foolishwren | 70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]

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70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]

_{[So while the rest of Johto alternately panics, cries, or rushes around trying to capture as many of the soulstealing insects as possible, there are dozens of souls floating around in that dream limbo, drifting in and out of each other's slumbering thoughts and visions. Whether it's nightmarish flashbacks or just those dreams where you're at school taking a really hard test, and then Dracula shows up, and then everybody's naked ... anything is possible when it comes to what people see in their sleep.]

[But what appears in the darkness in this particular spot in the spaceless, shifting mass of dreaming souls... is a door.]

[It's old, and covered with boards and bolts, rusted near-through in some places. The lock is broken-- mangled and half-melted and wrenched out of the keyhole. The only thing on it that doesn't look ancient is a scrap of torn notebook-paper that's taped up on it at roughly eye-level. It reads only a single phrase:]}

Fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh.

_{[More importantly, though... the door is ajar. Through the gap come the scents of rust and metal-- and something organic, fleshy-- and a low, deep hum of industrial machinery. It's not a door that anyone in their right mind would want to go through. ... But for anyone who may have stumbled this far into the dreams of their fellow lost souls, either in flight from some other nightmare or just pure, wandering curiosity... there's just no other place to go but through the door.]}

_{[Go on. Open it. After all.... it's only a dream.]}

[ooc: SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG, GUYS. Thanks for being patient! If you commented on that planning post, there's something spooky planned for your character to do here so please feel free to tag or not tag as it pleases you!]

~*~

[ooc: This is the IC post for what was announced over here! Even if you didn't comment there, feel free to participate! I'm still happy to whip up Silent Hill scenarios for folks!]

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{Nanao luckily doesn't lose any of her fingers, but she does let loose a whimper of fear at the mere glimpse of that creature.}

H-Hollows I can handle, but th-that thing is..!

_{[Yeeeaaaah. Welcome to Silent Hill, Nanao. :(]

[There's a thunderous crash from beyond the door, making the walls rattle.]

[Then another.]

[Screams can be heard, one monstrous, one human, but both distinctly violent.]

[With another crash, one of the framed butterfly boxes hanging on the walls drops to the floor and shatters.]}

{SCREW THIS. She gulps, whimpers, and turns back to try and go back through the closet to ~~NARNIAAAAA~~ anywhere that isn't here.}

I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home!

_{[Sorry, Nanao. Not yet. Whatever this nightmare holds, apparently it's not finished playing through. There's another horrible crash, accompanied by the splintering of wood-- and with the next blow, the door comes crashing through entirely, exploding inwards under the sheer force of the monster's giant, meaty arms.]

[The girl, evidently having been the aim of the strike, is hurled to the floor along with the ruined remains of the door. But she looks... different now.]

[The burns spread... and her hair, through still black, is cut short and shaggy...]

[Either way, there's not much of a pause to observe, because in an instant, the beast is on top of her, making horrible gargling sounds as it pins her to the floor under its crushing weight.]}

AAAAAAAH!

{Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't that. Back now flat to the closed door she stares at the creature, down at the girl, back at the creature... and double-takes at the girl.}

Get off her! {Light gathers around her hands again, flickering fast and violent, before it erupts out of her fingertips, making a beeline for what should be - what used to be - a head.}

Hadou no Yon - Byakurai!

Edited 2011-08-28 07:39 (UTC)

_{[The bolt strikes the monster's strange, oblong head with a CRACK, and it jerks upright, looking to Nanao now, neck twitching spastically and the weird, eerily feminine lips that make up most of its face sucking at the air... hungrily.]

[The girl's body doesn't move from where it had been pinned to the floor, even as the monster moves off of it-- approaching its attacker. The hulking form soon blocks it from view, but it... doesn't look good.]

[Could it be that Nanao is on her own now...?]}

{She gulps heavily, but she has to stand her ground as best she can, considering the state of that eerily familiar girl.}

{From seemingly nowhere, she unsheathes a wakizashi and starts chanting in an unfamiliar language, before slashing at the monster. (http://images.wikia.com/bleach/en/images/1/13/TousenHadouno54.gif)}

Hadou no Gojuuyon! HAIEN!

_{[The blow strikes the beast and it rocks backwards, its 'clothing' smoldering... but then it continues to approach. It has no real face to express emotion... pain, anger, fear, anything. Just a mouth.]

