【 awakening. 】
It's difficult to say what you might notice first. It might be the discomfort of the cold and hard concrete floor that you find yourself on. It might be the old musky and damp air, riddled with something similar to the smell of mold. Or, if you woke up later, it might be the reactions from your fellow prisoners.
Pushing yourself up from the dirty floor, you'll quickly find that you're no longer in your warm bed back in your cottage or wherever you were prior to this moment. Once again, you find yourself in a new area, but it's immediately clear that this is not as nice as your last awakening. Rather than the warm and bright sun shining down on you, half-functioning lights flicker on and off sporadically and instead of the vast openness of the island, you're in a cramped tiny cell with some of your fellow islanders.
The cell just barely fits three people in it. Although a lack of a bed gives everyone more room for people to stand in, the sink and toilet will uncomfortably get in someone's way. It's highly likely that you might have been asleep on top of someone else or at least had a foot or hand in your face. It's difficult enough to stand in here without hitting someone when raising your arm halfway. There's no way you would have all been asleep on the floor without some limbs crossing over each other.
You can try to shake the bars or the door but you'll find them much tougher than they look. Despite their aged appearance, no amount of kicking, punching, or shaking will get them to budge. With the bars wide open though, you can directly see the cell in front of you and diagonally from you. Perhaps it is at this moment that you realize that everyone is wearing a strange bangle around their left wrist. When you look down at your own wrist, you notice that you have one too.
It's a thick black bracelet with a digital screen. Just like the cell bars, no amount of force will get it off and hitting it against a surface does nothing but activate a high-pitching beeping sound that does not stop until you do. It might be a good idea to heed to the beeping sound as it sounds... alarming and hopefully, someone will be able to stop you before it beeps faster and louder. Once you take the time to examine it, you will find the following details:
✖ There is no apparent clasp holding the bracelet together.
✖ On the face, there's a screen. Perhaps it's far more appropriate to call it a watch, but whatever it is, it displays a single number in red.
✖ On either side of the bracelet is a button. Pressing both at the same time will change the screen and give a timer that counts down from 27 minutes. Pressing either button once will allow you to go through the profiles of your fellow prisoners, starting with their name and the same pixel sprite that was displayed on their cottage door. Turning either button will scroll through the profiles and read the details.
Well, that's that. Asides from fiddling with the buttons, there's nothing you can do about the bracelet itself. Maybe it's best to start getting used to your new cell. After all, who knows how long you'll be trapped here for.
【 greeting. 】
Once the timer counts down to 18 minutes, the monitors in each cell will flicker on. Immediately, a hooded figure with a gas mask appears on the low-quality screen. With the monitor tilted downwards, it almost appears as if they're watching you.
"Life is simply unfair, don't you think?"
The voice comes out cold, mechanical, and distorted. They're clearly using a voice changer. You can try to yell at the screen, question it, or do anything to interact with the figure, but you'll find out that this is just simply a recording. Nothing you do can get them to respond or stop.
"I am 【 Zero 】. I am the one who summoned you here."
You may notice that they used the word "summoned" rather than "kidnapped".
"Consider this a privilege. You have been chosen. You are going to participate in an experiment. The 【 Nonary Game 】. This is a game where you will put your life on the line. Now, it is time. Let our game begin. I wish you all the best of luck."
And with that, the screen goes blank...
【 arrival. 】
It's not until the timer hits nine minutes that something finally happens again. The door at the end of the hall slides open but, rather than a regular sized human, a white robotic mouse walks through. Like Zero, he also sports a gas mask.
"Helloooooo, test subjects!"
His voice is high-pitched and shrill. It's definitely not modified by a voice changer.
"You can call me 【 Calhoun 】. Since my master is a busy person, I'll be taking over from here on out. Now, I see we have some old returning faces." He stops to wink at those particular characters. "But mostly new faces! Well, it doesn't matter if you're new or not because we're putting a twist on this Nonary Game, so make sure you listen carefully!"
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vivariummods) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
revivarium2019-05-16 09:25 pm
no subject
...More?
no subject
...What, is this a repeat incident for you?
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[ similar but different, of course. these are "upgraded" after all ]
I got a feeling that we're going to be in store for something similar to that "experiment".
no subject
What did you have to do?
[Please don't say kill each other.]
no subject
[ at least there weren't any killing each other business... until zero decided to step things up a notch. ]
no subject
no subject
[ well, if you got the answers wrong or you were just an impatient jerk who'd rather punch things along, yeah, either one, but let's ignore that. ]
And I'd suggest that we break out of here if you want to avoid that.