TDM - OCTOBER 2020

[robbies]

TEST DRIVE MEME - OCTOBER 2020

Everyone's entitled to one good scare.
CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

---

“Help me. Please, help me…”

A child’s voice, calling out for aid. There’s no rhyme or reason for when it comes to you. It’s so quiet, a whisper in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind. Were it not for the sharp, stabbing pain it pulls out of you, you could ignore it. You could even pretend it’s just your imagination.

It all happens so quickly and powerfully. Left in the dust, your brain struggles to process it all. Blacking out is the least it can do, but it’s also all it can do, and it does so before you even have a chance to fully register just how young the voice is, and how deeply, heartbreakingly lost it sounds.

When you finally awaken with your bare feet tangled in soft sheets, a layer of fuzzy fleece or slinky silk clinging to your body like another layer of skin, the sunlight pouring in from the window next to your bed momentarily blinding you, and the cries of happy children playing baseball outside of it carrying faintly, it all becomes very clear—

Something is horribly wrong.

---

OCTOBER 1st.

It becomes very clear very quickly that this isn’t a simple kidnapping. If you’re twenty years old or older, the bedroom you wake up in is very clearly a couple’s bedroom — with separate beds like a modest, modern couple of course! A similarly lost and confused stranger is in the other. They are your counterpart, for everything in this room has a matching counterpart — the nightstand and lamp each of you have beside your beds, the framed pictures on the wall, even your pajamas. If you’re under twenty years old, your room is smaller but more personalized, filled with comic books, model kits, stray baseball cards littered around the floor. Dolls, fashion magazines of people dressed from a bygone era, stacks of vinyl records neatly arranged next to a record player. And then there are the pictures. They’re everywhere in the house — in a frame on your nightstand, hung on the walls, stuck in the photo albums and scrapbooks lying on your desk or tucked away in drawers. Here you are on your wedding day, exchanging vows with your partner. Here’s you sitting in a fishing boat with one of the younger members of your house. Here’s a picture of you at ten years old getting ready for the first day of school. All of the photographs are aged, sepia, even yellowed and dusty in frames hung for a long, long time. By the time you make it down to the living room, you’ll notice that the television is on; someone must have forgotten to turn it off before they went to bed. On it, a cartoon pack of cigarettes and accompanying cigarette dancers prance around a black and white pumpkin patch, joined by dancing skeletons, ghosts and witches as a cheerful little earworm blares: ”Thirty days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween, thirty days til Halloween—“

---

GETTING TO KNOW THE NEIGHBORS.

As you get acclimated, you gradually begin to learn more about this strange new world you’ve found yourself in. You’re in a neighborhood on the east side of a town called Santa Rosita located… somewhere in California (wherever or whatever that might be). The year is 1961. If it wasn’t clear enough, your neighbors are more than willing to humor you if you ask. Even if you accost them with questions and demands. Sure, you and your family are a little kooky, and you have a very overactive imagination, but the key to any good joke is playing along! And how could something like “I’m from the future, from another world” be anything but a joke? A. AUNT MYRNA'S PARTY CHEESE SALAD. Over the course of the week, your neighbors will come by unannounced, each with a new homecooked meal to welcome you to their cozy little side of town. Meatloaf, potato salad, lamb chops. Gelatin molds — lots of gelatin molds. Someone even comes by to drop off a gelatinous yellow lump of pineapple, green peppers, celery and yellow cheese swimming in a soupy mixture of sour and whipped cream. “It’s my aunt Myrna’s recipe!” they gush once they drop the casserole tin into your hands, proceeding to rattle off every ingredient. Well, at least you won’t be starving anytime soon. When you bring it back in to your kitchen - and its cheery wallpaper and its floral patterned Pyrex dishware, you and your new...family(?) all stare at the cheese salad, the gelatin, the curiously frosted meatloaf spread. A smorgasbord courtesy of the insistent generosity! Who will take the first bite?

