bumfuckidaho | TEST DRIVE MEME, JANUARY 2017.

Skip to Main Content

Entry tags:

!tdm

TEST DRIVE MEME, JANUARY 2017.

TEST DRIVE MEME

There was an accident. That's basically the only thing you know for certain. Maybe a car wreck - metal and broken glass everywhere, and the sirens and the screaming. Or maybe there was an explosion. Maybe your bike hit a rock and you careened uncontrollably off a mountain path. You can't can't quite make out the details, not who was at fault or why. Try as you might, the chaos is all you can remember.

It's also the last thing you remember from before you wake up here.

When you open your eyes, the accident is gone. Instead, you're in a hospital bed – the nursing staff greets you with a cheerful smile.

Welcome to Wayward Pines, they tell you. You'll make a full recovery here.

option one WELCOME TO WAYWARD PINES

The hospital staff had seemed very friendly, but ultimately unhelpful when it came to answering your questions, insisting you shouldn't worry about such things, and that it was smarter to just rest until you'd fully recovered.

That was some time ago. You've since managed to leave the hospital – either via escape, or simply by waiting patiently and filling out paperwork until they finally agreed to release you. Now you've found yourself in the small but hearty town of Wayward Pines, Idaho. It's a charming little place, and the people there are all friendly enough, more than willing to greet you on the street, or give you directions if you need them.

Unless you're asking for directions out of town, of course.

Some will simply smile and give you a hearty pat on the shoulder and ask why you'd ever want to do a thing like that? Others will get quiet for a moment, and direct you to the nearest sign posted near the doorway of every building.

Don't bother taking the road, either. Whether you walk or get your hands on a vehicle, you won't get anywhere. The road simply takes you away from town for a short while before looping around and bringing you right back in.

There's no use questioning things, and it seems pretty useless to try to leave. So really, why not stay a while? Everyone's convinced that you'll find something to love in Wayward Pines.

(For the purposes of this test drive, you're welcome to handwave the existence of basically any local business or activity.)

option two INTO THE WOODS

You've just heard a scream from the woods.

I mean, it could've been an animal. There's bound to be some kind of wildlife amongst the trees, right? But then again, it did sound awfully... human.

Though all of the locals nearby conceal a flinch at the sound, they'll assure you it's nothing, if you ask them. Why, you're probably just hearing things! (But with an anxious undertone of stop asking questions.) If you're curious, though, and brave enough to go see, they won't make any move to stop you from going into the wooded area surrounding the town.

The trees are tall, and their branches are thick enough to block out a significant amount of sunlight from breaking through the canopy, leaving the forest floor a little dimmer and cooler than the streets of town.

Whatever the source of the scream was, you won't be able to find it out here. An experienced hunter might notice some signs of a struggle, and a few faint boot prints, but they don't really seem to lead anywhere in particular.

What you will find, if you walk far enough, is a fence. A big one - at least 30 feet tall, made of metal and concrete. It goes on quite a ways in either direction as well; follow the wall far enough, and you'll see that it connects with the steep, sheer cliffs that surround the rest of Wayward Pines, effectively boxing the town in.

In actuality, you'll probably feel it before you see it. A full 500 yards from the wall, when it's hardly a shadowy smudge through the trees, you start to feel a little bit tired, a little bit weak. Trouble is, the closer you get, the weaker you feel - like the wall itself is sapping the strength out of you, and the closer you get, the worse it feels. Any powers you may have had grow weaker in kind as you make your way to the fence, but even ordinary humans will find their strength sapping away. By the time you're close enough to read the signs and to feel the crackle of electricity radiating from the thick wires criss-crossing the wall's metal surface, you're too weak to stand.

Do you crawl closer still and risk electrocution, or do you crawl away and assess the situation once you're far enough from the fence to be able to stand?

option three YOU DONE HECKED UP

It's hard to say what it was, exactly, that crossed the line.

It might have been all those questions you've been asking about the town and the people within it. It might be all that talking you've been doing, about your life outside and the family you miss. It might have been the number of times you've not-so-subtly referenced the fence in the woods.

