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voice, un: 46
No festivals.
No fireworks.
No tests of courage.
What a terrible way to spend the summer in a new place. I might die from boredom!
(And yet, it sounds like he's having fun. Don't worry. He'll be fine.)
Why don't we share some tales of the strange and unknown? If we tell enough stories, something interesting might appear~
Let's see... The set up isn't quite right but a hundred stories will probably do.
No fireworks.
No tests of courage.
What a terrible way to spend the summer in a new place. I might die from boredom!
(And yet, it sounds like he's having fun. Don't worry. He'll be fine.)
Why don't we share some tales of the strange and unknown? If we tell enough stories, something interesting might appear~
Let's see... The set up isn't quite right but a hundred stories will probably do.
ooc: feel free to thread jump and react to stories/etc!
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...ah, of course. he'll just have to change some details so that he's not exposing singularity secrets. all right. ]
You know that train we all rode in when we arrived here, right?
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(How could he forget!!!!)
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(he is just a ye olde spirit... even if he's vibing in the future, there are plenty of things he doesn't know or really understand.)
I've heard of trains that travel quickly but not that fast! Even across an entire country?
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[ countries = districts in projmoon world. the City is just one gigantic continent, after all. ]
Sounds convenient, right? But you know... there's a sinister secret hidden away in these trains. [ he pauses here, for added effect. ] So imagine this: you're excited to get on this train. You heard all the hype around its speed and efficiency. So you show your ticket, settle in your seat, buckle in your seatbelt even thought it'll only take ten seconds to get you where you need to go.
Until ten seconds pass.
And yet you still haven't arrived.
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What happens next?!
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Except no, you and the other passengers are still stuck. It's been six hours since then. Everyone around you starts to wonder what the hell's going on. After all, they've never heard of the train staying broken this long before. It must be that bad. People are starting to complain, and some of them even tried opening the doors and windows, but they're sealed shut.
Thirty-one hours pass. Everyone's a little more sensitive than usual, including you. For some reason, you don't feel hungry and thirsty at all since boarding, not that it helps the overall mood of the train car you're in. Slowly but surely, everyone is starting to lose their minds.
[ ... ]
You still with me here?
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So we're trapped on a train with no where to go... perhaps they all need to take a survey.
(Like they had to. But he has a feeling that isn't the solution here.)
... Continue.
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If only that were simple, right? But nah, it's never easy.
You lose track of time after that. You take a nap again, but you ends up sleeping for three days straight instead. Luckily, you were seated beside a nurse and a doctor who looked after you the entire time. Apparently it's been ten days since you boarded the train, yet you still don't feel hungry or thirsty. The nurse says they still have no idea why there's been no vital change in everyone's bodies, but she suggests that that they wait. Time is all they have left right now, after all.
Fifteen days pass. You've been woken up by some commotion in the train as they watch the next traincar over. Inside, they see a bloody fight happen as two passengers try killing each other. A result of being stuck inside an isolated space for more than two weeks, says the doctor. But even though they've been stabbed and decapitated... they can still talk in anguished voices. They can experience pain, but so long as they're inside the train, they can never truly die.
[ ... ]
Should I go on? It gets worse from here.
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... After weeks, they're tired of each other and looking for a way out. Of course, they'd grow desperate and mad.
(Like rats, he thinks, but he doesn't say it out loud.)
But not even death can set them free.
(He... can relate.)
I want to hear the rest.
cw suicide, body horror
nonetheless, roland presses on. ]
You pass out from seeing all that, of course. Day by day, the semblance of time grows even more blurry. The doctor and nurse are the only ones who can track it, and by day 30, the nurse told you that five of the thirty traincars are already filled with suicidals. The car you're in is still going strong though, but you are barely hanging on to what's left of your sanity at this point
Ninety-three days pass. Things are not looking good. Cars 5 to 15 are still doing fine, but things aren't looking good for the others. Car 19, for instance, is full of half-dead people at this point. People in other cars have truly gone off the rails, going so far as to barge into other cars and massacring everyone there. But of course, they can never really die - these people just want an outlet of their pent-up frustration, is all. The nurse and doctor has thought up a plan to help protect the car you're in, but you tell them that you'll need some time to decide whether to take up on their solution. Time really is all you have left, after all.
A hundred days. The situation outside your traincars is getting worse, and you want to help. So you agree to go with the nurse and doctor's plan, and they begin the procedure.
It's simple, really. They're just going to combine you with the other passengers and make you all into one grotesque creature, is all. By the time the procedure is done, it has been 150 days.
[ ... ]
Hm. Just realized that this is getting way too long. That okay with you?
cw suicide, body horror
It makes him more invested and before he knows it, he's leaning in, listening, waiting for the next part,)
What about the doctor and nurse?
(He doesn't trust them in this story.)
cw suicide, body horror
How it looks like, however? I'll leave that up to your imagination.
3,437 days in. By this point, you already know how things work. Take care of the suicidals, hold the fort that is the traincar, get frequent checkups from the doctor and nurse. By this point, the traincar has become a little city of its own, dubbed... Lovely Town. You and the other passengers are happy and satisfied, having forgotten your own lives outside the train.
724,284 days in. You're minding your business, molding what's left of the carcasses into square molds that'll help bolster the defenses of your little town. Then... the train cars finally open, and uniformed people immediately come in and take everything down. They use tranquilizers to take you and the others down, but before the uniforms have taken you in... You realize that the doctor and nurse have vanished.
