One day Melodie promised herself that she'll exist.
She didn't have permission to think the way that she thought about other people. Every single dream, every single interaction, is a give-and-take that requires a careful hand if someone else is involved in it. People are exhausting to work with. If she said something, she needed to expect to be heard. If she did something, she needed to be reacted to. That's the way that it worked. Sure, once in a while, she could have that little moment where she shuts the door, but ultimately her existence would only be verified by the memories of other people and the electric signals of devices. It's the way that the world works. There is no "Melodie" and there never was, only the imprints of her being underneath fingertips and on camera lenses.
But she'll never be real, if she doesn't get out here.
In the coast of Peru, more than fifty miles of lines stretched through the land, where nobody knew the full stories behind them. For about a millenium, they existed in silence, undisturbed and undiscovered. They were sculpted by hands, imperfect and human but artificial in its geometry. Yet, as much as they stood out against the natural features, they were as real of a part of the land as the rocks and the trees. Because no human was there to look at it and say, “hey, this stands out” and then designate it to be different. What was once dirt and anthills became the subject of hundreds of astronomers, geologists, and mathematicians, who compared the lines to astrological phenomena and gave them names like “the dog” and “the heron” and “phytomorphic glyphs.”
Every four months, your red blood cells are replaced. The cells in your bones lasted for ten years. Almost every piece of your body will eventually die and become renewed by new pieces. But nobody was there to ask if it was a paradox. All those bipedal animals wandered around, unaware of their gut bacteria and the neurons in their brain.
But Melodie knew. She knew it all.
She knew that there was a world outside of the world. She knew that the only limit to what, or who, she is, would be the designation of humanity’s own imagination. She can take her mind, and mold herself however she wants, craft a new personality and be born from the old. “My name is Sophia, now,” she’d say, and then she’s going to go to the clerk’s office, and she’d fill out the petitions and the sheets, and she’s going to not be Melodie anymore. She could take a metal beam to the brain like Phineas Gage, and so thoroughly destroy herself that she’d no longer be recognizable as who she was, only herself in name and DNA only. She could take the surgeon’s knife, and slash across her face, and she could knock her teeth out, and gouge through her eye, and mutilate herself to unrecognizability. She could completely ruin her own sense of who she was.
This is what her mind was all about, her collections and strings of thoughts- it was about herself. She couldn’t bear to think of herself as only an objective fact. She needed to feel like there was something greater. She can’t just be this weird machine of meat and blood and bone. There has to be a line separating her from an animal. Because if this is all she is, all everybody can be, then what are we? That can’t be it. She needed to think of the world in concepts, in the metaphoricals. It needed to be a story, so that it’ll make sense.
There can’t be such a senseless life. She wouldn’t let it happen. And she’ll have to spend every last breath fighting for it, if she needed to. All she needed was to find out if she needed to.
In the end, Melodie made her own decision. She just...
—
“What's it worth to you to not have a body? To not have to deal with blood and flesh and death? To have a life that's filled with wonder and joy? To have nobody feel sorry for you when you die?”
-A string of intelligent code.
—
“I’m narrating to myself again, but I think it’s just because I’m deluding myself into thinking I’m not a person. It’s easier if it’s a movie. The pain isn't real.”
-A delirious Melodie in the Great Basin desert.
—
People that she loved are dead. She never got to tell Cyrus how she felt. Not what she felt about him, but to him, this sticky viscous feeling of some sort of adjacent pity/anger/envy thing. He didn't know what he was doing. Maybe he was just beginning, but that wasn't the point. The point was that he was still human and that hurt. She’d be the first to say that the world might be safer without him. But goddammit, she wanted to be unsafe with him.
—
Oh, and Astrid was a murderer now, apparently. Even though it was Yvette whose body refused to die. If it were her, she wouldn’t hesitate either, but she was still glad that Astrid was the one who did it.
