‧ ͏͏͏ 𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗝𝗘𝗖𝗧 ⦃ 𝖱𝖤𝖣𝖠𝖢Τ𝖤𝖣 ⦄

[Anarchia]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: Everyone

Raya looked at Esther with a slight tilt of her head as the doctor handed her two cups, one filled with water, and the other filled with a variety of pills she didn't recognize… When Esther looked away for a moment, Raya used the opportunity to shuffle her way further down the bed, giving her just enough distance to watch the rest of the crew as the medicine went out… She was going to take it, something about Esther was warm, caring… At least when the doctor's eyes were directed at Raya… and when the doctor did look back she smiled up at her and nodded her head... "I will… I just need a minute." It wasn't a lie, she genuinely was going to take her medication, but it was all too overwhelming, the mass of people huddled in the room, the hard, buzzing lighting overhead… The lack of her jacket… or any personal items… There were too many… things, to ignore… too many little annoyances, too many lost memories… Then the others started taking their medication.

The Quartermaster, Vincent… The one she had briefly talked to before the others had come crashing in had moved away from her, lining up with the others… She watched as his chest tightened… the way his uniform stretched around his tensing muscles… He was anxious, like her… Probably from the stress of waking from cryo-sleep and then meeting so many new people… But then he took the pills. She watched the Quartermaster's shoulders drop, and his chest relaxed… that slight anxiety seemed to drain from him as he lined up obediently… Then the others followed, some of them… Maybe all of them… She wanted to join them, to fit in… To keep the attention off her but she still felt dizzy, it wasn't the hit to her head, this was something else… She realized that now, but stayed silent, hoping she'd be excused... and she was left there, sitting on the edge of the gurney with her legs idly swinging back and forth as she stared down at the cups, one filled with water, and the other colorful pills… The rest of the world seemed to fall away as Celeste started reading out names, she was back in that ocean, the one from cryosleep, that darkness, the pressure weighing down on her shoulders, her back… Her skull

It wasn't just a feeling.

​

The Medbay had fallen away from her, she hadn't seen it happen… it just… had… Her hair seemed to float around her as she continued to stare at the pills, No bed, No Crew, No harsh, fluorescents buzzing in her ear... there was no cup now… there were just pills scattered in the palm of her hand.

Red
Blue
Green
White
Black​

They all had different textures, rough, smooth… Shiny… But none that felt familiar, she poked at them with her other hand, where had the water gone? floated off into the rest of the ocean, of course... she searched for that subtle texture that only one's finger could detect, and they returned nothing… These pills were completely new to her, manufactured for the crew… For her. Only for her. Why was this so hard…? Just take them. Take them and go to work. She raised her eyes for a few lingering moments, staring into the void of her ocean. Take them… Go to work… Map the stars… She had taken pills for ten years, this wasn't any different… Right?

Where was her jacket? Where was her speaker…? Where were any of her personal possessions from her last assignment… ​

Her mind was jumping between issues now, misfiring as Celeste continued to list the names of the crew out, she was a faint echo coming from the surface of the water above her…

No windows… No hum of reactors… Engines… FTL drives… A doctor who could remember her name but nothing else. An engineer who decided to clean up Raya's blood with her sleeves… A psych doctor who seemed to have no interest in her patients..

"You're disoriented."​

The Medbay was back. Celeste was standing over her. Raya's eyes were still fixed on the pills in her palm, she had dropped the water cup at some point and a small puddle had soaked into the bedsheets beside her… She raised her eyes to meet Celeste.

"...What?"

Raya's voice was a hushed whisper, barely loud enough for Celeste to hear, let alone the rest of the crew.

"Tell me what feels wrong,"​

The navigator glanced around, turning her head to eye the rest of the crew lined up, all presumably staring at her at this point, which only made her heart race faster before she looked to the doors of the Medbay… She thought about running, about finding the navigator's room and smashing the control panel before doing something she'd regret if she didn't follow through… Celeste would be able to see it in Raya's eyes, a primal fear. There was something wrong.

"Where's my jacket…? I Fell asleep with a jacket on… Someone took it."​

A jacket? Was that really the most important thing Raya was worried about, her heart rate was spiking into the hundreds, beads of cold sweat were forming on her neck, and blood was drying in matted clumps of her hair… and she wanted a jacket…

"I fell asleep with it… Someone… Took it. I heard them… In my sleep. I woke up in this..." ​

She repeated the words in that same hushed whisper, but this time… An authoritative tone was sinking into her voice, whether her memories of being an officer were true or not, she was certainly starting to sound like one when she spoke next, now loud enough for the rest of the crew to listen in.

