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

Chikusa Kakimoto ☸ Astaroth

[kokuyoyo]

[The first thing that he sees is the text from his brother.... But Ciro doesn't need it. Not with the contract immediately blinking into existence, as if it had only let him see his brother's message as a courtesy. Perhaps it doesn't matter in the end. All Ciro can do is stare at that calm piercing blue- ]

["Ken Joshima."

That same blue, the blue of his left eye, is focused lazily on him, and there's that relaxed confident smirk on his face as he says the name. "I think that'll do for his new alias this time around," he continues. "What do you think?"

All he can do in turn is sigh. "...Is that meant to be a joke, then...?"

"Oh? Don't you think it's fitting?"

"Fitting or not... Whatever you name us, it is who we are."

Nothing but satisfaction at that answer, and that mismatched other eye opens to focus on him as well. He doesn't say good, but it's in the air... Or so he likes to think. "In that case... You are Chikusa Kakimoto."]

[The answers on the screen are filled out before he's even realized his hands have been moving.]


What is your name?
Chikusa Kakimoto

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 no)

Now share one or two of your darkest secrets with the rest of the group! It's like team bonding, we promise!
I'm wanted by both the Italian Mafia and law enforcement.
I sacrificed the rest to keep on living.

[And that's it. No response, no alarmed reaction, no questions. On the other end of the line, all he can do is stare dully at the screen.]

[He doesn't feel like himself at all.]

Alucard ⚔ Marchosias

[draculabackwards]

[Adrian feels unnerved by his own questions and answers, but he's beginning to see that other people are also in various degrees of distressed. For whatever reason, the fact this Astaroth, one he feels he's chatted with before, says nothing at all. He is not the most compassionate of people, but something prompts him to respond.]

Are you all right?

[kokuyoyo]

[It takes a few minutes before a response comes.]

No.

[draculabackwards]

Do you feel like someone else wrote these answers for you?

[kokuyoyo]

It was my fingertips. Weren't they yours?

[draculabackwards]

They were but I feel so disconnected from what I'm reading that it might as well have been someone else writing them.

[kokuyoyo]

Does that matter? In the end, somehow, it was still us, right?

Or we're being mind controlled, I don't know.

[draculabackwards]

So you actually feel in some way, everything we wrote is true, even if we don't know why?

[kokuyoyo]

I know it was my fingers that typed out those responses and nothing else.





The feelings I felt were and weren't mine.

Kaltz ⚔ Saleos

[dendranthema]

...Considering my answers were no better, and I didn't write them intentionally, I sincerely doubt you are actually a bad person.

[kokuyoyo]

Who knows? Maybe it's not talking about me at all.

[dendranthema]

Perhaps not. Perhaps they were assigned randomly in order to see how people reacted.

[kokuyoyo]

[A long pause in replies.]

Did you see anything?

[dendranthema]

...If you mean something like a vision, or a memory that's not mine, yes. I saw something.

[kokuyoyo]

"I" was named. That person, whoever's eyes I'm seeing from,
I think the answers I've given match them.

Gladion ⚔ Camio

[lovelledup]

[With the silence it's hard to tell whether this person is unsurprised or too surprised by those answers. But he thinks this is someone he talked to before, or at least he talked to someone with the same name. They sounded normal enough then.]

You're not a wanted criminal in reality, though, right?

[kokuyoyo]

I think I wouldn't be so casual about going out in public if I was.

[lovelledup]

That's good to hear.

[Especially since, you know, he totally has no idea he's talking to his best friend.]

It seems like this app is trying to make everyone sound a lot worse than they actually are.

[kokuyoyo]

I hope that's what it is, but the more this goes on, the more I'm not sure.

[lovelledup]

What makes you say that?

[kokuyoyo]

The answers I give and the visions I have.... They match too well.

I don't understand it.

[lovelledup]

Mine... I can't tell how well mine match. So far, they don't seem to have too much to do with each other.

[Aside from a couple of the same people being in more than one of the visions, but that's it's own thing.]

[kokuyoyo]

I think mine are connected.... They're just not the in right order as I had them.

....I think?

Who the hell knows at this point.

[lovelledup]

I know I saw the same person in a couple of visions, but I'm really not sure what that has to do with anything I wrote.

[kokuyoyo]

Well, if they're going to keep coming... Maybe we'll get more ideas of what they have to do with each other.

Although I'd be perfectly happy if they stopped forever.