come_sailaway | [Open] Arrival + Event Catch-All

Entry tags:

[Open] Arrival + Event Catch-All

Who: Number 6 & OPEN
What: First few openers repeated from the TDM + New event prompts ALL TRUTH BECAUSE HE WILL HATE IT (All the TDM prompts except for the first one can be truth flavored, too)
Where: Locations stated in the prompt
When: The first one on the 11th, the rest throughout the month of July
Warnings: He's very upset and might be shouty

Over His dead body [7/11]
Waking up in an unfamiliar place is nothing new to him at this point. Not that it makes him any less boiling with rage over it. And that note only makes the steam rise higher over his head. So, they're doing cruises now? How novel. And using days of the week for names instead of numbers, too. What won't The Village try? He obstinately ignores the suggestion to bring his life vest with him. But the order to go to their mandatory drill is less easy to ignore. When did they gain the ability to paralyze him if he won't go where they say?

He can be found in the halls, not very far from the cabin he woke in (113), frozen in place with his hands balled into fists at his sides absolutely seething with rage. His entire body trembles with the force of it. He knows what he has to do to get unstuck. He'd experimented with taking a few steps forward and back. But will he go where he is directed? No. Never. He'd rather go red-faced in this hallway waiting for their unseen will to control him to run out than take one more step. Even if it takes hours.

Don't Look Down - Elevator prompt from the TDM
After, presumably, someone convinced him to finally just go do the god-forsaken drill, he thought the worst was over. How naive of him. He steps onto the glass elevator and reaches to hit the button. But nothing happens. He tries again. Still nothing. No movement. Turning to the person beside him, whom he has failed to acknowledge up until this point, he asks, "Does this happen often?"

There won't be time for a reply before the elevator quite suddenly lurches up one floor, and then drops. His stomach rises into his throat and he desperately puts his hands out to grip the side, fingers squeaking on the slippery glass, as they careen down, down, down!

Then stop.

He's thrown from his feet, landing hard on his side with a grunt. But rather than worry after himself, he's turning to catch sight of his unwitting partner on this fun-house ride, asking urgently, "Are you all right?"

Since When Did the Food Fight Back? - Mikabo prompt from the TDM
"What in blazes?" he exclaims as a knife goes soaring past him, followed quickly by a roll of sushi and the whole plate too.

He turns in shock to see the conveyor belt, seemingly with a mind of its own, winding up for another throw.

"Who is running this place?"

The truth will set you free?
Well, how was he supposed to know not to drink the water? Who would be stupid enough to poison the finite water supply on a cruise ship? After splashing some on his face in the morning to wash and shave himself, and then using it to brush his teeth like any decent hygienic person, he goes about his day none-the-wiser to the sudden change that's taken place.

His newly formed routine is to prowl the ship deck first thing in the morning (and last thing at night), scowling while he checks the waves and sky for any hint of a clue about where they could be. He checks the life boats, too, as if paranoid they might vanish without warning. It's unfortunate for him that it's been raining so much, only compounding the problematic effects of the water.

Once he's done his lap around the deck, he will work his way down level by level. He's memorizing the lay of thing, taking note of cabin numbers and all the many and varied amenities. It's almost staggering how many venues there are, and all of them host technology he'd never even dreamed of.

For instance, the arcade full of flashy computer games has him mesmerized. He stands in front of a cabinet, hand on the joystick while utterly transfixed. He doesn't make it past the opening stage of the game, but he keeps trying, getting visibly more upset each time the death screen animation plays. Until, finally, he shouts suddenly, "what's this all about?!"

He's keeping that angry-old-man-shouts-at-technology vibe with him through the rest of his explorations. Nothing on this ship makes any sense. The music is different. The decorations are all unfamiliar. If he believed in such things, he'd think he got abducted by aliens. Maybe he shouldn't rule it out.

