applenet | COUNTDOWN: FUTURE & PAST

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.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Alice is often tormented by voices and memories calling for her name. This time, her father calling for her. A gentle voice, not one filled with fear and coughing from the smoke in his lungs. A gentle call, beckoning for her to come to him.

Her name, he had given it to her. A strong, noble name, her father, Arthur, and she, his youngest would carry his legacy.

But this name...! ]

What is your name?
Alice Pleasance Liddell

Do you think the future is unavoidable?
No

Do you consider yourself a bad person?
Yes

Have you ever killed someone/something?
Yes, but he had hurt so many children. What else was I supposed to do?

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!
That I will become nothing, an empty being, and I will have forgotten who I was and my family.

I don't want to be a doll.

Hurting children deserves punishment. I don't think this is too much.

It could have been stopped before; the real crime is that it went unnoticed for so long.

Being a doll sounds like a good thing to be afraid of.

There is more to it than that; imagine every little meory of yours, being rewritten by someone, a slow progression of memories fading away, and forgetting your own name after a while.

You don't think something like that's happening to us now, do you? With the weird fake memories and writing stuff without realising it?

No, I do not, at least, not successfully. You are remembering. The walls of this false Wonderland are breaking. Deep down in your mind, you remember everything, both terrible and wonderful.

If you weren't able to recall your real name, your past, and where you come from, then it would be too late.

"False Wonderland?" What are you talking about?

Why, a false reality. A world that isn't your own and something you didn't dream of.

That sounds like what these weird memories from the app are.

[Why does he feel like this person means something else?]

[He can't put his finger on it, but he thinks this might be the last person with his user name that he'd yet to speak with.]

You fought against someone who hurt children?

I didn't fight him, pe se. Perhaps I did in his last moments
if an argument could be considered a real fight. I had every ample opportunity to do so and I never did, not until it was too late.

Wait, so you killed someone with an argument?

Of course not. I meant to say I never fought him, I only killed him during one.

[This seems more confusing the more he tries to puzzle this out and tries something else entirely.]

Indeed? What of your comments on being a doll?

[ Perhaps a benefit of this being written is that he cannot see how instantly distressed she becomes at this question. ]

Someone who is stripped of their memories, their mind violated, robbed of who they once were by false promises, and left as an empty shell only to become a literal doll for someone's personal desires and bidings. What if I awake one day and forget who I am and everything I knew?

[He might not be able to see her face but he can take a guess at her feelings through the text.]

You are not a doll. I do not know you but I imagine you have people close to you. You are a person deserving respect.

You are very kind, sir, but I am hardly one that deserves that respect. I have no family or friends,
though, truly, if anything I deserve this isolation.

Please, do not fear.

The strength you used to bring justice to the one who had hurt so many innocents...

I am certain that it will aid you in your own battles, your fight not to forget.

That's rather easy for you to say, isn't it? Do you often praise strangers like me this easily?

COUNTDOWN: FUTURE & PAST

Alice Liddell ⚔ Marchosias

Kaltz ⚔ Saleos

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Gladion ⚔ Camio

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Alucard ⚔ Marchosias

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Alucard ⚔ Marchosias

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Sion Astal ☸ Focalor

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