Exaltica: Eden Awakening Saga, Sin Denial Options

[Sailerius]

Exaltica: The Eden Awakening Saga
Episode 1: Sin Denial

"Emergency power conservation is in effect. All non-essential systems have been taken offline."

The recording of the woman’s voice is the first sound you’re able to make sense of. A dull ache of annoyance in the back of your head suggests that you’ve heard that recording before. You’re pretty tired, though, so your eyes flutter shut again and you drift back down into the depths of unconsciousness.

"Emergency power conservation is in effect. All non-essential systems have been taken offline."

Just as you’re about to fall asleep again, the recording plays again. It’s starting to get really annoying. You probably won’t be able to get any sleep until it stops. You suppose that means you’ll just have to get up (even if only to stop that blasted recording). It makes a pretty good alarm clock.

Your feet touch the floor uncertainly. You’re not sure if it’s because you’ve been asleep or because the artificial gravity in the ship is acting up, but you have a hard time standing up straight. Wait a minute, why are you on a ship?

As you try to gather your bearings, memories flood back to you in a disorganized heap of imagery. It takes a few minutes to sort everything out and arrange the memories chronologically. There must be something missing, though; no matter how you put together the disjointed pieces of your memory, you just can’t figure out where you are or how you got there. Maybe looking around will provide you with some clues.

The only lights on in the ship are the dim red emergency lights which illuminate only the essential areas. Inside rooms (whose heavy metal doors you must manually slide open because "Emergency power conservation is in effect. All non-essential systems have been taken offline."), it’s almost completely black.

The ship you’re on is fairly large; you’re able to gather that there are six decks and a sizable docking bay. Too big to be personal transport. A supply ship would have a larger cargo bay.

More importantly, where is the crew? And where is everyone else?

You’re all located on deck 3 and wake up in different cabins. Features on this deck: Cabins, storage, lift (deactivated), stairs.

[Ganonfrog]

Just as Jun fully turned around, he heard the sound of Aiko collapsing to the ground, followed by her panicked shouts. She wasn't just acting weird and on edge anymore. She had legitimately lost it. The woman had ghosts in her head.

With his temporary ease already shattered, Jun whipped back around to face her. "Hey! Snap out of it! This isn't the time--"

"NO! NO! NO! I'M ME! NOT YOU! ME! I'M . . . me . . ." Aiko interrupted him with a final string of frantic screams, before reaching her limit, and losing consciousness.

Jun stared back at her in disbelief. Was this normal? Did she usually have fits like this? There was no way in hell. Nobody just snaps like that. She may have been completely out of her skull from the beginning, but this was on a completely different level. Something did that to her. It had to.

As his thoughts drifted to the disturbing, Jun crouched down beside her, looking her over for anything that could have possibly hit her. Of course, he found nothing.

"You. Carry Ms. Aiko for a bit will ya? I can't really lift anything heavy with my injured arm." Arel directed him from her seat across the room. She was rather calm. Far too calm, in fact. On top of that, she was ordering him around, telling him to do something that he already planned to do. Did she really think he was that incapable? So much that she didn't believe he'd get the basic idea of not leaving a helpless person out here to die? He didn't like these people much, but, damn it, he was still human.

Despite his angry thoughts, Jun still did as he was told. Not wanting to waste anymore time in this god-awful room, he took Aiko into his arms, and attempted to lift her off the bloodied ground. He had a bit of strength in him from his janitorial job, so he was capable of handling her weight, but he doubted that he was quite fit enough to keep it up for long. She was still a grown woman, after all.

Even so, he was easily able to carry her out of the bridge. As he was doing this, however, he found himself maneuvering around the many obstacles in the adjoining hallway in rather awkward ways. Eventually he wound up tilting her backwards a bit; just enough to loosen something from her makeshift knapsack. It shifted through a crack in the folds, before making a fairly loud clack as it hit the floor. Catching notice of this, Jun turned his head toward the source of the noise.

It was a gun. The same kind he saw by the strange corpse earlier. Did she take it from him? No... it wasn't possible. She didn't get close enough to be able to take it. She had to have been holding it from the very beginning. She was carrying it around intentionally. Even if she was holding it for self defense, something wasn't right. Where did she even get it from? On top of that, she was obviously nowhere near mentally stable enough to be trusted with the thing.

Jun's grip around Aiko's neck tightened, starting to cut off Aiko's airflow. His emotions were processing the problem before his head. As far as he could deduce at this point, this woman wasn't just crazy. She was a homicidal maniac.

-----------------------

After Aiko's hysterics, Zhi immediately found herself agreeing with Arel. The thin air and stress of the situation as a whole probably got to the poor girl. The only thing they could do for her is get out of here as soon as possible.

It didn't take too much longer for the group to start filing into the hallway after Jun carried Aiko out. Zhi took to the back, intending to keep an eye on the others from there. She normally preferred to lead a group, but in a case like this, she could easily tell that Arel and Lars had a better grip on the situation, and were much more suited for the position. For now, she would just watch out for them.

As she walked, however, Zhi found herself approaching her brother, who was, strangely, stalled in the hallway. She stepped up beside him, and put a hand on his shoulder, concerned. "Are you okay? We need to keep moving." She reminded him, "The sooner we leave, the sooner we'll be able to forget about this. I... I know. I'm not taking this well, either."

Jun looked back to her for a moment, before picking up the pace again. His grip slightly loosened as he made his way ahead of his sister, keeping oddly silent as he went.

Zhi's stomach sank. Since when did he ignore her like that? He wasn't normally a social person, but this wasn't right at all. He was supposed to talk to her.

Yet, even as she worried, she kept on. They needed to get to deck 4, no matter the cost. She would have to worry about this later.

This post has been edited by Ganonfrog: Mar 20 2011, 04:01 PM