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

it's okay on all accounts!!

[consequence]

[Getting away from Tyler had been one thing, but now she's realizing just how easy it's going to be to smell this blood. This jar definitely isn't vacuum-sealed and the longer it takes her to move through the crowd, the more the scent is going to spread to her.

Her hand shoves her Goldfish crackers on top of the folded jacket, as she needs to brush her hair out of her face. She moves through the group, trying to just get out of there, but she can feel someone behind her. It's not a comforting feeling and now she wishes she hadn't gotten rid of Tyler so quickly.

She shifts her grip on the jar and just stops suddenly, stepping to the left so that whoever is behind her is going to have to either keep going, or make themselves known.]

ty!! <33

[humanistic]

[She knows that she's being watched. There's something about the way that she holds her shoulders--a shift, barely perceptible, maybe a little quickness to her step but not one that anyone else would notice. It's just that Mitchell is good at this. Stalking, following, hunting. He can play a long game, but he's always liked the pursuit, and his hunger is like a live thing in him, urging him on. It makes him grin, a little, when he realises that she knows. It makes him keep following behind her.

When she stops, steps aside--he walks past her, just as if he meant to. He doesn't even look at her. But he's trembling right on the edge, walking that thin line--like if he smells that blood again, he's going to go for it, manifest, all at once, black eyes and fangs.

Instead, he walks a few steps past her. And then he turns, almost casually, to look over his shoulder at her.]

You all right?

[It's not out of kindness, that he asks. There's something else in his voice, something sharp. It's the hunger that's pushed him this close, made him this desperate. He's done so well with hiding what he is, for so long, but that only makes it a more precious edge to tread.]

[consequence]

[She knows that was too easy. Too smooth for someone to just pass it off like that. Even if they hadn't been following her, she's seen the Bourne movies too many times to think anything is a coincidence. She wishes she had left it in her locker and gone back for it later. When no one was around, but she didn't want to risk someone taking it.]

Yeah. [She brushes it off casually.] I had one of those did I leave the stove on moments. I think I left something in my locker, but I can come back for it.

[She had left something, so at least that wasn't a lie.]

[humanistic]

Yeah?

[He looks past her, back the way that they've both just come. Keeping calm is taking some serious effort, with the smell of that blood in his nose, flooding his senses. His fingers curl a little in a grip on nothing, and then loosen, almost compulsively.]

Why not go back for it now?

[consequence]

It's... a feminine thing.

[It worked getting Tyler to back off. Maybe it'd work for this guy, too.]