EVENT #8: MÆRE - IC POST (MAIN EVENT)

[abraxasmods]

Event #8 - Mære

go to the OOC event info and plotting post or the IC faction intervention post.

---

Sleep can be a welcome escape from the daily toils of life. No matter one's magical affinity or physical prowess, many succumb to the need eventually. While some find refuge in it, others prefer to avoid sleep for as long as they can, fearing what lurks in the corners. For the latter, perhaps what happens next is just part of their nightly struggle.

Beginning on the night of JUNE 18, characters will be met with unsettling dreams and their worst nightmares. It will build slowly over the course of the following week as manifestations of their deepest fears and regrets make themselves known.

Night Walk

How does it start? Familiar, perhaps: experienced before or a recognizable concoction of events and feelings. Your old home, a town you've visited, a room you met an old friend in, a corridor where you faced off with a great foe, or a mosaic of the different pieces of your life. You don't yet sense danger. It's safe, you think. Or alternatively: you are consumed immediately by an unsettling feeling, finding yourself in a darkened room you don't recognize, falling endlessly, unable to move, already wounded in the middle of nowhere, or the growl of an animal. Whatever the recreated vista, you slowly get the distinct sense that you are not alone.

As you explore your dreamscape, this sense does not leave you. You may find a shadow looming over you, catch something in the corner of your eye, hear a sound far off in the distance. Wherever you turn, you seem to just miss it. Whether this unsettles you or not will vary, but you will remember this come the morning. If you are one of the lucky ones, it all ends here. Strange dreams are nothing unusual. Those happen now and again. But for many others this is just the beginning.

The Entity

If you are among those less fortunate, you will find yourself plunged into the same dream. It may not be the next night. Perhaps it happens later, when you're napping in the afternoon, or a few nights afterwards when you've already forgotten all about it. Regardless, it returns to you. The stage might be different, the details shifted, but the feeling of something watching remains. In your absence, it only seems to have grown. Each time you return to this singular dream world, its presence grows ever stronger. Oppressive, suffocating, you know you are being hunted.

When you finally see it, you know exactly what it is. The Entity that hunts you is born out of your subconscious itself, your deepest fears and traumas given form. A twisted manifestation of unshakeable guilt, a creature or foe you have fought with once before, a person you may have loved so dearly now turned against you - the sight of it chills your blood and you know in your heart that it is here for you.

The Guest

Should fate twist further, you might not be the only one. Instead, you'll find other Summoned with you. They might also be running from a presence of their own or maybe they're merely unlucky enough to have fallen into the path of yours. Whatever it is, they too will bear witness to that which haunts you - or you will see what haunts them, as well. Your respective dreamscapes might meld together, shift and change, or one might take over the other completely.

Though it's likely you won't realize you're trapped inside a dream, that doesn't mean you can't fight back. Gather your courage to face down your fears or try to help those you find yourself in the company of - you might just find your surroundings steadily shifting in your favor. A weapon here, a pathway opening there, a wooden door that transforms into steel. Be careful, though: should your awareness grow that things aren't real, the world will try to consume those thoughts and you within it, twisting things further in an attempt to make you forget that you're dreaming.

The Imprint

Luckily, you do eventually wake - unsettled, damp with sweat, but at least you're safe. It was only a dream, wasn't it? For some, that might be the case. For others, you'll start to hear the sounds of the dream in the waking world, glimpse the shadow of the Entity in a reflection, feel a breath against your neck. Marks or injuries might also follow you into the physical world: dirt staining your palms from where you fell, a cut from where you were struck, dampness in your hair from the rain. These occurrences could be obvious, but they might also be so minor you feel like your mind is playing tricks.

Still - what if it isn't merely a dream? As the week goes on, whether you experience the phenomenon for yourself or not, you'll most certainly hear of it happening to your friends, loved ones, neighbors. Word reaches you of fellow Summoned being stalked from the shadows, waking up with injuries they shouldn't have, possibly even suffering a near-fatal wound in their sleep. Clearly, there's more to this than uneasy visions in the night.

The Factions

While it is each Summoned who is the focus of their Entity's ire, they are not the only ones who seem aware of its movements. The factions will soon approach each Summoned with an offer: work with them to help contain the threat and aid the suffering of you and your friends - but the one thing they cannot explain is how they have come to know about the existence of the Entity.

