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

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.

[birdysnatcher]

[This girl is nice, Shade concludes. It's nice, to meet people who don't look at her with daggers, to have experiences completely untethered to anyone else's life. All for her own.

Under far from ideal circumstances, granted. But it's something to hold onto, and nothing is needed more.]

I woke up by the water, too. [She turns to the girl for guidance, some kind of answer.] Why are we here?

[photoning]

No one has told us yet.

[She holds her camera in both hands and looks down into the digital preview screen that she's allowed to fall asleep and turn gray again. Even if she turned it back on, there wouldn't be any answers. But Mahiru wants to give some kind of definitive answer to this girl, as if that will soothe her doubts.]

I think we're going to be asked to investigate.

[If a massacre did occur here, isn't there a logic to that? The victim crying out to the universe for help... Or, no, the perpetrator wanting to show off their handiwork. That fits.]

[birdysnatcher]

[Oh, no. Now that’s a little too much involvement to be asked of Shade - perhaps, out of her own volition, she would try to work out what happened here. But from her captors, to be asked or demanded to, now that’s a different story.

She has to be sure of this intel.]

Why?

[photoning]

Well, um—

[Mahiru might have stated her case too strongly. Her color shifts.]

I don't know anything for sure, but—

[At least as she thinks about it, counting ideas off on her fingers, investigation does continue to strike her as all the more inevitable.]

You don't think it's a ransom or something like that, right? And none of us know each other or why we're here, so a grudge doesn't make any sense. The people who brought us here wanted to show us this and see how we react, I think.

[That's the strongest link to her. Between realms, the lack of color before her eyes.]

[birdysnatcher]

It’s mad…

[The word seems to hold more significance to Shade than it does Mahiru. Of course, Earth was on a downward dip - even without her intervention - she’d just never given it much thought beforehand.

Now, it’s worth thinking about.]

Be right back.

[And then - again - to all watching, to those who don’t see things differently, she seems to pass out once again.]

[photoning]

[Mahiru is sort of used to dramatic descriptions of the state of life in general, but she's actually not sure whether Shade is saying "existence is insane" or maybe "my imaginary friend is angered". Akutagawa has an imaginary friend to be angered, after all.]

H-have a nice trip.

[She holds onto the bottom of her skirt as she sits and waits for the white-haired girl to "come back". Is it the same technique as before, that obviously failed? Or is there something going on behind her eyelids? As crazy as that would be, their arrival itself is already crazy.]

[birdysnatcher]

[Shade's journey - this time - is not beyond the reaches of the island, but to the hidden recesses of herself. She'd never been good at this, mind; it was hard to sit with her thoughts. Hard to get them to be still.

In she goes, inside herself, inside the madness she controls now. There are only two heroes in her life she can turn to for advice. She reaches for one, but finds nothing.

Shade wakes, colour bleeds onto the floor. Mahiru's camera screen, once grey, displays a kaleidoscopic wonderland. A stray finger or eye find themselves in the room with them.]

Ugh. I can't meta meditate in this mess. [Despite having passed out, she picks herself up promptly.] I need to find another way out.

[photoning]

[Mahiru is stunned by the burst in her vision. She runs the palm of her hand over the camera - it's dry and smooth, so at least water or dust isn't permanently altering the display. Cradling the device in her hands and making sure it's not jostled in some direction. That can anchor her and keep her from flying all the way off the handle.]

Hang on, is your—?

[With her own finger (attached, thank god) she points back and forth from the extra finger, craning her neck down to get a clear view of Shade's hands. She sighs in relief that nothing seems damaged there. Because, yeah, Mahiru does think there is a legitimate risk that this girl could have clipped through the furniture.]

Yeah, don't bang your head against the wall too much. Or the floor. Or the... meta wall.

[She did search her soul for an instant when pondering how deep this meta mystery could go. But that was never a familiar genre for her.]

[birdysnatcher]

[Getting to her feet, Shade dusts off her jacket. Specks of colour seem to drift off with the action.

She looks to Mahiru with some expectation.]

Where did the others look?

[photoning]

There's a forest that spit someone back out. Allegedly.

[She lets her head flop towards one side, the window of the restaurant, trying to get a glimpse of that forest from this angle. It's not very clear.]

I guess it makes sense. If the island really were just the hotel, it'd be pretty small. Land doesn't usually form that way.

[birdysnatcher]

Land forms differently on Meta. Our maps are three-dimensional.

[Just as a tidbit for you, Mahiru.]

You think there’s more we’re not seeing?

[photoning]

... ... ???

[Mahiru's strong spatial reasoning skills and weak science fiction skills are at war in her brain right now, so she makes a couple tiny noises. But she thinks... she gets it? If there were a fourth primarily-spatial dimension that "the girl from meta" could access, that would explain her actions.]

Yeah, I think the beach has to be less than half...

[She gives a self-deprecating smile, hands curving again under her camera.]

Wow, then a photo from this really must just look like a little toy to you.

[birdysnatcher]

[It’s a weird turn for conversation, and she doesn’t even notice she’s made the girl feel awkward.]

No way, I love Earth art! Music, poetry, photography…all of it. There’s so much feeling in it, you know?

[photoning]

You really think so?

[Mahiru thinks of herself as Japanese way more than an Earthling but who cares, she has found a kindred spirit.]

To be honest, I know what's more important, but I don't actually like to use photos for investigating. I think that capturing one moment in time where someone was happy... with a smile on their face... is incredible. With a photo, you can't pick and choose the way you do with a video.

[birdysnatcher]

Capturing a fleeting feeling…

[The inescapable emotion of Earth may have caused her some trouble, but in the end she can’t deny that all its feelings are why she fell in love with the place.]

It’s a lot like poetry, isn’t it?

[photoning]

Yeah!

[She makes that rectangular hand gesture that signifies "photo focus".]

The way there are borders, a beginning and end around the middle. I think that's something cool about any kind of art.

[birdysnatcher]

[She nods in agreement, then gestures to the camera.]

Can I see?

[photoning]

Sure!

[Mahiru stands up from her chair and in a fluid motion snaps a shot of Shade.]

I had to get in that shot first. You looked so excited right then...

[Now she's turning over the camera, easily forming an "X" with the strap so that the viewfinder faces Shade, outwards and right-side up.]

[birdysnatcher]

[She's not startled at having her picture taken all of a sudden, but when she's handed the camera she turns it upside down in confusion.]

Why isn't it coming out?

[photoning]

[Mahiru grins widely. She almost wants to hide her mouth with her hand. The idea of an alien (in whatever sense) only recognizing this model as a film camera, like a cliché from a cartoon, is just too cute.]

I wish I could let myself use film. This just uses a digital memory card. But look, you can browse them straight away with the little wheel.

[It's chunky! Touchscreens haven't totally annihilated haptic buttons yet!]