Big Bee
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Nov 14, 2023 10:44:28 GMT 9
Orion had this all planned out. It was almost like he'd had to drop a refrigerator on himself in the past! It was a good thing too, because with the crane, the water, the flowing junk, and the quick-draw nature of the plan they would need to move fast if they didn't want to crush or leave Sneasel behind.
"Does YouTube let you upload snuff films now?" Bee joked. He was laughing on the outside, but on the inside he was sweating like a momma's boy at a piano recital.
"This is gonna be wild," he said, licking his lips nervously as he looked at the blasting tour of water. And this was going to be wild. But not fun wild like Buffalo Wild Wings or Girls Gone Wild, or Wild Wild West (1999) which Roger Ebert wrongly described as being 'a comedy dead zone' and so unfunny that it was 'not a comedy', but bad wild like Wild Hogs, which was once described as 'An indolent, PG-13, Disney "biker" flick that does for comedies what Exxon did for Prince William Sound'.
Bee took his place under the deluge pouring from the refrigerator. It was like being waterboarded, or accidentally tilting your head at a bad angle in the shower and having the Kohler 22169-G-CP Forte Multifunction shoot a jet of pressurized cleaning right up your nasal cavity.
He breathed through the pounding waterfall, gave Orion a thumbs up, and waited for the crunch.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Nov 14, 2023 14:24:27 GMT 9
“Shit dude with enough patience, perseverance, perspiration, and photoshop you can make just about anything fly on youtube.”
Orion would take a deep breath, grateful that despite the fact that water was spewing onto them like a busted fire hydrant he wasn’t getting waterboarded more ferociously than his imaginary father figure locked up in super-guantanamo for Poke related terrorism. Breathing underwater was a weird concept when you really thought about it.
Anyways.
Equipping the basic bitch swimmer goggles that came with the class, he would peer upward straining his neck as water continued to give him the magic mike wet t shirt shower from hell, he did his best to line himself and Bee up. He didn’t give too much a fuck about his bones smashing, but his buddy?
Different story entirely.
Once he’d eyeballed the fuck out of this evil kenival bullshit, occasionally micro-adjusting his bro to ensure maximum safety and minimal maimage, Orion sank a little lower, raising onto his toes and was ready to move at the word “Oh fuck”. The moment he was as confident he could be, which wasn’t saying much, he opened his UI with one hand and hovered a finger over the “recall” button next to Loki’s name.
“You ready!” He would call out.
“YEAH!” Loki howled back from the distance, muffled by the torrential downpour that was likely going to make this place smell like shit for the next several days.
“I’M GONNA HIT YOU WITH THE THREE TWO ONE GO, YOU DROP IT ON GO, OKAY?”
“ON GO!” Loki cried back, ready to watch this shit go flipways.
“THREE.”
Orion filled his lungs with air, trying to steady his nerves as his hands shook slightly and his heart pounded with adrenaline.
“TWO.”
The fighter micro adjusted himself, doing his damnedest to line himself up with the portal.
“ONE.”
Cold feet crept up on Orion, almost locking him in place as he really debated whether or not this was a good idea at all.
Fuck it.
“GO!”
At his words, Loki pulled the lever, and the tell tale CLUNK of magnet releasing metal let Orion know to hit the button and recall his mon, Easy. Next he kept his head held high, a struggle as he braced himself for impact, peering into the water above looking for that inky black portal that would take them back to the bottom of the deep. This was equal parts difficult and terrifying as Orion struggled against endless oceans of water being spat at harsh speeds, all the while thinking if his fucked this up juuuust right it might take off his head. Add that in with what might be literally seconds of reaction time, and you had one hell of a disaster cocktail, shaken not stirred.
Yet his hard work, constant fussing, and their combined testicular fortitude would carry the day today as the portal CRASHED down right on top of them, taking the cacophonous claxon call of rushing water and turning it into dead silence as the world literally crashed around them. Once again they were in the cold, unforgiving deep.
Once again, they were Beneath the Bay.
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Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Nov 14, 2023 18:12:27 GMT 9
And just like that the doortal was closed; sealed from the other side by the cold hard ground. The pair popped through the opening together, and Bee gave Orion an slow-motion underwater high-five.