Will you take the offer and try to convince your fellow Summoned this is a vital path to take? Or will your mistrust of those in power have you not only refusing, but trying to prevent others from making what you believe is a mistake?

The choice is yours, but the decision might impact more than just you this time.

A separate log located here will detail the reaction of the factions and so forth. You can tag in under the specific heading for each faction.

To thread out any arguments or conflict prior to participating, please do so in this event post. The IC Faction Intervention log should be only for those actively participating in the full process.

The Horizon

When dreams are no longer an escape, desperate souls might turn to the Horizon for safety - though they may remember that, previously, the Horizon was not safe at all.

It Follows

At first, the same doesn't seem to hold true. Things are quiet in the Horizon. There is no need for sleep or dreams here. You have full control over what's formed inside your domain. However, it doesn't take long for the remnants of that horrible dream to seep into your sanctuary. A field you grew may start to turn dark, becoming nightmarish corridors. Maybe the tower you placed so carefully begins to crumble, or perhaps the reflection you see of yourself in a lake isn't you at all. You will find that despite your best efforts, your Entity has followed you into Horizon and is corrupting your domain with it.

As menacing as the presence may be, the Entity will not be able to destroy other's domains. Within yours, though, it may twist the design to varying degrees, ruining carefully laid paths, staining blood on your walls, darkening what is most important to you no matter how much you might try to change it back. Conversely, its hold may only be strong enough to be a shadow in the corner of your eye. It all depends on the strength of your nightmares and how deeply its affected your mind.

Nonetheless, the message is clear: dreams are born of your mind and your mind is what the Horizon is formed from.

The Looking Glass

Whether you see the manifestation of your Entity in full or whether your domain is barely affected by its presence, all who enter the Horizon during the course of the week will find that they are once again plagued by a flash of a vision.

This is nothing like the glimpses into another's past, however. There are no headaches, no recognizable faces. This time, the vision will flicker in and out of focus like an old television trying to find the right signal, staticky and not quite clear at first. The flashes are brief, lasting only mere seconds, if that. In fact, at first, one might even mistake it for a trick of the mind. For some, this may be all they see. For others, it may return in another burst the next time they enter the Horizon, becoming clearer each time. It might appear as soon as you step in, or it might take an hour, two.

What you see will not be anything familiar. The scene itself will never change. It is a soundless meteoric picture. You may glimpse heavy winds stirring some sand, but you will not feel it on your skin nor hear the wind. You may see a flicker of the sea, but you will not smell the sea salt nor hear the crashing waves. All in all, this image which appears to you is abstract, strange, and impossible to understand in their absurdity - except for one part: the appearance of a single Arcana sign.

Intriguingly, this sign likely does not match your own. It might not even match anyone you know at all. It is an undeniable fixture, though, appearing emblazoned on the scene somewhere, not always in the same place, but always present: seared into the ground, carved on stone, scrawled on a page.

The six available images are below and each one is labeled with the Arcana sign your character will notice when they glimpse the scene. Choose any image you like, but only one may be selected. Characters do not need to be experiencing nightmares or the Entity to see these images.

As noted, the Arcanum on the image itself does not need to match your character's. At this time, there are no real details on what the Arcanum itself means or why it's appeared, though the possibilities are endless. Everyone in Abraxas possesses one, after all.

If you want to be surprised and assigned an image at random, comment here and we will do so for you!

The Hermit

The Sun

Temperance

Death

The Lovers

The High Priestess

CODE

Comments

IMAGE ASSIGNMENT

[abraxasmods]

Comment here if you'd like to be assigned an image at random!

Jasper | Thorne | Judgement

[leitstern]

Contact: safekeeping or PM

Plotting: OOC but feel free to get in touch!

Open | Who Watches?

[leitstern]

[Jasper turns from the window but upon glimpsing the newly commissioned painting on the wall, he finds himself stranded in recollection. Eyes wince and close in thought. With everyone praising its subject as reverently as heroes of old, what purpose does he serve?

It is tough to cry or care and he considers his place: forgotten and receding into the shadow of this man. His fingers grace the frame and he stands alone, a lost and lonely son exiled by his father.

