ataraxionlogs | AFTER THE CRASH

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AFTER THE CRASH

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...

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With an iron jaw, Rey's teeth do clamp down on that hand. Max can keep fighting, wriggling, lashing and growling, but it doesn't deter her from her focus when she's dead set on a task. Right now, that's on getting him to calm down, or something close to it.

It's only when the visions flooding from his mind to hers that she feels her senses waver. Rather than letting go entirely, she bites down even harder. Her muscles seize up like steel. It sure as hell doesn't help Max's efforts, to say the last, as she slips into that maddening void of unfamiliar visions and voices.

Where are you now? is what her father would tell her whenever she lost her grip on the present timeline. When she would start slipping back into a memory or a nightmare, losing herself entirely to it.

But where she is now isn't her own head, that is for sure. She's conscious of this almost immediately. Her eyes snap shut, and by the time she reopens them Max is still under her, no longer moving.

Max.

That's definitely a name she'd plucked from those accusatory derisions a minute ago.

At the risk of strangling him to death entirely, Rey throws her weight off him, onto her knees. Sweaty-faced, she slides her hands over her eyes, rattling some sense back into herself as she shakes her head. No, no, it wasn't her madness just then. Not her losing her grasp on reality. And fuck if she had any idea that they still maintained these damned connections with one another before...

Shallow-breathed, she finally calms herself down long enough to reach over and check Max's neck for a pulse, make sure she didn't actually just kill the poor man. She releases a shuddering exhale when she finds a heartbeat in his neck, and pushes herself onto her feet. Her balance sways for a moment and knees nearly buckle, before she scoops his gun off the ground and drags her feet over to a narrow box within the encampment.

Pulling out a bottle of rainwater with her free hand, she collapses back to the ground, her back drawn to the same tree. Only this time, rather than hiding behind it, she's carelessly twisting open the cap and takes a long, greedy drink. Not once do her eyes leave Max's unconscious body while he lays there, taking a nice little dirt nap, with his own gun in her good hand.

And she waits.

Enjoy sitting there for a good hour, maybe two.

It's good for you, soldier.

For once in his life, Max doesn't wake up gasping or swinging punches. He wakes up slowly like he's floating up from some dark murky place, the light bleeding through his eyelids to cut through his unconsciousness. His eyelids flutter, and he breathes in sharply, sounding shredded in his throat now that his neck is aching after the abuse to his windpipe.

He coughs, low and strained, slowly curling in on himself to try and sit on his elbow, like someone who has been asleep for weeks, muscles not listening and brain slow to catch up. He — he remembers a few things better. His name is Max, he's not sure how old he is, he used to be a sane man, he used to have a family. Other things are having a hard time bubbling back up, but he remembers Furiosa's heavy weight as she slammed her arm into his muzzle. He remembers the click of a gun, and her heaviness when he yanked her back up from the side of the Gigahorse. All muscle, that woman. Heavy and strong and lean.

His wear eyes shift, and he stares wordlessly at Rey with caution, hand hovering at his throat but not quite touching it. She may realize after a moment he's waiting to see if he's going to shoot him now. Right through the forehead. Right here. It would be very easy. He licks his lips, breathing in choppily again.

"You burned me."

He remembers that much, right now.

He also remembers... talking to her. Before he remembered everything.

And what a patient soldier she is, indeed.

Rey is finished with half of that bottle by the time Max even remotely starts to come to. Mostly, she is just relieved that Firo hasn't returned yet; it would suck having to explain why she is sitting with a gun in front of a smelly, unconscious hobo in the middle of their camp.

She sets the water down to seize the gun with her good hand again, waiting and watching as Max rises from his rest. Her eyes narrow, studying him like a book up until the point where he graces her with a look she has known too well. One that she's seen many times before, just before putting a bullet in their skulls, or snapping their necks, or burning them alive just to revel in their cacophony of pain.

Doing none of those things, she eases her grip on the gun. Her shoulders slack as her posture relaxes, elbows resting over her knees where she sits.

Before she speaks, she cants her head, looking for the burn scar in the shape of that handprint she'd left on his arm. Then, her eyes shift back to meet his face.

"Yes. I'm sorry about that."

