15strangers | (no subject)

W̡͜E̶EK ̵̕2̕͠

[The blight would not stop.

The world's leading experts have been trying to find a cure, to no avail. Th blight keeps changing, keeps foiling all attempts at being fully understood. It's almost sentient, or at least more sentient than any disease that's been encountered before. People fear the disease jumping from what's left of the grapes into other plants, into animals, or even humans.

You can only watch as entire economies and ecosystems collapse. You can only bury your head in your hands as your own business comes to its end. The destruction of the clusters of grapes has not simply destroyed the wine industry, either-other businesses are being destroyed by the plague. Food, transport, retail, nothing is untouched.

You look on your own vineyard, its yield almost entirely blackened and dead.

This can't keep going on.

-

A week has passed since everyone's arrival. No one has died, yet. But surely no one is holding their breath to see if they would survive this unscathed. They are veterans of the game, and they must know that whoever it is that is in charge demands their pound of flesh. The question is when it will happen.

It is the second week, after all-and when the second week of the game comes, death is not far behind. Not even when you wake up, feeling something different in your mind as you remember the truths you originally woke up with, deep in your mind. You feel...lighter, somehow, when you realize there is a change.

Even so, there are 15 strangers left in this place.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[this is why it is 'like' and not a literal thing. we do what we must to cope with the strangeness of life]

Are all animals bipedal where you're from?

[what a weird universe if so.

Gab definitely doesn't wave back. Instead, he looks back and forth between Eric and King, after which he gives a very quiet 'awooo'

someone explain this to him, he does not get it. he's too old for this.]

[Yeah, fair, everyone needs coping mechanisms.]

Not all of them. Reptiles and anything with hooves walk on all fours. They talk too, though.

[He quirks a brow at the sound, but shrugs and walks forward, offering a hand for Gab to smell.]

Yeah, it’s weird to me too.

[And yes, he is talking to Gab.]

[Gab smells the paw, but it does not really clear up the matter, for him. The dog just kind of sniffs this for a moment before giving up and going back to the ham. It's whatever. Nice to meet you though, he guesses.

Eric is watching this with vague fascination and amusement.]

I don't know how to tell you this, but dogs like Gab greet each other a... different way.

[is he going to have to tell him about butts]

I was uncomfortable with dogs from my world sniffing my butt, and I'm even more uncomfortable if it's a dog that's not even sentient.

[Yeah, don't worry, he already knows (and hates) this fact.]

Heh! [good that he doesn't have to explain and can just laugh]

Well, he'll get used to it. Won't you, mister? [there's a wuff.]

...So anyway, they all talk, got it. But it sounds like the movies are the same, is there just twice as much dialog in them?

[well not all movies have a lot of animals in them but this is just kind of interesting to think about. how weird would it be to watch indiana jones and the snakes yell back 'well fuck you too, asshole']

He's going to have to.

[Gab looks like a sweet old dog, but he's not letting even a dog from his world go back there.]

Uh, maybe? I'd have to see a movie from your world first. Usually animals will have some dialogue, but it's nothing too big, most of the time.

So long as they're not something like Marley And Me, Old Yeller, or All Dogs Go To Heaven.

[Though he can't imagine how boring the last movie is in Eric's world...]

Oh. They actually do have lines in the last one. It's a cartoon, we bend the rules sometimes in those.

[those other examples though.]

So what do dogs think about dog movies being so sad all the time??

Really? Well, it's good to hear that it didn't change too much.

[As for that question...]

Let's just say, if a dog's watching a movie like that near you, it's best to have a box of tissues on stand-by. Especially if it's All Dogs Go To Heaven.

I always have them anyway for me, so that works out.

When you watch All Dogs Got To Heaven? Or...just in general?

[Not that he’s judging, really! More like...concerned.]

For any movie that looks sad! I don't cry that much.

Okay, fair enough.

[He’s not much of a cry-er himself, but their not the same person, so yeah.]

Just got worried about you for a second.

I'm normally a pretty smiley guy, you know... well, maybe you didn't read the profiles. I don't blame you, I try not to think about this thing in my arm.

I...did read most of them.

[Problem? Those made him a bit more concerned.]

It’s worrying, yeah, but at this point, I think I’ve just gotten numb to this weirdness. Really, this thing is the least of my problems as far as I’m concerned.

[Still a problem, of course, just not a big one compared to the others.]

[that's honestly fair, even his has some serious pros and cons.]

Yeah, well... I've been in a death game where the bracelet on your wrist injected drugs every few hours, so this just makes me even more nervous having it be even harder to take off.

Jeez, seriously? Are these incidents just destined to do stuff to us that hits our trauma buttons, or is it all actually chance somehow?

[Combine that with how many people got terrible powers in King's round (his own included) and it just seems like either fate hates everyone or the universe is just a dick.]

Whatever the case, I don't blame you for freaking out, then. I'm pretty sure any reasonable person would.

[he gets a grateful nod at the understanding, with a hesitant follow up.]

I don't know about that. It being chance, I mean. I definitely followed Mira to the Decision Game, and ... turned out she was semi-working with the guy who ran it, so.

[not a huge coincidence there in the end.]

Right, this was back on my home world, that's one way I'm different from most of you all.

…I won't ask about Mira, mostly because I'm now getting concerned about how many people have actually gone through stuff like this before, on their own worlds. Because I didn't go through a death game like this, but I did have to deal with a game where celestial beings decided to make mortals their playthings, and at this point, I'm pretty sure that's what's going on here, too.

[Now he feels like he needs to ask Caleb and McBurn if they went through anything crazy like this, to...]

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casually dropping some zero time dilemma big spoilers

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