hadriel_logs | Event Log: Memories Past

Event Log: Memories Past

Who: Everyone
What: Memory Share Event!
Where: All around the city
When: November 14th-20th
Warnings: Please remember to tag all warnings for memory shares!

Have you ever looked through someone else's eyes? Heard through their ears, spoken with their tongue? The gods have tried to teach some of you empathy, but it's time you learned the hard way, exactly what the others here have been through. For a week, every time you brush skin to skin with someone, you'll experience a memory of theirs: happy, sad, it doesn't matter. All that matters is that it feels real to you.

The first touch may come as a surprise- it lasts only for a split second but may feel like an eternity, where you're trapped in someone else's memory. After that, it could be more expected, and some may even figure out how to control it and share specific scenes from their past with others. Or, you might wear gloves and long sleeve shirts for awhile, nobody's judging.

Maybe curtail the handholding for awhile- or go right ahead, if that's your thing. After all, you never really know somebody unless you've walked a mile in their shoes, right?

► This log covers November 14th-20th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you die in a memory, you don't die in real life, but if you do die in real life please let us know here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Ephemera's in a relatively good mood. That might not last, but he's enjoying it while he can. He'll be wandering the shops looking for groceries and - more importantly - fresh paints and can be found at the armory or at the beach just watching the water. He's out of armor today. He's going to be regretting that fairly soon.

Out of armor, he's just a regular looking guy in jeans and a sweatshirt....and an intense facial scar. Easy to bump into.

( Starters below. OCC plotting comment here Hit me up at

mirrorfaded with any questions. )

They've decided as a group not to kill the enlisted soldiers. Only the officers. The captain timed everything so only a skeleton crew would be on board, minimal personal manning the ship, and the two other Hell Jumper squadrons off on assignment. Can't trust the others would see it the way you do. Can't trust that they wouldn't side with the officers and that's an awful thought, isn't it?

Ephemera and Crow

Crow have been dragging the enlisted soldiers kicking and screaming into the airlock. Can't hurt them too bad, they're not in full armor. But some of them want to fight, which makes it difficult, and he knew that corporal, the one who played cards with them. The one with the wild red hair and the broken nose where Ephemera kicked him.

Wouldn't say down. Had to do it.

"Hey! Hey! You bastards, what the fuck are you doing?"

Crow grunts. Activates the lock and leaves the soldiers, the ones still in good enough shape to stand, to pound uselessly at the door.

Ephemera lingers. Crow grabs him by the shoulder, hard. "No."

There's still work to do.

Inside, Rodriguez and Barrows have the officers lined up on their knees. No piece of armor among them, all of them full of righteous fury. Rodriguez has blood on his gauntlets where he's been beating the commander. The man's not dead yet, but Ephemera can see the shine of exposed bone on his scalp.

They know what they did. They never thought somebody would say enough.

In the corner, Hunter is standing watch. He's got his helmet off. Absolutely nothing on his face but a cold, steady calm.

Then he takes his axe. Nods to Rodriguez.

And they begin.

They each kill one. To make it fair. Rodriguez beats the commander to death with his fists. Chica uses her knives. The twins start kicking. Barrows uses a garrote.

Hunter takes the axe. Removes his officer's head in a single blow. It bounces.

The floor is tacky with blood before long.

Ephemera goes last. He decides to make it quick. The man stares at him the whole time. They'd been friendly once, if not friends.

"You killed children," he explains.

The officer stares at him. "We're at war."

"Yeah. But you killed kids."

Ephemera shoots him in the head. And the memory ends.

The space is dark and industrial, with the sharp smell of armor polish and spray paint. You have the feeling this is a storage compartment that's been repurposed as a sort of armory. A workbench has been set up and that's where the man with the scarred face is modifying his armor.

It's not Ephemera. The man has the same scar, the same dark hair, but he holds himself differently. Every motion is harsh and clipped, practical to the extreme. His expression is sharp, edging onto cruel.

"And what would you do if those people were here, now?"

He's speaking to a deceptively plain looking man.

"Would you kill 'em?"

This man is not Ephemera. Not the one you know. But there was someone else before.

Meet Sharkface. And the memory ends.

Ephemera woke up first, and Drake smells coffee. He hauls himself out of bed and pulls on a t-shirt before venturing into the kitchen, where the other man is at the counter staring at the coffee dripping into the pot as if he's waiting for enough to pour. It earns him a grin as Drake approaches, comes up behind him and slips an arm around his waist fondly.

"Morning." He turns his head to bump his against Ephemera's, and the second they touch there... the apartment vanishes.

--

Drake is coming home in the evening, kicking the door closed behind himself and dropping a bookbag unceremoniously in the foyer so he can hang up his coat. He’s tired and hungry and wants to just grab dinner and go collapse, but has to say hi to Ma first. The tv is droning on in the living room but a quick glance only reveals a middle aged man in a recliner, so Drake moves down the hall to the kitchen. As he gets farther from the tv, he can hear… something. Crying.

His mother is at the table, with a towel full of ice pressed to her face, sobbing into it. She doesn’t seem to hear Drake, but he rushes over and kneels in front of her.

“Ma?! Ma! What happened?”

“Oh, Drake…” She lowers the towel, and it’s bloody. Her eye is already swollen shut, blood smeared on her cheek and lips.

