How dreary to be Somebody

[applesaucemod]

Tonight the dreamers of Manhattan will not know where it is they find themselves, nor how they got there…nor where they came from. They will not remember that they have been taken from their homes by the whims of a capricious Rift, and they will remember neither the people they've lost nor those they've met.

Tonight, the dreamers of Manhattan will not remember who they are at all.

What remains is a sense of how the world should be, minus an understanding of whom one is within that world. Some will know the hospital in which they find themselves for what it is, though they will not remember how they know. The long halls are lined with patients' rooms, doctors' offices, and locked doors to supply rooms and labs. Here and there one finds a common room or cafeteria with furniture that might almost be comfortable if only everything weren't so sterile.

The staff are largely absent; the only people who might explain matters are the minders at each door to the outside, but they aren't inclined to provide explanations. If asked, they will only say that the dreamers are here for their own safety. Attempts to leave will be gently but firmly blocked. Insistence on leaving will be dangerous to the dreamers, though the minders will be more than ready to grab anyone who actually makes it through one of the doors before they can float away into the void that's waiting for them on the other side.

They're all here for their own safety and good, after all. Too bad no one will say why that is.




[Semi-standard dream rules apply: players and their characters are not required to be members of this community in order to participate in the party. Unlike usual, however, all characters will forget the events of the dream upon waking.]

Comments

[rae_of_sun]

This is bad. Right? She's pretty sure you don't wake up in what looks a hell of a lot like a hospital, with no recollection of why you're there, if things aren't bad.

Outwardly, things don't seem that bad. She's intact and pain-free. There are a few gnarly-looking scars on her body, but they're too old to explain why she's here now. She's not even hooked up to any of the machines by the bed, and there are no hovering professionals or concerned family members asking how she's feeling.

... It's probably bad that when she tries to conjure up an image of what a concerned family member would look like, she gets nothing. She comes up similarly short when she tries to dredge up other things that should be obvious: the date. Her age. Her name.

Yes, okay, this is definitely bad.

Since there's nothing stopping her, she gets out of bed. She spares a moment to pluck at the plain, cotton gown she's wearing (at least it's closed in the back), then pads over to the door, which is conveniently unlocked.

There's no one in the hall. No one stops her as she edges down to the nearest intersection and peers around the corner, either. Someone should have stopped her by now, right? What kind of operation are these people running? She's a frigging amnesiac. Someone should be taking care of her.

Her indignation is enough to override any caution-driven impulses she might have to keep quiet. "Hello?" she calls down the halls. "Hey!"

[andhiswife]

Five minutes after waking, she's decided there really is no hope of her taking stock of the situation without help.

The bed in which she found herself wasn't the least bit familiar - even the sheets are of a kind she doesn't think she's seen before (though it occurs to her, wryly, that she wouldn't know; even her own name is lurking somewhere outside her grasp). The boxy contraptions near the bed don't seem to pose any danger, but their purpose is entirely beyond her reckoning. Her clothes... well, she can't say if they really belong to her or not, but the little shift isn't fit for public viewing. She ends up finding a spare blanket in a closet - it's a bit thicker and coarser than the bedsheets, and instantly comforting - and wrapping it around herself like a cloak.

Right. That's a bit better.

The door is unlocked, but the hallway beyond is empty. Goodness, this place must be enormous. What business could she possibly have here? She draws the blanket a bit tighter around herself and lingers uncertainly in the doorway. Surely a place this large - and tidy - must be bustling with servants. One should be along soon. Maybe they can explain what's happening.

[wildmage_daine]

Her paws skid out from beneath her, sudden-like, as if the ground had turned to ice beneath her feet. But it's not ice. Too warm for that. The wolf lets out a little yelp of surprise and alarm, thrown by the sudden shift in her surroundings. Wasn't she just...?

Where was she?

Where is she?

That's the more important question. Where is she, and where is her Pack?

This is no place for wolves. She can tell that much for certain; it smells of two-leggers and sharp, stinging, unfamiliar things. She sneezes, then gets her paws back under her. She needs to hide, elsewise a two-legger will find her before she can find what she's looking for. Lowering her head, she hurries down the hallway, claws clicking on the tiles.

