aftr_stories | [MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

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[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

Something is wrong.

This may not very well be obvious, at first. The Storyteller is not present to put forth yet another diatribe, informative or apologetic, and the backdrop of guttering flame and sandy campfire is as present as ever...albeit briefly.

Those who tell their stories will start to notice something...odd taking place. Indeed, no matter how they intend to begin their tale, the land of Mu will immediately start to warp to accommodate it, or something utterly unlike it, until storytellers and listeners alike may find themselves in an exact recreation of a seemingly random memory, in the most stark and painstaking of detail. There is no altering the memory, nor is there any preventing it once it's begun to play - you will simply have to witness memories that are not your own this go around.

Furthermore, stories that take place in worlds other than LifeAftr will be, frankly, inevitable. Those memories, too, will be recreated, to be relived by the teller and lived by the listener.

It is time, once more, for you to tell a story...with a slight twist! This is, in fact, our first player plot, as provided by Dragon! The initial setting will be familiar for oldcomers, and newcomers will recognize it from the introduction they received in their dreams.

Yet for this Storytelling only, people can imagine whatever stories they wish, from both their homes and their time on LifeAftr, as long as they don't mind the fact that others will be reliving those stories in the form of an impromptu memory share.

Even those who prefer not to voice their stories aloud are not safe this time around. If the memory is recalled in essence, Mu will shift to accommodate it in full.

There is, however, a benefit to this: those who venture memories to be relived will receive both a befuddled apology from the Storyteller, who will assert that this was most definitely not meant to happen (they're the Storyteller, not the Rememberer!), as well as a tired promise that the relived memories will be worth two offerings each, as if in compensation.

Not that it counts for much, probably.

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[ooc; key points of the thread will be linked. Will try to cw each link as best I can. If you do decide read the whole thread, when you get to the part where it splits into three, choose the middle hallway to continue following Xion.]

[The environment that comes into view is... a rather plain one. It's a cafeteria, littered with tables and chairs of varying sizes. There's a full-service kitchen off to one side, complete with storage, and a walk-in oven and freezer alike. Aside from the walls, there's the tower's spine in the middle, complete with elevator this time.

It's also currently full of people.

The person you're looking for, of course, is Xion. She's a bit different, not wearing her Organization coat, instead a plain, undyed shirt and black pants, with a sword strapped to her waist, along with an odd mask. Not to mention her age - she's older than on Monsun and the islets, but younger than she is on Mu. As soon as you get close enough, her voice speaks, though it's obviously not the one you can see talking.]

The mission wasn't my idea. It was... Enoch's, I think. We'd gotten our hands on some of the collar fluid-

[Oh that's right. Everyone, even Xion, is wearing collars with varying colors of fluid inside, ranging from orange to violet, the latter of which being Xion's own shade]

-and... I don't really understand all of it, even now. But everything up here on the residential levels was made of film. The stuff that makes the glamour work. And if we used those tools on the fluid we got, we'd lose it, or it would get turned into film too, somehow. So we needed to go down to the admin levels, to get real tools.

[There's some eating, mingling... then the crowd coalesces into groups of around five to eight. And slowly move towards the elevator, whose doors are already open. And her group is the third (no cws) to go down. At first it's climbing down cables, then using their supernatural abilities when the the cables just... disappear, at one point (though the shaft continues).

It's at an odd sort of red light, quite a ways down the shaft, that things start getting hairy (cw: injury, broken bones/joints, dislocation, hanging, blood mention). And that's when "Xion" speaks up again.]

A couple of us were just testing it, at first. Trying to find a safe way down. Then the rest of us, we heard the screams and... we couldn't just leave them.

The red light nullified our powers. Or... the glamour of them, at least. And kept the psychoradiation out, for what it meant back then. So we... we just had to jump. It... some of us were just lucky, and others of us weren't. Asch, Ion's friend.... And even those of us who were okay all got hurt, somehow.

[As the memory follows her down, it's easy to see what she means. With two violent deaths, and injuries ranging from friction burns to dislocations to very nasty bone breaks. It's almost impossible to picture how they'll get out.

Except that Xion is the least injured of them, and she has an idea (cw: blood mention).]

I don't really know what I was doing then... just that I had to do something. I was probably the least hurt out of all of us. Especially Yu. [She'd been scared for him, and it shows in her voice.]

I wish I could thank Link for giving me the sword. And the mask.

[She's able to jump to one of the doors now visible on the elevator shaft, and using the sword, she's able to wedge the door open. Her magic comes back to her in the room on the other side, and with a lot of negotiation, she's able to help everyone still alive get into the room. Even Yu. (cw: injury mention, slight innuendo).]

... shut up.

[Clearly flustered. Though she'd be horrified if she knew and understood all the implications of that particular situation.

In any case, the group takes time to regroup, and recover how they can... relocating shoulders and rearranging broken bones. And shutting the door behind them, as odd effects that had manifested in the elevator shaft and kept manifesting here: Bulging, the shaft "breathing," blinding lights.]

