Multiple Settings Beneath the Stars' Gaze [IC]

[Risotoo]

...

 

[Risotoo]

✧ PRELUDE TO PARANOIA ✧​

Three months have passed now—that's what you've been told, anyway—and the road to your recovery has been smooth-going. Though your body may still occasionally fail you, haunting you with phantom pains every now and then, the metaphorical rust that's been gathering in your gears is slowly being purged from you. Noah, the Watcher, has made sure that your every essential need is met. He's completely at your beck and call, caring for you as if you were a loved one of his, for the first half of every week. But once Thursday rolls around, he's completely gone from the area.

The first time it happened had been terrifying. All of you had still been frail, having just woken up from your sleep, but you all roused yourselves to search for any trace of him. Only to find... nothing.

Just as you had accepted your fates, he returned, with a hefty sack of food. According to him, he had left a note explaining that he was going on a supply run. You hadn't found any of the sort, but that didn't matter. The relief had been far greater to cause you any doubt at that point.

Recently, though, that same fear has returned, with Noah being absent from the area. This wouldn't usually surprise you—he might just be restocking supplies. You soothed yourself, believing that he'd always make it back for you all. But a trip that should have been a few days has now stretched to a full two weeks.

It's around this time that your paradise started to crumble, for his absence has rendered your rations finite. Up until now, the idea of losing Noah hadn't been a possibility you've seriously considered, not since the first time. Here, paranoia and desperation dance in tandem, as little by little, your morale drifts and the food dwindles to but a crumb.

It's only a matter of time before you do too.

 

[Risotoo]

The fluorescent bulbs glared above the common area, casting a sharp contrast on all faces; the perfect complement to their grim moods. Silently, the whole group sat around the dining table, plates completely empty, save for half a granola bar.

Their final supper.

Some partook of their last meal without much fanfare, others sat in contemplation, only one question at the forefront of their mind. Where is Noah?

It's not unusual for Noah to go missing. "It's really a supply run," he would say at every return, carrying sacks of rations with him, "only reason why it takes a few days is 'cause there's only ruins to scavenge."

And yet, it's been more than a few days. Weeks have passed, and still no sign of his return; already, the growing seeds of doubt and desperation began to take root. Thoughts initially of concern for the Watcher—of whether he was alright and unharmed, of his fate—soon turned to that of doubt and hostility towards their absent guardian.

Was he watching from on-high, looking upon their gaunt faces with malicious glee? Had he intended this? To care for them all, so much so that they could only ever depend on him, only to rip it so cruelly? To leave the ground crumbling underneath their very feet?

These questions taunted them, their persisting hungers the food to nourish those whispers into deafening screams.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧​

It took much for the group to last this long. (Much of it being thanks to Xavier, of course.) One such measure involved the conservation of whatever energy they had left by staying absolutely still. Xavier had initially proposed the idea himself, but even he found it difficult to follow-through, itching to move after the hours spent doing, well, nothing.

Plink...

He sat up, slowly, at first, his joints popping into place as he groggily surveyed the area, a small hope, still burning, that Noah's ursine figure might just be amongst the furniture.

Pristine white walls encircled the surroundings, each set with a greyish frame at the bottom. The tiles securing the floor matched its tint to a certain degree, as well, though it was tinged with the sort of yellow one could only assume was from age. At the corner of the room, many beanbags piled precariously atop one another, almost like a pillow fort of sorts. No Noah in sight.

Plink...

It can't all end like this, can it? In this miserable state? Everything must be fine. Noah was going to return, bringing bags of steak and roast chicken, and they were going to feast like kings tonight. Xavier would return to his makeshift little bed, sleeping as soundlessly as he had before. Noah was just on a detour, right? Right?

Plink...

He took a swig from his cup, a small attempt to drown his growing anxieties, but quickly choked, his mouth awash with some strange taste, as if someone had poured him a glass of pure insect repellent. Looking into the cup, the waters, to his shock, had a sickly brownish hue.

Plink.

"Nnhgah! What the hell is this?!" he snapped. "I can't take this anymore...! Everything's gone to shit! I need something else. Not this shitty bar, not this shitty water. I'm so fucking hungry, I can't handle this, I... I can't..." Gasps of air interrupted his rants, his resolve quickly breaking down. After a week of silence and starvation, what else could he do but succumb to the chains of despair? The thoughts that he had so desperately pushed to the corners of his mind began to gush in, his sanity, like their supplies, completely unravelled.

