luxflowmemes | + TDM 001.

Welcome to Luxflow's first TDM.

Let's get into it.

ARRIVAL

— You wake up encased.

It’s dark, naturally, but a few tendrils of light slip past the — vines? Why are you tangled up in vines? It gives you panic — why can’t you remember — breath quickening, in and in and in again. Your frenzied movements against the vines let in more light, more air.

And you breathe.

As you exhale, a shaky but sure breath against the rough foliage, a light flows out of you. It’s just a little orb that pours out, past the greenery and into that unknown.

The vines melt away into ash, and you’re left standing in a clearing, trees impossibly tall and swaying in the night breeze. Your breath comes in deep and steady, now, and it occurs to you that you should be panicking still … But then as you look around the clearing, you see more vine cocoons, like yours, and others climbing out of them …

There’s people in the center of the clearing. They’re armed but they’re friendly, and they tell you in short and sweet sentences about the place you’re in now …

“ You’re in the Feeding Forest. ” says one, “ This place’ll eat you alive if you can’t break out of the vines. You must be special, huh? ”

Special?

“ C'mon, we’ll take you back to the city. You’re probably here for a while. We’ll fill you in … ”

SPIT SHINE YOUR BLACK CLOUDS

You're trying to get your bearings, but this City stops for no one.

On the next morning after your arrival, there's a festival! It's near the hole, Heart and Center, in the middle of the place. When you arrive there, you're fooled for a moment, and the place doesn't seem so scary; the colors are bright and the citizens are so cheerful as they dance and cheer on the new arrivals to strange music.

No one really knows why they're celebrating, but the arrival of the strange ones feels like it's heralding something good. Maybe there's unheard prayers that are being answered! Maybe their prayers will be answered! There's drinks and food and song, so why not join in? You can get drunk or high or just chill and take it all in.

Yet as the festivities burn on, the locals all hush at some point late in the evening. Words ripple through the throngs, and it reaches you fast. They're going to heave prayers up to the Setting Sun. But first, the great chasm needs an offering from those praying.

They throw in valuables and invaluables alike; drinks and food and clothes and jewelry and weapons and boomboxes are thrown in without a second thought.

What will you offer? If you choose to at all, you'll feel bereft; if it's a memory or power, a light will flow from your mouth and down into the chasm ...

They're silent thereafter in their prayer. Do you pray, too? If you do or you don't, you can't help but feel intense shame, like someone is laughing at you ... Still, after all that, the party continues on.

You're just a little more unsettled, now, a little more uncertain.

SILHOUETTE SALOON

The Silhouette Saloon is open! Or so the signage around town says. Excessive and garish, these signs point characters down a winding path into a place called the Silhouette Saloon. When you enter, everything goes white and everyone appears merely as shadows ... Pretty on the nose, but it provides a strange anonymity.

The fixtures of the saloon are all shadowed out too, stark black against the misty backdrop of white. You can drink here and be free to tell your secrets to anyone who'll listen. The bartender or maybe one of the dancers just finishing their set will tell you that this place keeps secrets.

If you were to tell someone a secret, or hear one, you wouldn't remember it exactly. You would, however, feel a strange nagging sensation about the person who told it to you. Once on the outside, you might not be able to get through a conversation with them without thinking they're hiding something ...

If you don't tell someone a secret, you'll feel compelled to tell someone one once you're out of the Saloon, where the secret won't be so hidden ... It might be better to tell one in the safety of anonymity then, hm?

But the longer you're in there, the more you lose of yourself. You'll forget your name, your purpose, everything about yourself until you pass out on the dance floor. You'll wake up outside the Saloon, stricken with amnesia. It'll wear off after a few hours, though.

PITY'S GOT AN UGLY PRICE TAG

Besides the Drifters and Givers, a new group has popped up. They're called the Pleading, or called plain annoying. They beg for anything you've got from the roadside, calling you over. If you hear them out, they'll hypnotize you in a way; they plead for anything you can possibly spare their poor soul -- the shirt off your back, a memory, an ability. Their sob story goes from believable to something horrifying and personal to you. They'll tell you your mother won't forgive you if you don't, or they'll tell you that the fate of your very best friend hinges on you giving them your wallet.

What do you do?

If someone breaks you out of the grasp of the Pleading's hypnosis, you'll be free.

If you give in, they'll take, and you'll be bereft of what you gave and that will be that.

If you don't, you'll feel immeasurable guilt, mounting more and more with each step ... You might have to be talked out of that guilt, or you might throw yourself into the chasm, inconsolable ...

DIGITAL VEIL ( network )

A question appears on the network. There's no handle attached.

BRUISES OR ROSES OR CRADLES OR COFFINS? WHY WHY WHY? :'D

Answers to this 'question' will be displayed to all; feel free to comment on others, try to gain some sense of what this could mean ... You can also post to the network freely.

QUESTIONS?

Ask below. Have fun.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

But you're alive.

[Ellie is ears tonight, ears and steady eyes, faded scars and old bruises nearly healed. She herself feels halfway there, a figure in a worn and torn jacket, a bow across her back, looking like she's been on the road for years. Her hand where it curls around her glass is as scarred as the rest of her.

Maybe none of this is real, but it makes her feel like less of a ghost to talk to the other wayward souls.

This one, chillingly, sounds like something that would come out of her own mouth.]

Why d'you think you keep on going?

There isn't really much of a choice, is there?

( it's not a question that he hasn't heard himself--the echoes of it, deep in his head, of someone begging him not to erase them, of knowing that there's little else beyond whatever it is he has for himself now. it's funny, really, that he might consider himself a coward in some respects: he's not afraid of putting himself out in front of his teammates for an enemy, but the thought of cursing himself by his own hand is laughably terrifying. he just can't bring himself to do it.

the wine tastes different, on a tongue that's shared some strange secret--he swallows and hopes it will go down all the same. his companion looks like she could use one herself, though he doesn't want to offer, wondering if there's a reason she's sitting here listening to him. maybe she's lonely, too. )

I can't bring myself to do it, and if the hands of others can't do it for me either, I'm a little trapped.

( a thought then, sharp-- ) Do you regret it? Being alive.

[Ellie presses her lips together at his answer, nodding, tilting her head to one side. Even if she doesn't know his precise story, that's... the crux of it. Not much of a choice but to continue on living.

It isn't easy to decide to die, but... in some ways, it's even harder to keep on going.

He asks the real question next, like he can read her fucking mind, and Ellie rests her elbows on the bar, slowly rubs her palms together. Her hands are scarred, faint bruises on her knuckles.

The bartender comes by and puts an amber drink down in front of her, and she takes it like the glass will hold answers.]

I go back and forth.

[Ellie tips the drink back, swallows once without wincing, breathes out.]

I feel like I should stay alive, because if I'm alive when so many other people aren't, then I've gotta make that shit count. Other times... [She shakes her head.] I feel like if I could go out doing something worth it, then I could be fine with that.

[Ellie pauses, spinning her glass in her fingers, and stops it again.]

Being alive. Surviving. It's not the same thing as living.

+ TDM 001.