"The lights are too bright, the room is too cold… There's no humming of engines, the computer didn't tell me our position when I awoke from Cryo-Sleep, which is standard protocol, don't you think a navigator should know where we are? There was no one to assist with our de-frosting… Our engineer is covered in, what I presume is my blood! And I don't know what that is on her lips but I think it's blood too, MY BLOOD. Esther knows me but doesn't know me. This ship. Has. No. Windows."​

Raya huffed as her rant came to a stop before she looked back to the pills in her hands… "I'll take these.. because I think I'm the one who's suffering from Cryo-sickness… Clearly… the rest of you are all lined up… but I want my jacket… and I want to know, who took it…"

 

[Origami]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @Cat

Esther couldn’t help but watch this Celeste person with slight disdain. Taking over like it was second nature to her. Wasn’t she just a Psych Officer? She didn’t say anything though, just kept handing the others their cups with pills and watched them swallow examining their mouths with a flat stick, throwing them out after each use. She listened to Raya talk with half an ear, not really following along in whatever she was telling Celeste. “Do you not have your own office, or somewhere private for this kind of talk?” Esther breathed out slightly uncomfortable at the invasion of privacy.

Her eyes flickered nervously from Raya to Celeste.

 

[Cat]

[ Medbay ] | Interaction : @Anarchia & @Origami
Celeste did not blink.

She did not shift, did not stir, did not react in any way that could be considered human.

She only watched.

The sterile hum of the Medbay swallowed every other sound, stretching out the silence in a way that felt intentional, as if the room itself was holding its breath. Celeste remained crouched at Raya's side, her presence unnervingly still, her head tilting just so—like a doll adjusting its gaze.

"You woke up without it," she said at last, her voice too soft, too steady, the words settling into the air like something thick and cloying. "Something is missing. Someone took it. You heard them."

Not a question. A confirmation.

She tilted her head the other way, slow and deliberate, observing the way Raya's fingers twitched around the pills in her palm. The way her breath hitched. The way her gaze darted to the doors, searching for escape, searching for something real.

"You feel it, don't you?" Celeste whispered, her voice threading through the sterile air like a creeping vine. "The wrongness. The way the walls breathe when no one is looking. The way the silence listens."

Her fingers tapped once, twice, against the clipboard. A metronome in the quiet.

"The jacket isn't the problem," she continued, voice barely above a murmur, though it carried through the stillness like a thread of static. "It's just the shape your fear has taken. Something tangible. Something that makes sense." A slow inhale. A measured pause.

"But it doesn't make sense, does it, Raya?" The name curled off her tongue like something ancient, something known before it was spoken. Celeste shifted forward, just slightly, just enough for the cold sterility of her presence to press against the frayed edges of Raya's panic.

"You're looking for something real." A flicker of something unreadable passed through her dark eyes. "But what if you don't like what you find?"

She let the silence stretch, let the weight of the words settle. Then, with an eerie kind of gentleness, she tapped the clipboard again to settle the subject.

Celeste did not turn to face Esther immediately.

Instead, she remained still, eerily so, her gaze lingering on Raya for a moment too long—long enough to make it feel like she wasn't just looking at the navigator, but through her. Like she was peeling back the layers, searching for the shape of something just beneath the surface.

Then, slow as the turning of a tide, she straightened.

She pivoted toward Esther with the same deliberate precision, her expression unreadable, dark eyes settling on the medic with a weight that was difficult to name. "Privacy," she echoed, her voice light, thoughtful, as if turning the word over in her mind. Testing its weight. Tasting it.

The pause stretched.

And then—she smiled.

Not wide. Not warm. Something small and knowing, curling at the edges of her lips like a secret whispered between the spaces of silence.

"Would that make you feel better, Esther?" she asked, her voice barely above a murmur, but somehow still there, settling in the air like a phantom touch. "If we all tucked our discomfort into little rooms and locked the doors behind us?" Her fingers drummed idly against the clipboard—once, twice, three times. A slow, rhythmic beat.

"You don't want to hear it," she observed, not unkindly. "The questions you can't answer. The things that don't quite fit. The way she speaks and you almost understand what she means—until you realize you don't." She took a measured step closer, just enough for the air between them to thin, for the distance to feel less like space and more like something intentional.

"You're uncomfortable because you should be," Celeste continued, voice soft as a lullaby. "Because something is wrong, and you can feel it, can't you? The way it lingers." Her gaze flickered—just briefly—toward the others, all lined up in quiet compliance, taking their pills without protest. Her smile twitched, then smoothed again.

"But by all means," she said, a touch too airy, too pleasant. "If you'd like me to leave, just say so."

A slow blink. A long pause. Then, almost absently, she tilted her head. "But tell me, Esther," she mused, quiet and unshaken, "Would you really feel safer without me here?"

