APRIL EVENT: AND HARDSHIPS UNNUMBERED (LOCKED ROOM POST)

[sailmods]

[it happens in less than the blink of an eye.

April 10th. 10:47 AM. no matter where they were, no matter what they were doing, most passengers previously aboard the Serena Eterna find themselves in an empty room. not a very large room, but not a very small one, either. stone floors. stone ceiling. mostly stone walls. whatever they were wearing before, they aren’t wearing it now; all of them are now in one of two outfits, with no real seeming rhyme or reason as to who gets what. there is a large wooden door in the center of one wall, locked with a heavy drawbar. there is an LED display above it, like you would see at a sports arena; it’s currently turned off.

and then there are the heads.

the walls are mostly stone. mostly, because seeming every square inch of every wall has a head sticking out of it. human, animal, mixes of both and neither. passengers may recognize friends, or family. fellow passengers, specifically the dead (and anyone living that opted out). themselves, if they’ve ever died during the voyage. every head ends just at the top of the neck, and every one has their eyes wide open, expressions glassy and unseeing, but entirely neutral. just staring forward.

the display flickers to life, displaying the following information:]

NEXT: DAISY TONNER

64 LIVES

[has anyone seen Fio?]

Comments

[sailmods]

[NEXT: WILSON
52 LIVES]

[takethatnature]

[ The face Wilson makes when he sees that it's his turn to go in and die isn't very dignified, but he recovers. He unwinds the lei from his head, gritting his teeth as it catches on a lock of hair. ]

[teethoftherisk]

Siffleur trots over when he sees it's Wilson's turn. He gives him a quick bump to his leg. "Good luck."

[takethatnature]

Wilson moves his hand like he's going to pet Siffleur and then stops a few inches away because that is a very large and sharp-toothed cat and he's not sure if Siffleur appreciates that type of thing. "Thanks. Hopefully, uh... Sparkles... isn't holding a grudge about the sign thing."

[teethoftherisk]

He spots the hesitation and simply leans his head up, bumping it into Wilson's palm. The instinct to not touch is right, but Wilson is his friend - and Wilson is trying to save everyone. He deserves this.

"I am hopeful that he is not either." Truthfully, Siffleur expects that whatever waits for Wilson beyond the door would be equally unrelenting no matter if he had stayed quiet or opened his mouth. This is a game, and it is clear that Sparkles wishes to win.

[fonomena]

[For a stretch of time after Clarke Griffin passes through the door, Jade had withdrawn from speaking much with anyone else. Drifting back towards the approximate middle of the room, instead, closer to Palamedes and Rita and Tear than not...but attention more or less still affixed on the entrance, and the display above it. ...Sometimes...the delay is more protracted, or less--so he's observed--watching the others as they left, and mentally weighing the amount of time that might pass before a head would appear on the wall. A thing that would be easier if only there were any way to properly measure the passage of time in this sunless and featureless room...undoubtedly an intentional design.

Either way, though. It doesn't feel as long a time as some others at all, when the display does flicker at length. A different name, and the "Lives" counter...ticking down, yet again. Unsurprising, but dropping a cold stone somewhere in the pit of his chest all the same. ...Except.

The unhappy resignation turns to something--decidedly more unpleasant. To scan the walls, and find that:]

I don't see her. Not a new one. ...Why isn't there-- [What happened? Jade isn't speaking to anyone in particular, really, the words leaving him of their own volition. But surely he also wasn't the only one to notice...?] Is this not the second time? That a head hasn't appeared?

[The fact that it feels worse to realize this...]

[hellonspectacles]

[The moment a new name flickers onto the screen, Palamedes begins a similar search of the walls. If he can find her head—yes, her new head—then he will have some proof that she still exists, that what happened to her is just another death to be overcome, like all the others of hers represented on the walls, and not something altogether darker. And maybe, just maybe, he can even examine it, and it will reveal something that can get them out of this mess—

She isn’t there.

Palamedes looks at every single head on the wall, down to and including the two dozen faces of Staci Pratt. He does it again. And again.]

No. No, that can’t be right.

[He speaks quietly at first, but his voice slowly rises.]

That’s the rule. That is the pattern that has been established. Every defeat receives a death mask. They’re trophies, right? Why no trophy this time? Why have you broken your own fucking rules?

What have you done with her head, you motherfucker?

