TEST DRIVE MEME ( 001 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #1

Hello, and welcome to our very first test drive! 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.

Remember that Reserves will open on July 17th and that Applications will open on July 24th, in preparation for the game’s official opening on August 3rd!

But first, two important notes!

1. The island of Mu exists apart from the real world and possesses a dream-like quality that characters are innately aware of from the moment they appear on its shores. No need to panic or fret. Dreams are odd things, after all - and anything can happen in them. Why would anyone question where their mind chooses to wander in its sleep?

2. Due to the nature of Mu, threads in our test drive can not only be accepted as thread samples in your application, but can be accepted as game canon as well. In fact, certain choices your character makes in Mu have the potential to bear in-game consequences.

Shipwrecked
The white sand of the beach ridges the island’s edge, even if the clear water soon becomes murky the further out you look across the horizon until the turquoise gleam of the tide disappears in a coil of surrounding fog. Indeed, your best prospects may very well be to strike out among the trees or the crags looming out over the foam-capped waves. There’s lumber to be found and made from the palm-like trees, potentially fruit or edible tubers of some kind if you forage about some. The further you travel, however, the more of your surroundings will reveal themselves in a steady unspooling of curiosities.

One corner of Mu’s current construct drops away into a sheer cliff, initially too dangerous to brave for all but the more daredevilish, but if one starts to scan the sharp rocks below, you might catch sight of what appears to be sodden planks of wood - a wreckage tossed up against the rocks. And a little further...a bobbing, shattered wreck of a lifeboat’s remains, potentially bearing supplies that might yet be salvageable.

Fashion what you can from the wood and stone around you or scavenge from the ruin of the land, if you like. But you can’t simply stand around and wait forever. It’s going to get dark sometime - and if a creature of unknown terror doesn’t catch you, the elements surely will.

Storytime

There’s a sense of camaraderie in this cove, you think. As the sun hangs low over the horizon, the world cast into orange hues, long shadows dispersed by roaring fires that dot across the beach.

That’s right, folks: it’s storytime.

There’s no one to preside over this meeting of the minds in Mu. Call it a vague recreation of things to come, if you like, some vaguely fatidic dreamlike state where you may find yourself drawn to the heat and company that awaits you by the fire. And from there, compelled to default to that old instinct that most of intelligent civilization has revered since they were advanced enough to paint geometric shapes on cave walls.

You tell a story.

Perhaps it’s a tragedy, a tale of woe and of personal loss. Perhaps it’s the sort of thing you’d break out after a few rounds of your alcoholic beverage of choice, clapping hands to your knees as you try to bite back your mirth long enough to spill the punchline. Perhaps it’s an adventure of some sort, some unbelievable rendition of your past exploits. The only common thread to be had, as those gathered around the fire share their tales, is the fundamental rule of a ritualistic sharing of stories such as this: its truth.

But how one chooses to define "truth" is, in its own way, another story entirely...

Dance, Sucker, Dance!
The beat of your heart in your chest is difficult to ignore. It judders with a pulsing, rhythmic quality. If you’re one of those that lacks a heart, the beat is still omnipresent and all-encompassing, until your entire body is unwittingly bobbing in time to a metronomic tune that seems ingrained into your very soul. It’s inescapable. You can’t seem to move unless it’s in time to the rhythm that’s now singing in every atom of your being.

But rest assured, you’re not alone in this musical curse. Everything, from the swaying trees to the waves against the beach, jumps in time to the music. And so do the monsters approaching you, that - wait a minute.

Monsters?

Oh, yes. Did we mention those?


It seems you’ve encountered the wrath of the Boogieman, who curses you to only dance to his infernal beat. If you wish to best him, you’ll have to either evade or destroy the blobs of greenish slime that serve as his minions, all in time to the hard beat of the tune in your head. Clear the radius of his curse or risk an open confrontation, if you dare. Don’t worry if you look foolish; chances are anyone else caught in the Boogieman’s thrall feels just the same.

Mu isn’t pulling any punches to start with. It is a flighty creation, after all, and seems to revel in displacing people into new and uncomfortable situations.

---

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

surprise! tw; self harm

[thejaw]

[It's definitely a dream.

Brian knows it is, because his ears are clear of ringing. His mind feels calm, clear in a way that it hasn't in a long time. There's no shaking to be found when he lifts his hands up in front of his eyes, and perhaps most notably- he is not wearing a hoodie.

Oh. Or- or, it could be something else. Brian kneels and scoops up a handful of sand, allows the grains to slip through his fingers. They're coarse and soft all at once, and feel very real. So the afterlife is more tactile than some would expect. Quite suddenly, he rakes his nails down his left arm, methodical and curious. Okay, so pain is definitely still a thing, as well.

Sticking around on the beach isn't going to give him any answers, so Brian ventures into the trees, where he finds a scattering of 'X's marked into wood. Only, no, it's not a random scattering- it's a path. He follows them, for lack of a better plan.

It's a curious thing, to feel surprised and yet not at the same. Oh, it's Tim!, but also, of course it's Tim. Who else would it be.

He doesn't bother attempting to mask the sound of his feet crunching over leaves and twigs. Whatever this is, it's not real. It doesn't matter.]

Didn't Hansel and Gretel use breadcrumbs to find their way?

