interstellar5555 | Locked in a Room

Entry tags:

Locked in a Room

Who: Everyone stuck in Pride HQ
What: This load of crap.
When: Nov. 1-5
Where Pride HQ
Warnings: Pg-13 minimum because Carnies. Tag if it gets over that.

Everyone got the same call-- and now we're all stuck in HQ with no hint of release in sight.

The reason? No one knows.

How are you coping?

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Yeah, Monsieur Bird Lord.

[That gets a small laugh out of him. He can't forget to make fun of Koumei for that later, maybe when this mess gets sorted out.]

Hey, Nariko...can I ask you something?

[Oh, how did she forget about that part! So amazing. And it's nice to have something to laugh about, too.

But then! Ahh, a question? Not that fun ones ever start with asking to ask a question but she'll try to roll with it.]

Sure. [It can't be that bad.]

By, ridiculous crap, did you mean... [He's been called out on it already. Talked with bandmates. Even if he promised Koumei to keep it quiet, he needs to know, to be sure.]

Like, has anything strange been happening to you lately?

[His voice is cautious, not quite fulling asking what he wants to know but hoping she'll pick up on it. Wondering if she'd even tell him the truth.]

[The shift in her expression might be enough of an answer. No one shuts down in that particular way unless there's something that they're scared to talk about, something inherently strange. But does she trust him enough to say anything? Just because he's asking doesn't mean he won't laugh at her if she explains the whole thing.]

What would you mean by 'strange'?

[She's kind of stalling to try and decide how to deal with this.]

[He can read the expression on her face, but that doesn't stop him from getting a little awkward about it.]

Oh, you know, nothing too big...just remembering weird stuff all of a sudden. Or just having weird dreams and stuff.

[He hopes that sounded like something he could later blow off as stress or something normal...even though nothing about what's happening was normal and he was finally starting to get it.]

[She's ... Quiet. There's no immediate danger in telling him, really, but it feels scary. But also? Nariko's kind of emotionally worn out and the energy it takes to stress about this one little decision might wear her back down into exhaustion again.]

I'm not sure you'd call them dreams so much as visions.

[But, yeah, she's having them.]

I see.

[Count yet another on his tally of people who have been having the strange visions, just like half of the other people he's talked to. His bandmates, some of his friends in Pride, people he knows in Virgo.]

It's cool, it's not like you're the only one here...I just wanted to ask to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

You aren't. Everything's a mess and I don't think any of us know how to fix it.

[And in the meantime it's scary, and weirdly isolating. After all, if it'd been anything else she wouldn't have hesitated to tell Yosuke it was just ... It felt like something they weren't supposed to ever talk about.]

I'm sorry, it's not that I don't trust you it all just makes me uncomfortable, y'know? It's like my skin isn't mine anymore.

Yeah, I know what you mean...I understand.

[He hadn't tried to think of it in those terms. But once she says it, he shudders a little.]

That's creeping me out, don't put it like that!

Sorry. [But it's also true so she doesn't sound as apologetic as she should, maybe.]

But that means you've been seeing stuff too, right?

[And she's already gone ahead and admitted it, so fair is fair! He should obviously tell her about what he's experienced.]

...Yeah.

[He admits, quietly, rubbing a hand behind his head.]

It's like...freaky stuff that's never happened to me before. Like the kind of stuff straight out of a feverish nightmare or something.

What, with monsters or something?

[She doesn't want to push him just for the sake of it, but the doors are open now and she's curious. At least this way she'd be far more likely to divulge if he lead the way in that respect.]

It's sorta fragmented, but I got the feeling that there might of been monsters.

[How else would someone die in there. He remembers feeling scared, like he'd almost died.]

Like they tried to kill me. Or something did, at least.

[Okay, she hadn't thought that she would be right! Man, now she can't help feeling a little bad, especially since she had more than enough experience with that impending sense of death. That hers had been a setup from the beginning is moderately irrelevant.]

That's horrifying. [And she's the most eloquent girl in the world.]

It's not real, though. It can't be. When would you have ever been in that kind of danger?

That's what I thought too...but it keeps happening. Like a recurring nightmare or something, except it's furthering the story.

[He wants to believe so much that it isn't real. But it nags at him, eats away at his brain.]

Isn't it weird that it's not just one person though?

That's probably the most discerning part. If it was just or two people, or even just one or two bands then there could be tons of explanations.

[Exhaustion, some weird food, a mostly benign illness that fucked with perception and memory, etc.] It just started out of nowhere and we have no way of stopping it.

[So were they just going to lose their minds here before they ever got out? ... Even thinking about it in passing makes her shiver.]

Yeah... I guess we should wait and see what else happens. Maybe that'll tell us more. Or maybe it'll stop.

[Maybe it's just a bad dream. He's still finding it hard to believe that it's real and that there might be something wrong.]

[There's definitely something wrong, to say or insist otherwise is just an outright lie - whether it's a necessary one to retain ones sanity is still beside the point.] There's not much else we can do.

[But...] We could try and keep track of what everyone's symptoms are. That way we'll have an organized sense of what's occurring, and a better way to discern what 'worse' could even be. We have to approach this logically, otherwise we're just running around with our heads cut off.

Good idea. So far, I think all I've heard of is the weird-ass visions people are having. Aside from the creepy stuff that was happening on the tour. But that still might be coincidence.

[He'd kind of blown it off and made fun of anyone who really got scared by that stuff.]

Let's keep an eye out and compare lists every now and again.

Wait, that happened to you guys, too?

[She'd ... Convinced herself it wasn't a big deal either, especially since it had only gotten worse in the last part of the tour.]

When did our lives become some weird merry go round. [Weird visions and shared ghost experiences. Joy.]

I don't know. But I know we'll figure this thing out.

[But he doesn't tell her how excited he is about it. Or how fun this actually is for him.]

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Locked in a Room

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you wanna end this one here?