entrancelogs | + Your imagination can't hurt you! +

Entry tags:

+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

Who: YOU!
Where: The Mindscape
When: starting November 11th
Rating: may be up to R for character deaths
Summary: Navigate challenges to learn valuable lessons about nonviolence, cooperation, and self-sacrifice! Release your inner animal! Read more about the event here, and on the bulletin board.
The Story:

"If you know yourself, you have nothing to fear."
"Working together is the only way."
"Deaths are a necessary part of life, but not all deaths are necessary."
"The needs of the many outweigh the life of just one."

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[He wakes up in a small room, staring up at a greenish sky. That's, uh. New. He's pretty sure the sky is normally blue.]

[Welp. Guess the event's started.]

okay.

[He debates just lying here and waiting the whole thing out but, ugh. The kids are probably out there, Papyrus is probably out there, and he'd better go make sure they're alright if he can. Caring is so much work. He sits up slowly, rubbing the back of his skull and trying to take stock of his surroundings.]

[The walls are brick and the room he's in is narrow. There's a ceiling he didn't notice before that's transparent, maybe glass. Ahead of him is a door. It looks like it leads to the rest of...whatever this is.]

[There's a loud grating sound behind him. He turns in time to see the rest of the room, and a figure lying on the ground on the other side. It looks like...]

max?

[And then a massive metal door drops between them, cutting the room in two and separating them. Sans winces at the bang as it hits the ground and drags himself to his feet.]

man. never a dull moment.

[He heads over to the metal door and gives it a few experimental knocks.]

max? hey, you still there? you okay?

[She's having a nightmare.

Or no, she's pretending to have one. She hasn't been sleeping well ever since the Neverland event- and sometimes she likes to imagine that all the bad memories and painful thoughts are nothing but nightmares that will be gone in the morning. But they're no more nightmares than Wonderland is a dream.

She's been rewinding again. And it's all for real.

She remembers the lightning and the flying debris in Arcadia Bay, things that she caused, the bodies lying on the road, the wind spiraling and spiraling like time moving backward to a single, certain point...

And then she's waking up.

A loud, metallic bang jerks her awake, and at first she has to shield her eyes from the glaring light of the sun. Or- not the sun, because the sky is green.

Event.

She gets to her feet and moves toward a metallic door covering one entire end of the room. It sounded like there was a voice on the other side. She shakes her head, trying to drain the grogginess from her skull as she runs one hand over the door.]

...Sans?

[Of course it's Sans. He always seems to be in the middle of messes like this, doesn't he? She hears something in the walls, a slow gurgling like water filling pipes. At the same time, a low rumbling echoes around her as more movement occurs- a stone roof sliding steadily over the open top of the room, blocking out the light inch by inch.

...That's pretty fucking scary.]

Sans, what's happening?

[He wakes up in a hole.

As far as holes go, it's...pretty standard. Seemingly, anyway. The floors and walls are comprised of a nondescript, grainy stone that looks just worn away enough for fingers to immediately slip away from any hope for purchase.

His head's pounding, but that's not new.

He aches, low and dull all over, and a high, bright tone feels like it's drilling into the center of the soft and delicate parts of his brain.

That's also not new.

What is new is the fact that there's someone else down here with him.

Tim sighs, and the sound lapses off into a groan as his eyes shutter closed for a moment in his weariness and resignation and despair.]

Great.

[He hears her voice, muffled through the door but audible. The last thing she says gets partially cut off by a new sound, like stone against stone. He looks up in time to see something sliding across the roof, cutting off the green sky and closing them in.]

[He could teleport. Just launch himself upward about fifty feet, take a look at where they are and then shoot on back down, but he has no idea what's up there. Has no idea if he'd even be able to land again, or if he'd reach terminal velocity before he found a good spot. He'd also be leaving Max behind, which seems like kind of a dick move.]

[There's a few seconds left of light before the roof closes. The dark doesn't bother him, and he'll be able to see well enough, but...]

max, it's some kind of event. hey, look around your room and try to see the layout before the light goes out. then describe it to me, okay?

[Humans have terrible night vision, he knows. He's thinking fast. It's the only thing he's fast at. There's still that door behind him, so he has an out if he needs it.]

