a bumpy start! {glyphcomm + action}

[seeingyou]

You wake up to the sound of alarms and a distinct sensation of quaking, and you're quite obviously not where you're supposed to be. This room is strangely shaped, nothing you recognize, and you definitely don't remember how you got here. The room is bathed in soft red light, which might look pretty, except it's blinking in a way that you can probably guess signals danger.

There's a symbol on the back of your hand that you don't remember acquiring, either, but that's probably less important at the moment than the sound of the alarms shrieking and the prerecorded voice speaking over the intercom. It's one of those bland, agender voices, entirely too calm in tone for the message it's relaying:

WARNING
WARNING
IMPACT THREAT DETECTED
EVASIVE ACTION REQUIRED

There’s a loud crash and another violent shaking, as that impact threat collides with the ship’s hull. The warning message continues to repeat on a loop amidst the blaring of the alarm. All passengers should be conscious now, with the noise at such a high volume. Opening your cabin door reveals a nondescript hallway, with five cabin doors on each side for a total of ten on each floor; the doors to the empty cabins are unlocked and inside the cabins hold the same plain, basic furnishings as your own. Halfway into the hallway, there is a lift on one side and a set of stairs on the other.

Comments

{pre-crash}

[seeingyou]

Amidst this chaos and cacophony, you hear a voice - gentle, warm, mellifluous. Unlike the recording, it's not heard from over the intercom but projected directly into your mind. The tone of the voice is calm, but you’re able to pick up a sense of frightened urgency as it speaks to you:

There’s no time for an explanation - all of you, please, come down to the bottom floor. Quickly! We don’t have much time.

Should you choose to make your way down to the bottom floor - and you really should! - you’ll end up halfway into the hallway, either via the lift on one side or the set of stairs on the other. At one end of the hallway is what looks like a laundry room, with three machines each to wash and dry clothes, and instead of cabins in the hallway, there are empty pods meant to house passengers in stasis/cryosleep, twenty-five on each side of the hallway.

At the other end of the hallway is a large door covered with the same glyph symbol that has appeared on your hands, glowing green. There's an instrument panel and large display screen to the side, which displays diagrams and alien language. As you approach, the door slides open to reveal the Navigator. They are an agender being with a humanoid face and many limbs, the same grey color as the ship itself, and they appear to be fused to the command chamber, taking up the bulk of the space in the room. The same glyph found on the door that just opened and the backs of passengers' hands is also on the Navigator's forehead, glowing a steady green. The wall opposite the Navigator is covered in screens and windows, displaying a number of rapidly-shifting diagrams and lines of text in the same alien language that was found on the display outside the door. One thing missing from the Navigator's face is a mouth. It seems that the words it "speaks" are being projected telepathically to all passengers:

Good - you’re all here. I need your help -

The rest of the request is cut off by a loud, stern voice that cuts through on the ship’s intercom:

Attention! Rogue vessel number 27A-43!
You are in violation of the Primal Code and are hereby ordered to stand down.
This is your final warning.
If you do not comply, you will be destroyed.

You feel the Navigator’s emotions swing from fear to angry defiance as they reply:

Eat blangdark barnacles, Zerentian scum!

The only response offered by the other ship - you can see it’s a second ship now on one of the screens in the Navigator’s chamber, massive and imposing - is another projectile fired that makes impact a few seconds later, with the sensation of restrained recoiling in pain accompanying the crashing sound and shaking of the entire ship. The Navigator continues to tap frantically at the screens with their many limbs, but turns their head to address the crowd of gathered passengers with a plea:

If we’re to survive this attack, I’ll need your help - I’ve taken damage and I’m losing power. Please, link your hands together and form a chain, and those of you on the ends, take mine. This should restore enough power to shake these bastards.

