divina commedia

"Hey," she echoed the casual greeting back. His reply about his powers somewhat accented to Hana's San Fran ears, as she gratefully followed his lead to the way inside the ship. "Thanks. Are you Korean? 안녕..." she attempted the greeting. "I mean, I'm Korean too. Well, Korean-American so you know. Never really learned the language from my grandparents, so..." She shook her head. "Never been to South Korean, either. Anyway, I'm Hana."

He certainly wasn't hostile, just a normal sort of wariness which was to be expected. He was also very pretty - everyone here was. "So what kind of powers do you have, if you don't mind me asking? You've probably figured by now that I'm one of the newcomers from those announcements. Don't murder me, okay." Her own little joke, far less light-hearted than his.

As for what she was searching for, Hana couldn't exactly say ' a way to make you new test subjects feel safe around me'. She tried: "Something that won't get me kicked out. Because I've known Dr Pan and Mr Hook longer than your bunch, and this whole threat on the food supply? It's just the start." She put on her best all-knowing, hyper-competent, confident attitude. "But I can help you guys with that."

Her joke about not murdering her brought back the reality of the situation. Right. The announcement, and the threat the newcomers supposedly posed. He shook his head. “I’m not really the murdering type,” he promised. Not even bugs. He’d chase them out with a broom and an old pizza box as shield, but he didn’t have it in him to kill them - except mosquitos. Fuck those guys. 

“My powers are hexmaking.” Jin explained, unsure if that even made sense. “Just, you know… symbols and patterns and…” He gestured vaguely. He had a bandage on his left hand from where one of his hexes had backfired spectacularly, but he didn’t mention that little detail. “What about you?” Jin slipped his bag off his shoulder and tossed it up into the entrance to the cruise ship - or at least where he usually entered. “Wait, you know them?” He turned to look at her, immediately a little more on edge. “And the food shortage is just a start of… what, exactly?” This announcement was really the first real threat since he’d arrived, and he realised that this island wasn’t just happy camping with silly powers, but actually something deeper and more serious. Paired with what Selin had told him, he really should be more guarded. “Should I be scared of you?... I mean, how can you help?” 

Their ears still covered with the huge construction headphones, Baskar made their way into camp. The level of sound was normal, so they actually had to push the padded area - less useful after a lot of wear - up to be able to hear the world around him, but they still acted flighty and worried as they strode through the place. They’d started hearing the announcements on the speakers about halfway between their camp and the big camp, finding that there were actually speakers at the very edges, as if the people who’d built the place did want them catching it too. 

They didn’t know who these newcomers were, but they did make a beeline for the warehouse, only to find commotion there. Too many people in a single place. As they rubbed the back of their neck, they set out in a different direction. They could check the hub, maybe there were leftovers from lunch. 

Jin took a small step back to give them both space. “It’s alright,” he said, offering a polite smile to reassure the person. “Things are getting heated, so I understand the escaping part.” He admitted with a nod. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to be doing, so going for that walk to clear his head was his best suggestion at the moment. “Where are you escaping to?” He found himself asking before he could catch himself. “Just, you know… do you know of a place without the noise?” 

Of course, he would've used his ability on the wound right away, knowing he still had some juice in the bracelet and that it would be much cleaner: it would mean no time to heal for the other, and no further check-ups. - He dreaded those because he always feared Akhila would suddenly burst in and start telling him he'd completely ruined someone's limb.

Yet, the comment made the friendly smile disappear. The other doctor. He felt like he'd proven himself by now, but anyone questioning his abilities tended to step on a sore spot.

"Don't worry, you don't need to wait around, I can fix you up." Though he'd do it the old fashioned way. He grabbed some cloth and alcohol to clean the wound, since the other had said it was made by a knife. He frowned. "Pretty deep wound," he said, as it kept bleeding. "Probably a good idea if you sit down."

“Okay, sure,” Jin said, moving to sit down where indicated. He watched Adarsh gather the supplies with a critical eye, noting the alcohol and cloth. His jaw tightened slightly when Adarsh commented on the depth of the wound. Of course, it was deep, the hex had backfired spectacularly, and apparently his hand was paying the price. “I wasn’t paying attention,” he said, lamely, trying to keep his voice even. “And the blade was sharper than I thought.” 

He flexed his other hand nervously, then forced himself to stop. The last thing he needed was to look more anxious than he already felt. His eyes moved between his injured hand and Adarsh’s movements. “How long is this going to take?” The question came out more impatient than he’d intended, but between the pain, the blood, and the surprise of seeing the other man there - his usual composure was wearing thin.” 

So, this was a new addition.

The stupid announcement had finally ended its 20-minute siren call, and proved...something. Something that meant she was still alive, relatively no worse for the wear. Did this test prove a restored faith in the 2020s era of humanity? Would Dr Pan be pleased with the results? Only time would tell.

Hana had heard that most of the robot-hornets had been destroyed by these superpowered test subjects, but. Another hornet-attack notwithstanding, never put it past the experimenters to design new ways to flush a failed experiment.

Regardless, here was the cruise ship. Supposedly the way a lot of the new test subjects had arrived on the island (or been placed), and it now sagged sadly in the beautiful blue lagoon, a bulky monstrosity in a pristine location. Paradise, indeed. Hana wondered if anything was still left in there that might be useful, even after 18-months of these people's scavenging. She needed leverage, as soon as possible.

Another person was nearby on the beach, and Hana gave them a tentative wave. The other person wasn't carrying any makeshift weapon, didn't seem to be powering up to attack her, so Hana tried her best to look friendly. Smile, Hana! People liked smiling people...well, that wasn't true for all cultures. In some places, smiling made you look like a lunatic.

"Hi!" she called out, then pointed up the cruise ship. "You wouldn't happen to have any special super powers that could get me - us! - up into there, would you?"

