burn my dread

[petsthedog]

CHARACTERS: Shinjiro & OPEN
LOCATION: Various places on the station
DATE: 7/1
CONTENT: Exploring and shenanigans
WARNINGS: General depression themes, references to character death and suicidality

But I’m offering you that chance. To undo what you regret...in exchange for your help.

He'd assumed it a dying hallucination, he's pretty sure. Or maybe a dream. A kind fantasy to bring peace to his final moments. He can't remember what exactly he said--some wistful, sarcastic comment, maybe. But then he opens his eyes to darkness that isn't from vision fading and blurring out of focus, to flickering lights in what becomes recognizably a hospital bed. The only trace of the gunshots are scars against his skin, as though he'd had months to heal. His clothes are neatly folded within a box labeled with his name, and they are not stained and soaked through with blood.

There is an earpiece by the bed, and putting it on is the first confirmation of the voice existing outside his dreams. It's real, perhaps. There's a catch, certainly. Hopefully not the kind of catch that had come with the suppressants, with Strega. If the owner of that voice turns out as monstrous as Takaya Sakaki had, he'll feel even more pathetic than he already does.

Despite that lingering itch of suspicion and fear, though, there's something blooming in his chest that he hasn't felt in years--hope. The idea that he could fix everything he ruined back then, give Amada back his mother and the childhood he smashed along with her house...is intoxicating. He's wanted that more than anything ever since that awful night. There's little that doesn't seem worth that chance. After all, he's a dead man walking, isn't he? What else does he have to lose, at this point?

Comments

a

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn had been wandering since he came in here, attempting to find some sort of rhyme or reason to these endless hallways. They're unfamiliar, and he can't place them from his own memory, which means either this is another door challenge—the reason he'd come here again, to test his skills and keep himself sharp—or someone else's memory.

It's something of a relief when a voice from behind him offers a quiet explanation. Flynn turns from his inspection of a door—is that the royal seal inscribed on this unknown door?—to face Shinjiro, his face already smoothing from confusion into a mask of calm collectedness. ]

Oh, of course. It's a place from your memory, then. You were a student here?

[ Like the students of the noble houses, Flynn thinks. He'd always heard the knights from those families telling stories about dormitories and the academy, joking around with each other. A world Flynn could never figure out how to interact with or touch in any way.

Oh, but Flynn's being impolite, he realizes. He can't just pepper a stranger with questions, even if they are stuck in his memory. After a beat, he extends a hand. ]

My name is Flynn. It looks like we'll be working together if we'd like to get out of here.

[petsthedog]

[If Shinji knew what Flynn was thinking, he'd probably actually laugh. A nobody street trash punk like him, a noble.. How absurd. Instead, he blinks owlishly at the question, one arm coming up to rub at the back of his head.]

Oh yeah, I guess I was at one point. [He shrugs, then.] Dropped out a long time ago, though.

[He was just here for SEES, that last month he spent here. It's easy to forget he was once just a normal kid, even after the Dark Hour first came.]

Name's Aragaki.

[Ah, right. Western people shake hands. He pulls one out of their typical home in his pockets to do so. Unfortunately, it's the left one. Oops.]

How do you think we get out?

[thinkfirst]

[ Flynn only notes that it's the left one because his best friend is left-handed as well. He shakes it, firm and sure, with a truer smile tugging at his lips. A few ways that this man reminds him of Yuri: his apparently casual attitude toward this place, the fact that he dropped out. ]

It's a pleasure to meet you, Aragaki. I was trapped in this room a few days ago in a memory pulled from my friend Yuri and I. We found our way out by finding something out-of-place. I hope you know this place well?

[petsthedog]

[It's less that he's left-handed, honestly, and more that he guessed. Alas, this misunderstanding will go uncorrected until the next time he messes up a handshake.]

Huh. Guess this simulator thing is just kind of glitchy. They oughta fix that. ...Anyway. I know this place enough, yeah.

[He spent the last month of his life in it, after all. It's probably clearer in his mind than anywhere else, right now.]

The lounge's the best place to start. It's the biggest, so there's the most room for shit to be wrong.

[thinkfirst]

A dorm with a lounge?

[ He really must be a noble, because none of Flynn's barracks ever had something like that. The only communal spaces he had access to in those days were the bathrooms.

There are some perks to rank besides just having people listen to you. ]

In that case, lead the way. I did see a familiar seal on a door just past here. A seal from my home, which I assume you don't have. Perhaps that will work.

[petsthedog]

That fancy for a dorm?

[He wouldn't know. He lived in an orphanage before that, and the dorm was kind of specifically for SEES members, after all....]

We can try the door first, then the lounge. I ain't got any better leads.