i tried ( memshare event )

[skaikru]

Who: clarke griffin & your poor unfortunate soul
What: memories, all alone in the moonlight
When: all of march
Where: wherever you least expect a rift in reality to open up. also space, mount weather, earth...
Warnings: general warnings for blood, violence, murder attempted or completed, genocide, maybe even gross body farming. specific prompts will have their individual warnings listed in the body of this post and any additional ones will be noted in subject headers.




CHILDHOOD ( open )
— enjoy the little things, like watching a kid commit the stupid crime of touching books. no warnings here.

SKYBOX ( karkat, number 6, & open )
— did you know clarke was in prison for a year for treason? conspiracy to commit treason? eh, best summed up as "to keep her quiet". well now you can find out! bonus points, she thinks she's hallucinating. cw: probably some dead dad/execution talk and mention of mild eugenics themes, this is dystopia space after all.

D(ropship) DAY ( rita & open )
— when 100 kids are pretty certain they're about to be prematurely executed, one or two's likely to fight back. abby griffin cameo! cw: see above warnings.

QUARANTINE ( darcy, palamedes, & open )
— witness clarke gone absolutely feral, and her first escape attempt from body harvesters she doesn't know are body harvesters yet mount weather. cw: some self harm, blood, violence, potential body horror depending on how the thread goes.

LEVERS ( open but requires plotting )
— join clarke in committing a genocide! cw: genocide!! (also mentions of torture and body farming) this can also partially serve as a cinematic experience for your character, but please respond with some sort of reaction just so i know who saw it.

AIRLOCK 5 ( semi-closed to natsuno, but hmu ooc if you're interested )
— no one likes being faced with their demons. but sometimes those demons set up creepy music boxes and lure you into watching your friends being murdered. cw: violence, attempted (or successful! threads of fate can be changed) murder

THE CITY OF LIGHT ( open )
— when you show an a.i. a picture of the greater metropolitan new york, but she cleans it up and also makes it a hivemind that you have to infiltrate. cw: violence, some creepy hivemind shit, will warn further for anything else.

AFTERMATH ( open )
— your all purpose aftermath wildcards! wanted a memory i mentioned in the plotting post but it didn't make the cut? still available upon request! request starters or throw up your own

Comments

CHILDHOOD

[skaikru]

( aboard the ark there are twelve stations. and this is alpha.

it's still a time-worn mess of spaceships mashed together in an attempt to survive the end of the world, but the expansive viewing deck you've just stepped into out of the rift is relatively well maintained. it's an open space, with large windows paneling almost the whole far wall and beyond that? the stretch of space. jet black nothingness pinpricked with a few stars, the swirl of still-distant cosmos, and the green or orange hue of planets. they're rotated away from earth currently, but the bright white of clouds on the ground still reflect of the metal various solar arrays and the prominent ring shape of the go-sci station. the lights are low but certain features are still easy to make out.

there's a podium with a bonsai tree on it. a large plaque of metal that seems displayed as if in memorial, but the writing is too small to see without going right up to it. there's a cylindrical glass case between the two, lit from beneath and casting shadows over ancient — well worn but well preserved — books. actual books.

the rest of the wing is mostly empty, like it might serve as a mingle spot for the masses. or... a certain subsection of the masses. the higher class.

but only mostly. because there are, in fact, two small figures crouched beside the book case. just children, really. they're somewhere around the age of seven, dressed in shapeless, worn fabric that looks like it's been cut and restitched from larger garments. they're knelt on the ground, a thin tablet illuminated between their knees, but they're not focused on reading the text it displays.

there's a very heated, hushed discussion happening here that you just happen to stumble upon. )

This is a bad idea.

Did you get the code from your dad or not?

We could get floated for this.

No one's going to float us. We're just kids. ( ...the little blonde girl pauses, and very visibly second guesses her previous self assurance. she brings a hand to her mouth and starts to chew on a nail. ) I mean, we're not going to get caught.

( and the little boy just sighs and shakes his head. ) We should just study for the play.

Wells — please? There could be pictures in there, I just want to know what they looked like...

let's fondle some books

[hellonspectacles]

[Palamedes may have grown up on a space station, but he has never seen anything quite like this view before. The Library was barely 50 million kilometers from the unforgiving heat and light of Dominicus, after all; windows were unrealistic, downright dangerous. Palamedes has seen the blackness of space through viewscreens, and through the windows of the shuttle that had carried him to Canaan House, but never has he experienced its majesty and purity like this before.

