TDM 1.

[exsangui]

Hey guys, it's the first Test Drive Meme! Please note you do not have to app a character to play in here, and this is only game canon if you want it to be-- this is set up to be a freaky dream your character has pre-game, and maybe your character remembers, maybe they don't! It's left purposefully open-ended, because this is dream logic, so feel free to go off the rails if you're feeling creative.

CW: death, blood, (optional) harm to animals. Please warn if your thread has animal harm in it.

Since this is a dream, death is not permanent. Characters 'killed' in this log may find themselves coming back to life at any point, in any way.

𝕿𝖊𝖘𝖙 𝕯𝖗𝖎𝖛𝖊 𝕸𝖊𝖒𝖊: 𝟏

You awake in a strange dreamscape, without memory of how you got there. You walk through clouds, under a beautiful sky. You see others walking with you.

The sky starts to swirl into a strange shape: a face.



「You are mine, and I am yours. Great gifts have been bestowed. Within you now lives a terrible purpose.」 They say.

Suddenly, you know what vampire abilities you possess. It's as though the face spoke to you directly and whispered them in your ear.

The sky changes, like a storm is coming over sea. You feel grass bloom under your feet. Then cold. Then snow. Before you stands a cold, decrepit castle. Yet cheering can be heard inside: humans cheer and warmth radiates from inside. They beckon you to come in, you're just in time for the feast!

The feast itself takes place in a medieval castle, kept warm by the heavy tapestries over stone walls. Yet the people inside it seem to be clothed in more industrial era garments. They sing and laugh, joking as they serve you copious amounts of meat. Some of it is well-cooked and seasoned. Some of it is still raw and rare. All of it is recognizably fresh, and from an animal.

They chatter happily, about how lucky they are to be here, safe and inside the Lord's castle. He wasn't doing anything with it anyway!

As time goes on, it becomes evident this castle was taken over, hostile, from its previous owners. A rich lord and lady would not allow anyone inside, despite the frost. You begin to notice people around you, smiling and laughing, are very thin from hunger. Many have missing or blackened toes and fingers. Many are covered in blood, and from their joy, it is not theirs.

Several people, once the first few songs are done, ask you to aid the wounded-- they are similarly poor, and far more injured. Honorable injuries, these are, you're informed, got 'em storming this here castle.

The desire to drink from their wounds is overwhelming. Some even seem to recognize it. Come here, they say, it'll put an end to the pain.

If you drink, you will be rewarded. Your head will clear. You will feel stronger, safer, more yourself than you ever have before.

Others may hear screaming from the topmost rooms of the castle. It seems the young children of the dead nobles are still locked inside. They beg to be freed, to be saved. Upon hearing them, the festivities pause. The slightest hint of sympathy toward these children is met with violence.

You are chased from the castle into a verdant, if dark and foreboding, forest.



You walk through what now feels like spring weather, dark and hot and humid. The foliage is thick, the plants hang low, and each trudging step feels endless.

Your hunger grows, especially if you didn't feed on the wounded. Yet regardless, it is harder and harder to stop yourself from feasting on the fat, lazy wildlife that trudges through the underbrush. Deer, elk and boar are most common. They seem to watch you from the treeline with suspicious eyes, and barely make an effort if you destroy them.

IF YOU FED ON THE WOUNDED: You come across a red altar of blood and bone in a forest clearing. It asks you to sacrifice whatever you can give. Is that a memory? A fellow traveler? All you know is that it hungers like you hunger: for blood. If you make a sacrifice of any kind, it will be kept forever, safe and unmoving.

Yet you can hear something in the depths of the altar, as though they've slipped into the center and gotten stuck. If you work very hard to save them, tearing at the blood and the bone, you will soon find the altar enveloping you.

Who will save you? Or was that their sacrifice all along?

IF YOU ONLY FED ON ANIMALS: You come across a forest clearing with strange trees standing ominous and alone. Fawns, small rabbits, and little brown birds sit among the branches.

The sky grows dark. Time seems to pass with horrible foreboding. And then-- the animals attack. All at once, furious bites and pecks and kicks, and there is little you can do against an assault of this kind.

Except, perhaps, run, and hope someone will try to save you.

IF YOU DID NOT FEED: You find your way to strange monoliths at the edge of a field. You feel instantly better once you've left the treeline, but you can't escape the feeling that eyes are on you. And look at that-- a person holding a snake stands at the highest peak.