To add insult to injury, his assigned dining time of "6:66 PM" feels like a particularly stinging slap in the face. Surely that was done on purpose to mock him. And so, when he sits down at his assigned seat, he is looking incredibly sour. He would shout at their servers, if he could see them. Instead, he has no recourse but to sit there, elbows on the table like a petulant child, seething quietly while the meal is served. And to quench that rage, he drinks more water, of course. Looks like mealtime chatter might be about to get a lot more interesting, or rage inducing. Probably that last one.

Good thing he doesn't have a roommate.
Speaking of rage, Number 6 is in one now. An hour after a conversation with someone, he somehow sobers-up and realizes that what he actually said doesn't match what he thought he said. AT ALL. And he is livid.

A chair goes flying into the hallway, crashing against the wall opposite Room 113. A glass goes soaring out after, smashing in rainfall of shattered shards.

If anyone is brave enough to stick their head through the open door after all that, they will find him in the process of attempting to upend his bunk. And there will be pieces of his furniture and personal effect thrown all around the room. It looks like a hurricane came through.

If he catches sight of any onlookers he will shout, "What do you want!" His piercing blue eyes narrowed down to slits as he locks his gaze on them. Taking one step more might feel like stepping on your own grave. Enter at your own risk.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Pratt's assigned time is 6:24, but he's also found that they'll bring him food literally whenever he shows up. Which is whenever he wants something other than buffet food. He's pretty much always eating, not that anyone would know looking at him, emaciated like he's been starved for months.

Because he has been.

He arches an eyebrow, "Not a fan of free food?"

His voice is gruff and raspy, like his throat is damaged, and he's wearing an oversized beige army jacket that clearly isn't his, over some tropical Tommy Bahama button up shirts.

"It's pretty good, even though I dunno where it's coming from."

"Not exactly," Number 6 says, raising a skeptical brow right back at the man who's seated with him. The emaciated state of the man is alarming enough that Number 6 holds back a more harsh reply. Well. He thinks he did, but the truth-effect in the water makes sure he says exactly what is on his mind.

"I have an inherent distrust for anything that claims to be free, especially when, as you say, I can't see where it's coming from or who is cooking it."

"It's not human meat and that's all I care about." Though considering he's not eating anything that remotely looks like meat he's apparently taking no chances.

"If it helps I've been here a month and haven't been poisoned by it yet. And I eat a shit ton so I'd be the first to go."

He'll be the canary in the coal mine for the ships cuisine. He's already accepted that as his purpose.

"Just arrived?"

Skepticism turns to horror at the thought of human meat being a possibility. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, a few fractions away from the man beside him. It only adds to his rising suspicion when he notes there doesn't seem to be meat on the other man's plate. Number 6 doesn't want to consider how these puzzle pieces fit together.

"I suppose that is good to know since, realistically, there's little choice in the matter." He has to eat. They all do, presumably. But, thanks to that comment, he's now eyeing his steak with much trepidation.

"Yes. Just in the last few days. I'm Peter Smith."

"We all gotta eat." An unfortunate fact of life, especially since he's always fucking hungry.

"Deputy Pratt. I've only been here about a month myself, maybe closer to two now." He hasn't been keeping track because he doesn't want to scratch hash marks into his wall and look even crazier. "The uh.. ghosts take some getting used to. These ones in the dining don't usually throw shit though so that's cool."

Deputy? That comes as a surprise. He's not sure he's ever seen an officer of the law in such a state. He barely fills out that jacket.

"I hadn't taken you for law-enforcement. Where do you serve, Deputy?"

He doesn't want to comment on the ghosts or admit the run-in he had with them at the sushi restaurant, so he simply grunts in agreement with that last part. Fine, he can admit this is better than having dishes thrown at him.

He gets a brief glare because Pratt knows what this guy means immediately. Even being right doesn't make it feel any better to know he looks like a complete mess.

"Hope County, Montana." A pause before he takes a drink, usually people don't take the next part well but it is some way of explanation. "Retired now, because I died."

