fortieth 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: Nothing unusual greets you as you wake from the grav couch this month. Disorientation and discomfort, but those are familiar in the process. As you shower and dress, you find yourself waiting for something to change, but nothing happens - it leaves a curious feeling of lack, as if someone important has turned their attention away from you. But it would be silly to feel bad about an easy jump, wouldn't it?

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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ＹＯＵ͘ ̨ＷＡＫＥ̢ ̧ＵＰ ́ＩＮ ＤＡ̛ＲＫＮ̢Ｅ̕ＳＳ̶

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

[gowrong]

[ He's giving her a reproachful lecture about safety, and all the while all she can do is stare at the handle and try not to retch. At least right now she's all cried out and isn't making a complete fool of herself in front of this stranger, just a slight fool from the way he's talking to her.

And really, when it comes down to it, does she? Want to save her life? Her impromptu cliff diving hadn't been successful. But waking up on this ship hardly felt like a second chance; more like fate mocking her. And what good would a tiny knife do against a proverbial lynch mob? Not much. Not any. ]

I just, I don't want that knife. Can't I have a different one?

[ And she casts a forlorn glance back over at her locker, which is only home to her dirty old earth clothes now. You get what you get, Charlotte. ]

[tatakai]

[She's certainly afraid and Eren can't blame her for it, but she seems more afraid of the knife and what it would mean in her own hands than she does what's surrounding her right now. It boggles him, but only as much as the other cadets who had wept and scraped by during training if they hadn't just dropped out entirely. He'd spent more than enough time fighting people on things he couldn't really change.

[It didn't mean he was stopping any time soon, but he had definitely wasted a lot of breath.

[Something about her age resonates with him despite it, but she seems about as old as he was when he started training. He was a different person then too.]

You're not going to find one in there.

[But she really isn't reaching for it, still, and his hand finally drops. He doesn't look as irritated as he'd been initially, but he doesn't look resolute yet either. A few choice muttered curses fall out of his mouth, but he only bends to slide out his own knife. It's a simple military issue blade, more for utility than killing, but it serves the same purpose - and is visibly better than the one she's rejecting. He holds one in either hand, flashing each blade towards her so she can see them in comparison.] Look-

[He's as nonthreatening as he can manage to be while he's holding two knives and she's holding none, particularly when he offers her both handles this time so that she has to make a choice.]

I don't know what's going on here, but I think a lot of people don't. [It's one thing he learned from all his smashing around the medbay, anyway.] You don't have to tell me what this knife means either because it's not my business. They say you have nothing but time when you're in a cage, and still most people here will not want to ask you what you've done. Worse than that, they might ask for an answer they're not prepared to hear, and it will only serve to hurt both people anyway.

[Where was his point? He gestures with the knives one final time and urges her with his eyes, nodding between the two of them.]

It doesn't matter where this knife ends up if you let it haunt you. It's only an object, and people have done much worse with objects than the other way around. If you think you can't get over it, you can always take it back when you're ready and I'll hold onto it. If you're never ready- [Well, it won't much matter what knife he has in his hand if someone attacks him anyway. He can do terrible things all on his own.]

Just take a damn knife, would you? It doesn't matter which one, so long as you don't give up already!

[sheesh god]