B. DON'T BE A SQUARE!

You can only avoid the cheer and the neighbors for so long, even as you sit inside enjoying all the amenities of your new home. The television can only turn its volume up to five, after all! One bright and sunny Saturday, the weather crisp and clear, news broadcasts and reruns of The Ed Sullivan Show are drowned out by the music in the neighborhood. Eventually it’s too much to bear — you simply must put on your shoes and go discover the source of that infernal racket.

Why, it’s the block party! Haven’t you seen the invitation — with instructions — sitting in your mailbox, silly? Wear a badge so everyone on the block can know you’re new and welcome you to their extended family!

Well! Each neighbor was supposed to set up a table with snacks and drinks and entertainment on their front lawn. Carter Mayhew, one of your Robbie neighbors, has a whole ring toss obstacle course set up for boys to play with, and his wife is cheerfully and blandly instructing a group of girls on jump rope rhymes. Colorful streamers hang from every lamppost and mailbox, balloons and party favors galore. Like you, there are even a few newcomers to Santa Rosita that are caught just as unaware of this event — though others are being welcomed in by husbands and wives and children, caught in conversations about building decks and the upcoming Halloween festivities.

Before you can decide if returning home or joining the party is your choice, a plate with chips and dips and yes, more gelatin is shoved into your hands and a party hat snapped on to your head.

“The guest of honor has arrived! Come and meet your neighbors, neighbor!”

---

THROUGHOUT OCTOBER.

Life falls into a peaceful haze for the next several days. Dull, unassuming, tranquil. As the month drags on, the spirit of Halloween begins to manifest in Santa Rosita, from the pumpkins people start putting out on their doorsteps to the smiling faces of paper skeletons pressed against their windows. And then, towards the end of the month, something terrible happens. You hear it first through word of mouth, rippling through Santa Rosita like a wave, dark murmurs accompanied by sad sighs and downturned eyes. Soon, you start to read about it. Grim business, they say. A tragedy. How could something like this happen. People stop talking about it by the end of the week. Best just to forget about it. Every day, that cigarette commercial comes on. It’s impossible to escape it. And every day, the number of days in the song changes, counting down. ”Thirteen days till Halloween—” “Eight more days til Halloween—” “Three more days til Halloween, Halloween, Halloween…”

---

HALLOWEEN.

CW: Violence, death, mouth trauma, vomiting, needles, razors

October 31st. It sneaks up on you whether you like it or not. When dawn breaks on Halloween day, things are as serene as they’ve ever been as men do yard work, raking leaves as their wives bake fresh pie and cookies in the house, the spicy scent of cinnamon, apple and pumpkin wafting through the neighborhood on chilly October wind. There’s a smile on every child’s face as they skip off the school bus in the afternoon, running into their houses to get their costumes ready. As it begins to get dark, the residents of Santa Rosita start lighting their jack-o-lanterns. One by one, little balls of light flicker to life on every porch and doorstep, jagged smiles grinning in the dark. For the entire night, nobody blows the candle inside their pumpkins out. It’s a tradition, a very old one, and traditions are just another way of saying rules. And Halloween in Santa Rosita, as it turns out, lives and dies by the rules.

A. ALWAYS CHECK YOUR CANDY.

Halloween isn’t just for the kids, although they certainly make up the bulk of who you’ll see out and about on the streets. Walking through Santa Rosita, your neighbors are as generous with handing out treats as they are with handing out gelatin molds and pot roasts, and they don’t discriminate. Adults are received just as warmly as children; the worst one can expect is a quirked eyebrow if they show up to a house without a costume.

Apples, packs of gum, homemade cookies. Chocolate bars, nickels, popcorn balls. Your neighbors hand out all sorts of treats, most of them homemade. The Robbies are no exception, and it’s their treats that seem a bit more high quality than most, some of the candy they hand out being obviously expensive, brand names. The good stuff. They drop each treat into your bag with those same pleasant, mild expressions and too-tight smiles you’ve grown used to in your short time here.

