‧ ͏͏͏ 𝗦𝗨𝗕𝗝𝗘𝗖𝗧 ⦃ 𝖱𝖤𝖣𝖠𝖢Τ𝖤𝖣 ⦄

[Cat]

xxxxxxxxxxxx..xxxxxx the main roleplay thread to this specific interest check. this is where the roleplay will take place. xxxmain thread | character thread | interest thread ​

..

 

[Cat]

reserved.​

 

[Origami]

The first thing Esther felt was the weight. A deep, crushing heaviness that pinned her down like a lead blanket. It wasn’t pain—not exactly—but her limbs refused to respond, her chest struggled to rise, and for a moment, panic flared in the back of her mind. Then came the cold. It wasn’t the sharp sting of winter air, but a deep, bone-set chill. The kind that clung to her muscles, slowing everything down. Her breath came shallow and uneven, lungs feeling smaller than they should. One by one her other senses came to. Her hearing was next as she noticed a low hum that surrounded her in a mechanical and rhythmic lullaby. Cryo systems. The steady beeping of monitors. A distant hiss of pressurized air.

Her eyelids twitched, then cracked open. The world beyond the thick cryo-glass was blurry, tinted blue by the dim emergency lighting. Her heart pounded, but it was so slow, sluggish. Her eyes flickered over the display above her, that was showing a dangerously slow heartbeat. Cryo stasis always did that. She’d read about it, trained for it, but experiencing it firsthand was something else entirely.

But why was she here?

With a shaky exhale, she forced her fingers to move. A slow, jerky twitch, then a curl. Blood rushed to her extremities, a pins-and-needles sensation spreading up her arms. Her legs were next—weak, barely responsive—but she had control. A groan formed in her throat. Too claustrophobic for her taste. Taste… Her mouth was so dry. She swallowed a few times to get the production of saliva going, to coat her tongue and the roof of her mouth. Her eyes wandered back to the display.

Her heartbeat was growing steady.

The glass hissed as the system detected her consciousness. A faint mechanical voice crackled overhead:

“Vitals stable. Cognitive function: active. Cryo-suspension disengaging.”

Who was that? So familiar..

Another groan left her lips as the restraints released with a soft clunk. Cold mist spilled into the air as the chamber seal broke, and the door lifted with a sluggish, mechanical whirr. The shift in pressure made her ears pop.

Esther took her first real breath. Stale air. Recycled. The scent of metal, plastic, and something faintly sterile.

Her muscles ached as she pushed herself upright, a spell of discomfort washed over her as she steadied herself, ever so slowly lifting her hand to cup her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut. With a sigh Esther swung her legs over the edge of the pod. The room spun for a second, her vision spotting, but she breathed through it. She knew what to expect—disorientation, mild confusion. Why’d she know that? Who had told her?

The cryo bay was quiet. So quiet. A row of identical pods lined the room, their occupants still locked in sleep. Frost clung to the edges of the glass, their breath faintly visible in the cold. Seven other people. Unfamiliar faces. Or were they?

Fuck. It felt like her brain had been slow-cooked for a hundred years. Not that she’d know that feeling, but if she had to take a guess of how it felt, she’d say it would feel like this. She swallowed, rolling her shoulders, forcing blood flow back into her body. A quick self-assessment—no pain beyond the stiffness, no nausea.

Good. Get up, Esther.

Her fingers instinctively reached for her stethoscope, but it wasn’t there. Right, of course. Stowed away with her gear and a proper uniform.

She glanced at the control panel beside her pod. Nothing looked alarming. Then her eyes found a small box at her feet. Her name was written on it in large capitalized letters. Her belongings? Esther exhaled sharply and pressed her palms against her thighs. She slid off the pod and onto unsteady legs, gripping the edge for support. Another deep breath as she let her head hang in between her shoulders, her red curls falling around her face. With slow movements she sunk down to one knee and began going through the contents of the container in front of her. A sterile white coat with an employee card hanging from the chest pocket which she draped over her shoulder before pulling out her stethoscope and some other personal belongings. A picture of her with a man and a woman on either side of her in full uniform. Military. Her parents.

Her head hurt.

There was a neatly folded uniform which she quickly changed into and slipped the white coat on. Then she aimed her attention to the other pods, seeing similar crates with names etched into the lid. Esther didn’t linger for long, but instead with surprisingly confident steps made her way through sterile hallways with fluorescent lights that made her eyes hurt until she reached a door with ‘MedBay’ on a plaque next to it, above a scanner of some sort. She tilted her head to the side and reached for her employee card and pulled it down to scan it. The light turned green and a lock disengaged.

A weird calm washed over her and she immediately went to go through stock, preparing for the day ahead as if she’d done it a million times before.. Or had she?

 

[InstillQuill]

Cryo stasis was...oddly comforting for Vincent. And why was that? Was it the weight that secured him in the pod? The cold that he had grown accustomed to? But why was he accustomed to it? Regardless of the reason, the process of awakening from the cryo pod was uneventful for Vincent. Save for the sudden lack of oxygen. A sharp gasp filled the pod as he tried to reclaim the breath that was stolen from him, his brain firing off several questions a minute. Where was he? Why couldn't he breath? What should he do? Oh god, was this it? Too many questions to think clearly, as panic rose within his chest. The once comforting weight of the cryo pod was now restricting his movements, even if he wanted to find some sort of button to manually release him, Vincent wouldn't be able to. Was this it for him? No, no, he had been sleeping, oxygen had to be coming into the pod in some way or form. The gentle cold that had wrapped around Vincent now seeped into his bones, the sudden change in temperature causing him to shake every so slightly.

Fuck. Now he remembered. He hated waking up from cryo sleep. Or was this his first time experiencing it? Either way, he fucking hated it.

A sharp hiss came from the cryo pod, with the mechanic door opening ever so slowly. The cold dissipated out into the room, actual oxygen filling Vincent's lungs as he took a breath full of air into them, treasuring it as if it would be his last breath. With the mechanical lid to the pod being fully retracted, Vincent laid there for a moment, taking in a few breaths in an attempt to calm himself down. He was okay. He could breath again. It would all be okay. And after a few minutes, he had successfully calmed himself down to the point of pushing through the grogginess of cryo sleep. Muscles aching, as if they hadn't been used in years, the harsh glow from the overhead lights stinging his eyes, no matter where he was looking. It took him a few minutes to swing his legs over the cryo pod, hands gripping the edges of the pod in preparation to push himself up. All he needed to do was mentally prepare himself for it.

"Fuck." Vincent muttered softly, his voice deep and groggy from just waking up.

Pushing himself up from the sitting position he was in, immediately, his vision began darkening, the room had begun spinning, and Vincent knew he'd have a meeting with the floor if he didn't act. His arm shot out instinctively, grabbing onto the side of the pod to steady himself until his dizzy spell passed. A few moments later and his body seemingly adjusted, his vision returning and the dizzy spell passing fully. Scanning the room around him, it seemed that identical pods were here, and if Vincent had to assume, it also housed people. It seemed he was the first to awaken? Until his eyes rested on an already open pod. Scratch that, he was the second to awaken. That fact brought him some kind of comfort, knowing that he wouldn't be alone. Taking his first step forward, his second step would be met with the sound of a box being kicked forward and knocked onto it's side. "Damn it." he muttered, kneeling down to pick up the box.

On the box was etched Vincent Thompson. Well, thank god he had some kind of reassurance of his name. Opening the box, he found only a simple uniform clad in bland colors, and an employee badge that had his name, ID number, and designated position, Quartermaster. Pulling the uniform out of the box, he looked around the room. No one else seemed to be waking up. Now was a better time than anything to go ahead and change. Quickly changing into his uniform and clipping the badge onto his uniform, he placed the box back to its original position. Where was he to go? Well, perhaps the only door in the room?

Making his way towards the door that automatically opened, revealing the bright white hallway and fluorescent lights that had hung above them. Great, more things to make Vincent's eyes and head hurt. But the worst thing? None of this was surprising. It felt...normal? Should this be normal? Beginning to walk down the hallway, Vincent didn't know where he was going. He wanted to find someone, anyone, and find out what was going on. It didn't help that the gentle hum from the lights only served to unnerve him. Continuing down the series of hallways, Vincent eventually came towards a door, with the plague labelling it Medbay. Was this the right way? Vincent's body simply kept taking turns that felt familiar to him...maybe this was the right way?

Grabbing his ID, Vincent pulled it towards the scanner, letting it scan the barcode. After a few moments, the light on the scanner turned bright green, and the door opened for Vincent. Running a hand through his hair, Vincent sighed softly before making his way inside the medbay.

All of this was so familiar...as if his body knew where to turn, what to do, acting on instinct alone. But it didn't add up in Vincent's mind. He hadn't been here before, this was his first time seeing everything....right? Then why did he feel like he was home?

 

[Anarchia]

<Cryo-Stasis>​

For Raya, cryosleep was akin to standing at the bottom of a vast ocean, with thousands of fathoms of pressure weighing down upon her, pinning her in place in the dark confines of her pod… For some it was a terrifying experience, and indeed the first time she held felt the frost creeping up her fingers as her heart rate fell into the single digits… Followed by the darkness, she had panicked too, but somehow her mind had become accustomed to the sensation after hundreds (thousands?) of cycles.

There, in the darkness, she dreamed. Sometimes the dreams were fleeting memories from her past, A riot on the streets of Vigilis under Venus' yellow skies… her family, their faces a blurred, ambiguous shape… Although much of the time her dreams were within cryosleep turned to terror. Something chasing her down the corridors of a ship she had no memory of, bleeding out on an observation deck, shadowy figures lingering in the corner of her eyes… she was used to the night terrors, she had some vague sense that that they weren't real.

The nightmares and dreams her sleeping mind could handle, but occasionally it was lucid, it knew that it was in cryo-sleep, and that was far more terrifying than any nightmare or terror that her imagination could create… In those moments she returned to the bottom of the ocean, suspended in the same position that the cryo-pod was currently holding her in, she would heard the muffled voices of… something, outside the pod… Something she knew should have been impossible, she tried to rationalize it away, the voices were her brain filling in gaps, auditory hallucinations that her mind generated to keep itself sane. Sometimes, despite her rationalizations, she swore could feel something breathing beside her, sucking air in and exhaling… There was something in her pod with her, there must have been. It was always there. Every. Single. Cycle.

Her lungs gasped for air before her asthma cut off the oxygen rushing in, she choked on nothing.​

Muscle memory was the only thing that kept Raya from panicking as one hand shot to the pocket of her uniform and retrieved an inhaler, her fingers that were still defrosting fumbled it, and it fell to the bottom of the pod a moment later, she hissed out "Fu...Fuck" between dry, choking breaths before she fell forward out of the chamber with a crash, throwing all of her weight at the door before falling to the floor in a heap. Her hand scrambled to retrieve her inhaler after regaining her senses before she lifted it to her lips and sucked air in a puff. Her lungs relaxed, constricting airways opened and she took in heavy, panting breaths as she glanced around the sterile room… Two other pods lay with their doors open on their hinges… Luckily no one had seen her little tumble to the floor.

She turned over from resting against the pod and glanced down at the box with her name on it, her still trembling fingers reached out to open it before she examined its contents. An ID card with her name on it, and a small messenger bag filled with folded star charts and fabricated ship specifications, specifically listing the capacities of the fictional FTL drive and engines of the ship… she glanced through the papers for a moment and pinned the badge to her chest before she pushed herself up the pod to stand.

