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 Posted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:41 pm
"So... there's a really convenient port somewhere on here that'll blow us all up when the rebels find it?" He tilted his head. He wasn't much for movies, most of the time, but Star Wars was common enough, and so heavily referenced, that he had no trouble throwing something together.
"Oh, s**t!"
Chaonis hadn't been paying attention to his poking, and when he hit the button, which wasn't clearly labeled and thus an extreme safety hazard, that opened the doors was surprised by the rush of air as it pulled by him into the room. So you could just open a door and fall into space.
Who knew? Beside Asclepius, anyway, and it was not the time for an I told you so.
It seemed things sorted themselves out, as far as Chaonis was concerned, and he looked at her when she told him right off the bat that he couldn't fly her ships. That was just rude.
"Hey! I came all the way out here and you're not even going to let me play? That's cold." He moved to step into the area and quickly learned that some things in space were just like in the movies. His feet didn't meet the ground, and he started to float. Surprised, he looked at her for help, then grinned as he realized it was fun. And he wasn't about to float off into space.
"Oh s**t, no gravity!" He said with a hoot.
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Posted: Wed May 11, 2011 11:48 am
Chaonis had seen Star Wars, at least. "I think we're fine on that front," she assured him.
"Careful!" Asclepius called out, reaching for his hand as the rush of air into the hangar bay pulled him inside. Maybe it had been a bad idea to open the door, even if she was not fully sure whether who had pushed the button to do so. Nursing classes did not exactly cover how to handle space frostbite or decompression. She huddled against the wall beside the door until the rush of air stopped.
The pressure evened out, she ventured to look into the hangar again, and saw Chaonis floating there among the ships. The girl opened her mouth to tell him that the little dart-shaped ships could be somehow dangerous, being in visible disrepair, but then realized that would not help her case to keep him away from them. Gingerly, she stuck her foot out into the room, shifted her weight forward ... and felt a slightly unsettling sort of falling sensation as her center of gravity crossed the threshold.
Before Asclepius could back away, though, she was floating slowly upwards and forwards, away from both the floor and the door. Her stomach wobbled, anxiety likely not helping the adjustment to the lack of gravity.
"Okay, that door, is one we're not opening," she stated after a moment, folding one arm across her stomach as she pointed with the flashlight at the large door that almost definitely went straight out to space. "And I guess ... the pulsing red light meant no gravity." Asclepius fidgeted in mid-air, trying to figure out what she could use to get back down to the floor.
"Nice launching point, I guess, though," she added, smoothing her hands over her skirts to keep them from drifting upwards, too. "Get in a ship, turn off the gravity, decompress, open the doors and just head straight out." Within a few moments, she found herself with arm's reach of one of the floating shuttles and grasped onto the edge of one of the small triangular wings.
Something echoed from deeper in the asteroid suddenly, a low but steadily growing rumble ... rather like what a furnace would sound like reflected down several hundred yards of bare stone corridors. Nervously, Asclepius twisted around, still holding to the wing of the small ship, and looked back down towards the door through which they had entered.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 10:42 am
Chaonis kicked his feet around and tried to get himself to go forward, but things were a little complicated. He grabbed hold of whatever he could, shoving himself forward and finally getting closer to one of the strange, but cool, shaped ships.
To his eye, he was certain that they were no longer flight capable, but he still wanted to take a look. Maybe even climb inside.
"Right, right, don't open the door into space. Got you," he called distantly, distracted as his hands met one of the ships and he moved along it, feeling its body and scrabbling toward the cockpit. He had the flashlight in one hand but its beam was pointing off in a random direction, not really being used for his efforts since he was close enough to see things just fine.
He heard the sound but he didn't turn to look, busy with his own plans. He had a short attention span, sometimes. Managing to get the broken cockpit open with some tactical persuasion, his eager grin was wiped from his face for a moment as he jerked back in surprise. There was a dead body in the front seat. Heart thundering in his throat, he reached out to touch it, as if to make sure it was dead.
He glanced over at Asclepius, to see what she was doing.
