Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here's your chance...

To enter! But before I tell you how do that, you need to read some quick rules.

Listen up!

• Basic shop rules apply here (no whining, begging, cheating, etc)
  
• Even though I am leaving it up to you, the entrant, to pick the patient's species... please be reasonable. She is not a dog or some kind of mystical mermaid. If you have questions about what I consider 'reasonable', feel free to PM me about it.
  
• Yes, she will have powers. However, they too must be reasonable. Any powers or traits that you decide to give her MUST be approved of in the power and trait approval thread.
  
• Remember that you must give her some kind of affliction that is related to one of her senses or her brain (sight, hearing, touch, taste, voice).
  
• Please try to respond to the prompts in third-person, as if you were actually roleplaying. And check for grammar and spelling. That's important, too. B|

Now that you've read the rules, you're ready to move on to the next step. THE PROMPTS.

DUN DUN DUNNNN
Some things to keep in mind when responding to your prompt:

• You do not need to answer all of the questions in the prompt or even follow the prompt word for word.
  
• The purpose of the prompt is to tell me what kind of personality/past that you'll be making up for the girl. Don't just say that she woke up, fixed her hair, and went to go get some food; the end. Instead, try saying that she looked around groggily (she's tired) and that when she looked in the mirror she frowned because her hair was messy (she cares about her appearance) etc etc etc. Be descriptive!
  
• Don't forget to mention her affliction in your RP entry!
  
• You do not need to include her entire past in your RP entry, but including a hint or two would certainly make things more interesting....Unless you make her an amnesiac or something.

(I lied, there's only one prompt.)

Patient's Name: Lucia

Patient's Personality: Cautious and secretive, but fakes happiness

Patient's powers/traits: Seeing other places and events of the time period, as well as events from the past or future, though these must relate specifically to her life and she can not control them. She can also flash to other places, but her tattoos make it so that she can't go very far away.

Patient's race: Government Experiment: Teleportation System

Patient's Affliction: Her eyes can't perceive color

RP response:

She opened her eyes and stared at the white ceiling, it was such a pure shade that it nearly burned her eyes looking at it. Flopping over on her side her eyes searched the floor, a softer gray color; or at least that's the way she saw it, with her irregular, glowing baby blues. With a soft grunt she pushed herself up onto the edge of the mattress; it was terribly flat and uncomfortable, lumpy, dirty.... In the end though, she had slept soundly; only once had she awoken with a mute scream, a reminder of the terrors she had endured in the weeks beforehand plagued her dark dreams. It had been a long time since she had been allowed to sleep over night, even naps had been a rare, but welcomed, event back in the government facilities.

Getting up quietly from the bed, she wavered with weakness as she looked for something to do, anything to get her mind off those disturbing scenes; all she could see was a small dresser, a side table with a lamp, and a... broken mirror? She could not remember if this had been here last night when they ushered her into the dark room, but then again she was not sure if she would have recognized it anyways; everything was black once night hit. Picking up a rather large shard, she only grimaced slightly as it cut into her skin, more concerned with the black splotches that stained her skin; the smell of blood wafting in the air around her. Studying her body, she watched the binding tattoos as they twisted and turned around her arms; it was a great relief to see they still kept her powers dormant, yet she longed to use them to get away from this place she had been brought to. Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine being out of here; she saw a field with beautiful flowers in another country across the continent, it was such a beautiful image, even if it was only in black and white.

With a gasp she felt her body lurch and twist, the tattoos glowing bright like her eyes as she opened them wide, watching with fear as new symbols began to form on her thigh. These powers of teleportation were too great for a novice like her to handle, that's what the scientists had told her when they inked the symbols onto her skin, forever binding the gift they had woven into her brain. She did not understand why they wanted to take away what they had spent so long developing for her, but she also didn't remember the experiments they had done; the destruction and deaths that had accumulated from her transports. They told her memory loss was common during jumps, and it took a long time for them to explain to her why there were dead bodies laying at her feet when she arrived at the targeted location.

