A NEW WORLD COMING ( 024 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

A New World Coming

Hello, and welcome to LifeAftr! We're pleased that you're expressing an interest in the game. Here, you can test the waters, gauge how your character may fare in the world of LifeAftr, and even gain some in-game incentives, if you so choose.

In conjunction with our monthly Test Drive Meme, Reserves are now open! Applications will open on June 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAftr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which is always watching. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not panic. Do not

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but are the game. You cannot choose who you are in this world. You cannot change fate. You cannot change fate. You cannot change fate.

In the meantime, feel free to refer to our usual rules regarding the TDM. All prompts are miniature versions of events that have transpired in the past. You may visit any of the links provided if you're interested in additional information.

And It's Just Around The Bend
The whole world is ending.

Beneath you, the first rays of a new sun slink across the ice-coated ground, sending whirls of steam curling up into the air. Everything will eventually be reborn to the way it was, much like the sun itself. At the very edges of the island, shadowy creatures that appear to have crept out of the darkest recesses of your mind mill about on the ocean shores, eager to avoid the burning eyes of the sun.

Of course, that's all happening a very, very long way down. Miles below you, in fact. The ground below is still cast in perpetual dark, while the sky itself is sunlit and dazzling.

As fingers of new light creep out across the horizon and ignite the air with a soft, daylit warmth, you find yourself sky high on one of many floating islands that shift and change within your presence. The landscape of these islands is extremely malleable, and not just in a general sense. Each island you make contact with will begin to "mold" itself to you, attempting to reformat its landscape to appear as a place that you desire to see again. Somewhere important. Somewhere comforting. A memory. While it cannot recreate people or exact circumstances, it can imitate landscapes and buildings, or make the nearest attempt to do so. "Attempt" being the operative word. With the rapid change of these islands comes one key weakness - their instability. If you stay too long in one place, the island will start to blacken and twist. No matter how hard it strained to recreate your memories before, those familiar places will start to curdle over, crumbling like sand beneath the weight of your desires...and the weight of you. Chunks of the land fall away, blistered black and simmering like fistfuls of embers, burned through with a dark volcanic corruption. The more people standing on one piece of land, the faster this change will occur, leaving you with very little time to enjoy the sights as you race ahead to the nearest mana pool, your only access to the ground below.

In short, you'd better run. Run, while there is still ground beneath your feet.

The world is ending around you - and if you're not fast enough, you'll end alongside it, namely by plunging a long, long way down earth. If the fall doesn't kill you, the hungry, burning eyes of the dark shadows lumped below very well may.

There's A New Voice Calling
The Trial of Orpheus is a very particular practice performed by one group of LifeAftr's inhabitants, residing on the draconian civilization settled on the island of Ai'tuoh. Enacted only upon those who break one of Ai'tuoh's many laws, it requires those convicted to pass into the Standing Water - a slumbering city of lost souls.

A city you've just arrived in.

The first thing you’ll likely feel is the crushing, biting, bone-deep chill, paired with the sensation of falling down some great, fathomless abyss. No jolt or sudden impact awaits you, however. Instead, your fall will slow, even out, as though your personal gravity is reorienting itself, and you’ll find yourself blinking awake in...Ai'tuoh.

Or rather, in a very strange version of it - what can only be described as a dark, colorless mirror of the city of Ai'tuoh. The buildings loom darkly overhead, their edges strangely irresolving, as though being peered at through ripples of water. If there is a way out, you don't know it. The means and direction are lost to you. But leave you must, for the longer you remain, the more tired you become. Thoughts begin to drift as you become lost to the ebbing waves of time; the longer you remain untethered, the more likely you are to succumb to an endless repose.

Your only hope is the connections you make with others. Be it emotional or physical, positive or negative, this journey requires you to remain part of a pair, talking, hand-holding, even carrying each other through the city as you seek out the means to escape. The pervading sense of exhaustion that grips your bones almost seems core to the city itself, and the longer you remain, the more that lethargy will sink into you. There will be nothing more tempting than simply lying down and closing your eyes...but you have to keep moving. Do you understand? You have to keep moving, because if you don't, there really won't be any saving you.

The most definitive way out is a bright strand of color that winds through the abyss, vibrant red and almost threadlike, gradually ascending upward into a glimmer of light. Find someone to connect to, hold onto that guiding thread tightly, and whatever you do, do not let go.

Or you risk sinking into that endless slumber, possibly for good.

You Can Hear It If You Try
Of course, if you'd prefer to relax within your dreams, the white-picketed community of Ziziphus may be precisely what you're looking for. An idyllic town located on a fairly remote island of LifeAftr, Ziziphus comes with all your modern amenities - electricity, cars, showers. Here, you can spend your evenings watching the television, tucking in your kids or playing drinking games with your roommates. And in the morning, it's time to meet the day, whether work, study, or housework awaits you. Why, it's the perfect picture of textbook suburbia, from the neat squares of well-manicured lawns to the incontrovertibly cheerful sound of the newspaper thwacking against the doorstep each morning.

