TEST DRIVE MEME ( 005 )

[lifeaftr_mods]

Test Drive Meme #5

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.

Remember that Reserves will open on November 17th and that Applications will open on November 24th!

Two important notes:

1. LifeAFtr's test drives take place on the island of Mu, which 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, largely in the form of test drive reward items.

All That Glitters
The caves deep beneath the island's surface are not dimly lit; in fact, they practically sparkle with a strange, unearthly greenish light. Blame it on the crystalline growths that protrude plentifully from every nook and cranny, stalactites and stalagmites alike.

Their glow might be soothing to some, and viscerally terrifying to others, but one thing remains absolutely certain: based on the creaking, groaning noises of shifting rock and the high-pitched tinkle of breaking shards of crystal...

You aren't alone down here. The deeper in you venture, the more the thicker clusters of the things begin to move. And eventually, it will become plain to you that it isn't the crystal at all that's moving, but rather the thing inside of it - something vaguely humanoid shaped, bipedal, with arms and legs and the dull, pale glimmers in the region of what might almost pass for a face.

Formed entirely from crystal.

Upon spotting a living creature, each of them will begin to lurch closer and closer, arms outstretched. Every one is slow and cumbersome and even fragile enough to be smashed, if you dare venture close enough. But once they've trapped you, there is no escaping whatever fate they have in store for you.

And rest assured, it is not a pleasant one.

[The above prompt is a version of our Crystal Clear event from October! Feel free to give the event write-up a read for more information.]

It's High Tide
When you initially wake on the beaches of this strange island with its bleeding, dreamlike edges, you might notice that something seems deeply amiss...something like the fact that you're lying in a whole mess of seawater. Assuming you're not thoroughly soaked already, you'd better figure out a way to get to high ground, because the water level is rising very rapidly. Pretty soon, there might not be anywhere safe to go besides the trees, and even those might not be safe the longer this goes on.

Fortunately for you, if you can find them quickly enough, the island of Mu has helpfully provided some assistance for those who don't feel like doggy-paddling for the duration of the dream. Better hurry and hang onto them before you drown! Unless you'd rather doggy-paddle the whole way out, that is. In which case, we're sure the water feels great.

A Crappy Endeavor
In your travels on this strange new land, you might start to notice something following you. Something...oddly shaped, like a lot of dirt and clay that's consolidated into one great awkward moving lump of a creature. What lies beneath is far more like the common beetle...just much, much larger. And unfortunately for everyone involved, they have a very specific appetite:

Your poop.

Mu has produced a very close approximation of the creatures known as f'rshaymes, animals that go beyond merely being useful for disposing of all that nasty waste. Doiing so comes with significant benefits, as the combined process of mud and excrement as it goes through a F'rshayme's digestive system leaves behind pure clay for the...brave.

Often found in small herds of six to eight individuals, f'rshaymes are extremely docile and would be very easy to turn into a herd of your very own. How nice!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[yourattention]

[Something about the phrase "You deserve to have fucking lived" strikes him as incredibly funny. He actually laughs at it, and it feels a little like pulling a muscle because he hasn't actually laughed in so long his body barely remembers how it works.

The idea of deserving to live is so. He doesn't? He just absolutely doesn't, and it doesn't matter if Gabe's talking to him or not because the idea that he deserves to be living is the funniest thing that's ever occured to Connor and - actually this might be something halfway between hysteria and a panic attack. He hasn't had one of those since arriving, so he was probably due for a good freak out.

Congrats, Gabe. Now the raft is stuck in the water because Connor's too busy to steer. Don't mind him, though. He'll be fine in a minute, probably.]

[ungrieved]

[By contrast, for once, Gabe doesn’t seem to find that very funny at all. He glowers at the other kid with rage both irritated and confused, but nonetheless palpable.]

Something funny to you? [Maniacal laughter is only okay when Gabe does it, clearly.]

[yourattention]

I'm - fuckin. [Give him a sec, he needs to remember how breathing works.] I can't die.

[Several people told Connor that, but it's finally sunk in. He hasn't tried to test it because he utterly and totally believes karma would put him somewhere where he can't have the one thing he's ever been absolutely sure of in his entire life.

