reveriance | TEST DRIVE #002

TEST DRIVE #002

( 0 0 1 ) » WAKE UP

Were you asleep or were you unconscious? It doesn't matter: when you come to, there's an odd taste in your mouth and there's a low-level mechanical hum in the air. Your head hurts and you feel nauseous. You aren't anywhere you know: everything around you is metal, from the floor you lie on all the way to the ceiling. You are dressed in a jumpsuit you definitely weren't wearing before.

"We tried to save the world. I think— I think we did the opposite."

The message repeats on a loop. If you look for its source, you find a comms device on the floor next to you. The logo on its wallpaper says REVERIE TERMINAL. Upon closer inspection, you find the same logo on your jumpsuit.

Welcome to your new home. What choice do you have but to explore your surroundings?

( 0 0 1 . 1 ) » WAKE UP WHERE?
When you wake up, you find that you're not alone. But more importantly, you find that you're in a closet. An empty closet, bar you and your new companion. It's small, cramped, and there is no door that you can see. The ceiling is low, there is barely any lights, only some coming from the tiny flashlight clipped to your suit's shoulder. You cannot be sure that there is any air coming in to the room.

Are these grooves in the wall supposed to mean something?

( 0 0 2 ) » OBSERVATION DECK

There were no windows in the corridor you woke up in and no windows in any of the crew quarters you might have checked for occupants — but there are plenty of windows on the uppermost level of the station, deck 1. In fact, there are windows from floor to ceiling all along the circumference of the station's circular deck, and it's possible to walk along it all. What it shows is a strange solar system you've never seen before and a planet that might resemble one you know, but certainly isn't the same.

You're in space. You don't know where you are. Neither does anyone else.

( 0 0 3 ) » BAR

On deck 3, you find the bar. Tucked away from the crew quarters, it's dimly lit, there are bar stools thrown down on the floor and what looks like some very old drink spills, crusty and dark against the bar top. But there is alcohol here, or at least, what you think is alcohol, in bottles with faded labels, most of them indecipherable. Take a drink, get drunk, start a fight, or start a party? You're stuck on this station, might as well make the most of it, right?

( 0 0 4 ) » SPACEQUAKES

One second, you are is walking. Magnetic boots are on, the ground feels solid enough, for a metal deck in a space station. Everything is perfectly fine, or at least as fine as it can be, given that you still don't know where you are or how you came to be here.

The next moment, it's like everything explodes around you. You're thrown against the wall as sparks erupts from electrical panels, as the whole station rumbles and shakes around you. You fall to the deck, earning yourself scratches from the grating. When you look up, it's like nothing has happened. No wires hanging from open panels, no flickering lights, no more shaking. Like an earthquake in space.

( 0 0 5 ) » NETWORK

The comms device you found next to you when waking up connects to a station-wide network, REVERIE NET. You have the option to post video, voice or text messages.

What will you share?

( 0 0 6 ) » WILDCARD

The station features a variety of locations, from sleeping quarters free for the claiming to a dirty swimming pool and a bar that still holds alcohol (though some of the bottles seem to have been opened a while ago).

Go wild, but don't wreck the place. It's your home for the foreseeable future, after all.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[She takes a few shaky steps back into a chair. What he's saying, it all makes sense. It all tracks with how she knows Erik operates. Do what's best for mutant kind, at any cost. Even if that cost is her life. That still doesn't make it an easy thing to accept.]

But you didn't manage to kill me. [Because he talks like she's still alive ten years later.] Did Trask do it? Make the Sentinels stronger? [She feels nauseous, perhaps partly because of her leg, but mostly by the potential implications.]

No, I didn't.

[ He feels the same sick, hollow sadness he felt on the plane to Paris when he realized what he would have to do. Except now it's somehow worse, because she's there, and suffering, and hates him for very good reasons. Along with Charles and Hank, who he knew would hate him for it as well. How did they get past this point? How did he end up back here?

He hates time travel. ]

I don't know. There was blood. They got some of it. I don't know if we managed to change the future, which was the whole damned point.

[ He rubs a hand over his hair. ]

If our situations were reversed, I'd want you to do the same. No single one of us is more important than the cause.

[She's quiet, the gears turning as she processes everything. It's too much. Raven had been trying to help the mutant race, not be the cause of it's destruction. Trask needed to die, how was she to know that her actions would only make it worse.

Then Raven's looking at him, contemplating if their roles were reversed. Could she do the same? Could she have just killed him? The simplest solution to avert disaster? She's not so sure that she'd be able to make that decision, even if on an intellectual level she knows it might be the best answer. It doesn't feel right. And while her anger is dulled somewhat, it's still there. The emptiness still eating at her from the inside.] Let's hope it doesn't come to that.

[ She falls silent, and he does as well. It's all such a hollow justification. But he knows that if it came down to it, he would do it again. To any of them. Because he's the only one of them who can.

As dedicated as Raven is, as formidable as she is, there's still enough softness left in her.

It's not a bad thing. ]

That's the point of what we do, right? So none of us have to make those sorts of decisions anymore.

[There is still part of her that's not prepared to lose herself for the sake of the greater good. Dying is one thing. Killing Trask. That feels right. Killing someone she cares for is an entirely different thing. It would be a far worse fate than her own death.

What might she become then?]

Do you actually think we'll ever get there? To a time when mutants aren't murdered, experimented on, or forced to live in fear?

[She's not so sure that can happen.]

[ In the end, he choked. He couldn't do it. No matter how much he believed that it had to be done, that it had to be him, in the end he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her. Knowing that he shot both her and Charles is enough to keep him up at night. Knowing that as bad as they all thought he was, he still had the potential to be worse. They don't even know about Apocalypse.

About Nina. ]

I have to.

[ The belief that this was all for some purpose is the only thing keeping him sane. ]

I want to believe too. [But she so fucking tired. She just wants Trask dead, it's all she can bring herself to focus on. One enemy at a time. One foot in front of the other.]

[ He reaches and touches her hand. He wants to offer more comfort than is really possible. Their mission is dangerous, and the odds are stacked against them. Erik's daughter has already paid the price for his mistakes.

Raven hasn't made the same mistakes he has. ]

Your instincts are better than mine. So long as you do what you know is right, you will be helping us achieve that goal.

[Surprisingly, Raven doesn't tear her hand away from his. It's progress. And it's due in now small part to shock. Hearing Erik tell her to do what's right by her own measure rather than his? She can hardly believe her ears.

The words are out of her mouth before she can stop herself.] What the hell happened to you, Erik?

[ He lets go, and steps back. He can't tell her. He can't tell her about fleeing to Poland, meeting Magda, having Nina, and knowing some kind of peace for the first time in his life. Even if it was a façade that disintegrated around him, dissolved by fear and blood.

He can't tell her. ]

A decade happened to me, Raven. A lot can change.

So I can see. [And it's making her almost more uneasy than if he had still been trying to kill her. It seems like ultimately he's come out of it better than before, but at what cost? She moves to stand, ignoring the sharp objection of her leg.]

I should... I should get back to my room. [She's got a lot to think about. About whatever might have happened to Erik. What she thinks about everything. It's a lot. And she's too tired to fully process it all.]

[ There's so much he can't say. A gap between them that hasn't existed before, and not due to the gunshot wound. The distance of time. Irreversible. He's never lied to her, and he still isn't. But he can't force the displaced memories on her.

So he just nods. And watches her go. ]

TEST DRIVE #002

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