[MINGLE] PLOT: Down the Tubes: Alarm

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: The bunker & elsewhere
WHEN: 1 September 2018
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Please warn on threads
NOTES: Plot Details | Bunker Details | Bunker Map & Key
Threads may take place ANYTIME during the plot, including before, during and after the tubes have been opened, just please do not godmod tube arrivals without explicit permission. Related threads not in the bunker are welcomed, as are general bunker exploration/reaction threads that have nothing to do with the arrivals. Please reference the bunker key doc for what is and isn't available to explore at present.

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Deep under the mountain, tucked away in the newly-discovered bunker complex, there is a room where everyone begins. It is filled with equipment — Computer consoles, monitors — but the point of it all resides within ten vertical stasis tubes lined neatly along a far wall.

One of them has been cracked and lies dormant, dry. In six of the remaining are bodies, unconscious and floating in their familiar vari-colored scrubs, vital signs ticking calmly off on their respective readouts.

In the corner, near the cracked tube, the ceiling has shattered and tumbled inward, across the floor and over the largest console in the room — The one flashing 24 HOURS UNTIL STASIS FAILURE.

Comments

[oorah]

[ his gaze fills with wetness, both glad he isn't alone and sad that she had to remember that. frank just shakes his head. ]

It wasn't your fault.

[ it feels like his burden alone to bear, people dying at his feet over and over again. he had desperately given her cpr, long after he knew she was gone. and yet there was a part of him still who knew she would come back. he allows her to get closer even while entirely too scared to bridge the rest of the gap himself. ]

Are you... [ okay. what a dumb question. frank looks down at his shoes instead of finishing it. ]

[copingskills]

I know.

[She knows there's something outside of herself that's mostly responsible for what happened, but it's hard to place blame on something so invisible and out of reach.

But the fact that he had tried, cared enough to check on her, that meant something to her. It helped, even if only a little.]

I will be. [She wasn't right now, might not be for a while, but she knew she'd get there. Not normal, not fine, but 'okay.'] I just wish I knew why. Or how I ended up here.

[oorah]

[ it's one thing to know and another thing entirely to internalize. he knows the latter will take time, if she ever gets there. and if she does, she'll be ahead of him by miles. ]

Yeah... that's what we all wanna know. [ he looks around the room idly and swallows before focusing back in on her. ] I'm Frank, by the way.

[copingskills]

[She only knows because she's had to do it before, and being 'okay' is relative. It means surviving, it means not giving up. This isn't the first time she's died. It isn't even the most violent.

It's only the latest.

It was still easier than watching it happen to someone else.]

I'm Elena.

[She tries a small smile, but it falls flat.]

[oorah]

[ he nods, the same kind of twitchy smile coming across his lips only to abort itself, too. ]

Nice to meet you, Elena. [ his eyes pinch together at the corners, sincerity dripping from his tone. ] They used you - to open this place. So that we'd find it.

[ it makes him doubt everything inside as a result, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't learn all there is to learn from it, the same. ]

It's important you remember it wasn't your fault. You couldn't control it.

[ he speaks with the weight of a man who's been forced to do things, too. a man whom it haunts. a man who blames himself. ]

[copingskills]

I tried to.

[But she hadn't been strong enough. The pull of the lake had been too much and it took what it wanted.

At least it gave them something in return.]

But if it meant we'd find these other people in time to save them, then I can live with that.

[oorah]

Yeah, I know.

[ it's how frank thinks as well so he can't exactly fault her, as much as he wants to be the hypocrite right about now. ]

Do you think they were really gonna die? Might've been another trick.

[copingskills]

It's possible. We were down here after all, and there was definitely some damage to the room.

[She wants it to be true, if only to make her feel like killing her had some kind of purpose.]

Or maybe it was just a way to get everyone down here. I don't know if we'll ever really get the truth.

[oorah]

[ he nods. ] Yeah, me either.

[ but that doesn't mean they give up, right? isn't that what he said? ]

What can we do other than look for it anyway though?

[copingskills]

[That causes the smallest of smiles, quickly fading, to creep onto her lips.]

That's usually my line. [Normally she'd be the first person looking through whatever they could find trying to figure it out, but...] I'll leave it to you guys just this once.

[oorah]

[ he just barely holds back the eye roll honestly. ]

Now you're stealin' my lines.

[ there's not a chance in hell he wants to creep around this place any longer than necessary. in fact, he's probably be gone already if he hadn't seen her. ]

[copingskills]

[She's not going to be sticking around any longer than she has to, it's just been more of a matter of getting her mind and body back together before doing anything strenuous.

Surely there are plenty of other people totally ready to take one for the team for both of them.]

Thanks for checking on me.

[A way to let him know he doesn't have to stay if he wants to bail.]