1st - Voice

[ceasetoexist]

First off, let me just tell the wonderful people who brought me to this dump. No, really. Thanks a bunch. God knows there's nothing I'd want less than to be killed in some poorly defined cataclysm that you give just the barest evidence of! Because you know the whole screening room sure couldn't be faked! Still, think you could have found a better place to put the letter you gave me detailing all this, like up your butts.

Secondly, lay it on me. Just how bad is this place. I just got brought here from someplace like this - whole schtick that it was a better place to live than the alternative and I should be grateful and blah blah blah - so I kinda get the idea. I mean I guess I could be wrong and this could turn out to be some fantastic land of lollipops and fairies and lovey magical crap that just happens to have floors full of monsters, but I'm not getting my hopes up. So should I expect to have, like, my head chopped off and sewn onto some kind of guerrilla alien body once every week, or month, or what? What's the schedule for bullcrap around here like? Also don't bother to tell me about how you're working to get free, or how things are bad right now but we'll get over them or any crap like that. You don't win situations like this, you just survive them. So don't waste my time with any hope crap.

Finally, since we got crap from "home" to bring with us, did someone here manage to get a video game system and TV or something? I mean even a Game Boy. It feels like forever since I've even played Tetris or something and as great as pointlessly wandering monster filled floors are - I mean some of them are cool - I can only see the same horrific creature so many times before it gets passe.

Comments

voice

[doctor_dismemberment]

Ja, this place is pretty much exactly like your guess, horrific experiments and all. Have fun!

[He sounds way too chipper about that.]

[ceasetoexist]

Yeah, well, that got to the point. Got anything else to add or are we done here?

[doctor_dismemberment]

You asked. [You can almost hear the shrug in his voice.]

Oh, but yes, I almost forgot- [And then he goes deadpan.] -you are a brat and I hope you die.

[And then, all at once, he's chipper again.]

Auf Wiedersehen!

[He cuts off the voice feed on his end before he can get a response.]

[ceasetoexist]

[Well. That's not a new reaction to him. Pokey just shrugs as Richtofen cuts off the feed.]

[ Video ]

[badend_replay]

[ Hey there, she knows you!!!

Or... she could. Rika isn't about to get her own hopes up. The idea of meeting a Pokey from another universe, one who was not stuck in 1950sland, is not strange to her. For now, she's just glad to see a familiar face. ]

I have not seen lollipops or faeries yet, but if you should find such things then I would like be among the first to know, sir.

[ Video ]

[ceasetoexist]

[Pokey has to pause a moment. He knows that voice. But just like Rika, he doesn't want to get his hopes up. Even in Mayfield he'd met people who were droned and came back without any memories of having been there or of him. As far as he knows this may just be a different Rika, as much as he'd like it to be the one he knows.

Still, he eventually turns the video on. And just looks bored.]

Well thank God. Last thing I need at the moment. Lollipops aren't even good candy. You can keep any you find without having to tell me, that's for sure.

[ Video ]

[badend_replay]

That is very kind and generous of you, but I could do not such thing.

[ Her voice carries a teasing quality. Truth be told, Rika dislikes candy in general. Too sweet.

Her curiosity gets the best of her as she tags on, to "test the water" so to speak: ]

At the very least, I would be certain to share with you, Pokey.

[ Video ] [1/2]

[ceasetoexist]

Eh, like I said keep 'em. Lollipops aren't-

[ Video ]

[ceasetoexist]

[Wait. Wait wait wait hold up. Did she just say his name or is he imagining that at this point. That he just wants to believe you recognize him rather than that you do. He takes a moment before continuing.]

I.

You.




How do you know me?

[This was. Not the best way to handle this, but it's the best way he can think to do.]

[ Video ]

[badend_replay]

[ Her smile becomes less sweet, displaying part of that "other side" she mostly keeps to herself. ]

When I said to myself "I would like to leave this place", I did not hope for Mayfield to be destroyed.

Did you?

[ Answering questions directly would be no fun, apparently. ]

[ Video ]

[ceasetoexist]

.....

No. I didn't.

[In fact, by the end he didn't want to leave, though he'd at least understood the importance in making sure those in charge of the place weren't still in charge by the end at the very least.

Still. He had wanted to stay there if at all possible. And being unable to? Stung.]

It's kinda been awhile. I thought-

[You were permadroned and he'd never see you again.]

Maybe you'd gotten sent home.

[ Video ]

[badend_replay]

Being sent back to Hinamizawa would have been ideal. Mayfield was surely a one in a million chance. Being able to be trapped in a box with this Pokey must be a one in a billion chance.

[ She shrugs, trying not to let herself be bothered by how much she misses "home". Both of them. ]

We seem to be very fortunate. What a fantastic miracle the two of us have been granted. [ Sarcasm. She does not consider this fantastic at all. ]

video;

[cullscuttlefish]

You pretty much summed up how bad it is. The best thing anemoneone can do is try and survive with their sanity as intact as they can keep it.

