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TEST DRIVE MEME #7
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.]
Valdis | OC | OTA
[Waking into a dream, or perhaps a nightmare seemed a more suitable description for this place. A cruise ship....filled with ghosts, death and darkness. A shiver runs down her spine as she walks down the haunted halls, flits of spirits at the edge of her vision and down every hallway.]
Is there even anyone alive here?
[She can sense life...somewhere. Another turn and into the atrium.]
Hello?
2) Spirited Costumes
[This place is perhaps the oddest cruise ship she's ever been on. At least the haunted place saw fit to celebrate the season. Cheap costumes lined walls and hung on racks, with more expensive and refined ones near the back of the store, as if it sought to draw you deeper. Though perhaps Valdis is reading too much into it. Still, this place is creepy.
She picks up a hefty fake sword, it's unbalanced and made of wood, not that a real one would be useful against ghosts anyway. She sighs, closing her eyes and breathing slowly.]
I don't know how I feel about this place, but it can't be worse than hell.
2
It's got its moment, but it honestly isn't that bad. ... although I'm going to warn you, this store has infinite length. You'll keep going forever if you're not careful.
no subject
[Valdis turns, hair prickling on the back of her neck. She hadn't even noticed the other person in here, evidence to how warped her senses were on this cursed ship]
Just this store?
[He seems oddly chipper for someone wandering around a vessel filled with the dead.]
Or the whole ship?
no subject
Just this store. So far.
[He shrugs]
It used to be a store that has tropical-ish clothing called Tommy Bahama. I guess it's Halloween, now. We'll have to see if it returns to normal after this.
no subject
I wish that was more reassuring.
[She directs her attention to the living newcomer fully, thinking, evaluating the level of threat, if any.]
You seem...undisturbed by all this, so I assume you've been here awhile. You also aren't surprised to see me, which means this happens often?
no subject
[He's got some light muscle, so he at least works out. But he certainly doesn't seem to have any obvious weapons and doesn't move like he's strained in... anything, really.]
I've been here for a while, yes. Since early March, and now it's October. We tend to get new passengers often.
no subject
Her gaze moves back to the costumes as she reaches out to slide the hangers over, a large, black, furred wolf mask appears behind the costume she just slid over and she jerks back. The glittering red eyes are dead and lifeless, nothing alive except herself and the man standing not far from her. She takes a breath]
This place is unsettling.
[She turns back to him, expressionless, as if she hadn't just been frightened of a mere mask.]
I assume you have a name?
no subject
[César saw. It's obvious enough that he saw. But he lets her keep her dignity by absolutely pretending he didn't.]
César Salazar. And yours?
no subject
I don't even know. It seems like only yesterday I was happily solving murders and then the next I am on the run from one...and now I'm here.
[It's complicated César.]
I suppose you can call me Valdis. It seems the most suitable right now.
no subject
It's nice to meet you, Valdis. Although I'm afraid solving murders here is a bit of a dying profession. We come back from the dead overnight here, so people can just tell you who killed them, usually.
[ Except it takes three days now. He doesn't know that yet. César will learn that the hard way soon enough. ]
no subject
She breathes in deeply, pulling scents over her tongue, the room smells of clean clothing, not fresh, but not dusty. Leather has a particular scent, so does linen and cotton. This man has his own scent too, and others have been here, but their scents were faint.]
With the number of ghosts around I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that there's a lot of death on this particular cruise.
[Her previous openness simply vanishes, replaced by a sense of caution. While this isn't her home and her enemies aren't here, there are still clearly people to be wary of. César may be one of them, but she senses his general ease and acceptance, his lack of concern, how casually he can mention murder. He seems to be, at the risk of sounding cliche, a good guy.]
And how often do people just...return from the dead around here?
[How often did they get murdered?
no subject
For the record. Both... are men. But one of their scents isn't telling that truth. You cannot smell the truth in the brain UH.
César has no clue about any of this. Especially since he's distracted by the sudden loss of openness. He recalibrates himself, going quieter and Masking. Oh. He really shouldn't have said it like that.]
Ah. S-Sorry. It's.. pretty much everyone that has made enough connections to stick around that will come back. We don't die too often, but sometimes we can have situations that kill a lot of people. But then everything... goes back to the way it was other than the trauma.
no subject
Again, a fairly normal behavior from a fairly normal person, despite the strange circumstances he's found himself in, at least to her senses.
She turns back to the costumes, if only to distract herself and shield how she is gathering her thoughts.]
So, this place is not only haunted by lost souls, but the living beings here cannot join them, despite experiencing death themselves.
[Purgatory perhaps? Or was her previous assumption wrong and she had somehow ended up in Hell.]
Seems like a twisted game.
no subject
... He feeds off our emotions, apparently. It's easier to bring us back than to bring in new souls. A-And I'm glad for that at least. We had a situation based off the novel Battle Royale where over a couple dozen people died.
no subject
Feeding off emotions...off souls.
Sounded suspiciously like her own kind back home.]
Who is 'he'?
[Her voice is even, no sign of the concern she's feeling inside. Whoever 'he' is, he's captured people and forced them to kill each other...not an ally]
no subject
[He pauses and looks at her properly.]
... how much of an information dump are you prepared for? It's a lot. But I have most of what everyone knows about the situation in general.
no subject
It didn't help that she could sense the lost souls around her, almost more sharply than before. The hair on the back of her neck rose as she feels his gaze on her. She lifts her head, her own, scarlet gaze meeting his eyes, then the green returns, so quickly that the red was enough easy to miss, and her tone was easy, smooth and matter-of-fact]
I suppose I should know exactly what is happening if I hope to survive this place. Tell me everything you know.