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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.]
no subject
She watches as Gwen manages to dodge the knife again and breathes out a small sigh of relief, even if the danger here is pretty minimal. "Alright. How do we want to do this? Count of three? Or...?" This is a first for her, so she's not entirely sure how to go about it. Something tells her that just trying to make a mad grab for the little guy isn't going to work.
no subject
"There's so many stories like that from home. Never a dull day in New York."
It's not just New York, some other places have their own heroes and villains, but New York is her home turf and frankly does seem to have a disproportionately high concentration of villains.
"Let's go with count of three. On three."
no subject
Granted, she'd never been out of Indiana before coming here. The plan had always been to leave after graduation, and then things went completely sideways.
Chrissy nods, glancing down at the crab again. "One..."
no subject
Gwen does what she can to keep Ody's attention on her, which, really, isn't much at all, and it's hard to tell if what she's doing is actually doing anything of substance or if Ody is just... being a crab.
Either way, the knife is aimed at Gwen and not Chrissy.
"Two..."
no subject
The knife's still aimed at Gwen, which was the entire point, and still she feels slightly guilty about it. Worrying too much about that isn't going to accomplish anything, though.
"Three!" she announces, before lunging forward to make a grab for the little guy.
no subject
In the end Ody is simply a crab, if a possibly evil crab with a knife strapped to his back, and he has very little defence against a surprise grab attack. Except to flail his unevenly sized pincers around, but even then he has a limited range of movement. His danger zone is still firmly in front of him.
"There we go! Next problem: getting the knife off him."
no subject
"That was easier than I thought it'd be!" Chrissy's not sure what she was expecting, really, but here we are. "Hmm... that one's tricky. We could just make a grab for it," she suggests, while carefully turning Ody in her hands.
no subject
"I feel like he's going to try and pinch me with that bigger, snippy claw of his. But that can't hurt that much, right?"
Or maybe her pain scale is inherently skewed, who's to say.
no subject
That's probably not the sort of thing Gwen is hoping to hear, though.
no subject
"Eh, I'm gonna risk it."
It actually takes a little effort to keep her reflexes within standard acceptable deviations for a standard human being, so in some ways it's actually a choice to let Ody get a couple of little nips in as she goes to pick at the tape holding the knife on him. It takes multiple tries to pry enough of a corner up to rip the tape up properly.
"There we go, c'mon— ow, you're so nippy, dude."
Yeah at this rate the knife is going to go clattering to the floor when she yanks the tape hard enough.
no subject
Maybe if she says it out loud, she'll start to believe it. Chrissy cringes as she waits. The crab manages to get a few nips in and there's nothing she can do about it, which is the most frustrating part of this.
"Are you okay?"
The danger is very minor here, and yet here she is, still kind of worried. Maybe one of them will manage to catch the knife. Or, at the very least, avoid it while it falls. Kicking it away might work?
no subject
"Oh, yeah, I'm— ow, c'mon, dude, your little crabby heart can't be this murderous."
Finally, she actually does yank the tape. The knife thankfully takes a second to actually detach from its sticky backing, which does let Gwen catch it before it can go sailing anywhere, without having to rely on faster reflexes she's avoiding showing off.
"—there!"