Sorry - you've never had this job before? You don't have kids, or even want them? Of course you have, silly - you've been here for the last five years. You've gone to the same school since you became old enough to study. In fact...you've been living here your whole life.

Is that wrong? Of course it isn't. There's nothing wrong here. There's nothing wrong here. There's nothing wrong here.

Right? Ziziphus is no peaceful neighborhood, of course, but rather an island that traps its visitors in a dream that seeks to provide a constant state of euphoria. Hence, your tragic past is no more. You are no warrior, no hero. It's time for you to take up the role that suits the most ideal fantasy you have of a fulfilling life. A successful businessperson, a busy student, a completely normal individual in a completely normal life. There's nothing wrong here.

If you think too hard about this eerily cheerful life, about how you technically shouldn't even know what "electricity" is, or about any of the inconsistencies that run counter to the life you thought you had...well, don't think too hard about it. Don't think about the creeping scent of rot that swarms up into your nostrils should those awful thoughts ever cross your mind. Don't start asking questions, posing innocent queries to the perfect smiles perpetually stamped across the faces of your friends and neighbors and children who carry out their daily routines with all the soulless efficiency of wind-up toys. Don't start thinking about how, if you dwell too much on the uncanny nature of this neighborhood, it starts to feel like you can't...quite...breathe...

Oh, god. You have to get out of here. You - you have to not think about it. You have to not think about it, so don't. So don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.

Everything, and everyone, is precisely as they should be.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

van grants | tales of the abyss

[vacivity]

the arrow was shot

[ All things considered, it isn't unlike what he'd left behind.

There are a few notable differences; this place is more incomplete, even more so than Eldrant. The sheer size of it hardly stacks up to the land he'd had a direct hand in creating--little wonder, he thinks to himself, because there are pieces of other places. Had he been more sentimental, perhaps there'd be vestiges of Daath, of Baticul, of Yulia City and its little room of selenia flowers. Then again, those places had been little more than a means to an end.

But nothing--not even this pale imitation of a home he'd had, a long time ago--holds a candle to Hod. It's actually very remarkable, if a pathetic ghost of what once was. Impressive in its own way, but right now, all he really desires is to go back to Eldrant. See everything through.

He cannot do that here. ]

A shame this is wasted on someone who can't appreciate it fully.

[ Guy, perhaps. Tear, most definitely, even if she never saw Hod. But not him. ]

miserable spectacle

[ A shot of color in the dark catches his attention. It would catch anyone's attention, he thinks; it's vibrant, like a beacon cutting through darkness. It cuts through even his exhaustion, bone deep and, he realizes, much more familiar than he'd like to admit to anyone. He's actually a little angry--a little--because he's spent so long ignoring the hell out of his body's needs that, now that he's here, somehow he can't ignore it.

He hates it. But he keeps that tamped down until he finds...

You?

Van's eyes stop on whoever he's led to. ]

I daresay you've seen the same thread I have...?

[ He says it pleasantly, because Van is nothing if not convincing in his facade. ]

a place in the sun

[ It's, really, the ideal he'd always hoped for. Perhaps the setting is wrong; there are no fields of flowers here, no white marble, no clearing where he and a friend long gone would play knight and lord. There's a girl here--her face seems blurred around the edges--and a man with blond hair and unfailingly kind eyes, but it seems--

It seems wrong. And Van cannot shake the feeling that something is looming, something he never knew he'd dreaded. He asks the girl and the man, but the only thing he gets is a scent of rot. It disappears, once he drops the subject. Until he can't. It's... it's--

Unbearable. Suffocating. And Van does not like it, even for a second. He feels like he's choking, and more than anything, he wants to cut the heart out of the problem. Whatever that problem is. And maybe he runs across someone who's been asking the wrong questions, too, who feels as if everything is unsteady, shifted off to the side by just a fraction. For a moment, his eyes are hard, steely, before they soften to something that's a touch more human. ]

Have you felt it, as well?

Koko Himaa (OC) | Final Fantasy XIV

[intheirsteppes]

One foot...in front of the other... over and over again...
CW: Mentions of death and loss
[Koko was doomed from the start. Not only does she pray to the Dawn Father and the Dusk Mother, but she is one of the Chosen Many. Tainted of a Light so pervasive that she is marked by it. Is learned, dresses in black armor, her horns are pierced, and that sword holstered on her back is nearly as tall and blade as wide as she is. In short, she breaks about roughly twelve laws just by existing! ...and yes, the irony has not been lost upon her.