Then Bee pressed his hand against the hard-packed earth on the other side of the doorway. The seal was tight, and he didn't feel the tug of water escaping, but as he pulled his hand away wisps of dirt floated upwards, like he was disturbing the bottom of a sandy river. Bee had this terrible premonition that some well-meaning soul was going to knock that fridge over and suddenly they'd be draining the oceans just to set up a poison swamp in Briarbane.
He closed the outer door and left a player note on the location.
BRIARBANE JUNKYARD FRIDGE Then he sent Octo and Taka back out and looked around at the massive floor of unopened doors. Each beamed with their own ethereal light.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Nov 14, 2023 18:41:42 GMT 9
Orion watched as Bee tested the door and it's seal, and seemingly satisfied the question of their next destination was raised. Goggled eyes darted around as he scanned the doors looking for a winner. Poseidon, who'd been left on this side, lazily waggled over allowing Orion to latch hold and get dragged along as they patrolled the seabed looking for distinctive doors. As far as he could tell there was no rhyme nor reason to how they were interspaced. Each seemed to be their own seemingly unique model, small little details about them that made them stand out from each other. One door consisted of rectangular panes made of dark oak bearing fancy lion knockers and brass knobs. One looked like an elevator door, another was a cricket fence door on the floor.
He swam like this for a while, making sure he didn't stray too far from Bee, scanning over the doors with a careful eyes. Eeeney menie, miney moe. Catch a door by it's...toe? If it hollers let it go, eenie meanie minie-
Holy fuck what was that?
Orion's gaze stopped dead as he set his gaze upon a...familiar looking door. Something that struck him as coming from a shared nightmare he and Bee experienced together. It was a metal door with a subtle shade of green paint, faintly chipping away to reveal rusty patches beneath. Across the center was one of those push bars, you know the ones, you probably slapped the SHIT out of them as a schoolchild on your way out to recess. Across the top section, in faint yellow letter stenciled letters, read one simple phrase.
WATER TREATMENT FACILITY
Oh fuck
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Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Nov 15, 2023 8:36:22 GMT 9
Bee swam through the doors. It felt like perusing the craters in a battlefield, or like striding through a fairy forest where every puddle was a gateway to a magical realm. One of them looked like the study wooden door of his grandma's house, complete with little height marker scratched into the door frame on one side. Another was a set of massive double doors twice Bee's height. Would they open to some majestic cathedral?
Orion stopped beside a door, and Bee paddled over. His heart was fluttering in excitement, his mind swimming in a gel of possibilities. Just what sweet ass door had his bro cunning rassled up?
Bee saw the sign on the door.
He turned to Orion and made a big X with his arms.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Nov 15, 2023 13:41:23 GMT 9
Orion's eyes shot from his distressed homie to the distressing door, and then back to the homie. Of course Bee would have a problem with that, for all they knew there was some sort of eldritch god lurking on the other side of that door ready to rip them ten new assholes between them. There could be like, eighteen ghastly ghouls ready to gang up and goon on em. It was by and large a right shit idea to go barging back on in, ready for round two without having learned a fucking thing.
Yet.
These doors were here, and this literal landmine was just big mchillin at the bottom ready for some unsuspecting schmuck to open pandoora's box. They had to do something about it at least, verify the danger, explore the other side to make sure it was where it said it was, and then do something to neutralize it. They couldn't just leave this here, but how to sell it to Bee?
As he typed a little Icon caught his eyes, a very small microphone tucked away in the corner. There was no- he pressed it and a new window opened up.
Motherfucker, if this worked he'd be furious.
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Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Nov 21, 2023 21:05:39 GMT 9
A new window popped up in Big Bee's UI. He grinned and felt the rush of sea-water a hairs-breadth from his teeth. Bee tapped ACCEPT
Now that they didn't have to worry about digitally typing with pruney fingers, it was time to make sure they were on the same page.
And without further ado, Big Bee kicked open the door into the water treatment plant.
There was no rush of water out the door. No gleaming red eyes winked devilishly at them from beyond the threshold, and they weren't instantly incinerated or turned to stone. Instead, there was just a vast, oozing morasse of brackish ichor on the other side.
The door had opened straight into a flooded corridor or something equally underwater, and now there was just a sheet of crappy black water where the beautiful ocean ended and the stinking nightmare began. He looked over at his friend, and dipped a 'i'm not super jazzed about this' eye at his bro. Bee shook his head and opened up his UI.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Nov 22, 2023 9:46:24 GMT 9
Orion threw his arms up in exasperation as the quest marker cleared. Not only had it denied him a chance to gamble trauma for closure, it also made it pretty clear that the whole junkyard fiasco was quite unnecessary. He would pop open his UI and leave several player notes around the door.
