#and I feel drained afterwards

[raventroll80]

Stowaway

Chapter One: The Carrier

In this chapter Seth tries to settle in on the ship, but a surprising discovery leads him to many questions, meanwhile Em struggles to get her bearings strait and find somewhere safe to hide on this ship full of humans. (This is a rewrite of my unfinished fic Stowaway, any and all feedback is welcome, and encouraged!)

Edit: Heads up this chapter contains Animal Injury, and Injury

It had been about three days since the ARC complex was attacked, and about three days since the intern, Seth had met the Doom Slayer. He was still riding the adrenaline high from meeting him… and almost dying, that also happened. Since then, his division of the ARC had managed to relocated to the ARC’s Command Carrier. It wasn’t to overrun with demons surprisingly, but the carrier was damaged from a previous attack. Everyone was working double time to get the carrier up and running proper as they had rushed things in order to leave the harbor as fast as they could.

Now that they were out at sea everyone was a little less tense, but still on edge none the less. Seth found himself in the cargo bay with one other person taking inventory. The carrier was massive and it would take hours to check the bay on his own though Seth still felt alone in the massive bay.

He hadn’t seen the other guy in quite some time when he had heard a noise coming from behind some crates. It sounded like plastic crinkling mixed with some grunting.

“Hello? Who’s there?” he asked, hand on his holster. Seth slowly peeked around the corner before jumping out with his gun drawn. Though what he saw made him feel a bit foolish for drawing his gun. All there was, was a large mouse nibbling on some sort of food, the wrapper it was in crinkling as it ate.

“Well, aren’t you an adorable little guy,” Seth said, putting the pistol back in its holster before getting down on one knee to get a closer look at the mouse. “Definitely not a demon, no sir,” the mouse turned to look at him before scurrying off.

“Too bad I’m gonna have to report you, can’t have you getting into the food stores, can we?” he picked up the food the mouse had been eating and stuffed it into his pocket to throw away later. Out of the corner of his eye saw another one dart out of sight, catching a flicker of red on its body as he stood up.

“Oh no, poor thing…” he thought to himself as he stood up. Dusting himself off Seth picked up his PDA and logged his discovery of mice in the cargo hold before he continued his sweep of the cargo bay.

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Em breathed a sigh of as the human walked away. She barely had time to react when the human jumped out form around the crates, she was too preoccupied trying to wrestle her food from the mouse to notice his approach. She had managed to hide behind one of the crates as he crouched down and started talking.

She briefly though the human was talking to her before realizing he was actually talking to the mouse, though that didn’t make what he said any less concerning. He had said something about reporting it but she wasn’t fully listening due to her senses practically screaming for her to run.

She would have listened to it if it weren’t for the fact that she was starving and was hoping the human would leave the food behind. But predictably he didn’t and instead picked it up and stored it away to probably eat later… at least that’s what she’d do. Em was starving and food was scarce or locked away by the humans and larger folk. She was lucky that the Grimmars’ were letting her and Nimbus stay with them, let alone share their rations with them.

Em was hoping to find something to give to the couple as thanks for their generosity, but her borrowing trip had been cut short when those bodies reanimated. Em was glad she had brought the glider or she wouldn’t have escaped the fight on deck, though she will admit the landing could have gone a bit better… and that an elevator shaft wasn’t the most ideal place to test it either.

The glider in question had broken during her flight when she had failed to steer away from one of the support beams. The fact she didn’t crash into the ground was a miracle, though her hitting one of the few support beams was less than lucky. But none of that mattered now, what was important is that she finds some food and try to find a way off the ship before it left port. If she didn’t then Em would have to hope Nimbus stayed on the boat, If she didn’t then Em would truly be alone for the first time in her life…

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Half an hour had passed when Seth had left the bay with the other intern, he had deposited the half-eaten food in a garbage bin before submitting his report and dropping off his PDA on the bridge before heading to the cafeteria for dinner. As he ate, his thoughts drifted back to the mice he found in the cargo bay, specifically the injured one he saw. At least he thought it was injured, he didn’t get a good look at it before it scurried away.