At least, it wouldn't be if she were aware and not simply waking up in Standing Water. She shudders involuntarily, trying to find some semblance of warmth. Violet eyes that glow faintly in the darkness due to her limbal rings blink at the.... familiarity of it all, despite herself. This almost feels like the Abyss the first few times she'd communed with it. The times she stared into the vast void from which her power sprung from before she set aside the rod for the sword. Yet the rippling of what's around her gives away the truth.]

...Never much cared for the ocean, myself. Or any large body of water for that matter. [The young warrior remarks with a sigh, looking about her. Trying to find a way to orient herself. The whispers in the back of her head like the flickering of a flame that calls her onward to the tiny speck of color in an otherwise colorless world. Just one more time. Put one foot in front of the other. But it's so far. It would be so easy not to. To linger until... she doesn't know.

Wasn't your answer to me then that you would keep moving on with this charade? Koko lowers her chin slightly as her brows knit together. The Voice is so quiet, she can barely... She closes her eyes. Listens to her own voice. Then move. She grits her teeth against the barely audible whisper within her own soul and turns to the person next to her. Her tone has a slight edge to it; a hint of something dark wishing to come out from the wings.]

I know not about you, but I'm not staying here. [Dream or not, she has a son to return to. Friends and a makeshift tribe to protect. New places to see that so many she has both witnessed dying and killed herself will not. Koko begins to move forward through the streets, humming some sort of lullaby in a different language. If nothing else than to soothe her nerves and keep herself awake if her unexpected company is not as talkative. Which is something, because she often is not.]

To the ends of the world...and back again...
[There are so many close to her chest. So many places she's been to, has seen and touched in some small way. What surprises her about this place, however, is what it changes to.

Xaela live with the heat of battle in their veins. Some more than most, and yet... to see the deserts of Thanalan again. To nearly feel the hot winds on her face and hear the rush against her horns as she turns to look into the cavern where she spent so many moons studying the secrets of black magic with three other beastmen brought together for this singular purpose...

How her heart aches to see them again. To sit in that cave again and pour over a tome and try to decipher it's once-thought-lost knowledge. She even takes a step closer toward the entrance when she feels the sand shift in an unnatural way beneath her feet. Her eyes widen as she jumps out of the way. Just in time, as the land gives.]

Fury's tits-! [It comes out without her even thinking about it and she'll kick herself about it when there's a small child around to hear.] Why am I not surprised?

[She looks around to see if there anyone nearby and inquires.] How in the seven hells do we get out of here?!

2

[littlemhigan]

[Theres a special sort of sound that feet make when they pound confidently across sand; a dull thud that betrays no shift of weight or weakness of footing. Its an effortless sound, but one that takes years of inurement to the desert to manage.

It heralds her coming from a ways off, if Koko can hear those footfalls over her own, but if she doesn't then surely she'll notice the gentle rapping of a fist against the armour of her left shoulder - a firm, stacatto pressure - right before Castor enters her periphery.]

Oh good, [she sighs as she faces Koko properly,] I'd hoped ye weren't my dreams playin' tricks on me again.

[intheirsteppes]

[If she weren't used to listening for footsteps and hiding as a youngling, she may not have noticed. Yet she has, and she just barely makes out the sound over her own and pauses briefly. It's a familiar kind of footfall and she turns her head just in time for the boop. A derisive snort escapes.]

Were that the case, then one would start wondering why you were thinking of me so. [A short laugh follows. Just another day in the life, t'would seem.] As if you would not dream up another of our friends, aye?

[It's a clear tease. She's allowed one after all the blasted adventures a certain SOMEONE kept pulling her along on. She spares a faint grin as she lightly bops her comrade's shoulder.] 'Tis good to see a familiar face.

gladion | pokemon sun/moon

[nullsweat]

just around the bend;
[Well this is...strange. Unexpected. Gladion looks out over the shifting landscape and feels a sense of unease. The land is shifting, changing into white walls and white floors, trying it’s best to mimic Aether Paradise.

He doesn’t like it. He remembers Aether Paradise so strongly - even after leaving it two years ago, he knows its secrets - but seeing something trying to mimic that… It unsettles him.

He keeps moving, though, not seeing the blackness that creeps up behind him as the world crumbles. There’s nothing to be gained from standing still.

Even so, seeing something that reminds him of the home he no longer has...the one he just might end up going back to now that Lusamine...He doesn’t like it. Not at all.]

voice calling;
[The island is dark and oppressive and Gladion is tired. He’s exhausted down to his bones and he just...He just wants to stop. But he can’t stop. Stopping means giving in. It’s not going to help him, or his team, but he’s just…

He’s so tired.

The world is dark and dreary and quiet, and what harm would it be if he just...took a break on the side of a road, running a hand through his hair and just...taking one moment to breathe.]

if you try;
[It’s a quiet morning in the house - but every morning is a quiet morning. Every morning is peaceful and calm. This morning his mother is making pancakes and sausage, and he can smell the food cooking even from his room.

