twenty-eighth jump;

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Gravity Couches and beyond.
WARNINGS: Maybe some swearing, or even some violence, and more than likely some implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Another month, another jump, another round of new faces.
NOTES: It could just be the standard sensation of air on wet skin, but if you bother to check, you might notice the steam rising from your body, barely there and gone within a minute. By the time you get to the showers, it will be clear that it's not just taking you time to adjust. The room is cold — colder than usual, but no worse than the last jump. While it's nothing dangerous, it's certainly motivation to hurry through the usual routine and get dressed quickly.



It's getting closer.




YOUR EYES ARE OPEN.

KEEP LOOKING.

You wake up in darkness.

There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Upon registering your level of consciousness, the gravity couch drains the fluid surrounding you and retracts the breathing apparatus; the doors in front of you open, and you're deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

You are not alone.
There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. Others have much less amiable plans. Some are merely alien and inexplicable, but there are always those who might mean you harm.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Comments

laughing already

[capsize]

[ it's hard to miss the flight response regardless of how quickly it's crushed. the wry response does more to confuse it than clarify, if only because hook can't quite decide if it's an awkward joke or strangely deflective.

the directness of the follow-up is appreciated, but— ]

Virginia. [ what a ridiculous name. but if he's mentioning it, it must somehow be relevant to the question. ] Is that near New York?

[look]

[ okay, so it's possible that the guy doesn't actually know where new york is, which makes will's forehead wrinkle as he tries to re-parse the purpose of the original question. ]

Depends on how you define "near". It's about six hours south of it. Both are a long way from here, though.

[capsize]

[ the confusion's mutual, though the considering look hook gives him is one part bemused, one part distracted impatience. he still manages to bring a nearly earnest levity to his tone, as if being encouraging will wring out a more useful reply. ]

And how is it you define "long way", precisely? Because I'm all out of magic beans, and I'd hate to keep my friends waiting.

[ "friends" here being the dying rumplestiltskin, obviously. ]