introductions

[cancrymods]

It comes to you suddenly, at the end of an unravelling thread of thought. A sudden, piercing sense of wrongness stops you in your tracks and sends you tumbling through rapidfire questions that you realize you have no answer for. How long have you been here? How long have you been doing the same things, over and over, blindly going through the motions of a routine? Just who are you, anyway?

Questions beget more questions and answers prove illusive until you arrive at the only things you know for certain: the first is that this place is Purgatory.

The second is that you're here because you're dead.

Oddly, this doesn't feel like a surprise of any sort. You don't remember how or why it happened, but it did and that's that. It feels rather as though you've been slapped awake and everything around you has come into sharp focus. You're in Limbo, where you've been wandering since you arrived here in Purgatory alongside all the other mindless souls who are acting out what little they remember of their original lives.

Still lingering is that horrible sense of something being terribly wrong. It hasn't dissipated with your realization of the truth – if anything, it's intensified. There's no way to tell what it is, but there's something going on here.

Maybe you should investigate – or at least see if there's anyone else here who's had the same realization as you...

[ OOC: Welcome to the very first log of Can Cry! For the first few hours, Executors will be free to explore and mingle among themselves. Mod replies will come in a few hours. If you're planning to investigate, please indicate that you're doing so in the subject line as your comment. ]

Comments

Pariah | OTA

[crosscutting]

[When the realization hits, it's like a whipcrack at her back. The girl stops dead in her tracks, her back stiff before she whips around wildly, as if expecting a perpetrator of some kind to pop out of the woodwork. But...that's stupid, right? She doesn't even know what happened, and what would a normal girl be able to do about it anyway?]

[...for some reason, that thought sits sour in the back of her throat.]

[Regardless, there's a lot of questions at hand and not enough answers. Most of the other spirits are useless, stuck in the same fog of mind that she had been in herself, and the landscape itself is nonsensical at best. She finds herself constantly turned around and cut off by sudden drops, until eventually she finds an old, broken fountain. At the moment she's crouched down at peering at a plaque attached to it, drumming her fingers on her knees as she does.]

Of course it's all the important words that are worn away...

Re: Pariah | OTA

[mementomoritz]

Maybe that's why? [Sure, just come up behind someone and reply to something they clearly weren't addressing to you, Medic. That's fine.] No one I've talked to can remember their names, and people usually think names are really important!

[Just casually tilting her head to examine the worn plaque.] At least, no one so far. Unless you do?

[crosscutting]

[She flinches for a moment, not expecting a response, and turns to look at Medic.]

...no, I don't. I don't remember much of anything...well, about myself, at least.

[Is it weird that she can remember what a fountain is, or how buying things should work, but not if she had parents at all?]

[mementomoritz]

[Medic nods, as though this is exactly what she was expecting.] Everyone who "woke up" seems the same way- we all remember how to walk and talk and do basic things, things we must have learned at some point, but not anything personal.

And that we're dead! [Maybe that's a little too cheerful there...] Nothing about how we died, though. I guess that's too personal?

[crosscutting]

[...frysquint]

You're pretty happy about all this.

[mementomoritz]

It's pretty exciting! [That... sure is one word for it.] Since I don't know anything, that means I can learn everything. I can't not enjoy a puzzle this big!

[She sighs dreamily.] I just wish I knew where to start... There's so much more to explore here, I can't wait!

[A pause, as she takes in the other girl's expression. Something about her face, she doesn't seem... no, hold on, she'll get this, give her a moment...]

Are you... sad? [She has successfully noticed one (1) emotion in another human being. You're supposed to do something about those, right? She has no idea what, though. Wracking her brain for a few long moments, she eventually comes up with:]

Do you want to talk about it?

[Nailed it.]

[crosscutting]

[Yeah, 'cuz that's not all creepy as heck!!]

No, I'm not sad! I'm--I'm frustrated and you're being weird and no I don't want to--UGH!

[She pushes herself to her feet and kicks the side of the fountain.] I should be doing something!

[mementomoritz]

Oh, okay, that makes sense. [She seems totally unbothered by being called weird. It feels oddly familiar, somehow. ...Then again, maybe that shouldn't be a surprise.] Knowing you need to do something and not knowing what is pretty frustrating, I'd be mad too!

It's also kind of better, though, because I don't actually know how to help someone feel less sad. But I do like doing things! Do you want help finding something to do?