He heads downstairs, Silvally in tow, and smiles sweetly at Lusamine as she plates the food for her children. Four plates for four people. Her, Gladion, Lillie, and their father. He’s there, of course, just busy in the morning working on a project, but he’ll be there to join them all for breakfast. He always manages to make time for them.

Except it’s strange, isn’t it? Lusamine cooking because she has the time to before heading off to work. Isn’t it strange how the home isn’t the sterile white walls of a lab, but something cozy and inviting? Isn’t it strange how Silvally is there…?

Gladion smells rot and it makes him feel sick, but as he stands in the kitchen staring at something that’s never happened, he doesn’t know what to do.]

What’s going on here…? Stop that.

[The recreation of Lusamine laughs, softly, chiding her son and telling him it’s time for breakfast.]

voice calling

[flower_of_innocence]

[Lillie was spared the fate of this island, having arrived later in the archipelago's story. In Mu, she is not so lucky. She is alone, and tired, and her legs have never felt heavier in her entire life. But she has to keep going, because Guzma taught her how to do that, and she can't let him down.

No, she can't let herself down.

She holds that in her mind - a mantra that she hopes will carry her to the red ribbon of energy in the far distance, which has to be the way out. Focus. One step at a time. Keep breathing. But all that calm instruction falls apart when she sees someone important to her on the side of the road. Someone she really wasn't sure she'd ever see again.

Lillie has so many things to say that instead of saying anything at all, she lets out a strangled cry of hope, desperation, confusion, and anger.]

[nullsweat]

[The voice, for as much as it says no words, is familiar at least. Gladion lifts his head, even though it feels like it takes monumental effort, and looks over at Lillie.

What is she doing here? She's not supposed to be here. He's...not supposed to be here either, he thinks, but he has no idea what this strange city is.]

What?

[You can't just yell at people and expect them to understand. He moves to push himself up, but his energy has been so drained he doesn't even manage to stand.]

ii. Voice Calling

[yallstupid]

[Guzma knows this place. It's that terrible world where those weirdos live, snuffing out all thought, all emotion, all creativity and words like some sort of psychotic cult. He remembers it all, this doomed world under the water where those who break the rules are doomed to an endless sleep. It's disgusting... So many of them are kids that line the streets, curled up and still as statues. Guzma's stomach lurches forward at the sight of them all, but it's the growing fury flickering brighter and brighter that wards off the worst of the pressing weariness.

He's not going to join them. Not now, not ever, and so he marches onward, rounding a corner in this dilapidated dystopia until he nearly falls over himself catching a hand on the side o a ruined wall when he spots an all too familiar youngster.]

You've gotta be kidding me...! [Hurrying forward to where Gladion rests, GUzma grabs a fistful of his jacket and gives the young man a hearty shake.] Up n' at 'em, brat - I slapped y'all 'round once b'fore, I ain't so nice to stop there. C'mon, get on your feet, I ain't carrying you!

[Only he will, if Gladion doesn't heed his call. Lillie would have Guzma's backside if he left her brother in a place like this.]

[nullsweat]

[Is Gladion in hell. Is that what's happening? Is he in jail for his crimes?

He doesn't know why Guzma of all people is here, and he tenses up as Guzma shakes him. He grits his teeth together, but he pulls himself up to his feet. It's a struggle, though. Every inch of him feels so heavy, so weighed down with exhaustion.]

I don't need to be carried.

[He brings a hand to his face, grimacing. He takes a step back from Guzma, though it's more of a stumble with how uncoordinated and heavy his limbs are, and he huffs.]

What are you even doing here?

crowley 🐍 good omens

[demonicmiracle]

a ; just around the bend

[For someone who can fly, Crowley can't say that he's much a fan of heights. It doesn't help that when he peaks over the edge of the island, everything beneath him is completely dark. There's a familiarity in it that makes his blood run cold, but he's not the type to let that slow him down. Although it does mean he sticks to the island, for now, rather than testing to see if he could fly lower.

As he walks, the ground turns from dirt to concrete and sidewalk, until Crowley is walking the familiar streets of Soho, the appearance of a bookshop stopping him in his tracks.

It's not the bookshop, obviously, because that's all the way back in London, but it's a reasonable enough facsimile that he's caught by the urge to peer inside. So he does. In a way, that helps reorient him, because all the little mistakes are more clear on the inside. A lot of the books are missing titles, the register isn't half as dusty as it should be. And somewhere below him, the ground starts to shudder.

The absolute last thing he needs is this stupid shop crumbling down around him again, so out he goes into the fresh air, something that doesn't solve the problem of the island collapsing. Right. That's enough of that. He was curious at first, but now he's firmly in the camp that this place is shitty, and he's going to go home. All he has to do is concentrate. Physics is, in his opinion, for suckers.

