<c.o.i. communications terminal> this is a remote database. all communications are monitored by c.o.i. central intelligence.
[message] i can live with that as long as whoeverâs receiving can. you probably need this more than me. i can barely believe they let me have comms at all.
hi. my name is aster crete. iâm the one that made it back.
Aster's room is relatively unfurnished. They may not be a convict anymore, but supplies is still scarce and even a room of their own was better than they were hoping for.
The more they think about it, the more they're pretty sure it's just so the C.O.I. can more easily keep tabs on themâ easier if they have one place they return to for sleep, rather than having them floating around the station somewhere.
Still, it's theirs. There's a bed, the communications terminal, and⌠yeah, that's about it. Everything they owned was taken away when they were first imprisoned, and they've accumulated very little since they finished their conviction realization.
The terminal, though⌠they blink, rubbing their eyes. None of the messages they've sent out have changed. None of the incoming signals have changed, either, except for the occasional flickering, which makes sense for ones coming from other universes, which is still their running theory.
But still, just⌠there are so many. So many SM-13s. So many Butchersâ sorry, Simons. All of them alive, as opposed to, as Aster had so elegantly put it before, "in a bunch of little pieces all over the ocean floor."
Universes overlapping, that's fine, that makes about as much sense as the Quiet Rapture as a whole does, Aster can accept that. But the fact that all of them (or at least so many of them) are wired into Aster's terminal, specifically⌠that's what gets them. How is it that their terminal, out of all the ones on the station, seems to be dialed to just the right frequency to catch them all? How is it even possible to connect to frequencies from other universes in the first place? What does it mean?
âŚWhat does it mean?
They swallow thickly, tasting iron on their tongue. Something⌠stirs inside them at the thought, something that has been there ever since they woke up back on the deck of AT-5's sub bay and coughed up over a gallon of blood from their lungs.
Whatever it is, it doesn't matter. Aster's nightmarish ordeal is overâ it's over. But for all those Simons out there, it is anything but. The last thing they want is for anyone to go through what they did, to be soâ
âso what? Their mind hitches at the thought, and it fizzles out before finishing. A slow pressure builds behind their temples in its place, and they put a hand to their head, wincing and getting up from the terminal for a moment. Their spine pops a few times as they do so, and they flinch at the sound. Something about it is too goddamn familiar.
They shake their head, throat bobbing again. Their mouth feels so dry.
âŚThey just need a glass of water. A little jog around the station and a glass of water to clear their head.
That's all.
// and hereâs a chronological list of every plot-relevant thing thatâs happened on the blog so far! will be updated as time goes on and more things happen ;)
under the cut now cause it's getting LONG //
