TEST DRIVE MEME #1

[sailmods]

1. now it's fun to wake up in a strange chateau

[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! We're so glad to have you!

[you touch the lei. rooster feathers, lotus seeds, and a carved circle of something white and hard, linked onto a silk string.]

2. messing with my mind was fun at the time

[freshly lei'd, your legs are forced to lead out onto the deck and towards your muster station. the same woman is there, carrying a clipboard. this time, she introduces herself as Gal Friday, the cruise director, before immediately going into the muster drill spiel. it is very boring, and you are not allowed to move, except when you are required to show you know how to put your life vest on. you could try to not do this, but Friday will move to stand in front of you very closely and just. look in your direction until such a time that you decide to do it. and I'm sure your fellow passengers want you to just get on with it, too.

but, once it ends? she reiterates her desire to welcome you aboard. and, then, you're free.

well, free to move about the ship at your own leisure, of course. which is a kind of free, and probably the best one you can hope for. you could try to escape, maybe, if you have the means to; Friday certainly won't be one to stop you. that's what the barrier is for, after all.

but, wouldn't you much rather have fun?

the buffet is full. the pool is open. the casino jingles and chimes.

welcome aboard.]

3. lots of mystery in the history of the devils I knew

[you were never alone.

a few days have passed since you first arrived on the Serena Eterna. perhaps you've made yourself a little routine, and settled in a bit. or maybe you haven't done that at all. either way, you're here, and it looks like somebody is pretty pissed off about it.

it starts small. sometimes nearby plates skid off tables, or a pool chair upends while you're walking next to it. and sometimes that chair is aimed right at your head. objects are moving with quickly increasing frequency, and a wide variety of styles: some are dropped, or pushed, and others and others are tossed, but a few of the items are thrown, with great force and odd accuracy. if Friday is around during the lighter moments, she simply titters and cleans up whatever mess is made. if a pot of soup sails off the buffet line and nearly drenches you in boiling minestrone, she simply walks away.

and then there's the voices. hundreds, maybe thousands, calling out. not all are intelligible English, but you seem to understand them anyway. some sound scared, or angry. some are screams, others whispers. some sound entirely strange, while others are achingly familiar. and they're all saying the same exact thing:

Get Out.]

Comments

[conjobs]

[Well he didn't just mysteriously come on board expecting much of anything so, so far things are going rather swimmingly in his mind. He certainly wasn't expecting Gal Friday but she's not terrible company either if he's honest. She's certainly rather dynamic and responsive. He's not seeing what's particularly disappointing about Will right now either, and that's not necessarily his non-existent optimism talking. Maybe his batshit crazy just isn't leaking out fast or hard enough just yet.]

We could just be adults needing adult supervision. [He would happily admit that, for as much as he is inclined to take the loner path, he could have benefitted from adult supervision a few times in his life. More than just a few, actually, come to think of it...]

Oof-- [Constantine was a little lost in his thoughts and not really prepared for getting so roughly manhandled. He doesn't mind the accosting - he likes a confident, assertive bloke same as anyone else - but there's usually a bit more foreplay, and his gaze distractedly flits from Will's lips to eyes to a spot on the ceiling and then back to Will's face again.]

'ppreciate the enthusiasm mate but the wall's cold and I didn't bring any lube...

[allmydesign]

[It was probably more aggressive than Will had intended, but so was the sudden aural intrusion that caused him to react without thinking so much as responding reflexively. Instead of pinning him Will placed both hands on the wall on either side of John and took a few steps back.

For the first time since their encounter, he leveled his eyes with John, not much of a height difference which made it less avoidable. He was searching John's expression for recognition, that it wasn't him, that he'd heard something as well.]

Sorry [His eyes flit away once again, still trying to process if what he heard was real or not.]

You didn't hear anything? [Aside from Will's own breathing trying to settle.]

[conjobs]

[John unfortunately, just has this small little smile and slightly raised eyebrows. He's used to being the only one who can hear or sense some of the more supernatural occurrences around him, so he doesn't find it quite so unnerving. Maybe he did at one point, many years ago, but he doesn't seem to know what Will is talking about, nor does he appear to be too bothered by it.]

Not... yet? [It seems silly to rule out the possibility that he might, at some point, hear something. But hopefully it won't be interrupting any whiskey or whatever else ends up transpiring later.]

What did you hear?

[allmydesign]

[So Will was the only one hearing things, typically not a great sign in his own past experience, but there was nothing he could do about it except bow his head slightly discomfited and step back a few paces now that he was certain there was no external threat.]

Voices, whispers, screams...just noise...could be passengers or maybe my head is still on my pillow. [Not a lie but he is redirecting, it's likely that he is tired given how riddled his dreams often were with imagery that would haunt most anyone's waking hours.

Part of Will's imagination is reconstruction, but it didn't cause him to hear things so it must have been something else.]

[conjobs]

Pretty sure you're awake. [Insofar as he's pretty sure he's real and not a figment of Will's imagination. Could be that they're all asleep somewhere, dreaming about being together, but usually John would have had to ingest a fair amount of mind-altering substances and cast a dodgy spell for that. And Will, well. He doesn't look like the spell type. He investigates real crimes with body totems and all.]

Well you know the good thing about whiskey - either you'll hear more and can't tell much of a difference, or you'll stop giving a toss. [Either way, he comes out on top. Which just means they'll be needing a bottle sooner rather than later.]