lifeaftr | May Intro: We're Going Down, Down

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May Intro: We're Going Down, Down

INTRO LOG: MAY

Who: Everyone!
What: New souls arrive to the archipelago of LifeAftr
When: May 4th and onward
Where: Ensō...and above
Warnings: Mark as needed!

Floating Islet: And Sugar, We're Going Down Swinging
While new arrivals may generally be expected at this time of the month, one factor that has continuously failed to maintain consistency is their point of arrival. And indeed, it appears that this month has once again exceeded even the Storyteller's expectations as to where arrivals may take their first steps on this world.

Those who were with us in February will most certainly remember the floating islands hovering far, far above the mainland. While they currently remain inaccessible, they are still steadily floating overhead, shifting appearance as if made of the clouds themselves. And so while waking up on top of the world may be a surprise, at the very least new arrivals will have a bird's eye view of Ensō to enjoy for a time...until they take notice of a rather sinking sensation.

In fact, that sensation would be the island itself, starting to sink out of the sky.

So that's nice.

On a crash course for the ground at F6, the Storyteller will eventually slow the island's progress to the ground below, though a rather profound impact is, simply put, inevitable. Characters with the ability of flight will find the island skimming low enough to reach on their own. Others may wish to utilize their resourcefulness to find an alternate means down.

Or, perhaps, you'll simply deal with whatever awaits you at the crash site.

F6 and Beyond: In An Earlier Round
Thankfully, the Storyteller's intervention will ensure that no one still on the not-so-floating island upon impact will escape with minor injuries at worst, the island itself crumbling to pieces and taking down more than a few thick trees. The pieces of the island will very quickly begin to blacken, crumbling underfoot as the floating island turns to dust. Anyone still aboard may wish to make a very quick departure.

The ripples of this impact, however, are far more significant than two pieces of land bumping up against one another.

Previously, visitors to the floating islands may have experienced some...oddities, during their time above the clouds. For the next few days, these oddities will spread across Ensō itself, leading to some rather awkward scenarios:

[ ♆ ] Some may find their weapons are... behaving oddly, though all are still functional. Weapons, in this instance, may also include fisticuffs, if the intent is to use your fists as a weapon.

[ ♆ ] Equally as irritating are those who find themselves coming down with a severe case of NPCitus: periods of time in which they find themselves incapable of saying more than one or two lines of the same, repetitive dialogue.

[ ♆ ] Equal parts nostalgic and irritating for some are the instances of lag (walking forwards, only to find oneself back where they started), Swimmer's Ear (incapable of movement unless swimming through the air), and clipping (suddenly stuck halfway through the nearest rock are all common, regrettable side-effects).

[ ♆ ] Other unfortunate side-effects may also transpire, as varied and wild as one's imagination.

Though many of these may be hindering or even dangerous in the right situations, they are, for the most part, passive. The Storyteller will assure anyone who asks that these oddities will disappear in the next few days.

You are free to create or utilize glitches you are particularly fond of, though keep in mind that any potential content warnings should be mentioned in your toplevel! You may peruse some of the past glitches here, or create your own along those lines! And a special thanks to our local Donn-mun, Jake (

venesection), for the first glitch on the list!

All new arrivals will awake with knapsacks, their names stitched to the front. The contents of said knapsacks can all be found in your acceptance notices!

As a final note to those who participated in the Test Drive Meme, bear in mind that 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.

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!

LOGS ● OOC ● STORIES ● MAIN NAVIGATION

( CODED BY BOOTYCALL )

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[He feel it pooling in him, bile and blood and god knows what else, ready to come frothing out like a bubble of noxious gas about to burst in his throat. The chalky taste of his own rotting insides is enough to send him heaving, except he's still flat on his back, trying to muster the requisite backbone to muscle himself to his feet.]

[The words, when they come, hum through a haze of reddened mist. It takes him a moment to parse them; a moment longer to figure out how to answer.]

