november 2019. welcome to the void.

[modblob]

Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Fifth Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of November 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

a. outbreak.

There's a plague in the city.

What was an annoyance before, a bug that seemed to be passing, has erupted into a full-scale biomedical hazard. Onset is slow. It’s a near mystery who is infected and who isn't, who is immune and who isn't. Doors lock themselves seemingly at random to prevent people passing through. Is that person with you one of the sick? How do you know? Would they tell you if they were?

The city will do its best to isolate the ill, once again locking them out of communal areas and trying to force them down toward the MedBay for quarantine. All bots will be temporarily shifted to plague protocols, rounding up and caring for the ill as best they can. (Lucky you, you get your cough syrup with a mixer courtesy of the barbot.) But they might not always get things right, and what healthy person wants to be locked away in a ward full of the violently ill? How do the bots even know which is which?

The ill will slowly find themselves dizzy, lightheaded, with chills and fever. They may cough hard enough to spit blood from irritated throats, or sneeze so long and hard they give themselves bloody noses. The symptoms can vary wildly depending on body chemistry, species, and dozens of other factors, making it difficult to pin down a specific set that indicates a person is infected. All bodily fluids are dangerously infectious. Maybe you want to keep your distance from your friends if you start to feel the onset, to keep them safe. But you also want to keep your freedom, not get trapped in a room full of people who seem to be dying. And anyone who was exposed to the first outbreak will find themselves either completely immune to this new one through early exposure...or far more susceptible, their immune systems doing almost nothing to protect them, with extreme symptom sets that hit them much harder than the average infected.

And through all of this, that voice that cheerfully chirped out helpful hints during the item exchange, that giggled and sang songs in the crashed spaceship in the wasteland can be heard again - but this time it's different. This time, there's very little cheer left, and though the commentary is still sing-song, it's much harsher, more monotone and without much energy. 'Go on, hurry up to the MedBay. No breaking quarantine!' it says, or to those moving through the city with friends, 'You must not like those people much, are you sure you want to get them sick?' In the depths of the worst of it, in the third week of the month, people may start hearing more of those 'helpful' suggestions - 'Maybe it would be better if we just left them out in the wastelands, you know? For the greater good and all...'

Mod Note: An NPC post will be going up next weekend on redshiftrp to supplement this prompt. Keep an eye out!

b. gone to shit.

With 90% of the city's bots repurposed to serve the ill (the matchmaking bot being the notable exception), things are starting to go downhill fast elsewhere. Didn’t realize how much work the bots were actually doing? You can't avoid knowing now.

Restaurants, slowly coming back online after the increased activity in the agricultural areas, are promptly shut down again with things starting to go bad in the fridges. The VR rooms have no attendants to help with glitches. The maintenance bots are prowling the halls looking for ill people to assist to the MedBay. The spa bots are all down in the lower levels helping keep people comfortable while they convalesce, leaving the spas to run themselves. Sometimes to overflowing. It's definitely going to be an adventure discovering what else the bots were doing to keep things running smoothly.

There's no bots manning the bar (make your own drinks while you can), but this also means there are no bots cleaning up the messes people leave behind in the bar either. The detritus of people living their lives starts to pile up - which means if you don’t want garbage filling up the most used common rooms, you're going to have to apply some good old elbow grease. Exactly what you wanted to do while everyone is violently ill, right?

c. dance of the moonlight jellies.

In spite of everything going on elsewhere in the colony, something magical is happening in the lakes and ponds of the park. Maybe your healthy or recovering character stumbles across it on their own. Maybe they see the glow from a higher levels and are drawn down to it. Maybe a persistent and super helpful voice, the same voice from the item exchange, the same voice that suggested throwing the sick out into the wasteland, suggests that you should go down and look at what's happening there.

However you ended up in the park, the place is filled with a silvery glow that emanates from the ponds, rivers, and lake. Fish have come up from the bottom, from where they were buried under the sand. They look almost like East Asian dragons, for those familiar with Earth. They're long, muscular, with two sets of fins trailing in the water like legs. Their heads are delicate, beautiful things that trail whiskers in the water along beside them.

And they're dancing.

In loops and whirls, over and under each other, diving deep and then rising up again to create patterns of light and shadow. Anyone who watches for more than a minute can start to feel relief moving through them, calm, the sense that things will be okay. Watching the dance is almost like meditation. Probably, for some, a much-needed break.

Navigation.

Comments

[lallipop]

[When Lalli's this feverish, Onni's words don't parse. All he knows is that Onni was shouting at him and now he's not, and he fucking hates these socks.

He tries. He really does try to stay still and deal with it, and he manages for some time, at least--with only a minimum of miserable fidgeting. But it isn't long before he can't stand it anymore, and the situation makes no sense to him at all--all he knows is he's uncomfortable, and that Onni wants him to be like this, and he doesn't know why.