It was at that moment she felt the dampness at the top of her head, she reached up to pat a hand against the spot only to hiss in pain and find the tips of her fingers spotted with blood… In her tumble out of the cryo pod, she must've slammed her head hard enough to crack her skull, and not realized in her still half-asleep state… With a sigh, she glanced towards the door of the stasis chamber and unsteadily made her way through it before glancing from side to side, following the signs for the Medbay while reaching out and running her hand against one side of the corridor for support.

<Medbay>
​

By the time she stepped into the Medbay she could feel a warm trickle of blood running down the back of her head and she fully leaned her weight against the door frame and glanced around, noticing the two others in the room, she looked to Vincent with a slight, pained smile before she glanced to Esther. "Oh… Hi guys… I'm Raya... Sorry to be a pain but I kinda hit my head on the way out of stasis… and…" she trailed off while her vision blurred for a moment as the concussion set in… "I think I have one of those… Watcha call it?"

@Origami @InstillQuill

 

[Origami]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @InstillQuill @Anarchia


For every minute that passed, Esther became more comfortable in the sterile environment that was the MedBay. She was putting items on shelves that looked like it needed to be restocked, folding sheets and placing them neatly in a stack on a counter, ready to be taken to the connected room with several gurneys. She felt good having something to do.

it got her into a rhythm that made every trace of unease leave her body as she worked, throwing a look at the clock—5:49am. People should start showing up anytime now.

With a low hum she pulled out a clipboard that already had papers attached to it, she skimmed through the names at the top of each paper. Raya, Vincent, Ethos, even her own name was there.
There was a list of medication too, lost in thought going through these peoples files, a buzz indicating the door opening made her turn around with a raised brow, pushing hair out of her face with the end of a pen. A man walked through the doors, and she opened her mouth to greet him but something got stuck in her throat as she realized she hadn’t spoken at all since she woke up. Carefully, she coughed and tried again.

“I’m Est—” But as she took a step closer a smaller woman rushed through the doors to the MedBay, blood smeared all over her hands.

With a shriek Esther pushed past the man and to the clearly hurt woman. “Come sit,” she wrapped her arms around her shoulders, already scanning for the wound as she placed Raya on the gurney in the middle of the main medical room.

Esther immediately found a pair of gloves and gauze and held the fabric to her head. “Christ, Raya, barely awake and you’ve already hurt yourself.” Esther tutted as if she knew her. Wait did she know her?

“I’m so sorry,” she looked over at the man, “I’m Esther.” She offered him a quick smile before focusing on Raya. “Could you come over here and help me? Just keep the pressure. She needs stitches. Already.” She huffed and gave Raya a stern look.

 

[InstillQuill]

<MedBay>

< @Origami @Anarchia >
​

Walking into the Medbay, Vincent was met with the sight of a woman in a white doctor's coat, seemingly going through their supplies. Was she the one who was in the open pod? How long had she been awake? From the looks of it, a while now. Or was she a member of the staff? No...no. With staff members, Vincent would normally be formal with them. With someone he was comfortable with, he spoke to them casually. He didn't feel the same sensation in his gut that he normally would when dealing with people of authority. But he didn't remember dealing with anyone of authority before?

The medbay was fully stocked with...well, damn near everything, from what Vincent could see. Gurney's, medical equipment, and large machines that offered a variety of test. And worst of all? It made Vincent's skin crawl, seeing a needle on one of the machines. Needles, fuck, he hated needles. How did he know? Didn't everyone hate needles?

How did Vincent not notice the woman who had come in behind him? How soon did she wake up after him? Maybe the moment he left? Regardless, the second he turned to look at her, his eyes widened, seeing the amount of blood coming from the back of her head. "Oh my god!" Vincent exclaimed in surprise. As the doctor pushed past Vincent and towards Raya, he quickly stepped out of the way, giving her the space to work. Vincent didn't know the first thing about dealing with wounds, especially ones that were this...well, this serious. Watching as she effortless grabbed pair of gloves and gauze, Vincent was impressed with the quickness and efficiency that she worked at. Well, if anyone had to be the doctor, thank god it was her.

Hearing the woman use Raya's name casually, did they know each other? Was Vincent the odd one out? It wouldn't surprise him. But as Esther looked over at him and offered him an introduction and smile, Vincent offered her a small smile in return. "No no, it's okay, this takes priority. My name's Vincent." he replied, before approaching the duo. Placing his hand on the gauze, keeping the pressure on the wound. "Okay, got it." Vincent confirmed, looking over at Raya. Wasn't the best thing to do with people with a concussion to keep them talking?

"Hey Raya, my name's Vincent. Can't say I've met anyone like this before." Vincent commented, giving her a small chuckle. "Can you tell us how this happened?"

 

[Anarchia]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @Origami @InstillQuill

A bloody handprint was left on the doorframe as Raya straightened herself up, seeming to tense at the sudden concern on both of their faces… "I...It's really not too bad! It doesn't hurt at all… Not that much." she replied as Esther wrapped her arms around her shoulders before leading her to the gurney, she sat on its edge before tilting her head back to look at the doctor as she scolded her… "It's not that bad Esther…" she muttered through pressed lips like a scolded sibling, rolling her eyes a moment later... Although she did pause for a moment as she watched Esther work, her eyes following her around the Medbay with a confused frown on her face… Had she really hit her head that hard that she could remember Esther's name but nothing else? Not how they met… How the doctor was comfortable enough with her to scold her… Her thoughts were cut off by Vincent's hand pressing against the back of her head and his voice in her ears.

"Hiya Vincent… Nice to meet you, I'm going to be your navigator..." Raya replied with a slight smile on her face as she glanced at Esther rushing around for gloves, needles, and thread… "Well… I woke up in my pod… and my asthma decided today was the day…" she held up her fingers which were still freezing cold from the cryo-stasis… A pink inhaler gripped between two fingers "I could barely grab my inhaler and I ended up tumbling out of my pod… and I must've hit my head…" Raya rolled her eyes in embarrassment before she turned her gaze down to her lap. "I don't usually hurt myself getting out of a cryo-pod, promise! Not going to make a habit of it…" There was another drawn-out pause before a laugh escaped her... "I promise I can navigate space better than the stasis room!"

She kept her eyes downwards to avoid that stern look on Esther's face as the doctor returned, the cut on the back of her head wasn't too bad, definitely not a concussion, which made Raya's next words even more confusing… "Hey… Esther… Do we know each other?" she hesitated, looking up at her before glancing at Vincent... "I definitely don't know, Vincent... No offense, are you new to the ship?" she asked with a slight tilt of her head, which was sure to annoy Esther who was working on her. She took a moment to wipe what blood was left on her hands on the gurney she was set upon, smearing it across the clean white sheets as she winced from the pain now pulsing at the back of her skull.

 

[Dion]

<Cryo-stasis>​

Shapes whirled in front of him, seeming to throb and pull synchronized to his heartbeat. He felt ear-shattering music in his ears despite the silence. He knew it was silent. Why did he hear this... this noise? Every time the shapes threatened to combine into something worth looking at, his heart pounded again and the shapes would once again pull away and apart before repeating the process. Was this hell? Did he die? Did he finally come to pay for a life lived in sin? Oliver had never been god-fearing, but now, in this moment, it felt like something else was there. Something otherworldly and perhaps even deified. His attention to the shapes lapsed for a moment as he looked for 'God', but found only an empty void, black and hollow, like the space he'd dreamed of since he was a kid.

Since he was a kid? He didn't remember. Did he dream of that as a kid...? Or was this just.. his mind playing tricks again?

The shapes coalesced again, this time combining rapidly, until the face of a woman with dark brown hair, brown eyes in the shape of an almond, and strong eyebrows. "Aylin?" he mumbled, though no sound came out, "Aylin!" The woman did not respond. A sharp bright light consumed the darkness of the void, followed by mechanical hissing, the shallow, harsh beeping of a heartbeat monitor, and a cacophony of warnings flashing on a screen somewhere. "Ay-," Oliver attempted, but caught himself when this time, sound did come out of his throat. He was not there anymore. He was back. Back where exactly? He didn't recall. Panic began to set in for a moment, his breathing rapidly becoming faster and faster. In an attempt to restrain himself, he pushed his hand forwards against the glass of the cryo-pod, pushing himself backwards into the uncomfortable 'bed' he'd been sleeping in. His breathing slowed down and he regained control, his vision became clearer, and he realized where he was.

In a physical sense at least. This was some sort of medical facility, he judged, looking through the glass. But it wasn't medical medical. It was some sort of...

He didn't know what it was. With a resigned sigh he surrendered himself to the machine, finally lowering his hand from the glass and allowing himself to simply lay there. The machine whirred excitedly until it stopped. Somewhere, something popped up on a screen, the machine briefly whirred again, and then the servo's in the hinges of the glass cover began to move and slowly but surely release him from the clutches of this apparatus.

For a second, Aylin's face moved through his mind again. Like that movie... Ghost in the.. Ghost in the Machine? But he wasn't a machine. Why couldn't he stop thinking of her? She wasn't here. She was back home. Intrusive thoughts filled his mind. Focus on the mission, Davies, he thought to himself, though he had no real control over that thought, the mission is more important. Lives are at stake. Complete the mission and return home. She'll be waiting.

Despite the lack of control, the thoughts seemed to steel his resolve. Aylin vanished from his thoughts, if only momentarily, and he pushed himself off of the cryo-pod. A singular glance around revealed that he was not the first to awake. He wasn't sure why, but the thought that he wasn't the first instilled a slight sense of anxiety in him. What if they were up and awake, messing with things? Why did he care though...? What if they did mess with the systems, altered the course, or sabotaged the mission? Then the mission would be at risk. Compliance is about more than yourself, Davies.

Right. Compliance is about more than yourself. He glanced down at his uniform, and instinctively straightened it out, making himself not only presentable but authoritative. He thought so at least. He briefly looked at his ID card, hanging from his breast pocket, and held it up and reversed it so that he could actually read it. Oliver Davies, captain, United System Science Coalition.

Escaping humanhood. Together. Was that the mission? Escaping humanhood? He didn't recall. Was he even told? All he knew was that the mission was the priority, and that compliancy was the only way to achieve the goals. Then he could go home. To Aylin.

He let the ID card fall out of his hand and with a confident stride — practiced and 'fake', not natural, though only the most perceptive of people would notice this — walked out of the cryo-bay, leaving behind those poor souls still in their slumber. The ship would wake them up soon enough. It always did. And if it didn't, then it was because the mission demanded it.

<Medbay>​

Captain Davies' movements led through the hallways somewhat untrained, as if he was looking for something instinctively, something that wasn't there anymore. It felt... strange. He knew that as a captain, he would be in charge of the ship. And he'd issue commands to the ship. But the ship didn't feel right. He couldn't quite place it in his mind, and when he opened the door he knew would lead to the bridge, so he could take command and begin issuing his orders, he instead found himself in the medbay.