Suddenly the ground trembled beneath her as she teleported back to the mattress, her skin burning as the glow began to fade; it was not time to think about her past, the people she had killed, or the way escaping from the facility had weakened her greatly. Tiptoeing silently out of the room, she peeked around the halls cautiously, already afraid that her actions would cause her grief later. She took a hesitant step forward, facing the left and staring at all the empty black doorways and white-washed walls. It was hard for her to imagine what to do now, but there was only her and the endless plaster halls, or at least that's how it would be so early in the morning; until other patients became restless as well. Perhaps if she just walked quietly through the asylum until someone stopped her, until she found something to occupy her thoughts and drain her of the time left in the day, she might just be able to survive this place without driving herself totally insane. Hopefully she could find a place to meditate when the visions got too bad, somewhere she didn't have to fake a smile when her body was all but worn.

Feeling a wave course through her body, she closed her eyes and saw a vision of a small room in the asylum where patients were drawing quietly on sketch pads, their minds engulfed in that single task, and she saw herself stepping in meekly; face bright as a small smile formed to greet everyone who bothered to look up. Opening her eyes again, she saw the gray figure of a doctor as he came towards her, and summoning up the strength she had left, an innocent smile graced her face as she waved light-halfheartedly to him, though he seemed not to notice. It seemed her path was already set, and with a quiet sigh she began wandering in search of the sketching room.

Patient's Name: Lorelei Kochlin

Patient's Personality: Honest, Curious, Blunt

Patient's powers/traits: Fire and Wind Manifestation/Control: Lorelei can manifest small winds in accordance to the amount of space she has around her to work with. So if she is in a small room, she may only summon small winds to control. The best example of this would be small whirl winds she uses to 'sweep' out her room on a daily basis of any dust. It is only when she is 'outside' that she is capable of summoning stronger winds. The strength of these winds are powerful enough to push small objects, but not to physically push a adult sized human. Lorelei can also summon blue flames within her bare hands. These flames resemble the glow of her eyes, and are extremely intense in heat. The fire has the strength of a blow torch and can be wielded with pin point accuracy by Lorelei. Her powers are weak representations of what she truly is behind those glowing eyes.

Patient's race: Djinn

Patient's Affliction: Hypersensitivity: Lorelei's sense of touch is exceptionally sensitive. A mere five degrees above 75 Fahrenheit feels as if it is the middle of a heat wave. Likewise, a drop in temperature below 75 degrees has Lorelei shivering and feeling as if she is freezing. In addition to this, a simple slap on the shoulder feels as if she has been flat out punched. Lorelei must walk as if on eggshells and avoid any bumps and knocks. She does suffer physically under these circumstances. A fall feels as if she has been dropped out a window and down one story. While her bones do not break and her organs will not rupture, she will bruise up spectacularly.

RP response:Despite the passing of years, sleep still was not something she was accustomed to. Her body required it so regularly that, if it did not break up the boredom that came with the passage of time, she would have been vexed by this weakness. Lorelei currently laid upon her back, her blue eyes opening slowly to peer at the blank gray ceiling above her when wakefulness stirred her mind. Her hands lifted then folded over her chest, where she could feel the beat of her heart and felt the rise and fall of her lungs beneath the skin.

"Good morning Lorelei. It is another day." She spoke to the ceiling above. Of course there was no answer. There had not been a answer to her morning ritual for well over a year now. Not that it would stop her from repeating it. To waken and greet herself alleviated some of the burden she felt partly responsible for. It eased the guilt to the point she could easily disassociate herself from whatever blame she felt she could have carried. She listened internally for just a few minutes longer in the hope that perhaps today she would feel a faint stirring. Alas, there was nothing.