Awestruck, he stops and stares, not yet entirely aware of his surroundings or the world he has wandered into.]

[skaikru]

( palamedes has a good amount of time to stand and stare, and ponder the vast depth of space unbothered. the two kids haven't realized they're not alone anymore, and should honestly work on their vigilance if they're going to commit space crimes. but at this point in their lives, that's never really been a concern. they've been safe and well cared for as best as one can be at the end of the world; they're comfortable, this is their home.

but eventually the whispered murmurings of an argument are bound to burst pal's bubble of wonderment, and leak into his ears over the constant low whir of the ark engines. )

There's pictures of horses on the tablets in class.

This isn't about horses, it's about — it's — Well, I can't explain.

Can you try? I wanna know what we're risking our lives here for.

I don't know, maybe there's other stuff in there they aren't teaching us about. Did you get the code or not?

Of course I did, but —

Open the box, Wells.

This is stupid.

Open it.

I'm not —

Opeeeeeen iiiiiiiit.

Clarke, ( with all the exasperation a seven year old can muster. then a beat of silence that's also several long seconds of a staredown. and wells huffs a sigh. next comes the beeping of a six digit code being punched into a keypad, and the slightest hiss as the glass door of the display case eases open. )

SKYBOX

[skaikru]

( you are in a room.

it's stark and grim, in a way that screams sterile confinement but poorly maintained. white paint is chipped off the wall in some space. a red blanket and grey pillow are haphazardly draped across an outcropped bed that's been welded into the wall, and the small lights inlaid in the wall are off. it's only a glow from above that lights the bathes the whole room in a luminous sort of white-blue light.

there is a window in the ceiling that showcases nothing but the deep darkness of space, dotted with stars too bright to be viewed from the ground, and slowly rotating on axis until you see the cusp of a planets edge — bright white clouds, deep blue water, an occasional splattering of green if you squint. that's earth. for those who've never lived on a space station before, the hum and whir of the ships engine probably sounds like a dull roar. the hiss and pump of life support through vents is loud and cold; the air is stale and there's not enough of it to comfortably draw in a full breath.

the walls are absolutely covered in charcoal sketches. scorpions, and the pyramids. the chrysler building and leaves. a trout fish. acorns still attached to twigs. dandelions, lilies, and a large deer. ancient ruins. most look like they could almost be photocopies out of some sort of earth anthology book, but there's inconsistencies in the shading and proportions that speak to creative liberty and an artist still learning.

and there's a girl, prone on the ground but beginning to stir. she seems to have fallen asleep on the floor, indifferent to the cold, hard tile and awkward positioning. she's blonde, dressed in well worn dark pants and a blue shirt that's seen better days and plenty of previous owners. and as she picks up her face, still pressed with lines of sleep, you may recognize a slightly younger clarke griffin. the last vestiges of babyfat on her cheeks, a whole lot less worry lines across her forehead. none of those perpetual bags beneath her eyes, and she looks upon this new stranger with none of the guarded defenses her future self wears on board the serena eterna. )

...oh.

( she seems surprised, but not... scared. possibly because you look or are dressed so far out of her definition of normal that perplexing is taking the forefront of her thoughts. and your sudden appearance almost seems to make a quiet sort of sense, which she sort of goes on to explain with the quiet rumbling hoarseness of someone who hasn't spoken to another person in a long time.

it's been six months of solitary confinement, and — )

I thought I'd last longer before I started hallucinating.

[be_seeing_you]

[Ah. She thinks he is a hallucination. He glances around the space and knows it instantly for what it is... a prison. The drawings suggest she's been confined here for a long time. The hoarseness of her voice suggests that it's been alone.

For now, he chooses not to correct her.]

How long has it been? Are you keeping a tally?

[skaikru]

( it's really... weird, actually. clarke hadn't expected to go flat out insane in here, but hadn't discounted the idea either. but when she'd thought about who or what she might end up imagining so vividly that it felt like she could reach out and touch them, she'd expected the face of someone she knew. her father. maybe her mother. wells. the grandparents that had died from a flu when she'd been too young to even know their names, manifested from the deepest folds of her memory.

but who knows? the population of the ark is approximately 1,200 people, and she doesn't know all of them. plenty of patients crossed her mothers threshold in the medical bay on a daily basis. so the easy acceptance continues. )

As a figment of my imagination, shouldn't you know that?