 

[Origami]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @Cat

Esther chewed on her cheek as the smaller woman turned to face her. She swallowed a lump in her throat, putting effort into looking anywhere but at the Psych Officer. But then Celeste stepped up to her, tilting her head up to look her in the face. With Esther being a few inches taller than her she kept her stance not letting it show that she was slightly intimidated by Celeste. Her heart was pounding in her chest, feeling like she had some kind of a predator at her throat.

Would that make you feel better?

“Yes. It would.” She finally met her gaze, her jaw clenching as she blinked. She wondered how far she could push against the glass before a crack would appear.

Esther dropped her arms to her sides. “Just finish what you came here to do,” the red head said through slightly gritted teeth. “But don’t put pressure on her like that,” she pointed over her shoulder at the younger woman, not knowing why she was so protective of Raya. With that she turned, flicking her hair over her shoulder not caring how close to Celeste it was, ignoring the rest of her question.

 

[InstillQuill]

<MedBay>
@Cat​

The tension between Esther and Celeste was heavy, enough that if someone had a knife, they could slice through it with ease. Vincent's eyes flickered back and forth between the two of them as they spoke, the encounter eventually ending with Esther declaring that Celeste should finish her assignment here, without pressuring Raya through her questions. The encounter resulted in Vincent's eyes widening slightly in surprise before returning to normal. Having stood off to the side after taking his medication, Vincent raised his hand slightly. Should he? Celeste seemed like the kind of person you shouldn't be fucking with, but she also seemed to know what was going on.

And if she knew what was going on, didn't that mean she had some answers?

The mind might have had questions to ask, but the body was unwilling to respond to his desires to ask those questions. Well, maybe not the hard hitting questions, but maybe he could ask a lighter question?

Raising his hand ever so slightly, Vincent spoke up, keeping his tone calm. "Excuse me, Ms..." Squinting his eyes slightly, Vincent focused in on her name tag, before looking back up into her eyes, "..Harlow. Do you happen to know where we need to go next? I'm uh...unsure of the proper schedule here."

 

[Twilight Genesis]

<𝕄𝕖𝕕-𝔹𝕒𝕪>
Interaction: @Cat

Cas would tilt her head left to right, bobbing any time someone started talking. She wasn't about to interrupt whatever that was. Of course she wanted to learn her schedule and figure out where things were. She needed to fill her tool belt after all! There were still traces of blood to clean up and she really didn't like leaving messes around. She started chewing on her lower lip, a slight trickle of blood stained her skin. She really needed to clean up that blood. Her fists clenched further and and she inhaled slowly through her nose and her already wide smile seemed to stretch further if that were even possible. Her eyes were bright, they were full of life and excitement for the day ahead. Her gaze had bounced from one member of the crew to another. When her gaze flicked towards Celeste it started to turn unfocused.

"Do we got a map or floorplan of the ship? I'd love to get my hands on some tools. Ship maintenance waits for no one! Always have to make sure that the place is in working order." Her voice raised in pitch and she batted her eyelashes waiting. If she was unnerved by the tension at all it didn't show. She just kept smiling, waiting patiently as her eyes squinted and her fingers twitched.​

 

[AllarianSilverblade]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @InstillQuill @Cat @Anarchia @Origami

Thanks God someone broke that tension...

A smiled crossed Kieran's face as he took a half step forward. "String bean here's on the right track," Kieran piped in while punching the taller man in the shoulder, perhaps a little harder than intended. "I'm not sure about the rest of you lot, but I didn't get much of a briefing before they ushered me into the ice box back there. Would be nice to know what's what now." He turned his attention to the woman with the clipboard, unintentionally pausing briefly. A wave of what could best be described as unease washed over him, as if trying to warn him to keep his mouth shut. Kieran was use to this feeling. It was one he often surpressed.

"And you, miss nosey pants," He took another half step towards Celeste. "Lay off Rayray would ya? None of us are having a good time comin' out 'a cryo. At least let her get her feet under her before givin' her the business?" He stared into the woman's cold, unfeeling eyes before falling back in line. She didn't need to say a word, that look was more than enough to put him in his place. He could feel his heart pound in his chest, the sense that he had just done something very very stupid almost overwhelming him. Is she even human that one? I've seen that look before though. Wait... Did I call that other woman Rayray? Why'd I do that?

He held his hand out to take his pill from the doctor, swallowing them quickly while barely washing them down. Whatever they were, they were doing something. His confusion, his worries and concerns slowly started to melt away.

