It's all happened before...

[grimgrinningghosts]

[You wake up in a plush bed, well rested but very confused. As you become more conscious, one thing becomes abundantly clear: this is not your room, nor does this look like any bedroom you’ve ever been in before. It’s relatively clean room, but immediately something feels… off about all of this.

When you start exploring, a thing you’ll soon notice is that on the bedside table, there is a room key sitting ontop of a neatly typed note.]

Dear hotel guests,

We cordially invite you to come to the downstairs library at noon for an important meeting regarding your stay in the Hollywood Tower Hotel. Before then, we invite you to make full use of the amenities this hotel has provided for you.

On behalf of the hotel staff, we dearly hope you enjoy your stay in this marvelous hotel.

-HTH Management

[But, as you leave the comfort of your new bedroom, any hope that you somehow booked a hotel room the previous night and just forgot is immediately dashed. It looks like this hotel hasn’t been cleaned in decades, and despite the mention of hotel staff in your note, there doesn’t appear to be anyone working here.

Not to say that you’re alone, however. As you explore the hotel, you’ll soon find that there are 23 others in the exact same situation as you: confused and with no memory of how they got here. And to make matters worse, if the bios you stumble upon in the dining area is anything to go by, this clearly isn't just a freak accident.

Get comfy, because you are all in for a wild ride.]

Comments

[fairlypushy]

I'm - [Amanda breathes in sharply and then exhales slowly.] I'm fine.

[She doesn't sound fine, wiping her tears away, but she's not crying anymore when she looks up.]

Sorry to worry you - [She blinks.] Oswald?

[forgottenfounder]

Yeah, that's my-- [...] My name.

[He'd offer her some tissues, but he doesn't have any?]

Gosh, you don't have to worry about me, I'm the one that's supposed to be worried about someone crying.

[fairlypushy]

You can talk. [She says it with quiet awe.] I'm sorry, we. We never met - I was helping the Kingdom Keepers in the battle against the Overtakers at Disneyland. Finn -

[The word dies on her tongue and her eyes water. When she speaks again, it's quieter.]

Finn spoke highly of you and the others.

[forgottenfounder]

Finn? Disneyland? Kingdom Kee- Hang on!

[He shakes his head hands up in the "stop" gesture. Because please, stop.]

You know me? [...this is the most important.] There's someone else that knows who I am?

[fairlypushy]

Am I not supposed to?

[Something has changed since she came back from - where did she go again? Regardless, this could be something new - some kind of . . . regulation that Joe put in place? No, that didn't make any sense. Everyone was there to help. To keep the kingdom safe.]

Finn said you lived on Buena Vista Street and if I ever saw you, I should say hello.

[forgottenfounder]

That's... [unbelievable. Indescribable. Here's a legitimately human person, telling him that he's walking around an actual theme park?]

No, you're not supposed to know who I am, because no one remembers me. [He can't believe he has to say that.] To the world, I'm just some small bump in the road for someone else's success.

[fairlypushy]

We didn't forget you, there was just some trouble getting you home.

[She doesn't know the full details - it was just something they went over in her classes briefly - but she knows that nobody at Disney ever forgot.]

. . . There's been a lot of that lately.

[forgottenfounder]

[this... it messes with him, a little. He doesn't know quite what to say. People still remembered him? they wanted him back? A while ago, it would have been his greatest dream. Now...?

He still can't feel the thump in his chest, so nothing's changed.]

Look. I'm sorry, but I think there's some things neither of us really know. What did you say your name was? [did she?]

[fairlypushy]

Amanda. [She holds out the hand she didn't wipe her tears all over.] Sorry, I got so caught up I forgot to introduce myself.

[forgottenfounder]

[He accepts it with both hands, shaking lightly, though he keeps a concerned look on his face.]

Amanda, it's... nice to meet you. I've never met someone who wasn't a... Toon before.

[He has, but. That was complicated.]

[fairlypushy]

A Toon? [Like Toon Town???] Is that what you all call yourselves?

[She's, uh. Been fighting a war? So she didn't have time to ask that sort of question.]

[forgottenfounder]

...Yeah. Because I'm a Cartoon?

[It's... the most obvious thing in the world to him??]

And... you're not. At least, you don't look like one.

[fairlypushy]

No, I'm a Kingdom Keeper. Sometimes the other Toons call us Children of Light, because we glow when we're all clear.

[She's not glowing right now, mainly because she's not crossed over, but she can.]

[forgottenfounder]

Well I've never heard of that one before... strange.

[Stranger still that there's something he doesn't know? Huh.]

But that must mean... you're a person! Not a Toon or anything like that. That's remarkable!

[fairlypushy]

[?????]

I'm only sort of a person. [She rubs the back of her neck nervously.] They, um. Do you know what a hologram is?

[forgottenfounder]

[????????]

Actually, yeah. But you look just like a normal person to me.

[...] Are you saying that you're a hologram?

[fairlypushy]

Partially. Right now I'm - I think I'm human? [She hastily touches her hand to the ground and sighs in relief when it touches.] Anyway, they - humans can't normally see Toons outside regular operating hours so they invented the Daylight Hologram Imaging program to . . . change the way our brains work so we could see then Toons and help them out, if they needed it.

[forgottenfounder]

"Operating hours"? "Daylight Hologram Imaging"? [It sounds almost as crazy when he says it!]

That... doesn't make any sense though; humans aren't able to see Toons when they're not in the Toon World, and even then it's only through the cartoons. And I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I'm even here.

[fairlypushy]

We're not really -

[If you thought the last thing she said was crazy, boy. Get ready for my favorite fucking Kingdom Keepers nonsense.]

Wayne made use of the television wavelengths that he was developing to turn us into something that could be transmitted through a television and be on the same wavelength as Toons. We're not really human, and we're not really holograms - we're data that can be broadcast wherever necessary.

[I'd like to remind the readers at home that Kingdom Keepers is written for ages 10 to 14 and therefore contains absolutely no discussion of the horrifying implications in the Walt Disney Company turning five kids into what are effectively living computer programs without their consent.]

[forgottenfounder]

...Oh.

[What else can you say to that? Oh yeah.]

So, you managed to travel into a state where you can see Toons. Sounds like something similar to how the projector system works back in the Wasteland. [Or it's just what he equates this to best.] Well, at least it looks like you're human now, so you must have come back out again.

[fairlypushy]

Mostly we turn back into humans, yeah. But if the place where our hologram halves are kept has a power outage or something, we faint like we've been turned off.

[Because that's fine.]

It's not really . . . they were trying to fix it, but it came with even more problems.

[forgottenfounder]

Problems, huh... sounds like a job for the Gremlins. When we get outta here, I could point you in Gus's direction, if you want?

[Nothing a good whack with a wrench couldn't fix! Literally.]