Thirty Days

+ T H I R T Y D A Y S +

On wings take flight
A lovely sight
On seats fly high
Soar through the sky

On air we float
Till one black note
On fate plays loud
Dare we be proud

On fire we fall
Once and for all

+ ZERO DAY +
(August 31st, 2012)

YOU board a Delta Airlines flight in Seattle–Tacoma International Airport. It is the last day of August and by tomorrow you will find yourself in Tokyo, Japan. Every person on this transpacific flight has their own reasons for flying, be it business or pleasure, and you are no different.

THE flight attendant gives you mandatory safety information before the flight, telling you the safest position to be in just in case the airplane gets into some sort of accident. You don't pay very close attention. Who does? There probably won't be an accident—statistically, airplanes are safer than automobiles. And if there is, you will probably die anyway.

SOON you find yourself miles off the ground, soaring through the air over the great Pacific Ocean. You settle in and get comfortable for the flight. The weather is nice. It should be smooth sailing from here to Narita International Airport. It never occurs to you, and you don't even begin to suspect, that you might never make it there.

Welcome to the zeroth day. The game does not officially start until tomorrow, so there are no deadlines yet, but do feel free to post about your character's experiences today—their way to the airport, their time in the airport, boarding the flight, what they do during the flight, etc. Perhaps explain why your character is flying from Seattle to Tokyo. Maybe interact with the other characters. Whatever you feel like, really.

Or wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow, there will be deadlines and there will be consequences for missing them. I hope you are all ready.

The day began like many others. Jeremy jumped in the shower, dressed, and snorted a line before heading catching a taxi to the airport. He had all the essentials for the first leg of the band's Tokyo tour. Clothes, books, his laptop, and drugs. Between his crotch he was hiding his pipe and some marijuana. He had a lot more in his bags, but only because he had a friend who was high-up in the airport security, and so he could sneak plenty on board.

Before boarding the plane, Jeremy bought a meal from a McDonald's by his gate. He finished it and then waited for the plane to board. Within a few minutes he had put his laptop case on the floor and sat by the window, idly surfing the internet.

Joan had gotten to the airport earlier then what was needed as per usual. Even after going through the security and other hassles airports like to throw at fliers, she had a few hours to wait until her flight.

It was a good or bad habit of hers depending on which way you looked at it. As a journalist, Joan needed to be ahead of the game. News kept on happening on a constant basis, and it was a fierce competition to see who broke the facts first. But sometimes she could take it a bit to the extreme, as can be seen now. Four hours to wait for a plane was a tad ridiculous.

Joan was a video game reporter for Game Informer. She was relatively new to the team, and she was about to go on her first major assignment. Square Enix had just announced a new video game in the works which prominently focuses in on mythology. Joan had already made herself known as the residential mythology geek around the office, so she was chosen to fly to Tokyo to conduct the interview about the game.

It was a big deal, and if Joan managed to do well on this one she would be trusted with bigger assignments.

Joan's stomach growled. Even though she had eaten breakfast, it was a few hours ago and was only a simple muffin and orange juice. Nothing substantial to hold her over. She decided to go Subway and get a sub.

After paying for the meal, she sat down at the table and began to eat. As she ate she checked her e-mail on her Apple I-phone in addition to skimming through some of the other video game news sites for the latest info.

When she finished her meal, she walked over to where her plane was to board and sat down on one of the seats, fishing around for the Nintendo DS. Upon finding it she turned it on and leaned back and began to play Glory of Hercules until the plane was to board.

Shiv Rakalov was a man on business. He'd always done little jobs on the side for those with money, and this particular trip was an assassination in Tokyo. Seems someone didn't like this company big-wig named "Aonuma" or something. It really wasn't his business. He just did what he was hired for and got paid. He went through airports legally, however, with specially locked and marked boxes for his gun and suitcase. His clients weren't always the influential and wealthy, so he took as few risks as possible. Once on the plane, he took a window seat, near the mid-back of the plane, and settled in for a long nap.

Jane swayed back and forth, in rhythm to the music that pulsated through her earphones and into her brain. She remained like this for a few more moments, waiting patiently in line at the luggage check in line which seemed to be a reoccurring method in every airport she's ever been in. Her long blonde hair was put up in a tossled bun on the top of head, it bouncing about every time Jane moved to her music.

There were a couple of people in front of her, the whole check in progress was always quite mundane. The person waiting in line behind her poked her gently on the back, where Jane then turned around intrigued only to see the woman pointing to the clerk a head of her, signaling to Jane that it was now her turn.

