70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[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:]</sub>

Fear of blood tends to create fear for the flesh.

<sub>[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.]</sub>

[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!]

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[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!]

Comments

[foolishwren]

Yeah... I guess that's really the best way to look at it.

'Cept it's basically the worst neighborhood anywhere on Earth.

_{[Yeah, yeah, talk all you want about sleazy cities and gang wars, but until a neighborhood ritualistically abuses children, nurtures unholy gods and for some people occasionally turns into a rusty, rubble-filled industrial jungle that crawls with eldritch abominations, Heather's pretty sure Silent Hill wins. Plus, it's got its own drug ring.]}

... Too much suffering's gone on here for it to ever be totally clean. Sort of like a rotting wound.

_{[Turning back to Ironhide, she eyes his armor.]}

... I guess you guys rust, which is sort of the same...

[show_my_cannons]

I would believe that.

[He lifts his head, scanning the area. Ironhide is about as sensitive as his name implies, but even he can sense the weight, the lurking violence of this place. It's nowhere he'd want one of his charges to be in -- it reminds him, on some level of the last days... the cities of Cybertron worst hit by the war.]

[That, though, he doesn't say. It's not a time for comparisons.]

No. I understand. Even without mentioning... eugh... rust.

[Don't talk about rust, Heather -- that's like robot cancer.]

[foolishwren]

Yeah... If I thought I could show you the things I'm talking about without... sticking my hands back into murky waters I really never wanted to explore again, I would.

... That and... even if this IS just some whacked-out dream, it's...

It's not safe.

_{[The same words she'd said earlier... and didn't seem to say all too seriously about the monsters they've faced tonight already, even if they are quite obviously unsafe to her.]}

[show_my_cannons]

[Ironhide just listens. He's not very good with words. He's blunt, direct, and lacks anything resembling tact. Anything he could say here would... just end badly.]

[Instead he just extends a hand -- it's an offer of support. A gesture intending to say he understands. Trusts her word. That he won't push this.]

[It's supposed to be a lot of things. Most of which he can't quite articulate well enough.]

All right.

[foolishwren]

_{[She smiles in response. It's a tired, world-weary smile, but it's a smile.]}

... With all that said, how do you like Sucksville so far? Pretty dreary, huh?

[show_my_cannons]

[He knows that kind of smile all too well. So he shrugs, leaving it at that.]

It could use a couple more craters.

[foolishwren]

_{[The smile curls into a MUCH more familiar Cheshire-grin.]}

... Wanna give it some?

[show_my_cannons]

[Ironhide answers with a snort, and lowers his hand.]

[Let's go paint the town in napalm, kiddo.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[She grins and steps up.]

[If she had to be stuck in a nightmare of her own design, she couldn't imagine a better way to spend the time than getting to blow it all to hell.]</sub>