"What's up?" he asked, wondering if she had found a dead person, as well. She hadn't taken it very well last time, since she had returned from the trip screaming.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 6:13 pm
Asclepius gingerly let go of the ship and hung in mid air in the hangar, just surveying the rest of the room. Some more controls, all along what would be the floor if the gravity was on; a couple rusted wheeled carts, some surrounded by floating tools and pulled-out drawers; a few other smaller doors that looked to match the one through which the two senshi had entered. And, near one of them, another body, dressed in tattered rags.
She felt her own heart quicken with anxiety, as well, even though the dead person was probably thirty or forty feet away. And dead. Just ... even expecting to find them around here now, it still unsettled her.
At the sound of Chaonis' voice, she looked back to where she had last seen him ... and did not see him. The ships were not huge, but still big enough to hide behind; Asclepius pushed herself off of the wing of the shuttle she had been hovering near, towards the other one. "There's someone near one of the doors. Why? Did you find something?" She hesitated. "Or someone?"
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 7:09 pm
Chaonis was waiting for her. He knew it was mean, but that was mostly the reason he did things, a lot of the time. He watched her shadow stretching in the already dark room, his flashlight, angled at the ceiling, getting cut by her as she got closer.
He took that as his cue.
"Blarrrggh!!" He said, hiding behind the dead body and having it in front of him like a very large puppet. He had a hold of its old clothes, on each arm, and waggled them around in the air in front of it in classic zombie form, reaching for her since she had gotten close enough to his ship to do it.
He couldn't help himself, really. There had been so many zombie games in his recent past, feature space for the most part, that he just had to take the opportunity to surprise her with one.
And it didn't need to be really re-alive or a convincing voice. He imagined a dead body moving toward her suddenly was more than enough of a surprise. He wasn't trying to give her a heart attack. In a way, he was trying to get her to relax. Laugh off her fear and deal with it directly. They couldn't timidly shiver their way through the darkness, however long they were here. The sooner she accepted that the dead were dead and there was nothing to be afraid of, the better.
Chaonis was a good friend.
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 7:47 pm
It was a good thing the curved cockpit windshield was already broken, because Asclepius' shriek would have shattered the space-proofed glass.
"Chaonis!" she shouted at him next, fists clenched. "I knew you would do this and why did I bring you here anyway?" With a growl of frustration, the girl shoved the shuttle containing her good friend away, sending him slowly downwards to one side of the room, and herself upwards and to the other.
Her anger faded by the time she reached the ceiling, though, and she stopped herself carefully before crossing her arms.
"The people here, they died in a war. All of them." It was weird how rooms seemed so quiet after you had been shouting. Her voice echoed in the large hangar, sounding awkward to Asclepius' ears now. "We're fighting the same war now. From however long ago this was. I feel like I should show some respect to these people."
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Posted: Fri May 13, 2011 9:17 pm
Chaonis winced, wearing a grin on his face, when she shrieked, releasing the dead body and letting out a raucous laugh. He gripped his side, shaking his head and waving his hand as if to get her to stop her anger for a moment so he could stop laughing before she yelled at him.
He found himself floating across the room in the ship, and his laughter faded as he watched her float up to the ceiling.
"Aww, come on Asclepius," he said, climbing up the ship and kicking off it, floating toward her. He had his arms folded over his chest and he didn't make it up as far as she was, floating just below her. He tilted his head.
"I don't even offer alive people respect," he said pointedly, which he thought should end that conversation. Why did everyone have such a thing about respecting dead people? They were dead. Yes, playing with dead bodies was a bit morbid, but it wasn't like he was wearing the guy as a hat. He had just made a zombie joke. If one was going to use a dead body for anything, he imagined that was it.
"Alright, no more scares, okay? You're going to let your nerves fry your brain if you keep it up. Relax. There's nothing scary here, you just think it is because dead bodies and the dark are supposed to be scary, so you just go with it. Waste of time and energy, I think. Come on, let's explore more."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2011 2:25 pm
Her glare indicated that she was paying attention to him, but she gave him the silent treatment for the moment. Of course she knew that Chaonis had little respect for the living; that was no surprise. But it rubbed her the wrong way that he was trying to scare her and then telling her to relax. Why had she bothered bringing him?
