( open ) our ag wing's back and you're gonna be in trouble (hey now! hey now! our ag wing's back)

[initiates]

Date & Time: October 31st, 3313, 11:59PM - November 3rd, 3313, ????
Location: Agriculture Wing, Moon Base to start. Cafeteria, warehouse, docking bay, VR rooms, Transport Pad, or Observatory later on.
Characters: Any & all!
Summary: Space Zombies are allowed out of the Agriculture Wing, slowly revving up their systems to try and infect and absorb as many of the Transports (or 12 Initiative Members) as possible.
Warnings: Log will be locked for potentially graphic violence. Please warn in threads should the violence or gore become graphic.
Notes: Specify a date and location in your top comment. You may specify multiple dates/locations. Specify a time if you wish as well.

Everything is a success at first, from the cool rush of air out of the Agriculture Wing once the doors are fully unlocked, to the heady sense of accomplishment for finally moving forward on something good for the long-term usability of the Moon Base. It's intended to remain a resource, after all, but not be a permanent home. Fraying tempers and the sense of cabin fever descending on Transports continues to showcase how important it is to get back down on Earth to regain some breathing room.

There's little enough dust between all the unmoving, unlit structures, many even supporting the barest dried husks of what once grew there. Upon the lightest touch, they disintegrate, turning into a dust that falls to the ground. The silent rows will be reclaimed and turned into functioning units, based on Transport efforts, and Transport time invested in the project.

There's just one problem. Something stirs in the reclaimed wing, among tangles of hosing and wiring. Skitterings and movements that make no sense for a long abandoned Moon Base. The further in Transports go, relying on magic or technology to generate light past the bare minimum maintained by the base, the more disturbing sights they may run into.

Of course, the most disturbing of all might be lying just around the far corner -- but don't worry, it's only a flesh wound. Try not to get surprised in the machinery, caught suffering from not looking up or caught making out with anything unsavory this holiday season, Transports. We need all of you to stay alive!

We can't bring you back right now!

Comments

[affectate]

Regardless -- I must say that you are simply incorrect.

You, in a state of absorbing knowledge about this place, also bear the title of "student." Every time that you befriend a new person or come across a flower that you've yet to meet, you find yourself with more knowledge than you held previously. You actively seek out friends and flowers, Mr Chareau de Red. You are, as a result of this, someone that could be referred to as a student of friendship and flowers.

You are a student, and I am a student as well, even in my first year of university!

[inhumanity]

[Christopher doesn't even consider it this time.] Bored! [And he throws the knife at her throat in the interests of severing her wind pipe.

No more talking about students!]

[affectate]

[Second verse, same as the first. She either doesn't bother dodging or just completely neglects to do it right because she's too stupid -- so she goes down a second time. That feeling rises up again like bile in the throat, but never actually reaches a 'peak' like vomiting. It hits a certain point and then dissipates like smoke, wound probably mostly healed underneath the blood.

And she just kind of rolls over on her side and grumbles a little in some language or another. Probably French. Nothing impolite, just effectively "booooooooooooooooooooooooooo"]

... If I have done something to offend you, Mr Chareau de Red, then you should simply tell me so.

[inhumanity]

[This time, he giggles and stoops to take the knife away himself.] You've done something truly heinous, friend. It's a crime that only my magnanimity allows me to overlook.

You bored me.

[And with a cheerful laugh, he helps her up by yanking her to her feet.] Worry not! I can look past it because the affection that I hold for you runs as deep as our friendship. Hold on, that's pretty shallow. I shan't let the truth deter me! I can forgive you because I want to believe our affection runs that deep.

[affectate]

[She's pulled up pretty effortlessly, not really putting up any resistance herself -- but he'll also probably notice she's not that heavy to begin with.]

You should inform me of these things prior to making the choice to kill me. Furthermore... is our relationship truly that shallow? I suppose that's certainly true. While you do take precedence over many others in this place as a person so thoroughly like myself, I could not honestly say that I would consider our friendship a deep one.

I look forward to developing a more intimate bond, however!

[inhumanity]

[He smiles gently at her.] It's shallow by necessity. Didn't you know? Monsters like us can't form bonds like that.

