forty-fourth 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: Awareness comes to you slowly in the smothering quiet of the blue fluid. In the light piercing through from the medical bay you realise there's a shadow, a figure stood at the glass of your gravcouch, a hand pressed to the surface just above your face. Fear spikes through your gut as waves of alien sensation crash into your mind, a rage that feels endless, all-consuming, furious, molten hatred that you know is for you.

When the fluid drains, door sliding open to deposit you on the medbay floor, you remember it. Remember it coming again and again, like a nightmare that plagued your sleep over and over, leaving you with no respite, no rest. Days. Perhaps even longer.

You remember that the light coming through from behind the shadow was red.

New arrivals will find messages spray-painted in red 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.

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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

[dogbane]

[William ends up with a towel in his hands, and no Heather at all. Half-remembering Minho's face from the network, he looks at the younger man with a brief, blank face of confusion, trying to determine if his familiarity is important to the current events or n

thump interrupts his train of thought; along with crack. It was stupid to think she was just going to claw at the glass, perhaps peer mournfully into the trained tube. William's head snaps around again. He blurts,] Thanks-- yes. Think so, but, [and doesn't know how to complete that sentence, gesturing helplessly toward Heather with his pitiful handful of towel.

Helpless does not mean one doesn't try, though. His damp footfalls take him toward Heather again, his course turning to target her prosthetic side.] Heather, love-- [the loose edge of the towel flops out of his hand. He makes to net her in terrycloth, but less interested in concealing her breasts or belly than to pad the recent ruin of her thigh bones. He is dimly aware that encountering Snape's empty pod, a few Jumps ago, is only the most minute conceivable fraction of this.] Heather, fucking stop--

[He should probably articulate some kind of reasoning for why she ought to. You know. Takeshi, the Agriculture department that's going to need her more than ever now, her own safety, William's personal fragility, blah blah. But he understands enough about heartbreak-- or rather, his understanding of heartbreak is such that all of that bullshit seems pointless and useless to the point of offensive. Grief is inconquerable. All he can do is try to save her leg, and pull her away from the indifferent glass.]

[yardbird]

[For once in his damned life, Murphy isn't concerned with the modesty of himself or the others in the pod room around him. He's wearing pants at least -- soaked, blue-gooped pants -- when he hears the sound of cracking and clawing. Heather's voice, not too far off (in the grav couches, he always at least tries to stick close to family).

[He doesn't ask anyone what has happened; he's seen it and has been there many times before. No doubt talking about it right now would only make the situation infinitely worse.

[Nausea and humility aside, Murphy is quick to heed Heather's distress. With William using his towel skills, Murphy makes it to Heather's other side, going to touch her by the shoulder.]

C'mon, we should...

[Should what? He can't finish that train of thought. Just focus on trying to get her away from the pod and to the medbay before she wrecks herself.]

ROLLS IN SCREAMING AND ON FIRE

[throwsdown]

Mom?

[Takeshi's meek voice speaks up — he stands at a distance, half-hidden behind a pod with wide, anxious eyes, unsure what's happening. He'd just... He had helped some people out, and now he's come to find Heder and Ned because they were taking a real, real long time to join him at the lockers like they usually do... And now this...

It doesn't take long for Takeshi to put two and two together, though. Dad's not here. He's not here, and that means Takeshi may not see his dad ever again — and that is terrifying, but it's all in the back of his mind for now when he sees his mother's distress. Instantly he remembers his old life, in the blink of an eye: a hysterical mom, a dead father, and then... and then after that... Then Mom changed. She changed so much, and she stopped remembering how to love anyone, and slept all day, and had — had forgotten how to care about him.

He's not sure what to do. He's so scared he's trembling, face turning red, feeling light-headed and sick to his stomach. He's too horrified to cry. Too stunned. It's so easy to face monsters; it's so easy. But he doesn't know how to fight this. Just a while ago, Netherlands was there with Heather and everyone, and they loved him, and now... now there's a piece that's gone. And the panicked insecurity floods in with the fear for his mother's health, with the pain of losing his dad (again). His legs wobble.]

