OOC - READ FIRST!!!
http://dhaven.org/showthread.php?t=4738
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Looking out at the crystallized sea before me expanding across countless miles into the horizon where it disappeared at the base of faint mountain ranges, I wonder many things. For one, like how the sun is just beginning rise over the mountains to the East, light reflecting off of the watery surface; ripples forming and fading like some transient world with the slightest brush of wind. On the water's shore, a gentle breeze wafts through my hair. I could only think of one thing:
Who am I? Why can’t I remember who I am? How I got here?
I look around but there are no footsteps in the sand, nor are my cloths moist from the water, yet I stand here confounded by my circumstance. My clothes were placid white and covered my from the bottom of my chin to the soles of my feet in a one piece suit. There were patterns sewn into the clothing, I noticed upon closer inspection. I wore no shoes or socks, yet since it was morning my feet was chilled with grains of sand slipping through the cracks of my toes.
Why can’t I remember?
An ever so slight sound can be heard in the distance behind me, so difficult to hear yet the familiar sound of children laughing to the melody of
that eerie music playing, but what could it be, a carnival? A static memory fills my mind, like a picture out of focus. A carousal? This man’s face, his hand reaching for mine…
Was I there?
"Hello!?" I shout out and turn around, my lone voice echoing in the distance. My voice carried far into the distance and was echoing, or, at least, to me it echoed. I contemplated what was before me with a calm disposition. The ruins of a town, or a large building stood before me, all life ceased to exist. The sounds came from deep within the ruined foundations. I wait for a reply, but none are forth coming. With one last glance back at the sea, I venture forward, but almost instantly stopped in mid-step.
Where is this?
Like a bolt of lightning striking me from within my body, I suddenly felt the urge to shout again. Was it instinct?
"Hello," I repeated in a whisper. My voice was lost in the noise of the waves. People pass me by on their way to the beach, but their figures are translucent and white as vapor steam. I can see right through their bodies, and knowing that if I were to reach out my hand to touch them it would go right through. I recognize no one, hoping against all rational thought that someone would jump from behind me as if this is all some joke. These apparitions take no notice of me, but continue to walk forward with the energy of the Energizer Bunny.
Why can't I remember? It's just out of my grasp.
I pause and stare at the spirits for a second, then two. The melody of their lamentation, was what I heard. Somehow intrigued, and a little disgusted, I continued to watch them for a while longer and took note of their patterns, who they were as they lived.
Moving from my position, I trudged through the sand, hoping to find some clue as to where I belong and what I should be doing.
A lone bottle caught my eye in the sand, half buried with its neck poking just so I know it’s there. Why does this stand out to me? I reach for it and pull it from the ground. The inside is filled with sand also but as I touch the jagged mouth of the bottle and prick my finger, a picture comes back: A little girl in a blue dress twirling.
I stagger around grasping my head as these images and that horrid sound haunt me.
Then silence, a complete and utter lull from it all, my eyes begin to gain their focus and my heart starts to calm. But before I know it I am moving faster and faster, each step an involuntary necessity, yet one not wanted to be taken.
Where am I going, why do I feel this irresistible draw?
I am heading towards that now silent ruins and I cannot stop. The lack of sound voices my heartbeats louder with each step and begins to race again and my stomach is in knots. I don’t want to go, and yet somehow I know I that shouldn’t, but I can’t stop. I run on for what seems an eternity, passing by fallen buildings, houses, corpses of nothing but skeleton bones. Each step was a bit closer, a bit faster until I am now… where?
A run down gate stands before me, with a picture of a clown holding some balloons, a symbol of fun and games, of happiness, yet now seemingly demented in its stare; beside it was a sign with what was the lettering of this place, now faded beyond reading. The clown’s head has a bullet hole with streaming light:
Ironic.
What is this?
What is this place, this carnival no one has been to in perhaps twenty years? The pavement is cracked and weeds have grown… the lights are broken and the rails are all rusted… a ruin like everything else.
It is not what it appears…? But how could it be?
The world melts around me.
The carnival stands that once held attention to laughing crowds and enchanted children stand now silent and faded. I don't understand this, can't make sense of it.
"Please remain calm," a pleasant voice echoed across the dead carnival grounds. The voice of a girl that was powerfully reminiscent.