Eventually, as everyone winds up doing at some point in the night, you decide to start digging into your treat bag to sample some of your well-earned goods — maybe in the comfort of your home, maybe outside on the streets. And that’s when the fun begins.

Maybe you bite into metal, the razor sharp end of a blade embedded into the apple or candy bar you’ve picked out burying itself in your gums, or splitting your tongue. Maybe it’s a needle, impaling itself straight through the roof of your mouth or a cheek. Or maybe it’s nothing that obvious. Maybe the realization that something is wrong comes moments after you’ve devoured that chocolate bar or cookie, the bitter aftertaste of rat poison hitting the back of your throat along with bile and the rest of the contents of your stomach as they rise up and out of your mouth.

Or maybe you’ll bite into plain, sweet chocolate or fresh fruit. That’s also part of the surprise. You really don’t know what you’ll get until you start eating.

B. ALWAYS RESPECT THE DEAD.

At ten o’clock, all the television sets in the neighborhood turn on, blaring to life right in the middle of that omnipresent cigarette commercial. The volume begins to rise of its own accord as your television starts to pick up interference, bursts of static squealing amidst the rising, screaming chorus of ”HAPPY HAPPY HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN!”

Breaking through the static, garbled and tinny, a child’s voice cries out.

“Can’t— I can’t hold them— back— Pumpkin— don’t blow the— out—”

And just as quickly as it cut in, the voice cuts back out. Commercial jingle notwithstanding, you’re alone once more. But not for long.

The doorbell rings. You can see them outside from your window: costumed children. Their masks and clothes are grimy and ragged from the muddy, slimy water they’ve been decomposing in for over a week. When they come to your door, squelching wetly as they shamble up the porch steps, they ring the bell or knock, as all polite children do. If you don’t let them in, they’ll find their own way, always by force. And once they find you, all they can gurgle in their reedy, waterlogged voices is, ”Trick or treat.”

From there, they attack.

With superhuman strength and speed, they tear and rip at anything they can get their hands on — clothing, skin, muscle, face, eyes. Being short and small, despite their strength, they're at a distinct disadvantage. They can even be thrown off, with some effort. But they don’t stay down for long, and attempting to hurt or mortally wound them only stalls them for a few moments, if that. How can you kill something that’s already dead?

Some in the neighborhood are willing to try and find out.

The only houses they seem to ignore completely are the ones with lit jack-o-lanterns still outside. They’ll loiter outside these houses, staring straight ahead at your door or window like they can see exactly where you are. But sooner or later, they’ll pass by and move onto the next house.

As long as the candles in carved pumpkins stay lit.

---

OOC INFO

Hello, and welcome to We're Still Here's first TDM! Here's a few things we'd like you to keep in mind:

The TDM is canon. You can treat this as the game's first real event and pick and choose what threads you would like your character to remember when they enter the game. For characters who app into the game, the events of the TDM will be treated like a dream. Upon awakening from it, characters will find that time has jumped ahead to December 1st. You may also feel free to use similar reality and/or time distortions to explain why the family members your characters have in the TDM aren't the same as the ones they may be assigned to in the game proper.

If you would like to have Halloween content in your relaxed housing prompts, please feel free! You are not beholden to follow our prompts exactly so long as the spirit is maintained.

There is no Network prompt listed, but feel free to wildcard one for your characters anyway.

Although the TDM is canon in the sense that characters are free to remember its events when they app into the game, it does not count as an official plot heavy event, meaning that characters will not receive regains from participating in it.

With regards to the dead trick-or-treaters: you may NPC them however you'd like, but keep the details we've listed in their prompt in mind. They are supernaturally fast and strong, will ignore houses as long as they have a lit pumpkin on the porch outside, and will try to enter each house the moment the candle in the pumpkin goes out. Additionally, they can't be killed, but they can be momentarily stalled by injuring them. By November 1st, 6AM, they will disappear the moment the sun comes out.

