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

Nora | OTA

[geiger]

Floor 1, Room 111
The memory starts in a neat little house that looks like it could belong in Levittown or any other midcentury American suburb. The smell of freshly brewed coffee hangs in the air and the birds twitter in the trees outside. Despite the idyllic surroundings, though, the mood is sombre. Nora stands in a blue shirt and khaki trousers, hand over her mouth in shock. Next to her is a good looking man with a baby cradled into his arms, and a spherical robot with several skeletal appendages, hovering in mid-air. They stand transfixed as a news report unfolds on the television.

"...Followed by flashes, blinding flashes. Sounds of explosions. We're trying to get confirmation, we seem to have lost contact with our affiliated stations. We do have coming in confirmed reports, I repeat confirmed reports, of nuclear detonations in New York and Pennsylvania. ...My God."

The broadcast ends abruptly, replaced with a message that simply reads, PLEASE STAND BY.

"We need to get to the Vault. Now!" Nora's panic is clear in her voice. She runs from the house, the man following close behind holding the baby close, the robot left behind.

Out in the street the sirens wail, neighbours cling to each other tightly. A Vertibird hovers overhead, an announcement blaring out from it: "Residents of Sanctuary Hills. If you are registered, evacuate to Vault 111 immediately." A man in military gear stands at the side of the street, waving them down a path. "Vault participants, this way!"

Nora keeps running, the man directly ahead of her with the baby in his arms. She doesn't look back at her home but continues forward, over a bridge shaded by trees displaying the bright fall foliage and up an incline until she comes to a wire mesh fence guarded by soldiers, some in full power armour with machine guns. One of the soldiers looks them over and confirms they're on his list, and Nora, the man and the child are herded through to a platform where several other residents of their neighbourhood stand, looking terrified.

"Almost there," Nora says to the man as she tries to get her breath back. "Is Shaun okay?"

"He's fine," he replies, glancing down at the baby. "We're going to be okay. I love you."

Suddenly there's a blinding flash of bright white light. Nora blinks a couple of times as the world swims back into view, watching in horror at the mushroom cloud that looms over their surroundings. Before she has time to take it in, the platform begins to lower into the Vault.

The world above them goes dark, replaced by walls, floor and a roof of steel. As Nora steps from the elevator, a man in a bright blue jumpsuit reassures her and the others in the group, welcoming them to their new home of Vault 111, where they will have "a better future underground." She follows his directions up the stairs and into the Vault, where she's given a jumpsuit of her own - a garment she will most definitely have been seen wearing around Wonderland. Then they're herded into another room, where a doctor in a white coat says they'll have access to the Vault itself once they've been through a medical screen.

Pods line the sides of the room, supposedly to decontaminate them of any radiation they picked up during the blast and depressurise them before they move further underground. As the man reassures her, saying he's right there, Nora steps into one. The door shuts tight, and she's suddenly hit with a blast of cold. Then, she passes out.

She comes round slowly. Her breath is slow and laboured, her hearing fuzzy to start with, her first thought that it's so cold. Behind the frosted glass, she sees two figures approach the pod opposite hers, the one holding the man and the baby boy. "This is the one, here."

The pod opens. She hears her baby cry. Suddenly one of the figures grabs for the baby, and when the man resists, the other shoots him. He slumps back in the pod, unresponsive. She's too numb with the shock to scream, too weak from the freezing cold to try and break out.

The baby is in the arms of one of the figures now. As they leave, the other walks over to her pod, peers in at her. "At least we still have the backup."

Before she can process what's going on, the temperature in the pod drops further again and she succumbs to it, passing out once more.


[ OOC: This got longer than I intended. You can watch the full scene here. Nora will spend a lot of time trying to alter it in many different ways, feel free to come into any part of it. ]

[suspense_kills_me]

Nora told him that she'd been frozen in the past, and stayed that way for hundreds of years. But watching the memory unfold was so much more terrible than she'd made it sound. He stands outside the door, and watches the events unfold a few times, the pain of losing a child hitting him harder than he planned, but he attributes that to the memory waiting for him in his room.

During the forth cycle, he gets to Nora's pod before the door closes, "You need to leave."

