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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_{[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.]}

[L was starkly aware of just how difficult it was to be heard in a world where you had to struggle just to be taken seriously; with his neuroses and quirks, there was a reason beyond fearing for his safety that he hid his face from the public. But even though he has a tremendous amount of control in his home world, his soul is still that meek, frightened child. But a thin voice, strings and whispers, were far better than nothing at all. The creature in front of him made him feel lucky, that way.

He nods briskly, moving as quickly as he's able. He is slow and clumsy, compared to her agile movements, and she might have to do more fighting to keep him from getting caught and torn to pieces.]

_{[The dark-haired Heather moves in a gait that's half-shamble, half-lope. Like a corpse combined with some sort of wild animal. It's graceful, in a weird way. She leads him down rubble-filled alleyways and over rotten staircases without hesitation, occasionally looking over her shoulder to check if he's there every so often.]

[There are sometimes sets of unfriendly eyes that glimmer at them from the shadows and nooks they pass, but it would seem that her presence is enough to deter them from attacking... for the moment.]

[Eventually, as they round a bend, a gateway comes into view. It's some kind of immense junkyard, surrounded by chainlink. Pace visibly picking up when she spots it, Heather brightens and beckons to L once more.]}

[It is gracefully, albeit unorthodox for the classical definition of the word, and she could easily lose him if she so desired. Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, and though he often trips, slips and stumbles over the debris and decaying stairways, she doesn't leave him behind.

The eyes are foreboding, and he stiffens and swallows accordingly when they flash at him from the darkness, but they seem frightened of Heather, at least enough to matter, enough to keep them from springing into the light and tearing at the two specter-like children.

As her pace quickens when they approach the junkyard, she beckons, and he does his best to keep up with her. The rubble makes him nervous; the general clutter and disorder of the scene automatically increases his anxiety. But if this is the way out, he's glad to brave it.]

_{[It would seem there's not an INCH of this space that isn't already littered with junk... Whatever this town may have once been, this vision of it is almost post-apocalyptic... like the whole place was ravaged by some kind of horrible disaster.]

[But Heather-- or THIS version of her-- seems more or less at home here... even if it's not a happy home. She reaches the chainlink fence and starts to climb it like a monkey.]}

[He shuffles past broken glass bottles and rejected, pungent boxes and casings, keeping Heather in his sight as he attempts to keep from cutting or puncturing his bare feet. Though L's soul seems otherworldly, he doesn't fit as well as he appears to. Either that, or he just doesn't know how to fit and survive.

When she starts climbing, though, his heart outright sinks. All he can do is hook the pointed, curved tips of his forearms through the chainlinks and watch her ascent; he's powerless to pull himself up.]

_{[Heather reaches the top within seconds, then turns to check on HIS progress-- .... Oh. :I]

[... Well this could be a problem.]

[She checks on the horizon, then starts to shimmy back down again.]}

[L gazes up at her with his jet-black eyes, his expression somewhere between dismay and apprehension. He can't scale the wall; he's embarrassingly ill-equipped to do much at all, actually, barring... well, barring what he does. He is L. He is the Computer Detective. He has several peripheral talents, and one perfect one. Everything else, in the entire world, is something L is better suited to leaving alone.

When she shimmies back down, though, he realizes that he's not completely forsaken, that there might be a glimmer of hope for this situation yet. Not that it doesn't still look pretty dire; how the hell could Heather get him over the fence? She's not much bigger or sturdier than he is... which is to say, neither of those qualities could be applied to her with a straight face.]

_{[It's easy to forget that not everything possesses her monkey-like climbing skills. When she reaches the bottom, she tilts her head this way and that, trying to work out a solution.]

[She couldn't carry him in one arm... as small and light as he looks, she's not exactly made of muscle...]

[Running her fingers down the chainlink she narrows her eyes briefly, before turning around and kneeling. :I HERE. PIGGYBACK.]}

[Even though she can't talk, the message is extremely clear. He clasps his arms and legs around her, holding tightly, hoping that she can support him for the climb and descent.]

