caveofsapphires | Today is the first day of the rest of your lives [ opening post ]

Today is the first day of the rest of your lives [ opening post ]

WHO: EVERYONE. NPCs will be around to actively engage if you so desire.
WHAT: Sleepers wake and begin to figure out just what, exactly, they are supposed to do with themselves. tl;dr: REACTION POST for new characters to get out and mingle.
WHERE: Everywhere. Mostly the living quarters, but really: anywhere you want.
WHEN: The first week, April 1st through April 7th.
WARNINGS: Travis Touchdown (Ryan LeCourt) has quite a mouth on him.
NOTES: This is a serious game, guys. WE’RE SUPER SRS HERE. ~~This may be a lie.~~

Shimmering blue blanketed the underground city as the light reflected off the sapphires in the ceiling. It cast its eerie glow, almost mimicking the effect of light on water without the sort of freeing peace one might feel with the soft ocean waves. Figuring out how deep down the city was located was near impossible when the air was obviously heated to something approaching comfortable, and nothing seemed to echo too far past the quiet hum of the city.

Workers made their way down the street, every one with a Sleeper in tow. Something that would have been unheard of only a few days ago, now more likely than one would think. They intended to start slow, but considering how many others were still in cryo, this was a laidback pace.

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A dream. Just a dream. It sounded like something right out of a horror movie, where the ending was that the protagonist was just dreaming everything. And when he woke up, everything was normal and he lived happily ever after. Instead, Elena got this. From vampirism and Salvatores to some post-apocalyptic world with a life that she didn't even remember.

She looked down at the diary in her hands; the one she'd been reading through for a good part of the last hour, and still wasn't done. It was her handwriting, and the pictures in it were of her, but she had no memory of writing any of it and she didn't live that life either. She never survived past sixteen, and she sure as hell wasn't an only child. But facts were facts. And facts were, Elena could stand in the sun without being burned. She was human again, pure and simple.

As much as Elena would've loved to take this new life and hold it to herself and maybe somehow she would mold into it, a part of herself just couldn't accept it. Because she had been less than (or more than, depending on who you asked) human, and she couldn't shake off that now-present feeling of being smaller than she felt. It just didn't... feel right.

It was like someone offering her water in the middle of miles of desert all around; just a mirage.

Elena stood up from the bed and brushed herself off. It was highly unlikely that she was going to find answers to any of her questions here. Maybe if she found some more people in the same situation as her, they could bond or... something.

She wandered out into the hallways, only just remembering to bring her ID with her. If she walked around, she was bound to find someone who was just as confused. Or better yet, maybe she would bump into someone that Chloe had written about in her diary that could shed some light on things. Though the chances of them also having survived seemed dismal.

Snow, meanwhile, had spent half of the morning pacing his condo (distractedly enough that he still couldn't even tell you what color the walls were) and the other half on the couch with his forehead in his palms in a valiant but ultimately doomed attempt to clear his head.

When he'd headed out into the halls, he'd had no set destination in mind. Just get out of that condo. Honestly, it a half bad place to live--it was better than what he'd had back home, that was for sure--but he couldn't shake that 'prison cell' vibe. You can put a dress on a monkey but it's still going to be a monkey, no matter what you try to call it. And this had 'prisoner' written all over it.

In theory, the more ground he covered, the less confined he'd feel. Not that it would help clear his head too much. In fact, he was lost enough in thought that he wasn't exactly watching where he was going, and narrowly dodged bumping straight into Elena.

"Hey, sorry about that." He flashed a sheepish grin, despite that grinning was kind of one of the last things he was in the mood for at that point. It wasn't not her fault he was stuck there (he was pretty sure, anyway), so she wasn't going to have to deal with his less-than-spectacular mood.

At one time, it would've been near impossible for anyone to nearly bump into Elena like that. She would've made sure of it. But this... it only made her realize again how tiny she felt. She'd been capable of throwing someone halfway across the room, and now, back to being a normal, defenseless sixteen year old girl.

A year ago she would've been delighted at the fact, but now all she could muster up was some strain at being in this kind of weird situation without the ability to at least protect herself. Though admittedly, she sure wasn't missing the blood lust.

"It's fine," Elena said, pulling up a smile. As far as she was concerned, she couldn't trust anyone she met here. Not yet. "No harm done, right?"

She looked him over with careful scrutiny. At first glance, he seemed like your every day sort of guy, but experience showed that appearances could be deceiving. For all she knew, he could be a serial killer. Or... dreamed that he was one, if she was going to go by what they were all told.

"Hey- you wouldn't happened to have just woken up too, would you?" she asked, putting just the slightest bit of emphasis on 'woken up' to show her doubts about the whole thing. After that announcement, Elena wasn't about to test what the guard force would do to people who insisted on their dreams. Better safe than sorry.

