EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ HOME

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Corridors in the belly of the Tranquility
WARNINGS: Creepiness, disturbing imagery, violence, etc.
SUMMARY: Characters discover slices of sanctuary deep in the maze.
NOTES: Open to all! Covers Stage Four of the plot & Escape.

You've been running and fighting for what feels like weeks now. Exhausted and desperate, you find another door, stumbling through into— You're home, finally, far away and safe from monsters or spaceships. You're not alone, someone here who's been waiting for you, and they're so happy to see you. Relief overcomes you; you just want to rest, and there's no reason to believe anything here isn't what it seems, is there?

Comments

[mindtricks]

We're still on the ship.

[ it's — an oberservation, something she knew, but it still comes across a little startled, as though she'd temporarily forgotten. of course they're still on the ship, this is an illusion born from memory just like the burning house on arima had been, the second time around.

she wants it to be real; she wants her mother back — and it breaks her heart, but: ] She's dead, Alex.

[ just another illusion. ]

[redhotsummers]

We are.

And I need to get you out of here. Because I don't--

--I don't know what will happen, if we stay.

I know it's hard, Cass. But you have to believe me.

[mindtricks]

I don't want to go.

[ what if alex is no more real than her mother? what difference does it make whether she leaves now or in ten minutes, an hour, tomorrow, so long as she leaves? ]

Not yet.

[redhotsummers]

...I know you don't. But if you don't leave now, what if you can't leave, ever?

I don't have any idea what the hell is going on. But if they want to keep us here, it isn't good.

[mindtricks]

[ blinking a little, forcing herself to think it through. she wants, so badly, to have her mother back and her own childhood.

that is not how the world works. that is not ever how the world works, and any miracle that might come about will be solely of her own making.

her mother is dead, as is her father.

so she bows her head and swallows down the desperate need of a small child to be in her mother's arms, to be safe and taken care of, and instead she squares her shoulders. ]

Let's go.

[redhotsummers]

All right.

[Alex frowns, moving to grip at her forearm, if only because he's worried something is going to tug them apart, try and make this worse, harder for them.]

I just--I don't know the way back.

[He starts moving, trying to find the way he came in.]

[mindtricks]

I don't think there's a way back.

[ there hasn't so far. any door anderson's gone through has disappeared behind here. ]

Only forward.

[redhotsummers]

[Alex shakes his head, pausing.]

I don't think--I don't think forward is right, either. This place keeps trying to get us to go forward, right?

So forward is bad.

Cass--can you feel anyone else around? At all?

[mindtricks]

There's no other option.

[ staying here isn't one, he's successfully argued that. going back is impossible. that only leaves forward, and forward might be bad, but there's no other choice.

sometimes, whether something is good or bad doesn't matter, if it's the only option you've got.

she considers his question for a moment. ] You, me, my mother. [ and the illusion sounds like her mother, feels like her mother, mentally.

and she's stayed silent so far, if sad, but she's looking at the two of them now. ] He's right, honey. Leaving here is a bad idea.

[redhotsummers]

There has to be. [He looks over at her. There has to be a way to get out. Not the damn white light. That way is death--Alex remembers it, when he had been strapped to the table.]

...hey, not-mom. Shut up.

[Alex flares up his plasma, staring hard at Cassandra's fake mmother.]

Try harder, please. Try to picture the door, or something.

[mindtricks]

There's —

[ she hasn't thought about it, and she should have, but ] There's a large window in my old bedroom.

[ large enough to be a door, large enough to go outside because there's a balcony that leads to a staircase that leads back to the corridor. she knows, because her father explained it to her once, in the set of memories that has her father in them. ]

[redhotsummers]

Good--good!

[And as if because she thought of it, it would be there. Because that's how the mind works, right? Still, he heads towards the back area--and there it is, a window.]

You out first, okay?

[mindtricks]

[ there is protest from what is not her mother, but anderson forces herself to ignore it. instead, she gives alex a nod, terse, standing by the window, opening it —

and with one last look at her childhood home and her mother, she forces herself to leave. ]