Disorientation

Posted on 25 May 2023 @ 5:02pm by Chief Petty Officer Ibis Xeri & Olivia Winetrout
Edited on on 25 Apr 2024 @ 4:03pm

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: Pathfinder, Guest Quarters
Timeline: Concurent with "Musical Chairs"
1639 words - 3.3 OF Standard Post Measure

“Computer, Lights.” Kaiki said as she set Ibis down on her own feet in the guest quarters.

The Ensign stepped back carefully, sliding her arm away from the emaciated, grief stricken woman. She was like a feather, standing up on its quill end, ready to flutter and fall— only there was no breeze here in the absolutely still, safe, furnished room. Ibis remained on her feet— all skin, bones, and tears wearing nothing but seaweed and a tangle of long dark hair broken loose from a rough braid.

She’d been through more than a wringer, and Kaiki wasn’t sure what to even say as she just held out two hands prepared to catch her if she fell again. But Ibis just swayed on her feet and the Ensign decided she was stable enough, even if the look in her eyes was lost and missing. Ensign Wonai motioned for the children to come in from the hallway as well. The older girl was scrawny, but lively, looking around everywhere like an animal in a strange box.

There was something about the place— like a dream Olivia had, one with a man in it, a man who made funny faces and gave her the giggles. Still, every automatic door made Olivia jump, as she did once more when the doors to the room hissed shut behind her.

“Ibis, I’m going to make you all some fresh clothes, Okay?” Wonai took one of her hands carefully by the fingertips, trying not to knock her off her precarious balance but still bring her around to the present.

Ibis’ head turned towards the sound of the voice. It sounded distant, like trying to hear ever ringing gongs through a mile of water. There was a face— a dark, lovely, young face, and the smell of perfume. The lips formed words. Ibis nodded at the young woman and her own thin, colorless lips parted slightly, but her throat felt weighted with sand. So much sand.

Sand. She watched it pouring out of Porter’s fist, it lifted off into the air, and over the storm-dark sea. Ibis put a hand on her own cheek, where Porter’s had last held her.

She was supposed to get him off the rock. She couldn’t find him. She’d lost everything. She couldn’t find him.

If I don’t make it, remember what I said on the beach.

What… what was it he had said on the beach? Ibis searched the memory of Porter's face in the dark, and it was as if she could still hear him whispering.

You’ve saved me already and I wouldn’t change a thing.

The young woman was talking to her again, and then there was a feeling of something soft on her forearms. She looked down to see a pile of pants and tunics and undergarments.

“Maybe you all would like to get washed up awhile, before we check you out in sickbay, yeah?”

Ibis felt a hand on her back, guiding her into the brightly lit space of a washroom. Her head pivoted at the strangely familiar feeling, displaced in space by the way the sound of steps and voices echoed from all sides. She startled slightly at her reflection in full body and full clarity. It would have been alarming, except it was an out of body feeling at a time when she was already struggling to come to the surface of her own senses.

Olivia followed behind her, Ikemba on one side of her little preteen hip, and walked up to the mirror cautiously, as if approaching a portal to another dimension. She’d seen reflections before, but never as bright and as clear. Ibis’ reflection and Ikemba’s seemed right to her, but her own seemed a stranger. Her eyes were tiny, not like the big, glossy orbs of the Korinn. Her limbs were all wrong, finless, spineless, unwebbed. And all the hair she had was on the very top, in a messy patch. Unable to keep holding everything, Olivia put the flight recorder and the pad on the counter top.

Ibis looked down at the clothing in her arms again and began setting it out on the counter methodically, drawing her hands over each set, sized for each one of them. She just brushed the fabric, back and forth. Smooth and new. Freshly replicated. Her hand went to her mouth, and her eyes winced shut with another wave of pain. There should have been another outfit in the stack. Just one more. Just one.

“Bibi?” Ikemba’s voice echoed all around her. It was the clearest thing she had heard since she’d failed Porter.

“You’re alright then?” The woman was asking. “I’ll be back in a little while, okay?”