( contrary to ship clarke, skybox clarke has jokes. a limited reserve, and all fairly morbid. she raises her eyebrows and cocks her head in mock expectancy. )

[neverleave]

[He recognizes this one immediately: Clarke in her solitary confinement cell, sentenced there by her mother. It's amazing how different she looks from his best friend, amazing and sad. It's a small, dark and stale prison cell, and yet she seems more peaceful than the intense, guilt-ridden Clarke he knows.

She thinks he's a hallucination, and Natsuno decides to lean into the role. When he thought he was imagining Rita over his death bed it was almost comforting - maybe he can give Clarke a similarly nice memory. He looks over the drawings that cover every inch of wall and floor, and remarks:]

Looks pretty long to me.

[Hey Clarke, did you think you'd hallucinate a purple haired boy holding a breakfast muffin and a book?]

[skaikru]

( oh, the guilt's still there. it was born on the deck just outside of an airlock not too far from here, and has only festered in these small darkly lit four walls. but it's different, and still incredibly lighter to the guilt that hangs over her head in present; it's only for the death of one person. someone she loved very much, but still just one. and that makes a bigger difference than clarke can comprehend at this point.

it's honestly the purple hair that drives home the face she really must be losing it. purple hair and purple eyes? that's so ridiculous. he looks like what she probably imagined main characters in childhood stories to be like, always something special about them. and the best ones always with a book — a real, paper page and glue binding book — in hand.

this is weird, but not awful. better than talking to her pillow, at least the hallucination talks back.

she thinks hard for a second, as if tallying something up before replying: ) 192 rations or so, meaning... six months and eight days?

( it's some real quick math to plot that out as one soy bean based meal a day. and if math fails, the way her gaze lingers on the food when darting between face, book, and muffin probably also drives that point home. )

D(ropship) DAY

[skaikru]

( from a random hallway on the ship to a hallway.

or rather, a series of levels bordered by railings, and a several story drop below if one were to look over the edge. row after row of doors, accented with a faded red-orange paint and cabin numbers. and the whole setting is alive with an organized sort of chaos. men and women glad in black are hauling kids from the age of twelve to seventeen out of their rooms, ushering them down the walkways to an undetermined location. there's a lot of unanswered questions being shouted — where are you taking us? what is this? get off me! — distant calls for bracelets, and the occasional hum of a shock baton being brandished as a threat.

much closer is the sound of confusion. )

N — no, it's not my time. I don't turn eighteen for another month.

Hold out your right arm.

( turned resistance. )

Just check my file!

Your watch.

No, it was my fathers.

( turned outright scuffle, as the zap of a shock baton goes off and and the commotion of bodies colliding and falling emanates from the cell directly to your right. and all of a sudden, out bursts a seventeen year old clarke griffin. her hair is braided over on shoulder and she's still wearing the ratty black pants and grey-blue sweater from six months earlier. she catches herself on the railing and seems to gaze in horror out across the way for a few seconds before the other guards rally and try to flank her. ) Prisoner 319! ( one shouts, and clarke turns to hecking bolt before another voice calls out — ) Clarke, stop!

( this one belongs to a woman in a long navy coat. she has brown hair and brown eyes, appears somewhere in her early 40's and speaks with the air of command that causes the guards to freeze, and clarke to turn around almost instantaneously. )

Mom? ( the overwhelming emotion on clarke's face is fear. fear of the men dressed in black, fear of the unknown, fear of the overstimulating amount of sound around them as more juvenile delinquents are rounded up with a bit of a fight. and she stares at abby griffin like a scared child in need of a hand to hold while their entire world crumbles. )

Mom, what's going on? What is this? ( abby pushes in, holds up a hand to stave off the guards coming up behind clarke's back, and embraces her daughter. a hand on the back of her head, the other pressed tight between her shoulder blades. but she says nothing yet, and clarke figures out her own answer. whimpers it into her mothers hair as she looks briefly at you, then down the hall as teenage boy is shoved roughly from his cell. )

They're killing us all, aren't they?

aw yeah mama drama

[myagic]

Are you kidding me?!

[Rita's screech probably blends in well with the other teens, even if hers is more exasperated than alarmed. All she did was step out her cabin and right into someone's memory, and if it wasn't so disorienting every time it sure as hell would be getting seriously old.

