Level 20
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud Female and I've made 1,504 posts
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Post by Slaughter on Apr 27, 2012 16:46:17 GMT -5
This field is nothing but a barren expanse of ashes, rocks, and remains of what was once plant-life. There are cracks in the dry ground that can span up to more than a few feet wide. The sun's effort to permeate the grey miasma falls short day in and day out. The occasional dehydrated carcass of the careless, unprepared fellow might be found by any player who wanders in. Be careful not to trip.
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Level 20
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud Female and I've made 1,504 posts
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Post by Slaughter on Apr 27, 2012 16:57:08 GMT -5
We make it up as we go. Slaughter gated in.
In her own mind, she was the queen of many identities. But on the outside, life conned her. She was constantly trapped inside of her own body, and as much as she fought it, it was to no avail. No matter how much she primped, plucked, dyed, ran, starved, painted, or trained-- she was still just herself. Abby would never leave, and Baby, Slaughter, and all the others would be forever confined inside of her eternally. The thought did more than depress her, it absolutely enraged her at times-- threw her into a bout of fits every now and then.
What a waste of effort.
Before returning to the entanglement of her own thoughts, Slaughter figured she take more than a few steps into the field she had stumbled upon. The familiar odor of dead carcass seemed to be floating about in the atmosphere. Damn, these game designers were good.
Slowly, as if it were the only thing left to do in her life, Slaughter bent down-- bone by bone-- to pick up a tiny pebble on the edge of a gaping crack in the ground. Surely the tiniest gust of wind would send the small rock plummeting downwards into the darkness. Some might say this was a futile effort. After all, a rock is not truly alive; it is devoid of a soul.
"But then again, so are we."
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Level 16
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud and I've made 1,085 posts
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Post by Abel on Apr 27, 2012 17:19:30 GMT -5
Human being were such frail things, and the realism of [The World] never once seemed to fail, even in this aspect. What could've been hollow, wireframe figures were detailed and full, complete with blood, muscles, organs and flesh. They even scarred, if given the right sort of cuts. Abel had experimented on this himself and found out, though the scars on his arm from his experiments were hidden by the simple jacket he wore. Nothing special, almost boring by the standards set by [The World], but exactly what he wanted. All the spectacular and unique appearances made him stand out more than everyone else while at the same time making sure few people gave him anything more than a second glance. Hiding in plain sight, as it were.
The bodies even rotted just like in real life. Abel stood crouched low and examining the corpse when he heard the sound of someone gating into the field. He knew exactly what it looked like, for him to be standing over a corpse, despite it not being very fresh. Even in a game he didn't want to face the implications that came along with murder. Or player killing, as it was called in here. He looked up, crimson eyes taking just a quick moment to scan the figure that the three golden rings deposited in the field. He grunted with a throaty noise and stood up, quickly moving away from the body. There weren't many places to hide in a wide and desolate, sun-scorched plain like this, but that didn't mean there weren't any whatsoever.
A few steps away before the woman who joined the field could load and he sat down, planting his back against a waist-high ridge. As far as anyone else could be concerned he was just sitting there relaxing, though the ridge hid him from the view from the corpse. It would appear simply as if the plain continued onward in that direction. He leaned back and did exactly what it appeared he was doing, relaxed, crossing his legs and looking up at the sun as it beamed down on the field. It was warm, and it made him sweat. It amused him that they even had pores to sweat in this world. Why would the programmers even see the need to include that feature? It didn't help the gameplay at all, and immersion would be found even without it.
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Level 20
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud Female and I've made 1,504 posts
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Post by Slaughter on Apr 27, 2012 17:39:28 GMT -5
Slaughter cocked her head up slightly, as if she were trying to get a more in-depth whiff of the smell for proper analysis. The smell was foul, and yet for some reason she could not stop breathing it in. That's the way it always is for some people, isn't it? Their strange attractors are always the things that bring them the utmost pain and discomfort.
