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

[strewth]

John made a circuit of the walls, poking and prodding, occasionally leaving dusty little marks. "Gutted, me. 'M just delighted to meet you." So now this is sarcasm.

"How long you been in, Ben?"

[biggest_loser]

"I'm sure you are." He said offhandedly, distracted as he crouched down near the pit, trying to see how far down it goes from here.

"If my count is right, this is day 31. Maybe 32? Too long, if you ask me. What about you?" He asked back, plopping down to sit on the floor and frown towards the other as he left marks here and there in the dust.

[strewth]

"Less, for me," he murmurs, "dead clever, counting days. Then, I didn't reckon I'd be in for long as all that."

He continues to circle the walls, until the dusty marks he's leaving begin to have some recognizable consistency. They look like letters in a strange alphabet, or perhaps, if you just stared at the right angle...

"You believe in magic, Ben?"

[biggest_loser]

His count is off, but only by a day or so. Still, he tried to keep track, to have his sanity. "I didn't figure on being here at all, but here I am."

He moved, taking the edge of his bed and watched the man. The scribbling turned into something now. Interesting.

"Magic? I suppose after the things I've seen I believe in it to a degree."

[strewth]

"Oh?" He says, "what things you seen, then?"

He says this as he stands back to study the work, the dusty scrapes, some of which require some editing in post, more marks, more scribbles.

[biggest_loser]

"Pure evil." He states slowly, moving to stand again and walk closer [though out of arms reach] to the scribbles, leaning in to take a look at them, then to look back to the man, John. "We just called it, well It. A creature off pure evil." he explained more, then pointed to the all.

"So, is this your magic? Wall scribbles? Looks like a protection... thing." He knows just enough about symbology to give him an idea but not the answers.