That was quite possibly one of Snow's biggest flaws: Just because you could more-or-less take him at face value meant that he tended to assume the same of other people. And for him, this seemed pretty black and white. There were the people like him, the 'sleepers', and then there were the people trying to tell them their lives were just a dream. Two opposing sides, and if she was confused like him, that put them on the same side, right?

'No harm done, right?' He nodded, grin shifting from sheepish to something more confident. "Right."

And then came the loaded question.

It was a pretty simple question, actually, but what kind of answer he gave theoretically depended on a lot of things that he didn't quite know. How did she feel about this whole mess? Did she believe in what she knew, or what she was hearing now? By her tone, he could figure that one out easily enough.

Now the question became, were the guards listening in?

At that point Snow realized he'd been silent a little too long, and he shook his head a little, pulling himself out of his thoughts. "Uh, yeah," came his answer, and he reached up with one hand to scratch at the back of his neck. "My name's Sn-..." Whoops, watch yourself Snow. "Well, I mean, I think you're supposed to call me Shiloh." While her doubt was expressed in a subtle shifting of tones, his was slightly less subtle. But to be fair, it was less trying to break the rules and more just trying to adjust.

That hesitation in Shiloh's introduction gave away a lot more than he probably anticipated. It was clear that he was still hung up on the dream life he had, and that he wasn't very good at pretending not to be. And he seemed to have similar doubts about this entire place, though she wasn't sure if he believed the story about this being their real lives or not. At least he seemed to realize that the doctors seemed serious about not mentioning their dream lives.

"Well, Shiloh, I'm Chloe," Elena said matter-of-factly, taking care not to sound too hesitant to make up for his, leaning against the wall with her shoulder slightly. She would have to check the diary in her hands later for someone by that name.

"Can I..."

Her question faded off slightly as Elena was struck with the possibility that this was all a dream conjured up through witch magic. Maybe Sheila wanted to test her humanity somehow, by changing her back into a human, before making her a day walking ring. Her brow furrowed at the thought, not dismissing it out of hand, but putting it to the side for now. She gave Shiloh the most apologetic look she could muster up. "Sorry, I totally zoned out. Um- can I ask what you dreamed about?"

If it turned out that he also dreamed about Earth, then there was no way it could be a coincidence, right?

"Hey, no problem," he offered to her apology, especially considering he was doing a fair amount of zoning out, himself.

As for her question, his brow knit, and his hand dropped from the back of his neck. "So we can still-...?" Talk about it? "I mean-..." But then it occurs to him that to be quite honest he's never quite given a damn about the authorities anyway--'No Obligations, Rules, or Authority' was his militia gang's motto back home, and while he may have learned a whole lot about the world as a whole since then, he still had the inescapable tendency to dismiss rules he didn't quite mesh with.

"I hate to sound cliche, but I dreamed about an adventure. All over Cocoon--that's home, Cocoon is--and all over Gran Pulse, too. We fought all kinds of monsters and the fal'Cie, all of us did. Me, Lightning, Hope, Fang and Vanille, Sazh..."

He lifted his hand up near his chin to eye the outside of his forearm now, and for a second he looked a little bit troubled, despite that there was nothing there. 'Nothing there' was kind of the point. He rubbed it casually with the palm of his other hand. "Had a l'Cie brand right here. A 'tattoo' I guess, but that's not even half of it."

And the absence of his brand sobered him up a little. Enough that it actually occurred to him that he was looking significantly more pensive than he usually allowed. So Snow wipes the thoughtfulness off of his face, replacing it with something like determination. "I was looking for Serah. We all were." And as an afterthought, he clarified, "Serah's my fiance, and Light's sister." Smoothing his bandanna in place with one hand, Snow tacked on, "Or 'was', anyway."

"I don't see why not," Elena said, giving him a shrug and said in a tone that was far too casual to be genuinely oblivious. However, she does flash him a wry smile. "I'm just curious what everyone else dreamed about."

She listened to his recollection of his adventure with a mixture of interest, and disappointment. It definitely was nothing like Earth. At all. In fact, it almost sounded like something straight out of some kind of video game, or movie. Or... a dream.

There was a brief moment of silence as Elena digested everything he said, and compared it to her own life. A strong wave of sympathy crested over; the strength of it surprised her, but it was to be expected, now she was human again.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "It must be hard to be told that all of that was just a dream."

'It probably would be, if I believed it,' that's what he wanted to say, but he'd pushed it plenty for one day already. Snow wanted to be a little more sure of his environment before he had to elude the authorities in it.

So the reply that ended up coming out was, "Yeah, it's... definitely pretty frustrating." Snow's never been great with expressing negative emotions, and this wasn't an exception.

"But hey, what about you? What'd you dream about?"

"Me?"

