maskormenacelogs | weep not for the memories

Entry tags:

weep not for the memories

WHO: Everybody!
WHERE: all cities
WHEN: March 4 - March 6
WHAT: it's a catch-all log, sucka! Tag here and thread around for the Dorian Ruins Everything Guilt Extravaganza part of the overall March plot. Please check out this ooc post for details!
WARNINGS: Traumatic memories. Possible talk of murder, death, blood, other nasty things. I'll try to update if the warnings needed but please use content warnings if it gets super nasty!

It starts off on March 4th, the early morning before the sun's even risen. You know those weird mirages that were hanging around the day before? Well now it's getting a little personal.

These mirages come and go seemingly for no reason. They might stay for a minute, they might stay for an hour. The images vary between person but the unifying factor is that the mirages consist of people the player characters have hurt, whether people in-game or from their homes. Whether they murdered them, slandered them, or even had a petty little argument, the unifying factor is the guilt each character feels towards or about this mirage. After all, you know you hurt them somehow. You know their existence somehow makes you feel guilty.

Another unifying factor? The creepy way these mirages just seem to stick to you. They'll follow you if you try to leave, staring you down with their creepy unblinking mirage eyes. And whoops: everybody can see said mirages. Hopefully you're not being stalked by someone you and somebody else both know, wouldn't that be awkward?

Have fun confronting your traumatizing past and/or wondering why your buddy's got some creepy ghost guy following him, imPorts!

( ooc: this is a catch-all log! Make starters of your characters getting haunted by their creepy mirages, have other people react to said creepy mirages, ???, profit. Hit me up on the ooc post if you have any questions! )

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She's your sister.

( MK looks past Sarah to Beth, gaze caught on her. She wonders what this means, for Sarah to be seeing her. She's out of breath - leaning against the wall, one hand level with her shoulder, palm flat against the brickwork, her side almost totally resting against the building. MK looks small and young, but defiant, in a strange, unexpected sort of way. It's like reaching out to touch something and believing each moment it will be soft, and then finding it sharp under your fingertips. )

We don't get to have a break from our sisters, Sarah. They deserve every breath that we have. Every thought. We are alive, we owe them that much.

( It's not until she says it that her suspicion seems to feel concrete, because why else would a clone follow Sarah, why would she be so upset? Sarah, who seems to possess the awareness of a piece of toast. Her own gaze on Sarah is intent, so one could be forgiven for thinking that Sarah simply had more mirages converging on her, rather than a living, breathing sister with her.

Behind MK, there are six clones. All as young as MK, and all looking at her with that strange intensity that all the clones seem to possess. The closest to MK is blonde, shirt bloody and hands scuffed. Closer to Sarah is another teen, though her hair is long and dark, and her manner seems closer to Sarah than to anyone else present - an alleycat, ready to tackle each moment like it offended her personally. )

[ Sarah huffs out a humorless laugh when she hears MK's voice. Of course she would show up to lecture Sarah at a time like this. ]

I never asked for sisters in the first place. [ It comes out almost as a spit, toxic and all jagged edges. She turns around to face MK, to tell her to piss off, to go bother Cosima or some total stranger—she's great at that, isn't she—when she sees the other clones standing behind her.

They're all so young, and it hits her like a punch to the gut. Just teenagers. She'd known about Helsinki, of course she had. But she hadn't had the time or inclination to think about the timeframe, about how young the clones had been. While Sarah herself had been slumming around the east coast, a little post-high school celebration (never mind that she'd never actually graduated), these girls had been slaughtered. Along with their families. ]

You don't get to choose,

( MK throws back, an indignant hiss. Her shoulders are haunched, her lip curled - she seems closer to a trapped fox than to the rabbit girl she can sometimes be. There is more aggression in her now than there will be in years to come, or at least more on the surface and less buried away where none can suspect it. )

These are your sisters you have never met. They had no choice, either, and they died. How much longer have you had to live than any of them? What have you done with it?