Either way, you've finally reached your destination! Turns out that ten seconds already did pass -- outside the train, that is.
[ see? it's a good ending! ]
cw slight body horror, self harm (i'm sssorrry)
the way it unfolded (... I won't stop you from having fantasies, Miss Don Quixote) the bodies twisted and skin stretched taunt, bulging with muscles not their own (Just please keep in mind that reality may not quite align with them) permeate her memories and simply listening, stomach rolling as she fights to what food she'd had to enjoy the tales down, at least affords her the chance to keep her expressions to herself.
no, this story isn't one she knows. not exactly. but don quixote's mind draws to the scenes of another life reflected in a mirror, third person for anyone else but immersive for herself, a pair of charged blade's phantom weight in hand as she squeezes her eyes shut and presses her hand to her mouth.
a train she's mentioned off-hand to a few people, but never in depth.
she doesn't like to think of it, after all.
not of the reality only those within the corporation itself should know, which begs the question of how her fellow city-dweller knew of it, and it's a nagging point. this isn't the place to ask. not the time.
sorry, sinclair. but she'll be hogging the bathroom (door slammed, lock clumsily turned) for a time, head pressed against the wall and fighting the urge to destroy the mirror in there, because all it reflects again and again and again--
...
...
...
breathe, don quixote. in and out. rule five is something they're supposed to follow in this household, but neither of them have been doing it very well. it's fine. it's fine. it's fine, a mantra that leaves crescent moon shaped cuts against her palms, pain biting into her thoughts and blood on the towel she presses them against. it's fine.
it's fine. she won't say a word now. but she's not going to leave this alone for long. ]
un: theredgaze (audio)
Roland.
[IN A VERY "JESUS CHRIST" DISAPPROVING SORT OF WAY]
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What? I was just telling a story. None of this ever happened, trust me.
[ mhmmmm ]
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[YOU SAY THIS LIKE SOME OF HIS CREW HAVEN'T BEEN OPEN ABOUT THE HORRORS(TM).]
Need I remind you that some things are best not talked about so openly, even if the Head may not be here to deal with it.
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he grows silent, making sounds like he's got another retort up his sleeve, but ultimately acquiesces. it's not like the crane boy came from their world anyway - he's too peaceful for any of it. ]
...Fine.
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[A little drawn-out sigh.]
You ever been on one of those things?
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Oh, the trains I was talking about? Yeah, a couple of times.
Those other details, though? Who knows what those Wings are capable of.
[ hahaha. haha. haaaaah. ]
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(Complete silence on Tsuru's end. He's quiet as he listens to the story, letting his imagination twist and turn. He tries to imagine what creature this doctor and nurse might have come up with. He wonders if his imagination should lean more human or less.
3,473. Almost ten years.
724,284. Almost... over... he has to count again and again. Once he gets to a certain point in the math, all he knows is that it's older than him. Much older than him. Almost twice as old. He can't imagine it and he's someone who measures time much more differently than the average human. To a normal human... The time on that train would be hell. Worse than hell.
This is all so much longer than ten seconds. So much longer than a few days. Even for him, this is so much.
Roland might even think that Tsuru has stopped listening or that he's left. )
After living for so long, it would be almost impossible to retain humanity.
(After living for that long, nothing can be human. He's quiet again, letting the details really sit with him. Of course, the doctor and nurse were not what they appeared. The fact that the story has ended and he still doesn't know what they were... that adds to the intrigue, doesn't it?
So he focuses on what he does know from the story. The twist of time, knowing ten seconds had been the same as 2,000 years. It reminds him of the time travel he's grown accustomed to. But the mechanics aren't what make the story resonate.
The characters. The victim... the central character in the story. How easy it is to imagine a similar fate for himself. Even if he can feel joy, it's sorrow and pain that gives him humanity. )
... How do I feel? In the end?
(How does the character turned monster feel in its final moments?)
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so he's silent for a moment as he tries to come up with a better ending, give him a moment. ]
You don't remember anything. You were restored, and you went on your merry way.
The end.
[ said with a simple finality. he doesn't tell tsurumaru the horrors the cleanup crew would've gone through as they try to put back every single carcass back together. he doesn't tell tsurumaru the fate of the main character of the actual story, where they'd been booked by roland and co. in the end.
most importantly, he doesn't tell tsurumaru that this train and the horrors that occur inside it is actually not a bug in wcorp's singularity, but a feature. this happens every time someone boards a warp train, and nobody will remember the hundreds and thousands of years that go on inside that dimensional rift after coming out.
(spoilers: there's no good ending.) ]
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(Is it really the end? He lets it settle between them.
Twisted and changed. Humanity forgotten. Taken down. Taken in. The mysterious force behind it all... unexplained or missing. Can someone really come back from that? Go back to normal? Well, it isn't his story so he can only trust the narrator. )
... I see.
("Before those who have lost their minds and only seek destruction, I wonder about their past.")
A happy ending? I'm surprised. (He hadn't expected one with how desperate the story had been. In fact, Roland may here that undertone in his voice, "Really?" Still, despite the doubt, there's a sharp sound on Tsuru's end... clapping. ) I understand.
(What, exactly?)
This is how a story is supposed to be told!
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See~? What'd I tell ya? Sends chills down your spine, doesn't it?
[ it better fuckin do just that because even someone as apathetic as roland was rightfully spooked the first time he saw it for himself. ]
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(Gachoumaru doesn't sound nearly as nice as Tsurumaru, though...)
Maybe a more modern story would be better than an old tale...
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