Though the last vestiges of it remained in his hand, it wasn't enough to sate his emaciated self. If anything, it was an insult, one that, in his madness, he crushed between his hands.

He started to get up, to hide himself before the tears could roll, but quickly regretted it. There, in his fractured mind, an aching thrum that robbed him of his air, leaving him wheezing, grappling unto the chair for purchase.

"We... We have to find a way out. We have to... I... Shit, I can't—" His vision faded in and out.

COMMENCING INVESTIGATION PERIOD​

 

[xayah.]

/*title that will appear on top banner*/

in all the world, there is no heart for me.

/*left box*/

/*beginning of tabs*/

• mood
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• how are you feeling?
  
  
  
  starving & annoyed
• what are you wearing?
  
  
  
  this
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  the bunker
• interacting with: Risotoo & starving with panicatmyfallout A A Bottle of Memories Severia JoUhWrites jrink

/*tab covers*/

aimee im

/*blobs -- change filter to reveal gray blobs or use transform:hue code to change colour*/

/*right side (scroll)*/

breathe in. close your eyes. count to five. breathe out. repeat.
i can't fucking do this anymore.
immediately sitting up on and getting off what could only be called a sorry excuse for a mattress, the now annoyed female channeled her frustrations into combing back her onyx black hair with her hands. well, she tried to at least. in the month or so that aimee had been awake—time was so incredibly difficult to keep track of in here—she had found herself and others in the care of a man who called himself noah. from the moment her eyes opened, besides struggling to readjust to the sudden appearance of light, there was one thing that caught her attention immediately: a haggard looking man gazing over her practically immobile body with a gaze that seemed fond and adoring, almost too fond. not that she, or the others if they felt the same, could say anything about it. noah was their saviour, their lifeline. every time someone woke from an almost coma-like state, noah would nurse them back to being able to function alone. it wasn't an overstatement to say that without noah, the group would die off painfully and slowly.
and now that he was gone... that death was coming closer and closer. sure, maybe noah hadn't provided everything they desired, like a damn hair brush for aimee to deal with her easily tangled and thick hair, but he had brought the necessities. food? clean water? somehow, someway, noah would find enough to keep the group alive. then, halfway through the week, he'd disappear. it scared the hell out of them all the first few times, but after a while, they trusted that he would return and ate their meals together without him.
now... save for the occasional one or two sentences that came out from the others in an attempt to foster a conversation, silence enveloped the entire group, especially at the makeshift dinner table. the only sound was the subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, sound of stomachs grumbling and people mumbling as the entire group stared at a lone nutrition bar. aimee sat slumped over, head leaning on one of her arms, completely unfocused. from the get go, aimee had woken up with a dull light in her eyes, but exacerbated by hunger—no, ravenousness—that light was about to extinguish. so was her patience with the others.
an outburst from xavier shocked her out of her hunger-induced daze. it also annoyed her to no end for no known reason. when she first awoke, something had told aimee that she wasn't the type to worry about others, so she chalked up her boiling frustrations to how the others were causing rations to be divided into smaller portions. in truth, it was more of her subconscious speaking. if something told her she was selfish, then something beneath that was nagging her about the people around her. they felt familiar, in the way you see a childhood friend for the first time in a long time and they've grown up, but she could never quite put her finger on it. her only clue was one recurring dream—maybe more of a nightmare—depicting them all sitting together around a campfire. what they said, laughed, and shared with one another was always inaudible to aimee, and whenever the girl awoke from a miserable slumber on her miserable bed, the dream faded quickly.
however, instead of a campfire, they were now sitting around a pitiful nutrition bar with barely enough crumbs to keep them alive and cracking under the circumstances of their situation. as one of the few people who wasn't expressing themselves externally, aimee had half a mind to tell xavier to sit back down and eat the crumbs and dust in his hand despite not usually talking to any of the others. that was until he began wheezing, knuckles white and tight as he grabbed his seat for balance.
"stop it. you were the one who suggested conserving energy. do you think losing your mind is gonna do that?" as usual, aimee's voice was cold, steely almost, but it wasn't apathetic. beneath it, just like xavier, was a tremor of fear. yes, aimee wasn't as well versed in expressing herself like the rest of them, but she was just as stressed as they were. after all, her brain had been flooded with one thought all day. the others were probably all thinking the same, too.
we can't fucking do this anymore.

