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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[He can feel her taut muscles where his stick-thin arms drape across her shoulders, and it doesn't take long before the panic and adrenaline are rushing L's system, as well. Only he's powerless as Heather struggles, and powerless as she seeks to find footing on the pile of garbage as she ascends as hastily as she can manage without falling.]

You can't move like this... let me down...

_{[She shakes her head vigorously, even though it's fairly obvious that he's right. Whatever's coming... it scares her. That much is certain.]

[A tin can slips out from under her boot and she scrambles for a better hold on the shifting junk as it clatters down the pile until it reaches the ground below.]

[As it turns out, she may have a very good reason to be scared... which will become immediately apparent as something comes smashing through a smaller trash heap, swinging its mighty arms.]}

_{[Earlier, Heather had met a twisted, metaphorical version of L's mother. Now it's time to meet one of Heather's.]}

[Heather's fear does very little to assuage L's own. In fact, it probably amplifies it. He clings to her when she slips, turning to watch the can's tumble... and then his heart gets caught in his throat when he sees what's pursuing them.

He feels numb. He knows that he should be panicking, but he is practically paralyzed. He forces his tongue to work.]

Heather, you can't carry me. It can't chase both of us at once. If you put me down and we split up, we can cut our losses...

[The message is coldly practical and pretty grim, essentially "if we stay together, both of us will probably get smashed. But if we split up, one of us just might live."]

_{[At his calm and collected words, she pauses and looks down at the beast currently barrelling towards the pile. ... And then, she bends, allowing him to get down.]

[... But she has no intention of both of them fleeing in different directions, potentially right into MORE trouble.]

[As soon as he's down, she gives him a push upwards, indicating that he should continue towards that little 'cave' as much as he can.]}

[If there's anything L is actually good at, it's keeping his head during a crisis. Even if things seem like he'll quite literally lose it, soon.

His feet touch the uneven, rubbish-covered ground, and he's off. He's clumsy, and finding his footing is precarious at best, but he's trying hard not to fall and slow Heather down. His wings are choosing to help rather than hinder, though; for the first time, they're actually contributing to his speed, elevating him a few inches off the ground and propelling him forward if it looks like his legs will fail him.]

_{[As soon as she's sure he's climbing, Heather turns and dives back down the mountain of trash, twice as nimble now that she doesn't have L on her back. Moving in quick, all-fours bounds like some kind of feral beast, she's charging the approaching Closer head-on, although a blunt impact doesn't seem to be her aim...]

[Meanwhile, the little crevice looms closer... if L should reach it, he'll find a little alcove, just small enough for someone a little bigger than Heather to squeeze inside. At the back, there's a busted TV set... blaring static.]}

[After several close calls to slips and stumbles, L does indeed reach the small alcove. It's plenty big enough for him, and maybe for Heather, too, if she manages to get there as well. Not that he thinks that's a likely possibility; the creature has seen them, and if she were to hide here, it would defeat the purpose of "hiding". The creature could probably smash this little hollow with one blow.

He peers out the doorway, the static in his ear as he watches Heather bound toward the creature. He doesn't yet realize that he's holding his breath.]

_{[The scene below just got.... ugly.]

[Heather-- or is it really Heather? Perhaps it is, in the same way that the thing that had sunk its teeth into his mother had been Heather... but regardless, when it had reached the right distance, it threw itself off the scrap and onto the beast, clawing and biting at the place where its twitching neck connected to its shoulders.]

[Ever heard a pair of raccoons get into a vicious fight? That's sort of what the commotion down there sounds like.]}

[It's awful to hear; L hates it. It claws at his eardrums more than the static from the television, and he retreats further into the little hovel in a desperate attempt to escape what is quickly becoming a sensory hell for him. They sound like wild animals or monsters, and who's to argue that it isn't like that? Certainly not L. He can't think of a single thing to say, except what he's observed as Heather's altruistic (and therefore human) streak.]

_{[It's altruism all right... or at least something human.]

[An odd thing happens when he gets closer to the staticky television, though... the snow blaring across the screen somehow seems to thin... to grow finer. There squealing havoc of the sound somehow dims, as well-- offers a sort of peaceful alternative to the sounds of feral violence going on outside.]

[Maybe that's why she was bringing him here...?]}

[L crowds closer to the television; there's an inexplicable draw to a sound that grows increasingly gentler. He wraps his arms around the TV, pressing his ear against the speaker and closing his eyes. It works. It's comforting. It was a good idea for Heather to stick him here, for the time being.