Psychoradiation. It's actually not too bad like this, if you can believe it.

[It takes time, but eventually, they're ready to move on. For all the good it does them. They aren't even being incautious - Sheba had barely reached out to sense the possible minds of others, when they'd been detected by retrieval units. In response to their appearance, one of their group throws caution to the winds, firing a laser further into the hallway.

Which doesn't go unnoticed. (no cw)

The observing Xion's voice is flat, cold, bitter.]

Jason.

[The mask that the observing Xion mentioned earlier? The memory Xion puts it on, and it soon becomes clear why she valued it so much. The retrieval units seem oblivious to her presence as she sprints across the room, and tosses them into the air with a spell. For all the good it does. They're well and truly caught by the aforementioned Jason now.

Then, things get unexpected (cw: swearing, epicness).]

You know, this bit almost made it worth it. I'd spent so long hiding, just... just trying to get by, really. Trying to keep myself and my friends safe. I could have screwed things up. The things I said sometimes... if people had listened to me, we wouldn't have gotten the collar fluid. We wouldn't have learned so many things.

Learned Helplessness, that's what Jason called it. And I had it, and I hated him for it. So being able to do this... for a moment, it felt incredible.

[Behaving erratically, it would seem, knocks Jason off-balance. And so they're able to scatter, all of them running off in different directions in groups of two, with Yu following Xion. Jason, as it would happen, is not happy with this development. He pulls up a computer screen, taps something into it, and meanwhile, his shout reverberates around the area.

"I will not have rats wandering around!"

If you wanted to know what the glamour was, now, you're able to see. As you follow the Xion in this memory... she isn't really Xion anymore. Or at least she doesn't look like it. Her body is like a wifeframe mesh (similar to one in a computer program, for those who might recognize it) with a pale translucent skin covering it all. Except the collar, which is less a collar and part of the mesh. Inside the mesh is nothing but the collar fluid, except for a shining bright light, in the center. Everything else, clothes, supplies, everything, all seems to be made of a sort of film.

Xion and Yu keep running, with Jason himself in tow. Even with their head start, it doesn't take long to catch up, and when he does, they see that they're not the only ones whose true forms have been hidden (cw: body horror out the wazoo). They keep trying though, even when he tries to pin them down, literally.

They can't dodge forever, though. (cw: injury, impalement). Yu stops to try to help, but in the end only dooms himself. The film weapons, as it would happen, can warp as needed, with Xion's film sword sliding around Jason's leg rather than through it when she tries.

The silence from the observing Xion is almost palpable at this point.

Once they're both subdued in various ways, Jason decides to make use of the room they're in - a morgue, as it would happen. He straps them both down on examination tables. Then, out of some fit of mercy or capriciousness or both, he listens to Xion's pleas, giving Yu a swift end.

For her, meanwhile... (cw: moderate/heavy gore, torture of children, child death implication/mention, vivisection).

Jason takes his time, taking an absurd joy in the proceedings. Each moment the kind that burns itself sharply in your memory, but the words most of all...

"Of course you'll keep fighting. That's what all of you do, right? Little mice backed into corners bite and kick and claw... Even with their entrails dragging along behind them, even when they're certainly dead, rats and mice will fight.

That's why I like all of you so much."

Finally, the observing Xion speaks again.]

I know what I am, but I never thought about what it meant, not like... this... Stupid thing to even think about when... And what he said then, I... I didn't want this. I didn't want to remember this. I don't want to remember this. Why. WHY-

[And then, as the memory Xion's screaming dies, the world dissolves, pulling itself back into its source, the real Xion, who's standing behind, a good ways away. Her eyes are wide enough for white to be visible all the way around, hands locked tightly in front of her mouth, and she's very, very pale indeed. She doesn't even take notice of her surroundings, immediately. Certainly not anybody who was watching...]

[He had kind of half wondered - but it's something else, to see it confirmed. Early in the story, Xion will see Asch flinch as his own neck snaps. It's easier, perhaps, for him to disassociate it than it would be for most people - he is, after all, used to seeing his face on someone else.

But that also means that he knows himself intimately enough that he wouldn't mistake himself for anyone else. And so he listens, and watches, and even when the visions of restraints and labs put him in danger of spiralling down, down, down - ]

Breathe. Deep breaths, come on, you need to keep breathing -

[ - he has something else, someone else, to focus on, for the time being.]

D-don't-

[Don't touch her don't look at her don't do anything. She can't think, is somehow feeling everything too much yet seemingly unable to react to any of it. Her limbs, all numb with a slight, uncomfortable tingle.

She can make herself breathe, but it feels like something is tearing in her chest, dry sobs as her breathing goes too far in the other direction - too deep, too fast, to the point of hyperventilating.]

[He doesn't need to be told. He doesn't touch her, knows all too well what that might do -

Did that other version of him ever tell her?]

Slower, slower. Keep pace with me.

[Exaggeratedly slow, deep breaths, now. Helps him, too.]

