ooi. waking up but never ageing
╰ avatar

IN A WAY, Odessa dreamed and dreamed when she had been asleep. She had lived a life inside her head well she was in cryogenic sleep. Some might think it was weird, or they could call her crazy, but she dreamed of a life where her sister was still alive. Where she wasn't on some space ship that took her to a planet she hadn't been trained to be on.

Odessa opens her eyes slowly, as if she bracing herself to see something other than what she saw when she fell asleep. When her vision focuses, and she can tell what she's looking at, she found herself still inside her bunk, strapped down so she wouldn't float away.    Maybe she wished that this was all a dream, that somehow the stories she had heard twisted into a dream that felt too real.

The cryo chamber opened up slowly, bringing Odessa out into an area where people are floating around. Her body levitates due to the lack of gravity, hence why she's still strapped down against the mattress.

Next to her, Jake Sullys cryo chamber  opens up. Odessa wonders if he dreamed like she did, or if he just slept in darkness. His own body levitates just like her own had when his pod is fully extended.

      "Hey," Jake smiles when he tilts his head towards Odessa. The young woman is already looking at him, a soft twist of her lips.

     "Hey, Jake." Odessa replies when someone floats over, scrubs covering their body, a small kind welcoming smile on their face,

     "Are we there yet?" Jake asks curiously, sending a small look towards the woman beside him, even though his question was directed towards the person in scrubs.

     "Yeah, we're there," The doctor who had been kind enough to unbuckle them, smiled down at Jake. "We're there."

🌍

THE CHAIRS IN the large jet Odessa sat in weren't all that comfortable. She wouldn't say anything though, knowing that her new acquatinte across from her couldn't feel the uncomfortable chairs. Everyone who was sitting in the stupid uncomfortable chairs had been recruited —  ( and jake too, who was sitting in his wheelchair ) — to help in some kind of way on Pandora.

Pandora — that's where everyone were going. The ship was descending from the larger space station that they had recently been on. Odessa couldn't help but twiddle her finders in her lap, wondering if the trees she would see would be big and beautiful like her sister had told her.

     "Exopacks on! Let's go! Exo-packs on! Let's go!" The person in charge on the ship shouted to all the recruits. He stood tall, held a look on his face.

     "Ecopacks on! Let's go!" The assistant who was following behind the person in charge yelled out after handing the exopacks out.

Everybody aboard the ship now held a device in their hands. It was a face shield that would lock under nither their chins to help filter the toxic air. Odessa stared at her own mask, in a way she wondered if her new avatar body would need a mask of some kind. She wondered how different everything would be. Jake secured the mask on his face before he caught the attention of Odessa, who still hadn't put the mask over her face, he gestured for her to do it. 

      "Remember, people, you lose that mask, you're unconscious in 20 seconds, you're dead in four minutes!" The person in charge yelled out to the group of people. Odessa wanted to believe his name was Bob. He sounded like a Bob. "Let's nobody be dead today! Looks very bad on my report!"

      "Hell's Gate tower, this is TAV 1-6 on approach. Crossing outer marker. Mine is in sight." The pilot relayed over the radio as they began their descent towards the ground where peoples new lives would start.  The large aircraft crossed over a massive hole in the ground, it was where the company was mining minerals. Where large trucks and machinery busily worked away at tearing apart the land in search of the stone they were looking for. The air craft made it to the heavily guarded base, landing on the ground with a thud. 

     "Harnesses off! Get your packs!" The person in charge, the chief, commanded to the people. Jake along with the other undid their buckles. "Put it together, let's go! Let's go! One minute! When that ramp comes down, go directly into the base. Do not stop! Go straight inside. Wait for my mark!" The back gate door began to open revealing the outside world to them, it was bright and beautiful in a way. "Go, go, go, go! Get out of there! Keep moving! Let's go, let's go!" 

Odessa stood and quickly swung her bag over her shoulder. She turned her head to look at Jake ( he was apart of her club, she couldn't just leave him  ) who nodded and shooed her ahead with everyone else. The recruits jogged ahead, Odessa at the end of the line with a small hope that Jake would catch up. She didn't want to be alone, with no one she knew, on a brand new world.  

Jake watched the other recruits file in a line up towards the building. Once everyone was clear of him, he took out his wheelchair and pulled his body over into it, adjusting his thin legs onto the seat.

      "Well, well, ladies." Someone eye'd the new recruits as they jogged by him and his partner towards the building the had just come from. He whistled when his eyes met Odessas. "Look at all this fresh meat! Whoo!"

It looked as if there was hundreds of soldiers, jogging around in groups, vehicles moving about, even large robot machines manned by a single person inside it. Those cool things were called an Ampsuit. Everyone was heavily armed with weapons that could kill. 

Odessa eyed everything with interest. In a way, she wished she didn't have an avatar body that was relying on her. She wished that she could be someone sitting in one of the expensive machines that could make them feel like a god with power.   She didn't know that when she woke up in her new body, that she's forget all about that. 

      "You're not in Kansas anymore." Colonel Miles Quaritch said, walking up the aisle of the room filed with new recruits, filled with everyone. "You're on Pandora, ladies and gentlemen. Respect that fact every second of everyday. If there is a hell, you might wanna go there for some R&R after a tour on Pandora. Out there, beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squats in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for Jujubes." He turned and revealed his scared face to the room, making Odessa and Jake wonder what had happened for him.