He still hasn't totally stopped laughing, but now it's more like hiccups he can't get rid of. The full absurdity of this whole situation has finally sunken in: he can't go home. Like, there is literally no way he can go home so he's just. There's nowhere to go but here.]

I can't die, you can't die - we're just fucking. We're just stuck here! At the mercy of gods and nature and fucking - fucking ourselves.

[ungrieved]

[Speak for yourself, Connor. There's a flash of something pointedly unamused and flinted carving down along the ridges of Gabe's features, distorting them into a blaze of spite. He lived. He lived, and he can't die. Gabe - Gabe never got to live. Now he gets this, and it isn't even really life at all.]

[What the hell's he supposed to take away from that?]

What do you mean, you can't die?

[yourattention]

They won't let you.

[That wasn't how anyone phrased it to him, but that's how he's internalized it: whatever gods that brought them here have a vested interest in his continued existence. He's mostly stopped laughing, but that's because the hysteria burned off and now he's just panicking.]

I just - I just wanted to stop? And I fucking did, but now I'm drowning and it's like - I can't even. I can't even end it, can I? They'll just punish me and put me right back where I started. And that's - I don't fucking want it! Take it back, you asshole!

[Somewhere in the middle, Connor stopped talking to Gabe and started just. Yelling into the void. It's fine. This is totally fine and a raft is a great place to be having a total meltdown.]

[ungrieved]

Take it back?

[Well, it's equal opportunity meltdown central over here, apparently! Gabe tries surging to his feet before the abrupt spike of motion nearly tips him into the rising waves. Instead, he can only brace his knees against the knobbled wood and stare at the kid screaming his lungs into the ether like he's lost his mind.]

[Maybe they all have, in a way.]

You got to live, and you didn't even want it? You got to live your whole life, and this is what you do with it - throw it right away again?

[He sounds - not just disbelieving, but utterly furious.]

You wasted it. You wasted the years I should have had!

[yourattention]

[Once he recognizes he's being yelled at, Connor gets angry too. That's - he knows how to be angry. He's good at being angry, at deflecting from the empty void where his ability to function normally would have gone if he wasn't missing it.

If he gets angry, people get afraid and then they avoid him. That way they can't let him down. That way he doesn't have to see the disappointment in their eyes when he fails at some test he doesn't even know the questions for.]

Of course I wasted them! Why wouldn't they be wasted when I can't do anything right? I fucking - I tried! I got good grades, I played baseball even though I hated it, I earned my stupid merit badges and you fucking know what? It was never enough!

[They're gonna tip the raft over at this rate, which is kind of the fatal flaw in Connor's plan to get angry and push someone away while on a raft in the ocean. It's fine. He can probably swim back to shore?]

So, yeah. I wasted my life, because I'm eighteen and I've never done some remarkable thing! If you want it so badly, then fucking take it!

[ungrieved]

You got to play baseball! [On the contrary, that simply incenses him further. Look at all this - this perfect shit he got to have, and he's griping and complaining and tearing it all away? All this, that Gabe would have given everything for?]

You got to wear merit badges! You got to have a life at all, instead of dying before you could do any of it because your parents had no idea how to raise a child, and spent the rest of their lives pretending I never existed!

[Whoops.]

[Plot twist.]

[yourattention]

[We're back to slight hysteria? We're back to slight hysteria. This is the funniest shit he's ever heard, sorry.]

Congratu-fucking-lations, Mr. Disappointment! You won the fucking jackpot, as far as I'm concerned. I lived through everyone pretending like I didn't exist. Like one day, I just wasn't Connor anymore. Gone. [He snaps his fingers.] Just. Like. That. Like what they thought was missing wasn't just a sad invention - like I wasn't just pretending I was something better than this mess I am.

[No, I lied. He's not hysterical. He's just sad. He's just sad, and he's crying. Good job, Gabe. You ruined a perfectly good friend. Look at him, he's got anxiety.]

[ungrieved]

[>implying Connor did not already have anxiety]

I'll tell you something about death, Connor. It's not fun. It's not great for anybody. You don't get to happily skip off to a world where you can be free!

[Maybe that's the real cruelty here. The lack of peace with death, because no one would leave his memory be. Or maybe he was just too desperate to be remembered.]

You? You just get to linger. You get to see how much better off everyone else is without you, and you get to listen to them talk to you, and you try to remind them that you're there and they never hear!