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

[Sal has seen a lot of strange things, therefore the majestic looking sheep casually grazing is a little odd but doesn't give him cause for suspicion. For a moment he simply kneels down with his arms around his knees and watches it graze, smiling a bit under his mask. Then he reaches forward, not really thinking about how the whole memory thing might come into play — mostly because it's, well, a sheep, and he gives it a nice little scritch like he would his cat.

—

Sal is handing a radio antenna over to a redheaded boy around his age with round glasses. He seems pleased. "With the two components you retrieved and my own equipment, I can adequately make the modifications to the Gear Boy. Give me a moment to get ready."

It doesn't take long. Sal stands by a fish tank in his friend's room and watches it for a bit, the sound of tinkering and Todd muttering to himself reaching his ears occasionally. "Okay, all set. Behold...the Super Gear Boy!" He holds up a very familiar device, the one Sal had that time he was sitting in that empty apartment ghost hunting, proudly and with a huge smile on his face.

He hands it to Sal, who takes it and looks at it for a moment. "Um, cool?"

"Don't worry, you can still play games on it. It'll only be in ghost hunting mode with the strange cartridge in it."

Sal sighs in relief. "Oh, awesome! You had me worried for a second."

"However," he continues, "I unfortunately needed a few components from your walkie-talkie and wasn't able to salvage it. I hope that is alright."

"Larry's not gonna be happy about that. It's alright though, it's for a good cause."

Todd then goes on to explain to Sal how to use it; have the antenna fully extended, hold the device out, what buttons to press, etc.

"...if my theory is correct, then the surge of electricity will provide an ample source of power to energize nearby apparitions and possibly other supernatural elements as well."

"Okay, I think I got the gist of it."

"I suggest we take it for a test run in my bathroom."

"Sounds good!"

With that the two head to Todd's bathroom. He stands back by the tub while Sal faces the rest of the room with the Gear Boy out. "Whenever you're ready just hold up the Super Gear Boy and press "Y"."

Sal holds it up and does as instructed; immediately the screen glows a bright green and makes a bunch of weird computer-y sounds. He stares down at it for a minute before there's a brief surge and it stops.

"Hmm," Todd starts, "maybe I—"

A loud screech cuts him off as the bathroom light flickers, something bulbous and fleshy appearing on the toilet seat, growing and growing until it forms...a person? A man, older and bald, transparent, sitting on the toilet seat with red eyes and a tear streaked face. He's frowning.

"It worked!" Sal says with amazement.

Behind him, Todd takes a tentative step forward with his eyes widened and his mouth hanging open. "...Holy crap."

The man is crying, so Sal tries to keep his tone soft. "Hello. What's the matter?"

"I never thought he'd kill them," he starts, unable to stop weeping. "I...it's all my fault."

"Who?"

"Stacy and her daughter. Oh, what a fool I was to fall for a married woman!"

"It's never a crime to follow your heart," Sal comforts, an urge to pat him on the shoulder if not for the fact that, well, he can't.

"You must be a romantic like I...was...it's kind of you to say but I know better than that."

"We want to help you. Why haven't you left this place?"

"...We can never leave."

Sal's brows furrow under his mask in concern. "What do you mean? You can't pass on?" The man doesn't respond, so Sal continues to press a touch urgently. "What's keeping you here? Have you seen a demon with red eyes? Can you tell us anythin-"

"No," the man suddenly cuts off. "No, no, NO!"

"What? What is it?"

"He's here!"

Sal feels the urgency grow, while Todd remains with the same shocked look on his face that he had when the ghost initially appeared. "Who? The red eyed man? The one who killed Stacy and her daughter?"

"I have to go. I'm sorry."

And just as gruesomely as he appeared, he vanished, morphing back into bulbous flesh and shrinking until he was gone. The lights flicker again, and just beside Todd and Sal where the mirror hangs over the sink a black silhouette with red eyes appear very briefly.

Finally, Todd speaks, eyes still wide and tone awed. "That was a fully formed and conscious apparition. I've never seen anything like that."

Sal turns to his friend. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. It's just one thing to read about the paranormal and formulate theories and another to actually experience it."

"I know what you mean," he offers supportively. "It's a lot to take in."

"Well, we have a lot to do! I think I've had my fill of excitement for today, so I'll stay and do some research. I want to look into the history of Addison apartments to see if I can find anything about past residents and the supposed murders."

"That'd be really helpful. While you do that, I'm going to go search for more supernatural hot-spots."

Todd nods his head and informs Sal about some extraneous static he noticed around the Gear Boy when he was using it, and that he should check it out before he exits the bathroom. Sal glances over to the toilet and gives a good long, thoughtful stare, before the memory fades away.]