From the living room, the man is calling out. “Hey! Kid, if you’re in there, grab me another beer!”

Something in Drake’s expression must scare his mother because she starts shaking his head as he stands up. “No… no, Drake, don’t--”

But he’s off, seeing red as he storms into the living room. The man in the recliner glances up, then scoffs at him.

“No beer? Shit, you’re both useless.”

“Get up.”

“What?”

“Get up, you miserable fuck.”

“Drake, don’t…” Ma is pulling on his arm and Drake just gently pulls free, stepping closer.

“Get up, Frank.”

“Whaddaya gonna do if I don’t?”

“Try me.”

“Nothin’ kid. You’re never gonna do nothin’ and you’re never gonna be nothin’. Just like your Ma. At least one of you could get me a--”

He doesn’t get to finish because Drake’s already moving forward, ignoring the awkward low angle to punch Frank sharply in the face. Straight in the nose, just once. Ma keeps begging from the background.

“I said try me! Huh?”

Groaning in pain with one hand clutched over his now-bleeding nose, Frank does get up. But when he drops his hand it’s not to make a fist. It’s to pull out a switchblade. “Walk away, Drake.”

“No. You’re done, asshole.” He lunges forward and Frank raises the blade, going straight for the kill, right in Drake’s eye. Ma screeches bloody murder as Drake dodges a second too late, the knife cutting deep into his temple instead, the origin of the scar he still bears. He lets out a sound like a snarl and the fight begins in earnest.

Ma keeps screaming.

It isn’t until Frank is a motionless lump on the floor and Drake is still wailing on him, 19 years of restraint and abuse from several men boiling over on the one in front of him, that Ma rushes forward and grabs his arm to stop him.

Drake falls backwards and goes very still, as if in shock, and stares at his bloody fist. Reaches up to touch his head and that hand comes away covered in blood too. From the cut and the few hits Frank got in, one of which split his lip. Ma starts crying again, the sobs hysterical and incoherent as she clutches at her son, and Drake stares at the body. He’s still breathing, Drake can tell because of the blood bubbling out of his mouth.

Shaking now, he shifts and digs into his pocket, pulling out his cell phone and calling 911.

When the cops and ambulance come, he’s extricated himself from his mother and is sitting out front, still covered in blood, smoking. He points the EMTs inside to Frank, and flicks the butt into the street, holding out his wrists to be cuffed.

As they lead him to the car, he hears his mother screaming again. “Don’t take him! Don’t take my son! You can’t take my son!!!”

Except they have to. The memory fades on a siren.

--

And then they're both back, frozen in place, and Drake's not sure how to process what happened or if it happened to both of them, but he's not letting go just yet.

Edited 2018-11-17 14:22 (UTC)

"--the fuck!"

Ephemera tenses, almost going into a defensive stance before he has time to think about it. The mug he's fussing with drops, hits the ground but doesn't break. Spills coffee everywhere. He's shivering all over, adrenaline flooding in with no place to go. Everything in him says fightfightfight and he knows this - vision. Not the sensory details, the way blood bubbled up around the man's mouth afterward, but the story.

Breathe, Ephemera tells himself. Breathe, motherfucker. Stay in the moment.

Carefully, he puts his hand over Drake's and turns to face him. There's coffee everywhere, but he'll worry about that later.

"Drake, what the fuck. You okay?"

"--what?!"

Ephemera's reaction, for a moment, sends Drake into fight mode too before he confirms there's nothing actually in the apartment. It's just whatever he must have seen that set him off, and Drake feels something cold spreading through his limbs. He thought that when something like this had happened a year ago with the dreams, that Ephemera had seen the worst of him already.

And now he's running through all the worst points in his life trying to come up with what it might have been, except he can also still hear Ephemera's voice from his memory, how full of pain and hate he was.

It's a lot. This is just a lot.

"I'm fine, don't... I think it was touching, so." It's almost physically painful, but he pulls away carefully. Then his voice is wary. "What did you see?"

"...oh."

It hurts to pull away, especially in the aftermath when all Ephemera wants to do is grab Drake and hold him close. And touch the scar on his brow, just to remind himself how well it had healed now that he's seen what caused it.

Breathe, Ephemera reminds himself. It's over now.

"You." He swallows hard. "Beating the snot out of the guy who hurt your mom."

It's okay, Drake thinks, it didn't happen right away, maybe there are rules. Maybe it's skin contact. They'll have to figure this out but right now his head's spinning a little, and he steps around the coffee puddle on the floor to sit at the kitchen table.

Oh. Oh, that.

"...Frank. His name's Frank." Is, not was, because Drake didn't kill him but Frank probably would've preferred that to how he is now. Still alive, last Drake had heard. Paralyzed and then a stroke and still wouldn't die, that motherfucker. Literally, heh.

Drake's voice goes cold, shut down.

"His name's Frank and he didn't deserve all that. That was for a bunch of other guys too. He was just the final straw." One hand reaches up and touches his scar, balls up into a fist. "I saw you painting your armor. With this... guy. Creepy. He was asking Sharkface psych questions."

He says it like that because it wasn't quite Ephemera. Not exactly.

Terrence Ephemera | ota, will match format

Mutiny (cw for murder, gore, mention of war crimes)

The Counselor

going with frank first (cw: extreme violence)

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Tattoos

Tattoos

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Squad bonding

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