text | un: m.cabrera

[naloxone]

[ turns out? space doesn't give a single fuck about your circadian rhythm. or maybe insomnia is just that attached to her that even the absence of a sun dictating her internal clock doesn't faze it, like an old friend you wish would just forget you already.

one night (?) late into the early hours (???) marta finds herself drifting out of the room she's come to assume will be hers for the indefinite future, passing through stark white walls with all the sterility of a hospital, but none of its familiar chaos.

she's still getting used to the earpiece. still getting used to hearing other people's voices in her head. she doesn't mean to add another in the void, but one of her own thoughts blares out too vividly as she stares out into an actual void: ]

—but where are the stars?

Comments

audio; un: doctor.disco

[attackbrows]

[Typical sleep schedules for chumps. In space, it's always the witching hour.]

Have you ever tried having a rave alone with a glow stick?

You and several billion others spread across throughout the room at varying distances. It is one big cosmic get together for solo dancing.

text; un: kovacs

[kovach]

[ what's a normal sleep schedule anyway? it's always insomnia o'clock here in the existential space station. ]

Could be far enough out that they don't exist here.
A few billion light years off from the nearest.

--> gee i guess we're audio now

[naloxone]

[ yeah, she doesn't know if she'll ever get used to this. ]

Is... that how many of us are here?

[ let's just focus on one thing at a time, yeah? ]

[naloxone]

[ it's like filling a station with people full of regrets is a bad idea or something. no way will they at all be bad influences on each other. ]

Is that how space works?
I've only ever seen it in TV. Movies.
Out in the country, you see so many stars so close together, I guess it never hit me that they could be so lonely.

[ —that's. that's not what she meant to say. ]

...far apart. I didn't realize they could be so far apart.

someone's too busy to brain text

[attackbrows]

[He’ll respond to that question with another question.]

Do you really think over a billion people are aboard this station?

is brain texting harder than speaking...

[naloxone]

I don't know, I haven't seen the entire station.

[ a beat. ]

Have you?

#showerthoughts

[attackbrows]

[Well, that’s a clear cut:]

No.

[But he’s some thoughts. The sort of thoughts you have around midnight and haven’t stopped googling since.]

But a station this size can’t withhold the gargantuan population of an entire planet. For one, you’d need a bigger kitchen for that. Last we need is a civil war over who ate the last morsels of cornflakes.

text ↪ un: 朱

[blackfire]

There are stars visible in the Sunlight Room during the station's night cycle should you wish to see them.

( he assumes both newcomer and nostalgia — and of course provides the utilitarian response. )

[kovach]

[ this is an absolutely normal compilation of people and nothing will in any way ever go wrong. ]

Don't usually hear people concerned about lonely stars.

[ yeah, he caught that. not a great save, marta. ]

Space travel tends to advance pretty rapidly over the years, depending on when you're from. Ending up isolated from clusters of planets and starts seems plenty likely.

Especially if we're supposed to be holding these orbs hostage.

pls tell me that's not why he's busy

[naloxone]

[ she knows he's probably being facetious, so she doesn't feel too bad responding with, ] I don't think cornflakes are that valuable. Maybe if they were frosted.

[ but anyway. from the way he talks she can at least surmise: ]

You've been here awhile? You... know how this all works?

[naloxone]

[ what do you mean, that was completely smooth on her part. especially how she just breezes on past that comment— ]

Hostage?

[ orbs? ]

So... when that voice asked if we were willing to do "anything"...

[naloxone]

[ newcomer, nostalgia, melancholy... pick your poison. she'd never been big on stars before, but suddenly they're gone. suddenly she's learning to miss them. ]

They're not real there though, right? Nothing in there is...

[kovach]

Guessing you're one of the new ones.

[ oh, how he remembers the days. popping in and not have the clearest memory of what the fuck he signed up for. ]

I'm not really the manual book guy around here, but the short of it is that, yeah, you made a deal with the orbs to help them get their shit back together or something and we bring them back here to this station where they're locked up to keep from doing more damage, while we sit around for weeks in between waiting for mission after mission.

[ a+ newbie pep talk. ]

[blackfire]

No. The room is （ discomfiting. he prefers to circumvent it when he can. ） the result of illusory technologies.

[naloxone]

[ that's — definitely not the "help" she thought she had agreed to. but to be fair, she hadn't really any clue what she was hearing was even real to begin with. when you're lacking sleep and stressed out and wallowing in the guilt you keep swallowing back all day to be okay — delusions, deals with the devil, desperation... that's just to be expected, right? ]

This happens a lot.
New people coming in. Not knowing.

[naloxone]

I guess if you told me it was, I would have believed you anyway.
If they can bring me — us — here like this... why can't there be a real meadow in the middle of a space station.
Why not, right?

text; un: stargirl

[bossily]

[finally. someone that wants to talk stars with her!!]

Oh, they're always out there. Just not in the same way you may remember from back home. We're in a star system far from whatever you may remember. One that's likely never been discovered or explored before. Could even exist in a pocket universe where stars are far and few between. But if you ever find yourself missing the sight of them, I recommend giving the sunlight room a try.

It's beautiful late at night when everyone else is sleeping.

[blackfire]

Would you have preferred the lie?

（ some people do. he understands the allure of living in one's own reality, perhaps better than most. ）

The amount of water required to maintain a nonessential natural space would likely be considered frivolous. We are not here to enjoy ourselves.

[kovach]

Memory starts to get less foggy after a while.

[ but the way she says it — yeah, there's probably plenty of concern for their questionable methods in getting people to agree to the deal in the first place. ]

But yeah. Every month or two.
You're just the latest fresh meat.

nah lmao he is casually sticking his head inside the freezer

[attackbrows]

[Only you lot and your dusty sugar flakes.

But very well, the Doctor’s yet to do any welcome wagon-ing with any of the recent bunch. ]

Long enough to know that we have only scratched the surface to figuring how any of “this” works.

[Quick beat.]

Or are you referring to how to operate the microwave?

[naloxone]

[ she hadn't really felt anything about them before; one of those things she took for granted, just passing moments of noticing and momentary appreciation. but her attention would always be pulled back down to earth, a place that suddenly seems so very, very small in comparison.

so what does that make her? ]

Is it still comforting? Even if the stars there aren't real, or don't look like the ones you know.

...there is now a weird echo to their conversation

[naloxone]

[ welp. she supposes she should have expected that kind of answer. silly of her to think that kind of information would come easy.

if she sounds a little tired in response, it's only because she is. ]

The microwave is one of the few things that looks familiar to me, so no.

But if you'd like help with it, I guess I could start being useful here.

[bossily]

[Clara's getting the impression this person is likely new here. And probably new to the whole space thing, which she feels sympathetic about. She can still remember the overwhelming feeling she had the first time she had popped off on an adventure with the Doctor. The wonder and excitement, but also the incredibly humbling realization of just how small and insignificant your entire planet is in the grand scheme of things.]

I've seen so many different stars before coming here. For me, the sunlight room ones are almost as lovely even knowing they aren't real.

I've named just about all the stars that are projected here. Mapped constellations and named those too. I wouldn't mind pointing them all out, if it'd help you feel a bit of comfort and familiarity.

[naloxone]

Fresh meat, hostages, locking up orbs from doing damage.
I don't know what they were thinking I could do to help, whoever spoke to me.

[ somehow, her heavy sigh doesn't translate itself into text. maybe sleep's finally calling to her, or something like it, because she's starting to lose her hold on her thoughts— ]

I need coffee.
Or a drink.

[naloxone]

No.

[ that much, she can answer without hesitation. ]

But they're still trying to offer some kind of comfort.
Whoever brought us here.