 

[Tenzai]

[ Medbay ] | Interaction : everyone

"You are going to stand in an orderly line, you are going to remain quiet, and you are going to listen. Understood?"​

"Understood." Unveiling his eyes to the world around him, the woman that earned his attention had returned with clipboard in hand. A line had formed since his eyes had closed, beckoning him to join it to make some sort of order out of the mess of strange people. Celeste had brought a sense of normalcy into a chaotic environment, commanding a sort of silence from the crowd as each waited for their turn for their turn to be issued their drugs. Making note of every name that was soon to follow his own, the security officer committed each title to memory.

"Oliver Davies, captain." As the captain moved first to receive his medicine, Ethos took stock of his environment, observing the features and mannerisms of the others while they were all in the same place in order to seize as much information as he could to hopefully glean some insight over his predicament. Captain Davies appeared much older than the rest of the crew. The scars on his body hinted at a past life full of strife and conflict similar to his own. The wedding room took his focus at first, though a thorough scan of the hands of the people within his immediate vicinity revealed that his spouse was most likely not a part of the immediate crew.

"Ethos Arturia. Security Officer."

"Present." As he got close to receive his medicine, the security officer took a good look at the doctor who distributed it to him, Esther. She seemed incredibly proficient at her work, being able to concentrate on assisting her patient despite the chaos of her environment. Her heterochromia was something his eyes were drawn to, though before he was able to examine her further, it appeared that the psych officer was ready to call out the next name. Retreating from the line, he placed the pills in his mouth before wandering towards a nearby sink to wash the pills down. Feeling nothing at first, as he turned towards the door after a couple minutes, he couldn't find the shadowy figure there. 'Good. At least, it looks like its doing its job.'

"Kieran McDonald. Communications Officer."

Turning his head after wiping his mouth dry, Ethos examined the crew member who looked to be the youngest of them all. The difference in Kieran's hair and his stature had made him naturally stand out from the bunch. Sweat seemed to have pooled from his neck, as though he had to exert his body before reaching the medical bay. The long breaths he took earlier before joining the line had made Ethos hold concern for his well being and overall state of cardio, especially given that the distance between the cryo pods and the medical bay didn't feel like that long of a walk, the last he recalled, though the muscles made present from the outlines of his jumpsuit had brought ease to the security officer's mind somewhat should he need him during an emergency.

"Vincent Thompson. Quartermaster."

Vincent seemed to be the most normal of the bunch; Forgetful about his role, yes, but the questions he delivered about his environment had brought some ease to his mind. Ethos wasn't the only one that was confused. Their shared unfamiliarity with their environment had made the security officer feel less odd about his own distrust of his mind.

"Raya Silveth. Navigator."

Despite having her name be called, the people surrounding Raya had made it difficult to get a closer inspection of her. However, her following conversation with the doctor and the psych officer had made him wonder just who she was. Last he remembered, personal effects that could cover a uniform separate from a lab coat weren't code compliant. It felt like an arbitrary rule at first, but he never questioned it.

Finally backing up from the others after being given enough information, he felt anxious at the surge of new knowledge regardless of his medicine's effects. Even with his growing understanding of the people that surrounded him, the more names Celeste had read out that didn't match what he remembered, the more alien his environment had become. His instincts were starting to betray him too. Details that were once taken at face value had looked off. The symbols on the wall of the medical bay didn't match the shape and color of that in his memory. The beds themselves were arranged a little differently, causing him to bump and stumble despite spending so much time in the medical bay in the past. Yet everything about himself still seemed the same; His role, his uniform, the name on his card; All of it was his own.

However, no one questioned why he was there. No one looked at him like he was the odd one out upon having his name be called; As if he were transported from some other station to this one. Troubled, he withdrew himself from the room, being the first among them to leave to take a few deep breaths outside by his lonesome. The differences from what he thought he was familiar with, though slight in regards to everything else but the crew, had felt terrifying when taken all at the same time.

'Just what was about this is normal?' He thought to himself. Looking down, Ethos stared at his card for a while, focusing on the only thing he felt which didn't change before taking a deep breath. "Relax Ethos... It probably just means the medicine had yet to kick in. That's all. Just do your job and everything will be okay. You have ten or so minutes to calm down before the Overseer begins with their instruction anyways. You've been through so much worse before." Leaning beside the doorway that led out into the hallway, he chose to stick around to overhear the conversation happening inside. Given the sudden tensions in the air that arose between the psych officer, the doctor, and the navigator, if conflict were to arise between them, he was sure that he would be made responsible for breaking it up.

 

[Anarchia]

Raya couldn't quite believe what she was hearing from Celeste, this couldn't be their Psych officer… and if it was, surely she was imagining the words spewing from the woman's mouth… That thought didn't make it any less unsettling when Celeste leaned in closer.

"You're looking for something real."​

Raya nodded her head slightly, her breathing quickened as panic gripped her tighter, and her throat ran dry before closing up… just enough to feel like she was suffocating before Celeste whispered to her again.

