TEST DRIVE MEME #10

[sailmods]

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.]

Comments

[theotherright]

Well, okay, cool, Arthur's just going to nod and move to the left instead of speaking, because the emotional constriction of his throat makes it feel like he's trying to inhale a bowling ball. He slows as his cane skips off the edge of the first step, moves his fingers at about waist height until they find the rail, and then, gripping it, exhales the last of the air from the bottom of his lungs.

He feels pathetic. As if Parker found a stray cat and nursed it back to health, only to turn around and find it even more mangy and flea-bitten than before, even more of a mind to claw and bite. But Parker is still holding out his hand to it.

"I think you just love feeling like Sisyphus." And the cat can still give him shit for it.

[bedrockfriend]

And that gets a laugh out of Parker, genuine even if it's oddly husky and brief because he has to rub his throat again.

"You wanna talk to me about stubborn idiots being cursed on account of their hubris? Really, Art?"

His pace falls out of step with Arthur's on the stairs, only because he doesn't need to limp along the railing as he walks, but it stays firmly beside him, stair by stair.

"We both know you're a fucking heel, alright, you can stop trying to sell me on that. But you're-- man, you fuckin' killed me and I still wanna call you my best friend, so what kinda fancy Greek idiot does that really make me?" Then a grin that's practically audible as he adds, "Who's got the biggest brass on 'em?"

[theotherright]

Hearing Parker laugh again is elating, and at the same time, the particular sound of it plants the seed of a horrible suspicion. The dead wouldn't be brought here with the injuries that killed them-- surely?

Surely?

"All right, all right," he huffs at that first line, a pantomime of offense that wouldn't convince anyone and isn't meant to. It's as if the months, nearly a year, between now and the last time he and Parker talked, are vanishing: collapsing in on themselves like something that never was and never should have been. If this turned out to be the ship's dreamland again, it would be a struggle to want to go.

"Dionysus, but he would never cut a man off at the bar." You wanted a real answer from a nerd about this right? Because you're getting a real answer from a nerd. "If I say Zeus then I fear the Erda will hear me and, and decide you need to be turned into a swan."

[bedrockfriend]

"Hey, you're the one that told me swans can break a guy's arm," he points out. "If I got turned into one we wouldn't even need to change the name on the door. I'll just bust into some place, bird on the wing, break a few arms and then you saunter in like you think you're the boss a' me, same as old times."

It was... it was good, hearing Arthur relax, or at least start to. Get him back to normal levels before they started on the difficult shit, make sure he didn't get any other drinks in him until Parker got a fuller picture.

"Could even be your seeing eye ugly duckling," he adds brightly. "One honk for yes, two for no and I'll tug on your coattails to steer you."