Jane quickly removed her earphones, mumbling a quick apology to the woman behind her and then to the clerk, as she hurriedly approached, lifting her suitcase unto the scale, awaiting for the usual progress to occur. Jane awkwardly bounced on her heels as she waited for the clerk to hand her her baggage information slip.

Jane shoved the piece of paper into her back pocket as she made her way towards customs. The flow of getting checked into an airport was very familar to Jane, and the whole thing seemed to go by in a blur, and Jane hadn't really become interested in her surroundings until she realized that all she had to was laze around until her plane was ready to board.

She ordered a large black coffee and stared into the faces of the occupants of the airport, waiting for her flight number to be called across the PA.

CAPTAIN Acacia Helianthus boarded the Airbus Industrie A330-300 jet airliner that she would be piloting today for Delta Airlines Flight 155, SeaTac to Tokyo-Narita. She greeted the flight attendants and made her way to the flight deck. Her co-pilot, First Officer Henry Beecher, was already there and was preparing for the flight.

"Mornin' 'Cacia," he said without turning around as Acacia entered the cockpit and shut the door behind her.

"Morning, Henry," Acacia replied, sitting in her chair and reaching for the control panel.

"You ready for the flight?" Henry asked. His right eyelid twitched and he reached up to rub it with his fist.

"Yeah, of course. Flown this very same flight dozens of times." Acacia leaned back and rested her head on her interlocked hands. "What about you? You look tired."

"I'm all right, just need a bit of coffee." Apparently he had already got himself some coffee, because now he reached down and grabbed an insulated paper cup to put to his lips.

"You know you're not supposed to—" Acacia started to say.

"Oh, hush," Henry interrupted with a smile, briefly showing his pearly whites. He put the steaming cup back down. "I've had a stressful week what with all the, well, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Acacia conceded. Henry's wife had recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and he had been in and out of the hospital with her all month running tests and trying to sort things out. Henry had just gotten back to work at the beginning of the week after a month's leave. Acacia could go easy on him for the time being.

Soon the airliner was loaded and ready to take off. Acacia taxied to the runway, opened the throttle, and lifted the airplane into the skies. In a little over ten hours, they would be in Tokyo.

beep...beep...beep...beep...be—

ACACIA looked down at the instrument panel, flikced a few switches, pressed a few buttons, silencing the beeping alert. She reached for the intercom and announced to the passengers in the cabin "We will shortly be experiencing some minor turbulence. It's nothing to worry about but please remain seated."

As soon as she finished making the announcement, the airplane quivered slightly to confirm it. Then another alert started beeping and some of the instruments on the panel started giving nonsensical data. "Oh great, just what we need, broken instruments." She tapped the screen with her finger, knowing full well that it wouldn't help anything.

Then Acacia looked over at Henry, who had his head down and was apparently sleeping. She reached over and pushed on his shoulder to wake him. "Hey. Wake up."

The copilot shifted his weight and snorted as he was roused from his slumber. Then he slowly, very slowly, deliberately and slowly lifted his head. "What." he mumbled, his face still turned downward.

"The instruments aren't working," Acacia said.

Henry finished lifting his head, revealing his face. It was twisted and contorted into a maniacal grin, showing off what seemed like too many teeth and leaking a long trail of saliva from one corner. "We won't need instruments where we're going," he whispered.

"Henry..." Acacia said, her voice rising in panic. "Henry, what's wrong?"

"It's over," he whispered. "It's over," he said. "It's over!" he screamed.

Then darkness.

beep...beep...beep...beep...beeeeeeeeeeeeee—


The sand greets me
Welcomes me home
The trees call me
Luring me in

Secrets, mysteries
Dance around me
Hold me, bind me
Don't let me go

Peering into
Shadows, darkness
Where is the light?
What is what's right?

+ FIRST DAY +
(September 1st, 2012)
06:00

THE last thing you remember is the voice of the pilot herself, informing you that the airplane would be experiencing a bit of minor turbulence. "Nothing to worry about," she had said. "Nothing to fear." Just turbulence. You knew about turbulence. It was normal, right?

NOW you find yourself waking somewhere unfamiliar. No longer on the airplane. The heat of the sun beats down on you. A cool sea breeze washes over you. You feel rough sand beneath your body. You hear the sound of waves crashing against the beach. You smell the salty air.

YOU get up, to try to discover where you are. On the beach around you there are five other people. You may or may not recognize them from the airplane. They seem as confused as you are. You are on a beach, with the ocean to one side and a dense tree-filled jungle to the other. The sand stretches on for what seems like eternity, between the trees and the water.

