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

are you talking about the name?

[Lenka, was the name he was called in the new vision, a kinder one, with an undercurrent of urgency and finality. It feels like something well-worn -- something he could respond to in everyday life, online or off, without thinking about it. Maybe he shouldn't have accepted it as an online alias.

But that's the only point of commonality, he thinks.]

was it the name you saw on the contract, right before?

Not just the name. There's more.

Yes, this is the name from the contract.

[He's still reeling. He's still got the lingering sense of an identity crisis. God, he's Lonán, right? There's nobody else in there.]

was there? i thought, since the name appeared... it snuck into the visions.

[Is that how it works? He doesn't want to pry, but he can't help, either, if he has no idea what's going on or what's changed.]

In the first vision, I had my hand around someone's throat - and I was glad about it.

In this one, some...voice was urging me to kill. There was so much confusion.

And now...these answers. Everything is along the same theme.

i remember.

but it doesn't mean the answers this time are true. i had a vision about someone dying, last time, far away. [the closest he'll come to describing what happened, for now] this time, a vision about a group, and dinner. but it still described me as a killer. someone who enjoyed it.

[He's troubled about it, but the overriding emotion is confusion and lingering traces of the positive memory. He's still holding the questionnaire itself at arm's length, examining it carefully before he lets it become personal.]

i don't believe that. you don't believe that for yourself, either.

[It seems relevant to remind Shax that his first instinct had been to deny it, after all.]

...Thank you.

This one messed with my head pretty bad, I guess. It still feels like everything is spinning. All my theorizing and this just came out of left field.

[It's getting easier to breathe and easier to think. He's Lonán. Not whoever the app is showing him.]

it's not just the questions, but the visions that come with them. show, instead of tell.

[Nothing is quite as poisonous as something like these hallucinations, whether or not they're memories, because of the way they sink in -- sink their teeth into your perceptions and your insides, settling like a second skin. The questionnaire is just the cherry on top. There's something that rankles about such an obvious tactic being used, and working, not once but twice.]

it's hard to be prepared when all we have is guesswork. but theorizing starts from what you know, doesn't it?

[And what they know is themselves, and the world they live in. For the moment, he's planted himself in it, holding onto his roots with all the tenacity of the trees his club occasionally cares for, the ones that are ten times his age or more.]

You're right...one or the other alone might have been fine. But coming out of...whatever that was, and seeing those answers... It's insidious. I'm ashamed.

I still ought to have realized we'd probably be seeing things again.

[The first time was powerful, but so obviously not something he'd done or ever would do. Strangling someone? And someone he's never even seen, at that. It had to be induced. And if it happened once, it would probably happen again.]

don't be. this is only the second time. it takes longer to establish a pattern.

[That's not as reassuring as he means it to be, is it? Because it implies that this isn't the last time. Clearly, though, the app isn't done with them: there are future dates now, and some pretty hefty promises. What is fate? Why did they sign away their fake names (and lives?) to it?]

maybe we'll get some answers. the 28th.

[He hadn't read over the contract as closely as he could have, distracted by the voice and everything being too quiet. But a date is something he wouldn't overlook.]

And the third, judging by the countdown. Do you think we'll be okay?

[It's more vulnerable than he wanted to show himself, but you know what? He's tired. They're halfway through and he's sick of this, sick of cryptic messages and freaky visions. It sounds like something out of an episode of Paranormal.]

so it's a pattern now. we'll know what to expect. and we're all in this together.

[As strange and unsettling as everything has been, he at least feels a little more secure in the knowledge that those he's talked to (with notable exception) feel the same way about the app. Bonds, camaraderie, whatever one would call it; however much of it was intended by the app, or not, he'll take it.]

Yeah. ...Good luck.

[It feels appropriate. They might all be in this together, but they're also all separate, small groups at the most. It's not like they're actually a small army against whatever is going on.]

you too.

[No, they're not an army. But he does have faith that they can fight, should the need arise. Even as individuals, they've shared information and worked with each other so far, and if there's one thing he (both of him?) knows it's how even ordinary people can be a force to be reckoned with if you push them far enough.]

COUNTDOWN: FUTURE & PAST

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject