dankmemes | test drive meme #21

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test drive meme #21

Welcome to Hadriel's test drive, and thank you again for your interest in the game! As always, our reserves page is here, and our applications page is here! Reserves open June 24th, and apps are open July 1st. Please remember that there is an app cap of 20 apps.

Two quick points here as well:
1. Any thread made in Hadriel's test drive will be accepted as the sole Action Log sample in the application.
2. All threads made in the test drive can be considered game canon, either through handwaving or through a shared mental experience while coming through the Door!

Test drives will be broken up into specific god mini-events, during which your characters can see how well they fare under the watchful eye of one of the gods. Choose wisely or just simply pick 'em all, and have fun!

F E A R

SCENARIO ONE: A LITTLE FRENZIED
[The Door brings in all that is chaotic and evil in the world. This may include you, may include the person next to you... and may include the monster behind you.

Do you hear something weird? Some kind of strange, constant humming? Hopefully by now you know enough to know that it's probably not nothing, and maybe you should run. If you don't, well- the Door has brought in some Winter Lanterns, from the Bloodborne video game.

Winter Lanterns are rather hideous creatures that hum constantly and glow orange when they detect someone's presence. They can grab you with their tentacles and take a nice bite out of you, which is super fun, or they can mess you up just by looking at you too long. Yep, hanging out in the gaze of a Winter Lantern for too long will end with you being afflicted by Frenzy - blood shooting out all over the place. Not great for the health, really, so maybe don't get into a staring contest. Maybe just run.]

S O R R O W / L O V E

SCENARIO TWO: HAUNTED
[You thought you might never see them again, but now they're here. That person you loved - that person you miss terribly. Except that you seem to be the only person who can see them, and you also seem to be getting steadily weaker.

So that's what it comes down to, then. This ghost that's haunting you will take your life so it can live, even if it doesn't mean to. Do you have the ability to stop them? You'll have to kill them to do it, and you love them so much. Now's the time to make your choice - but be careful. They're strong enough to be visible now, and one of your friends or even a passing stranger might have something to say about your decision.

This is a mini version of our Ghosts That You Know event this month!]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

SCENARIO THREE: SLEEPING SICKNESS
[For some reason you can't quite put your finger on, you're tired. Like really tired. Like slurring your words, stumbling over your own feet, nodding off if you stop for a second tired. You can't seem to get enough rest no matter what you try - because it's always a light sleep. The slightest sound or movement will wake you up, leaving you just as tired and irritable as before.

What are you going to do? Try to find a quiet place to nap? Good luck. It seems like a lot of other people have the same idea as you - it might be hard to find a truly empty place. Or maybe you just can't take it anymore, and you're going to lay down and take a nap right in the middle of the street. Or maybe you actually feel fine, but everyone around you is falling asleep - and they glare at you when you make the slightest sound.

Maybe you should wake them up? Sleeping in the middle of the street isn't exactly safe. But then, maybe you just want to join them and argue over who gets the most comfortable bit of road.]

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Why. Why did everything and everyone in this city insist on waking her up not five minutes after she'd fallen asleep. (Brennan has no idea if it has been five minutes or not, but hyperbole seems an appropriate way to express how frustrated she is.)

Even as tired as she is, she recognizes the person who woke her. Suddenly she's back in the lab, and the Gormogon case hasn't even surfaced. Those were good times. She and Zack and the others working together, forming a strong partnership with Booth and the FBI by extension.

"Have you found anything?" What had he been saying? Those compounds-- "It could be a gas, yes. It's... a logical assumption. I have... I have no other suggestions."

There are no bones to look at. No one has died. She might even be the first, seeing as she's just lying on the road. She knows she should stand or at least sit, but it's so, so hard.

"Help me sit up, Zack. I can't..." It's ll she can do to keep her eyes open.

"Doctor Brennan." His voice was firm, short but concerned. He could tell that she was feeling the affects of the sleeping drug with the rest of them. It was odd, he'd always thought that Doctor Brennan would be immune to everything. It was stupid, he knew that, but he looked up to her and he wanted to aspire to her level of greatness.

He was never able to reach it.

He moved to push her up and as he did he spoke, finding their current problem enough of a distraction from sleep; at least for the moment. "No. We haven't found anything. It might be in the atmosphere. I don't have the tools I need to run any tests." He might be able to raid a house but he wasn't hopeful at finding anything he could use.

Zack blinked and he found it more difficult to open his eyes. "Doctor Brennan we shouldn't fall asleep." Not until they knew what was going on.

Being upright is better, helps her think more clearly, but it's not enough. Brennan is not helpless wiithout bones to tell her a story, but this is... different. So different. They are buried alive.

Brennan shakes her head. "It's just a dream, Zack." That's why he's here with her again. That's why she is seeing and speaking to him. What a cruel trick. Buried alive with one of the most brilliant colleagues she's ever worked with. "I am certain that this is... a dream. And perhaps if we sleep, I will wake up from this coma."