[shahrrehth]

This is not the first time she's been in a situation like this before. It's not even the fourth time, to be honest. She's dressed in her office wear, her supersuit beneath her clothes, and her first inclination is to get out there and Do Something about this threat. But there's so much she doesn't know, for all the familiarity, and the fact that none of her team is here... that she doesn't know how she got here... that she's so far away from home and hearing names and words she's never heard before even from the Kryptonian archives-

It has her feeling frustrated but still, at least for the moment, deciding to stay here and do as the voice tells her to do.

Her hands go out on either side.

[albatrossomen]

This is definitely the first time Murmur's been in a situation like this. Blaring alarms, flashing lights, heck he didn't even know space ships were possible! How terribly exciting! Although the probable, imminent death did take a little edge off the excitement. Just a little. Between the alarms and requests there really wasn't any time to investigate or ask questions. He resolved that should they survive this he will absolutely become the most annoying about asking questions.

Later, now was apparently hand holding time. "So much for introductions." He murmured as he took one of the offered hands in his gloved one, offering for another. For all the excitement he appeared completely calm.

[shahrrehth]

"I've met some of my favorite people this way," she notes, not quite cheerful but at least somewhat positive. Trying to keep her chin up, anyway. Her hands are firm, firmer than they really ought to be quite frankly, but the skin is soft.

[unnecessaryflourishes]

"Should we be congratulating you, for that?"

If he sounds a little tetchy, it's probably because he is. Not only has he been dragged off to somewhere unexpected without so much as a word of warning, but he's had to suffer alarms on top of that. Which would have been quite enough without having been asked to literally join hands with the rest of people who seem to also have been dragged into whatever this happens to be. People who are - at least for the time being - as good as strangers.

(He does not immediately offer a hand either. But he hasn't left outright, for all his apparent distaste of the idea.)

[shahrrehth]

She just smiles back at him, because while you might catch more flies with honey than vinegar, sometimes it's more fun to stick with the honey for other reasons, regardless of what you might catch for it.

"You can if it'll make you feel better," she says easily enough. "So did you miss the instructions or just don't feel like being a part of saving our lives?"

[albatrossomen]

Positivity is certainly preferable to cynicism and the arguing happening in the background. Murmur's resisting the urge to hiss at Jack that suggesting someone jump out an airlock isn't exactly helpful right now. Given that he doesn't willfully touch anyone unless absolutely necessary he really doesn't notice anything unusual about Clara.

It's all alien to him, quite frankly. "Do you have experience with space battles and hand-holding driven engines?" One might think he's being sarcastic, but his tone was so neutrally monotone it seemed more earnest. As though he genuinely thought that might be the case.

[shahrrehth]

And thankfully? That kind of matter-of-fact monotone is nothing she's unfamiliar with. Nor people asking things like that in utter seriousness.

"Some with space battles. Less with hand-holding driven engines."

She doesn't want to be too specific with what she says but she also doesn't want to start a situation like this one with mistruths. Not if she can help it.

[eyediot]

Nevermind the bit of a freakout he had waking up in all this. Jon hesitates for a breath before following the instruction and leaving his room and going down? Downstairs. He's a little scruffy from a long flight already and keeps his bag slung over one shoulder.

"What-- Hand holding. That-that's what's going to help this?"

[unnecessaryflourishes]

"Apparently."

If he sounds distinctly less than impressed by the idea, it's because he is. And never mind the fact that he might actually be willing to try, if it makes the difference between having to find another mortal host and not having to.

[eyediot]

"There has to be a better argument for it."

Jon's not exactly pleased either - one hand being still bandaged up to heal might be part of it.

[unnecessaryflourishes]

"Given the alternative--" namely, running the risk of being shot down by their pursuers "--I'm... willing to entertain the course of action proposed thus far."

It's irritating, and he is absolutely going to complain the whole way through. But mid-battle is hardly the time to go poking about in the inner workings of a ship he only just arrived on. Especially when the alarm alone is enough to suggest that it is not anything like a Garlean ship.

