AFTER THE CRASH

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: The wreck site and the jungle beyond.
WARNINGS: Will update as needed.
SUMMARY: Characters recover after the crash and begin to establish means of survival in the new environment.
NOTES: Open log for general play for the rest of the month. Prompts are included for inspiration, but do not need to be strictly adhered to!

T H E   J U N G L E The dense vegetation of the jungle surrounds you in every direction, the green of thousands of trees and plants vibrant and lush under the bright sun. Life buzzes and calls through the branches, leaves stirring in a long, fluid shift as brief cuts of wind flow up over the cliff. Stood alone facing it, it almost seems as though it breathes, one giant force of life looming over you, overwhelming and awesome. Tangles of trees and roots stand in your way as you venture in, every step needing careful navigation to avoid standing on some strange plant or another. A blade may be necessary to cut a path through the areas where sunlight breaks through the canopy high over your head, allowing thick growth on the soil below; other areas are clear, a natural pathway developed but for low growth and fungi. Either way, it's only a matter of meters before you can't see back which way you came, the jungle setting behind you, covering the signs of your passing as if you'd never been. Something lets out a cry, high in a tree above you, a warning shriek before it and another tumble and climb through interlocking branches, fleeing your presence. Whether you came out here to hunt, forage or simply explore, proceeding quietly and carefully may offer more success - and some way to mark your path back, least the jungle manage to swallow you whole. T H E   W R E C K   S I T E The long tail left in the ship's crash path has destroyed a huge swath of jungle, trees, upturned soil. A ready-made clearing, some shelters already built out of the remains of the fallen trees, the small amount of supplies salvaged from inside the ship, more being worked on. Without the thick canopy of the jungle, the sun beats down relentlessly, shelter and shade the only respite. Dehydration threatens and food is scarce, making work slow but all the more necessary. You may have remembered enough to know your skills are best used towards the building efforts, or picking through the debris for salvage, or putting together improvized power systems; no matter which, you'd better pace yourself properly to prevent the heat catching up with you. M E D I C A L The hole up on the crest of the crashed ship still yawns open, leading down directly into the medical area you woke up in - the only readily accessible point you can see. Inside, the alarms and looping audio have stopped, leaving the space eerily quiet but for the drip of water and fluid, the creak and groan of strained, damaged metal. You may be here to assist in the medical efforts outside, to find usable equipment or supplies, or maybe you're looking for more personal answers. The elevator shafts the voice recording had previously directed you towards still stand empty, dark tunnels leading deeper into the unknown, evoking some flicker of memory of miles of corridors and rooms. Did you live here before? What happened? Whether you're here with a purpose or following curiosity, watch your step - bodies still litter the space, half buried under debris or floating in pools of collected rainwater from the storm, likely to cause a smell if left any longer. N I G H T F A L L The days are long and night, when it comes, falls quickly. The temperature drops, perhaps offering relief from the heat of the day or bringing a new threat of cold. The jungle quiets, then seems to stir to life again, the sounds of insects changing, the cries of any animals falling silent. With the only light offered by the two moons high in the sky and any small generators scattered around the makeshift camp, it may be best to stay close to shelter or find your way up off the ground. The darkness can hide any manner of new threats, and they are not so new and unsure of this terrain as you...

Comments

Various - OTA

[sorrycharles]

Dawn - Medical

[ Up on the hull over Medical, Erik is lifting the dead out one and two at a time by metal bound around their ankles and laying them into a tidy pile at ground level. This is not a plan he’s discussed with anyone, or opened for debate. It’s probably not a coincidence, then, that the pile is far enough away from the shelters that have sprung up to be discreet, for an operation that involves levitating corpses.

He’s looking more and more like a corpse himself, battered and filthy. He’s shed his jumpsuit, hide swarthy with dirt, one eye milky white and the other sharp as splintered glass in the early morning sun. Bandages at his side show off-white through gaps torn through the black of his shirt, and his pants are stained dark along the same flank.

He smells like death.

No offense to Death. ]


Afternoon - Triage

[ The bandages need to come off to let the stitches breathe, and Erik keeps his elbow lifted while they work on his side, like a horse having his hooves picked.

There are other injured here, and he has to settle in among them to wait for antibiotics, or whatever else the doctor has ordered.

For the most part he’s a passive presence, familiar for those who remember, despite the distance and the grit and the scruff. He doesn’t want to be here, but neither does anyone else. Most everyone rankles at the needles that are brought out. His homicidal, blood boiling disgust when the syringe pushes under his skin is normal. His ears burn red beneath smudged dirt.

If not for the risk of infection, he would manage this himself. ]


Night - Shelter

[ Salvaged metal channels a bass thrum outward from the patch of dry ground where Erik lurches awake, cold sweat and wild eyes, drool glistening in a silky line back to his makeshift pillow. Lights yellow and dim in time with the shockwave, and the pulse fades outward into the rush of wind through leaves.

Other castaways asleep nearby don’t stir at all.

For those who aren’t sleeping, he isn’t difficult to pinpoint as the source: he’s up on his elbow at the epicenter, shivering and disoriented.

Later, he sits awake next to the roll of the armor, spine curved over crossed legs, and watches the others sleep on without him. ]

Triage

[goodgodman]

[ The man is cold and quiet the entire time while Leonard works with his hand scanner.

It's not like he is complaining of course. God save him from angry, demanding patients. But this is different. There is something about him that seems coiled. Dangerous. It's the sort of tension he'd expect more from a Klingon, barely tolerating his clinical touch. ]

You gotta name? [ Leonard asks, all business. He's got a pen and pad in hand. ]

shelter.

[forgodssake]

[ The violence with which Charles wakes up is less than that of Erik's -- he only opens his eyes, huddled in place, when that pulse of feeling triggers dread, fear, panic, and his instinct is to lie very still, heart pounding. His eyes are set on the lights, the ones that queasily dim, and flare back up. Steam hits the air in exhale out, dimly conscious of the other waking mind nearby. The murmur of the sleeping ones all around. More intimately distracting than the constant click of insects, the sporadic patter of rainfall on plastic.

