August Intro: You Think...You Wink...You Do A Double Blink...

[lifeaftr_mods]

INTRO LOG: AUGUST

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr.
When: August 3rd
Where: Ensō
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Part I: Get Wrekt
You rouse to a splash of sea salt drying on your skin. A haze of glass-white sand glitters in your vision, dappled by lush palms and thick, curling foliage that disappears into a jungle of deep jade. From behind, crackling wood and sawing rope groan from a mangled life raft ran ashore. A petering wash of tide over pebbled sand fills your ears as you struggle to gain your bearings in a vast portrait of tropical color…

No...no, no, that’s not precisely how this story starts.

Why don't we start over?

You rouse to a splash of sea salt, spraying across yourself and the wooden floor beneath you as it breaks across the edge of the platform. The light as it dances across the sea is blinding, dappling white spots across your vision as you slowly come back to consciousness and realize that - this is not where you last remember being.

The middle of the ocean is likely not a place most recall being at all. As you struggle to fully comprehend the new scenario in which you have found yourself, three things become quickly apparent. The raft you find yourself upon barely constitutes as something that should float, never mind a boat. In the distance, perhaps a few hours away at most, a large island beckons to you, a wide strip of beach surrounded by cliffs making it very clear where the most fortuitous of directions shall be.

Lastly, of course, you’re not alone. Hopefully your new companion(s) are just as keen to get ashore before nightfall as you, or voyaging together will not be the most positive experience. At your side you will find a knapsack, one to every member of your raft party, and upon inspecting its contents, you will discover any rewards you may have accrued - as well as a few other items to give you a fighting chance.

A note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme: those threads, if all parties involved would like, can be game canon in the form of dream-like memories involving a place very much like this one, though the layout is considerably different.

Part II: Choose Your Own Adventure

By fortune (or misfortune, as it were), you eventually find your feet meeting sand, blessed shore to stagger upon as you shake off your newly found sea-legs. There are those that may find this place familiar, as though it appeared in a dream, though the expanse of shore certainly seems larger. The beach stretches off into the distance on both sides, curving around sharp ridges and cliffs, mist obscuring the view the farther along it goes.

So here you are. You’ve found land. Company. Supplies. The sun is now beginning to trek rather low upon the horizon…spending the night outside in such an unfamiliar land is unappealing at best and outright dangerous at the worst.

There is one silver lining in the midst of this mess. Directly ahead, the beach curves up a gentle slope until it meets forest, some manner of building visible through the trees. Further exploration of this area will reveal a dilapidated building of sorts; the architecture is indiscernible to even the most skilled eye. Despite looking as if it has seen better days, there are areas that offer some form of shelter...and who knows what else. Just because it appears uninhabited doesn’t mean you won’t wind up pleasantly, or unpleasantly, surprised.



So what shall you do from here, traveller? There is land to be explored, strangers to meet, friends to reunite with. Supplies to inspect and plenty of questions in need of being said aloud. Choose your path, make haste, and above all else: survive. And whatever you will, take heart.

Your story is about to begin anew.

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Feeling a tad adrift? Make sure to check the Locations Page, which has details regarding the starting areas and a handy map for those who feel better with a bird's eye view!

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LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

Comments

[ishotyouuu]

Wade looks at the expanse of broken skin on the Drifter's hand with a morbid curiosity that nonetheless holds no disgust. He'd seen the worst humanity had to offer in Killebrew's shop of horrors, so there really was nothing that the Drifter could show him that could shock him worse than anything he'd ever seen before. Wade raises his brown eyes to the Drifter's black ones and nods once to indicate his understanding.

"Yeah. And miles to go before we sleep, I'm sure."

His hand moves to divest its fellow of its glove, peeling it away to expose a continuation of those same diseased blotches and pockmarks, and he holds it out for the Drifter to take a look at; to admire the evidence of his own mortality.

"Here's to two terminals, I guess. Though I'm pretty willing to bet that you got less time than I do."

It's not said as if he were boasting-- rather, there's an air of wistfulness to his remark that his repose can't quite hide.

[hyperlit]

They match.

It is a sombering sort of solidarity - the very same sort that lifted their gaze from the sheets of a borrowed bed to regard their fellow drifter with disbelief, they who had willingly let them a home and a place to stay and a reason to rest their weary bones. Such kindness had been given wholeheartedly and unreservedly and without regard for consequence, and they had questioned why. Why, why, why.

Up until they saw the stains of pink down the Guardian's front, the way they hacked gobs of blood into one clenched, gloved fist, and they knew.

The dead and the dying, they must stick together.

The Drifter lets their unveiled hand drop across their lap. The comparison between their own skin and Wade's strikes them as similar enough to be certain that whatever symptoms he must be weathering, they cannot be so different from the Drifter's own.

time was up
woke up here

[ishotyouuu]

The Drifter's eyes are alien enough, but Wade thinks he's good enough at reading people to notice the flash of realization across their face. Not just realization-- recognition, an invalid identifying another invalid and understanding that they're essentially cut from the same cloth, despite their different backgrounds. On a long enough timeline, everyone's pretty much the same when they're dying.

Wade unconsciously mirrors the Drifter's actions, allowing his own uncovered hand to drape casually across his thigh. There's an almost rueful grin on his face now, a "don't that beat all" sort of smile that has nothing to do with mirth.

"Sounds close to my situation, honestly. You sure you ain't me in another life? Comics get wacky sometimes, I'm not about to rule out them rebooting me wholesale."

[hyperlit]

must die first to be reborn

If they'd the means to inflect the words with a tone, perhaps it would be more obvious if that statement was intended as a joke or as a blunt commentary on their joint predicament. As it stands, it's not easy to to discern, and they're not about to divulge without prompting.

They would hope that their stories do not align too closely; that he does not weather cold glances for the tint of his skin or that the ritualistic anonymity of his culture fulfills its intended purpose - except where certain outliers are concerned.

[ishotyouuu]

Unfortunately, the Drifter would be pretty on the money with their assessment of Wade's home life. Wade at least has the dubious fortune of having people hate him for things that he's actually done, rather than what they fear he would do, but it still isn't exactly an easy life for him or others of his ilk. Must die first to be reborn. He wonders what the Drifter means by that, in their context-- he understands full well what it means in his.

"That's true. But there're different definitions of 'die', y'know?"

There's not much humor in his smile now.

[hyperlit]

the temporary
the permanent

the transient
the ongoing

Somewhat abstruse, they'll grant you, but the Drifter has learned that mingling laconicism with philosophical pondering is a difficult endeavor. What's more...they doubt they need to expand on that ideology. It seems that, at the end of the day, the pair of them are cut from the same rotting cloth.

How unfortunate, to have experience like this be the one that is shared.