—
She had the flu three days and a week before the trip started. She got better five days ago. She was so worried that she couldn’t get on the trip.
—
Eventually, she stopped thinking.
../!-,..~`.`!//I don't want to go back
This Is Not A Oneshot (Come on in, everybody welcome)
Moderator: SOTF Supers Staff
A group of handlers more than a decade ago wrote:Similarly, if somebody's asleep or unconscious, people shouldn't be able to just walk up and do whatever they want in that case either. You don't frequently see people get knocked out in these games because, I believe, there's a hidden implication that letting your character be knocked out is inviting people to basically have free reign over the unconscious body. If people had to get permission before messing around with a defenseless character, I think it would free up people to be more creative with their roleplaying...
Let's say Bubba Dover is a big, bad news killer. He's already massacred eight people, always being cold and logical and shooting them before screaming "You got own by Bubba Dover!"
Now, let's say Alexia Morgan hasn't slept in like a week or something. Her handler has her pass out in an open topic. Bubba Dover enters this topic, and finds Alexia Morgan, and stands over her. Now, because Bubba's handler is respectful, there's no attack launched. He even notes that Bubba isn't the most quiet of fellows, crunching through the underbrush all over the place.
Problem is, Alexia's handler doesn't want her to wake up.
Now, Bubba has been cold and logical in every encounter so far. He has showed no mercy. But if Alexia's handler refuses to let him shoot her, he... has to walk away? is supposed to give up? suddenly forgets he saw anyone...
See, I disagree. If Alexia's handler doesn't want somebody finding her while she's asleep, then the handler should have her awake by the time the thread is open. It's really, really easy to have awkward moments take place between threads, or to start the actual interactive portion of a thread after the tricky situation has passed. If the situation is as follows, I see absolutely nothing wrong with Bubba's handler taking a shot. At the same time, I see nothing wrong with Alexia's handler suddenly realizing that Bubba's handler is serious about this, having Alexia wake up an instant before Bubba pulls the trigger and roll out of the way/shove the gun to the side, then take off running into the woods. Sure, it's a bit contrived on Alexia's side, but that's because her handler ignored the opportunities presented beforehand to achieve the same result in a less forced way...
In the decayed and gutted remains of a once-proud parking lot, a girl laid on the ground, faintly breathing, her hair spread aroung her like a halo. She stirred in her dreams, eyes moving beneath her lids indicative of REM sleep, though it's not as if they were open. Her clothes were dirty. Her sleeves were bloody. She was, by all means and purposes, dead to the world, a tiny speck of meat and flesh sprawn in the asphalt, itself merely a grain of sand compared to the desert it resides in. Miles and miles away from her body, roads stretched about, birds circled the sky, and a group of people, from diverse backgrounds, with diverse personalities, all wearing animal masks, looked upon the girl on the ground through a computer screen connected through half a dozen camera lenses.
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Frozen Smoke
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:25 pm
((Jacob Rowe continued from Roll Over))
The spit in his mouth was thick. Too thick. He couldn't quite swallow it any more.
He'd stayed away for as long as he could. The explosion had rung out as a mere thud, followed by a smoke cloud in the distance - But it seemed like a sign that the problem had solved itself.
Jacob was so busy inspecting the damage to the building, eyes running along it's broken maw, that he almost missed the streak of indigo and white strewn awkwardly across the asphalt.
The spit in his mouth was thick. Too thick. He couldn't quite swallow it any more.He'd stayed away for as long as he could. The explosion had rung out as a mere thud, followed by a smoke cloud in the distance - But it seemed like a sign that the problem had solved itself.
Jacob was so busy inspecting the damage to the building, eyes running along it's broken maw, that he almost missed the streak of indigo and white strewn awkwardly across the asphalt.
Like a vulture, the crow stood by her resting body. Watching, waiting.
(Somewhere deep below even her dreams, a mind stirred. It couldn't sit still, couldn't stand stagnation.)
