Quote:
The holidays are close to ending and it’s time to start packing away your decorations. In a stroke of bad luck, you drop an ornament (or other small bauble) and it shatters. Inside was a strange, glistening dust that you accidentally inhale. You are immediately met with a strong hallucination of a previous holiday memory. It only lasts for a few moments, but it feels like you are back in the memory, reliving it. It seems so real but when it ends, you are back in the present with no trace of the dust left in sight. Which holiday memory did you relive, and how do you react to being torn from it?
(You can only relive a memory from a holiday in December and it must be from this lifetime. Characters who have lost civilian memories, such as in a side swap, will have a much vaguer memory. Locations and faces will be blurred and unrecognizable, and the memory will not reveal anything about their previous life. These characters may be left feeling a little hollow after the memory.
(You can only relive a memory from a holiday in December and it must be from this lifetime. Characters who have lost civilian memories, such as in a side swap, will have a much vaguer memory. Locations and faces will be blurred and unrecognizable, and the memory will not reveal anything about their previous life. These characters may be left feeling a little hollow after the memory.
Ignacio hated the end of the holidays.
The holidays were the one time of year where everyone seemed happier, where things seemed more peaceful (for the most part, this was Destiny City they were talking about) and like life would actually be generally alright. Going back to "normal" was jarring, and removing the decorations were the first real reminder that this peace and joy was only temporary, and soon, they'd be back to the old grind.
He sighed, plucking an ornament off one of the small potted trees in the house.
With a yelp, he felt his grip on it loosen, and in an attempt to scramble and gain his grip, he only knocked it onto the ground.
"Dammit."
That was a failure. At least it was one of those generic bauble ornaments; he sincerely doubted that any of his housemates were going to actually miss it. He bent over to pluck it up, but in doing so, he jostled some odd dust from the bauble that suddenly wafted into the air.
He tried to avoid breathing it in, but it failed.
"Ignacio Cesar Araya, pay attention."
"Ugh Papa, what?"
His father rolled his eyes back at him, which he honestly should have expected. "Your aunt made a lot of time making this slideshow. You should actually watch it."
Annoyed, Ignacio flopped back onto the couch and twirled a strand of hair between his fingers. This was dumb. Who had decided in the first place to have a holiday tradition of bragging about their yearly trips back home on slideshows? "All they're doing is talking about visiting their in-laws back in Spain anyway..."
He felt a small amount of pressure against his shoulder and turned slightly to take a look at his cousin. She giggled under her breath, before murmuring in response, "I think my momma is on some stuff with this, honestly. So dumb."
For a moment, Ignacio's scowl broke into a smirk. "Well, if you think so too..."
Ignacio coughed loudly, stumbling backwards as he came out of ... whatever the hell that was. When did that actually happen? He looked over his hand, turning it over a few times. His hand hadn't been that small in ... years. And he was actually still hanging out at home with his father, who he hadn't actually talked to in years at this point. He hadn't talked to Melisa in years, either. He had probably last seen her when he was fifteen, maybe? Perhaps even a bit younger. It was definitely before any of the, ah, before he transferred schools and --
He froze, for a moment, before shaking his head out of it.
He wasn't thinking about that.
These baubles were clearly full of some sort of weird demon magic. Perhaps he needed to call a priest and get them to do an exorcism on them. ... Or he could just do the easy thing and let someone else clean the baubles off the trees around the house. Would stop him from accidentally dropping more.
He was going to go with that.
He backed away from the tree cautiously, and slipped away to reflect on how little he had actually communicated with the bulk of his family in the last several years.