The elusive I is dropped, as is the 'dumb robot act'. Because it's a little hard to sound sincere when she is keeping up the emotionless monotone that usually plagues her dialogue. For anyone who has spent any quality of time with her, it's strange to hear her like that. For her to be less machine and sound almost human.

He stares at her still, swallowing painfully.

His head feels like it's splitting in two. Right down the middle. He's not sure how to take that apology, because people usually don't apologize to him. It's not really a big response, in the Wastelands. Apologies are hard to come by, and it's especially odd to hear from someone who is clearly a capable killing machine like he and the others out there are.

Max looks down at the mud beneath him, sodden and dripping rainwater from his hair that had settled all that time. "It was only you." Not spoken as a question, actually, but as an aside to himself loud enough to hear — he had thought... there were more. Before he passed out, there had been more. But then, he knows who they were now. He gets it. All those faces, voices, angry or sad, gleeful sometimes and unaware of his anguish. But maybe he's not making sense to her right now. He tries to focus, even though his mind never seems to let him entirely. "The white room, before. Made you crazy."

It's no mystery to Rey what Max means by his comment. Having only a brief glimpse inside his head has told her a lot. It also told her that they aren't so different. They both have things living in their minds; they're just fighting different battles.

Staring at him for a moment, Rey finally nods, which is more or less an answer to both of his statements. She reaches for the bottled water with her free hand and tosses it over to Max. It rolls the rest of the way towards him. Drink up, bro. Hydration is good for you.

Of course, she still doesn't surrender the gun back to its owner. Not yet.

"It didn't help. Wasn't exactly what you'd consider a poster child for sanity before that."

He looks down at his hand, pressed limply against the rough dirt and leaves underneath him.

"... Guess — m'not, either."

And remember that he's insane has not been a good experience.

Still isn't, never was very fun to be stuck with his brain. But at least memories are returning, carefully coiled back into lumps of brain. He's coming back, all of him. He feels slow and heavy when he reaches out and picks up the bottle of water, his throat throbbing miserably as he uncaps it. It's quiet for a while, just her with his gun, him with her water.

"... Is it gone now? That link... to the room?"

The memories of everything that happened prior to the crash is still muddled in Rey's head. She can't quite piece the bits together.

What she had done to Max and Arthur, however, does return -- crisp and clear. And she wouldn't have held it against him to keep attacking, or simply run away at this point. Rey isn't the same person she used to be, who'd allow someone to exact revenge on her. Even if it was her fault at the time, she'd have no choice but to defend herself.

Fortunately, it shouldn't be necessary.

Rey doesn't answer his query right away. She pauses, giving it some thought, before shrugging a shoulder.

"Not sure. Haven't felt the same as before, but who knows what that could mean." It isn't like she has anyone experienced enough that she can ask, and most of their technology from the ship is on the wayside until further notice. It's a shit deal, not knowing.

"Mm..." He sits up to lean against the tree, silence drifting between them for a moment. He throws the water bottle back to her, not quite looking right at her but still at least at ease enough - he's always tense in some way, but this isn't so bad for, y'know, having just fought her in the mud. Which they're now wonderfully sporting. Max has a muddy cowlick that just can't be tamed. He finally continues, "If you feel any different, just say. I'll watch."

To be honest, part of it is self-protection. But he also is at least a little genuine when he says he wants to look out for her mental well-being. It's awful, to be that way. Max may be mad, but at least he's in control of his actions. Little ghostly children peer pressure not withstanding.

Snagging the water bottle from the ground, Rey's eyes don't leave her sight of Max as she secures the cap. She's fine with the silence, just as she's fine with muddying her clothes up a bit by resting where they are. As a soldier, you learn not to let the little things like that bother you so much, because it's better than your blood.

At his offer, she just blinks for another prolonged moment of silence, as if studying to double check his sincerity. After all, she did try to burn him. Pretty sure she'd broken some bones back then, too.

"Don't know what anything is supposed to feel like anymore," she eventually says, discarding the bottle in favor of holding the firearm.

Her comfort is the gun.

Edited 2015-10-04 06:02 (UTC)

Max shrugs at that. "That's how it goes. It's how you know you're getting old."