[He rolls onto one side and immediately vomits onto the grass.]

[Enough caution. Tim isn't flinging himself at his neck, isn't charging towards him with hands turned into blades. It might still happen, once the nausea subsides. But Shion would rather a thousand times be hurt by a friend turned against him than to stand by and allow a friend to be alone in pain.]

Tim... [He's at his side now though he doesn't touch him, because he has figured out by now that touch doesn't calm Tim in the way it calms Shion, in the way it calms Aster. That it brings panic rather than grounding. But he stays close and his arm is there as an offer, to help Tim sit up, or to help keep him on his side if he throws up again, he shouldn't be on his back.

By all normal reckonings Tim should be dead. But he looks like one of Jason's experiments, twisted and broken and still painfully alive. There's so much... and so little Shion can do when there are literal organs exposed.]

[He should probably feel worse about how revolting this is, lying there with half of himself gaping open, staring at the yellowed sluice of stomach acid and rot steaming in the grass. There’s a white blur of hair and the anxious repetition of a name - his name, he suspects, though he can’t be certain - which means either he’s graduated to hallucinations or he’s attracted someone’s attention.]

[It probably looks unsettling, having to watch all his internal organs convulse as he speaks. Can’t really help it. A real damn shame.]

‘S, uh...not ‘s bad as it looks. [This sentiment is immediately undercut by the way he arches in on himself in a fit of coughing, spitting out another slew of pink-white.]

[The sound Shion makes is somewhere between a sigh of relief, a choaked sob and a hysterical laugh. It's cut off quickly whatever it is. Tim is speaking, he's conscious, that might not be a blessing actually. But he's coherent, he's thinking.

Shion's bar for okay is really low. He stays close, there's not much he can do but this. Stay close. Be there. Sometimes that is all that can be done, it's so little... His hands are still hovering as Tim coughs up more bile, ready to steady him.] I can help you sit up... if you want.

Mm.

[God, if this were as simple as a bullet in his liver - that'd be less painful, right? Never thought he'd be fucking jealous of Jay, of Alex, of Brian, for having injuries whose etiologies they at least understood, who had one or two points of contact that made sense and could be conceivably stemmed with a hand or a bandage or something.]

[What're you supposed to do when part of you feels like it should've ended at the ribcage, the red oxidizing into brown, the reek of decay spilling out from your chest cavity?]

Feels like I m-might lose...someth'. [The words are vague and his eyes are poorly focused, but hopefully the message gets across: he doesn't wanna sit up and then have to fight to keep his internal organs inside of him.]

[Yeah there... there was that risk. It didn't look like there was much holding Tim together right now. Nothing except that whoever... whatever... had done this to him wanted him alive. Or he would not be.

Shion's aware that this world is as different from the Tower as it is from his own world. But it seems that this is the same. If whoever controls them here wants them hurt, wants them broken and bleeding and yet concious and aware of all the pain then they will be. That's just how it is.

He shrugs off his jacket and folds it before sliding it under Tim's head. It's... it's not much help and Shion knows it.

In fact Shion knows there is only one thing that will help. The only thing he can do to stop Tim's suffering right now is to kill him. To kill him and hope that when he comes back it is whole and well. His organs inside him with skin covering them like it should be. It doesn't always... it depends on what the motive behind this... what was being tested, was this a game? An experiment? Or... not knowing anything about the forces behind bringing them here means there are so many variables. But it's better than him bleeding out slowly, rot and decay taking over his body and leaving him in agony.

He can't though... he should. He should at least offer. But the words, they get stuck in his throat. Tears pooled in his eyes but still he's not... It's not like he hasn't before. Killed someone he cared about..] Probably... best you lie still... Just...

[He's a coward, this is why... His hands are shaking, he can't. He just...]

