Alex Shepherd | SEC » 008 » 040 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
unsoldiered) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ataraxionlogs2012-07-21 03:11 am
unsoldiered) wrote in ataraxionlogs2012-07-21 03:11 am
Entry tags:
Open Log // Power surge, Sensory overload
CHARACTERS: Alex (unsoldiered); OPEN
LOCATION: Everywhere and anywhere on the 19th of July and beyond to the 22nd
WARNINGS: Adult themes; mentions of mental instutitions and malpractice, mentions of drug use, etc. Also maybe some #emotionalalex. Maybe even lots, depending on the thread. Silent Hill, u scary.
SUMMARY: Alex remembers everything in a snap.
NOTES: Action brackets and prose are both great! Find him aaany time during this block o' text.
[THURSDAY NIGHT // JULY 19TH 2012]
He was doing alright. It'd been about two weeks since he first appeared, and he was... okay. Things were much better than the first week; he was getting out a little more, talking with people over the network--talking casually, smiling even--and while he was still suffering from nightmares, he was eating better. Sleeping more, too. The pale sheen in his face was darkening, and his hair wasn't as scrambled, combed out neater. He was attempting to shave more often, because frankly, he needed it; he didn't want to end up the guy from Castaway. No way.
After he'd done a network post on the 19th, he hit a wall.
Specifically, a wall of memories. He'd read that ECT can cause memory black-outs, especially for the months or years prior to the sessions. He spent some time in the library, looking into it when time seemed to stand still for him and he had nothing to do. He read that sometimes those memories'll never return. Expecting them to come back isn't high on his list, and wanting them is disputable. Still, there's something so unsettling about not knowing what part of your own life was like.
He's sitting on his bed combing through his journal (he doesn't know why, but he does, he just does) and when he puts it down and moves for his device a string of images assaults him. It's like a lightswitch being turned on. Before it was just bits and pieces, little clips that were, if anything, detached. Now, his fingers go numb and he almost feels it physically: the straps around his wrists and legs, the feeling of electricity surging through his body as he screams against a muffling plastic mouth piece. He remembers a doctor's chin, upside down, watching him--and hands writing something down. Voices.
'Dr. Copen?'
'He's unresponsive... Up his pill dosage. Just pureed foods for now.'
--the snap of gloves, so many pills, and he didn't care; they had to force medication down his throat, put it into his food. Trapped in illogical delusions, he kept screaming about the enemy, how they were closing in. Someone's legs were blown off, but it was all in his head, and he can't ever remember what military life was like, because it never happened. All that happened were therapies that never, never worked.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every fucking day, they signed off on his paper.
NO PROGRESS, NO DESIRED RESULTS.
He remembers everything, all in one nonsensical moment. He was only reaching for something. That's all. And then it was just there.
There's never one predetermined reaction to suddenly remembering a chunk of one's life. He stands up from his bed, silent as death, and walks out of his room. He doesn't bother closing his door all the way. He just leaves, wanders the hall with his arms folded, blindly walking and looking like he's just had a fight with a ghost. He didn't care where he ended up--he just couldn't stay in that room right now. He wouldn't. The idea of being in there only reminded him of the room in the hospital he was forced to remain in day after day.
No.
He wishes he never remembered. It only added to a pile of shit things. A very big, consuming pile.
[FRIDAY - SUNDAY // JULY 20th - 22nd, 2012]
He's still shaken from the prior night.
Alex isn't answering or looking at his device, not at all. He's not answering his door either, because he just needs a break from reality for a moment--but at the same time, isn't that what got him sent to a mental institution to begin with? While he doesn't touch the network, his inbox, anyone's posts, he's not locked up in his room all day. He escapes from it to walk around the hallways aimlessly as he'd done Friday night, letting himself get lost. He'd rather do that than linger in the room, not particularly looking for people to talk to but rather something to eat up the time. He'll do this for a few hours a day, each time veering for the oxygen garden, so that he could lay there in the greener world and mull over his life and everything that happened in it.
Like he hasn't been doing that already.
For a few hours, he lays in there. The hours lengthen progressively from two hours to four. By the 22nd, he stays in there for six hours and doesn't bother budging, laying on his arm. There's a lot of thinking to be done... like thinking about how his family doesn't have any headstones or burials. Maybe he should set up something small for them in his room. He doesn't like the idea that they're lost to Silent Hill forever, in the belly of some fucked-up church, or something.