Fortunately, the button panel for this other door looked more or less the same as the one they had used to get in. Complete with the pulsing red light. She cast her flashlight beam back at the still-open door through which they had entered, wondering if there was a way to close it from this panel, but ultimately decided that she would be back here soon enough, and could close it at her leisure. It was not like she would have need to depressurize this hangar anyway. Besides, the zero gravity was starting to get to Asclepius a little bit; it was not like she had extensive training in this sort of thing.
She prodded a couple buttons on the new panel, and after a moment, the light turned green and the door obligingly opened, though it made a bit of a rusted scraping sound as it did so. The girl tossed her head a little, her curls floating out of her face, then tucked her flashlight with the beam pointing forward under one arm. Then she carefully grasped the top of the doorframe in both hands and pushed her feet downwards.
"Guessing the gravity comes back on across the threshold," Asclepius finally said, though she figured Chaonis would not really care. But maybe if she could keep one or both of them from hurting themselves, it would help the exploration e less painful. And sure enough, as her legs went through the doorway, they felt heavy and pulled her feet down to the floor. The Senshi of Medicine landed a bit harder than she would have liked, but was able to stay on her feet.
The sound of her heels contacting stone echoed down the hallway. It looked like this was the same hallway where she had ended up before. Rows of beds hidden behind tattered shrouds lined both sides of the hall. Asclepius stood exactly where she had landed, gooseflesh running down her arms.
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Posted: Mon May 16, 2011 7:40 pm
Chaonis watched her, sighing. No one ever saw the good in what he did for them. Of course, that was probably because he thought of the bad thing he could do first. Only after that was accomplished did he figure up a usually flimsy way to cover his tracks.
At the moment, that method was to say he was scaring the nerves out of her, so she could enjoy the rest of their visit here without jumping at every shadow. How was she going to learn anything here if she was jumping all the time?
Or too scared to open the right door.
Chaonis was feeling a bit light headed, though he wouldn't admit it. He never admitted to anything that would make him look bad. But the strange sensation of floating through air was, in an odd sense, weighing on him. His muscles felt strange and his stomach was moving in ways he had never felt before.
Probably not in the name of good.
He followed her lead, nodding his head. He cared only because he didn't want to go sailing through the doorway and slam into the floor, thinking he was going to keep floating.
He followed her anyway, dropping down to the floor and landing on his knees. He winced, but got to his feet and looked back into the room and sighed. They would have to go back there, hang out a bit more. Maybe sans dead bodies.
He looked around the hall, searching with his flash light. He whistled his surprise, finding the place creepy despite himself. He took a few careful steps forward, to investigate the sheets and the beds behind them.
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2011 7:07 pm
Asclepius followed close behind Chaonis, silent except for her slightly uneven breathing. The rumbling in the hallway from before was quieter here, but still audible. After about thirty seconds or so, it shut off, leaving the asteroid's hallways devoid of any other sound.
The cots lined the wall, separated by curtains except where they had been torn down. Nearly all of the beds had occupants - some with the broken bones they had come to have treated visible, a few others with marks of ages-old blood nearby. One or two were not in the beds, either, slumped on the floor or leaning up against the walls, though all wore fraying white robes, and bore no signs of wounds.
"This looks like where I ended up last time," Asclepius finally whispered, crossing her arms as though trying to shut out a chill. After a moment, she added a bit more harshly, "And if you try to scare me again, I'll throw you outside."
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Posted: Fri May 20, 2011 3:40 pm
"I'm not gonna scare you," he said slowly, looking around. He was captivated by the intense, terrifying scene. It really was like something out of a horror movie, and he couldn't blame her for being scared when she had come here on her own, for the first time.
It was scary s**t.
Examining the cots, and wrinkling his nose at the dead bodies, the injuries, and the dead doctors, he looked at her in wonder.
