Test Drive 01

[pluviosamods]

TEST DRIVE

Hello, and welcome to the first Pluviosa Test Drive!

Rather than a series of prompts that are set after arrival to the game, this Test Drive is instead more of a soft open for the game. That is to say, not only are Test Drive threads game canon, but the Test Drive should be regarded as the "start" of the game chronologically and contains arrival-related events and information.

Or lack of information, as the case in fact is, because there is no greeting party waiting to reassure characters that everything is fine back in their worlds and that they'll get to go home again. (On the flip side, there's no one telling them that their worlds have been destroyed, either.) There is only the ship, the things inside it, the raging storm outside, and what characters can figure out for themselves.

It is advised that potential players familiarize themselves with the Premise page, the Rules/Session Zero page, and at least the first few paragraphs of the Setting page. As Pluviosa is a horror game, we especially encourage players to be aware of the content warnings that will be major themes of the game.

ARRIVAL

(cw: minor blood, visions, storm weather)

The first thing you become aware of is the sound of dripping. Your mind is fogged, as though woken from the wrong part of your sleep cycle. In your daze, you're convinced that the sound of dripping is blood. Yours? Someone else's? You can't be sure. It's dripping from somewhere. It's your fault, whichever it is.

Good. One way or another, you'll be free of this nightmare -

And then, in response to the sound of a crack of thunder outside, clarity returns.

Characters come around as though disturbed from a deep sleep. Once they have shaken off the (vision? impression?) of blood, they will find that the dripping sound, at least, was real. Fortunately, it's only water - rainwater, more than likely, judging from the occasional booms of thunder and flashes of lightning overhead. One hell of a storm, quite possibly the worst characters have ever experienced, is raging outside.

Outside where? Well, outside the ship, of course.

As a general rule, characters wake up in a random room of the first level of the ship below the main decks. Theoretically, this should be a relatively safe, dry place - but with the age of the ship, its state of disrepair, and the number of plants above that have dug their roots into the deck above, leaks are plentiful. Thus, the sound of dripping water is a constant even in enclosed areas - and, of course, the outside of the ship is being pounded by rain in shimmering sheets, adding to the cacophony of noise accented by the thunder.

Even the protective bubble over the deck itself and the balconies of the rooms is having trouble working to keep the rain out - the rain isn't terrifying hurricane levels, but it is steady and water floods steadily down the stairs and over the edges of the gap down the center of the ship. The worst of the wind, too, has been kept out, but occasional gusts send ripples through the rain.

There is no power inside the ship right now and barely any light besides the flash of lightning - although characters may arrive while it is nominally day, the clouds stretching from horizon to horizon have blocked out the sun almost completely. The motion of the ship is also far worse than usual due to the storm winds - it's easy to believe that you are in fact at sea, unless you manage to get close enough to the exterior windows or balconies to be able to see the ship's legs in motion through the cascade of water that runs down the exterior.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

(cw: hallucinations, thinking things that are real are hallucinations)

In the dark, you have to rely on your other senses - hearing, sound, smell. Smell is giving you the best information to start out with - rain, of course, but also mildew, plants, and old metal. (Is that a whiff of blood at the bottom? No, it's because of that bad dream you had messing with your head.)

No one comes to greet you. No one comes to find you. Instinctively, you know - no one is coming. You'll have to save yourself.

Characters will be fully convinced that they are alone until they actually run into another character. Even things that seem like they should be indicative of another person's presence, such as hearing voices or seeing someone shine a light down a hallway - your character will be convinced that that is just a hallucination until they can definitely lay eyes on another person, hear their voice clearly (ie: not half-drowned-out by the rain) or otherwise be certain of their presence.

That isn't to say that hallucinations aren't occurring. All characters, but especially those who are alone, will periodically hear murmuring voices, smell blood, smoke, and other scents reminiscent of destruction, and see what appear to be the flashes of flashlights, flickering lightbulbs, and the shadows of people walking around. These hallucinations fade in and out in intensity, but they always clear up for at least a little while when a character notices the sound of thunder. Given that the thunder is very frequent during the storm (every few minutes), most hallucinations won't last for long.

