EVENT: BIA ▒ STERN

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: The stern areas of the ship
WARNINGS: Disturbing imagery, violence, psychological trauma, gore, etc.
SUMMARY: Characters have to fight to find their way back to each other from being increasingly isolated and plagued by their deepest fears and most hopeful dreams.
NOTES: May 27 onwards.

An echoing boom comes from deep in the middle of the ship, shakes its way through the trees and waters of the Oxygen Gardens, down into the maze of walkways and mechanics that make up the Engineering Complex. A sense of danger rolls through with it, enough to make you pause in your work, set down tools or supplies, ignore the thrumming pain in your head to find out what. Trapped far away from the comforts of beds and kitchens and slow approaching necessity of gravcouches, you only have each other to turn to. But soon that grows difficult, turnings leading you off path, door slamming shut behind you. In the increasing isolation panic swells like an infection up through your mind-- but then soothes. You find your way into an unexpected comfort, the company of a long-gone friend, an old home filled with happy memories. You linger, drift into contentment, and yet it still can't calm one deep nagging doubt: you aren't safe where you've found yourself.

Comments

[yardbird]

Why not? [He scoffs.] It's happened before.

[He makes a face at the lift, and then looks back to her, a little more anxiously.]

Well, at least we've still got a few days before it's that time.

[songburdened]

It has?

[ She swallows, expression mellow, a little wary. ]

... What happens if you're caught outside of the... couches? Do you suffocate?

[yardbird]

Worse than that.

[More like crushed to death. Or, that's what their remains look like afterwards. Murphy's seen what happens to those who miss jumps; it's enough to make his stomach roil.]

Let's... just say you don't wanna be anywhere but the pods when jump time comes.

[songburdened]

[ She knows what "worse than suffocation" might mean, or thinks she does. She imagines the monsters from the hallways, and then allows her imagination to jump to whatever possible horrors she could conceive of happening to a person in outer space.

Again, she shivers, nodding slowly. ]

Okay. So... we need to make sure we can get back there. [ And Elizabeth frowns, glancing around slowly. ] Where do we start?

[yardbird]

[At her question, Murphy just sighs.]

Shit, I dunno... Guess we could... double back or somethin', to the gardens. Check to see if anything else works.

[He steps away from the lift, and starts heading the direction he'd come from.]

Who knows? Maybe there's a lift 'round here that still works.

[Hahahahaha no such luck though.]

[songburdened]

Okay! I think we'll be safest there, anyway.

[ He may or may not know how fond she is of the gardens. Elizabeth starts off as he moves, worrying at her lip. ]

If only we could be that lucky. Somehow, I doubt it would happen...