[open] all the cool kids like existential confusion

[skelepun]

Who: Sans + anyone! Seriously, the first part of this is essentially a scenario meme. No CR or interest in Sans even required.
When: Accessible from the 10th-16th
Where: THE VOIIIID. Okay but no, seriously, it's a vast expanse of nothingness.
What: Curiosity kills the skeleton. Sans has gone to see what has become of his world, and it's not pretty. Come explore the void? Feel that existential sting? Log split into two parts -- exploring the void with a partner (either in search of Sans, curiosity, or whatever reason you like!) and trying to rescue Sans from the pull his world has on him! Unfortunately, Sans is a little... different. He won't be coming back without a fight.
Warnings: A few flashing images, serious existential despair, violence and nightmare magic, impalings?? idk, man, this is gonna be a bundle of fish.

(ooc: please forgive the formatting, which I have cribbed heavily from memes. I figure it is the best way to create a play space for people! Feel free to dip in and out regardless of your character's interest in Sans!)



enter the freakin' void, scrubs
it'll stare back at you or something, probably

Maybe you're just curious? Maybe you want to find a friend? Maybe you saw a certain network post and decided to see what the fuss was about? Or it could just be an accident. Whatever your reason for walking through this particular Ingress portal, you will find that the sensation of falling that accompanies your jump into a new world... doesn't appear to be stopping. A void of blackness streaks past you, intangible in all respects save the push of wind whipping your clothes as you fall.

Your fall will continue unabated until you, quite simply, decide to stop falling. Upon making this decision, the laws of physics will appear to jolt and shift, leaving you suddenly standing upright. Hopefully whoever you are travelling with makes the same decision as you, or else they might just tumble further down into the abyss.

Luckily, it appears physics don't have much say in this place. That's convenient.


PROMPTS:

Physics? Psh, What Physics?

The darkness seems to stretch out forever, physics bending to your whims. It might take time to learn to control, but soon your character will be able to jump, dodge, twirl, soar, and plummet to their hearts content. It might not even be so bad, as far as featureless wastelands go.

Just be careful not to stray too far from your partner in your excitement. Finding people in the void, well, it can be a little tricky.

Greetings, I am [NAME].

The only noise you hear as you traverse the blackness is a whistling of wind, eerie considering the stillness of the air around you. However, if you listen closer different voices come to the fore. They're faint -- and not meant for you -- but a child's voice can be heard asking to make a deal. The influence of your own world is making itself known, and the child's voice seems to know exactly what it is you want above all else. And what's more, they're willing to give it to you. They just need a little something in exchange.

Your soul. That's not so bad, is it? Whether you resist on your own or with the help of a partner, the voice will retreat back into silence. Every half hour or so, though, it will return, once again tempting you with what you desire.

If you accept, you and who you came with will be forcibly ejected from the void and back to Amissis-Re. You probably still have your Soul. Probably. Either way, whatever it is you wanted? Nah, son.

A Little Something From Home.

A void should be empty, but this one very suddenly isn't. Your own world's influence has infiltrated, presenting to you something you recognize. A house, a trinket, a car, a friend -- whatever it is, it's something or someone that matters to you for better or for worse, floating unattached along with you in the Void.

Only upon closer inspection, it's not what you remember at all. There's a hollowness there that defies immediate description. Buildings will be empty and lifeless, familiar items will appear lesser in an indistinguishable way, and living things will scatter into a cloud of dust upon contact. No matter what you do, you can't seem to get the dust to stop sticking to you.

Do you chase them? Do they chase you? That's up to you, but keep an eye on your partner. You wouldn't want to get separated, right?

(( As you can probably tell, exploring the Void and expecting to find anything is pretty tough. Sans is entering on the 10th, and will be found on the 16th. That's 5 days of Void jumping which your character can enter any time. If you'd like your character to spend all that time in the Void until Sans is found, that's fine! Or, if you'd like your character to get pulled out via Ingress tug and need to make the choice to return or not, that's equally chill. Have fun with it!