For most characters, the voices will be unintelligible murmurs. However, if your character has experienced an event of mass destruction at some point in their life (apocalypse or near-apocalypse, destruction of a city, volcano eruption, being the only survivor of a town that was slaughtered, etc), or has a connection to the dead, they will be able to pick out that the voices of the hallucinations are talking about either attempting to rescue people from something similar (eg: a distant voice shouting "there's someone still alive over here!") or, alternately, talking about how everything is lost, everyone is doomed now, etc. They may hear one type of voice or both at different times, at player discretion.

TO RUN ITS COURSE

(cw: dead loved ones, hallucinations/delusions, violence, potential death. THIS PROMPT CONTAINS PVP OPTIONS.)

You're not supposed to be alone. There was someone with you, only a few hours or years or minutes or lifetimes ago. You weren't always alone, and you have to find them.

You'll find them. You do. But not in any kind of condition to keep you company. This lump of flesh is empty now. The plants are already growing over it, reclaiming it. There's blood in the soil, and there's the sound of someone else coming up behind you.

Someone is coming. You'll have to save yourself.

There are various heaps of organic debris that characters can stumble across when wandering around in the dark - piled up leaves, rotted plants, heaps of ferns, moss, and so on. Even solid wood, sometimes - the trunks of small, twisted trees that took root where they might and have grown out from balconies to the exterior or inwards down the jungled crevasse between the two halves of the ship. In the low light, it's easy to literally stumble across them, or mistake them for something else in the brief light of a flash of lightning.

It's the mistaking them for something else that could be a problem. Characters may find themselves absolutely convinced that these heaps of leaves are the body of a loved one - especially if they were wandering around looking for someone in particular. They may or may not accurately perceive leaf cover on the outside of the "body," but unless they dig their hands in enough to be sure of the heap's contents - but who would want to go digging their hands into the body of someone they love? - or they see the shape in clear lighting (which would have to be provided by another character), it will be near impossible to convince them that the pile is just that, and not a corpse.

But that's not the really dangerous part. The dangerous part of all this is that if someone unexpected approaches while the character is in the same room as the 'body,' they may become convinced that the new arrival is responsible for their loved one's death. It doesn't matter how illogical it is on the surface - fear, or rage, or whatever it is that might fuel them will turn on the stranger. And whatever it is that convinces them of this has also turned their fight-or-flight reflex solidly to fight, whether it's for revenge or the last chance at survival for a cornered rat.

Characters so affected will fight until one of the following occurs: If they are led out of sight of the 'body,' they return to their senses (given that they may be inclined to chase the 'perpetrator,' this may be the best non-violent way to resolve the issue). If they are convinced that the 'body' is fake (through physical contact or clear lighting as above), they also return to their senses. And finally, if they kill the 'perpetrator' or are themselves killed or knocked unconscious, the effect ends. In all of these cases, it ends with the sharpness of a rubber band snapped against the skin, and the character is fully aware of their altered mental state and what occurred as a result.

If your character dies as a result of this prompt (and you want that thread to be game canon), please give the mods a heads-up if/when you are accepted into the game. Although this will not count as an 'official' death and will not consume a character's "freebie" revival, there may still be consequences for your character's death.

CONTENTS WORMING

(cw: worms. many worms. not parasitic. just worms.)

It's easy to take a wrong step in the dark. Of course, tripping and falling isn't the worst thing that can happen.

This isn't the worst thing that could happen, either. That doesn't make it any better in the moment - the split-second when the ground erupts and a writhing mass of something slimy doesn't so much crawl out as jump out - but maybe it will make it better later.

You know how worms come writhing up out of the ground during a rainstorm, when the soil is absolutely saturated?

Well, that's true of the soil on the ship as well, except the worms here aren't just common earthworms anymore. They've learned to climb, the slime that they use to wriggle through the soil modified such that they can cause it to turn sticky and squelch their way up walls, ceilings - and anyone they happen to come across. If you step in the wrong place, an entire cluster of them will respond, by clinging to your clothes and body, squirming upwards in a desperate bid to escape the wet soil and the continuous rivulets of water caused by the storm.

Or perhaps you sat down to rest somewhere and felt them creeping - or didn't, until there was suddenly something wet and cold on your bare skin. Or maybe you encountered the worms not through their climbing, but afterwards, when they drop off the ceiling and fall down on your head as the enzyme that renders their slime sticky wears out. However it happens... worms.