For a brief moment, he had the look of a deer caught in headlights as he saw the three figures inside. This wasn't the bridge, and if it was, they weren't meant to be here. But in a matter of a second, he'd regained his footing and stepped forwards into the medbay with that same confident stride that was oh-so practiced. "Captain on deck," he said instinctively. But why was he the one saying it? Wouldn't one of the crew members alert the others to the fact that he was there? Was that even necessary? He coughed into his fist as if to draw attention away from that fact. "I see we've all made it here, Je-" he said, scanning his mind for the names belonging to the faces. Jennie? That's not Jennie. Who is Jennie? His eyes moved from one, to the next, and to the next suspiciously, as if he felt like these three people didn't belong here.

But they did. That was the crew, his crew. It was evident from the fact that.. that they were helping one of the others with a wound. Yes, that must've meant they were part of the crew. "I..." he stammered, confused by the situation unfolding in front of him, and confused by the fact that it confused him. His eyes moved from the wound to the clean sheets, now covered in blood. "The nurses should clean that up," he stated, matter of factly, appearing to be entirely mentally absent from the fact that the woman was injured. He coughed into his fist again, this time slightly louder. He knew what his role was, but he didn't know what to do with it. He felt like bellowing orders, but this did not seem like the right time. Everything he felt like doing felt like the wrong thing to do.

Instead, he turned to all of them, and asked the only thing on his mind. "What is the status of our mission? Are we on course?" There was, of course, no way for them to know, and realistically they had more important things on their mind given the bleeding crewmember in front of them. But asking for a sit-rep just... felt right. Under his breath, he sighed a soft breath of relief as the pressure seemed to wash off of him. Yes, the mission.

 

[Origami]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @InstillQuill @Anarchia @Dion


Esther found a small rolling table and set her instruments on it, dragging it back over to the gurney and to Raya. She had dropped the clipboard next to her patient, the page on Raya exposed so she could read the medical statements on her as she went on. She examined the wound, waving Vincent away as she pulled a light from the ceiling down to give her a better picture of the gash. It was pretty clean cut. About the size of half her pinky, but it had bled a lot and her hair was drenched in blood. This was their navigator?

Raya’s words made her stop dead in her tracks as she settled a clean piece of the fabric against her head. They didn’t. Did they? “Uhm,” Esther began, “I don’t think so, you just remind me of someone?” She trailed off making her statement sound more like a question. She picked up a small syringe with a clear liquid swooping around in it. “This is gonna sting a little, but try not to move.” Then the tip sunk into her scalp around the cut as she distributed the local anesthetic preparing the skin for a few necessary stitches.

With one last wipe she picked up the needle, a pair of medical tweezers and string and with precise hands lined up the tip of the needle with the skin.

“Captain on deck.”

Esther looked to the side over at the door that once again hissed open. Her face falling into a clear unimpressed expression at the sudden outburst. Then he asked about them being on course, completely disregarding her patient, making her cheeks heat up. “Good morning, Captain. As you can see I got the navigator on my bed, with her head split open, think you can save the questions until shes stitched up?” Her eyes rolled back towards the back of Raya’s head and started steadily stitching her together. “There,” she finished the last stitch and cut it with a small scissor, “come see me if it starts getting hot and sore.” She took off her gloves and walked to the other side while giving the Captain a dirty look. Her face softened when she settled in front of Raya. Fishing up a small flashlight from her pocket and checked her eyes and reflexes. “No concussion, as you are right now. Did you knock yourself out at any point?”

Esther didn’t miss the sigh coming from the other male in the room and turned with her arms crossed, a scowl on her face.

 

[InstillQuill]

<MedBay>
​

With Raya asking if Vincent was new to ship, all Vincent could do was shrug. Hell, he felt like he was on the ship before. But could he say for sure? No, he couldn't. So for now, he'd feign (could he feign something he wasn't quiet sure of?) ignorance and say yes. "Sure, considering I woke up here. Let's say I've been here for a bit and we're just now greeting each other for the first time?" he said, smiling softly to try and keep some levity in the situation. Making sure to keep the gauze tight to the wound, and praying to whatever god there was that he was doing it correctly, Esther would eventually shoo him away, with Vincent taking a quick step back to let Esther operate.

Looking around the room, he found a disposal bin and quickly placed the blood soaked gauze into it, before going to the sink to wash his hands. Shouldn't he have been wearing gloves of some kind? It felt like he should have. Oh well, something to note for later. As long as it didn't get him in trouble, or killed. Drying off his hands after cleaning them, Vincent approached Esther once more. "Need anything?" he asked, only to be interrupted by the sudden announcement of their Captain.

"Captain on deck."

The voice commanded a level of confidence and authority, as if the captain knew what he was doing and had been doing it all his life. Vincent turned to look at the Captain, confused for a moment. With Esther needing all of her focus on Raya, was it up to him to answer the questions? Vincent didn't know where they were, much less what their coordinates were. And what was he about to say before cutting himself off? Something that began with J? Was someone else here that they didn't know about? More questions to save for later.

"C-Captain? Excuse me?" Vincent announced, moving from Esther and Raya to let them focus on Raya's injury. "We uh....we don't really know where we are. Or what this mission is. At least, I don't. I don't know if the others do. But based off my assumptions, we've all just woken up about....what, three minutes ago? And then we handled our Navigator's injury. We haven't had much time to assess what the mission is, or even what our course even is." Vincent's voice, at first, was shaky, uncertain, but as he continued to speak, the more it grew. Was he scared of the Captain? No. He was more concerned about why they were all there. Although the Captain did bring up some good points. Where were they? And what was their mission?

 

[Tenzai]

Interaction: @Origami @InstillQuill

The Eternal Dream

The Eternal Dream.
ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: ꜱɪʟᴠᴇʀ ʟɪɢʜᴛꜱ | ᴄᴏᴄᴏɴᴜᴛꜱ
↻ ◁ || ▷ ↺​

Ever since entering the cryopod at the behest of those who hired him, Ethos lived through a series of strange, perpetual dreams far too consistent to simply be reasoned as random. Faded faces and oddly familiar voices would call out to him drawing him into a looping lucid dream, though whenever he tried to muster up a response, the names of those he should've remembered had always eluded him. 'If they mattered, he'd would've remembered them.' He would explain to himself over and over again, refusing to ever look deeper into why the fugue had felt ever so enticing.

However, no matter what actions he could've took throughout the entire series of dreams, it would always end the same: A fire; A familiar woman laying on the ground beside him as the room they were was engulfed in flames and smoke, reminding him that everything would be okay; And the same words always escaping his mouth no matter what he felt before having a veil of cold and darkness overtake his conscience: "Was this the escape you hoped for?" There was no malice in his words nor did a tone of regret ever taint the meaning of his thoughts. Before the end would come and he would experience the same loop all over again, he would hear her share her gratitude of preferring no other by her side in their final moments. Though something was different with this dream than all that came before it.

"Vitals stable. Cognitive function: active. Cryo-suspension disengaging."​

Instead of experiencing the same end, this time, the woman held a different set of words in store before he departed. The sounds of the crackling flames and the scent of smoke were replaced with that of an oddly sterile smell and the sound of gas spilling into the air around. "It looks like its my turn to say goodbye." A pang of pain had struck his heart as the darkness he expected to come was swapped with an ever brightening light that beckoned him to wake up. His time with these ghosts were coming to an end. Soon, they will cease being memories. "I'll be watching over you every step of the way. So please..." A wave of static had broken through the cracks in his vision, turning the lines and curves of the world around him into indecipherable fog.

"Good morning, employee #8421923."

<Cryostasis>
​

Opening his eyes as he awakened, the security officer was met with the sight of the ceiling tiles above, each square as sterile and blank as they always had been. The gentle hum of fluorescent lights and the rotating fans of nearby filters helped him orient himself with the location he awoke in: His workplace; A realm unchanging that will always be as it always was for the last several years since he started working there: Boring. The dream he had lived for an eternity upon entering the cryo pod in the first place had vanished from his mind as soon as something else took his attention, though oddly enough, his cheeks were wet with tears. 'Odd.' He wasn't the type to cry. Assuming that it was nothing more than the condensation of his breath on the pod's glass, as he wiped his face clear, he noticed the look of some of the other cryo pods opened already. "Huh, I guess some of the others woke up early."

Turning to the digital clock above the door to check for the time, he recalled his typical work routine. Upon waking up, all crew must report immediately to medical checkpoint A. Before making it past the door however, he stopped in front of a mirror that sat right beside, taking a moment to visually inspect his own reflection. His body has never been the same since he sacrificed his body to protect his brothers and sisters while in service. Adjusting to a normal life again with the loss of his arm and eye had made him desperate, though thankfully, through the help of the USSC, he was able to get a replacement for both. Even if the work was bland, he was forever grateful to the coalition for being given a second chance at life. "Same as usual. No point in keeping the doctor waiting now."

<Cafeteria>​

Leaving the room and following a series of hallways, as the security officer finally arrived at the medical bay, instead of seeing the same sign as he recalled before, he found the station's mess hall instead. "Ugh. Must have been a rough night." Grabbing his head as though he was suffering from a headache upon having his head not match his workplace's geography, he looked up at the signs that stood above the hallways to help direct the rookies towards where they were supposed to go. Seeing the letters of the med bay glowing, beckoning others to come forth to it, he followed the arrows towards his intended location, finally arriving a couple minutes later than usual.

<Medbay>
​

Immediately he was met with the noise of conversation which led to a greater thumping of his head. Turning his attention towards the source of the sound, he saw several others he couldn't quite recognize from the crew he believed he went in cryostasis with. Judging from the tools in her hand, it appeared that the doctor was in the midst of conversation when he arrived. Nearby was another strange man, one he couldn't recognize, though the sound of a single line had made him realize just who he was standing beside.

"Good morning, Captain. As you can see I got the navigator on my bed, with her head split open, think you can save the questions until shes stitched up?"

The sound of the doctor coming up from behind him after he turned his attention to the captain had startled him. Upon closer inspection, he realized just how odd she was. The last doctor he recalled was dark skinned with black hair, the near opposite of the woman who stood in front of them both. Given the number of strange faces in the room he was in, he felt as though he woke up in another dream, each new sound causing him to tense up with anxiety. Though one strong pinch of the body had brought him back to reality. Perhaps his memories weren't as good as they once were as well. Though there was one familiarity with her and that of the doctor he knew of before; They were both equally busy in the morning; Much more than he was on any normal day as she made short work of the treatment of the other members of her crew. To be a person like her was an example to strive for, he was told. By whom, he couldn't recall.

"You got something for headaches or hangovers, doc? Swear I must've drank last night or something. I swear I'm forgetting everything." Though as soon as she placed her attention on the captain, she was gone. He couldn't blame her, however. There were many people in need of inspection and her mind appeared attentive to the wounds of the bleeding woman on the bed. From the looks of it, it was most likely the result of a fall rather than of some external hostile force.

Patient as she handled the busywork of the morning, he turned his attention back towards examining the captain and the man who arrived to meet him. "We uh....we don't really know where we are. Or what this mission is. At least, I don't. I don't know if the others do. But based off my assumptions, we've all just woken up about....what, three minutes ago? And then we handled our Navigator's injury. We haven't had much time to assess what the mission is, or even what our course even is."

"Says on your card you're a quartermaster, so I guess... Quartermaster responsibilities are your mission? Whatever those are?" At the least, despite the entire cast of people around him being new, the very area itself and his responsibilities weren't. He was a security officer for as far as he could remember. Squinting at the tag on his uniform with his organic eye, he took a mental picture of the man who stood in front of him.