The compounding of sensory input drives him properly awake, sore all over, and deciding he prefers the smarting chill in the night air more than the sweltering discomfort of his makeshift bedding.

He emerges, then, rumpled and disoriented as well, if in a different way, and with the same uncertain quality of a canine hearing sounds others can't detect, he focuses towards the shape Erik makes, sitting up in the gloom. Curious, as if trying to resolve an optical illusion, his gaze fixes for the moment, while the cacophony of the jungle chirps and rustles beyond. ]

triage

[puppydogeyes]

[Taylor isn't here as a patient. She's visiting, technically, a black labrador taking up space on one makeshift cot, right hind leg a wrap of bandages which ends too soon. He's drugged though, mostly asleep, and while she sits with him she watches the people who remember themselves to be doctors and nurses, the ones just helping out because what else was there to do, and the patients.

The man opposite is bearing his treatment with the kind of grim silence that isn't particularly open to commentary or conversation, but she can't help a measure of curiosity at his appearance. Aside from the garbled black marks on their arms, not many of the people around seemed to carry much sign of a life before waking up here on their skin. Maybe it was a thin thread to weigh anything on, but it had drawn her to the man who'd helped her out of the wreck, some of his tattoos similar to her own. And now it makes her wonder at this man's scars, his blinded eye.]

Were you attacked?

[She asks, eventually, when the doctor leaves him, an upward tip of her chin that indicates the stitched wound as the subject of her question.]

Trrrrrrrrrrriage

[anybodies]

[By now, she's blue again. Not so afraid of retaliation from her less imaginatively-colored companions anyway. She has been turning over in her mind the little facts that the doctor had shared with her, trying to elicit something more out of it, like trying to make a picture out of three percent of the puzzle pieces. Who the Hell calls themselves Mystique?

Most of the time, the medicine people have been quite nice about letting her sit in the tent itself. Even if they can't afford to let her take up a gurney the whole time, she's been on a bench for some of it, or at least seated on the mild elevation of the floor. Keeping the pressure off her stump is imperative, apparently. She made a joke, at some point, about turning to fat but there isn't enough to eat for any of that.

And frankly, she's not sure people biology really applies to her, anyways. In the past three days, she's made a meticulous study of the pattern of scales on her arms, her thighs, whatever she could look at to pass the time.

And after three days, the dark-haired gentleman sitting up on the bed is far more interesting than her peculiar reptile skin. She straightens, to see better over the rumpled mattress. Her eyes move over his stitches.]

Hi, [she says.]

derek hale | jungle, ota.

[altercate]

[ the memories come back to him at a glacial pace. in the meantime derek prowls along the treeline, ears cocked towards the sound of people emerging from the ship and the makeshift camps. the pull of the moon is near constant, and derek's remembered enough to realize what that is, remember what he is, though how to shake it off is still lost, blanked out along with bits and pieces of his time on the ship.

when he hears footfalls approaching he draws closer, slinking through the thick underbrush. there's leaves and sticks tangled into his fur, dirt matted along his belly and tail, but his eyes still gleam blue as he tries to assess whether or not this interloper is familiar or not, whether they smell of the ship the way derek had in the beginning, or whether they're something else entirely, a threat, something to shy away from rather than approach. ]

[overdraws]

[ Allison doesn't remember anything, yet. There's a few brief flashes of something that was Before, and Allison thinks that it was Before the ship, however long ago that was. A family. People she cared about. Faces are gone, though, along with names, leaving only the shadow of emotion behind.

The jungle outside seems familiar, too, in that 'I can survive here, I know I can' kind of way, and that's what has Allison tentatively making her way through the underbrush. She's making sure to keep the campsite within ear shot, if not sight. Somewhere along the way she'd picked up a knife, surprised at her confidence with it, but accepting it readily.

Allison's picking her way through carefully, trying not to disturb anything dangerous into coming to find her, although she's pretty sure that everything probably scattered after the crash (how she knows she's sure, the back of her mind still questions). She stops when she hears something moving, and Allison turns towards the source, eyes narrowing.

She takes a careful step forward, knife at the ready. ]

[puppydogeyes]

[It's the sound that's drawn her out. A sound that isn't a sound, inside her head, the same she got when she first woke up, still gets around the dog recovering in the makeshift medical shelter. She doesn't understand it, what it is or where it comes from, and she hasn't told anyone - but somehow it's more familiar than anything else that she's experienced or remembered. Even more than her name.

So she follows it, even if staying away from the jungle has been her policy so far, and maybe if it had lead her too deep she would've abandoned it. But it only takes her to the outskirts before it grows loud enough that she knows it's close. In the underbrush. Maybe even watching her.

She drops into a crouch, slowly, something instinctive in the motion, in how she keeps her body language open.]

Hey. [Soft tones. She still doesn't know how she knows to do this.] I'm not gonna hurt you.

wreck site & nightfall, ota.

[klutziness]

WRECK SITE, DAY

[The broken generator is there in front of her, taunting her. It had been a couple days since the crash, and Rikku had finally started to remember some things--like her name. Rikku. An Al Bhed name for an Al Bhed girl. But what did Al Bhed even mean? Deserts, hardship, and technology. There's more, she's sure, but she can't think of it right now.

At least she'd remembered how to speak the common tongue. Trying to communicate with people was hard when all you could do was gesture with your arms while they spoke gobbldygook.

Rikku sighs, resting her palms on her knees. She's sitting cross-legged on a bare swath of dirt, wearing half a jumpsuit. Just pants and girly bits on top covered with a wrap of cloth--this is comfortable, this is familiar. The heat means nothing to her, but the humidity does. It's cloying, almost hard for her to breathe. But she knows that she can fix this generator. She's done it a thousand times before in her past. Somehow. There are exposed wires and chunks of metal missing, but she knows she can get it to work. She reaches for a wire and immediately gets a small shock, making her jerk her hand away.]

Crudmuffins!

