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You have no idea where you are or how you got here. All you know is that you've been locked in this room, that looks suspiciously like a holding cell of some sort, for a long time now and no one will answer your questions. Correction, you are well-fed and brought anything you ask for...as long as it has nothing to do with telling you where you are or why. It's been a while now...why won't they tell you anyth--
Suddenly, your body shudders involuntarily. Something is wrong...something is happening...but what...?
Pokemon - Shuckle, Metang, Cradily, Anorith (or Armaldo), any of the Porygons, Wooper
Response: Bad things aren't supposed to happen to pretty people.
Adelheid pressed her face into the corner beside her bed in a worthless last-ditch attempt to hide the tears streaming down her face. The sting of hot saltwater on her cheeks, the choking struggle to breathe through clogged sinuses, all but obliterated the slow throb she could only guess was a cracked jaw. She was certain she'd heard the bone break when she'd been shoved, protesting, face-first, into the doorframe of the room they'd given her--but it had hurt less than touching a month-old bruise, and she only knew from the taste of blood that something had gone badly wrong in her mouth. Another scar, another lump of injured bone to add on those that she already had. One step further away from beautiful.
Bad things don't happen to pretty people.
That had been her mantra in the outside world, when she was young, gorgeous, and in pain. The day-to-day sourceless agony just below her collarbones--"pain disorder," simple name for something so ugly--had lent her the dewy eyes and constant trod-upon look that made her disgustingly popular with men in the industry. Nothing went wrong when you had looks like hers; no one crossed you, and if they did, there were hundreds waiting to make sure it never happened again.
You don't have to live like that, one of the flocking men had told her over a punchbowl one evening. She'd been tipsy enough to disclose the way she couldn't get out of bed some mornings, how the pouty look of hurt wasn't all a show for the camera. There were surgeries for that, he said. She didn't want surgeries. All right, there were drugs and psychiatric treatments. Special spas. Therapies. She was already seeing a therapist for that eating disorder, wasn't she? What would one more be...
In the end they had turned to surgery anyway. Intractable pain disorder, neuralgia, something wrong with her otherwise flawless body that left her nerves screaming day and night with hurt that wasn't there. Easy enough to fix, they had said. Just turn the nerves down, like cranking down the volume on a radio. What had she needed nerves for, anyway? she'd laughed, and that had been it.
Turned out a life free from pain was an invitation to physical decay. She leaned back from the corner, scrubbing at her face where it had gone numb with pressure, smearing tears and snot into her long bangs. Pretty Adelheid had stopped being pretty very quickly when she didn't realize a toe she'd "sprained" getting caught in a door was crushed and infected, or when a little healthful tanning turned into a second-degree burn. The industry had no use for someone was too oblivious to look after her own good looks. So that had gone away, and so had the other jobs taken out of pity...
She had contemplated suicide. The only talent she had left was not stopping when something hurt her; that didn't leave her with many options. Especially not when a part of her looked in the mirror every morning and cringed at the pile-up of bruises and scrapes from a rough-and-tumble life she hadn't wanted. Even painless, though, she was too much of a coward to outright kill herself--when the men had come to speak to her, when the choice was between them and the edge of the bridge, she'd gone in a heartbeat.
And now they'd put Adelheid somewhere she couldn't even remember how she'd got to, or why. No one answered her questions in between bouts of sobbing; she'd tried fighting and that got her all of nowhere. The most anyone had said beyond "meal's here" and "shut your mouth, stupid whore" was "where do you think you're going? There's nothing left for you out there."
Nothing left. No one who remembered her or cared. The industry was fickle, her subsequent employers even more so. Bar girls, waitresses, even half-rate mercenaries were a dime a dozen. She stopped scrubbing at her face when she realized that was only making her jaw worse; it hadn't been set and the bone would probably fuse wrong.
It was all she could do not to shove her face back into the corner and start crying again. If it weren't for the wave of nausea that overtook her a moment later, she would have instead of sprawling out on her bed, biting her lip to keep from puking up the contents of her stomach. That, too, was becoming as routine as the four blank walls around her and the tasteless food, the lack of a regimented day or night that had completely deranged her ability to sleep, her body's most intimate rhythms. Everything was disintegrating, and she took the sudden bouts of sea-sickness as just another part of the package.