"Vincent, huh? Hope you could figure your job here. The organization that owns this ship aren't half bad. They'll treat you right if you're good at handling your duties." Patting his prosthetic arm, the security officer was quick to praise the organization that hired him, finding confidence in his own role. "They even gave me this to replace the arm I lost, so don't worry alright. If anything comes on board to hurt you or anyone else here, I'll smash right through them. Promise." He smirked, faithful in his ability to wield his prosthetic effectively. When he did so however, something took his attention. Someone or something was exploring where they didn't belong. "...Excuse me. I'll be back shortly."

 

[Cat]

[ Cryochamber ]
Cold.

It clung to her like a second skin, burrowing deep into her joints, refusing to let go. Even as the cryopod's mechanisms hissed, vapor spilling into the stale air, the frigid weight inside her remained. Her mind stirred sluggishly beneath it, thoughts tangled in thick fog, resisting her attempts to remember where she was—who she was.

Celeste's eyelids felt heavy, lashes damp with frost as she forced them open. Light bled into her vision—bright, sterile, white. It cut through the haze like a scalpel, sending a dull throb through the back of her skull. Too bright. Too clean. She blinked hard, trying to focus, but the headache settled deeper, like something pressing from the inside.

The inside of the cryochamber was deathly silent. Not the gentle hum of a living ship, but something hollow, something waiting. She swallowed against the dryness in her throat, wincing as the pod's release valve exhaled another gust of icy vapor. A mechanical sigh—tired, unfeeling.

Her fingers twitched, then curled against the slick metal beneath her as she pushed herself forward. The standard-issue jumpsuit clung to her stiff limbs, but at least her feet weren't bare. The lightweight shoes given post-stasis weren't much—designed more for function than comfort—but as they met the floor, they grounded her.

She steadied herself. The floor was solid beneath her, but the room still felt off.

The cryochamber stretched out before her in perfect, clinical symmetry. Rows of pods lined the walls, their frosted glass surfaces gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights. Celeste turned her head sluggishly, eyes flickering over the nearest ones. Some remained sealed, their occupants obscured. Others sat eerily open, their glass lids slid back like gaping mouths.

Her stomach twisted. How many had been here when she went under?

She reached out, palm pressing against the metal frame of a nearby pod. The number stamped onto its surface—"0241567"—blurred for a moment before settling into clarity. Her fingers hovered over the frost-coated glass, resisting the urge to wipe it clean and see who was inside.

A sharp beep cut through the silence.

Celeste stiffened, head snapping toward the corridor. The sound was distant, mechanical, but it was something. Her pulse—slow, sluggish from cryosleep—lurched into something sharper, more alert.

She took a step forward, legs unsteady but obedient. The thin shoes softened her steps, but the silence made them deafening. The uniform stuck to her body—the standard-issue thermal provided post-stasis—offered little warmth. She attempted to warm herself anyway as she approached the door.

It slid open before she could reach it.

Celeste hesitated. The hallway stretched before her, long and empty, a tunnel of endless white. The fluorescent panels embedded into the ceiling buzzed softly, their glow sharp and unwavering. The walls were seamless, pristine—not a single scuff, not a fingerprint, not a sign that anyone had ever walked these corridors before.

Her brow furrowed. That wasn't right.

A dull pressure formed at the base of her skull. It wasn't quite pain, but a weight—a sensation that something inside her wasn't fully aligned. The headache pressed deeper as she stepped out of the cryochamber, her own breathing too loud in the stillness. She knew these hallways, but they felt… wrong.

The ship's constant hum was there, vibrating softly beneath the surface, but something about it felt off. The rhythm of it was too smooth, too rehearsed—like it was pretending to be normal.

She kept walking.

As she moved, her fingers ghosted along the pristine walls, searching for something—a mark, a smudge, any sign that she wasn't the first person to touch this surface. But there was nothing. Just the cool, unyielding metal beneath her fingertips.

Then—voices.

Muffled, but real.

Her pulse quickened, the sound pulling her forward. The headache pulsed in time with her steps, her body still too slow, too heavy, but she forced herself to move faster.

The medbay. The voices were coming from the medbay.

[ Medbay ]
The door slid open the moment she reached it, as if it had been waiting for her.

Inside, figures clustered together, moving, speaking—some frantic, others too calm. The shift from empty silence to too many voices at once sent a spike of discomfort through her. The headache pressed harder at the base of her skull. The lights were too bright. The room was too clean.

She hovered at the threshold, breath shallow as she looked at everyone. Did she want to be in this current room at that current second? With a slow inhale, Celeste turned on her heel and slipped back into the hallway.

Let the others talk. Let them figure things out. She needed space—needed to see more of the ship, to understand what had changed.

Because something had. She just didn't know what.
Celeste didn't stop walking until the voices from the medbay had faded into a distant murmur behind her.

The silence that replaced them felt manufactured, too deliberate in the way it pressed in around her. Even the hum of the ship—constant, steady—sounded eerily smooth, lacking the faint fluctuations of a truly living system. Her fingers curled into fists at her sides. Something wasn't right.

She exhaled slowly and pressed forward.

The hallways stretched in endless white corridors, identical in their design, their stark cleanliness unsettling. There were no scuff marks along the baseboards, no smudges on the walls, no stray pieces of debris caught in the seams of the floor panels. It was too perfect. Like a set waiting for actors to play their parts.

Her footsteps were muffled by the synthetic flooring, the lightweight shoes offering just enough grip to keep her steady as she moved. The fluorescent lights above cast sharp reflections on the metal accents of the walls, their hum sinking into the back of her skull alongside the dull headache she couldn't shake.

Celeste stopped at the first door she came across. The access panel beside it blinked softly, awaiting input.

She hesitated. She should go back to the others. That was the rational choice. But a quiet, gnawing feeling in her gut told her she wouldn't find the answers she wanted there.

Swiping her ID card over the panel, she waited as the door hissed open.

[ Storage Bay ]
Inside, a small storage bay was revealed, shelves lined with neatly stacked containers. No signs of rummaging, no indication that anything had been disturbed. Celeste stepped inside, her breath shallow as she ran a hand along one of the metal shelves. The dustless surface sent another chill through her. How long had it been since someone had touched anything in here?

Her eyes flicked to the labels on the crates—food rations, medical supplies, personal storage. She crouched down, pulling at one of the containers marked for crew possessions. It clicked open with unsettling ease, revealing folded uniforms, a few personal effects, and a datapad resting on top.

She powered it on. The screen flickered, then stabilized—blank. No logs, no messages, and no saved data. Just the standard OS, waiting for input.

Celeste frowned. That wasn't normal.

Snapping the container shut, she rose to her feet and left, the storage room feeling even more suffocating now that she'd seen it.

She moved deeper into the ship, her pace slower, more deliberate. Each door she passed had an identical access panel, each one blinking softly—waiting. A few opened with ease, revealing more pristine rooms: an unused break area, a maintenance closet, a communications terminal that displayed no outgoing or incoming transmissions.

[ Security Operations ]
Her stomach twisted as she approached another door, this one larger, and reinforced. The words "Security Operations" were stamped into the metal plating. Her pulse quickened. If there were answers anywhere, this would be the place to find them.

She pressed her ID to the access panel. Nothing.

The screen flashed red, denying her entry. Celeste exhaled sharply, pressing her ID against the panel again, harder this time, as if that would change anything. Still red.

Restricted access. That meant someone—or something—was still running the ship's security protocols. She took a slow step back, her gaze flickering to the small camera nestled in the ceiling corner. It was pointed directly at her.

Had it always been watching? A cold prickle crawled up the back of her neck. She turned away and kept walking, her heart pounding just a little faster. She'd settle elsewhere or until someone ran into her.

 

[Tenzai]

Interaction: @Cat

Leaving the others behind, the security officer pulled out his stun baton as he walked away from the medical bay, gripping it tightly as he moved in the direction of where the sounds of an alarm were coming from. His ears were sensitive to these shrieks, calling upon a survival instinct inside of him to investigate and deal with it. Hoping at first it was an issue with the system, the moment he heard it ring a second time, he realized it was far from a technological error; Something was causing it to trigger intentionally. Instead of simply walking, Ethos began to run towards the direction. He would be damned if he let another accident happen again.

As Ethos made his way quickly through the different hallways, he noticed the sight of a nearby storage room with its door opened. A quick inspection of its contents revealed nothing more than the ordinary; Whatever was here had moved on. Closing the door and locking it with his keycard to prevent it from being used as a room where he could be ambushed from, he moved room to room, making quick work of clearing them and locking their doors before finally reaching to the source of the sound.

<Security Operations>​

The sounds of hushed but rapid breathing had brought his feet to a steady halt. As he turned his head beyond the corner, he found the intruder as she attempted to walk away from the scene of the crime. Engaging the trigger of his stun baton, the sound it emitted had made his presence known. "Hey you! What the hell were you even doing back here? You're supposed to be at the medical bay with the others for an inspection." Standing in the midst of the hallway between her and the way back to the medical bay, the security officer refused to let her past without some sort of explanation for her actions.

"That room is locked for a reason! Why would someone like you need to be inside the Security Operations room in the first place?" Oddly enough, he didn't recall the security operations room being so far away from the medical bay before. Last he recalled, they were supposed to be right next to each other. Grabbing his head as he felt another headache roll in, he grumbled. "I should've been getting the meds I need to handle this headache by now, so you better make whatever fuck that reason is good."

Instead of letting giving her a chance to think of a way out, Ethos began to move closer to her, breaching the distance should any attempt at escape be made. With his other hand, he reached for the handcuffs he was given should any member of the crew prove difficult to deal with. "I'm not going to ask again and I'd rather not have to hurt you if I could help it... Explain why you're here and don't try to escape." His voice took on an authoritative tone as he gave her his order. "...You won't outrun me."

 

[Cat]

[ Security Operations ] | Interaction : @Tenzai
Celeste did not freeze.

She stilled.

A perfect, unnatural kind of stillness—as if the moment the man spoke, something inside her simply stopped.

The sharp crackle of the stun baton hummed in the too-clean air, an electric presence in the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor. The lights above buzzed at a constant, mechanical frequency, casting her shadow long and sharp against the floor. Every surface gleamed too perfectly, too untouched, like a set built for observation rather than function.

Slowly, she turned to face him.

Her gaze met his—too direct, too calm for someone caught trespassing.

The faintest tilt of her head followed, slow and deliberate. Almost curious. Almost... amused.

"That's funny," she murmured, her voice quiet but too even, too smooth, as if she were tasting the words before letting them leave her tongue. "I don't remember signing up to be detained first thing out of cryo."

She blinked once, slowly.

But she did not step back.

Ethos stood firm, blocking her path, his stance tense but controlled. He was trained for this—handling crew, enforcing order, keeping people in line. Yet there was something in his eyes, just beneath the practiced authority, that told her he wasn't entirely sure what was happening here.

The silence stretched between them, thick and sterile, the ship's steady hum pressing in from all sides.

Then—she smiled.

Not wide. Not forced. Just a small, knowing thing, curling at the edges of her lips like a secret.

"You act like I shouldn't be here," she finally said, voice just above a whisper. "Like I wasn't always going to end up here. As if I wasn't meant to find it."

