(no subject)
She only remembers bits and pieces, when she tries, when nothing else is in the way.
Sensory deprivation. No, it's not one of those tanks; they never sit you upright in them. And she can hear.
Heavy thud, flood of light, never been much of a religious person, but that might be the closest thing, the weightlessness, surrealism.
Consciousness drifts. She is drifting. She drifts in a sea with nowhere to go. Mind swept away.
It's room temperature, and that's why she doesn't even notice the water at first. Just like gravity has let go. She has let--no, and a jerk back to the real world reveals everything for what it is. Panic floods, mermaid hair obscures her vision when she can't help but thrash against nothing. Bubbles, churning, her own heartbeat jumping ba-thumping in her ears. Calming eventually shows the water to be as clear as might be expected, a room plainly visible beyond, a ship, something very alien. Black material clinging to her form, something she can only really describe as something of a wetsuit. Tubes stick out of ports along the chest. She doesn't know what they're for, doesn't know if they're connected to her (just because it doesn't feel like it doesn't mean they aren't pumping something in, pumping something out), and an otherwordly mask clings to her face, air, breathable, life support.
They come, eventually. She sees them clearly, recognizes them. Frightening to a specimen in a jar. It makes a few muted noises and places something along its head, above the eye. A surge of white-hot electricity blazes through her mind, an image or two (home, the ship, the ship), then nothing. The pain sends her into darkness.
There are more bodies the next time she comes around.
And a few more the next, longer this time, enough for more probing, and god, the pain of it--but there's a tug, something she can pull back on, she finds. Difficult to put into words, she won't know how to if she ever tells anyone, if she ever gets out, but they want something. Are looking. Prodding. Ripping. They want it, and she is determined not to let them have it. They get some, she keeps some, and the effort drains her regardless.
It's the ship; they want the ship; she won't let them have the ship; the ship isn't even here--
She tries to send her thoughts away from Nicholas, from the Colonel, and only sometimes is she successful.
Her body curls upon itself sometimes, when she's conscious, when she wants to feel like she has a little more control and isn't half-floating, water-logged debris.
A hand catches hers, and it's the most shocking sensation she's felt in--she doesn't know how long she's been here. A start, startle, pulling, flailing, and it's the Colonel, holding onto her, found her. Stuck together, and she'll have to ask him how he managed that amount of stupidity, but she slips her hand back into his and floats a little easier.
Sensory deprivation. No, it's not one of those tanks; they never sit you upright in them. And she can hear.
Heavy thud, flood of light, never been much of a religious person, but that might be the closest thing, the weightlessness, surrealism.
Consciousness drifts. She is drifting. She drifts in a sea with nowhere to go. Mind swept away.
It's room temperature, and that's why she doesn't even notice the water at first. Just like gravity has let go. She has let--no, and a jerk back to the real world reveals everything for what it is. Panic floods, mermaid hair obscures her vision when she can't help but thrash against nothing. Bubbles, churning, her own heartbeat jumping ba-thumping in her ears. Calming eventually shows the water to be as clear as might be expected, a room plainly visible beyond, a ship, something very alien. Black material clinging to her form, something she can only really describe as something of a wetsuit. Tubes stick out of ports along the chest. She doesn't know what they're for, doesn't know if they're connected to her (just because it doesn't feel like it doesn't mean they aren't pumping something in, pumping something out), and an otherwordly mask clings to her face, air, breathable, life support.
They come, eventually. She sees them clearly, recognizes them. Frightening to a specimen in a jar. It makes a few muted noises and places something along its head, above the eye. A surge of white-hot electricity blazes through her mind, an image or two (home, the ship, the ship), then nothing. The pain sends her into darkness.
There are more bodies the next time she comes around.
And a few more the next, longer this time, enough for more probing, and god, the pain of it--but there's a tug, something she can pull back on, she finds. Difficult to put into words, she won't know how to if she ever tells anyone, if she ever gets out, but they want something. Are looking. Prodding. Ripping. They want it, and she is determined not to let them have it. They get some, she keeps some, and the effort drains her regardless.
It's the ship; they want the ship; she won't let them have the ship; the ship isn't even here--
She tries to send her thoughts away from Nicholas, from the Colonel, and only sometimes is she successful.
Her body curls upon itself sometimes, when she's conscious, when she wants to feel like she has a little more control and isn't half-floating, water-logged debris.
A hand catches hers, and it's the most shocking sensation she's felt in--she doesn't know how long she's been here. A start, startle, pulling, flailing, and it's the Colonel, holding onto her, found her. Stuck together, and she'll have to ask him how he managed that amount of stupidity, but she slips her hand back into his and floats a little easier.