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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_{[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?

_{[Indeed. The scruffy, jet-black hair helps, too.]

[When he speaks, she tilts her head the OTHER way-- like clockwork, practically.]

[She does not reply, but instead bends down and picks up one of those fliers. Scrutinizing it briefly, she then holds it up and points to it questioningly-- is THAT the one 'from the house' he's referring to?]}

[He stares at her for a moment before glancing down at the flier.]

Maybe. It feels right, but the hair color is wrong... and the freckles. Hair can be bleached, but...

[He trails off, glancing from the flier to the girl, trying to pick up some sort of resemblance.]

_{[The hair might be black as tar and the freckles outcrowded by the burns, but otherwise, the resemblance is rather uncanny.]

[... And as if knowing this... the still-neutral expression on the beast's face has shifted ever so slightly-- the mouth twisting upwards on one side in something that could, if one squinted, be called a smirk.]

[It looks more like Heather Mason than the poster does.]}

[His eyes widen slightly. He sees it, it's impossible to miss. He knows her, not just from the fliers, not just from the house, but from video feeds in a world he was beginning to forget as a result of being tossed from nightmare to nightmare.]

We're... friends, and you saved me.

_{[She nods.]

[Yes... in some small way, she does remember. After all... it was this side of Heather more than any other who had been the one sinking its teeth into L's monstrous dream-mother.]}

Did something get taken from you, too? You're quiet, and that's unusual, for you.

[L knows that much, at least... even if his memory of Heather is as hazy as his memory of himself, there are things that he knows, and one of them is that Heather has never hesitated to talk to him before.]

_{[It WAS unusual, for anybody who knew Heather. Being quiet was something she NEVER had a problem with.]

[But this... this is not the Heather he knows, not entirely. As evidenced by the way she sort of smiles and reaches up to close her hands around her throat, shaking her head.]

[Alessa Gillespie had no voice.]

[It had been taken away from her-- perhaps if she'd had one, someone would have listened... and been able to save her from Hell before it ever got to the point where death was the only way out.]}

[He blinks, comprehending; it's one thing to be afraid to talk. It's another entirely to be literally unable.]

It's all right. I am not upset.

[He raises his eyes to the wall before him, turning to survey the winding alleys stretching past the dog's split carcass.]

I am lost... will you take me away from here...?

_{[Children had hardly any voice to begin with, especially in the cult... and spending seven years trapped in a pain-wracked and broken body in a secret room, while the rest of the town was told you were dead... had pretty much taken away any that might have been left.]

[But the creature before L seems powerful despite not having a voice, somehow... and at his request, she nods. And then beckons, with oddly sharp fingers.]}

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