rakuen | [round 1, day 3] tried counting sheep

Entry tags:

[round 1, day 3] tried counting sheep

Characters: Gaara, Grenn Atair, YOU.
Format: Any
This log is: open (closed in the case of Grenn's thread, open otherwise)
Location: White dorm's courtyard. Other courtyards.
Summary: Insomnia works out badly when you don't have supernatural energy reserves to feed on. Gaara keels over several times over the course of one day.
Warnings: Mention of blood.

He'd only been in this world three days, and already Gaara was feeling the fatigue of insomnia settling back over his brain. Without chakra, he couldn't bolster his mental reserves - without chakra, he shouldn't be able to suppress the One-Tail at all, which he would have noticed if he was thinking straight - and until he could find someone able to determine whether he was the sole inhabitant of his own body, he definitely wasn't sleeping. The other 'students' would be the victims of that mistake if he allowed himself to make it. Mikoto, Sakura, Enki. The risk was unacceptable.

Unfortunately, without those mental reserves, Gaara was just a sixteen-year-old boy. And this boy had just reached his limit.

In the middle of a courtyard, sixty-five hours after he'd arrived, Gaara swayed, rubbed his eyes, and crumpled like he'd been hit with a metal bat.

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Grenn wasn't sure it was worth the try. Especially with someone else here, because if she got in... But it felt good to do something. Do something instead of sitting around, doing nothing to help others, unlike the last time when... When she hadn't... She gritted her teeth, frustration welling up. There that important thing came again. Something at home she had wanted to fix immediately, but Lyra... Lyra had... She didn't remember.

"Maybe..." Grenn looked up at him in the elevator and frowned. She wasn't sure why she entrusted him with this, but it was something reminicent of Gino, though on a greater level. Responsibility for your actions.

"I was thinking of merely checking things out, but it just ocurred to me... That there might be only one chance..." She hoped there wouldn't be. She wasn't even that amazing at hacking as far as she knew. Competent, yes, but to be good you needed to know what you were getting in to, and here? She didn't.

"You just came here... No reason to," Grenn paused, then fully stopped. It wasn't really her place to decide if someone wanted to stand up against this... whatever. "You sure you want to stay? This is my idea, and if it fails, no reason for you to be punished too," Grenn said finally, just as the elevator doors opened.

If nothing else, the lab was somewhere he could sit down. He nodded again, patiently, and followed her out of the elevator and down the corridor. Mikoto had been here just yesterday and again this morning, so at least he knew the way to the room and had the necessary permission slip. He searched his pockets for that, as he answered.

"If you don't think I'll be in your way, I would like to watch." There it was. He unfolded the note, and glanced back at Grenn. "I won't be of much help, otherwise."

Producing her own, since she'd need it, Grenn looked up and shrugged at Gaara.

"I don't think you'd... be in the way. But... well. As I said, my idea. There's no reason for anyone else to be dragged down with me..." Grenn paused and shook her head, stopped and stared at the closed computer lab door.

"Maybe nothing will happen. The problem is that to be effective... you basically need to have some information already and I don't have that... I've checked out these computers before, but that won't help in this respect." Grenn rubbed her face, feeling lost. She'd do this, yes, but she also realized that even attempting to go past usual access (which she'd need to do to see if it was possible) would probably result in some sort of alert, and then...

"Even if I knew the system..." Grenn looked up at Gaara with a frown, the tips of her fingers pressed together as she thought. "This will probably result in some sort of alert, and if I can't close the trail after me, someone will most probably notice..." She wondered, vaguely, what her punishment would be when they caught up with her. Because people that could steal memories and coat this place in holographic technology would obviously catch up with her.

Then she shook her head and looked back at Gaara.
"... Sure, um, that just watching will be useful?"

"All information is useful. Even if you don't succeed, you'll learn something about this world. Maybe it will be something we can use to help the others."

She seemed sure enough about the attempt, but although Gaara considered an attempt to convince her not to try it - she'd be swayed eventually, if he'd read her correctly - the benefits outweighed the prospect of a penalty. If she was prepared, he wasn't going to let her concern for a stranger halt her efforts. He opened the door to the lab, and stepped inside to hold it open wide enough for the wheelchair. "Is there something I could be doing?"

Just passing through that door made her... well, not feel invincible, but like there wouldn't be a better, or worse, for that matter, time to attempt this. It didn't make a difference as far as her determination to go through with this was concerned, but helped nonetheless. Grenn shook her head and squared herself. The room was empty, and she was relatively sure there'd be no battles, considering most people were either eating dinner, or lazing about.

"Keep an eye on the door I suppose. It's empty now, and it's probably better if it stay that way... Everybody doesn't need to know that I'm even gonna try to do this," Grenn said with a shrug and moved the chair in front of the computer at the door-end of the row out of the way.