[But the semicurse is soon followed by a smile. Well, at least it's got some life to it. Now she just has to figure out how to make it work for her.]

NIGHTFALL, THE CLIFF

[The cliff reminds her of a place she hasn't been in a long, long time. A place with miles and miles of grass, giant yellow birds, and a man with a smile that meant more than he said. She leans back, legs dangling over the sheer edge, not a single worry about if she might fall clouding her head. She's too concerned with trying to remember the name of that place, the one that was so soothing, so gentle, so--

Calm. The Calm Lands.

Rikku digs her fingers into the dirt and smiles to herself. A little elbow grease could fix anything, even a broken memory. That's an Al Bhed thing, she thinks, and she decides to live by it from now on. Well, she probably did before too, but this place seems like a "start anew" sort of place.

She hears feet scuffling behind her, and leans back a little more so she can stare at the two moons. She doesn't bother looking to see who it is, knowing there's a 98% chance she won't recognize them anyway. But a little friendly conversation never hurt anyone.]

Remember much yet?

nightfall

[ontheline]

... Actually... yeah! I remember some of the more important things!

[Hey there, it's me, nameless faceguy. Don't mind if I take a seat??]

But not my name yet. Or anything important that has to do with the ship itself.

Funny how that works.

jax teller | wreckage, ota.

[kutte]

[ jax wants a cigarette. it's the least of his current desires, but just as far out of his current reach as everything else.

he's pulled his hair back, knotted it up off his skin. it's blisteringly hot, and jax's skin is slick with sweat. he picks his way through the wreckage, through the deep grooves of overturned soil. his memory has mostly returned, but for the stretch of time in which they had to have crashed here. he know they're in bad shape unless they get moving, strip the ship, but jax isn't sure how to go about that safely. if it were just him, he'd climb down whatever the risk, but it's never just one person. it's always a team, and jax is as loathe to put people at risk here as he is in charming. minimizing it is the name of the game, so to speak.

so he's crouched at the edge, looking down and into the depths of the ship. his kutte is in there. their weapons are in there. their supplies are in there. they need to get in there, and fast. ]

Fuck. [ he says finally, hands pressing together. ] Fuck.

[ eloquent, as always. ]

[vdova]

Well, don't be so verbose about it. The rest of us can't keep up with such esoteric vernacular. [ She comes up behind him, the top half of her TQ jumpsuit tied around her waist; she'd managed to scrounge up a tank top out of somewhere. It's not hers, but she's not really going to be picky right now. She's got her hair piled up into a messy bun, strands of it falling out and sticking to her face.

Natasha crouches down next to him, following his gaze into the bowls of the ship. ]

So, how do we do this?

[lifescience]

[She isn't sure what she's looking for. Anything salvageable, most likely. The more Jemma looks at the wreck site, the more she's surprised that any of them survived at all.

Maybe there'll be a limb under the next thing she turns over, or bloody clothing, or-

She looks up at the man's angry words, wincing when the sweat rolls down and stings her eyes. But she does at least attempt a smile.]

I won't ask if you're alright. That much is fairly obvious.

Rey | Jungle (Nightfall) | OTA

[circumitus]

There's a fire that can be found in the darkness. Made up of dried wood and leaves among other things, anyone who ventures out into the chilly night can find warmth beside a makeshift camp that's been set up, separate from the rest of the group at the crash site.

Rey. She knows her name is Rey, not Schuyler. It's almost a disappointment after learning the type of person Schuyler was. A soldier of the Korps Mariniers, and a good person. And Rey, not Schuyler, doesn't feel like a good person right now. Every time she takes a look around at her new surroundings is a reminder as to why. But for now, she's trying not to think about that.

For anyone who comes near, they can find a tripod made out of metal, with something suspended over the flames. One can be drawn to the scent of cooking meat.

(Meat, the one arguably good thing about their current situation. Nothing packaged or stored away and reheated, but something fresh. Almost too good to be true.)

"There's plenty, if you want," she says without turning to look at whoever may be approaching, her eyes trained as the food starts to brown.

[lifescience]

Jemma wouldn't go so far as to say that she had a refined palate. That sounds a bit on the snobby side. But she remembers that she did enjoy a nice pasta with a creamy alfredo sauce. She liked sweets and perfectly layered sandwiches with a cup of soup on the side

But right now, whatever is cooking over that fire is the most delicious thing she's ever smelled.

She was drawn to the light, and after that was trying to figure out a way of getting closer without seeming rude. (It's probably ridiculous to worry about manners at a time like this, but Jemma does.) But when she's actually invited, she nearly rushes over.

"You're sure?"

Week Two (pouring one out for his mom, okay) | OTA

[throwsdown]

[x]

A. THE WRECK SITE

Takeshi remembers everything in the second week.

It's not good.

The first thing he realizes is that he's alone — his family, the one in his drawings, it's in a sad state of decomposition; he doesn't exactly have his room covered in messy scribbles anymore, the paper all lost in the crash, the small little collected gifts in the void of the wreckage. He has the wooden dragon and the wooden fair maiden, Mattie and Reika; those are names left on a long list of people he hasn't seen in a very long time. He also has the Miffy book Netherlands gave him, the pages spotted with mud or crumpled slightly from the crash itself and the rain that fell over them.

He keeps the figures and the book in a backpack. He remembers making it a long time ago, getting it for the trip onto a space station. That was when Hoi Hoi was alive. And when Netherlands was there to save him. And... when Mom was still here.

"We're gonna make it back. I'm gonna carry you, okay?"

When he remembers and realizes she's not here, he gives in — just for a little while, he gives in. So many people are gone, just gone — Betty and Mattie and Kazama, Chase and Mr. Reaper and Nathan, Dean and Mr. Frodo... and he always said over and over it'd be okay, because a lot of them just went home. They'd be back. He went home too, after all. And he came back, didn't he? And yet, there's a pain in his chest that isn't made any better by thinking like that.

Dad's gone. Hoi Hoi's dead, got shot in the head. Mom's gone now.

Mom's gone.

