The Platform

[sockheart]

The Platform
a Netflix inspired horror meme


There are three types of people:
Those above
Those below
Those who fall

Welcome to the Pit. You may be receiving punishment for your crimes, you may be the victim of a random kidnapping, or perhaps someone simply didn't like you. It's possible you were approached with the promise of a prize if you volunteered to participate in the experiment for a long enough duration. Whatever the case, you wake up in a cell with no doors, unbreakable windows, and a singular massive hole in the center of the floor. It stretches on seemingly endlessly, with floors above and beneath you visible if you twist to the right angle.

Once per day, a platform will be lowered. You and your cellmate will have exactly ten minutes to devour the food upon the platform, and then it will begin to descend again to the floor beneath you. What you have to eat depends entirely on the people above you - there is no fresh meal here unless you're on floor #1. As the platform descends, more and more fingers devastate the limited resources and leave gradually less for the people beneath them. Before the platform is even a third of the way down, all resources are depleted and the lower floors spend their 30 days without sustenance. Most lose their minds, or resort to darker means to survive.

Around nearly midnight, the platform will shoot back up at high speed to begin the cycle again.

➤ Attempting to steal and store food for later will result in the temperature in the room being cranked up to boiling, or dropped down to freezing.
➤ You are given 1 personal object of your choosing, excluding communications devices and firearms.
➤ Every 30 days, you will be assigned a new floor number either higher or lower than your previous floor. This decision is made by someone far above you, and no information is given as to the reason why you may be moving up or down.
➤ There seems to be a mutual agreement among the entire population: those who are above you are considered better than you, they're selfish and greedy. Those beneath you are socially lower than you, and they don't deserve your pity.
➤ Aside from that, there are no rules.

Enjoy your stay.

INSPIRATION OPTIONS

Time Duration

1. Rookie - The first day, week, or month in your cell.
2. Seasoned - The second month, after being shuffled to a drastically different floor.
3. Not my first rodeo - Moved multiple times over several months.
4. Veteran - Six months or greater, maybe even years. You've had many cellmates and watched many come and go.

Situation

1. Feeding Time - the platform is lowered with the scraps of those above you, or maybe nothing edible at all.
2. New Cell Mate - day number 30 rolls around, and you wake up to find yourself in a new place with a new face.
3. Reunited - after separating from your cellmate for 30 days or more, you are paired back up again. Were you above or below each other?
4. Those Who Fall - a plummeting body from someone above, or perhaps you're the one who chose to drop?
5. Loneliness - Maybe you have no roommate, and your only human interaction is to try and speak to the floor above or beneath you.
6. Starvation - thirty days on a lower floor, with nothing but your roommate or an unfortunate falling body.
7. Pulling the Strings - perhaps you're the one in charge, will your guilty conscience make you intervene?

Comments

Dean Winchester | Supernatural

[righteously]

[ cross-canon, ocs, etc all welcome. more interested in the tag chemistry than the canon, really. ]

Dabi | BNHA

[creamation]

(castmates only plz)

Xue Yang | Mo Dao Zhu Shi/The Untamed

[xue_yang]

(anyone is welcome to be a cellmate from any canon)

Fai D. Flourite || Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles

[behind_my_smile]

[OTA but it might be interesting to note that he is a vampire...)

Bucky Barnes | MCU

[freightcars]

[ cross-canon, ocs, etc all welcome. more interested in the tag chemistry than the canon, really. ]

Will Graham ¤ Hannibal

[cognitivus]

[ cross-canon preferred. ]

[gentlemanmonster]

The bottom of the hole.

No one came down here. At least not alive.

An arm, a leg, sometimes a full body fell from above for him. A stream of blood...

Not a whole, alive and well person.

Elias woke to find he wasn't alone on his level this round.

He stayed where he was for now, observing silently until the man awoke.

He was over ten feet tall, the floor above nearly hundred, to keep him from jumping out. Two sets of horns, ones that spiraled out, ones that curled in, his whole body covered in a mix of fur and feathers, and a tail much like that of a fish. His eyes glowed red in black sockets, no skin on his face.

[cognitivus]

He wakes quickly, but moves slowly. He spends long seconds with his eyes closed, still and unmoving in the bed while he gauges a few things that his mind has picked up on immediately: he's not in his home, he's not where he went to sleep, he's not alone. After that, eyelids open as though a decision has been reached - wide and without a trace of sleep, nor a lazy blink. Just two attentive headlights peering up toward the ceiling, which-

He recognizes, but not.

30 days ago he was on floor 11. The ceilings were shorter.

(And then a number of reasons about why the ceiling might be taller here flood through, which he pushes down.)