Fortunately, they're harmless - aside from being a bit larger than the earthworms a character is likely to be familiar with, and their strange ability to become sticky, these are largely indistinguishable from normal earthworms. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell that in the dark and the wet - this is their native environment, not yours, and anyone would panic at the sensation of worms trying to crawl up them or into dry places in their clothes.

There is an easy solution to this: Because the worms are fleeing the rain in the soil, they won't climb up anything that's just as wet as the dirt they left behind. All a character has to do to become worm-free is get thoroughly soaked, such as by stepping out into the reduced-but-still-pouring rain on a balcony or deck protected by the ship's bubbles. Unfortunately.... Well, then they're wet. And there doesn't seem to be anywhere to dry off any time soon...

FAQ

For information on the general shape and state of the ship, please see the setting page. Please note that mods will not be running investigations during the test drive period.

Q: Do our characters still have their powers/items?

Generally speaking, yes. Characters have their powers intact (with certain exceptions, largely for potential-gamebreak reasons) and whatever items they were carrying at their canonpoints. Please see the FAQ for more details.

Q: My character is dead and/or dying at their canonpoint!

Well... Now they aren't. Specifically, dead characters come back as their most recent 'healthy' state of being (unless they're a type of character that is playable while dead, such as a vampire or a Bleach shinigami, in which case they continue as normal for them); they also arrive already soaked through by the rain, regardless of the location they wake up. Characters who are mortally injured find that their wounds have healed; in place of whatever blood was soaking through their clothes/dripping from their bodies/in their mouth from a Cough of Death, they instead find pure water.

Q: Can my character(s) explore the ship?

Your characters are welcome to explore as much as they're willing and capable of doing in the wet and the rain! However, getting between floors is a challenge in the current weather - with the power off, the elevators do not work, and the stairs are consistently flooded by a cascade of rainwater. However, mods will not be running any official, guided explorations until after game opening.

Q: Is there anywhere dry to rest?

Nowhere is completely dry, but the aft portion of the ship is significantly drier than the middle and fore. The reason for this is that there is a series of partial decks (the residential decks) over roughly the last third of the ship. The rain is fully blocked by the roof overhead, in theory, but in practice the wind and the flooding leave this space only sort of dry. It's possible to find your way here on your own and find some place to sleep that doesn't blow mold spores into your face when you sit down, but it's also darker here, since the lightning's light is also blocked out by the roof.

Q: BATHROOMS?

Unfortunately, the lack of water in the pipes means that the toilets (which can be found relatively intact in most suites, though many are full of standing water) are also not running. Characters get to deal with this issue as they see fit, whether that's using the dilapidated toilets or using a more fertilizer-like strategy.

Q: Is there anything from the game's main info pages that doesn't apply to this Test Drive?

Given that the power is currently off, the Ship (as in the entity) cannot be interacted with on the Test Drive (and characters have no reason to think it's there). Anything else that would require power, such as the elevators or water from the faucets, also does not work.

Q: How long does the storm last?

ICly, it begins to lighten up on the evening of the second day after the first characters wake up, though it is still raining steadily with occasional thunder throughout that night. (Characters will continue to trickle in throughout the duration of the storm, though most arrive before the end of the first day.) The characters will be able to see the sun starting on the third morning - which is also planned to be the game's formal opening, so we won't say more until then!

Q: Do our characters receive anything upon arrival?

Not a thing! Nor do they encounter any kind of informational NPC or anything that gives them a solid idea what's going on. The only exception to this is that all characters experience the dripping-blood related vision/dream/impression detailed in the first prompt of the Test Drive. Additionally, characters who have a unique tie to their world (such as Aerith's connection to the Lifestream in FFVII) will be aware that they're not in their own world anymore.

Q: What are our characters eating?

Since the power hasn't come on yet... Whatever they're adventurous and/or knowledgeable enough to find that doesn't kill them! This can include edible plants and limited amounts of things brought from home (please don't have your character bring 99 casseroles even if your game's inventory system allows it), but mods are not tracking this specifically. Most characters will be expected to be hungry and unhappy but not literally starving come game open. At least there's plenty of water.

Q: I have some specific question I need to ask about my specific character on the test drive!

Please post your question in response to the header comment QUESTIONS below!