He sits away from everyone with his leg propped out carefully in its cast, too distraught to face them all as he hugs the book close to him and cries; he just really wants to cry quietly, just for a little bit, so he can get all that agony out of him. But it comes out like a punch, tears pouring down his cheeks and face turning red as his breaths stutter out of him. He cries so hard he isn't sure how to stop, lashes clumped and face crumpled. He cries so hard that he can barely so much as croak out sound, throat tight.

"You're not broken, Takeshi. Somebody did a really bad thing to you. It's okay to feel sad about it."

Everything hurts. He was supposed to at least have his mom.

" It's good to talk to someone who loves you about things that make you sad or scared."

"Mom," he rasps, "Mom... mom, where are you...? Mom..."

He buries his head in his arms, into his book, feeling the warmth the ship used to provide seep out from it. He's terrified. He's terrified and unsure of everything now, nothing there to tether him, nobody to remind him over and over of important things, save for what is left in his memory of Heather and Netherlands. The others — they'll vanish, too. He shouldn't ask them for anything. They'll just vanish, too.

"You just look at me. I've got you."

B. THE JUNGLE OUTSKIRTS



"It's hard to be strong when you feel like you're alone, though. So if you get scared or sad sometimes, I want you to come find me."

After he remembers, he's shut off from the others — quiet, withdrawn, tired. But his mind wanders. What if Mom isn't gone? What if she's lost in the jungles, all scared and alone with no one to carry her? It's almost too much to bear and it plagues him like a dark cloud. Nobody knows if she's gone for good. Nobody knows. She has to be here. She could be out there... So he puts on his raggedy backpack and hobbles up on his small makeshift crutches and starts hobbling further and further out to scan the jungles for signs of life.

He doesn't particularly care about danger. He knows danger, 'cus it's an old friend from home.

From the ship, too.

He wanders a bit into the jungle, too, determined to get more energy time after time so that he can cover more distance. Maybe he should just chance it and go for it, get out there and see if she's waiting. He daydreams of her battered but alive and whole, limping over with a big smile on her face and relief in her eyes. She'll say something like "nice looking cast, little guy" and Takeshi can pretend this was all a bad dream he woke up from. They'd come back and the others would be so glad to see her again...

He feels like he needs a hundred naps.

He trips over some foliage, drags himself up with a sharp, Heather-esque "shit, ow" under his breath, and continues his patrol. Sometimes he calls her name — even if she can't hear it, it's good to have the sound of it in his ears. By the time he's on a third or fourth patrol, his eyelids are heavy and his little body is telling him it's really quite enough. Go to sleep, lay down, rest. But...

B. this is the saddest thing ever

[toomuchtenacity]

Chell is out walking herself. Her head is a mess, her memories are too fresh and too painful. She's outside though and that in itself is a victory she will cling to. She's too stubborn not to.

But when she comes across Takeshi she almost wishes they were still back on the ship. At least Heather was there. At least they had the gardens. She sighs and walks over, trying not to startle him.

"Takeshi. How's the patrol going?"

various OTA + one closed (brackets are cool)

[fullmoon]

I. THE 15TH (CLOSED TO WILLIAM & PADFOOT THE WONDERDOG)

William's friend could have wandered off in any number of directions, but the valley of mud and flattened trees the ship left behind on its journey to the cliff is the easiest place to start searching. No getting lost that way. They can pick along the edge of the jungle for miles without losing sight of the city-sized wreckage behind them, limited only by dehydration and blisters.

It isn't either of those things that slows Remus down to a stop. He isn't sure what does, exactly, but once he's stopped walking, he takes a moment to peel mud off the side of his boot with the stick he's been fidgeting with for the last mile and a half. It's familiar, and he understands why, in a vague and distant way: wands. Wales. Wizards. He even remembers William, he thinks, a split second's recollection of his head bent over something with tubes and straps. Remus liked him. That's as much as he knows about anyone, right now, and that's why he's out here, peering into the trees and periodically calling for a Heather.

But the smaller moon is waxing gibbous, the sun is nearly touching the horizon, and he doesn't have a name for the prickling tension in his spine.

"She might be back at the crash site by now," he says. He stands up and wipes his damp forehead with his jumpsuit sleeve, avoiding the sky with the same instinctive, hyperaware dread some people reserve for gore or spiders.


II. AFTER THE 15TH (OTA)

A. SALVAGE & SCRAPS

His boots and jumpsuit were the only casualties during the full moon. That's a good thing, but also an inconvenient one, when he gets back on his feet a couple days later and has nothing to put them in. Someone's kind enough to find him trousers, at least. His ankles show, and he has to keep his hands in the pockets when he walks to keep them from falling off, but—it was kind. Points for effort, Someone.

There's a small but growing pile of salvaged clothes and scraps on the ground near the wreckage, and Remus crouches beside it on wobbly legs, thinner and paler than he was a few days ago, but that much out of place. He finds a belt. Shirts are harder. He holds one up that's maybe half the size he would need, meant for a 5' girl, probably.

His back and shoulders are slowly acquiring a horrific sunburn.


B. THE CAMP AT NIGHT

The first time he woke up in the middle of the night, he tried to adapt to it. Maybe he was a night person. Finding something useful to do in the cool dark and sleeping through the day wasn't the worst idea. He volunteered to help stand watch, and for an hour it was fine, and then he found himself thinking very earnestly about tearing a sleeping man's throat out with his teeth if he didn't stop snoring. So that was the end of that.

At least now he understands why. He tries sleeping through it. Sometimes it works--when the dog is there, mostly, to put a heavy paw over his legs when Remus starts kicking and tossing in his sleep--and sometimes he wakes up when the moon is full and lies flat on his back, fists clenched, glaring up at the glow because it's better than looking at any of the people sleeping around him and trying not to wonder what they'd taste like. But once or twice he can't help it, and he can't stand himself or anyone else, so he stalks to the edges of the camp and then past them, into the dark where he won't be able to smell anyone or see anyone and won't have to talk to anyone.

