SAGAN ⋅𖥔⋅ 28, NB ⋅𖥔⋅ CONFIDENTIAL
trigger warnings: human experimentation, implied violence, gore
Running. You are always running. You run from a story that is faster than you. It nips at your heels, drags you off to sea — or maybe your body is the sea, and you're washed upon the shores of it. Crashing waves, bones bleached death-white, eyelids cut open until the world is nothing but a kaleidoscope of red, of pain — of your open mouth with no throat attached, trying to scream WHY, WHY. And only silence as an answer.
Endless time. White walls, white sheets, white pills. You remember nothing but this endless labyrinth. Some nights you swear that if you press your ear to the ground, you can hear the delicate breathing of the minotaur. SOME NIGHTS YOU SWEAR THAT IF YOU THINK JUST THINK HARD ENOUGH, YOU CAN REMEMBER THE SOUND OF YOUR OWN NAME. They call you by a string of numbers and letters here but you've long lost the combination.
Your ribs are full of rabbits and they've taught you how to hide. Not even in your dreams are you safe — your eyes sunken and set in an expression you don't recognize. Your hands upon cool metal, heart beating to a song on the speakers that plays over and over — there's a language to be learned somewhere in there, but your reflection in the mirror puts a finger over their mouth and grins, jaw opening like a snake about to swallow you whole. You alone the prey, the hunter, and the forest.
[ note: Sagan's history has been hidden for plot purposes. Players interested in this skeleton should contact the main for undisclosed details. ]
DYNAMICS
ATLAS ⋅𖥔⋅ BLOOD DRIPS FROM YOUR CHIN & I KNOW IT IS MY OWN
Sometimes, you remember them. Peering at you through a glass window muscle memory tells you is thick to shatter with your bare fists. They have many faces, morphing into beasts; into sirens; into gods — but there is only one that has stuck with you. Sometimes, when you sit upon your bed and stare at the walls, their image comes back to you. Downturned mouth, furrowed brows — it's an expression you turn around and around in your mind until their eyes are nothing but the fragments of a tiered chandelier, crashing into your consciousness and cutting your chest open little by little, a thousand tiny paper cuts, raw and bloody until your organs peek through. In this dream, you laugh. Hurry, hurry, you whisper in a voice that you aren't sure belongs to you. Hurry and tell me what you've found inside.
NAIAD ⋅𖥔⋅ I CLUNG TO YOUR HANDS SO THAT SOMETHING HUMAN MIGHT EXIST IN THE CHAOS
A lifetime ago — or maybe just yesterday — it doesn't matter, anyway; you escaped. For once, you stopped running. If only because the world around you was no longer white, no longer sterile — but rather, warm. Buildings steeped in the sun's blood; air that scratched at your lungs like flies buzzing to mangled flesh. They found you sprawled on the ground, watching the world as dust settled on rusted metal. They took you in — baptizing you with words; with stories — and for once, you felt your mind quiet. You wanted to stay in that haloed glow forever. You wanted to peel their skin away from its membrane, if only to live within them and know how it feels to be full. To have a beginning end. Is this another dream? you almost ask them, but before you can part your lips, you are staring back at the wall and tapping your feet together. Three clicks. JUST THREE CLICKS, AND MAYBE YOU CAN GO BACK.
VOYAGER ⋅𖥔⋅ I DELVE INTO WORDS AS IF I WERE PAINTING NOT JUST AN OBJECT BUT ITS SHADOW
There are times when his voice escapes the crack between your door and the floor. Cheerful. Laughing. Far away somehow, as if transmitted through another world. You don't connect it to any of the faces that blend together in your memory. Not his voice — his voice can't belong to any of those cold eyes, analytical and disappointed. You've taught yourself to imitate him. To sound happy. To make jokes and laugh; use your fingers to curl the corners of your mouth upwards. It makes those other faces shift uncomfortably; to scurry away and leave you alone. But somehow, you are sure he won't. He's different. HE HAS TO BE.
TAKEN BY TARYN ⋅𖥔⋅ TAMIKA FAWCETT