COUNTDOWN: FUTURE & PAST

[cordibus]

It's been a week since the first network post. Upon waking up early Saturday morning, you notice that the app is not responding. Is it finally over, as strangely as it began?

Which makes explaining what happened impossible. Others have already tried to figure out more about it, but nothing has been working. Bringing it to a repair shop to get it looked at? No programs found. Even getting the phone completely wiped did nothing, as the icon just showed up a few minutes after they walked out of the store. Showed it to a family member? The minute you blinked or turned it around to show them, it simply wasn't there.

It's taunting you. Whoever programmed this is really good. Frighteningly so.

Saturday night rolls and still nothing from the application. The news this Saturday is nothing special. There's been another fire at night that was put out by the firemen and an instance of someone being outside. According to both departments, neither of the incidents are connected. It's just a case of someone who wasn't back home in time and unfortunate damage to a building that occurred with some of the habitats still sleeping inside. It is a tragedy, but no city can survive without any loss of life. It's simply mathematically impossible. It's notable enough that it gets second page billing and a blurb in the morning news, but nothing too huge.

At least you had assumed.

The warning bells of the Nightly Curfew ring across the city as a few people finish locking their doors for the night. As the last bits of light fade from the city, the night lights take over. Civilians are settling in for a late supper and preparations for school or work tomorrow.

Not you, however. There's been a damn headache building for the past hour and by now your ears are ringing. Food doesn't look appetizing and you feel an urge to go to bed early. Maybe you caught the flu or maybe it's just pre-Monday blues a day early, which makes it all the more frustrating. The flower festival is tomorrow!

Either way, a little shut-eye would be welcome at this point. You don't even think too hard about it, and the headache fades into blissful sleep.

...I am thou...thou art I...your chains will soon break away....
2AM and you snap awake. The strange foreboding voice of...something echos in your head. It's the only thing you can hear, with your headache gone, and the quietness of the city is fast asleep. You're not sure why, but the voice makes you get up and grab your phone.

It's humming softly. The icon is glowing again. Before you do, you take a look around and suddenly notice...nothing's moving. Nothing but you. Almost as if time was frozen.

Is that even possible?

You can't back down now. Pressing the button reveals another terms of agreement, but it looks quite different. It's almost...gentle?


It may take a while or near instantly, but you eventually take your finger and trace your name over the signature area to continue. You've gotten this far in any case and this one isn't trying to kill you...at least you think. Yet as your hand moves to write your name, it gets replaced into other letters. Another name that tells you nothing. Somehow you feel like you should, but it's...it's...

It stays there for a few more seconds, leaving you with your thoughts before the contract disappears.

You're back into that chatroom again. Questions pop up in rapid succession before you're even permitted to type anything else. Once more, it seems that you find yourself typing things that aren't matching up with what you really want to say.

At least...you think...

What is your name?
Write it here.

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
Yes | No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes | No

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes | No | Yes, but (insert your reason here)

Did you enjoy it?
Yes | No | It's complicated (but yes) | It's complicated (but no) | It's just complicated

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
Write it down here.

With questions like that and nothing around you moving, you feel like it's going to be a very, very, very long night.

[OOC: Starting from now on, the network posts will allow users to post their names, but they will show up as their CANON ones. The user's persona can be added at the end, or not show up at all. Additionally, the occupations will still be censored.

MEMORY REGAIN: Right before their answers are posted, they will also get a longer flash of someone calling them by this name. The memory HAS to be someone calling them by their name. It could be both a good or a bad memory, that is up to you.]

Comments

Guts ⚔ GLASYA-LABOLAS (cw: csa, child abuse, mentions of sexual assult)

[blackdogdown]

While others might have found the apps disappearance a sign of the end of this ordeal, Gabe hadn't been able to shake the feeling this wasn't over. There was to much unexplained for the app to simply disappear.

So when the app reappears, a much softer hue, he finds himself signing his name. His headache is roaring in his ears now, making the world seem to freeze around him. Nothing feels real, so why not sign another contract? A bolt of pain shoots through his head and he sees-

He's young, far to young to understand where he is, things are loud, and he grips a spear in his hands because he was told to hold it. It's far to big for his tiny hands and he nearly falls over trying to hold it upright. He's scared, but not in the way he should be. He just doesn't understand why he's here.

"Yo Guts! A spear..." A familiar voice calls, and then snaps. "Gimmie a spear!"

He's not stable enough to run to Gambino (thats right, just Gambino, he doesn't know the word for father yet, and he wouldn't ever be allowed to use it anyway) so he just extends it, hoping it will be enough.

