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Title: lost and never found
fandom: Eclipse Phase
square: mechanical/technological
word count: 619
summary: Rosario builds hirself paradise. It doesn't matter that sie's never known real water or warmth. The Lost Generation, and a story no one wants to hear.
content notes: underage characters (they have only lived less than 10 real years, but by the end have been force-aged to 18 and lived 18 years of simulated time in an artificial environment): no other standard notes apply, completely unethical human experimentation, murder (both off-screen and on-screen).
Rosario builds hirself paradise, the warmth of sun arcing overhead and the coolness of water beneath hir feet, a little corner carved out of simspace and it doesn't matter that sie's never known real water or warmth, stretching hir hands towards light that sie's only read about, had knowledge dumped into hir head rather than experience-
(pain runs down hir nerves, as the Watts-McLeod virus takes root in hir spinal cord, crawls up hir spine, rewriting neural paths as it goes, and sie curls up, trying not to scream as hir mind shatters, crack crack crack and with every break sie can see further and further, patterns, thoughts, eternity: another of the Lost dies, screaming, and sie spins away, and doesn't know why sie should care)
Sie floats, spinning, and laughs, and changes hir world with a thought, sunlight slants darker until sie's tumbling through snow, cold, sie's never experienced that either but it doesn't matter when sie can read and listen and synthesize with the pattern of hir brainwaves. This is the only world sie's ever known: this is the only life sie's ever known, more real than anything sie's had dumped into hir mind, more real than what lies outside.
(the world breaks apart, shatters, and computer code runs in front of hir eyes, scrolling almost faster than sie can make out: sie bites hir lip and refuses to let the stream go, focusing on it until it slows down, slows down, slows down, until it reveals itself fully to hir sight. the world is hirs, and sie laughs without knowing why)
Underwater is cold and clear, filled with brightly colored fish straight from imagination and fantasy, and sie swims, slim bare limbs cutting through the water, though sie has never swum anywhere in hir life, the feeling as artificial as anything and everything else sie can create for hirself, digital sensation running down nerves made purely of information.
(pain hurts the same, though: Rosario swims the stream of computer code, the world resolving itself into both the underwater world and the flickering of binary. sie feels as though sie is drowning, and the water runs red with blood: sie swims as though hir life depends on it, and it does, and somewhere behind hir more of the Lost die screaming, at each other's hands and their own)
Rosario imagines playmates for hirself, to fill the loneliness: a thousand shapes, a thousand faces, create and recreate even as sie rebuilds hir paradise in hir own image, a tiny corner tucked away in the vastness of their simulated world, hir own world to be safe, where sie can live, can hide while hir siblings kill each other and themselves and sie won't have to hear their screaming. A garden, with every flower, where sie can dance and doesn't know what music sounds like.
(in the end, hir garden runs red with blood, because even a sanctuary cannot remain such in the end: not even hir own, and a sister-brother crushes the flowers. hir playmates lie dead and shattered at hir feet, and Rosario cannot cry, only laugh and laugh as sie twists the code, hir sibling is fast but sie's faster, kills hir sibling with a programmed hedge of roses and thorns, and Rosario never even knew hir name)
It rains, endlessly, beneath the shattered remnants of sky: (they bring hir out of the simulated world, along with the others who survived, few as they were, and admit their experiment was a failure), and Rosario shakes hir head as hir muse soothingly whispers in the back of hir mind, trying to be calming, soothing (keep hir psychosis in check under control unstable).
Sie doesn't look back.
fandom: Eclipse Phase
square: mechanical/technological
word count: 619
summary: Rosario builds hirself paradise. It doesn't matter that sie's never known real water or warmth. The Lost Generation, and a story no one wants to hear.
content notes: underage characters (they have only lived less than 10 real years, but by the end have been force-aged to 18 and lived 18 years of simulated time in an artificial environment): no other standard notes apply, completely unethical human experimentation, murder (both off-screen and on-screen).
Rosario builds hirself paradise, the warmth of sun arcing overhead and the coolness of water beneath hir feet, a little corner carved out of simspace and it doesn't matter that sie's never known real water or warmth, stretching hir hands towards light that sie's only read about, had knowledge dumped into hir head rather than experience-
(pain runs down hir nerves, as the Watts-McLeod virus takes root in hir spinal cord, crawls up hir spine, rewriting neural paths as it goes, and sie curls up, trying not to scream as hir mind shatters, crack crack crack and with every break sie can see further and further, patterns, thoughts, eternity: another of the Lost dies, screaming, and sie spins away, and doesn't know why sie should care)
Sie floats, spinning, and laughs, and changes hir world with a thought, sunlight slants darker until sie's tumbling through snow, cold, sie's never experienced that either but it doesn't matter when sie can read and listen and synthesize with the pattern of hir brainwaves. This is the only world sie's ever known: this is the only life sie's ever known, more real than anything sie's had dumped into hir mind, more real than what lies outside.
(the world breaks apart, shatters, and computer code runs in front of hir eyes, scrolling almost faster than sie can make out: sie bites hir lip and refuses to let the stream go, focusing on it until it slows down, slows down, slows down, until it reveals itself fully to hir sight. the world is hirs, and sie laughs without knowing why)
Underwater is cold and clear, filled with brightly colored fish straight from imagination and fantasy, and sie swims, slim bare limbs cutting through the water, though sie has never swum anywhere in hir life, the feeling as artificial as anything and everything else sie can create for hirself, digital sensation running down nerves made purely of information.
(pain hurts the same, though: Rosario swims the stream of computer code, the world resolving itself into both the underwater world and the flickering of binary. sie feels as though sie is drowning, and the water runs red with blood: sie swims as though hir life depends on it, and it does, and somewhere behind hir more of the Lost die screaming, at each other's hands and their own)
Rosario imagines playmates for hirself, to fill the loneliness: a thousand shapes, a thousand faces, create and recreate even as sie rebuilds hir paradise in hir own image, a tiny corner tucked away in the vastness of their simulated world, hir own world to be safe, where sie can live, can hide while hir siblings kill each other and themselves and sie won't have to hear their screaming. A garden, with every flower, where sie can dance and doesn't know what music sounds like.
(in the end, hir garden runs red with blood, because even a sanctuary cannot remain such in the end: not even hir own, and a sister-brother crushes the flowers. hir playmates lie dead and shattered at hir feet, and Rosario cannot cry, only laugh and laugh as sie twists the code, hir sibling is fast but sie's faster, kills hir sibling with a programmed hedge of roses and thorns, and Rosario never even knew hir name)
It rains, endlessly, beneath the shattered remnants of sky: (they bring hir out of the simulated world, along with the others who survived, few as they were, and admit their experiment was a failure), and Rosario shakes hir head as hir muse soothingly whispers in the back of hir mind, trying to be calming, soothing (keep hir psychosis in check under control unstable).
Sie doesn't look back.
