The White Room

Hydra

When Sera wakes up, she won't have any sense of how long she's been out, since there are no windows and no clock in the room. She'll be in roughly the same state she was in the first time she woke up there. Health bad but not any worse than it was, and re-hooked to the IV and the monitor. She's not restrained, so she can get up if she wants to. Callum took away the tray of food but left the bottle of water on the table.

The door is, once more, solidly locked.

If she attempts to communicate, she'll get a single statement from Callum over the intercom. "I'm sorry, Sera, but this really is the only option."

After that, it'll be silence. And no one will come into the room with her. One would imagine that they probably took what they needed while she was unconscious. (And in fact, close inspection will reveal a fresh needle mark on the inside of her elbow, where presumably blood was taken.)

Serafíne

Sera does get up. She's tempted to tear out the IV again and just beat on the fucking door until she passes out. That is a clear possibility inside her. It is a stone she turns over as she shifts in the hospital bed, feeling the plastic mattress sigh beneath her slight weight, the crisp music of the hospital sheets. Closes her eyes tightly and turns over, fetal, holding herself still and trying to simply Be. Or some fucking thing. That meditation shit that Jim does.

She does it differently, Sera. At the node, slides into the warmth of the hot spring and lets the sensation spread out through her and open her up; then a spike of sharp awareness and the brilliant prickling of the magic in everything, everything, the space between spaces and the stars between stars but this,

Christ.

And it is silent. So fucking silent. Maybe - just maybe that silence is better than the stupid drone of daytime television but it is cold and ominous and shivering and she cannot think for it. At some point she's going to pull the IV out again; she can't help it, fuck them. Sera beats on the door and shouts herself hoarse. Shouts until she's coughing up bright red blood again and feels this stark, internal shiver and turns around and slides down the door. She sits there for a long time, arms wrapped around her legs, chin resting on her knee.

Aching.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, that ache becomes meditative; not in the way Jim meditates, so present in her body, but in that physical visceral way she has. She just feels it; allows herself to feel it, everything that's wrong with her. Everything that's wrong. Holds the ache in the back of her throat; the pain and the wrongness, the shaking weakness in her legs, the way the room goes dark and starts to spin when the coughing fit goes on too long.

On and on.

And drifts.

[Going to start with this effect. I don't know if she would try something else but we'll start here!

mnemosyne @ 11:16AM
1. WP - phobia.
Roll: 6 d10 TN7 (3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID

mnemosyne @ 11:16AM
2. Time 2/Mind 2. Who was here and what the fuck were you thinking? Difficulty: 5 +1 (sick) -2 (merit) -1 (taking her damn ass time since she has nothing else to do)
Roll: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 6) ( success x 1 ) VALID

Samael @ 11:17AM
OOOH, I bet I know where Sera is!

mnemosyne @ 11:17AM
Extending, Time 2/Mind 2. Difficulty +1.
Roll: 2 d10 TN4 (8, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP] VALID

mnemosyne @ 11:17AM
aaaand, extending. Time 2/Mind 2.
Roll: 2 d10 TN4 (8, 10) ( success x 2 ) VALID

niko @ 11:18AM
Awwwww Sera =[ niko @ 11:18AM
Also, witnessed!]

Hydra

Sera goes back, and this is what she sees:

The room was once a bare cement space, its walls chipped and dusty from neglect. Then people came and made it what it was. They were all young - all somewhere in their 20's - and they took turns preparing the room. Cleaning, filling in holes and painting. Wiring the place with cameras. Disinfecting the bathroom. They did something to the ventilation system: installed something inside the shafts that involved tubing and a spray unit. The door was a new install as well, and it took them a long time to get the security system wired up.

It was usually only a couple at a time, and none of them were faces that Sera recognized. (Callum was not among them.) Some of them were quiet, while others chatted amiably about mundane topics like sports scores and the last movie they saw. None of them talked about their families or mentioned a significant other.

One of the women - a pretty brunette with vibrant blue eyes who did a lot of the painting - was unreadable to Sera's attempt to glean her thoughts. Another went back and forth between concern for the proper installation of the door (they had to be certain that it would hold up against attack) and daydreaming thoughts about... some guy who looked an awful lot like Eric.

One of the men working on the cameras took his shirt off at one point. Underneath, there was a tattoo of a Hydra on his back.

He was thinking about how excited he was that they were finally going to test out the virus, imagining images of people he'd known (Awakened, one might assume) falling apart and dying at his feet.

Still another man - the one who cleaned up the bathroom - was thinking lonely, nostalgic thoughts about a girl he'd been in love with. The thoughts were steeped in grief and loss, but however she may have died, that wasn't what he was choosing to remember.

Towards the end, Sera finally did see someone she recognized: Eric. He walked in covered in splatters of paint (from another room, perhaps?) and greeted the girl with the bright blue eyes. The two of them had a familial ease around each other. Eric teased her about her hair being messy and reached out to tug her ponytail. The girl swatted him away in annoyance. She had a burn scar on one arm.

Girl: "Don't, Eric." (She seemed tense, anxious.)

Eric: "What's up with you? You've been in a mood since we got here."

Girl: "What am I supposed to be, happy?"

Eric: "I don't know. Hopeful? It's progress, Katie. We're getting that much closer to a cure."

Girl: "A cure..." she spat the words and laughed incredulously. "You sound like a terrorist."

Eric: "We're not terrorists. Don't say shit like that."

Katie was silent.

Eric: "I know it's hard. But we're saving lives. Maybe even the fate of the whole fucking world. That matters more than..."

He sighed.

Eric: "Don't let it get to you. We're doing this for Tom. And for Sadie. And all the other people they've killed. They're a disease, Katie. They don't deserve your sympathy."

Katie stared blankly at the wall. "It isn't sympathy. And don't you dare mention his name again."

Eric tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but Katie shrugged it off violently. He left after that, and she sunk down to the floor and cried.

The next day, after the paint had dried, a couple of people dragged the hospital bed and equipment into the room. They were joined shortly thereafter by Callum, who walked in and surveyed the job they'd done, inspecting the cameras and the door and the ventilation shafts.

All he said was: "Good. Thank you."

Then he left, and they locked up the room.

It stayed that way for a while - empty and dark. Until finally Callum and another of the unknown men brought Sera's unconscious body into the room and laid her out on the bed. They were followed by Katie and another woman, who insisted (in an odd show of courtesy) that they be the ones to clean and dress her. So Callum and the man left, and Sera was cleaned up and re-dressed. Callum returned to take blood samples and to perform some examinations. Then he injected her with something and hooked up the IV and the heart monitor.

Then he left again, leaving Sera alone and unconscious in the bed.

That was when the divination ended.