The longer he thought about it the more Seth started to wonder if what he saw was a mouse. Yes, it was small and had a tail but, the red was a bit too dark to be blood. “Maybe the poor thing’s sick,” he thought to himself, “I hope not…”

Seth finished his food and returned to the bridge to continue his shift. The rest of his day was spent running diagnostics on the ship and fixing what he could and logging what he couldn’t. So far most of the problems were due to faulty and damaged wiring, presumably caused by the demons and mice. Security cameras were offline too. No doubt he’d have to fix those tomorrow, the general wanted to make sure that the carrier was completely secure before they made it to the Arctic Safezone.

After wrapping up his final report on a broken elevator in cargo, Seth clocked out of his shift on the bridge and retired to his room. The clock read 12:04 when Seth had flopped onto his bed. He rolled onto his back and removed his glasses, after cleaning them off Seth put them in the cubby above his bed. It didn’t take Seth long to fall asleep, the sound of distant thunder being somewhat soothing for once.

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Back in the cargo bay Em was on edge as she darted between the boxes, trying to stay out of sight as she made her way to the elevator shaft. The cargo bay was crawling with humans setting up mouse traps. She needed to get to the glider before they did, if she didn’t the humans would definitely know something was up.

Em had squeezed herself between some crates just in time for a human to walk up and lay down a trap. The fear was paralyzing as the human set up the trap. It was a standard snap trap with bait. If she wasn’t so terrified, Em would have attempted to try and swipe the bait once the humans left, but decided against it. The “bait” in question was nothing more then a glob of peanut butter. Not only would it be messy and she wouldn’t have the ability to clean herself off effectively, leaving her sticky and possibly smelling enough like it to attract rats.

The human walked away and the tingling subsided long enough for her to dart to the next hiding spot. She continued this routine of running and hiding until she managed to get well ahead of the humans. Now fully sprinting down an aisle, Em made her way back to the elevator shaft. After a minute of franticly searching Em was able to find her glider, it was a bit more broken than when she had left it.

Damn rats, she thought to herself as she gathered what was left of it.

Looking around, Em saw a pallet of cargo covered by a large black cloth. Perfect, or at least it was before she noticed that the cloth was nailed to the pallet, nothing a knife couldn’t fix though. Taking out her knife, Em cut a tall vertical line into the cloth, hoping that nobody would notice. Em brought the glider to the pallet and dragged it in. As she was pulling it in, something began tugging on the glider, the lack of tingling in her spine signaling that it was another rat looking for scraps. Not wanting to risk the glider being found Em began trying to pull the glider back in, though she quickly found this to be a losing battle.

Unsheathing her knife once more, Em gave one last yank on the glider before lunging forward and sinking the knife into the rat, the rodent shrieked in pain before scurrying off. Em gave a heavy sigh as she slumped back, her blood was pumping, her adrenalin was through the roof, and the pounding of her heart was deafening.

Her scalp and spine tingled like a limb that went to sleep, the pins and needles stabbing at her nervous system. She quickly dragged the glider in and pulled her cloak over her mask. By doing this Em was nearly indistinguishable from the other mice and rats that called this ship home. She then wedged herself between two crates, or at least she thought they were crates when she saw them.

As she waited for the humans to leave, Em could feel a deathly cold emanating from the containers next to her. Once the humans left and her senses calmed Em inspected the containers she had hid between. What she had thought were metal storage crates turned out to be large stone containers, whatever they contained would have to remain a mystery as there was no way Em could ever open them. Hell, by the looks of it even a human would struggle to open them. With nothing else to do Em removed her mask and took out her flashlight and decided to properly assess the damages done to the glider.

The right wing had been snapped in two during the crash, the outer half apparently having been dragged away by rodents. The left wing was a bit less damaged, but was still relatively inoperable and heavily chewed. Em doubted she’d be able to repair the glider, even then what purpose would it serve. She had no was to gain upward momentum whilst using it aside from doing small dives, but that was nowhere near enough to get her back up the shaft.

