ARRIVAL ▒ 003

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Any and all.
LOCATION: Basecamp, Medical and beyond.
WARNINGS: Implied (and possibly explicit) nakedness.
SUMMARY: The Tranquility jumps again.
NOTES: Can be found at the bottom of the post.

T H E   C A M P   ( C U R R E N T   C H A R A C T E R S ) Dawn is just shy of breaking when the alarms start. The wailing is distant enough that many manage to sleep through it, but inevitably wake up to the long, piercing siren coming from the crashed, early morning shape of the Tranquility. The coming jump puts a feeling of nervous energy about the camp, but it's becoming a routine, and they know there are long hours until the jump sounds. People clear the surrounding area of effect, and otherwise go about their day. It's ten hours later when it happens. A tremble in the earth, shaking up through the trees, sending the jungle's wildlife into distressed flocks of movement and alarmed cries. Under the shrouded sun the wreck of the Tranquility begins to cord with lines of white light, threading across the hull like veins, some patches remaining dark, standing out against the vision like splotches burnt to the back of the eyelids. There's no great sound. In an instant, the ship is gone, a soft whomp, a feeling of air rushing past, the trees bending towards the site as if blown by a fierce wind. It's only a second. With a crack, the wreck returns, a rumble rolling through the air like thunder. The earth shakes. The trees tremble. The ship groans, the sound echoing out like the cry of a wounded beast. Everything turns white. M E D I C A L   ( N E W   A R R I V A L S ) 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. All around you is chaos: the sirens of alarms are shrieking in your ears, close and claustrophic in the wreckage of the medical bay you've awoken in, lit dim and red. Around you, others are waking up, falling from other gravcouches, stumbling to their feet. Light catches your eye, and you look up to see a huge rend in the outer wall high above you, overhung by broken structural beams and damaged cabling. Climbing up takes all the strength you have. You emerge in bleak, grey sunlight, surrounded by an immense, vast jungle. As your vision clears, you realize you stand on the hull of a colossal spaceship, crashed on an unknown world, two moons hanging heavy in the sky above. In the distance, far out on a great swathe of torn up earth through the jungle is the site of a camp. But there is no welcome party coming to greet you. Perhaps you are alone, or you encounter someone in the same situation, but regardless, you must make it down and away from the ship without the aid of anyone who knows what's going on. Should you choose to head for the camp, it's dead quiet. The men and women who have made this place their home are scattered around, in the midst of having gone about their day, but all of them are in a state of frozen catatonia. Entirely unresponsive to any kind of stimulus, they are as still and as unseeing as statues. Within two hours since you woke in the wreck of the ship, they suddenly and simultaneously begin to stir, regaining consciousness to a prompt nose bleed and the unsettling affect of lost time. N O T E S Anything remaining within a mile radius of the ship when it jumps will be irreparably damaged. Soft organics will be pulverised, while all trees and plants will initially appear fine but crumble to pieces within a day (or sooner if disturbed). Non-organic material will also be weakened, bending or falling apart when touched. Newly arriving characters venturing through the medbay will discover their inventory items scattered beyond the ship. Feel free to find all of your inventory items, or lose as many as you like, as they will be randomly distributed around the jump radius. They will also be able to find jumpsuits and other standard clothing in the wreckage of medical. 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 wreck will show increased signs of instability for a few days after the jump, and will have seemed to have sunk further into the rock of the cliff than it was before. As described, all current characters will simultaneously enter a state of strange catatonia when the ship jumps, essentially freezing in place. They will see only blank whiteness, and be unable to recall how long they spent in this state. Upon regaining full consciousness two hours later, they will be left with a headache and a nosebleed. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to contact us via PM, the FAQ or Questions pages!

Comments

[onewithfido]

He looks anxiously toward her weapon, but he stops himself there — look, it's not like people were trying to murder him back home, huh? Sure, Josh had... made trust a bit harder, all things considered, but he's at the end of his rope here. What is he gonna do, if not try to work himself into this little colony of... well. He'll bite his tongue and not call them anything harsh.

They were just staring blankly at nothingness, just yesterday.

Their sanity is about as steady looking as Josh's.

He lowers his non-hidden hand to hang in defeat at his side, breathing out deeply.

"Sounds good. I mean, I don't know how reliable you sound saying 'first aid stuff', but you're probably light-years better at dealing with that than me." He has no clue how to properly first aid. It's a given. He tries to relax himself as he steps forward, blinking almost in slow motion, like his face is too exhausted to keep up speed. But even through his obviously traumatic weekend, he still manages: "This is a horrible first date. Sorry about that."

If she's going to murder him up close, he can at least go down with a joke or two.

[tectus]

Now there's a joke she can actually get. She takes no offence to the questioning of her abilities - honestly, she's pretty sure that this is above her pay grade, but Clarke is back in base camp being Useful and Octavia doesn't know any other doctors well enough to give them a stamp of approval for the newcomer.

"Would you believe that it actually isn't my worst one?" she laughs as she replies, more of a quiet little huff than an all-out chuckle, but there's humour in it at least as she stops in front of him, raising a hand. "Don't freak out and punch me if this hurts, okay?"

First rule of medicine, get a good poke in. That's legit, right? Or well she doesn't poke, but she does reach out to touch just beside the nastier wound on his neck, slowly and cautiously to make sure he's well aware of her moves before she makes them.

[onewithfido]

He flinches at the sharp pang in his neck, but he's not hitting her or anything; true gent, this one. Besides, his hand hurts a hell of a lot more. Which he's keeping tucked away in his shirt, because he's kind of anxious about it. She can probably see the four, long claw marks that have sliced him across the lower chest, though. It'd shredded the white undershirt beneath, leaving tendrils of cloth between each mark.

The neck wound is - gross, deep enough to look unsettling, but it could have been worse. Any deeper and it would have likely sliced open an artery and killed him where he stood. Stitches are the positive outcome, really.

What luck he has. He blinks tiredly, but manages to paste on a stupid smirk.

"Well, doctor? Am I doomed?"