( 004 » ENSEMBLE ) decay

[reveriemod]

» WHO? EVERYONE
» WHEN? August 1 - 31
» WHERE? the entire station
» WHAT? Characters begin suffering mysterious and varied symptoms. (More info can be found HERE.)
» WARNINGS? illness, body transformation, loss of limb, general body horror, blood, gore

0 0 1 » STAGE 1

Characters start suffering from a light fever. They’ll feel tired and achy, more inclined to bundle up in a warm sweater (if they have one) and drink tea or have chicken soup in bed than anything else. Unfortunately, the food fabricators still don’t provide the best comfort food.

Admittedly: some people are more affected than others. Some don’t seem to be affected at all.

0 0 2 » STAGE 2

For some characters, the fever will go away and they will feel fine for a brief period. It was probably just a cold, right? And then new symptoms set in: something dark and black spreads from their heart toward their extremities through their veins, making them stand out strongly. It hurts a little, or maybe a lot and no one knows what causes this or what it is that is spreading so darkly through their veins.

For some other characters, the fever will also go away and they will feel fine for a brief period before different symptoms set in: something hard starts spreading beneath their skin, making movements just a little more difficult for affected areas. The pain of this ranges from light discomfort to severe.

For yet other characters, the fever grows worse. They experience hallucinations of their extremities turning to dust, just the way it looks when someone arrives on or disappears from the station. They lose sensation in their extremities during those hallucinatory episodes, so if they reach out to touch something with a hand they think has disappeared, they’ll feel nothing. If they try to walk and then hallucinate their legs disappearing, they’ll stumble and fall to the floor.

0 0 3 » STAGE 3

For some characters, the blackness spreads and brings additional symptoms and worsening conditions with it: their skin starts to rot and fall off, toe or fingernails or entire toes or fingers might rot and fall off, wounds open that ooze a black and foul smelling, thick fluid dripping without looking to stop even if pressure is applied. It’s painful, and the open, infected looking wounds will not close, however much characters try to treat them.

Slowly, these characters’ bodies seem to rot and decay while they still live. For non-organic characters, it’s as if their wires are melting down, metals merging together and seeping through components.

For other characters, the hardness spreads and brings additional symptoms and worsening conditions with it: some of their joints may no longer move at all, their skin turning hard and impenetrable. Characters will also their sensory perception of affected limbs/surfaces, becoming unable to notice when someone touches them on an affected area. They may also lose any other sense if the infection spreads to their eyes, their ears, their mouths. Moving is slow, difficult, painful, until it becomes practically impossible. The noises their joints make seem robotic.

Slowly, these characters seem to turn into something else. Something hard and metallic, something unfeeling and impenetrable. Something inhuman?

For those who were still suffering from the fever, it seems like there is finally some good news: the fever lets up - but then affected characters find first their skin and increasingly the entirety of their body turning translucent and insubstantial. It will start with their skin and spread to the tissue beneath. One moment, they are able to see their own organs working, their heart pumping as their ribcage turns see-through… and a while later, well. Have you ever watched someone’s heart disappear? Now’s your chance.

It might reappear for a moment, as though flickering in and out of existence. It might disappear entirely. Slowly, these characters seem to fade from existence.

0 0 4 » STAGE 4

The tables turn as characters’ bodies gain ground in the fight to return back to normal, but some changes disappear sooner than others and some might even seem to be permanent.

0 0 5 » INVESTIGATION

What is wrong with you? What is wrong with everyone? What caused it and how can these symptoms be treated, halted, reversed?

Is there a cure or is it possible to at least understand what’s going on?

Comments

[pampa]

That gets a hearty glare.

"Like you know anything about what these people need."

But Miller is attempting to get up, if only to be spiteful. He has to grab the handle of the inner door to do it, except then his hand phases right through and he ends up on his backside. Ow. What if he just lives here now? Does that work for Ashford?

[patriotnow]

Ashford could have predicted such a response, he also couldn't really argue that it was unwarranted based on what exposure they've had to one another. Still it leaves a hint of a bad taste in his mouth.

"I know what a crew needs. And for all intents and purposes that is what these people are until we find a way to get the hell out of here."

He watches Miller's struggle warily, lips drawn tight together. But he does not admonish him again.

"And a crew needs resourceful men like Josephus Miller."

[pampa]

Y I K E S. He shoots the other man a glare even while pathetically holding a hand up. By some miracle he manages to clasp Ashford's awaiting grip this time, and quickly yanks himself to his feet with their combined strength before the brief stay of solidity can wear off. The second he's up he's letting go and yanking his hand back like he doesn't want to touch the man ever again. More to the point, he doesn't want to hurt either of them trying.

"I'm no use to anyone like this and you know it, Belta."

