reverielogs | ( 004 » ENSEMBLE ) decay

( 004 » ENSEMBLE ) decay

» 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?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[After spending several days on his death bed in the Medbay, the first thing 9S does when he's able again is text Crow.]

Are you okay? What's your location?

[He's already heading down the hall where both their rooms are situated.]

[Kira wasn't really in his room lately. It was hard to be there, to look Katou in the eyes, so he wasn't really there now.]

Yeah, I'm alright. [Health-wise, anyway. He was moping a little.]

I'm hanging out in the hallway on our deck. Kinda tired. How're you?

Well, I've been worse.

[The feeling of his insides melting away was something 9S could live the rest of his life without ever needing to experience again.]

I'm coming to meet you.

[And sure enough 9S comes into view moments later only to stop some feet away. It's Crow who looks unfamiliar, and his uncertainty is clear as he waits for a reaction.]

[He can't help but laugh to himself at that. Yeah, he's been worse too. And better, but he wasn't going to complain after coming back to life.

He looks up when Yuki comes near, smiling and giving him a wave before remembering that he wasn't quite himself right now.]

Hey, Yuki. It's good to see you.

Oh, Crow...! [So it was him. 9S closes the rest of the distance between them, coming to stand by him at arm's length.]

You look...different. [He says with a tempered concern. It could just be a result of the illness, but he has his doubts.]

[He was actually pretty happy to see the android. He hadn't heard about him getting... 'sick', and so of course would assume that he might have gotten away without much of an illness.]

Oh, right. This is how I... am supposed to look, I guess. [He didn't really know anymore. It was how his original body looked but who is to say what you are 'supposed' to look like?]

... [Crow had hidden his wings before, so 9S doesn't think it's much of a stretch to assume more about his appearance was fake. Still, it kind of hurts...to realize he was still keeping secrets from him.]

So that's what you look like as an angel? Instead of your human form...

[Kira gives Yuki a smile that isn't completely a happy one. He had lied through omission before, but it was hard to now, looking like this.

And yet he gives a nod. ]

It's... pretty complex, if I'm being honest. Sorry, I know I look odd like this. But I can't seem to turn back.

You're stuck with the real me, for now.

Jeez... You're putting me in a pretty tough spot. [9S' lighthearted words don't quite fit the tone of his voice.] It's going to be pretty hard to think of you as human now, but I'll still think of you as Crow. That doesn't change.

[His feeling are complicated, muddled down, and inappropriate for an android. He knows that much.]

I'm glad I got to meet you... The real you.

[That was fair. He was probably asking too much of Yuki at this junction, wasn't he? To ask him to think of him as a human, to keep his name from him, and other such things. He makes his way over to Yuki, setting a hand on his shoulder.]

You can't quite say that yet, Yuki. [Kira leans in to press a kiss to Yuki's forehead, gently brushing the hair out of the way, first.]

I'm afraid I haven't told you... everything, really. Kind of stupid- to prevent people from thinking of me as deceptive, I had to be deceptive. Ever know anything like that? When you lie, in order to try to get people to trust that you aren't lying?

Probably not. Maybe that's just me, being an idiot.

I guess everyone has their secrets, huh? That's the folly of mankind, and us who are made in their image.

[9S finally says, after Crow's finished, after the warmth of his lips still linger on him. He knows he probably shouldn't. He realizes he should abandon this train of thought, and probably Crow, but his own natural curiosity...

...and his learned bias...]

I don't care if you lied. I still want to spend my time with you, but... I want to know the truth too. I'm prepared to accept the consequences. There's no Command here. I don't have to fight.

[Kira had to laugh at that. Lucifer had to laugh at that. It's a soft laugh, a little bit bitter, but not towards Yuki. He wasn't bitter at him in the least.]

I was a human. A couple of times, actually. Usually for only a moment, and once for about eleven years, but I was born long before mankind.

I told you I had many names, and that's because I've been around for so long, and so many people have heard of me. Adversary, Old Scratch, Beast, Apollyon, The Prince of Darkness, and many other things I've been called. The name I was born with, the one my father gave me, is Lucifel, and I've since shed that name for Lucifer.

[He was tense. It wasn't a good reveal, and he didn't like letting it out, but he had to.]

Of all of the names others have given me though, I think Crow is the nicest.

You really are the enemy. At least, according to human history.

[He's been reading a lot about human history, and while he hadn't quite connected names like "satan", "the devil", and "Lucifer" before, they were all coming together now.]

So, is any of it true? I always thought it was just humans being superstitious, and if you're so bad... What about God? If he even exists in my world, he's abandoned us. Heh, or maybe he's just that cruel?

Very little of it is true.

