sail_ooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #10

a. that's where we both belong

[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 aboard! I'm so happy you could join us!

[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.]

b. and there's plenty of that down by the sea

[it’s strange to think about, isn’t it? how all those new passengers, the ones grumbling or shouting their way through the forced muster drill, have absolutely no idea what happened just last month. no idea about the labyrinth. no concept of why anyone around them would be a bit more hesitant around shadows.

they’ll learn.

sometimes a shadow is darker than it’s supposed to be. very rarely does anything come of that; just a vague sense that someone is watching you, and little more. sometimes, though, the shadows move. sometimes they grab at your ankles as you walk. sometimes they give you a shove as you go down the stairs. sometimes they pull your hair, or pinch your arm.

sometimes you feel something sharp cut into your lower leg.

that’s not a shadow, though. that’s a fiddler crab. you see the crab, sometimes. the cut isn’t from its claws, which don’t look very intimating; it’s not a very large crab. the cut is from the large kitchen knife crudely taped onto its back. it’s probably fine. it's not chasing you. there isn't evil in its heart. probably.]

c. think I'll go back to the Keys

[one day, in the atrium, two pedestals suddenly appear. on each is a large button: one green, and one blue. pressing the blue button gives you a little treat, popping out of thin air next to you. pressing the green button sends a small electric shock through your body. weird, but, hey, pretty avoidable, right?

except, it seems to be spreading. to every other button on board.

in the elevator. on the soda machine. the arcade. your phone. the bell on Friday’s desk.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Excuse me- could I have that if you don't want it?"

Cue Chrissy on the way past in the opposite direction. As it happens, she'd glanced up in time to watch the boy remove the lei. He doesn't seem to be particularly fond of the item, so she figures it can't hurt to ask.

She also happens to be wearing one in place of a scrunchie.

Shinsou stops mid toss and looks at the lei before looking at the blonde and just.

Frowns.

"Are you sure?" He doesn't trust the item but others seem to be fine with it, and now this girl seems to actually want it? "Is there something I should know about them? I just figured it could be dangerous...."

"Yes, please."

For a moment, it seems like that's all she's going to say about it, but then- "I just think they're pretty." Which is an entirely ridiculous reason, but considering her current outfit is an obnoxious Tommy Bahama floral skirt and a Hellfire Club t-shirt, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

"This place can be pretty dangerous. I'm pretty sure the leis are just a gift from Friday to cheer people up."

There's a moment where Shinsou narrows his eyes, looking back down at the lei in his hands before shrugging. Not like it was something he was gonna wear.

Holding it out to the girl he hands it over.

"Just be careful...if this place can be dangerous then you might not want to keep it around. Who knows what it could really be."

Chrissy shrugs, too, and pockets the lei for now. Her happiness wasn't dependent on whether or not he decides to hand over that ridiculous accessory. She'd only figured that he'd be more likely to give it away if he wasn't already inclined to keep it.

"It's only occasionally dangerous." It's not much of a revelation. In fact, she's pretty sure that most worlds are only occasionally dangerous. This one just happens to be particularly weird on top of being dangerous.

Weird and dangerous are two ways that he would luckily describe his own world so...it works.

"Right...uh...I'm Shinsou, Hitoshi Shinsou. Nice to meet you?" Awkward teen go-.

"Oh, right. Sorry!" The Chrissy that woke up on this ship back in October would never have just approached someone to ask a favor without first introducing herself. As it is, she feels slightly mortified. But it's too late to take it back now, so the only thing to do is power through.

"It's nice to meet you, Shinsou. I'm Chrissy Cunningham." A beat, and then- "Welcome to the cruise from hell. You'll either love it here, or you'll hate it."

"Nice to meet you too," He offers a small bow, more as a formality than anything before chuckling quietly.

"Yeah? Well from what I've seen so far I might be riding the line a bit." He shrugged a bit, relaxing more as he talked to the girl. "This place is definitely weird compared to home."

The bow is met with a curtsy- she's nothing if not polite.

"Most of the time it's not so bad. There's no way to leave voluntarily, though people come and go sometimes without any warning." There are days when she thinks the people who have disappeared from the ship might be the lucky ones, but ultimately, she's met too many people here to want to just vanish like that. She'd never want to do that to Vance.

"You're probably not the only one. Some of us are better off here than we were before."

"I don't know if I'd call this better than home but...I mean at least I'm not in the middle of a war I guess." Shinsou shrugs, reaching up to scratch his head a bit. "And the view is nice, don't get to go to the beach much."

He's got the idea that this place, while dangerous, seemed pretty harmless for now. So that means he'd just have to let himself enjoy a break. It almost made him wish some of the others were around.

"Thanks, I'd heard a bit from others but it feels like I'm dreaming right now."

"I'm sorry you were stuck in the middle of a war before." Listen, apologizing for things that are completely out of her control is a habit she's yet to fully break. Logically, she knows that saying the words won't likely make anything better, but she can't think of anythingelse to say, and saying nothing doesn't feel quite right.

"It feels like it's been forever since the last time I was at the beach. I guess the ship stopped at one before I woke up here." It's a little disappointing, sure, but there's always the chance of stopping at one in the future. Maybe. Hopefully.

"Yea, there's nothing quite like waking up on a cruise you never signed up for." She's speaking from experience, here. It was doubly odd for her, considering the last thing she remembered from home.

"I'm not...it was a war to save people from villains," Shinsou just shrugs, he's used to hearing people apologize in that sort of way. It's common in Japan after all. And he can tell she seems to mean well.

"Guess we just gotta make the best of it, huh?" Giving her a bit of a lopsided grin, even with the tired look of his features, Shinsou nods. He's a hero, he can't look worried or bothered by something. He has to have a smile, like the others. Like Midoriya.

"How long have you been here then?"

"Oh, well that still sounds like a lot to have to deal with." She has no reason to doubt what he's saying, though. It sounds a little out there, sure, but no more so than most of people she's spoken to about home. Any specific ideas she'd had about the way things were supposed to be have been blown out of the water during her time here.

"That's all we really can do," she tells him. It'd certainly be easy to dwell on the fact that there's no way off this ship, but she's chosen to try to see the silver lining, scant as it is sometimes.

"It's been about eight months. I woke up here just before Halloween."

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

Wakey wakey

CHRISSY!

<3

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