That's the plan, anyway.


C. JUNGLE

Remus eats as many seeds as he sets aside to take back to camp, like a child. (A child with a medical condition that might make him waste away if he keeps trying to subsist on seeds and leaves and the occasional lizard. Forgive him.) And then for a few minutes he stops picking them altogether, transfixed by something over his head.

He's a little dazed. Exhaustion, malnutrition, more heat and humidity than he'll adapt to anytime soon. His face is burned, mostly, but if not for the burn it would be pale and pinched around his glazed eyes.

But he isn't completely out of it. "Shh," he says when he hears someone approaching, and nods upward, where something with feathers and paws is moving through the leaves 30 feet above them.

"invisible chewing noises in the dark"

[doggedly]

[Later, post-post-post crash, post-werewolf wonderdog William problems:

In the camp, at night, it's quiet. Or at least as quiet as a jungle can get. Like camping, but heightened. It remains exciting to people who are excited by the prospect of prospective danger, bathing in collected rainwater, wearing grubby t-shirts, and eating weird food scavenged from the woods. All of this will eventually lose its appeal. Right now: nah.

Much like the rustling of bedsheets and duvets in adjourning four-posters, the rustling of leaf beds is the easiest tell for restless sleep. Sirius, half asleep himself, stares up at the dark canopy of leaves overhead. Starlight twinkles between massive waxy fronds. Warm bulky dog across the legs has proved to be a wonderful deterrent to restlessness, a silent comfort, but half-asleep transformations is asking for trouble.

So, instead. A conversation in the dark. No action.]

We should name them.

Tadashi Hamada | OTA | Prompts Ahoy

[tadashiwashere]

[ Dusk; Near Triage Tree; Day Nine ]

Every day seems to be another study in misery. The humidity is intense and there are bugs the boy with the baseball cap has never encountered. It feels like it takes weeks for Tadashi's memories to trickle back, but really they begin to return within the first few hours after waking up from the crash. His name comes back first -- Tadashi Hamada. Nothing else. It seems ephemeral. A hazy concept with no meaning when he has nothing concrete to base it on. There are other vague notions that solidify even before the name -- knowledge of engineering, tech, and medicine that he has no source for. Ideas and practical applications of knowledge simply seem to well up as he needs them.

The first solid memory he gets back is three days into this nightmare -- and it's of Hiro.

He's ankle-deep in mud, carefully wrapping a woman's hand in some of the precious gauze recovered from the wreck when the feeling of familiarity washes over him. For an instant, all he can picture is a young boy with messy black hair and a gap between his teeth. Memories of scrapes and bruises bubble up -- tears and gentle conversations.

For a full thirty seconds, he freezes.

"Hey," the woman says after a moment, slightly accusing. "You still there?"

"Sorry." Tadashi blinks away the image, but still can't bring himself to move until the waves of familiarity settles into a steady drip that fills him with a cold certainty. His name is Tadashi Hamada. His brother is Hiro Hamada. And he's supposed to be here with him.

Without another word, he bolts.

After frantically questioning everyone he encounters, there are likely few who don't know the name Hiro Hamada by the time Tadashi finds the fourteen year old and slams into him with a hug of relief and rushed apologies for not remembering him sooner.

...

Which is why even those who aren't close friends with Tadashi or who don't have their memories back might be able to guess what's wrong when Tadashi stumbles into camp one day and sinks to the ground not far from the triage tree to bury his face in his hands.

It's the ninth day since Tadashi woke up in the wreckage of the Tranquility.

And Hiro Hamada is nowhere to be found.

[ Late Night; Near Triage (as usual); end of week three. ]

There are parts littered around Tadashi.

Shadows under his eyes mark the quality of sleep he's had lately, but as he works with a screwdriver to pry off some metal casing to reach the needed wires within, he doesn't seem intent on sleeping any time soon.

At this point, Hiro Hamada has been missing for nearly two weeks. In the mornings, Tadashi goes into the jungle (the last place anyone saw Hiro before his disappearance) to search if the triage area isn't overwhelmed. More often than not, his help is needed in some capacity, and he settles for grabbing whoever is heading out and asking them to keep an eye out for signs of his brother.

The more people who come back with sympathetic look and no leads, the less Tadashi sleeps.

And the harder he works.

Exhaustion hangs so heavily that Tadashi doesn't even hear anyone approach.

Week Three

[theroadwarrior]

Max has been in and out of the jungles himself, never straying too far. Part of his search has been for any wayward survivors, sure, but mostly it's been because he's... surprisingly having a hard time settling, sitting still. He knows it must be something his memories would answer, if they would hurry up and return to him. As it is, everyone else keeps picking up their old lives while he's floundering a bit in the dark. It wouldn't be so bad, but he keeps seeing flashes of a girl — and other faces. Not in his head, but out there, in the wilderness.

The visions always vanish, but they leave him deeply unsettled.

Tonight, he's trying to out-walk one of them and focus on anything, anything at all, that isn't some child pleading for him to come find her. He doesn't know her. He doesn't understand why she's there, haunting him, a ghost only he can see.

When he sees Tadashi, some sense of familiarity strikes him, but that's all.

It never goes any further than that. Frustrating.

He wanders over.

"You look awful," he says, not one to parse words even when he's without memory and much more friendly and social than he'd ever been before. "Should probably get some sleep in."

Ailanne Rei | OTA

[ailand]

a) Jungle The tenth

He knows his name.

Ailanne Rei.

That's it. That's the extent of the memories that have come back to him. Other than knowing that he apparently has a soft spot for kids and needs to bite his tongue around everyone else.

His inability to remember anything beyond that feels like utter bullshit.

Pausing to flick his hair from his face first, Ai lifts up his makeshift machete (a sharp piece of metal with cloth wound around one end to form a handle) and chops through some particularly dense vines. It takes a few more slices before the way is cleared, but finally progress is possible again.

He ignores the shrieking higher in the trees that seems to protest his messy path.

