Welcome To The Village

[number_2]

Who: Everyone who was signed-up for the excursion
What: The Village December Excursion
When: Dec 1st - Dec 23rd
Where: The Village
Warnings: Involuntary capture and confinement including immobilization and restraints, violence, injury, maiming, possibility of death, torture, coercion, gaslighting, mind control, drugging, scientific experiments, and extremely inaccurate depictions of mental health facilities/hospitals, among other potentially triggering themes. Please mark all threads appropriately.




"Good morning, good morning, good morning!" A voice that sounds very similar to Friday's chirps over a loudspeaker outside your character's home. Yes, their home.

Overnight, all the passengers who signed up for this excursion have been transported to their very own personal cottages. They will awake in a bed that is familiar to them. While this home of theirs does not necessarily have to resemble the place they were born or raised, it will be a perfect replica of a place they truly thought of as their home, down to the most minute details.

The cottages are self-contained, the size of a large studio apartment so, in some cases, they may only resemble the bedroom and living room of a person's home with a shrunken-down kitchenette and bathroom adjoined. But the heirlooms of their past are here. A favorite doll? A treasured family portrait? Trinkets you have long forgotten about? All of them will be here, somehow. (All except for weapons, that is.) They are indistinguishable from the real item, down to the molecule.

After that wake-up call, the voice continues on to express that the weather will be warm and sunny, with no rain forecasted. A brass band concert is announced, to start at noon on the lawn next to the living chess set. And once that bit of news is wrapped up, lively marching band music will begin to play. And it will continue to play. All day. From every speaker...including the ones hidden in their home.

Welcome to Your Village

It only gets stranger from here. Characters may be dismayed to find that they are without any of their original clothes or belongings. They awake in conservative button-up pajamas. The closet in their home is full of the latest Village Fashion to choose from. Everything is The Village label brand, including the tin cans of food that stock the kitchen and any of the groceries you could get at the General Store.

Your ship phone rings. When you answer it, you will be greeted, once again, by the voice of Friday. "Your number, please? Of course, you have a number. Look at your badge." If they look down at their chest, they will discover a small round number badge has been pinned to their pajamas. Was that there before? It bears the symbol of a Penny-farthing Bicycle, with a number in the spokes. This is their number.

"No names here," the voice of Friday chides, "Only numbers. Number 2 would like a word with you at the Green Dome. He requests you come for breakfast. Thank you!" Before they can protest further, the line goes dead.


Some Notes:

No matter how many times your character tries to take off and disregard their number badge, they will always find it re-attached to their clothes again the moment they look away and look back.

Your characters still have their phones but now they can only make calls instead of sending texts. They also do not take or store photographs anymore.

If your character destroys or damages anything in their home, or in The Village it will instantly repair the way things used to on the Serena Eterna.

The noise from the speakers can be muffled by covering it with pillows or other creative items, but cannot be stopped entirely. (Sorry Phil)

Comments

[number_2]

The exam room is small and sterile. Overhead is a large spotlight, currently turned off, that seems like it would be used to give more light during delicate procedures. There is a very large button on it that can only be the on/off switch. Beside her is a stainless steel rolling table with a few tools laid out, covered by a cloth so she can't see what they are, exactly.

Glancing down, she may notice there are straps attached to the gurney. One assumes they are intended to hold down the more unruly patients. It's a good thing she came so easily. There's a murmur of voices in the hall, fast approaching. Then the nurse comes back in joined by, presumably, the doctor.

The doctor wears a badge that denotes him as Number 90. "The nurse tells me you were injured fighting a fellow Villager? What on earth were you thinking? You've made a right mess of your arm, haven't you? I'm afraid you'll have to say overnight. Let's see about stitching that wound up, shall we?"

He flicks the cloth over on the table and reveals suture tools, and a large syringe all already filled with some type of drug. He picks that up and moves toward her. "We'll have to put you under so you don't move."

[not_the_last]

Like Percy's vial of so-called truth potion, she knows that no matter what the danger might be in taking it, there's worse danger in being seen to resist taking it.

"Of course," she whispers. "Thank you. Will I ... please, will I be able to use my arm again?"

And she looks up, eyes wide and teary, with all the genuine fear she's feeling -- and none of the cold calculation that's there as well.

[number_2]

The doctor's eyes soften with sympathy as he swabs the crook of her arm with alcohol before injecting her. "Not to worry. By tomorrow morning, you'll be healed completely. There won't be any lingering pain. Lie back now, you'll be feeling very tired soon." More than just tired, but she doesn't need to know that.