[When Sal touches Sheep Harlan, he'll get a memory from an event just before Sal arrived here. It was a good event to miss.

Sheep Harlan appreciates the pets! However, after the memories transfer and Harlan is back to being a person, Human Harlan is not a big fan of any sort of contact. He skirts away as soon as he's able, brushing the dirt off his jeans as he stands. His magic tends to backfire at the worst possible time.

At least it was Sal, though, and at least Sal's memory was some awesome insight into this ghost thing they've chatted about a couple times. Apparently ghosts are real where Sal's from. Cool, maybe. He just hopes the memory wasn't too personal. Having to share that kind of shit against your will is never fun.

And given how his luck's gone lately, Sal probably got something that Harlan wouldn't want to give. Now he's just got to figure out which something that was... Ugh. The kid will probably feel bad about it, too. This preemptively sucks.]

Hey. I didn't do that on purpose.

[The sheep thing. His head's still a bit fuzzy as he comes back into himself.]

My magic goes haywire sometimes.

[Sal would probably be more shocked about the sheep suddenly turning into Harlan if he hadn't just felt his mind get assaulted by a memory so vivid and unsettlingly familiar, yet not. In the end that's what causes him to fall back in surprise. It takes him a moment to form the words, trying so desperately to keep his tone even.]

I, uh, yeah...no, it's not your fault. [He doesn't have to make an excuse, he means. And yes, Harlan is correct, Sal does feel bad about it. If he had known the sheep wasn't just a sheep he would have continued to avoid contact as he had been doing.] I should have realized a random sheep was kind of odd.

[He pushes himself off the ground finally, brushing off his own jeans. It's a good thing he's wearing a mask because his face being stuck in a hard wince can't be seen. He had no idea...then again, Sal more than anyone knows that you can never really have an idea.]

It's not yours, either. Don't feel bad.

[About being enticed by the sheep or for seeing something that was definitely not meant to be seen, judging by the way Sal is acting. He's a tough kid for Harlan to read—because of the mask, but also because Harlan doesn't know him very well yet. He'd like to get to know him better, though. He's an interesting kid. His perspective isn't one that Harlan sees very often. It's refreshing.]

I saw you and your friend updating your, uh, Gear Boy thing.

[Was that what it was called?]

You talked to a ghost in a bathroom. Yeah, pretty different from the kind of spirit I'm used to. It's not often that we get to share shit from home like that, but I'm sorry if that wasn't something you wanted me to see.

[He's not sure why it would be a private memory given that Sal has already been forthcoming about the whole ghost thing, but still. Traipsing around in someone else's head is no joke. What seems insignificant to Harlan could be intensely private to Sal. He doesn't want to make assumptions.]

[He wants to take that to heart but it's a little difficult. He just saw something that he knows to be incredibly personal, and he feels bad that he wants to reach out and say...something? But that it would probably be unhelpful. But he feels bad for that thought too.]

Hm? Oh...no, no...it's fine. That probably freaked out Todd more than it did me. [He was honestly worried when it happened. Stuff like that can really change how you look at things. Anyway, he could have seen much worse.] It's not something I'm against anyone seeing. I just feel kind of awful for Greg, is all. He got mixed up in something really bad.

Is Greg the ghost?

[He assumes so, but his head's still a little foggy from the memory transfer. It's weird, downloading a piece of someone else's brain, and he's collecting them left and right at this point.]

Did you, uh, see anything of mine?

[In his experience, the memory sharing tends to be a two-way street. He just hopes Sal didn't see anything too awful.]

Yeah, that's him.

[If he sounds distracted it's because he's totally distracted. His lips purse — as much as they can, considering the state of his face, his brows furrow, his face in general does a whole dance of "how do I answer this without making this terrible?", and yet the only indication of this is the hesitance in his eyes.]

I...I did, yeah. [He trails off at the end there, clearly not certain if he should say what he saw or not. But he decides to leave it up to Harlan. If he asks, he'll tell him.]

[Harlan shifts. Yeah, okay, he saw something pretty awful. With that mask, it's hard to get a read on what this means for their friendship, exactly. The hesitance could be guilt over having seen something private, or it could be because Sal is now afraid of him. He waits a moment to see if Sal's going to answer that for him, but he doesn't. Harlan licks his lips, nodding.]

What'd you get?

[But since he can't tell what Sal's thinking, he doesn't know what sort of comfort to provide. He considers outright telling Sal that he's not going to hurt him, but wow would that require a lot of horrible backpedaling if he didn't get any of those kinds of memories.]

I'm not going to be upset. This memory swapping thing isn't your fault.

[Okay, he asked, and Sal already resolved himself to be honest if he did. It doesn't even occur to him that Harlan could be thinking he saw something that would negatively impact their friendship, otherwise he wouldn't be acting like such a cagey little thing about it right now.

