☆TRACK III: THE STREETS ARE EMPTY

[interdimanagers]

Who: Drafted Virgo Members
What: Juno makes everyone do a seance.
When: October 21st-22nd.
Where: The basement of the Virgo residential tower.
Warnings: Ghosts, apparently.

“You can't shake the feeling. Be quiet not one sound. But the wind seems to speak, Something's here in the room with me.” ☆THE STREETS ARE EMPTY Juno arrives without notice. In fact, you can’t even really remember seeing her approach. One moment you’re doing your business, and the next she is telling you that you have to come down to the basement with her, in order to complete a “task” you’ve been assigned. This sort of thing would seem preposterous to a normal person, but even if you don’t realize it, you aren’t one. As Mr Blanche’s personal assistant and sometimes second in command, her word seems to carry almost as much weight as his does. You don’t really have any choice but to agree. “Bring whatever instrument you know best,” she says. “You’ll need it.” She snaps up every one of you that she sees in her initial sweep, and soon she has a whole pack of Virgo newbies following her down to the lowest floors of the residential tower. It feels weird, but it’s like you can’t quite articulate why. No one else seems to be able to either. Most of the lights are turned off on those lower floors, but it’s easy to tell it’s a place you’ve never been before. It’s strangely...hospital like, down there, in both aesthetic and a sense of sterility. Maybe some kind of laboratory setting? Which seems like a super weird thing to be in the basement of an apartment building, but this is yet another thing you can’t quite bring yourself to ask about. Juno leave most of the lights off, except for a few central features. The ambience is dim and cold. She tells you not to stray, and you don’t. The thought of going against her becomes somehow repulsive, like you don’t even want to think about it too long. You try not to think about your surrounding too hard, either. She lines you all up, and then after some strangely intense eyeballing, she starts breaking you up into some incredibly lopsided groups that seem to have nothing to do with your actual bands. In the end, she looks disappointed with resulting teams, but carries on regardless. Each “group” is given some complexly timed sheet music and a funny looking mobile speaker. She says that you have a half hour to compose a group piece to play alongside the sheet music , and that it needs to be good. Then, she wanders off to start pacing the basement in a strangely arcane series of movements, and leaves you all to it. Only among your peers do you start feeling like you can voice any of your previously stowed concerns, but make sure Juno doesn’t overhear you – occasionally she’ll come by to bluntly critique anyone who is performing inadequately. You feel lucky that she doesn’t have a whip with her, because you’re almost certain that she’d use it without much remorse. ☆THE SEANCE The performance is about as awkward as you’d expect, given the set up. The four groups are set up so that they’re facing each other, as if standing at the corner of a square. Each speaker is set up in the center of its group, and the precisely timed electronic beat that plays from them is what you’re supposed to perform along to. Odds are that you do your level best, but, outside of your control...something goes wrong. “Have you ever felt... Something evil, Lurking around? The moon is full, The streets are empty. Shadows cover the town.”

Comments

[panspermia]

Weasel had already been plenty quiet and eerie, but this sort of spacing out felt like an entirely different thing than the moping from a moment ago. Those lights were screwing with people, he knew it.

"You're freaking me out. What did you do? Where's that thing, what did it do, huh?"

He's caught between wanting answers and being scared of what he'll hear, his tone both demanding and too tightly wound to really listen.

[yuruse]

"What did--- ah." That's right, the wisp. It had clearly caused this, as the memories (if that's really what they are) had been initiated by touching it. Now it's vanished. Why had it disappeared when he'd touched it, but not after Greg had?

Despite his confusion, he feels... better. Whole again. Whatever had sapped him of all hope before is gone, the emotion once again filling the gaps it had left. Had the wisp been responsible for this too? Hoes does he explain this to his friend?

In the end, he decides not to. The man in his memories, perhaps slowly seeping back into his general persona, keeps things to himself for good reason. "I... It's alright. Everything's fine, Greg. It's gone now."

[panspermia]

Were he himself, he'd be happy to take those words at face value. He ought to be glad, to see his friend calm, collected, restored. It ought to be encouraging, something he was hoping for in the first place.

Instead, Weasel's reassurances only frighten Greg more. He hasn't stopped backing away.

"No. No way. Whatever it is you're pulling, I'm not buying it. I'm not putting up with any of this spooky garbage any more, okay? Keep your creepy lights and magic tricks to yourself! I'm out of here."

[yuruse]

"I didn't create the light, Greg." Though saying this isn't likely to get him anywhere. Greg knows he didn't make the wisp. He'd frightened and irrational, and whatever had gotten to Weasel has affected him somehow as well. He isn't his usual self, and if touching the wisp hadn't fixed that the way it had with him, then he's not sure what else to do.

He doesn't yet consider that each of the floating lights might be different, or harbor a different memory. To him, they simply seem to be catalysts of sorts.

"Please don't run off and do something stupid."