Messy eating bad. The live feed is bad. Who the fuck is watching them?
She watches to make sure SQX and Aoi make it through the door and for whatever happens to be in the vents, ready to book it back to run interference if whatever worse than furby monster comes out before the other two can make it into this empty room. ]
Hurry!
[ She knows that's easier said than done, though. ]
[up they go! off after endorsi and medb. it's fine. the eating noises are still going for now, but who knows how long that'll last.
the room is a big, white, empty room. their voices echo a little when they step in. a look over it is mostly just the screen, the pedestal, and a button on the wall next to the door.
there is a tag hanging from the pedastal. if endorsi gets close enough to it, she'll see it's a touch screen that reads RECALIBRATE? with two options, yes and no underneath. underneath that are four handprint indicators.]
[if they get far enough away from the door will it shut behind them?? god sqx hopes so.
anyway, she and aoi stagger into that big white empty room. she casts a glance around it, her head spinning, and her eyes land on the button on the wall by the door. she'll head there first? is it labeled? please let her lock the door.]
We don't know what that something is supposed to be.
[ DO THEY KNOW NO CAUTION? They need more information, even if she doesn't know how to get it. Medb is also sorely tempted to just go through with it, though.
Her eyes are on the live screen, waiting for that monster to come out. ]
[the door does not shut automatically. the button has no label!
down the hallway, the vent practically explodes as the monster kicks the vent across the hallway. it shatters, and the alien slithers out, low to the ground. its tail flicks back and forth like a cat's as it turns to look at the four of them. its beak is covered in blood and gore, and the one eye that endorsi had hit earlier is just missing entirely, leaving only half of a furby eye pair.
it shrieks, and starts to gallop down the hallway towards them.
i'm glad aoi and endorsi have no sense of self preservation whatsoever here. they put their hands on the panel, and they feel - dizzy. like earlier, in the conference room.
for a moment, they feel that exhaustion again. it doesn't matter. nothing matters. just sleep through the rest of this, just forget. you want to go home, and this, you think, is how it'll happen? you just have to make this choice. yes, or no. yes or no, and you might get to go home again. it's such a big decision. maybe you should think about it, maybe you should put it off.
she slams her good hand down on the button and then heads over to join medb as quickly as she can manage with her dizziness, provided she doesn't blow up on the spot or something. if medb puts her hand on the panel, she'll join her in doing so; if not, she'll try to get ready to fight the alien.]
[she brings her injured hand onto the pedestal to hold herself up, closing her eyes in pain as that contact jostles the space where her fingers used to be.
it's just yes or no, isn't it? she doesn't know why this is so hard, or why she's so tired suddenly, so exhausted at the prospect of having to make this choice. she looks at the two buttons, but she doesn't push one yet.]
[ Once again, it's and Aoi and Endorsi who suffer that exhaustion and dizziness first. If that's how they progressed in the conference room, is that what they should do here?
Medb looks from the monster to the panel and sighs. ]
I guess we ride or die!
[ Her hand goes onto the panel.
Fucking yolo. Even though they haven't picked an option yet. ]
[the door closes! or starts to, anyway. it's slow going, and the alien is fast as fuck. it skitters down the hallway, and throws itself through the door just in time for the door to shut on it. the thing makes that obnoxious battery dying sound again wriggling like crazy to try and get out of the door trap that it's in.
it isn't going to be very long before the thing gets out. it's thrashing like crazy, the metal doors squealing and squawking.
four out of four - they're all hit with that exhaustion, with a decision to make. the problem is, they don't have any information. they don't know what's coming next. it's foreign, this feeling, it's someone else standing here in indecision, thinking about leaving it for the others to decide. someone else can do it, right?
[because i'm an asshole, i've decided that the handprint fits the hand from sqx's broken arm, so she's just having to use her good arm to grip her wrist and keep it there. it's fine.
anyway, the dice have decided that despite the haze of indecision, she grits her teeth and grinds out - ]
Recalibrate it! Pick "yes"!
