theairlock | Week 6

Entry tags:

!round 1,
!week 6

Week 6

Week 6

[It's been six weeks and with Ricky, Kurumi, and Lightning all dead, the group that was initially 20 strong has dwindled down to only seven. Thirteen Champions have died in about a month and a half, and even the Overseers are beginning to crack. How many more will follow before this cruel experiment ends?

And again at 7 am the mechanical woman's voice chimes to awaken the remaining champions on Sunday morning. After the initial wake-up call there is no new floor announcement this week.

And again the Champions are awakened they have regained one new memory from the ones they've lost. Starting again on Sunday, as well, Jamie and Bolton will be back to their usual office hours in their usual locations.]

Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday

[ooc: welcome to week 6, everyone! Check-in has begun and don't forget to submit your memory regains!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Mhm.

[She's stitching the bottom hem of that black skirt with a lot of care. There's still some lumps, but...it actually looks like she's making an effort to not have it suck too bad.]

I can't wear my red skirt anymore.

Oh, no, is it ruined? This one does look nicer! I think you're doing well.

Yeah. I...could've washed it out, but. I don't want to wear anything red ever again.

[Tugging carefully on the needle and thread...] I've never been inclined to sew before, but, I need some kind of bottom, so.

...Did something else happen?

[Her already shaking hands start to shake worse.]

...Yeah. There's. A lot that I...haven't told anyone here about my world. I didn't think it was important, but now...now I'm awfully scared it might be.

I can listen if you want. You've always heard what I had to say.

[She reaches over and pulls out a chair. You're gonna want to sit for this, Yurika.]

First, I...my secret. I can...I can bring the dead back to life, and I didn't remember until last week. And...I tried. For Ricky. But nothing happened.

[Just get that right off her chest now]

[Yurika gasps. She braces herself against the table and slowly makes herself sit down.]

Oh, no... And you've been dealing with that all this time.

...Just for the past week.

[It's okay. It's not a big deal. Really.]

But...mm. I guess that power is part of why it happened, back home. She needs an insurance policy for her pawns, no doubt...

[Jane shakes her head. There's so little she knows about the plans in store for her, but she can make a lot of nasty guesses.]

Back home. The company I'm heir to is called Crockercorp, started by a woman named Betty Crocker. I'm sure...on your Earth, if they had her, she was probably just a made-up character used to market things. But she was a real person in mine - my adoptive great-grandmother. All my life, I assumed she passed away...but my friends were always trying to convince me otherwise.

[She fiddles with the needle and thread, and the skirt, to mask how badly her hands shake.] Roxy was the one who told me things most often. She called her the "Batterwitch". Said that...the machines Crockercorp made were brainwashing the masses. That the witch was an alien from another world who...who killed Roxy's mother and my friend Dirk's brother, even though they were famous people and I saw them on the news frequently. She'd talk about a "water apocalypse" where the whole planet was flooded, and about Guy Fieri rising to power, and how if I lived long enough to the 2020 presidential election, that I should make absolute sure I do not vote for the Insane Clown Posse as the dual presidents of the United States - all orchestrated by my dead great-grandmother in the beginning of the eradication of humanity. But - but surely to you, as it does to me, it all sounds insane and ridiculous.

[She laughs, once, hollow.] But it was true. All of it. Roxy and Dirk...they lived 413 years in the future from Jake and I, contacting us through esoteric technological means, and slowly every crazy thing they claimed as truth made more and more sense. The few pieces of Crockercorp technology that I had were examined, abandoned - it always gave me headaches, but for those five months in the game they only got worse. The messages to obey her...they only grew more painful. She was even in our session, somehow, she'd gotten in but all she did was lie in wait for us to go God Tier - to get our powers. To get my power. And then - and then, when the relatives we'd been waiting for showed up at last, she...she got to Jake's grandma, who zapped that terrible tiaratop onto my head, and...

[She's breathing hard now, the memory of sizzling red pain still searingly clear in her mind. How that thing didn't leave a scar around her head, Jane doesn't know.]

And I - I know she'll be looking for me - and if she finds me here - if she finds me, she'll - she'll make me...!

Oh, no...

[Yurika wrings her hands once Jane's finished. She breathes and shakes her head.]

It all sounds unbelievable, but I know you must be telling the truth. But we're a universe away, and you don't have the thing that was controlling you, and everybody's abilities are dampened thanks to the PIPs. I know it would be better to be able to bring back everyone we lost, or for me to get hold of enough Chulip Crystals to teleport us all back home, but as long as we can't, even if your great-grandmother does come here, the odds are it'll be as another powerless prisoner -- or at least unable to make you do anything.

I wish I had more comfort than that.

There's no way this dinky PIP could do anything to stop her if she tried, Yurika...! [Dropping all the sewing stuff - thankfully the needle's still got the thread, the thread's still working through the skirt, so nothing's getting lost.] She's ancient and cruel and just needs the tiniest opening to hijack herself into every single one of these on our arms, and then - and then we'd all be under her control in an instant...

[Jane stops, tries to breathe. She thought she got this all out with Bolton, dammit...]

...I don't...I don't know how far she'd go...to get me back. I'm...I'm sure she'd never intend to let me inherit anything of her awful legacy...that she'd want all to herself...but if you...if you see a big red spaceship out the window...then you'll know.

She's got to be strong, and maybe she could get here, but at least we know, and we can all be prepared. Maybe this isn't the end. I still have gaps in my memory. She hasn't come yet, even while you didn't think she was real or alive, so maybe something's stopped her.

...Maybe.

[Whatever Bolton's told her on the subject, she's probably not 100% convinced it's true.]

Ugh...sorry. I'm just...rattled. She's rattling to think about.

No kidding! I don't blame you at all. I can't stop thinking about my own problems either, and yours are so much worse!

[Jane shakes her head.] No - come on, now, your problems are just as bad as mine. We're not going to make this a contest. Every problem is bad.

...Right. Okay. We all just need to get through what's in front of us, right?

Yes. That's what I think. We...can't ignore the past, but it can't be changed, right? And we can't stay hung up on it, or...or we'll just be lost to it.

[From her own difficulty saying it, it's obvious that it's something she's having trouble abiding to it herself, but...she really wants to try.]

[Yurika's hand goes to the gold key on a cord around her neck.]

You're right. We don't fully understand the past, either, even if everything remember makes we wish we forgot.

...

[Jane picks up the black skirt, the needle, and makes a stitch.]

I don't want to forget. Not ever again. If I went back to my friends without knowing what had happened to all of us...it'd just be another sinkhole in our winding road.

You're right. And we have to keep going for everyone who's still counting on us.

I remembered something awful, too, and I'm not sure what's going to happen after. But if my memories are in the order I think they are, things got a little better, even if they're not great.

[That gets a small smile out of Jane.]

Good - someone deserves to have memories that get better. I...I'm happy it's you.

...If things don't get better, and if and when we get out of here? I'll do what I can for you and your friends. Okay?

[Jane shakes her head immediately.]

I don't want any one of you trying to get into the Medium. Not if it's how I last remember it. There's no guarantee you'll be able to get out, and...ugh. I...I'm scared to find out what's waiting for me, there. I don't...want to return.

Then you don't have to. We can -- we can try and get your friends out the way they got you!

[Jane looks up sharply.]

...Oh my God. That - that would be...I don't know if they would, but...that dreadful game isn't worth playing after all that's happened, we're better off abandoning it at this point...

[They could go to a world with PEOPLE and LIFE and HAPPINESS. And more romantic prospects. Oh, that would be a relief...]

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