He continues to watch the battle between Heather and the mother-monster, but it seems more distant by now, less difficult and insane. More like a dream or a dance than something that can kill him, or anyone.]

_{[Indeed, she seems to have at least had the right idea ... or was a reprieve all she had in mind?]

[As he leans into the speaker, something else happens... the static on the screen begins to whine its way into an actual SHAPE. A very fuzzy, flickering shape, but a shape.]

[... A face?]

[A familiar face, no less. Only this time, something's different. Because she has her voice back.]}

Whoa, okay. So I guess I'm a TV. Dreams are weird.

Whatever works, I guess.

Yo.

_{[The Other Heather is still fighting with the beast outside, but the one he's a little more familiar with is DEFINITELY talking to him through those speakers. Fancy that.]}

You gotta get out of this place, little guy. S'not safe.

[There's a high-frequency whine as the static shifts, crackles, and reveals someone L knows. And a voice, a human, sentient voice; it's been a little while since he's heard one. He draws back, startled, but leans closer once he establishes that Heather is trying to help him.]

Heather, it's not safe out there. I don't want to go... I am not strong when I'm alone...

_{[The image of Heather on the screen smiles sympathetically as it flickers.]}

I mean out of here. This whole place.

I dunno how you got in, but...

[He knows. He knows what she means, but it's an awful predicament to be in. If he'd been able to find a way out of Silent Hill, he certainly would have, by now. He parts his lips, shaking his head back and forth wordlessly, before turning and glancing around the little cave.

There is a small bed in the corner; it's more like a tangle of dirty blankets than anything, but in this world, it qualifies as such. He makes his way toward it, covering himself up even as the crashing and crushing noises draw nearer.]

Maybe you can tell me a story, Heather. Help me sleep.

[Because he knows that if he can be at peace enough to fall asleep within a nightmare, he can make his way out of it. It's not logical, it's instinct, and though he's not certain how he knows, he is absolutely sure that this will help him escape.]

_{[... At first, she looks a little confused. A story? What-- .... well.]

[It is her head... and stories had always helped her in one way or another... maybe guy's onto something.]}

... All right, we can try that.

_{[Hmm.]

[Although her father's creativity had, in some senses, passed on to her, Heather had never been as good at getting that soothing 'go to sleep' tone as he'd always been.]

[A piercing scream rings out below-- something is wounded, and badly.]}

...

_{[Maybe it'd be best to stick to the one her father had always read to her... and subtly imparted its message onto her in the process. The Masons were, after all, ones who had to dig hiding places and run like the wind when discovered by those pursuing them...]

[Even if now, years later, the creation-myth quality of the tale should have left a sour taste in her mouth, it somehow didn't.]}

Here goes...

Long ago, the great Frith made the world...

[As Heather tells the story, L's eyes close, despite the noise and the horror happening outside. The closer to sleep he drifts, the more he resembles an actual child; still thin, and drawn, and certainly strange-looking, but human, at the very least.]

_{[Heather had never been the storyteller her father was. That was what made him shine-- Harry Mason was an awkward and quiet fellow, but when he told a story, you could hear something in his voice wake up. It's what he'd been born to do... or at least that was what Heather had always thought.]

[But as she tells the story and watches L slowly change, she knows that even if she can't tell it the same way her father always had, she must at least be doing something right.]

[It's only, of course, when she reaches the end of the tale-- her favorite part as a child, and the one that had stuck firmly in her memory for most of her life (for reasons she had never known until years later, when she realized why her father had told it), that her own voice takes on a hint of that old storyteller wile.]}

And his tail grew shiny white, and flashed like a star. His back legs grew long and powerful... and he tore across the hill, faster than any creature in the world!

"All the world will be your enemy, Prince With a Thousand Enemies... and whenever they catch you, they will kill you.

... But first, they must catch you.

Digger... Listener... Runner... Prince with a swift warning!

Be cunning, and full of tricks... and your people will never be destroyed."

[She's definitely doing something right. In this bizarre dream world where nothing is as it seems, she's taking something that L has always seen as threatening and turning it into a symbol of security. By doing so, he's looking less like a monster and more like a child, and despite the noise outside, he's drifting off into deep, untroubled sleep.

Cunning, and full of tricks...

L vanishes quietly, leaving the little tangle of blankets behind him, along with Silent Hill.]

_{[It's a moral that L himself can probably relate to, more than a little... maybe that's part of why it came to her so quickly. Silent Hill brought out those things about people, after all.]

[But fortunately for L, his visit to the town that takes all is over.]

[Sleep tight, little bug-soul.]}

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70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]

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~fin~