1st Attack . video & spam

[inhell]

[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?

Comments

[deadliestviper]

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."

[inhell]

Probably not them. What are the odds?

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

[deadliestviper]

"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?"

[inhell]

Something in Ellie's eyes goes hard.

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

[deadliestviper]

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.

[inhell]

"The enemy."

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

[deadliestviper]

"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?"

[inhell]

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."

[deadliestviper]

"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.

[inhell]

"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.