Who knew retiring at age twenty-six would suck so much?

"And then I ended up here."

Number 6 is unfazed by the glare. He can admit he probably earned that look.

"Ah, America," he starts to say, before the rest of what Pratt said sinks all the way in. "Wait a minute? Died? How could you possibly know you died?"

He's had enough people insist to him that death isn't a permanent state here that, for one minute, he will consider entertaining the idea as fact. But it still makes no bloody sense. What a hellish afterlife to wind up in if so.

"Yeah." Which is a relief that he doesn't have to explain where he's from in more detail. Or explain what trees are like he has before.

"Uh... because I was there when it happened?" He's not really sure how to answer that. How do you know you're dead? He just does. "We were trying to outrun a nuclear blast in a Jeep, which didn't fucking work because of course it didn't. And the shockwave started knocking shit down. A tree fell on the Jeep. And if I didn't die from the tree crushing me, I was unconscious and would have died from the forest being on fire, or nuclear radiation, or the Jeep exploding. But I know it was the tree cuz I've got a buddy here who's from twenty years later than me. I didn't make it."

"Nuclear?" Sir, you now have his full attention. "Who bombed the United States?" That's a nightmare scenario he can barely stand to consider. Coming from the Cold War era, one could say the prospect of that very thing happening was a very real weight on everyone's shoulders no matter what developed nation they were in. Now he wants to talk to this other friend too. What is the aftermath like twenty years later?

He no longer questions how Pratt could know his death was certain. He might be fortunate the tree finished him before the blast did. Belatedly, he realizes he should perhaps show a little sympathy. "I'm sorry. That must be a difficult thing to live with here."

Pratt shakes his head, "I dunno. Where I live is really remote and we got cut off from a lot of communications a few months before I died. So we could have been full on invaded by North Korea and I wouldn't have known."

Which is kind of a scary thought. At the time he hadn't even considered what was going on in the rest of the world or even the state because of the shit going down right there.

"We had our own shit going on. A bunch of doomsday preppers and this... cult. All started killing each other. The US Marshall who came out to just do a prelim arrest got killed. There was so much going on and we couldn't get any outside help. But maybe they were dealing with that... like... can't imagine they would nuke Montana first. And not some major city."

"A few months? And you were tasked with handling something like that without any support?" He sounds genuinely appalled. This, coming from a one-man-army type who usually charges into danger head-first and alone.

"I'm truly sorry you and your colleagues were put in such a predicament. I have what you could call limited experience with enforcement and I cannot imagine being able to successfully manage a situation like the one you describe." Whether that at all lessens the sting of having died, who can say, but Number 6 isn't about to accuse Pratt of cowardice nor dereliction of his duty based on what he's heard.

"Yeah, it took forever to get the US Marshall involved and even then he spent the whole time not listening to us about how serious shit was. Thought we were like.. backwoods idiots who couldn't handle it." He snorts, looking down at his now empty plate. "He found out real fast we weren't lying."

And then a glance back up at Number 6, he's not big on eye contact, mostly looking down, but that sounded like some legit sympathy and he's not used to that. Trying to see if that was some sort of insult but delivered real dryly. It does seem genuine though, "Thanks. I.. want to blame us somehow. But I spent a long time thinking about what we could have done differently and it all comes back to us not knowing how bad it would get. We couldn't have known. The only way to stop it would have been to kill someone in cold blood before he did anything serious. Because after that it was too late, everything was set in motion."

"I understand your frustration completely." Hadn't he, only just recently, tried to convince the men he used to serve with of the existence of The Village seemingly to no avail? True, his story was a more far-fetched one but, still, one hopes the word of a fellow comrade would mean something more?

"How could you have known? And to make a decision like that, to kill when you had no justification for it, that would have been beyond the pale. Knowing what you know now doesn't change that fact. Could you have lived with such an action?"