[And then he laughs again and pats her on the head.] Don't worry! Regardless of our monstrosity, we can emulate friendship together.

[affectate]

[Meanwhile, her smile just kind of. It doesn't disappear or fall so much as it dies and immediately starts to rot and fester right on her face. The upturning of the corners of her mouth could technically be called a smile.

And I mean. It's genuine. It's more genuine than that usual blithe not-all-there expression on her face, but it's not the genuinely happy smile he saw earlier, either.]

Yes, that's right. I'd nearly forgotten.

However, Mr Chareau de Red -- for you and I, the very bottom of the pit we've chosen to call "friendship" is far off even still. We may become far better friends, if only to a certain extent.

[inhumanity]

[Christopher puts his hand on her head and pats her.]

My apologies. I didn't realize that you had forgotten.

[affectate]

It's far simpler to forget than you would imagine.

[It doesn't take a lot, honestly. Just some kindnesses here and there from humans similar enough to you in experience. Imagine. Her, being just as human as anyone else. Next they'd tell her she can feel love like them. She's human and has worth and emotions like humans and there's a bridge they'd like to sell her, too.

She leans into his hand a little. As much as she can, anyway.]

[inhumanity]

I think it's something that I'd say is impossible for me to forget, so . . . I suppose I forgot that other people forget to remember? [He laughs a little, patting her hair. He really didn't mean to hurt this girl like this. He was just putting shoring his ruined walls with fragments. He'd like to make Elaine feel a little better for a moment, if he could.]

[affectate]

[And she just goes quiet for a while. No talking, no noise or anything, she just sort of stands and lets him pat her head. Her hair feels nice.

After a few minutes:]

... Forgetting wasn't quite so bad as I had thought it to be. Have you made any attempt to do so?

[inhumanity]

I think I must have, a long time ago. [Christopher smiles softly, and his mind calls up the feel of a flower stem in his hands, the faint fragrance of a daisy, five petals and frozen muscles and pain in his hands.

His mind stops and turns another path. He laughs.] Perhaps I forgot about that instead!

[affectate]

... That is the sort of thing that would be best forgotten, I suppose.

[And she goes quiet again. There's a question she was asked all of once, years ago by a forgotten name and face.

... Right. Right now, that's probably appropriate.]

Are you all right?

[inhumanity]

My, what kind consideration. [Christopher crouches to they're at eye level. He tilts his head and smiles widely.] Perfectly.

Now, why don't we take this moment and put it in a box. Then we can put the box in the ocean, and the ocean will remember it as well forget. Isn't that amazing? Because Nature is so vast and powerful, it can take on anything from us. [He doesn't want her to be sad.]

[affectate]

[Her eyes go a little wide seeing his teeth from so close, at an angle this easy. It's not fear or revulsion, just wonder. Like the way people's eyes light up seeing puppies or kittens. Only for that moment, though.

She understands. He doesn't want to talk about this.]

... All right.

In some ways, Mr Chareau de Red, it is comparable to a death by drowning. The miraculous thing about the ocean is its ability to wash away all things, carrying them either to far shores or the unexplored bottom of the sea. Regardless, because they leave little trace of their existence, they're easily forgotten. That moment is very much the same.

[inhumanity]

[Christopher giggles. (He is glad for that shift in her eyes, that happier expression.)] Are you saying that you'd like the ocean to pick your bones clean? Wow, what a morbid personality.

[As if that were not patently obvious already.]

[affectate]

Yes. I had thought that, when I finally did die, I would have my corpse set adrift in the cleanest body of water possible. Decked in my favoured flowers and a dress of white cotton, weighed down by stones, I would sink to the bed.

[It would probably be pretty worrying that someone so young had their funeral planned out entirely, but.

Well, she's already obviously fucked up so.]

[inhumanity]

[He laughs, shaking his Elaine.] What a beautifully artificial way of returning your body to nature. I applaud you. You've moved me to my feet. [He steps forward.] But it's much better to think about how you're going to return other people to Nature's embrace.

[affectate]

Ah, thank you... but as I have said, Mr Chareau de Red, I have had quite enough of murder.