Private Comms

[notsosou]

The klaxons rang. The red lights flashed. The station sections slowly listed in the dark. Long past the edge of effort, long past the boundaries of hope, Stacy kept struggling, but there was no use to it; and in the end, even the static and the voices in her headset ceased to shout.

It was a jewel to her, the moment that she understood that it was over—

That willpower could not fix this. That effort could not fix this. That even “being better” could not have helped.

It was a jewel; it was an unfolding, glowing flower. It transfixed her with the simple beauty of it.

Her eyes no longer saw the console that spread before her. Her ears no longer heard the bells. Instead her eyes were fixed on that pure and clean and inner darkness, and the silver glow that burned within it; then up, beyond, and past it, to the beginning of the world.

- Glitch, by Dr. Jenna K. Moran

Comments

[samuraiwomen]

Its been quiet in this room for a long time. Long enough Sara has gotten tired of staring at the wall she's curled up in. When they'd won and the collars had come off, maybe at first she'd felt relief even while staring down at Keiji and Gin's bodies...but after a few days that emotion had spoiled into rotten milk. The second the danger vanished she just felt very small and empty.

Well there was one more danger, technically. One last game, with an indefinite time limit. The person behind her, that she least wanted to see. The only other survivor of this damn game. The only person she knew who hadn't been in on it. Not even memories of Ryoko felt warm anymore, after remembering what she did of Joe.

"Say something." She said to the wall. She raised her hand, pressing a finger up into the cool white paint of it. If she pushed hard enough, would he just die? If she focused enough, she see his face? "Anything. Aren't you going to apologize to them?"

COMING IN HOT WITH ETHICS

[notsosou]

...

Heeey. Hiya. Hellooooooo.

[Sara will get the feeling she's rising up from a deep sleep, maybe a nightmare she can't remember; that same feeling of disorientation and unsurety of place, head lifting from... a schooldesk she's apparently been conked out on. Maybe it's familiar?

The rest of the room is... hard to make out. It's dark... there's the thin white outline of something like a blackboard behind the thin white outline of the silhouette in front of her. There's a lamp or spotlight... but it isn't actually illuminating anything, in the way of dreams. It might not even be really there, so much as the idea of it being there.]

Sleeping in class, huh? That's not going to get you anywhere! Guess that's why you're in remedial tutoring. So let's start with an easy one for you.

[The silhouette steps to the side, the board, like a screen, revealing two stylized people, in red and blue, pointing little stylised guns at each other's heads.

MISS RED: Put down the gun, I don't want to hurt you.

MISTER BLUE: Why don't you put yours down first, then?]

Looks like these two sure are in a pickle! By the way... which do you think should lower theirs first?

shameless copying and pasting hours

[notsosou]

[Shin lives in sound, his focus narrowed to the things in front of him by long hours of lamplight, nose used to the must of a room and only anything strong enough to piece it. He’s tuned to footsteps, the sounds of breathing, the way echoes bounce in solid and empty places. He has a knack for finding hidden dark hollows, like any sharp-eared rabbit.

There’s humming, too, now… In lines and threads under the street, shooting up like tree trunks, glittering. He follows it with a drunk’s uncomplicated curiosity, putting half his care and thought into not tripping over his own feet and not dropping the bottle. There’s purring interspersed with it, and the low content rumbles of larger cats, their fur sparking from rubbing against the things they own and love, which are the same to them, and a song that calls out for answer, rings out to itself in invisible hisses. The sound of the stones beneath changes, becomes harder, ripples sharper, his feet knowing the navigation even as his head is cotton. A dream takes shape in front of him, and he squints blurry eyes out across the river, the bright full roundness of the moon turning its crisscrossing ripples into a city across the way, a mirage strung with double-imaged lights that scrapes the sky and descends seven gates into the underworld.

Look, says the dream. Isn’t it wonderful? Here there is no loss. Imagine the person you love, undying, born again in stone and lightning, enumerated. All for the price of blood, of cattle kept fattened for slaughter… what a small price, when death is an inconvenience! Draw from the well as much as you can pay for. They will be exactly as wished. The heart you were given is no escape. There is no escape for you. It is the yoke around your neck. It is the hands around your neck. It is the taste of blood in your nose, your throat. Your shadow, in front of you. Change or die.

Shin throws up.

The dream wicks away from him and the gross reality of flesh, leaving only unconsciousness and his crumpled curled form lying at the cold stone base of the great mirrored edifice of the Polyhedron, blood caking his front from a nosebleed and bottle rolled out of his hand.

It's unlikely this district is going to be infected tonight - today - this early morning, as the bell tolls for the dead, but it's still not a good idea to be out.]

[notsosou]

Things are slow here right now, as the sun slips down past the city's horizon. That's why Shin took this shift, after all. Right now he's currently using the time to clean out one of the two machines' filters from the day's gunk; he doesn't actually care all that much about the coffee but he does like keeping his job and keeping busy at other things balances the books for avoiding customers, possibly.

At least it has so far.

His coworker left their overlapping hour fifteen minutes so he's alone here. Shin deliberately doesn't think about having to walk through a sketchy area in the dark, because he has to do it near every weekday, and after a certain point stress itself wears thin.

So when the door rings as someone enters, he's caught just a little off guard. There's some clunking noises as he puts various components down and yells 'Be right with you!' And then a hiss, and flattened ears, as he hits hot metal.