He takes a small breath, more concerned about how bringing this up or knowing someone else saw something so personal could affect Harlan more than having trouble recounting what he just saw.]

You were alone. [He knows that's not very helpful, but it's the first thing that came to mind to say. It takes him a moment to elaborate, and he hopes it's enough.] In a bathroom. It was here, in Hadriel. You...were alone.

Ah.

[Yeah, it's enough. Granted he's leaning on an assumption that it was the memory during the isolation event, but given all of Sal's hesitation, his unwillingness to put words to it... Yeah, it had to be that. Harlan's an old hat when it comes to self harm, to being suicidal even, but that event was the closest he's come to actually going through with it in a long time. Since he's been in Hadriel, for sure.]

That was a bad event. You might've heard about it. It was a month or two before you got here.

[It's possible that he's mentioned it, even, but his memory is failing him at the moment.]

The gods conjured up a citywide illusion that made us think we were stuck in an empty city with a couple of other people. The gods were gone, the network was down, the whole city shut down completely. We'd never seen anything like it before. I thought it was real.

[And because he can see something of himself in Sal and he knows all this fretting is probably on Harlan's behalf:]

I don't know if you're embarrassed or guilty or what, but you don't have to be. I'm sorry you had to see that.

[Sal actually does recall hearing vague details about something like that happening. He definitely got the impression it was one of the worse things to happen around here, just from the way it was brought up in conversation, though he had no idea just how bad it was. It was only in passing he heard about it, after all.

There's a small bundle of anger that gathers in the pit of his stomach. He wants to understand these beings that feed off of their emotions. He wants to give them the benefit of the doubt; they can't help being what they are, right? But some of them, just by virtue of what they embody alone, seem way too dangerous for the people of Hadriel, and far too unwilling to just...find another way. Something. Something that doesn't involve emotionally tormenting good people.]

Don't be sorry. [That comes out a little more firmer than he intended. His flinches a bit — sometimes he forgets he's a kid talking to adults. He instinctively lifts a hand to rub at his shoulder, as if to calm himself down. Sometimes it works, sometimes he gets a little too upset and ends up just leaving a bruise. It seems to be working now, though, kind of. If only because he's too focused on how his friend might feel more than anything.] The fault isn't with us.

[He clears his throat as if that will make any unpleasantness in his tone go away. It, well, it works a little. He doesn't sound angry anymore and allows the sympathy hammering away at him come through in his words instead.]

It's not what I was expecting to see, but...I know how it feels. Sometimes you just don't know how to deal with the things that are forced on you. We're not supposed to be that strong. I think that's how we get stronger — er...

[He stops himself abruptly, wondering why the hell he kept talking and feeling an intense urge to apologize for this little word-spew he went on instead of just, maybe, not saying anything. But he always found it hard not to. Even when Travis was telling him to fuck off he just kept talking, and talking until he thought something he said helped. It doesn't always, he knows.]

That's what I always tell myself, I mean. Sometimes it helps.

["One of the worse things to happen around here" is definitely how Harlan would describe it.

And here Sal is, continuing his trend of being wise beyond his years. It's refreshing, talking to someone so emotionally open and aware, but it makes Harlan a little sad, too. He doesn't want Sal to be able to relate to him. That doesn't come without some amount of pain in his past.]

I don't know about not knowing how to deal so much as knowing that dealing with it is pointless.

[Not that Sal is wrong in his assessment, though. The overwhelming uncertainty was what led him into that bathroom in the first place.]

Usually with these events, we at least know it's not real. It's not much, but it helps keep you sane. With that event, we had no fucking way of knowing one way or the other. We've never had an event where the gods flat out vanished before.

[He sighs. He probably shouldn't be unloading on Sal like this, but it's an explanation.]

Getting stronger through that kind of shit is true sometimes, I guess. I don't know.

["Pointless"; that's a scary word that holds enough weight to shatter the sturdiest of walls. He has never gotten quiet that far yet himself, even on his worst days, there was always some bit of hope or stubbornness pushing him to keep from giving up completely, the only time he ever felt anything remotely similar being the medications that make him feel more on the numb side than anything. That's the reason his chest hurts for his friend, who admits to having felt the feeling, something he wouldn't even wish on his worst enemy.

Uncertainty, though, is so painfully familiar. What's real? What's not? He understands, and if he knew Harlan was feeling any kind of way "unloading" he would recapture that firm tone and tell him it was fine. Words sometimes relieved unbearable pressure, even if they seemingly solved nothing. Even if they had nothing to do with anything. It's one of the reasons Sal is so grateful for all the friends he's made back home. And here, despite the fact that his constant struggle with reality has manifested itself here as well as back home, leaving him waking up some nights confused and scared. Was Hadriel a dream? Was it real?]