Instead the spear is yanked roughly, dragging him onto his knees just in time for the body of another soldier to splatter across his face and tunic.

What is your name?
Guts

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No, I'll struggle against any causality that chains me.

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes

Did you enjoy it?
Yes

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
When I was nine, I killed the only person I'd ever considered a father after he sold me to a man for the night. To this day I still don't understand why.


There's a little while before the next response.

Guts ⚔ GLASYA-LABOLAS: Ha. Ha...
Guts ⚔ GLASYA-LABOLAS: What sort of bastards are getting off making people say shit like this.

Sion Astal ☸ Focalor

[sunderings]

They are reprehensible, the "answers" which have been programmed on our behalf.

I do not know if I can continue on with the belief that the application is not, at its core, malign.

Featherine Augustus Aurora ⚔ Dantalion

[anovelidea]

[ For once, for the first time in a very very long time, she sympathizes. She understands. ]

Take a breath. Go smash a plate. These answers are just to get a reaction. An insult, at worst. Don't let them take advantage of you.

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

There are a lot of people who find pleasure from doing these kinds of things to others.

Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall

[extremelycute]

Wow, your fake name is kind of cool.

[Miu's old enough to know what 'being sold to a man for the night' means, even if she can't really grasp it in entirety. But she remembers talking to someone named Glasya-Labolas, so maybe saying something funny will cheer him up?]

Sion Astal ☸ Focalor ( cw: suicide )

[sunderings]

[ A voice, a contract, an acceptance of fate (resisted, at first, but then signed in the hopes of solving the greater mystery at hand), and--...

The sound of rain?

It pounds down in torrents.

"Answer me, Sion!" someone calls out to him after a clash of magic and divine blade; a man with dark hair and darker eyes, their expression steadfast and absolute as they offer their hand, palm bare-faced and open and so very trusting, still, in the wake of the worst crime imaginable: betrayal.

The gesture is heartbreaking, evocative of a time which can no longer be returned to, and tears spring to golden eyes, streaking down the face only to be washed away by the rain. "What burden are you carrying? Can I not help you? Why must you shoulder the responsibility alone?"

(To save you...I would do anything...)

"Am I not involved in this? Am I not your best friend, Sion Astal?!"

(My...name...is....) ]

What is your name?
Sion Astal

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No.

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes.

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes. I have taken hundreds of lives to save more, and robbed thousands of their futures in order to preserve a tomorrow for the world at large.

Did you enjoy it?
It's just complicated.

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!

When I was a child, my mother took her own life. She had suffered from malady since the day I was born, and as I grew, she feared that I would forever remain by her bedside, unable to fend off the assailants who clamored for my life. For the end of the bastard prince, the one favored to take the throne from the Mad King and his trueborn sons.

Before she died, she said the words "you have grown into such a kind boy, Sion."

Years later, I was angry. I burned with it. My Lord father was a tyrant and no true father of mine: we were tied by blood and by blood alone. For my country, my people, my mother, and even those who were naught but his puppets, I took my Lord father's head so that I might be able to become the instrument of change in my world.

Before he died, he said the words "won't you save me, my son?"

To this day, I fear I will become him, that loathsome man. Once, I asked another if they thought such a thing were possible, and I was told that I was far stronger, far more adept a King than my Lord Father ever was.

That I would not lose myself to the same madness, but instead to something else entirely.

It terrifies me, what that something is.

--

Sion Astal ☸ Focalor: The world outside has gone quiet. Is there sound anywhere? Would my voice reach anyone, were I to speak this aloud?
Sion Astal ☸ Focalor: Reading this... it is almost like the retelling of a story; of some fairytale.
Sion Astal ☸ Focalor: All of it, it is much too elaborate. To what lengths did the app's creator go through, in order to predetermine each unique response?

Alucard ⚔ Marchosias

[draculabackwards]

[This person's information about sharing secrets is by far the most detailed Adrian has seen. It strikes him as being right out of the histories that he's poring over for his thesis.]

Why would this thing make you write such a tale?

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

Yours is the most elaborate by far.

Gladion ⚔ Camio

[lovelledup]

That sure is a story. I wonder why yours is so much longer than everyone else's.

Lenka Utsugi ⚔ Eligor

[probablynoteren]

[Focalor. He's not quite all back to himself, either, but the quiet stirring of genuine anger at the app is all (or very nearly all) Haruka Sorazawa -- there's no reason for these answers, and even less so for them to target someone who's trying to make the best of things.