Feel free to mix and match these prompts however you like, or just use them for general guidelines. Have fun exploring the void, friends! ))

Comments

[tearmeanewone]

This time, she's vaguely ready for something to happen in response. Now that she knows Sans isn't himself, it's easier for her to anticipate an attack-- and dodge it. She jumps to the side and lets the bones sail by, keeping her eyes and arm up in case he tries it again. But this time, she seems to have distracted him.

"I know I can't-- I'm not in your head, after all," she says gently, stepping a little closer to him. "But I'll listen if you tell me how you feel. If any part of you still recognizes me, Sans--" And she thinks there might be, given how mentioning the favor she said she wouldn't take got his attention. "--you know that's what I want to do. Just listen."

[skelepun]

The Lost Soul looks as if it's remembering the smell of old books and a girl carrying far, far too much for any one person.

"I..." He starts, squeezing his eye sockets shut, though the effort of it is barely visible through the corrupting static. "You had your chance to listen, kid. And if we were ever friends at all... you won't come back."

And just like that, the voice not meant for her at all is back, hand once again wreathed in blue. He wrenches it up in a cruel twist, beckoning a five jagged bones to rise up behind Elizabeth with the force and speed of bullets, aimed squarely at her back.

[tearmeanewone]

It's a dilemma. Under normal circumstances, yes, Elizabeth would trust that Sans knew what he needed and that leaving him be to work it out was the right thing to do. But this isn't a normal circumstance-- he's spent too much time in this strange Ingress, who knows what it's done to him. At the same time, he could be warning her to back off before she got hurt.

Which appears to be imminent, if the glow of his hand is anything to go by. Elizabeth doesn't see anything happening in front of her, so she looks around-- and they're coming right at her. She wasn't going to abandon Sans and now they're coming right at her.

No they're not.

It's a reflex at this point, even though she hasn't been able to do it in months. Elizabeth's hands and hair light up like she's got a fiber optic in every pore, and a hole opens in midair to engulf the bones before they can find their target. Where they've gone is up for debate, Elizabeth doesn't seem to concerned as the glow fades.

"Sorry Sans, I'm too stubborn and I've never been good at doing things other people tell me to do." She holds out her hand to him, and somehow she's missing a pinky. "I can do this all day, how about you?"

[skelepun]

The Lost Soul stares. A connection is made. An unintended one, but a connection all the same. In that unexplained rip in time and space lays something he can't quite place. A memory of something that's impossible to name.

Or maybe someone who no longer exists.

It's obvious from the sweat beading from exertion over his forehead that Sans, unlike Elizabeth, cannot keep this up all day. His magic is ebbing, slipping through him like water through a sieve.

More than ever before, Sans looks tired.

"Go."

It's not an order, not this time. Instead, Sans' voice rings with a desperate request from a broken man.

"Please."

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth, shorter hair and a black eye, can hear that Sans is pleading with her, and were they anywhere else besides trapped in a malfunctioning Ingress she would make different choices. Right now, she's somehow made herself into what she was before her collapse-- to save her life no doubt-- and that's already a terrible choice made. Which would be worse, though: abandoning Sans in the Ingress because he asked her to, or refusing to let him make his own choices?

"Alright, I'll go," she nods. "But not without you. If you won't go back to the Moira, at least let me take you somewhere that's not here. Look--"

Elizabeth opens her arms and dozens of flickering rips appear, sound and gray image emanating from the ones closer to them. "Look how many doors are here. I can take you through any of them, you just have to tell me which one."

[skelepun]

Presented with more options than he can feasibly consider, the Lost Soul seems paralyzed. It's familiar. The infinite possibility of time, the importance laced in the choices of a single person.

A person with hair not unlike the girl in front of him.

And it is a girl, isn't it? He squints, blurred vision regaining focus. Externally, the static covering his face begins to fade, pixel by pixel.

"... Treasure Island?"

He's not sure where the words come from or why they feel so very right, looking at the person in front of him, but nevertheless the bright blue of his eye fades back to a benign white.