Em huffed in defeat and lied down to get some rest; it wasn’t like there was anything else to do anyways. As she lied there, Em fiddled with her cloak trying to get comfortable, doing so caused the hide to rip further. In her haste to deploy the glider, Em had hooked the right drawcord through her cloak causing it to rip during the crash. Now the tear was twice as big and exposed even more of her clothing, specifically her red shit, which was less than stealthy. Giving another annoyed huff Em gave up and went to sleep, hopefully she’d be able to find something to eat tomorrow.

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The beeping of his alarm woke Seth from his sleep. The clock read 5:30 as the intern prepared for the busy day ahead of him. Seth put on his glasses and grabbed his PDA before quickly jogging to the bridge for the morning meeting.

The meeting had begun with an announcement that the Slayer had been spotted on the UAC Phobos moon base, and had apparently shot a hole into the centner of Mars via the BFG 10K and had commandeered the BFG 9K. A murmur rippled through the morning team, a mix of shock, concern, and confused celebration was heard, the ARC was still unsure of whether or not the Slayer was on their side.

The rest of the meeting was spent assigning everybody’s jobs for the day, as expected Seth had been assigned the task of checking the cameras for damage and mapping the blind spots. Seth and the other interns looked out the massive windows that made up the front of the bridge at the massive thunderstorm that was currently pelting the carrier.

Oh joy…

Seth found himself clinging to the railing as he stumbled his way across the upper deck. It had taken them about two hours to make their way outside and the storm hadn’t gotten any better, in fact Seth was pretty sure it had gotten worse. The flight deck wasn’t too slippery but Seth wasn’t a big fan of heights, and the semi frequent bolts of lightning didn’t help to calm his nerves. He was about to do a radio check when a hand clasped his shoulder.

Seth yelped in alarm, dropping his radio and PDA. A commander yelled over the storm. “Willems! What the hell are you doing out here!”

“We were told to map the blind spots sir!”

“And none of you’s though that maybe the outside cameras could wait?”

“… no sir,”

“Let’s get inside before someone gets struck,”

Back inside Seth and the others were informed that the outside cameras could wait until the storm passed, though the hangar would still need to be check since it was covered. Seth passed by the bridge to pick up a new PDA as the other one was surely toast.

The small group slowly worked their way through the ship, stopping around noon for a lunch break before continuing their job. Whilst in the hangar Seth and a technician noticed a pair of large black birds perched atop one of the jets. The two birds had gathered quite the crowd as a few more technicians and soldiers watched the birds.

“What kinda bird do you think they are?” one of the soldiers asked, gesturing towards them.

“Probably crows,” a technician replied.

“Nah, too big,”

“Then why’d you ask,” Seth submitted the blind spot map as the two continued to argue about the birds. Their bickering caused the birds to fly off into the rafters, where Seth saw another much larger bird shuffle out of view.

“Poor things,” the technician he had been working with sighed.

“Huh?”

“The birds, they must have been roosting while the ship left port, we’re way too far out for them to make it back.” He replied. Seth looked back up at the pair, the two were huddled close together on the rafter. “I might try and sneak them some food, hopefully they can make it to the Safezone,”

“Yeah, I think you might need more than a sandwich though, I saw something a lot bigger up there,” Seth replied, pointing towards where he last saw the other bird.

“Might’ve been a vulture, those things seemed to be having a grand old time during this whole apocalypse,”

“Don’t blame them though, with all this hellgrowth and dead meat everywhere, must be heaven for ‘em,”

“At least for the ones who haven’t choked to death on the air, I’m surprised any birds survived this,” The two walked past another group of technicians and repairmen working on a broken elevator. Seth waved to the technician as they parted ways. Seth made his way down to the cargo bay; he radioed the other interns to confirm they were there before he began to map out the cargo bay.

Seth was walking down one of the corridors, when out of the corner of his eye he spotted it, a flash of red amongst brown fur. He immediately turned his head to look for the injured mouse and watched a tail slide between some boxes. He ran towards the opposite side of the boxes and gasped.

