Narrative/Motivation
Samus had to do something. Something more than to wander around a cemetary and not find zombies, anyway. As it was, her reluctance to stay in one spot for very long was barely satisfying her craving for exploration.
Still, things weren't as positive as they had been, which wasn't all that positive to begin with. Stumbling onto Matt's journal and seeing how everyone else reacted, and what she found out...
...it wasn't too much for her to handle. Not being able to help out, that was eating her up inside. It didn't matter that she didn't know these people - she'd saved countless, nameless lives before.
Still, there was nothing she could do about it right now. All she could do was...
...end up in a completely different spot than she thought she was headed. While the spatial 'folding' phenomenon seemed to favour doors, it was by no means restricted to them. She made a mental note: Brush past Lump's cage on the way to the kitchen, end up at the tenements. It was worth retesting if she ended up in that house again.
Thankfully, she had just been outside, trying - and failing miserably - to find some decent sunlight. Her backpack containing her laptop, seeds and 'pasta' was still equipped.
Samus had only seen the tenements from afar, like on the way to the cemetary apparently inhabited by ninja-zombies. Being this close, one thing was obvious - there was life here. In each of the buildings, there were the sounds of people. Not necessarily speech, but little things like a chair scraping on the floor, or water running for a brief time before stopping. A lot of people had decided to huddle themselves in these smaller residences. Perhaps it was a 'strength in numbers' mentality.
Without a power source, the battery in her laptop only lasted fifteen minutes. Samus quietly cursed her lack of foresight in not getting a watch before turning on the computer. As soon as everything had loaded, she checked the time. It was...late enough for her to look for a place to sleep. From the look of the tenements, she had about eleventy billion options to choose from.
The first building seemed to have less people. At least, they were all on the first floor. It would be much easier for Samus to slip in and out without being seen. She chose the next floor, picked a door, and hoped if it was going to take her anywhere, it would send her back to that house with the dead...thing.
No luck, good or bad. Tonight, it was just an ordinary door.
After checking that the apartment was indeed uninhabited, Samus looked for a power point. Apart from when she first woke up and the meeting, her only contact with people had been through the laptop. As she searched, her thoughts drifted to what she knew about the 'Nickel Samurai'.
Maya had told her, amongst so many other things, that Matt had raped someone, then Phoenix had shouted at Matt in his journal for something he did to someone called Ema. It wasn't hard to connect the dots.
Samus had never met these people, but if it wasn't for a lack of directions, she'd be out there giving Matt a piece of her mind, as well as a severe pummeling. Was it just the injustice of the situation, or -
Success - there was a power point next to the broken couch. She plugged in the computer, then hopped online to check out the journals. More people had arrived, and Matt had played a prank on someone. Between rape and pranks and calling her 'babe', there wasn't much room left for Samus to come up with a positive opinion of the guy.
Then she saw it.
To everyone who's been upset and/or worried:
Please, stop.
I'm alive.
It's just... my body hurts. That will heal.
That's all.
A brief look through the rest of the journal confirmed Samus' suspicions. It was that Ema girl.
Damn. It was obvious that her only feeling physical pain was a load of crap. To deny how she was hurt emotionally made about as much sense as someone denying their arm was broken. Every tiny little pressure on the injury would cause intense pain while it healed, and when it did heal, it would be misshapen.
Samus did know a thing or two about denial.
The way a misshapen limb was fixed...was to get it broken and reset. It sounded terrible, putting it like that, but to run with the metaphor even further, if the broken bone was aligned before it had started to heal, it would still hurt like hell, but in the end...
...it had to be done.
So, you're going to save her from her own self-destruction while perpetuating yours?_
The brief thought occured to her that it was Adam dispensing his advice again, but she quickly dismissed it. After what happened last time, he'd reintroduce himself to her as fast as technologically possible.
No. The computer was just stating the bleeding obvious. Complete with screen bleeding.
What was also obvious was that she could do something now, all in the 'comfort' of her own corner. Better a stranger do this to Ema than someone she knows, for whom she'd feel betrayal instead of the comparatively mere anger Samus was hoping to provoke and attract.