[Trying her very best not to panic and to actually think about the situation, she turns to survey the room. She only takes in a quick glance before it becomes too dark to see clearly.]

It's... square, I think. Maybe only a few yards wide. There's nothing in here. [She shouts it out as she starts to make her way around the room, feeling the walls with her hands.]

It's all just stone and-

[And that gurgling sound. And the warm liquid now pouring over her fingers. Her eyes begin to adjust to the dark, enough so she can tell the liquid is clear.

She takes a deep breath.]

Sans... Is there water coming down the walls?

[He opens his eyes to a familiar backdrop of scuffed linoleum and cracked, peeling paint on walls, the flat and blank professionalism that goes into every wall of every school he's ever been in. The floors dip and dimple at infrequent points, the walls graying with water damage.

He knows this place. He nearly bled out here. He watched a man bleed out here, hand clasped to his neck to stem the sluggish flow of crimson that smeared inelegantly over the floors, a grotesque, fingerpainted masterpiece.

It's the same place, or something so close to it that he cannot tell the difference.

Just ahead is the window, painting the floor with an overly harsh brightness. And beneath that, he knows without having to look, is the staircase. The place where the railing (the railing that wasn't enough to save him, even if he hadn't known what he would do when he reached him, god) sloped downward, gently.

He turns, and moves away from it. Retreating, retreating, then tearing away and moving at a brisk clip. He rounds a corner and things are -

Things are decidedly different here. He slows significantly as he takes in the depressible buttons, the old-school television perched on a table with rickety legs, round-edged and black-screened. The vault, eerily similar to the hotel's, the one he remembers seeing even if he can't remember ever being in its vicinity. He stares at it. The buttons stare back, illuminated with a digital green glow.

And then there's the camera, set up to film an apparently blank wall.

He swallows, but his throat is dry.

Whatever sick joke this is, he already knows that he doesn't want any part of it.]

[First she's soaking wet, exasperated, tired, and she doesn't even know what else- too many emotions in too short a time, too much explaining to be done, and she just wants to go home and sleep or lie in bed. Anything but talk to Sans.

Then her clothes are dry. Her hair doesn't cling to her with a wet tenacity.

And she can't move.

It's pitch black, so she can't see the situation she's in. But she knows exactly what this is, anyway.

She knows the chair she's sitting on.

She knows the feeling of duct tape on her wrists and shins. Over her mouth.

And she knows with absolute certainty that somewhere a camera is pointing at her.]

Mmm-!

[At first it's a shout, a cry for help, muffled by the tape. Then, as tears start to build in her eyes and an indescribable hatred and panic build in her chest, it becomes a sob, almost a scream of frustration.]

Mmm-!

[She pulls against her bonds but it doesn't do anything. Not even the tape on her right leg, which she knows should be weak, gives way. The thought of spending any more time strapped to this chair fills her with disgust, and she continues to struggle, determined to fight against this particular fate.]

no doors? i've got a door in mine, opposite this metal one.

[He stays by the metal door, listening to her voice travel. It's hard to tell where she is, especially over the...hm. That sounds kind of like water. Like standing near one of the small streams in Waterfall.]

down the...?

[He takes a step to the side and his slipper splashes into a small puddle. It's pitch black, but monsters have always been able to see in the dark. There's water pouring out of spigots along all three walls, trickling down in what appears to be a slow fall. There's several dozen spigots though, all dumping water at the same rate. The whole floor is already wet.]

[He steps back to the metal door.]

yeah, uh. i've got water here. lot of it.

[He looks around for any drains or vents or anything. The floor is solid, there isn't so much as a crack in any of the walls. The room is...well, it's sealed.]

[Ah. Okay. So that's what this is about.]

[Some event.]

[He runs a few quick calculations in his head.]

max. don't panic, but i think these rooms are sealed. they're gonna start filling up with water. we've got about five minutes to think of a way out.

[He'll be fine. This is more an annoyance than a threat. He goes over to the door behind him, just to test the handle. It turns easily. Unlocked. The solution is simple--just walk out the door. Even if he didn't, he could literally just sit here and wait the event out. He doesn't need to breathe, after all.]

