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

[bedrockfriend]

He moves closer to John with even, quiet steps, until he's directly beside John and pauses, and there's a moment where it looks like he might, might keep walking.

And then he plants a foot on John's chest, heel jammed directly into his diaphragm, and leans his weight to push John back against the ground. Which is followed by him continuing to press his weight as he kneels down, other knee on the floor so he can rest his elbow - with the gun still in hand, still in a white-knuckled grip but slack at the wrist - on the leg pressing into John's ribs.

"Yeah? You got any reasons why he wouldn't thank me?" His voice is still calm, but there's a smile on his face now that absolutely does not meet his eyes. "You killed me. I kinda think I owe you one for that."

[iwearnomask]

While he's enjoyed the autonomy having his own body has given him, John clearly hasn't developed much of a pain tolerance yet. His harsh breathing spikes into a hoarse shout of pain when that foot comes down, and he's hissing on his breath as Parker leans his weight down.

"You do." John agrees anyway, about killing him. "But Arthur's going to feel - I don't know, guilty, conflicted, and no, I don't know why. Either about the killing or how he feels about it."

Well, actually, he could make some guesses, but he doesn't nearly have the time to unpack all those for Parker and he's definitely not going to speak for Arthur on that front.

What may or may not help his argument, however, is brief roll of his eyes and the conversational frustration in his voice, like he's been confused or irritated by Arthur's motivations before. Many times before.

[bedrockfriend]

Oh the eye roll and the blithe tone are incredibly unhelpful, and Parker's succinct response is to flip his gun in his grip and crack the butt against John's temple.

"Well, I've got three days to think of a decent fucking line, don't I?" He shifts so he's straddling John's chest, and the gun gets abandoned on the floor so he can put both hands, with their short, thick fingers so unlike Arthur's pianist hands, around John's throat.

[iwearnomask]

Another curse, cut off with his oxygen. John tries not to fight, but it turns out one of the things this body came with was instincts, and instincts were really keen on the breathing thing.

John chokes. His hands grab at Parker's wrists automatically and he writhes, but the pain in his knee and his head and the loss of air put a pretty short timer on his resistance. John's face twists from the pain, a useless expression with the mask in the way and his face mostly invisible.

Fuck, Arthur's going to find out about this anyway. It's too god damn bad that John won't have the same amount of time for his own decent fucking line.

[bedrockfriend]

There's a part of Parker that's glad the fucking freak fights back. He doesn't know what he'd do if the guy just took it, but this way... well, at least they can both say that John tried. That John fucking deserved it.

If this was just about himself, he'd probably have just shot him and been done with it. Maybe made it take a few bullets, but short and simple.

But this guy hurt Arthur.

Took everything the poor bastard had left, and Parker knows better than anyone how little that truly was. And right now Parker wants him to feel it.

He pushes as much weight down as he can - and he's not a tall guy, not much more than Arthur, but there's force there - and ignores the horrible little sounds eking out of John's throat. Crushes his windpipe in a white-knuckled grip he didn't know he had in him until right now.