intro

[pinkprismstaff]

You don't remember getting knocked out.

That's the best descriptor for the feeling you experience before you wake up. There's a glittering absence of color to your field of vision, and a sensation that you aren't yourself, you aren't anything in particular. Abruptly, unpleasantly, you wake up in a strange, sunny location. Where that is might vary--laying in a sun chair on the pool deck, draped over the skee-ball machine in the arcade, face down in a cart in the laundry room....or just stretched out in the long, long expanse of sand surrounding the island.

There doesn't seem to be anyone else here, aside from the others who have woken up and have as little clue where they might be as you do. It's a silent, empty island filled with a lot of questions and few clear answers. What you can conclude are a few things: that you don't get hungry or tired, that any wounds you have don't seem to either heal or worsen, and leaving the island doesn't seem to be possible.

Maybe it would be good to meet with the others who have woken up?

Comments

[birdysnatcher]

[When Shade wakes, it's not on the grey expanse of Gotham city, but somewhere quite opposite in tone - the sun beats down on her skin (humans get so hot, and their skin so sticky) and the sky is bluer than she's seen on the planet so far.

Prying herself from the sand - and oh, how annoying sand is - she gets to her feet. She still has the coat, she's still in her body, not her body. But not where she was.

Exit with intention. And then begin again.

Coloured specks leak and float from her coat as Shade wanders the beach, curiously approaching whoever else happens to be roaming there.]

What is this place?

[And, because it's worth asking:]

Earth?

[When Shade reaches the main resort, it only takes a couple of bloodstains and wrecked furniture before she decides Fuck this shit, I'm out. She finds herself somewhere seemingly quiet - though, this place is too quiet, not like the conspicuous buzz of Earth - and...well, to the untrained eye she just seems to pass out.

But in her mind, she taps into the madness, ready to escape, back to Meta, back to anything that's not this -

And goes nowhere.

Not this shit again.

Shade jolts awake, conscious, desperate on the floor.]

No! Why won't it work?

[compendiem]

[ Minato startles, a slight rocking back on his heels and the widening of the eyes, before he rocks back and leans over Shade, concerned. ]

What doesn't?

[birdysnatcher]

Leaving this place.

[She sits up, at least.]

Am I stuck here too?

[compendiem]

No... We haven't tried everything yet.

[ He's tried lying on the ground already. Didn't work. ]

[birdysnatcher]

[She might question his use of 'we', if she weren't so wrapped in her despair at this moment. Right now, he's just an overly friendly stranger who wants to help. She can't turn that down.]

What else is there?

[compendiem]

Um... Can you swim?

[ From what he can tell, they've several routes out of here: out the water, the forest, the sky... ]

beach

[ghostinmichelle]

Uh... yeah. It's Earth. Wait -

[ Under normal circumstances, this question would be enough for Misaki to ping its asker as some kind of over-imaginative chuuni. But these definitely aren't normal circumstances, and if she's not seriously hallucinating those colors flying off the girl's coat, her interlocutor might not be all that normal either. Now that Misaki thinks about it, does she have any proof that this isn't another planet? Apart from that being completely impossible? ]

Actually... how could we tell?

[birdysnatcher]

Ask the locals.

[She tilts her head at the - friendly, by her standards - stranger.]

Don't you know?

[ghostinmichelle]

I was kinda hoping you were a local, actually. I woke up in a pile of gift shop flamingos here about an hour ago, so I'm gonna go ahead and say I don't know much more about this place than you do. I mean, it looks like Earth, but... it's not like I've ever been anywhere else.

[ A squint at the magic(? alien?) coat. ]

Have you?

[birdysnatcher]

[The cat's long out of the bag, it's not something she advertises, but why hide it?]

Only Meta. You can't leave the homeworld unless you're a full citizen. You can't even visit some of the moons.

[Ugh. Bureaucracy.]

If only we could see the stars. Then we could figure this out.

[ghostinmichelle]

...So. You're an alien.

