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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[If there's one thing that absolutely drives L up the wall, whether his soul is inside his body or out of it, it's being unable to control his surroundings. This is maddening, the knowledge that no matter what he does, he can't influence the course of action... and now there's no sound, either, and even the sound of the television fades into static behind him.

It happens so quickly and silently that L barely has time to flinch as the bullet is fired despite the advancing man's accusation that the other man "didn't have the stomach" to shoot. It would appear that he had been fatally wrong, and had paid for it with his life.

Blood creeps towards L's bare toes, and he takes a few halting steps backwards. He is clumsy, and he doesn't want to slip and fall in this mess.]

_{[He had indeed paid, and paid hard.]

[What happens next happens so quickly it's over in almost an instant-- and unfortunately, makes avoiding the spreading puddle impossible.]

[In bright ribbons of red, the blood streaks outwards and crawls up the walls, almost alive-- and the house crumbles away as the walls run red, like time-lapse footage of a wilting plant.]

[The girl is gone. The man at the top of the stairs is gone. And soon, the normal, presumably happy house that L stepped into is gone, too. There's just that harsh red sky, and a moldering ruin around him.]}

[His heart jumps into his throat as he watches the red expand outward in lurid streaks, under his feet and behind him, putting cobwebs and veins in the walls until there are no walls. And no people, no animated dalmatians, nothing except the red and the rubble.

His wings buzz and vibrate again, more urgently this time. The scene was a reprieve, apparently, and little more; he's still got survival to worry about, and there is still that terrible feeling of being prone, vulnerable and a hell of a target for anything looking for prey in this stark world.

Shelter. He wants it, dearly, but is uncertain whether or not he can find it. He toys with the idea that maybe that girl is somewhere, that maybe she isn't gone like the house is gone, but he can't claim to be seriously holding out hope for that outcome.]

_{[This time, at least, the other buildings seem more than substantial... before him is a veritable urban jungle of alleys and and streets and lonely streetlamps whose light does not seem to extend beyond pale pinpricks in the otherwise dark, smoky red dusk.]

[Lying scattered all around now are flyers-- some torn and some half-soaked in puddles. He will find them no matter where he goes ... and all have one of two of the same faces printed upon them-- the man with the gun, and a somewhat familiar teenage face. Missing persons ads... there's contact information, but instead of info about the people themselves, there are only a few words, respectively, written about each of them. HERETIC and HOLY ONE.]}

[He shuffles off in no particular direction, though it seems as promising as can be expected in such a bizarre world. There is an even row of streetlights, and though they're eerie, at the very least they are in a straight line. L loves the linear and the logical, and they appear to be the only thing in his eyeline that speaks of sense and familiarity. So he follows them, and jumps when one of them flickers as he passes under it.

It's impossible to keep his bare feet clean. Ash and dirt cling to his soles and get scuffed up over the top of them, turning the pale skin sooty grey in a matter of minutes. It reminds him of the movie. So he shuffles over to a puddle, with the intention of washing them, but his toes brush up against a piece of soggy paper. He peers closer at it, and in his peripheral vision, he notices more posters, just like the one at his feet.]

Holy one...?

_{[The face above that heading is serene-looking, and that is perhaps what makes it look SO alien-- because even though the freckles, scruffy hair, and baggy shadows under the eyes should strike L as familiar, the soft, benevolent, divine expression is not one that seems fitting for the face of Heather Mason.]}

[It's very strange to him; he crouches to get a better look, since the serrated appendages he has in place of forearms aren't exactly ideal for picking up bits of paper and examining them. Somewhere, a human, adult body with long, deft fingers is fast asleep, but the soul itself is so horribly awkward, so horribly different and clumsy...

Well. Someone drew Heather wrong, that's just all there is to it. He squints, trying to see past the misplaced benevolence and serenity to a face he knows he knows. He's so intensely focused on the poster that he forgets his wariness for a moment, foolishly dropping his guard.]

_{[Oh boy, L...]

[Sure enough, because the only things more deeply ironic than life itself are the dreams of those living it, it's that moment that a potential crisis chooses to strike.]

[Around a nearby corner, the gentle sounds of something padding through some of the scattered puddles float through the air, followed by a much less gentle growl.]

[A few meters away, over by some trash cans, a dark canine form stands, backlit in the mist by an unseen streetlight. The eyes in its too-far-apart sockets blaze-- straight at the hunching little figure.]}

[Oh hell. Oh hell. That gets his attention again right quickly, that's for sure. He scrambles to his feet, black eyes wide, a harsh gust of wind catching his now furiously vibrating wings.

It's not a cartoon dalmatian, that's for fucking sure.

Nothing seems like a better idea at the moment than to run as fast as his twiggy legs can carry him, and that's exactly what he does. He chooses a direction that takes him down a somewhat dubious-looking alley, rather than the more open and comforting route along the straight line of street lamps. His reasoning? He's smaller, but not faster, and out in the open that thing would be on him in an instant.]

_{[It's most certainly not a cartoon dalmatian.]

[With a mouth that opened further to the sides than it did up and down, the dog let out a surprisingly deep, menacing bark. When the strange little spirit flees, whatever primal instincts are left in the thing's rotting brain can only compel it to give chase.]

[Which it does-- down the narrow, misty alleys and wet streets. L's strategy is sound, but all the same, alleys are tricky things... especially since you never know when one is going to come to an abrupt stop against a brick wall.]

[Which is what L will run into eventually.]}

[His heart is pounding in his thin chest, pebbles and the occasional bit of broken glass prick at his bare feet, and those wings, while they seem to sense and react to danger, don't seem to want to carry him through the air. That's part of the dismaying catch he's noticed more and more as he's been here; the things about him that make him inhuman, the wings, the waxy, mantis-like forearms, the eerie, black eyes... none of them benefit him. None of them help him survive. If anything, they just make him more helpless and prone.

