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

[yallstupid]

[Well, he's awake, and Guzma gives Gladion all the space he wants. He's not exactly keen on having to babysit or carry the edgy little monster, but he will do it if he has to. Guzma as Gladion didn't, uh...really resolve their differences as well as Guzma did with Lillie and Luna, and their last interaction really wasn't the best of the best. There's not exactly an animosity there, but there sure as heck isn't any firendliness. This is all business, a duty Guzma has to someone else that Gladion make it out of here.

That won't stop him from being a right prick, though.]

Oh, y'know...just headed to a tea party--what do you think?! This place is bad news, kid, and we gotta get out quick 'fore we're stuck here taking a real long nap. C'mon, s'better if we go at it t'gether...

[The sheer displeasure of those last words is palpable, and Guzma makes absolutely no attempt to hide it. He doesn't hate Gladion, but the kid...reminds him a little too much of himself, when he was that age. It's a terrible reminder of a few ugly things that have happened in the past, and even recently here in this world, when he was made into a child a few weeks ago.]

[nullsweat]

[Why does Guzma even care? The words sit in the back of his throat, and he wants to snap at the man. He can take care of himself. He's done it for years. He might have been a part of Team Skull, but there was no camaraderie there. There was nobody taking care of him. It was just him and his Pokemon and he learned to make do. He doesn't need to be babied, or to have someone looking out for him.

(Sure, it was...good. With Luna and Lillie and Hau, being able to depend on them to do the right thing when it came down to it, but they weren't friends. They were just...helpful at the time. Right now, he doesn't need anyone.)]

You don't have to treat me like a child. [He says, being a child.] I'd be fine on my own.

[He doesn't know what this place does to people, how the fatigue he feels is the result of it. All he knows is that he doesn't need Guzma's help.]

What do you even know about this place?

[yallstupid]

Then don't act like one. [Guzma spits automatically, his jaw clenched against the pressing fatigue and the anger he feels at...everything. Finding Gladion here, having to drag his unwilling carcass behind him, getting stuck in this place himself again, and having to tooth and nail his way back for the sake of the people he actually care about. At the very least, the adrenaline surge is keeping the worst of the sleep out of him.]

I don't have time for stories, kid, but if you don't wanna end up like those people... [He points to a small pile of bodies, laying on the sidewalk, still and lifeless in their deep sleep. It'd be foolish to try and wake them now...who knows how long they've been under. It's sad, disgusting, knowing there are kids here, doomed to this fate by the psychotic people that enforce the absurd rules of their land.] You'll follow me out. Believe me, I'd love to be the Bad Guy here and leave you to rot, but a few'a your lame buddies gave me a change of heart. 'Sides, you wanna see your sister, don'cha?

[nullsweat]

[Wow, rude? Honestly, just so rude?

Gladion bites his lip to keep from snapping back, because...Guzma's not wrong. He looks at the bodies lining the street, feeling a chill down his spine. What happened to them? They look barely any younger than Gladion himself, and that's...unsettling.]

Where's Lillie?

[It seems like the most pressing question. He doesn't bother to threaten Guzma or demand anything from him - he's still certain the man would snap at him if he tried, but.

His sister can't defend herself from a place like this.]

[yallstupid]

[Did you really expect a warm hug from the man who whooped your tush outside of Aether Paradise? Yeah! Didn't think so!!!

Guzma offers Gladion his hand, whether or not the youngster takes it is his prerogative, but the offer is still there. Plus, if Gladion does start to falter, Guzma will hold his steady, he has more than enough strength to support this noodly little emo.]

With any luck, up top..where we need'a be. Short story is y'all basically got pulled into another world, kinda like Ultra Space, but - har de har - worse. I you stay here too long, you sleep the permanent sleep. Getting out takes...I forget, mostly, but I think it's gotta do with something like a thread. Look for a thread...and grab hold. It should be the way out.

[nullsweat]

So you have no idea where she is.

[That's what he takes out of that. He has no idea where Lillie is. She could be in here with them, all alone, and...

He can't leave her behind again. He presses his lips together, frowning, before looking around the street. It's...mostly empty, asides from the sleeping children.]

Right. A thread...

[Maybe Lillie's found the thread...?]

[yallstupid]

[Guzma narrows his eyes, lips pursing into a thin line as he fights back a terrible urge to flip Gladion off. Of the two, he would gladly and readily choose Lillie - she doesn't spike his blood pressure near as much as this edgy little brat does.]

If we're lucky, you sour-faced li'l disaster, she's not having this dream. And if she is, she's high up above us on the others side'a the water. Long story short, when this place decides it wants t'bring in new folk, it gives 'em a dream of what's to come...using memories of what happened in the past in this here world. Some're good, most are pretty darn awful.

But don't sell 'er out, she's a heck'uva lot tougher'n anyone gives her credit for. Anyway, this may be a dream, yeah, but I don't trust this freaky kinda magic to stop at that... Whatever you thinking 'bout your sis, kiddo, hold onto that. 'Parrently them threads are strengthened by our bonds or something cheesy like that.