[Ajala Tambe]

She awoke to someone sighing. The sound came from very close to her, as if someone was breathing against her ear, but without the concurrent heat of breath. "Poonam..." she mumbled, opening her eyes to turn in the direction of the breather, but found that her moving was hampered by the cocoon-like cell she was in. A fogged glass--no, probably stronger than glass--window faced her, stretching from the floor to about three feet above her head. She could double her arms and stretch out her elbows so that they rubbed against the walls beside her, but there was no more room after that. Her back was literally against a wall. The sighing sound she had heard upon awakening was coming from the cocoon. Feeling a sense of panic begin to set in, Ajala pushed hard against the fogged window.

It swung open easily, and she stumbled out, running straight into another cocoon cell. Pushing herself slowly to her feet, Ajala, her eyes still bleary with sleep and her back aching, looked around her. Her mouth went dry as she observed an enormous chamber of the identical cocoon cells, thousands of them, probably stretching out for miles. Her arms swung down to her side, and she felt the strange material of the garment she wore, which was definitely not one of her own. It was loose fitting and a pale blue color, and reminded her of the scrubs that her sister used to wear when she was in medical school.

The memories of the previous night returned, uninvited. Her and the other girls in that familiar jail, the idiot jailer who couldn't be older than she was, the weird offer that she refused. They had restrained her and injected her with some kind of drug. She figured they meant to quiet her, probably to rape her. She never would have guessed...this.

The ship was real. The journey was real. Ajala felt short of breath. She chose to believe it had something to do with the atmosphere of the ship, and not with her own rising panic.

With a sense of urgency, she rushed to the cocoon next to her and tapped frantically on the glass. "Sarala? Brishti?" She ran to the next one, looking through her curled hands at the window like through binoculars. "Pia?" She couldn't see anything. To the next one. Her body felt stronger now, as the drugs of cryogenic sleep wore off, and her fists made soft booms against the dull gray chambers.

"Brishti, where are you?" she begged the silver cell in desperation.

It responded. With a hiss, the window fell open, and out staggered a bald white man who wore the same pale blue garments as she. He looked up at her, and there was a glimmer of feral insanity in his eye. Eye. He only had one of them.

Without even speaking, Ajala turned and zig zagged away from the man, losing herself in the rows of cells. She heard him screaming something several yards behind her, but she couldn't understand because it was in some European language, though not English.

After she was thoroughly lost, her pace slowed, and finally she came to a stop. She leaned against the back of one of the pods and slid down to a sloppy sitting position. There was a constant hissing around the room and the rising sounds of voices, as more and more people broke out, although none in her immediate vicinity.

The panic she had felt earlier was melting into a limp anger. How long had she been in here? Where was here? Were her friends somewhere in this metal wasteland, her stupid, foolish friends? Was Pia here, and had the bastards told the truth, was she here with her two young daughters? She thought about how Pia was out on the streets every night, one of the most popular in her crew, so that her girls could go to school every now and then.

"Fuck!" An impulse, she shouted it to the miles of hissing metal with violence. The metal gave her no response. She looked around herself warily. If only she could get out of these rows, she could do something, but she had no idea where to start.

[Rylie Seager]

Consciousness came to Rylie with a crash. One minute she was out and the next she was staring at the inside of a claustrophobic container. She smiled, but it was a nasty, bitter sort of smile. She reached out and pushed the cryo-capsule open. This was disgusting. She'd been humilated with her dishonorable discharge and now to add insult to injury they'd shipped her off without telling her.

She looked around. Based on the number of cryo capsules, it was likely this was a colonization ship. She felt the beginnings of anger bubbling up in her and tried to stamp it down. She knew when she got angry it was harder to control Jinx and she didn't want to lose control. Not until she found out who was responsible. Then she'd let Jinx do whatever she wanted.

Rylie stepped out of the capsule and into the aisle. She could hear the sounds of despair all around her. People crying, people shouting, people pounding on the cryo capsules. Rylie smiled. She was above all that. She'd seen the plans to one of these ships before. She looked around the cavernous space, looking for a way out.

She'd only gone about twenty feet when a heavy, meaty hand grabbed her shoulder. She looked over her shoulder at the nasty hulk of a man and disgust and anger filled her mind.
***
Jinx hated when this happened... she didn't drink. Why the fuck did she black out? It was just as well that she'd come to... this disgusting fucking excuse for a human. She reached back, grabbed his wrist and broke it as she spun him around and tossed him to the ground. Not waiting to see if he was getting back up, Jinx hurried off.

This place was fucking confusing. Where the hell was she? She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she almost tripped over someone sitting against the metal capsules. "Fuck!" was the clue and Jinx stopped before she stepped on her.

Looking down, Jinx smiled... more of a smirk. "Don't care for our current lodgings? Perhaps we should find a way out and then fucking complain to management..." her smile took on a bit of a malicious edge...