Mom, it's — it's okay... It's okay —

[He swallows, unable to move. He just clings to the side of the pod and feels like he's barely talking out loud, like his voice is muffled. He's not a fighter right now. He's not a good son, either, because he can't move. He couldn't move. Just — he's sorry, Mom, he's so sorry, but he doesn't know how to remember how to use his legs.]

rocks fall, everyone cries

[sweetmotherofgod]

Don't touch me!

[She doesn't want sympathy, doesn't want the care. Sorry Murph, but wrecking herself is exactly what she's aiming for - trying to lever herself up despite William's careful attentions to her ruined limb, shrugging away from Murphy's hand. Rage will sustain her; care will break her. It's a simple choice -

right up until she hears Takeshi, and her head swivels in his direction as abruptly and awkwardly as a marionette's. He looks so scared, so tiny and vulnerable -]

Takeshi, [she says, and it's the first sound out of her that isn't that more suited to an animal trapped and in pain.] I'm - please -

[reaching for him, arms outstretched, twisting to move toward him even as the color drains from her face at the pain of moving that leg.]

[throwsdown]

[Hearing his name snaps him out of his thousand-yard-stare, the trance broken. But now comes the difficult part — keeping his mother, reminding her not to turn to the things his mother did, when she was upset. He's the... the morale officer. He's the morale officer of the gardens. With that in mind, he rushes over to her, no matter how terrified it makes him. He presses his face in her stomach. He's crying openly now, voice shaky and struggling.]

Don't turn into someone else; it's okay, Mom. Don't leave! Don't change. It's okay.

Don't turn into someone else. I love you, Mom. I love you, and I'm gonna be r-right here!

[Takeshi sees the difference. His old Mom left him behind. Heather reached for him.

There's a profound difference.]

DDDDDDDDDD:::::::: everything is terrible nothing is good

[dogbane]

Oh my fucking Lord on a stick, [mutters William, who's not being irreverent; he means it fervently. As fervently as humanly possible. He slants Murphy a quick look to confirm the man's all right, not accidentally injured in some crazy brutal way, as can easily happen when everything underneath the slippy goop is bone-breakingly hard. No? Not concussed? Minimal likelihood of internal brain bleeding?

All right then. Back to Heather. And Takeshi now. The sight of them, the combined shapes of their bodies bent together like the outline of an uneven heart, makes him pause in the midst of reaching for Heather's shoulder. It's probably better anyway. He doesn't know how complex psychically healing her would be, given the involvement of advanced prosthetics. His hand wafts over her arm harmlessly instead and he falls back. Balances the towel between his hands, then carefully heaping it up higher over her shoulders. Careful not to disturb.

To be honest, there's nothing constructive to do. However hazy the past few weeks have been, William recognizes this with perfect clarity. Takeshi's the only one who can properly save Heather right now, and Heather, him.] All right, bruv? [he asks Minho too. He isn't exactly sure what he's asking, doubting that any friend of Thomas would be so emotionally fragile as to fall totally apart upon witnessing the separation of a woman from her lover. It seems like the kind of thing a doctor would ask, though.

He hugs his ruined labcoat closer around himself, blinking wearily into the cold corridor light.]

what did Minho get himself into

[forerun]

[Minho watches everything from a safe distance, arms crossed over his chest, face seemingly blank of emotion. He's gotten so good at hiding his thoughts for the sake of others, and right now that skill comes in handy. But if anyone were looking closely, they'd see something in his eyes that was impossible to hide: longing, confusion, and fear. Minho has his friends, had the other Gladers when he was back in his world. But he doesn't know what love is, or how to care for someone so deeply that it leaves a gaping hole when they're gone. Maybe once, back in his old life, he had a family who had loved him and he had loved back. Had he been old enough for romantic love when they took him away? He didn't even know his real age, so it was an impossible question. But there hadn't been room for that emotion in his new life, and every connection he'd had with the boys in the Glade had been mutually beneficial. He ran and searched for an exit, they fed him and kept him strong for the next day's run, and everyone lived another day. He was closer to some than others—Newt, as the prime example. Thomas. But how much of that was just closeness based on the situation?

He probably looks like a total slinthead standing off to the side and saying nothing, doing nothing. But there are plenty of people involved, and a goddamned child, and he doesn't have anything to contribute. When William speaks to him, it takes a moment to realize he was addressing Minho and not someone more obviously in need of reassurance. He gives a short nod in reply.] Peachy. You?