( She's angry and vicious, lashing out as a poor mask for the grief making her chest tight. Niki is here, but she cannot touch her, and Niki is not smiling or making jokes or rolling her eyes. They are all here, but they are not living. It had been a brief, euphoric moment before the realisation came flooding in. )

[ MK's words hurt, and it's visible in her expression, but not for longer than a second or two. After that, it's only anger. ]

What happened to them isn't my fault, Mika. You don't get to blame me for being alive. You don't know what I've been through trying to keep my sisters safe. And with no help from you, most of the time.

Why should I help you?

( She yells it, flinging the words across the space between them, caustic and biting as acid. MK moves closer to Sarah, and there is a feral, lack of control to her movements for a moment. Her shoulders are still hunched, she is still small, but she is volatile in ways she not yet outgrown. In a swift motion, MK points to the ghost, the mirage, whatever the thing should be called. )

Look at her. Her name was Justyna. She was seventeen, from the Czech Republic. When— ( Her mouth twists for a moment, trembles, and she forces it steady. ) When I saw you, I thought you were her. I thought maybe I was wrong, maybe she got away, and was safe. She was a leader, Sarah. You don't know how disappointed I was when I found out you weren't her.

( Her hands are in fists, white knuckles, and she realises a few seconds too late that tears are rolling down her cheeks. Her hand grips at the sleeve of her hoodie, and she uses it to rub across her cheek. ) Don't call me Mika. My name is Marya, here.

( More layers, more lies. )

You ought to help me, [ she spits, echoing MK's own words back at her, ] because we don't get to choose. You don't get to point at those dead girls and say they're your sisters and I'm not. It doesn't work that way just 'cause you're a pissed off teenager.

[ She can see that MK is crying, and part of her knows she needs to back off, but another part of her wants to take MK by the shoulders and shake her until she stops being such a little shithead. She says nothing else for a bit, just stands there trapped between Beth and MK and the other dead clones, but finally she mutters, ]

And like hell I'm gonna call you that stupid fake name.

Mika is a stupid, fake name.

( She flings the words back at Sarah, this reckless, emotional verbal volley they are playing out, as if they might win points when the other fails to return. ) Marja is safer. It is separate. If you think I should help you, then you should call me Marja.

( It's not really how this works, but MK is almost shaking with how angry she is. ) You don't get to ignore them. You don't get to ignore her.

( She jabs her hand towards the other older clone who looks so desperately sad, and scowls. ) Beth, you said. Who was she?

Beth was a cop working to protect all of us. She was the one who called you Mika before I did.

[ She has to cross her arms against her chest to keep from lashing out at MK. She doesn't look at Beth, or at the teenage ghosts standing just a few feet behind MK. Instead, she forces herself to stare right at MK's face, whether or not MK will meet her gaze. ] You don't get to accuse me of ignoring her. I never ignore her.

( That startles her into actually meeting Sarah's gaze, though only briefly. Her own focus is torn to Beth, and back to Sarah, and then to Beth again. So she would reach out to clones again, in the future. She knew Katja was alive, but reaching out to other clones seemed so... impossible. It was them knowing that had cost their lives in the first place.

MK moves a step towards Beth as Sarah continues speaking. She looks so unbelievably sad. ) She called me Mika?

( She called her Mika, and she protected the others. MK's jaw works for a second, silently. ) She must be very important.

( Whether that's a comment on the protection or on Sarah not ignoring her, that's anyone's guess. )

She was. [ To MK, to the others. Sarah regrets not reaching out and pulling Beth back onto that train platform every day. ] She ran marathons, she was funny. She was protecting us. [ A short, awkward pause. Sarah doesn't have a lot to say about the real Beth, the alive-Beth, because all she knows are stories and flashes of personality sewn together from clips of home videos and snapshots taped to Paul's fridge. ] Cosima knew her better than I did. She'd be able to tell you more.

[ Slowly, Sarah lets her gaze travel to the other ghosts, the ones standing behind MK. They're all so young. ]

Tell me about them.