"But what if you don't like what you find?"​

The navigator froze on the edge of the bed, her eyes moving back to the pills in her hand before the sound of Celeste tapping at the clipboard made her flinch. She watched the woman step away and speak to Esther slowly, leaving Raya to stare down at the pills in her hands for a few more lingering moments.

Eventually, the navigator decided to push herself upwards, her breathing was still spiking, and she had to focus her mind to stop herself from falling into a cycle of hyperventilating… she stuffed the pills in her pocket before she moved over to the sink. And rummaged around in its cupboards, eventually she found what she was looking for after a minute of medical tools and equipment crashing against one another, she emerged from under the sink with a bottle, which she promptly began to fill with water before she moved to the entrance of the medical bay, silently passing by the rest of the crew before she tapped her card at the scanner and watched the doors open into…

Nothing.

The Medbay door was open, but nothing was beyond. Just a black, empty… Void.

She blinked.​

The corridor was back, and she hesitated before stepping over the precipice of the bulkhead door with trembling feet before her shoes impacted the floor with a dull thud. Once she was sure she was steady and wouldn't suddenly find herself falling she straightened herself up and began stomping back to cryo-stasis with the steady march of an officer... Or how she thought an officer might march.

Raya breathed slowly with calculated breaths and moved back to her pod, glancing down at the still congealing blood at its base, smeared by Cas's handprints across the floor, she slowly lowered herself into a spot where there was no blood, pressing her back against the cold steel of her pod before she retrieved the pills from her pockets… She knew she wasn't well without them, but she was a coward… she couldn't just swallow them… She knew she should... She wanted to, she wanted this nightmare to end… but couldn't bring herself to do it, some part of her mind, a part without an ability to speak, to communicate… Was screaming at her to stop…

She took the first pill and crushed it between her hands, grinding it to fine dust before she let the remnants fall into the water of her bottle… she continued this until her entire dosage of medication was crushed and dissolved into her water.

She took a sip, and the tremors in her fingers stopped. Another sip… and her heart rate slowed to a crawl. Another, longer sip and her mind finally grew quiet.. she had only drank about half the water, half the dosage she had been prescribed, but already she felt better... Felt more like… Herself, she thought, anyway.

It was only when the computer warned her of the imminent briefing with the 'Overseer' that she finally found the courage to push herself back to her feet and trudge her way back into the Medbay, Slinking in... skirting her way around the edges of the room before she found the bed she had been sitting on before and resumed her position, staring at the half-empty bottle now cradled in her hands.

 

[Cat]

[ Medbay ] | Interaction : @InstillQuill & @Twilight Genesis
Celeste did not move as Esther turned, as her hair brushed dangerously close to her. She remained perfectly still, watching, waiting, as if listening for the sound of that first crack forming beneath the surface.

Then, ever so slowly, a smile crept onto her lips. It was small, restrained—polite, even—but something lurked beneath it. Something knowing. She let the silence stretch between them, let it settle, thick and heavy. The air itself felt weighted, pressing down like the stillness before a storm.

Then, finally, she spoke.

"How very noble of you," she murmured, voice barely above a whisper, laced with something that wasn't quite amusement. It was clinical. Precise. A scalpel, not a sword.

"You must care about her a great deal." She let the words linger just long enough before taking a single step back, the clipboard tapping lightly against her palm, the echo of it filling the space between them. "As you wish," she continued, voice cool now, detached. "I'll finish what I came here to do. No pressure."

The implication, of course, was clear. But pressure wasn't always something that needed to be applied. Sometimes, it simply existed.

Without another word, Celeste turned sharply on her heel, resuming her place at the front, her presence once again commanding the room. The line. The names. The routine. But if one were to look closely, just for a moment, they might have noticed the way her fingers curled ever so slightly around the pen in her hand.

Tension.

As the conversation continued around her, Celeste let the voices blur into an indistinct hum, like static crackling at the edge of her awareness. It wasn't intentional—no, it was muscle memory, an old reflex that had long since rooted itself into her psyche. The sound of Esther's defiance, the shuffle of bodies, even the strained breaths of Raya beside her—all of it faded, sinking into the recesses of her mind like distant echoes underwater. Deeper. Deeper.

Her grip on the clipboard tightened. Her pulse remained steady.

This wasn't new. She had spent years sifting through the noise of human emotion, filtering through the desperate, the angry, the fractured. People spoke at her, but rarely to her. There was always some pushback, some resentment, some unease lurking beneath the surface.

It was fine. It was always fine.

Their words became distant waves lapping at the shore, barely noticeable, barely relevant. The real work was in observation. She noted the way Esther's hands had clenched at her sides, the way Raya's eyes had flitted toward the exit, the way the tension rippled through the room like an unseen current.