Seemingly satisfied he would turn back to Bee as they continued their conversation.
With that all being said, he began too glance around for other doors. The quest had made things pretty clear, all things considered. One door went to Asper, one door went to Mystra, one door went...somewhere else? The idea that it was "alien" was a strange notion to Orion. Pokemon was already a rather alien world given it's peculiar fauna and floortals at the ocean floor what could possibly be more alien?
Lazily walking along the bottom of the ocean floor, Orion began to look for something that spoke to him. A door with real character, something that screamed "I GO TO COOL FUCKING PLACES" What that meant, Orion had now clue, but he'd know it when he saw i-
He stopped dead in his tracks as his eyes set themselves upon a familiar door. It was a plain white oak door with a brass nob. Paint slightly faded from the sun, and a few nicks and scratches from where someone had been a mite bit overzealous when swinging it open. It was perfectly ordinary, the sort of thing you pass by when driving down a typical suburban neighborhood. Yet somehow, someway, this door was a perfect recreation of the door of his childhood home. Back when his father was still a prize winning MMA fighter, back when Uncle Mac and his wife were still married...
When his mom was still around.
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Big Bee
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Nov 30, 2023 22:29:21 GMT 9
Bee eyed the handiwork on the door. he noted, nodding in approval. It was clear, unambiguous, and put the blame of trespass firmly on whoever was dumb enough to ignore the explicit warnings. It reminded him of a well written set of user instructions, or of an 'as per out previous discussion' email with receipts attached and your boss CC'ed in. Bee swam out towards the end of the wall, peering into each of the doors as he went. The only sound this far down was his own breath bubbling past his ears, and the sound of Orion breathing on the other end of the call. It wasn't much, but it felt like closer company than exploring in the dark.
There was a concave steel door that looked like it lead to a lunar surface, and one that was made of ice that chilled the water around it. There was one that made his teeth buzz, and one covered in its own warnings. He left that one alone and swam on, until he reached a tiny door. It was less a door and more of a square chunk of solid stone pressed into the steel. The seam was clear, but flush, and Bee couldn't see any way to open the 'door' outside of just breaking through.
As he was checking it out Orion's voice came through Bee swam back through the forest of doors, only to find himself perplexed when he arrived. There was a plain oak door with a brass knob. Bee asked. There was no porthole or window into the world on the other side of the wood, but his bro seemed to be stunned. Did he...recognize the door?
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Nov 30, 2023 23:41:22 GMT 9
Orion would pause as he examined the door a little closer, doing his best to make SURE that he wasn't losing his mind on this one. Doors were doors, yaknow? Shit, most people got theirs mass produced by some lumber mill or something, sent in bulk to Home Depot where either your parents, grandparents, landlords, or some real estate developer had walked around aimlessly before making the arbitrary decision that this would be the portal to and from whatever room it was set to protect. They were something you didn't think about much, a thing that you went in and out of nearly every day without a second thought.
But...
If you thought about it, like, really thought about it, doors were incredible. They were the poor victims of your frustration when you stormed into your room in a childish rage. They were carelessly smashed against walls when not careful, or perhaps you were trying to take too many grocery bags inside in one go because you're a fuckin man and don't take two trips. They kept out intruders, weather, and Mormons with nary a thanks. They sat, silent and vigilant as they protected whatever it was they were supposed to protect. Be it excited husbands carrying eager brides across the threshold of their new lives, or maybe they would be the last witness to someone walking out on their family.
The more Orion traced his fingers over each nick, crevice, and crack the more he was certain this was his door. The one he'd grown up with, the one that had once hung hinged on his family home. It was seared into his memory, a part of a greater whole that was fond childhood memories of a life before it had gone to shit. When his father smiled, when his father could still fill a room with his presence. When loud, booming laughs would fill the kitchen and the den would smell of nice cigars. When his family as a whole was whole.
