[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

[huntsmachines]

It doesn't, but you're broadcasting your emotions all over the place and the rest of us are picking them up.

[ Aloy peers at Asuka for a moment, then digs into the pouch on her belt. She removes a small stoppered container and opens it. A herb-laden, medicinal smell wafts free. ]

Do you want something for that bruise?

[redheadcarrier]

Well, that's not my fault-!

[ Asuka turns to start berating Aloy when she's suddenly surprised by the offer that the other girl is making. She can't be serious. Right? She eyes Aloy with suspicion. ]

What is that?

[ Admittedly, the pain is getting irritating. ]

[huntsmachines]

This? Mostly salvebrush with some ocherbloom. It'll help with the pain and bring the swelling down. I also have some dried salvebrush berries that you can chew on if you don't want to smear paste on your cheek.

[ Aloy smiles again. ]

Nothing bad, I promise.

[redheadcarrier]

I - ugh, no, I don't want to chew on anything.

[ Asuka's still suspicious, but Aloy's enthusiasm and the emotions she's putting out are... weirdly soothing. She frowns and glances away. The bruise is on her blind side, so she feels vulnerable turning it toward her. ]

Just hurry up.

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy can feel the vulnerability. It's still so strange to feel others emotions. She wants Asuka to feel comfortable, though, and focuses her mind on reassuring Asuka that Aloy isn't going to do anything to hurt her. Gently, her fingers touch against the bruised cheek. She rubs gingerly and the paste is thin and a little oily so that after a few strokes it's been absorbed into the skin. The effect is almost immediate. There's a gentle tingling sensation that last for a few moments and then the pain in Asuka's cheek begins to fade. It doesn't disappear entirely, but it's a dull background sensation now instead of the stinging annoyance that's possibly at the forefront of Asuka's mind. Aloy sits back. ]

How does that feel?

[redheadcarrier]

[ The sort of weird calm that Aloy is projecting isn't without an effect and Asuka feels herself settle a little. It's disconcerting, though. She didn't like having an alien being in her head and she's not sure she likes it now. But she's needed here, right? She'll have a purpose. Something to do. She won't be failure. So she sits still, despite the urge to move and do something. After a moment, she lifts a hand to gingerly poke at her own cheek. ]

Uh, better. I guess.

[ After a moment she continues very grudgingly. ]

Thanks. Where'd you get that?

[huntsmachines]

I collected it. Rost taught me how to find medicinal plants and use them to treat myself. This one is good for sore muscles, too.

[ Aloy shows off the pouch on her belt with a grin. There's a sense of pride, a glimpse of Rost, an imposing bearded man and the sensation of strong affection for a paternal figure. ]

I don't know how I'll get more here.

[redheadcarrier]

You could try growing it.

[ She jerks a thumb at the garden. She has no idea how gardening actually works, but that seems like something that could happen, right? Who the Hell knows. ]

I don't know. I'm not a gardener or anything.

[ She settles her chin in her hands with a frown. ]

I was always more interested in my Eva.

[huntsmachines]

I could, but I don't know if they even have salvebrush. I'm not much of a gardener, either.

[ Aloy's head tilts. ]

Eva? What's that?

[redheadcarrier]

[ Asuka feels like she's answering this question a lot. She silently resigns herself to having to answer it again. ]

Why is it that none of you actually know anything?

[ Which doesn't mean she won't complain about it. ]

It's a forty-meter tall war machine, capable of annihilating just about anything that gets in its path, of course!

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy smiles. Her amusement at the younger girl's confidence and arrogance over this leaks from behind her rudimentary mental barriers. ]

I'm sure I know plenty of things you don't know.

[ She rests her chin in one hand, her eyes narrowing a little as Asuka describes what sounds like something right out of Ted Faro's imagination. A machine designed to war and kill and destroy. She can practically feel her skin crawl with revulsion at the thought. ]

And you're proud of that?

[redheadcarrier]

[ Asuka can feel the revulsion and she frowns. Of course she was proud of it. It was her purpose in life. Her whole reason for existing. For living. Why wouldn't she be? The greatest moment in her life was when she was swatting helicopters out of the sky like flies. ]

Why wouldn't I be?

[huntsmachines]

[ Aloy's discomfort grows. There's a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that she tries to fight down as she gets that flash of memory. The sensation of a massive hand flattening a flying machine. Tiny lives snuffed out in one swift motion. ]

So much death. So much destruction. I don't...

[ She doesn't necessarily mind killing. It's necessary. But the sheer joy and pride that Asuka takes in the destruction takes her aback. ]

I just don't understand, I guess.

[redheadcarrier]

Then don't try to understand it.

[ Asuka snaps. She shouldn't be so mean to someone who's helping her, but her instinct is always to lash out. Put other people on the defensive so she doesn't have to be. ]

You weren't there. You aren't me.

[huntsmachines]

That's true enough. But I've had plenty of my own experience that you don't seem to want to understand.

[ Aloy is a little fighty. She's not going to let this kid do that to her. She has an idea of what's going on but her instinct is to defend. Try to turn it back to Asuka. ]

Let me try to understand.

[redheadcarrier]

They wanted to kill me. They got what they deserved!

[ Which doesn't mean she had to take such fierce joy in it. But that's another question entirely. ]

[huntsmachines]

I understand self-defense. I even understand revenge but that machine is so destructive. It just destroys.

[ Aloy shudders. Her own memories of machines and how they destroy--the way her world has already once been devastated by them. The lack of life and the rebuilding of the same world only to have it driven back to the same brink. ]

[redheadcarrier]

That's what it's supposed to do. What's the matter you?

[ Not that Asuka had much love lost for the machine at this point, but it was hers and she was going to defend it. ]

[huntsmachines]

I just...

[ Conveying what she means is so hard here. None of them have seen her world or what happened to it or know why. She had a hard enough time explaining to those she knew at home and this was even harder even with this damnable mental link. ]

Machines like that destroyed the life on my world once before.

[redheadcarrier]

Too bad.

[ There is nothing in Asuka's tone that indicates she actually feels that badly about it. A part of her sparks, though. The thought of another world wiped clean of life. The Eva did that to her world - it was just a completely different process. ]

But you're here now, right?

[huntsmachines]

We recovered. The world lives again.

[ Saying we sounds strange. She had nothing to do with it. It was all Elizabet and her skill and drive that reinvigorated the world. Well, She stopped HADES at least. ]

Yes. I'm here now. I'm not sure I feel about it, though.

[redheadcarrier]

I'm fine with it.

[ Sort of. Or maybe she's just saying that to try and make herself feel better about it. It's not all that clear. ]

My world's dead, so there's no point in whining about going home.