Slowly Lorelei sat up on the bed and twisted around to place her bare feet on the plain stone floor. At a glance one could see her room was a simple square block of bare stone walls. The once white ceiling had turned gray with age. Her bed was bolted to the wall much like a prison cell's bed. It's table like surface provided no form of comfort at all, which led to less then restful sleep. Her mattress was too thin on the metal bed table that was too cold.

It was clean though. As clean as one could make it in a place that did not provide proper cleaning tools. Lorelei looked about the room slowly, just in case something had changed during her period of slumber. No, nothing had changed in the least. With this assurance she rose. As part of her morning ritual, it was time now for her to cross the hall and enter the female bathroom. As Lorelei crossed to the door, she paused to look into the reflective surface of a mirror hanging on the wall. The mirror had been there when she'd first been shown her room. A rivet kept the small broken mirror secured to the wall. It was a little dingy despite her efforts to wash it. Perhaps it was simply due to age?

Lorelei reached one hand out and placed the tips of her fingers upon the cold glass. She could see the form of her face, and the glow of her eyes peering back at her. For a brief moment she could admire the pale skin, though eventually she could not ignore the black ink like markings branded into the left side of her neck. She glanced down towards her bare right arm where more of the hated markings were forever. Her left hand crossed over her chest to rub up and down the length of her branded arm while her glowing eyes closed.

Even though she could not hear Lorelei's voice anymore inside of her, she could still remember with perfect clarity their joining. The poor girl... she had a look of such fear on her face. She had been strapped to a padded table in a room so white and clean it was almost painful to look around. Strange metal machines were positioned around her, humming with power and decorated with familiar arcane symbols. She should have known better, but she had been so curious! It had not been since the time of Solomon that any human had managed to call across the planes. When she had heard the call, she allowed herself to be drawn to it. She had wanted to see these human creatures her elders spoke of with a mixture of scorn and amusement.

She had not known the consequence of answering the call. No, that was not true. She had known to a degree. But from what she had heard, a humans lifespan was so short, what was a few decades of enslavement to a creature that lived centuries? She had been positive she could have handled the term of imprisonment in order to satisfy her curiosity. When she had manifested on the parallel worlds plane, she had not been prepared for the shock of the environment. Nothing here resembled in the slightest the stories of the elders. Not that she had long to marvel at the odd clothing or devices in the room.

Instead there had been a odd sort of energy that surrounded herself and the unfortunate girl. Excited words were exchanged between the humans as they worked on their devices. She had noticed and recognized the familiar arcane marks that some of the Elders wore branded upon them. Symbols of their servitude to the humans in the past. The devices of the humans coupled with the arcane marks pushed and pulled her to the detained girl.

She had not known at the time, that the devices were machines. She had not known that the strangely dressed humans were scientists. She had certainly not known that the humans were forcing her essence into the poor girls body, then binding her into the girl using the arcane marks. She had heard of Djinn being confined to lamps or bottles in the past by using these marks, but never had she known of a human being used as the confinement source!

Lorelei was so scared, her fear had washed over her and nearly drowned her with their merging. Had she been a less benevolent Djinn she supposed Lorelei would have had a very good reason to be terrified by her presence. Her blue flame body had to look as if were a whirlwind of destruction and pending death. For a brief period of time, Lorelei and she resisted the forced union. They did so uncommonly well for two young and confused individuals. But the power of the arcane marks was too commanding, and she found herself inevitably trapped in a prison of flesh, blood, and fear.

The marks were fused into Lorelei's flesh by the means of a thousand needles. The pain was shocking to her, as she had existed for centuries without suffering the misfortune of pain. Lorelei's mind associated the pain to being stung by a hive of bee's. While the humans rejoiced over the success of their experiment, Lorelei and she exchanged thoughts as rapidly as the batting of an eye. She learned in mere seconds a entire humans education, and Lorelei in that mere second learned all that it was to be a Djinn. Needless to say there was much disbelief on both creatures parts.