Ugh. Fine. Fine! Time to just figure out who here's important enough to tail to get this memory to its conclusion--original or otherwise. And, well--that's a little difficult just yet, because it sure is busy here...wherever here is. It's all--dark, and metal, like some kind of technologically-advanced dungeon. And that might be accurate, too, considering...yeah, guards, prisoners, she sure has found herself in some kind of prison, huh? Great. And with all these people, how does she find out-

Just check my file!

...Is she imagining it, or did that voice sound a bit familiar? Rita doesn't bother pressing against the wall to hide (even if she did, she'd stick out like a sore thumb in her brightly-patterned Tommy Bahama wear), instead just taking a step closer to that cell on her right as a commotion starts--and then that sure is a teen girl exploding out of the room. That...sure is Clarke, isn't it? Someone even just called her name-

Oh. Rita crosses her arms, watching with a frown as the older woman hugs Clarke. Watching this just feels--weird, and annoying, especially considering the few tidbits she's heard about Clarke's mom, so...]

Don't any of you people have any decency? Quit throwing your weight around and start explaining!

[Throwing caution and subtlety to the wind, Rita loudly speaks up, half-addressing Abby and half-rebuking the guards.]

drama mama llama!!!

[skaikru]

Reducing population to make time for — ( behind her mother's back, clarke can see a short redheaded girl. her mouth is moving, and seemingly distantly she hears the shouted demands of an explanation which is, you know, fair. but also feels distinctly unwise given the number of guards that crowded in at abby's back, each and every one of them outfitted and heavily armed. same time though, what's a little mouthing off going to do? they're all about to be executed right? ) — the rest of you.

( wet blue eyes flick from one nameless guard to another to the girl — all without really seeing them. her hands are shaking a little as her mother pulls back from the embrace, and abby griffin briefly glances back towards rita as well. holds up a hand not towards the other delinquent, but to the man at her back who's half raised his rifle. explanation incoming, so just wait.

then back to her daughter, with a gentle but urgent sort of unspoken bid. calm down. don't fight. listen to me. ) Clarke. You're not being executed. You're being sent to the Ground, all 100 of you.

What? ( clarke's voice rasps with disuse and emotion. it's higher pitched than anyone on the serena eterna has ever heard, vestiges of innocence and youth. and where rita'd arguably seen clarke scared after they'd crashed into the rover, or as those elevator doors had dinged closed in the promenade while she'd been water logged nursing fresh burns, here she gets to see her absolutely terrified. stumbling over her words. ) But it's not — safe. N... no, we get reviewed at eighteen.

Shh, ( abby tries to soothe.

and the first direct acknowledgement for rita from someone who she hopefully still calls a friend: ) Mom. Mom, she can't be more than thirteen.

QUARANTINE

[skaikru]

( again, from a hallway on board the serena eterna to another hallway.

this one is made of thick stone, covered over with the same bleached tiling of a hospital. everything is white, and it smells of high grade disinfectant. there's hand sanitizer dispensers next to each room, and small workstations with vials upon vials of blood, transfusion i.v. bags, and paper charts. stamped on the wall in worn lettering are the words MOUNT WEATHER QUARANTINE WARD. the doors are numbered with little plaques beneath the porthole windows set with reinforced glass.

and the one to your right is standing wide open. room 302-4. you can see inside just enough to tell the inside decorations are stark white, but full service. there's a bed, a couch, end table sink, toilet, privacy curtain in the corner. even a large ornate painting that screams of being an original degas. you can't see more than a hint of who's inside, but there's the distinct swish of blue ppe and the sound of a pressurize nozzle spraying. that's where the smell of cleaning solutions is emanating from, and that's probably what your eyes should be drawn to first.

but the real surprise is going to come from the door on your left, room 302-5 as suddenly the window busts out with a crash, and the flash of a long metal rod which was used to bust it. quick as it happened, the dismantled i.v. stand withdraws and an arm sticks out among the jagged bits of glass. contorts downwards to undo the lock on the outside with the very tips of fingers. then the hiss of a girl and the scrambling hand recoils. blood drips generously from the broken window, violently red against the white backdrop. briefly, you hear the occupant gasp in pain and breathe heavily, but then the handle turns and she steps out properly.

