Priority Log - Part 2

[locomodo]

Log 06 Priority (Part II)

Still the Big Screen Car

The last two weeks have been a busy time at FONY Records! Maybe you've been working diligently on your upcoming projects — or maybe you've been fighting the sense that something is wrong. That this life, whether it's better or worse than before, is not your own.

Either way, passengers will finally receive a new objective on their phones...

> Looking back is blinding.



From here on out, characters can regain their real memories. They can do so randomly, but the most reliable way is to work with another passenger: they will know that by touching foreheads (yes, headbutting counts) for pairs, or huddling very closely for groups, they will unlock some memories for one or all of them — of course, it also allows the other person to see and feel everything play out, as though they lived it themselves.

It's memshare time!

As passengers regain their memories, their AU lives will start to fade. Production crews disappear, texts from your parents delete themselves, your favorite coffee shop is suddenly empty... Because you can't have both.

At least one character will need to reject the AU in order for everyone to progress; there is no minimum comment count. Characters may go both routes, but should ultimately prioritize one for the AC Poll.

Remembering

As characters regain the memories of their real lives, all semblance of their fake ones will rapidly disappear.

And choosing to remember comes with side effects: passengers are overtaken by a fierce chill as the source of the cold finally presents itself. The shadows in the empty buildings around them start to stretch out. These shades collect in huge swathes — and shape themselves into sharp, spindly arms and fingers. They'll grab at whoever passes, leaving them cold and constricted, making it hard to remember what's happened and trying to drag them back into the illusions of the AU. However, when these shadows have manifested, they're also vulnerable: they can be dissolved by using a strong light, like a fire, flashlight, or stage light. Even sunlight will do the trick, but physically resisting the shadows will grow more and more difficult as they sap warmth from everything they touch.

For those less physically inclined, the shades have one more weakness: real, happy memories. By focusing on something that brought them past comfort, however small, characters can drive off the shades little by little.

This force controlling the AU clearly lives in shadows. Characters can weaken it by confronting these shades, in which case they will find themselves alone with their memories and a ghostly, empty city of Danaca.

Resisting

But maybe you don't want to remember—maybe your life in Danaca is too good to give up, and you'd rather have this even if it's not real. Unfortunately, once the illusion starts to shatter, there's no stopping the cracks from spreading.

Characters that don't regain their memories through contact with other passengers (whether intentionally or unintentionally), will still find their fake identities starting to fade away, but their real identities won't be able to fill the gaps. Instead, they'll find themselves... hollow. Devoid of personality, hopes and dreams. Empty.

...And in that empty space, something else might slip in. The steady collapsing of Danaca has left plenty of strong emotions and ghosts hovering in the air, and passengers might find themselves embodying a powerful current of despair or anger. Or perhaps one of the false denizens might inhabit them (Chadsef, anyone?). Contact with another passenger might also ignite enough memory to return their personality, but it might also give them the wrong one; they might start acting like someone from their memories instead, such as a childhood friend (or enemy).

Regardless of the scenario, there is one common thread: an innate desire for contact with other passengers. Though they won't remember why, passengers will eventually be driven to reclaim their original selves through memshare with other characters. Whether they get everything back before they leave is up to you!

OOC Notes

AC Check is up! The deadline to submit AC is December 1st, 11:59 p.m. EST. Please note this is a day extended as we've pushed the log back a day, AC schedule overall will remain as normal.

Memshare: To add a little spice, memories do not need to be limited by your character's canon point. That is to say, sharing scenes from your character's future will also count as memshare.

Continuing Memloss: Characters may or may not regain all their memories prior to leaving the car, player's choice. The memshare mechanic will no longer be in effect, however players are free to naturally regain memories over time.

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[overruns]

[ He glances at the phone, brow furrowed faintly. ]

Restore...?

[ The thought trails off into nothing, suddenly escaping him. It's unsettling. The disappearances, the glimpses of things in mirrors that don't belong, the hunch that he's forgotten something but can't put his finger on what—it all comes with dread. He doubts the truth of the matter will be pleasant.

Still, if Kurapika is putting his trust in him, he'll return it. After a moment, he nods, sticking close. ]

Very well. I'll help any way I can.

[constrainer]

It should remind you of one thing, at the very least.

[ He says, mostly in jest, referring to their times as children. Kurapika was more affectionate back then as a child, hugging his cousins close whenever he got the chance. So it's not too weird, he doesn't think, to close the distance between them and knock the sides of their foreheads together gently.

The memory that manifests from the memory, however, is anything but gentle.

It's a very cold autumn night in a desolate canyon, when you come to your senses. This is something you've been waiting years for— your first step towards your revenge. Everything from where you would face off against this scum, to how you would carry out your plan has been meticulously planned and taken care of and trained for. Even the chain on your hand, heavy and cold, was specifically designed to question and ultimately slaughter the thirteen people you've sworn revenge against. Tonight, you'll take out the first one.

The man before you is double, nearly triple your size, and says he doesn't even remember killing your clansmen. How could he not? You think only of what a gruesome picture your village had become that day - children killed kneeling in front of their parents, a dozen or so completely beheaded. Every last person eyeless, mutilated. Every house burned to ash, every last thing of value (sentimental or monetary) stolen or defiled. An unforgettable scene, by all means. The notion that every person you ever loved being massacred for no reason other than profit was something so insignificant to this man that he can't even remember it... it only further assures you that this man deserves to suffer and die for his sins.