And then— A voice.

Not particularly loud, not particularly demanding, but sharp enough to pierce through the static. "Excuse me, Ms..." She didn't react at first. The words floated, half-formed, before snapping into focus as something different.

Her name. Her name.

Celeste blinked once, as if surfacing from deep water, and turned her attention toward Vincent just as he squinted at her name tag. "Harlow. Do you happen to know where we need to go next? I'm uh...unsure of the proper schedule here." Her dark eyes settled on him, taking him in. For a moment, she did not answer.

Instead, she let the silence stretch, her gaze flickering over him like she was cataloging something unseen, something deeper than the question he had asked. It was not hostility that lingered in her expression, nor impatience—no, it was something far worse.

Recognition.

Like she had already expected him to ask. Like she had been waiting for it. Then, finally, she responded. "Ah." Her voice was soft, but it did not lack for weight. "You want direction."

A pause.

She tilted her head ever so slightly, as though considering something.

"Your scheduled duties will be assigned once all medical evaluations are complete." The clipboard in her hand gave a small, almost thoughtful tap against her palm. "But in the meantime…"

Another pause. Longer, this time. Her lips parted just slightly, as if she might say something else—something important. But whatever it was, she seemed to reconsider. Instead, she simply smiled. Not warm. Not cold. Just there.

"You'll know where to go when it's time."

And with that, she turned away, moving seamlessly back to her task, leaving Vincent with the distinct, uneasy feeling that she had just told him something far more significant than he had asked for.
Celeste had already begun to withdraw into her task, her mind filtering through the details that mattered and discarding those that didn't. But then—

"Do we got a map or floor plan of the ship?"

The voice was light, eager—too eager. A stark contrast to the thick tension that had settled into the room like a dense fog. Celeste didn't need to turn her head to know who had spoken. The energy in the voice belonged to Cas, unmistakable in its enthusiasm.

"I'd love to get my hands on some tools. Ship maintenance waits for no one! Always have to make sure that the place is in working order."

Celeste remained still for a moment.

Her fingers idly adjusted their grip on the clipboard, pen tapping once against the metal clip before she finally, slowly, turned her gaze toward Cas.

The engineer's smile was unwavering, her bright eyes expectant, fingers twitching as though ready to get to work. Unlike the others, she didn't seem weighed down by the lingering discomfort that still coiled in the air. If she noticed it at all, she didn't let it show.

Celeste studied her.

Most people deflected unease with silence, with avoidance. But Cas? She filled the space with noise, with motion, with an unshakable energy that—for all its brightness—felt just a little too calculated.

The corner of Celeste's mouth curled, an expression not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. "A floor plan," she echoed, her tone unreadable. "Yes. There is one."

A pause.

Celeste tapped her pen against the clipboard again, considering her next words with the same meticulous care one might use when choosing a scalpel.

"You'll be granted access after the full crew evaluation is complete." Her gaze flickered—just briefly—to the dried blood still clinging to Cas's sleeves before returning to her face. "For now, I'd suggest familiarizing yourself with the present before concerning yourself with the ship's inner workings."

She let the words settle.

Then, she did something strange. Celeste tilted her head just slightly, as if she were mirroring Cas's own energy back at her, reflecting it like glass. The shift was subtle, but intentional—a small test, a nudge to see if Cas would react, if she'd flinch, if she'd falter.

The pen in her hand gave one final tap before she returned her focus to the clipboard. "We wouldn't want you to get lost, would we?"

 

[Twilight Genesis]

<𝕄𝕖𝕕-𝔹𝕒𝕪>​

Interaction: @Cat ​

Cassiopeia had met most of the interaction with silence. Something about this woman was... different. Not that it mattered much, she'd just try to get to know her anyway, like she would with the others in good time. At this point, she felt it safest to speak when spoken to. Her gaze stayed focused around Celeste. She was staring her down most of the time, but she hadn't meant to. Eye contact was a good thing, right? If there was such a thing as too much eye contact, she definitely wasn't aware of it. The same smile on her face as she licked her lips to keep them wet. She'd smeared some of the blood that ran from the small spot of broken skin from the constant lip biting.

The mimicry of Celeste tilting her head to match Cassi kept her smiling even then. She's waited for the Psych Officer to finish speaking the thoughts on her mind. More silence hung in the air and in the next moment Cassi had clapped her hands together, breaking the bubble of stillness.
"Oh goodie! Hopefully we can get through the evals smoothly. I can understand the need, we've been in that cryo-pod for so long!" Cassi was excited, and there was no doubt about that. She just kept smiling, kept staring.

"Apologies if I sound impatient, I really don't mean to!" She was just so passionate about her job. Work never felt like work to her, even when she was stressed. If there was anything amiss, and it was in her place of expertise, she'd certainly try her hardest.