Things are never what they should be in this life. She hadn't necessarily accepted it, but had come to understand it at least. She was in a very contemplative mood this afternoon. Which was nothing very new for her, she supposed. When one has as many thoughts floating around inside of their cranium as she, it's important to keep them in a constant cycle. It is important to keep order, else they self-destruct.
Slaughter scratched the side of her torso just a bit before inhaling deeply once more. The starched white material felt alien to her now as her nails scraped the surface. It had been a while, after all. She began to search for the source of the acrid odor; her little ebony stilettos made a curious noise as they hit the stale ground for a few more paces before they stopped. She bent down once more and examined the corpse. His ashy bangs caused his once blonde hair to appear grey, like an old man's. His eyes were wide open and his mouth was agape. Slaughter stared at him for a few passing moments, visage devoid of any emotion whatsoever. After a while, she stuck the little pebble she had picked up earlier inside of his mouth, in between his top and bottom rows of teeth. Then she brushed his eyelids shut.
"We all cling to that last hope until the bitter end, don't we?" Slaughter whispered to him, barely audible.
But I still want to be where you are.
Memory based on fake memory piled atop more and more and more fake memories. It all seemed just as pointless as that little pebble inside of the dead man's mouth.
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Level 16
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud and I've made 1,085 posts
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Post by Abel on Apr 27, 2012 18:03:25 GMT -5
It seemed the woman the rings had deposited on the field was just as interested in the corpse as he had been. Abel listened carefully to the crunch of the sun-hardened dirt under her shoes as she made her way over, the creaking noise as the leather of her boots stretched. He closed his eyes and listened to the noises for just a short moment as she whispered to the corpse. Curious, someone trying to talk to the dead. Well not that curious. Self-reverie and all that. It was not all that unheard of. Abel figured there was likely to be all sorts of poetry about that. Didn't Hamlet have some scene where the titular character spoke to a skull. Alas, poor Yorric, I knew him well or something along those lines. Certainly didn't make this girl stand out any.
Still, he smirked to himself with his eyes still closed and clapped his hands together at the wrist to act as his pillow as he reclined. "Why cling when you can get a firm grasp on that hope?" he asked, speaking up and making his presence known for the first time. Not that he got up and walked over or anything. Just letting her know that the illusion of privacy in an online game was just that, an illusion. Instead he opened his eyes again and focused on the sky above. There were sparse few clouds. He wondered if that was due to the intense heat making it impossible for clouds to exist or if it was a design choice by the world builders themselves, to add an infinitely blue sky above the endless wasteland.
There were a couple black specks fluttering around and it took Abel a moment to realize that they were vultures. Another curious addition. Background scenery or perhaps they were actual, legitimate mobs that could be attacked. Staying close to the corpse would quickly answer that, anyway, as they would come down to feast eventually if they were mobs. His attention was everywhere and he almost forgot then that there was another person in the field. He poked his head up over the ridge and looked in her direction, craning his neck for a moment to size her up before returning to his relaxed position. "You seem like you've got a firm grasp on reality. Maybe let go of that and tighten your grip on those hopes?"
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Level 20
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud Female and I've made 1,504 posts
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Post by Slaughter on Apr 27, 2012 18:25:33 GMT -5
Slaughter did her best to stifle a squeal as the male's voice broke through her solemn rumination.
Jesus! Knock much? said a high pitched voice inside of her consciousness. She wondered which personality she would be forced to present at this very moment. Would she proudly display the heavy-hearted, cynical Slaughter? Or perhaps combat what the man threw at her using the over-the-top prankster Baby? She was so tired of pretending to be somebody in order to navigate around the presence of others. She had created a colony inside of herself for this very purpose.
"What is in a hope?" she heard herself say. Some said that to hope was dangerous, and that it did nothing but disillusion us with something that could never possibly happen. Others believed that it was the strongest motivator, and what made our dreams connect with reality. Slaughter was still undecided. Her response was shaky, as if she were obviously recovering from the startle, and caught off guard without enough time to collect herself. As if she were a presentation she had not yet had time to prepare.
