7 DAYS REMAIN

[cordibus]

Seven days remain. As the last day of the festival draws to a close, the only thing of interest to note for the week is how great everything has gone. Not a single attack has been reported...

But things have already been set alight inside the hearts of those chosen few who have received the app on their phones. For some, it's just the first bite of the apple. For others, it's been like shaking down an entire tree. Things are beginning to look...strange. Surely there are more burning questions on their minds by now.

The warning bells of the Nightly Curfew ring across the city. There's a faint hum from the phone this time before the icon appears. This time it displays a time: 1:00AM

The rest of the night is normal. Perhaps you've cuddled up with family, or you've gone to bed early to wait, but sure enough, time tick by right until 1 in the morning when....

You're back into that application again. A single question before you're even permitted to type anything else. And while it seems to be overwritten by something inside of you, it feels a lot more natural than before. Which is, truthfully...troubling.

WELCOME TO THE FINAL QUIZ!
Answer from the heart, the part of you that has been denied for far too long.

Is your life here a lie?
Yes | Definitely | Sure | I've had my doubts before, but yes | Hell Yes | There is no other conclusion | I wish I could deny it and live here peacefully but it's true.

Thank you...that will be all. Let us see what your heart blooms into...

Once you are done, you are tossed once more into the main chatroom. Now your user names are the names that you wrote down in the last survey, but with all those questions it's....hard not to think of them as your own. Maybe you'll be cursing at this device, but it looks like you're already deep down the rabbit hole by now.

[OOC: This is the final network post before Awakening. Users will now be able to speak of who they are in their AU life without the information being blocked by the application.

Additionally, while they will not get any new on their own, speaking with Luci might grant the Awakened more memories...be careful that they don't get more than they bargained for.]

Comments

[onlythankyou]

[...Um. Someone else on here knows Rommy. His metaphorical hackles instantly raise, the last thing he wants is his brother in danger. But that's an irrational response to the situation...it sounds like Eligor knows him better than his brother?]

...My name is Lonán. He _is_ my twin.

[probablynoteren]

... lonán. it's haruka.

[He doesn't really know what else to say yet.

It feels strange, to reconcile or try to reconcile Shax with the Lonán he knows. Lonán isn't usually easily thrown off-balance, and somehow he's never talked to him the way he has with Shax. Their paths don't cross in quite that way, though they're friendly.

It's both a relief and another thing to untangle in the midst of everything.]

[onlythankyou]

[...Haruka. Eligor is Haruka. The thought Haruka was involved in this never even crossed his mind, but now it makes so much sense. The way he'd collapsed during the fireworks at the festival. He'd seen something too, that was why--

He knows a couple of others in the dorms are involved in this, too, he's not sure how many. He hadn't actively engaged in ice cream shenanigans. There's the very unsettling thought that everyone using this app is someone he knows, but he doesn't consider it long.

And Haruka has seen Lonán weak and shaken. He's not sure how to feel about that.]

I'm sorry about freaking out like I did last week.

[probablynoteren]

i'd have to apologize for last week too, then.

[As odd as it is to look back on their brief and then much longer acquaintances side by side, and as little as they know still about what is happening to them, Haruka can at least say that he doesn't really mind this development. He's not happy about his friends and/or club members being dragged into this, but now they understand more about each other's situations.

They've both seen each other knocked down by this thing. So:]

so it's okay. instead of apologizing... if we know each other, then not everything can be a lie.

[He's sticking with that. If many of those here are a part of each other's lives, it follows that even by whatever twisted definition the app's cooked up, those lives are in some way real.]

[onlythankyou]

Right. Of somehow the app is right and all of this is a lie or hologram or whatever - you, me, and Rommy are not. The app wouldn't be telling us that if we weren't, right?

Not really the spring we planned for, huh?

[This is still pretty uncomfortable. The two of them have a new layer of relationship to navigate, and it's oddly murky. Maybe because it took this long. Maybe because Lonán obviously isn't as close to Haruka as his twin.

But there's no reason not to try and break up the tension a bit. His own nerves are pretty frazzled, but he doesn't need to share that. Or show it.]

[probablynoteren]

if there are this many people whose lives are supposed to be lies... we're all real.

[It's a little hard to imagine this in the vein of those science-fiction films where everything turned out to be holograms, or everyone was shut up in a made-up town, or whatever. He quite deliberately doesn't think about what that means for those who aren't here with them. It doesn't matter right now.

It is a little awkward, but it's also a bit of a welcome distraction from everything to try to reorient this particular interaction. It helps that Lonán is someone Haruka would consider under his protection. That's the way it works, right?]

i feel like i should check the ventilation in the greenhouse.

[It's unlikely at this point that they've all been inhaling something. But still.]