Except nothing happens. No magic. No miracles. To test it, he snaps his fingers to make a glass appear in his hand. That works, but he can't seem to miracle himself to wherever he wants to be. Not a great start to the day, actually. Time to do this the old-fashioned way.

Crowley gets moving again, a little more hurriedly than earlier, although he still makes a pretense at being completely unperturbed by the occasional shake of the ground. The second he spots someone, he's all business.]

Oi, you! [He's not very polite, this tall man dressed like an aging (but still stylish, in his opinion) rockstar, down to the sunglasses on his face.] If you've got any idea what the Heaven is going on, now's the time to spill it.

[He'd like answers, please and thank you. Just without the please and thank you.]

b ; a new voice calling

[It takes every ounce of self-control not to scream on his way down. While this certainly isn't Falling (it isn't fast enough, and it's far too cold), the sensation is close enough that it rattles him to his core. Crowley twists in the air, trying to right himself, pulling his wings from where they're hidden in an attempt to slow his descent, but nothing works.

He's bracing himself for impact, telling himself very firmly that he's survived worse than this, he'll just have to get right back up once it's over and move on, when he slows. As gravity reasserts itself on him, Crowley looks a little like a cat in zero-g, using his wings to orient himself before he touches down.]

Right.

[He says, to no one in particular, straightening up his jacket, putting his wings away and pulling a new pair of sunglasses from out of a pocket, the old ones having been lost in the fall. He slips them back on, hiding his eyes.

And starts walking.

He's not going to let this stupid place get the better of him, not if he has anything to say about it.]

c ; you can hear it if you try

[Everything is fine.

Everything is not fine.

This world, this life, it itches at the edges, like a suit lined with hessian, like a too-tight collar around his throat. The houses are all pretty little cottages, the street is lined with stone walls and all the neighbors smile at each other as they go about their business. It's not quite suburbia, and it definitely isn't American suburbia, but this is what Crowley's brain dragged up when the vines pushed perfect and normal at a demon who really has no touchstone for either of those concepts.

Except something is wrong, he feels it even as he goes through his routine (he's a businessman of some kind, though he can't put his finger on what, exactly, he does. Just that he's very good at it. His bosses love him), there's a piece missing from this version of his life.

At some point, he finds himself standing in front of a church.

It twists something in him that he can't name, a memory or a feeling or - something, equal parts unpleasant while also drawing him in.]

Come on, just go in. It's a church, nothing wrong with a church, what's the worst that could happen? There's not even anyone in there, I can just waltz on in. There's no rules against that. Nothing says I can't just go into a church.

[He's trying to psych himself up, against the strange sense of dread that washed over him when he got too close.]

c ; 👀

[bibliophilicbells]

[Everything is fine, though.

Everything is lovely.

Aziraphale hears a voice not far from the beautifully-topiaried churchyard where he's tending to the roses and stops, fingers hovering just above the white, velvet-soft petals of his favorite bush. There's something familiar about it, something vaguely disorienting. It's not what's said that's strange to him, but how the words sound — their cadence, the accent.

He peeks out from around a corner, spotting Crowley.

Hm.]

Good morning! [He chimes, voice ringing like a perfect little bell. He's dressed somewhat down this morning, clerical shirt sans collar and dark jeans; mass isn't for another hour, and the roses needed a trim — no point in getting all dressed up with nowhere to go, no one to orate poetically at.

He's all smiles, bright as the sunshine.]

It's open to the public, you know. All hours.

w h y

[demonicmiracle]

[Oh, thinks Crowley, there you are.

That's an odd thought to have, he realizes in the next moment, and dismisses it with a sharp little shake of his head.]

I— well— [A bit of a strangled sound, there, his mouth doing it's best to come up with a handful of syllables that it arranges in no particular order, the way he tends to do when caught off guard by something. It's not as if he's doing anything wrong, but he somehow still feels guilty. Sheepish, even.

Come on, Anthony, say something that isn't stupid.] This is a beautiful garden. Tend to all this yourself, do you?

[There! Nailed it! He's a real functioning person.]

a;

[byhalves]

[The boy blinks at him for a moment, before looking around the islands as if the answers to what's going on here will appear for him.

Nothing jumps out at him, so he just shrugs.]

The island's falling apart.

[Which is incredibly helpful, he knows, but he also thinks this has happened before? He has vague memories of floating islands falling from his first time around here, but it wasn't like this. He was never on those floating bits of land, and only saw the result of their crash landings.

And that was...bad. Very, very bad.]

You should probably be careful.

b team

[barberian]

(Yasha comes alert with a jolt as if she had missed a couple steps falling down the stairs, and gasps. For a moment she is simply cold and confused, staring at the rippling buildings overhead and trying to figure out where she is. Where everybody else went. Nobody else is here save for a lone figure standing a ways ahead of her, and he has two, large wings protruding from his back.

The last time Yasha encountered a strange, winged man, he tried to kill her. He was also maybe acting on behalf of her god. It was all very hectic at the time.)