[patriotnow]

Ashford's fingers struggle to grip properly, stiff and unyielding like thick tree roots but still they somehow manage between the two of them. His head jerks in a small attempt at a nod of approval when Miller is at least on his feet.

"You've proven it before that is not true."

For once his references to Miller's 'legacy' is not meant to rile him up or annoy him. It's Ashford's brand of weather-worn idealism. Miller had done it before. Been useful even in his very last moments.

He tries with an awkward, stunted motion to clap a hand on Miller's shoulder but it is less than successful. In frustration he sucks in a sharp breath through his teeth.

"And hey...If nothing else... I am going to need you to keep an eye on me, yah?"

A forced laugh at his own attempt to humor Miller follows.

[pampa]

Another sharp look passes over his expression before the exhaustion sets in and he's rubbing at the bridge of his nose, eyes screwing shut.

"Proven it by dying, you mean. I was gettin' to that part." Before he'd been rudely interrupted, thanks a lot. He blinks his eyes back open to look Ashford over, seemingly for the first time. He looks like shit, but who doesn't right now? "Are you asking for my help?" It's a serious question, one he expects a real answer to.

[patriotnow]

"Would that surprise Josephus Miller?"

Ashford is not normally one for asking for help. It's a pride thing. In general he doesn't like to ask when he could order. However more than prideful Ashford is practical and he sees no benefit to eliminating Miller as a resource that could potentially lead to his getting off this station sooner rather than later. They may not be fond of one another but Miller is one of the few people on this floating bucket whose insight Ashford is actually inclined to respect.

"I don't want to be here any more than you want me to be here...and the only solution I can see is for us to work together. So yes. I am asking for your help."

[pampa]

"No, of course it wouldn't. You OPA guys will latch onto anything that benefits you in the moment. Your boss there, Dawes, he begged me to work with him, offered up a pretty hefty figure for it, too."

In another life, Miller probably would have taken the bribe, but he had to find out what happened to Julie. He had to solve the case. It's the same way he feels now, even if it's technically been put to bed, he hasn't. He needs to go back and play through the ending. That's what Ashford wants too, though, isn't it?

"But you're not Dawes," Miller acknowledges after a beat. It's not an outright agreement, but his eyes clear enough that Ashford should be able to glean that's what he's agreeing to. He does have one term. "You gotta do something for me when you get back to Tycho. Wash that goddamn portrait off the wall."

[patriotnow]

"I will thank you for that distinction."

But although he opts for the somewhat sarcastic response, the implications of what Miller is saying does not go unnoticed. This is a tentative alliance. An alliance of two people wholly uncertain of one another, but two people who also have an eye on something larger than themselves.

Though he can't help but huff a laugh at Millier's 'condition'.

"Ey. You really hate it that much, yeah?"

[pampa]

"His accent is dumber," Miller concedes even though he knows he just admitted to separating them by a hell of a lot more than their voices. What Ashford says has merit and he knows he's been stubborn. There's no OPA here, he's not even alive back there. There's only so much he can do, but if it were just that he'd walk away. He narrows his eyes at the question, thinking the man already knows the answer. "Just say you'll do it, asshole. I'm dead, I won't know if you actually do."

[patriotnow]

He bobs his head back and forth in faux thought, complete with a twist of his mouth to the side before a breathy laugh, "Perhaps this is true. But it is good to hear someone else say it."

Then he raises his hands in an 'ok, ok' gesture.

"'Ey, beratna. I say I gonna do something I do it. If you want your pretty face taken down on Ceres I can do that no problem." Then he points between them, from his chest to Miller's. "But you gonna help me here. We will work together."

[pampa]

He turns to look at Ashford sharply and far too quick. Miller has to shut his eyes and rub a hand over them in order to abate the sudden headrush, but it still takes him a few seconds to speak up again.

"I'll help, but that doesn't mean we're beratnas."

[patriotnow]

"Suit yourself. But beratna or not we are stuck with each other."

And were he to be honest, and at the moment he feels no particularly upfront about this point, he actually respects Miller in a way he has respected very few people in his life. He's not actually sorry that of all the people he could have gotten stuck with, Miller was one of them.

Would he still rather be back on the Behemoth? Yes. But that is currently not an option.

"Now. We need to get you somewhere that is not right here."

[pampa]

Miller glares at him, but it's pretty ineffectual when coupled with him blinking out of existence for a few seconds. When he phases back, he feels ill and dizzy, reaching out for the man's elbow before he can go careening to the floor again. He snaps his hand away just as quick, less for Ashford and more because it's startling to be able to touch anything anymore, as used to being a ghost as he's become.

"Lead the way, oh captain my captain." He's not really loving it here either, go figure.