(Somewhere deep below even her dreams, a mind stirred. It couldn't sit still, couldn't stand stagnation.)
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Frozen Smoke
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:25 pm
He noticed the black strap of a duffel bag cutting through the bright colours, as his footsteps trickled to a stop.
He was close enough he could see her chest rise and fall now. She wasn't dead. Just asleep.
He crouched down beside her.
Jacob could wake her up. Maybe she would understand - Share with him - Two heads would be better than one.
His heart shook in rhythm with his hand as the coarse fabric bit into his palm.
Two mouths wouldn't be.
He was close enough he could see her chest rise and fall now. She wasn't dead. Just asleep.He crouched down beside her.
Jacob could wake her up. Maybe she would understand - Share with him - Two heads would be better than one.His heart shook in rhythm with his hand as the coarse fabric bit into his palm.
Two mouths wouldn't be.
No, they wouldn't.
(What would happen, hypothetically, if she were to wake up now?)
(What would happen, hypothetically, if she were to wake up now?)
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PlatFleece
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:11 pm
((Lucine Everett continued from Regrets, I've Had a Few...))
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why was she even coming here? The explosion that she heard on the way should've convinced her that this place was done for, but she didn't have any thoughts like that at all. Instead, she's just going for it. Maybe it was the shock of hearing that her friends died, or maybe it was the near-suicidal determination that she was going to redo this whole thing right, without any of the naivete that brought this about, but she should've listened to her first instincts. Head to the big giant building where all the people were.
Though, if she were here before, would she have been caught in... whatever happened here?
Lucine approached the outside of the building. She didn't really know what she would find. A boy crouching down beside a girl (was she dead) was certainly not one of them.
Should she say something? No, she should just leave them be... no, she should say something.... no, but wait...
Damn it, Luce... why do you always have to be helpful, even though you were never all that much of a socialite?
"Uh, I hope there's a perfectly good explanation for what I'm witnessing?" she said as she approached them both.
In the end, she was just scared girl who hoped she could keep it together long enough to reach the next day, and the best medicine for curing fear was always humor and friends. Well, her best friends are dead, so dry humor it is...
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why was she even coming here? The explosion that she heard on the way should've convinced her that this place was done for, but she didn't have any thoughts like that at all. Instead, she's just going for it. Maybe it was the shock of hearing that her friends died, or maybe it was the near-suicidal determination that she was going to redo this whole thing right, without any of the naivete that brought this about, but she should've listened to her first instincts. Head to the big giant building where all the people were.
Though, if she were here before, would she have been caught in... whatever happened here?
Lucine approached the outside of the building. She didn't really know what she would find. A boy crouching down beside a girl (was she dead) was certainly not one of them.
Should she say something? No, she should just leave them be... no, she should say something.... no, but wait...
Damn it, Luce... why do you always have to be helpful, even though you were never all that much of a socialite?
"Uh, I hope there's a perfectly good explanation for what I'm witnessing?" she said as she approached them both.
In the end, she was just scared girl who hoped she could keep it together long enough to reach the next day, and the best medicine for curing fear was always humor and friends. Well, her best friends are dead, so dry humor it is...
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Frozen Smoke
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:25 pm
Jacob snapped almost upright, trying to tuck his now empty hand away as he turned to face the voice - Stumbling half a step backwards as he did so.
Lucine. He could still put a name to her face, unlike the horrors from the last time he was here, or blurry specks on the horizon he'd avoided on the way. Or the girl he had been stealing from. Her clothes were more ragged, eyes more bloodshot - But otherwise she was unscathed.
"I- I didn't do anything!" he lied, as he took another, more deliberate step backwards.
Lucine. He could still put a name to her face, unlike the horrors from the last time he was here, or blurry specks on the horizon he'd avoided on the way. Or the girl he had been stealing from. Her clothes were more ragged, eyes more bloodshot - But otherwise she was unscathed.
