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ｇｒａｖｅｙａｒｄ
 You remember dying. It's vivid and real, and you can absolutely remember taking your last breath. By all measures, that should have been the end. And yet, like waking from a deep sleep, you awake in a comfortable bed in a quaint little bedroom, and outside the window, you can see an even more quaint little neighborhood. You can get up to explore, but before you leave the bedroom, the radio inside flickers to life. "Good morning," Judy says, calm as ever, "Let me first say that I'm sorry that we've deceived you—" Because indeed, the more you look at this little neighborhood, the more it may feel familiar to you. It's almost like this was the kind of life you had before you ended up in the complex. Though as Judy explains, it wasn't a complex at all. The complex was something called a Vault, and the Vault was meant to protect you from the cataclysmic war that nearly wiped out humanity on the surface. You were kept safe. In a sense. It seems that the Vaults ultimately weren't much of protection in the first place. But Judy has done her best to ensure that your death in the Vault wasn't truly the end. Because of the nature of what was done to you, she was able to back up your existence in the servers that support the Vault. Strictly speaking, that's where you are now. You're a digital construct, and this neighborhood is Judy's idea of how to sustain you in the coming decades. That is the downside here, of course. All you can do is simply wait for someone to discover these servers, hoping they haven't failed by then. Perhaps there might be a way for you to return to the living then... Though for now, that's a distant dream. The neighborhood is small, but clearly will allow every person their own little home when they perish. There's a chance to expand it to include whatever amenities you may dream up, and there may already be some here. In addition, you can always watch the Vault to see how they're doing. There's a television in each home, and through it, you might understand how Judy can see so much. Flipping through the channels gives you a view of nearly every room in the Vault, at least until curfew falls. It's quality entertainment, since it gives you a way to keep tabs on the living. So, how will you spend your time? |
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When he wakes up, his memories come rushing back to him. He can recall his own family, distant and foreign. He remembers growing up alone with few acquaintances, no friends, parents who were more interested in their work than in raising a child. He remembers his surrogate family - the opportunity he'd been presented with. A path to move forward as the war grew closer. He was young but he was intelligent, and he understood the importance of early mobilization. He remembers Solomon, who he never got along with. He remembers Van, who he had gotten along with too well.
And he remembers Diva.
He had actually known someone here all along, but he hadn't been able to remember because of the stupid way this Vault had functioned. He'd feel betrayed, but honestly, he can't muster up any sort of anger or disgust or even agitation. He feels ancient in his youth, and as he walks outside of his cookie-cutter home into the unfamiliar terrain, he's more like a ghost than he's ever been.]
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Memories surge back to the forefront of her mind and mix together. She remembers a tower, but now she knows that it was the opposite. It was a place not unlike this. She remembers dreaming of seeing the sky there. But there are those newer, fake memories, and she dreams of seeing the ground. She knows which ones are real all at once, but it's unbearable and overwhelming, and the first thing Diva does as she wakes in an unfamiliar bed and hears Judy drone on is cry. Her hands come up to her eyes, and she presses her palms over them like the pressure might get it to stop. Each memory that trickles back is... sad. It's so sad, but in that, there is at least one relief that she can find in it.
She's finally free, isn't she?
It takes her longer than Charles, most likely, because there's a lot for her to parse through, but eventually, she wanders to the door of the little house. She opens it and looks out, and her eyes immediately turn to the sky. She stares at it for several long moments, but a flicker of movement catches her attention across the way. Her heart feels like it swells up and leaps into her throat, but she takes a few quick steps from the front step onto the little paved sidewalk that leads to the gate of the eerily perfect white picket fence. ]
Charles?
[ She calls out, and her voice is more fragile than she means. But in that blur of memories that comes back to her, seeing someone familiar is enough to almost get her to cry again. ]
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And now, as he hears Diva's voice - familiar again, as it should be - he can already feel his throat constrict like an invisible hand has wrapped around it. How could he have forgotten? How, how, how could he have possibly forgotten? The one, single person that he had built his identity around, that he owed everything to, and he had cared as much for her as he would have cared for any stranger off the street. It's hard to swallow.
It's also hard to speak, and he raises his hand to quickly try wiping at his eyes since of course the tears are spilling over. Diva looks lovely as ever even though she's - dead? Whatever it is they are now, and he doesn't want to embarrass himself any further than he has. God, if she remembers as much as he does about that complex, he's really got a lot to apologize for.
So that's the first word out of his mouth as he darts over to meet her at the fence.]
I'm sorry— I'm sorry, I forgot... I had forgotten everything.
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Charles— [ Her tone is heavier than it tends to be when she says his name. She's always so light and airy with very nearly everything that real, genuine emotion was a hard thing to pull out of her. In fact, even this is something she reels back from, instead choosing to lay her head on top of his like the gesture calms her. ]
Hey... I forgot too, you know. I forgot... Charles, I forgot so much.
[ Her tone trails off by the end, almost dead in its tone, because anything like what she remembers now is something... more personal. What she'd remembered of her life in the Complex was like a fairytale by comparison. In that story, she was more like the elegant princess locked in a tower. Now, even the horror of that story felt a little glamorous compared to the dim reality and how the Complex-- No, the Vault compared to that.
There's a silence as she just holds him, but after a pause, she offers something quite rare: ]
I'm sorry for hitting you, Charles. That probably hurt.
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There are a lot of things about these new revelations that are upsetting too, of course. The bleakness of their current situation is starting to settle in one small step at a time. The reality of the War is oppressively dark and harsh and thinking about all of the possibilities of their nebulous future here and out there only makes him feel sick, so instead, he just focuses on the moment.
Diva is still here. He's still here. Even if they're dead, and even if they never move beyond this simulation, that's enough for him.]
—It's not the worst thing to have happened to me, but - thank you. [If only because he knows what a big deal it is for Diva to apologize at all.]
I'm sorry to have treated you so poorly, as well.