She took a single, careful step forward.

"But you don't even know where 'here' is, do you?"

The way she said it—it wasn't a question.

She could see it, the way his grip on the baton tightened, the way his fingers twitched slightly near the cuffs at his side. He was holding on to protocol, to duty, to something solid—because everything else was shifting beneath his feet.

She watched him, head tilting the other way now, slow and precise. Observing. Studying.

"You're confused," she noted, almost gently. "You feel it too, don't you?"

Another step.

The lights buzzed faintly overhead. The air was too still, too intentional.

Celeste's smile lingered, small and unreadable, like she was letting Ethos in on some quiet joke only she understood.

"Interesting."

She could feel it—the moment just before confrontation, before someone had to tip the scale. He had the authority, the weapon, the right to drag her back to the others. But something held him still, something he wouldn't—or couldn't—name.

Then, with the same eerie slowness, she took a measured step back and smoothed down the front of her uniform, as if shaking off the moment entirely.

"I suppose I should introduce myself, shouldn't I?" Her voice was softer now, but still carrying that strange, unsettling calm.

A brief pause. Then:

"Celeste Harlow. Psych officer."

She let that sink in, her dark eyes watching his reaction with careful patience.

Does the title comfort you, Ethos? she wondered. Does it help you file me away into something explainable?

Before he could answer, she added, almost too lightly, "I'm supposed to keep the crew stable."

A soft chuckle followed, breathy and humorless.

"But between you and me?" Her gaze flickered, sweeping the corridor, the ship, the unseen eyes that might be watching them.

"I think it's a little late for that."

 

[Tenzai]

<Security Operations> | Interaction: @Cat

"Reserve your violence for those who deserve it, Ethos, and be kind to those who have your best interests in mind."​

Celeste's reaction to his threat was anything but expected. The fear she once displayed earlier at the potential consequences of her actions had eased to that of a quiet confidence, one Ethos could not find the source of. Despite him holding a weapon and maintaining physical superiority, his feet came to a standstill as he unconsciously halted his approach. She did not give his senses any semblance of fear or anger once she turned her head to meet his. She was neither prey nor enemy but rather something else that calmed him well enough to listen.

Silence led to an amused glance and from that, her words. "That's funny, I don't remember signing up to be detained first thing out of cryo." An odd smile cracked through her lips. While he still held tight to his weapon, upon seeing her neither attempting to escape or responding with vitriol, he pulled his finger off the trigger, ceasing his baton's electric charge. "You act like I shouldn't be here, like I wasn't always going to end up here. As if I wasn't meant to find it." A step towards him didn't register in his head as dangerous. Ethos neither backed down nor responded to her movements with the previous notion of hostility. "But you don't even know where 'here' is, do you?"

"I-" Try as he might to resist her words, there was a part of him that agreed with what she had to say. Nothing was the same about the people he was around. The location itself was different despite its familiar textures to the one he worked with in the past. If anything, it felt as though he woke up in an entirely new location, ripped from what he felt familiar with. Though, he wouldn't mention it. His job specifically stated to avoid asking questions; The only thing that was supposed to matter was the fulfillment of his duty to the generous people that took him in... Right?

It felt as though the world itself was changing far too fast for his mind to keep up with, similar to the moment he returned back from the military after spending most of his adult life away from what others call normal; Though the rate at which things had shifted felt unnatural. "... I'm just..." He didn't know what words were best able to describe how he felt. Lost in his own thoughts, he didn't notice the next step she took towards him. "You're confused, you feel it too, don't you?" Confused. That was the right word. Somehow, the woman in front of him seemed to understand his mind better than he did himself.

"Interesting." Only then did he realize how close Celeste had gotten to him. Though, despite her proximity, even as she took a step back, he didn't take any action against her. If she wanted to hurt him or take advantage of him, she would have already. Hilting his weapon, despite her intrusion into an area she wasn't welcome in, he chalked it up to her being mistaken on her location and the permissions on her card. There was little point in worsening his relations with someone new, especially if they were to work together for the long term. "I suppose I should introduce myself, shouldn't I? Celeste Harlow. Psych officer. I'm supposed to keep the crew stable. But between you and me? I think it's a little late for that."

"Psych officer? You're the psych officer?" Everything odd about her was beginning to make sense. The role was something he was intrinsically familiar with. When looking back, regardless of the muddiness of his mind, he always recalled positive feelings with whichever faded face that held that position. While the drugs of doctors helped the worst of his hallucinations and the work of technicians and engineers aided with the maintenance of his prosthetics, it was those responsible for his mind that he found himself preferring the company of the most, though it didn't seem like he needed to explain it for her to know so already.

"Apologies for the harsh introduction. The alarms and all. Its been a while since I heard them go off. The last time didn't end well." He sighed, sounding genuinely remorseful for the words he used on her upon meeting her for the first time. Now that he was talked down from his adrenaline amped state, he was able to better navigate his mind and conversation. "My name's Ethos by the way. I'm the security officer here on this station. I hope we both could move on from this."

Refusing to linger on the topic, when she spoke, he noticed the sudden shiftiness of her eyes. "But don't worry, its just me here. Come on, I'll walk you back to the medical bay. Its a few minutes walk back from here. If we move now, we should be able to make it there on time for the schedule." Looking around for a nearby clock, he gestured towards her to follow him once he noticed the time. Though to prevent her from getting distracted again from her duties and to prevent her from attempting to intrude again, he compromised.

"And hey, if you're genuinely curious about what's behind some of these doors... Then once we get some free time, I'll take you and accompany you there myself. But only on the promise that you don't touch anything or try to pull the same shit again and attempt to intrude without my permission. Even I don't know what's behind everything, and I don't want you getting yourself or anyone else hurt." Oddly enough, he didn't know the reason why he was so hesitant about having others explore by their lonesome nor did he know the reason why he was so responsive to the alarm despite how quiet it was from the medical room, though he was quick to shrug it off as he walked with her. What good did it serve to think about it when there were time-sensitive responsibilities that needed to be handled in the first place.

<The Concordance Hallways>​

"Say, I uh... Had some questions, I wanted to ask you. If you can, I'd like for you to keep it a secret from the rest." Believing that the psych officer was the best to speak about the contents of his mind now that they were both alone, he didn't feel the same hesitation to speak as he did with the other members of the crew back in the medical bay. "I can't help but feel like I'm dreaming. I... I'm having a hard time recognizing everyone else and I don't know if its just me." His eyes kept shifting back and forth as though he was going through his own memories in his mind, struggling to determine fact from fiction.

"The roles are all the same, but the people... The place here... Even you. Everything's... Everything's not the same that I remember. Is there something wrong with me? Some form of short term amnesia? A bad hangover? A cryo pod malfunction? Bad sleep from nightmares?" As soon as he spoke about potential reasons, a splitting headache caused him to slow in his walking pace. "Ach..." He reached for his head, taking a few slow breaths to ease his pain away. "Must be one of those. At least, it'll explain the headaches."

 

[Twilight Genesis]

<ℂ𝕣𝕪𝕠-ℂ𝕠𝕗𝕗𝕚𝕟>

The voices weren't exactly new to her, although these ones sounded funny... More... Organic? Eyelids fluttered open though there wasn't much to see through the frosted cryo-pod. Hell was the glass on this thing even see through? Was this glass at all? Wait, what day was it? Were her eyes real? She had only just opened her eyes and her brain was already a mile a minute.

Well this was a great start.

She laid awake for a while when a crash had caught her attention. At least someone else was awake, quite frankly it was more than likely to be multiple people. How many had been laid into the icy coffin beds here? Six? Seven? Thirteen? It really didn't matter as much, She didn't even remember getting into the cryo-pod to begin with. All she knew right now was that someone ate shit. Maybe she could come out and help, but then again she wasn't sure who she'd meet.

Cassi raised her hands to the surface above her. The dull lights in her pod flickered before a low hiss rumbled and new air began to seep through the crack until the lid had fully opened. Her eyes squeezed shut immediately when more light filtered through. She'd waited long enough. When she sat up she was greeted with other opened pods, sterile air that reminded her of a hospital, and upon sitting up, blood on the floor. Her stiff neck crackled when her head turned towards the droplets of blood on the otherwise spotless metal floor. It took a moment for the woman to adjust to her surroundings, though the room felt strangely familiar or perhaps it was the air around playing tricks on her senses.

What was it like falling asleep in this thing? The icy chill had struck her bones and the cold had cradled her head as she was falling away. Hell, she might have even tried to stay awake through the cryo-stasis just to see if she could! That lasted approximately seven and a half seconds. Even if she had managed to stay awake a little longer during the day of lift off in that hunk of metal it wouldn't have mattered. She only knew what she had to do and that was repair the ship and clean messes.

Right now Cas wanted to do anything but get up and actually do her job. She wasn't even sure her legs still worked, but alas, she signed up for this and so she would have to check in sooner or later. Her body seemed to move on its own, slowly climbing out of her pod and standing idle for a moment before taking baby steps. Cas had taken a deep breath to calm herself. She knew how it was, navigating cryo-sickness although she didn't know how, she knew she needed to breathe, needed to clear her mind, and focus on moving forward through the stiff joints and the dull aching in her head... and then she promptly began dry heaving. The few steps she took were a few too many and she fell straight to her hands and knees as her body attempted to throw out whatever offending substance was in her stomach.... which was thankfully nothing. Vomit didn't need to be added to the list of things to clean alongside the blood already present on the floor. Come to think of it, she needed to clean that. This room needed to be presentable for whoever woke up next!

Yep, that would never get any easier it seemed. You'd think it'd be easy after so many go-rounds in that thing.
No. . .
She'd only just woken up for the first time. No wonder it was so hard.

With a pathetic little groan wheezing past her lips she stood right up and finally opened her eyes. No wonder she fell...
Now that she was right as rain she properly stretched out. Taking time to roll her shoulders, do some squats, and just generally get the gross sounds of limbs snapping out of the way. To her it was sweet music, it meant she was ready to go! Even when her arm was bent at an angle most could consider impossible. She'd found herself a container with her name etched on it; a quick hop, skip, and jump later she had dressed herself and smoothed the near non-existent wrinkles of her suit, the identification card sat clipped to her pocket, a smiling face greeted her back on the small picture. The perfect arrangement of numbers sat below the listed date of birth. "1385831!" A mirthful grin spread across her face and stayed there.


"Ready to go!" She chirped as she fixed her tool belt. The belt was lacking any actual tools, she'd be sure to find some later. She did find the worn flowers painted on the belt to be a strange yet cute touch. The locket was something she threw on, she didn't remember bringing it, but it was definitely hers. Right? She put on some black gloves that sat at the bottom of the container, she didn't need her hands to be dirty all the time.

Then she stared at the blood on the floor. . .

<𝕄𝕖𝕕𝔹𝕒𝕪>

She knew she was definitely late, but she just had to clean those messes. Of course there was the getting distracted by hallways, but at least she wasn't lost. The voices in the med bay had drawn her in, of course she still needed to get that blood cleaned right up. A smile stuck to her face as she whistled just outside the entrance using her sleeve to wipe away as much blood as she could. It was a wonder that it hadn't dried completely, then again it wasn't that long ago she heard someone take a tumble. She hadn't even greeted the nice folks inside yet, she just stood in the doorway, cleaning the bloody handprint with the sleeve of her uniform, spit, and old fashioned elbow grease. By the time she took a step in the room her sleeves were stained with blood that wasn't her own. Her lower lip seemed to be covered in fresh red as well.

