2023-09-08: Drowning

• Log: 2023-09-08: Drowning
• Cast: Rena Lancaster
• Where: Denver Colony
• Date: U.C. 0097 09 08
• Summary: Rena Lancaster is trapped inside Denver Colony, after the awakening of its ghosts. She tries to reach out to them, but finds out they are connected to her in a way that she never knew.

---

Rena Lancaster is drowning.

She isn't submerged in water, though. The inside of the Gaia Gear Alpha's cockpit is turned off, the white Mobile Suit powered down and dead to the world. Flakes of sickly red crystal -- the ugly, angry bright red of an infection -- cover the insides of the panoramic cockpit.

Her eyes are closed, but she is awake. She promised Rita that she would stop this. She promised all of them that she would come back. Despite that, the memory lingers in her mind: her hand outstretched for Anita, before the crystal closed around her.

She doesn't remember, exactly, when she got back into the cockpit. She can hear all of the voices of those who died. She can feel them -- she almost is them -- and that makes the flow of time into something amorphous.

She can feel that something has happened outside the colony. She can feel that the ghosts are angry, are panicking, and are trying to do something. So she reaches out, speaking without opening her mouth.

'Please. You don't have to do this. Please, just listen to me.'

When their voices reply, it is a cacophany, with four voices interlaid over all of those.

'This world has to change. And we can give ourselves to change it.'

It hurts Rena's head, in more than one way, to hear them speak inside of her. As they do, more red crystal grows across the inside of the cockpit. She slumps, her normal suit rumpled, in the pilot's seat of the Gaia Gear Alpha.

'You're going to hurt a lot of people. I want to understand. You were people once. I don't know what my mother did to you but--'

They respond, and at first it's a cacophany. Over two dozen voices, blended together until there are words and noise without meaning, a rush of feelings -- red-hot anger, blinding outrage, pleading, disbelief, and sorrow -- but some rise above it. Four voices, louder than the rest.

'You know one who could have been us. Don't you know who we are?'

Rena's eyes widen. Because she does know, and her mouth opens, as if she could deny it. 'N-No, that's--'

'I'm Three.' 'And I'm Five.' 'Eleven.' 'And Thirteen.'

Rena can't form words, after hearing that, a half-choked sob bubbling up from her throat. She feels what they say next -- emotions that are clearer, more individual, rising above the general amalgamation of terror and anger that defines the existence of Denver's Ghosts. More and more crystal forms across the walls of the cockpit, and spindles and spikes of it begin to form.

'You abandoned us. Because you never bothered to learn that we existed, Renalle Kan Zeitun. You can't save us.'

Rena feels a mounting, rising panic inside of her. Her hand twitches, but motes of bright, angry red light rise around her. So many motes that it washes out the cockpit's color. It washes out the pale, flickering green light of the Gaia Gear Alpha's Psychoframe. It's only a handful of motes.

'Please. Please, stop this. They're going to destroy you if you don't. I--I want to help you!'

She feels as much as hears them laugh, but there's no humor in it. 'Oh, yes. You will help us.'

A spike of crystal forms, the same angry red as the rest of the Ghosts' Psychoframe crystal. Rena understood, then: there was a limit to what they could do. There was a limit to how they could touch the world. To do what they intended, they would need something else. They would need her. The spike grows and grows, lengthening.

'Only the living can end something started by the living. '

Then, the spike shoots forward, growing off the wall, and slams into her chest. Rena's scream is abrupt and cut off, as the pain makes her black out. She slumps, pinned to the chair by it, while countless red lights and a few, stubborn pale green ones dance hover around her.