He searches the room through his peripherals for his cellmate, because something gives away the fact that he has one - breathing maybe, or a heartbeat, or the soft scuff against floor or bed or wall. What he sees does not make sense. Just like with waking, he reacts slowly. Guides himself carefully upright, with his eyes on the creature and his movements telegraphed, deliberate. His fingers curl around the frame of the bed, his feet hit the floor, and he stares.

Horns. Fur. Feathers. Animalistic. Still, not approaching, observing - intelligent.

(Are you real? He can't know for sure, his mind spins outlandish tales like metaphors sometimes. He's questioned his own sanity too often, but he knows his brand of instability. It isn't quite this, although he acknowledges the similarities...)

He doesn't stand, and for long seconds it's just the two of them facing off across the room, eyes on each other, unmoving and silent.

He breaks it first, his voice as controlled as his movements, "Should I be afraid?"

Because he doesn't know. He could be, but he isn't yet.

Isolation, curiosity, are they hiding you or are you hiding yourself?

[gentlemanmonster]

He spoke to him.

The first voice he'd heard in a long time, apart from the screams above.

Takes him a moment to remember how to speak himself.

"Perhaps." he replied, his voice a bit croaky and he clears it before pushing himself to sit up, his long arms resting on the concrete between his canine-like legs as he watches his new roommate. Would have been comical, like a great dog, if the situation wasn't so serious.

"...You're the first down here. Alive anyway. Why are you down here?" Elias asked, cocking his great horned head.

"syaoran" li | tsubasa: reservoir chronicle

[excavated]

( open to both canonmates and cross-canon! )

because clearly we are awful. let's say. 1 and 1?

[featherings]

[This was.....a first. Of course they were used to figuring being somewhere new, after all their traveling with Mokona's abilities and all. But Sakura still doesn't expect to wake up to this. It seems to be some sort of prison, with no way out, though there's a huge hole in the middle. She wakes and glances around, green eyes wide, a hand to her chest after rubbing her eyes as she stands and approaches the hole, wondering where they were and what might be up or down there.

She notices movement from above. Something was coming down? She glances up and steps back then, wondering what was on it.]

What....? Where are we? What's on that? What happened to Fai-san and the others?

Misty Day | AHS: Coven | OTA

[shadowsran]

[Duration is probably either fresh-faced newbie or someone who's been there a few years and had some nightmarish cellmates she'd prefer to not acknowledge. 2, 3, and 5 are the best bets for situations, 5 especially, but 4 isn't impossible. I'll admit I'm not familiar with whatever this is from, so I'm leaning more toward the character interaction than the nuts and bolts of the situation. Crosscanon/aus/assumed past cellmate or outside-connection cr all good.]

Demencia | Villianous | OTA

[lizardgurl4sale]

7. Pulling the strings, with a twist.
[This was an elaborate experiment. Defeated heroes, worthless henchmen, and unfortunate civillians that had been captured by Black Hat Organization and subjected to this psychological torment for months. There's probably some hypothesis behind this experiment, but although Demencia worked for BHO she never gave a single thought to what the nerds were doing.

In fact, today was one of those days when she wanted to mess with the nerds.

There's something very unexpected on the platform today... It looks like a large, furry lizard with human limbs squatting in the center of the platform. There's also a bit more food than usual (especially noticable if you're stuck on the lower floors) but the "lizard" starts softly growling at you if you get too close.

What do you do?]

Wildcard.
[Castmates and cross canon ok]

Elias Ainsworth // Ancient Magus Bride

[gentlemanmonster]

[Somehow you’ve ended up at the bottom. Whether you came from floor one or ten, you’re now stuck with the monster who...cleans up the bodies that fall. Convince him not to eat you or you’ll be his first fresh meal in who knows how long. I can start if you like.]

[filthyandfine]

Kelly wakes up, blinking as she looks around the cell. It's definitely not the one she fell asleep in the night before. She can smell the tangy scent of blood in the air. Something is very wrong.

It takes her a long moment to spot her cell mate. Her eyes widen, but she tries to stay calm. "uh... Hi..."

[gentlemanmonster]

The only time he tracked was when then the platform came down to his level. There was never any food left, lots of plates and such, all licked and scraped clean of any morsels.

But sometimes there was a body.

Someone who couldn't bear their predicament any more, or, something happened.

He didn't care.

At first he did, he wondered why. How long. And then the hunger came, and, being at the very bottom, he got absolutely nothing.

But there were bodies.

So that craving, something he'd always felt, gave into once with devastating effect during the great war, came back.

And he cleaned up.

