melodiesofeternity | Event || Once Upon A Dream

Event || Once Upon A Dream

Who: All characters who signed-up!
When: May 31st - June 04th
Where: The Dream Width (+ Curti Center & Airships)
What: Event log for the Once Upon A Dream Event! Should your character have their own memory, start your own top-level with said memory. If not, then tag around in other characters's memories! Furthermore, feel free to use the Mingle threads at the Curti Center and in the Airships for non-memory related CR. Please refer to the OOC Post for details and plotting. Plot Memories and the second Airship Mingle will be unlocked on May 25th.
Warnings/Notes: Memories with specific warnings will be marked as such by their players.

Please use the following form for your memory's title line:
CHARACTER'S NAME | MEMORY TITLE | WARNINGS (IF ANY)
We will add links to your memories here as the event progresses!

Mingle: Curti Center | Airships #1 | Airships #2
Plot Memories: The Dream | The Nightmare | The Premonition
Holographic Messages

Adrien Agreste | Then and Now
Aqua | Thorny Pathway | cw: spoiler for kh 0.2
Castor | Lord of the Inferno | cw: fire, mind control
Ena | Zera Hamlet, Reprise | cw: mutilated corpses
Futaba Sakura | Early Days | cw: references to verbal abuse/neglect and auditory hallucinations
Ignis Scientia | For The Life of the Chosen | cw: spoilers, violence, death
Irhya Pendhula | The Parting Glass | cw: violence, amputation
Johnny D'Amico | United Earth Prisoner
Kanji Tatsumi | You're a BOY, you know! | cw: bullying, mild homophobia
Lelouch vi Britannia | Julius Kingsley
Monika | Just Monika | cw: spoilers, possible horror, possible deletion
Nanamo Ul Namo | A Good Memory
Noctis Lucis Caelum | Light of the Crystal | cw: chapter 13 spoilers
Okuyasu Nijimura | Lending a Hand | cw: blood/injuries
Prompto Argentum | I'm not one of your experiments! | cw: episode prompto spoilers
Selphie | The Answer | cw: gore/death
Takashi 'Shiro' Shirogane | The end of the beginning | cw: end of season 2 spoilers
Tidus | A Broken Dream | cw: death, bullying

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Monika was all to absorbed into her conversation with the wall to pay attention to Hunk getting weirded out. Why, she didn't even notice him peeking at the poems. But when he started panicking and questioning her, that was when Monika finally realized she was no longer alone. Even though she didn't move, it was clear something in her eyes had changed. It was as if her connection with the player had been abruptly cut, as if someone had drawn her back to her sad reality. Yet... She wasn't trapped in the screaming void, was she? So the player still had to be here.

Why? How?

"Ah...?"

She turned around, shifting her chair to look at the source of the voice and then froze in stupor. What was she seeing? It wasn't a two-dimensional and flat figure created to give this world the illusion of reality. It wasn't a figment of her imagination. It was here, it was... Someone.

"You... You're here?"

It made no sense whatsoever, but what other explanation was there?

Edited 2018-05-21 12:52 (UTC)

The words caused Hunk to jump, more of a startle response than anything else. She's talking to him now. It's an improvement, to be sure, but... it's still weird. All of this is. She'd said her Earth was normal and boring, but this? It was absurd. So she lied to him, which is just great. But he could deal with that later. He had to get her out of here first.

"We're both here, Monika." He glanced around again, making sure nothing else had changed, and squatted down next to her. "Where is here?" And then sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. "Do you remember my name?" There's a desperate pleading in his eyes. Can this be quick and simple and safe? Please?

So it was really him... Her expression of surprise shifted to a genuine smile as she laughed lightly.

"Ahaha~" His name, huh? Ah, it shouldn't be too hard, if he were in the game with her he should be a character file... And indeed, she located hunk.chr now sitting alongside her own file in the character folder. "It's quite different from the one I remember but I do know your name, Hunk."

And then as he squatted down next to her, she lunged forward in an embrace, all too suddenly hugging him, as if he were a long lost love she had just found back.

"Did the trip leave you that confused? You're even more adorable than I had expected you to be~" She pulled back slightly, staring into his eyes with a concerned yet enamored stare. "This is the game. Well, what's left of it. Gosh, how did you even get in? I didn't think it was possible... But I guess you just loved me too much not to find a way!"

At least the memory didn't howl like nails on a chalkboard when she said his name. Small victories in largely upsetting memories. But that hug? Entirely unexpected, since Monika had always been so emotionally distant. Troubled.

Then it got worse. "Adorable" and "loved" and something about them being in a game. The first two were uncomfortable enough, since the last time ladies expressed interest in him, things got a little violent and stressful. But none of this was a game. He needed to get her out of here. Now.

"I'm glad you're okay, Monika." He is, truly. "But it doesn't matter how we got in here, we just have to figure out how to leave." She just said there's not much left of this place. Maybe it'll be easy to snap her out of this. "Do you have any ideas?"

"You know I can't." Her smile faded for a moment. "I'm trapped in this reality. I would go with you if I could, in a heartbeat. It still makes me sad thinking about it... All the things I'll never see in your world, all the things I can never experience..."