It took her a moment to register the unfamiliar figures in front of her. People like her? Not people like her? Maybe people like her. That's what she would settle on for now.
"Oh darn, am I missing the party in here? Your Engineer is reporting in! Sorry if I'm late, I cleaned the blood on the way here!" Cassiopea had kept her smile wide, too wide as she stated the obvious. Though really she couldn't clean it all up, there were streaks of the now dried red from what she attempted to fix. "Once I find all my stuff I'll uh... make it squeaky clean 'n spotless!" She held up her hand and waved. When resting at her sides again both hands were clenched into tight fists. "It's good to see mostly everyone in place, and in one piece. Er... mostly in one piece." She laughed awkwardly and stared at the wall instead. The wall was nice. A moment of awkward silence later she turned her focus to what seemed to be the only Doctor on board.

"So do whom do I have the pleasure of working with?"​

ɪɴᴛᴇʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴏɴ: @Origami

 

[Dion]

<Medbay>
​

Captain Davies' right eyebrow moved upwards slightly at the tone of the medical officer. Rebellious sentiments, in his crew? He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it. No, he knew, report the sentiment to the psych officer. She'd be able to sniff out if this woman was an simply asshole, or an actual deviant looking to jeopardize the mission over hurt feelings? The thought that he himself might've been the asshole in the situation never even crossed his mind. Authority was authority. And command was blind. There would be no time to fawn over the wounded in situations that really demanded he do what was needed. There was no reason to start now.

Instead of speaking to the medical officer, captain Davies instead turned to Vincent, who gave him a quick, but admittedly useless sitrep of the status onboard the ship. They had no idea about coordinates, no idea about the mission, and the navigator was injured. "Navigators injury...?" he said, slowly, before nodding. "Right, the navigator." If human brains made a clicking sound when they pieced something together, then the room would've been filled with a very loud audible click just then, but fortunately for those with splitting headaches, human brains were incapable of producing noise. With the power of deduction, captain Davies' eyes moved to the injured woman, who had by now been patched up as well as she could've been. Dark hair. Very pale skin. Non-compliant ear piercings. Of this, he made a mental note as well. Perhaps the security officer or supervisor could have a chat with her about those later, especially if he reported her for non-compliance. For now, the need for a navigator superseded her lack of compliance with all uniform and grooming standards. Davies nodded firmly at the woman, both as a manner of greeting as well as an acknowledgement that she existed. For some reason, that felt more necessary now than ever before. They'd be spending a lot of time together.. after the security officer talks to her about the dangers of the piercings.

Think of the devil, and he shall appear, and like that the security officer appeared, briefly requesting help with a headache, before informing the quartermaster of his duties and mission, before he vanished again to go tend to his own duties. It was a bit too early to draw conclusions about the skills and capabilities of the crew, but it seemed that the security officer was very competent. Instinctively, Davies reached for his breast pocket, searching for a notepad and pen to write down all his mental notes, but found the pocket was empty. Strange. He swore he always carried one there. Instead, he simply tried to make a mental note of the fact that the security officer seemed competent and compliant. Good. The crew needed to be protected by a strong paladin of the cause — against outsiders, but also against themselves — and this one seemed to be precisely that.

Merely a few moments later, someone else showed up, who introduced herself by using her sleeve to wipe the blood off the nearby doorway. "Not a nurse," Davies said, looking the woman up and down, not in the manner of gawking at her, but instead assessing her, trying to figure out who and what she was. The toolbelt, empty as it was, gave the final clue he needed to piece it together. "But a handyman, it seems. Interesting." The red flush on the woman's lower lip completely eluded the captain as instead his focus was drawn to the crimson red on her sleeve. He smiled at her, and unlike his forced confident gait, or the way he stood up straight with his chest pushed out, the smile seemed genuine. A smile of respect for someone that was so dedicated to the mission and their role in it, as a cog in the machine, that they'd sacrifice their uniform to achieve the goals laid out for them. It's a shame that she'd broken uniform and grooming standards in doing so, but mistakes were human, and could be corrected!

"I am happy to see you take your duties seriously," he told her, referring to her cleaning activities. "Though I am sure that, once we have concluded our... whatever this is..." he continued, gesturing widely to the area around them, "we can find you a bucket and a mop to prevent you from having to stain your uniform. Uniform regulations are a pain, I'm well aware, but standards and compliance exist for a reason!"

Finally, after his brief monologue that seemed to inflate his sense of confidence in his role as a captain, he turned to the group to answer the engineers question. "I'm captain Davies, and I'll be taking command of this vessel and ensuring that we complete our mission," he spoke, his eyes moving from the navigator to Vincent, as both of them would either be instrumental to this task, or had been instrumental in finding out that nobody seemed to have a clue what their mission was. "I expect you will all, just like me, comply with the directives given to us by our employers, the United Systems Science Coalition, so that we can complete our mission and return home."

For a moment he fell silent — long enough to be noticeable, short enough that nobody could interject — before he continued. His thoughts were drawn to the ID card and the text on it. "We can escape humanhood. Together." Why did he say that...? He didn't even know what it meant, or what it meant to escape humanhood. After another brief silent, he coughed into his fist, and then gestured for someone else to introduce themselves.

 

[Cat]

[ The Concordance Hallways ] | INTERACTION : @Tenzai
Celeste did not rush.

Her movements were fluid, deliberate, like ink bleeding across paper in slow, steady strokes. She walked beside him, but not in the way two people familiar with one another might. She did not match his stride, did not adjust her pace to his. Instead, she moved as if she existed on a separate plane—adjacent, but untethered.

Her fingers traced the sterile walls as they walked, the surface smooth and cold beneath her touch. The ship hummed around them, a faint vibration beneath her feet, pulsing through the metal like a distant heartbeat. The overhead fluorescents buzzed softly, casting long, sharp-edged shadows along the pristine corridor. Too clean. Too precise.

It felt artificial, as if the space had been scrubbed of something.

The air, processed and measured, carried no scent. No warmth. It was the kind of emptiness that swallowed things whole, that smoothed over cracks before anyone could see them forming.

A place that was meant to be forgotten.

She exhaled slowly, and the sound barely registered against the ship's constant hum.

Then, at last—

"Would it?"

Her voice slipped into the space between them, soft and unhurried, as though she were tasting the words before releasing them. There was no challenge in her tone, no sharp edge of accusation—just quiet curiosity. An invitation.

She continued forward, her fingertips barely brushing the wall now, as if feeling for something unseen. Her pace remained steady, each step placed with quiet precision, unbothered by the tension lingering in the air.

"It's comforting, isn't it?" she mused, her tone light, conversational, as though they were discussing the weather—or whatever approximation of it existed in the controlled confines of the ship. "To have an answer. A reason. Something neat and simple to wrap around the unknown."

A slow blink.

Then, the smallest, most imperceptible curve of her lips—not quite a smile.

"But tell me…"

Her gaze flickered toward him, dark and unwavering, studying the way his shoulders tensed, the way his fingers curled just slightly at his sides.

"If you woke up tomorrow, and everything was exactly as you remembered it—no discrepancies, no misplaced faces, no unanswered questions…"

A pause.

"Would you trust it?"

She let the question settle, its weight pressing into the sterile quiet between them.

The ship's lights flickered, just once—too fast to be intentional.

Her fingers stilled against the wall, the faint tap-tap-tap she'd been idly drumming against the metal coming to an abrupt halt.

"Or would you still feel it?"

That vague, unnameable wrongness.

She tilted her head slightly, the motion slow, deliberate, her dark eyes unreadable.

"I've always found it fascinating," she murmured, almost to herself, "the way the mind fights itself. The way it struggles to hold onto the world as it's given to us, even when it doesn't quite fit."

Her fingers dragged along the wall, pressing just a fraction harder.

"But sometimes…"

A quiet chuckle, humorless, low.

"Sometimes, it's not the mind that's the problem."

She turned then, fluid and unhurried, stepping into his space—not close enough to threaten, not close enough to challenge, but just enough to be felt.

A presence.

A certainty.

"You're looking for an explanation," she murmured, voice softer now, more careful. "But are you looking for the right one?"

She watched him, unblinking, her expression betraying nothing. Not amusement. Not cruelty. Just—interest.

The way one might observe something unfolding exactly as expected.

A long pause stretched between them, thick and quiet, the ship humming in the absence of words.

Then—just like that—she pulled away, rolling her shoulders in an easy, careless motion, as though discarding the moment entirely.

"Hm."

A sound. Noncommittal. Dismissive.

Then, at last—

"Come on," she said, voice light, casual, as if nothing had happened at all. "We wouldn't want to be late, would we?"

She turned, walking ahead, her steps as effortless as before, unburdened by the conversation she left hanging in the air behind her.

But even as she moved forward, even as the sterile corridor stretched endlessly ahead of them, she knew— He would not forget.

Celeste did not look back as she walked, but she felt the weight of his silence behind her. The air between them had changed—thickened—as if the words she had left hanging still clung to the space between them, invisible but present, pressing against the walls like an unseen force.

The hallways stretched before them in perfect symmetry, a repeating pattern of cold white panels and buzzing fluorescents. The ship was too quiet, its hum too steady, as if waiting for something to break the illusion of order.

Celeste's pace did not falter.

She moved like she belonged there, like she had always belonged there, despite everything saying otherwise. Her fingers twitched at her sides—restless, thoughtful—but she resisted the urge to drag them along the walls again.

The static silence of the corridors was replaced, slowly, by something else. Distant voices. The faint hiss of machinery. The low murmur of conversation layered beneath the ever-present hum of the ship.

[ Medbay ]
The entrance loomed ahead, the stark white doors sliding open with an obedient hiss as they approached.

Celeste stepped through first.

Inside, the room was too clean, too bright, too controlled. The kind of sterile order that was meant to be reassuring but instead felt clinical, impersonal. The scent of disinfectant lingered in the air, sharp and artificial.

Crew members were scattered throughout the space, some seated on examination tables, others standing in clusters. A few glanced up as they entered, their eyes flickering between Celeste and the security officer behind her, curiosity barely masked beneath the thin veil of routine.

She took it all in with a slow, sweeping gaze.

The steady beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor. The rustle of fabric as someone shifted in their seat. The quiet clatter of metal instruments being arranged on a tray.

A world wrapped in precision and control.

Yet beneath it—beneath it, something was wrong.

Celeste's lips curled, just slightly, in something that wasn't quite a smile.

She could feel the weight of the security officer's presence at her back, could almost hear the way his thoughts still turned over in his mind, trying to find footing in unstable ground.

She did not offer reassurance.

Instead, without a word, she stepped deeper into the medbay, weaving through the space as if she had always known it, as if she had already memorized its shape.

But she did not stop.

The voices, the questions, the watchful eyes—she had no interest in them.

Celeste moved past the other crew members, past the sterile white beds and humming machines, her gaze sliding over the scene without truly settling. The air in here was just as stifling as the corridors, just as wrong in a way no one seemed willing to name.

And she was not in the mood to pretend.

So, without hesitation, without announcement, she walked straight past them all—toward the far door, the one leading out.