Ailanne glances back to his companion for today's venture. "Mm, I don't know about you, but I'm hoping we find some sort of naturally occurring desserts today."

b) Camp The nineteenth

It took once opening his eyes to see something unidentifiable and highly unpleasant on the ground to make Ailanne decide that the trees are where he belongs.

Whatever that... thing had been, he wants nothing to do with it.

Which is why he can be found working toward slinging a hammock between the limbs of one of the trees nearest the campsite today. It's hot -- intensely so -- but he doesn't seem to notice as he focuses on his work with a sort of mad ferocity.

The ground is not safe. He's decided that as long as the hell beast exists in this world, he will never sleep on the ground again. No one can force him. Never mind that he can't quite remember what it looks like and that he's studiously working at forgetting his less-than-calm shout in the pre-dawn hours when he came face-to-whatever with the thing.

c) Your Choice The twenty-ninth

Something had just shot toward his face an instant ago.

Ailanne reacted on instinct, throwing up his hand the moment he registered the flicker of movement. He felt the air around him coil about his body, shielding him from whatever was flying his way. The tension felt solid, and so he pushed. The object that originally came for his face flew off in another direction.

Left standing there, Ailanne slowly lowered his arms from the defensive posture and stared at his hands. Memories flooded in quickly. But only the ones associated with the power.

He held up one hand, squinting at it as he made the air above his palm swirl.

What in the Fates' names was -this-?

Eleanor | ota

[notyourutopian]

A - Camp

The first thing that really came back to Eleanor was her name, but she didn't have much time to feel relieved about it, because the next thing that came back was the sudden realization that she had never been outside before. All her life there had been the comforting tunnels and reassuring domes of the underwater city of Rapture. And after that, the nearly-same corridors of the Tranquility. They were dangerous, of course, alarmingly so at times, but they had always been there. Walls. A ceiling.

And now they were gone. And she was standing on a planet, full of animals and trees and the wide, open sky stretching out forever. It was amazing. It was astounding. It was absolutely terrifying.

She would have retreated into the depths of the ship if not for how dangerous it was. Instead she lurked around the edges of the jungle, keeping under the trees, only venturing out when she absolutely had to. But she knew that wasn't sustainable, she couldn't be out there on her own forever, and she wasn't much help to people if she was essentially trapped.

So she had forced herself out into the open, if only to build herself a campsite that she could be comfortable in until this ridiculous issue with the sky went away. She'd used the only available real building material, broken chunks of the ships hull, to create a kind of a make-shift lean too on the edge of the camp closest to the forest. Three sides and a roof, braced together with bits of metal she'd reinforce later. It wasn't amazing, but it kept the rain out, and seemed to help with the agoraphobia. At least a little.

She was going to have to get over this eventually though...

B - Tinkering

On her trips out of her make-shift home, she'd started collecting bits and pieces from the wreckage of the ship. She remembered, as a child, that she'd been very good at taking apart and putting machines together. She'd dismantled practically all the things her mother brought home, at one point or another. And given the abrupt drop in technology now that they'd lost the ship, having some more basic machines around to help them would probably be useful.

So she'd started with something simple. A security bot. Or what she hoped would be a security bot. She had found enough things that she was pretty sure she could assemble the frame and motor, but a power supply was still a bit of a mystery.

Most evenings, she could be found tinkering away with her pile of the bits of junk as the square shape of the tiny helicopter robot started to take shape...

C - The Jungle

Of course, under the canopy of the jungle, with the sky safely hidden away, Eleanor could genuinely relax. And run, and explore, and look at everything.

Frankly, the teen went out into the jungle to play.

At any given time, she might be found scrambling her way up the side of a tree, or leaping from branch to branch between them, easily carried along by her enhanced agility. Suddenly being a big sister almost felt like a good thing. Almost.

Other times, she might just be crouched somewhere, watching some of the local wildlife. Or listening to the rain against the leaves above her. Or just wandering through the woods enjoying being in them.

[ooc: Open prompt for just running into her wherever in the jungle.]

C

[circumitus]

Rey doesn't spend that much time in the camp with everyone else. Not when she has her own set up quite a ways away in the jungle itself, feeling perfectly content with the prospect of not having to deal with people any more than she has to. It's a strange twist, considering her past phobic responses to loneliness -- except that she isn't particularly alone even out here...

While her remote shelter was coming together effectively, there were still holes allowing the rain to slip through from the trees above. She was starting to make another trip to the ship to see what she could get together, and perhaps find some way of creating something to drive away some of the more dangerous predators she suspected to be out there in the jungle.

She was on her way back to the ship when she hears something moving in the trees. It sounds very different from the wildlife she'd seen thus far and, when she looks up and squints at the shape overhead, notes that it definitely isn't local, either.

"Find anything interesting from up there?" Rey asks, raising her voice enough so that the girl in the tree above can hear.

OTA

[lafautedevoltaire]

Wreck Site

Gavroche remembers building. A barricade. He's not quite sure why they were building it, but it was important. There are other things he remembers. Most of them involve being hungry. Trying to find shelter.

So not that much different than right now. With what he remembers, he helps as much as he can with building shelters. And he has ideas. Ideas about what to do next. "We should have a wall. To keep the animals out. And find some mesh to keep vermin from the food."

He worries about food.

Medical

He moves pretty easily through the debris in Medical. He even remembers that it's Medical and he was there every month for over a year. But he still has a lot of questions. And he's hoping there might be answers here.

Moving among bodies is starting to be too familiar too. He's done this before. And he's remembering enough about the ship. "There should be more of us."

More people from the barricade. But they weren't here after the crash. He starts looking at the bodies, hoping none of them are then.

Re: OTA

[but_civilization]

He's been allowed to sit up by himself now, very slowly, and supported by an extremely awkward and uncomfortable collar. "Marius" does not like the collar very much, but the fact that he's allowed to rest, with his back firmly against a tree trunk helps him feel a bit more human again.

And when the boy passes through, he finds himself squinting, gaping at him, really.

"More of...US maybe? You seem...familiar."

