cordibus: (Default)
cordibus ([personal profile] cordibus) wrote in [community profile] applenet2017-05-20 07:31 pm

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.]
probablynoteren: (why do only the profiles look good)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-22 10:59 pm (UTC)(link)
[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: (or not....)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-22 11:09 pm (UTC)(link)
[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: (why does he look 12 here)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-23 12:35 am (UTC)(link)
[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: (i lost my train of thought)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-23 05:49 pm (UTC)(link)
[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: (smth's rotten in the state of crapsack)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-23 06:00 pm (UTC)(link)
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: (but hold me against you)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-23 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
maybe
they can't make us do anything anyway


[Surrealistic optimism in the face of realistic not-so-optimism.....]
probablynoteren: (wild rare GOOD LIGHTING appeared)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-25 12:24 am (UTC)(link)
[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.
foxhands: (no not boxes...)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-25 11:45 pm (UTC)(link)
[He realized shortly after typing that that was kind of a dumb thing to say, but.

....Still!!]




right
they've made us type strange answers
but outside of that
probablynoteren: (why does he look 12 here)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-26 05:30 am (UTC)(link)
maybe if we leave all our phones. [wait] and other electronic stuff.

[...]

and live in a cave?

[That escalated.]
foxhands: (foxes are great you know)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-26 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
we could reenact that one book
my side of the valley
become wilderness survival experts


[...]

and never do homework again
probablynoteren: (logic comes after e7 tbh)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-26 06:25 am (UTC)(link)
homework seems like a fair trade...

[They're being menaced by secret government agents or something, school is the last thing on their minds! ... They're really off-topic.]

i can start a fire. and navigate.
foxhands: (foxes?)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-27 05:11 am (UTC)(link)
that's better than me...

[sure, he's gonna magically rememberlearn random survival skills a few days from now, but starting campfires isn't one of those skills...a travesty.

also this is totally on topic. Somehow.]


i'm pretty good at climbing trees
probablynoteren: (smth's rotten in the state of crapsack)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-27 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
i think living in trees is safer than caves, anyway. except in thunderstorms.

[Between the two of them, they're going to collectively have an entire Boy Scout troop's worth of wilderness survival and then some by the time Awakening rolls around. Look forward to it.

Haruka, on the other hand, has some experience camping with his family. That's good enough, right?]
foxhands: (that's just how swords work)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-27 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
i wonder what we'd need for a storm-proof treehouse

[The final goal! They could totally do this if they tried. Probably. Also this is a much more fun topic than weird mind-controlling headache-inducing multi-platform apps or whatever, though he's only just realized how off-topic they've gotten.]
probablynoteren: (why does he look 12 here)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-28 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
a lightning rod?

[He's mostly a city boy, so it's a mystery to him how you'd live in a treehouse in a thunderstorm. It is far nicer than continuing to run up against the wall of App Shenanigans, though, he can agree with that much.]
Edited (touchpad icon browsing is hard) 2017-05-28 00:57 (UTC)
foxhands: (but you're not one)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-28 04:07 am (UTC)(link)
lightning rod sounds good

either way it's fun to imagine living in the wild like that


[Being a sheltered city boy himself, this is kind of a pipe dream at the moment...maybe if he was one of those cool fighter characters from video games or something he'd be more capable of doing it, but that's not very likely, is it?]
probablynoteren: (smth's rotten in the state of crapsack)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-28 04:42 am (UTC)(link)
i think i'd be okay for a while. but i'm not sure about forever.

[By himself, he might be able to tough it out for a lot longer, but if he thinks about trying to figure it out with his family involved... it gets a lot more complicated. So many simple things have become complicated in the last year, the last month.]
foxhands: (why you ask?)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-28 06:11 am (UTC)(link)
forever might get complicated
especially if we weren't living alone

then again people managed it historically, somehow


[Log cabins! Or something. The complication of long-term wilderness survival families is...somehow...still less complicated than the confusion that is this app lately.]




if we stayed out there long enough
would the app learn to appear in trees
probablynoteren: (#desaturated as fuck or smth)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-28 07:41 am (UTC)(link)
... i don't know how the app would appear in trees. doesn't it need to be electronic?

[Then again, imagining weird things like messages carving themselves in tree trunks is both very creepy and somehow funny at the same time. What are their lives, this is turning into a survival horror story all of a sudden.]
foxhands: (talk to the hand)

[personal profile] foxhands 2017-05-28 10:34 pm (UTC)(link)
probably
but i don't know how it got on my phone or computer or anywhere else
or manages to do anything else it does

for all i know it could show up in a bathtub if it wanted


[Scary! But also outlandish enough he doesn't actually think it'll happen! Let's hope it doesn't reach quite that level of horror.]
probablynoteren: (wild rare GOOD LIGHTING appeared)

[personal profile] probablynoteren 2017-05-29 01:26 am (UTC)(link)
that's true. it would be a real horror movie if it appeared in the bathtub...

[Also he'd probably run out yelling while naked and his parents would be Concerned. It's a really good thing they can't send pictures because imagine that. What a worst case scenario.]