[ The area you're in seems overlaid over itself but slightly off grid, creating a strange flickering effect across every surface. The ground constantly seems to change from being even to uneven in spots, as well.
If you listen carefully, you can hear two things: whatever sounds were present before you touched the door, trapped in a stuttering loop from that exact moment. More distantly, there's also the churn of machinery.
At the top of the pillar is enough space for you to stand, as well as...a door. That seems to lead to the open air at the edge of the pillar and nothing else. It's a completely ordinary door otherwise, aside from the fact that it's completely freestanding - in fact, it looks just like the doors found most commonly on the empty buildings in the city. ]
[The sounds are strange, discordant - another nineties reprisal checking right in, that moment when a CD gets stuck and starts endlessly skipping and juddering back over the same few seconds, faster and far more alien than the scratch and kickback of a broken record - and he's stopping to listen. It feels like he's fallen off the edge of the map. Like he found the invisible wall all right, but instead of getting bounced off it and turned back on himself, he's somehow torn right through it...
[Fuck. I liked that bike--
[Probably best to just write it off as lost at this point and if he manages to find it again it'll be a nice bonus. He turns back to look over his shoulder at the... wherever he's found himself in: the word he's looking for is liminality, but he doesn't have that one to hand. And then, noting ventured, he pushes open the door. Whatever other sterling features this place might have, it's clearly not somewhere to stay.]
[ You attempt to open the door and fail. Your hand passes straight through.
On a second look, though, the door is actually open. But it's also closed. There are two doors here, both perfectly aligned and the same in all ways. One open, one closed, leaving a doorway you still seem to be unable to walk through. Weirdly, the open door is the one you failed to open. That is; your hand just passes through on contact with it. ]
[So they both exist, but don't? Schrödinger's door.
[This is going to give him a headache if he so much as looks at it too long, never mind tries to work his way round the implications. Instead, he thinks about something else. Maybe this is a sign this was meant for someone smarter, and he should head back and try and retrieve one.
[On the other hand, K doesn't feel any account of today's events so far that ends 'and then I went back' just as things were getting weird is going to even prove satisfactory, still less persuasive.
[If his hand can just pass through it, what about the rest of him?]
[So. Weird door into... somewhere. Stepping through, then. This is probably a perfectly reasonable thing to do and not remotely likely to cause any problems for anybody any time down the line. Now what?]
[ You step through the closed door, or attempt to. Unlike the open door it seems to result in touching a normal, solid door - so you just sort of faceplant into a door. After that moment though, the pillar vibrates intensely with a loud stuttering propeller-like noise, sending you careening through the pillar, the door, and eventually the ground below you, straight into darkness. ]
The sound of machinery is almost deafening. The scraping of metal, the grinding of gears, the low bassy hum of industrial work - it surrounds you, blankets you, cushions your fall through the void.
[ Your eyes are open, and you have chosen to witness what is before you.
And what a grand sight it is! A whirring complex of steel turbines and gnashing gearwork, a single structure working in concert that's far larger than any one thing ought to be! Electricity surges through conduits of thought and soul, and in between all of this machinery there is no room for inefficiency or flaw. No room for the singular acts of sentient beings, organic or otherwise.
The sense that this is what the world is, and it's so obvious when you choose to look behind the curtain is palpable - but before you can dwell on it too long there's a strange sound you find yourself outside - back in Tokyo. ]
[ The streets of wherever you're at now seem as empty as Tokyo-F. It actually...looks basically like the outside of the building you were just in before falling through the door? So you must've exited, right?
The world isn't overlaying itself anymore, but there's an odd shimmer obscuring everything, somewhat like a heat haze. Accompanying this is a distinct sense of everything being frozen in place even if there's nothing to really indicate that's the case - you're definitely capable of moving, anyway. This certainly isn't wherever you just were - but it's not Tokyo-F, either.