Closed to Arthur "England" Kirland | Jungle

[dogbane]

[Strange bird cries, exotic insects. The screams of madmen in the background. Life ever continues to be interesting, but it's beginning to wash off of William, psychologically, even as more grime and wear burrow into his skin and hair. Fortunately, Medical means showers, but making too many journeys onto the derelict heap of spaceship seems generally unwise.

Thus it's a version of William who has stringy hair rain-slicked to his forehead, who winds up sitting down beside Arthur on his blanket. He's been gradually drifting away from the triage tent more and more often in the past week and a half. It would perhaps be nice, generous to say that he was spending that extra time with Takeshi, but that's only been partly true; he's spent a fair amount of it walking the jungle as well, roaming dreams and trees alike. His increasing absence was easily accounted for by that whole

werewolf attack incident. The other week.

But that turned out fine, technically. Left William with a sufficient quantity of easy excuses and, just as importantly, less bother in the ensuing days. When he chucks his arms over his knees and smiles at Arthur Hello, there aren't any marks left at all, nothing but a mellow, off-golden tan progressing over his shoulders and lax knuckles, his regard as dark and placid as a lake. Which is inviting, as long as you aren't thinking about the acidity of the local bodies of water.]

Hello, Arthur. Got your brain back?

[knackered]

[Nightmares, sunburn, alien surroundings that had him fearing for his own safety at night sleeping on the fucking ground... Then the dirt, and the question of food, spare clothes and--yes, the perilous trekking in and out of the massive, crashed ship for forage for survival. It's all a bit much.

There's only so much Arthur can handle between trying to fend for himself and dealing with who he assumes were his fellow passengers. Embarking on a journey of memory recovery and self-discovery isn't his idea of anything particularly thrilling either. What he knows so far is that he's either mad, or he's extremely old and in likelihood, not human; has considerable control over magic; been a diplomat, a soldier, a slave, a sailor and pirate, an assassin, a traitor, and a completely loathsome bastard. The whole lot of it he'd rather forget, but his identity is piecing itself back together in messy pleats, mixing eras, giving him headaches and confusing anachronisms to sort out when he's lying awake at night, unable to sleep.

He'd have fucked off days ago if this was a jungle on Earth.

Arthur's peeling still and he looks like he was left in the oven a little too long. The blonde scruff from lack of shaving implements is at least complimentary to his jawline, but his hair is as unruly and wild as the jungle surrounding them--despite numerous efforts to tame it with his fingers and makeshift combs. All in all, he looks as awful as he feels--so far from the gentleman on the ship who wished to always present himself with some measure of decorum. The jovial disposition he'd managed after the crash long since dwindled with the onset of fatigue.

His eyes are tired, still deep green, and they regard William with no hostility. Thoughts of complimentary ass-glancing and being called an imperialist cunt roll to the front of his mind. He admires the tan, and his expression is one of... mild surprise. Someone's speaking to him.]

I think so. Dunno. S'all in pieces.

Sorry, um... [Bloody hell, what's his name? It's on the tip of his tongue--] William.

charles xavier. outskirts of camp, closed to sirius black. the day after the crash.

[forgodssake]

[ It's late in the afternoon. Someone has managed to start a fire despite the wet in an effort to fend off the encroaching cold that is already beginning to sink its teeth into the damp air, and Charles is among the few that has gathered to sit near it. He is miserable, about the same level of dirty as anyone else, showing up in the once white gauze taped to his head.

He picks this off, now, with numb fingertips, assesses the murky underside, before he balls it up and feeds it to the fire with a light toss. Where it had covered, there is a seam of sutured scarring and riot of bruising.

Which might explain the way his eyes pinch shut as if in sudden pain, but also might not, on account of having happened at least over a day ago. The hand resting on the ground beside him digs fingernails into packed earth, and he sits in his own discomfort for a moment before he finally rolls aside to get to his feet, in movements that seem like they pain him. His face is whiter than it was a moment ago by the time he is on his feet, and he is headed away without a word. He doesn't duck for the treeline where most people seem to head when all this lovely rainwater they've had to drink catches up with them, but at a wander away from people, arms wrapping around himself. ]

[doggedly]

[There's a fire, and because his eyesight has proved to be quite good in the dark--and because he is finding that his personality is one that allows him to feel very little fear--Sirius has elected himself as a designated wood gatherer. It helps, too, that another facet of his redeveloping personality is the fact that he hates sitting still. It isn't jittery movement. It looks purposeful. And what's more, it's proving to be useful, which scratches a very particular itch in him.

(Attached to that metaphor: fingers behind his ear. Different shaped ear.)

And while most of the fuel is soft and sodden from the rainfall, but Sirius has learnt a third thing about himself: he can dry wood. The first time it happened, it was an accident, a great huff of hot steam that startled the hell out of him. He's learnt how to replicate it, so it's with an armload of surprisingly dry wood that he's returning, when he spots Charles.

At first Charles is only a shadow, rising gingerly from the lumpy mass of people around the fire. Then he starts wandering off--to piss, Sirius assumes, generously, just before the figure detours, and Sirius sets down his armload beside a tree and pushes his hands in his pockets, takes a strolling detour in his wake.

This is how he ends up behind Charles, at the fringe of the camp. Damp hair, damp jeans, t-shirt stuck to his back.]

There's a hole.

[Helpful. He doesn't shout it out, or anything. Keeps his voice pitched quiet.]

Just in front of you, I mean. This is your warning. If you fall in, someone'll have to go and get you out.

['Hole' is a generous term as well. It's not all that deep. Neither, it would seem, is Sirius. He grins a little under the smear of grime and day-old growth of beard. Like a cheerful brigand.]

OTA

[acapriciousthing]

Around Camp

It takes a while for 'Robin' to really find a place she can be useful. At least until she realizes she apparently has magic. Then she at least has a sense of direction. Magic can heal people. Magic can help build structures.

Then the memories start coming back in spurts. So many battlefields. Fires. Bombed out buildings. They all look different. Some of the people aren't even human. And the technology is always changing. The... first day of existence. It comes in bits and pieces and leaves her with one question. "Never mind who... what am I?"