His fingertips slide onto the portrait. He has no idea why he graces it with his touch, and makes the excuse it is to ground himself even as he clenches a fist, ready to punch straight through the canvas. Wrapped up in his nightmare, he barely notices his audience.]

Alucard | The Heirophant | Free Cities

[cryptsleeper]

Day 2 - Cadens, Old Public Hall at dusk

[cryptsleeper]

[Summer looms. The days are impossibly long, and Alucard finds that while Old Public Hall is built for Caden's too hot weather, his work cancels out all of those old construction tricks. He is sweaty. He is exhausted. And the past two nights have not come with easy sleep.

Usually resting in his wolf form, Alucard's dreams are typically fuzzier. Less intense. With fewer memories. It is one of the tricks he's figured out that permit him to function without falling into an awful pit of despair and depression. But the last two nights? He may as well be human. Human and sleeping in fits, going through every nightmare with a new and profound sense of dread. One harder to shake upon waking.

Having locked Old Public Hall for the evening, Alucard decides to settle on the steps. There's shade, and the world moves past him. A familiar face might get a nod of the head or a handwave. Acknowledgement at the very least, or an invitation to discuss if they're inclined.]

Nadine Cross | The Stand | The World

[nadine_he_loves]

A - The Nightmare

Nadine knows this place.

It's the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, in Boston. Only it's...wrong. The light coming in through the big round window above the altar is red tinted and dim. The columns and vaulting ceiling look shabby and in disrepair. It feels as though there's a layer of grime coating it all. She's alone before the elaborate altar, a scattering of white roses across it.

They look sickly in the odd light.

Turning, she realizes she's not quite alone. The rows of pews are filled with shrouded figures. Funereal wrappings obscure each and every congregant, the bodies sitting straight and as though they'd been posed. They all seem to be looking at her. While she can't see their faces, she can feel their wrapped eyes on her. Unnerved, Nadine slowly makes her way along the aisle between the pews, suddenly aware she's in bare feet. There is a sense of fear that is growing rapidly, and it seems as though the doors of the cathedral remain the same distance away as she walks towards them. There's a pain in her thigh but she ignores it, wide eyed at the altered cathedral.

A shadow moves beyond the floor level stained glass windows of the cathedral. Nadine stops short, gasping, turning towards the motion. There's nothing there now, but she saw it, she knows she did. Some vaguely humanoid shape moving outside. The windows keep her attention. No longer do they show scenes of saints or holy figures. Animals fill their frames now, dressed as saints. A bear, an elephant, a turtle...all twisted in grotesque poses. It's profane. And somehow familiar...

Something outside is howling.

Seemingly unable to come to a decision, Nadine remains frozen on the spot. Blood begins to drip down her leg beneath her white nightgown, a wound high on her inner leg opening. The cathedral doors burst open in a great call of thunder and more hellish red light floods in. The shrouded figures on the pews begin to shift, slowly, with terrible groans. Heads turn. Shoulders twitch. They struggle in their bindings and Nadine shakes her head with a desperate sound of fear.

How does she get out of here?


B - Streets of Cadens

Nadine has left work early. Nightmares are nothing new, but these...they're different. More vivid, more intense. And she swears...if it weren't for the fact that she knows others are experiencing the same, she'd be a great deal more frightened. Even so...it's Flagg that haunts her nightmares, and Flagg's voice she swears she can hear just at the edge of hearing, Flagg she swears she's seen just briefly in the reflections of the glassware at the apothecary. She finds herself jumping at noises. She's no good to anyone.

She hurries home, looking haggard and distraught, focusing on just getting back and to her and Julie's shared apartment suite. But she keeps glancing over her shoulder, and quickening her steps, tries to make herself small and unnoticeable in a way she hasn't done in months. This is ridiculous, it's madness, Flagg is gone.

But he had walked in dreams, and given gifts of nightmares...


C - Mags' Inn

It's only a dream. Nadine repeats it to herself again and again, shaking and sweating and wrapped in a light robe as she heads down to step out for some air. At least she knows she's not the only one who's been waking in the grips of fear. It all felt so real, while it was happening...and still does, in a way. She isn't sure if she wants a drink, or that would only make it worse.