"What good are hopes if you haven't the strength to propagate those hopes into actions?" With a soft sigh, Slaughter dusted off her palms and proceeded to stand and face the direction the other voice was coming from. "Then those hopes are nothing. Now, tell me, why did you interrupt me and this man's conversation? We were having such a nice time."
As soon as Slaughter took one step in the opposite direction of the corpse, one of those black vultures did indeed swoop down and begin to peck at the pixels of the unfortunate man. It tore at the grey skin and clamped down hard with the most convincing of simulated fervor in its black eyes. She liked birds.
Restless, that was all Slaughter ever felt anymore. Other things were equal in the sense that they all bored her and made her wish she could just skip to the next state. She grew tired with others, grew tired with things, grew tired with TV and games and other human inventions, and now the only thing that consumed her was herself and the stream of life that she inhabited.
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Level 16
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud and I've made 1,085 posts
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Post by Abel on Apr 27, 2012 18:42:31 GMT -5
Okay, she was one of those. Abel sighed to himself. Another one of those filled with self-remorse, indirectly begging for the pity of others. He turned that sigh into a smirk and leaned back, eyes turning back to the sky just in time to watch the vultures swoop down to begin their macabre feast. Raw cadaver with a side of rot. A delicious lunch, if you asked him. But then Abel was never one for foreign cuisine, either, so he wouldn't indulge. The train of thought added some genuine emotion behind the smirk, exactly what he was looking for as he stood up and brushed himself off, then sat back down on the ledge itself. No need to sit out of sight like some kind of creeper.
He had startled her quite noticeably and honestly he enjoyed that thought. It was a sign that he had been unexpected, had acted unpredictably. He adjusted his seat so that he was facing her, crossing his legs and resting his hands on his knees quite whimsically, relaxed despite everything. With a perfect view of the flesh-rending going on behind the girl who spoke of hopes and conversations with the dead. Crimson eyes darted down to the cadaver and back to the woman. She wasn't bad looking, he decided, considering how much this game thrived for realism. He couldn't judge her, of course, considering the woman behind the mask could be a hag, but then that didn't matter either. Humanity thrived on masks, and even if she was a hag it'd only be a few dollars and an hour later and she could have the face of a supermodel.
No one was real, were they? Abel shrugged and rolled his eyes. "It wasn't a very thrilling conversation, sorry. Very one-sided, and I could tell you were dragging it on. The poor man had a dinner date and you were making him late," Abel commented quite flatly, nodding beyond the woman at the corpse being torn apart by the two vultures, a third one circling overhead, testing the patience of the other two. "Hopes act on their own. The only strength you need is the strength to hold onto them, right? Or maybe they're just foolish and whimsical ideals perpetuated by our imaginations? It's really your call, I guess."
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Level 20
I joined on January 1970, I am a proud Female and I've made 1,504 posts
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Post by Slaughter on Apr 27, 2012 19:03:22 GMT -5
Slaughter laughed, despite herself. She didn't have to turn around to know that more vultures had descended upon her previous company. She didn't wonder about him anymore though; she had a new carcass to play with now.
First encounters were always the most awkward, and Slaughter was never comfortable just interacting with somebody without sufficiently sizing them up beforehand. It was her thing-- it was how she kept herself safe. Safe in her little wad of grape bubblegum she had expended so much effort to build upon herself. The only problem was that she couldn't just get out whenever she wanted to, she was permanently mounted in the viscous mess. And so she hesitated before responding. "You don't seem like the type of person that spends much of his time ruminating on these things. Or maybe you're just not affected. Anybody with as much gall as you most likely has no trouble getting the things he wants."
Sure she was making a few premature judgments. But on a typical day, she was pretty good at figuring somebody out before the clock said go. Besides, extroverts tended to get on her nerves. The anger was rooted in jealousy of course. She always wished that she too could communicate and traverse through life with such ease, and with such sharpened manipulation tactics.
"Or maybe you're just simple minded," she added as an after thought. She didn't mean it as an insult. It felt like every time she told somebody this, they quickly got offended. If only they knew how terribly Slaughter wished that she too were simple-minded. In her world, simple-mindedness very approximately equated happiness.
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