She took a moment to consider how much she trusted him. The answer was, not very, considering they'd only just met for the first time. He had given her his own life story... or what he'd lived through anyways. On the other hand, he also admitted that he fought all kinds of monsters. Elena was too disillusioned to be oblivious to the fact that morality or not, vampires were considered 'monsters'.

And from the way he talked, she got the feeling he firmly believed that this was all a lie, and everyone's 'dreams' were what was real. Or at very least, he believed his was real.

With a slight smile, Elena simply said, "It's pretty bizarre now that I think about it. Way different from yours."

Cabanela wasn't quite ready to agree with the "everything had been a dream" thing. Sure, it would explain a whole lot, but he didn't believe it for one second. Sure, he was going to pretend he did. It was for the best, after all. And, hey, that photograph was pretty damning proof. He didn't recognize any of the people in the photograph, but there was a twinge of something that he felt seeing them all standing there with him. Maybe it was remembering his own group from the real world. Or, the dream world. That was going to be a bit confusing.

After a moment left in his own thoughts, he pocketed the photograph carefully. If this was a mix-up with some sort of doppelganger, he was interested in preserving the memory of these folks who adored Dillon Hays. 150 years was a long time. Unless they had survived as sleepers, too, they had probably...

But he was brought out of his thoughts when he saw the young girl. She and Lynne were probably around the same age. "Hey," he said in a fatherly voice. "You need some company?"

"I wouldn't mind that," Elena responded easily with a smile that came surprisingly naturally. Maybe it was the sense of genuine want to help coming from the man, even if it he did look old enough to be her father. "It's been... a pretty weird day."

Her lips twist up into a curved smile of amusement at the extreme understatement of her statement. Though to be frank, Elena really wasn't sure how high this ranked on her list of weird events, taking into consideration the day she became a vampire. And the realization that she was identical to an extremely old vampire. Her entire life was pretty weird.

"I'm... Chloe," Elena said, hesitating slightly as she tested out the feel of her 'real name' on her tongue for the first time.

"Call me Dillon," Cabanela said cheerfully. He didn't seem to have much issue using his false name, but he was so used to leaving out details for the safety of things that had happened in that "dream" that it didn't matter much to him. He would do what he could to help. He'd done it before, of course. He'd do it again.

"You remind me of Lynne," he said in a proud voice. Lynne, the rookie detective. It was probably just the age, probably just him trying to hold onto memories that he had been told weren't even real, but he couldn't help it. His tone was one of a man talking about a relative. He and Lynne weren't blood related, but he still cared about the girl. "Don't you worry. I'll figure things out," he said, strangely cheerful given the situation at hand.

Of course, given that everyone had been dreaming, Elena had no idea if Dillon was his 'dream' name, or his 'real name'.

In fact, it was even confusing in her mind to call one or the other the 'real' life. For now, she still thought of herself as Elena Gilbert, so... she guessed she still considered that to be her real life. But it wasn't like she'd never used aliases before. It would probably take some time to get used to but she could have had a worse name than 'Chloe'.

"Lynne?"

Elena tilted her head in curiosity. "Was she someone from your dream?"

He nodded, a little sadly. "She was. Kinda strange, thinking of her as nothing but a dream." He was fairly sure everyone was feeling the same way. "Guess that's just how the way things go here," he said, his voice taking on a bitter tone. They couldn't be seen or heard talking about the "dreams" as though they were real. Even if he did still think they were very much more than just a dream.

"Guess we've all got our issues to work through here, huh?"

Oh, he had no idea. This vampire to human thing wasn't just something that popped up occasionally as a sidethought. It was like a constant stream of feeling wrong inside her own body, which was incredibly ironic because it meant that she felt more comfortable as a vampire than as human.

"I know what you mean," Elena said, after a moment's pause. "I had some... people I was close to. In my dream. I guess things will feel better once we start to remember our real lives."

Elena lied through through her teeth, of course, but in a place like this, she wouldn't be surprised if there was surveillance cameras everywhere. Honestly, she was more than just a little apprehensive of what would happen once the memories did come flooding back, if Anselmo was telling the truth. It felt just a little too similar to compulsion for her liking.

"I did too. Had a pretty good career, too. Bet you had school to worry about, too, huh?" he asked, still cheerful. He wasn't sure that they would ever remember their "real" lives, but he wasn't going to say that aloud. Not until he got a feel for the area, at least. Not until he knew if there were cameras around with guards waiting to arrest people who questioned what was going on.

"Makes you wonder why now, huh? Wonder if the people from our real lives are still sleeping."

"Still," Elena corrected. Then she gave him a sheepish smile. "Still have to worry about school. Mr. Anselmo told me my duty was to study, since I was a student before. I know, dumb, right?"

All the casual conversation was starting to feel like something straight out of a spy movie, when she knew all everybody probably wanted to discuss was how many of the Sleepers actually believed the stuff about their entire life being just a dream. But the threat of 'guard force acting' implied that they would know if anyone talked about their dreams like they were real.