Zack considered Doctor Brennan's theory. It could be a dream, that would explain the Bloodborne creature that he'd seen but that didn't explain everything. Dreams only occurred during REM sleep. If they wanted to wake up he had to disrupt that sleep. He didn't think that falling asleep on the street was going to do that.

He exhaled slowly, and met Doctor Brennan's gaze with a firm stare of his own. "What if this isn't a dream?" It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said it: 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.'

Zack inhaled and then pinched the skin at Doctor Brennan's shoulder, twisting it with his fingers the way his brothers used to do to him.

She's going to kill him if this wasn't a dream.

"If it isn't a dream, then that means magic is re-- ow!"

She bats Zack's hand away and rubs her shoulder where he pinched her. Well, he has woken her up, which is good, but-- "Comatose individuals do not respond to stimuli!" She sighs. "It was... a good attempt, however." As usual. Or, as he used to, before... everything.

He is right, though. They should stay awake until they find out what's going on.

"There's a lab here," she says, nodding in the general direction of the building. "The equipment is substandard, but it's all we have. We should go there." That said, she stands slowly, taking deep breaths as she fights the exhaustion.

Zack took Doctor Brennan's correct and repeated it a few times in his head.He wasn't going to forget. Zack didn't forget anything. He knew that comatose individuals didn't response to stimulus and not just because Doctor Brennan told him but he'd been hoping that there were unknown variables on his side. Apparently there weren't.

Exhaling a short breath Zack nodded his head.

"Yes." He pushed himself to his feet and wobbled through the insistent haze that promise to be removed if he simply relented and fell asleep. He couldn't let himself do that but it sounded like such a promising thought.

Zack began to head towards the lab that Doctor Brennan had indicated, pausing only to turn and see that she was coming with and not falling back asleep.

Brennan lags behind a little because it took her a bit longer to stand and start walking, and also because she can't believe this. It's really Zack. Or, well-- it's a coma-dream version of Zack, but it's still him. He looks and sounds and moves like him, a perfect reconstruction of the real man. This is both wonderful and cruel of her brain to do. Why deny her a familiar presence until now? Why not populate this strange place with people she knows?

By the time she comes up next to him, she has been staring, and she shows no indication that she'll stop any time soon. "I've missed you," she says, a sad smile on her face. He had been like family, like a little brother. Someone she had wanted to see grow as a professional and as a person. Now that she's a mother, she can see parallels between her love for Christine and her affection for Zack. Despite what he'd done, he'd-- he'd regretted in the end. He'd cried. He'd helped them find the real Gormogon.

The sleepiness makes the memories too much to bear, and before she realizes she's doing it, she pulls Zack in for a tight hug. Yes, he's not real, but he's what her brain has given her while she's comatose, and she's been through too much to just let that go. If Vincent were to suddenly show up, she'd hug him too.

"Have--" She should pull away to say this, but she finds she doesn't want to, so she doesn't. "Have you noticed we're underground? Buried alive. Perhaps..." For this she does pull back, but she keeps her hands on his shoulders as she speaks. "Perhaps we're running out of oxygen."

Zack was very surprised when Doctor Brennan pulled him into a hug. His arms stayed awkwardly at his sides, his body going stiff. He knew what she was talking about. He should be in the correctional facility right now but he was here and she was having trouble believing it. Zack felt moisture dot the corner of his eyes but he didn't let himself cry.

It'd been his own fault, he had thrown away his family and home because he'd been convinced of a flawed logic. He'd failed her and everyone. He knew that and it weighed heavily against his heart. Zack wouldn't have thought that emotions could cause a physical response like that but he felt it enough to know that it was true.

It was his greatest disappointment and even if they forgave him, he wasn't sure that he'd forgive himself. Not for people dying. People die every day but for falling to false logic.

When Zack spoke he heard the choked cry in his voice that told both of them that he was trying not to cry. He much preferred the logical world. "If we were suffering oxygen deprivation we'd also have a decrease circulation to limbs besides decreased motor functions. My limbs feel fine." He flexed his fingers and while his palms were sweaty, there was plenty of blood in them.

Zack couldn't comment on Gormogon. He couldn't fully understand Brennan's response but he knew that his situation was clear. He had caused someone else's death when the human experiance superseded everything else.

No Zack don't cry that will only make her cry too. Tears prick at her eyes as she nods at what he says, and she breathes deep to try and steady herself. The answer must be much simpler than that, and if anyone can figure it out, it's the two of them, the most rational people she knows, tempered by the knowledge that logic isn't the be all end all of life.

"It's hard to stay upright because we are tired, not because there is insufficient oxygen in the air," she agrees. "We'll do what we can in the lab. The answer is here somewhere We'll find it. We always-- we always did."