"Come join me!" they say, but the climb is laborious. It's basically impossible without help. A long, steep climb, but you can make it, and once you do, the person who beckoned you is gone.

Sitting at the top of the monolith, you can see the forest, the castle stretching out in the distance, and even the clouds you walked on to get there. You know this is a dream. You know you'll wake soon.

And you are so thirsty.

NAVIGATION.
img credit reachartwork & ai_curio.

Comments

[armd]

"I don't know." An honest answer, another step taken backward as Ellie gets unsteadily to her feet. Abby knows not to underestimate her for even a second. The sight of her shivering legs doesn't ease any part of her caution.

She stares into Ellie's angry, twisted-up expression, then turns her back on her. Fuck this. Fuck it.

More than that: this was what she wanted to do down at the beach, and Lev isn't here for Ellie to use as some sick bargaining chip this time. She can't force Abby to stay for anything, not even with the thick, wet smell of all the blood that coats her. It makes spit pool in Abby's mouth; she has to swallow, before she speaks.

"... I'm done."

[goty]

"I-"

Some part of her will always be a stray dog, vicious and hungry, ripping through carnage because that's all it knows. Some part of her will always howl for Joel's death. Some part of her knows vengeance-- violence-- is her only use.

Joel sits on his porch, plucking strings with fingers she doesn't have.

Somewhere, a hospital is eternally missing its surgeon.

"Then fuck off."

She can't forgive, or forget. But she can leave. She never realized that until the beach. And it's a hard lesson to make stick.

[armd]

Abby pauses. When she turns to look, Ellie is glaring at her, her expression twisted up. Recognising the depth of that hatred scares her.

"I will if you let me go."

She has to say it. She has to know if this is going to continue to be a problem, if Ellie is going to keep coming after her. Saying she's done won't mean anything if Ellie won't let her be.

[goty]

Ellie holds up her hand, and finally she can see the missing fingers, one twisted so bad out of shape she's gonna need to cut it off. Vile, despicable, all her fucking fault.

"I don't wanna go where you're going," she says between choked breaths. "I can't."

[armd]

"I don't think you have a choice."

Why else would they keep meeting like this? They're marked for each other. She feels cold, and helpless, and stuck.

Her attention catches on Ellie's missing fingers too, the stumps lurid, as red as the rest of her. She did that. Abby barely remembers it, the moment a blur of pain and panic. She opens her mouth before she can think about what she's really saying, "Let me see it."

The mangled finger. It will have to come off.

[goty]

Ellie knows what's being asked. She snatches her wounded hand (the more wounded hand, the sliver of an infected bite mars the hand with all its fingers just the same) away, behind her shivering form. The cold of the ocean has somehow returned. The slick blood on her is ocean water. It even has that same tang, metallic instead of salt, yet still...

Can your mind become trapped in a moment? Maybe that's all life is. A series of moments you get stuck in, and then you're angry when you can't go back.

"You really wanna hang the fuck around?"

An ugly hiss from a cornered animal.

[armd]

"No."

But she doesn't think that she can leave her either. Maybe Ellie will remember that Abby lead her to the boats and realise that she wants to help. It isn't even about penance; that would be impossible, for either of them. They've done too much for forgiveness. ​It's about what her dad would do in this situation, or what Lev would do.

And about what she would do. Abby knows that if she leaves Ellie here in the grass, covered in blood, it will sit like a rock in the bottom of her stomach, heavy and cold.

She doesn't step any closer, but she does repeat herself. "Let me see it."

[goty]

Ellie doesn't remember shit about boats. She doesn't remotely consider wanting to help, or kindness, or mercy. The howling in her mind-- a far more feral thing than any military could concoct-- only promises pain.

"Why?"

[armd]

Because Abby can't keep herself from helping somebody just because she hates them. The anger, the spite, the ruthlessness with which she lived her life for so long– she can't do it any more. She's fucking tired of being the worst version of herself, and she doesn't know how to say any of it to Ellie, who has only ever existed as something that was purposefully sharpened to hurt her. She is a switchblade, with Abby's name carved into the handle.

"Because who else would ask," she says, exhausted.

Maybe she can frame it as transactional, take the pressure away. "And I need food." Blood. Maybe Ellie can assist her to hunt. She's too weak to catch anything out here.

