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

I thought at first this was the doing of people who knew way too much about us. I refused to believe that there could be anything supernatural at work. But after this.... I don't know if I can say that anymore. All of this feels too insane.

I'm guessing you had another one of those fake memory things, too.

Yeah. I saw something just now that happened to someone else, but I can't stop shaking from it. I don't even understand why I'm so upset. None of that should mean anything!

Was it something bad?

It was. Though it's too weird. I don't even know what happened to make it so bad. Or what's up with the tunnel vision.

I don't understand any of this.

I don't either. For that matter, to have to agree to something I don't understand for a second time is far from comforting. I'd like to know what I've signed up for.

I even made sure to pay attention to everything in the message this time, but it didn't help much. At least it sounds like maybe they'll start answering questions sometime soon.
If I believe that.

I got the feeling that they'll only give us whatever information is useful to making us do things. We'll only get to know what they want us to know at this rate.

That sounds about right.

There has to be some way to find things out.

How, though? I think someone's already tried everything I can think of.

That's what I can't work out. I guess no one else can either or it'd be all over this place. But it's too frustrating to accept that we can't do anything

Yeah. I hope someone here can come up with an answer.

I think we're all hoping that at this point. But I'm starting to really think the only ones that can are the people who made this stupid app. I know it's wishful thinking, but at this point I just want this to turn out to be one of those alternate reality games.

Alternate reality games...?

Apparently there's some websites and stuff out there that swear they're real, but really they're just scavenger hunts and puzzle games. Wikipedia has a page on it. I don't know how to describe them.

Huh. I guess I'll look it up.

[So give him a bit to do that, and decide it's a kind of thing he might find really interesting if he wasn't in the process of being really creeped out by something similar. He comes back after a while.]

You think they're usually this intense?

[He at least didn't see anything about hallucinations on there, or unexpected headaches.]

[if only he'd learned about this before he was trying to find anything about this app. He's not even sure how he ended up there.]

... I can't find anything about them actually hurting people. So, no.

That's good, I guess. I wonder what's wrong with whoever made this one.

If it is one maybe there's something wrong with the creator instead.

They'd have to be crazy to actually hypnotise people, or whatever this is doing.

And what's the point? Are they trying to get us to do something?

If it's supposed to be a game, maybe that's what we're supposed to figure out.

If this is a game, I want more hints.

Gladion ⚔ Camio

lovelledup - 2017-05-25 23:10 (UTC) - Expand

Yuuto Kidou ☸ Eligor

kouteipenguin - 2017-05-25 23:54 (UTC) - Expand

lovelledup - 2017-05-26 00:18 (UTC) - Expand

kouteipenguin - 2017-05-26 00:20 (UTC) - Expand

lovelledup - 2017-05-26 00:49 (UTC) - Expand

kouteipenguin - 2017-05-26 17:58 (UTC) - Expand