He didn't think he'd ever wish for it again, but... perhaps he did belong in a dark room.

His path twists and turns, he leaves false trails, and he does everything possible to throw off his pursuer. Even when he's terrified, L is resourceful and clever... but that wall is too tall for him to scale. His breath catches and he turns to face the hell-hound, his toes curling against the pavement and bits of ash.

He wonders what it'll be like to die like this. How much pain there will be, if he'll bleed much or not at all, if it'll be quick or drawn-out.]

Monsters must die...

[He numbly parrots words he's heard before, but they don't sound right, they don't seem right, like this... his eyes widen as his back flattens against the brick wall. Nowhere else to go.]

I'm not like you...

_{[The dog comes skidding around the corner, paws already bloodied from being worn down to the bone over the course of their owner's short and cursed existence, but it doesn't seem to notice or care. Slick ropes of white froth spatter out of its split mouth and onto the pavement as it lays eyes on L and begins to growl once more, stepping forward. Several feet of filthy, moldering bandages trail behind it. The flesh on its body is almost greenish, pocked with open, oozing sores.]

[It's not even that the strange little insect thing looks particularly tasty.]

[It's just that it moved. And that alone filled the split-headed dog with a hot, raging desire to rip it to pieces and roll in the remains.]

[Floppy jowls peeling back over rotting purple gums and yellowed teeth, the dog LUNGES.]}

[It looks dead. Rotting, decomposing, diseased... and though that should give it the appearance of being infirm, it increases the fear factor substantially. This isn't a rational predator with a logical reason for pursuing him, it's a possessed corpse that wants to destroy him just for existing.

And then it's moving, it's lurching forward. L squeezes his eyes shut, hoping that it's quick, hoping that whatever happens, he doesn't have enough time to wish for death.]

_{[Deaths in Silent Hill are rarely quick.]

[... But fortunately, the one that the dog suffers will be.]

[The sharp CRACK of a gunshot rings out, and the dog hits the ground with a thud, a neat little hole punched through the top of its head, before the split begins. It didn't even have time to cry out.]

[The shot, somewhat appropriately, had come from above...]}

[L feels like the wind has been punched out of him. His eyes snap open just in time to see the dog drop dead at his feet. He is trembling from head to toe; the adrenaline coursing through him, the feel-good endorphins his brain had released to anesthetize him to the worst of the pain... both were making it very, very difficult for him to stay still. His heart is pounding as he tilts his head up, searching the sky, turning to face the top of the brick wall, the surrounding buildings, scanning for anything that resembles a friend or ally.]

_{[When he looks up, there's a figure standing on top of the building he had come up against in his escape, outlined starkly against the sky.]

[A figure in filthy clothes, with pitch-dark hair and skin mottled with squirming red. In its hand is a gun.]

[And it's staring straight down at him.]}

[He's sure that he could outrun anything he wanted to, now, with all the chemicals in his bloodstream, but he doesn't want to. Though the figure is far from reassuring, he thinks that if she'd wanted to shoot him, she would have, probably right along with the dog.

So he stares up at her, taking deep breaths, waiting for his heart to slow to a more reasonable pace and his limbs to stop trembling.]

_{[The figure tilts its head curiously-- an almost birdlike motion. Although most of it is obscured in shadow, its eyes catch the meager sunset light and reflect like a cat's, in a shade of deep, bloody orange.]

[Then, slowly, it turns, crouches, and starts to climb down the wall, finding miniscule footholds in the grooves between the bricks.]}

[The figure, though bizarre, seems to have a certain agility and grace that L can't hold a candle to. He shifts skittishly, keeping several steps between them at all times, especially after she's scaled the wall and successfully reached the ground. Even though she saved him, he doesn't want to be too trusting, doesn't want to assume that she's a friend because she killed something that wanted to rip him apart.

She looks a bit like the girl in the house, and L wonders if there is a connection...]

_{[Oh, there's a connection... although those unearthly sunset eyes couldn't be further from the frightened brown ones that had been staring fearfully down at him from the top of the staircase earlier.]

[When the figure reaches the ground, she stands all the way upright, head still tilted. When she notices how L scurries away from her, she refrains from approaching, but she doesn't move her stare.]}

[He still maintains his distance, keeping a wary eye on her and his back against the wall as she regards him with that unearthly stare.]

I don't know you... do I? Are we acquainted...?

[The worst that can happen is that the girl kills him, a fate he already came to terms with when the dog was closing in on him.]

_{[She tilts her head to the other side when he speaks, then takes another step closer. There's no real expression on her face-- in fact, it's up for debate whether or not it's CAPABLE of making expressions. Every inch of bare skin is pocked and mottled with deep, oozing burns.]

[She says nothing, but her curiosity is plain. She's never seen something quite like him around here... and she knows everyone in this neighborhood.]}

[Up close, it's possible to actually see the state her skin is in; it makes his own crawl. He reaches a curious arm out as if to touch her, but remembers that even the relatively soft serrated surface would probably be enough to tear at those burns.]

_{[Probably a good idea-- she withdraws slightly when he reaches out, possibly thinking the exact same thing.]

[But she still looks curious. For lack of any better way to communicate this, she points at him.]}

[They're an odd little pair together. They look like they're in cahoots, at least, seeming to each be the right mixture of monster and child to appear more-or-less related. He drops his arms quickly at his sides to demonstrate that he absolutely means her no harm, his brow furrowing when she points her index finger directly at him.

Well. That didn't make much sense. But she wasn't laughing, and she wasn't chasing him or whispering hurtful things.]

Me. It's me. Who are you? Are you from the house before?

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