It may very well be the worst thing that's ever happened to you! | OPEN MINGLE

[vitaelamorte]

Who: EVERYONE!
Where: EVERYWHERE!
When: Friday October 27th - Tuesday October 31st
Rating: PG-13, warn if you're gonna go higher!
Summary: A catch all for the Horrible Memory Truth Event!
The Story:

For the duration of this event, everyone's entire room will be replaced with a memory playing on loop. They will likely recognize the moment as soon as they see it – it is a moment they remember as the worst moment of their entire lives. It could be a memory from home or something that happened in Wonderland. Lengths of the memories will vary, but they will find that these are not memories they can merely watch – they can step into these memories and attempt to make changes to them, and the memories will be long enough that they have time to make changes (though no more than 24 hours). However, anyone who tries will find that it is futile. No matter what you do or how hard you try, the outcome is always exactly the same somehow. No changes you make will prevent that horrible outcome. It just happens over and over and over again no matter what you do.

On top of that, perhaps complicating any attempts to make changes, everyone will be forced to be honest for the duration of the event. No lies or half-truths are allowed, and filters will be gone for the entire five days. If something bothers someone then they will blurt it out, regardless of whether or not it hurts someone's feelings, and no one will be able to simply keep quiet when they have something to say. They must be truthful and honest with every word they say.

This is a catch-all log for all of your Worst Memory needs! Please mark your threads clearly in the subject line with your character's name and Room Number + Floor for character rooms, or just location if you're making a top level for a public place in the mansion (like the tea rooms or the kitchen) so people can see if there's already a thread available. And here's the plot post if you need it!

Have fun!

Comments

caroline forbes ; ota ; remember when a part of you still hoped for what could be

[persevere]

floor 2 room 6b ; ota ; well i've got this suit of armor ; cw abuse/torture

[persevere]

[It would be impossible not to hear the screaming coming from inside.

That said, to get to the room, you'd have to go through one door, a common area, and then into the new room that's popped up overnight, but the sound isn't stopping.

The room isn't a proper room, but looks more like a cell in a dungeon with a chair in the middle, fashioned with restraints. Caroline is sitting in it, shackled and sickly, while her father stands on the opposite side of the room.

He wants to know how she can walk in the sun. He asks her while vervain is pumped into the air through the ventilation, keeping her weak. She wants him to let her go, asks if that's all he wants to know.

He says he does, but it's because of what he's going to do next.

For hours he starves her, opens up a hatch in the ceiling to pour light on her back, burning her with its rays while she screams. The memory replays over and over, with barely a reprieve; she never even gets to the part where she's saved. It's just her Dad trying to fix her.

She isn't going to stay here any longer than she has to, even though the memory continues to play in her absence.

She may very well be nearby, though, as if that will help keep people from checking on her.]

caroline's room; outside

[thevulnerability]

[ Chloe has no intention of stopping after Lucifer finds her and then she finds Seth. This isn't like the other events; she doesn't feel like she's betraying her promise to Lucifer by finding her friends. She's already been through her own worst, and her life isn't at stake. She's in no danger besides what she's already seen.

She's relieved to find Caroline outside of her room, coming up to her breathless. Chloe doesn't have to ask if she's okay, because it's more than obvious that none of them are okay. Instead, Chloe throws her arms around Caroline's shoulders, pulling her close to her and stroking her fingers gently through her hair, holding her for as long as Caroline will let her. ]

[persevere]

[She and Klaus (and likely Freya) have already managed to get out of there, had to live through some of the worst that their lives have thrown at them. She's stayed here longer than she probably should have, or came back after making sure other people had gotten out of their own.

Either way, it doesn't matter. Chloe comes over and doesn't say a word, just embraces her, and it's exactly what she needs.

Her arms go around the other woman easily. Somehow she manages not to cry, but she doesn't have the tears to shed this time. There's been to many of those lately.

It isn't that she wants to pull away, but more like they're interrupted as the sound of her voice screaming beyond the door shocks the attention back into her, and she winces at the sound of it.]