[But Max. Humans need to breathe. He could leave, he could leave so easily, but he'd be condemning her to a slow, terrifying, agonizing death.]

[He's probably done that sort of thing a million times back home with the kid, but he's...he's trying to change here, right? He can't just do that. Right?]

[He goes back to the metal door separating and presses a hand to it. There's about an inch of water on the floor now.]

we're gonna get outta here, okay? just have to think of a solution.

[If Tim had words for the room he awakes in, he might call it "Purified." The requisite vocabulary, however, escapes him - mainly because he's never been to any sort of Zone in his life, purified or otherwise, and he has no baseline whatsoever; no way of knowing that the stark, bleached whiteness of the walls and the high, eerie tone that vibrates precariously in the air like a dying insect isn't the way things were originally meant to be.

He gets slowly to his feet, ponderously, blinking against the headache that intensifies with the shift of pressure as he rises.

The edges and corners of the world start to make themselves more known to him the longer he peers at it, even if the bright, blazing blankness burns his eyes, like squinting at the sun. He still sees an empty face in every pale surface, from sheets of paper to white mugs, and this wasteland of nothingness might as well be his personal hell.

Well, no. That's a lie. He knows his personal hell, and this doesn't even come close.

Doesn't mean he won't keep looking behind him, his eyes darting to the corners of the room, neck occasionally twisting around in a nervous tic motion of the head to the left. Can't shake the feeling of being watched.

Still, if there's a way out of here, he'll take it. He has to take it. He needs out, he needs out right the hell now. He starts to walk, but stops abruptly when he takes notice of the peculiarities in the room that, until now, either didn't exist or didn't see fit to make their existence known to him.

The first thing he takes stock of is the television. It's rounded off at the corners, battered, an old, tiny thing, and it looks to be switched off. It also looks like it'll fall off its equally decrepit stand at the slightest gust of wind.

Good thing that "wind" doesn't seem to be a thing here.

The second aspect, most peculiarly, is a number of cubes that appear to be...hovering a foot or so over the floor in a uniform spread. He starts to count them out, but the unrelenting glare of the walls and floor and ceiling make it difficult to keep track.

Or maybe that's just the headache.

It's probably just the headache.]

Uh. No. [No doors. She'd be heading for it right now if there was one in the room. But that would be easy, right? Just her and Sans walking out unscathed.

This is... not like any other event she remembers. There's no subtlety, no slow build-up, no network even. There's only a room you get dumped into, with water pouring down the sides, and a time limit on your life.

Go to hell, Wonderland.

Don't panic, she tells herself. Sans has magic. And he owes her. He owes her after everything he put her through.]

Don't- leave me, okay?

[She finishes her round of the room and returns to the metal door, shoes starting to soak in the water. She tries to ignore how her socks are already getting wet. She gives the door a solid bang.]

Can you open this?

[The eerie dark and unnatural quiet is one thing, but the sound of a struggle is one that he's bitterly acquainted with, complete with muffled shouts, sounds of distress and frustration.

He's heard it before. He hesitates on the spot as he sways, trying to determine its etiology. It's quiet, barely loud enough to reach him, but in the absolute absence of any other sound, it might as well be screamed beside his ear.

He presses his ear to one wall, and then another. It sounds like maybe it's...

He raps knuckles against the wall tentatively, brow curving downward in a frown.]

Hello? Anyone there?

[Hearing whispers in his sleep wasn't that unusual. The soundtrack of the game was like a broken record and if Zacharie didn't enjoy it it would be a nightmare unless he asked someone to club him across the head with a bat and no. But it was inevitable that those whispers would make their way to his brain, the dark ones that lived in The Nothingness or the banging of a frantic voice among the silence that asked about death. Not Safe. None of them were, in the end.

Shhhh....

Unseen eyes open and The NPC stares at nothing in particular. He knew this white too, purified as if someone had merely swept a hand across a board to clear it, even if this state had been won with determination. And for a moment Zacharie wondered if he had been sent home. Although it's dismissed as - unless Wonderland changed the ending code - they were all dead.