( MK looks at Sarah, finally, and is at a loss for words. Police officer, ran marathons, funny. Sounded energetic. Someone who had an idea of where they were going.

She swallows, and nods, moving to the first girl. Her hair is cropped just a little below her jaw, and each ear has a collection of piercings - six hoops in one, five in the other, and then a hanging spike. She's clutching a cup of coffee, has glasses and an orange headband. )

This is Sofia. She was from Odense, in Denmark. She was— shy. It sounded like she didn't make friends easily, she stammered. I think she was nervous, but even though she was scared, she still came. Travelled all the way to Poland by herself to help us make sense of everything. I think she was gentler than the rest of us.

( MK stands in front of Sofia, looking awkward and a little uncomfortable, and makes herself keep going, her hands balling into fists and tugging at the strings of her hoody. ) They made it look like she committed suicide.

( A lonely girl who couldn't take it any more. Something like that. She moves onto the next two - matching gym clothes, red, and purple shirts. Their hair is loose, bleached paler by chlorine and the sun. They stand paired up - shoulder to shoulder, leaning against each other. )

Fay and Femke. Twins, from Amsterdam. Justyna said they found out about them because they were in the papers for winning swimming contests. ( MK stops for a second, trying to think what to say. ) They were— blunt and rude. They thought everything we were saying was too crazy and too dangerous. I didn't—

( She stops, guiltily. ) They didn't want to be part of this. ( A sniff, and she angrily rubs her sleeve across her face, ) Traffic accident. Them and their mother. She was monitoring them.

( Three down, three to go. Next is Justyna, in her mesh wearing, cargo pants with chains, and braided hair glory. )

Justyna, from Prague. She was overwhelming and loud. ( Make MK get more and more tense, made her shut down. Called her deaf and mute. She doesn't say that. Justyna was an ass, by her own admission, but she apologised, too. She was important. ) But she was clever. She cared a lot about what happened to us. It was her friend, Ania, that brought us all together, but Justyna wanted to fight to find answers instead of running away.

( Her lip quivers for a moment, but she makes herself keep going. ) Justyna disappeared. On the same day— ( She has to stop for a moment. Two more to go. Two more sisters. )

[ Sarah listens, not letting herself look away, even though she wants to. One by one, she forces herself to look at each clone, taking in everything about them—both what MK is saying and what Sarah can see in each sad, staring face. It's hard to believe that at seventeen these girls were already working to find out the truth. At seventeen, Sarah was fighting with S, not going to school, being a complete waste of life. Would she have joined them, if they'd found her somehow? She doubts it. And there are others, too, she knows. Other clones who've died from illness and never known why, who've been betrayed by their boyfriends and girlfriends and parents and never even known it. Sarah can only try to carry them all with her. Even though it's a heavy burden to carry, she'll force herself to do it, for the others. The ones who've died, and the ones who don't even know what they are. ]

Go on.

( MK has to take a few moments. Her fingers grip onto the strings of her hoody, twisting around them anxiously. The second to last clone is painfully thin, bald from loss rather than a shaving, skin pale and shadowed. She looks all the smaller in the dark hoody she's wearing. )

Jade. ( Her voice is a little quieter, as she takes a step towards her. ) I met her in a laboratory. She and others were being kept and experimented on. Given different treatments that made them sicker. They were called by numbers and letters. Jade couldn't remember her name any more, if she ever had one - one of her sisters chose 'Jade' for her. She wanted to fight for justice for the other girls who didn't escape the lab. And she wanted to be a person.

( She remembers what Niki said, that Jade probably couldn't travel because she wasn't a real person, legally speaking. But in terms of what Jade had felt, being caught in that lab and used like a rat? ) If it hadn't been for her, I wouldn't have gotten out of the lab.

( And they wouldn't have gone to the news, they wouldn't have drawn more attention. Maybe they wouldn't have died.
There is still Niki - Niki with the flower ring on her pinky finger, with her blonde hair in braids and wearing a blue jacket. MK can't decide what to say about Niki. ) And this is Niki.