You can just ignore that. It isn't real.

[thevulnerability]

[ The screams cut through Chloe like a knife and she stiffens, pulling back and staring at the door. She doesn't have to ask to know it's Caroline's screams she can hear; her stomach turns over, her mind racing over what kind of horrors hid behind that door.

Chloe has to remind herself it's a memory. She has to remind herself it isn't real, that she can't change it, because the only thing she wants to do is burst through that door and kill whoever is hurting Caroline.

Trembling, she pulls Caroline away from the door, as if it will somehow protect her from what's going on in there. Chloe looks back to her, running her hands down Caroline's shoulders. ]

Are you hurt? [ She wants to ask what is happening, but she can't quite force out the words. ]

[persevere]

[She goes, dragging a hand through her hair as she goes. She knows she'll need to explain, but it'll sound even more horrible than it was-

No, it'll sound as horrible as it was and that's the whole problem.]

No, I'm fine.

[She's not, but none of them are fine. She wasn't fine when it happened, not for a while. Physically, though, she's not hurt. Like she said, this time it wasn't 'real.']

It happened a long time ago.

[thevulnerability]

[ Even if she had been hurt, Chloe realizes it was silly to even ask. She knows first hand now about the healing properties of being a vampire, having lived through it herself briefly.

For Chloe, being burned by the sun and having to drink blood to heal is preferable to what they are going through now. Of course, her pain was far more brief. ]

It doesn't feel like it when you're in the middle of it. [ It kind of just comes out of her mouth, but Chloe knows, having just been through it herself. It being a memory doesn't make it any easier. ] Do you wanna go somewhere else? You don't have to stay here.

[persevere]

[It wasn't the sun that stuck with her. It was the rest of it, the who, what, and why.

It isn't the first time someone's done something horrible to her, and it sure as hell isn't the last. But there's a reason this one is ranked up there in terms of being the worst.]

But I do, don't I? [Caroline looks at her as if searching for some kind of direction.] I mean, if I don't, someone's going to go in there because they think they have to help me and I don't want them to see me like that, you know?

[poppycock]

( those screams are impossible to ignore.

for klaus, they are terrifying, and signify in him the most instinctual of dire concern. of anger. wrath.

he considers that the coming event struck. only that thought touches his mind before he rushes into the cellar of the mystic falls police department to find caroline strapped to a chair and tortured, the sun searing her back. his eyes divert to the man in the shadows; he hears him call her 'honey' with tears in his eyes. his own darken with murderous intent and he shifts as if to pounce —

then he notices caroline, who is his caroline, standing nearby, and klaus halts. his lips part and he sucks in a breath. )

[persevere]

[Her arms are wrapped around her midsection, as if that will protect her from what she's watching.

It doesn't. She can practically feel her skin burning every time she hears the sizzle of flesh, smells it in the air.

Her head turns in a blur of blonde air as Klaus bursts in, her eyes wide at his abrupt appearance, and when he notices her, she finally manages to take a single step forward.]

It's not real. [Just Wonderland, if that really made it better.] It already happened.

[He doesn't need to do anything. There's nothing to be done. The damage is there and it's not going to go away, even if the physical scars healed.]

[poppycock]

( there is nothing to be done. (it hardly takes a genius; this is the event they were warned about quite literally, and of course this would be her worst moment.) he knows the exquisite torture of a parent's twisted hatred, professed love, and how it reverberates: he hears it now, in the background as the pieces come together. klaus' eyes sting with tears for her: tears of sorrow and anger.

there is nothing to be done, but there is still something he can do. he blurs forward to take her in his arms and remove her from the room all at once. the screams may not abate, but the door slams shut behind them. he may not be able to save her from damage already done, from the score of another's mistakes, but he can remove her from her past. he can hold her.

his embrace tightens around her. he pulls back only enough to cradle her cheek and say, ) That was your father.