[The sounds coming from it are strange, guttural chitters... and it doesn't seem too fazed by the attack.]

[This is a nightmare... and in nightmares (or at least Heather's nightmares...), helplessness is the worst part.]

[It raises one clublike arm.]}

An implacable man, then..? {The sword vanishes, and she begins chanting again, low and fast, and bolts of magic fly from her fingers like a flock of startled birds.}

{She's determined not to give in to the fear of helplessness - she's been there far too often, and she's never going back there again. So she casts kidou with abandon, fast and light but with deadly aim - at joints, at the mouth, at the neck.}

{She sees the arm go up, and she brings all her energies to bear on the joint between arm and body, but she fears that it won't be enough.}

_{[... Oh. Well, HELLO there.]

[The joints on the beast burst with slick little dribbles of red as the attack hits them. Once again, it doesn't seem to react-- but its gait forward falters as, inevitably, its limbs break apart.]

[But even as it falls to its surprisingly delicate knees, it continues forward, dragging itself along with its meaty arms, which are oddly limp and ungraceful, like something important in there was severed in the strike.]

[But then it suddenly halts, back arching and an unpleasant gurgle exploding from its throat as something sharp comes bursting through its chest.]

[It's the girl-- she'd gotten up from the floor and driven some sharp spar of wood from the wreckage straight into the creature's back.]

[... Too bad she, uh... doesn't... have a face anymore.]}

{She slows down the rate of fire, but it stutters to a halt completely when the sharp spar bursts through, splattering her with blood.}

A-ah, thanks, but I had it under con_trol...

{She trails off when she sees - make that doesn't see her face.}

You - what - huh?

_{[The bloody, featureless mess that she now has in place of a face drips silently as she stands there, the monster now sagging to the floor, unable to pull itself back together after the combined damage to its flesh from both assaults.]

[Once again, like before, she seems different... even though she's still unquestionably the same person. The dress and bandages are gone... instead, in keeping with the spreading damage on her skin, the clothes she's wearing are filthy rags, ones that almost seem to be decaying right off of her. Like they'd been pulled from a landfill. Her arms and legs are mostly bare, and the skin is corpselike... pale and pocked with festering wounds.]

[The beast had apparently sucked her face right off of her... though of course, this is a dream.]

[It's probably symbolic or something.]}

{Between the mass of flesh that is the (hopefully) dead creature and the horrific corpse-like appearance of the other girl, Nanao was hard-pressed to keep her bile down.}

{She shudders, but steps forward gingerly, sword reappearing to poke gingerly at the monster, before she looks up at the girl, mouth opening and closing several times before the words she want finally come to mind.}

Are you - um, is this thing - do you need help?

_{[Oh, it's dead, thankfully. Dead as a doornail.]

[Just like the woman it had represented... Dahlia Gillespie had died in flames just like the ones she had burned her daughter alive in... killed by the very god she had summoned. Probably partially in retribution for the pain she had inflicted on it and its incubator alike, to make it stronger. Angrier.]

[But the faceless girl turns her head towards Nanao, and something odd is happening in there. The ugly mass of gore and ruined flesh is simply fading into a dark, hollow space-- save for something glowing, deep inside.]

[Eyes. Familiar amber eyes.]

[When she speaks? The voice comes from no mouth (since she doesn't... erm, have one, but seemingly from the very air around them.]

[And the voice, too, should sound familiar...]}

No.

I don't need anybody.

{The similarities are terrifying - and for a long, long while, Nanao just stands there, shocked.}

{If this was Heather, then... did she really go through all of that? That horrible woman, and the powers - and the monsters, and there was no way she wasn't going to have nightmares about that thing.}

{She takes two steps back, and just looks up at what might be Heather. Things began to slot into place into place in her head, and her heart slowly started to crack into tiny little pieces at the thought of what she's gone through.}

E-everyone needs somebody. {No, her voice is not cracking, why would you say that?}

_{[For the two steps back... Heather takes one forward. It's a threatening motion, a hunch-shouldered aggressive step, like a dog trying to intimidate someone it felt threatened by.]

[This time, her voice sounds a little more... there. In fact, with each word, it grows more and more physical, more real, and more angry.]}

NO!

_{[Now there's a face... a face cast in shadow, but a face.]}

NO.