I won't leave you

[The kid really shouldn't be here, honestly. It's apparently non-fatal, which means it's liable to wear off or eventually actually do what it's supposed to, and subject the remainder of him to the crush and thrall of inevitable entropy. Either option is, at this juncture, perfectly reasonable - except for the part where he now has people who've begun to depend on him for one reason or another. Frisk; they don't have Chara looking after them anymore. They're self-sufficient, but they shouldn't be alone when they're dealing with the shit they are.]

[So his organs have been pulped into mulch and he's leaking blood and stomach acid and rot and that's fucking fine, because he's probably dealt with worse in some capacity or another, even if the only thing holding him together is a bastardization of physics and biology.]

[He's been lying still thus far, but it's probably the only thing Shion can think of to say which is, you know, pretty valid, all things considered. There's something pillowed underneath his head, and...god, he's gonna wreck it, whatever it is. He's already ruined his shirt, and it's not like he's got a whole lotta shirts.]

'S okay, bud. It'll pr...it'll wear off. One way or anoth -

[The fluid buildup in his throat chokes the word off midway, but he probably manages to get the intent across easy enough.]

[One way or another, this won't last as long as it should.]

Yeah... [A total coward but he just sits, next to Tim as Tim suffers. Because that's what he does. In the end he is helpless to help and he can't even bring himself to offer to end the agony.

It's what he does best. Nothing.] It won't be long, I won't leave you... you won't be alone

[It was all he could promise and it was so far from enough. To sit with Tim, Tim who was brave and kind, who gave children birthdays and painted peoples nails. He cared about others and it was beyond unfair that such a thing would happen to him.

The worlds weren't fair, nothing in them for one moment was ever fair and only naive children would think it was.]

[He tries for a hum of acknowledgement and it comes out choked and strangled. So much for reassurances. Even nominal ones are doomed at this point; the physical state of him so throughly undercuts any and all legitimacy, even if he knows - hell, was Shion even here, then? He can’t organize the timeline in his head, but seems to him that he wasn’t.]

‘S happened...before. [That’s the taste of his stomach lining, like trails of something molten down his throat, blood and phlegm and too many other things whose taste he can’t gauge mingling in a truly revolting cocktail.]

[He swallows it down. The act pulses down his abdomen in a riptide of shrapnel sinking into the nerve-dense parts of him, his throat growing taut with the effort not to fucking howl.]

On th’ islands. Not...t’me. But ‘s happened.

[Tim... Tim doesn't like being touched. Shion wanted nothing more than to take his hand, to comfort him. But it would just bring more pain, more fear and if he can't help than the least he can do is not hurt.

He nodded, listening patiently while Tim found words. This had happened before. Of course it had. He had known about some of what had happened on the islands but not this... not that anyone had been hurt this much...

It made him angry, angry that whatever powers were holding them here would hurt them. He shouldn't be surprised. Those in power always hurt others. They were cowards here, to not even show themselves.]

I know... It faded them after a time... not sure how long... [Ignis had knocked him out and when he had come to he was back to normal.] I'm sorry... I... I wish there was more I could do

've had worse.

[He probably has, to be fair. Maybe not in this sense - not in ways this visceral, certainly this looks worse than anything else he's endured, but he'll take the physical, gore-spattered mess, the taste of gobs of offal clotting in his throat and the fresh gash of sheared-away meat across his arm and his belly, over the sensation of being flayed alive by something he could only barely comprehend.]

[Even if the origin of the injury isn't exactly clear, it's ideal because it's comparatively simple. Quite simple.]

[He's just gotta wait it out. That's all.]

I know [He didn't for sure... but he could guess. Guess that awful things had happened to Tim. Worse things than this. It was why he was so... He was so strong, braver than Shion could even imagine.]

Just because you've had worse doesn't mean this isn't... [It's still bad, Tim's allowed to be upset.]