Comments

[luciacorina]

(She does know what metal is, she just can't conceive of this much in one place, worked this smooth, and made into a boat, so it hasn't even occurred to her as a possibility. You can't make a boat out of metal any more than you could out of stone, it would sink, it's too heavy!)

"A... cruise ship? Hm. I do believe I am very far from home. But yes, you're right-- somewhere safe to sleep, and something we can trust to eat, are definitely priorities. Some of these plants could be edible, but none of them look remotely familiar to me, so I've no idea which ones. The climate here must be nothing like home. The rain itself may be the best source of water, if we can catch it somewhere it's not touching a thousand possibly poisonous trees covered in algae on the way down."

[helborn]

"I... can eat basically any sort of plant matter, but I don't know if you can. None of them look familiar to me and my plantlore is uh..."

Well.

"It's not my area of expertise. Maybe if we head up top we can get some clean water, though I don't know what we'd store it in. You wouldn't happen to have any kind of container on you, would you?" He's got a 'container' in his leg, but it only holds his baseball bat. How? ... Magic.

[luciacorina]

Lucia Corina tilts her head vaguely. "I should have--" She pauses and blinks. "I was-- I was traveling. I have..." She trails off and pats herself down, ascertaining that she's wearing a pack. "I probably have a waterskin? I might want to get somewhere dry before I open this, I have--my zither is in here, I hope the oilcloth is enough to protect it, I'm not usually outside in this level of downpour." The moment of confusion has passed, and she seems relatively confident about what she's carrying, now. "I don't recall if my waterskin is full or not, though if it is, that's an amount of safe water. I might have a wineskin as well, but that may be better saved for medical emergencies."

[helborn]

"That makes sense. A zither is... an instrument, right?" It sounds like one, but he's not sure what it is other than 'not commonly found in a band'. "I'm not usually out here in this kind of rain either. Honestly I'd prefer if it was snow - that I know how to deal with."

Hm... "But then again, I can't really get cold. So it might not be as pleasant for other people. ... I'm... not a normal person." He says it bashfully, looking slightly away as he does. "But I'm not really sure how to do much other than basic camping. That stuff I've got down, not... uh. Crisis management."

[luciacorina]

"Oh, yes. A stringed one. I'd really rather not damage it, since I often play for my supper, though I suppose in these circumstances there doesn't seem to be anyone to play for. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to repair water damage to the wood." Lucia Corina shoves her wet hair out of her face again. "Snow would pose different problems, but they would be drier ones, in the main."

She cocks her head at his confession, but decides it would be rude to ask for more detail. "I can do basic camping as well--I prefer to find an inn to sleep on the floor or in the stables for the night when possible, but it isn't, always. And of course camping can have its own hazards, though most of the time it involves a negligible volume of ghosts, a feature this ship does not appear to provide. The whole place is twice as haunted as the graveyard around Gulda's tower."

[helborn]

"Understandable." He's no musician, but he knows that instruments can be damaged pretty easily. He's a little surprised that she doesn't ask for further information, but he's not going to complain. "Inns aren't really much of a thing where I'm from... though I suppose hotels are basically the same thing now that I consider it. As for the ghosts, I don't think they're going to hurt us."

Haunted? He's not inclined to think in those terms, but to be fair he's used to ghosts. "I grew up around them so they're normal for me. I know that's not really normal for most people though." He'd had to start hiding things early on...

[luciacorina]

“No inns? Do people not travel, or want a hot meal they don’t cook themself, or to listen to music?” Lucia Corina is mildly baffled. Practically everywhere with more than three houses together has some kind of inn.

“Usually ghosts hang around the location they were buried, in my experience, or sometimes the location where they died. Given the sounds of what they’re saying, this may be effectively both, if no one was able to recover the bodies. I wonder if we could put them to rest if we found them? But then, I’ve no idea what their burial rites would be, in a place this strange, and the wrong sort might just enrage them—I’d rather have present and uncommunicative but harmless, on the balance.”

“Can most people not see ghosts, where you’re from? I’m unusually sensitive to magical effects in general, but I’ve never met someone entirely unable to perceive a ghost that I could see. They’re either there or they aren’t. And they usually rest, or at least stay away from the living, provided the living aren’t foolish enough to go graverobbing.”

[helborn]

"They do, it's just not a classic inn like you're thinking of. They tend to be a lot bigger. ... And the food's probably worse. And there's no music."