This time it didn't pass, though. The world refused to stop swirling after the alloted ten minutes was up, the queasiness continuing to intensify until Adelheid had to peel herself off the bed and crawl to the sink to empty her stomach. Thoughts of poisoning flitted across her mind--maybe they were ready to be done with her, too. That would be a relief.
Once the last of the dry heaves had cleared, she got a moment--only a moment--of reprieve. Her eyes focused on her hands clenched on the sides of the sink until her knuckles were white, something that caused her no pain, no pain whatsoever...
Her skin was crawling, she noted distantly. Not a feeling, but actually crawling. She could see it moving across the back of her hands, peeling away from the flesh underneath as it began to turn a weird, pasty yellow. This didn't hurt, either, but it made her stomach turn so much she regretted not having anything left to empty from it. Nausea turned to numb acceptance as she continued to watch, feeling detached from this body that had completely betrayed her.
Pain would have been better. The worst pain she could imagine would have been better, better than this slow lassitude stealing through her body and making her slump to the floor. Pain would have been better, as tears began to course down her cheeks again--
Her sense of reality gave out and the world went black, leaving the rest of her misery to tease around the edge of dreams.
Coronaviridae · Wed Feb 13, 2008 @ 06:17am · 0 Comments |
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And a whole stack of new kidlins all from the 21st of August (and a little before, but mostly the 21st, because I'm magical):
(A Pala! *3*)
(Dustblood, a raptor chick.)
(Eee, Goldenseal. heart My first Minya.)
(Ramsey, an Auratus lionhead ranchu with coloring inspired by the head-and-tail-light tetra.)
(Quetz, 'cuz I hadn't posted him properlike yet. D:)
(Spot for Ocotillo, when it shows up.)
(Caen, also not posted propah. He is a sex bomb.)
(Tatterdemalion, the saddest little dragon.)
(And finally Anahita, the most adoribals little marsupial lionbrat ever.)
Coronaviridae · Sat Mar 25, 2006 @ 06:37am · 0 Comments |
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Pikaia's Children: [x] Egg-finding for r i i. [x] Sidereal transfer RP for Mythee. [x] Cocooning quests for Kat, Inle, and Smerdle. [x] Set up Antigra & Sullivan auctions. [x] Growth "quest" for Ary.
OMH Perks [x] Art for Inle-roo. [x] Art for Prox. [x] Art for Mythee. [x] Art for DDC. [x] Art for Makokun
Coronaviridae · Fri Feb 17, 2006 @ 12:55am · 0 Comments |
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The Menagerie - Roleplayed Pets |
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###
GenTech Labs: Project LAYHR: XXX's cert [x] XXX from Project Layhr.
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Pikaia's Children: Snowline's cert [x] Snowline, Opabinia regalis, from my own store, Pikaia's Children.
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Shaoilin Wolves: Coheed's cert [x] The lovely Coheed, a male Shaoilin wolf.
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Runners of Irune: Winterhart's cert [x] Winterhart from Runners of Irune.
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Bitzers: Just as Cee has her Cerexi, Jenner's taken to keeping Bitzers. She's fond of the dragon-dog hybrids, and they appear equally fond of her. Jesse's cert [x] Jesse the Prize Fighter Inferno, a Bitzer. heart
Prancer's cert [x] Jenner's second Bitzer, Prancer.
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The Dream Realm: Chang-E's cert [x] The Demon Chang-E.
Lalala's cert [x] The nudist Lalala.
Wilhelm's cert [x] Wilhelm, the first of Coronaviridae's train of Thoughts.
chaos's cert [x] chaos, the second of the train of Thoughts.
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Little Monsters: Entropy's child cert Entropy's teen cert [x] Entropy, a Little Monster, won in a writing competition.
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Cerexi & E-Mice: The Cerexi are usually found in the company of Cee, along with Entropy, the Idle Thoughts, Chang-E, and the Mozou. They were her escorts to the debacle at Gambino's Mansion near Halloween, and ate their fill of Grunnies. Unfortunately, they didn't keep Cee from turning into a zombie--but given the Cerexi themselves are a species of undead, that's not such a big deal.
Phalen's cert [x] Phalen, named for her coloration and its resemblance to that of a Phaelenopsis orchid.
Adaglos's cert [x] Adaglos, Phalen's packmate and named for his own resemblance to an Adaglossum orchid.