[persevere]

[There's no resistance on her part as he picks her up to remove her from that terrible space. Her arms slip around his neck, she leans her cheek against his collarbone, she closes her eyes against the air that whips past them as they leave it behind in the past where it belongs.

If only she couldn't still hear it.

She tries to keep her face from crumbling as he holds the side of her face in his palm. She fails.]

I thought he hated me.

[poppycock]

( his heart breaks. it is torn in two, seeing how this has done the same and more to her. on its heels surges something fierce. ) Only a fool would hate you, ( he says with certainty, ) and he was a fool to believe any part of you need change. ( his thumb rubs her cheek. )

[persevere]

He couldn't even stay alive long enough to make it up to me.

[Hard truths, brought forth by Wonderland's continued effects, bubble to the surface. They're things that she's never wanted to think, but they're there, in the back of her mind, when she has nothing else to keep her occupied.]

He picked dying so that he didn't have to be like me. He left me and he didn't have to.

[It was selfish of her to say, she knows, but it felt like that. Not everyone made a good vampire, she knew that too, and her father would have hated everything about it.

That didn't make it hurt any less.]

[beatupgrass]

[Don't go into the rooms. That is what is going to get Rocket through this event- there is nothing in anyone's rooms that he needs to see, just like there's nothing in his room that anyone needs to see.

But then there are screams.

Familiar screams.

Rocket doesn't believe he has a heroic bone in his body and he's a selfish little shit, but he's occasionally very loyal and often more dedicated to helping people than he'd ever admit or want people to acknowledge, so he doesn't think. He just bursts in and...

...This is what he sees. Brutality of a like he's been privy to most of his life, only given what he seems to be observing, it's coming from family. He bares his teeth in a snarl- Rip said that nothing he does here will change anything, but it might be cathartic or something...

He even goes as far as to pull his gun, lingering in the shadows, waiting for a moment to shoot Caroline's jerkass dad in the back and put an end to this nightmare and see how it course corrects around that, but he doesn't quite make it to pulling the trigger. It's not gonna help. It'll just be more frustrating.

Typical.

He backs out slowly, careful not to make any noise and disturb the scene and when he exits back into the hallway and the screams continue, he just stares at the door with a sour look.]

That's just sick.

[persevere]

[After first exiting the room, she hadn't left Klaus' side right away, waiting until the right moment to make her way back, to wait outside the room.

By the looks of things, someone had gone in there already, before she'd had to chance to stop him. Of course, it was one of her friends; he'd probably recognized her voice, or worse.

She knew a little about the things he'd been through and she had a feeling he'd known at least a little about what he'd see when he went into that room.]

He thought his only other option was to kill me.

[She says it numbly as she walks over to him.]

He hated what I'd become. He thought he could fix me.

[beatupgrass]

What an idiot.

[It's hard to tell if Rocket would have said that without the truth portion of the event or if he might have been a little less blunt about someone's dad, but... it's more likely the former. Shitty dads are a running theme in the lives of the people he knows.

He doesn't meet her eyes anyway- he's just staring at the door like he's still considering going in there and at least clawing her dad's eyes out.]

I'm sure findin' out your little girl drinks blood is all shockin' and whatever, but come on. You know who tortures his kids? Thanos. And when you've got anything in common with one of the biggest of big bads in the galaxy, you got a problem.

[persevere]

He was still my Dad. Besides, he's dead now.

[Because that's exactly what she wanted to pop out after all that. This truth nonsense is the worst and it's doing nothing to make anything better.]

Vampires had a history in my town. They'd come through a few times over the centuries and it never ended well. I just wished he'd believed me when I said I had it under control.

[beatupgrass]

Yeah, and my mom ate two of my siblings, and I don't really have a whole lot of strong feelings on the subject. [He sucks in a breath and runs his hands down his muzzle, swearing an incoherent blue streak.] I said that, and you heard it, but don't acknowledge it.

