Panic and Suppression

Val sat brooding in her pod as she was towed into the station for a second time that night, cursing herself for being so asinine as to sit on a gate and get distracted. She slammed her fist against the pod wall. "Dammit!" The thought raced through her head over and over again. Her frustration with herself building by the second. "Why the hell was I so stupid?!"

Her pod lurched to a halt as the gravity tethers secured it in the station dock. She emerged from the pod and ordered the maintenance crews to place her pod in Freyja, her Incursus, ripping off her body suit's gloves. She looked down at her hand and realized that she had cut it open on the wall of the capsule. She clenched her fist watching the blood run down the back of her hand. "I've lost so many damned ships. But I've never been as angry as I am right now." She sighed and began walking to the bar, blood running down her finger tips the entire way.

As she walked through the corridors of the station she turned off into a dimly lit corridor and slumped against the wall and hid her face in her arms. She was so upset, so pent up and twisted inside over her inadequacy, she began to cry for the first time in a very long time. She couldn't help it. She tried rationalizing the frustration and anger but it just made her more upset, and consequently more depressed. Her tears mixed with blood on the floor, swirling together.

It was more than just losing the ship and the stupid mistakes. It was all of the pent up frustration of just trying to survive. The everyday, day-to-day occurrences which wore on her very being. As new of a capsuleer as she was, she knew she was skilled. With the number of ships she had lost, she had never once woken up in a clone vat. That was a mark of honor for her, but it didn't help with this overwhelming feeling. She just wanted to go numb, to let everything just slide off of her. But she couldn't let go. She couldn't make the voice in her head stop. "You screwed up! You'll always let people down." She began to hyperventilate as she began sobbing.

"Why? Why is this happening?!" Val covered her face with her hands, the imersion fluid from the pod still thick in her hair. "I... I just want to let it all go! I don't want to have to fight anymore!" She dug her nails into her skin, hoping the pain would snap her out of this panic attack.

She curled up on the cold metallic floor of the station, crying, sobbing. A full hour passed, just trying to plumb the depths of what she was going through. Finally, she simply couldn't cry anymore. She just didn't have the energy to keep giving that type of release. She wiped her eyes and looked at the back of he hand. She had stopped bleeding. The blood was crusted over her hand, mixed with drying imersion fluid. She could only imagine how she looked. Curled up on the ground with dried blood, pod goo, and tear streaked lines running down her face.

She pushed herself back up onto her feet and walked back to the docking bay. Slipping her gloves back on, she climbed into Freyja and made her way to the quarters and laid down. The plain room was a stark reflection of how she felt. Empty, with naught but the bare essentials to get by. Food rations in the cabinet underneath the plain bed, and a small light. She looked at herself in the polished metal wall, she looked exactly hwo she thought. Horrible. She just stared back into those reflected eyes and slowly drifted off to sleep.