[hatch log] a lonely, distant place

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: Closed to Misato, Beth, Seviilia, Shepard & NPCs
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :045
SUMMARY: Somewhere far away from Concordia, new minds gain awareness.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary.

YOU WAKE UP and the person you were a moment ago is gone. --No. Not a moment. It's been a while, hasn't it? Something feels off - a combination of the strange and familiar right there in your own head. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye, but it’s impossible to tell exactly how long or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck.

But here you are, a small miracle of the multiverse: lying in a small faintly hexagonal chamber, a gentle white light emanating from the surrounding walls. If you were injured during your escape, those injuries have been healed. If you were anxious or frightened or distraught, those feelings have been briefly calmed. There's something strangely peaceful about waking up here and that feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But when you disconnect the tube things get loud and a wave of emotion fills that peaceful void. Fear, uncertainty, relief, a sense of purpose or loneliness or anxiety - maybe some of these emotions are yours, but they can't all be. After the initial sensory overload, the mental buzz elongates: stretches out into a murmur like the sound of a party behind a closed door.

You can sit up - barely -, and shift out of the pod. There’s a ladder at your feet, and a little cubby just before it with anything you brought with you, as well as a set of crisp, loose-fitting white clothes; while your injuries are healed, whatever you’re wearing is in the exact state it was before. Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone - and that those sounds in your head are louder. For two of you, the sense of familiarity runs so deep between you it might as well be cellular; one of you doesn’t share their connection, but you still feel like you know them somehow.

Welcome to Station 72. It’s quiet, still. Beyond the Nesting Deck in Life Support, there are a series of small personal rooms, all of them without doors. Some of them have personal belongings and a sense of life, but all of them are empty and it’s unclear how long they’ve sat that way. The only thing that’s obvious is that people are missing. For the time being, you’re alone with whatever (or whoever) has been left behind.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for the new hosts. You’re welcome to make your own logs separate to this for your time on the Station, but please be aware that until the current mission ends that you’ll be unable to play with older hosts currently away on Concordia.


Additionally, you can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. If you have any questions, please hit up either the FAQ or MOD CONTACT pages!))

NAVIGATION • SETTING • FAQ • MOD CONTACT • GLOSSARY

( CODE BY WHAMBAM )

Comments

[travailed]

[Incidentally, it's not her mother Beth thinks of first, but her sister. Bright-eyed and confident and tough, but— scared, too, beneath everything. Beth's never thought of that as weakness; it's strength, and something she's still not sure she has herself, as much as she tries. She'll never be Maggie.

Her fingers curl a little around the edge of Misato's palm.]

It's not just me. That's good. [The blurring, she means.] You don't gotta worry about me. We just have to stick together, right?

[She doesn't want Misato to think of her as a load, or as someone to be protected. She's always been that, someone else's burden. She's determined to pull her own weight this time.]

[wille]

[ It's an apt comparison, because Misato is always afraid. Of the dark, of being alone, of others, of dying, of living, of being lonely. She would admit it, if asked, because denial gets you nowhere. Face the facts, turn your weakness into strength, fear into fury and keep going. You're still alive, heart beating, lungs pumping air, so that means you can't just decide to stop and die. You can't. That's a law of nature. It wouldn't be right, even more so when others have died to let you live. Surviving carries a heavy weight.

She grips Beth's hand tighter before letting go, an approving smile on her face. ]

Alright. [ A woman after her own heart. ] Sorry for the noise. I'm not exactly music to your ears.

[ Joke. ]

[travailed]

[Beth shakes her head.]

No, it's okay.

[It's familiar, she wants to say, but that would sound weird, so she doesn't. She doesn't want to pry into Misato's life any more than she already (accidentally) has; her father always taught her to be respectful of people and their boundaries.

But still. Air in her lungs, survival like a yoke on her shoulders. It's familiar.]

Songs get stuck in my head all the time. And not even always the good parts. [She smiles back, even if it's a small one.] So you shouldn't apologize till you've gotten through that.

[wille]

[ It's part of the Japanese culture to be mindful and respectful of boundaries. Isn't that what she said to Asuka? When she herself is bent on bulldozing through any barriers erected against her when it suits her own purposes. Somehow she knows that it would be in her best interest to keep Beth close, no, that sounds too clinical. Somehow she knows they are already bound together, under the same yoke, for better or worse. She finds she doesn't really mind it.

The fear again, a small thrill in her heart. She grins, trying to lighten the mood. ]

The bad parts give way to the good eventually if you hold on through.

[ The eternal optimist. ]

[travailed]

[Her smile gets bigger. That's maybe the most familiar piece of all, whether it's about life or just about the crappy pop songs that get stuck in her head. She's always thought so, always needed to think so; otherwise she didn't have anything at all.]

Yeah. [She brightens up a little, inside and out. Hopeful, always.] Yeah, they do.