Anyway. "Ghosts in my experience attach to objects or locations, yeah. I'd put them to rest if I could find them - I could make a good guess as to their burial rites. The belief is more important than the specific rite in my experience, but it's more respectful to do what you know to be their specific religious belief. ... Or you could drag them to an Underworld gate, but good luck finding one of those if you don't know where one is already."

The question has him shake his head. "No, not at all. Some few people do see them, and most of the rest who see them only think that they do." He's before most of the ghost hunting show craze, but he's still aware of people who do that sort of thing.

[luciacorina]

Lucia Corina blinks. "...Hotels sound like something of a loss in quality. Where do musicians play?"

"Where I'm from, at least, different peoples tend to have very different rites--if you tried to lay a gobelin to rest with a sun elf's rites, you'd probably end up cursed for your trouble, at minimum. And not everyone is that easy to tell apart--calling upon the wrong god would be thoroughly insulting."

"Do the ghosts not choose to show themselves, or is there just some inborn blindness to their presence?" Being able to see ghosts is such a default state to her that not being able to seems to be a sense lacking, rather than seeing them being an additional one, to her.

[helborn]

"If they're not well known, bars? If they are, they tend to sell tickets to concerts in specialized venues."

He listens and nods. It... matters somewhat in his world, but mistakes are known to happen. "I think that they tend to get scooped up by the right god no matter what happens. It's when they turn into ghosts it's an issue."

And he's now starting to realize that the scent of death around him isn't just from the area... hm. Does she know? He's not sure if she does, and he's not going to tell her.

"It's not something that most humans can do. A few have exceptional skills, but for the majority of people ghosts aren't visible, no. They exist... kind of like a sheet of -" Plastic might not make sense. "Like a piece of paper on top of another. They're touching, but they're their own separate worlds in a sense."

[luciacorina]

"Like theatres? Are there so many musicians that can draw such a crowd?"

Lucia Corina would be so horrified if you told her she smelled like death. Like, is she rotting? Does she smell like corpse? Does she need to take a bath?? Existential crisis about being dead later, genteel horror about odor now!

"Fascinating. I think in my home, the dead normally do not exist in the world of the living, but in the case of ghosts, they are are fully within it--dragging some of the past with them, if anything. Ink bleeding down through the pages from too strong a brush, perhaps. If anyone can see them, everyone can."

[helborn]

"There's a lot of famous musicians, yeah. They tend to travel the world if they're really famous, bringing in thousands of people for each concert." He's pretty sure that's how it works? He's not ever been to one. A concert in a park, yeah - but that's never really been famous musicians.

Thankfully it's just death energy he's smelling, not body odor. But it's a little rude to tell a ghost that they're dead if they don't know it already. Sometimes you have to, but she seems to be fine right now.

"Mm. Interesting. I grew up in a place that prepared the dead for viewing and burials - or whatever other rituals their families might want - so I encountered a lot of them."

[luciacorina]

Lucia Corina is a little wide-eyed at the description. "Traveling the whole world? To sing for thousands of people? I think the best audience I've ever drawn is--" she falters for a moment, remembering throngs of ballgoers mostly ignoring the Lady's pet providing the music, then decides firmly that they don't count "--maybe forty or fifty?"

She's not even being intangible to anything or losing track of when she is right now! She's doing great. Casper is very grounding.

"They weren't prepared at home? There was... a special place for it? Did all the bodies of the dead bring ghosts, for you?"

[helborn]

"The world is a lot more connected than it used to be. It helps when you have transportation that can go faster than horses or ships."

You're doing great, sweetie. He's proud of you.

"They aren't, no. Most people find the dead scary or gross. Attitudes have shifted in the past few hundred years. Not all the dead bring ghosts, but those with strong enough unfinished business or attachments do."

[luciacorina]

"It's easy to travel all over the world?" She sounds a little wistful. She's been a wanderer since she escaped, but until finding herself here, she's never left Vankrik. Her feet can only take her so far. And she wants to know everything about everything! "I'd like to see the world."

"Even when it's their own loved ones? How strange. And sad. ...Did you have to help them with their unfinished business?"

[helborn]

"If you have the money or the means to do so, yes." He's gone across the continent, and that's been a rough trip in itself... "Seeing the world would be nice. I just have to help with things at home first."

