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

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax (also action for Romulus/Okuyasu)

[onlythankyou]

[The longer this goes on, the more confused Lonán gets. Nothing about this strange app behaves normally. He isn't a programmer, of course, but it seems too detailed, too intelligent, to be something a human could code. It knows when their information is personal enough to identify them, and it knows when to hide itself. It makes no sense. It's exciting, having something to drive himself crazy over.

And then, inexplicably, there's quiet. A day of nothing - it's fourteen days, now, until what, exactly? They get no clues, nothing - and he feels ill. A building headache. Lonán skips helping out with the gardening club, skips dinner, skips an outing with some of his teammates. Some cold medicine and a lot of rest and he should be fine, right?

It's two in the morning and the app is doing something again. He reads with some interest, ready to add more pieces to the puzzle in his head. ...Still no answers, only more questions. He doesn't hesitate to sign the contract; it's just something to do before getting to the meat of the new happening. The letters change - who is that? What could that mean? He continues.

And his mind retreats into another memory that isn't his. A man in sunglasses with a small mustache laughs, claiming this place would soon crumble, and that they'd all be caught in the destruction of the world. He flies away by jetpack, his robots not far behind him. He sees himself direct three people to take the skulls and follow the man, and they respond--

Glory to the Mask.

He stumbles to the ground, murmuring something about his sister's death. The same three people he'd sent away, accompanied by a young woman, shout at him-- Jun-kun! Open your damn eyes!

Who...who is he? Who?

A voice echoes from somewhere in the temple: You are Joker... Kill... Kill... Kill...

Yes...that's right. He is Joker.]

What is your name?
Jun Kurosu

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?
It's complicated (but yes)

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like bonding we promise!
I still hate. Part of me wanted it all to burn. It was never purely about creating an ideal world - some of it was just empty vengeance. Vengeance that hasn't gone away. I still dream of my hands around his throat, and it isn't always a nightmare.

...What...?

[Lonán stares at his answers. None of those sound anything like him. Good God, especially not killing someone. What the hell is going on?]

Something is wrong. This isn't me.

[This isn't fun anymore. Confusion and dread blend somewhere deep in his gut. He recognized one of the people in that flashback. And...all of this about killing people, about enjoying it. Jun Kurosu. What...who...is he? Who is Joker?

He doesn't want to be alone with his thoughts and phone anymore. Thankfully...he isn't. He's not so thankful for the fact that it's his brother.]

...Rommy?

[action]

[catchthishand]

[ Rommy hadn't talked to anyone yet, just scrolling through what answers he'd given, comparing them to others, frown deep in confusion.

He'd only ever had one brother- the one typing on the other bed. There was a part of him that twisted guiltily in the memory of the last time he'd felt a flash like this, of seeing the man who was and wasn't his brother dying to save him.

When Lonán finishes typing, speaking up for the first time, it's almost a relief, a chance to stop thinking about that other brother. ]

Yeah?

[ He answers before scrolling to see what his twin had posted, glancing across the room to where Lonán was lit only by the light of their phones. ]

[action]

[onlythankyou]

[He's afraid. Lonán has only very rarely felt fear, and even then only in the immediate, cleats-heading-for-face sense. Nothing as existential or undefinable as this.]

...Does- Does 'Joker' mean anything to you?

[It's hard to say. It's just a word, so why does it suddenly feel like it has so much weight? He just keeps staring at his answers. It's like tunnel vision on the yes under 'Did you enjoy it?'.]

[catchthishand]

[ Rommy drops his phone to his chest, then, reconsidering, shoves himself up to a sitting position, phone tumbling down to land on his lap, the dim light casting odd shadows across the angle of his face. ]

What, like the card?

[ He doesn't like the sound of Lonán's voice, the way his face is tight with fear.

This isn't the look he gets when they try to talk about the app aloud, this is something deeper. ]

This about those questions?

[onlythankyou]

No.

[He hadn't mentioned the name on the questions. They certainly play in, with all that talk of killing, and with the visions - twice now - full of hatred and murderous intent. He's been stuck on these events for days, he can't write or type about them but they occupy his every stray thought. It had been fun and exciting.

It isn't anymore, not when this app and the visions seem hell-bent on proving he's a killer. He hasn't hurt anyone.]

The visions, or hallucinations, or...whatever. I don't like them.

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

So you think it's just the app?

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

It has to be. None of these are anything like me, I don't think even subliminal messages could do this...

[kokuyoyo]

Do you remember writing them?

[onlythankyou]

I remember watching myself write them, but it was something like watching a movie. There was no connection between my mind and what my fingers were doing.

