ataraxionlogs | (no subject)

CHARACTERS: EVERYONE
LOCATION: MED BAY
WARNINGS: ... Partial nudity? It should be pretty tame, but let me know if I need to add anything.
SUMMARY: Side-effects of a jump may include disorientation and temporary memory loss. Fortunately, there are a handful of others who have been through this before.
NOTES: Yes, it's a rehashing of the game premise. Don't worry, you can personalize your own (re-)introduction!

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. 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 deposited on the floor of a stark, sterile medical bay.

Don't worry, you are not alone. There are others who have come before you, others who are awakening beside you. Some may be familiar to you, perhaps even friends. They will help you through your disorientation, even though they might suffer from it too.

After you catch your breath and your vision returns, you notice a number on the inside of your forearm. Maybe it's a familiar number. Maybe it means something. Maybe it's just a number. But the number—completely unique to you—is a tattoo, and it does not come off.

If you enter the room adjacent to the medbay, you will find a small locker with your number on it, surrounded by rows upon rows of identical lockers. Inside, you will find a few of your personal items, a communications device, and a ship's uniform in your exact size. The comms device is fully powered and connects directly to the ship's network; it's your only means of communication beyond physical conversation. Upon turning the device on, a neutral, automated voice will say, "Please take the blue lift to the passenger quarters." Any other attempts at communicating with the rest of the network are met only with static.

This is your welcome party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm my own supplementary supply, I guess. So if you ever need another one..." John thought about explaining it for a moment, but it was really complicated and it wasn't really that interesting. (Despite the fact that the entire explanation that he really would have thought about giving was just "it's a windy thing," as if that explained everything and anything.)

But he does catch, for another moment, on the pipe, and he looks down at the violin to his own faded reflection. Then up again, with more determination, though less certainty.

"Can I try that?" He pointed to the pipe, though not directly at it. He gestured towards it, with eyes shifting away from the violin to the area above his head.

"Just really quickly," he adds, as a promise. Because things did go very quickly, and sometimes, too quickly.

"I." Holmes pauses a moment. "Thank you. Though, with all hope, I won't need to utilize that," he finally confides within John, windy things being well outside his grasp of knowledge. He is definitely assuming that John's 'supplementary supply' is... his lungs.

But it's the gesture that's more readily interesting, and for a split second, Holmes misses it - the violin, the robe, no, he saw it. The pipe. It was what he shifted last, and thus John's concentration would have been on it - though his concentration wasn't on it, not for the time being. In fact, it was everywhere but, and Holmes plucks the pipe from his mouth for a moment. It's not the gesture of a small boy who merely wants to pick up smoking for the first time, but- what?

After a moment's debate and hesitation, it's the second prompt that has him affirming - 'really quickly' - and Holmes finally holds it out, just slightly, with a mildly jerky movement of his arm. "It's empty, you know, no- Ah." And he fiddles with what he can, which is his facial features - his nose wiggles, his eyebrows furrow even as his mouth curls into a small smile. "No tobacco."

"It's okay." He takes the pipe, which feels warmer in his hands than he thought it would. He regards the pipe curiously, and scrunches his nose. The pipe was perfectly fine, but felt a little strange and wrong. Like a square trying to fit into a peg hole, except that peg hole was life, and the square was a pipe, and the pipe wasn't just a pipe, but it was more or less just a pipe. He felt weird; weirder than when he tumbled out of the tube headfirst, weirder than being in a spaceship, weirder than just seeing that he only had Casey and a hammer in his wallet. It was like he ate a thousand tacos, and they had all been filled with beans.

He holds the pipe with both hands, and then quickly drops his left when he thought he looked like he had never handled a pipe before. Straightening up importantly, he put the pipe into his mouth, and thought about three things. First, there really wasn't any tobacco in there, and it was a little disappointing because it would have been a totally authentic experience. Second, it was cold and hard and not really that fun. The third wasn't something to be put into words.

"Do I look older with this?" He grinned sloppily, one hand still holding the pipe in a distinguished manner. He probably looked super cool, and not like a little kid trying to fill up the absence in his life at all.