in this memory, clarke griffin is also dressed in all white. the shirt is sheer enough to see the white of a sports bra beneath it, the shorts stop just above the knee, she's barefoot, and from armpit to knee on her right side has already become a smeared mess of blood spatter. near predatory, she is absolutely fixated on the person in the blue hazmat suit in the room across from her and quickly drops to her knees to pick up a sliver of glass.

and it's only then that she notices the third party. who is standing way too close not to be deemed the more viable threat. there's a pause as feverish blue eyes scan the stranger from head to toe, a sharp intake of breath as surprise and urgency war within her. the odds of a one-on-one no longer seem like they're in her favor, but there's no stopping now. she needs to find monty, she needs to find all of them. and so —

welcome to the ground. welcome to mount weather. you are pretty immediately shoved up against the nearest wall, barely avoiding spilling dozens of specimen vials, and a sharp piece of glass finds its way to the underside of your chin, already smeared with blood. she brings their faces close, errant strands of blonde hair sticking to the sweaty edges of her cheek and catching in the spit-damp corners of her mouth. nose to nose, eye to eye, and absolutely growling: ) Where are my friends?

[hellonspectacles]

[Eventually, through a wild combination of feral anger, unlikely luck, and the eventual assistance of some creepily helpful residents, Clarke Griffin ends up standing in the warm, calm brightness of the Mount Weather dining hall. Wooden tables line the room, and some of Earth’s most famous paintings hang on the walls, and no one looks like they’re dying, or starving, or running for their lives.

Her people are there, too, happy and whole. There’s Monty, and there’s Jasper, and there’s…a bespectacled young man with a mop of brown hair and grey eyes that she does not recognize. This stranger looks to all the world like he has been there the whole time—in fact, he is trying very hard to give the impression that he arrived her with the rest of the 48 onetime-delinquents, and hoping that whatever dream logic rules these rift universes ensures that people don’t ask too many questions. Jasper, at least, is quick to make friends; Monty’s eyes are a little sharper, a little more suspicious, but for now he has other things on his mind.

They’re laughing and making jokes about the wonders of chocolate cake when Clarke makes her entrance. Pal looks up—and for all he thought he was prepared for this moment, his eyes alight with recognition and relief when he sees her. Given then welcome she quickly receives from the others, he can only hope that she doesn’t quite notice.]

[skaikru]

( eventually she makes it to her friends.

but first, she takes maya vie hostage with a piece of broken safety glass. rips her hazmat suit hood off and puts the fear of god in the other girl before dragging her down the hall, bleeding freely from the sizeable gash down the length of her forearm. they end up in the middle of a crowded dining hall, with the inhabitants shouting and alarm bells screaming. where the hell am i? clarke manages to ask before being overwhelmed and taken into custody again. the backdrop looks different this time, still a medical suite and this time she's strapped to the bed.

her wound is bandaged. she meets the president of mount weather. maya waives the right to press charges for the assault. clarke changes into clean clothes and breaks the heel off a stilleto, stashing it in her sleeve. dante wallace walks her through the pump room beneath the mount weather dam, puts her on an elevator, then calls her out and asks for the second makeshift weapon. assures her she's no longer fighting for her life, to which clarke nods. she wants to believe; mount weather has always been the plan, it was supposed to be safe even if the original idea had been finding it uninhabited. but the tense set to her jaw doesn't let up until the elevator dings open again and she sees them.

48 (49?) of her people are crowded in a room, receiving an orientation on the finer points of this mountain bunker. one, then two, then three, then almost every person turns upon her arrival and the instructional meeting is upended in favor of the biggest group hug moment. really it's mostly monty and jasper flooding her way, and clarke can't keep the hardcore mask in place when being embraced by her friends. suspicion breaks in the face of relief.

finn and bellamy?

clarke... they didn't make it.

we don't know that.

and that high last for about an hour. and the newest face among them goes mostly unnoticed.

orientation resumes, and then they're fed. and that "mostly" is stretched to the brink of its existence, because when clarke approaches the three boys at their table she looks first at monty, then jasper (who are standing and playfully fighting over a piece of chocolate cake) then directly into palamedes' eyes. and there's none of the usual gentle affection in that look, just something steely that's trying to masquerade as casual. )

Oh, hey Clarke! ( that's jasper, seemingly remembering he's under the scrutiny of the entire mount weather dining hall — dante wallace seated at the front table — and a little frazzled. )

Sit down and pretend you're happy to see me.