[goty]

She looks up, and it's a mistake. Not for what Ellie sees-- she fucking remembers what Abby looks like-- but for what she reveals. A wounded creature, shows herself with an injured expression.

But insults, intentional or not, are a language she can speak with Abby. This is a show of power, her fevered brain interprets. This is a display. I won, you lost, and I'll help you.

It's what Jackson did with criminals, to stich them up so they'd serve trial.

Well... deserved. Fuck it, fine. Ellie holds out her hands, one missing a finger and a half, the other with a fresh bitemark over the side. Any sane person would recognize that for what it is: an infected did that. But Abby knows Ellie's immune, right?

At the moment, Ellie can't quite remember what Abby knows, but she has to understand everything is because Ellie's immune. That's why everything is, ultimately, Ellie's responsibility. And why it's all her fault.

[armd]

She comes closer in increments, giving Ellie time to flinch or peel away. It doesn't come, and doesn't come, and her skin is cold when Abby reaches out to take her wrist gently, tip her hand to better see the damage.

Her damage. She did that, though she can't remember it. That was when the water was in her eyes and nose, her mouth and lungs, and all she could hear was the dying whine of her own body. She was desperate to break free, and not even to save herself. She had to keep herself between Ellie, and Lev. Had to keep him safe, it was all she could think about.

Her vision blurs, as she stares.

"It has to come off." The finger that's clinging on, by inches of skin. The sight of it is revolting to Abby, actually. There's no way that it would take even if they reattached it.

[goty]

"Finishing the job?" What would have once been a boast, a challenge, is now a sour acknowledgement of the inevitable. Defeated, Ellie reveals another ugly layer of her wounded heart: what a brat.

"I lost my mother's knife," isn't what she means to say. Alone, it's an alien statement; even with context it's a stupid little thing. Why the mother? What does this matter now? The last year and more of her life-- all of it, maybe, since Boston-- was concerned with fathers. Not hers, no, but someone so inextricably tied to the identity he pulled her in like Jupiter's hungry orbit.

Is she an ice moon? A ball of mud? Sitting in so much blood, no longer sure which is hers and what was left from other donors, she can only shrug.

"Nothing to cut with."

There, a gift: a vulnerable belly, prime to be pounced on. Abby's eyes, even in her sunken-in face, are still sharp as the wolf in Ellie's endless fucking dreams.

[armd]

She ignores that. They both know it isn't that, and Abby has her in a bind to where she can't help but hiss, and spit. She has to gain the ground back some how. It's fine, for her to do. Nothing hurts Abby any more.

"I lost my dad's photo," she says. A piece of her, for a piece of Ellie. It's probably in her room at the base, or in the trash already. Somebody probably went through her room and cleared it out to make room for the next wolves passing through. If anybody was even left to do that.

Did they all die out on the island? She's had dreams about it. The boats bearing down on the island, the fire. The screams of a horse.

She has as much as Ellie does. For a moment she stares at the finger clinging on by inches, and she wants to cry again. It makes her feel useless. Can't even do this much for somebody who barely deserves it.

"Neither," she says instead. Her voice is as level as it will ever be, "Want me to use my teeth?" She snaps her jaw together, but the sound isn't a perfect click. Her bite is fucked. She grinds her teeth in her sleep. Abby's only fucking with her, but she doesn't know why.

[goty]

Doesn't deserve it. Doesn't deserve it at all. Power can be found in the worst of places. Ellie is resolute in her criminality-- in this moment, she can only be saved by superlative. She is the most awful, and least deserving. She has to be, or what does living matter?

Ellie's expression, blood smeared and murky as it is, goes cold. More challenges. Something to test herself against. Something to beat her body and soul against, like the ocean into a cove, until erosion renders meaning. If she leaves a shape on the world, that may be enough.

"If that's what you're into." Savage. Wolf. Killer. She can expose her belly, but she'll make Abby look her in the eye when the knife slides in.

[armd]

"The fuck is your problem." Maybe she should laugh when she says it? She can't summon even a lick of it. Abby just sounds tired, maybe a little hollow, her fingers loose around Ellie's wrist. "I'm not going to do that."

She didn't especially want to do it the first time either, but she expects Ellie to understand that much. She was only surviving. You do what you need to do to get it done.

"Got anything you could wrap it in?" Could splint it uselessly to the fingers next-door as a quick solution.