Through the haze of cold and pain, Yuna claws uselessly at the rebar stuck through her spine and out her stomach. She doesn't want to die. She doesn't want to die alone. She can't do anything about it. The darkness creeping over her vision is harder to dispel each time she realises her eyes have closed. The strength she would need to pull herself off the metal has left her body along with the blood pooling beneath her. She can't die yet, she needs to- she's thing to- she never-

With a last titanic effort of will, the girl once more blinks the dark out of her eyes, and once more makes to clutch at the bloodied rebar with the more and more unresponsive hand- to find nothing.

Confusion slowly overtakes the daze of blood loss as she palms at her stomach, whole and smooth, with both her hands, before inspecting to confirm that, yes, she indeed has both her hands again. A good ten seconds pass before she finally recognises the darkness as that of her room and not the tomb of concrete and debris she was to spend the last minutes of her life in.

She pulls her knees closer to hug them, the chill of death having sapped every speck of warmth from her body even in the waking world. Or maybe it's the other way around, with her mind conjuring the nightmare from her bodily discomfort. And if that's the case, fuck you too, brain.

It takes minutes for the shakes to subside, and longer still before Yuna moves from her position to check for the time. 5:47. Too early for a proper rest, too late for finding it again, especially the way she is right now.

The pilot wipes the last of the moisture away from her eyes before uncurling from her fetal position, and beginning her morning routine. Might as well. She sure as hell isn't going back to sleep after that, no way.

She pulls the blinds up, letting the light of the still-rising sun pool into her room. She'd like to say she won the room fair and square, but in truth, she just called the dibz after stepping into the dorm hall for the first time.

When her morning exercise fails to warm her up any, Yuna decides to add an additional step to her morning, and grabs a towel off her chair before heading off for a hot shower.

The base is so serene in the waking hours at the cusp of morning, when all its inhabitants are still asleep. Well, would be if not for her. And Hana, naturally, but far as she can tell, her friend has yet to lose in her ongoing battle against the concept of sleep. Case in point. The light shining from beneath the girl's door. It's an ever-present feature of the nights at the MEKA base, so Yuna pays it no mind when she hears what sounds like ill wishes to All That Is coming from the other side. It's probably some punishingly unfun challenge Hana has subjected upon herself. She does it all the time, to not let things get boring, as she puts it.

The shower, though brisk, does the job of bringing some warmth back into Yuna's chilled bones with its searing hot stream. She'll take the pain of heat over the cold numb any day.

Unable to go back to sleep, she fires up her rig and is immediately assaulted with Hana's invite to a game of Total War, which she takes up. Sure. Not like she has anything better to do before 7 AM when the MEKA is technically supposed to do a roll call - something they stopped bothering with as such pretty early on, once it became apparent they don't actually have much to do aside from keeping their minds sharp and bodies fresh. Their schedule workouts in the evenings, and run maneuvers twice a week, not today. It's a strange job description to have to stay in the lead of the Starcraft ladder, but here it is.

Hana, as is right and proper, thrashes her ass without remorse with her ridiculous unit combos and terrain usage. Yuna doesn't mind. The usual indignation and righteous anger at her teammate's bullshit victories is a welcome distraction from her waking thoughts.

It's enough to dismiss the sense of unease when they meet for breakfast, and Yuna can anticipate what her teammates will say if not word for word, then at least topic by topic.

"u ok?"

"Yeah, I… just didn't sleep well. As you should know." When Hana's only response is a slight tilt of her head, she realises the girl might well not know. "Cause I woke up early?" Nothing. "And since we played together?"

Finally, a flicker of realisation flutters across her features.

"OH! (づ ̄ ³ ̄)づ sry I thought u just wanted 2 play some"

"Hmm." She communicates back, because really, that is what Hana would think. She used to be the same way before MEKA. Before she made her peace with the fact she can't have everything she wants in her life - like twice as many hours in a day to sleep off the gaming nights and still keep being a functional human being. But that's not something Hana has to worry abou- "You guys got any plans for today?"

It's disconcerting, to say the least, when Seung-hwa perks up like she felt he would, and announces he has a date in the evening, like she felt he would. Same with Jae-eun's plans for tinkering, Dae-hyun's to catch up on some shows and Kyung-soo's to just stream today. Out of all the responses, it's only Hana's whose doesn't stir something uneasy at the back of her mind.

"ill b helping Dae-hyun with mechs today."

This gives a pause to everyone, Dae-hyun especially.

"Uh…" the boy haltingly begins. "We don't have maintenance scheduled for today, though?"

"┬┴┬┴┤ ͜ʖ ͡°) ├┬┴┬┴
now we do
wouldnt want any accidents if the gwishin attacked tday
(¬_¬) like booster failure"

The last part has the vague weight in Yuna's chest crystalize into an icy fist around her heart. It was the booster failure occurring after a stray shot rattled Beast that sent her crashing to her death in her… dream. It was a dream. Just a dream.

Had to be.

"I'll help you guys." She decides in the spur of the moment. Not like she's had anything planned for today she can't put off. And hey, it might have been just a dream, but it never hurts to be sure her gear's in working order, right? Right.

"Not you too!"

":3 :3 :3"

On Hana's insistence, Beast is the first of the mechs they check up, and it turns out the wiring in it is a tad bit loose. Just enough that the rumble of engines or the shocks from bullets might shake it loose. Yuna pushes through the cold once again slipping into her fingertips and has Dae-hyun run a full diagnostic. Just in case. Problems breed like rabbits, and if, if, the gwishin just so happened to attack sometime before the next scheduled maintenance... well.

She has a pretty good idea of what could happen.