The voice pulled him out of his thoughts, and he turned to see someone waving at him. He almost raised his hand to wave back, but caught himself before he could. Was this one of the people he was meant to look out for? He didn’t recognise them, so… they probably were. That being said, she seemed harmless. Friendly at least. The smile seemed a little forced, but he could absolutely relate to that. “Hey,” he replied, a little cautious but not unfriendly. 

“I, uh, I don’t really have the climbing type of powers.” He said and shook his head. “There’s a way in around here…” he said, a little hesitantly, but gestured for her to follow him, offering her a polite smile back since she had gone through the effort to do so herself. “You looking for anything specific, or do I need to put up a ‘no girls allowed’ sign on my club house?” He joked, hoping to ease some of his own tension, and also perhaps hers. 

"So, um...how do I even begin?" She hummed softly trying to think of how to explain this in the least concerning way possible. "A lot of us woke up on that cruise ship out there. Most of us, really. Completely confused and having no idea where we were, how we got here, why the beach was full of camera's watching us. And had these things on our wrists." She started to explain, holding up her wrist to show off her bracelet with the purple and yellow gemstone encased inside.

"We get here, told its paradise and to enjoy ourselves. Next thing we know, these bracelets are giving us weird powers, a lady explodes into a giant puff of sand, and over the course of the year before you arrived we've had different things come out of the woodwork trying their best to...I don't know, hurt us? Test us?" Testing them was certainly the goal, in hindsight now that they were aware of their willing participation in this experiment.

"Those little furby looking monkey's in the Tower have an aggressive side if you step out of line, they still make me anxious even if they probably need to be ordered to attack and have been minding their business lately. There were also giant robotic hornets, destroying stuff on the island, attacking people if they got too close." Selin shook her head, the memory of it bringing back the phantom pain in her neck from her encounter, though any sign of bruising or injury was nonexistent now.

Jin immediately regretted his tone, feeling he was being accusatory. She had taken him in and showed him around the island, given him something to do so he didn’t go absolutely mad, and welcomed him, showing him that people were actually really nice there. “Sorry, I–,” he shook his head, forcing himself to take a breath. “I mean, I get it, how do you tell this to someone, you know? I just…” He looked down at his own bracelet, the crystal glinting in the light. He’d been so focused on figuring out the hexes, on treating this like some weird puzzle to solve, that he hadn’t considered the real reason they were there. 

“So the powers aren’t gifts, just… part of the experiment.”  He said, more to himself than to Selin. “The people who didn’t survive, what happened to them?” 

While the Medicentre was in fact Akhila's domain, Adarsh had decided part of the place was his. He was more than a glorified nurse, he had actual skills now. He'd learned them over the months, eager to be able to prove to Akhila that he could do more than wait for her approval.

He also didn't always wait for approval, though lately it was more likely that he'd end the day still with some power left at his fingertips. Just in case. And instead he'd simply use human means to fix someone up, send them on their way, perferably as quickly as possible because his bed-side manners were terrible.

He actually had to force himself to be nice, which had annoyed him and driven him mad the first few months he was on the island, but now he'd gotten used to it. He still had difficulty catching himself however.

"Alright, what's the matter?" he asked, hands on his hips, barely making eye-contact. He might as well have a clipboard. There was that white doctor who had a famous tv-show, who was a total asshole but solved complex medical cases...? What was his name again? Now, that was someone he could aspire to.

“Had an accident,” he mumbled, looking up at the person speaking to him. Of course, it was Adarsh. Jin’s jaw clenched a little, but he didn’t say anything more. He looked away from him instead. He hoped the fact he was clearly in pain was enough to mask the uncomfortable look on his face. “I was carving something and the knife slipped.” He said instead, hoping the lie was believable enough to explain why he had a whole gash in the palm of his hand. 

“Can you do anything about it or do I need to wait for the other doctor?” He arched an eyebrow, looking up to see Adrash’s reaction. 

The speakers humming to life after being dormant for so long was not a good sign of things to come. Ever since they got into the tower, it seemed as though they had been left alone. Things had slowed down, they were quiet, and despite the internal struggle of coming to terms with their past and reasons for agreeing to coming here, that was better than trying to survive killer robot hornets. But now there was a problem. New people from a previous experiment, cutting off food supply, the implication of removing these people from their numbers.

Selin had been working on making some extra handcrafted book check out slips with Jin as the announcement rang out across the island. Right. This was probably his first encounter with the ones in charge toying with them. He showed up during their moments of peace and Selin wasn't sure what anyone else had taught him about this place but when she met him she actively avoided retelling the horrors they were facing prior to his arrival.

"Oh that's not good..." She muttered softly as the announcement transmission ended. Her eyes were wide with shock and worry, her hands stopping what she was working on. She turned to glance over at Jin, trying to figure out what to say. "I don't want to alarm you but...I think things are going to get weird here...again."

The speakers cracking to life, the sound was sharp enough to send chills down his spine. His hands stilled mid-motion, a half-finished check-out slip caught between his fingers. The announcement sounded like something out of a horror film. He didn’t believe it was real at first. It made no sense. Previous experiments, food supply… removing people? Surely they didn’t mean…? 

Jin’s jaw tightened as the transmission cut out. When he looked up at Selin, her wide eyes and worry told him that the announcement wasn’t fake after all. “Again,” he repeated, his voice coming out a little flat. It wasn’t really a question, though he did wonder what she meant by that. 

He chewed on his bottom lip thoughtfully, placing the slip he had been working on down on the table in front of him. The relatively peaceful days were bound to come to an end at some point anyway, right? Nothing about this place had been normal. “How weird are we talking? And what do you mean ‘again’? What happened before I got here?”