Yeah. It'll a small space on his table he can set up. He's not sure what to use... He's got nothing but those photos. And they're... They're not photos one should use for a shrine to the dead. Not ever.
During these few days, he'll have his axe with him like its a lifeline.
unsoldiered); OPENLOCATION: Everywhere and anywhere on the 19th of July and beyond to the 22nd
WARNINGS: Adult themes; mentions of mental instutitions and malpractice, mentions of drug use, etc. Also maybe some #emotionalalex. Maybe even lots, depending on the thread. Silent Hill, u scary.
SUMMARY: Alex remembers everything in a snap.
NOTES: Action brackets and prose are both great! Find him aaany time during this block o' text.
[THURSDAY NIGHT // JULY 19TH 2012]
He was doing alright. It'd been about two weeks since he first appeared, and he was... okay. Things were much better than the first week; he was getting out a little more, talking with people over the network--talking casually, smiling even--and while he was still suffering from nightmares, he was eating better. Sleeping more, too. The pale sheen in his face was darkening, and his hair wasn't as scrambled, combed out neater. He was attempting to shave more often, because frankly, he needed it; he didn't want to end up the guy from Castaway. No way.
After he'd done a network post on the 19th, he hit a wall.
Specifically, a wall of memories. He'd read that ECT can cause memory black-outs, especially for the months or years prior to the sessions. He spent some time in the library, looking into it when time seemed to stand still for him and he had nothing to do. He read that sometimes those memories'll never return. Expecting them to come back isn't high on his list, and wanting them is disputable. Still, there's something so unsettling about not knowing what part of your own life was like.
He's sitting on his bed combing through his journal (he doesn't know why, but he does, he just does) and when he puts it down and moves for his device a string of images assaults him. It's like a lightswitch being turned on. Before it was just bits and pieces, little clips that were, if anything, detached. Now, his fingers go numb and he almost feels it physically: the straps around his wrists and legs, the feeling of electricity surging through his body as he screams against a muffling plastic mouth piece. He remembers a doctor's chin, upside down, watching him--and hands writing something down. Voices.
'Dr. Copen?'
'He's unresponsive... Up his pill dosage. Just pureed foods for now.'
--the snap of gloves, so many pills, and he didn't care; they had to force medication down his throat, put it into his food. Trapped in illogical delusions, he kept screaming about the enemy, how they were closing in. Someone's legs were blown off, but it was all in his head, and he can't ever remember what military life was like, because it never happened. All that happened were therapies that never, never worked.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, every fucking day, they signed off on his paper.
NO PROGRESS, NO DESIRED RESULTS.
He remembers everything, all in one nonsensical moment. He was only reaching for something. That's all. And then it was just there.
There's never one predetermined reaction to suddenly remembering a chunk of one's life. He stands up from his bed, silent as death, and walks out of his room. He doesn't bother closing his door all the way. He just leaves, wanders the hall with his arms folded, blindly walking and looking like he's just had a fight with a ghost. He didn't care where he ended up--he just couldn't stay in that room right now. He wouldn't. The idea of being in there only reminded him of the room in the hospital he was forced to remain in day after day.
No.
He wishes he never remembered. It only added to a pile of shit things. A very big, consuming pile.
[FRIDAY - SUNDAY // JULY 20th - 22nd, 2012]
He's still shaken from the prior night.
Alex isn't answering or looking at his device, not at all. He's not answering his door either, because he just needs a break from reality for a moment--but at the same time, isn't that what got him sent to a mental institution to begin with? While he doesn't touch the network, his inbox, anyone's posts, he's not locked up in his room all day. He escapes from it to walk around the hallways aimlessly as he'd done Friday night, letting himself get lost. He'd rather do that than linger in the room, not particularly looking for people to talk to but rather something to eat up the time. He'll do this for a few hours a day, each time veering for the oxygen garden, so that he could lay there in the greener world and mull over his life and everything that happened in it.
Like he hasn't been doing that already.