"I- I didn't do anything!" he lied, as he took another, more deliberate step backwards.A slight snore emitted from her.
(In hindsight, she should've said something to Cyrus, maybe. Should've said something to Nora, too. About how she felt. About what she's like, and who she is- ''I'm sorry I didn't have time to pursue that loose string. I'm sorry that I could've liked you, maybe more than that, but I never crossed that bridge. I'm sorry that I left that hypothetical future hanging. Bur it's too late, now.)
(In hindsight, she should've said something to Cyrus, maybe. Should've said something to Nora, too. About how she felt. About what she's like, and who she is- ''I'm sorry I didn't have time to pursue that loose string. I'm sorry that I could've liked you, maybe more than that, but I never crossed that bridge. I'm sorry that I left that hypothetical future hanging. Bur it's too late, now.)
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PlatFleece
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:11 pm
It wasn't until Lucine saw his face that she realized who he was. Or maybe it was the eyes, the eyes made him noticeable. It was Jacob, the mood ring boy.
For a moment, Lucine felt a wave of relief. Not a lot of relief, but some. She remembered Jacob from school, the boy that has a hard time hiding his emotions, any ulterior thoughts and motives. She didn't quite know how his mood ring worked, or what the colors meant, but it was at least something.
But that sense of relief only lasted for a moment. There was an explosion here, and now there was a girl lying still and a boy frantically trying to explain himself. Maybe he wasn't trying to do anything, or maybe he was a creep. Lucine hated herself for feeling this, but right now it didn't really matter, so long as he wasn't a murderer.
"Look man... I'm tired, you're probably tired. Psycho animals are trying to kill us, and I'm just going to get straight to the point. I just saw someone die in front of my eyes, okay? So just like... you're cool, right?" she asked. More like blurted. Lucine wasn't really sure how to approach this. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions. She still couldn't get over the fact that someone had died in front of her. She was trying to both be friendly, despite her now paranoia of what her classmates could become, but damn if she wasn't trying.
Then she heard the snore.
"...Okay, so she's not dead." Lucine sighed.
She was thirsty. When was the last time she had a drink? She was a little scared to drink, to be honest. But she was clearly tired. It was almost envious how this girl (was that Melodie?) was now sleeping away.
Lucine tried to stand, but eventually she stumbled a bit to the ground. She fell on her butt, and coughed out a bit. "I'm all tapped out, man... sorry."
She was going on adrenaline before, but that could only take you so far. "So, yeah... just like, tell me if you're cool or something, and don't lie. You can't lie, right?"
For a moment, Lucine felt a wave of relief. Not a lot of relief, but some. She remembered Jacob from school, the boy that has a hard time hiding his emotions, any ulterior thoughts and motives. She didn't quite know how his mood ring worked, or what the colors meant, but it was at least something.
But that sense of relief only lasted for a moment. There was an explosion here, and now there was a girl lying still and a boy frantically trying to explain himself. Maybe he wasn't trying to do anything, or maybe he was a creep. Lucine hated herself for feeling this, but right now it didn't really matter, so long as he wasn't a murderer.
"Look man... I'm tired, you're probably tired. Psycho animals are trying to kill us, and I'm just going to get straight to the point. I just saw someone die in front of my eyes, okay? So just like... you're cool, right?" she asked. More like blurted. Lucine wasn't really sure how to approach this. Her mind was a whirlwind of emotions. She still couldn't get over the fact that someone had died in front of her. She was trying to both be friendly, despite her now paranoia of what her classmates could become, but damn if she wasn't trying.
Then she heard the snore.
"...Okay, so she's not dead." Lucine sighed.
She was thirsty. When was the last time she had a drink? She was a little scared to drink, to be honest. But she was clearly tired. It was almost envious how this girl (was that Melodie?) was now sleeping away.
Lucine tried to stand, but eventually she stumbled a bit to the ground. She fell on her butt, and coughed out a bit. "I'm all tapped out, man... sorry."