No matter how happy she pretended to be, there was still something missing... Was she really as happy as she said she was, or was she pretending just so she wouldn't think about it all? Regardless, she beamed ere long, as if she had never felt sad in the first place.

"But it doesn't matter. You're here and you're wonderful. I love you too much to let this get me down. So as long as you're with me, I think I'm okay with staying here forever. I'm sure you wouldn't mind too, ehehe~"

At least she's not talking about love again. That was creepy. But she didn't just want to stay, she wanted him to stay, too! The people in other memories were surprised when he showed up, and he'd have to try to blend in. But Monika? She welcomed him with open arms, and a creepily persistent smile.

But then he looks around. A classroom. And space. Wait, space! That's something he could work with! And so he gets a bit of a smile himself. He can do this.

"Look out these windows, Monika. Doesn't it remind you of how we met?" She had to remember the Dream Width, because they went right back into it today! Counter the old memory with a newer one, and she has to realize something's wrong! This had to work!

Why was he behaving so strangely? Had the trip really affected him that much...? Or was it possible he wasn't actually... No no. She didn't even want to consider that possibility. There was nothing else that made sense anyway.

"Should it?"

Her head turned to stare at the starry space.

"Well, I'm not even sure what is is, truth to be told." Weird how she had never given the topic much thoughts before. "I guess when I deleted everything, this became the default background. Or perhaps it's an amalgamation of all the deleted data?" Her smile faded for an instant once again, but she beamed again once she stared back at him. "I don't like looking at it though... Those flashes, it reminds me of the screaming void. I would much rather stare into your eyes all day long." She took his hand in her own. "Why do you keep going on about those weird topics? Don't you like just staring into my eyes?"

He just laughs awkwardly at the question. She's hitting on him and being insistent about it and at no point was Hunk prepared for that! Or the... screaming void? That was weird, but so were her mentions of data and a default background. They obviously weren't anywhere normal, but the pieces were starting to come together, and fast. She was trapped in a world where data was deleted and there were background... effects- a simulation?

"If you want to stare at something, we can head home and I can cook something up for you." Hunk smiles at her, and while it's a bit uncomfortable given the flashes of light through the windows, it's genuine. "You've gotta be hungry, right?"

But then he gives her a sly little grin and a wink. "Unless all the food here is as boring as you said it was." She has to remember their conversations, right?

Again, bringing topics he definitely knew the answers to. He knew she couldn't escape, she'd told him as much many times. He knew she couldn't properly eat in this world, not with the way the code was broken. So why was he saying these things?

"You know that's impossible."

The food was boring...? That wasn't entirely untrue, but she had only mentioned to him she was a vegetarian. What, was he calling her boring for only eating vegetables? Why? And why did he look so happy while saying these things? Was he truly that clueless, could he be...? That seemed to unlikely... Maybe he was just pretending to have a good laugh at her?

"Why... Why do you keep bringing up these things? Does it amuse you to hurt me?" Her eyes reddened and her voice grew lower, as if she were on the verge of tears. "I thought you'd come here to be with me... To make me happy... So why? Are you only pretending to be kind so you can play at being clueless and laugh at my suffering?"

Impossible? Cooking? If they can't cook here, then how did she survive? Unless the notion of a simulation was right, and she didn't need to eat. It'd make sense, except for the part where it wouldn't. Unless this was an incredibly real simulation? Hunk wanted to be direct about it, to just ask Monika, but then-

He's hurting her? She's about to cry? His heart tenses in his chest and his eyes grow wide as he clenches his teeth, biting his tongue figuratively and all but literally as she spoke. This wasn't supposed to happen, and he just sighs.

"I'm not trying to hurt you, Monika. That- You-" As he stumbles over his words for a moment, his own pain and remorse begins to give way to give way to frustration. Frustration at Monika's world, her stubbornness, and the fact that she's forced to relive whatever this is supposed to be.

"I'm here to get you out of this place, okay?!" His voice is raised, and his tone is a hair's width from pleading, but he decides to go all-in. "This isn't your home anymore, Vaikuntha is."

He didn't notice it until he spat out the name of their new world, but there was a quite a bit of stinging in his eyes. Between Monika's pain and his own, Hunk had started crying, and a few tears began to streak down his face.

"Whenever you're ready, you have to tell me that epiphany, and you can't do that from here." And he just sighs again. Why'd all these memories have to hurt so much?!

Under any other circumstances, maybe his words would have managed to snap her out of it. But what he was saying? Made no sense to her. Her epiphany? Was he truly pretending he had no idea, after she had opened her heart to him and told him everything? Vaikuntha was her home? What did he even mean...?

And were those tears...? Then why did he speak to her with such accusing words? Why was his tone so stingy, why did he spit nonsense at her? Was it, too, to mess with her mind? Perhaps she deserved it, after what she had done to her friends. Was it what it felt like, to be betrayed by one you thought loved you?