We are happy to see you, ( and then there's monty, sweet angel of a baby faced farm station boy. he also glances sidelong at their third companion and prompts — ) Right, Palamedes? ( — while lifting his plate to offer clarke a bite of cake. )

LEVERS

[skaikru]

( the trouble with memory is that it's a fickle thing, and can be clouded by emotion and hurt. one second you're outside a door. a dark haired boy is fiddling with a tech-lock he's ripped out of the wall. a taller young man is dressed in a beige guard uniform. clarke griffin is staring down an old man while they wait for the door to open. )

Deliverance comes at a cost, ( dante wallace tells her. ) I bear it so they don't have to.

( you are neither noticed nor able to get a word in edge wise.

—

the next second, like blinking in time with your heartbeat, you're inside a room. it's dark save the light of the surveillance monitors. a particularly large screen on the side wall shows a young woman strapped to a table. there's no audio, but that isn't necessary to convey the depths of human suffering when one's being drilled down to the marrow while still alive. raven reyes' limbs shake and contort as much as they can against the leather restraints, her mouth an open wound of it's own as she screams silently. bellamy blake is at dante's back, monty green is seated at a control panel, and brings up the largest monitor with a video image of cage wallace for all to see. you're somewhere in the shadows, removed and unable to intervene. and clarke has a radio in hand.

it crackles and barks: ) This is President Wallace.

I have your father. And if you don't let my people go, I'll kill him.

( cage falters. but recovers. ) How do I know you have him?

( and with a frustrated sort of obliging, clarke holds the handheld receiver to dante's mouth. with disappointing results. ) Stay the course, Cage.

( the younger man on the screen looks like he's going to be sick, but forces himself to speak at the behest of his father. )

You won't do it.

You don't know me very well. This ends now. Release my people.

( ... ) I can't do that.

( it'd mean the end of our people, the old man starts to say. but again, memory is fickle. time jumps imperceptibly, and clarke has gone cold; a step between hyperventilating and growling into the receiver when she says: )

Listen to me very carefully. I will not stop until my people are free. If you don't let them go, I will irradiate Level 5.

( dante wallace is on the floor, a bloody swatch on his shirt just to the right of center mass. tunnel vision sets in, and the whole scene narrows right before your eyes.

—

on the screens are the beginnings of the end. one showcases a series of beige bedecked guards closing in on octavia blake in all her grounder warrior glory. ) They've got to get out of there, ( says bellamy.

on another monitor, clarke's mother is now on the drilling table. the door to the control room gongs, and they can see a man attempting to kick it down. ) He's here.

Jasper. They caught him. ( monty sounds breathless, even as he types furiously on the keyboard. but in moments his fingers still and clarke snaps: ) Why are you stopping?

Because I did it. All we have to do... is pull this. ( he points just in front of him, at a lever set into the desk. ) Hatches and vents will open, and the scrubbers reverse pulling in outside air.

He's going to blow the door. ( bellamy again, as emerson kneels outside the door with a rucksack of explosives. he pulls a gun, and monty stands up to look at her fully. )

Clarke, we're out of time.

( and for as much as she hadn't wanted this, she leans over and puts her hand on the lever. )

AIRLOCK 5

[skaikru]

( this memory wormhole probably looked just like any other, but on the other side is a raging sort of chaos. )

Beg me to stop it. I told you to beg.

I'm begging you —

LOUDER!

Please!

( there is a door to an airlock pretty plainly featured, glowing an ominous sort of red as eight young adults thrash against bondage and asphyxiation within. a low warning alarm blares in the background. two figures stand outside of airlock 5: an adult man, hunched around the shoulders of a young blonde woman, with his arm tight around her neck and a gun digging into the side of her jaw. all you can see are their backs, but might still be able to recognize a voice.

maybe you can strain to hear the younger female choke out — )

Aaron wouldn't want you to do this.

( but no straining necessary to hear the man scream with a guttural sort of rage: ) YOU DON'T SAY HIS NAME!