No one will EVER hurt me again! No one-- ... No o-- no woman will EVER use me EVER again!

NEVER!

I'll KILL anyone who tries!!

Edited 2011-09-08 01:48 (UTC)

{With Heather moving forward, Nanao keeps moving back, and it's not long before her back hits the wall. If her aim is to intimidate the ever-living hell out of her, it's working very, very well.}

I - I promise! I promise you that I'll never do that!

Ever!

{She's intimidated beyond words, and her knees collapse without her command, leaving the small girl crumpled at the her feet.}

_{Please believe me - !}

_{[Poor Nanao... It's safe to say that outside a dream, this never would have happened. Heather might have issues... but she doesn't menace little kids. Not like that. Not after her own terror-filled childhood, used and intimidated by adults in every corner of her life.]

[But this isn't real life. This is a nightmare, and somehow, even though she's now human, now just a very dirty Heather Mason rather than a charred and brutalized corpse, there's something more monstrous about her right now than anything else Nanao's seen in this dream.]

[Her teeth are bared ferally and her eyes are wide and wild, like a racehorse's about to explode out of the gate in a frenzy of panicked, vicious energy. She doesn't reach for Nanao or move to hurt her, but she towers over her nonetheless, roaring.]}

HOW COULD YOU?

HOW COULD YOU?!

What makes you think it'd be OKAY to do this?!

Why do you expect me to believe you LOVED me when you're DOING THIS TO ME?!

TAKE IT OUT!

I don't want it in me anymore, TAKE IT OUT!

{Normally, Nanao would be a little freaked out by this. She'd also be just a little bit taller than Heather, and that height difference makes all the difference.}

{Curled up in a tiny ball, all she can do is stare up at Heather, and beg for forgiveness, and (or so she thinks) her life.}

I didn't do anything to you! I don't know what you're talking about, Heather - please!

I'm not doing anything to you - I didn't know you before Johto! How can I take something out of you if I don't know what's in there to begin with?!

_{[It makes all the difference.]

[And Nanao's words seem to be falling on deaf ears, because Heather doesn't even stop to listen-- she continues, face contorted by anger and dim light into something horrible.]}

I won't let you do this!

I WON'T LET YOU DO THIS!

I don't care if it takes me till my very last breath, I'll KILL you for what you did!

_{[Oh man... it seems like Nanao's assumption is right after all... especially since there is something sharp and glinting in Heather's hands, and it's raised.]

[... But before she brings it downwards, another voice joins the fray... directly behind the cowering girl.]}

No... you will not.

_{[The voice is female, but deep... and cold.]

[There's a swish of flowing, navy cloth as a tall woman-- taller than Heather and FAR taller than Nanao-- steps over the girl on the ground. Her hair is long and silvery-white, and her pale, browless face is stark and austere, with an intense, gray-blue gaze.]

[Heather scrambles backwards away from both of them as though she was just burned-- but her tirade doesn't halt. It's as though she was yelling at that woman (and not Nanao...) all along. Maybe she HAD been. ... Or maybe she'd been projecting the true object of her wrath at Nanao so hard that it had manifested.]}

NO!

I WILL!

I WILL, you disgusting BITCH! How COULD you?!

{Nanao shrieks, actually shrieks when she sees the weapon in Heather's hand - she wants to kill her, Heather wants her dead and gone and she doesn't know why, and that scares her more than anything else at the moment.}

{The voice behind her almost sends her skittering forward, but that would be playing into the hands of a very certain death, and once the woman steps over her she crawls to the side as fast as she can. Whatever is going to happen, she most definitely does not want to be caught between the two of them - even with her powers back and intact, this is not her dream, it is someone else's nightmare, and who knows what could happen within it.}

{Now, with her back firmly against the wall, and tears that she would deny shedding wiped away, she sits, stares, and waits. Whatever happened here... It was important, she knew it, and she couldn't run away. This was something that she was going to have to face head on.}

_{[Yes, it is indeed somebody else's nightmare... although it probably goes without saying that one of the most nightmarish things possible for your average decent human being is to be stuck watching a horror unfold and not being able to do anything about it. And indeed, the rest of this scene is playing out in front of her like a horrible, disturbing movie that you can't leave the theater for. So HEY. Maybe it's a nightmare for Nanao too.]