Brennan starts walking again, this time making sure to keep pace with Zack. This may not be real, but she will savor every moment she has with him. To be working side by side in a lab again, even if it isn't their own and there are no bones to examine, that's a memory she'd like to keep when she wakes from this coma dream.

In the meantime, keeping a conversation going should help them stay awake. It's something to concentrate on, and something that real life prevents them from doing.

"I had a baby several months back. Booth is the father. We are a family, the three of us." If things had gone differently, I would have liked for you to meet Christine.

Zack wasn't good with his feelings. He loved Doctor Brennan, just like he loved his place at the Jeffersonian and everyone who worked there. It was his second family. His biological family didn't understand him but they loved him. That's how love worked. It was a mysterious unconditional feeling that didn't need to have any deep logic to it. It just was and that made it something amazing as well as something hard for Zack to fully comprehend. He's seen the power of love and he knows it's there, but he doesn't know where it comes from or what it really means.

"Yes." His voice shook slightly as he stayed at Doctor Brennan's side. He focused on walking, trying to stifle the rampant thoughts in his head. He wasn't able to ever stop thinking but he was at least concentrating on whatever phenomena was making them sleepy.

Without realizing it Zack smiled at Doctor Brennan. "That's great. I bet you're an amazing mom." He thought back to a few of Angela's and Hodgin's comments about Doctor Brennan and Booth. They had been right though he still didn't see it.

Even after all this time, Zack's input means a lot to her. He is perhaps the only person she knows who is at least as rational as she is, so he understands the way she looks at the world and why she does and says things the way she does. To hear him say he'd wager (not literally) she's doing this right makes her feel happy.

"I... That is what I strive for." To be for Christine what Max and Ruth Keenan weren't able to be for her. She looks at Zack and returns his smile. "She'd like you. She'd like your hair." A floppy mop of hair that Cam had thought was too imformal but Brennan had found very fitting for Zack. "I believe she'd appreciate your steady tone when you speak."

They make slow but steady progress towards the lab. She know where it is, so unless the city twists itself around, they'll get there.

It takes a lot for him to remain steady and focused on walking. Doctor Brennan being there helped. He didn't want to disappoint her, not again, and if that meant fighting what was affecting them then he'd stubbornly stand against it.

His steps shook as his body began to grow more and more sluggish.

"I don't know if I will make it Doctor Brennan." His voice was the same logical drawl he always had but there was something beneath it that those who know him would hear, the stark disappointment of a boy who was always trying his best.

"I'm sorry." Zack yawned and then shook his head, as if the gesture might wake him up.

The change in his gait does not go unnoticed. Brennan reaches to grab his arm even as he speaks. So many years working together in the lab have made her fluent in the minute changes to his voice, but only since working with Booth has she acknowledged that such subtleties have more than nominal value. Even if she didn't have that though, she'd still react the way she does, worry burning in her chest at an apology he need not give. She's the one who should've noticed he needed help. She's the one who should've known that someone sinister had appealed to his adherence to the rational and tried to twist him into something he's not.

"No," she says firmly, pulling his arm over her shoulders and hooking her arm around his waist. Tired as she is, supporting him clears her head a little. "We're going to make it. Together. If you're going to fall, you lean on me, okay? I will not let this hurt you."

She already failed him once by acting as if logic is the only thing that mattered. She's the one who's sorry. She won't let him down again.

Edited (typos) 2017-06-29 15:55 (UTC)

Her hold was firm and it momentarily snapped Zack back into awareness. He shouldn’t sleep. On a logical level he knew that but his body was so tired. He didn’t know how long he could make himself stay awake. Whatever was affecting them wasn’t killing people outright. From what he inspected of others they were simply asleep, he wouldn’t die but he wouldn’t be able to help Doctor Brennan stop whatever was affecting people.

"We need untainted air." His words were slurred together though clear enough to understand. It was an obvious statement and not followed by a ‘how’. His brain was moving too slowly, as if each though was static that took time and energy to sort through. He didn’t have that kind of energy.

"I believe in you Doctor Brennan."

His voice trailed off and the full weight of his body fell against Doctor Brennan.

They are slower walking like this, but they are upright and moving. Progress. That's what matters. The way he's talking worries her, but she doesn't let on that she's afraid. She will be brave for them both.

The rest happens so quickly that she doesn't have the time to reciprocate his praise. Instead she reacts instinctively, muscles tensing to catch his fall and keep herself standing at the same time. Her success is moderate -- for a few seconds she is able to stay on her feet, but then one knee gives out and she knows this is as far as she'll get.

She checks Zack for a pulse, and when she finds it, she gingerly lays him on his back on the ground. "I'm sorry. I... am not able to keep going at the moment."

Then she lies down next to him, gripping his arm as she lets the exhaustion overtake her.

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test drive meme #21

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