[crosscutting]

I've been trying to figure out what's going on and why I woke up but there's nothing! To find! Anywhere!

[Each exclamation is punctuated by another kick at the side of the fountain.]

[mementomoritz]

Do you want to try committing minor to moderate property damage and see what happens? [Wait, what?] It's the next thing on my list.

[She holds up what appears to be an actual list scribbled on a napkin. The entries on it range from things like 'visit library' to 'arson' to 'spiritual guidance????']

I'm testing Purgatory by doing different things and seeing how it reacts! Hopefully, I'll find something that can lead to further study, and answers.

[crosscutting]

I--

[Pariah opens her mouth. Then closes it.]

[She really shouldn't be tempted, but also...]

...only if it doesn't hurt any of the sleeping people.

[mementomoritz]

[She looks astonished at the suggestion.]

Of course not! [Wow, that's surprisingly moral of you-] That's a completely different variable, testing them both at once could throw off the entire experiment! [Aaaand there it is.]

I was thinking of breaking a window. Some of these buildings don't seem to be inhabited, but they're still completely intact, even if the architecture is kind of weird? So it should work as a test, I think.

[crosscutting]

[deaddovedonteat.png]

[For some reason breaking a window seems...incredibly reckless, but she can't think of any reason why. You just board it up and clean the pieces, and no one is going to be inside anyway. So she nods with a small frown.]

Okay. I guess we need to find a rock or something, then.

[beknights]

[ Seal is resting beside the fountain, their stillness making them functionally identical to a statue themselves. Everything is so overwhelming that they just need to be where people aren't, at least for a little while.

Their head shifts when they hear someone approach, taking no notice of them at all. To Pariah, it may simply seem like part of the scenery just moved in a way that strongly implies that she's being watched. ]

[crosscutting]

[She catches their movement from the corner of their eye, looking over sharply and staring hard at them. She's not sure what Seal is at all--obviously not part of the fountain itself, but...a doll, maybe? It sort of looks like shiny plastic.]

[...yeah, just gonna go up and poke them.]

[beknights]

[ They jump when she pokes them, practically. Okay, well, not jump, but they do startle enough to be noticeable.

They grip the edge of the wall they're sitting on and turn to face her a little more, staring at her with a questioning sort of air. What is it?, they seem to be saying. ]

[crosscutting]

[When they jump, she jumps! A yelp and a step back, and it takes Pariah a moment to get over the wrong run away fight impulse that slams into her.]

What--are you alive?

[--wait, shoot.] I-I mean--crap. Are you a person?

[beknights]

[ Those are both very difficult questions for no reasons that they can recall but feel somehow incredibly anxious about being asked regardless. Questions are all pass/fail, right? This is a healthy way to view conversations, right???

But a question needs an answer. So, after a long pause, they nod. They're certainly...someone, at any rate. ]

[crosscutting]

Oh. Uh, okay.

...

I don't think I've met anything like you before.

[beknights]

[ Well, they haven't either, so they're about even there.

They shift to free their arm, so they can sign. The motions are a bit unsteady, a little unsure, like they're not sure if this is the right thing to say. ]

« I have not either.
You are all very strange to me. »

[crosscutting]

[Huh. That's...huh.]

Maybe you were...kept secret somewhere? I guess it doesn't matter now.

[beknights]

[ Kept secret...? There's the ghost of a feeling there, about those words, but it's gone in a flash, a fleeting thing slipping through their fingers. ]

« Maybe.
I do not remember. »

[ They can't say 'it's not important' because it feels like that's the wrong thing to ascribe it. It is important. But it's vanished, like their life, like many things that seem to have been important. ]

[crosscutting]

I didn't really think you would...no one I've met so far remembers much.

[She frowns a little and cants her head to the side a bit, looking them over.]

...you're not cold or anything?

[beknights]

[ Cold...The idea of paying attention to temperature feels odd, for some reason. It's just something to be endured.

For a long moment, they contemplate the question, and then shake their head. No, they're not cold. It doesn't bother them.

They tilt their head like Pariah does, but on the opposite side from her. Now they're both headtilting at each other.

Their hand forms two words, carefully, as clearly as possible. ]

« Are
you? »

[crosscutting]

Well, not really, but I'm wearing a lot more than you.

[And she's super not sure if that should be embarrassing or not.]