He nods at the question. "Even then. But yes, I would deliver messages when I was younger - anonymously - or subtly try to nudge people towards finding what the ghosts wanted them to find. Sometimes it released them and sometimes it didn't... but I did my best."

[luciacorina]

Her wistful smile falters at the word home. "I don't have... anywhere to go back to. Only the road, and what I can carry with me. And what distance I can get from what I fled." She looks down and away, shadows on her face. "I won't go back."

"That sounds... somewhat challenging, in a world where only you could see the ghosts. I'm sure you did as well as one could!"

[helborn]

"It's okay. Not everyone has a home they like." He's not totally sure if he likes his home, given recent revelations. He's still processing that.

"And it was. I knew there had to be other people who could see them, but I didn't meet one until last year."

[luciacorina]

"By the time I made it back home, it... wasn't, anymore. I was in the Hall for longer, but it was never home. And now, I'm... here. Wherever here is. It's certainly darker than the Hall, and more unkempt."

"I think I prefer everyone being able to see them. It's simpler. Was it... reassuring, meeting someone else who could?"

[helborn]

"'The Hall'?" Like his mother's Hall? He's not sure. But just by how she's talking he's guessing some other kind of mead hall?

He nods at the question. Still... "It was pretty strange. Her father's a different death deity."

[luciacorina]

"Of the wood elves." She doesn't really want to think about this, but... Well, she might as well tell him and avoid further misunderstandings. "I was-- taken there. The Lady thought I would make a pleasing... pet." She shoves her hair out of her face, fidgeting nervously. "I mislike being abducted again. I barely escaped last time." And not with her skin intact, not that she knows that.

"Do many gods have children? I've never heard of such, though I suppose if no one advertises it, it would be quite easy to keep secret."

cw: (attempted) sexual assault

[helborn]

His brain screeches to a halt as she says that, his normally racing thoughts tumbling into a pile as one thought emerges, practically flashing in neon colors in his head.

Someone else understands.

It's not exactly the same, but it's close enough that his breath catches in his throat. He shoves his hands in his pockets to keep from rushing over and grabbing her, and his lip trembles. His voice too is shaky as he speaks up, despite his best attempts to sound calming and kind.

"You... too? It's not... it's not the same but... I was put in a situation like that, too. My friends thought it was funny... funny that I got trapped in a room with someone who wanted to..."

Shit. Is he crying? He can feel tears starting to prick at his eyes and he blinks hard, trying to banish them with all of his willpower. It only makes the feeling intensify, and he lets out a shuddering breath.

"I'm... I'm so sorry."

He'll... get to the god thing later. This... is more important.

[luciacorina]

"They-- funny? For someone to hold you against your will, try to take things you didn't want to give? That's-- those aren't friends." Lucia Corina feels very strongly on this point. She steps forward and puts a hesitant hand on his shoulder. "I was-- the wood elves like pretty things. The Lady liked to-- display her prizes, to have me play for her banquets, and she kept me... enthralled so that I couldn't think, for a... long time." She's still too afraid to work out the exact count of the years she lost, even though it would be easy, even though she's a historian and she knows exactly the events she could make the years against, and it takes actual effort to avoid knowing the number. She can't bear to know the weight of what was stolen. "I'm sorry they hurt you, too."

[helborn]

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. 'Those aren't friends'. Then what are they? Caspian's definitely not a friend, but the others? ... He's not sure. He opens his eyes and puts a hand on hers, giving it a very careful squeeze.

Better to focus on her issues than his own.

"Life... is hard. It's scary. But I'm used to bad things happening - I grew up with death as a constant companion and didn't know why until later. You... you're not like me. You shouldn't have had a life like that."

And yet he knows it happens anyway, whether he wants that to be true or not.

[luciacorina]

Friends care about you. They don't think it's funny when someone tries to hurt you. She'd hardly known Rue two days before he threw himself into a shattered nightmare to win her free of Gulda's enthrallment, because Rue was good, and he cared, even when he hardly knew her.

"I don't think you should have, either. Being a son of death doesn't mean that people should be cruel, or that it doesn't matter if someone hurts you, because something already did." She smiles a little, wry and wavering. "Or it wouldn't matter if anything hurt me now, would it? I had a long time to... get used to the way things were. Sometimes it's hard to believe I broke free at all. But I still try to--believe that it can be better."