She did not need to ask for permission.

She did not look back.

The medbay had nothing for her.

And Celeste Harlow had never been one to linger where she did not belong.

 

[Anarchia]

Location: MedBay
Interaction: @Origami @InstillQuill @Dion @Twilight Genesis

Something was off with the crew, or maybe something was off with Raya, she had just hit her head after all… Could she really trust herself to be making judgments about the others that filtered into the Medbay as she had her head stitched up? Yet she felt fine, some of her memories about Esther were missing… They both felt as though they knew each other, had some kind of unspoken connection… But that was it, the rest of her mind filled in the blanks for the most part, and why was Vincent intent on 'pretending' that they greet each other as though it's the first time… Does he not know they've never met? Her last memories were ones of entering a cryo-pod on her last assignment on the Defiant… Knowing she was being transferred to some science ship bound for civilian duties, she hadn't taken much interest in the specifics, just getting off the frontier of space back onto a ship that wasn't been shot at daily was good enough for her to not bother hearing the rest… And yet, even though she knew, for a fact… Everything was fine with herself, there were still questions…

Where was her old officer's jacket? She had definitely entered cryo-sleep with it on, were her nightmares right, had something entered her pod as she slept, dressed her in this stuffy boiler suit of a uniform… The lack of a jacket raised more questions, where were the rest of her belongings? Photographs of home, an old wireless speaker she had listened to to pass the time while plotting charts, in fact where were her original star charts, her research on mapping the edges of the galactic core… She shook the thoughts from her head and realized she had been staring up at Esther with a dull look on her face for a minute now, well… staring through Esther into empty space was a more accurate description. "You… remind me of someone too… Probably from my old ship, it's nice to meet you anyway! and uhm.. thanks for helping me out... I'm such an idiot." she replied with a smile while she nodded her head at the comment about the syringe before she hissed in pain as it numbed the cut at the back of her skull, she leaned her head down so that she was staring into her lap to give Esther an easier time stitching up the wound, which caused her dark hair to fall across her face as the captain walked in, obscuring her face from the rest of the crew.

Raya wanted to reply to her captain, to tell him where they were, where they were going… but… She hadn't been briefed yet, she assumed the ship was sitting in some space dock or already drifting through the void of space, waiting for her commands, for her course, her plotting… Why didn't the captain know? That worried her more than the cut on the back of her head that Esther had just finished stitching up.

She tilted her head back and took a moment to brush her hair back behind her ears, revealing her n o n – r e g u l a t I o n earrings to the rest of the crew, five plain silver circles piercing the pale skin of her right ear. Somehow the person… creature… thing must've missed that when they had taken her old clothes and dressed her in her new uniform, or maybe she had dressed herself and cryo-sleep had taken the memory from her…

She glanced at Esther as she rounded the gurney, and she took a moment to look at the captain with a forced smile on her pale lips, trying to sound as professional as possible… After all the two were going to spend a lot of time together, and his first impression of her was blood gushing down the back of her neck… "I'm not sure where we are yet captain, After we're cleared to start working I'll go to the navigation quarter and figure it out… I thought you would know?" she asked with a tilt of her head before she looked to Esther stepping in front of her... A moment later she found a flashlight being shining into her eyes, her pupils shrinking to a blackened dot as she held a hand up to cover the light… "Esther!" she exclaimed as the flashlight moved to her other eye before met the doctor's gaze… "I'm fine, really!" she murmured before she lowered her voice, her eyes glancing to Vincent, the captain, and another woman who was stepping into the medbay with what looked like blood smeared all over her… Raya's blood. "It's the rest of the crew I think you should be checking out… Maybe that blow to the head made me the only sane one here." Raya couldn't take her eyes off the newcomer, staring at the redness on her bottom lip... She wasn't bleeding, the only blood in cryo-stasis and the corridor was her own... Had the engineer smeared the blood from her pod onto her lip? No... That would be... Ridiculous.

Raya pushed herself off the gurney, the idea the engineer just had her blood smeared over her clothes, and her gloves unsettled her enough for her muscles to tense, a response to a memory she could no longer recall... She stayed close to Esther, basically shoulder to shoulder with the doctor as she addressed the engineer at the door with a forced smile across her pale lips, not too dissimilar to the expression she had given the captain moments earlier... "I... I would've cleaned it up, I'm sorry... You didn't have to.... smear it with your hands... I'll clean whatever's left after medical checkups..."

The navigator remained tense and slowly her eyes drifted from the crew to glance around the Medbay... Suspended ceilings, harsh fluorescent lighting, no windows to speak of... In fact... Now that she thought of she hadn't seen a window since she was roused from cryo-sleep, not even a tiny porthole to look at the stars... Even if the memories of her old ship had faded into vague images in her mind, she knew this wasn't what a ship looked like, felt like... The hum of plasma engines was missing, the slight hiss of water, gas, and fuel running through pipes behind the wall was absent, she found her heart racing faster in her chest, and that subtle trembling in the tips of her fingers that had been present when she was first awoken returned... she slowly lowered herself to sit back onto the gurney before the rest of the crew started noticing, although Esther might've sensed the borderline panic attack that had threatened to overwhelm Raya moments earlier...

As if to rub salt into the metaphorical wound on her psyche, another crew member stepped into medbay, before strutting right past the rest of them, her card identified her as the psyc officer... That was pretty much the only information Raya could glean from the woman before she disappeared into the next room, the door at the end of the Medbay... That confirmed it, there was definitely something wrong with the crew, but she was fine... Except for the pain emanating from her skull, but that was just from the smack to her head... Right...? Right...

 

[AllarianSilverblade]

The cryo pod hissed as the door slid open, breaking the deafening silence in small, dimly lit room the pod was located in. It's occupant, however, did not stir.

"Good morning. You are awake. You are refreshed. You are ready to perform your duties. Thank you for complying with your treatment plan." Awarm, robotic voice played over the intercom.

"Fuck off ye wanker," Was the mumbled response it got. "I've got fuckin' time now."

Unlike most Kieran found cryo-sleep to be a mostly peaceful process. A time where his brain would finally turn off and allow him to rest. What he did not enjoy was being removed from this blissful state. It was like being harshly pulled back to his body, forced to feel and breathe and exist after being in heaven for time immemorable.

"The current time is 6:19am. You have ten minutes and twenty seven seconds to report to the medical bay. Thank you for your compliance."

Medical bay? Oh fuck me...

Kieran tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't listen to the commands sent down from his brain. He could feel his heart beat thumping in his ears, but little else. "Of course. My mouth works sure, but fuckin' nothing else." he bemoaned as his eyelids finally flitted open. His legs felt like lead weights, his arms like they were chained while somewhere in the back of his mind a voice softly echoed.

"Kieran! Get your lazy arse out of bed! If you're late again they're gonna fire ya sure."

It's not bed, ma. It a cryo stasis chamber designed to lower my bodily functions to practically the point of death so I don't die during transit to deep space. Time felt like it was slowed to a crawl as Kieran regained control over his motor functions. His legs swung out one after the other, the sharp pain in his right leg a constant reminder of a childhood accident. That's not right, is it? He tried his best to ignore cold, sterile environment and focused on what needed to be done. His first day awake in deep space was not going to start with him being late. Is this my first day? Why do I feel like I've done this before?

Asquickly as his compact body would allow he dressed himself in the standard gray uniform assigned to all of the ships crew. Why does this feel familiar? He paused, taking a quick look at his ID card before pinning it tohis left lapel. I'm the comms officer. Why did I think I was in engineering? Damn cryo-sleep must be fuckin' with my mind. No wonder they want us in Med-Bay so early.

Hurriedly Kieran made his way down the seemingly impossibly long corridors from the cryo-bay to the med-bay. His ever present limp became less pronounced as he forced his legs to move faster. He ignored his lungs cry for air as he pushed himself to pick up speed, he was not going to be late for his first day on a star ship.

The med-bay doors hissed open just before Kieran staggered in. He leaned forward, placing his hands on his knee, finally allowing himself to catch his breathe. "Made it! Kieran McDonald, reporting for duty." His gaze rose as he noticed Raya and the small commotion around her. "The fuck happened to her?"

 

[Origami]

It was a short stand-off between Esther and the ‘Captain’, one she felt confident that she had won, cause he didn’t push for anything else out of Raya. Then another unfamiliar face came through the doors and Esther unfolded her arms, this one looking awfully pale. Her eyes lingered, confusion washing across her features as she took him in. She must still be woozy from the pod. With one last dirty look towards the Captain, Esther made an exaggerated turn away from the crowd to press her card into another scanner which wouldn’t work for any card on board other than hers and a handful of others. She pushed on the in-wall cabinet and stepped back so that a section of the wall rolled out, exposing rows and shelves of different medications. Some in fluid form and others in large pill bottles with a number on them, there was no names or ingredients listed anywhere, but Esther didn’t really seem bothered.

“I’ll have all of your doses ready in a minute,” she nodded towards the newcomer in a silent request to be patient. Perhaps it would take her mind away from Captain Airhead.. “‘Right, the navigator’,” she mumbled in a slightly mocking tone under her breath as she quickly grabbed the clipboard with all of their information and a new pair of gloves. Once she had sorted out the initial request for medication for the pale one, she turned with the small container, gawking at the fact that he was now missing and in his place was another woman. “Wait, where’d he go?” She said out loud to no one in particular, looking over the shoulder of the woman who had in the meantime asked about who they all were, slightly defeated. “Esther..” The Doctor trailed off in a weak introduction and turned away from her, writing a small ‘x’ on the side of it with a marker. Then she set it aside and picked up Raya’s dose along with a cup of water. Her face completely changing from bothered to concerned as she offered Raya the cups, noting that the woman had stretched out on the gurney. “Here, this’ll help.” She tried to meet her eyes but it seemed something else had caught Raya’s attention. Esther followed Raya’s look towards the door and blinked a few times. The missing one was back, and someone else had joined them. Again.

So many unfamiliar people. This was a lot. Too much. Esther was about to protest when the woman who had showed up with him walked through the room and headed for another door. “Excuse me, that’s only for certified personnel only—” her mouth immediately snapped shut once she caught a glimpse of the position on her card.

Psych Officer. Got it. Never mind then.

She turned back to Raya and nodded at her to take the cups from her hands and quickly ticked off a box on the clipboard before flipping through the pages. “Right, uh, Ethos,” she called out and picked up the pills she had put aside for him, “your dose and there’s cups by the sink.” She pointed with her pen at the sink. She
proceeded to give the same directions to the others, before turning around again to watch Raya take her medicine. “Go on, I have to make sure you take it,” reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder. “I have to make sure all of you take it.” She said a little louder for the room to hear. “Otherwise I’ll have to note it down,” her eyes fell back on the Captain, having seen his motion to reach for something in his chest pocket, more than likely a small notebook, he seemed like the type.

A male crashed through the doors, clearly out of breath as he presented himself to the room. Less than impressed by his lack of respect, Esthers eyebrows began dipping in a frown. “None of your concern,” she spoke and nodded towards the sink. “For your meds. And watch your language.”