Her nose draws her to a little side room that smells a bit earthier - a coffee station, not that she'd know it. All that matters to her is that it's dark and quiet. It's not a good place to hide for very long. Too small. She doesn't want to corner herself. But it'll do as a spot to rest for a minute and get her wits about her. She slinks inside, huddling in the corner alongside the door. She'll be safe enough here for the moment, with her ears pricked and nose sifting the air for any trace of other wolves.

[spiritofwinter]

He gets that this is a hospital, and he gets that it's kind of weird that there's no one around when he wakes up, and no one out in the hall, either. He doesn't get why he has a big stick in the shape of a hook, but it feels like it's important for him to hang onto that. It's not until he bumps it against the door frame by accident and sees frost spiraling out from where it hit that he realizes it's more than a stick, but he catches on quickly.

He catches on really quickly. He could sit and worry about why he doesn't know his name, or he could run down the hall whooping and dragging the stick to make it into a giant ice rink as he goes -- and then turn and run back the other way to skid across it, laughing all the way.

Yeah, this is a lot better than sitting and worrying about what he doesn't know.

[omnomnom_feels]

The straight lines and right angles that comprise this structure are...pleasing. He is pleased by them. He enjoys the way the rooms line up so neatly along this hallway, and it gratifies him that the strange objects in those rooms are clean and upright, and the sheets on the beds crisp and neatly tucked. He is uneasy, all the same, but he would not be able to articulate why that should be. It is as though he somehow does not belong here, but when he questions the first person he sees, one standing at a door, she assures him that he does belong here. This is a safe place. This is where he can be healthy.

That is satisfactory. She urges him to turn around and return to one of the common rooms, and so he does, only to stand in its doorway looking (and feeling) lost. Surely he is intended to do something, take some action. Surely he has a purpose. He would like very much to know his purpose.

He is also blocking the doorway, though that is not intentional.

[full_metal]

She's not supposed to be in a goddamn hospital. Her memory might be a frustrating blank - amnesia severe enough to warrant being hospitalized, if she's being honest with herself - but she can't shake the certainty that she has something to do, something important, and that every second she spends here is a waste of irrecoverable time.

This minder isn't doing anything to allay her frustration. He refuses to tell her what's going on. His vague explanations don't even sound specific to her; it's all 'for your safety' and 'your health is important,' and she might not remember her own name, but she knows when she's being given a runaround.

So she barges past him. He reaches for her as she slams through the first pair of double doors; she evades him with an ease she might have to contemplate later. "Wait--!" he says, but she's already pushing open the second set of doors and stepping - and falling...?

There is no ground beneath her feet, no horizon, no gravity. She is suspended in what looks like some kind of storm, an ominous swirling of clouds in every direction but directly behind her. Her arms windmill uselessly; there's nothing within reach, and she can't swim through air. What in the hell is this?

A hand closes around her ankle, and she's drawn with gentle but firm insistence back into the hospital's entryway. Gravity reasserts itself, and she finds herself propped upright by the door minder, his expression faintly exasperated, but not unkind.

"You were warned," he points out, his voice mild.

She wrenches herself out of his grasp and stumbles back into the central hall. Sucking in a breath, she starts to demand an explanation, but cuts herself off mid-syllable. What's the point? He hasn't given her a straight answer, yet; he didn't even see fit to warn her about what was (or wasn't) outside until she was out the door. Hell if she knows what his game is, but she's not playing it.

Furious and rattled, she turns away from the exit and sets off at a brisk walk, already working on a Plan B... and sufficiently distracted that when she rounds a corner, she registers the presence of another person too slowly to avoid slamming right into them.

[singthesong]

Aren't there usually supposed to be other people in hospitals?

He woke up alone, feeling perfectly healthy other than the lack of memory. Of course, he recognizes that's a problem. How'd he go and lose his memory without any head trauma? His hospital gown is one that's closed in the back, if a little short on him, so he feels alright to go search the halls for someone to explain. The floors are cold on his bare feet...yeah, real clothes are definitely a secondary goal.

The people at the door aren't helpful at all. He's not sure he's okay with what they're saying, but he's not really prepared to bolt past them either. Instead he goes back to wandering the halls, looking for more actual people. Someone has to know what's going on, right?