The cool night air, at least, feels nice. And the open sky above is a relief.

It's only then that she realizes she's been bleeding...there's a smear of dried blood on her right ankle.

ᴛʜᴇ ɴɪɢʜᴛᴍᴀʀᴇ

[righteously]

It isn't clear at first what steps into her doorway. Still coming into formation, still being made real by the sluggish processing of the human mind at rest. It is shadow, it is smoke, it is the inky blackness of a thought, still leaving the void that comes before the thought itself has a chance to complete. It will become something, it will manifest into her expectations in moments.

There's a certain air to this room, a solemnity, a heaviness. There's a vibe that's so intimately dark it almost feels sacred — appropriately and inappropriately fitting, given the setting. Everything, living or undead, respects the reverence it demands.

Well, almost everyone.

Abruptly, without a hint of warning, a shotgun blast breaks through the droning quiet. It scatters the smoke into nothing, dispelled more by the distraction he causes to her mind than by the rock salt shells themselves.

He takes a few slow, meandering bow-legged steps forward, casting wary and skeptical eyes about the place, gun still in hand but, for the moment, lowered.

"It's, uh... It's none of my business what people do in their free time, but... Sister, this is one creepy ass Bat Mitzvah you got going on in here."

ᴡɪɴᴄʜᴇsᴛᴇʀ | ᴄʟᴏsᴇᴅ sᴛᴀʀᴛᴇʀs

[righteously]

ᴄɪʀɪ

[righteously]

( They've been here forever, or six days, or six months, or two weeks — he wouldn't be able to say for certain off the top of his head, but that doesn't really matter. It wouldn't occur to him to think about it; if he tried, the foggy thought would slip away and he'd forget he had it at all. There are more important things to worry about right now.

The dark, the trees, the threats they hold, and the girl.

It's in the air, it's a feeling that goes down to the bone. It touches the back of the mind, on the lizard brain survival part everybody has. Simple instinct: they are not safe. Something is going to come, and it is going to come soon.

They're at rest. A river, a log, a place to sit, a place to breathe, but they can't stay here. They can't stay anywhere. Not until he gets the girl out. )

Two minutes.

( Not a question. A statement, a warning, flat and decisive.

Two minutes, and then they move again. )

ᴊᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏᴡɴsᴇɴᴅ | ᴛᴀʟᴇs ғʀᴏᴍ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀs sᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ

[stations]

( Maybe this is the start of your nightmare, or maybe it's the start of his. Maybe it's neither, perhaps it's just something you happened upon while strolling through the Horizon — it's alright if you don't remember. He doesn't either. In any case, welcome to the middle of nowhere. Trees stretch in any direction, though line of sight fades into nighttime darkness a couple yards in. A poorly maintained road stretches out long and empty. The streetlights have ended far, far away. Something that looks distinctly like a raccoon drags something that looks distinctly like a Hitachi magic wand across the furthest end of the parking lot. At the center of it all, a gas station.

The inside isn't any better than the outside. It smells like bleach barely managed to drown the ghost of must with both hands in a bathtub. The smoke detector, upon closer inspection, is an old Frisbee. The snacks on the shelves are weird off-brands with the expiration dates scribbled out or filed off. Out of the corner of your eye, it might be possible to catch a glimpse of an honest to god deer trying to open up one of the coolers to grab a soda. A normal, non-anthropomorphized, totally belongs in the fucking woods and should not at all be standing upright deer.

And then there's the clerk behind the counter, evidently ignorant to — or content to ignore — all of these things. He sits on a stool by the register, with a paperback novel titled True Banana Crimes: A fight against God in his hand, which he stares at so intently he doesn't even notice anyone enter. )

[sorser]

[Where he's just come from could be considered strange, all whirling color and the vastness of space, but his trek has led him here -- a gas station that is just the exact degree of surreal to qualify as slightly off-putting.

Had he seen a deer? (Probably, all things considered, though he cannot seem to find it a second time when he looks.) Still, the fluorescent lighting draws his eyes beyond the definitely off-brand rows of midnight snacks towards the clerk behind the counter, either ignoring Stephen or not having noticed him. He doesn't know what else to do, really, other than walk up to him, his cloak swishing behind him in a dramatic fashion unsuited to his surroundings.