[tearmeanewone]

Elizabeth smiles, warm and benevolent, and nods slowly.

"I can give you that." Even if it was a fictional world, she could make it for him. She created a world where the Vox had weapons, it wouldn't be so hard to create an island, and pirates, and a ship for Sans and Papyrus to sail the world in. Sky, and ocean, and adventure.

She turns and opens her hand, palm facing into the endless black, and a towering window opens at her whim. There's a two mast schooner floating off a shore lined with palm trees and jungle, and the vibrancy of the color seems almost impossible. Elizabeth opens her hand to Sans, keeping the tear open, inviting him in.

"Come on. All it needs now is you."

[skelepun]

There's a dizzying sense of disorientation as Sans walks towards her, static glitching with greater intensity even as it seems to fade the closer he gets to her. Each foot fall in the vast expanse of nothing stripping away the white haze pixel by pixel until--

"... Liz?"

He blinks at her, skull practically glowing from the light streaming in through the tear.

It's the first time he's really sounded like himself since they began, squinting at her as if he's not quite sure he recognizes her.

Or perhaps, he's not quite sure he recognizes the obvious power she's demonstrating.

[tearmeanewone]

She smiles, patient and benevolent, ringed in sunlight from the beach and looking the opposite of what she was: a saint. "Yes, it's me Sans. It's Elizabeth," she says with a nod. "Don't be afraid, I've got you."

[skelepun]

There's a story -- legend, prophecy, depends on who you ask -- that monsters shared in hushed tones once they were shut away underground. The story of an angel, someone who would fall down from the surface and give monsters their freedom.

As years stretched and turned to centuries, rumblings started that perhaps the angel wouldn't free monsters by leading them to the surface, but rather free them through death. It didn't matter much to Sans. He didn't believe in angels.

But damn if Elizabeth wasn't pulling off a hell of an impression of one.

As his mind filtered back to him, he squints, stepping through the tear with an involuntary shudder. It was beautiful. Unlike anything he could imagine, even when reading the book to Papyrus. His mind simply had no frame of reference for something like this.

Of course, all trances must eventually be snapped out of: "Where are we? What happened?"

[tearmeanewone]

Back in Columbia, when she lived inside of an image of her that was bigger than anything she wanted to become, she'd rejected the idea that she was a successor, a leader, a savior made in the image of an angel and conceived and born in seven days. She was a girl, just a girl who wanted to see Paris. It had gone past that, though, when the siphon had been destroyed and she'd seen everything. She'd become something not quite human, something infinite that longed for humanity. It's happening again, and she's put aside what she's been clinging to so fiercely on the Moira because Sans has seen her for what she is.

But she'll work that out later. For now, she's still smiling, walking through the tear with him. "Somewhere in the Caribbean," she says, the tear closing behind them and a clean breeze whipping around them. "Come on!" Elizabeth picks up her blue velvet skirt and starts running across the sand. "Your ship is waiting!"

[skelepun]

Time is a funny thing. Measuring it, accounting for it, stretching it, stopping it -- all a lot less complicated than people might think, and yet made infinitely more complex in its possibility.

It only takes one sentence to state you can't. It takes infinitely more to describe why you can.

As the tear behind him closes, Sans can only watch with fascination, filtered through haze and confusion. He remembers going through the portal, remembers the steely sense of inevitability as he took the first step, remembers the crushing numbness of knowing beyond doubt that his own timeline was well and truly gone. Not all timelines, no. There were infinite other Sanses out there, going through the motions of their lives, perhaps even measuring the decaying corpse of the timeline he stood in. He remembers wandering. He remembers the point at which he stopped remembering.

But this? It defies context. And in the dreaminess of the moment, Sans simply can't find reason to argue.

Running isn't his style, but there's a faster gait to his usual shuffle as he follows her, eye sockets taking in the glitter off the sand and the blue of the sky. There's a brininess to the air that defies description, carried on a wind that's almost sharp against his bones, leaving him feeling sandblasted and smooth.

There will be words later, but not just yet. Not yet.