approximately three minutes after the alarms start going off

[thesettingsun]

SOME OF US DON'T HAVE POWERS THIS BINGO IS RIGGED

[Glad we got the complaining out of the way.]

Comments

[thesettingsun]

Oh, you want to compare shitty memory deaths and see who has it worst? Challenge accepted. What's yours?

[explodosafe]

Body horror.

[thesettingsun]

Eyes in weird places? Alien bursting out of your chest? I'm not going to admit defeat to an answer like that.

[explodosafe]

[Damn, he is already regretting running his stupid mouth.]

...no. Something touched me and my body just started melting away until it was nothing more but a blob of flesh. Bits of fingers sticking out next to the mouth and a tip of a toe. Eyes switched places and on impossible places, one upside down. Bits of cloth sticking in between. Imagine a plastic doll that got molten and the mess left to cool.

That happened to me. I couldn't move, I couldn't make any noise, but I still could use my eyes and was fully conscious. I could feel when they






The street was full of others the same happened to.

[thesettingsun]

[Oh. That's... Now Shuji feels ashamed of himself.]

You win. Sorry. I shouldn't have pushed it.

[explodosafe]

No problem, I've sort of set myself up for that one.

Besides, like I said I refuse to believe any of that is real.


I'm more surprised you're believing me that easily.

[thesettingsun]

If you accept that you're seeing things that are impossible, then it doesn't make much of a difference how impossible. The ocean might be purple with polka dots, or dogs might breathe fire, or what you said might have happened. None of that's possible normally, so there isn't any reason you'd be able to hallucinate some things but not others.

Even if it didn't happen, it still really, really sucks to experience it.

[explodosafe]

....okay. Yeah. I'm going to need a night or two to decipher that but that's okay, whatever you said. I'm sure it makes sense to you.

and it does, I guess. same for your suicide

[He wants to ask for more details on that, but how do you even approach a subject like that??]

[thesettingsun]

Short version: all this other stuff is bullshit already, so I'll accept even more bullshit.

Thanks.

[He can ask if he wants, since Shuji already pried.]

[explodosafe]

Was it-, uh. Was it somebody important to you you did it with...?

[thesettingsun]

I have no idea. I haven't seen her in any of my other memories, but I haven't seen any other women in my memories, so she could be my girlfriend or my wife.

[explodosafe]

So something important to you, in a good way.

I wonder what's up with people remembering such gruesome stuff. Counting yours and mine as well I've heard of a witch burning, a suicide under questionable circumstances and what seems like some creepy deadly virus zombie apocalypse, not to mention that people keep blabbing on to me about heroes as if those were real.

[thesettingsun]

If Retrospec's goal is to be a giant asshole to all of us, giving us gruesome memories is a pretty good way for them to be enormous douchebags.

[explodosafe]

Hmmm. But why'd they do that? I keep hearing 'cause they're jerks and from what I'm seeing their PR department definitely sucks, but it doesn't really add up, does it?

[thesettingsun]

I don't know what their endgame could be. What do you get out of taking away colors?

[explodosafe]

It could be a test-run for something else?

[thesettingsun]

I guess if they're getting bigger in scale with what they mess with, we might wake up one day and be down a country. Or a planet.

[explodosafe]

Would be at least interesting if you ask me. A real man loves some good adventure.

[thesettingsun]

Then count me as not a real man, because I like safety and peace of mind.

[explodosafe]

[Dude, don't say something that sad.]

Would you fight to protect those things?

[thesettingsun]

I don't know how to fight. I'm not even good at sports.

[explodosafe]

I didn't mean it that literally. More like... You'd act, right?

[thesettingsun]

I'd do whatever I could, if I could do anything.

[explodosafe]

That's all I needed to know. You've got a manly heart!

[thesettingsun]

Really? You think so?

[Considering that that sounded like a cliche comic book line, he shouldn't be so happy about hearing it.]