There's only so long he can obey Onni with only that. So as soon as he senses Onni's attention might be a little less constant, he tries to surreptitiously reach down to slip them off--surely he's had them on long enough.]

[scowlish]

[With Lalli somewhat settled - squirming, obviously uncomfortable, a little stiff, but mostly settled - Onni shifts at the end of the bed and leans his back against the wall, his head tilted back and his arms crossed, his eyes mostly closed as he tries to rest. He can't really relax, though, he's too worried, his body exhausted and his mind going a thousand miles an hour. While he might not be looking at Lalli, or anything really, he is still hyperaware of everything going on around him thanks to the constant adrenaline rush of his anxiety.

So when Lalli moves to try to take the socks off, Onni can tell, just by the shifting of the bed and the sound of the blankets moving. Sighing, he uncrosses his arms and opens one eye, looking over at his cousin and putting a hand down on his shin.]

Lalli.

[lallipop]

[Something about being caught fills Lalli with desperation, and as soon as Onni grabs his leg he twists, for no other purpose than his frustration needs an outlet. The whine in his throat comes out automatically. He hates this so much, why does Onni have to be doing this to him?

For once in his life, he doesn't cave to Onni's stern tone, and instead tries to reach toward his other leg. The fact that Onni is definitely going to see this and stop him doesn't seem to deter him; he doesn't care. He just needs these things off. It's like the clinginess of the fabric is a line of insects marching up his legs and his spine to the base of his skull and he can't stand it.]

[scowlish]

[Of course. Of course none of this could be easy. The surge of frustration hits Onni like a fist as Lalli starts twisting and whining, reaches for his other leg. There's a sort of panicky anger that works its way up from his gut into his chest and then clutches at his throat, and Onni moves, gets to his knees and presses them between Lalli's feet, one hand on each ankle.]

Lalli, I told you to leave it!

[It comes out sharper than he means it to, but he feels like his last nerve is frayed to the breaking point, his head is pounding and his jaw is so tense it feels like it's attached to his head with a railroad spike driven in with a hammer. His shoulders are tense, his back is aching, he's vaguely nauseous from exhaustion and fear, and it's a miracle he's been regulating all of it as well as he has been.

But he can't anymore. He just holds onto Lalli's ankles firmly, and pins his cousin with a glare, chest rising and falling heavily.]

[lallipop]

[This, of all things, is maybe what pushes Lalli over the edge. There isn't a real reason for it. If he was in his right mind, he'd realize this is a pretty stupid thing to throw a fit over. But he's so tired of being so miserable, and he's tired of Onni making him even more miserable. All he wants, suddenly, is to just not be sick, to be able to breathe, to be able to sit up without being dizzy, to be able to keep down food. For his skin not to feel like it's crawling off him. For his head not to be pounding.

He's done. He's just fucking done, and he doesn't care if it makes people upset.

Squirming to get out of Onni's grip is instinctive, and when he can't, when Onni holds him firm regardless, it only serves to make him panic: he hates feeling trapped, and he's trapped now. That it's Onni doing it no longer registers. He can't get away, and the only one he can take his frustration out on is himself, so he does--he curls in on himself, the whine of discomfort fully audible now, twisting onto his side as he claws his hands through his hair in distress. There's no specific thing he's protesting at this point, it's just a pure, visceral expression of upset.

In other words, he's having a tantrum.]

[scowlish]

[If Onni had been sleeping well, if he hadn't been so constantly worried from the fatalistic way that Lalli had been talking through this fever, if he hadn't been feeling so helpless and frustrated at his own inability to break the fever and help his cousin feel well, it might not have been like this. If he hadn't had to explain to Lalli that his mother wasn't going to come take care of him a dozen times. If he hadn't spent hours singing and humming until his throat was sore, if he hadn't been doing everything possible to take care of his cousin, it wouldn't hurt this much or make him so angry when Lalli struggles and pushes and squirms to get out of his grip. But he's tired and worn down and so he just tightens his grip to hold his cousin down.

In fact, he moves forward a little, moves his hands to just above Lalli's knees.]

Lalli, stay still, this isn't good for you, it's not...

[But Lalli's hands are coming up and he's curling into a ball, whining and twisting and dragging his hands through his hair and covering his ears, and it's so childlike and brings back so many memories of things that had happened in their childhoods. Of their grandmother managing him when he was like this. Of having to manage him himself when he was like this. Of every time he'd been so alone and helpless and uncertain of what to do, with no one to turn to to ask for help.]

Lalli, please, just stop! I don't know what to do!