For a few hours, he lays in there. The hours lengthen progressively from two hours to four. By the 22nd, he stays in there for six hours and doesn't bother budging, laying on his arm. There's a lot of thinking to be done... like thinking about how his family doesn't have any headstones or burials. Maybe he should set up something small for them in his room. He doesn't like the idea that they're lost to Silent Hill forever, in the belly of some fucked-up church, or something.
Yeah. It'll a small space on his table he can set up. He's not sure what to use... He's got nothing but those photos. And they're... They're not photos one should use for a shrine to the dead. Not ever.
During these few days, he'll have his axe with him like its a lifeline.
no subject
Actually, it was better -- he would rather see Alex teasing him than having him wallow deeper at the bottom of that trauma-induced pit.
"...Oh. Erm. Good to know." Murphy's brows then furrowed together. As if that wasn't bad enough, he was about to show just how old (and ignorant) he kind of was: "What's... chicken peck typing?"
Oh God.
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He holds up his index fingers, typing on an imaginary laptop. "The same way you probably type on a keyboard. One pointer finger at a time, man. You're pretty awful at technology, aren't you?"
At least Alex knows how to type like a normal person. Backwards as his town is, you gotta give him that much, Mr. Chicken Peckleton.
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I see, I see...
"That's somethin' else that I might've, uh... skipped out on, yeah." Technology obviously was never this man's strongest feat. "But if you've got a thing that's broken, I could probably fix it. So there's that."
See? He's not entirely useless.
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Because Murphy just breaks everything he touches. This is truth. This is law.
...Though he had thought about ways to make himself useful. That's what he signed up for, anyway.
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Murphy's mouth straightened, casually attempting to shift and block Alex's view when the kid leaned to try and get a peek at the scrawl.
"...I do my part around the place. Built a chapel. Marked safe routes -- and it's not graffiti."
Well, most of it wasn't, anyway. Murphy didn't know what he was doing a few moments ago, with the shiv. That happened sometimes.
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Sheesh, blocking him off like that. He droops his shoulders in defeat, but takes note of the jumps comment; he knows they have to go back into those damn rooms, but...
Chapel.
He can't even help but wince that that chapel bit. Couldn't say he was ever really that religious--especially when his parents had their town-wide one he avoided it like the plague. This... is not helped by the fact that his church visit in Silent Hill. At all.
But hey, this place ain't home. This is probably a totally nice chapel.
"A chapel, huh... Didn't know we had a place like that on the ship." Does he look unsure about the idea? Just a little. JUST A TAD. "No monsters or creepy paintings or general bad vibes in it, I'm assuming."
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"No." Murphy chided abruptly. Monsters and creepy paintings weren't allowed on his watch. "None of that. It's somewhat lacking in what I'm, uh... used to--" Stained glass windows and whatnot weren't easy to come by in space. "--but we figured... it's good. To have. Y'know? Out here. No matter what you make of it."
Faith, in other words.
It wasn't a subject that Murphy was comfortable talking about with people. He had his own spiritual dilemmas on the matter, but the fact of the matter was, he had more peace of mind feeling that his son was not condemned to oblivion. That there was hope for the better people who earned it after their passing.
People that weren't Murphy, that was.
"...Shit, sorry. The last thing I wanna do is preach."
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It's just. The problem with him is that society founded on faith destroyed his whole life. Maybe it shows in how hesitantly he adds: "Maybe, uh... I'll visit the place then. Seems like a good place to work out what's in your head, anyway... Lack of puzzles and riddles is a plus, too."
Part of him says no no no, remembers the shadowy figure in the confessional and corpse floating rotted in a well and so many unpleasant things--but at the same time, he wants to find peace. Peace that maybe there's something to combat the nightmarish world his society was built off of.
"It'd be nice to see the good side of faith, for once."
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He'd tried to push the happenings at St. Maria's on the back of his memory, but the images of the old monetary still haunted him. It was like a mockery, or a perversion of a lifeline that Murphy coveted.
He tried blinking it all out and shook his head. "Anyway, it's set up in one of the gardens. I guess it's nice if you ever need a place to think, or make peace, or whatever. I could show you there sometime, or just... give you directions, maybe."
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What the hell, Silent Hill. He shrugs, fiddling with the dog tag plates between his fingers as he stares elsewhere.