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Em had been scavenging about, hoping to find an unlucky mouse who had gotten killed in on of the traps. She had almost made it back to where that one trap had been placed when a far too familiar tingling feeling began prickling her spine. Stopping in her tacks, Em just barely stopped herself from running into the shoe of a human, and not just any human. It was the same human from yesterday who had almost spotted her.

She immediately turned tail and ran. She felt her tingling shift as she ran from the human, by the time it registered what that meant it was too late. Em now stood face to face with a wide-eyed human who had gasped upon seeing her. Fear paralyzed her as the human crouched down and a scream escaped her throat as the human snatched her up. The human quickly stood up and brought Em up to their face. Her eyes began to blur, unsure as to whether it was from fear or tears.

Em’s heart was pounding in her chest and her head was spinning as she rose above the floor. After some effort Em was able to dig out her knife and stabbed it into his hand. The human yelped in pain and dropped her, Em braced for impact as she hit the floor.  Em gasped as the wind was knocked out of her, but she quickly recovered. Not wasting any time Em took off sprinting while the human was still confused.

Her heart continued to pound in her chest as she ran, threatening to beat out of her chest with each step. Finally, Em spotted a cargo pallet covered in a thick netting, she dove in and wedged herself between the crates. Slowly Em felt the adrenalin drain from her body, leaving her tired and scared. She curled up into herself and soon passed out from the exhaustion.

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Seth had picked up the tiny person so that he could get a better look at them and to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Though he quickly regretted the action once he was able to see their face clearly, a look of terror was plastered across their face, and he could feel their tiny heart racing in their chest. He was about to say something when he felt a sharp pain in his hand.  Seth yelped at the sudden feeling and ended up dropping the small human when he noticed that they had stabbed him.

Mild panic had set in as he removed the knife. They had stabbed him hard and deep, with the tiny knife having been pushed down almost to the handle. By the time he was done the tiny person was nowhere to be seen, they must have run off to somewhere else in the cargo bay. All that Seth could find was the small bag the person was wearing when he had picked them up, they must have left it behind during their escape.

Seth pocketed the bag before continuing his work, not wanting to get into any trouble with the higher ups. He quickly wrapped up the blind spot mapping and sent in his report before leaving for the mess hall, though not without stopping by his room to put a bandage on his injury and drop off the bag on his desk.

Dinner was eaten slowly as Seth replayed the events from this afternoon in his head. “Was it a mouse? No, it had a knife. Was it a hallucination? It couldn’t have been, they stabbed him. I shouldn’t have grabbed them though, they looked terrified. Are there more of them or are they alone, if they are alone than are they alright? Are they hurt, that was a long drop for someone that small… What were they?” all these thoughts swirled about his head as Seth picked away at the stew, “I wonder if they’re hungry…”

Seth finished his food and left the cafeteria. The walk back to his room was fairly quiet, once and a while he’d pass a small group of people leaving for their shift of duties and he’d give them a polite wave as they passed by.

 Once he had reached his room Seth got ready for bed. Although the day had left him exhausted, sleep seemed to be evading him. Seth laid there in bed staring up at the ceiling, all he could think about was how strange the day had been.

First, he nearly concussed himself out on the flight deck, not to mention he had lost his PDA in the process. Then there were the birds in the hangar, he was pretty sure they were all carrion birds, so maybe the had been helping themselves to some corpses when the boat left. Then lastly there was the tiny person he found in the cargo bay…

Seth stared at the bandage on his hand, it didn’t hurt too much but it was still pretty deep. Once again, the same cycle of questions about that tiny “human” spiraled about his mind. “Were they a human? They couldn’t have been they had a tail. Were they some sort of human-mouse hybrid? Was that why they were on the ship then?”. Seth sat up and looked over to his desk, maybe their bag had some answers…

“No, that’s rude,” Seth said to himself as he flopped back down, he wasn’t just going to look through someone else’s belongings…

He dragged his hands over his face and groaned as he stood up and put his glasses back on. Seth walked over to his desk and sat down.