"Still. Welcome home, puppet."

Nevertheless, Zacharie stands and abruptly he's much shorter than usual. He can, with a certain level of glee, recognize what happened and a Spynx cat weaves by the blocks and probably makes an attempt to wind through Tim's legs.

He can't grin like Pablo can but one might swear that the cat is actually smiling. Hi Tim!]

[Even after only a minute of desperately struggling, she can already feel her limbs growing tired- what little energy she has left after the last challenge with Sans is all blown without hesitation. But the tape hasn't budged at all.

She hears someone call out, muffled, but she can just about make out the words. She looks ahead of her warily. But the absolute darkness lets her see nothing.

There's a pretty big chance that whatever is out there is better than this chair. She sucks in a big breath through her nose, willing herself to ignore the fatigue of her body.]

Mmm-!

[No doors on her side. Just on his side.]

[This is a test of some kind, isn't it? He could walk out, or he could stay here and listen to her drown on the other side of the metal. Or he could come up with some way to rescue her. It's like Wonderland wants to personally determines just what kind of coward he is.]

[Fuck.]

[He's not a hero. He's absolutely not a hero, has never once in his life considered himself in such terms and never plans to. He doesn't rescue people. Except, yanno. The times he's helped Frisk or Chara or anyone else in Wonderland. But that's not really heroism. That's just...being a functional person.]

[He can't just leave her.]

i won't. don't worry, i'm not goin' anywhere.

[It's a puzzle. Monsters are good at puzzles. If he can't solve a simple locked door puzzle, then he probably deserves to listen to one of his friends die.]

[He just has to think. And fast.]

there's no handles or anything. i could...lemme try something.

[He steps back a bit, slippers splashing in the water. Two or so inches now. He raises a hand, wraps his magic around the door, trying to work it beneath the underside. Then he lifts--or tries to. Sets his jaw and tries to levitate the door up off the ground, force it back along whatever mechanism dropped it in the first place.]

[It's too heavy, and it feels like something's locked it in place. He lets go with a quiet sigh.]

can't open it, not even with magic. i...

[The water seems to be rising faster now.]

i can teleport. uh i mean, i could...pop over to your side and then back. this door over here's unlocked. but i don't...uh...i'd be teleporting blind. not even sure how thick this metal is. i could end up, heh, stuck in the metal, or in a wall or--stuck to you or something.

[He can tell the general direction of where she is based on her voice, but he can't tell where she is exactly. He could always just pop to the opposite side of the room from where her voice is, but he might either smash himself against the wall or fuse with it. There's also the problem of displacing the water. How much water would he have to displace? Teleporting into the swimming pool with Mettaton's Mirror was simple enough, since he'd been there enough times to know the layout and since he knew the exact volume of the pool. Not a difficult calculation. This...there's too many variables. For all he knows, her side is filling at a faster rate than his.]

[He could just guess, but if he guesses wrong then she still dies. It just means she dies in a room filled with water and monster dust.]

let's...look for a button or a lever. something.

[She starts poking around the room semi-blindly, first with a steady and deliberate thoroughness, then with more desperation and panic as time passes. The water is certainly rising faster now.]

...Getting stuck doesn't sound like it'd help much. [So yes, she agrees that that should be a last resort, or... or he could just leave her.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

The thought almost doesn't sound sarcastic in her head. Sure does sound like her, though.

And maybe it is a good idea. Heaven knows the universe could use one less time traveler. But despite her rocky relationship with Sans, she's fairly certain he wouldn't leave her in any case.

She was also fairly certain he wouldn't tell anyone her secret. But he did.

The thought leaves her feeling slightly more hopeless as the water begins to lap against her knees.]

There's nothing here. How the fuck am I supposed to get out of this? [She gives the metal door a frustrated bang with her foot, spraying water up everywhere.] Or has Wonderland gone completely bonkers and decided to just outright kill us?

Edited 2016-11-12 06:33 (UTC)

[She wakes up in a hole.

It's bright enough that she grimaces and has to push her sunglasses more snugly against her face. She's going to be feeling this one, she can already tell. She sits up slowly, looking around cautiously. When she sees who's with her, her frown deepens, but she doesn't... actually acknowledge him immediately. Instead, she taps the cuff on her ear.]