[...before that alien wriggles free and eats them hopefully]
[After a moment of hesitation - unless Medb moves to stop her, Endorsi moves to touch the option on the touchscreen that says yes, keeping her other hand on the handprint panel.]
all at once, you are changing. a horn bursts from your forehead, sharp and twisted. two more, on either side, curl out and then crumble to dust, grow again, and again. a tail winds around your ankle, the spade cutting into your skin; your back aches as bones crack and expand out from your shoulder blades, fluttering weakly. they twist, turn crystalline, and then holographic, rainbow, and then white, fluffy, angelic. your skin splits along your arms as pink and green eyes blink into existence, and you feel every one keenly. fire roars around your feet, burning and angry, extinguished immediately by freezing spiderweb veins that gather up and down your body. a splitting headache causes glittering black tears to drip down your face as a thorned, bony crown grows like vines from your skull. you bring your hands up as if to stop it from happening, only to find claws, your hands ruined, and --
it's so much. you didn't know what you were agreeing to, and you just have to suffer through, but that's not important - that isn't the point.
time unfreezes.
all four of them find themselves in that same room, as the monster shrieks and finally wriggles free of the doors.
their bodies are normal, not transformed. the alien drops to the floor, and slowly slinks over to them.
it's also the worst? it's absolutely the worst. shi qingxuan grits her teeth and struggles to stay upright, and as that alien slinks closer to them and purrs, she turns her head toward it with a horrified look on her face.
[ familiar...? it's not familiar at all for aoi. aoi has been created and recreated countless times, dissolved into data and absorbed into God. she's had everything that makes her her torn apart like scraps, like building blocks to be used again. being created, uncreated, recreated - it's never been like this. it's never hurt so much.
she sinks down to the ground now that she doesn't need to keep her hand on the panel anymore and just - stares at the furby monster. ]
[as that finishes, endorsi leans against the panel and closes her eyes. to her, none of it is familiar: not the way her body shifts and changes, nor the incredible pain, nor the complete powerlessness. for just a second once it’s over, she puts her face in her hands, not paying attention to the way her hand spreads blood there.
since the monster is purring now, she doesn’t attack quite yet, looking at it instead.]
[ This kind of transformation isn't familiar at all. Medb has died more than once, and this kind of pain is different than what she's experienced before. It's searing in a way she doesn't know, but the magnitude of pain is perhaps not too unfamiliar.
It doesn't mean it doesn't hit her hard or that she doesn't sink to the floor to grapple with it as she regains her bearings.
Why is the monster purring?
She, too, watches carefully but is ready to leap at it the moment it looks like it'll attack.
[the monster comes closer, close to the floor. the tail sways back and forth as the dead furby eyes stare at them, and it opens its beak...
and then sqx kicks it. and it squeals, skittering backwards, bringing a hand up to its face. for a moment, it's just there, holding its face like it doesn't know what to do?
and then it lets out another one of those horrifyingly loud and painful roars, the whole room shaking. no, no, no, it does not like being hurt. it throws itself forward at the four of them, and they all instinctively understand - this is a punishment, this is their punishment.
it hits endorsi first - knocks her to the floor, forcing its claws into her mouth and ripping out her tongue, brutal and quick. its whiplike scorpion tail jabs out and slams down into sqx's leg, the one she kicked it with. it leaves a nasty, messy hole behind, almost severing the leg completely. with that, it whirls on the other two.
the mouth opens, and a second beak screams out from inside of it, latching onto aoi's hair. it rips out a huge chunk of it and spits it to the floor before using her body as a spring board to get to medb, leaving claw gouges in her torso. medb sees it gurgle out a terrible uhuhu sound before to brings a claw up to drag a heart symbol on her face, off center, ripping through skin and her right eye, leaving her blind on that side.
and then it hisses, and launches itself off of medb to squeeze off through the door and into the rest of station.
a few feet in front of them, a multicolored portal appears.
she doesn't even seem to notice the portal. she's just. lying here and bleeding out from her nearly-severed leg. it's fine? just leave her hear to die. if this is punishment, that's fine. she can die here. she's tired.
[ aoi is knocked over - whether it was from having a chunk of her bit off or from being spring boarded off of. one more time, she curls up in the fetal position, hugging herself and shuddering in pain and exhaustion. just for a moment. she gives herself a second.
and then, for however pathetically shaky she is, for however slowly she moves, she gets back up. she grabs sqx under her arms, ready to drag her through the portal. ]
Help Aoi with her leg if you can.