I know. [He says with a gentle kind of certainty.] You can crack a million times, but you're still resilient. I believe you are.

["Believe", because he still doesn't know Harlan all that well and he won't pretend to. But he'll give his honest observation whether he asks for it or not. And really, he knows all the words in the world can't help some things, but there's a few he always finds comfort in himself, so he'll repeat them, as he always does.]

Hey, you know I consider you a friend, right? I'm always open to talk. About anything. [Anything, because he knows he's a kid to most everyone, by size alone, and most adults probably don't want to open up to a teenager.

Sometimes he wonders curiously if people think he's like, twelve or thirteen because of his size. That probably doesn't help.]

Or just listen. I'm good at that.

[It is a little awkward, having a kid comfort him in this way. It'd be awkward having anyone comfort him in this way, truth be told, but between him and Sal? It feels like he should be the one doing the comforting. That's what adults are supposed to do for kids. Teenagers. He's not sure what category Sal fits into, now that he thinks about it. He looks young, though it's hard to tell with his mask, but he sounds older than most of the adults around town.

Luckily, age isn't something that Harlan thinks about very often. In his world, the species are too varied for age to matter much. His last girlfriend has a couple hundred years on him, for example. It's best to not get hung up on these things.

"Resilient" is a word he's heard used to describe him before. He's gotten it a lot from therapists, and sometimes from foster parents. His strength, if you know his history, is one of his more noteworthy attributes, but it's not always easy for Harlan to see that in himself. The careful way that Sal says it, though. Harlan will remember that.]

Thanks.

[He leaves it at that. He laughs a little at the rest of it, though.]

I appreciate that, and I'll keep it in mind. I don't want you worrying about me, though. Shit only got that bad because of the event. I'm not usually suicidal.

[Not usually, but it happens. That was the first time in a long time that he's come close to going through with it, though.]

I consider you a friend too, by the way. That open invitation for support goes both ways.

[Oh, but Sal is going to worry regardless, and he knows this. But still, he nods, since there's no use letting Harlan know that Sal will in fact constantly worry.

A smile spreads across his face, showing in his eyes a little. It's always nice to hear when someone considers you a friend...or when they're willing to offer support. Sometimes that knowledge is really all the support Sal needs.]

Thank you. [With as much sincerity as he can get across with a forced poker face and muffled voice.] I know it's not easy to talk about.

[The "thank you" also being for not rebuffing his offer.]

[Harlan gets it. The reassurance wouldn't stop him from worrying, either. He just shrugs, though.]

I don't mind talking about it. I'm used to it.

[It's pretty much the thing that comes up first with therapists, and it keeps coming up because he's honest about continuing to cut despite all the urging to stop. He's got plenty of other shit to work on in his life, so why waste time on a coping mechanism that doesn't hurt anyone but him? It's better than the alternative.]

I don't bring it up because it freaks people out. Seeing it is a different story, though.

[Sharing a memory is better than Sal having walked in on it or something, but still.]

[There are a lot of immediate things he has to say about that; "you shouldn't be used to it, that's not good", etc, but he refrains from saying such things knowing they will help literally nothing. He trusts Harlan when he says that was a rare occurrence, though next time things get especially terrible around here he'll be sure to reach out...just to check in.]

Yeah...[Sal would agree there. He's not sure how he would have reacted had he walked in on Harlan actually hurting himself like that.] Well, you're okay right now, that's what's important.

[Literally, that's it. Simple as that. Sal will probably take a bit to process what he just saw but he's fine.]

[Harlan appreciates you, Sal. He nods.]

Yeah. It's over with, and I don't see that scenario happening again anytime soon.

[The gods aren't known for pulling the same event twice, and even if they did, he'd know now to be suspicious of it. Then again, you never know in this town. It's impossible to truly rule out any possibility. But, still.]

Thanks for understanding, too. It's not something I like people worrying about.

[He knows it's impossible not to worry at all—hell, he'd be pretty worried himself if the situation was reversed—but the fact that Sal's willing to focus on the here and now is enough.]

I don't do well with fretting, you know? I can handle my own shit.

[Sal nods as well, chuckling softly because...well, he hypocritically understands that, for as much of a worry wart as he can be. And now that that's all said and done, he can't resist poking a little fun, just to lighten the mood.]

I mean...you were also a sheep just now. [A majestic sheep, but still a sheep.] But I totally get it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Event Log: Memories Past

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crap ok i think you wanted 7??? correct me if i'm wrong sorry aksjdhf

YOU'RE GOOD MAN!!!

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blanket cw for discussions of self harm and suicide for the rest of the thread prob

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cw self harm mentions

cw self harm mentions

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