03 ▒ EVENT: STRELA OUTPOST ▒ ASSIMILATION

[ataraxites]

CHARACTERS: Ensemble production!
LOCATION: Strela Outpost.
WARNINGS: Mind horror, hivemindery, etc.
SUMMARY: Communal brainwashing.
NOTES: Divided by locations; players are free to indicate which day/stage, and to begin new subthreads wherever they'd like!

Looks like the authorities have apprehended you and have brought you in for processing. After being forced to wait in the waiting room, you're brought to the assimilation room - a terrible white cell, where you're trapped for hours, sentenced to be slowly stripped of your individuality.

Comments

here fuck it it's time to get eridan some conscious thought again

[uncodlyawwesome]

Eridan doesn't feel any way in particular about being discarded inside the shuttle. He lies there for a minute, staring at the ceiling, feeling disconnected in a way that he doesn't know how to describe, if he were ever pressed to describe it. Then, slowly, as if by someone else's hand, he sits up and takes stock of his location.

Transport. Gonna take you away from all'a this. And through it, Feferi's talking, acting as if she's doing him a favor by picking him up and taking him away and getting ready to cut the cord. He doesn't think about what will happen when they get out of range of the content feelings. Maybe he'll die.

He looks at her without blinking, his glasses needing minor adjustments but he ignores them, too. That deep, insistent part of his mind says, just fuckin' look at her, do you even remember her name? You still owe her an apology! Snap the fuck out of it! But then it stops, abruptly, cut off. He's better for it. Even when the shuttle's pilot somehow gets aboard and somehow gets them out of the bay, he doesn't think and he doesn't say one fucking thing. But the further out they get from the outpost, the closer to the Tranquility they get, the harder it is to keep his mind blank.

He finally adjusts his glasses, then finds his legs and, at long last, takes a seat that isn't right next to Feferi. He can feel that thick spider-web in his brain stretch, getting plucked away bit by bit, enough that he feels he should speak.

"You," he starts, then stops. Tries again. "I'm supposed to be back there."