inhell | 1st Attack . video & spam

[She wakes up in her own bed, Alvin, the palm-sized teddy bear, clasped tightly in one hand. There are stars outside the window, and everything is picture-perfect. Just as she left it. She coughs, her lungs aching, and she becomes aware of numerous aches and pains. Her shoulder, her knee. A handful of cuts and scrapes. She can still feel the scorching heat on her skin. - Or, no, wait; her nose is clogged, maybe she just has a fever.

For a long moment she waits for the crushing darkness to arrive, as it usually does in her dreams. The looming shadows. Or she waits for herself to slip out of bed and start killing things. She watches herself with a kind of detached dread.

But none of these things happen, and eventually she slips out of the bed, dragging the quilted blanket with her, Alvin held tight in her fist. She manages a few steps outside, and when she finds that it's not her house, she stops dead.

All of the exhaustion catches up with her, and she slides down, against the wall next to her door. The blanket is wrapped tight around her. She stares at the wall across, waiting to wake up. Waiting to walk out into a new Hell.]

[ video & infirmaryspam, later ]

[She is curled up under as many blankets as she could talk out of whoever is on duty, and she's still shivering. Her fever is high, and every part of her body hurts. And this is when she decides to try out the little device, like a handheld computer or something. She looks absolutely awful.]

So this is like a radio...? [Her accent is rough, rural Australian.]

Who's listening? And why's there doctors in the afterlife?

[A beat, then:] Why's there flu in the afterlife?

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"Probably loads." There were people in the jets, and ground crew and such. And lots of soldiers around. But she sounds a little less confident this time. That might be why she's here? In prison? The fuel jets wouldn't be the half of it.

"I'm Ellie," she says, a hint reluctant. Ellie. Terrible name for a hardened commando.

"Huh." There's no judgment passed, but Beatrix makes a note of the action. This lends a lot more credence to the "rebel" hypothesis (most of the people on the Barge had better reasons than "because I want to"). For the moment she assumes it's the jets, that Ellie is clear of any other wrongdoing, and holds out a hand.

"Ellie," she repeats. "It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry you had to wake up here."

"Why is my room here?" she asks. "And -" For the first time, she uncurls her fingers and looks at Alvin. He's got the worn patch on his bum, but he's not scorched anymore.

"This isn't mine!" She throws it across the hallway. "Alvin got burned in camp. And they took him away from me. Months ago!"

But he still had the worn patch, from where her thumb always rubbed.

It all occurs to her at once, and she realizes, dumbly, going still.

"Oh," she says. "I'm dead."

That was what she expected to happen, after all. There wasn't any real way out of the airport. And her room wouldn't look like it did when she woke up the first time, not now - there were colonists living in it. In her house.

Watching that realization dawn on Ellie is painful, and Beatrix has the urge to try to embrace her again. Instead she reaches out and gently squeezes Ellie's shoulder, both for reassurance and to prove they're no less real for being dead. And if the girl's dead, at least she's not the only one.

"Do you want me to get Alvin for you?" It seems the best question to ask, and Bea retrieves him before Ellie can reply. The teddy bear might help her get through the shock, or at least to relax her enough that Bea can get her to move. The hallways are generally safe, but sleeping in them would invite meddling.

"It's not quite as simple as just being dead, unfortunately." She holds the toy out, as if in offering. "This place, the Barge -- it's to reform people who did something wrong. People like us."

She takes him back, slowly. Reform people who did wrong. This makes her furiously, furiously angry, and also so tired and sad and alone at the same time.

"Are my friends here?" she asks.

Poor kid; nobody should get that bomb dropped on them, let alone a teenager. Beatrix sighs and sits down across from her, cross-legged.

"I don't know." It's kinder than probably not, although that's what the look in her eyes says. "What are your friends' names?"

"Fi," she says, immediately. Pronounced like the Fi in Fiona. "Homer. Lee. And Kevin."

She is straining with hope. The next part is hard:

"And Chris," she says, softer. "Robyn. Corrie." The names of the dead.

"We have a Chris here, and a Kevin." Chris had never mentioned having a vigilante friend who blew up planes, however, and she doubts it's the same person.

"Don't worry if it isn't them. Their not showing up here may be the best thing for them."

If this was the afterlife, there'd be dozens of Kevins and Chrises. Hundreds. Millions.

But she persists, anyway. "Smokes and drinks a lot?" she asks. "Bloody genius? Poet? And Kevin, does he -"

Collapse in a comatose ball at the sight of trouble?

"...is he a bit of an arse?"

This is, however, a very specific afterlife, so unfortunately there's only one of each.

"I think he does a little." It takes some effort not to laugh thinking of her Chris as a "bloody genius" however. "If he's a poet, he's very good at hiding it. Kevin I don't know well, so I can't give you an answer one way or the other."

Probably not them. What are the odds?

Ellie rubs her temples. "Anyone Australian?" she asks. "At all?"

"I think you're the first." At this, Beatrix flashes an apologetic smile. "We've got a mixture of cultures and species here, but nobody else I've met from down under."

She tilts her head, curious. "You don't have to answer me, but why did you blow up the fuel jet?"

Something in Ellie's eyes goes hard.

"They invaded my country," she snaps. "What was I supposed to do?"

Bea notices, and tilts her head. In an ideal world, no one so young should have that hardness in their eyes. But she hasn't run across an ideal world yet.

"Who did?" She isn't judging, merely prompting.

"The enemy."

She's shivering again. It's not the shakes - not just the shakes. "It's really cold in here."

"Of course." Any invader automatically would be.

All the maternal instinct rises to the surface when she sees Ellie shiver, and Bea lays a hand against her forehead without asking permission. The girl is burning up, and not for the first time Beatrix wishes she was back home where she'd be able to check the girl's temperature without running her to the infirmary.

"You're warm. We need to get you rested." Although she had a feeling Ellie wouldn't like it, she wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her. "Do you remember where your room was?"

She jerks a thumb back. "It's the one back there."

Bea's hand is cool, and she sighs, softly, thinking maybe it'll be all right if she just lets the adult handle this one.

"But I don't like it," she says, as she's drawn to her feet. "It's how it was before."

"We don't have to go back there if you don't want to." She pulls the girl into a one-armed hug and nudges her to stand. "Can you walk?"

The way she sees it, they've got two options: the infirmary, or her cabin. She has an aversion to the first so chooses the second, intending to tuck Ellie up under her quilt and wait for her fever to break.

"I c'n always walk." Muttered, but she moves to her feet, determinedly. Her friends thought she was unbeatable. She has to believe that about herself, too.

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