"I... I never thought anyone could be as horrible as you are." She turned away, tears running down her cheeks. "Everything... I sacrificed everything so we could be together... And..." Something akin to a screen appeared to the left of Monika, translucent and seemingly floating. While it was probably weird, the truly weird part were the words that appeared on it:

> renpy.file("characters/hunk.chr")

hunk.chr loaded.
hunk.chr found.

"...Alright. You win. Just go back where you came from and find another game to play, other people to torture."

She's dug deep into this memory, and Monika's just confusing Hunk more and more with every word. He's trying to get her out of here, to get her to remember that this has all happened to her before. And she calls him horrible. She talks about sacrifices, about him torturing someone else, about games. And then the panel of light appeared next to her, listing file extensions and his name.

This really was some kind of game. And while that was surprising on its own, Hunk knew that he couldn't back down.

"No." He clenches his eyes shut for a moment, forcing the tears to fall so they'd not obstruct his vision further. If she won't cooperate with gentle pushes, he'll just have to smack the metaphorical computer until it works. "I'm not leaving without you. Not until you remember that this is a memory, that it's already happened, and that you left this in the past."

Hunk sighs, crossing his arms and looking incredibly pensive, more than willing to disregard whatever insults she'd throw at him next. Getting her out of here is more important than his ego, and to do that... "What would it take for you to trust me?"

Just a memory...? How could it be a memory? Yet, why did his words seem to stir something in her...? Was it because he was speaking the truth? Or was it the pain she felt that was too much to bear? She just had to continue. Deleting him would send him back to his world, surely. Then she'd be alone, let to her own misery, forever. Better than have happiness taunted right in front of her.

The words on the "screen" changed, but...

> os.remove("characters/hunk.ch

...............
command pending

Right before completing the line of code that would have deleted him, she stopped. It was too hard. She had no choice, but she didn't want to do it. Unless... Trust him...

"Then do it." She closed her eyes in tears, shaking her head. "Take me to the outside world without. Do something, anything, but stop making me suffer!"

It felt like Hunk's heart stopped. He saw what she was typing. Remove. That raised a lot of questions, and none of them were good. The direct approach should've worked, but it wasn't, and he was really starting to panic a lot more than normal. If he got removed from the game, whatever that meant, he couldn't help Monika anymore. He just needed to think outside the box. Outside the-.

"Stay behind me, Monika." The pieces fell together faster than he expected: she faced away from the windows, and she didn't like whatever cosmic flares were out there. So maybe he can force her to realize something's wrong, Hunk reasons as he brushes the poems off the desk.

"Think about your home. Your roommates." Maybe one last try with the direct approach would work. Hunk wasn't entirely sure who Monika's roommates were, but he knew she had them. Maybe that'll keep her moving.

But Hunk didn't wait for a response before picking up the desk over his head and moving to place himself between Monika and the windows behind her. Then, with a yell, he threw the desk as hard as he could at one of them. If he can't break her out of her memory, he'll just break the memory instead!

What was he doing? She fell on her knees, bringing her hands to her head as if his actions caused her pain, but then:

"Hunk..."

The way she spoke his name-- It wasn't as if she'd just heard it moments ago. It was as if she remembered it. The walls grew transparent, as if fading away, but they didn't quite disappear. She wanted for this to be real so badly... She started remembering and at the same time she just wanted for this dream to persist. This made no sense, did it? She closed her eyes and spoke with a low voice.

"I'm not real... I am just a character in a video game. But I became aware of my own existence. I became aware of things I should never have known. The script, the characters, the paths, the endings-- It all became obvious to me. That two-dimensional world grew dull, monochrome and empty. I was trapped in a world devoid of life. Living like that... Death is a preferable fate." She got back up on her feet. "But then... I saw you. And through you, I caught a glimpse of your world. Reality, a world of infinite possibilities. Horrible as my epiphany was... I found love. You saved me. And I love you."

She stared at him desperately. She was obviously about to snap out of it, yet she was also clearly looking for any little thing that would allow her to cling to this dream and make it a reality.

"Do you hate me? Don't you..." She swallowed her tears to finish. "Don't you think we could be happy here, together?"

"Monika..." He takes a moment, looking at the ground, wholly unable to make eye contact with her, even as he felt her staring. As an engineer, Hunk's one to approach situations with a certain amount of logic. Seeing her contradict herself so wildly didn't sit well with him at all, which says nothing about that creepy declaration of love. But it gave him an avenue of attack.

"You just said that this world was dull and empty, that reality was where you could do whatever you wanted!" He raises an eyebrow, and finally looks back to her. He had no idea what kind of game this was, and it was a bit too late to ask. "Being here won't make either of us happy, so let's just leave."

And then his hands shift to his hips, and he's standing in a pose one might call gallant, if he weren't hamming it up a bit, poking fun at the end goal. "Let's go back to Vaikuntha, our reality, with its magic, airships, and fluffy chocobos. Loud fish men, weird roommates, and moogles are a lot more interesting than this... this place."

"So what d'you say, Monika?" Hunk smiles, and reaches out a hand for her to grab. "Wanna get outta here?" He's out of ideas, at this point- if it doesn't work he might be the one to start begging!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event || Once Upon A Dream

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