When you finally have him in your chain's grasp, after several grievous injuries on your end, you take to interrogating him. Where are the other twelve members? What abilities do they have? You know you can't kill all thirteen without some inside information. But he refuses every question. And so, you take to beating him. Striking him everytime he refuses, until his organs are a bloody pulp. At one point, he begins to beg to be killed.

The smell of blood is overwhelming. Disgusting. You wonder how anyone could do this and not feel vile to their very core. This is necessary, you remind yourself. This is what you wanted. It's the only way to satisfy the starving fury and hatred inside you.

You give him one last merciful chance to tell you anything of value, before granting his very wish for death. With your chain wrapped around his beating heart, you feel it rip the organ open, the sound of his massive body hitting the ground thundering around the walls of the canyon. From there, there is only the sound of the chain rattling coldly against the ground as you yank them back from his corpse, and your own elevated breathing— shaking, from what you'd just done. ]

[overruns]

[ i tried to think of a different scene but in the end i must answer revenge with revenge

He just lets out a near-soundless puff of air in response, barely a laugh. It is a warm, easy moment, reminiscent of times when they were younger and less embarrassed (or is it reserved?) about affection.

Why does that feel so profound?

There isn't time to think on it before their memories come battering back, two grisly scenes suddenly playing out for them, a call and an echo—


It's Imperial Year 1176 and the reign of King Lambert Egitte Blaiddyd, your father, comes to an abrupt end.

Because as it turns out—the finest knights of the land are still only human. Their blades don't even scrape free of their scabbards before the ambush hits. Some die in the first, shouting struggle. It's the unlucky ones that survive until fire catches through the camp, eating through canvas, carriages, carnage.

The stench of blood is sickly on its own, and it smells worse once it's burning. Smoke has a flavor. As you watch Glenn die, the scent reminds you of leather treated over a flame. It hits your nose, coats your throat; acrid and eerie-sweet. Coppery. Human. Glenn, who was quicker, stronger, nobler than them all, the gleaming future of Faerghus, has an expression so ugly with misery as he goes.

You watch your friend finally fall slack, but there is no racing instinct to survive—no crying or anguished farewells. Your thoughts hit distantly through the shock. Glenn's eyes are glassy now, but his face is agony, his body mangled. You see more overtaken by the flames: friends, tutors, family. Your mother's carriage is swallowed whole in the smoke. A knight who used to sneak you sugared fruits scrapes near your feet, begging for his life, but you cannot even offer him comfort and just stand there frozen through the last of his convulsions.

You stand there through it all, watching.

You take in every rotten face. All the blood, cracked and dry from the heat. You listen to each wretched, pleading word from everyone that falls, because even the bravest man doesn't really want to die for anyone, and they all have so much to say about it, and you're the only one left to listen.

Your father, at least, has the decency not to beg. The king of Faerghus's last words to you, his only son, are not a noble creed, but a scream for vengeance before his head is lopped clean off his neck, a rushed and bloody execution. It isn't as hard to watch as you expect—it doesn't seem real. It's incomprehensible that the strongest man you've ever known could be brought to kneel so easily. It does not make sense that the things you loved and that loved you back could simply cease to be.

You look at the men setting the flames, and dutifully learn those faces too.

"Avenge us! Those who killed us... Tear them apart! Destroy them all!"

It's your father's version of a goodbye, a promise made, and it should give you strength. But a father's words are not a shield. Oaths won't stop a sword. And with no family or friends or knights left to die for you, the blade bears down on you next, and cuts just as easily. ]

[constrainer]

[ It's the smell that gets to him more than anything— smoke, blood, burning flesh. The sensations conjured from the vision are so visceral, sickening, that when they both emerge from the experience, Kurapika finds himself gasping for a desperate breath, as though he'd been held underwater. Every muscle in his body tenses, like a last ditch effort to keep himself from becoming violently ill from the sights of people being so carelessly brutalized.

At his own hands, too. Alongside the horror that he's capable of such violent actions is the deep-seated feeling of justification, perhaps further enabled by the eerily-familiar scene plucked from the recesses of Dimitri's memory. There are people in the world that need to be dragged to hell and chained there. The people that create atrocities like this—

That's right. He'd had a reason for it all. For killing, for chasing what he'd been chasing without abandon. Seeing something like Dimitri had had been the cause of it— seeing the people you love brought to ruin. Only living through something like that can breed such an iron willpower for vengeance or such a ravenous hatred, the kind required to have the mental fortitude to beat someone within an inch of their life with your bare hands.

Kurapika likes to think of himself (and likes for others to think of him) as an analytical, level-headed person. But the truth is that he's emotioinally volatile, commonly reacting poorly when under duress. He's gone several shades paler once he regains enough sense of self to reach out to Dimitri himself, clutching at his shoulder at some attempt to ground himself. ]

We're fine, [ Kurapika says, unconvincingly, his voice trembling. He can't make sense of what he's feeling, nor even come close to categorizing each individual emotion. Fury, at the injustice he's been made to see? Sorrow for the losses? Concern, for his friend? More forcefully: ] It's fine. We're not actually there.

[ Does that change how traumatic it was to see it? No, but it's all he can manage to offer between his labored breaths, eyes darting about the room in a paranoid fashion as if to search for evidence that he's right. ]