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

Medic | OTA

[mementomoritz]

[In the crowd of mindless souls, walking aimlessly, one slows and comes gradually to a stop. She looks like a young girl, mid-teens, in what might be the uniform for some fancy private school.]

[And she is dead.]

...so that's what happens? [For countless ages, humanity has wondered: what does happen to you, after death? And now she knows, as certainly as she knows anything.]

[Unfortunately, she doesn't know much of anything else.]

[What's her name? She doesn't know. What killed her? She doesn't know. What was her life like? She doesn't know.]

[In a flurry of motion, she whirls and grabs the nearest spirit, wild-eyed with excitement.]

Hello! I think we're dead! Can you tell me something new?

I want to know everything.

[emberserker]

You think? We are dead!

[Not that the person she just grabbed has any idea of anything else. A redhead with a hint of a German accent and a scowl -- that's about all that stands out thus far. She pulls her arm back to try and shake it out of Medic's grip.]

You aren't the only one who wants to know. Something feels more than out of sorts.

[mementomoritz]

Well, that wasn't new, but confirming prior data from multiple sources is important, too. Thank you! [She sort of ragdolls forward for a moment before she realizes the other girl probably wants her to let go, at which point she does.]

Yes, I feel that too. Something just isn't right. [She pauses a moment, looking thoughtful.] I think this is the part where I should introduce myself, but I don't know my name. Hello, anyway!

Do you want to help me shake down random passerby until they tell us things?

[emberserker]

Do you really think that's going to do anything?

[She says, despite having been doing just that.]

[mementomoritz]

[Cheerfully:] I have no idea!

Based on what we've learned thus far in the last five seconds, I hypothesize one of two outcomes: either they'll know something, or they won't.

[Yes that's... that's sort of obvious, Medic.]

If they do tell us new information, then we'll have learned something! If they don't, we can try to look for patterns in the knowledge we all don't have. For example, we can both still speak and walk, even though those are learned skills, so we must retain that knowledge! [A beat, and then:] Also, I apparently retain the knowledge that things like speaking and walking are learned skills!

[emberserker]

So what we do recognize is basic, and what we don't must be more specific. We all speak the same language, though that might well be that idea of there being no barriers after death in force. And I'd say a good amount of the people here look human, but... certainly not all of them.

[mementomoritz]

Exactly! [Yes, good, someone gets it.] Furthermore, a great deal of the general knowledge I can think of seems to be things that relate to humans and humanity. I can't think of a single thing that's unambiguously about people who aren't human! Does that mean that other kinds of people only exist here? That I never met any while I was alive? Or that we're just so similar in everything beyond physical appearance that all general knowledge applies to however many species there are?

The only consistent rule I can find is that I don't remember anything about me.

[emberserker]

So we have the foundation of the world, but nothing of the people built on it. If the world even is what we thought, given, again, the giant bug creature and all the others running around.

[seasharp]

E-Eh?!

[Hello, fellow teenage girl. Here's another one, who's looking very surprised at suddenly being grabbed like this.

Hi???]

S-Something... Like, anything?

[mementomoritz]

Yes, anything at all! You have a lot of options, because I can't remember a thing right now. It's very exciting!

[She's just absolutely beaming.]

Do you remember anything?

1/2

[seasharp]

"Anything" is a little vague. Um... I remember...

[ . . . ]

Blueberry is the best soda flavor.

[.......well, she said anything.]

2/2

[seasharp]

Ahhh, that's so random! I don't know my name, but that's the first thing I can think of?!

[mementomoritz]

[Her eyes widen even further.] That's fascinating. [Do you see this? This is the face of pure scientific joy.]