---

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Comments

[preaker]

[ The girl's suddenly right there in front of her, and Camille has to take a second to breathe. Wide eyes are vexed on her like she's seen a ghost — which feels completely strange, given she's never seen this girl in her life.

Only... she has. She's been staring at her in these photos for the past... half-hour probably, her and the rest of this insta-family she's apparently suddenly been given. Staring at photos of herself hugging the girl and eating dinner with her and helping her tie her hair up into one of those high ponytails before a football game. ]

No, I'm..... I'm sorry, I don't. [ Camille tries to blink out of her own stupour, shaking her head slightly as her eyelids flutter, but her stomach's all weirdly clenched up, and her voice catches at the end.

It's almost funny, really. In some alternate life where she would ever actually willingly have a kid, her daughter follows in her footsteps — high school cheerleader, town beauty. It almost fits.

Camille's so unnerved by this that she looks physically pained, but the girl looks.... just as upset, just as confused, and Camille's brow knits; she can't help but soften for her. ]

I don't know anything, but I'm gonna find out. I promise. [ Gotta stop making promises to kids, Camille. Not unless you can keep them. ]

Are you okay? Not hurt or anything, are you?

[deadringing]

[ their lives seem to have run parallel to each other. there are photos lining the walls and tables of her at home that look almost exactly like these, with her smile beaming through the frame, decked out in far less modest cheerleading gear. it's been a long time since elena has actually been that girl, but she was at one point before her life became doused in tragedy.

maybe this woman knows something about that.

she can tell right away that the woman is as shaken and scared by this situation as she is, and she shakes her head at her question, fighting the urge to reach out and offer a reassuring touch on her arm or shoulder. she doesn't know her, doesn't know if it would be comforting or jarring. ]

I'm okay. Just confused. [ she hesitates, debating whether she should continue, but maybe sharing details will help them figure out what's going on. ] Do you remember - I think I heard someone, before I woke up. A little girl. Did you hear her, too?

[preaker]

[ Seeing those photos is definitely disconcerting for Camille in multiple ways — besides the most obvious shock of them being some entire alternate life with a daughter, there is also the fact that.... it reminds Camille of her own past. Brings up a bunch of unwelcomed ghosts. Because she hasn't been that girl for a long time, either.

But right now, her own personal ghosts are put on hold for the moment, in favour of the very real teenager standing in front of her, in this very real house. Camille knows nightmares, even the nauseatingly realistic kind, and this isn't one. It's something, but she knows she isn't dreaming. ]

.....I did. I thought that was just— in my mind. [ The older woman admits quietly, stunned by this revelation. The phantom wasn't just hers, apparently. How... is that possible? She falls quiet again for a moment, before running her hands back through thick locks of messy waves, trying to steel herself. ]

Okay. Okay. So we both heard a little girl, and woke up here, and we're— [ Her eyes sweep to the photos again. We're both in those, playing some role of mom and daughter. She lets the statement slip away, unsaid. ]

—We should call the police. What's your name? And where're you from?

[ Collecting facts helps ground her, but they'll also be necessary information to report. ...Though what to report, she's not sure. A kidnapping?? ]

[deadringing]

[ elena's sort of reeling from it all, too, the sight of herself with a different mother and living a different life striking her in a place she didn't know could still be hurt after so much had happened since. she's trying very hard to keep her head, because there's no figuring things out if she's too spun to think clearly. she takes a deep breath, following the woman's gaze to the pictures again - god, she swears they could be pictures of her and her aunt at some angles - and nods, facing her again. ]

Elena. Elena Gilbert. I'm from Virginia.

[ she's not sure if that'll mean anything to the woman. she thought she heard an accent as she was speaking, something also from the south, but does it really matter if neither of them know where they are or how they got here? ]

What about you?