There's always worse but it doesn't mean what's happening right now isn't... [There's too much, he can't even get his mind around half of what he feels never mind his words]

[He doesn’t really have it in him to contest that. He doesn’t have much in him, including the things that should really be there, like internal organs and the remainder of his stomach lining decomposing in the grass. He’s really souring the pleasant weather and cool breeze with the stench of his viscera. Pretty selfish of him to ruin this shit for everyone.]

It’ll wear off. Probably.

[He doesn’t sound bothered at the prospect that it might not, however. He’s not bothered by a lotta things, at this point, where they pertain to him.]

C’n go, ‘f you want.

It will, it will be over soon. [It would wear off or Tim would die, either way, it would be over.

He shook his head. He would not leave Tim like this. Couldn't... though... He knew he wasn't... If Shion had to chose someone to be with him in moments of distress he would be the last person he'd chose. But it was all he had.]

Don't want you to be alone...

[He wouldn't put his money on "soon," personally, seeing as every moment is sending a fresh jag of a different sort of agony pulsing from the points of...entry, the way his arm has had a doorway of its flesh shorn cleanly away, the red lips of meat and muscle hanging off the ends of the portal opened in his gut. He's pretty sure your insides aren't supposed to be battered with air friction on the regular, because it's causing his hands to shake and regularly graying out his vision in hot white fuzzes of static.]

[He wishes he could laugh. That might take the edge off. Lighten the mood.]

'm always alone. Get everyone killed.

[Shion's hand has gotten closer to Tim's, still not touching him but barely a centimeter away from doing do. He won't, he knows Tim doesn't like it but his hands are shaking and how can Shion not want to take them, to hold them, to take away some of his pain, some of his fear.

Then he speaks, Shion blinks at him, red eyes filling with tears that he blinks away. Was this what it took? When he and Tim had met Tim had been beaten black and blue and he had laughed it off, avoided any concern. When they had fought the monster on Ziziphus the lie fine had spilled from his lips more than once. He was often all smiles and nervous laughter when his eyes cried out the truth.

So Shion knew that Tim admitting that he was not alright, to admit to a fear. To anything. That was big and apparantly it took him losing half his organs to do so.] Not this time. You're not alone today. [But before, he was alone? Got everyone killed... Shion had no idea about... well anything about Tim. Except he had been somewhere else between his first world and this. A castle in the mist and the details had been sparse. He knew nothing of anything before that. Knew nothing of Tim really except fire made him panic yet he smoked all the time. He gave birthdays to children who had none and found it in himself to be kind even when he was hurting.

He lies down so that his head is level with Tim's and looks at him, into his eyes. He says nothing else, because sometimes silence is the best answer, listening.]

[It’s the distance from himself that propels him outward, staring absent at the cream-and-periwinkle sky, trying not think about the way he’s hemorrhaging into the fucking dirt, all the thick, clotted red drooling out of him and clumping up the soil. Trying to remember if there was any pain quite like this. Can’t say if it’s better or worse, but it is different and different aches in a way that a freshly snapped leg doesn’t, a knife slammed into the soul doesn’t, a head crackling with static and screaming with neurons shooting off like a firing squad.]

[He’s trying to hold himself in. Good hand falling down across his middle, like that might blot out the worst of it. Can’t mend it, can never mend it, but he’s good at hiding things, at lying, at schooling his features into something blank and neutral.]

[Fuck, it hurts.]

That’ll kill you too. Kills a lotta people.

Maybe [His tone is totally conversational if you ignore the note of pain behind it all. Like they were just two friends talking in a flower filled meadow. Like one of them wasn't bleading out into the dirt from injuries from nowhere, injuries that would have challenged the most experienced surgeon.]

I made a friend once, he fell in love with me [He speaks to the sky] The love wasn't real, just a thought put into his mind by a chocolate. He carved my heart out. I don't regret making friends with him though [A short pause as he turned back to look at Tim and gave him a sad smile]

And I won't ever regret staying with you or being your friend [Maybe he's being prosumptious claiming friendship with Tim when Tim had definitely never... Tim probably thought he was some kind of monster. But he could be friends with Tim even if he didn't return the sentiment] Even if it kills me, I wouldn't blame you for something like that.