Wait- (she calls and gets to her feet, only realising in that moment that she hadn't been on them the entire time. She staggers, a little shocked by it. The man is walking away. His wings are gone now, what does that mean?)

Wait, wait for me.

a;

[devilstongue]

[ 'Oi, you' works just fine for the purple one ahead, he's not picky. ]

If I knew I'd be the first one to share! [ Molly says, turning around to face the voice. His tail is swishing with annoyance, red eyes full of hopeless anger - like the kind where you just know it's nothing you can do about it, but god damn it if he's not gonna be pissed anyway. ]

It's this place, it likes to fuck with us. Just watch your step and try not to die before it is done with us.

shouto todoroki | my hero academia

[byhalves]

around the bend;
[The world has made itself into the shape of what looks to be a dormitory. The room is decorated in traditional Japanese furnishing, and it gets Shouto to pause in the doorway. He’s surprised to see his UA dorm room here, just...disconnected from everything else, and it’s strange.

...And then the ground underneath him starts to turn black and crumble, and he’s got to get a move on. The process is slow enough he doesn’t feel the need to run, but he does hurry. He can’t quite figure out what’s happening. Is it somebody’s quirk? Or another trick of the islands? He remembers the strange islands that were the Storyteller’s dominion, even though they weren’t quite like this, but...maybe?

Either way, once he comes across somebody he slows down again, before casting a glance behind himself.]

...You don’t want to go that way.

you can hear it;
[He knows this place is wrong as soon as he gets up in the morning. The idyllic scene is just - it’s too idyllic. It’s too removed from reality.

It’s too impossible for the Todoroki family to be a happy, healthy family. For all of them to be together. Touya’s gone, his mother will never be out of the hospital, and Endeavor would never let himself be a family man. Not to mention the smooth blankness of his face, no distinctive marks or scars to be seen on it.

Shouto feels sick to his stomach, and whether that’s because of what he’s seen or because of the heavy scent of rotting plants, he doesn’t know. He grits his teeth and forces himself to leave the house, to run away, and find whatever it is that’s causing this. This wouldn’t happen for no reason, and he’s determined to make things right. This is some kind of trick, and he doesn’t want to be caught in it.

When he sees someone, he heads over to them, bracing himself.]

Do you smell it too?

[Or are you another recreation like the happy family he left behind?

2.

[mamaterasu]

[Shouto may not have intended to call out to Ammy, but she turns to look at him regardless, a pristine white wolf walking about the bustling streets that are identical to one another. People mowing their laws, tending their gardens...it all seems almost robotic with how absolutely normal everything is. Honestly, it makes the wolf stand out all the more, despite how the world is trying, almost desperately, to fit her into this idyllic, perfect, normal world. There seems like a slight distortion around the air about her, like that of a hot road on a summer's day, or a mirage in the desert...and yet she remains unchanged.

What Shouto says makes her lips curl over her sharp teeth, a low growl rumbling in her throat, as she stares at a massive wall-like hedge, cut to perfection and seeming to almost...box them all in. Looking about, the same hedge spans for miles and miles, encompassing the whole of this false community. Ammy turns back to it, snarling. Oh, she knows what this is, what's going on...and she eels almost sick to her stomach, but not because o the smell. She remembers all of it, having to put down that god that became corrupt, the memorial held for them, and the suffering they caused, in their madness. This is...too much. It's too much to bring all that back. Let the dead sleep, and let their mistakes be forgotten to time.

This is cruel not only to the newcomers, but to those that suffered, and those that died, or lost...someone they knew. Someone different than what they turned into.]

around the bend

[alchemistakes]

[Varian slows his pace, before coming to a halt completely, not expecting that. He'd been a bit distracted, looking at the strange environment, trying to figure it out. But... not that way?

Okay...]

Uh, what-- Why not?

varian | tangled: the series

[alchemistakes]

1. a tear in foundation

[It's home. Of course it is.

There's something very strange about seeing the landscape around him shift to change to the familiar sight of Old Corona. It's a little different, of course. Sure, it looks about right, but it's smaller, he can see the edge of it. Very literally so. And there's not a black spike in sight. It's more how he remembers it than how it's been lately.

As Varian walks around, he knocks experimentally on the sides of the buildings.]

It feels like stone. [He puts his hand on the wall, moving along it.] I wonder if the composition is the same or not. Maybe if I-- Whoa!

[That would be the ground suddenly breaking beneath his next step. Varian hurries back nervously.

...and stays back for approximately two seconds, before he carefully moves back to where the ground's turning black and crumbling away.]

This is... absolutely fascinating!

[And so dangerous! Get this child out of here!]

2. i feel the danger in the walls

[This place would be fascinating, if he didn't feel so tired. He can't remember the last time he felt this exhausted, honestly. It's worse than the last time he pulled an all-nighter working on his research.