[He knows Lalli won't understand what he's saying, that Lalli might not even really recognize him in this state, but he has to try, or he's going to explode.]

[lallipop]

No!

[The hot spike of feeling in Lalli's stomach is something like panic. He wants to get away and he can't. He wants to curl into a ball where it feels safe and weather all this misery until it passes but he can't, and the helpless frustration is like a wailing siren in his ears and in his pulse.]

Let go! Let go let go let go let go of me--

[But it's not happening and it's--it's too much. His frustrated squirming turns into a kind of animal fear, the longer he's prevented from defending himself, and squirming soon turns into thrashing, breathing turns into hyperventilating.

Leave him alone leave him alone he just wants to curl up and squeeze his eyes shut until he stops feeling awful and Onni won't even let him do that, why won't Onni just leave him alone, all he knows is horrible horrible horrible, leave him alone, he just wants to sleep and never wake up, let go of him leave him alone--]

[scowlish]

[All along, Onni had known it was hopeless, that there was no way he was going to get through to Lalli like this, that there's nothing he can do, that he is stupid and has no idea how to control Lalli, he'd heard it so many times. 'Can't you just control your cousin?' and all the words they'd called Lalli and all the things he'd said to try to make them understand that Lalli wasn't just a brat, that Lalli didn't mean to and he knows, he knows in the back of his mind, somewhere in that tiny spot where his rationality is huddling, that Lalli doesn't mean to.

But that doesn't stop it from hurting, when Lalli shouts at him and kicks and squirms and makes those horrible noises and fights him like he's his enemy, when all he wants is to help and make it better, but this isn't making it better, this isn't helping. He's making it worse. He always makes it worse.

He can't do this anymore.

Letting out a loud sobbing breath, he just scrambles back from Lalli and off the bed, paces across the room, back and forth, his fists clenched at his sides, his breath keeps coming in harsh, sobbing pulls even though he isn't crying. But he wants to. He wants to scream and punch the wall and hogtie Lalli and throw him in the tub to cool off until he's okay again and he wants to explode. Instead, he just makes a loud noise of frustration and helplessness, and turns away from Lalli, his forehead leaning against the wall.]

[lallipop]

[As soon as Onni gets up Lalli takes advantage to curl in on himself, his knees drawn up in the fetal position with his hands over his ears. He stays like that, humming in distress under his breath, for quite a while. There are no thoughts, only white noise scratching at his skull that take a long time to decompress.

His breathing is fast and hard and for a while it's the only thing he can hear--that and his own heartbeat. He doesn't even register Onni's own distress as he paces somewhere else in the room. He just knows he's keyed up and twitchy and overwhelmed. What Onni might feel about the situation doesn't even occur to him.

At least, it doesn't at first. But it does eventually.

At some point, Lalli falls asleep. He isn't sure when. But it's a fitful sleep at best; his sleep has been since his fever, but the now-familiar nightmares of his mother and grandmother and Tuuri and Onni and Emil dying horribly are interspersed with the very real memory of Onni's face: his worry and his anger and his desperate fear, his frustration that Lalli won't just behave, and not for the first time Lalli wonders to himself why am I like this? Why does he have to cause such unnecessary trouble for Onni? Why can't he just cooperate?

If he had an answer, maybe both of their lives would be less miserable.]

[scowlish]

[Onni stays like that for a long time, his head against the wall and fists clenched at his sides and trying to keep silent in the face of what feels like an overwhelming avalanche of intense emotions, all warring against each other. The fear and panic and anger and desperation and exhaustion and frustration all twist together into something that has him breathing in deep sobbing breaths, his eyes squeezed shut. There are no words to put to what's going on inside him, the reaction in his body, the way his mind is buzzing and ringing, thoughts moving too fast to keep track of, chest and belly aching.

It takes a long time before it all coalesces into the root of itself - Onni loves Lalli, he loves him so much it hurts, and all he wants is to make this misery end for his cousin. But he can't, he's powerless, just like he'd been powerless and unconscious when Tuuri had been infected, just like he'd been powerless and sleeping while his parents were infected, like he'd been powerless when Lalli told him he might not ever be coming home.

When he pulls his head away from the wall, he realizes his face is wet with tears, his breath hitching silently, and he lifts a hand to wipe at them. Turns away from the wall and tries to steady his breath, crosses the room and sits down heavily on the edge of Lalli's bed. There's not really time to indulge his own feelings right now. Lalli is sleeping fitfully, but the stupid socks are still on his feet, and Onni pulls the blankets over them, over Lalli's body with shaking hands. Then he starts stroking Lalli's damp hair and holds his breath until it's steady enough that he can start to sing.]