[preaker]

Elena Gilbert. [ Camille repeats quietly, like she's committing it to memory. She half-wants to scribble down the name, and any other facts she comes across — she's not sure she can trust her mind to be able to remember things right now. But her little journalist's notebook is gone, along with the rest of her possessions. ]

I'm Camille. Preaker. [ There's the hint of a smile, a ghost of a thing really. ]

I'm from Missouri. A small town. [ She adds after a beat, not that it really matters much. It's something she's learned in the process of journalism, though. A way to help soothe people — give them little facts about yourself. ]

I saw a phone down the hall — come on. [ She wants to keep the girl close with her, just in case anyone else decides to come walking up in this house. She sure as hell doesn't trust the "dad" in those photos, either. There's a vintage-styled phone (except it looks all shiny and brand new) on a little stand, and a phone book. Camille quickly dials the "Santa Rosita Police Department", telling the man on the phone that she and a teenage girl woke up in a house neither of them are familiar with, and there's a man here too, sleeping.

The voice on the phone is none too patient, curtly asking for the address, to which Camille replies she doesn't know, but she can see they're in some suburban-looking neighbourhood. That's when there's a humourless laugh, and the officer informs her he has real business to tend to, and prank calls are hardly what ladies should be getting up to. And he hangs up.

Stunned, Camille turns to Elena, the phone still in her hand. There's a mix of disbelief and anger in her features, but she keeps her voice quiet all the same. ]

....He thought I was a prank call. He didn't even— he didn't even offer to come help.

[deadringing]

Hi, Camille. [ there's a similar hint of a smile on her own face, grateful for the kindness and reassurance the woman's showing her when she can tell that she barely feels it herself. she can't tell if the camille is a parent herself or if she was thrown into the deep end like her aunt was (something inside her pulls at the realization that it's the second time she's thought of jenna since meeting the woman and the immediate urge to quiet that thought; she knows it's not fair to put that on someone who's as out of her element as both of them are), but she can tell that she's trying to make her feel safe. ]

I am, too. From a small town. [ different states, but it's still a thing they have in common and it's somehow reassuring to commiserate with her, to remember things about themselves in case this place tries to strip them away. ] It's called Mystic Falls.

[ camille urges her to follow her as she finds the phone and elena nods, arms crossed as she waits in the doorway, watching and listening to what she can hear. it's not as much as if she were still a vampire (is she still a vampire? her body's not screaming with hunger, her senses and emotions aren't overwhelming her), but she can hear camille's side of the conversation and the officer's tone of voice as it gets louder and more irritated.

camille hangs up and elena looks none too happy about her news, sighing in frustration and anger. ]

I heard, at least some of it. [ she comes a little closer, rubbing at her eyes before crossing her arms, regarding her again. ] What should we do? Have you - there are other people in the photos. Are they like us?

Dear god, apologies for the slowness.. It's been a week, but I'm still here to continue if you like!

[preaker]

[ It's another piece of information to tuck away — Elena's from a small town, too, one that sounds just as sweet off the tongue as Wind Gap does. Could that be the correlation? People picked up and placed here somehow from little towns? Places that the rest of the country probably doesn't even know about? Maybe that's a silly conclusion, but Camille's searching for anything, here. At the very least.... she and the girl have something in common.

Then comes the phone call, and now she's turning to Elena with that stunned anger, eyes tighter, fingers clenched around the phone for a long moment further. She finally sets it back down, but not having something in her hands just means she can tell they're trembling. Camille brushes her palms down over her silky pyjama bottoms, then her fingers grip the sides of the material lightly, rubbing fretfully against them.

Steel blue eyes roll downwards to the neat little carpet at her feet for a moment, before they look back up to Elena, and her voice remains in its hushed tone. ]

There's a man upstairs, in the bedroom I woke up in. The man in these pictures. He's still asleep.

[ Apprehension tugs at her, and Camille casts a quick glance around the living room. She really doesn't want to stay in this house. Feels like a trap. ] Here's what I think. We head to the police station ourselves. They'll have a harder time ignoring us if we actually show up in person.

