weep not for the memories

[brushoff]

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! )

Comments

[khajidont]

[ Another time, Jaime would have had something to say about how real they are or aren't, what it means, what the original person would want it to mean, let alone the fact that he knows nothing about whoever this Beth person is.

But this happening before? That piques his interest, because while he's vaguely aware that Sarah and her sisters come from a world with advanced enough technology for clones, he never pegged them as being from a world that involved the supernatural. ]

You've seen her ghost before?

[coppelganger]

It's not... like that. I don't believe in ghosts.

[ She laughs, humorless. "I don't believe in ghosts," after she's been transported to another bloody universe and given superpowers. Sure. ]

I've had dreams before. And I've seen her before, like hallucinated her. Nothing that anyone else could see.

[khajidont]

I mean...

[ Jaime gestures a little loosely towards Beth, then at Sarah. ]

I can't really blame you, considering.

[ They're clones. God only knows how many of them are out there, how many of them they still haven't found, right? If there was anything to make someone think they're seeing an image of themselves everywhere, it's having a thousand clones of themselves wandering around. Hallucinating still isn't great, but in this case? It almost makes sense. ]

Having seen her before still doesn't make it real, though. It's... more like a trauma thing.

[ He doesn't know what happened, but it's obviously nothing good - and it doesn't take a genius to link hallucinations and nightmares to trauma. It's something everyone here has in spades. ]

[coppelganger]

Yeah. Well. Trauma or not, real or not, here she is.

[ She looks at him, waiting to see if he'll have some more advice. It's not really a hostile look, though it's not particularly friendly, either. But this kid is friends with Sarissa, from what she knows, and that means she needs to watch herself more than she would normally. ]

You know Sarissa's gone, yeah? There's been a mistake.

[khajidont]

Yeah. Here she is.

[ He has no argument for that one, nor does he wish to have one. To argue whether or not their presence matters based on whether or not they're real is irrelevant; all they can do is take solace in the fact that their loved ones (was she a loved one? He wonders) aren't actually haunting them, even if it doesn't help ease any of the sting. ]

And I mean, of course I noticed she's gone. She just got ported out, right? I'm not sure if I'd call that a mistake. It's just... what happens, here.

[coppelganger]

No, I mean—

[ She stops. It's not like she can tell this kid that Sarissa's grandmother is here in her place. Since they should have the same grandmother, technically. After several seconds, she shakes her head and continues, ] Another clone is here. But she was given Sarissa's file and assigned to live at my house. The Porter thinks it brought Sarissa back, but it's not her.

[khajidont]

What? I've never heard of that happening before! And I've been here for like - a really long time.

[ He looks over at the ghost, brow furrowed. It screwing up shouldn't be connected to all these damn ghosts, but then again, any sort of irregularity is worth noting. He gestures over towards the ghost. ]

Do you think that that has anything to do with all this?

[coppelganger]

[ Sarah follows his gaze, then shrugs. She doesn't see anything connecting the problem with Eunike and Beth's ghost, aside from their faces, and that's nothing new. ]

I don't think so. Anything's possible, I guess.

[khajidont]

Just a thought. It's probably some imPort experimenting on stuff, 'cause it usually is, but... I don't know. It's weird.

[ He frowns to himself, looking down at the ground, as if that will have answers for him. It doesn't, so he moves on, looking back at Sarah's face. He misses Sarissa, truth be told, and it's sort of difficult seeing her face echoed back in ways that aren't her. Clone or not, he could never mistake Sarah for Sarissa. ]

How's she doing? The new girl? I mean, did she know about you guys before she got here, or...?

[coppelganger]

She didn't, but she's alright. She wants to eat our pigs and fix the house. Seems like it's pretty tough to faze her.

[ She shrugs and looks at the ground herself, not sure she'll be able to keep the emotion from showing on her face when she adds, ] Besides, it's only me and Cosima and MK now. Less clones to freak her out, I mean.

[khajidont]

Oh. I'm real sorry, that sucks. At least you'll all get to see each other at home, too.

[ He, of course, still doesn't have a clue that Sarissa won't be seeing her sisters back home. Worst case scenario, he figures, one of them is dead - but he doesn't let himself entertain the possibility for longer than is normal in this place, where any person you speak to may very well have been killed back home years ago.

He offers her a small, wry sort of smile. ] If you ever need a break from her trying to eat your pigs, let me know and I can show her around town. I'm guessing she must be from a more rural area than the rest of you, yeah?

[coppelganger]

Yeah, um... someplace in Greece, I think. Thanks for the offer. Not sure she'd take you up on it, though. I think she has a thing about Americans.

[ And Italians, and Germans, and... a lot of people. But Sarah doesn't want to mention the weird time discrepancy, because that brings up the fact that Eunike is Sarissa's grandmother, and that brings up the minor fact that Sarissa isn't actually a clone. ]