He clears his throat.]

Hi.

claude von riegan | free cities | the wheel of fortune

[godshattering]

— cadens insomnia club (your choice of where + day!)

[godshattering]

[ Claude's always been restless at night. It's too easy for someone who never stops thinking to rehash all those old fears of what might could happen, and being in Abraxas hasn't been an exception to that where he's had to relearn what to look out for. Not that he feels he's exceptionally at risk here, or at least not any more than at home; but after the first nightmare when he dozes off with a book one night - that's enough to keep him from getting what little sleep he normally does. Getting out of his room and away from where it happened (barring when the dreams begin to cross over into real life) to keep himself occupied feels like a good solution.

It seems he's not alone in that, either. On most nights he's downstairs at Mag's Inn at a table slightly off to one side, normally with a book or two to keep himself occupied and a pot of tea he'll refill occasionally as the hours drag on later and later until it's just him and a scattered few left. His fellow Summoned who reside there can be seen going about their business, and some he recognizes and others he doesn't. But the more time he spends down there avoiding sleep, the more familiar faces he comes to remember. Each night there's always open seats at his table that aren't pushed under it, suggesting anyone's welcome to sit down and join him if they'd like some company. (He could use it too, even if he won't admit it.)

When he's not at the Inn, Claude's out wandering the city in search of everything and nothing in particular. Walking's something that's always calmed him, makes him feel productive even if it's just a different way to spin his wheels in finding some kind of solution for what's happening. The night air blowing in from the deserts around reminds him of home, so his theme of being outside applies most everywhere: sitting outside at cafes people watching, browsing shops and markets until they close, or haunting other taverns for a minor change of scenery. He'll be on the move in between wherever he stops, so Claude's just as likely to be found checking out streets he hasn't been down just yet.

But no matter where paths cross, when he notices there's someone else nearby who seems to be suffering under the same weight he is: ]

You too, huh?

matt murdock — free cities — the tower

[catholica]

( plotting comment + jortles, if you need to discuss/plot. )

( the nightmare | cw: violence )

[catholica]

( this is familiar. when matt opens his eyes, there's just fire and red (as always) but he knows where he is. all around him, he can hear the familiar chatter of the judge, the jury, the other attorneys, and the people in the gallery. if he focuses, he can hear the individual conversations but his attention is elsewhere. braille bumps along underneath his fingers and though he's read this brief many times, almost to the point of memorization, he does it again just to make sure.

something about this feels important. he tries to remember why that is but he can't put his finger on so he let's it go. concentrates. he's preparing himself for his initial argument when the chill of familiarity creeps up his spine. there's someone here. he knows that he's here and when matt turns, the conversations all seemingly stop. he can hear kingpin smile. he can smell his cologne, so strong in the air that he nearly gags.

that's when the surrounding noise comes back at him like a shot and it's all directed at him. angry accusations of neglect and failure in a myriad of different voices. some of them matt recognizes, some of them don't. they tell him he's the reason for their pain, their madness, their everything. he's the reason.

through it all, he can hear kingpin getting to his feet but he doesn't move. everyone else does, closing in on him. the words grow louder, so loud that it's almost hard for him to focus, and they crowd him. kingpin smiles. smiles and doesn't move.

matt throws a hand up and he feels his fist strike bone. someone falls backwards and, for a moment, everything is still until it's not. until the innocent people that he'd only wanted to help turn their ire on him and he can't lift a hand without hitting one of them. when he does, when bone cracks against bone, he can feel a surge of pleasure at it and he hates himself.

somewhere, kingpin laughs.

he's not in the courtroom anymore. he's on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose and teeth. matt reaches out, braces a hand on the wall that's beside him and gets to his feet only to be immediately knocked back down, landing hard on his back. he can hear the heavy tread of combat boots, men coming towards him from the end of the hall. they speak in languages that he doesn't know. they reach down, grab at him, pulling him up and he starts swinging, fighting, desperation and anger in every blow.

there's the sound of something bigger at the end of the corridor, a quiet cry, and the color drains from matt's face. he knows what's down there and he starts running. he runs and he runs but the girl's crying continues, grows more pained as kingpin grips her harder and harder. he's hurting her and all matt can do is run. run and run and run until something slams into him and he falls, dazed.