( then the chaos doubles, and a lot seems to happen at once. the teenagers behind the reinforced glass are growing quiet. the ones standing are sinking down to their knees and just hanging from their restraints; the ones seated are lolling their heads as if fighting off sleep. and clarke griffin is taking advantage of carl emerson's fit of emotion to rear back and hit him hard in the face. he stumbles backwards, drops his gun, and she makes a break for the nearby hanging control box. but he's on her again almost instantly.

gets an arm around her stomach, tosses her to the ground like little more than a rag doll, then falls on his knees to haul her off her stomach and slam her on her back. there's a thump of impact, and a crack of her skull meeting the steel plated floor. the whimper clarke lets out sounds like it hurts as her lungs forcibly let out air. but she gets no chance to scream past that, as emerson straddles her torso, pins her elbows with his knees, and wraps both hands around her neck. looms over her. squeezes. starts roaring loud, unintelligible groans like an animal in pain.

the alarms continue to drone in the background. )

[neverleave]

[Some rifts are more disorienting than others. This one, with its enclosed space, red glow, blaring sirens and scents of metal and fear, is a mess. Natsuno is dizzy, but the scream of please! tears through the sensory overload like a well-sharpened knife. He'd know this voice anywhere - other than the scent of nightblood, nothing can fill him with ice-cold fear like Clarke Griffin's screams.

It's hard to tear his gaze from the gun pressed against a blonde head, but Natsuno takes in the scene. The teens in the airlock - he lingers over Bellamy's sagging form a second longer - the screaming man... yes, he's heard this story, on a lakeside cabin's roof under fake night sky. The man from Mount Weather who wanted revenge on Clarke for the massacre of his people. 381 people. 182 men, 173 women, and 26 children.

He knows Clarke's friends survive this, and the man dies. But when Emerson slams his best friend to the floor and chokes her, there's no way Natsuno's just letting things play out as they're meant to.

Whether Emerson raises his head to see Natsuno coming or is too focused on Clarke, it doesn't matter. All his anger and desperation are no match for Natsuno's strength. He grabs Emerson from behind and lifts him off of Clarke's body, only to hurl him across the corridor.]

[skaikru]

( carl emerson is as well built a man as an apocalypse bunker can turn out. he's been well fed throughout his lifetime, and had been a part of the mount weather security detail for more than ten years. he'd ventured beyond the mountain in p.p.e. and commanded reavers; he'd lived past the massacre and survived more than three months on the run from 11 of the 12 clans. he's 5'10, approximately 145 pounds, and so full of rage it makes him seem larger than that.

and he still gets absolutely bodied by a sixteen year old shiki. doesn't even look up from where he's snarling in clarke's face, just gets tossed like a ragdoll before he can even make a sound. his back sure makes a hell of a thump against the wall, though.

as for clarke, she's effectively lifted by the neck for 0.2 seconds when emerson's picked up, his sight narrowed and stranglehold tight. but he does let go in a flailing panic, and she smacks back into the ground with very little fuss. inhales desperately, both hands flying to her neck as she instinctively rolls onto her side, into a fetal position, and starts violently coughing. it hurts to breathe, and hurts more to cough. but there's air in her lungs where the likes of bellamy, octavia, harper, monty, jasper, miller, raven, and bryan have none.

she needs to get to her friends, and forces herself immediately onto her stomach; knees drawing up, one hand braced against the floor to scramble into a kneeling position. but she's also very aware that emerson is still here — groaning in a crumpled mess next to the wall, but stirring; trying to also make it into an upright position — and that they are not alone. )

THE CITY OF LIGHT

[skaikru]

( and this time, a full city. dark and sleek and grey; a proper metropolitan area right out of 2030, but for the moment it's relatively quiet. a soft spitting of rain hits like a cold mist; the steam bubbling up from beneath manhole covers. you come to consciousness in the middle of a two lane roadway, just outside the dark transit tunnel. no cars are coming, and for a second the whole place will seem eerily empty.

but there's is life. you can hear the hustle and bustle of people walking and chatting, even a distant honk of a horn or screech of bus tires on wet asphalt. walk a block or two over from where you started, and you'll eventually round a corner into a slowly gathering crowd.

all of whom look just your normal run of the mill civilians. starkly at odds with any other memories, but the people here are dressed in typical fashion; beige trench coats, green rain jackets, red scarves. beanie hats and baseball caps. shoes ranging from sneakers to boots to high heels, and none look like they could have been salvaged from 100 year old hand-me-downs. even the occasional leather jacket screams of a stylized look, instead of a war garment. there's an inconsistency here or there in this pretty portraiture of society; men and women with warrior tattoos, but not a genetic mutation or battle scar in sight. but it's still just a city. no one is fighting, people are waving at each other pleasantly and drinking coffee or eating ice cream without a care in the world.

