[open] don't let her eyes confuse

[circumspector]

WHO? Angel & you
WHAT? you must be dreaming!
WHEN? all over the event
ANYTHING ELSE? heavy, heavy warning for child abuse and drug abuse

I. WANDERLUST
The walls of the cave entrance rise up higher and higher out of strange square blocks. A corridor of vibrant stone that shimmers with strange whirls of what at seem grey, until they're looked at harder. A trickle of purple as the light catches them - and the source of it is very direct as Angel walks through the mix of peaked archways, between the eyes of great alien figures that are carved of the same stone, inanimate and look straight into the mind of those that stand before them. In their lifelessness, they watch.

It shouldn't be comfortable, but for Angel: who runs her hand over the stone - it reacts palpably to her, not just because the exposed line of her arm is glowy with markings. Bright and vibrant white, or her eyes are like headlights in the shadows of whatever this ancient place was.

But because in some way, she belongs to it. And just as soon as she might be within in touching distance, she runs a little bit further ahead, deeper and deeper into the vault of something ancient and below the earth, something rumbles, deep and dark and deadly.

You're definitely not alone in here, that much is certain.

II. YOU DIDN'T SEE WHAT SHE DID TO HER MOTHER
The kitchen of the apartment is nothing less than a domestic dream: white rooms, tiled neatly. The floors a the same polished brightness. A bowl of fruit, the arranged pictures of a family on the wall, a man with one green eye, one blue, and woman with dark, dark hair and their daughter between them. The fixtures and dressings for something so close and warm. Safe. A home.

And save for the blood splatters all over the walls, a nice looking one.

Angel stands in the middle of it all. In the middle of the kitchen, the blood - all over her face. She was younger when this happened, didn't remember that well. Too horrifying to know that she's the one that killed her mother. So the body is obscured. Hidden away, a hand that lays loose peaking around the kitchen island, the mess of that dark, dark hair on those white, white tiles. Angel looks from it, up, to her visitors, wide-eyed and confused. Her markings dulled to blue, eyes flat and staring.

She doesn't question whose in the room with her, when she hears the door rattle from the entrance. "Come on. We have to move. He's coming -" And she grabs onto the closest wrist, running up the little corridor that leads off from the kitchen.


III. THIS IS YOUR THRONE

The chair in the middle of the room is as unforgiving as the metal walls of black and yellow light. It speaks of a clean efficency. Stylish. Modern. White punctuating lines, that run down the walls, across a floor where they turn to a hexagonal pattern. The walls covered in screen that project the same face, of a man.

Removed of any affection.

And the girl strapped into it, kept down by bonds on her wrist, a collar on her throat to yank her by, isn't much better. Slumped forward, bound into the great metal chair, her shoulders are heaving with deep, pained breaths. The exposed skin crackles as she shifts in the unforgiving hold. Pushing briefly against it as her head rolls forward, chin against her chest, hair in front of her face. Down her back in marching lines of two - the plugs that pump a thick purple sludge going directly into her spine.

In front of her sit three pieces of stone. Purple, shuddering with that same light, though it's purple itself, it pulses the same as her input to it. Tied into those markings. Heavy and ancient, she matches the swirls on the stone.

The light of her body is strong, now, pulsing in out it doesn't truly go away. She is full of that light and when she looks up, her eyes are hazy, between where the hair is falling everywhere, one eye visible that looks up to the intruder.

"You have to get out, before it starts again."

It's the only warning before the voice cuts over the speaker, Angel looks up sharp, direct, tugging at the bonds that keep her again more sharply: "How's it going, Pumpkin?" The static crackles, she pulls harder and harder on the leather straps, the only sound in the room is that, the jangling creak, her sharp pants of breath. "Ah, ah, ah, - you promised to try as hard as you can, remember. We're not quitters, are we?" She says nothing and soon if she pulls any harder the leather will cut her skin. "Are we, Angel?"

The sound she makes is something like pain: she whimpers, something like a sob working up in her throat as she pushes out the words, slumping back into the chair. Shaking like the leaves that don't live in these chambers, no matter the river that runs on her skin. "No, Jack. I-I promise."

Comments

iii

[tommygunned]

[There's absolutely no question here that Lup has any idea what's going on. She's got no idea. This is vastly beyond her in specifics; what those lights are she doesn't know, why this girl is soaked through with it she couldn't even begin to say.]

[There are some things that are obvious, though. This shit, whatever's happening, is fucked up. You don't just tie someone up to have a nice conversation, even forgetting the fact that the girl's clearly in pain. So the question of going somewhere isn't even worth thinking about. It's just plain not happening. Not because Lup is any kind of hero, but because she's got a few ounces of common decency left in her.]

[Jack. Her eyes narrow, flicking towards the projection. Jack, Jack set this up, whoever the fuck Jack is--]

[She sidles over to the side of the chair and laces her fingers through Angel's. It's enough of an answer as words would be.]

ii... go hard or go home

[fessus]

He doesn't remember how he got here or why, but he also doesn't really question it. Does he analyze any of his other dreams? Typically not if he can help it. But this one feels particularly off, blue eyes fixated on that family portrait with confused recognition. It looks... familiar, and he can't place why. Or maybe just one person in it does.

At the sound of a voice he's taking a step back, however, gaze casting around a room that blinds him with red and white. When. How. Why.

"Wait--" The stench of blood hits and it's a familiar one to him, still warm and turning his stomach. "Who? Who's coming?"

ii.

[hakanai]

He is a child again, slender and so frail it looks like a breath of wind could knock him over; a little boy often touched with sickness who cannot remember his parents. They were lost in the war, he knows, but that's it. Faint memories of a smile and the tone of a voice are carried in the back of his mind but there's no associations. What Yoshitsugu always had was his one friend.

Just one. The one he always survived with.

But this is not his dream, it's the one he's been pulled into. There's a strange sense of not belonging, of being somewhere wrong, but Yoshitsugu does not think about it. Touched by his surroundings with clothing to match, absorbed into it as best as possible as he goes with the flow, he accepts the hand that curls around his wrist as if it were the touch of his one friend dragging him along. Moves fast enough to keep up.

"Where?" A cough. "Can we hide?"

i

[handsomefoil]

He follows the girl slowly. Whatever he'd been doing before, he can't recall, but now he's here, exploring a fascinating cave of bizarre lights of unknown source and unusual cuts of stone. They almost look man-made with how clean some of them are. The eerie sensation of being watched overwhelms him for a second, but this girl seems comfortable here and her calm resonates.

The lights glow softly and react to her, and intrigued, he continues after her every time she's just out of reach. He thinks about calling after her, but it didn't seem right at the time. It's not until they start delving further into the cave does he feel a little anxious.

"Oy, what's down there?"