[hatch log] everything happens so much

[onemind]

CHARACTERS: New Hosts & EVERYONE
WHERE: The Station
WHEN: DAY :039
SUMMARY: New faces and old losses - a hatch occurs and a number of older hosts go comatose. Coma'd hosts include all auto-piloted dropped characters to date.
WARNINGS: Will update as necessary. Need a warning added? PM this account please!

NEW HATCHES
YOU WAKE UP and suddenly you're a different person. No. That's not right. You're you and there's no suddenly about it. It's been a while, hasn't it? It feels like waking up from a very deep, extended sleep or like surfacing up from the darkness of the ocean and right there in your own head there's something both familiar and strange. You know intuitively that you've been unconscious for more than just a blink of the eye. While it’s impossible to tell exactly how long ago or how exactly you escaped the danger that had been breathing down your neck, you're certain it was more than a moment ago.

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. That feeling persists even as you find the tube running from the base of your neck to the compartment's rear wall.

But once the tube's disconnected? Things get loud. 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 happening 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. Maybe it's time for a change? Drop down the ladder to the floor of the Nesting Deck and you’ll find you’re not alone. The closer you are to these stranger, the louder the sound in your head becomes. --Actually they're not quite strangers either, are they? Something is wound about and between you and these people, whoever they are, are as familiar as this place you've never been is.

Welcome to Station 72. The air buzzes with activity. Somewhere deep in the Station, other minds call to yours. They are bright, brilliantly celebratory spots in your subconscious. They are sun-warm gentle, or they are fire and the taste of ash, or they are a vibrant frenetic whirl, or they are a tangled garden, or they are the feeling of flight through dense cirrus clouds. No two links are exactly the same, but you know for certain that you are connected to all of them in at least some small way.

Which is why it's easy to tell when something goes terribly wrong:


OLD HOSTS
THE ENDORPHIN RUSH of making it back to Station 72 (relatively) unharmed, having successfully acquired exactly what you'd set out to get your hands on can't be denied. Even if you're not necessarily the type to celebrate, there's no ignoring the thrumming celebratory sensation from those Hosts who are.

After a few hours of being back in the void, something else stirs in the air: the clear, prickling sensation of new hosts hatching on the Nesting Deck. They're a rush of mental information - as if someone's turned the volume on the radio all the way up -, a cacophony of sensation and emotional feedback for anyone unprepared to shield against it.

The swell of feeling might make it easy to miss what follows immediately after: the dull, gut-deep quiet as The Darkling, Chuuya Nakahara, and Nasu Rei go suddenly comatose.

---

((OOC Notes: This is the hatch log for all new hosts. Feel free to make your own logs and posts additional to this if you care do. You can find a more detailed overview of the hatching process HERE. You can find additional setting information about the Station 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

[redheadcarrier]

[ This feels and looks so horrifically familiar as it plays out in her mind's eye. She can place her Eva in Seviilia's place, see the mass production units where the clergy are. She can see the red, red blood stain the snow and remember how it felt to crush the jaw of an MP unit between her hands and it all starts to blend and mix and swirl together as she trembles in Seviilia's grip. It's a haunting, breathtaking display of skill and she recognizes something of what she's done in it.

And with it is that strange euphoria, settling over her like a haze, amplifying the joy of her own memory. She shouldn't feel like this. Not when it's people - but she slaughtered people. She crushed a warship, broke its back and used it to smash a tank company. She annihilated attack craft. She's already killed and she's done it almost as hands on as Seviilia has when it comes to being up close and personal.

Her fingers curl against Seviilia's and her good eye is wide, pupil dilated as she tries to absorb the information that's coursing through her. She looks jittery when Seviilia finally releases her and Asuka - Asuka can back away now. She could call her a freak, do a dozen different things, but Seviilia is sharing this with her. Asuka is worth enough for this to be shared. And what does she care for people she's never met? She swallows, no answer springing to her throat. Not for a few moments more. ]

What was that? Did - what was that feeling?

[ Now her mind is a buzzing cacophony of her last fight and the way she tore them apart. The painful, agonizing conclusion is matched in in bits and pieces. It's all a mess. But one memory is sharp and clear and it's a hand outstretched, blood and pain and the raw determination to hurt and kill, the smell of copper, vision blacked out in the eye that Asuka has covered out and one repeated refrain:

I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you.

Asuka shudders and her shoulders hunch as her mind circles back to that point. ]

...mine didn't end as well. [ Her voice is a hoarse whisper. It's a shameful admission of weakness and she worries that Seviilia will see that, will find that piece of her memory and tear it out of her and use it to push her back into the dirt. ]

[miscreant]

A mistake my jailers made many years ago.

[Seviilia pauses half way between picking her teeth to watch Asuka's reaction unwind in front of her. For a brief moment, it seems like she might ride out her grief -- but her grief and pain feeds her, abates some of that hunger that she had rekindled by sharing her memory, returns the euphoria that coaxes a false sigh out of her nose.

Asuka, like this, was more valuable to her than she would likely ever know. But for all the monster she is, she also knows how to repay a favor. And so, her hand returns to the other woman's shoulder, spreading some of that foreign warmth through cold fingertips.]

The end does not matter here.

[Whatever end they were meant to meet on their worlds has merely served as a springboard to their life now -- afterlife? Whatever it might have been.]

You have only just begun.

[Her question about the feeling remains unanswered. It would no doubt be a tough pill to swallow. After all, she was used in a way, even if the end result was positive.]

[redheadcarrier]

[ Warmth. It makes no sense, Seviilia was cold. She frowns, brow knitting and she peers up at the elf with a sense of confusion. A part of her is glad, a part of her resentful. Yet another part wants to forget about all of it. ]

Begun what?

[ She needs to know that. She knows that she's supposed to fight their war now. She knows she has a no purpose. That she's needed her for some reason. The acceptance that Seviilia seems to extend to her is so easy and tempting. ]

You didn't tell me what any of that was. What are you? Aside from some... walking corpse?

[ Seviilia definitely mentioned corpse earlier. ]

[miscreant]

[She has her answer already, and her silence is a mere confirmation. But the second question, she can answer -- at least partially.]

I am an engine of war. Returned to life as an undead monstrosity by the very same master that sundered my homeland, I was remade to fight for him. Until I broke free of his sway over me.

[She stands, pulls her hand from Asuka. More or less, that is the story. The story of every Death Knight. But the rest--]

Perhaps I will provide more details after you have had a chance to adjust here.

[redheadcarrier]

[ That sounds... not familiar. But it certainly sounds like something that may have happened. Asuka tracks her as she stands, not yet willing to clamber to her own feet. ]

...fine.

[ Almost surly, but an agreement all the same. An acknowledgement. ]

I don't know why I'd need to adjust even more. What's so difficult about it?

[ Bravado. ]

[miscreant]

You will discover all the struggles that come with your new abilities. And with the connection we share.

[Seviilia has been enough of a mentor for one day. Asuka would learn -- or she was screw up and seek her out for answers later. But for now--]

Until then -- make friends.

[That last bit is nothing but sarcasm. She wouldn't have much of a choice to get along with everyone -- even those she didn't care for.]

It has been a pleasure to meet you, Asuka.

[redheadcarrier]

Make friends. Right.

[ Asuka doesn't sound that enthused by the idea. But she'll try. Sort of. ]

Uh, nice to meet you, too...?

[ That was an interesting conversation... ]