Lorelei and she were privy to each others most honest thoughts and feelings. There was no chance for permission to be asked or granted, the mental exchange simply happened too fast. When the disorientation finally wore off, she and Lorelei had found themselves back in a cell like room. One so similar to the one she currently lived in now. In the days that followed, the scientists tried to test she and Lorelei in many odd ways. As much as Lorelei understood, which meant she also understood, they were attempting to tap into her natural essence as a source of energy. It was a theory conceived by a man named Bashiruddin Mahmood. A theory that seemed possible in light of the current development.

Lorelei shook her head a little and pulled herself out of the loop of her memories. She stepped away from the broken mirror shard and shuffled her feet slowly across the hall to the shower room. In the weeks that had followed, she and Lorelei had learned a incredible amount from each other. It honestly had felt as if the two of them had become one person. So when Lorelei's thoughts started to grow erratic in both sensibility and strength, she felt a sense of alarm for the creature that served as her containment. Suddenly she was able to direct the body. She spoke to Lorelei more often in attempts to engage the girl's mind, her hope was that she could help her refocus and regain control. Instead the presence of the girl's essence grew more muddled and deteriorated. It did not take much for her to come to the conclusion that she was killing Lorelei.

She tried to communicate this to the scientists, but their primary concern seemed less for the girl's well being and more for her own! She had wanted to see the human world, to experience it the way the Elders had. Never had she believed that her curiosity would have led to the death of someone innocent. Lorelei the human died, leaving behind only her body possessed by a creature that was no more human then a flame was. She experienced her first few moments of regret as a human and wondered if the price of this experience had not been too high?

Lorelei progressed though her daily ritual of cleaning her body and seeing to it's needs. It was the least she could do for the human that had once occupied this form. It had taken her a good deal of reflecting to come to the conclusion that if she wished to pay for her part in the girls destruction, she would have to follow through with her life's path. She accepted her place as Lorelei. After all, they had shared memories. She remembered everything about Lorelei, so why shouldn't she live the life the girl would have chosen?

Lorelei completed the washing ritual, then took the time to inspect her body for any new bruises she may have gained since her last washing. The bottoms of her feet were always dark and sore due to her lack of shoes. She wished she'd been given a proper pair when she'd been transferred to this facility. Something had happened with the research team, the project had been shut down literally overnight and Lorelei had been rushed from her holding cell to this new place. Between the two places Lorelei preferred this place. She no longer had anyone poking her with needles, she hoped it remained like this. She only needed to discover a way to escape this building.

First..she would find herself some shoes, and fitting clothing. Then she would find a means to escape. After that? Lorelei had often day dreamed of finding a good looking male and having a child...she supposed she could do that for her. If that was what Lorelei had wanted, that is what she would do!

((For the sake of references:
Djinn: Creatures that are mentioned in Islamic and Arabian folklore. They were typically described as beings of smokeless flame that lived in a world parallel to our own. Djinn Lorelei was a blue flame entity, as the hottest flames are typically blue in color. - It is mentioned in some religious scripts that the Wise King Solomon actually bound and enslaved Djinn for their powers and their wisdom.

Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood: Is a actual Pakastani nuclear engineer who believes that the energy of Djinn could be harnessed to serve as a nuclear source of energy. He had a interview in the Wall Street Journal in 1998 about this theory.

Patient's Name: Kioni (meaning 'she sees things')

Patient's Personality: Needy, trusting, contemplative

Patient's powers/traits: Basically a 'human sonar'. Using her ultra-sensitive hearing, she can pick up sounds and couple them with her eyes to 'see' her surroundings and people around her using the sound waves being emitted by people or objects as they bounce off of surfaces, which allows her to 'see' around corners and in other places that one would have to get much closer (or possibly in a more vulnerable position) to properly observe. She can pick up a sound as quiet as a heartbeat, and has a talent for differentiating between certain sounds unless they are in abundance, like if she were in the middle of something exceedingly loud and rambunctious, like a Mardi Gras party.