[ dragging someone with their leg nearly severed is likely to do even more damage, if she does it without help. but aoi won't blame anyone if they can't help, given everyone's own stages of Also Fucked Up Real Bad.
as long as everyone makes it out of the portal. she'll drag sqx herself if she has to. aoi is tired, but aoi is persistent. maybe for once in this cyoa, she can be useful to someone. ]
[from her space on the floor, she curls up herself for a second, letting out a noise of pain as she brings her hands to her mouth, feeling the blood pouring out, the incredible pain from what remains of her tongue. there’s just shreds in the back of her mouth.
but after a moment or two, she pushes herself up. she wants to lay back down. she wants to let her wounds take their course. for someone like her, always so driven and motivated to live - it’s an unfamiliar enough feeling that, combined with aoi's words, she’s able to at least try and push past it. it’s so hard. but she staggers to her feet, incredibly off balance thanks to the blood loss, and she’ll move to help aoi.
she’s keeping an eye on medb, too, determined to help the other woman as well if she needs a hand to make it out. they aren’t leaving anyone behind.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Messy eating bad. The live feed is bad. Who the fuck is watching them?
She watches to make sure SQX and Aoi make it through the door and for whatever happens to be in the vents, ready to book it back to run interference if whatever worse than furby monster comes out before the other two can make it into this empty room. ]
Hurry!
[ She knows that's easier said than done, though. ]
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the room is a big, white, empty room. their voices echo a little when they step in. a look over it is mostly just the screen, the pedestal, and a button on the wall next to the door.
there is a tag hanging from the pedastal. if endorsi gets close enough to it, she'll see it's a touch screen that reads RECALIBRATE? with two options, yes and no underneath. underneath that are four handprint indicators.]
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anyway, she and aoi stagger into that big white empty room. she casts a glance around it, her head spinning, and her eyes land on the button on the wall by the door. she'll head there first? is it labeled? please let her lock the door.]
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The last task was to recalibrate something, right? I think this is how we do it.
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[ DO THEY KNOW NO CAUTION? They need more information, even if she doesn't know how to get it. Medb is also sorely tempted to just go through with it, though.
Her eyes are on the live screen, waiting for that monster to come out. ]
Do you know what that button does, Qingxuan?
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down the hallway, the vent practically explodes as the monster kicks the vent across the hallway. it shatters, and the alien slithers out, low to the ground. its tail flicks back and forth like a cat's as it turns to look at the four of them. its beak is covered in blood and gore, and the one eye that endorsi had hit earlier is just missing entirely, leaving only half of a furby eye pair.
it shrieks, and starts to gallop down the hallway towards them.
i'm glad aoi and endorsi have no sense of self preservation whatsoever here. they put their hands on the panel, and they feel - dizzy. like earlier, in the conference room.
for a moment, they feel that exhaustion again. it doesn't matter. nothing matters. just sleep through the rest of this, just forget. you want to go home, and this, you think, is how it'll happen? you just have to make this choice. yes, or no. yes or no, and you might get to go home again. it's such a big decision. maybe you should think about it, maybe you should put it off.
it'll change everything.]
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[AAAAA, THAT FUCKING ALIEN
she slams her good hand down on the button and then heads over to join medb as quickly as she can manage with her dizziness, provided she doesn't blow up on the spot or something. if medb puts her hand on the panel, she'll join her in doing so; if not, she'll try to get ready to fight the alien.]
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uhhh good luck, us! ]
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it's just yes or no, isn't it? she doesn't know why this is so hard, or why she's so tired suddenly, so exhausted at the prospect of having to make this choice. she looks at the two buttons, but she doesn't push one yet.]
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Medb looks from the monster to the panel and sighs. ]
I guess we ride or die!
[ Her hand goes onto the panel.
Fucking yolo. Even though they haven't picked an option yet. ]
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it isn't going to be very long before the thing gets out. it's thrashing like crazy, the metal doors squealing and squawking.
four out of four - they're all hit with that exhaustion, with a decision to make. the problem is, they don't have any information. they don't know what's coming next. it's foreign, this feeling, it's someone else standing here in indecision, thinking about leaving it for the others to decide. someone else can do it, right?
yes, or no? recalibrate? is that what they want?]
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anyway, the dice have decided that despite the haze of indecision, she grits her teeth and grinds out - ]
Recalibrate it! Pick "yes"!