"I know the ship is perfectly fine, for now."

"But perhaps I'm just a worrywart, you know?"

Cassi hadn't blinked in quite a while, hell, she hadn't even broken posture.
"Everything breaks."​

 

[Tenzai]

Location: The Concordance Hallways

Given the lack of movement in the hallways, it didn't take long for the primary lights to dim down to idle settings despite Ethos waiting outside. He didn't move much after reaching the length of wall panel he decided to lean on. One breath after another, accompanied by a sense of duty despite the feeling of his nerves clashing with his reasoning, he was able to return back to some sense of normality. 'The drugs should be working by now.' Though as soon as he turned to face the hallway, he heard the sound of footsteps coming past him. Raya, the crew's navigator, didn't seem to notice him standing there. It must have been the difference between the lighting in the room and the med bay that took time for her eyes to adjust.

As she turned towards the hallway where he and Celeste had come from just minutes earlier, instead of letting her go off on her own, the security officer decided to follow her in secret. Given his lack of knowledge on her separate from her wound and the words she exchanged with the psych officer, he wouldn't put it against her to intrude into an area she wasn't welcome in over the sake of searching for her belongings. Her boots were loud when pressed against the floor below, each moving with intent, making it easy for him to follow her while veiled behind different corners. Though instead of moving to any other room, whoever this woman was decided to stop at the cryo pods instead.

<Cryo Pods>​

Unlike before, the blood that once stained the room had now been smeared. Bloodied fingers had patterned where crimson marked the area earlier, seemingly in an attempt to wipe it off without some form of cleaning solution. It was most likely the engineer. Whoever she was, her gloves were painted red, though no wounds were present on his body the last time he remembered.

Peeking from behind the open entrance, he heard the sound of a crack of a bottle cap, summoning his attention over to her hands. Powder mixed in with the water itself, initially clouding the liquid before she took her medicine. However, unlike as he expected, half her bottle remained filled, eventually leading to the medicine becoming fully dissolved and clear. 'A half dose?.... A diluted... Dose?' Something about the way Raya took her medicine was familiar, yet he could not put a finger on it. Feeling the slow thumping of a headache arising, as he pulled away, he heard the sound of the computer going off, warning of a meeting soon to come.

<Recreation Room #01>​

Immediately, the security officer hid inside another room across from the cryo pods to avoid detection, only to find himself in what appeared to be a lounge area; Most likely a place for them to rest and recuperate before settling in for the night. A couch sat across from a set of bookshelves with a piano sitting alongside the opposite corner. Cameras were present as well, blinking from time to time as though they were recording. Posters were present on the wall, each wielding different phrases of corporate lingo that he could never grow accustomed to. "Really... We're doing cat posters now?" Rolling his eyes at the quaint image, he joked.

"I wonder if this is what the Celeste meant by trying to keep us stable."​

'She would've definitely ragged on this.' A short chuckle had broken through the stillness of the room, only for the security guard to feel something else in the place of anxiety: Loneliness. 'Why?' The crew members around him were as alien to him as his surroundings. Unlike his first time working here, he had no one else to rely on other than himself. Taking a deep breath, he made his way towards the door, making a mental note of the position of the room relative to the rest of the station. If the layout was different than he remembered, then it would make sense to make understanding where everything is a first priority should he need to do patrols and handle other tasks.

Though before he left, the security officer walked over to the piano to tap a key only to find it performing at a perfect pitch. The others had revealed the same, lacking the same imperfections that made a song just that little bit more beautiful. "... Strange. Must be the technican's skill. Hope she could ease up on it a little. Tuning this too well makes the sound artificial." Looking at the time and finding himself cutting it close, the security officer began to move swiftly, jogging out of the room. They never mentioned where the overseer was meant to meet them, though assuming that Celeste knew where she was going, he believed that wherever she went was the right way to go.

 

[Dion]

<MedBay>
Interaction: @Cat ​

The longer the awkward standoffs continued, the more Olivers eyes fluctuated between the parties involved. Something inside of him desired to step in, stand in the middle of the conflicts, and tell them all to stop and focus on the task ahead. But, he realized, the task ahead was unclear. The appearance of Celeste did little to dissuade his feelings and instead only served to inject more conflict, confusion and tension into the crew. This was a bad cocktail they had been dealt. But surely the USSC knew what they were doing putting together this rag-tag bunch of unstables. And the longer he was among them the more he felt like he was the only human onboard the ship.

As the conflict reached it's height, it seemed to suddenly disappear, and make way for the ritualistic taking of pills. Despite not being familiar with the process, as far as he remembered, the process instilled some degree of calm in him. Yes, the pills. They'd fix everything. Oliver led by example, standing in line, his body straightened out, and when his turn was called he stepped forwards and took the pill, as instructed.