Patient's race: Gifted human

Patient's Affliction: Since her sight relies wholly on sound being made to reflect against surfaces, she obviously cannot see like a regular person. The less noise there is, the less she can see anything around her, and she is unable to use her own sounds to boost her sight. Total silence leaves her completely 'blind', which gives her the sensation of complete isolation and tends to make her instantly hysterical.

RP response:
"Hnnn......." Kioni let out a slight moan as she brought her hand to her forehead and opened her eyes, blinking slowly at the world of curly bluish fog, punctuated by the occasional throb as distant noises lent their dying waves to forming her surroundings and giving her hints of solidarity. She rubbed her eyes gently as she moved to sit up, the back of her legs prickling uncomfortably. She wondered, not for the first time, if what she had mistaken for a mattress the other day and had taken such pains to drag in here was not a mattress at all, but a pallet of straw or a large scratchy doormat. What she would have given for her plush mattress with sheets as soft as the dandelion puffs she used to try in vain to properly see as the wind carried them out of reach of her playful fingers. But her mattress and the dandelions were in another world now, and here in this new and frightening place, she had yet to feel the slightest breeze.

She looked around as she sat with her bare feet on the chilled concrete as traces of shapes danced tantalizingly in her luminous azure eyes. She rose slowly and walked to where she knew the door to be; her very second morning, she had taken special pains to remember how many steps it was to the door, what direction it was in, and the approximate place of the doorknob so that there was less clumsy fumbling to open it. Counting her 16 footsteps in her head, she reached out and lightly brushed the knob, her fingers feeling it almost pulsate as it served to soften the harsh sounds of the world beyond. How awful it was that she must be made to hear such noises; stopping her ears would only make her become both deaf AND blind.

She turned the knob and opened the door, feeling the rush of sound as it blew through the room and filled it like poured water into a bucket: roars and cries of pain, whimpers of those still buried in the Sandman’s grains and unable to break loose, low murmurings of contemplation accompanied by the scratching of pens and on occasion, the barely perceptible shhhhh of a syringe being filled with something. The sobbing touched her in particular; such a broken-hearted sound, far different from the singing she had awakened to every morning back home, once it had been made known that she needed sound to see. No gentle music was to be found here, only the harsh and alarming noise that even as she turned around, her back to the now-open door, served to crash against everything and scatter into a muted brilliance, leaving behind shimmering echoes that despite their constant ever-bluish shade, revealed features every bit as sharp as though she were viewing them with normal eyes.

There was a chair in the corner, a sad little thing with stuffing pouring out of the savagely ripped seat and one leg clumsily replaced with a sawed-down two-by-four, looking to Kioni the perfect place for a new friend to come and sit for a visit. Beside the straw bed/doormat was a plastic party cup, its cheery design nearly faded into nothing, but the shabbiness unnoticed by its new owner. With it she would offer a new friend a drink, as they sat in the chair and visited with her while she waited for HIM to come back. And of course, there was the only other thing visible in the cell, an item that as Kioni even now looked at it, took the lingering waves that touched it and cheerfully sent them winging back to her in a helter-skelter kind of way instead of absorbing them. She walked over to the wall and reached out expectantly, feeling her fingers brush against the buttery smooth glass of the mirror, then frowning as her fingers found one of the many cracks that marred its surface. This single decoration seemed so out of place here, and yet she treasured it more than the chair and the cup, with their possibility of drawing others to her. She had found it on her first day there, when the sounds of pain and suffering had frightened her, even as they kept her from stumbling blindly into wall after wall, or bumping into the strangers that seemed to step up from every shadow, brandishing clipboards and needles and entreating her to ‘cooperate.’ Her frantic stumbling had caused her to hide near a pile of trash, and as she huddled there, she had noticed the strange way the mirror had rejected the cacophony of sound waves even as she rejected being there. She remembered when she had pulled it from the refuse and brushed it off as best she could, clutching it to her like a priceless treasure until she had finally found a small room where she could place it on the wall with the aid of a rusted nail; the wall itself already had so many holes that it had been easy. But as she ran her fingers over what she knew to be a crack-free part of the mirror, she could see a strange shimmer in the otherwise blank surface; scribbles, wheels, and intricate loops, all dancing around in perfect sync with her questing hand. She could never recall if she had been exposed to a mirror growing up; no point, after all; but had she known that she would be able to see her tattoos in them, she might have insisted on having one. She had only seen them once before, after the elders had supervised her receiving them, and she had sat there, eyes bright with unshed tears of pain as she saw her newly-tattooed skin raised slightly and throbbing, until they gradually faded away to nothing, and her arms and leg seemed as smooth and featureless as before. Now as she looked, she could see them, hovering in the air like the streak left in one’s vision after seeing an especially bright light. For her, it almost seemed as though there was another person in the room, another her. She would much rather have someone less…..predictable for a companion, but if none came, she would have to make do. Better a reflection than to be completely and utterly alone.