In any case, the Sheriff has taken notice of it, and you've been charged with disturbing the peace. It's his hope that a few days in a jail cell will teach you that such things aren't appreciated in Wayward Pines.

Until such a time that he deems to let you out, you and your cellmate have some time to kill.

option four ON THE NETWORK

Though it's not as high-tech as you might be used to (or hell, maybe you're ren faire and it's centuries beyond anything you've seen), but Wayward Pines does in fact have a network to accommodate its citizens.

Go ahead, post a network post! Just note that the network, at current, is audio-only and can only be accessed from the telephones in each character's home.

( a few notes )

Welcome to our first test drive here in The Pines! Just a couple of things to note:

( 1 ) Upon arrival in Wayward Pines, characters find themselves struggling to remember entirely who they were or where they came from. Memories return progressively over the next two weeks. You're welcome to play with this mechanic in any of these prompts, but it's definitely not mandatory! For more details on this temporary memory loss, see our FAQ.

( 2 ) ~~The above link to the FAQ won't actually load for the first few hours this is up - we're sorry about that, we just have to port the FAQ into HTML.~~ The FAQ is now live! We'll also be tossing up a few more vital pages over the next 24 hours, then opening reserves at 12:01 AM EST on the 17th. Keep an eye on thepines for updates.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

a - Welcome to Wayward Pines

[An accident? Something feels wrong about that claim. Still, the witchdoctors - or just doctors? At the hospital seem to think that's what it was.

They kept her for a while, and ran a few tests, but it wasn't terribly long before Pebbles was back on the street. Not much longer than that, she had her belongings back from the sheriff.

Pebbles was always a clever girl, but even if she weren't... it didn't take an extraordinarily clever mind to realize there was something different than it should be. For one, her clothes looked so much different than everyone else's - a top made out of woven grass, a skirt and belt made out of animal hide, and a complete lack of shoes. Everyone else dressed so... differently here.

Even more than that, though. The buildings here aren't made of stone, or carved wood. Neither are the cars, or the appliances. And she hasn't seen a single dinosaur since she got here! Her memories might be more than a little hazy right now, but what she's seeing here goes against everything she understands those things to be.

There must be something she's forgetting here - one of those memories she can't quite keep a mental grasp on. Finally curiosity overwhelms her, and she turns to the nearest stranger.]

Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice... there aren't any dinosaurs in this town.

[She says it with a perfectly serious expression. She isn't joking at all.]

What's the deal?

Wrong. I just spotted an old woman walking down the road about two minutes back. They're most definitely not extinct yet.

[Count Olaf is always the pleasant man, especially when speaking to confused strangers.]

[Pebbles blinks at the man for a moment. She can tell he's being disingenuous - she's never heard anyone call a dinosaur a woman - but she can't really tell what he's getting at.

The thought of 'dinosaur' referring to someone old hasn't even crossed her mind. They're part of the present day, as far as she's concerned.]

...is there just the one, then? I thought this was supposed to be civilization - where are all the rest?

[Count Olaf is nothing but honest, you understand. He'd never be backhanded about something like this.]

Hardly. Theres probably a home for them somewhere in here. They tend to form up so they can harass the young and beautiful people, such as myself.

Well that's weird, but all right I guess.

[Not every dinosaur needs to be an appliance, of course. Dino isn't. But it's so strange that none of them would be.]

Why would people let them do that?

They let them do that because most people are weak.

[Count Olaf, at this point, has taken this opportunity to complain about old people. He doesn't have any special frustrations with old people, but he also loves complaining in general.]

Respect the elderly! Eat your vegetables! Look both ways when you cross the street! Society just loves deceiving the weak for its own benefit.

[Pebbles has absolutely no reason to believe that this man has any idea what he's talking about. Unfortunately, that's also true of literally every adult with authority in her life, so she actually doesn't question it - even if she doesn't necessarily take his words to heart, either.]

What's deceptive about any of those things?

[She's primarily a carnivore, of course, but society is made up of hunters and gatherers. She sees no reason not to eat fruits and veggies as well.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only