the girl's crying is suddenly snuffed out. all that remains it blood, bone and the sound of kingpin walking away. )

wilhelm | thorne | the tower

[ordinar]

I. nightmare | cw: death, car accidents

It's a familiar place, the passenger seat beside his brother. Wind ruffling his hair, trees and road signs blurring together in an endless tapestry on either side of them. He can't remember getting in the car, something slick and sleek and low to the road. He doesn't know where they are. But neither of these things concerns Wilhelm. All his cares are too slow to catch up with him now. Erik says something over the thump of the music pumping from the stereo, and he laughs in answer. It's the kind of contentment that blots out everything outside of this moment, that makes you forget you could ever be unhappy.

He can't even remember why this is all wrong. The reality that Erik is dead swings somewhere beyond the border of his conscience like a noose waiting to strangle him.

The first crack comes when a dark shape interrupts the monotonous pattern of the landscape streaming past. Heart pounding, as if his body already knows he should be afraid though his mind hasn't registered why, Wilhelm twists to try to see what it is. But there's nothing there besides the trees, already shrinking from sight to be replaced with a new row of slender trunks.

When he faces forward again, a shadow stares back at him from the side mirror, and he startles. In the second his eyes turn away, the shadow vanishes. The mirror reflects only the blue sky held up by the tree branches and his own pale face.

"Did you see that?" he asks Erik.

"See what?" his brother returns, head cocked in curiosity. Suddenly, for reasons Wilhelm can't comprehend, it hurts to look at him. The tightening that begins in his chest extends its grip to his whole being, as if the air around him has become a fist intent on crumpling him up. The road seems to narrow, and they're flying faster than ever now.

And where do you enter this scene? Perhaps you find yourself in the backseat of the car, or perhaps you wander into the road at precisely the right moment to play a deer in the headlights. Perhaps the road veers into the landscape shaped by your own trauma. Whatever the case, these nightmares are set on a collision course.

II. horizon

Every night he rides in the car with Erik, and every night he fails to prevent the crash that kills him. Every time his brother dies, the weight that falls on him becomes heavier — the figurative turning literal in the realm of nightmares. Slowing him, staggering him, until the shadowy thing is squeezing itself around him.

Wilhelm rubs gingerly at his neck, and the ache that answers back tells him the bruised handprints must still be there. That seems to be the one limitation of the Horizon: he can alter the world around him to suit his fancy, but not himself. Restless and rattled, he finds himself spending longer hours in the domain he's just begun to create. A work in progress, much of his "plot" is dedicated to a stretch of seashore, which had come about to accommodate his desire for somewhere to wander and think and be left alone. It's here that he splashes through the surf, stooping to pluck rocks from the water — each one perfectly smooth and suited to skipping, naturally.

But nightmares follow here too. As the rock he's just tossed sinks into the sea, the water blooms blood red around it. Wilhelm stumbles backward onto the wet sand, stained seaform curling around his feet like bloody fingers. That's when he feels a presence behind him and whips around to see—

A person standing there. One of the summoned, he realizes. His breath rushes out of him in a relieved sigh as he rubs at his chest. Pulling out his ear buds, he pauses the music to address whomever has found their way into his domain.

"Jesus, you scared the shit out of me."

(OOC: I'll match brackets, if you prefer. :) )

II

[thedevilwhorose]

"I get that a lot," he says easily. It's anyone's guess which part of the exclamation he's referring to.

He looks beyond the boy to the bloodied waters and raises a brow. Interesting. Maybe he doesn't know a lot about Typical Teenage Angst but he doesn't think that's normal.

Lucifer's dressed in blue jeans, a simple brown shirt, and a dark green overcoat. A stark difference to the tunics he was wearing the last time he saw the kid, though his arcana remains emblazoned in the same location as always.

ches fields ☾ the lovers ☾ ota

[wolfssegen]

Plotting here or hit me up by PM or on Discord at onlilypads#8008.
Will match brackets or prose, just reply in your preferred format.
CW: attempted murder of a child by parents (or in some scenarios successful murder), werewolf/animal attack, hunting, gun violence/general violence
Opt-Out: Click here to opt out of Ches's childhood trauma, or the character as a whole.

