Let him that is without stone among you cast the first thing he can lay his hands on(Day 9)

[glaxcin]

A whooshing sound precedes the rush of gas that quickly fills the first and second floors. Like most gases the Warden uses, it is colorless, odorless and works rather nicely. One after another the prisoners all fall unconscious and at last, even the strongest, most resilient prisoner succumbs

Comments

Psych Ward

[glaxcin]

This post is for anyone threading in the Psych Ward.

Re: Psych Ward

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe awoke slowly on a soft padded surface. The intense stabbing pain between her eyes gradually faded to the point where she was able to open the. She sat up and took in the white room with the monitors on one wall showing various battles.

Ai ya, she was supposed to be dead. Hadn't she died out there on the island? She put a hand to her forehead, then checked her abdomen, where most of the damage had been. Nothing. It couldn't have been a dream, with everyone else out there fighting. She had died, and she was still here. Somehow. What did it take to get out of this place? How many times would she die here? How many times would Wash or River or Simon have to feel like this?

Her head swam and she fell back against the padding on the floor. River had killed her. It was what the captain had always worried was going to happen someday, what everyone but Jayne had tried to assure him wouldn't.

[sixofmany]

Six gasped as the world appeared around her again. She expected to be in a tub of fluid, on the Resurrection Ship, just like all her downloads before.

No, no, she hadn't expected to download at all. There was no ship near the prison...or was there?

She opened her eyes, blinking at the light. She breathed in deeply and took in her surroundings. A white room. A white, padded room. Was this heaven?

No. No, there was a screen nearby, showing the island she had just been in. This must be the psych ward.

It had all been an illusion. But it had felt so real, even more than a projection ever did.

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe heard a gasp and turned her head, opening her eyes again. A blonde woman she didn't recognize had appeared in the room with her. Zoe supposed she had died, too. She sat up and looked at the woman.

"Are you all right?" she asked. As all right as either of them could be as dead women.

[sixofmany]

Six sat up shakily, focusing on the voice she heard. "Yes," she said, her voice weak, "or at least I will be."

[sanguine_zoe]

"Sick bastard healed us somehow," she said, thinking of Niska. This was beyond Niska, of course, he hadn't been too good at mental games the last time she'd seen him. But this warden would clearly keep them alive until they bored him. Even if it didn't make sense.

[sixofmany]

"It was just like a download," she said, not caring that this person probably would have no idea what that meant. "Except without the proper technology."

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe didn't know what that meant exactly, but supposed that this woman was slightly more used to resurrection than she was.

"This doesn't happen where I come from," she said after a moment, "Dead is dead."

She stood shakily and walked over to the monitors to look for Wash. He probably wouldn't die -- he'd just end up here the way she and the other woman had -- but she wasn't keen on the idea of him suffering. Also, if he wasn't alive, and wasn't here . . . She just needed to see that he was okay.

[sixofmany]

"It should have been for me," Six said, finally managing to get to her feet. "Not that I'm complaining." This experience hadn't exactly been pleasant but it was actually a bit better than her last download had been.

[sanguine_zoe]

"Right. The technology," Zoe said, scanning the monitors. There he was. She felt a rush of relief. He was alive and unhurt and walking down a hill toward --

Her body. She was looking at herself lying on the ground with her stomach torn apart and her head split open. She was looking into some kind of horribly macabre funhouse mirror. Seeing herself like that . . . Zoe felt dizzy.

"Excuse me," she told the blond woman, her voice strained, as she turned abruptly on her heel.

[sixofmany]

Six watched the woman turn away from the monitor. She looked over at it and saw a man approaching a body that looked quite like the woman. She wondered who the man was.

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe pinched the bridge of her nose and took a couple of deep breaths. She needed to get ahold of herself. It wasn't her, it couldn't be. It was just an illusion set up by the warden to torment Wash. The feeling of seeing the one you love dying in front of you was worse than anything the other inmates could do to him. Still, seeing herself like that . . . That was one monitor she wasn't going to be looking at again.

"He thinks this is a game," she managed after several minutes of silence. "Space tag. We're out."

[sixofmany]

It was a decent analogy, from what Six knew about human games.

"I wonder how long it will be before someone else shows up."

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe thought about River and the look on her face as the axe had come down for the last time.

"Not long. I reckon the girl who got me is just getting started."

[sixofmany]

"Who is she?"

[sanguine_zoe]

Zoe wondered how much to tell.

"Someone from home."