[not_the_last]

"Thank you, doctor." Still that feeble whisper, as she lies back. For a moment she stares up at the ceiling, but then closes her eyes, trying hard not to brace herself too obviously against the expected sting of the needle.

It feels like some tiny creature biting her, and then very briefly it feels like she's floating, and then it doesn't feel like anything at all.

[number_2]

She will continue to feel nothing until six A.M. the very next morning when she will wake to find her arm healed completely. She's in a hospital bed, the farthest one in this wing tucked under white cotton sheets with a ray of early morning sunshine falling across her lap from the single window in the room.

Beside her in a chair is Number 2. He's sitting with his umbrella between his legs, leaning on the handle while one foot taps on the floor. As soon as he sees her move he says, "Ah, Number 12. Good morning. How are we feeling, hm?"

[not_the_last]

Her eyes fix on him for a moment, widen, then flick around the room swiftly.

It's as clear as though she'd asked it out loud: is anyone else here?

[number_2]

He wouldn't need to be half as good at reading body language as he is to still understand that look in her eyes.

"It's quite safe, Number 12. Just the two of us. We can speak freely."

[not_the_last]

She heaves a sigh of relief, with the smallest touch of satisfied impatience in it, and sits up briskly. "It took you long enough. Thank you for seeing me, Number 2, I've got something you should know."

[number_2]

"Took me long enough?" How dare she speak to him that way? "What is it? If it was so important why didn't you call at the Green Dome?"

[not_the_last]

"Because the rest of the passengers from my voyage are quite firmly convinced that there's no possible way I would ever collaborate with our captors," and there's the faintest spin of bitter amusement on the phrase, "and I've been very careful to keep up that appearance. How would it look if I called on you for tea? I've been rude to you in public and disparaging of you in your absence," tipping her head toward the window, "anytime I had an audience of any size out there. Honestly I expected to be brought in for discipline long before this. But I managed to pick a fight with one of your enforcers, and get myself brought in all against my will to all appearances, so no harm done."

She flexes her formerly injured arm, frowning down at it briefly, and nods.

[number_2]

He sits back in his chair and scrutinizes her silently with one eyebrow slightly lifted. Then he burst out into loud laughter.

"I underestimated you, Number 12. I knew you were ruthless, but this is tippy-top. Well played. Well played."

He wipes at his eyes, the laughter having brought actual tears to them. "So, you want to collaborate? Why should I believe that?"

[not_the_last]

She waits out his laughter patiently, not quite smiling.

"Cooperate," she says, "is the word I would use, I think. Why, does it seem such an unattractive prospect? I should think you've made it clear enough what we stand to gain by it."

[number_2]

"I have made it clear," he says sternly. "And it seemed not enough for you. Oh, yes, that's right. You were pretending, weren't you?" He pauses to look her in the face, his expression as stern as the edge in his voice.

"Good at that, aren't you? But not good enough. You aren't fooling me, Number 12." He stands and tosses the end of his scarf back over his shoulder. "You forget, this is my Village and there is nothing I don't know about what goes on here."

[not_the_last]

She goes very still, and all expression drains from her face. As does a good deal of color.

(If he thinks you're double-crossing him, Steve said --)

Long years have taught her to recognize the point at which there is nothing she can say to save herself.

She says nothing.

[number_2]

He smirks. "I thought so."

He stands and motions to the nurse. "She's ready to go back to her cottage now. If you'll just see her out."

He turns his cold gaze back on her, "Be seeing you, Number 12."

1/2

[not_the_last]

He's --

He's letting her go.

That can't be right.

"Be seeing you," she manages to say, feeling cold and vanishingly small, "Number 2."

And she stands, and forces herself to turn her back on him and go with the nurse, feeling his eyes on her long after the door closes behind them.

The nurse takes her to a changing room first, where she is not left alone while she silently slips out of the loose patient tunic and into a fresh change of clothing in her size -- her handmade cloak and skirt nowhere to be seen, which is as drearily unsurprising as the lack of privacy. Then to the front door, where she's increasingly unable to believe that she'll actually be allowed to walk out. Some last-minute catch, some just one more thing, Number 12 --

But nothing comes, until the door is standing open before her and the nurse is bidding her a stiff, disapproving Be seeing you.

She says it back, again, and slips out the door, and lets it close behind her.

2/2 [25 stealth]

[not_the_last]

Except it doesn't quite close, not until a beat or two after the nurse's back is turned. And when it closes behind her, she's back inside and hurrying for cover.

She doesn't know the ins and outs of this place, but she knows what kind of thing to look for: back stairways, closets, wall accesses. If there are eyes everywhere, very well; she's evaded eyes before.

And she won't be leaving the hospital without at least finding some trace of the people who have gone in and haven't come out.