THE CRASH

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Violence, implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: Arrival in the crashed Tranquility

W E L C O M E You wake up, alone in the dark. There's a breathing tube jammed down your trachea, and you're suspended in a tube of clear blue fluid. Through the fog you can see shadows of movement, the muted sound of alarms crying. 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 suddenly dropped several feet onto the opposite wall. The impact is painful, winds you, and it takes several seconds to overcome and persuade uncooperative limbs to move. You barely have the time for it. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, drowning out the cries of confusion from the people awakening around you, trapped in their gravity couches or stumbling through the wreckage. Louder than that is a deep rumbling, coming from somewhere farther away, vibrating through the metal underneath you. It's hard to make out much of anything in the dim red light, but you catch sight of a sprawl of garbled black on your forearm and wonder-- Who are you? How did you get here? A drip lands on your cheek. Another. You look up as a flash of light illuminates a rend in the outer wall high above you, a steadily increasing fall of raindrops showering through. Another rumble rolls through the wreckage around you, and you pull weak, unsteady legs underneath you, rising to a shaky stand. M E D I C A L There's a shout, nearby, and your attention turns from the hole high in the wall to the room around you. Standing sideways, the smooth doors of gravity couches under your feet, fallen wreckage and debris making obstacles in your path. But there are others here, climbing through it as best they can, or trapped inside their gravity couches, injured, or worse. You step over the body of a man in a jumpsuit, venturing further into the gloom of red. The shout comes again. Someone might need your help. Or they might have answers about what happened here. O U T S I D E It takes all the strength you have to climb up through the fallen structural beams and hanging cabling, metal slipping wet beneath your fingers and feet. Eventually you emerge, and in another flash of bright light realise you stand on the shell of some colossal structure, the shadows of dense jungle all around you. The night sky above is a violent flux of colors, a dense, roiling tower of cloud crawling with lightning as if on fire, thunder booming again and again as the deluge pours down. In the brief flashes of light you start to notice figures, further away, scattered across the shell. Dressed in dark jumpsuits, their shouts are drowned out by the storm, but their struggles are evident; lashing out, grappling, fighting each other for their lives. There's a sound behind you, and as you turn one lunges towards you, a jagged shaft of metal in his hand. His eyes are wide, teeth bared, and as you stagger back he yells something, coming for you again: "You did this!" N O T E S Venturing through the medbay will discover the lockers and main bay, all heavily damaged. Characters will likely be able to salvage some belongings from the destroyed lockers - otherwise they will be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage. The alarms will cut after two hours, a which point a looping audio message telling passengers to make their way to the blue lifts will be audible. The lifts, if investigated, will be missing, leaving only empty elevator shafts. The nexus of the strange superstorm will disperse out into colorful clouds after approximately half an hour, at which point rainfall will ease to something less torrential. The storm will pass entirely after five hours. Dawn will come two hours after this. The Tranquility's original crew members can be found amongst player characters, either in medical or outside of the ship already. They will similarly be suffering from memory loss, but worse than that, a small number of them will be extremely violent in attacking player characters, other crew, or even harming themselves.

Comments

[ailand]

[Ailanne has almost given Charles up for useless when his opponent's fingers come for his throat. He's in an awkward position now and too aware that the tables have a high chance of turning on him. He's already taken a vicious jab from flailing elbows to the back of his ribs, and the torn flesh on his arm is thrumming hotly with blood and pain.

He hisses a curse about Fates that doesn't immediately make sense to him -- it just feels natural. Then there's the crunch and yes.

He ducks away, letting the sudden limp weight of the assailant crumple to the ground.

Frowning, he nudges the unmoving mass with his foot. It's questionable, but he thinks the attacker might still be alive. Maybe down for the count for a bit longer than last time.]

Huh.

[And... he's not sure how he feels about the lack of deadness.

Which probably needs to worry him.

Switching tracks, he suddenly seems to realize that the man he's teamed up with is still there. He offers a steadying arm if the other needs it and lifts both eyebrows.]

That was... something.

[Something almost embarrassing. He suddenly feels like dealing with this situation should have been more fluid. It feels clunky and botched in retrospect. Like he's done something incorrectly and lost points in a game.

He shakes the feeling off.]

Fates. You're not about to puke or anything, are you?

[forgodssake]

That wouldn't be very appreciative, would it.

[ Voice thick around what is neither yes nor no, Charles sets talons in the offered arm, bowing slightly while he makes sure of the answer before he does anything else. The makeshift weapon remains fixed in his hand but not equipped, held only by incident of not dropping it rather than intent to us it. His hand is still smarting from the impact that reverberated up through it.