Shaun? Come in. Where are you?

[....there's no answer. She taps it again.]

Shaun?

[It's very clearly not connecting, she exhales angrily.]

Well, this is fun already.

[He jumps when he feels something rub up against his legs, the hairs on his neck prickling as they stand on end. He stares at the offending feline with a mixture of wariness and exasperation. It's just a cat. Just a cat that...looks an awful lot like it's smiling. Like the Cheshire Cat, he can't help but think, even if he can't remember much about said cat other than the grinning and the disappearing act. That's probably all that was important about him anyway.

He takes a few steps back regardless, moving away from the thing nervously.]

The hell... [The words are muttered to no one in particular, least of all the cat, as he scans the room again for some kind of explanation.

The room has no answers for him, and neither, he suspects, does the cat.]

yeah, heh. sure wouldn't get us out of this sticky situation. heh.

[Probably not the best time for jokes, but it's what he does.]

[He starts splashing along the walls, checking for any loose stones or hidden panels or anything at all. If it comes to it, he'll just have to guess. Once the water gets high enough, it'll be their last option and he'll just have to...hope. Something he's not very good at. But he is fairly good at guessing. So, if it comes to it...]

[But they're not there yet. The water is up to his ankle bones now. There's no switches, nothing.]

doesn't make sense. why would it bother? the events have always had some kinda...something to them. it's like a puzzle, yeah? one of those locked door puzzles. gotta have a solution. might just not be obvious.

[Four minutes left.]

remember that post on the network? with the cards? there's gotta be a clue there.

[Too bad he didn't pay much attention to it. He's, uh...maybe starting to get a bit concerned.]

[Yep. That - that really, definitely sounds like someone in trouble. Shit. And he's - the only person here, of course. And in no way cut off to be anyone's knight in shining armor besides, but it's not like there's a whole lotta choice here. He's an asshole, he knows without question, but he's not that hopeless.

He starts running fingers along the contours of the wall in search of a crack that might signal the presence of a door, a hatch, something. When the first few explorations yield nothing, he grunts his frustration through clenched teeth and kicks it.

The wall caves beneath his foot, cracking beneath the pressure as easily as plywood. After a moment of stunned contemplation, he starts tearing into it with renewed fervor. The wall's destructible, or meant to be, and it cracks apart easily under his hands and feet.

On the other side, there's a girl bound to a chair. Tape over her mouth and around her wrists and - fuck. His stomach plummets to his feet as he claws his way through the uneven gap he's torn into the false wall, stumbling to her side.]

Shit. Shit. Hang on, lemme just -

[He hooks sweat-slippery fingers around the tape on her wrists, trying to jimmy it loose before he remembers he's got a switchblade. Best to carry something like that, just in case he needs it for...well, he didn't expect to need it for something like this, but he'll take it, so he slices through the tape on one wrist with a series of frantic jerks.]

Tim, actually.

[Thank god he's still got his shitty sense of humor, right? She just kind of blithely ignores him, which is fine by him, because that gives him the opportunity to drag himself slowly to his feet and start passing his hands over the stone that, as suspected, has no easy grooves or handholds. Fantastic.]

[Pidge groans as she wakes up. Everything's bright. Did she fall asleep on the floor somewhere without curtains again? She gropes on her face to adjust her glasses and... gets a sweater in her face. That gets her to blink awake and sit up.

The sweater is on an arm that is handcuffed to her arm. Which is in turn connected to a girl she definitely doesn't know.]

...what?

[It's like one of Coran's damn team building exercises, except she isn't on a team with this girl.]

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Page 1 of 43

+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

Sans and the Sans Crew

Sans and Max

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tim wright; i'm sure i used to be so free

closed to GEORGE; all the truth unwinding, scraping away at my mind

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closed to MAX; please stop asking me to describe him; cw for kidnapping, flashbacks, mental trauma

Gee they're both off to a great start!

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closed to ZACHARIE; erase all the memories, they will only bring us pain

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THIS IS FINE

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Pidge and Pals

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Mabel

Dorian's Company