He raises his eyebrow at her.

At his own gun.

Are you just gonna keep that orrr...

She scoffs. "Certainly doesn't help when you've spent over a hundred years, being different people."

Even Rey can take a visual cue, though, following Max's gaze to the gun in her hand.

Shrugging a shoulder, she casually exchanges the firearm like she had the water bottle. By tossing the damn thing.

It's okay. She made sure the safety was on.

... Huh.

As he checks over his gun, he raises his eyebrow at her.

One-hundred years, was it?

Even though Max doesn't utter a word, his expression speaks volumes. It also helps that she's seen that look before.

"Yes, you heard that right."

Forget offering an actual explanation for that shit. Certainly Max can already see for himself that she isn't a normal person.

He thinks rather morosely, Feels like it's been that long for me, too.

Though that's more an affliction of the mind for him. The insanity and isolation is not a good combination, and the roads are winding in the wasteland, all sun and sand and not a clock in sight. Perhaps that merely made him madder. He's not sure. There is... you know. That whole... He motions at her with his hand, as if she can hear his inner trouble finding coherent thought.

"You make fire."

He's trying not to look at the things happening around him. The wandering figures in his peripheral. He still feels his heart beating wildly in his chest, his brain throbbing angrily. Still trying to catch up to the memories he's gotten returned.

Edited 2015-10-11 06:05 (UTC)

At one point, insanity and isolation went hand in hand for Rey. Lately, the phobic reactions to such things haven't plagued her like it used to, allowing her at least some alone time without the threat of anxiety and panic attacks. Not that Rey likes being alone, which is why she's made the prudent decision not to live a life of loneliness anymore.

...

In retrospect, she realizes the irony that it's the insane man who offered to keep an eye on her own sanity.

In which case, what seems to be a non sequitur from Max makes a perfect sort of crazy sense to Rey.

"Yes, that's a thing," she casually confirms. "Can manipulate heat to incite anything from a boil to a burst of flame. Including this vessel." She doesn't say body. That would imply that she is human, or born in a way that all living mammals are.

He makes a sound in his throat, a little humming noise of understanding.

He risks oversharing, because it's not anything he needs to keep secret.

The Wastelands are what they are; they're a part of him, but also not his story. It's enough.

"... Your world sounds broken, too. In it's own way."

The implication is, your world fucked you over. It's Max's brand of subtle sympathy.

"What world isn't?"

That question may be a bit too philosophical than Rey is willing to get into right now. But from what she's seen, there are worlds more broken than others. Hers...

Well, it could be worse. She doesn't make a habit of complaining, anyway. Not when she's contributed to much of the breaking.

She looks at him, calculatingly. "Seems like yours has done a number on you, too." Rey gestures to her own head, referring to both the visions she saw about an hour ago and Max's precious state.

He reflexively squares his shoulders, hunched and ready to defend himself by locking himself up and throwing out the key; he knows what she's asking about, and most don't mention it, mostly out of a lack of care to, or a gross understanding of what it all means in the end. He does eventually ease himself, relax a little. She probably knows madness well enough. Knows what things can do to the mind. Little voices, squeezing through the tissues in your skull, trying to crack you some days, lead you around by the ear the next. Whispers. Hard to tell what's real, some days. Those're the bad ones.

Max remembers it all now.

Very well.

He clears his throat again, rasping, "Easy to see."

It doesn't go much more intimately, in terms of information. It's all he has to spare. Because otherwise, he'd have to explain his madness and where it all began — how he became a rabid psychotic, like the ones he used to guard against. And he doesn't want those memories so close to the surface, not now, and often not ever.

Suppose it'd be safe to say that a sane person wouldn't go rampaging through the jungle with a gun, attacking anyone they see. It wasn't too long ago that Max had come to Rey being somewhat more sound of mind than he was today, which means that something had to give.

That much can be expected when you live with so many demons in your head.

She just nods at first, calculating her next string of words. Her eyes shift to the shadows of the surrounding foliage, hearing the near and distant sounds of shifting leaves and insects.

"Wasn't that much better, a few years ago. Somehow it just got easier, shutting up the visions and the voices, but couldn't have done it alone."