When Ibis glanced up at the reflection of the woman in the washroom door behind her, Wonai felt the expression aimed at her in the mirror was the most pained thing she had ever seen, and decided she should give the odd little family their space. She closed the door as she went.

Ikemba arched and reached his body to bridge out of Olivia’s arms and into Ibis’. Enough strength seemed to flood back into her limbs to support the boy. She rubbed her face into his head, comforting herself with the curls.

For Ikemba’s sake, Ibis moved over to the shower, the display panel prompting her to choose between sonic and water settings. She touched the teardrop icon. Somewhere in the wall there was a tiny replication device, energetically humming along to pressurize the faucet head. It splashed clear pure water against the resin form of the shower unit, and, first kicking Laura's old shoes off on the bathroom floor, Ibis stepped inside with Ikemba. Olivia stepped in too, and a little glimmering forcefield shimmered, keeping the water inside. Curiously, Olivia reached her arm in and out of the field, and it just made small bright waves of energy, letting her through but not the droplets. Meanwhile, Ibis lifted the seaweed clothes off Ikemba, dropping his old shorts and tunic on the little ledge. Olivia was already all too eager to pull off her own wraps and Ibis shifted hers off her shoulders and stepped out of all of it, kicking the seaweed away from the drain and finally just sitting on the small bathing ledge molded in the side of the unit, letting the fresh water have its way.

How long had she longed for a shower? She cried all over again as she dispensed some soap and began to clean the kids’ bony bodies. No one spoke. Sensing only their incompleteness, they all cried together, encased in the little shower. Ibis scrubbed with more and more determination. She needed to get Korix out of all of their pores.

While they were washing, the water suddenly cut out. There was a small light in the wall that flashed a hard red glow.

Olivia looked up, wondering what had turned the water off so suddenly.

“Red Alert,” Ibis whispered. The nightmare wasn’t over. It wasn’t over. Coming alive with a fresh dose of fear for the children, she stepped over the shower ledge and began hurriedly drying with one of the towels and pulling on the clothing.

“Red Alert?” Olivia echoed.

Remembering that Olivia wouldn’t know what a red alert was, Ibis tried to stay calm on the face so as not to scare her more. Ibis was already in the undergarments and pulling over the shirt. There wasn’t much for her wet hair which she squeezed out over the sink and then whipped into a very messy bun.

“You stay here with Ikemba. Dress and stay in the rooms here. I need to speak with someone.” She grabbed the pants, and then took Olivia by the shoulder. “Promise me you’ll stay right here with Ikemba.”

“I promise.” Olivia said, readily.

“Even if the ship shakes. Even if there’s more noises. It’s just like a storm, okay? It will pass. You just stay inside where it’s safe. You. Stay. Here.”

“I promise,” Olivia repeated with resolve.

“I’ll be right back.”

Ibis dashed through the living room while pulling on the pants, and then was in the corridor. She took a moment to look at the door plate to the room, having enough presence of mind to know that it was important to be able to find her way back to the children. Than began searching, walking around the corridors in her bare feet.

What class ship was this? She hadn’t seen. She couldn’t remember arriving. Ibis went to a directory display, looking for her deck. But her vision was still out of focus from all of her crying. Was this an intrepid? A nova, she was able to make out. She’d been on novas before…

She’d need to locate a phaser, EVA suits or a containment with a seal and oxygen unit. Where were the escape pods, or a shuttle…? Had she come from a shuttle bay? She was disoriented. She kept walking.

“=All hands,=” someone addressed over the general comm, “=All hands, prepare for turbulence. Brace yourselves, people.=”

The deck rocked as she found a turbolift and boarded it. It was happening again. As soon as they’d gotten clear of Korix, the Pyrryx had found them again, she was sure of it. They’d done everything they could to escape and she was right back where she had started…

All Ibis knew was that she had to find safety for the kids. “Shuttlebay, what deck is the shuttlebay?” she asked the computer. The turbolift took it as a destination order, sealing the doors and obliging.