[Oh. He said that out loud. He can speak.]

HAHAHAHA HOLY FUCK YOU 1/3

[postictal]

[The sound of footsteps drawing nearer, as always. It doesn't set off any of the alarm bells in his head that it should, mostly because he's just too damned used to the sensation of being crept up upon, of being watched. The reflex that has him whirling around, the knife brandished, might not even belong to him. Whose mind is that a product of? Jay's? Chara's? Asriel's?

How many parts of Timothy Wright remain, having resisted being whittled away by the press of other, far more potent minds and souls against his own?



And what he sees is -

Is -



...]

[postictal]

[postictal]

[It's him.

It's him like Tim remembers him. The chiming in of something sardonic and slightly whimsical, commentary on this silly little life of theirs. There's no mask coating his face, no downward turn of an articial frown stitched out from fabric.

There's just...him.

His heart's beating too fast in the hollow of his chest, and he's taking a step forward before he can rein himself back - and then he's stepping back properly, reeling, trying to speak and failing, miserably.]

You're not...

[Why did you bring me here?

I don't belong here.]

You're not real.

[thejaw]

[There is the way that normal people feel and react to things. And then there is the way Brian, half outside of his own body, feels and reacts to things. He doesn't know what the median is anymore. There's no happiness at seeing the person he considers his closest friend. (But then, there's been no huge gap between the moment he saw him last, not for Brian.) There's no anger, either, even though the last thing he remembers is a ledge. His gut swooping. Impact.

He'd ended up here, after all, and this is alright. This is more alright than anything has been in forever. He doesn't feel the weight of a presence, forever approaching, weighing him down. Doesn't feel like he's crawling outside of his own skin. Maybe this is better. Even if-]

Yeah, maybe not. I don't know if any of this is.

[He shrugs, glances at the trees around them. Turns back to Tim and smiles, and ah, there it is. Feeling something.

Sickly. Bitter.]

What's weird is that if I think about it really hard, my head still hurts.

[postictal]

[What the fuck is someone supposed to say? Sorry? I'm sorry, I didn't know, why the hell didn't you just fucking tell me? He'd fallen, and he hadn't meant for him to fall, but maybe he had. He'd rushed him with a heavy, blunted weapon in hand, prepared to strike him hard enough to watch him sail to the ground. The crack of a skull impacting the asphalt. The high, plastic skitter of a tape across concrete.

Regards.

He's not real. Maybe he's just a figment, conjured into reality by a dying man's frazzled brain. Maybe he's still in the Castle. Maybe he's still dying, and this is just what happens to the human mind when it dies. It cycles through its worst and most potent failures, and watches them all on display in technicolor.

(If that's so, then what did Jay see before he -

God no, god no.)


Brian smiles.

That shouldn't chill him the way it does, right to the bone.]

You're dead.

[The words are ragged, a stain across the disarmingly bright and beautiful island. Coiling sickly in his gut like heated lead. He didn't mean to. Oh god, he didn't mean to, but since when does that matter?

Since when did any of it matter to the man in the hood?]

[thejaw]

[He nods. Slow and deliberate, eyes leveled at the ground. That does sound right. After a fall like that, it'd make sense. And Brian's already established that there are too many discrepancies for this to be a dream.

The longer he thinks about things, the heavier his tongue feels. It gets harder to talk.]

Dead. Not real. Maybe both.

[Brian looks back up, eyes narrowed and assessing Tim like he's looking at a puzzle that needs solving.]

And what are you?

[postictal]

[It's wrong to be relieved at a thing like this, at the darkening that veils his expression, that erects the wall between them. Because that's easier. Because it means they can go back to wary posturing, circling each other like caged enemies, instead of friends.

There's no warmth in his stare. In the look of the man who once smiled and laughed and if I can do it, you can do it.

It's detached, cold, and it races up Tim's spine in a prickled shiver.]

I don't know.

[What is he? What is he? A freak, mostly. A friend? Right. To who, anymore? Maybe to a kid or two that isn't even here anymore, out of their own volition.]

Maybe both too.

[thejaw]

[It's so easy, to slip back into the familiar. Warm and lonely, like a second layer of skin between Him and Them. Like a sad mask. Like knowing nothing will ever be the way it once was.

Brian wishes he had sunglasses on, at least.

The answer isn't exactly satisfying, but he doesn't know what he expected. Maybe it's just the two of them, stuck in some kind of limbo. He's inclined to believe it's not a coincidence. There are rarely any.

The look in his eyes dulls, becomes less calculating, but it doesn't grow any warmer. Just dormant.]

So what now?

[He sounds lost, even to himself. Brian had a purpose, once. Now he has nothing.]

[postictal]

[So what now?]

[He wants to kill him. He wants to slam a fist into his jaw over and over, grind him into the dirt, spill his teeth out across the ground and stamp on his throat and howl. Make him live through every second of the pain he caused Jay - the pain he caused everyone, because he couldn't see goddamn fit to just tell them what the fuck was going on.]

[He wants to tear him to pieces. Scream at him until he's hoarse. Fuck you, for everything, for everything.]

[He wants to grab hold of him and never let go again because he's sorry, he's]

[So what now?]

You sure you don't have some cryptic code to give me, or something?