"Who are you?" I shouted back. The turbulent sky shifts to a dark shade of grey. The shadows that strike the ground glow with an unnatural glare. What is happening with this place?
In the distance the Ferris wheel, with its peeling paint and rusted cars suddenly turns on. The few light bulbs left start to blink and the same lamentation could be heard like a song getting louder.
Heart beating fast, I move towards the wheel, but my steps become heavy and the world blurs again... so close yet I cannot move another inch, and then everything is black. Slowly, my consciousness fades and the last thing that I remember was my face colliding with the cracked pavement.
Why is it that when people sleep, they dream? More importantly, why do they remember stuff buried deep down and forgotten?
That day started out just like any other, it was always seemed brighter when saw her face. I would step out of my place, take a deep breath, and look up out of the habitat dome. She would always be there, a few doors down ready for the walk to the tube transfer system. I would wave and she would smile back, but that simple little smile could power me across the solar system. We walked like we always did to the tubes and took the car down to the center of the city. We would talk and we would use the same exit, but this day something was different.
Nobody was there to greet me today. I felt alone. I asked myself: "Why?" Not expecting an answer, I began my routine and walked towards the tubes. A memory begins to form in my mind, from
that time.
I quickly shake it away, I won't go there. Not again. Appearing in front of my normal tube I wait in line watching all the people around me, conversing, carrying on like they haven't a care in the world. But what am I? Invisible, do they not notice me?
Am I so normal no one even knows I am here?
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It was night when I finally woke. The moon was blaring down on me with its pale glow streaming pitifully through the metal bars of the carnival. My head was in turmoil and felt like it was about to split open under the pressure of what just happened. Slowly I force myself into a sitting position and look around.
My skin suddenly turns cold.
The image of her smiling face, just a glimpse of it, as she turned a corner. No that couldn't be her. Without knowing it, I am already in a dead run across the deserted carnival and rushed onto the platform for what appeared to be a roller coaster and turned into the entrance. No one is here. Not for another fifty meters can I see anyone down these cold platforms, any of them. Looking around in a near frantic state I start to calm back down.
There's no one in sight, just my nerves getting the better of me I guess. Trying to shake off that dread feeling, I take one last hard look to prove to myself that nothing is there when I finally see it. An iconic red purse lying on the floor, it looks infinitely familiar. My heart is racing so hard it feels like drums are going off next to my ears as I race down the side street to the apparition of my tortured past.
"It's real," I manage to whisper out, as I stand over the object. It looks so real, I reach down to pick it up and find it soft to the touch. Like the day that I bought it for
Her.
That cold hard dread again, I hate this feeling, as I look over the purse I have to fight off my overwhelming panic. It simply can't be, but this is her purse. Just like I last saw it, with this silly little blue Totoro hanging off the strap. How did this get here, it’s clean. No dust, no scrapes, not worn at all, like someone had kept it stasis all this time. Hands trembling I pop the clasp on the bag.
“What are these memories that are rushing back to me?” I asked a loud and reach into the bag, into the unknown both fearing what I will find and dreading the outcome.
~ FLASHBACK – Seventeen years in the past ~
03:20 AM - N.O.V.A. Research and Development lab:
Quote:
"What is it!? Why the heck have you called me here at this time in the morning"
"Sh....sh...She’s waking up sir"
"...W...Waking up!? That isn't po…ss...ible. We must hurry she shouldn't be allowed to wake up, she should never be allowed to wake up."
"PK levels rising sir, she is breaching the NOVA barrier's suppression fields. At this rate..."
|
"That was the last transmission we received from the N.O.V.A. Research and Development lab at Doverfield. When the distress teams arrived they found nothing"
"Nothing Ma'am?"
"Yes, nothing. The research facility and all of the 30,000 staff members were gone. It was as if the facility never existed."
"How is that possible, nothing can up and disappear like that."
"We believe it was LST (Large Scale Teleportation), the largest ever"
"LST of that magnitude!? Bull, no one is that powerful even
Subject 1 couldn't move more than just a bus, much less a whole freaking lab the half the size of Tokyo"
"We believe it was
subject 0, it appears she has re-awakened"
"Sweet mother of god, how is that possible, her resonance died three years ago."
"We have reason to believe he is here again, and she is searching for him"
~ END FLASHBACK ~
Memento Mori
Linear Mode