/*do not remove credit*/

girl, you know you shine.
coded by weldherwings

 

[JoUhWrites]

Adrien​

“Mom’s right, y’know, eat up and stop playing with your food,” Adrien drawled, voice heavily tinted with faux-parental notes. Despite his words, he himself was sitting poking at the bar, dragging it around on the plate with the hand not being used as a head-rest. Who the fuck had set out plates?, the thought vibrating angrily through his skull, crackling like an old tv-set around the flashes of food food food.

The hunger had been worse during the earlier days, now giving way for a kind of emptiness in the pit of his stomach. Adrien -- who had been through bouts of starvation before -- recognised this as worse; the empty feeling was a signal that the body had understood that it was in a state of starvation, shutting down systems one after one in order to preserve energy. “The creep’s probably watching us through some hidden cameras right now, waiting for us to start drawing lots.” Adrien did not believe that Noah was actually watching them -- he’d probably died during one of his supply runs, or simply gotten bored of whatever experiment he was conducting with them -- but what else was there to do, other than to try and rile the others up? Xavier had proposed the idea of saving calories by sitting their asses down, and though it had made Adrien’s muscles itch, he knew that it was the smartest thing to do.

Adrien wasn’t known for doing the smartest thing. Grabbing hold of the nutrient bar, Adrien shoved it into the front pocket of his jeans and stood up. The ceiling’s fluorescent lights turned blurry from the sudden movement, and he had to grab onto poor Alex’s shoulder in order to not stumble. Ugh. In order to hide the temporary physical weakness, he slapped down hard on the other man’s shoulder - once, twice, three times, in what could be perceived as a “bro”-thing. “So… does anyone have that shitty map on them?” He wasn't sure if the others were as sure of Noah's demise as he was, but... they couldn't stay in the bunker. Not unless they actually wanted to resort to cannibalism. Adrien's gaze quickly flickered down to the hand which was still clutching Alex's shoulder, subconsciously tightening his grip around it

Spoiler

(could probably eat him first?)

before finally letting go.
Adrien had seen the map once - he'd glanced at it, scoffed that the man was no Picasso - and proceeded to put it out of his mind, but now it returned to him. From what he remembered, it had been utterly useless in locating any kind of exit, but...?

Interactions: jrink xayah. (mom lol) Risotoo

 

[Severia]

Renea​

"Nnhgah! What the hell is this?! I can't take this anymore...! Everything's gone to shit! I need something else. Not this shitty bar, not this shitty water. I'm so fucking hungry, I can't handle this, I... I can't..." Ren slowly opened her eyes and looked at the origin of the outburst. Finishing her "meal" the moment she received it without a single word or complaint, followed by closing her eyes and then remained in that position until it's time for the next meal, falling asleep like that or when someone else talked to her. Such was a protocol that she strictly followed after Xavier told everyone to conserve energy. Yet, ironically, look at that man now.

In any other circumstance, the brunette would have joined Aimee and Adrien. Maybe even teasing Xavier a bit and lifting the mood of everyone here, but right now Ren didn't feel like spending any energy to keep up her friendly and sociable facade. "Access to sufficient food and water are a condition for stable social development and peaceful coexistence." was what she heard years ago from that person who taught her so much, and it was at this moment that she finally experienced it firsthand. Now that she is exhausted and hungry, the upfront she put together in order to socialize is crumbled and her true apathetic nature would soon be exposed. After all, Renea Gratiano was definitely not a bright, friendly, and adventurous tomboyish girl full of wholesome happiness like she projected herself to be in the past few months.

After making sure Xavier only ran out of breath and energy and didn't need any medical help, Ren closed her eyes again. For her, emptying her mind was always a piece of cake, even in a situation like being violently thrashed or when there's a tip of a knife a millimeter away from her eyeball. That was supposed to be the case, but perhaps today was her bodily limit, or maybe it was the air everyone else was emitting, the thoughts about that familiar bearded face started to pop up in her mind.

What's exactly going on with Noah? Ren still remembered the day when she opened her eye in that cold room and met him. Receiving such unexplainable kindness and affection was not the first time for her, so she trusted him right away and would never blame him for whatever she was suffering like what some of them seemed to start doing. But then again, she couldn't deny the fact that this was the first time he went missing this long and his absent had put them in great crisis. Since that seemed to go against what he was doing, it's pretty safe to assume that he won't come back anymore, be it of his own volition or—

"So… does anyone have that shitty map on them?"