 

[InstillQuill]

<Medbay>​

As the Engineer had walked into the room and proudly announced herself, alongside asking who she would be working with, Vincent became painfully aware of just how many people were entering the room. And it certainly didn't help when an unknown woman had simply strolled into the Medbay, and without a word, walked past them all and towards the door on the other side of the room. Where did it lead? It didn't have any kind of indicator on the door, but the woman held herself with extraordinary confidence. The only kind that someone would have if they knew exactly where they were going...or did she? Everyone else had made it a point to introduce themselves to one another, all but her. She had to know something was going on, right? As she past Vincent, his eyes immediately began to take in her appearance, and look for anything distinctive that might have revealed anything to him. For a brief moment, those sapphire blue eyes of his focused on her name tag, able to parse a name: Celeste Harlow. Well, if she wasn't going to take the time to introduce herself to the crew, he wouldn't go out of his way to interact with her. Well, until he had to, at some point.

Turning his attention back towards the Captain, something rubbed Vincent the wrong way. Was it the fact that his priorities were skewed? Did he know more than what he was leading on? As far as Vincent was aware, it was common that no one seemed to know one another. Or if they did know one another, everyone was doing a hell of a job at hiding it from him. Well, it would make sense...well, maybe for some. Would Raya even be able to lie while suffering from a concussion? Esther seemed to know what she was doing, but considering her interactions with Raya, she couldn't have known everyone else. He didn't know much about the Engineer, nor the Captain, so they were still due for questioning.

Gah, was he being paranoid? Of course he was.

Instinctively, Vincent moved from the disposal bin back over to Esther and Raya, two people that he was at least...somewhat familiar with. Somewhat being used loosely as he had only known them for a few minutes longer than everyone else. As the Engineer introduced herself, and Esther had responded with her name, Vincent gave the Engineer a nod. "Vincent. Quartermaster." he announced, keeping it short and simple.

Watching as Esther began to distribute the meds, Vincent felt a tightening sensation within his chest as another person showed up to the medbay. How many people were here? None of them looked familiar to him. All of them, strangers. As that tightness within his chest continued to grow, extending out further into his body, his body went on autopilot, lining up to gather their medication. His mind was going a mile a minute. Who were these people? Why were they here? What were they doing? What were they supposed to do, where to go, where-.

As Esther handed Vincent his medication, he took the two pills and swallowed them, along with taking a sip of the water he was offered. Almost immediately, the tightening sensation in his chest dissipated, his mind slowing down, and the questions beginning to fade into nothingness. All at once, he began to feel...better. Gah, whatever was in those pills, it was a complete life saver. What did it matter that he was here? He had a job to do, right? That's why he was here. And these people must've been coworkers! Ah, now it was all making sense.

"Thank you." Vincent said to Esther, giving her a small smile as he began to walk from the front of the line and over to the side, awaiting further orders from whomever.

 

[Tenzai]

[ The Concordance Hallways ] | INTERACTION : @Cat

"Would it? It's comforting, isn't it? To have an answer. A reason. Something neat and simple to wrap around the unknown."​

His questions were only met with more questions. Whatever the answer was to his predicament, she delivered it in riddles, forcing the ex-soldier to contort his brain to decipher the strange, alluding words coming out of her mouth. He wasn't the smartest, often leaving behind the planning and coordination to his... Who? Another dull headache, though this time he was able to maintain his focus on their conversation, letting her dictate the pace at which they were walking in his place. He sought her for answers, and as such, gave her authority over his mind. She took him to turns he didn't recognize before, yet the signs above had revealed that they were moving the right way; As if she knew this world more than he did. He didn't question it, only finding more evidence that she knew something he didn't in her line of questioning.

"But tell me… If you woke up tomorrow, and everything was exactly as you remembered it—no discrepancies, no misplaced faces, no unanswered questions…Would you trust it?"

Ethos shook his head. "I'd really like to trust my senses and instincts more than my own head. If something feels off even if my mind recognizes it, its enough for me to remain cautious." His silent intuition had always felt like a much more useful tool than his own mind. He never believed himself to be the best planner but rather someone who was more than capable at making split second decisions based on his environment. It was this edge that kept him alive throughout the war in his past. It will be this same intuition that he would put stock on in the future. "If I woke up tomorrow and everything was the same as I remembered, I'd most likely be more confused than not." Pinching his cheek again to reassure himself that the pain he felt was real, his senses had indicated that nothing about his own senses were amiss. What was going on around him had felt all real to him in the moment.

"I've always found it fascinating, the way the mind fights itself. The way it struggles to hold onto the world as it's given to us, even when it doesn't quite fit. But sometimes… Sometimes, it's not the mind that's the problem." His senses were able to pick up the subtle shift in tone; This time, it wasn't brought up as a metaphorical. Something about the way she spoke insinuated taking it more literal than he'd like. "You're looking for an explanation, but are you looking for the right one?"

Her words lingered in the air, carrying weight behind every syllable. Whatever the answer was, it was up for him to decide. "Jeez. You sure have a way with words, Celeste." Scratching the back of his head as he felt the gears in his mind turning, upon taking a moment to think deeply about what she meant, a shadow of a girl stood in the corner of his vision, eyeing the officer before vanishing behind the darkness of the room inside of it. Given the lack of detection from the motion lights inside, he shook his head at the prospect of something being there. His hallucinations were bothering him again. "...I guess, this is your way of telling me to figure out what's wrong on my own, isn't it? Therapist talk, yeah?"

Ethos sighed, breaking the silence she offered with her pause. "Well, if there's anything amiss, whether that be with the crypods or the ventilation shooting chemicals into the air, I'll figure it out. It's my job to handle threats here, both external and internal." His weapon tapped lightly on his hip as they neared more familiar territory of the hallways closer to the medical bay. Even though his memory of the footsteps he took to reach her didn't align with the number he took on the way back, his mind was too wrapped up with her questions to place too much attention to it for now. However, his body wasn't as forgetful as his mind. With his instincts honed as is, if given enough time, he'd grow uncomfortably aware of the shifting strangeness in the arrangement of his surroundings.

"Hm- Come on, We wouldn't want to be late, would we?"

"Oh! Right! We have to keep track of the schedule." Noticing how they were cutting close to the allotted time limit, the security officer hurried in his steps, placing his thoughts on the back of his mind to handle their original directive. There will be time to worry about it later, but for now, he had to ensure that his responsibilities to the station were handled in a timely fashion. "Thanks for taking the moment to speak to me despite everything else though. I... Really appreciate it." While calm and comfortable, the officer was sweeter in his choice of words. It was easier to be kind when he felt like she had his best in mind. "Hope I could talk to you again soon, well... Under better circumstances next time."

<Medbay>​

Upon entering the medical bay, the officer was met with more people around. The smell of blood was a bit more prominent with others separate from the doctor herself being tainted in crimson. At the least, it appeared that only one of them was hurt while the others were caught in her aftermath by mere circumstance. Looking to what he deemed was familiar for comfort around all these strange people, as he searched for Celeste, she had only seen her blur disappear behind another door for a split second. Shit. Surrounded by nothing but new people, many of them displaying the same lack of familiarity with each other as he did, he kept his hand close to his stun baton and remained quiet.

New faces meant new risks; New risks meant possible dangers; Possible dangers meant that this room could erupt into a potential battlefield. Without any mental schema to distinguish each of them from friend or foe spare for the name and positions on their cards, his instincts were amped as he counted the number of doors inside the room should he have need for an early escape. Though as he turned to where he came from, a shadow peeked through the doorway, staring back at him. Whatever it was seemed to have preferred him to stay in place, refusing to leave from its spot. Gritting his teeth as he quelled his anxieties, he did as he was told in the past to calm down: To slow down his breathing, close his eyes, and clear his mind until his name was called; To distance himself from the noise and distractions until he was in a place where medicine could be administered.

 

[Cat]

[ Restricted Access Room ]
The door hissed open with a quiet press of her ID card against the scanner. No alarms. No resistance. Just the smooth, mechanical compliance of a system that recognized her clearance, whether the others liked it or not.

Celeste stepped inside without hesitation, the sterile white glow of the room swallowing her whole as the door sealed shut behind her.

The space was smaller than she expected—orderly, controlled, built for function rather than comfort. A long table stretched through the center, its surface marred only by a few neatly stacked documents and a single console humming faintly in sleep mode. Storage units lined the walls, locked and coded, their contents unknown but undoubtedly significant. A few chairs had been pushed to the corners, untouched. Everything here was waiting—untouched, undisturbed, patient.

She moved with practiced ease, as if she had done this a hundred times before. Her fingers hovered over the console, but she did not wake it. Instead, her gaze swept across the cabinets, searching—until she found what she needed.

A clipboard. A pen. Both sat atop a single, unopened file. Celeste took them without pause.

Then, with a final glance around the room, she left.

[ Medbay ] | Interaction : everyone
The moment she stepped back out, the quiet murmur of voices greeted her—disorganized, restless, anxious. It wasn't chaos, not yet, but it was the kind of tension that threatened to spiral if left unchecked.

Unacceptable.

Celeste inhaled once, then exhaled slow. Then she clicked the pen. The sharp, deliberate sound cut through the low hum of conversation like a blade. "Alright," she said, voice steady, carrying an undeniable weight of authority despite its softness. "That's enough."

Silence settled, uncertain but obeying. She stepped forward, clipboard resting comfortably in her hands, gaze sweeping over each face in turn. No hesitation. No uncertainty. "You are going to stand in an orderly line," Celeste continued, her tone unyielding. "You are going to remain quiet, and you are going to listen. Understood?"

A beat of silence. A few exchanged glances.

Then, slowly, they moved. Some begrudgingly, some uncertain, but all falling into place as instructed. Celeste gave a single, approving nod. "Good. Esther, keep passing off the medication, please."

She lowered her gaze to the clipboard, pen poised above the list of names.

"Oliver Davies," she called out first, barely glancing up. "Captain." A pause. A response. A silent note was scribbled down.

"Ethos Arturia. Security Officer." Another pause. Another note.

She continued down the list, calling each name, each role, methodical and precise. She did not explain why. She did not need to. Celeste's voice remained steady as she worked her way down the list, her pen gliding across the clipboard with practiced ease.

"Kieran McDonald. Communications Officer." A pause. A mark. A flick of her gaze to confirm his presence before moving on. "Vincent Thompson. Quartermaster." Another pause, another mark. Then—

"Raya Silveth. Navigator."

Silence.

Celeste's pen hovered just above the clipboard, her gaze settling on Raya with an unnerving stillness. Something was off. The subtle sway in her stance, the sluggish way her eyes moved, the faint crease between her brows as if the world wasn't quite aligning the way it should.

Raya was already seated, but something in the way she held herself was... wrong. The slight unfocus in her eyes, the uneven rise and fall of her breaths, the way her fingers flexed and stilled against her knees.

Not a concussion. But disoriented. How?...

Celeste tilted her head, tapping the pen lightly against the clipboard. Once. Twice. A quiet, rhythmic sound.

"You're disoriented." Not a question. A statement.

She didn't move to the next name. Didn't continue as if this were nothing. Her grip on the clipboard tightened slightly before she adjusted it, tapping the pen once against the surface.

Instead, she crouched down, bringing herself to Raya's level. A slow movement. Controlled. "Tell me what feels wrong," Celeste said, softer now, though the command in her voice remained. "Every detail. Don't leave anything out."

Because something was wrong. And Celeste wasn't going to ignore it or let it become a loose end.