— and then there's clarke. she's standing in the midst of the crowd, but ignored even as she approaches a boy sitting on a red bench. )

...they can't see me, ( you might hear her say if you get close enough, suddenly at ease with the idea of being alone in a crowded street.

a little wind picks up. clarke looks up as if responding to her name and — yeah, you almost think you can hear it whispered on the breeze as well.

directly ahead of both of you, a pedestrian light is doing something a little strange... )

[theweakhavepurpose]

This one is gonna be a world full of catgirls. This is the one. [Closing his eyes. Deep breath.] Come onnnnn catgirls.

[He heads through the rift, hope springing eternal that some Barbarella shit but with Catgirls is about to happen. Opening his eyes and... well it's better than when he ended up in someone's storage room.]

Damn. No catgirls. Still cool though.

[Oh. Clarke. Well that's awkward. He clears his throat and looks sheepish.] If you heard any of that, no you didn't.

[skaikru]

( she actually heard... like, way too much of that, but for the most part it blended in with the other conversations floating about. a pair to their left is debating the weather (positive), a trio to their right is sighing and debating the weather (negative). everyone in this world is kind of meandering about, with the urgency of businessmen crossing the street to make their next meeting mixed with the laissez faire of people who have all the time in the world to get to where they're going. and all in all, no one really seems to mind the continual sprinkle of rain.

and clarke, she's — a bit of an outlier. a single focused endpoint for her time in the city of light, find the killswitch. an objective that has been momentarily derailed by catgirls and the fact she's not entirely sure if this man in front of her is actually talking to her. she's distracted from the traffic light for all of a second and just sort of looks at pratt; a little bewildered, mostly scared. zero recognition and a pretty immediate step back. )

Can you — see me?

[konpeito_aji]

"Why not?" Nobunaga whispers, literally ducked behind a bench, because wow he has never experienced sensory overload before, so this is a first. "Is this America? No, it's too..." Too what? Fake. It's fake. It tastes fake. Like wax fruit. But damn it's a good proximity... probably. "Where are we, Griffin?"

[skaikru]

Going from 'no one else can see me' to 'a stranger just addressed me by name in a place where I'm absolutely in danger if found out' is a little like being punched in the guts. All the air feels like it exits her lungs with prejudice as Clarke's gaze snaps to where Nobunaga is crouched behind the bench. Eyes wide, pupils pinpricks as adrenaline dumps.

Back in her actual reality, a muscle in her jaw twitches. That's how strong this surprise hits.

Meanwhile in the City of Light, Clarke takes a half-step back and almost collides with a suited man just walking about minding his own business.

"Who are you?" This is a little shrill, and sounds a lot like an accusation.

AFTERMATH

[skaikru]

( the wildcard aftermath header. clarke will be perpetually Around and also Going Through It while grappling with any altered memories. big sad vibes, the opposite of talkative but willing to try. this also serves as a march catch-all; request starters or throw your own at will! inb4circlejerk or discord server for plottings! )

Memory problems

[hellonspectacles]

[Palamedes, quite literally, remembers everything. An eidetic memory is both a blessing and a curse; it means he only ever has to read one thing once to memorize the contents, but it also means that every minor childhood embarrassment is seared into his mind. And it isn’t just youthful foibles that he remembers in too much detail. Every moment of his own death may as well have just happened, the terrors of Halloween are still fresh, the image of Clarke’s mangled body after Vile’s attack still precisely rendered.

And yet, for all of that, his memories have never felt so crowded as they do now.

These new images creep into his mind in his dreams: Valdis staring down Cytherea and offering her peace, Natsuno telling him that something has been hidden in Abigail Pent’s body, the yellow monster called Wayne doing combat in the Transference/Winnowing trial. His mind is filled with memories of his past peopled with the passengers of the Serena Eterna, and that can’t be right, but he can’t shake them, either.

And tonight, yet more memories come to him: Clarke locking eyes with him as he released a thanergenic bomb, Clarke throwing herself into his arms in his space outside of space. He wakes up with a start beside her in her bed—they must have fallen asleep here last night while discussing theories about the meaning of the rifts—and all he can do for a few moments is blink stupidly down at her while all those conflicting memories crowd together in his mind.]