She cracked her knuckles and started typing, the laptop's blood coating her fingertips. I hope this isn't symbolic of anything...
Still, things weren't as positive as they had been, which wasn't all that positive to begin with. Stumbling onto Matt's journal and seeing how everyone else reacted, and what she found out...
...it wasn't too much for her to handle. Not being able to help out, that was eating her up inside. It didn't matter that she didn't know these people - she'd saved countless, nameless lives before.
Still, there was nothing she could do about it right now. All she could do was...
...end up in a completely different spot than she thought she was headed. While the spatial 'folding' phenomenon seemed to favour doors, it was by no means restricted to them. She made a mental note: Brush past Lump's cage on the way to the kitchen, end up at the tenements. It was worth retesting if she ended up in that house again.
Thankfully, she had just been outside, trying - and failing miserably - to find some decent sunlight. Her backpack containing her laptop, seeds and 'pasta' was still equipped.
Samus had only seen the tenements from afar, like on the way to the cemetary apparently inhabited by ninja-zombies. Being this close, one thing was obvious - there was life here. In each of the buildings, there were the sounds of people. Not necessarily speech, but little things like a chair scraping on the floor, or water running for a brief time before stopping. A lot of people had decided to huddle themselves in these smaller residences. Perhaps it was a 'strength in numbers' mentality.
Without a power source, the battery in her laptop only lasted fifteen minutes. Samus quietly cursed her lack of foresight in not getting a watch before turning on the computer. As soon as everything had loaded, she checked the time. It was...late enough for her to look for a place to sleep. From the look of the tenements, she had about eleventy billion options to choose from.
The first building seemed to have less people. At least, they were all on the first floor. It would be much easier for Samus to slip in and out without being seen. She chose the next floor, picked a door, and hoped if it was going to take her anywhere, it would send her back to that house with the dead...thing.
No luck, good or bad. Tonight, it was just an ordinary door.
After checking that the apartment was indeed uninhabited, Samus looked for a power point. Apart from when she first woke up and the meeting, her only contact with people had been through the laptop. As she searched, her thoughts drifted to what she knew about the 'Nickel Samurai'.
Maya had told her, amongst so many other things, that Matt had raped someone, then Phoenix had shouted at Matt in his journal for something he did to someone called Ema. It wasn't hard to connect the dots.
Samus had never met these people, but if it wasn't for a lack of directions, she'd be out there giving Matt a piece of her mind, as well as a severe pummeling. Was it just the injustice of the situation, or -
Success - there was a power point next to the broken couch. She plugged in the computer, then hopped online to check out the journals. More people had arrived, and Matt had played a prank on someone. Between rape and pranks and calling her 'babe', there wasn't much room left for Samus to come up with a positive opinion of the guy.
Then she saw it.
To everyone who's been upset and/or worried:
Please, stop.
I'm alive.
It's just... my body hurts. That will heal.
That's all.
A brief look through the rest of the journal confirmed Samus' suspicions. It was that Ema girl.
Damn. It was obvious that her only feeling physical pain was a load of crap. To deny how she was hurt emotionally made about as much sense as someone denying their arm was broken. Every tiny little pressure on the injury would cause intense pain while it healed, and when it did heal, it would be misshapen.
Samus did know a thing or two about denial.
The way a misshapen limb was fixed...was to get it broken and reset. It sounded terrible, putting it like that, but to run with the metaphor even further, if the broken bone was aligned before it had started to heal, it would still hurt like hell, but in the end...
...it had to be done.
So, you're going to save her from her own self-destruction while perpetuating yours?_
The brief thought occured to her that it was Adam dispensing his advice again, but she quickly dismissed it. After what happened last time, he'd reintroduce himself to her as fast as technologically possible.
No. The computer was just stating the bleeding obvious. Complete with screen bleeding.
What was also obvious was that she could do something now, all in the 'comfort' of her own corner. Better a stranger do this to Ema than someone she knows, for whom she'd feel betrayal instead of the comparatively mere anger Samus was hoping to provoke and attract.
She cracked her knuckles and started typing, the laptop's blood coating her fingertips. I hope this isn't symbolic of anything...