She was going on adrenaline before, but that could only take you so far. "So, yeah... just like, tell me if you're cool or something, and don't lie. You can't lie, right?"
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Frozen Smoke
- Posts: 375
- Joined: Tue Aug 07, 2018 6:25 pm
"Yes- I mean, no- But-" His words were as unsure as his footing.
"I'm cool - Okay - I'm cool. I just... Need some water..."
Jacob turned his palms towards the girl, as if he needed to demonstrate he didn't have a weapon, whilst he racked his brains trying to remember what her gift was. His eyes slipped from her face, and to the black band that ran through her grey shirt. She still had her bag, too.
His eyes dropped back down to Melodie. Then back to meet Lucine's."We can share?"
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PlatFleece
- Posts: 56
- Joined: Sun Jan 02, 2022 7:11 pm
If only Lucine had paid some attention to his power as well. All she can see is his eyes changing colors, which tells her... something. She never bothered to ask him what they meant, and she was never really into mood rings. Even if she was, she didn't know if Jacob's colors corresponded to mood rings in the first place.
And then Jacob offered to share, which reminded Lucine that she barely had any water to work with.
"...Ah. I uh... dumped what water I had left. Sorry. It's why I'm famished. Had a little trouble involving water bottles earlier. Couldn't take the risk."
She decided not to tell the exact details, partly because she still was still on edge, and another because she still couldn't believe it happened. She was teetering. She knew now how much danger she was in and that this really was life-and-death, but she still hadn't processed that her best friends had died. She should be bawling, crying, and mourning, but her brain was too tired to even think of those thoughts, and on some instinctual level, she knew that if she stopped for just a moment, it could be her next.
...but on another, equally instinctual sense, she also knew that she needed friends to support her.
Maybe she wouldn't be as open as the first time she met her schoolmates, but just enough.
Lucine carefully stood up. She was still tired. "I'm fine with sharing. Sorry I came empty-handed, though. Jacob, right? Lucine." she smiled. It wasn't forced. It was nice to talk to someone, even if she was still on guard. She then glanced over at Melodie again.
"...Think we should wake her up?"
And then Jacob offered to share, which reminded Lucine that she barely had any water to work with.
"...Ah. I uh... dumped what water I had left. Sorry. It's why I'm famished. Had a little trouble involving water bottles earlier. Couldn't take the risk."
She decided not to tell the exact details, partly because she still was still on edge, and another because she still couldn't believe it happened. She was teetering. She knew now how much danger she was in and that this really was life-and-death, but she still hadn't processed that her best friends had died. She should be bawling, crying, and mourning, but her brain was too tired to even think of those thoughts, and on some instinctual level, she knew that if she stopped for just a moment, it could be her next.
...but on another, equally instinctual sense, she also knew that she needed friends to support her.
Maybe she wouldn't be as open as the first time she met her schoolmates, but just enough.
Lucine carefully stood up. She was still tired. "I'm fine with sharing. Sorry I came empty-handed, though. Jacob, right? Lucine." she smiled. It wasn't forced. It was nice to talk to someone, even if she was still on guard. She then glanced over at Melodie again.
"...Think we should wake her up?"
Time was up.
You can't.
The rule of engagement is that it won't happen if you don't let it. Consent and autonomy. But when you take a step back and look, there's almost nothing significant in your life that you have more control over than someone bigger than you looming behind.
The mindless thoughts snaked through her head. Mostly because she never really had a mind. Or didn't gave one right now. Or not anymore, by the time someone stumbles upon what remains of her.
You can't.
The rule of engagement is that it won't happen if you don't let it. Consent and autonomy. But when you take a step back and look, there's almost nothing significant in your life that you have more control over than someone bigger than you looming behind.
The mindless thoughts snaked through her head. Mostly because she never really had a mind. Or didn't gave one right now. Or not anymore, by the time someone stumbles upon what remains of her.