[Or something. This event can go to hell.] The point is... [said loudly as if it will drown out ALL THE OTHER WORDS] ... People close to you like that should have more faith. I think everyone around me's an idiot, but that's 'cause I'm coverin' up for my own insecurities, and deep down I know they can handle themselves 'cause I trust 'em.

[another hiss of breath.] I didn't need the truth bomb to get that point across, but thank you, Wonderland.

common areas ; ota ; and a sword i need to swing

[persevere]

[Once it becomes clear to everyone what's going on, Caroline gets as far from her room as possible, simply hoping no one will go in there anymore considering that everyone's room is apparently its own specially tailored horror.

She drinks when she can, converses with friends at other times. She's not super perky, more intent on making sure other people are okay. Her demons are terrible, sure, but she's survived them and moved past them.

People here have it worse. Reminding herself of that makes dealing with her own stuff a little easier to ignore.]

[interpersonal]

( caroline finds elena in her little nook at the library.

she isn't the type of person to wallow. ordinarily, she'd be right beside caroline, trying to help others who are struggling with their demons to keep from thinking of her own. but she doesn't trust that her brave face will hold just yet, though she'll certainly give it her best effort once her gaze locks with caroline's. )

I'm okay. ( even as elena says it, her voice splinters under the weight of the pain. she doesn't want to let it in, all too aware of what happened last time she allowed the overflow. but there's nothing to do, and she hates that. she hates that so much. ) I'm okay.

( please believe her, caroline. elena needs you to believe her. she needs someone to believe. )

[persevere]

[Elena isn't okay. Anyone looking at her could tell, and Caroline would notice even more than most. She's seen Elena at her worst, and vice versa, and this is up there on the scale of horrible, even for them.

She moves over to the nook, sits down on the floor, and pulls her friend to her body, embracing her and trying to comfort her the only way she knows how.]

I know.

[She's not okay, but she will be. Elena always figures out a way to be okay, just like she tries to. It doesn't always work perfectly, but they try, and that's the best anyone can do.]

But you don't have to be.

[If she wants to fall apart, she can. Caroline isn't going anywhere.]

[interpersonal]

( elena doesn't want to fall apart.

elena wants to be the tower. she wants to say that everything will be okay, and this isn't the end to anything -- she'll see caroline again. stefan and damon. she'll see the loves of her life when she wakes up and a whole lifetime has passed in the time she was sleeping. but that's not really true, is it?

she is never going to see bonnie again, unless bonnie ends up in wonderland. the same goes for matt and jeremy. jeremy.

there is no sense of urgency to this moment, because it isn't happening right now. a decision doesn't need to be made and the threat of kai parker isn't looming over their heads. elena can't focus on making sure her friends and family are okay in her absence; she's still right here, grief stuck to her chest, and it hurts. it hurts.

a choked sob rubs her throat raw, fingers curling into the sleeve of caroline's shirt as she allows herself to be pressed close. )

How did this happen? ( her voice cracks in a whisper, because she still doesn't understand. how? )

[persevere]

[Sometimes, they had no choice. It was either fall apart or explode, and one was more potentially devastating than the other. One was unacceptable.

They both hurt just as much, though, in the end.

Her fingers comb gently through her hair as her friend leans into her, and she sighs at her question, shaking her head.]

Because we can't ever catch a break. Because life isn't fair. Because there are crazy assholes in this world that shouldn't win, but sometimes they do.

[Nothing about their lives were ever simple. The good things never seemed to last. There always seemed to be something new trying to ruin everything.]

[interpersonal]

( elena wants it to not be true, but wanting alone has never led them anywhere. she keeps trying to make sense of a senseless world, and it crushes her every single time she's proven wrong. they can have the perfect plan, they can do their very best, and somehow -- they still end up losing.

that crushing weight settles in her chest right now.

lifting her head, she turns her bloodshot eyes to caroline. she's lost and small, and in the face of that, having answers might make her feel more in control. )

Did you know him? Kai?

( elena is behind in the timeline. (she's always behind.) )