He found himself reaching for the knob, fingers mere millimeters away before he stopped. What the flying fuck did he think he was gonna find on the other side? His mom? This was another world, a fake one, artificial ones and zeroes. It wasn't like his missing mother had been spirited away to here, she was out in the real world, somewhere else. This had to have been some sort of...fucked up coincidence, someone had just modeled it...uncannily similar to what he knew. His shrink would tell him he was projecting trauma onto it, seeking answers to unfinished business, living in a delusion in which he would find answers.
But that didn't make him want to open it any less.
Because what if there were answers behind it? What if something really weird had happened. He had no way of knowing what was possible or impossible, and it wasn't like this tech came from nowhere. His mind rushed and raced through countless conspiracies, the illogical and logical sides of his mind roiling in an endless war, locked in a stalemate between hope and despair.
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Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Dec 1, 2023 22:31:02 GMT 9
Bee weighed the options. On one hand he was ride or die with Orion. On the other hand, if that door really led to the inside of Orion's bean then just him going through might warp the whole thing, for better or for worse. The presence of other players shaped the experience in UNOVR, both literally and, uh, literally. So if he really wanted his bud to face the world beyond that door then it had to be alone.
The worse thing he could imagine is if his bro was on track from some major trauma smackdown reversal with a side of closure and ol' Big Bee showed up to turn all the gravitas into a finely tuned customer experience feedback session. 'So on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being very low and 5 being very high, how would you rate your relationship with your father?' Yeah no that wasn't going to happen. Bee said, his voice lacking any echo in the strange, subterranean communication channel. He gave Orion a hearty slap on the shoulder and a fist bump for luck. Big Bee waited beside the door until it had closed behind Orion. Then he swam off in search of a door of his own.
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Dec 2, 2023 0:47:36 GMT 9
Orion stood there facing the door while Bee spoke. His words rang through his ears, and he "heard" them, but it took him much longer to process what he had said. Part of him had desperately wanted him to say "nah dog, we already dodged one trauma bullet why would we clearly go into the memory hole." Another part of him wanted him hopping in headfirst in there with him. The more he stared at the fucking door the more and more dread creeped into his very core. This should be a happy memory, he had happy memories in that house.
Yet he was fucking terrified.
Shaking his head, Orion tore his gaze from the door to his homie and reciprocated the bump and shoulder clap combo. Bee was his ride or die, number one homie of all time, rivaling that of lifelong friends he'd made back home. The fact that he was confident in him made him reciprocate the same feeling. If he couldn't believe in himself, he could believe in the Bee that believed in him.
He would turn back to the door, and despite how small it made him feel, he gripped the nob, threw it open, and tumbled into the void. Unlike the doortal to Briarbane, Orion did not find himself freewillying into a trashcan accompanied by an endless gout of water. This portal was built different, and he could feel it the moment he slid through what felt like a membrane of some sort. Whatever it was was holding the water back as he fell through open air and landed with a THUMP into a pile of...sand? Spitting out a mouthful, the fighter immediately looked back up to where he'd come from, only for pure dread to fill his heart.
The door was gone.
All that was above him was an inky black sky, akin to a midwinter night in the big city. Not a single star or light illuminated this chilling darkness. Looking around, the fighter found himself standing in a dune of sorts, pale white sand that starkly contrasted with the lightless sky. Strangely enough, despite this absence of light it wasn't "dark" in the traditional sense of the word. Orion could see unhindered for what seemed like miles and miles of vast white desert in one direction. Turning around however, painted a much different picture.
Before him was a city, not just any city of course, it was his home. The city of sin, wreathed in his home turf of the edge of eden, was drowned in an endless ocean of sand. A chill ran down his spine as he drank in the sight, before him were gutted buildings, cracked windows, and ruined cars half submersed in this ethereal white sand.
"Oh you've got to be shitting me..."
He half expected to hear Bee on the other side of their line, after all, they hadn't ended the call, but instead he heard the low rumble of crackling static. Opening his UI he found a rather unhelpful "No service" notification filling the window, before the window itself began to flicker and crackle like an old CRT tv before winking out of existence altogether. His heart plummeted in his chest.
"Oh you have GOT to be shitting me."
He flicked his palm to try and recall the UI once again, to open a menu or to check his inventory or something, anything to put his mind at ease. At first it was a simple flick, the same casual motion he had grown accustomed to doing in game over and over. When that didn't work he would do it again, harder and harder, with more and more gusto behind the motion as genuine panic began to settle in.
