[It was the last thing they really found out before they left. She's still nervous, but maybe if she doesn't try to frame it as a story, it won't get... twisted? She hopes.]
The world that we were on... all of the people there had these abilities called psionics. They were different for each person, but... at the Tower of Animus, they were... using kids. For experiments.
[In the end... Xion's hopes are proved both false and true. He'll be able to see the Tower, a huge, hyperfuturistic structure in the middle of a city. Of children, so many children, all with different abilities - making fire, astral projection, healing... Children kept in rooms and used in experiments. To what end? Well...]
They wanted to find out how to create immortality, by separating the soul from the body. And Ruana was their favorite, because she could absorb the abilities and... and memories of others.
[God, she hadn't realized it until she said it aloud, but it sounds so horribly, horribly familiar.]
They... they managed to use this machine, to get the experiment to work, but something went wrong. Her soul was separated from her body but the souls of everything else, all life... they were pulled into her at the same time. So she was the only thing left.
[He'll get a vague impression here, of a huge machine taking up a whole room. Of a scared little girl and boy, of her soul being ripped out of her, pulled up and out through her mouth, of the same process (though much more violent) taking place all around the room, around the world-
Then nothing.]
For a long time, she was alone. She tried to kill herself at least once, but no matter what, she couldn't.
I don't know when things changed, or how. But... when she slept she was able to project herself, and went to all different universes, where she saw people like us. So I guess... in the end, she was lonely.
She split off parts of herself to make different people, to help run the tower. An admin [Dax], a scientist [Jason], someone to repair things [Riki] and the person she'd cared about most [Zo, or as he'd once been known, Zachary].
Once she did that... she brought her favorites to the Tower... by repeating the same experiment that made her. We were immortal, at least back on our home universes, but those universes were destroyed. Zo's psionics let him manipulate barriers, so I guess he was able to reach the ones in our worlds, and bring us to the Tower.
[He'll only get bits and flashes here, the three years of the Tower's operation under Ruana condensed down to a few seconds. Of hundreds of different people. Of "games" and experiments. Of Dax's failed coup, Jason's treachery, of the glamour failure, of the residents - those hundreds of people - organizing and fighting and-]
It took us a long time to find out, to figure out what what had really happened. But we did, and... Ruana wasn't happy. She didn't want to be alone again, even if it meant killing us all. Zo, he... he stopped her. He sent us home. Only I ended up here instead.
cw:discussion of child experimentation, attempted suicide, slight emetophobia
[It was the last thing they really found out before they left. She's still nervous, but maybe if she doesn't try to frame it as a story, it won't get... twisted? She hopes.]
The world that we were on... all of the people there had these abilities called psionics. They were different for each person, but... at the Tower of Animus, they were... using kids. For experiments.
[In the end... Xion's hopes are proved both false and true. He'll be able to see the Tower, a huge, hyperfuturistic structure in the middle of a city. Of children, so many children, all with different abilities - making fire, astral projection, healing... Children kept in rooms and used in experiments. To what end? Well...]
They wanted to find out how to create immortality, by separating the soul from the body. And Ruana was their favorite, because she could absorb the abilities and... and memories of others.
[God, she hadn't realized it until she said it aloud, but it sounds so horribly, horribly familiar.]
They... they managed to use this machine, to get the experiment to work, but something went wrong. Her soul was separated from her body but the souls of everything else, all life... they were pulled into her at the same time. So she was the only thing left.
[He'll get a vague impression here, of a huge machine taking up a whole room. Of a scared little girl and boy, of her soul being ripped out of her, pulled up and out through her mouth, of the same process (though much more violent) taking place all around the room, around the world-
Then nothing.]
For a long time, she was alone. She tried to kill herself at least once, but no matter what, she couldn't.
I don't know when things changed, or how. But... when she slept she was able to project herself, and went to all different universes, where she saw people like us. So I guess... in the end, she was lonely.
She split off parts of herself to make different people, to help run the tower. An admin [Dax], a scientist [Jason], someone to repair things [Riki] and the person she'd cared about most [Zo, or as he'd once been known, Zachary].
Once she did that... she brought her favorites to the Tower... by repeating the same experiment that made her. We were immortal, at least back on our home universes, but those universes were destroyed. Zo's psionics let him manipulate barriers, so I guess he was able to reach the ones in our worlds, and bring us to the Tower.
[He'll only get bits and flashes here, the three years of the Tower's operation under Ruana condensed down to a few seconds. Of hundreds of different people. Of "games" and experiments. Of Dax's failed coup, Jason's treachery, of the glamour failure, of the residents - those hundreds of people - organizing and fighting and-]
It took us a long time to find out, to figure out what what had really happened. But we did, and... Ruana wasn't happy. She didn't want to be alone again, even if it meant killing us all. Zo, he... he stopped her. He sent us home. Only I ended up here instead.
[The memory dissolves. Xion pauses, sighs.]
Figures that one would work.