He may not have agreed with the attempt, but in its own way, it had helped.]

it is quiet. i don't hear anything either.

[It's taken him this long to notice how still everything's gone. He goes quiet himself as he hesitates on a response, then:]

you're not a bad person. if you were thinking that.

[No matter how elaborate the story is.]

Hotaru Tachibana ⚔ Leraje

[seigikan]

[What she sees is vague, like the memory has faded with time. A clean white room with a clean white bed. Sterile and quiet. A smiling, kind face, pale and drawn. A woman? A man? It's hard to tell until he reaches his hand out to her and speaks.

Come sit with me, Hotaru! I'll read you a book.

So much joy. Her father loves her so much. She gladly pulls her tiny body onto the hospital bed next to him, requesting Kachikachi Mountain yet again.

...

The memory fades and Harper is shaken. She never knew her father. What is this? How is any of this happening? It's not until she looks down at her phone that she realizes what's brought it all on.]

What is your name?
Hotaru Tachibana

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
No

Have you ever killed someone/something?
No

Did you enjoy it?
N/A

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
It's immoral to keep secrets, but Tachibana greatly regrets not being honest about being a girl. Perhaps if Tachibana had done so earlier, they would have believed it.

[A distressed cry of NOT AGAIN!! rings out through the Miles home.

What on earth is this??? Why is this happening???!]



Hotaru Tachibana ⚔ Leraje: I don't understand any of this!
Hotaru Tachibana ⚔ Leraje: Who is Hotaru Tachibana? Are they talking in the third person?? Did I write this??
Hotaru Tachibana ⚔ Leraje: I DON'T UNDERSTAND!

[action]

[sociallyarcward]

[John was juggling reading through the latest posts with a message from Haruka--trying to figure things out. Trying to make sense of all of this nonsense. It was like things were making less sense as time progressed, not more. The silence of the house was really starting to weird him out too. He knew he should check on his family--see if this weird time thing was effecting them too. But what would he do if it did?

It was at about this time that he hears a shout. John jolts up, eyes wide.]

Harper?

[No way. No way was his sister involved in this. He'd heard something right? But he thinks about two of his friends and how they are involved. Mako had even hinted that maybe his sibling was too. John cursed under his breath and scrambled to his feet. He had to see for himself. A few seconds later and Harper will hear a knock at her door.]

Harper? Hey...are you awake?

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

Do you think you didn't write it?

Gladion ⚔ Camio

[lovelledup]

What even does "honest about being a girl" mean?

Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall

[extremelycute]

[It's this thing again.

Her mom had laughed when she felt she should go to bed early—"Since when do you go to bed early? What are you trying to pull, Ayu?"—but she'd been exhausted. As she moves her finger over to the glowing icon, she notices that the curtains aren't blowing from the wind her fan generates. So this is a dream.

This is a cool dream. Except then there's another contract. Her head is trying to process all of this, she's trying to think things through more seriously than she had last time, and...it happens again. She just starts moving her hands.]

What is your name?
Miu Matsuoka

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes

Have you ever killed someone/something?
No

Did you enjoy it?
N/A

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise! Write it down here.

I'm so difficult that I used to ask Santa for impossible presents just to see if he'd come through.

I'm the kind of person who gets jealous easily. I don't want to be replaced.

[And just like that...it's over. There's a flash of memory, just like before, and Ayu drops her phone onto her lap.

"I'm sorry, Miu." She's crying. She's crying so hard, the tears won't stop, and there's an older girl with black hair rubbing her head. She can see them, too. A blonde girl. A girl with light hair, and another girl with black hair. "You're a jerk,!" she cries out as she slaps the hand on her head away, ignoring the older girl's apology. "Ugly!" She turns away, facing the wall, and the tears just keep coming.]

Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall: Okay, now this is getting weird.
Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall: That's definitely not my name.
Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall: I'm a good person, too. This is slander. I'll sue.
Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall: （´□｀川）
Miu Matsuoka ⚔ Beall: I say that, but I don't really feel like it's a joke.

Sayo Yasuda | Gaap

[tragedyinabottle]

Even from what your secrets said, you don't seem like a bad person. Just a normal girl.

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

It doesn't feel like a joke to me either.




Your responses are nice.

Kiriya Kujo ⚔ Baalberith

[truthkills]

nothing there to be too worried about

and whether or not it's a joke probably depends on your definition of one

like whoever's responsible probably sees it as one, even if it's not funny for anyone else involved

Mitsuru Kirijo ⚔ Naberius

[1in_perfection]

[Another trying day with balancing studies and her own investigation leads to an equally tiring night. With a frustrated groan, Michelle shoves the take out food from the Blue French Horn Café to into the tiny refrigerator, (and cursed her lack of appetite) and all but fallen into bed after taking more pain killers than is likely advised. She ends up in a half sleeping state on her bed... books and phone within easy reach.