Wisp's cert [x] Wisp, an E-Mouse Cee was given as a gift. Named for his lightning patterning, a sort of pun on "will o' the wisp".
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Anubii: Paki is sort of his own entity. Cee received him as a "gift" from Anubis; she hasn't ever been quite sure what to do with him, though he has a spot in her home. He's nocturnal in the extreme, and usually very quiet (in keeping with his name--Egyptian for "witness" wink , beyond the occasional unjackal-like peep or chirp. He's met Entropy all of once and they actually get along quite well.
Paki's cert [x] It also appears that Anubis has a sense of humor, as Paki's coloration is not unlike a certain blue, sleepy-eyed Carebear...
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Zahdl as Sonvofe: When Samaridi died in an unfortunate and unexpected car accident, the collective largely gave her up as lost. It came as some surprise, then, when she was snatched by another otherworldly entity and given a baby (which she named Rufus, for his red fur) to guard. So far, though, so good.
Rufus's cert [x] Though the Zahdl apparently have a doorway into Gaia, Rufus has yet to meet any other members of the Virus collective or their children and pets.
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Mozou Totems: Albedo did not enter gracefully into the Virus household--his first act out of his totem was to attempt to eat Cee's new baby Nightmare, Chang-E. She disciplined him, and he got bitten for his troubles, but it hasn't stopped the mad Mozou yet.
[x] Other than his antipathic relationship with Chang-E and his rapid friendship with Entropy, Albedo keeps to himself.
[x] Solanum is Cee's third Mozou--it and its sister Noumenon hatched out at almost the same instant. While Noumenon's name implies she will likely never grow any older, Solanum seems a little...more. It has prickles enough to keep Albedo from beating it up, though it appears to have no hard feelings about the crazy Mozou.
[x] A "noumenon" is a thing in and of itself, which has implied to Cee's mind that Noumenon will remain exactly as she first appeared--a catlike child. Still, she's a beloved part of the family, albeit one who's a little scared as some of the other kids around the house.
[x] Albedo, Noumenon, Solanum and ... Sprog. Cee definitely has a sense of humor when it comes to naming new additions to the family!
[x] Chevron, the fifth addition to Cee's horde of Mozou. heart A very tasty one, at that.
[x] ...cancer?!?!
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Skies of Pern: Green Dmiath, out of Ariath by Tallith, Impressed to Fria, is very young--but already showing signs of being a troublemaker!
Dmiath's cert [x] Nothing to report yet.
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Wasteland Hyenas: Hwiuur is a wasteland hyena, a mutant from a war-torn Africa. Though young, she has her eyes on becoming the queen of her own pack...or maybe just wandering into the wilds and going insane.
Hwiuur's cert [x] While the world of the Wasteland Hyenas is one far from Gaia, Coronaviridae (the dominant one), offers us some insight on her name: "Hwiuur is a vodyanoi, a River-Thing, from CJ Cherryh's wonderful book Rusalka. The Hwiuur of the book is a snake-thing and treacherous in the extreme; still, there's something likeable about its intelligence and sheer sneakiness. Depending on how RP pans out, the hyena Hwiuur may be bound to become a Nomad--or worse."
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Land of Lucarin: Ho hum. Chase's cert [x] Chase, an Ayen from the Land of Lucarin.
Mandelbrot's cert [x] Mandelbrot, Chase's new little sister!
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D-Corp: The Virus collective currently being overburdened with children, there is some debate to whom the care of the Onychophoran child Indigo will fall. Cee would love to take care of her, but White and Black both agree this would likely end in disaster (after all, she can barely manage Entropy and Albedo as it is, let alone Paki, and there's two new Mozou in the offing). Signs point to Jenner being the eventual mother for the child; Jenner has allowed as how Jesse isn't too much trouble for her, and she'd love to have a baby of her own to take care of.
[x] Being revamped!
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Feli:
Sparta's cert [x] Only one of these so far, and very young at this point--she'll make a name and personality for herself soon, though.
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Tall Tales:
[x] Ameretat, a Tall Tale!
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Disgraces: Haurvatat's Cert [x] Haurvatat, Ameretat's brother in spirit if not in blood.
Coronaviridae · Sun Sep 04, 2005 @ 08:42pm · 0 Comments |
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