"Fuck...fuck...FUCK...FUCKING FUCK! PIECE OF SHIT UI FUCKING WORK GOD FUCKING DAMNIT"
He was stuck, stranded, trapped, and any and all other synonyms for being six ways up shit creek. It was a borderline horror story for any and all users of Deep Dive tech, the sort of thing you wrote shitty light novels about or the subject of shitty reddit creepypastas. He was stuck laying comatose in his home, trapped in this game until whatever the fuck it wanted to show him had unfolded.
He'd fallen right into a trap that every fiber of his being had warned him about, and he hadn't listened. He grit his teeth and began to look around frantically, there had to be another door somewhere, anywhere within his sightline. There was no fucking way this shit had gotten past QA, right? This game despite all of its fucked up encounters and horrifying implications wouldn't just dick him like this without buying him dinner at least, right? Yet no matter where he looked, no immediate exit routes revealed themselves, just endless oceans of sand and the ruin corpse of his hometown ahead of him.
He was beyond QA's help now.
"Let me out." he whimpered to nobody in particular. "LET ME OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!"
His panic welled up from his chest, and up his throat like some sort of sonorous vomit as a terror left his lips in an earthshattering scream that echoed throughout the vast and empty void he found himself in.
But his scream went unanswered.
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Big Bee
•
Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Dec 2, 2023 19:07:05 GMT 9
“In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.” - William Blake
There were a million doors down in the depths. Doors of stone, of metal, of meshed plastics. Swing doors and sliding doors, and some that looked large enough to be from an aircraft hangar. Doors that were marked with signs of death, and ones that could have been the Pearly Gates themselves. Some, like Orion's door, were familiar and yet terribly frightening for what they represented.
And some, like Bee's door, were from a 7/11.
The doors chimed as he swam past, and slid open just from his presence. There was no sensor. Had they been waiting for him?
Bee swam close enough to see the liquid membrane reflect his shifting image. He looked past it, into the bright light on the other side of the door. What lay beyond? The alien? The familiar? He didn't recognize the door, any more than he recognized the door to a McDonald's ball pit or to the bathroom in a Target. It was liminal at best. Something to be ignored on the passage through life.
Bee recalled Taka and Octo, and stuck an arm through the 7/11 membrane. The other side was warm. That was a good sign! Unless he was about to be trapped in a convenience store with a broken air conditioner. But it didn't feel muggy and humid, it felt like the warmth of-
-sunshine roaring overhead, cooking the sky like it was the molten solar yolk of a great celestial egg, and the sky was pure, pale blue albumin set to bubble up in crackling clouds.
This was Summer. He was fourteen again, and he was standing outside a 7/11 on a family holiday. In his hand he had a popsicle shaped like a chunk of watermelon. The seeds were made of chocolate, and as the sun beat down it seemed to focus on his treat and melt it as fast as if it were in a microwave.
Bryan and his cousin Nick had just exited the 7/11 and were walking along the sizzling sidewalk of some beach town. Bee put on his cheap sunglasses, shattering the light into summer fractals that danced along the pavement.
They reached a crosswalk. Bars of white like dropped ice cream bars bridged a steaming blacktop that was hot enough to melt flip flops. Bee stretched further than comfortable with each step, making sure not to touch the black river. Not an inch. Not a toe. Not a moment spent away from the safety of the ice cream bridge.
He survived, and stepped onto the boardwalk on the far side. The boardwalk was slim, and just a distraction for what lay beyond: a beach of delicious black sand. It was like stepping across busted Oreos. He remembered trying to recreate it at home by pulling apart three packets, smashing up the biscuits, and pouring it across the linoleum.
It just wasn't the same.
Nothing was. Having sand between your toes is an unparalleled experience. It's like a deep clean. A burning, spiritual exfoliation. It overloads the brain with heat, unbalanced footing, mild pain, and an excess of granular grinding. Stepping across a hot beach activates every type of nerve and sensor from ankle to pinkie. It made Bryan feel ALIVE. It expanded his mind! He felt like he could see for miles. He wasn't a Bee he was a goddamn Albatross. He counted the ships beyond the horizon as he wriggled his toes deep into the burning sand.
The sand crunched underfoot, grinding like restless molars.
The popsicle in his hand melted, dripping a sickly trail of green and red across the harsh black sand. A sweet trail of safety among the grit, just like in Hansel and Gretel.