[They've never had an exactly identical situation - Xion had been careful about who she showed this particular episode of her life to at the best of times. But it would be wrong to say the Tower's Asch had never helped her through any significant emotional duress before.

This should be helping. She should be trying to pull her breaths down till they're in time with his. And when she does try, it should be working. There's a lot of shoulds here.

But instead her dry sobs just turn into actual ones.]

Stop it, stop it! You're not him, you're not him! It's not fair-

[Light, look at her. It's been what, a month? Since she left the Tower? Not even that.

"Don't say goodbye," they'd told her. She'd find her way back to them. She had powers that let her cross worlds, even realities. "Have a little faith in yourself, hm?" that had been Waver. "You can stand on your own. If you didn't do something really fucking miraculous I'd be surprised." And that was Reno.

"What am I going to do without you?" she'd asked Shion. "You are going to be brilliant," he'd replied, his voice cracking, "You are so brave and strong."

And yet here she was, face all but pathetically pressed into the dirt. What a mess. She was only strong because she'd had the people she cared about around her.]

Edited 2017-12-26 07:30 (UTC)

[And he can't fix that, can't be the version of himself she's looking for -

So he just sits down in front of her, still as blazingly stubborn as he's ever been about helping people.]

I'm not. But that doesn't mean that I can just turn away from someone in pain.

[Not now, not when he's trying to be better, trying to climb that sometimes-painful mountain towards that best self.

He has questions. But they can wait until she's calmed down enough that she isn't sobbing everywhere.]

...If my being here is making it worse, I'll go. But I want to help, if you'll let me.

[The state she's in has left her thoughts in a state of chaotic self-deprecating disarray at best. Her rapid-fire, hiccuping sobs are leaving her lightheaded; it's an almost insurmountable task to gather them to really understand what he's saying, let alone formulate a response.

Does... does she want him to go? Does she...? No, what does she... if he wants to stay if he wants to help, then that's okay right? That's...

Her hand crawls forward an inch. And then, it's difficult to tell through the hiccups but if he listens, she is trying. Her breaths are coming in and out in sharp gasps each, trying to put some distance between them. Trying to slow it down.

If you want to help, then help her.]

[The attempted motion is invitation enough. He takes her hands - just her hands - and squeezes gently, giving her an anchor to hold onto.]

In, two, three, out, two, three...

[He might not be help for much more than this, but - he's trying. His fingers squeeze hers in time, tighter on the inhale, looser on the exhale, as he tries to walk her through it.]

[It's a while before it starts to really work. Hiccuping, gasping, makes it hard to regulate her breathing for a time. But eventually he'll notice her starting to grip his hand back. A grip that gets harder the more time goes on.

Eventually, she's able to speak again. Her head isn't fully clear, but...]

You didn't- you didn't have to do that.

Was I supposed to leave you?

[He's not the person she's missing. Even if he is. His hands squeeze hers, now out of rhythm.

That doesn't mean that he can just leave it to someone else.]

[She doesn't answer, can't really. One answer she refuses to give, and the other... well, she knows it wouldn't go over well. At all.]

I didn't... I didn't want you to know. You're not him. It's not fair, for me to treat you like him.

[For all she says that, the grip on his hand is still fairly tight.]

Life's still not fair, last I checked.

[He hasn't let go.]

I don't know what that other me was thinking. I won't ever know. But I'm... trying. To work on learning to trust others again, and it'd look pretty stupid if I was doing that and then acted like I couldn't trust myself.

[Maybe... He isn't going to. Even though he glances away, clearly embarrassed by what he's about to say.]

So - it'd be a little forward to call us friends, but I'm not going to leave you behind, either.

[For what it's worth, she's not looking, at least not to see his embarrassment. Instead she's listening what he's saying. Considering.]

... I'm a replica.

[It's... it's something she feels he should know. Trusting him, so he can trust her, and also because the other knew it too. Also she's not entirely thinking clearly at the moment.

At least her earlier reaction to his memory might make more sense now.]

[He's smart enough to at least not say that he kind of got that impression from her first memory.

Instead he's quiet for a moment. Thinking. Turning over... What's already been a hell of a night in his head.]

...Unless you're planning on stealing someone's life and name and living as them, I don't think it matters. That's what really - that's where the problem is.

[And Izunia Lucis Caelum proved that you don't need replicas or clones or anything to do that, didn't he?]

[She laughs in reply, a choked, wet sort of thing.]

N-no, no... I... I have my things, my life. That's all I want. That's all I ever wanted.

[It just took her a while to develop a lot of those things of her own, and to discover what was and wasn't hers.]

Then I think I can handle it.

[Not 'I think it'll be okay,' because he doesn't know if it'll be okay, really. But if it isn't, he's pretty sure that it'll be the kind of okay that's not -

Not her fault, and therefore his job to manage.]

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[MU] - DECEMBER STORYTELLING / MEMORY SHARE

JULY TOWERDIVE (cw: death, body horror, various kinds of injury, torture of children, etc.)

and also panic attacks

shit yeah forgot that one also probably cw: dissociation

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