Elena held up the diary she'd been carrying around with her. The huge block letters on the front that spelled out CHLOE made it pretty clear whose diary it was.

"If you ask me, this is way more useful- I mean, more helpful in figuring out who I was, than a picture or something." She caught herself on 'useful' and hastily came up with something before she accidentally incriminated herself. While it was interesting to read about Chloe's (or... well, her) life, Elena's main reason for keeping it with her was to find people that Chloe knew for more information.

"Heeere's to hoping there's actually a school to go to. Might be a tiny classroom from the looks of things, baby," he said with a chuckle, doing a slight nervous move with his feet. "I think working security for an empty building wouldn't make much sense. Guess we'll have to see what's left of the city when we get there." He certainly didn't think there was much left. Maybe there was some sort of home school option that the mayor would send her? Haha, that would be just the thing, wouldn't it?

"Yeah, it looks like it'd be easier," Cabanela said with a chuckle glancing at her diary, pulling out his own item, which was a photograph. "This isn't much use when I don't recognize any of the people in this photo." There wasn't even anything on the back, no date or anything. But it looked like it had been taken at a party, and the slight discoloration made him wonder if it had been siting in a frame for a long time.

"Makes you wonder how they want us to look for our real selves."

Working security... Was it possible that one of the first people Elena met upon waking up was someone that was a part of Chloe's life? When he said his name, she'd assumed it was Dylan, because that was the most common spelling. It didn't even occur to her to connect it to the uncle from the diary.

"You worked security?" she asked, brows furrowed slightly in concentration as she quickly flipped through the pages of the diary to find where she'd read about an 'Uncle Dillon'.

"That's what they tell me," Cabanela said cheerfully. "Don't tell me we know each other?" he asked after a beat, watching her flip through the diary.

"I think we might have, actually," Elena said, placing one finger on the name written in the diary. She looked back up at him pensively. She hadn't thought far enough about what to do once she actually did find someone from the diary. Honestly, Elena hadn't been expecting to, what with the century long sleep, and apocalypse.

Brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, she shifted her weight slightly. She was already this far... "How do you spell your name?"

Who could she be? A nice? A... a daughter? Cabanela was a bachelor. He'd never really considering looking for a girlfriend, having spent so much of his time trying to save his friend. But that wouldn't do him much good here, not until he found out just who he was in this city, even if it was a weird case of mistaken identity. The only other thing could have been the daughter of one of his co-workers, which he supposed would make her an honorary niece.

"D-i-l-l-o-n," he said. But now, he was thinking that they might actually be related. That... that was kind of a shock. He was still sure that everyone who had been on his team were long dead. But this, this was something special. Something he hadn't actually thought possible.

Elena bit her lip, as her suspicion was confirmed, before flashing Dillon a weak smile. What were the chances that she would find a relative? She handed the diary over to him, flipped open to the page she was looking for. "Here. You might want to read this."

Uncle Dillon came over again today. He tried to teach me that dance again, but I really don't think I'm the dancing type.

I think he feels bad. About Mom. I mean, she was his sister. I don't mind. It's a nice distraction from how quiet it is around home nowadays. It's a distraction from how much I miss her...

She honestly wasn't sure how to feel about this. There hadn't been a parental figure in her life since her parents died, and Stefan didn't count, as uptight as he was. Elena watched him carefully as he read the diary page, and chided herself. Just because it said they were related, doesn't mean he was going to act like it. It didn't mean she had to act like it. After all, she had been on her own (Stefan had been more of a teacher, and Damon barely counted as a teacher, let alone a guardian) for more than a year now, and she could take care of herself.

Cautiously, Elena asked, "What do you think?"

It took him reading through the diary entry several times before he spoke. "This..." he said, quietly. His normal cheerful tone gone from his voice. "This sounds like how they described me." He said after a moment. No one had mentioned a family to him, but perhaps that had been one of those "figure it out" things. You'd think he'd remember something as important as a sibling dying.

"Guess this means I'm your uncle, kid," he said, with a solemn smile.

"I guess so," Elena said in agreement, her voice sounding strained even to her own ears.

"It doesn't mean you have to act like ... an uncle. I mean, right now, it's kind of like we just met, since neither of us remember anything." And it was only compounded by the fact that she didn't know what his real name was, and he only knew her by Chloe. Even if it was supposedly their 'real' names, it just didn't feel genuine.

Today is the first day of the rest of your lives [ opening post ]

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is this okay? (besides the poor quality--good lord it's late)

it's fine! c:

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oh my gosh i'm so sorry for late

it's okay, shit hit the fan at my other game so I'm a little slow too, whoops

mutual slowness then hahah

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oh my gosh i completely didn't see this ;__;

Totally okay!

♥

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