[ This is so beyond everything that Sarah feared about DYAD, that they'd be keeping kids in a lab and experimenting on them, and she knows the horror must be evident on her face. It has to be. But she forces her voice to be calm, for MK's sake, if nothing else. ]

Tag numbers. Yeah. [ She nods as MK approaches Niki, waiting for her to continue, except it doesn't seem like MK knows how. ] Okay.

( The silence stretches out for a while, with neither of them seeming ready to fill it. MK swallows, but her voice still sounds dry when she speaks. ) She was my best friend.

( It is impossible to look at Sarah, with Niki in front of her like this. So close and yet so impossibly far, a mockery being made of her. Quietly, she amends: ) My only friend. She— asked me to be her sister.

( Not just in the sense of affection, although there was no "just" in that, either. Niki was going to speak to her family. She had been on her way to speak them, when... )

They drugged her family. A man in a suit strangled her, and then they burned them all alive. Her parents, her little sister. Niki. Her boyfriend was spying on her.

MK.

[ Sarah swallows, chews at her bottom lip, unsure of what to say. Everything MK is telling her, everything they've both been through, is too huge. When Sarah thinks about how many of them have died, so far, it's like she's trying to outrun something so much faster than she is, and so much bigger. She reaches out, but stops short of actually touching MK, her hand just hanging in the air for several seconds before she drops it back to her side. ]

I'm so sorry that happened. I'm doing my best to stop them, back home.

( MK is not aware of the hand reaching out to her - she is staring at Niki, too focused on solely Niki, like her sister could eclipse the rest of the world. She could, really. Nothing in the world could compare to Niki.

Nothing in the world could compare to her hurts or her rage. Nothing could compare to what she would do to the man who hurt her sisters. They were her sisters, truly, in a way that Sarah and Cosima could not be - not yet, and perhaps not ever. Given what had happened to her sisters, perhaps it was better for their own safety. )

Are you ready to kill them?

Yes.

[ Her voice almost trembles, but she forces herself to sound strong. For MK's sake, at least. She's just a kid. And Sarah knows, now—knows that letting Ferdinand go was a bad idea. She should have let MK kill him. She shouldn't have given Rachel chance after chance after chance, and been surprised when every time, Rachel turned on the rest of the clones. She should have been a stronger leader, the kind of person Beth talked about on the bridge. ]

Good.

( She is still looking at Niki, but finally makes herself pull her gaze away to look at Sarah. Sarah seems so... lost, sometimes. So much older, and so much more lost. That was a luxury they did not have, was not theirs to enjoy. Being lost was an indulgence. )

If he comes here, one death will not be enough. He will not know peace, as long as I live.

Do you know his name?

[ She knows MK does, in the future, but this one is so young, she must have just seen her sisters killed. Sarah knows she shouldn't be encouraging this—revenge is one thing, what MK's talking about is another—but another part of her doesn't see what it could hurt. When they go home, they won't remember any of this, will they? ]

I do.

( That, finally, makes MK look to Sarah. She inhales, exhales shakily, and her hands curl into fists. Sarah's is not the neck she's imagining them tightening about. )

Tell me.

Ferdinand Chevalier. He works as a... a cleaner for DYAD and Topside. DYAD's the corporation that created us.

[ She lets out a breath, slow, and glances again at the ghosts of her dead sisters, then back to MK. ]

Back home, when I know you, you've got way more information than I do. But here, I'll try to tell you what I can, if you think it'll help.

Cleaner.

( A hiss, disgusted, but she's filing it away. Topside, DYAD, Ferdinand Chevalier. Her breathing is shaky, and her hand slips into her pocket without hesitation. Orange bottle, white cap, a twist and brief shake and two blue pills fall into her palm, that she tosses back and swallows dry. There is something wilder in this MK than the one Sarah knows better - less rabbit ready to run and hide and fight another day, more fox, ready to lash out and fight. Feral, not just wild. )

If he comes here I'll be ready to kill him and every person who he answers to. They will suffer for everything they did to my sisters.

( Not our, not yet. My. )

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weep not for the memories

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