Prompt
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.
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.
Christmas had been wonderful for Christine Rose - she had Crystal, a nice little place to live, a beautiful tree and while they hadn't had many gifts to split between them, it had been a peaceful and loving holiday. But no holiday lasts forever, and it was time to put the tree and all of its decorations away. Stripping the artificial evergreen of its decorative ornaments was a vaguely sad experience, but it had to be done. So here she was, carefully unhooking piece after piece, unwinding tinsel and lights, and packing them away bit by bit in the boxes where they would wait for another year to be put to use.
She was careful as she did it, not wanting to drop and break anything, but... well - accidents happen, or at least she'd tell herself later. Either way, one of the simpler ornaments; a small, red and white orb slipped from between her fingers and crashed to the floor, breaking apart on impact. Christine had already been bending to try and catch it when it landed, and so she ended up breathing in a strange dust that had been inside it. Was that normal? She didn't think they were supposed to have anything inside of them.
There wasn't time to wonder, however, a immediately her surroundings wavered and changed, the warm, cozy living room replaced by something darker. Somewhere cold and frightening. Dimly, she could hear voices - someone shouting, but she didn't know if it was at her, nor could she quite hear what was being said. She was certain that she wouldn't be able to recognize the voice if she heard it again, but right now she felt very small and scared, tucked into a tiny space that might have been a closet, or a gap between a bed and a wall.
The voice rose in pitch and she found herself humming softly, hands coming up to clap over her ears in an attempt to drown out the shouting. She didn't dare sing, could only risk humming the melody, but even so it was familiar to her ears: she was humming Silent Night. Maybe, maybe if she hummed it enough, it would make the world transform into the state mentioned in the song: calm and quiet and safe. And why shouldn't it? It was Christmas, after all...
With a gasp, the strange memory faded, and Christine recoiled from the orb, eyes wide and frightened. What - what in the world had that been? She couldn't recall it clearly, and even now the details were slipping away, but the feeling of being small and scared clung to her like an unwanted, heavy blanket. Pursing her lips, Christine got to her feet, feeling unsteady and shaky. Shivering, she decided to clean up the bobble and finish putting things away later. Right now... Right now, she needed some hot chocolate, and she needed to wake Crystal up from the nap she had been taking. She'd steal her to cuddle on the couch and rebuild the feeling of safety and love that had just been torn from her - to ease the cold ache within her head and her heart from the haunting almost-memory.
Whatever her life had been like before the Negaverse, she thought, she was glad it was gone. and Christine Rose never, ever wanted those memories back - especially not when she was making better ones each and every single day.
Word Count: 575