So when the phone starts going off at some god forsaken hour, Michelle doesn't have to reach far, or make much of an effort towards waking up in order to grab the phone.

Maybe that's why her fingers move mostly on autopilot, and her brain concludes this must be some sort of odd waking dream. The stillness of the room and the blue contract only add to that feeling, and she effortlessly browses through the questions, filling each one out in due time.]


What is your name?
Mitsuru Kirijo.

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
Yes.

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
No. I try to be better each day, however.

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes, but do Shadows truly count towards killing?

Did you enjoy it?
It's just complicated.

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!

It's true that my family built plenty of problems. Created another shadow to darken the world. It's a legacy of mistakes to inherit, along with the prestige. I'm heir to that. And I'll shoulder that legacy until such time as I can make it right. My will is unfailing, and ready to do just that.

Some of us were never given a choice... but even if that choice of walking away was given to me, I don't know if I'd take any other path.

[It's strange, how fast her fingers fly over the answers-

And how they freeze, once everything around her goes so very cold. She swears for a moment her breath fogs, but it surely must be a trick of the eyes; because the cold isn't pressing in on her skin. It's coming from somewhere inside herself.

She feels smaller, somehow younger, than before. More fragile, like she's just pounded down a door with too-small fists.

"Mitsuru!"

Someone is calling her name. Someone's picking her up from where she lays on the floor, holding her tight and chasing away some of the chill.

"Father..." That's HER voice, isn't it? "I'm glad you're safe..."

When her eyes open up, it's with a slightly clearer head... and a sickening lurch that this isn't some strange, stress based dream.]

I think… something is wrong with the AC unit of my dorm. Something about my room feels unnaturally cold.

I’m certain there’s other things I should be focusing on right now. But that in particular feels very prominent, somehow. And perhaps better to focus on, over anything unseemly, which may have been typed before.

…And was I always this formal and/or detached when I typed?

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

Not this much.

[He'll indulge her in distractions- he wants them too, after all.]

Eikichi Mishina ⚔ Beleth

[bossed]

[ he'd avoided interacting with the app for long enough. even if his hands moved without his real conscious input, he knew he couldn't skirt around talking to these people any longer. it seemed like the app agreed. it was especially active, but this time, it had something else in store for him. why was he going along with this? why had he the first time?

his eyes swept over this "contract" and the line beneath it. well, might as well sign it, he thought, not like i got anything better to do.

but what he wrote and what appeared... weren't the same. dark eyes narrowed on the screen, but before he could really question that name, something penetrated his mind like a dagger. a memory:

Goddamnit, Eikichi! Why do you gotta' dress that way all the time?!

he flinched, his hands starting to tremble as the strange memory played itself out. it sounded so familiar... was that his dad? no... no, his dad never talked like that.

When are you gonna help out around here, huh?! Take that makeup off! You look like a damn fool!

makeup?

Eikichi! EIKICHI! Are you listening to me?!

eikichi... who was...

...

the rest came out naturally, as if his fingers had a mind of their own: ]

What is your name?
Eikichi Mishina

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes

Did you enjoy it?
No

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
I'll never stop being afraid of him... My dad. I'm never gonna be the kind of man he wants me to be. And... I'll never forgive myself for what happened to... her. We killed her, after all.


[ ... ]


Eikichi Mishina ⚔ Beleth: okay what the fuck is this
Eikichi Mishina ⚔ Beleth: this isn't funny

Yuuto Kidou ☸ Eligor

[kouteipenguin]

It's really not. This has gone on too long to be any kind of joke.

Rosiel ☸ Belial

[tellmeimbeautiful]

[It's far too late at night, and Morgan is idly sipping a cup of coffee, riffling through a stack of compositions. The phone incident, which had been so terrifying at the time, had been partially forgotten, explained away as a prank, and the memory... the memory filed away as the result of an overactive imagination.

The coffee is strong, but not strong enough. Morgan yawns, almost nodding off. Satan purrs. The phone's screen lights up and a contract appears.

Morgan picks it up blearily, and instantly focuses on a spelling mistake. Mutual. M-U-T-U...

And then it starts. The sudden warmth of a blanket, and that voice again, soothing, familiar... Rosiel-sama, you are so beautiful Rosiel-sama... more beautiful than anyone in the world... the most beautiful of all...

