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.

---

▶ NAVIGATION ◀
COMMS	logs | network | ooc | memes
OOC INFO	premise | rules | faq | taken | applications | hiatus/drop/canon updates | reserves | mod contact
SETTING INFO	calendar | setting | housing | npcs | death and tranquilizing | event suggestions/engagements

Comments

[thatverywitch]

The door opens and she darts inside. Her own floral-print dress is torn, bloodied, and ruined. But it's hardly the first time. She focuses, instead, on trying to catch her breath.

"I... I am in your debt," She says between gasps. She straightens up but she doesn't let go of the knife.

She hears no banging at the door. She hears nothing.

"Have- have they gone? Those beasts..."

Those children. But they couldn't be. And surely they were not Lucifer's doing. There would be no more sense in harming her.

[fanoperator]

Huaisang peeks out of the window, then ducks back again behind the solid wood of the door. "They're staying back. I think it's because of the vegetable lantern?"

Her savior is an unlikely one. He's shorter than Thomasin by the breadth of two fingers, and everything about him is soft. Soft hair intricately braided, soft cheeks full and well-fed, soft hands that have never known a callus.

"Come on." Retreating quickly from the locked door, Huaisang leads the way to the back of the house. He has a back-up lantern burning in the kitchen. The face on this one is much more cursory, hastily carved with only two square holes for eyes and an upturned line for the mouth, but the candle inside of it is burning brightly, and there's an array of unlit candles beside that, gathered from around the house. "Do you want to wash up?"

[thatverywitch]

"That heathen thing?" Her tone isn't scathing as she says it. What should she care anymore whether something was sinful? It's merely a descriptor now. Besides that, it had saved her. That, and this person before her.

Indeed, he's an unlikely sort but it seemed any saviour of hers was of that kind one way or another. He bades her to follow and so she does. By now she's worked out the kitchen and its magic waters but she hasn't lost her wonder over it, even as she goes to rinse blood from her hands. The site makes her slow a moment then hurriedly carry on.

"Have you a thought to what they are? They seem witched corpses, but I know not for certain..." If they were witched, why go after her? Again she comes to that thought and it bothers her.

[fanoperator]

"Witched corpses seems right." Huaisang nods uncertainly. "Puppeted by evil energy. I don't think... children like that shouldn't have enough resentful energy built up to become fierce corpses on their own. Someone else must be controlling them, don't you think?"

He chews on his lip, wary and frightened. Even in such a dangerous situation, he's picked up no knife of his own, nor any other form of defense. "Do you want a change of clothes? I can probably find something that will fit you, if you'll watch the candles while I look."

[thatverywitch]

She pauses, the water running over her hands as she stills. Children shouldn't have enough resentful energy. She turns the tap off.

"Nay. I've seen no youth that would protect a spirit from wrath or evil. But perchance they possessed, I know not what would hold such power." She turns back to the man and smiles faintly, thinly. "You would have my debt grow in your favor. But I shall. I'll see to the candles."

[fanoperator]

Huaisang is ever so slightly hesitant to leave her alone, given that she is a stranger armed and bloody, but she also seems more competent with a knife than he is, so he's glad to have her working toward his defense.

He goes upstairs, returning soon enough with a blouse and skirt combination which seems most likely to work, given his broader shoulders and her broader hips and height. Setting them on the kitchen table, Huaisang picks up a spare candle and matches. "I'll go replenish the candle at the front while you change. Please... come as soon as you can. I'm frightened."

Swallowing his fear as best he can, Huaisang turns and goes down the hall, checking the front porch to ensure that the candle is still lit before he unlocks the door and goes out to add a fresh candle to the pumpkin lantern.

[thatverywitch]

She does not step back outside. She will not. Instead, she watches from the windows, those children surely waiting out there.

He returns with the sort of dress she could have never worn, that not even the wealthy of England could have worn, but she takes it. It's a pretty thing.

"I'll not dally," She promises, though she can't imagine what she is supposed to do should something go wrong.

She bobs her head in gratitude and seeks someplace to change. She decides to bring the knife with her and it comes with her still when she returns to those frontsteps, lit only by candle.

"Are we to guard it the night over?"

[fanoperator]

"I don't know." Huaisang makes sure that there are now two candles firmly settled inside the pumpkin, one half-burnt and one fresh, far enough apart that they won't melt each other. He does it with careful, steady hands, then sets the lid back in place with meticulous care. But as soon as it's safely settled, he scrambles backward, back in through the door. As soon as his new companion is also inside, he shuts the door and locks it, then goes to the kitchen to make sure the back-up lantern is still burning strong. "Until this all ends, I suppose. I only wish we had more large vegetables."

Chewing fretfully at his lower lip, Huaisang curls up in one of the kitchen chair. "I am Huaisang," he says, carefully. It's nothing like the way he's used to greeting people from home. There ought to be bows and formality, and he ought to offer his whole name and his title. Here, he's supposed to be using his 'husband's' family name. The thought chafes at him. At least he can still be Huaisang.

[thatverywitch]

Watching him work is terribly nervewracking. He's making no wrong move but still, she feels an urge to intervene, to hold the candles in her hands and be sure. She hurries back inside when he's done.

"Whatever else do you have?" Probably nothing. But again, the need to be sure pushes her on.

She hesitates at the name. She repeats it, probably badly. Then she says, "Thomasin. That is I."

[fanoperator]

Huaisang shrugs helplessly at the question, pointing at the refrigerator. "Mostly just the casseroles that the locals have provided, and some frozen dinners to be heated in the oven. I don't know how to cook. The large squash were only to be decorative, and I am merely lucky I obtained two of them."

His name is easier on the Western tongue than many of the names of his friends and family. He says it again for her, a little slower: why-song. Then he tries her name, stumbling over it a little but getting all of the sounds right. "Thomasin. Glad to make your acquaintance."

[thatverywitch]

"It isn't hard to cook, if there is food... usually. These boxes are difficult." She taps the oven.

She wishes now that she'd gotten more of those squash things. Then again, whether those creatures would truly stay back the whole night over remained to be seen.

"And thee," She says, a little surprised that it's true.

[fanoperator]

"Really, the boxes are the only part of cooking I understand." Huaisang smiles ruefully. "I just have to be told what number to use, then you just put it to the number and it becomes hot. I know also for the kettle for water. You fill it with water, put it on top, and turn the knob for flame."

Making tea is important to him. Aside from that, he's content to survive on prepared foods.

"Shall I make tea for us, while we keep watch?" At least while they're still trying to think of any additional defense to add to their two pumpkins.

[thatverywitch]

"That would be gracious of you," She says.

Simple as that, he would make her tea. Just as all the people would bring food and everything else like it isn't scarce and she isn't something to be scorned. Nothing in exchange.

Except for keeping watch, in this case.

"Is this place new to you also?"

[fanoperator]

"It is." Glad to have something to focus on other than the threats lurking outside, Huaisang gets to work on making the tea. He can't make it properly, as he would at home, and the only teas available in the local shops do not meet his usual standards. But at least it's still tea.

"I came just a month ago. I'm from... Ancient China." There's a hesitation around the words. He hates referring to it both as ancient and China. It's his Zhongguo, the only world he knew before coming here. But he's learned enough in the past month to understand that not only is this not his world, the people here see his world variously as exotic, as mythic, as enemy. "This place makes no sense to me."