[geiger]

"No," she responds quickly, already fiddling with the inside of the pod, trying to sabotage it. "No, I can't go. This will work, I'm sure of it."

[suspense_kills_me]

"You told me that all of this happened before you got to Wonderland. This isn't real, this is the past."

Red let her keep fiddling with the pod. The worst thing that was going to happen was the memory was going to start over, and they'd be back here in a few minutes. Like his, this one has the same outcome every time the memory replayed. Nora's husband died, and her son was kidnapped.

"You need to leave, none of this is going to accomplish anything."

[geiger]

Nora shakes her head rapidly, desperate to stay and take any chance she has of making things different. "I can't leave. They need me. I can't sit by this time."

[suspense_kills_me]

"It's not going to change, this is going to just keep going. I watched my own replay over and over, before I decided to walk out of the room. How many times have you watched this?

He wishes he could do something to help. Losing a child is a pain so few people understand and if it would change the outcome, Red would be the first to help.

"We need to go. Now."

[geiger]

"Four," she admits, little more than a whisper. She knows, deep down, that she's not going to be able to change anything. But this is the only part of Nate and Shaun that she has left, and it's difficult for her to not want to cling that, even if it means watching their worst moment over and over.

"I just--" Her voice breaks a little as she admits it out loud. "I can't leave them. Not again."

[suspense_kills_me]

"All you're going to do is torture yourself. I know. I watched my daughter die too many times myself."

Once he gets her out of this room, and into the hall, they could talk. But now, she had to leave. Red offers her his hand.

"You're not leaving them. You remember them and that's the important part."

[geiger]

Nora hesitates just a second longer, then reaches out to grab his hand. Her eyes flicker over to Nate and Shaun and she whispers, "I'm sorry."

[suspense_kills_me]

He's glad that she finally realized how pointless reliving all of this is. Red leads the way out of her room, and into the hall, making sure the door was closed tightly behind them.

"I'm sorry you had to relive all of that."

[geiger]

When she finally gets out into the hallway, she isn't sure what she feels. She wants to scream or cry, things she thought she was long over in relation to these particular memories. In the end she just nods tightly. "I'm sorry you had to see it."

[suspense_kills_me]

Red knows exactly how she feels, he felt the same way in the back of that truck watching what happened to Elizabeth.

"It's okay. I know how frustrating it is to be completely helpless in a situation like that."

[geiger]

"God, this place is sadistic." She folds her arms tightly over her chest. "What's even the point of showing us this otherwise?"

[suspense_kills_me]

"I honestly have no idea. Wonderland seems entirely too fascinated with our memories."

Granted, he wasn't sure what benefit making them relive their worst memory would be, but he's almost given up on trying to make sense out of this place.

[geiger]

"Taking our memories away makes a sick kind of sense, it's like it's feeding itself. But this..." She shakes her head, unable to make head or tail of it, just hating this place all the more.

[suspense_kills_me]

"It's uncalled for."

Or at least Red thought so. He didn't need to relive the worst day of his life, and he doubted anyone else did either.

"My memory wasn't much different, at least in the way it felt. Being helpless when your child is being hurt is perhaps the worst feeling in the world."

[geiger]

"Oh God, I'm sorry." She places a hand on his arm in what she hopes is a comforting gesture. "I didn't realise you had a kid."

[suspense_kills_me]

"It's Okay, I don't tell most people. I haven't even told her. She doesn't need to know who I am yet. She's done quite well for herself over the last thirty years."

Red truly does believe that. He already brought enough chaos into Elizabeth's life. Knowing that he's her father for sure, would turn everything even more sideways than it already was. He knows, she'll find out eventually, but now isn't the time.

[geiger]

Nora's scared of the same thing for Shaun. She's done plenty of things in the Wasteland she's not proud of, and if she ever finds her son she doesn't want to connect him with any of it.

"For what it's worth, I think you'd be a great dad."

[suspense_kills_me]

Thank you, though I think Elizabeth feels differently.

[In fact, he knows she does. The look she gave him when she was having Agnes said that she'd never thing he'd be fit to raise a family.]