At first he wasn't picky, he was given the same time limit and same punishment as those above him, so he gobbled everything he could swallow. But then he got to be more selective, knew what the good parts were and how to quickly get them before being denied a meal.

The only measurement of time was the platform and the frequency of bodies.

He'd been asleep when they brought her in his level. But he was up, quickly, surprised by this turn of events.

She was alive? And uninjured?

But she was speaking to him.

No one spoke to him.

A body hadn't dropped in awhile...he was starting to feel that old hunger...

"...Why are you here?" he asked. His voice was...he didn't recognize it as his own. It was gravelly and dry.

He was big, nearly ten feet, covered in a mix of fur and feathers, with great spines along his back. His legs were like that of a canine, but he had a long tail like that of a fish. He was truly a jumble of creatures.

Remus | HP | veeeeery voice testing

[wolfymcwolferson]

Kylo Ren - Star Wars - OTA

[forcefullyunstable]

[punishment for a former Supreme Leader of a fallen regime? Captured during a mission gone horribly wrong? The result of a military coup and what the Sith cultists were really hiding on Exogol?]

[jedied]

[ I am interested! Any prefs for which scenario? I kind of like newbie or talking to the person above/below them but super willing to combine anything!]

[forcefullyunstable]

[assumes a wee bit of an AU. Let me know if this works for you.]

This was what happened to those who let their shadow show...

Han and Leia had done the best they could to hide and protect their only son. Sending him to Luke, away from prying eyes, was a mercy compared to what he’d have to endure if anyone ever witnessed one of his outbursts. The New Republic would not have another Palpatine, nor another Vader. Mere child or not, anyone with Force sensitivity was heavily scrutinized. Anyone whose power manifested out of anger went immediately into the Pit, and very few people who went into the Pit ever came out of there alive.

Luke tried to tell Ben that, time and time again. He did everything he could to quell the anger in the boy, but it only grew as he did. Then, one fateful night, everything Ben had buried came out in a violent eruption. The galaxy swiftly took notice, and acted accordingly. The new threat was quickly eliminated.

That was years ago.

Ben, or Kylo as he now called himself, had been in the Pit for longer than he dared to remember. And nothing he could do with the Force could ever get him out.

Sometimes he found himself on higher floors, where the food was plentiful, barely even picked through. Sometimes, he found himself on lower floors, gnawing scrap meat from bones and licking crumbs off of plates. Several times, he found himself so low that absolutely nothing made it down most of the time - save for the inevitable suicide. He got lucky some of the time. It was easier to pretend a Twi’Lek or a Togruta was some kind of new exotic delicacy. It was barbaric, but it kept him alive.

The galaxy seemed to have no shortage of Force users. Or of shadows. New people were being brought in all the time, sentenced to a fate worse than death.

In fact, as the monthly clock turned over, Kylo was about to find himself face to face with one of them.

Evie | Disney's Descendants | ota

[4hearts]

[Cross-canon/AU/assumed CR-friendly. Prefs for E to be either a 1 or 2, and any situation except 6 or 7]

john constantine | dc comics | ota.

[strewth]

2 - 2

[biggest_loser]

[I hear you like IT characters as cross canon. Let me know if Ben is okay or not! hope this is okay!]

He had found himself here one day last month, and suddenly he was shuffled. 30 days and moved. This felt like a prison more than anything. For a while he had been doing okay. Placed high enough on the food chain to manage to get some food in him with his partner.

But when he woke up today he was at a n level. Much lower than before. Ben sat on the edge of the bed, rolling his toes on the ground and stretching. Hands scrubbing over his face with a soft growl.

He had been moved with out knowing it, which always made him wonder if they drugged them to knock them out well enough or not. He stood, moving over to the pit and looking don it, frowning through the dim below. Then... up. Up and up. Great. They were low on the pole.

"This is fine." He said to himself, hands rubbing over his face again, bare feet pacing the room, ignoring the stranger in the other bed still.

very okay!

[strewth]

John can sleep like the dead, when he's been through the wringer, sure, but a lifetime of magic and shit and shitty magic has taught him that sleeping deeply is a fool's trick. He wakes quickly, but softly, not eager to let his companion know he's up yet.

A new guy, a solid bloke, passingly handsome, obviously worried. Not a thread emotionally, John would wager, but the man could probably win in a fair fight. Which is fine by John - fair fights are for idiots, anyway.

He coughs to herald his awakening, sitting slowly up in what passes for a bed. "Goin' down, then?"

Garrison Kane | Marvel | OTA

[departmentk]

[ nominally a good guy but has done plenty of shit to warrant getting dumped in a place like this. crosscanon/assumed CR/ocs welcome. ]