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

[decohere]

"A bit like how plants feed off the sun, or we breathe in the oxygen they produce in return. Every system has its energy cycle. Otherwise... you can't make something out of nothing."

[angelofthenight]

"Hmm." She dislikes that this reasoning is sound, mostly because it's being told to her by a human.

"And you have accepted this fate? You are content to be maintained as a fuel source to please our captor?"

[decohere]

"Well, it's complicated," Ava explains, getting a plate from the buffet and handing it out for Demona.

"It's a matter of survival at the present moment. So yes, I'll give up my fair share of emotional distress if that sustains existence. But I'm focused on finding a better solution where none of this is necessary. In the longterm," but she's stalled out on ideas at the moment. Doesn't know what the next step is meant to be.

She grabs her own plate, and goes straight for the seafood selection. "Because I don't think the Captain is particularly pleased with these circumstances either."

[angelofthenight]

Demona reluctantly takes the plate, turning it over a few times as if checking to see if it's been laced with poison. She doesn't smell any danger, so she starts to pile pieces of meat onto it. Only meat.

"Isn't the Captain the one responsible for creating these circumstances in the first place? If it displeases him why does he persist?"

[decohere]

"Because we have nowhere safe to go," Ava responds, piling her plate with crab legs. "We're not meant to exist."

[angelofthenight]

"Not meant to exist? What a thing to say. No one is meant to exist or not, we simply do."

[decohere]

"Typically, yes," Ava agrees. "But our being here is... a violation of reality. We were removed from our timelines, and we cannot go back. The only reason we haven't been wiped out yet is... they can't locate us within this barrier." But outside of it? She has no idea how quickly they'd be identified and eliminated.

[angelofthenight]

Most of what Ava just said sounds like utter nonsense. She isn't inclined to believe it. But one part has caught her attention. "They?"

[decohere]

"Oh. Reality auditors? A former passenger tried to contact them, but they thought she was crazy. She even traded her ship away to one. So," she shrugs. "Can't imagine that ending well for any of us."

[angelofthenight]

"She traded her ship away for nothing? What a fool." And now it's going to be all of their problem? How considerate, too.

"Even if what you say is true, I refuse to accept my imprisonment here. Why should I have to pay, once more, for the crimes of others?"

[decohere]

"Not nothing. Information of some sort." But Ava never quite figured out what that was, only hearing of it second hand through Helena. The location of the Captain's lost memory hidden away in the island temple where they discovered her? Something more? It's too late to ask about it now.

"You don't have to be happy about it. Most aren't. Plenty choose to stay back from the excursions because they have fundamental disagreements with the process. Nobody's forced to participate."

[angelofthenight]

"Information I presume she kept for herself." Which is exactly what Demona would do.

"I am being forced so long as I am stuck here away from my city and the goals I had there. Perhaps you are trying to discourage me from going on them because you fear I will succeed where you have failed."

[decohere]

"Not trying to discourage, the more the merrier," Ava isn't sure the quote necessarily applies here, but...

"It's more of a community effort than an individual competition, but whatever you need to motivate yourself."

[angelofthenight]

"Community?" One of her brow ridges raises skeptically. "Can this place really be called such?"

[decohere]

"What would you consider the qualifying factors?"

[angelofthenight]

"Community means people who care about each other, first of all. Why should a group of kidnapped strangers have any affection for one another? Is our mutual imprisonment supposed to be enough?"

[decohere]

"You don't have to care about anyone you don't want to," Ava assures. She sets her plate down, spreads out a few napkins for the mess she's about to make of the crab. She has an extra plate ready for the shells.

"I certainly don't care about most people here on any individual basis. Collectively, yes. But not as I would my friends. But I think the common theme is most of us came from worlds where we were outcasts or exploited. Where we were treated badly for being different. And now we're among people that understand that. It's nice not to feel alone anymore."

She cracks a crab leg with her bare hands.

[angelofthenight]

"Were you an outcast?"

Don't mind Demona tearing into a drumstick in the least civilized way possible. The two of them are a sight to behold.

[decohere]

"I lived out in the woods for a few years so the government that raised me as a weapon couldn't locate and arrest me for being a dangerous outlaw. For the crime of not wanting to be under their control anymore. So yeah, I guess so."

Getting butter everywhere so she can't judge...

[angelofthenight]

"You were raised as a weapon and yet they still lived to hunt you? Why did you not dispose of them?"

[decohere]

"Me against an entire intelligence agency? An entire government? I wanted to live my own life, not get caught up in some never ending fight I was going to lose."

She cracks a few more crab legs, offers some to Demona.

[angelofthenight]

"I am but one gargoyle and yet I will singlehandedly bring about the destruction of the human race. I suppose I shouldn't expect a human to have the same commitment."

After having said that, it feels strangely awkward to accept that offered crab leg. But, she takes it anyway.

[decohere]

"It's good to have goals," Ava nods along as if she didn't just threaten killing her along with the rest of humanity.

"Mine is having an apple orchard."

[angelofthenight]

She really cannot get a rise out of this woman. Frustration bubbles beneath Demona's leathery skin.

"Only an orchard?"

[decohere]

"And maybe a few kids," she adds.

"But there's... infinite universes out there, full of humanities to annihilate. So you'll be busy for awhile."