You are dreaming of what you once were. The life before all of this, and the memory is...
- One of a huge mistake. - One of a great turning point in your life. - One of love, but it's bittersweet. - One of excitement, or surprise. - A past memory of your choice!
When you wake up, reflect a little bit on the life you can't yet return to, if you can ever return to it at all. What would you change? What would you do differently, if anything?
First time doing this quest? Please write a minimum of 200 words for 1 Arcade Token.
Repeating? Minimum word count jumps up to 400 in order to claim your 1 Arcade Token.
Feeling wordy? Go above and beyond the bare minimum for additional tokens! These token bonuses do not stack, so you can't write 100 words to claim 1 token, then add 300 words to claim 2 more tokens.
500 words = 2 Arcade Tokens. 600 words = 3 Arcade Tokens. 700 words = 4 Arcade Tokens. 800 words = 5 Arcade Tokens.
Whistle While You Work: While dreamsharing technology is still in development, feel free to wake up, wander, and have a discussion in the dark with your friends about your past.
OOC
Character's name: Elizabeth "Lissa" Buckly Character's faction: Mall Character's journal link:[Journal] Character's survival stats: [Stats] BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF MY CHARACTER: Freckly-tan skin, wavy auburn hair, brown eyes, stands at 5' 7" with strong shoulders and a little bit of holdover baby fat on her stomach and thighs. Currently wearing cat ears and doused in more than a little glitter.
Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2015 1:41 pm
She'd been running for so long that she'd forgotten when she started. It had been an hour, at least.
Lissa caught her breath in an employee corridor at the other end of the mall, her lungs burning and her throat dry and heaving. A moment later her stomach followed suit, and she barely managed to shoot a hand out to steady herself against the wall as she retched and emptied her lunch onto the cold hallway floor. That guy--that thing--had been, no, no no, it was too awful to think about, but the image had been seared into her brain through the highway of its milk glass pupils, and as the memory looped around again she clutched at her gut, tears stinging her eyes.
The attacker had been eating that other guy--in her panic, she hadn't caught exactly what piece of flesh had been caught in his teeth, but there had been blood everywhere, and his skin had been sloughing off like it was melted putty. Was this part of that virus fear-mongering the media had been doing lately? Lissa had never bothered taking those warnings seriously, she'd just assumed that it was some marketing campaign to get everyone their flu shots before the cold set in. Nothing in the news had said anything about turning people into cannibals. Nothing in the news could have possibly prepared her for this.
Lissa's body shook as she straightened her posture, wiping her face off with the edge of her Starbucks apron and then throwing the entire garment aside in disgust. Her hands fumbled in the darkness for her phone, which let off a faint glow as she swept through the motions of her unlock screen and instantly began dialing a number, her body full of aches and tremors. "Pleeeeeeeease pick up," she wailed at a whisper, trying to keep her voice from trailing off into panicked sobs, "Please please please please please please pick up--"
She gasped as she heard a click on the other end of the line, then began to whimper as she heard the voicemail begin to play. How could they abandon her, when the rest of the world was going insane, when she was so alone and scared and needed help more than ever? She was completely blubbering by the time the message ended, and when the beep sounded it took her a few breaths before she could even console herself enough to form words. Time was of the essence, she needed to make she he at least got a message.
"Micah--Micah, it's me, I-I want you to listen to me." Lissa's voice was running hoarse, and as it began to crack she let out a single sobbing exhale, shaking her head as she tried not to scream. "L-look, I know you're mad at me. I messed up big time, I know that. I shouldn't have done that to you. But I need you to listen to me, okay?" She nodded to herself, as if he might have been there listening, and another whine bubbled out of her throat, but she refused to wail, to scream the way her heart needed to. She had to speak first--there was time for screaming later.
"There are the--these people, these sick ********, and they're not safe," Lissa blubbered, putting a hand over her mouth as she reimagined the dead looks she'd seen. "They're hurting people down at the mall, and who knows where else. I want you to take whatever you can grab and drive with Cal out of the city, it doesn't matter where, just get out until this all blows over. I know you're mad, but please, just do this for me. You don't have to call me or anything, just...please stay safe."
Lissa pulled the phone away from her ear to hang up, but her thumb lingered over the red 'end' button, and on a final whim she drew it back towards her. "I don't deserve you, Micah, I know that, but when this is over...I'm gonna make it up to you, okay? I'm gonna make this work." She slammed her hand on the end button before her brain could run into any more circles, and as she stared blankly at the screen, everything she'd been damming up in her chest frothed over as a strangled whine that turned into frantic sobs that clutched at her chest. What if she hadn't called in time? What if he never listened, out of anger?
What if that was the last he heard of her voice?
Lissa woke with a shake, her watery eyes adjusting to the dim lighting of her blanket fort. She'd been clutching at a sheaf of fabric that was tear-stained and glitter-dusted, and her heart was still pounding like she'd been running for days. Lissa clutched at her chest and willed her breathing to slow, pulling herself up to sitting as she looked out of her little fortress and into the mall proper, wiping her eyes. It was better to look out than in, where in one of her craft boxes there was a broken phone that had run out of battery four weeks ago.
She was never going to get that call back. She was never going to know.