Whoops, Ren heard that voice and suddenly came to her senses. Using her brain intensely like that was a waste of bodily glucose, which was also what she avoided ever since Xavier told them to conserve energy. Despite that realization, her train of thought stubbornly continued. Since Noah won't come back anymore, then staying in this place any longer would be no different than committing suicide. Having reached that conclusion, she opened her eyes and cleared her throat.

"Uhmm, I don't have the map"

The short girl spoke up, drawing attention to herself. The fact that she was the one speaking was already a surprise in itself considering how she consistently and efficiently went into hibernation mode right after meals. She then stood up and walked away a bit, before turning back to face the entire group.

"But I think I have memorized all of its details. Not that there's much to remember anyway."

Ren used to starvation from being treated badly and could hide it while maintaining her usual mannerism. Although, in that condition she never needed to do something like motivating anyone before. Continuing in a tone that try to be cheerful and playful, her accumulated fatigue was shown in the voice to some extent. Still, how bad her tone was was totally irrelevant. Whether she actually remembered all the details on the map or not was also irrelevant. Her goal for speaking up was simply to get everyone on the same page as her. Considering that Adrien already asked for the map, it shouldn't be that hard. She cleared her throat again, trying her best to suppress fatigue in her voice and sound as inspiring as she could.

"So while we are at it, what I want to say is I agree with Xavier. Let's find the way out of here and get something to eat!"

 

[Risotoo]

✧ XAVIER ✧​

Breaths escaped him, in burst shorter than the last. In his weakness, he leaned unto something (or someone?) for a moment's comfort. His hands, shaky, slimy, reflexively cupped his face, hoping to trap the air into his lungs with every whispered count.

One, two, three, four... And after a few more, it worked. His chest no longer heaved, desperate to keep itself alive. But even then, the assault on his mind couldn't be dismissed. Not completely. Sweat clung to his hands, and his heartbeat was still rapid.

He gathered the shards of his sanity in his hands, piecing it back together into an imitation of what it once was. But reversing it to its original self was no longer viable, with their destitution leaving chinks for madness to creep through and shatter it once more. Xavier had to be careful. Had to remember himself.

He's an unparalleled genius, his mind with room only for ideas and innovations. Unbothered by these flimsy worries. Not weak.

He's fine. He has to be.

Xavier, eager to forget this episode, shoved himself away from whatever (or whoever?) had stood by him. Arms crossed, he snarled: "Nice to see someone bothers, huh?" Part of Xavier appreciated their non-acknowledgement. It made the breakdown from earlier less real.

Still... Fuck if it didn't hurt. Practically none of them had bothered to give him even a smidgeon of compassion. After their months together, Xavier had hoped for a little more than a pat on the back from one of them and cutting words from the others. Their indifference had been all-too-reminiscent of something, though what that something was...

Well, now wasn't the time to dwell on it.

"You're all seriously trash, y'know?" He sneered, his voice rising an octave without his consent. Immediately, he cleared his throat, willing that vulnerability away. Before anyone could bother interjecting, he left the room, Renea in tow. He's better off dealing with their situation without their toxicity.

"So, Riri. You and me. Tell me the deets of the map on the way, because there's actually somewhere I've been meaning to check out."

Interacting with JoUhWrites jrink Severia xayah.​

 

[Risotoo]

✧ IN FRONT OF THE POD ROOM ✧​

The pod room was rarely open to visitors.

Outside of those recently awakened, Noah kept it strictly off-limits to the rest of the group. According to him, this was to prevent any accidents that might befall them or the machinery inside. But, with The Watcher himself missing, who was there to enforce this rule?

Iron-clad doors halted Xavier and Renea from exploring within, secured somewhat with bright neon tape. Almost as if the area beyond was a crime scene. Embedded upon its steely exterior was an interface, filled with all sorts of nonsensical icons. The corners are cracked, though that doesn't seem to impede its function in any way. Not for the moment, at least.

To your left, white space stretched out, disturbed only by the occasional camera or two. Upon closer inspection, all of them are inactive, as evidenced by the severed wires hanging loosely in the air. Where those once led to is a mystery.

The scene to your right is nearly a carbon copy, though there's the added element of dusty portraits hanging upon its walls. A poor attempt at interior decoration, especially since it's so asymmetrical to the hallway opposite it.

Behind you was no better; crates and couches decorated all corners, outright blocking the path to a darkened passage, and nearly doing the same to the common room. Files and papers speckle the tiled floor, dirt and all staining its words.