No, if she'd have been on her own, Rey would've simply gone down the one path to self-destruction, as she had several times before.

"You can be all right." There are different meanings to those words. Whether it's a suggestion, or she's talking about Max as a person or his state of mind or perhaps even all of the above, it's anyone's guess.

Max stares at her for a long moment. He's never actually heard those words directed at him before, because most people would have felt full of shit saying it. In the desert he's from, you're fucking psychotic and there's nothing else to it, so it goes unmentioned — thought distantly, but never brought up, because it was common enough. Everyone had their problems. He never mentioned Furiosa's arm, even if he wondered where it had been taken and why. She never asked about the way his eyes glazed over on the horizon, or how he woke up ready to swing.

You can be all right.

He doesn't believe that at all, but he also does, just in his own way. He is all right. He's as all right as he can be, for what he is. All right means alive, relatively good in health, and without additional misery in the wastelands. It means a car with a little gas, a good set of wheels. All right is having somewhere warm to sleep at night and days that are less scalding in the day.

He has no clue what to do with those words, though.

So instead he looks away, rubbing his neck with his hand.

Max's not so sure about that, Rey.

Whatever Rey was expecting, a long-winded response wasn't one of them, so she doesn't falter at Max's silence. Not when her words could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

She shifts a little, opening her mouth for a moment before closing it again. Already she had let a little bit of her humanity slip through when she had apologized, but over the course of the conversation she had reverted back into her usual, Rey-esque monotone. Like a wall she puts up between her and most people by removing herself from the equation. It's both conscious and subconscious. A bad habit.

When she speaks again, that little bit of her 'human' side reflects in her tones, more noticeable than before with those two simple words that she had spoken earlier:

"It wasn't my choice to remember what it was like, being all of those different people I used to be. Would get things mixed up all the time, and I lost my damned mind -- minds -- just trying to sort it all out. Even when I was able to push them away for a while, I still wasn't the textbook definition of a healthy mind." She draws in a breath. "But I'll probably never be healthy, and it's okay. I've learned to live with being a little, or a lot, insane from time to time."

It may not be the most sound advice, learn to live with it. Rey's head is wired differently than a human brain. Still, she'd like to think that the parallels aren't so unlike one another, at least in a way that she can try to offer her own help.

Max glances at her, brow furrowed. It's not a common conversation, never something he discusses with others in the wastelands. He rubs his hand on his thigh, suddenly feeling the need to escape - get away, find silence, break out of this world where things feel so much more difficult to outrun. He fights his own voice in his head though and just nods. Clears his throat. Rubs his nose.

He rasps, "... Better to live with it out in the middle of nowhere."

Then nobody can see it so often. Nobody would learn about him like this. Nobody would learn about him. Here, it feels like he's tethered in. And he literally is, isn't he? He shakes his head. He doesn't look at her, staring distantly at the trees beyond. He hears the faint echo of someone crying. He knows it isn't real; he's learned how to tell by now. For the most part.

"Not everyone has that option."

If it were up to her, she'd have locked herself away a long time ago.

Better yet, she'd have put another bullet through her brain. Just one more, and make damned sure that she wouldn't walk away from it this time. For good.

However, no matter how many times she tries, Rey always seems to end up back in the same place. And, currently, she simply sits, quiet. With her back to a tree and a blank stare at a man she had, not too long ago, physically broken now talking to her with anything but hatred and disdain. Even if she was compelled at the time, it's surreal, really.

Yeah, well...

"Guess not."

He's got nothing else to say to that. He's already feeling this place sink its claws into him, make him restless. Now that his memories are flooding in, though... he can't do this shit. He can't wander around camp, friendly and open and all of that. He closes his eyes, gathering the remnants of himself before he gets to his feet.

He looks over his shoulder at Rey, expression guarded.

He feels like he should... say something. Something important. Those kinds of things lodged in your chest, and you need to get it out. But like always, he just can't. Instead he just shakes his head, turns, and starts toward the deeper dark of the forest.

Because like he fucking knows how to leave someone any other way.

The voices ring out around him, like echoes.

How nice it would be, if we could all stay sane, huh?

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AFTER THE CRASH

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