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

[seethesun]

"It was demanded of me too!" Eleanor realizes she's yelling just a bit too late, and draws her knees to her chest so she can bury her face in them. "...What did I do," she whispers. "To send you after me instead of telling me herself?"

[treadwater]

“Oh.”

And that’s when Undine sits on the floor beside Eleanor, and lifts an arm in invitation. Because she knows exactly, exactly what Eleanor is feeling deep in her bones.

Didn’t she feel similarly about Darcy, and how he always rushed off to death?

[seethesun]

Eleanor flinches away, at first, but she can't really help herself. She scoots closer, under Undine's arm. "There's no point," she whispers. "I've...I've already seen it happen. They burn the children up for fuel to save themselves and then there's nothing left to save. You c-can't, it's, you - god damn it!"

[treadwater]

“Shittiest club in the multiverse and we’re all members. And that means we each have to figure out how to live with what our worlds made us. And Ruby went on the expedition and she is choosing to die. But she’ll come back. She will come back again, always. Ruby doesn’t know how to give up.”

Undine rocks as she talks, gentle and soft and knowing.

[seethesun]

"She'd better," Eleanor whispers, angry, sad. "I - she'd better."

"...I still don't even understand why you had to come do this..."

[treadwater]

“Shovel talks aren’t a thing where you’re from? It’s…a check-in. The threats are exaggerated, but it’s an expression of caring. ‘You love someone I love. Please love them like they need to be loved.’ But also, you’re someone I’m going to care about, now, too.”

[seethesun]

"...I wouldn't know. And I'm not sure you want to. It's...awful."

Unspoken: I'm awful.

[treadwater]

“That isn’t something that you can ever possibly be objective enough to decide.” Fight her.

[seethesun]

"...Fine. If you want the sordid tale, then fine, but I don't want to hear words later that I was trying to win sympathy." Eleanor takes in a shaky breath. "...Mother attempted to raise me cut off from the outside world. She locked me into the house, forbade all contact with human beings outside of her circle. When she went to prison, just as she planned, my uncle sold me to become a Little Sister, a, a freak, feasting on the dead so the living could die another day. And when Mother took me back, killed Father in front of me to steal me from him, does she fold me into her arms? Does she comfort me? No. My body must be sacrificed to the greater good, my will, my selfhood, completely annihilated to create her Utopian slave that will serve only others. Fuel for the pyre as she sacrificed her own followers without a care to ensure that I stayed imprisoned and subjected to her dark science."

[treadwater]

Undine listens quietly. And then has only one question to ask, in a distant, emotionless voice.

"Is your Mother here, on the ship, now?"

[seethesun]

"No, praise fucking be," Eleanor whispers. "...Father is not here either, though it seems he was here at some point in the past. The only person here from my world other than me is a legend I never knew before arriving...and still do not truly know now."