EVENT: MELPOMENE ▒ THE CORRIDORS

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Corridors in the belly of the Tranquility
WARNINGS: Creepiness, paranoia, disturbing imagery, violence.
SUMMARY: Characters head out into the corridors in the hopes of rescuing their lost and begin to experience strange and harrowing phenomena.
NOTES: Open to all! Covers Stages One & Two of the plot, June 22 onwards.

The hallways stretch on into a deep darkness ahead of you. You've been out here before, or heard of what happens to those who do — it'd be enough to make anyone turn back. But there are people lost out there that have called for your help, and you're prepared to do what you have to to save them. Aren't you?

Comments

[50000volts]

Look, Ryuuzaki is like at least twice as many syllables as the names of Darcy's friends back home. Lopping off excess is a sign of affection.

So is worry, which Darcy is displaying in abundance as she hurries to L's side. "I don't see her anymore," which is about as gone as she's willing to pronounce the red-headed woman. "She burned you?" Her examination is strictly visual, rather than physical. Nicknames are the only boundary she'll cross right now.

[ryuuzaki]

"It feels..." (more panting, and when he speaks again, his voice is stronger) "...it's hot, but like a fever, like having the flu. I don't think it's a real burn."

His legs are shaky, but they hold him up. He reaches the water in the pack. Darcy looks concerned, but he's not sure she needs to be.

As he collects himself, and the sensation continues to recede, becoming less intense discomfort, something comes to mind. He has felt heat like this before, but only in his dreams of Charlotte, six months ago, when he hadn't woken up after a jump.

"I hardly saw her. She was wearing one of the black jumpsuits?"

He fiddles with the little bottle and takes a sip of the water.

[50000volts]

Darcy nods shakily, obviously more rattled by this situation than he is. Then again, he's seen a lot more shit around here than she has. Maybe she'll be calm about this stuff as he is someday. Not the most comforting thought. "Yeah," she confirms. "She was dressed like one of us, but I didn't recognize her either." Lily Potter - not that Darcy knows her name - is the only new arrival with red hair to immediately spring to mind, and she knows that wasn't her.

"But are you okay?"

[ryuuzaki]

"I think I will be, in a few minutes. It's fading, but not as quickly as it came on."

He lets out a heavy sigh, and takes another sip of water. Darcy looks frightened. Maybe they should turn back, if they can, if they're not already well and truly lost.

"She walked right through me, and she was wearing a black jumpsuit -- crew issue, to my knowledge. Neither of us recognize her, and it's my job to stare at the network all day. If there had been a video post, she would have looked at least a little bit familiar.

"I don't believe in ghosts. Do you?"

[50000volts]

"I believe in magic," because she has definitely seen that with her own two eyes, even if Jane calls it science, "so I guess ghosts wouldn't be much of a stretch? Ghosts are never my first suspicion." Though in this case... Well, that was just strange. People aren't meant to walk through other people, but Darcy fancies Jane Foster's face lighting up and giving a perfectly scientific explanation for such a phenomenon. Which makes her smile for a brief moment in spite of herself.

"You have a theory?"

[ryuuzaki]

"It's been decades since the original crew was on the ship. But we know that the layout changes between jumps... that would mean the internal structure of the ship is changing, to some extent. The jump drive..." (he pauses, takes another small sip of the water) "... the jump drive supposedly does weird things on a space/time level.

"I'm not a physicist, but if we're not talking about ghosts, then it seems like it might be worth investigating a theory of occasionally overlapping realities. There's evidence for them. The trouble is that it would be hard to say how often they overlap, and past that, I'm not sure how to go about investigating something like that. It seems to happen when it happens." He cocks his head to the side before adding, "Although messages from Smiley certainly tend to herald it."

[50000volts]

"Decades?" One area in which Darcy doesn't necessarily excel in is doing her homework, as evidenced by the way she continues to react to this information. She doesn't dwell on that portion, however, despite her brows coming together in consternation. "Time is overlapping? I'm only a political scientist, but I've spent enough time around Jane - she would love this, by the way - so, I feel like that's entirely plausible. Especially given the whole... jump drive weirdness."

See? At least something makes sense. In the fact that it doesn't really make any sense at all. "What is Smiley anyway?"

[ryuuzaki]

He shakes his head, then raises his shoulders in a shrug. Everything hurts less than it had a few minutes earlier, when even moving much had seemed like a bad proposition. He might be able to start moving to rejoin the other group again soon.

"I can't say that we really know. If it's Gallagher, something seems to have happened to him around the time of the first jump.

"I'd hate to think that Smiley is a ghost -- it would be ridiculous -- although all of this does sometimes seem to have aspects of a classic haunting, almost to a stereotypical degree. In the real world, wouldn't that usually be a cover for something? It's hard to believe that the ship might be full of 'angry spirits,' " (he doesn't cover his sarcasm there), "or that the captain might have somehow merged with it... it sounds like a bad movie.

"The trouble is, if we're dealing with something like multiple timelines or overlapping realities, everything becomes a lot more..." His words trail off.

The problem with Darcy's face comes on suddenly: it's like black oil has appeared under her skin, blurring and obscuring her features, threatening to remake them. It initially seems like a trick of the poor lighting, or of what had just happened to him, and it causes him to peer at her, squinting.

It's alarming when you're not expecting it, he thinks, but it would be worse if you had no idea what it was, if you had never seen anything like it before.

[50000volts]

"You've had an awful lot of time to think about all of this, haven't you?" Which is a point of concern, for Darcy, as it cements the fact that she really may never get out of this place. Even though 'a couple of years' is a drop in the bucket in comparison to 'forever.' "It's making my head hurt," she groans with a frown, fingers coming up to rub at her temple.

Her features scrunch up when she catches L staring at her. "What are you looking at?" She looks over her shoulder quickly just to be certain that there isn't someone (or something) right behind her. With that satisfied, she brushes her fingers over one cheek. "Have I got something on my face?"

gosh, kid, TAKE NOTES

[ryuuzaki]

He doesn't really have time to respond to her first question before the illusion (or hallucination, or whatever it is) kicks in. His impulse is to laugh: You could say that, Darcy. 'A lot of time to think about it' is an understatement, but he's not very much closer to a solution than he ever was.

In some intrinsic way, his life has been wrecked. It's obvious, and it's not because of any of his own mistakes, and all he can do in response is to try to understand the details of how and why it's happened, try to figure out whether or not it can be undone. It's a selfish goal, he has no misconceptions about that (wouldn't almost anyone want out of here, if they had somewhere better to go?), but it benefits everyone if it happens.

As it is, her features rearrange themselves in a haze, and he moves immediately on. His face falls into a neutral expression.

"No."

Earlier in the... how long have they been out here?... he had occasionally felt the impulse to run from the group they had been walking with, the momentary conviction that none of them could be trusted. The few times it had come on, it had passed just as quickly.

Darcy is armed, but so is he, and he's willing to bet that he's the better shot. That might turn out to be important.

"Nothing is wrong with you. I saw something weird. I've heard about it happening before, but I haven't experienced it myself until now."

That's not strictly true: he's experienced Ilona Matine's experience of it, secondhand, and it hadn't been pleasant then. But that suddenly seems like a lot to explain to Darcy.

"If I start to look strange to you, please tell me. Things could get bad if we aren't careful not to act on it."