[lallipop]

[Lalli awakens with a start some time later, absolutely soaked in sweat, coming out of a nightmare where Tuuri's face splits open down the middle and opens up like that infected dog's, while Onni's exhausted expression hovers in his peripheral vision. He's miserably hot and the sheets are sticking to his skin, and he wriggles out from under them desperately before he realizes there's a strange weight at the end of the bed.

Onni's still there; he must have fallen asleep sitting up. He's out cold and breathing evenly, but his exhaustion is obvious even here. His brow is furrowed with stress and the bags under his eyes are more pronounced than they've ever been, and Lalli feels guilt squeeze his chest like a vice.

Lalli did this to him. Onni is trying so hard and all Lalli does is wear him down and has done for years. Onni has always been the one to scrape himself raw to make up the distance between them, and all Lalli has ever done is given him more trouble for it.

Even now, if Lalli makes any sign that he's awake, Onni will ignore everything he needs just to make Lalli comfortable. The longer Onni has to care for him, the more Onni has to hurt himself.

He doesn't need to, and shouldn't have to. He needs to sleep. Lalli can take care of himself.

He's much shakier than normal, but he still knows how to be quiet. He's learned by now where the floor and walls creak, and how to avoid them. Leaving without waking Onni up is the easy part.

He stops to gather his coat by the door, because he's already shivering again. He can only hope Onni will understand; he'll be angry, of course, but it's better than working himself to the bone. And Onni had left first, so he should know how Lalli feels. He just doesn't want to be trouble anymore.]

[scowlish]

[It takes hours for Onni to wake up.

Given the opportunity to sleep uninterrupted and the sleep deficit he's been nursing, his body takes everything he seems to be offering it. Slowly, he slides down the wall until he's slouched against it, his arms crossed over his lower chest, legs crossed, cramped up in a little ball. It's not a peaceful sleep - there's a sort of restlessness as he wanders his dream space, not doing anything productive, not really resting, just pacing around with a sort of nervous energy that won't leave his limbs and heart.

When he wakes up, he's sore from the position he's been lying in, from getting less sleep than he should, from falling asleep with his eyes still stinging from crying. He feels like his body has been beaten from top to bottom and like the insides of his eyelids are made of sandpaper, dehydrated, head pounding. It takes a few moments for his brain, groggy and still half-asleep, to register where he is, that he's in his room but on Lalli's bed.

Then, abruptly, he remembers what had happened and why he feels so awful and all of his worry and fear over Lalli. It registers that he has no idea how long he's been sleeping, and the anxiety kicks in. Sitting up straight, he winces as something in his back cracks, but that completely leaves his mind when he turns to check on Lalli and sees nothing but a hollow in the bedsheets and his blankets pushed back.]

Lalli?

[It comes out as a sort of croak, and he slides off the bed, staggering to his feet and rushing to the bathroom to check if his cousin is there. Nothing. He's not in Reynir's room or the kitchen, either, and when Onni goes back to the bedroom and presses his hand against the spot where Lalli had been lying only to find it cold and barely even damp anymore.

For a while, he just stands there with his hand on the bed, staring almost blankly, processing what he's seeing, what he's feeling. The realization that Lalli had left takes a while to dawn on him, not just because he's still exhausted, but also because it's so hard to comprehend the magnitude of the emotions that are attached to it.

Lalli left. He got up while Onni was sleeping and crept out of the bedroom, and left.

Before Onni can do much more than formulate those words, his chest is rising and falling fast and shallow with panic, his ears are ringing, he feels like he can't breathe, like everything in his chest is seized up. Lalli left. He ran away. And the only reason Onni can think of that he would run away in his state is because the last thing Onni had done was pin him down while he was sick, until he was making those awful distress noises and fighting him like a wounded animal.

He feels like he's going to throw up, suddenly, and all he's aware of is the ringing in his ears and the twisting panicky nausea and the sound of his open-mouthed gasps for breath. Thoughts running so fast and so tangled that they aren't even words, just images and emotions and raw panic. And then it hits him like a hammer, the guilt and shame so intense he can barely breathe.

'I hurt him. I scared him. I made him so hurt and afraid he ran away.'

It repeats over and over in his mind, and he can't make a sound, just standing there struggling to breathe and process, paralyzed, incapable of working out what to do, how to proceed. Usually, he's good in a crisis, can keep his head well, can react logically and with purpose, but now he's completely lost, he can't think, and all he knows is that it's his fault. All of this is his fault, and he's too exhausted and overwhelmed and guilty and terrified to even begin to think of something practical to do.

A moment later, he realizes he's sunk to his knees with his arms crossed on the edge of Lalli's bed, his face buried in them, his mouth still open as he struggles to breathe, and all he can do is make a strangled noise in his throat.

There's nothing else to do. Not until Reynir comes home and snaps him out of this.]