Jerking upright, blinking fast to banish all traces of sleep, Morgan notices that someone has answered a list of questions...]

What is your name?
Rosiel

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes No I don't know

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes

Did you enjoy it?
Yes

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!

I am the ugliest being in all of God's creation. A hideous, pathetic monster hiding under someone else's skin.

[Rosiel... the name the voice was whispering. The most beautiful and yet, based on what was written on the screen, the ugliest. None of this made any sense.]

Could this be a form of surrealist automatism?
But then it means that these... bleak... answers are an expression of my subconscious.
I'm not sure I'm willing to accept that.

Lenka Utsugi ⚔ Eligor

[probablynoteren]

surrealist automatism?

[Are you still speaking Eddanian, good sir.]

i don't think the subconscious is that complicated, right?

[His concept of the subconscious is more like the lizard brain, so full-blown hallucinations and alternate personalities are a bit out there.]

yuuri katsuki ⚔ sytry

[plainest]

[ another weird thing again...

yuuri lets out a huff of breath, and fumbles blindly in the dark for his glasses on the bedside table before slipping it over his face. his head feels curiously blank now, free of the pounding headache, but yuuri writes it off as it being the painkillers finally having kicked in while he was sleeping.

normally, he would have just rolled over and gone straight back to sleep, but the echo of the strange voice he'd heard ... he can't seem to shake it off. ]

What is your name?
Yuuri Katsuki.

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
Yes

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
No

Have you ever killed someone/something?
No

Did you enjoy it?
No

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
I don't do anything with my SNS mostly because I find talking to people too bothersome.

[ ...what kind of questions were they? ]

yuuri katsuki ⚔ sytry: no offence, but don't these questions seem very dramatic?
yuuri katsuki ⚔ sytry: straight out of some kind of psychological seinen comics.

Pharos ☸ Ronove

[seasonsofdeath]

A lot of people's answers are very dramatic too.

Alastor ⚔ Andromalius

[superstylishsquid]

What is your name?
Alastor

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes

Did you enjoy it?
Which times? Sometimes I did, other times it was a chore

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
I'm actually the runaway servant of one of the sons of Sparda...and I would've liked serving him if he knew how to treat his Arms properly.

Okay, none of this makes any sense. I'm an [INFORMATION LOCKED], I've never KILLED anyone. And I definitely don't consider myself a bad person. Just because I [INFORMATION LOCKED]...

Also, what's up with this name? I had another vision of this weird fiery dog-thing yelling it at me, but...something about it seems familiar. Weird.

Makoto Fukami ⚔ Marchosias

[transient_specter]

... Okay, are we all seeing things?

Raidou Kuzunoha XIV ⚔ Paimon

[capital_asset]

[This is a bad idea, he thinks. An extremely bad idea. But he doubts this TOS is going to go away any more than the last TOS did. And with the way this thing seems to work - and yes, he's still annoyed that he can't get at the code to examine it - he's probably not going to get his phone back if he doesn't agree to it. Which doesn't make it any less of a bad idea, but... fine. He signs.

And naturally, things promptly get weird. Again. For fuck's sake, that's not even his name. He thinks he'd know if it was.]

What is your name?
Kuzunoha Raidou XIV

[Well, how very fucking aristocratic.]

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

[In fact, there's something at him that finds the very idea offensive.

The next question has him rolling his eyes. How the hell is he supposed to judge that?]

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
No

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes

[Wait, what?

And that's when he's confronted by another dream/hallucination/whatever the hell these things are:

It's eye-searingly bright here - golden spheres in a golden sky and golden swirls in intricate patterns on the white floor and all of it stretching on without end. Before him stands a student in a old-fashioned black school uniform and a strange mask - and he can't see the guy's face, but he can feel his angry glare as he all but demands: "Abandon the mantle of 'Raidou'... Cease these fruitless actions... Cast away 'Raidou...'"

And then it's gone again, like it had never been there. And god, Rei's getting tired of this.]

Did you enjoy it?
No

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!

["Oh, fuck off," he mutters under his breath. Naturally, it doesn't allow him to type that.]

I left my distant successor stranded outside of time for eternity.
I am on good terms with the leader of the local Yakuza syndicate.

[...Right.]

Raidou Kuzunoha XIV ⚔ Paimon: Whoever wrote this thing has an interesting definition of "free will."

Jirou Sakuma ⚔ Dantalion

[forsteri]

When did it ever say it was giving us a choice, though?