forty-second 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: There's a strange sense of contentment that greets you as you wake from the jump. Deep and certain, it doesn't warm you or cloak the unpleasantness of the stasis fluid on your skin and the disorientation spinning in your head. It feels disconcertingly distant, instead, a sense as though an answer has been decided on - and that you won't much like to experience it coming to fruition...

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.

ＴＨ̀ＩＳ͜ ̶Ｉ͠Ｓ͡ ͘Ｙ̵Ｏ͝ＵＲ ̕Ｗ͝Ｅ̛Ｌ̨Ｃ͡Ｏ͝Ｍ͏Ｅ Ｐ̛ＡＲ̴ＴＹ͜

Comments

[foundafamily]

...Oh.

[He sounds a little relieved; maybe the guy isn't dead.]

Yeah, all right, people do disappear here sometimes. I'm not sure if they just went missin' or if they died, though. So be careful.

Are shards important?

[muscovy]

You lose your shard when you go away, and then there are less people that hate you but you lose your room in the castle and the free food there. So it is better to not lose it.

[foundafamily]

...Huh. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Kind of. He's just going to nod like it does, anyway.]

Food here's free, at least. But we can get kinda stuck for supplies, though, so it's good to be careful about it. You get a room too.

[muscovy]

[He can't quite believe that food is truly free, there has to be a catch (eat our food but fight our war when the time comes; eat our food but swear us loyalty; eat our food but - he could continue). But for now and until he has figured out, he'll take them up on it.]

What kind of room?

[foundafamily]

Your own room. A clean one, mostly secure.

[The latter was the most important to most people, he imagines.

He holds up his wrist, showing the nanite tattoo.]

You'd open it with these things. Your room's the same number that's right on here, though you should probably move up to levels 1-10.

[muscovy]

But how can I open a room that isn't mine, and won't the person whom it really belongs to be angry about me taking it?

[He peels his sleeve back to reveal his own tattoo and looks down at it, trying to figure it out.]

[foundafamily]

A lotta the people who had those rooms are gone now.

[Which might sound kind of ominous, so he punctuates it with a shrug and a smile.]

It ain't that hard to do. You just swipe those things like you would to open it and it, um... it just kinda sets itself. It wouldn't work if it was already somebody else's room.

[muscovy]

Did they die or go away?

...So I couldn't accidentally pick a room that someone owns already, and I can lock it once it is mine? [That sounds like the best possible ways in which this could happen.]

[foundafamily]

Eh... Both, I think. I'm not gonna lie to you, kid, people've died here--it can happen to anybody. Sometimes people just disappear and we don't know if they died or just... wound up somewhere else.

[He nods at the next question.]

Yeah, exactly!

[muscovy]

Some people cannot die. So it can't happen to anybody. [It's mostly semantics - the number of immortals that he knows of who can not be killed is pretty short and mostly includes entities that represent natural phenomena and nations. But still, he feels that he should correct it.]

[foundafamily]

...Look, normally I'd agree with you on that.

[He frowns, both at the thought that he could be talking to another immortal and at the fact that he's going to have to deliver this bad news as well.]

But it's not exactly like that here. If you've got anything that pieces you back together, for example, it's not gonna work. 'Least not as well as it did.

[He tried to hold back from mentioning that he had encountered this problem firsthand, but he still found himself hesitant about talking about his immortality too much.]

[muscovy]

[He puzzles over that explanation for a little bit.

And while he's still not sure in the end if what he thought he understood is right, the thing that he thinks he understood is scary enough for him to look at Firo with wide eyes.] Even the General could be killed?

[foundafamily]

[Firo watches carefully, afraid that he may have been too quick with the warning. But it's necessary, isn't it?]

General who? Probably.

[muscovy]

General Winter.

He is like Mr. Jack Frost, just older, and he sometimes comes to help me.

[foundafamily]

Sorry, never heard a' him.

It's like this for everyone, though, so, yeah, he'd be stuck like us too. Doesn't matter if you're immortal or not human or whatever.

[muscovy]

How?

[It really... makes no sense. How would you even kill a nation or someone like General Winter? They are just... beings that exist. You can't just make a whole nation die with a few stabs of a sword.

Also dying is always scary, but for it to suddenly be a permanent option for him...]

[foundafamily]

How? I have no idea.

[He shrugs. He's managed to figure out that his regeneration is greatly impaired, but he has no idea how.]

Whatever you've got that keeps you alive, they just... I dunno, somethin' found a way to mess with it or take it away.

[muscovy]

...So I would die if someone shot me in the head?

[Humans die when that happens to them.]

[foundafamily]

[He doesn't reply right away, feeling a bit like a jerk for saying this to a kid.]

...Yeah, you would. So let's make sure that doesn't happen, huh?

Since you asked, I'm guessin' it usually wouldn't be like that for you?

cw gory imaginary

[muscovy]

I always try not to let it happen because it hurts and it means that my people aren't well. And it hurts even more to get the arrow back out of your head. [Reasons why he sometimes leaves them there for a bit. Surgical operations on your own head aren't the easiest thing around.

He slowly shakes his head at the question.] We stay as long as we have people.

[foundafamily]

[Even having died himself and knowing another immortal child, Firo can't deny that there's something disturbing about watching a little kid talk about taking a freaking arrow out of their head. He blinks and tries to keep smiling. Without much success.]

Uh... Yeah, that doesn't sound fun. But you're the only person I've seen so far with a bow and arrow, so hopefully you don't hafta worry about that.

[He frowns, thinking harder about the kid's words.]

...You wouldn't happen to be like Ned and Russia, would ya? They talked about their "people" too.

1/2

[muscovy]

But people will still have weapons, or use things as weapons, and there will always be things that can get stuck. [So even if he is the only one with bow and arrow, something similar could still happen. He really hopes that it doesn't, but you can't just rule out things like that.]

2/2

[muscovy]

[But then Firo continues and Muscovy's eyes go wide, the bright purple in them very visible as he looks up at the other immortal.

Russia. He doesn't know who Ned is, but he has heard the name of Russia, and he has been told that it is likely that Russia is a nation that he will once become - it seems to cover the area that he lives in, the capital is Moscow which is one of his own capitals. And he knows that Russia is strong and has many friends. He was looking forward to becoming Russia.

But what does it mean then that there is a Russia here?]

There is a Russia here?

[foundafamily]

[Well, at least this kid is savvy. Though, admittedly, Firo'd hoped that his comment would be a bit more comforting.

He blinks at the kid's reaction and then it hits him. Oh, crap, those eyes are pretty damn similar.

He's hesitant as he continues.]

Er, there was. I... I don't think he's around anymore. He was a big guy, kinda hard to miss.

[muscovy]

Was he your friend?

[He's asking both to know how Firo thought about him and... if they were friends, Firo should know a good deal about that Russia, shouldn't he?]