"Come on B! It's too early for stargazing!" said his cousin Nick. He sprinted past Bryan, heading straight for the surf. "Last one in is a rotten coconut!"
"Hey wait up!" Bryan shouted, kicking off in a spray of burning sound and running as fast as he could with a board wedged under one arm. His hands were sticky against the waxed surface of the board. His feet burn as much as the smile on his face and the glare in his eyes. His whole body wriggled under the warmth of the world.
They raced across the sand towards the water.
Nick won. He was always first. Bee hit the water a second later and the shock made him swallow a bit of the brine. He coughed it out and wiped his mouth with a gritty hand. He laughed. He was young. What was a bit of salt water?
They paddled out, and as the sun wheeled overhead Nick and Bee got rolled and dumped countless times. Their ears popped and their skin peeled and Bee lost his cheap sunglasses. But they kept on swimming, out past the rip and into the evening. They surfing until the pair could hardly move their aching arms.
They lay on their boards in the fading light, feeling the swell of pre-break waves passing beneath them.
"I love the ocean. I feel so safe out here," said Bryan. His eyes were red from the salt water.
"Me too," said Nick. He had one arm trailing in the water. "But maybe that's just because I'm out here with you, B."
Bryan smiled. "We should do in soon. It's almost dinner."
"I can't believe we're heading home tomorrow," Nick said, the disappointment thick in his voice. "Let's just sit for five, okay? Then we can head in."
They lay on their boards well past sundown, chatting and laughing and watching the emerging stars prickle the Western sky.
And when the time came they both caught killer waves all the way in to shore, as if the ocean was seeing them off with a pat on the back for a job well done. It was the end of an amazing summer, one of the many that dotted Bee's childhood like spots on a Dalmatian. And one of the numerous stops on this trip through the doors of memory.
That night, somewhere between five minutes and twelve hours after Bee walked through the 7/11 door, he came to his senses. He'd fallen hard into the rose-colored memory and had barely thought about Orion since they parted at the door! That was a pretty good afternoon, but I bet Orion is worried about me. I should head back soon. I'll just send him a quick message. He swiped to open his UI, and it appeared without issue. He read back over the message, frowning as he felt his eyes slide between the jumbled letters. That's...weird. Now why is it doing that?
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orioncayge
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 724
Trainer Class:
Arena Points: 10
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Post by orioncayge on Dec 2, 2023 19:23:25 GMT 9
Time passed, how much Orion couldn’t quite tell. His howl had vanished into the darkness, nary even an echo in response. He was left in utter silence save the pounding of his heart and the rushing of his blood in his own ears. This was fifty seven different flavors of fucked up, and if he escaped he was going to write a scathing letter to customer service.
If?
The question rang through his skull like an echoing gunshot. Why was he thinking if he made it out, of course he was going to make it out. He had to make it out. That single question had nailed the panic welling up in his chest like John Wilks Booth had nailed Abraham Lincoln. Fear quickly gave way to adrenaline, chasing away the doubt from the fighter's mind and forcing him to take a deep, shuddering breath.
“If this game wants to fucking kill me…” he growled between gritted teeth, “It’s gonna need to try a lot fucking harder.”
It was fight or flight, and unfortunately for whatever had trapped him, flight wasn’t allowed in UNOVR.
With the initial shock wearing off, Orion took a moment to really drink in his surroundings. He was on the edge of town, thought it seemed like whatever had created this mirage had simply picked up the city and plopped it into a desert, forgetting the highways that ran too and from the city, or perhaps they were buried under the sand? Either way, he would tread closer to the ruins, noting that the sand he kicked up seemed to float upwards and away from the ground, as if gravity was pulling it up and away into the darkness rather than back down.
Curious, Orion tried a small hop to see if maybe he was, in fact, capable of flight. Maybe the door was still up there, and he just couldn’t see it because it was blending into that darkness. That hope crashed back down to earth with him shortly after gravity did its thing.
“That would have been too easy…” Orion muttered to himself trudging forward. “Let’s figure out whatever this is supposed to be then.”
Continuing forward, he would hit the first street he really knew. He wasn’t sure if someone had just really modeled all of wreck Vegas out, or if was just drawing on his own knowledge. Either way, he had the home field advantage at least. He was fairly certain he could find his home from here, but something deep in his stomach said he REALLY didn’t want to see what was there. Yet, that begged the question, where was he supposed to go.