[ She'd seen the address in the phone book, already committed it to memory. It comes as instinct to Camille, looking for ways to escape undesirable situations. ]

of course! i adore camille and yours is wonderful 💕

[deadringing]

[ another correlation would be a dark history, going as far back as the town's foundation. elena can't know that without asking camille directly, and even if she does she doubts that wind gap's history would be quite as supernaturally involved as mystic falls's history is, but it's a possibility.

the fidgeting is notable, even if elena can't sense the trembling from where she's standing. it's pretty clear that she's angry and shaken, and elena can't fault her when she feels the same way. her hands run through her hair and rub over her eyes, a similar attempt to ground herself and clear her head before camille speaks again.

that there's someone else there with them isn't really a surprise. she'd seen the pictures, seen a possible sibling among the group pictures and portraits. maybe he's in the same situation they are, torn from their homes and dropped into pleasantville. but camille doesn't seem comfortable with the idea of waking him, and elena's not going to question why. she nods at her suggestion of going to the police station themselves instead. ]

Okay. [ she looks down at her bare feet and nightgown, then back up at her. ] We should get changed. Do you want to borrow something of mine?

[ rather than going back into her own bedroom where another stranger is sleeping. ]

Ahhh thank you so much, that really means a lot! I'm loving these two so much already ♡♡

[preaker]

[ No supernatural to be found in Wind Gap — unless you count traditions that go so far back nobody even remembers where they came from. Those can be pretty spooky, considering how they still affect (and ruin) people's lives.

But the thought of waking the man definitely doesn't stick well with her, which could be a mistake; perhaps they could use another ally, but she doesn't want to risk it. It's not just herself she has to protect, it's Elena too, and Camille sure as hell would rather do it herself than put her trust in some stranger. She isn't too sure that he's not the one to blame for this impossible kidnapping; maybe it's some game he's playing. Some sick bastard who couldn't get a real wife and kids so somehow this... happened. ]

Good idea. [ Camille gives a quick nod. ] Thanks. I'll follow you.

[ There's something protective to the way she'll stay behind Elena as she lets the girl lead her to "her bedroom", flanking her that way. Her eyes constantly glance back over her own shoulder, watching to make sure the (potentially) sick bastard isn't creeping up behind them. Camille stays as quiet as she can, creeping slowly, and once they're in the girl's room she very, very quietly eases the door shut, turning back to the teenager, giving the room a glance around.

Her eyes once again fall to the cheerleading uniform laying out in view, and Camille can't help staring at it, memories pressing up under her sternum the way they always do, catching against her breath a little. ]

Do you really cheer? Back at your real home.

i honestly never knew how much i needed them to interact until now but i love them so much ❤

[deadringing]

[ elena nods, then starts heading upstairs, making sure her footsteps are quiet. camille follows suit, seeming to understand the need for as much silence as possible. it just feels better to be safe than sorry, and for all they know the guy could be the one behind this.

something about this whole thing has her doubting that, though. the fact that the police had been convinced camille had been playing a prank instead of taking her seriously. the cops in mystic falls are pretty notorious for covering up deaths when supernatural factors are the cause, but even then they tend to take something like kidnapping seriously. but camille is the only other person she's seen here, and she's doing her best to keep them both safe. elena would rather put her trust in her, at least until they know for sure that they aren't the only ones this has happened to.

camille shuts the door as quietly as possible behind them, and elena gets to work trying to find something for them both to wear. camille's question distracts her from the closet, and elena turns back towards the window, her gaze falling on the cheerleading uniform. ]

I did, for a long time. But, uh - my parents died, at the end of the school year, in a car accident while they were picking me up. [ her voice is soft and sad as she speaks; it's been a while since she's had to tell this story to somebody. ] I missed cheer camp while I was recovering, and when I got back to school, it just...didn't feel like it used to.