[ Sure!! Why not!!! Misaki's already tenuous smile freezes slightly, like it'll slide off her face if she doesn't make a very conscious effort to keep it there. ]

Okay, well, that's one we should be able to solve pretty easily, right? Just wait until night, if, you know, night is a thing they have here. I hope you know your stars, though, 'cause I'm not gonna be too much help. There's a reason I'm not in the Astronomy Club. Uh. At least three reasons, actually.

[ Yeah, her mouth's pretty much on autopilot at this point. This morning she got magically dropped on murder beach island and now she's having a conversation with a straight-up alien. Well, Misaki, you did it. You finally went round the ol' bend. Can't say you didn't have a good run of things. ]

Main Resort Prompt

[photoning]

[When Mahiru sees someone on the floor, on the other side of the large room full of blood, she's starting to wonder if it's a victim of the possible carnage. She's walking in their direction with a cloth napkin that she scavenged from the restaurant; it's quiet enough that she approaches without losing her composure and running through the wrecked furniture fast enough to sprain her ankle. Then the young woman gets back up. There's something purposeful about the other person's frantic energy, that makes Mahiru feel fervent about supporting any kind of solution to this daunting predicament.]

There's something you thought would work? [There's a leap of logic that Mahiru can't quite bring herself to make.] Did you find a switch or something down there? [Y'know, on the floor.]

[birdysnatcher]

[What was frantic calms only slightly, shifts along the spectrum into a different direction - anger passes and now her palms sweat, her heart beats faster, it's sickening and uncomfortable a feeling in itself without being freshly foreign to her.

There's someone here, and she doesn't know if it's a comfort or not.]

Would a switch help?

[photoning]

[Mahiru bites her lip, unsure if her theory has merit. She doesn't want to sound crazy and freak out this person even more... but she has to speak up so they can work together and get out.]

I don't know. It feels like there's something keeping us here.

[They couldn't walk further into the forest.]

[birdysnatcher]

[Well, about that...]

I can't leave. I just tried.

[But again with the 'us', the 'we'. Shade doesn't understand.]

Don't you live here? What happened?

[photoning]

No. No, no, no. ["Live here" is actually a pretty strange assumption that makes her worry about the severity of the other's disorientation.] I don't think anyone lives here. It looks a lot more like a place to visit.

[Mahiru finds one undisturbed chair to sit in. She thinks that'll make her seem less threatening. Maybe this room literally was the restaurant since it's so large and quiet.]

I was brought here suddenly today. [As suddenly as the white-haired one tried to leave.] A lot of others have been, too. We're all trying to leave.

beach

[oceanicbutterfly]

It had better be Earth.

[...she says, in a resigned tone.]

[birdysnatcher]

I travelled hard to get there. I don’t want to end up somewhere else.

[An interesting response from the stranger, though.]

Are you not from around here?

[oceanicbutterfly]

[Karen takes that in a perhaps-surprising amount of stride. (Then again, maybe it's not surprising, comics being what they are.)]

No, I just suddenly woke up here. The same as you, I'd suspect.

[birdysnatcher]

[Strange, but she’s used to strange. It doesn’t answer the lack of locals, however. There are always locals.]

You’re right - I woke up here too. Where did you come from?

Main resort

[howveryglib]

[…well, that is a deeply strange way to do it, but…]

So teleportation is impossible here, then? I suppose that would make sense in terms of actually keeping us here…

[birdysnatcher]

Impossible?

[A blot of colour drips from her coat and lands on the ground. The black spot inside grows to the edges, and she reaches down into the hole until it takes her whole body.

Where you wander, wither you may…weary limbed for many days.

As soon as she’s gone in, she seems to pop back out.

I crumble toward my destination.]

Impossible. How?

[howveryglib]

[what the fuck that is some reaper shit.]

I… would not know, personally…

[well okay the reapers are a noble Garlean tradition even if they’re kind of obsolete because machines are generally more reliable than demons but he’s gotta admit that’s some weird fuckin stuff]

[birdysnatcher]

[She slumps.]

I thought Earth was a place to be free.

[But now, she's trapped. A bird in a cage. How fitting. Where do those cages end?]

Don't you know what's going on?

[howveryglib]

There are always exceptions, unfortunately.

["earth?????"]

In any case, I would imagine I am precisely as lost as you are. Others with whom I have spoken seem to be in the same situation, as well.