Turning on the desk lamp Seth began to inspect the bag. The bag appeared to be some sort of messenger type bag; it was made out of a dark red fabric with a dark yellow floral pattern. A red and white ribbon was used to make the shoulder strap, and the flap was held shut by a purple button.

It took him a moment to open the bag but after some finagling, he was able to inspect its contents. One of the first things he found was the sheath to the knife that he had been stabbed with, Seth picked up the knife and wiped the dried blood off it before returning it to its sheath. He set the knife aside before continuing to search the bag. The next thing he found was a small empty bottle in the shape of the fish, it looked like one of those little soy sauce bottles that came with takeout food. It looked to have been cleaned out and repurposed into a water bottle.

He also found a small bulb from a string light taped to battery with some electrical tape. One of the wires was untapped but still had a small piece of tape attached to it. Seth pushed the loose wire onto the battery and the bulb lit up.

“Huh, clever,” He mumbled to himself as he pulled the wire back off. There wasn’t much left in the bag, just a spare battery, some fabric, thread, and some small pieces of graphite. He checked the bag one last time and found two small pieces of paper that had been folded up. He opened the two and found that they were maps, one was of the harbor that the carrier had been docked at, whilst the other appeared to be a map of a town, though the map was too small for him to read, or make out anything other than the fact that it was next to a body of water.

Seth packed the items back up into the bag as they were before and closed it. He turned the lamp off and sat back down on his bed, taking his glasses back off and setting them and the bag down in the cubby above the bed. Seth once more found himself staring at the spot on his hand where he had been stabbed, this time the weight of sleep was slowly crawling over him until he was fast asleep. Though this sleep would be far from peaceful…

[nemo-of-house-hamartia]

ok, once more I realize that my own kindness and friendliness has been taken for implied consent, and as always, the troubles that are brewing now are connected to OCs.

So let me be clear and frank one more time, one last time, because I have NO INTENTION of going through what I went through in 2021.

While I am always immensely happy that my Original Characters are enjoyed and that they can serve as source of inspiration, they are NOT however a template for anyone to base their OCs on.

They are not something that you can take in their entirety, change whatever suits you, and then call it your own.

It doesn't work like that, especially because, and allow me to reiterate this once and for all, OCs are *immensely* personal.

They are an extention of the soul of the person that creates them.

So taking whatever suits your fancy and use it for the "aesthetic" or the "vibes" is immensely disrespectful and, dare I say, rather impertinent, especially when both characters happen to belong to the same fandom.

Now, I am not talking about certain tropes and subjects that are typical of certain genre, of course not.

We are all somehow reinveting something that's already there when we work with OCs and stories.

What I am talking about is taking certain specific idiosyncrasies that make a certain character unique, change them to suit your character, and then being SO IMPERTINENT to just call it your own and parading it around without even having the courtesy to quote the person that has inspired you, taking advantage of the fact that I am just a small creator with a small following.

This is a huge No No for me.

Huge.

I appreciate that other creators might have a different opinion or perspective when it comes to OCs, and while I do not share entirely in that, I sure as hell respect it.

But allow me to be crystal clear: if this happens to me, like it had in 2021, that's the *easiest* way to lose all respect I might harbour for you, and I seldomly get mad or angry.

I am always accomodating, always supportive, and I think I have proven it aplenty in the past few years.

But this is something that I cannot condone nor agree with.

And it's not just a matter of ethic, in this sense: it's a matter of also hurting me, and literally put my whole creative process into shamble.

It's a matter of having respect of others.

Now, you might say: who cares if they hurt you? they are characters that do not exist, just move on and have thicker skin!

Well, as I said above, for when it concerns myself, my OCs are an extention of my own soul, a way for me to formulate and explain feelings that sometimes I have a hard time let out; a way for me to actually face, fragmentize and analyze my own trauma through them;

and most important of all, they are OFTEN a love letter to both the world I am exploring with them AND my own husband and child, such as in the case of Jacob and Dorothea,for whom, as I said often in the past 5 years, I have poured A LOT from myself and my husband's own story.