THERE is no sign of wreckage or debris from a plane crash. No one is injured or hurt. There are no bodies. The only sign that there ever even existed an airplane to begin with is the scattered pieces of luggage, cast off all over the beach like much jetsam from a shipwreck.

IDLY you collect a few pieces of the nearby luggage while you try to sort out the situation you have found yourself in. What will you do?

Good morning. Welcome to the first day. Every day will begin at six in the morning, at least in UTC+10 (which is, conveniently, over the Pacific Ocean between the United States and Japan but this is merely a coincidence—6:00 AM UTC+10 corresponds to 1:00 PM in my time zone, UTC-7). Apart from that, the time in-game does not necessarily correspond exactly to real time.

For convenience, I will be using the same time zone (UTC+10) whenever I declare deadlines. If I say a character must respond by 12:00 noon, make sure to figure out what that ends up being in your own time zone so you don't miss the deadline.

At least for now, I won't be too strict with deadlines and such. For today, I just want everybody to post at least once (but hopefully several times) before the end of the day. Now, let's begin!

The morning sun hangs over the blue waters of the Pacific Ocean. To the other side, the west, is a thick, green jungle. The trees and vegetation are far too dense to see very deeply into. To the north and south the pure white sand that you are standing in goes on nearly forever. The beach seems to gain elevation to the south until, in the misty distance, you think you can see some rocky cliffs.

The beach is littered with pieces of luggage, which you and the other survivors have already picked through for anything useful.

+ D E A D L I N E S +
ALL CHARACTERS — 05:00

Jeremy rubbed his head and took a look at the other survivors. There was a woman in her late 20's, an older man with graying hair, a young guy who was about his age, another young chick, and... another chick. Three-to-three. Imagine the odds?

Without an airplane in sight, it was apparent that Jeremy would be missing out on the Passive Heroes' tour. Those lucky ♥♥♥♥s caught a plane the day before and were already in Tokyo. Without a cell phone there was no way to call them, and there probably wasn't a signal out here anyway.

Jeremy thought about rolling a joint on the beach. The girls were all cute, and the other guy looked like he'd taken his fair share of hits, but the older gentlemen looked like a hardass. Best to wait to see how he'd react to it in conversation.


"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry." Jeremy looked into the jungle. "Ya think there's any pineapples up in there?"

As he said those words, he remembered that he had an ounce in his luggage. And his pills! I need to find out who has them...

The last thing Joan remembered was the pilot saying they would hit some turbulence. She had went back to sleep at the time, thinking nothing of it. So, when she woke up on the beach with no plane in sight, no knowledge of what the hell had happened and what was going on and just five strangers also laying on the sandy shores, to say she started to freak out a bit was a tad of an understatement.

""Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm hungry." A voice broke through the silence. "Ya think there's any pineapples up in there?" Joan turned her head towards the voice and saw a young man in his early twenties with straight black hair, the front of his hair being about level with his nose and the back reaching towards his shoulders. He had pierced ears and was wearing black skinny jeans and a shirt with the logo of some band name.

He looks familiar.

Joan frowned a bit, trying to place his face. Where the hell did she know him from? Argh, this was going to bug her, and she couldn't spend the time trying to figure out who he was, but she had to know.

"I know you from somewhere," Joan said with a slight frown, standing up. "Who are you again?"

Always best to go for the direct approach.

"Who, me?" Jeremy smiled. "I'm just a singer for this rock band. It's no big deal. But what is a big deal is finding some food. Maybe build a hammock or something."

Rock band huh? Joan, while she was into music, wasn't the type of person who followed musicians around for news. She probably saw his face then on one of the magazines at the checkout line in the store.

Well at least that answered that question, but it didn't answer the question of what was going on and where were they. But the singer was right-they did need some food. Not necessarily the hammock, but some food. And shelter.

Survival first. Information (as much as it killed her to say it) second.

"Yeah, let's go see if we can get some food," Joan agreed. "See if we can find some shelter while we are at it." She frowned a bit. She wasn't sure about the wild life on the island, or intelligent life in general. Maybe they could run into some other humans?

Oh God, this better not be a cannibal island. That would suck so much.

Shiv sat up, wondering what had happened. He remembered a beeping, the plane having turbulence, and then- nothing?

"The plane must have crashed. I don't see any wreckage, though," he thought.

He looked around, seeing three other people with him on the beach. Two men and three women. The beach went off seemingly forever in either direction, sandviching them between the sea and jungle.

"Bah. Zis vill make me late for my appoinmahnt." He said to himself.