Kioni pulled her hand back, suddenly frightened. The noises outside had quieted, the features of the room blurring without sound to sustain them. She walked through the door and into the hall, looking around at the dismal walls, weak waves of sound withering and dying as they strained to reach the high ceiling. She did not want to venture closer to the sounds of screaming and misery, but just then she had to find someone, anyone. She had never been so alone in her life; she had been coddled and treasured when she was young and she served as a person of such importance to her people. Even when her world had been spilled on its figurative head and she had been made to leave with strangers, they had always kept an eye on her. They seldom wished to speak with her, but even their gruff manner of speaking chased away the loneliness that had crept in since her departure.

And then there had been HIM. The one that the others had called ‘The Colonel.’ She was so certain she had found a friend in him when they had met. She remembered the sound waves bouncing off of his form, dressed more like a gentleman in spite of his military rank, his eyes shielded by glasses, thick and dark. He had promised to take her home after serving him the way she had served her people, and she would never want for anything as long as she was with him and did his bidding. His tone had been so sincere, so comforting; in the short time she had known him, he had almost been an adequate replacement for the elders she had been made to leave behind.

But something had gone horribly wrong since then. One moment all had been well, the next there had been angry shouts and shots being fired that sent huge booming waves of sound every which way. Instead of aiding her sight, the mass of sounds distorted it like a puddle being pelted with raindrops, and she had been all but blind when she had been grabbed and shoved into a car, the Colonel’s voice in her ear whispering for her to hush. When the drive had ended, she had been pulled out and given over to this place, to these people. As they had led her away and into a new realm of Hellish sounds, she had been able to pick out the Colonel’s voice as he spoke to someone at the entrance. “Now remember how much I’m paying you. Keep her out of sight. If someone comes and asks, she is not here, she has never been here. She doesn’t even exist.”


Kioni paused in the hall, swearing that she had heard that last sentence echo in the hall itself instead of in her own head. Try as she might, she couldn’t understand. Why had he abandoned her here? Was he ever coming back for her, to take her back to her people as he had promised? What of the tasks he had wished her to do first? Had he found someone else? No, it wasn’t possible. She was unique, she was special. Nobody else could do what she did. She had been loved……she was STILL loved, she was sure of it. Perhaps the Colonel had just stowed her here to keep her safe, unaware of the foul things within these walls. Yes, he would come back and deliver her from this place, and take her back to her people where she belonged. She had saved his life when they had first met; he would be only too happy to return the favor whenever he was able. But until then she must survive, remain healthy so that he would not return to find an empty shell. She would wait for him, always.

With her pace set forward once more, Kioni turned a corner, after making sure that nothing nasty lay in waiting, and focused her energy on interpreting the waves as they revealed things to her: doorways, broken furniture, pipes snaking about between the walls and ceiling. Mildly interesting, but for now, she was only hoping that the waves would pick up something else; that new friend for her.

CLOSED.

I am accepting no more entries!
The winner will be announced tomorrow.