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

[probablynoteren]

[Naki, please.]

they could be aliens... from a video game or a tv show. [though the former better explains how he'd be killing them] do they really sound like a vegetable though.

[foxhands]

would that mean you're from a video game?
arugula

[probablynoteren]

from a... i was thinking more, playing a video game. maybe a phone game.

[Why are you turning him into a fictional character, he's having enough identity crises without having to translate himself from 2D to 3D!!]

arugula is arugula...

[foxhands]

it seemed like a serious answer

[Too serious to be about playing a video game, unless Lenka's just that serious of a gamer....not that he knows where any of these answers are coming from, himself. His own answers confuse him too, considering he doesn't remember ever killing anything.]

[probablynoteren]

i guess. i just don't know where these answers are coming from.

[At least with the last one he could kind of relate and rationalize in a way that didn't require mental acrobatics. With this set, he's having trouble even connecting himself to the answers, which is probably why he's being relatively flippant about it.

He's not sure if he's ready for the rabbithole that's going to be taking them seriously.]

[foxhands]

i'm not sure any of us does

[He's honestly pretty unsure about his own answer on the last one..."the law is above everything" when he's helping his uncle with dubiously legal endeavors and his sister breaks rules on a whim. All of this is hard to connect to. The weirdly innocuous visions he's been getting haven't been helping that at all.]

did y
it looks like a lot of us are killers now though.

[probablynoteren]

[Maybe they can combine their visions and even out the post-apocalyptic future with cute gardens. Or they might get more dysfunctional futures once additional memories are regained, that could happen too.]

you too? i find it hard to believe.

[Luci's strangely lighthearted words come back to him. If this is connected to the murders in Eddan, then... At the same time, though, most of these answers are too outlandish to draw any conclusions from.

He's not sure he wants to find out what answers will come in another 14 days, but that's no different from before.]

[foxhands]

[Let's hope for a cute garden-filled post-apocalyptic future, that sounds better than the other option...]

why? am i not scary enough

[He's joking, but.]

[probablynoteren]

[Isn't that what we're living in right now-- OK, maybe that's a bit too meta for the meta. Who knows!]

you're as scary as a normal stranger on the internet.

[Not that they're entirely strangers, now, and it's not serious at all. That being said...]

i just find it weird that this many people would be killers. it doesn't add up unless the answers are twisted somehow.

[foxhands]

[Nothing's too meta for the brackets!!]

that's a good point
with how many of us there are it would be strange for us all to be killers

[unless killing bugs counts? But no, he can't imagine everyone on this network somehow being the mysterious midnight killer, even with all the weird things that've been going on.]

[probablynoteren]

[But then the brackets would grow too powerful, and we can't have that!]

so there's something hidden in these answers. i've killed bugs, and plants by accident, but i think i'd remember killing something like this.

[If he takes it seriously, and if he accepts the emphatic answer that says he enjoyed whatever slaughter he committed, it makes no sense that he wouldn't have a single clue what it means. No memory (except the ones that haunt him, from what he still thinks of as someone else). Nothing that makes sense.]

[foxhands]

yeah
where do these answers come from
or the names

[probablynoteren]

i feel like that's a dead end, unless they answer all of that at the end of the countdown. it's weird, though. we went from demons to normal names. i think.

[His name is normal, right? And the more outlandish names here could pass for normal screennames, without a demon theme. Hmm.]

[foxhands]

i guess so
what day did that contract say again
the 28th?

[should he feel excited or worried about what comes at the end of the countdown? No point asking that.]

lenka sounds pretty normal

[probablynoteren]

there's 14 days on the countdown. that's after the 28th.

[Is that a good thing, or ominous because that means that whatever they receive on the 28th wouldn't be the end of it? His feelings echo Naki's -- he wants this to be over, but what's at the end of the tunnel?]

nakigitsune isn't that strange online. but i guess you wouldn't choose it yourself?

[Lenka isn't the weirdest he's seen, though he can't think of why he would ever even come across that name. So the connections are still confusing.]

[foxhands]

14 days before something else strange happens

doesn't it mean crying fox
that seems sad

[Natsume doesn't know the other meaning of naki...]

[probablynoteren]

if it's the pattern so far... 7 days.

[It's just 14 until something big happens. Optimistically speaking.]

maybe it's from a story.

[He does know the other meaning, but now does not seem the time to bring it up.]

[foxhands]

[Does that count as optimistic?]

maybe

we'll get better answers in 7 days

[probablynoteren]

[It's certainly not pessimistic, ergo it's optimism. The optimistic take!]

i hope so. i'd rather not get more answers like these.

i don't know what kind of team they're building.

[foxhands]

[Maybe it's realism! That's a possibility!]

is it even a team

i'm not sure if today's answers were better or worse than last time

[probablynoteren]

[Realism? In our Persona?!]

i know it sounds stupid, but the question says it. i also heard it from someone who seemed to know more. that they're building a team.

[foxhands]

[You're right, we gotta go for surrealism instead!]

based on their questions i'm not sure i want to know what they want us to do
as a team

[probablynoteren]

maybe there's more of us than there are of them.

[Unlikely, but it's a comforting thought in a time of extreme discomfort, so to speak. Surrealistic optimism?]

[foxhands]

maybe
they can't make us do anything anyway

[Surrealistic optimism in the face of realistic not-so-optimism.....]

[probablynoteren]

[That's some serious surrealism considering what they've been made to do so far...! In fact, he's stumped for a moment on how to respond, blinking at his screen.]

i don't know about that. i guess as long as phones don't come into it.