[He frowns a little at the descriptor, but it wasn't Yuki's fault. That was how he was described. For countless years, things have been that way. It was all according to God's plan though, he had said as much to Lucifer: in order to allow humans the choice, there had to be darkness for His light, evil for His good. But he had also said it had been designed so that Lucifer would never win. Evil should never defeat good, Darkness may never overtake the Light.

Frustrating. It definitely reinforced Lucifer's stubbornness, if nothing else.]

Humans never did live in the Garden of Eden, and they've always had free will. I was simply supposed to represent an alternative to God, someone for the faithful to hate and to resist. In truth, I hadn't interacted much with humans before... before I became one for about a decade.

As for God...

Well, I think he abandoned us many eons ago. All of us. Androids, Angels, and even Humans. But I don't expect anyone to believe me.

Yeah. I think he did too...

[9S raises his head, sucking in a small breath, his shoulders and jaw tense.]

I believe you. [His gaze trails back down to Crow's feet.] You're the first person who gave me a "real" name.

...Heh. It was kind of annoying at first, but now I really like it. I like spending time with you too! I don't care what other people call you. To machines, I'm the enemy too, you know?

[He's quiet for a moment after that. He believes him? It's hard to believe that, but he wouldn't question it. Whether or not Yuki believed him was up to him.]

I like the name. Yuki. I feel like just calling you by the designation you were given isn't giving you enough credit... but if you choose a name of your own, I should respect that too.

Though I'm still very fond of Crow, so don't feel like you have to call me anything else. [He smiles at Yuki then, raking a hand through his hair.] I think we're all someone's enemy, right?

I wouldn't know where to start...my own name?

[He'd always just been happy to hear someone call him "Nines". It was more personal than 9S, and that's all he really needed.]

Okay, Crow. [9S smiles, closing his eyes at the gentle feeling of Crow's fingers running through his hair. He lets that feeling linger a moment before taking Crow's hand with his own and pulling it down, so he can press his cheek into his palm.] Yeah... But at least here, we don't have to fight.

[That was... sweet. Very sweet. Almost too sweet. Holding his hand against Yuki's cheek like this made him wonder if there was something more going on between himself and the android that he wasn't aware of before.

But that was ridiculous, right? He was the devil. The King of Lies, as old as history, and cursed to eternity in Hell. How could anyone feel any way about him, other than a passing fancy? Odd.]

No, we don't. We've managed to have a little bit of piece, out here on this space station. I'm not sure how long it'll last for me, since I am so very infamous, but I think you should be fine.

... [He opens his eyes again, half-lidded in thought.]

The people here got to know you as Crow. I'm sure they'll understand. If they don't...

[How had Venus put it?]

Then they suck! So just ignore them, okay?

[Okay, that pulls a laugh from Lucifer. Yeah, it sounds like something he heard from someone else, which just kind of makes it cuter??? He tries not to show it on his face how endearing that it is, and tries harder not to show on his face how sad he was that he'd eventually be dragged away from here, away from Yuki.]

I'll... do my best. I'm not really used to... this. You know?

[Which was why he was here to begin with, actually.]

Oh...! Uh, do you think I could perhaps stay in your room for a little bit, by the way? I know it's a little sudden, but I haven't really anywhere else to go and I'm avoiding my roommate right now.

[Seeing that laughter as a sign of success, 9S lets Crow's hand go with some reluctance. It'd felt nice, after all... But he didn't want to linger too long.]

Well, I'm always here to provide support. This is pretty new to me too.

[The sudden subject change has 9S blinking, his smile fading into curiously parted lips.]

Sure! [9S sounds a little more excited than he should considering the reason Crow was asking, but he quickly tempers himself.] I mean, I've only got one bed, but that's not a problem is it...? And what happened with your roommate?

Edited 2018-08-29 04:58 (UTC)

[His hand falls back to his side as he watches Yuki, sighing with some relief when he agreed. But he had to go and ask what happened, huh?]

Oh, I just... don't really want him to see me like this. [He had already seen him like this. He could see him like this. But they'd had a talk and now things were awkward and he'd just rather give it a chill out time.]

Some things happened at home, so he's got a little bit of a Thing about this appearance.

I see... Well, if you want to talk about it, just let me know.

[With Crow's hesitation, he has a feeling he's not getting the whole truth, but he won't push him.]

Come on, let's head back. I can get us some lunch if you want?

Maybe a little later. It's just a sore spot right now. [That was true enough. He'd killed Katou, and Katou had killed him back, and honestly he'd run from him because they both had high emotions and needed to come down.]

I would love some lunch.

Okay. [He hopes that he'll tell him when he's ready.]

Want me to make some more chicken soup? Haha. [That was a joke! He kind of realized that Crow wasn't enamored with it.]

( 004 » ENSEMBLE ) decay

wildcard; once the illness begins to pass

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