Adrenaline has left him like a tide going out, pains and aches and nausea all exposed like so much ugly debris on a shoreline. But he tips his head enough to consider the felled attacker splayed on the ground, unmoving.

Not dead. He can feel it.

Which also doesn't make sense.

He straightens up again, turning a look back at the man he's keeping his balance on, eyes bright in shadowy eye sockets and the dark gore of blood drying thick on his face. ]

Who're you?

[ His tone is quizzical, lifting, like he thinks he should know. ]

[ailand]

Hopefully not his friend.

[ He casts a sideways glance over toward the body, but that half-joke dies almost as quickly as it formed and he shrugs. Admitting that he doesn't know feels like admitting to a weakness. Allowing himself to be vulnerable without anything to ground him or scrabble for in his memories seems to be something only an inane man might do. ]

The better question is who you think you are? [ he points out. He's trying to sound glib, but there's a note of uncertainty in there. The blank spaces everywhere a memory should be are unnerving him more than he cares for. ] What'd you do -- insult the idiot before making sure he wasn't bigger than you?

[ He narrows his eyes, scouring his mind for a glimmer of recognition as he watches the other man. Are they friends? How close are they? They can't be, right? If this guy is asking who he is, then...

But for some reason that doesn't fully convince him that they can't know each other. ]

[forgodssake]

[ Sass doesn't throw Charles off the trail -- for someone who is clearly concussed with the blood that is meant to be giving colour to his face instead painting one half of it, he has a disarmingly perceptive way about staring frank at someone. But as the focus of the conversation wheels back around to himself, focus hazes again, and he considers the unconscious man collapsed at their feet.

He shakes his head. ]

I didn't do anything, [ he states, not defensively -- more confused. ] He just-- out of nowhere, he just came for me. He was so angry.

[ It's not a very odd thing to express. Insane violence could be angry, after all, but he sounds quite certain.

Speaking of which, there's another rageful cry -- but not near them. It echoes through the dark interior of the wrecked-- whateverthisplaceis, but unseen through the shadows, the sporadic pissing down of sparks from exposed cabling in broken ceiling and wall. The hand at Ailanne's arm clenches tighter, then releases altogether as if remembering itself. ]

There's more of them.

[ailand]

[ Ailanne's attention flickers to his arm when Charles releases him, then he stares off into the darkness, listening to the echoes. With the combination of the other noises and his unfamiliarity with the layout of the wreck, he can't properly judge how far away the source of the cry might be.

His gaze drifts up to rest on the wires that spit sparks. Then drops back down to their felled opponent. Finally, he frowns at the bloody state of Charles. ]

No shit.

[ There's an instant of indecision.

But then he notices the air flow. He doesn't feel a breeze, though. Just.... knows it's there.

That strange fact leaves Ailanne with an off-put expression. ]

We can go outside if we go that way.

[ Ailanne nods in the appropriate direction. ]

Assuming you can make it that far without puking on me, princess.

[ He feels like normally he would be able to come up with a more clever nickname. Lack of memories seems like a good excuse for a dulled wit. And the warm drip of blood down his left arm also serves as another excuse.

Oh well. ]

[forgodssake]

[ Charles glances in the way being gestured, seeing more of the same. Well, no, not more of the same. A different in the light. A tilt. A kind of current of attention that murmurs through the minds of people herding towards--

Wait, princess? That gets a skeptical, if somewhat tolerant look. ]

Lead the way, knight in shining armour.

[ He'd like to think he's wittier too, when not a concussed amnesiac, but it's all in delivery -- dry and immediate, more than a little resigned. He might throw up, and he's making no promises.

Hearteningly, he doesn't literally wait to be led. Still gripping the piece of metal he'd knocked a man unconscious with, Charles starts making his way in the suggested direction, wanting desperately to be aware from the red lights, the dark shadows, the crying alarms. He goes tentatively, his breathing high in his chest.

Still powerfully afraid. ]

[ailand]

[ Fear doesn't seem to be a natural state of being for Ailanne. Even with every dark corner potentially providing cover for another attacker, he can't feel any tightening of anxiety. The air is what keeps his focus. Every time he breathes, his sense for where the fresh air is coming from grows more certain.

It's an unexplainable thing in an unexplainable circumstance, but there it is.

That aside, Ailanne does give Charles an amused smirk at the horrible nickname he receives in return.

He picks up on a little of the tension in the man beside him, and as they go he finally pipes up again. Heedless of any unwanted attention he may attract. ]

I'm not feeling a lot of faith here. We're not going to die.

[ He feels too self-important for death to find him here in the dark. ]

Maybe a few scars, mm? I can almost guarantee no lost appendages at this point. We're almost to fresh air.