Grenn looked around the room, and then to Gaara as she turned the computer on. She'd been half-afraid it wouldn't even do that, that the system was already aware... Of course, maybe it was and she'd be allowed to do this, allowed to attempt and then slammed down.
"Considering..." She paused, frowned. "Considering the technology, I'm not sure how this is going to work. But... Keep an eye on me when I've started? If something seems strange..." Maybe it wouldn't help to pull her away from the computer, but it was a thought worth keeping in mind.

Because considering the holo-tech, anything was possible at this point, really.

"Understood." He took a seat halfway between her and the door and within reach of both, and then finally allowed himself to slump, just a little. Like Grenn, he had his own suspicions about the nature of the world, and whilst they were entirely different to hers, their expectations ended up sounding very similar. "If you're acting strangely, I'll move you. Be careful."

Taking a deep breath, Grenn straightened her back and went through the first basic commands she knew to get beneath the 'first layers' so to speak. Nothing happened, really; the computer reacted as she'd assumed it would, demanding access commands and whatnot...

But then. She frowned. Had her vision just grayed out momentarily? She shook her head and stared at the registers she was suddenly presented with. They were flickering by too fast, though; it felt like she was looking at something that was much more complicated than it looked like, and that this computer couldn't present it to her as it should be seen.

Another flicker, things going black, star-spangled then gray. The only thing she could see were those registers and menues. She had no idea what half of these did, she wasn't even sure where she wanted to go! But trying to disrupt the holo-tech (since that would cripple the battle system) seemed like a good idea... Now just to find---

Another flicker, this time it seemed like her brain stuttered for a moment, a mental grey-out and she had no idea what she'd just entered, but suddenly--- The screen seemed to duplicate, folding out like a folded up paper-crane and there were shimmering screens all around her.

"What the---" She couldn't understand what the text said. Some of it seemed to be actual letters, the rest some sort of symbols and pictograms. She'd just gotten in way over her head. What the frag was this?

"Remember this when you push replay--- It's a game, isn't it? A holographic playg---a prog---"

Gaara was suddenly right beside her, shaking her shoulder just as she reached out, touching one of those incomprehensible screens. If he was saying anything, she couldn't hear it.

The screens flickered, and flushed red.

Oh, frag.

A succinct summary, Grenn. Oh, frag, indeed, the only thing you can think before the entire room warps as the screen did, computers, floors and walls folding and re-folding until there's nothing but Grenn, Gaara, and a million red screens swirling around them in a maelstrom.

--countered an err--

--ency reboo--

--rror and mus--

UNAUTHORISED ACCESS DETECTED

The world snaps back, directions return, gravity is restored. There's suddenly a floor to stand on, if you can stand at all. The computer screen is blank. All screens are, in fact; the entire room is dark.

One by one, the computers reboot around you.

Gaara staggered, his hand falling from Grenn's shoulder as the floor rushed up to meet them. For a few moments, he concentrated on breathing. What kind of illusion was that? Nothing he'd experienced before had been able to remove all senses; was this just the power of technology, or something much greater?

He cleared his throat and elected to stay on the floor for the time being. "Was... that meant to happen?"

"Nn... No, I---" She felt like she was going to puke. A headache had blossomed immediately as the world reboo--- Wait.

We have to do some maintenance first. ---get rid of you, for a little while---

This is a GAME--- Use your HEAD.

This was a...

"Simulation---" Grenn groaned and clutched at her face, trying to keep her dinner where it was supposed to be. Suddenly, she remembered what her shadow had said, what the 'announcer girl' had said, and could connect her confusion as to why it had felt like she'd been trying to change game-files of a computer game that was running when she'd attempted her hacking.

Because it was. A game.

A simulation.

"I'm sorry, Gaara... Frag---" Her hands were shaking, and she felt ill.

"Simulation..?" He didn't feel much better; the only upside of the whole experience was that the lurching shift in reality had woken him up completely and replaced the headache with simple, overpowering nausea.

He, too, forced it back, and concentrated on what had just happened. Grenn had logged on, started working, and then... frozen? He shook his head minutely.

"What did you see?"

He hadn't..? Now she was confused as well as nauseated. And how to explain a simulation to someone who wasn't used to advanced computers and virtual reality..? Well, ironically, kind of what they'd all thought Round Zero was. A shared dream, of course.

"Ugh... I... Well--- The screens all multiplied, were all over the room... What did you see?" Grenn took a few deep breaths and briefly closed her eyes, to still her dizziness and nausea. It didn't work.

Penalty?

"A simulation... you... um, I suppose you could call it a shared dream, or illusion, but made with technology. Your brain... technology convinces your brain you're seeing things and experiencing things that aren't... uh... physically real. If that makes sense..." She wasn't sure it did, personally.

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[round 1, day 3] tried counting sheep

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