The street you're on, sandwiched between rows of buildings, seems to twist and turn into infinity. If navigating that isn't appealing, there's also a side alley between the first set of buildings, which seems to go...somewhere? ]
[Perhaps uniquely, he's sure it's not for want of something in himself. That he could have been with anyone, anyone at all, and they'd no more be able to understand it than he did. The city doesn't feel right any more: even if it was his city, his - his little human box, where they keep the humans to keep them out of trouble - it wouldn't feel right.]
[Didn't really want an answer, anyway. It's infinitely more reassuring to be here - wherever here is - by himself than with whatever might actually belong here.
[Next up... he takes a look down the alleyway. Faced with whatever the fuck this is, he can't make a sensible choice between two paths without some idea what he's saying no to.]
[ The alleyway appears to just be a normal city alleyway. It's too dark to see what's on the other side besides presumably another street, but there doesn't seem to be anything particularly dangerous. ]
[He's not sure he even wants to risk fucking with powers unless he has to, so he makes sure he's got the knife on him before heading off down the Infinity Street. He has a robe and wizard hat, what could possibly go wrong...?
[Yeah even K's not sure he wants to know the answer to that one right now. But even if he could turn round and head back, this is no time to try to fold either.]
[ The street twists and turns confusingly, and you lose track of where or when you are. Shades pass you by, heads occasionally turning to stare with awed murmurs of "Was that…? No, it couldn't be.". Eventually you end up back where you started, having made no progress whatsoever. ]
[No. Concentrate. Everything here is something you didn't have before. Even the back doubles, even the whispers. At least he ruled the main street out before - what else? - heading down the alleyway. What else is there to do?]
[ Strangely, the moment you step into the alley, you end up somewhere else entirely. The air is as shimmering and unmoving as always and the surroundings are exactly as nauseating to view, but it doesn't seem you're just off the main street as one would expect.
In front of you is a building that looks to be some sort of office annex - it's the one building that can actually be perceived without a splitting headache. ]
[Besides... that's not a bad point about the headache. The entire world seems to be actively hostile to him, as if it's trying to reject him wholesale, to force him out: K wouldn't be surprised if it was. He very clearly isn't supposed to be here. Of course this place simply hates him--
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: K START
If you listen carefully, you can hear two things: whatever sounds were present before you touched the door, trapped in a stuttering loop from that exact moment. More distantly, there's also the churn of machinery.
At the top of the pillar is enough space for you to stand, as well as...a door. That seems to lead to the open air at the edge of the pillar and nothing else. It's a completely ordinary door otherwise, aside from the fact that it's completely freestanding - in fact, it looks just like the doors found most commonly on the empty buildings in the city. ]
Re: K START
[Am I in a glitch?
[The sounds are strange, discordant - another nineties reprisal checking right in, that moment when a CD gets stuck and starts endlessly skipping and juddering back over the same few seconds, faster and far more alien than the scratch and kickback of a broken record - and he's stopping to listen. It feels like he's fallen off the edge of the map. Like he found the invisible wall all right, but instead of getting bounced off it and turned back on himself, he's somehow torn right through it...
[Fuck. I liked that bike--
[Probably best to just write it off as lost at this point and if he manages to find it again it'll be a nice bonus. He turns back to look over his shoulder at the... wherever he's found himself in: the word he's looking for is liminality, but he doesn't have that one to hand. And then, noting ventured, he pushes open the door. Whatever other sterling features this place might have, it's clearly not somewhere to stay.]
Re: K START
On a second look, though, the door is actually open. But it's also closed. There are two doors here, both perfectly aligned and the same in all ways. One open, one closed, leaving a doorway you still seem to be unable to walk through. Weirdly, the open door is the one you failed to open. That is; your hand just passes through on contact with it. ]
Re: K START
[This is going to give him a headache if he so much as looks at it too long, never mind tries to work his way round the implications. Instead, he thinks about something else. Maybe this is a sign this was meant for someone smarter, and he should head back and try and retrieve one.