An obedient dog. Ready to bite, bark and sit on command. But who was really giving the orders, he, or someone else?

The tug of his leash pulled him away as he made place for someone else to take the pill, the feelings of anxiety and confusion subsiding and making place for a dedication to the mission unknown. To escape humanhood. Together.

Despite the pills, it seemed like tensions were still high however, and he was likely not the only one to notice. Raising his right eyebrow slightly at the scene in front of him between Celeste and the engineer, he raised his fist once again and coughed, loud enough to try grab Celeste's attention. "Miss.." he started, his eyes squinting slightly to get a better look at her identification card, "Harlow.. could I borrow you for a second?"

He gestured towards the hallway, where he could privately speak to Celeste. Leading the way, he chose a spot not too far removed from where Ethos had just taken off after the navigator, their footsteps echoing with a certain vibrancy that you could only find on spaceships. That was a feeling he could never get used to. It was a strange feeling, knowing that the only thing keeping you on the floor was the top secret gravity generators. Or were they docked on a planet with gravity? Hmm. Well, regardless..

As soon as Celeste had joined him, Oliver began to speak to her, his tone serious, but his voice hushed to keep his sentiments away from prying ears as well as he could. That this wasn't fail-safe, was of course obvious, though he seemed largely unbothered by this. "Miss Harlow, I have a matter I needed to discuss with you. The other crew — I will not, cannot, speak to their mental well-being. That is your domain. And as the captain of this ship, I have the utmost confidence in your abilities. So please do not see this as a captain's intrusion into a field he knows nothing of — I know better than that! However, I would like to discuss with you the matter of our doctor. You see, when I first spoke to her she seemed.. stand-offish and rebellious in nature. Now I am saying by no means that she is unfit to serve — the USSC only picks the finest, as you and the rest of the crew are a testimony to — however, I am saying that I am.. worried.. about negative dispositions towards positions of authority and the rules and regulations of the USSC."

The way Oliver spoke gave away quite easily that he was one of the more oblivious crew members on the crew. The way others had shown to Celeste — intentionally or not — their confusion towards the situation they had found them in, and the innate ability to tell that something was wrong... that seemed to be missing almost entirely from Oliver, who was blissfully unaware and ignorant of their situation especially now that he had taken his medicine, and what few twists and turns in his brain were still registering that things were wrong had begun to straighten out as a result of the influence of whatever substance he had cheerfully taken.

In other words, Oliver seemed fully immersed. Sheep to the shepherd. Cow to the butcher. Dog to the master. A willing servant. Concerned with only one thing: her. Aylin. But whether he realized that or not was up in the air. What wasn't up for debate was the fact that whatever was happening here was entirely hidden from him. The spaceship was real. The people were real. They were his crew. He was the captain. And right now, compliancy and order were the most important factors in making sure they achieved their mission. His eyes turned serious as he instinctively patted the pockets on his trousers, looking for cigarettes that weren't there. "I would just hate for the mission to be jeopardized by hostile elements. And that navigator... her earrings are definitely not within regulation. But that hardly seems like a psychological issue. Unless.. you don't think she is using the piercings to rebel against the authorities on the ship, right? It's not... Freudian in nature at all?"

It was clear that he was not a psychologist at all, but the serious and concerned expression gave away that while his words sounded funny, his intent was anything but. This is what indoctrination looked like. He glanced down the hallway, where the navigator and the security guard had disappeared. "Maybe we should ask the security officer to speak to her about the regulations. It's a health hazard too. What if they get caught on something. I'm just worried about the safety of the crew and the mission, that's all."

 

[Origami]

Location ; MedBay
Interaction ; @AllarianSilverblade @InstillQuill @Anarchia

Esther watched the Captain walk into the hallway motioning Celeste to follow him out of the way so none of the rest left behind could hear their conversation. She rolled her eyes, her shoulders relaxing as the pressure disappeared from the room after having given out everyone’s doses. She pushed the cabinet back into the wall after collecting her own dose. One that was much smaller than the rest of the crews. She popped the pills into her mouth and swallowed them with a small gulp of water.

Kieran had stood up to Celeste, which she had appreciated. That and Vincent’s questioning about their concrete schedule, cause he was right, there had been none. She had just felt the need to settle in MedBay, for whatever reason. Then of course there was Raya, who was sitting on the gurney, a bottle in her hand.

“Raya?” She cautiously walked over to her and hopped up on the mattress beside her, “I don’t know who she thinks she is, but she can’t talk to you like that in front of everyone.” She wrapped an arm around her and squeezed it reassuringly as she had done when she had been leading her over when they had first seen each other.