[...before that alien wriggles free and eats them hopefully]
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Please let this be the option for all of them being half-dead. ]
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time freezes.
and the pain is excruciating.
all at once, you are changing. a horn bursts from your forehead, sharp and twisted. two more, on either side, curl out and then crumble to dust, grow again, and again. a tail winds around your ankle, the spade cutting into your skin; your back aches as bones crack and expand out from your shoulder blades, fluttering weakly. they twist, turn crystalline, and then holographic, rainbow, and then white, fluffy, angelic. your skin splits along your arms as pink and green eyes blink into existence, and you feel every one keenly. fire roars around your feet, burning and angry, extinguished immediately by freezing spiderweb veins that gather up and down your body. a splitting headache causes glittering black tears to drip down your face as a thorned, bony crown grows like vines from your skull. you bring your hands up as if to stop it from happening, only to find claws, your hands ruined, and --
it's so much. you didn't know what you were agreeing to, and you just have to suffer through, but that's not important - that isn't the point.
time unfreezes.
all four of them find themselves in that same room, as the monster shrieks and finally wriggles free of the doors.
their bodies are normal, not transformed. the alien drops to the floor, and slowly slinks over to them.
it's... purring? it's purring.]
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this is unpleasantly familiar.
it's also the worst? it's absolutely the worst. shi qingxuan grits her teeth and struggles to stay upright, and as that alien slinks closer to them and purrs, she turns her head toward it with a horrified look on her face.
if it gets close enough she kicks at it.]
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she sinks down to the ground now that she doesn't need to keep her hand on the panel anymore and just - stares at the furby monster. ]
Boop boop... Did we finish the checklist?
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since the monster is purring now, she doesn’t attack quite yet, looking at it instead.]
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It doesn't mean it doesn't hit her hard or that she doesn't sink to the floor to grapple with it as she regains her bearings.
Why is the monster purring?
She, too, watches carefully but is ready to leap at it the moment it looks like it'll attack.
To answer Aoi: ]
I don't know.
[ Very helpful. ]
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and then sqx kicks it. and it squeals, skittering backwards, bringing a hand up to its face. for a moment, it's just there, holding its face like it doesn't know what to do?
and then it lets out another one of those horrifyingly loud and painful roars, the whole room shaking. no, no, no, it does not like being hurt. it throws itself forward at the four of them, and they all instinctively understand - this is a punishment, this is their punishment.
it hits endorsi first - knocks her to the floor, forcing its claws into her mouth and ripping out her tongue, brutal and quick. its whiplike scorpion tail jabs out and slams down into sqx's leg, the one she kicked it with. it leaves a nasty, messy hole behind, almost severing the leg completely. with that, it whirls on the other two.
the mouth opens, and a second beak screams out from inside of it, latching onto aoi's hair. it rips out a huge chunk of it and spits it to the floor before using her body as a spring board to get to medb, leaving claw gouges in her torso. medb sees it gurgle out a terrible uhuhu sound before to brings a claw up to drag a heart symbol on her face, off center, ripping through skin and her right eye, leaving her blind on that side.
and then it hisses, and launches itself off of medb to squeeze off through the door and into the rest of station.
a few feet in front of them, a multicolored portal appears.
you're tired. you're so tired.]
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she doesn't even seem to notice the portal. she's just. lying here and bleeding out from her nearly-severed leg. it's fine? just leave her hear to die. if this is punishment, that's fine. she can die here. she's tired.
maybe she'll just close her eyes and rest...]
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and then, for however pathetically shaky she is, for however slowly she moves, she gets back up. she grabs sqx under her arms, ready to drag her through the portal. ]
Help Aoi with her leg if you can.
[ dragging someone with their leg nearly severed is likely to do even more damage, if she does it without help. but aoi won't blame anyone if they can't help, given everyone's own stages of Also Fucked Up Real Bad.
as long as everyone makes it out of the portal. she'll drag sqx herself if she has to. aoi is tired, but aoi is persistent. maybe for once in this cyoa, she can be useful to someone. ]
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but after a moment or two, she pushes herself up. she wants to lay back down. she wants to let her wounds take their course. for someone like her, always so driven and motivated to live - it’s an unfamiliar enough feeling that, combined with aoi's words, she’s able to at least try and push past it. it’s so hard. but she staggers to her feet, incredibly off balance thanks to the blood loss, and she’ll move to help aoi.
she’s keeping an eye on medb, too, determined to help the other woman as well if she needs a hand to make it out. they aren’t leaving anyone behind.]
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