This feels as if it reaches deep, deep inside of him.

It's so tempting to take a break. Varian is already moving to sit down, actually, before he manages to force himself back upright.

No.

No, there's something wrong with this, he's sure of it. He keeps walking.]

Just what is this place?

3. this place has taken me

[Everything is perfect. Everything is as it should be.

It's a day like any other. Like every other. Varian doesn't stop and question why everything seems so modern. Why everything is in such good condition, no spikes in sight, no traces of anything having been broken and rebuilt. Why his father isn't acting secretive, why his mother is there (strangely out of focus, what's with that, he doesn't understandddd ), why there isn't a raccoon anywhere in the house, because why would things be different?

He's outside, going to... school.

Right. He's always gone to school, obviously, he's a student. Of course?

So Varian isn't really sure why he suddenly stops walking. It's this itch in his mind, that natural curiosity he has that tells him to question everything, despite there being nothing to question. Except... isn't there?

There's an awful scent, suddenly. What's with... that...

...

Everything is normal.

Everything is normal everything is normal everything is normal everything is normal everything is normal.....

It's perfectly ordinary for him to stand still outside like this, staring into nothing..]

3.

[mamaterasu]

[As he stands in place, Varian might hear the barking of a dog - normal, ordinary, there are plenty of dogs around in a quiet burgh like this. This, however...seems insistent, loud, almost manic, like a crescendo where it breaks from the usual into a more fevered pitch, as if someone, or something was trying to force the audio back into a sense of normality.

But the image can't be changed, as a stray, white dog--no, not a dog...a wolf, barks furiously from across the street. Now that...that certainly isn't normal. Wolves don't roam around the streets like that, and they aren't quite as...pristine in appearance, like dirt itself seems repelled of her coat. It's off a ways, pacing back and forth, soft whimpers becoming loud, impatient...and those barks continue to grow, paws scratching furiously at the sidewalk. Seems like it wants to draw closer, but something, something is stopping it from doing so.

And, for but a brief second, the scent o rot becomes strong, overpowering, sickening--

Before it's all rewound again. Nothing is wrong. It's fine. Everything is normal. It's all normal. Even the horrible, distressed, panicked barking and scratching is N O R M A L.]

Itsuhito Hadesu | Hokenshitsu no Shinigami

[caughtademon]

calling for you

You can't sleep here. [Itsuhito says, reaching out to a stranger who's sinking down against the wall of one of the shadowy buildings.]

Come on. [He... may not be the most reassuring figure to come looming up out of the darkness, but even someone as... wrong-looking as this gangly stranger is might be better than no one at all when it comes to wandering through this ghost city.]

can you hear it?
[It's normal. The children gather at the oversized table in his dining room, chatting quietly as they work through their homework. Upturned faces with smiles and "thank you, Hades-sensei" when he brings out a tray of cookies or a new tea pot. Paper, scattered pencils, cookie crumbs, quiet chatter and freely asked questions (no unimportant questions, because everything kids worry about is important, no matter how small it may seem to adults).

It's all beautifully, peacefully normal. Except... except it's somehow too much, even this little moment hits him with so much happiness that he feels like he's choking. This isn't for him, this isn't--

The scent in his nose is too sweet, coats the back of his throat like (blood from a broken nose) rotting fruit.

Itsuhito steps outside, just to take a second, just to catch his breath, just to get away from the group of middle schoolers gathered after school around his table because there's something wrong with them, something too fixed in their expressions. One of the boys dropped a pencil and he does that all the time was what Itsuhito thought, not fondly but with a gathering sense of horror and the scent of decay gathering from somewhere, he does that all the time.

"It's like you want to keep living like this", someone said once, frustrated with the weight of years of hoping he would change.

He leans against the fence, wraps cracked hands around the pointed white pickets and tries to--]

Don't-- [he mutters, quietly because...] please don't.

["It's like you want to keep living like this" but he can't anymore, not when he knows somethings wrong, when it's so obviously a--

A trap. It's a trap, there's danger, and as much as he wants to sink back down into the haze, he knows he can't.

There has to be a way out. He's determined, when he straightens back up, when he takes a breath. He steps away from the dense, steps onto the sidewalk, and goes looking.]

We need to get out of here. [He says, when he finds someone who looks... different, looks confused or determined or angry or anything that doesn't match the blank smiles of whatever the other things are.]

Hugh Apiston 🐝 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

[beeboy]

❱❱ AND IT'S JUST AROUND THE BEND

[ It looks, fittingly, like something out of a dream. The boarding house stands tall and beautiful when the island finishes its completion of the replica. Surrounding it almost protectively are tall trees, and the lawns are lush and sprawl outwards, adorned in fantastical hedge creations.

Clearly, something magical is meant to dwell here.