[shahrrehth]

She gives him what she hopes is an encouraging smile, if a somewhat long suffering one.

"Apparently. And since I don't know what else to do, I figured... probably best to at least try it. But I'm open to suggestions."

[eyediot]

"Other suggestions like a pilot with experience? Emergency landing?"

[shahrrehth]

"So you're a pilot?" she asks immediately. Because she's certainly taken the pilot's seat a few times in emergencies but it's definitely not her skill. Or one she's confident about.

[bravers]

OPEN /

[bravers]

[Blangdark... barnacles.
Zentenian...?
What?

Of all of the weird things going on, those're probably not the weirdest things out of the lot of it, but it's what sticks in his mind the most. He can't help but question the words, furrow his eyebrows at them, and that's even after the impact of the second missile. After he's been thrown a couple of meters away from where he'd previously stood, of course. And as he adjusts himself, something even weirder is requested.

...Linking...
hands.

... The hell was this.

To the nearest person to him:]

I don't buy into this holding hands crap.

[With an indelicate shove of an extension of his arm-]

But m'not up for dyin'. Not like we can do anything else.

[Cold, synthetic blue eyes look up from the floor to said person.]

So let's do this.

[sisterswitch]

Look, I get it - this is a little too Disney “clap your hands if you believe” for my taste too.

[jack sighs and reaches out to take his hand. let’s do this indeed.]

But I’ve seen stranger things, and I’m choosing to believe that this ship knows best about what’s needed to stay airborne.

[bravers]

We're dead either way.

[Morbid. Highly so. But it's also the truth. If the happy clappy link-your-hands-together Thing didn't work? They're dead. Hurtling through space with something unloading all the ammunition it's got into you equals death. Whether you're holding hands or not.

So, with a deep sigh of resignation, his fingers curl around the smaller hand in his, and he waits for further instructions. But they don't come.

...Whatever's running the show from that console's probably doing what it needs to do. Right? Otherwise...

There's a few seconds.
A few more.

And just as he's about to speak up, to question what the hell's going on, there's a shudder. Another one, and-

a lurch that shoves them a couple of paces backwards. A glance to the console shows... a lot of stuff he doesn't understand. Glyphs. Some language he can't seem to make any sense of. But there's a meter. And it's moving from yellow to green.

Some time later, a silent time later, and he snaps his hand away. And he moves to the nearest console, eyeing it a little more closely.

And. ]

...The hell's a Disney, anyway?

[We're not in Kansas Midgar anymore, Cloud.]

[unnecessaryflourishes]

[Emet's hands are, perhaps regrettably, both already spoken for. But he is nearby. Near enough to hear Cloud's comments at the least, and he's never been one to not pass comment, when the opportunity should strike itself.]

Not unless you happen to have a burning desire to find out what lies beyond death.

[It's offered surprisingly matter-of-factly, despite the somewhat morbid topic.]

But I agree that it's hardly anything I'd have found enjoyable. Much less something I would have believed to be necessary.

[bravers]

Might just see anyway.

[A quiet agreement, spoken through the clamping of teeth on his inner cheek. But what else can they do? A cursory glance around doesn't indicate anything to hold onto to brace- nothing to strap themselves into.]

But if it does, does that mean this [Ship? Lifeform?] thing's using us as batteries?

[When? How? If they weren't very possibly about to die, he'd be taking far more pains to sound out these questions. But for now, this elderly gentleman in strange clothes only gets that.]

CLOSED / Zack continuation

[bravers]

Gotta be. No reason why this floor'd be different from the others.

[Aside from the anti-grav field but...

Shinra.
He feels Zack's grip tense as he speaks, and something else in him seems to... feel it. It's weird. He can't describe what exactly in him suddenly responds to Zack's shift in emotion. It's like trying to describe a new colour which has never been seen before, or a new sense that's just spontaneously, incredulously there.

