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

[A small shrug of the shoulder.] I'unno. I've always done it. I just need food to make it work.

Anyway, this place is weird but you can kind of get used to its cycles. I don't think it necessarily runs on what we believe about it. Just, you're gonna get a lot of different answers on it if you go asking around so try not to take anything too seriously, okay? [He thumbs over his shoulder toward the hall that leads down to Windjammer.] You hungry? I think today we're working on hamburgers.

[octavia arches her brow as she processes the first part of his words because it was something so impossible in the context of things back home. she knows what she had just witnessed just as much as appearance but she decides to switch her focus as he offers an explanation for the rest of whatever this is] Cycles of what? Why would that get me different answers? You're not making any sense.

[she does hear the mention of food and while she is admittedly a bit hungry, she doesn't quiet trust how real that offer actually is though so she doesn't acknowledge that just yet]

Edited 2023-06-12 08:01 (UTC)

[Unfortunately, there's not a lot that he says that makes sense to much of anything. It's how he's been operating for months.

Wayne stands with one hand in his pocket, rubbing his thumb across his forefinger as he debates on how to explain. She'd only just gotten here after all, how much does she really need dumped on her immediately?]

Starting from the basic stuff, sometimes bad things happen here. It seems like it mostly happens when when people get idle in their day-to-days. Reality breaks a little bit to squeeze angst out of you. Don't worry too much though, it's not gonna kill you for more than a couple days. Food's basically free, and people are pretty nice when you get past how much everyone has been through. [A moment to glance her over.] You'll probably fit in pretty well actually. But uh, be careful who you swing that at. Not everyone's gonna take it as easy as me.

[octavia listens as he tries to elaborate but it made less sense to her and honestly bad things happening? just another day that ends with a y. the part that stands out to her though is when he mentions free food] The food here is free?

[Yeah...it's a lot, and it's weird, and he doesn't blame her for focusing on the one material thing that they all clung to at first.]

Yep, and the buffet's always stocked. If you want packaged stuff you gotta buy that but you don't actually need money for it. It's weird. It's a whole process of like...pretending you're buying it.

Seriously? [from what she is used to back home, it sounds too good to be true and it has left her a bit wary hearing it is always stocked] So what— with however many people are here, you're telling there are no food shortage?

We don't have as much of a selection these days but nah, nobody's starving. [He nods down the walkway toward where an elevator would take them down, turning to head that way and trusting that she would follow if only so that she could see for herself.] There's restaurants that have stuff but no staff, a place with infinite cheese, the fish place, and a couple of different bars. One of 'em serves the best plate of fries. Mostly it's whatever you feel like and nothing goes bad so you can have your pick whenever.

I'm not sure what half of that is— [the food in particular isn't anything she would have had the chance to really try before either] That doesn't sound real that it never goes bad and just keeps up whatever limited selection there is.

[she does follow along as he leads the way] I'm guessing we're heading over there now?

[ ooc; sorry for the delay! if you want to keep this game canon, i am happy to continue and move this over to my open in my next tag otherwise feel free to ignore if this tag is way too late /o\ ]

C'mon, I'll show you where the good stuff is. [No sense in rattling off more stuff if she doesn't know those, he'd just have to show her the stuff at the buffet and let her make her own decisions about the amount of food she wants to sample.] It's kinda complicated but boils down to germs not existing here. You'll have to ask others about that one, though.

[Perhaps we can wrap it here and if I see you around (or vice versa) we can pick up a new thread entirely?]

Yeah, alright— lead the way then. [the more questions she asked and got answers to, the less it made sense but she figures she is about to see for herself soon enough]

[ooc; yes that sounds good to me!]

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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