You could say that it probably my fault for having bared my feelings so much and poured so much of myself into a character;

And you might be correct, because I have learned my lesson, and ever since Dorothea and Jacob, no other character has been infused with as much of my own being as they were.

but that doesn't mean that it stings any less when I see it unravels in front of my eyes.

I am tired.

[hella-hound]

we’ll have to see what they do in episode 6 with the lotus hotel but so far episode 5??? Where is the silliness?? where is annabeth, adamant that she will not enter the tunnel of love with pErCy JaCkSoN??? WHY was annabeth so nasty with Ares in the beginning? annabeth stealing waterpark clothes and percy being like, “uhhhh is that allowed??” the spiders, her showing (not life or death) fear! i’m ill over these changes. even in her most rational moments, she’s still 12!!!

[coriander-candlesticks]

Me: I'm not sure if my health can withstand a commute. Should I try to go in tomorrow?

Apollo: no

Me: should I plan to work from home?

Apollo: no

Me: ...

Apollo:

Me: migraine?

Apollo: migraine.

[knifegremliin]

god i don't understand how people can just go out and do things and not be completely and utterly exhausted when they get back

[sweetzzzone]

shout out to the people who it doesnt cost spoons to talk to, i love you guys!

[msblueberrybi]

Me: [is an introvert, who would rather sit at home and read]

Also me: [feels the need to be loved and appreciated]

Also me: [still is an introvert, who enjoys being with people and is craving it, but only for a certain period of time, and then it feels draining]

Also me: [chooses a job, who I not only have to be around people, but have to perform, entertain and generally be extra]

Also me: [gets emotionally drained, burns out every couple of years to the point of migrating to a different country, has anxiety disorder, has trouble with emotional regulation]

P.S. Have you ever been so emotionally and mentally drained that you cannot speak?

[lvsamine]

(( I'm nauseous as hell so I've used up all my steam for now. I'll see if I can get to more asks later when my nausea meds kick in. ))

[loumauve]

-

[robinsnest2111]

nightmares, again. not even going to try to get another hour of sleep, I'm 100% sure I'd just end up back in hell if I tried (speaking from experience)

[saotome-michi]

Banshees of Inisherin absolutely wrecked me, I was crying for most of the movie, but no one else sitting in my row even teared up?? I think it’s because friendship break-ups really are devastating to me... and I just felt so sad for everyone in this movie, especially Pádraic.

[lovedlovingly]

one of the hardest and scariest things to overcome is truly to feel like a bother. no matter how much i work with it from what angle the problem won't budge in the end. it has become easier and not so much anxiety surrounding it, but holy fuck am i still not allowing myself to just be me - i always try to shape myself into something the other person might need from me. it's exhausting. and no one asked for it. i just wish i could turn it around and make myself feel like a bother when I'm not my genuine authentic self w/ others.

[riewritten]

I H8 WRITING ORIGINAL STORIES

i just feel like my original stories are very very very very personal so it's hard to deal with (my personal life is utterly utterly terrible n there's an impending doom lurking around. everyday i wish nothing but to gtfo of it) and that's why y'know...

at least in fanfic I literally don't exist at all. like I'm this omniscient bestie & erwin smith, levi, and reader r my children whom I can project my ruminations with. at least in fanfic I have this freedom to insert spicy smut n more unwarranted fuckeries without reason - literally nothing but lightening up the mood AND because smut relatively has a higher reach than SFWs - which benefits me bc I get to practice action scenes but w/ more clout.

i just......

i'm tired i'm tired i'm tired i'm tired i'm tired i'm tired i'm TIRED

[tomurakii]

Winged men I would hit with my car + reverse back over to make sure the job was done if I saw them on the street

[outeremissary]

Kinda crazy how you can love something so much it fills you with a deep sense of sadness. Like yikes man what's that about

[raeathnos]

.