Ö̴̮́̆̌r̴͓͖̃ĩ̷̦̳̟̊ö̵̤̯́n̷͓̑͘
The fighter practically jumped out of his skin as his name rang through the air like crackling static. Warped yet familiar, nostalgic yet new to him at the same time. He quickly scanned the surrounding area for any sign of life, yet if his mysterious messenger was about he wasn’t able to place them
“WHO’S THERE?” He called out.
F̶̣̗̒i̸͖̐n̸̨͕̈ḋ̵͓̪͙ ̶̢̙͔̏̇M̴̩͕͎̈́̔ë̷̘̯́̈́̎
Oh that was fucking helpful, continuing his search, Orion slowly crept his way down the sandy street he’d been making his way down, his hair standing on end. At least he knew what he was supposed to do know, he was playing hide and seek with a spooky crackly ghost voice.
Perfect.
“What do you fucking want?” His words rang through the air as he came to a stop.
F̶̣̗̒i̸͖̐n̸̨͕̈ḋ̵͓̪͙ ̶̢̙͔̏̇M̴̩͕͎̈́̔ë̷̘̯́̈́̎
Orion clicked his tongue in frustration, clenching his teeth so hard he was afraid his molars would crack. This was going nowhere. How the fuck was he supposed to find a mystery disembodies voice? This city was fucking massive, it would be like finding a sliver of hay in a needlestack.
Then it clicked.
The door he’d come through to get here was that of his childhood home. It was how he’d gotten here, logic stood to reason that it was how he was going to get out of here.
He had to go home.
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Big Bee
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Bandana Guy
Round 2
Posts: 651
Trainer Class:
Player Name: Bryan Nautilus
OOC Username: Ladybug
Arena Points: 49
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Post by Big Bee on Dec 3, 2023 0:02:48 GMT 9
Bee closed the UI and stared into the middle distance where the mess of floating text had been just moments before. Oh man. The text here is crazy. This is gonna be a real problem if I want to stay here, Bee thought to himself.
If?
He blinked a lot, as if his eyelids were wipers on the windshield of his brain. I can't stay here! For one, I'm still a kid here. No, for one Orion is depending on me. NO! For one, this is a cursed backwards pocket dimension behind a magic 7/11 door in a fucking video game! Of course I can't stay here!
Very swiftly, he left the hotel he was staying in with his parents and took the stairs (not the elevator) down to the ground floor. He walked out onto the street. It was late at night, far later than it should have been. And every building had its lights off.
Big Bee ran barefoot through the dark, headed for the 7/11. Usually he would walk along the road, but the blacktop was still burning hot, greedily steeped in the sun's daily rays. Instead he stuck to the sidewalk and followed it to the end of the road.
And at the end of the road was a strange sight; a world in black and white.
The black road, bounded by white sidewalk, ended in a T intersection with a pair of thick, white-bar crosswalks. The boardwalk was awash with pale moonlight, and beyond it was the black sand sheened in more of the decadent lunar rays. And across the expanse of crunchy ebony grains was the sea. A vast black pool smeared with a languorous silver path up to the horizon where the moon squatted at the edge of sea and space like a stamp of approval from the galaxy that lay beyond.
Stars, like a legion of fireflies, or a search party from the heavens, gleamed and winked.
Big Bee stood on the corner, entranced.
He found a bench and watched the passage of white across black. The infinite span of blinking lights reminded him of a vast bank of computer terminals set side by side, their displays flashing off and on endlessly. On meant work. Productivity. Creation. Off meant sleep. Rest. Perchance to dream.
It was like a tapestry of human movement. A display within a display. A million lights, each of them a single unit. A person hard at work somewhere. Perhaps some of the lights were even programmers, some of them working on their own intricate illumination.
As above so below. Each light was, at some level, the brilliant light of a late night programmer.
After a vast time the night grew deeper. Heat from road and sand hung in the air like a zero gravity blanket.
The lights in the sky winked out one by one, until the moon itself dimmed and left the beach in darkness.
Big Bee was swallowed by the night.
And then, a new line of lights blinked on. A row of streetlamps as clear and straight as Orion's Belt flashed into luminance, providing pools of warm light leading down the road.
And at the far end of the street, beyond the pools of lamplight, was a flickering neon sign marking his destination.
1/71 NOEP 47/2
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