xistentiaooc | Test Drive Meme #4 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)

Test Drive Meme #4

Fall toward me with your entire body.

CRASH LANDING

Exit one dimension, enter the next. It was chaos: pressure against your ears, light bending in an impossible, unimaginable way. The very molecules of your body vibrating against one another. If you have windows, the view outside makes no sense. Even if not, your hands, your face, your feet seem like an uncertain thing. It's the feel of reality itself tearing apart, reshaping, reconnecting, thread by thread.

And suddenly, there's a beach— or ocean, whichever you land in. Smoke. Fire. Salt water churning up, fizzing around.

Maybe you crash, in a ship wrecking into sand. Maybe you merely stumble out of a portal, a ragged wormhole in space. Or maybe you fall off the back of an incredible steed, some creature that carried you into this place. Either way, there's pandemonium around you. Incredibly, severe injuries are far and few between— nobody's screaming about the dead. But you might have to help pull someone free of wreckage, or move quickly to salvage burning belongings from the landing craft. Maybe it's the crafts themselves, that you're trying to salvage.

Likely, you don't know them, these other strangers who arrived here^[1]. Maybe you don't trust them— you just came out of a dying world, after all. But you all have one thing in common: you're here now.

When you get a second to breathe, maybe you'll see it. The brilliant green forest across the sand. Beyond that, the glint of a faraway city.

FAIRGROUNDS

Xistentia's late summer fair is on! As F.A.T.E.S. learns about different universes and different people, the event looks mismatched, beyond complicated, and you might wonder why, exactly, how to get ride tickets when no money is exchanged. But as you wander through, you can see a rollercoaster, a five-a-side soccer pitch set up for a tournament, facepainting, an archery range, a haunted house, a circus tent, a Ferris wheel, plenty of different food stands with eclectic choices all over, from kebabs to Taiwan's infamous penis-shaped waffles^[NSFW] to popsicles for two. Maybe this is only a front to get people involved with each other?

Everybody is welcome to man a booth, or just walk around and participate in the different activities set up around the fairgrounds.

NETWORK

One afternoon, you are taken from whatever you’re doing - taking a walk through the city, sunning yourself on the beach, running around in the forest shoring up defenses - by a message, appearing on your Daemon’s network screen. It’s a simple line of text, that reads:

NEVER HAVE I EVER...?

If you choose to answer it, you’ll be connected to another player at random. You both get 10 points. The loser? Owes the winner a favor.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE

hells yeah

Footnotes

Some of these can be nameless, plot-device NPCs to facilitate interactions! But even in this case, please avoid gore in describing their current state of being. Anyone dead or catastrophically injured will have disappeared by the time your characters make it to Xistentia. There are no corpses or dying here.
But like OOCly ask permission ofc.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

crash landing

[ The Planet never seems to be quiet anymore, but Cloud is adept at blocking out the noise. Maybe it's a little more difficult now, after everything he's gone through; the Planet is closer to him than most. But Cloud's stubborn, and drives like the hounds of hell are at his heels. It helps that the wind rushing past his ears is loud enough to drown out everything but the demons in his head. When the road gives way to a cliff - a cliff that hadn't been there just moments ago - Cloud just guns the engine to his motorcycle and prepares for a jump.

It's not the jump he's expecting; he sees the Planet beneath him and then it disappears, swallowed whole. The blackness reminds him of the Geostigma, except where the virus creeps up slowly, this darkness consumes everything in mere moments. It consumes him too, swallowing him up.

Is this the end? he wonders, but only briefly. The pain is intense, similar to falling into the Lifestream, but also more; an amalgamation of everything he experienced in the labs, the fights, falling into the Lifestream and rediscovering his memories.

Cloud stumbles when he lands, falling to his hands and knees on a sandy beach. His motorcycle is gone; it's the first thought that occurs to him. But that's overridden quickly, as he realizes he doesn't know this beach, and there's a cry off somewhere to his left. Instinctively, he scrambles to his feet, hand reaching for his sword - a sword that's no longer present. ]

Fuck.

[ It's muttered softly, surely unheard in the ruckus. ]

Think about that later, Strife.

[ Again, spoken softly, and he's moving off to find the source of that cry. ]

fairgrounds

This can't be worse than the Mansion. [ Cloud stands in front of the Haunted House, staring at the sign, and the cheerful attendant trying to usher him inside. At his feet is a small golden Chocobo, looking up at him with large blue eyes. The creature ruffles its feathers, letting out an indignant 'Kweh' while Cloud hesitates. ]

Don't give me that. I know you can talk.

[ It has been oddly quiet since it first found Cloud, resorting to communicating in chirps, but Cloud heard it speak once. Which is oddly soothing - Cloud still doesn't care to talk much. He is now though, to put off going inside. The tiny Chocobo seems to realize that, nudge it's head against Cloud's leg and pushing.

Even a baby Chocobo can be pushy when it wants to be. With a sigh, Cloud picks up his daemon and marches inside. ]

Fine. Blame yourself if you get frightened.

[ The chick doesn't seem to care either way, but Cloud certainly seems thrilled when they emerge, walking away with quick steps. ]

Not doing that again.

[ Instead, he gets to spend the rest of the day escorting his daemon, inquisitive and pushy, around the rest of the fair. ]

never have i ever

video // un: fenrird

Never have I ever....?

[ Cloud repeats the statement that appeared on the interface, staring at his daemon. A momentary look of frustration crosses his features and he goes to shut it down. The Chocobo snaps at his fingers. ] Tch. Fine. I've never been drunk.

wildcard

( ooc: go wild. i'm good with anything. PM/PP

fables if you'd like to discuss things. )

[ Aymeric would know a Chocobo anywhere. It actually startles him a little to see something so familiar in a world so otherwise not. Cloud doesn't look like anyone from back home but there's every possibility he still might be. It's for that reason the near seven foot Elezen man comes carefully over, smiling slightly at the pushy fowl.

His Chocobo is unlike Peki but instead appears to be one akin to the heavy hatchlings to be won at the Golden Saucer if you've got the coin. ]

It seems your companion is a bit demanding. [ There's no shortage of amusement in his tone. ] May I-?

[ he asks, extending a hand to pet the feathered beast. ]

Test Drive Meme #4 (cw vehicular crash, moderate injury)

cloud strife | ffvii: advent children | ota

fairgrounds!