[At this point, he won’t bother trying to pick apart whether that statement is literal or metaphorical. Knowing the way things go, he’s willing to bet the former. Doesn’t much matter; the end result was the same. Here’s a kid who’s seen and known too much death and too much of that was his own, and for some reason that’s enough to break a swell for a moment, snap his eyes into the foggied, glazed over kind of focus he can manage.]

Don’t fuckin’ say that. [Doesn’t come out very clear. Comes out mangled. Broken into so many glass shards, smeared across the grass like his bloodied fucking insides. The bile clings slick to the back of his throat, one corner of his mouth seeping red jelly.]

I get it. Okay? You don’t - after a while, y’get tired. Y-you don’t bother keeping yourself...[Something in him gurgles as it feels like his lungs have just deflated, squeezing air out through his pulverized guts, filling his throat with fluid, rank and bitter.]

[Whatever else he’s about to say is lost in the subsequent retch.]

[He barely supresses a wince when Tim speaks, mangled and broken but still... don't say what? That they were friends? That he would not regret staying with him? That he would not blame him? Or everything.

It didn't matter because Tim was retching and Shion sat up again, reaching out to steady him though he moves his hands back the moment Tim seems to be steadier.]

I'm sorry Tim...

[Take the standards you apply to everyone else and apply them to yourself too is too many syllables for him to manage at this particular moment, it turns out. He can't manage much besides the spitting of grayish yellow and stale rot-smelling red into the grass.]

[An involuntary sound creeps out from behind gritted teeth, low and agonized, and his vision whites out for a good thirty seconds until he can speak again:]

D-doesn't...h'f to come at your - at - y'r expense.

It doesn't matter [He shakes his head. His point hasn't come across very well, Tim not being alone is so much more important. More important than if Shion is hurt or not. But Tim is making noises of pain and this... this has to end soon.] Just...

[Anything he can say is laughable, he's so... useless. There is nothing that he can do or say to even ease Tim's agony one little bit] If Rat was here... [And he's glad he's not. Not that it really helps, he has no idea if his Rat is safe or if he is just... elsewhere in a different world, controlled. He has no idea if the Rat from the Tower remained on his world when it was restored, or if he was stolen again.

But there's no Rat here] He would sing for you, to bring you rest [Not even that would help, Shion had never actually heard Rat sing his song of peace, but it wasn't magic, it wouldn't actually help. But it was... something]

[He's got no clue who Rat is, though he can guess. Maybe if he were in a less critical state, he could contextualize a little better. Maybe he shouldn't be trying to prove points about other people's well-being while he's bleeding out into the dirt, because half of him has simply been carved away apropos of nothing.]

[He grunts faintly, slitting one eye open. The sheen of sweat sitting across his skin is only slightly less intolerable than the stink of his own insides painting the grass.]

F...riend of yours?

He's... [How does he even begin to explain Rat. He can't claim them friends, because Rat... Rat saved him but never claimed friendship with him and honestly? Shion can't blame him. He had tried to hard to be equal to Rat in West Town all those years ago but looking back he feels sick with how much of a naive child he had been.]

He's from my first world. I love him. [And that's... about as solid as it gets with Rat. The bare facts, the only things Shion knows for certain.]

[Yeah, Tim would love to be able to decode the nuances here but he’s still bleeding out and he might not be actively dying but it still fucking hurts so he closes his eyes and tries not to concentrate on the way the lack of pressure, the way his viscera is just open to the fucking wide open air, is periodically fuzzing his vision into white-hot emptiness.]

Pray he doesn’t...show up here.

[The people here deal with too much on the daily for Tim to consider it very ethical to wish this upon anyone.]

cw: emetophobia

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cw: contemplating mercy killing

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