On ship

Like many people, she eventually ventures into the wreckage in hopes of finding answers. There's more time now to actually look around for answers than before. Broken down lockers seem the most likely. After a while, she actually comes across things that seem familiar.

And photos that she can't say are anyone's but hers. Or at least, she's in them, and that means something. Family? And in one of them, she has an arm draped affectionately around... a skeleton? "Okay, this just raises further questions."

Ship adventures

[likescats]

He's decided to take a look around as well and while she examines the photos he pulls out something more familiar out of a nearby locker.

It's like a photo, sort of. But he knows instinctively ....

AN ICONOGRAPH....THE IMP KEPT RUNNING OUT OF BLACK.

But more importantly that would explain why his memories of being taller come from. He glances over as the women he's with speaks up.

DID YOU FIND SOMETHING AS WELL?

Near the end of the month | MAX ROCKATANSKY | OTA

[theroadwarrior]

A.)

Max starts to see more and more things that aren't actually there. More voices that aren't actual sounds on the wind. It mostly starts as a mystery — he sees a child and he swears that she's either stalking him or lost in the jungle and they keep running into each other. But talking to one of you leads him to believe that's not quite the issue. One day, wiping sweat from his brow, he looks out at the empty space of jungle, wanders forward, and — to nothing at all — says: "Oi — Hey, kid! Who are you?!"

Nothing replies back, not in reality.

In Max's head, though, he hears a little girl whisper, Max, follow us.

B.)

It spirals out of control, sometime during a sunny afternoon. Max rushes away quickly from the camps, a terrified and disturbed look in his eyes as he looks around. Following is possible — though caution is recommended, because reality isn't quite coping with his head. He slouches against a tree shaking slightly, unnerved and distanced from the others. The more out-going Max seems to be subdued, the old Max surfacing in the tension of his shoulders.

What was that? What was any of that? He saw a flash of skulls, the shrill sound of a baby filling his ears. He feels like he should know why. It's right there on the tip of his tongue, a name that he associates with a weeping little baby boy. He remembers... being hurt. Not physically, but a knife to the heart. But he can't remember the details.

How could you forget, Max? How could you forget me? Glory whispers.

Max crushes his palms into his eyes, teeth gritting as he uses the tree for balance.

His head is killing him.

"Leave me alone... Why won't you leave me alone? I don't know who you are."

You know us, a blonde woman with scars on her forehead says, cradling something in her hands. You're not allowed to just forget. He has a feeling that he already knew that. He just wishes he knew anything else. Other than a fucking name. Max. Max. Nami had told him. Max. Like the voices say. Slowly, he begins to stop complaining, because he realizes it does nothing, nothing at all.

C.)

Max finally remembers everything the day he decides to slink away from the others. He's trying to across the damn acidic stream when his foot slips slightly; he's not really burned or anything, rubber sole bubbling for just a moment, but he suddenly remembers someone going under the wheels. Angharad. And then he remembers a little girl — going under the wheels. And then he remembers Jessie and Sprog.

Going under the wheels.

Memories of misshapen faces and blood and splatter hit him suddenly like a punch to the stomach. Everything at once: Glory and her mother, Angharad falling, the battle domes, the desert, the crows and the carnage and baking in the light. Radiation bubbling flesh and Sprog's dead and Jessie — they've been dead, and he never knew, never remembered until now. He remembers seas of people who's blood he has on his hands, intentionally or not.

He snaps, and when he does, the ghosts are out to play with his molting brain.

He can't get away from them. They crowd in around him and smother the air out of him, and he hunkers down low to the earth with his arm over his head; he closes his eyes and tells himself it's not real, can't be real, but — is it real? It feels real, solid enough. Their voices ring his ears.

Max!! Max, run!

You deserted us — !!

You promised, you promised my daughter would be safe! You promised!

He rushes through the trees and foliage, darting dazedly and without actually seeing everything around him. His senses are too impeded by everything his mind is trying to do; adjust, accept, reconnect. He pulls his gun and aims, not shooting but jaw tight. Please go away. Please just go, leave him so he can think straight for two fucking seconds.

He aims at Johnny Boy, who's grinning madly, blood pouring out of his leg and burns all across his body. He deserved what he'd been given. But the woman next to him — Angharad — she's got a child in her arms and her thin dress is covered in blood, and he knows she never deserved that. His hand shakes slightly, stress and desperation and weakened fingers hurting his grip.

Get back, or he'll shoot.

((OOC: Can accidentally run into him wherever, including just bumping into him, with or without his gun in C. The end result will likely be Rey carrying his heavy unconscious ass back to camp, but feel free to tag in with or without anything planned. :))

A

[lafautedevoltaire]

That was the question, wasn't it? They were all slowly getting answers, but sometimes it was more confusing. He was still trying to figure out why he remembered there being others he knew before here and now he couldn't find any.

Still, he remembers enough to know that tone and question have been directed at him far too many times before. "My mother mostly called me gosse, but I'd rather you call me Gavroche."

Newt | OTA

[sleepallthewayhome]

[Camp]

Newt is very slowly getting her memories back. Very slowly. She doesn't like it but she's remembered her name is Newt, her doll's name and that she was on a spaceship before she was here so that's something.

She sits with her doll in her lap watching the people of the camp run around, or do whatever it is they're doing. She doesn't know why she feels like she should be hiding, and she tries to ignore that.

[Wreck site]

Exploring is always good. Newt is going to clamber over things and under to search for anything that they might use in the camp. She wants to be helpful after all and being seven, danger is something that other people deal with.

Wreck Site

[dino_zarf]

Wash wasn't about to send his daughter into a wreck on her own. That just wouldn't be responsible. It was strange how she only featured in memories on this ship, not the other, but daughter still seemed like the best explanation.

Either way, she should have someone with her in shakey wreck sites. "See anything up there, Newtie?"

That can't be the name they gave her, but it's what he remembers calling her.