What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

Comments

[omnomnom_feels]

"I am not meant to dream, either," Rashad points out irritably. "And yet I do. It is the Rift's doing, as always. This one is unusually pleasant, at least. You see the symmetry?"

There is symmetry. Look at the symmetry. It is very pleasant symmetry.

[centralcore]

"I see it," Glados deadpans, sparing their surroundings a cursory glance. "Yes. Pleasant. Good. What are we supposed to do here?"

He's supposed to help her, isn't she? That is the primary utility of a lackey, which, Glados has already determined, is the man-thing's best role.

[omnomnom_feels]

"Kdzhoo!!"

Rashad, quite naturally, answers her question with a series of sneezes. He keeps attempting to answer the question, only to be consistently interrupted by his own rebelling (subconscious?) biology. "We are meant to -- achoo! -- the purpose -- kdjee! -- we simply -- achhoo!"

Hopelessly, he shrugs at her.

[centralcore]

Glados steps slowly back, staring at his ridiculous display. "Oh," she says eventually, when it appears he is done. "Is that all. I'm so glad I asked." She feels a strange, senseless urge to pinch the bridge of her nose. She represses it.

"How do we get out of it, then?" she says, her tone getting slower and calmer the more impatient she becomes.

[omnomnom_feels]

Why can he not stop sneezing? All he wishes to do is to provide an answer and thereby satisfy the demand placed on him. That he does not have an answer is no matter; it is only a dream and it does not matter what they do so long as she stops being irritated with him.

Irritation was an unsatisfying emotion even when he used to feed on it.

"We leave it when we awaken," he says cautiously, relieved when he is able to speak the entire sentence. Strange. He feels no urge to sneeze now.

[centralcore]

"That could take years," Glados protests. "Who is operating the Relaxation Center? Are they reliable? Is this - is this some sort of test?" She looks around, suddenly very paranoid, as though a challenge or a neurotoxin will appear at any moment. Why didn't she think of this before? It would very efficient to test while the subjects are asleep in addition to while they are awake. If she'd thought of that she'd have been doing it years ago. Well. If she'd thought of a way to do it without killing the subjects in their sleep. "Who will wake us up?" she asks, earnestly curious.

[omnomnom_feels]

Rashad stares blankly at her, slowly coming to the realization that she is operating under a differing set of assumptions about the nature of this...setting. He tilts his head at her, calculating. He might answer her questions. He might correct her misconceptions. He will do those things...in a minute.

"Who was operating the Relaxation Center before now?" he asks as though this is a perfectly reasonable question and as though he knows what a Relaxation Center is. "Perhaps it is the sa -- hachoo!!"

[centralcore]

"Me!" she declares in exasperation. Why doesn't he know - well, no, he wouldn't, would he? Right. Right, this isn't her universe, or even her new universe.

"I am disoriented!" she declares in great dissatisfaction. "My memory is faulty. I require maintenance."

Who in the world is going to help her with THAT.

[omnomnom_feels]

"I do not understand," admits Rashad. "Do people in the Relaxation Center require external stimulus to wake up? It is customary for humans to do so automatically."

He does not even know what he is asking about, really, but if she is truly disoriented, this may be an opportunity to learn truths she might not otherwise share. "How would one perform this maintenance?"

[centralcore]

Oh. Right. Humans just do that. But how does this work for her? Is she human enough for this to work or will someone need to jumpstart her externally? What if she's trapped here?

"I do not think you are capable," she mutters. "Is there a way for one to wake up manually - from within this... space?"

[omnomnom_feels]

"N--shyuu!" Rashad frowns at the resurgence of his inexplicable reaction to something in the air. It passes as quickly as it came, apparently done as soon as he stops speaking. "At times," he says cautiously. "Dependent on circumstances and one's own abilities."

He pauses now at then as he speaks, expecting the sneezing to start again. It does not. "I have not learned it," he admits.

[centralcore]

How utterly unsatisfying. She huffs softly, looking around as if hoping to see someone more helpful. There is no one within the mediocre radius of her eyeline.

"Spectacular," she sighs, rolling her eyes intensely and finally plopping down next to him in moderate defeat. "What, then, are we meant to do? Just SIT here and WAIT?"

[omnomnom_feels]

"I usually do so," he admits. "It is highly unlikely anything irreparable will happen to my body while I am away. Did you leave your body in a safe place?"

Her body, he thinks, is much more capable of sustaining irreparable harm. He keeps that thought to himself. He also keeps to himself the thought that this dream was much more pleasant before her arrival. "This dream is unusually pleasant," he says cautiously.