It's their link. But he doesn't know that. So all he can do is squeeze his wrist, carefully, and wonder just why his fingers're subconsciously straining to lightly stroke at his skin as he does so. Reassurance, right?

And he answers.]

But if they're not doing this, then who?

[A stupid question, he's sure. One that neither of them should have any sort of answer for, but... it needs asking. Just like so many other things. Freedom, for a start.

But. Mid intake of breath, mid-mental structuring of his enquiry and... there's an explosion. Not on this floor, thankfully, but he's feeling anything but thankful as the ship suddenly lurches to the side, and the pair of them are thrown against a wall, bouncing off it, against another, and another, all the way until momentum's finally extinguished. ]

Shit-!

[Anyone else would be knocked out. He's sure. But it's not so easy for them. He's still conscious, and the way Zack's body is moving indicates the same for him. The lights are immediately cut- and his only light source, for a moment, is the faint blue glowing of Zack's.

Until the emergency lighting kicks in. Then, an announcement. His eyes are wide.]

...Could take advantage of all this and make a run for it now. But if we're really in space...

[Where could they run to?]

...Your call.

[1st]

[ zack takes pause, contemplative as his features set into something firmer. this had been worlds apart from the lifestream; the feeling, altogether, was different in its entirety. there was no peace, no freedom here, just a vacancy and a lull. ]

I don’t know, [ zack admits. his brows knit together, jaw clenching a little. ] but we’ll figure it out later. For now—

[ there’s a burst of sound. as they come crashing against the walls violently, zack’s eyes blow out, a mesh of panic and adrenaline wracking his body.

instinctively, he’s already launched forward to grab at cloud’s shoulders and anchor him against himself. his body acts before his mind, as though he couldn’t envision any other possibility or course of action.

it doesn’t matter, really, because they both come down with a thud. pain surges through his body; for a moment, the room goes dark. he can hear cloud’s breathing against him, the steady crawl of his heartbeat. the glow of their eyes cuts through the darkness.

light floods back into the room. zack is quick to straighten his back, now in a defensive stance. ]

Let’s make a break for it. [ he says, eyes determined. ] This is our chance.

[bravers]

[This is a bad idea. This is a really bad idea. If they're in the middle of space then there's nowhere to escape to, even if they found an escape pod, what would happen? A few days of drifting in space before their oxygen ran out, or they ran out of water, and then?

All of these things are rational statements.
All of these things would've been retorted, shittily at that, should anyone have come up with it.
All of these things are things that should go through anyone's head in this sort of situation.

But they don't.
They don't even go through his head. Not with him. Not when he's talking about escape, not when everything inside him knows to go with him, to stay with him.

So as he eyes him in blinking red emergency lighting:]

Right. Yeah. Let's go.

[As Zack releases him, and gets up, he drags himself up after a few seconds- staying close. Whatever emergency measures the ship's under seems to have given them gravity, at least. So. As he reaches for his Hardedge and holds it in one hand, as his other reaches for Zack's own, sliding into it, securely-]

Can't get separated.

[They can't.

He moves forward at a run- their feet clattering on the metal floor. Door after door after door moves past them. Each identical. Each locked, as evidenced by the red glyphs overlaying them. Until one opens.

Inside...
Is a room.
With a series of monitors, equipment. But more curiously, it looks like there's people inside, too. The crew, maybe? But wait- why do they look just as confused as he feels?

His hand tightens on Zack's.]

...You see any other doors?

[secreteary]

Hold hands? What on earth is that-- No, wait, bad choice of phrase-- How is that supposed to help anything? Are we going to sing hymns like a church retreat?!

[even despite his protests, Martin is looking around for the closest person (can he even guarantee that these are 'people' in the sense he thinks of?) to hold hands with, grimacing at them half apologetically, half insolently.]

That thing knows better than me, I guess. [he holds out his hand, even if there's a little reluctance, before yelling at the agender being.] We're going to get an explanation later!