_{[Once he's secure, she stands up experimentally. There's a series of snaps and crackles from her back as she does so, but she doesn't seem to... notice? Care? Maybe both. She's not human, after all.]

[Provided he doesn't lose his grip or fall off, she latches onto the fence once more and starts to climb it, rattling the chain-link as she goes. It's a very tall fence... but at least she's agile enough to climb it. A lot of wrecked, twisted wire at the bottom would suggest that most other monsters around town lacked that ability, and had to find other ways in.]}

[Those sounds could be skin or bone, and it's not exactly pleasant to wonder which they are. He clings tightly, holding his grip well and hoping that the serrated edges of his forearms don't tear at the burned, fragile looking skin of her chest and arms as she climbs with him in tow.]

_{[Her vest, although brittle and rotting, provides her skin with some shelter from L's spiky limbs, although it does seem to part incredibly easily... like ancient cloth pulled from out of a landfill. Still, a vest full of holes was better than claws on bare, burned skin.]

[She scales the fence nimbly, clambering over its top and making the descent down as if she'd done it a thousand times. Which, honestly, she probably had. Once on the pasty soil of the junkyard, she pauses, considering letting L down... then reconsiders. He's not terribly heavy, and there's not much further to go. It's quicker this way.]

[She sets off through the immense mounds of scrap metal, plastic, and rotting vegetation, still carrying him like one might a younger sibling.]}

[He tries to be gentle, to cling more with his bony legs than his serrated forearms. Because he can't tell, very easily, the difference between cloth and burnt flesh. He winces every time he feels something catch on a rough surface, hoping that it's her vest, trying not to allow himself to be jostled too much as she ascends swiftly and deftly.

Once they're over the other side, he starts to climb off her back, but she seems to have no intention of putting down, instead starting off at a brisk pace, still carrying him. And he realizes that it's likely for the better. Without his network, and his computers and his guardians, he isn't strong. He isn't capable. It's known to L, and acknowledged dispassionately, and accepted.]

_{[Don't worry, little bug dude. She's gotcha!]

[The junkyard seems largely deserted, although small sounds and the occasional patter of disturbed rubble would suggest it's as full of otherworldly life as the rest of the town... but for now, nothing seems set on bothering them.]

[She lopes swiftly through the piles, taking them on an unmarked path... eventually, they reach the center, crowned by a massive mound of twisted metal and old trash... but somewhere up near the top, there's something like a hole, or a little depression... and something inside it glints a little bit. It's pretty far up there, though...]}

[L worries frequently, and apart from Watari, no one has ever really "gotten him." His safety was a transient, volatile thing that he never took for granted, and this instance is no exception. As they pass through the junkyard, he remains wide-eyed and vigilant; even if Heather has taken even the basic responsibility of carrying his own weight quite literally onto her shoulders, he can at least try to be more aware and helpful than a sack of sticks.

He gazes up once they're in the middle of the junkyard. It looks like a bug trap, he thinks, the sort of place something would end up after it's been ensnared for the idle pleasure of a child.]

There's a way out?

_{[She sort of nods her head a little bit. Way out? Well... closest thing to a way out anybody's gonna get in THIS place. She adjusts her grip on L's legs before starting, precariously, to clamber up onto the junk.]

[It's not the most ideal of situations, really, but at least they're almost there and nothing's trying to stop them, right?]

[.... Or not.]

[It's not close (yet), but a terrible sound echoes across the junkyard.]}

[She starts, and if it feels precarious to her, it's doubly so for L, who has no control over their current situation and direction. He clings more tightly... but his wings start vibrating again as an awful sound echoes across the junkyard.

That figured. The louder it got, the more his ears hurt, and the more he wanted to scream the way he actually had as a child when a sound became too overwhelming.]

Heather...?

_{[When the sound hits her ears, she stiffens and whips her head around like an alert gazelle that just heard the rustle of a potential lion in the grass. Her face is still very blank, but the tension in every muscle speaks clearly.]

[... Oh. Oh shit.]

[Hastily, she starts to climb faster... or try to.]

[There's a far-off crash. Then another one, closer. Something big is coming towards them.]}

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