thirty-ninth 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: A feeling of deep dread greets you as you stumble out of the gravcouch, strong enough to hold you still for a long moment, searching your surroundings for the source of your wariness. Nothing becomes apparent, only your fellow passengers waking up. Eventually you gather the resolve to pick yourself up and start moving, the feeling fading slowly as you progress through routine.

New arrivals will find messages spraypainted across their lockers telling them not to follow their tattoo numbers, and instead to find a room on Floors 001-010.


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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.

ＹＯ́Ｕ̴ ̧Ａ̨ＲＥ ＮＯＴ҉ ̷ＡＬＯ̨ＮＥ҉

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.

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Comments

[alldamned]

And there it is. That's the reason, what he'd never bothered to say the last time they'd met and found themselves at odds. The reason he's so damn volatile is that he failed, like Benny had failed, like they all fail at one point or another, but then he just-- what? Just stopped? Let it beat him? Decided it was all or nothing and let that mindset grind him down until there was nothing left?

"You fell off the wagon."

It's a gentler way of putting it than he'd usually have chosen.

"Shit. You think you're the only one?" There's something more to it than he says; he'd gone off the rails himself and he still wasn't okay, still wasn't over it and wasn't sure he would be anytime soon, but lashing out at the only people out there who might actually understand? That wasn't the way.

"You ain't the only one who's tired, who's screwed it up. Nobody's askin' you to smile, nobody's expecting you to go to meetings and shake hands and pretend this ain't what it is, but hell, you gotta be accountable to someone. You try doin' it on your own and it'll break you in the worst way."

[humanistic]

As inspirational speeches go, it's not exactly the best. It works with shared failure, and what's inspirational about that? Because that's what Benny means, he knows it. You're not the only one, and that only deepens that empty feeling in Mitchell. His shoulders hunched, he laughs again, once, low and miserable.

"Christ, mate. I didn't fall. I jumped. I chose it. I killed-- twenty people, twenty defenseless fucking people, and then I came here and I pretended like I hadn't. Like it didn't matter. And it worked, and I thought I had it. It was my friends, I was accountable to them, and it was enough. And then--"

He thinks of Sally, that savage bite to her throat--and Kate, on the floor in the pool of her own blood, and he'd fucking left her for dead--Hook, the sharp tear of that bullet, it wouldn't have stopped him if he'd let it--Peter, waiting till he was this easy fucking target and going for him--and Ellie, before any of them, she was a fucking kid, he'd have killed her if he had the chance--and the pirate girl, months, and months ago, she'd screamed so loud--

He shoves his fingers through his hair again, gripping tight, like that's going to do anything. "It wasn't enough." Misery strains those words, forced out from between his teeth. "It wasn't enough. There's nothing out there that stops it. Being accountable--Jesus, that's just words. That's nothing. What the hell are you accountable to, that keeps you so fucking good."

[alldamned]

Shared failure. It might not be all that inspiring, but it's what they have in common, a place to start-- or start over, as the case may be, something they've both probably already had their fill of, but it doesn't matter. Being tired isn't enough reason to stop, to give up, even if it feels like that's the only option left.

He sighs, raking a hand through his short hair before fixing the other vampire with a hard look; for all his frustration, he understands. He'd given up. He'd decided that nothing would ever be enough and he'd let his head get taken clean off, let himself get sent back to Purgatory.

It hadn't helped anything. Then he'd been yanked out, shoved here and as hellish as this place was, it was another chance, one he knew damn well he didn't deserve but that he'd better take.

"I ain't that good, but I've got people countin' on me. I've got friends, too-- not a lot, I'll grant you that, but enough that I don't wanna disappoint them all over again. I gave up before I got here. Let myself get driven to the end of the line because I thought it would just be easier to be dead, not have to deal with bein' hungry than to even try to be good. Did that and I still wound up here, with those same friends starin' me in the face, expectin' me to hang on and stay on the wagon and the thought of them seein' me anything like what I used to be-- it just ain't an option. I can't go back."