He began looking around for something to eat, as he felt starved.

"It must have been a while since we crashed," he thought.

He got up, and, watching a few people interact, decided to go and ask if anyone else knew what had happened.

"Then again... that jungle looks nasty, and I don't have much that can help." Jeremy took out a cigarette from the pack in his pocket and lit it using his lighter. Earlier he had collected a few items. and threw them into his bag. He managed to squeeze in a large bag. By the end of it he had everything in his bag, save for an acoustic guitar, whose case he laid down next to it.

Jeremy stood there, puffing away at his cigarette. If these guys weren't a bunch of squares, maybe he'd enjoy this turn of events.

As Shiv came closer, remembered the things he had found. He ran back over and gathered them into a nearby bag for safekeeping. A laptop, some children's book, a small black device of some sort, and a few batteries. He kept the bottle of medicine for himself.

Then he returned, with the bag, to the small group of people.

"Hi. Doz anybody know vere ve arre? Or vat haz happened?" he said to the general group. His Russian accent slurred his words a bit, but he was fluent enough to be understandable.

Joan turned to the newcomer. He had a strong Russian accent, but he was easy enough to understand. He was a grizzled man who looked like he was somewhere in his 50s at least. He had grey hair, although she could see some white starting to come in.

She frowned a bit. He looked a tad dangerous to her, but then again she could be stereotyping because he was Russian.

"No," Joan said, a bit frustrated by the fact. And it wasn't like she didn't try to find out where they were. But her smart phone wasn't able to get a cell signal nor an Internet signal. Where the ♥♥♥♥ where they that they couldn't get either? "I suspect we are somewhere between California and Japan considering that is the direction we were flying in when we found ourselves here, but other than it, I have no clue."

"Da, I zee. Vary vell. Vat zshall ve do? Ve cannot ztay on za beach ull day. Let uz explore, az a group, for protectzion? Ve don't know vat is out dere," He replied.

He sized up the girl, and the man next to her. She was of relatively average height, thin, with her hair in a ponytail, and jeans on. Her shirt had a skull on it, like something Shiv had seen in a Radioshack before.

The man also wore jeans and a t-shirt. He was a young, average height man with a pronounced jaw and long hair, like an American rock artist. He looked like a pretty-boy to Shiv.

"Yeah, from playing Lost in Blue I know we are going to need to find food and shelter," Joan said, remembering the game she had spent hours cussing at because the boy needed too much food. "We will need to find a fresh water source as well."

Peter groaned as he worked his way up from lying face-first on the sandy ground. He squinted as the glaring ocean sun filled his entire field of vision, and his head rang with constant, pulsating pain. Voices came and went as he sat there, blinking as he attempted to form a coherent thought in his tender brain. After a few seconds he gave up and let his pounding head slam back into the sand.

The pounding in his head didn't stop. He patted the pockets of his tattered jacket for his pills. Relieved to find them safely zipped up, he pulled out the orange cylinder and popped a few of the pills. He swallowed hard and examined the label:

Unlimited refills. He scoffed. ♥♥♥♥ if I'll be able to find any out here.

And where was he? Where was the plane? Where were Terry and Deaner? His thoughts were starting to get clearer with the medicine in effect. He stood up, patting the sand off his jeans and shaking it like a dog out of his flow. There were five others with him: two blondes, a brunette, an older man in ridiculous shape for his age, and this skinny Mick Jagger lookin' guy who seemed just as old as he was.

He walked over to Jagger, who was talking with the brunette and the older fella with the Russian accent. They were talking survival, as expected. "Yeah, from playing Lost in Blue I know we are going to need to find food and shelter, we will need to find a fresh water source as well."

"Fire, too." Petey added. He noticed Jagger was smoking. "I found a few books laying out on the beach, we could tear em up and get a campfire goin'. Don't know what kind of animals might be livin' in that forest, but fair chance is they don't like fire."

"Well that depends," Joan said as her journalistic instincts to spread information kicked in as she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets. "For the most part, yeah. But not always. Either way, building a fire would probably keep us safe. We ought to go look for some food, water and shelter first. I would say fresh water is the most pressing because a human can only survive three days without water."

She had picked up some stuff off the beach when she woke up. The smaller things she had kept on her person; the larger things she threw into her small suitcase that she dragged from the water's edge. She also threw her wallet and passport in to the suitcase as well; she doubted she would need either. And if she did, she could always come back and get it.

"Ok. The name's Pete, by the way," he added, addressing the brunette as well as the other two.

"Anyone know if there's any other survivors, or is it just us?"