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

"The huh?" He frowns as he eats the rest of the egg, having no idea what this guy is talking about - he can't remember that far back and he wasn't having a great time after having been dead for 17 years. "I mean usually the Captain doesn't make us do anything, we end up doing it to ourselves. Human nature or whatever. Just set the path and we're all super predictable."

Licking his fingers he watches the floors light up on the elevator panel, "Well the catch is we're stuck here. The pro is we have free infinite food that doesn't rot, a place to sleep, a bunch of amenities, if you die you come back, all that stuff. Basically this shit is a pleasure cruise of the damned. It's what you make of it man."

"A pleasure cruise of the damned... tell me, do you know what it takes for someone to end up here?"

Everyone has their own story, he's sure. They're not all like he is, a debtor with a withered heart, but the same was true of his acquaintances back home, in the Constant. A child desperate for home, an automaton looking to leave behind a world that didn't understand them, a performer looking to impress in the ever-escalating world of circus pageantry...

"Totes random. There's this thing that pulls people out of the timeline. The aurora borealis or whatever." He crinkles his nose because he knows that's not right, but like hell can he remember what the thing is called. He's never seen it and Ava said it looked like stars so, that's the best he can do.

"So don't worry, it's not like you personally fucked up and got sent here or something. I was already dead so, it's not too discerning."

“Totes random,” he repeats, with a quizzical look.

“Pardon, I… think I may be misunderstanding. Are you saying we are here because bags have been randomized? I don’t know how that follows. Is there another meaning of ‘tote’ that I’m not party to?”

"Short for totally. You know, totally random. But knowing the Captain it might have to do with luggage, I don't fucking know."

The elevator dings and the doors open, "Oh man I wish Lucius was here to teach you how to text emoji's. You're not from a place without electricity right?"

"We have electricity where I came from, though admittedly it's not quite as abundant as it seems to be here. Oh, and I've already been instructed on how to use emojis, by Ms. Grace."

"Grace..." He tries to remember if he knows who that is, and comes up blank. "Dunno who that is but good cuz that's a prime part of life here. Necessary to your survival and everything."

"Quite. The unbreakable rectangle is certainly a much more efficient method of communication than the flares and smoke signals we used back home, too."

"Oh shit smoke signals? That is rad as fuck. Please tell me you also had people getting tied to train tracks and stagecoach robberies."

Pratt now is convinced this dapper fellow is from some old timey western. Please tell him everything.

He winces slightly at the mention of train tracks, but it's a brief enough reaction that it's probably not a big deal. Probably.

"Define 'robberies.' I've had to content with masked pigs attempting to mug me behind city hall, and sometimes Krampii show up in camp and raid our supplies, but I'm not sure where you got this rather specific notion of stagecoaches."

"Cops wear masks in your world? Fuck.. why don't I get a mask. Do they look cool?" Not that anything was stopping Pratt from dressing like a ninja instead of a police officer, but he would have gotten some disappointed sighs from the Sheriff.

"Krampii? Like.. is that Krampus but plural?"

His confusion visibly intensifies.

"What...? No, not police, robbers. Porcine robbers. They do look quite dashing, with their plumed, wide-brimmed hats, but I find my admiration is somewhat limited due to the fact that they are usually batting hard-earned coin from my pockets. And yes, Krampii is the plural of Krampus. Have you encountered them, then?"

Welp, he's not following that this guy means literal swine, so he's just going to move on because he's ninety percent sure he won't remember this conversation anyway.

"Not here, but I've seen some movies with 'em. Cryptid of choice where I live is Sasquatch, not that Krampus really counts as a cryptid he's more a ...general monster. It's a fine line you know?"

"There's an adolescent among the Survivors I make camp with in the world I come from who's rather enamored with the notion of cryptids. I wouldn't go so far as to call the Krampii and other impfolk that, no. They're beings from a land of trickery and sulfur who are drawn to significant acts of cruelty and naughtiness. To be quite honest, while I'm certain that Krampii aren't cryptids, I'm not sure what does qualify something as a cryptid."

"Trickery and sulfur huh? That's gotta smell like ass, we have sulfur springs sorta near my hometown and that place would be crammed full of 'em if they weren't kind of a ... Norwegian thing." Or maybe Danish. Or Swedish. He is not worldly enough to know the difference.

"I dunno man. Werewolves aren't cryptids. Mothman is. Zombies aren't cryptids but Nessie would be. I guess the difference is that people think that maybe cryptids could exist, but monsters don't? No clue. Especially now that there's a bunch of werewolves here on the ship. Or well.. there were. I dunno if any of them are still here. I haven't seen them in a while."

"I don't think they're drawn to sulfur specifically. Their home just carries the scent of it."

He raises an eyebrow.

"I would strongly disagree with that definition. Monsters exist, as do cryptids. And werewolves are absolutely cryptids."

"By that logic vampires are cryptids and they're totally not cryptids." He had no idea he had so many opinions about monsters and cryptids.

"And yeah they exist here, but not in my home world."

"I'm not sure how that follows. Vampires and werewolves are mechanically entirely different. Therianthropy is an inheritable trait, while vampirism is a contagious condition that may or may not even exist."

"Vampires deff exist bro. We have like.. four of them here, that's why there's the blood dispenser in the buffet. So they don't have to chomp us." He is oddly a vampire expert since Max's memory, if by expert he means has seen at least one vampire without pants.

"Thera-whatnow?"

"Therianthrope. A shape-changer, usually influenced by the moon or some other curse. A were-animal, in short. A werewolf and a wereCanadian are both therianthropes."

TEST DRIVE MEME #10

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