Though on the surface, he seems like any ordinary child: a boy of about twelve, with light brown hair and curious, soft blue eyes. From an older time, by Earth's standards, if his clothing is anything to go by. He's gazing up at the house with a mixture of longing and hesitation. In the end, the former wins out, and Hugh wanders closer, for he is not an ordinary child, and the magical home was once his, too.

One might notice, if one is near enough to see or hear, that there are several honeybees buzzing round the boy's person. ]

a : the rooms • [ The boy moves slowly through the house's halls, not daring to call out for anyone. He seems to know better than that, and keeps quiet as a mouse as he explores. Though he can't help other sounds: the creak of his foot against a floorboard or step. The buzzing of the bees that follow him everywhere.

He doesn't know that this place will begin to fall in on itself sometime in the very near future. For the moment, he's stepping through the memory of his old home, visiting each floor, each room. ]

b : the garden • [ Outside, the sun is bright and warm, and Hugh is tilting his face up to it. The garden is his most favourite spot, in the whole wide world. He could lounge here forever. His bees flit from flower to flower, buzzing just as happily.

Suddenly he feels the shift somewhere below. Something is happening, and at first it's not altogether unexpected. He's seen this place literally blown apart back home, after all.

Only this is different. This is coming from the ground, things moving and twisting, the earth cracking below him. Hugh cries out, and the bees move back to him, slipping right into his mouth and vanishing; it appears they have gone inside the young boy. But there's nowhere for him to hide away, and he runs to one of the hedge creatures, holding onto it as he looks quickly around. What does he do? Where does he go? ]

❱❱ THERE'S A NEW VOICE CALLING

[ Hugh hasn't been in this place long, but already he feels drowsiness tugging at him, as he explores the unfamiliar city of whatever bizarre dream he's become trapped in. Though he's no stranger to the abnormal. In fact, he seems to accept it easily, head tilted back as he walks, curiously taking in his surroundings. His eyes are a bit half-lidded, but apart from that he seems content.

He just has to wonder how far and wide this place goes on for. It seems almost endless, though perhaps that is all in his head. It would be wise to have some idea of an exit, he supposes, and so he does send one bee out for scouting (the rest have chosen to stay inside of the boy where it's safe; they don't care much for this place, and its effects have them drowsy as well).

Only his bee can't go far at all before it's returning to him, stunned and confused. That does earn a small frown from him. He holds out his palm and the bee lights there, Hugh carrying it around as he walks, concerned as to its state.

Now there's some sense of unease. This place is messing with his bees? ...But it's hard to concentrate on that when he's starting to feel so, so sleepy... ]

❱❱ OOC

[ Newbie here testing out one obscure, odd, buzzing child. If there are any questions, feel free to hit me up in pm or at eyestalks! ]

garden

[postictal]

[By contrast, Tim isn't the biggest fan of being surrounded by green.]

[Place is nothing like home. It's not like the reams of thick woodland in the south, trails spidering off into nowhere and disappearing into sprawling networks of dilapidated buildings seemingly indefinitely left to rot. But there are hedges cut into strange shapes and he's enough of a paranoid bastard to decide that he'd really rather not deal with them, thanks.]

[He moves at a fast clip. One hand slips into his pocket and then out again, hand closed around his lighter. Just - just in case.]

[Turns out it's a hopeless impulse. The ground starts to crack, and Tim immediately catches at one of the hedges with his free hand to stabilize himself.]

God damn it -

[Time to move. The next tremor nearly throws him flat on the ground. He scrambles back to his feet and moves anyway.]

[But he stops when he sees the kid.]

[Of course he stops.]

Woah - kid?

Roman Gulliver | OC

[neighborofthebeast]

Ai'tuoh - A COLD DARK PLACE

Roman fell. He'd felt something sort of like this before when the woman outside the night club summoned him with a circle, but he didn't remember it being so cold. A dark city rose up to meet him and almost as soon as his hooves touched the ground, he bent to all fours and scampered deeper into the shadows.

There were no people here.

Was this Hell? Had he been summoned to Hell or wherever it was things like him came from? He'd heard it was supposed to be cold. Being alone was pretty torturous too. Was the tuberculosis thing too far? No, it couldn't have been. Not after what the guy in the woods did to him. This had to be something else...

He considered changing into his human disguise but this place was so strange already that he was just...too tired to exert the energy. Slowly Roman stood up on his hooves again and crept onto the street.

"Hello?" He called, half-heartedly. Suddenly all he wanted was to sleep. He rubbed his shoulders.

sticks leggy out

[solperierat]

Hnn...?

[What Roman probably had taken before for an odd pile of garbage shifts, and Ed's wings unfurl from around him as he peers up at...]

[Uh. Hm. He can't quite tell if this guy is a demon or a minotaur with the same idea he'd gotten. Mind still clouded with sleep, it's kind of hard for Ed to pose the question in any coherent form.]

Monster?