( 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]

You're not in a position to be helpin' anyone, kid.

[ not like he is. so he just heads that way and starts a slow march down the corridor. everything hurts, but that's bearable. it was everything else that had made him snap before. he just has to keep his mind clear. ]

[twoaffirmations]

I helped...y-y-you, didn't I?

[At least, he got him moving. He got him out of the airlock. He likes to think that's something. If not, he's not sure he can bare the weight of his own body anymore. If he doesn't do something, he's liable to collapse.

The walk to Command feels like an eternity at the pace they're going.]

cw: more suicide talk

[pampa]

Yeah. [ it's softer than his usual register, almost warm really, though he sounds distant, unengaged. ] You sure did.

[ he "helped" him to get over himself when all he wanted was to die. logically, he knows that he won't meet permanent death until they can get off this barge. what a motivator. ]

Thanks for that, pal.

[twoaffirmations]

A-any time. [9S offers him a somewhat pained smile, but it's genuine. He's glad to have helped. He'll make Miller realize he's more than just...an appliance.

Not nearly soon enough, they've reached Command, and 9S practically collapses into the first chair he can find.] Uugh. Okay... W-we made it.

[pampa]

Yeah, kid, we made it. [ he sighs, rubbing at a temple. pain and numbness shoot through his wrist in alternating tingles, his body blinking in and out of tangibility before 9s' eyes. ] Now what?

[ he goes to the main console to try and access it like so many times before, but his fingers slip right through and he lets out a frustrated grunt. miller kicks the table and of course that connects, sending another shooting pain up through his leg when it connects with the bolted down table leg. ]

You don't ever feel like giving up? I'm asking a toaster oven how they feel, Jesus Christ. I really am losing it.

[twoaffirmations]

I'll try h-hacking into the system.

[He scoots forward in the chair he's taken and starts to type into the nearest console. 9S' actions cease the moment he's called a "toaster oven".]

I t-told you, I'm an android! You're g-going to make me regret helping you...

[pampa]

Oh, right, you can do that.

[ miller steps back to give 9s room to work, trying to keep his extremities away from anything they could phase through. ]

Everyone eventually does, you're just ahead of the curve.

[twoaffirmations]

It d-doesn't have to b-be this way.

[He resumes typing, pausing only as he speaks.]

M-maybe there aren't androids wh-where you come from, but... We h-have hearts. We're just as alive as y-you humans.

[pampa]

[ he goes quiet a moment, no doubt there's a truth to what 9s says. it doesn't have to be this way, but it always had been. with everyone he's ever met, and especially worked with. ]

Connor told me androids don't have feelings. [ so maybe that's why he's been even more callous than usual, though honestly he's not great with humans anyway so who could tell the difference? ] I guess you're a different kind of... thing from him?

[ yeah being insensitive just comes naturally ok ]

[twoaffirmations]

Connor and I are d-different. I'm not sure if I'd e-even call him an android.

[9S says plainly, with a surprising iciness.]

He's more like a m-machine.

[pampa]

Aren't you a machine too?

[ he's really just trying to understand this time, no teasing lilt to his voice. come on, tell him your deal maybe he'll stop being an asshole about it. no promises tho. ]

[twoaffirmations]

No. [He states the word with a firmness that hasn't been present since he started breaking down.]

A m-machine can't feel. They don't have emotions, or a h-heart. That's what separates us androids from t-them.

A "toaster oven" d-d-doesn't feel.

[pampa]

So you have a heart. A human heart. [ he thinks of haruto then. ] But your brain is a computer?

[twoaffirmations]

Er...no. I wasn't b-being literal, but I do have a facsimile.

[It's a little awkward to explain now. 9S hesitates briefly before he elaborates.]

Humans often attributed emotions to the h-heart, even though logically it all t-takes place in the brain.

I suppose it's b-because... [He lifts a trembling hand, fingertips lingering over his chest.] Sometimes that's where you f-feel it.

[pampa]

[ huh ] Is that where you feel it?

[twoaffirmations]

[9S is torn between his desire for Miller to acknowledge him as a person, and his desire to not share something so personal.

After a while's consideration--] ...Yeah. I do.

[pampa]

Even though you know, logically, that the feeling isn't there? Aren't human feelings chemical reactions? What are yours, mechanisms?

[ sorry he's not slowing down any time soon. if 9s wants him to understand what (and who) he is then he's going to learn. thoroughly. not to mention it's a good distraction right now. ]

[twoaffirmations]

L-logically, yes. Feelings aren't always logical, are th-hey...?

[9S furrows his brow and takes a moment to focus on his hacking before he answers the rest of Miller's questions.]

A series of m-mechanisms. Chemicals affect us too, so it's p-probably not as far off as you might think.

[pampa]

Almost never.

[ a quick agreement even as he watches 9s. it's all he can do now so it's not like it matters. ]

You think I've made all these pre-judgments about you, but I haven't. Do you consider yourself human?

[twoaffirmations]

You called me a t-toaster oven. That's pretty judgy, if you ask m-me...

[Small attempts at humour aside, 9S shakes his head.]

No, I may be m-modeled after humans, but that doesn't make me one.

[pampa]

Yeah because I'm an asshole. If you choose to internalize that it's not on me.

[ at least he's honest??? no, he's just so tired, rubbing at his face again and shaking his head. ]

Whatever. I don't care if you like me or not. You're probably smarter if you don't. How's that code coming?

[twoaffirmations]

At least y-you're honest...

[9S says with exasperation, which happens to be the easiest inflection for him to muster right now.]

There's n-nothing...nothing new, anyway. I don't th-think we'll find any answers h-here.

[pampa]

That is my most annoying quality.

[ though it's hard to pick just one. ]

Does that mean it's nap time? [ because boy is he feeling like it should be. ]

[twoaffirmations]

[9S won't voice his opinion there.]

Do you n-need me to escort you back to your r-room?

[pampa]

[ he opens his mouth back to snap, but then he takes a stumble heading out of the command center and it's only because his corporeality holds when he grabs for the wall that he manages to stay on his feet. goddamnit. he scratches at an eyebrow and shrugs. ]

Sure, kid. Why the hell not?