[On the other hand, K doesn't feel any account of today's events so far that ends 'and then I went back' just as things were getting weird is going to even prove satisfactory, still less persuasive.
[If his hand can just pass through it, what about the rest of him?]
Re: K START
Re: K START
[So. Weird door into... somewhere. Stepping through, then. This is probably a perfectly reasonable thing to do and not remotely likely to cause any problems for anybody any time down the line. Now what?]
Re: K START
???
Are your eyes closed?
They're not, but you feel like they are.
Seeing is just a matter of willpower, isn't it?
Just a mechanical function.
Nothing more.
The sound of machinery is almost deafening. The scraping of metal, the grinding of gears, the low bassy hum of industrial work - it surrounds you, blankets you, cushions your fall through the void.
Do you choose to see? ]
/2
[was
[a
[bad plan
[idea
[it wasn't a plan. a plan implies planning.]
Re: ???
[Fuck it. He's choosing to see.]
Re: ???
And what a grand sight it is! A whirring complex of steel turbines and gnashing gearwork, a single structure working in concert that's far larger than any one thing ought to be! Electricity surges through conduits of thought and soul, and in between all of this machinery there is no room for inefficiency or flaw. No room for the singular acts of sentient beings, organic or otherwise.
The sense that this is what the world is, and it's so obvious when you choose to look behind the curtain is palpable - but before you can dwell on it too long there's a strange sound you find yourself outside - back in Tokyo. ]
TOKYO-?
The world isn't overlaying itself anymore, but there's an odd shimmer obscuring everything, somewhat like a heat haze. Accompanying this is a distinct sense of everything being frozen in place even if there's nothing to really indicate that's the case - you're definitely capable of moving, anyway. This certainly isn't wherever you just were - but it's not Tokyo-F, either.
The street you're on, sandwiched between rows of buildings, seems to twist and turn into infinity. If navigating that isn't appealing, there's also a side alley between the first set of buildings, which seems to go...somewhere? ]
Re: TOKYO-?
[What the actual fuck?]
Oh, shit.
[K doesn't understand.
[Perhaps uniquely, he's sure it's not for want of something in himself. That he could have been with anyone, anyone at all, and they'd no more be able to understand it than he did. The city doesn't feel right any more: even if it was his city, his - his little human box, where they keep the humans to keep them out of trouble - it wouldn't feel right.]
Uh. Hello?
[He tries that first.]
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
[Didn't really want an answer, anyway. It's infinitely more reassuring to be here - wherever here is - by himself than with whatever might actually belong here.
[Next up... he takes a look down the alleyway. Faced with whatever the fuck this is, he can't make a sensible choice between two paths without some idea what he's saying no to.]
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
[He's not sure he even wants to risk fucking with powers unless he has to, so he makes sure he's got the knife on him before heading off down the Infinity Street. He has a robe and wizard hat, what could possibly go wrong...?
[Yeah even K's not sure he wants to know the answer to that one right now. But even if he could turn round and head back, this is no time to try to fold either.]
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
[No. Concentrate. Everything here is something you didn't have before. Even the back doubles, even the whispers. At least he ruled the main street out before - what else? - heading down the alleyway. What else is there to do?]
Re: TOKYO-?
In front of you is a building that looks to be some sort of office annex - it's the one building that can actually be perceived without a splitting headache. ]
Re: TOKYO-?
[Besides... that's not a bad point about the headache. The entire world seems to be actively hostile to him, as if it's trying to reject him wholesale, to force him out: K wouldn't be surprised if it was. He very clearly isn't supposed to be here. Of course this place simply hates him--
[But that's a problem for future K to deal with.
[Is there any way in to this place?]
Re: TOKYO-?
Also, a window on the third floor is hanging open. ]
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
[How difficult is it going to be to get up there?]
Re: TOKYO-?
Re: TOKYO-?
OFFICE
Re: OFFICE
Re: OFFICE
Re: OFFICE
Re: OFFICE
Re: OFFICE
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