"Knowing what I know now, yeah. But then? No. I would have been the monster first." He sighs, there's really no sense in dwelling on what could have been, or what they should have done. After all it's far too late to change anything. But he can't help it, that's just human nature.

"Weird being here now, have way too much time to think about stuff like that." He huffs, going back to his food, because he doesn't want to be a depression black hole the way Tammy said he was back home. "What about you? Where're you from?"

"Mmhm," Number 6 agrees with that sentiment of having too much time to think of past regrets. "It's enough to drive a man to vices." Was that possibly a dig at the Pratt's quite obvious preoccupation with food? Perhaps mildly, but it could just as easily be a dig at his own growing desire to have a gin in his hand at all times.

"London, in what I suspect might be the past to you. It was 1967 when I left."

"Oh. yeah. I'm from 2018. Though I guess that's not that long ago compared to some people I've met who are from like the 1700's. At least you know what electricity is."

And what a helicopter is, which has been rough for this helicopter pilot to explain.

"Ever been on a cruise before? Because uh.. I haven't and this is all fucking weird to me even without the ghosts."

"Yes. There is that." It doesn't keep him from feeling utterly lost at the leaps of technology he's witnessed here. Computers used to take up entire rooms, now they are the size of a pocket calculator.

But Pratt might be encourage to discover some day that Number 6 is also accomplished at piloting, jets, planes, and helicopters all.

"I have, though never for pleasure. Only for work. The accommodations, I must say, seem to have fallen in more modern times. For how large this ship is, the cabins themselves seem rather small, especially for two occupants."

"Right? Also there's more than enough rooms for us to have our own, but they keep putting people together. I feel super bad, me and my roommate are constantly in each other's way. And probably wouldn't be as bad if there were two beds instead of a bed an a couch." Which had been a source of contention between the two of them since he wanted to give her the bed and she insisted he had been there first and his manly chivalry is offended every night that she sleeps on the couchbed.

"Probably just to make it so we don't all hole up in our rooms forever. There's someone there to get away from."

"I did wonder if all the rooms were like that. Foolishly, I hoped a second bed might appear when a new roommate does." Well. He's certainly going to call dibs on the bed if and when he gets stuck with another person.

"You might be right. I can't imagine staying in such a cramped space with another person for so long. Who is your roommate, if I may ask?"

Enjoy the solitude while it lasts. "I kinda did too. Or that the room would get bigger? Which sounds stupid, but it wouldn't surprise me."

Who knows what would happen here honestly. He can't predict.

"Oh uh, Caitlyn. Another police officer. I guess it puts similar people together or something."

"It sounds considerably less foolish when the rest of the strange things that occur onboard here are taken into account." Which is to say, he had hoped for the same thing.

"I don't think I've had the chance to meet her yet. I suppose I can see some benefit to putting similar people together but... I'm surprised to hear the living situations are coed. That hardly seems tolerable."

He rolls his eyes, you guys are such prudes. "She wasn't stoked about it either because she thought people would gossip or something? And literally no one has noticed."

Well no one but this guy anyway.

"The thing that sucks is I was there first so she won't take the bed and sleeps on the pullout couch? And like.. she can have the bed. Makes me feel like a dick."

"I worry less about the gossip and more about keeping decency intact." If he ends up with a woman sharing his room, he's going to have to find himself a changing screen to hide behind.

"Mm. I see your dilemma. I couldn't, in good conscience, keep the bed for myself in that situation either. She must be a stubborn one."

"Keeping...decency." It's taking a while for him to figure out what that means, especially since his partner on the police force back home is a woman and she had no qualms about changing in front of him in the locker room.

"Yeah she was insistent, and I didn't want to like... actually fight her. That seemed somehow more fucked up. If she really wants the couch-bed she can stay there. But I sleep weird hours anyway so we could actually share the one bed and never see each other. The ghosts change the sheets so.." He shrugs. He's certain she wouldn't agree to that, but it's an option.

Dining Room

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