"What killed these guys? I mean, the patients could have died when things went to hell or if some kind of fight or something busted out here. But these guys are the doctors. They're... I mean. Dead."
He was having some comprehension issues. He hadn't seen dead people before. Not up close, not right next to them. What was he thinking? He had just seen that dead space pilot that he proceeded to use as a puppet. But that guy and these guys just felt different.
They were doctors. They weren't the ones that were supposed to be dead. Fighters and defenders, already injured people or old people. Yeah, those he could deal with.
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Posted: Sat May 21, 2011 11:00 am
Asclepius wandered down the hallway, brushing aside the occasional shroud that hung into the walkway left down the middle. She kept her chin up and head facing forward, but her eyes kept straying to the sides, scanning over the people who had died there. Hugging her arms to her chest, she chewed her lip and tried not to cry.
"I really don't know what happened," she replied; she thought her voice was quiet enough, but she felt like she was being awkwardly loud anyway. At least the senshi of Medicine could see where the rows of cots ended up ahead; there was still some distance to cover between here and there, though.
"I guess this is the war that we've picked up fighting, isn't it," Asclepius said. Suddenly, she stopped beside one of the beds and turned to face it, then reached up to pull the bolt of fabric that hung beside it down from the ceiling. Motes of fabric dust drifted into the air in front of her as she easily tore it in half, and then stepped forward to drape one of the pieces over the body on the cot.
"I just hope it ends up better for us than this."
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Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 9:28 am
Chaonis looked at her, feeling strangely sober. He couldn't blame her fear from before, but for him things were suddenly less fun. He was definitely not going to be playing any more live action Dead Space, that was for sure.
Hell, he might not play the video game any more.
Though he was really close to the end...
He investigated some of the people in the beds, finding that some must have only just been brought in, as they weren't in the same tattered, decaying hospital robes as some of the others. Or maybe they were just leaving. He found one in a strange outfit that didn't seem to fit the setting, or anything he had seen so far. It was difficult to tell what it had looked like before time ravaged it, but the colors and fabrics were wrong.
And familiar, in a strange, unrecognizable way.
He nodded his head, looking away from the body and not looking back. He stared at her, a frown on his face.
"We should get out of here, I think. I mean. You're looking like you're going to pass out or something." And he was freaking out. He didn't want her to know about it. Something in him was rattled. A memory, a dream? He didn't want to think about it. And he definitely didn't want to think about their war, and how it might turn out.
It couldn't be like this.
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 12:23 pm
Asclepius remained facing the fallen warrior on the cot whom she had just covered, and shrugged, like she suddenly just did not have the energy to move her arms any more than that. She pondered just what to say for a moment, and then nodded slowly.
"Y-yeah," she whispered. "Let's go. I can ... finish this later, I guess." The girl looked up and down the hallway again at the rows of cots, crossing her arms once more and shaking her head.
She was even less of a fan of horror games now than she had been previously, for sure. And she might just have to avoid horror movies for a good long while, as well.
Finally, trying to wipe her eye as casually as possible, she turned back to Chaonis. "More than ready when you are," Asclepius told him, phone already in hand.
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 2:07 pm
Chaonis nodded his head, moving away from the dead body that had made him suddenly feel so off. He stopped, saw the curtain she had pulled down to cover the other body, then moved back to the one he had found. He pulled the curtain around it down and covered it. His movements were not as careful or respectful, but the intent was the same.
He looked at her.
"Yeah, let's get out of here," he said, nodding his head slowly.
He imagined the feeling that had been sparked in him, a creeping sense, unsettling to say the least, would linger for some time. He looked at her and then moved a bit closer to join her on the cell phone ride home. He had certainly enjoyed the trip, save that last part, but he was still unsure if he wanted to visit his planet.
Especially if it was full of dead people.
Once they were back at the library he sighed and looked immediately relieved. He patted her on the shoulder and mumbled something half hearted in its attempt to be reassuring, then told her he'd see her some time later.
He wanted to get home and play some video games. Ironically, he wanted to beat Dead Space more than ever now.
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