The alien body thing? Only happened once. It was beyond horribubble. At least there's a name to put to any weird physical carp that happens to you here, though: Jason. He does the horrible mad-science medicine. The line to punch him in the face is reely long, so I suggest queuing up now. If you don't want to punch him now, you will.

Riki likes to mess with the laws of physics so that dimensions don't quite line up right. Impossible geometry, stuff like that, so I'm told. I'm not sure if there's a line to puke on his shoes yet, but if not, one will probably start up sooner or later.

Dax? Honestly, compared to those two, he doesn't seem quite so bad.

Ruana? Sits back and laughs at the chaos half the time, and the other half, she stirs the pot with the other three.

There's at least a media room floor that's got games and things on it. That helps, if you need to blow off some steam. It's not exactly the same stuff from home, but it's close enough if you squint. It's on the 14th floor.

Re: video;

[ceasetoexist]

[Well crap. Here's another person he knows, but as far as he can tell she's giving him no indication she recognizes him. Which shouldn't bother Pokey by this point; even back in Mayfield he had to deal with people coming back who didn't recognize him.

That still didn't mean he was good at dealing with that.

Regardless, his tone softens at least a little. Feferi was one of the few people he would have considered a friend back in Mayfield. Here, even if it's a different Feferi, it's hard for him to sort out.]

...Thanks. They sound like a real group of jerks, but I guess I can relate. Kinda had a group like them the last place I was.

I'll pretty much take anything. I spent nearly two years with little to anything so hey. That's a step up here at least.

video;

[cullscuttlefish]

'Big grouper jerks' doesn't even begin to describe them, but it's a start. And at least they don't try to hide behind anonymity. We know who we're up against, even if trying to fight them doesn't do much except get people krilled.

I don't recommend it. You come back, but sleep paralysis sucks. It reely, reely sucks.

I'm sorry. It sounds like you got stuck somewhere reely bad before, and while I can't say you went from bad to worse, it sounds like you went from bad to a different kind of bad. But inbetween planning creepy experiments and events where they try to krill us in other ways, they at least let us get some decent rest. It's somefin.

video;

[ceasetoexist]

I guess that's a little bit ahead of where I was then. We had names for them, but not real names.

...Sleep paralysis, huh?

[That might take some getting used to. For the first few years Mayfield hadn't had any "penalties" for death. The last year as the town had begun to crumble? Yeah. It throw penalty after penalty out there like it was going out of style.]

...Yeah. The way you keep saying it, it isn't too different. And at least this place seems a lot more high tech. The last place was pretty much ancient.

video;

[cullscuttlefish]

We have names for them, and I think someone's got a rough schedule worked out for who's in charge of the experiments when. I haven't been here long enough to get a good handle on it, but ask around - I'm shore someone does.

...either way, you want to avoid Jason. I wasn't kidding about the creepy body horror carp. It was codawful and it didn't kelp in the slightest that if I screamed, I'd krill anyone around me. I didn't know if it'd be a mercy or whether they'd just come back even worse. I don't mean to scare you, but he's a basshole and he deserves every single punch in the face he gets. And worse.

Yeah. The more times you die, the longer it sticks around. The longer it sticks, the more it sucks. According to someone else I know, eventually things get worse than just sleep paralysis if you die enough times. I don't plan on testing it if I can kelp it at all.

[She manages a smile.]

Anemoneway, now that I've probubbly scared the carp out of you...I'm Feferi. If I can kelp out with anyfin, let me know, okay?

[ceasetoexist]

That's something at least. They got the schedule posted anywhere or am I going to have to ask around or something?

[Pokey laughs a bit, bitterly. He smiles too, though it's not a nice one.]

I don't think there's that much that can really scare me anymore, so I wouldn't bother. He sounds like a piece of work, but...I guess it's better that he's only one of four around here, instead of pretty much being everyone who has control over us.




Pokey. And yeah. Thanks. But I'm sure I'll get used to this place without help.

Voice

[plushaeusrumpified]

Ah shit, I forgot to give you the obligatory lollipop, didn't I? Goddamn it, there goes our first impression right down the shitter.

[ceasetoexist]

Naw it's probably for the best. Lollipops suck pretty hard so I'd probably have to think even less of you if you had it than I do now.

[plushaeusrumpified]

You're right, it is for the best. More lollipops for me.

So how're you at fighting?

[ceasetoexist]

.....

I can kick pretty well.

[That's. Just about it.]

[plushaeusrumpified]

... Welp.

You in the market for a bodyguard?

[ceasetoexist]

Could be.

What's the catch?

[plushaeusrumpified]

I dunno, I'm feeling pretty goddamn generous. What kinda sweet loot you got in your trunk?