The Reality Project [PG-13]

[John A. Zoidberg]

[Spoiler=Prologue]

Imagine this: You’re walking down the street. You’re meeting with people you care about. All is well, until [i]it [/i]happens. A bus comes, or you get shot, or stabbed, or even have a deathly seizure. You feel like you’re going to be dead forever, like this is the end, like you will never breathe again. The only difference is, you will. Moments later, you are born again, like nothing ever happened.
That’s what [i]they [/i]decided to create. Something that not allow you to die. However, there are limits. The biggest problem with that is that [i]they [/i]don’t tell you the limits. They don’t tell you that they want your death. They don’t tell you that you’re merely a test subject.
“Plug him in,” they’ll say, “Set the counter to fifteen. This one’s lucky.”
“Yes sir,” the other will reply, “What about this one?”
“Only 3,” they will say again, “I’m not feeling very generous towards him.”
That one was referring to the man that spit on him after regaining consciousness. You see, these are what you would call the Keepers. The one’s that plug in, set counters, and wait for the others, that is. The Keepers, at first, seem to be Gods, in a sense. In the end, however, you find that they are just murderers. They are evil.
So, the Keepers are collectors, in a sense. But they do more than collect. They also observe, study, learn. It’s, in a sense, interesting how they go about this. They kidnap. Then, they sedate. Then, they start the machines, and the unfortunate get shot into a new life, beginning from the age that they were before they started the machines. They live until the day they die (which incidentally, only takes a few moments in the real world), then, when they die, the counter is decreased by one. The counter then decreases by one each time they die, until it reaches the number one.
That’s when the evil is invoked.
He who is inside the machine gets a new life, fully aware of the fact that they just lived multiple others, and that they were on their last. Everyone currently in a machine is now in the same world, and they are aware of each other, despite having never met. Worst of all, however, they are aware that now, if they die inside the machine while the counter is on one, they die forever, in both the machine and the real world. The Keepers take advantage of this. They put themselves inside the machine with a counter of two, for another Keeper to pull them out just in case one of the men inside the machine gains strength.
The Keepers outside of the machines study until all of the subjects are dead, and then they move on to new subjects, and more research. They start a new Reality Project.
[/spoiler]

The prologue is relatively short since the introduction of characters would have made things a bit too fast, but the chapters will follow all rules (I believe prologues don't follow the 2 page minimum anyway).

I AM accepting character applications for now, as I'll need 10 and I only have 4 of those 10 started.
[spoiler=Character Applications]
Name:
Age:
Gender:
Real World Career:
Counter Number:
Personality:
Bio:
[/spoiler]

To any that do submit character's thank you, and hopefully this will be a relatively successful project.

[Umbra]

Oh my oh my, this sounds interesting. Definitely a bit of a switch from all of the YGO fanfics around here. I'll make sure to follow this one.

I'll submit a character too, just give me a moment. Ten characters is a bit too large of an ensemble to start with, though, especially since the characters with counters won't actually [i]meet [/i]unless their counters are at one.

That said, there's the one hole in the plot right there. If the Keepers come in whenever someone's counters hit one, and each "life" only takes a few moments in the real world, then wouldn't they have to pretty much stay plugged in constantly? Seems like a fairly boring existence, even for the kind of research you could get from it.