[Heather continues recoiling, hunching over with the switchblade (which is what the glinting object in her hand was) like a cowering vulture. But her teeth are still bared.]}

I HATE YOU!

Why couldn't you have just LEFT ME ALONE?!

_{[The pale-haired woman lets out a long and disappointed sigh, shaking her head.]}

Oh, Alessa... if you just accepted what was happening, this would be so much easier for the both of us... It hurts me to watch you suffer... but we both know, deep down, that it's for the best...

Shut up! SHUT UP!

_{[With a cry that's half outrage and half... something else. Desperation? ... she lunges forward with the knife, aiming to stab-- but at the last minute stumbles and shudders to a halt, the knife slipping from her hand and clattering to the floor as her arms clamp around her middle. A strangled noise of pain escapes her as she staggers backwards, knees buckling.]}

No-- ... n-no, no, no, no...!

_{[All the fight seemingly gone out of her, she continues the stumble back, doubled over. But the woman follows, spreading her arms.]}

That's it... don't fight it, Alessa. Let it live.

{She looks back and forth between the two women - why was blonde lady calling Heather Alessa, of all things? - when Heather doubles over, and for a horrible moment, she thinks that somehow she's been stabbed, but when the woman speaks again, she realises it's something a lot more horrific than a gut-wound.}

She's... pregnant?!

_{[.... WELL, THAT'S A... BLUNT WAY OF PUTTING IT, BUT... yeah. Yep.]

[Heather continues to stumble backwards, the anger and terror in her face now competing with pain. There's something happening, too-- her skin occasionally twitching like a horse flicking off flies, and-- maybe it's just the pain, but her flesh almost seems to be throbbing in and out of a sunburnt-looking hue...]

[With a gagging sob, she eventually falls to her knees, her whole body jerking spasmodically like a broken marionette flopping around while its puppeteer tries to figure out how to get it to walk right when its strings are all either tangled or just not attached.]}

Get away-- stay away from me!

_{[But the command, even as harsh as it is, falls flat. You can't attempt to be intimidating or authoritative when you're thrashing around on the floor. There's no confidence in the delivery, just raw, undiluted terror and a sort of wild desperation so primal it's not even really human. And neither is she, not anymore. As she writhes at the white-haired woman's feet, there's something shadowy thrashing with her (or within her?), like some pain-maddened animal trying to break free from a cage. Maybe it's the creature nestled inside her, trying to be born and tear out of its mother's flesh at last.... or maybe she's the animal and the thing inside is the trap, with its metal teeth sunk in so deep she can't even hope to escape without ripping herself apart.]

[Or maybe it's both.]

[She is the Mother of God and the Daughter of God, after all.]

[Finally, she just collapses and curls in on herself, her struggles crumbling into weak, compulsive twitches at most. The threats and accusations have petered out into a voice that's croaky, high-pitched, and pleading.]}

Please... please don't... don't do this... don't make me do this, please...

_{[But the woman standing over Heather just smiles. Even though her back is to Nanao, it's still somehow obvious that she's smiling. Sometimes in dreams, you just know these things. She bends down, the indigo fabric of her dress pooling around her feet, and extends a pale, long-fingered hand to stroke the shaking teenager's hair.]

[When she speaks, there's something cruel and out of character... in her voice. It's not the tone of the woman who had just been urging the girl to 'let it live'... in fact, it's more familiar... more mocking.]

[It's the voice of the mother.]}

Oh, Alessa... your mother would be so proud...

_{[... And then, just like that, the scene begins to dim right then and there, like it's a movie that's ending.]}

No...

{Don't touch her, get away from her, she wants to say - she wants to go over and help her, heal her...}

{But this is a dream, a place where the borders of reality and imagination are blurred beyond belief, and so she sits. And waits. And wonders what parts of this are true and what are fabrications while her nails draw blood from the palms of her hands.}

{And as the scene begins to fade, she bites her lip and stares, trying to commit every detail of this little stuffy room to memory - the way it smells like fear and blood and ichor, how the floorboards creak with every subtle movement, how she can just see the ruined insect collections, scattered folornly across the floor.}

I'll remember this - Heather, I promise you that I'll remember this. {Her voice may be cracking, but her resolve is firm.}

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foolishwren - 2011-10-05 09:15 (UTC) - Expand

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