[MINGLE] Worried/Sick 1: Symptoms Manifest & Reaction

[sixthiteration]

WHERE: Anywhere; multiple locations
WHEN: Apx. 13-18 November
OPEN TO: ALL - MINGLE
WARNINGS: Serious illness and reactions to such

IMPORTANT NOTES: This is the first of two mingles. Please see the timing and general event details here.

Illness Presents and Putting Heads Together will have their own top-levels in this post, but you may make separate top-levels for whatever you like! Anything is welcome, as long as it tangentially relates to the Worried/Sick plot.

Please keep in mind the established plot details, but creative license is welcome and encouraged as long as it doesn't step on toes.

Comments

[cryptoherpetology]

"And people thought I was odd for questioning the food," Alex remarks and pushes his chair back. He takes off his glasses and sets them down on top of his notes in order to rub his eyes.

"You know, I used to be part of a historical re-enactment society?" he says, apparently out of the blue. "I needed somewhere to keep up my swordsmanship training after I won a few too many fencing trophies. I used to actually like spending time pretending I was living in another era. Clearly, I'm not infected because the parasite that took over my brain and made me think that was fun is manufacturing antibodies."

[thegreatexperiment]

She let out a small, oh-so-lady-like snort. "I can't judge," she said. "I mean, I do judge. But I really can't. Glass houses. I used to go to comic book conventions dressed up like Luke Skywalker. In costumes that I made from fucking scratch." Not all that far removed from historical re-enactment. Maybe less scholarly in some ways. But she sure as hell had studied those patterns and costumes.

With a sigh, she sank back against her own chair.

"If it makes you feel better, I never trusted the food here either. But the fact of the matter is that, after a while, you have to reconcile yourself to the fact that they have a hand in everything. Even catching your own food and baking it, or whatever. They created whatever it was that you caught. You can't really dance around any designs they have for you."

And it fucking sucked. She hated feeling fatalistic, but from a scientific standpoint, she was pretty sure she was right.

[cryptoherpetology]

"You'd get along with my sister and cousins. Antimony's the only one who got into cosplay- which I find hilarious given the hell she gave me for the historical stuff," he says, and starts piling his paper neatly on the table, shaking his head.

"I can't look at this stuff anymore. I'm just hitting brick walls without access to a microscope or anything remotely close to a proper lab." With his glasses still on the table, he puts his head down in his arms for a moment.

"Do we even know who patient zero is?"

[thegreatexperiment]

"I got nothing," Sam admitted. At least, not based on the observations she'd made. She hadn't gone far enough to start asking a lot of questions. Maybe a patient zero could be tracked down. Maybe not. But certainly, there was nothing in her notes that would be of any use for that.

She would pretty much kill for a microscope at this point. She'd spent hours upon hours doodling increasingly elaborate set-ups. Once upon a time, she'd had pseudo-sexual dreams about Luke Skywalker. Now she dreamed only of equipment.

That was weird and she knew it.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. "Trying to trace the lineage of the disease?"

[cryptoherpetology]

He nods. "Identify who got it first, and we can figure out what the source of it is and how exactly it's spreading," he says. "We don't even know if it's viral, bacterial or parasitic. Hell, it could be fungal for all we know."

He sighs. "Willing to share some of your vodka? Greater scientific discoveries have been made over stronger mind-altering substances."

[thegreatexperiment]

"It's made to be shared," Sam said, standing up and stretching her arms up over her head like a cat. She'd been told time and time again that undead bodies didn't get stiff. But she could swear it wasn't true. Karen said that was just because she was young. She hadn't lost certain habits, like breathing and blinking and imagining that her body was still alive.

She nodded her head in the direction of the kitchen. "Walk this way."

And because she couldn't resist, she took an exaggerated march into the kitchen.