"But... Sounds good. If you have a set of directions for me to put away, I'd appreciate it. I've been trying to map out some of the hallways lately anyway—figured it's better than taking shots in the dark later when it'll probably matter."
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That made four that he knew of, now that Murphy actually thought about it. Heather, himself, Cunningham, and now Alex. It wasn't like they knew each other, but for some reason, he felt a connection to these people, anyway.
The chink of metal pulled Murphy from his daze as his eyes fell on the dog tags Alex kept around his neck. Thought he was a wounded soldier, he'd said.
So then, who did those belong to?
"Sure. I... actually don't have my device on me to bring up a map, but I could send it to you--" if he can figure out how to do that in time "--uh, sometime. Could also follow the walls. Halls leadin' to the chapel have blue shapes."
The same bird-like scribbles, actually, but he didn't forget the last time Alex made a comment on Murphy's exceptional artistic talents.
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Sounds like there are more of them, if Murphy's dragging other names into the fray. Unless Heather was just someone he knew from home. He knew about Anne. A pause as he lets his tags fall back down to his chest.
"Is she from there, too? ... And Cunningham?"
Because yeah, he heard from her lately, too.
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Cunningham had been sick, too. He had almost lost both of them.
"Just met Heather shortly after I... came here." He gestured with one hand to their surroundings, indicating here in a more general sense. "Cunningham, though -- she was in the crash that I told you about as well. We were... the only ones who made it out."
He paused, figuring what Alex might be thinking about.
"As far as I know, it's just us. But I don't go around askin' everybody."
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It's weird. It's really weird.
"Are they all--okay? I mean, back home... Did they make it out okay?"
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"...I dunno. Depends on what your definition of 'okay' is."
Heather lost her father. Murdered by some people from that town.
Cunningham... There were some things that Murphy knew. Things that he hadn't told her yet. He didn't know why. Maybe he was waiting for her to bring up what happened with Sewell first. In any case, that didn't really strike Murphy as being okay... not after the way he watched her cry not too long ago.
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"I wouldn't want 'em stuck there still, I mean."
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"I'm not sure. I was under the impression that they were. I mean, I know Cunningham at least..." Was out long enough to put a bullet in the face of her father's actual murderer? Yeah, it probably wasn't his place to say anything about that. "We'd gone separate ways. I guess we were at least out for awhile, before... this happened." Murphy lifted both hands.
God, he could still remember the sound of the radio. Time Is On My Side. An air of freedom, or something like it.
He was nothing more than a prisoner with a number again, it seemed like.
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Huff.
"When we go back--what do you think happens? Thinking about how any of this works makes my head hurt."
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At least here he didn't have to make a list of bullshit names to spew at the next person he hitched a ride with. No more running.
On the other side, he had no family, no friends. The only person he could trust he had no way of getting in contact with -- and even then, Cunningham had her own issues to contend with. He would only be making her life more complicated by showing up on her doorstep like some goddamn stray.
But not here.
He sighed. "No idea. I try not to think about it."
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He looks over at the other guy, frowning. He may be in bad shape (like usual, what's new?), but Murphy didn't seem all there today either (also not so new). While he was thinking about saying bye and going separate ways, he still figured... eh, it was worth a shot. Not to mention, finding the other guy this far into the hallways--and how much was scratched into the wall?--Murphy's probably doing what he does and hasn't eaten in a while.
"You eat anything, lately?"
Better not be starving yourself for too long, old man.
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When was that, exactly?
It'd been awhile since he ever thought about having to keep track of time, it was also extremely easy to lose the concept of this thing called a healthy schedule.
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Jeez. He's really not about to leave you pokin' at a hallway with a knife with an empty stomach on top of it. You're so dumb. You are really dumb. For real. He gets up and straightens out his jacket.
"If you don't eat you're gonna' get all gangly, old man. Let's go get something before we both keel over."
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Look at your life, Shepherd. Look at your choices. You escaped Silent Hill, and now you're stuck in a spaceship, making friendlies with a convict. Because you're a stupid bitch.
"Wow, thanks." Telling a creampuff like Murphy that he's going to get all gangly. The jokes you tell, Alex. The jests. In any case, he does pick himself up off the ground, still standing conveniently in front of the carved up wall. "Guess I am pretty hungry, though."
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