the Serena Eterna are waking up with absolutely no guidance. nothing but your fellow passengers in the halls - or maybe in your bed.

perhaps you end up in the atrium eventually anyway. it is where guest services is, and where Gal Friday… actually hasn’t been in a few days. until today. and she is visibly frazzled, her hair uncoiffed, her suit rumpled, something a bit like a bruise blossoming down from her hairline and over her smooth features. more papers than ever cover her desk, and when she turns to face you, her voice is as cheerful as ever, but audibly strained.]

Welcome aboard the Serene Eterna! [a pause] You know how to work a life vest, right? Everyone knows that! You don’t need me to teach you that!

[a light bulb burns out behind her head.]

… I’ll get right on that!

[freedom includes the freedom to not know what the fuck is happening. maybe you should reflect on that.]

2. grandma went and can't stop screaming

[it’s something about the lighting fixtures, this month. has the Bellona always had a massive chandelier? maybe. who knows. don’t ask questions. either way, in the stillness of the night, or day, or late afternoon, there is a noise like a cord being cut, and the chandelier plunges into the audience below.

it hits nothing, of course. no one is ever in the theater. and that, perhaps, is what the trouble is.

so, the chandelier starts to… travel, one could say. it starts to hang in various rooms: the dining halls, the bars, the clubs… sometimes, if you’re out on the pool deck and suddenly realized you’re under a shadow, you can glance up and see it suspended 20 feet above your head, securely fastened to nothing in particular and yet remaining perfectly in place.

until it isn’t. until it falls, crystal shattering on whatever surface it lands on: floor, table, person… and, wherever the chandelier goes, a lilting childish voice follows it, singing without any obvious source.]

Ring-a-ring of roses, a pocket full of posies… ashes, ashes, we all…

3. jeff bezos murdered the infinite tommy bahama

[the lights of the Infinite Tommy Bahama go out three days into October.

barely an hour after its closure, the lights go on again, and a new banner is unfurled.



physically, it is the same store. you can even see the old signs hidden behind the new ones. however, long gone are the tropical prints and khaki dress shorts. now, one can purchase any number of officially licensed or legally distinct Halloween costumes, decorations, and various other haunted accoutrements, leading back as far as the eye can see, and then farther still. is that a Gal Friday mask? spooky! well, at least you’ll be good and ready for the Halloween party at the end of the month, which is absolutely just a normal party and in no way whatsoever anything even remotely resembling a trick. there are only treats at The Infinite Spirit Halloween!

note: bahamanuel is still here! somewhere! it kinda looks like dan bongino.]

Comments

[pinballer]

Terrible shit. Bright colors. Floral print. Plaid. [ He shudders just thinking about it.

He nods over towards the direction he just came from. ]

There's some cool shit near the pirate costumes, and the vampire stuff.

[thefreak]

[ Eddie makes an overexaggerated face of disgust, his own shudder even more visibly exaggerated. It's almost like he always has to be putting on a performance, especially for those who he doesn't know that well, and who do not know him either. ] Somehow that sounds more terrifying than most of the horror icons featured in this hellhole.

[ His interest is piqued by Vance's suggestion, though. ] Well. I never was one to resist cool shit.

[pinballer]

Way more terrifying. You're lucky you missed the disco party. [ Vance doesn't know Eddie, but he makes an educated guess by his aesthetic that he might not be into disco. ]

Rad. It's over...here, I think.

[ And he takes off down one of the infinite aisles. ]

[thefreak]

The disco party? [ Eddie grimaces, because not only can he not stand the music, but the whole colorful vibe is very much not his style. ] Yeah, that sounds horrifying.

[ He follows eagerly, curiously looking around at some of the other stuff they're selling. Maybe he should grab some decorations for his cabin while he's here. ]

The physics here are kinda off, huh? [ He comments, realizing that this shouldn't make sense. The store from the outside looked way smaller, how the hell are there so many aisles? ]

[pinballer]

Yeah, it's fucked up. You get used to it.

[ He looks around the aisle, picking out a frilly shirt with a skull and crossbones on the front. ] See, this one's alright if you cut the frills off. I thought there was some cool vampire shit in this one but -

[ And with that he walks right through all the merchandise and the dividing wall into the next aisle. Sometimes he forgets that not everyone here knows he's a ghost. ]

Yeah. [ And he hops back in to this aisle. ] That shit's in the next one over.

[thefreak]

[ Eddie's no stranger to modifying his clothing in order to make it look less lame. After all, he threw together his own battle vest, sacrificing a Dio t-shirt to the metal gods. ] Yeah, that's not so bad, I could work with that.

[ What he definitely doesn't expect is to watch Vance just walk through everything. What the fuck? ] What the fuck? You're... [ Incorporeal, he thinks to himself, and if he hadn't been chewed up by bats to then somehow end up here, he probably wouldn't have believed such a thing to be possible. ]

But wait, I'm pretty sure I died and I'm not a ghost? Which, very fucking metal, by the way.

[pinballer]

I was already a ghost for a few months before I came here. If you get taken from right when you died, you get brought back normal. I'm...half-and-half, I guess.

[ Half ghost, half person. Which is probably for the best, because walking through walls is cool but not being able to touch anything would be a drag. ]

You really think it's metal?

[thefreak]

Well, that's definitely...something. [ As much as Eddie would have probably enjoyed being a ghost, haunting the hell out of the jocks who tried to incite a witch hunt for him, he knows there are too many things he would miss about being, well, normal.

Like playing the guitar, for one.

Of course, being stuck in this hellhole, who even knows if he'll ever get his hands on a guitar ever again? ]

And fuck yeah, it's metal. You kidding? You get the best of both worlds.

[pinballer]

Never thought of it like that. Guess it is kinda cool. [ It sucked back home. Here it's just...sort of a power, he supposes, even if it's not the power he would have picked. ]

I'm Vance, by the way. Vance Hopper.

[thefreak]

[ Isn't that always how it goes? What may seem like a curse to one person may seem like a gift to another. ] If I got to be a quasi-ghost instead of fully dying to a bunch of demon bats and waking up here, I think I'd go with the ghost thing.

Nice to meet you, Vance. I'm Eddie Munson.

[pinballer]

Like, actual demon bats or did you get rabies or something?

[ Rabies would probably be worse. ]

[thefreak]

[ Again with the rabies! If Robin ever ends up here (god he hopes that doesn't happen) he's going to have words with her for putting that out there in the unvierse. ]

Yeah, uh, actual demon bats. From another dimension. [ And he has the scars to prove it! Which he does by lifting up his shirt. ] As far as I know, regular bats don't cause these kinds of scars.