Lenka Utsugi ⚔ Eligor

[probablynoteren]

[One of them dreams about killing, the other about dying, what a pair they make with these patterns, man. Though neither of them have really gone into as much detail about their visions, there's enough here for Haruka to recognize this as the Shax he's talked to. He doesn't think he's seen any others, but.

He hesitates over the text box for a while.]

like the vision you told me about. where it was like you were someone else.

i don't know how much stock we should put in these answers.

[Maybe he's just going around reassuring people now. Handy distraction from his own questionnaire and all. Things he can do vs. things he can only stare at in abject confusion.]

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

It happened again. Another vision. Worse than before.

I don't like that the questionnaire and visions are aligning with one another.

[And the...name on his username. Jun. That's what the guy in the heavy makeup had shouted, right? "Jun-kun! Open your damn eyes!"

And....Joker. Just thinking the word sends a chill down his spine.]

[probablynoteren]

are you talking about the name?

[Lenka, was the name he was called in the new vision, a kinder one, with an undercurrent of urgency and finality. It feels like something well-worn -- something he could respond to in everyday life, online or off, without thinking about it. Maybe he shouldn't have accepted it as an online alias.

But that's the only point of commonality, he thinks.]

was it the name you saw on the contract, right before?

[onlythankyou]

Not just the name. There's more.

Yes, this is the name from the contract.

[He's still reeling. He's still got the lingering sense of an identity crisis. God, he's Lonán, right? There's nobody else in there.]

Gladion ⚔ Camio

[lovelledup]

It's like last time. No one picked their answers.

[Though he will admit that one is pretty disturbing.]

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

Last time, there were multiple options and we only had to select one. I'd assumed some combination of the headaches and subliminal messaging influenced our choices, but in this case... I don't think we could have been influenced to type all this out.

Could we?

Gladion ⚔ Camio

[lovelledup]

I don't know how. But I don't understand any of this.

Kaltz ⚔ Saleos

[dendranthema]

Agreed. There's something very wrong about all of this. Even as I watched myself input the answers, they weren't coming from me.

Aside from that, that flash of... something... It was as vivid as my own memories, but it was impossible. Unless it was a very good costume, the other person there wasn't human.

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

I had a vision, too. Just like last time.

They're both a little too... They were both murderous. I didn't see any non-humans, but there were two each of three different people present...

[This all has to be....fake, somehow, it can't be real. Clones aren't a thing.]

Kaltz ⚔ Saleos

[dendranthema]

...Whatever this is, an experiment or otherwise, it's manipulating our thoughts somehow. It's likely dangerous, but we're not being given the option to not use it - we'll pick it up again without meaning to, just like we all did this time. There's probably no point in trying to fight it. But I still need to know what's happening, if there's any way to find that out.

Featherine Augustus Aurora ⚔ Dantalion

[anovelidea]

Of course it isn't you. The Shax I spoke to was smart and sassy. Definitely not someone who finds enjoyment from suffering.

[ "Don't be bothered by it. It's only lies." ]

How was your weekend?

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

[...Dantalion, you are a good friend, as anonymous spooky app users go. The comfort is enough to calm him a bit. He's still deeply rattled by what he saw, but...but the answers are lies. Only lies.]

...It wasn't bad. I had [INFORMATION LOCKED] on Saturday, it was very productive. And I engaged in ice cream shenanigans, a little.

[Something else to think about. Yes please.]

Featherine Augustus Aurora ⚔ Dantalion

[anovelidea]

[ She got you fam. She's A+ tier at non-sequitur based manipulation. Though here it's a significantly less malignant manipulation. Boy needs an anchor on himself. Remembering himself will fix that. ]

Ah, the ice cream raid on the community, right? I remember seeing it, but I had papers to [INFORMATION LOCKED]. Responsibilities are stupid like that.

Considering doing anything for the flower festival?

Mitsuru Kirijo ⚔ Naberius

[1in_perfection]

I'm running out of explanations on how this works, or what just happened. I fear the same seems to be true for you, as well.

[She presses a palm into her forehead after typing that, and forces a deep breath.]

I'm sorry, that was needlessly clinical and cold. Something about this is rattling my thoughts, and that seems to have an impact on how I type. I pray that this will lift, come the morning. Or I come to some better answer before then.

Jun Kurosu ⚔ Shax

[onlythankyou]

So it seems. Holes are appearing in my main theory. Hopefully I'm just shaken, I had...a hallucination again. It was unpleasant.

[To put it lightly. God, what's wrong with him?]

Mitsuru Kirijo ⚔ Naberius

[1in_perfection]

You as well, then.

[Just a simple statement of fact. Given how her own fingers are shaking, she considers it a decent enough feat that she managed to write that.]

I was convinced I was dreaming or sleepwalking through most of my answers. And in a way perhaps I was. I don't know how else to explain the... images, and voices, for lack of a better word, that played across my head.