[myagic]

[It feels all too quick, between Clarke disappearing alone through the door and the sign calling for Sparkles' newest victim. Rita stares at the next name with a cold pit in her stomach, thinking this isn't going to work, they're all going to die-

But just when she's about ready to shuffle closer to Jade for reasons she's not going to think about, he and Palamedes--the two who have been some of the calmest so far--start to show the same cracks. And boy, do they show in Palamedes, as Rita actually starts in surprise at his shout. Probably the first time she's ever heard him raise his voice--maybe later, she'll think about the fact Clarke kissed him before leaving, but right now-]

Hey--he's not going to answer.

[Nevermind that she dislikes it as much as they do. It's the unknown, rather than the certainty that she's dead. Although...]

Maybe...she wasn't defeated.

[Honestly, she doesn't know if she believes it, exactly, but...it's a possibility. Maybe it's what Rita's hoping for, even pessimistic as she can be.]

[fonomena]

[The cracks sure are forming, yes, in their own individual ways. As with almost all things in his life, Jade's faltering is a quiet and restrained sort of start--a moment of weakness in which a sort of dread does register, before he can quite look away from it and shelve it as he ought to. But then Pal is drawing up as well, and--]

--Steady, Palamedes.

[Rita might be drawing up too, her own worry plain to see, but in this moment Jade's attention is promptly snapping to Pal--a step taken closer, as brief and genuine surprise at the shouted outburst swiftly gives way to a grim frown. ...In a way it's nearly as discomfiting as the lack of Clarke's head. With how very alike they tend to be...Jade forgets, at times, that Palamedes Sextus still has his emotions couched in something that isn't a perpetual bed of ice. Let alone how the reminder now takes this particular form, painful to observe even secondhand.

As he always has--as he will now--Jade takes his own worries and sets them to the side of thought. Then, he draws properly in front of Pal, the better to lock eyes with him steadily...and to divert the way the young man's glance keeps raking over the walls of heads, searching for something that they all already know won't be found.]

Steady. ...This is not the first upset in the pattern. Earlier on, there was a man named Yato, whose head has also not appeared. It seems we're witnessing the beginning of a second trend.

["She wasn't defeated," Rita offers uncertainly, and though Jade can't yet spare the moment to give her a glance in turn he's still following it with a slight and tense nod of his own. Based off what they've cobbled together thus far...]

If the heads on the walls indicate death...then it is most likely that she has not died yet. Is it not?

[Though a new name has been called. And the "lives" counter has still counted down by one. And dread still twists, beneath the calm that Jade is still trying to construct over the surface of his expression, because if Pal cannot hold it in this moment then someone must. Still...]

[hellonspectacles]

[Maybe she wasn’t defeated. On its own, Rita’s half-hearted hopefulness doesn’t cut through Palamedes’ panic. But then Jade is there, holding his gaze with those strange red eyes of his, and Pal forces himself to think.

Jade is right, of course—now, as he pictures the room, he realizes that Yato’s head never appeared among the disembodied visages that cover the walls. A break in a pattern is one thing; a repeated break in a pattern is just another sort of pattern.]

Clarke and the Captain have always had an…unusual relationship. She did crush in his skull, after all. [His sense of reasoning might be back, but Pal’s voice, creaky and a little over-fast, still betrays his distress.] Which, undoubtedly, Sparkles knows. Perhaps she was defeated, but not actually killed. That seems reasonable, yes?

[That has its own unsettling implications, but at least it’s something.]

[myagic]

[Jade steps up, the steadying and logical presence they're used to, almost as if the cracks were never there in the first place. Yet...for a moment, Rita scrutinizes him. She thinks she knows pretty well just how much Jade Curtiss worries about about them, no matter how much he tries to hide it. So she can't help but wonder just how much he's pushing himself to be the pillar keeping the rest of them steady--not that she doesn't appreciate it (she does, so much), but he makes it so hard to tell... She bites her lip as her attention can't help but shift back to the other person of their group, though.

It's hard to ignore how much more Palamedes is clearly straining, between the two of them. Even as he reasons it out in a rush, and they try to cling to the thin hope that Clarke isn't lost. Because, otherwise...it doesn't seem like Pal will handle it well. And--neither would she, really... Jade can't keep holding them up, either, can he? She needs to try, too.]

It's as good a guess as any... She could've just ended up stuck somewhere, or something... [Look...she's not very good at this optimism thing, okay? But it seems better than actually thinking about some kind of fate even worse than death.]