[Using the hand that isn't holding on to her unfortunate fellow deceased, she gestures excitedly as she speaks.] So now we know that neither of us can remember our names, but we do still retain some information about our preferences! I don't remember what any individual flavor of soda tastes like, but I do remember what soda is, and that it does come in multiple flavors, and that opens up all kinds of new avenues to explore! Why do you remember this specific preference, and I don't? Is it because blueberry soda was especially significant to you at some point in time? Maybe I just didn't have strong feelings on soda one way or the other? Is there metaphysical significance to blueberries?

We have absolutely no way to know! [She didn't even stop to breathe the whole time she was talking...]

[Then again, maybe being dead helps with that.]

[seasharp]

[Very carefully:] ...You got all that from blueberry soda?

[mementomoritz]

Yes. [She blinks, looking confused.] Why, did I miss something?

[seasharp]

Ah, no... It's more like you're way ahead of me! Talk about a mile a minute.

[daughterofthemark]

[Sh...e? That feels like the right pronoun. She's met a... person spirit? A girl who looks younger than she... looks. Hm. She's going to have to start feeling certain about things.]

Advertising is necessary for a business to be successful.

[Has that ever been important knowledge for her? Heck if she knows.]

[mementomoritz]

Thank you, I had absolutely no idea! [...no, that actually doesn't sound like sarcasm.] So now I know two new things: that advertising is necessary for a business to be successful, and that I don't have an instinctive grasp of business and economics.

[Unlike her instinctive grasp of the English language, which is apparently working just fine.]

That just leaves an unknown and potentially infinite amount of knowledge to go!

[daughterofthemark]

Goodness, that truly was new information? Perhaps we each have a wealth of knowledge to be shared!

[...

......

............]

I feel as though I should introduce myself, but...

[mementomoritz]

Oh, I hope so! There's so much to learn, I'm really looking forward to it!

[Some people would assume that death would make someone less energetic. Either it didn't work on Medic, or she was even worse before...]

I don't remember my name, either. It's nice to meet you, though- at least, it has been so far, and I don't anticipate that changing.

[daughterofthemark]

[Royal Veil seems pretty energetic, too. Maybe death actually makes them more so?]

I hope it won't change. I prefer it be pleasant to meet me... at least, I believe I do. [Amnesia humor! Or just amnesia commentary, maybe.] Perhaps exploration would be a good way to learn?

[alcahest]

[ although there's not much of a reaction in her expression, she goes stiff when this girl grabs her. she's felt very little thus far, and none of this worries her, but that— being touched. some strange, distant part of her seems to register a sense of danger. her breath hitches and she feels cold, though she's not sure what it means. just a warning that says don't touch me!

she pulls her arm free quickly and steps back. what did the girl say? ah, that's right. ]

Something new... [ she appears to be giving it serious thought. after a long silence, she solemnly concludes: ] I don't... think so. I can't think of anything.

[mementomoritz]

[Medic seems totally oblivious to any discomfort that she might have caused whatsoever, just rocking back slightly on her heels and grinning.]

That's okay! Negative results are an important part of the scientific process. [She knows this in a deep way, the same way she knows how to walk and talk. It's got nothing to do with herself, it's just the truth. Why wouldn't anyone know that?]

So, think really hard: can you remember anything at all? When you think of you, not names or evens but just yourself, does any word or phrase come to mind?

[alcahest]

[ she thinks very hard, just as she's told. she closes her eyes to think about it more. a few minutes pass without her saying anything while she thinks as hard as she can, and in that time, her face doesn't change at all. with her eyes closed, she looks even more like a doll.

finally, her eyes open again, apparently finished thinking about it. ]

... Nothing. [ hm. that's probably not a good answer. ] I'm sorry.

[herowalksalone]

[Hope immediately squirms his way out of Medic's grip, but is left blinking at the barrage of questions.] We're dead? [He feels his heart race for a moment, a leftover from some survival instinct, and then it subsides.] Is that why everything is weird now? [Wait.] No, we've been dead.

I'd never noticed it before, but the Hotel is really tall. I don't think I'd ever looked up before now. It's good to see the sky. [Well. A sky.]