the nightmares (cw: domestic violence, discussion of massacre/murdered children)

[wolfssegen]

☽ In the Past

Chester isn't exactly the creative or imaginative type and hasn't had a lot of opportunity to travel the world or see other places, so the dream starts as most of his dreams do - on the farm, at home. At first it's just an idyllic dream of home, full of longing and nostalgia because he misses it so much. Benign and almost boring, it features Ches going through a workday...feeding the animals and taking the tractor through the fields; going for a horseback ride with his best friend Noah where he chats about the workings of the farm while heavy metal plays from Noah's phone; sparring with Jasha, a hard-talking Russian who kicks his ass then trains him at the punching bag; giving lessons on controlling the wolf to a younger wolf who's new at the compound; hanging out in the kitchen with his brother Dusty while he cooks, peeling potatoes and planning for the next Farmers' Market.

Just like in his Domain in the Horizon, it's a beautiful summer's day, the breeze playing through the trees, sending them rustling in the wind. Chester is standing in the kitchen, leaning against the bar and chatting with his brother, a tall broad-shouldered man ten years younger than Chester with a curly blond undercut and dark tan skin, bright eyes and an easy smile. There isn't a lot of physical resemblance between the two beyond the blond hair - Dusty is obviously some type of mixed-race where Chester isn't, Dusty is a half foot taller, Dusty's eyes are a bright blue-green as opposed to Chester's vibrant gold, their builds are quite different - but they still have the easy chemistry of siblings.

Partway through the conversation, the tone of the dream shifts. The corners of the room seem to darken and the weather outside turns from a lightly-breezy sunny day to an evening with heavy clouds and pounding rain. Lightning strikes in the distance and the rumble of thunder is what alerts Ches to the change, that and the sudden feeling of unease in the pit of his stomach. He turns to look out the kitchen window at the weather only to find that when he turns back it's no longer his brother in the kitchen but his mother. She looks a lot like Chester, with dishwater blond hair and brown eyes, dressed in a floral housedress and an apron, looking at him with tired eyes. A moment later Dusty runs into the kitchen, but it isn't the friendly-looking young man that had been in the kitchen a moment before but the child version of him, with a shock of curly hair and dark skin and eyes bright with tears.

"Chester, Chester! The bad wolf took over and Daddy saw me!" he cries, tears running down his cheeks, and a moment later their father, tall and narrow-built with a sort of ratlike face and pale blond hair, comes in after the boy, holding a gun and shouting.

"Anabel, the boy's a werewolf!" he shouts, "Was planning on havin' a go at the chickens, I watched him change back when I caught him!"

The rest of the scene is a blur of shouting, Chester's father brandishing the gun at Dusty while the five-year-old boy sobs, Chester's mother realizing the truth and adding her own voice to the cacophony, Chester shouting at both of them to leave Dusty alone while the little boy comes to hide behind his legs.

It's right as Chester is placing a hand on Dusty's head, guiding him further behind himself and Chester's father is coming toward him threateningly that someone else arrives in the dream.

Up until that moment, Chester had been completely lost in the scene, transported back to the night that this had happened - the way his father had shoved him aside and grabbed Dusty by the arm, the way his mother had encouraged their father to 'get rid of him,' the way he'd snapped, furious and protective, and drawn his knife. But the unexpected arrival of a stranger to this scene snaps him out of it, out of that moment, even as it continues to play out around them.

Who's there?

☽ In the Present

It's a different night, but the dream starts the same, just a replay of a typical idyllic, perfect day on the farm, the breeze blowing, the sun shining, all the people he loves around him. Chester works, rides horses, is trained and trains others, and everything seems easy and perfect.

The transition to nightmare is somehow both more subtle and more violent than it had been before. There's no change in the weather, but the sound of tires on the gravel driveway rings out loud and clear, and two black vans pull up. Almost immediately, the doors open and a group of people spill out, dressed in dark suits, smelling of nothing. Chester recognizes them instantly as the Wraith, supernatural hunters with incredibly powerful weapons and brainwashed supernaturals on their side. Remembers the havoc they'd wreaked when they'd perpetrated the Jones Pack Massacre, how they'd murdered so many werewolves who'd been so good at fighting, so capable of protecting themselves, had murdered them all, even the children and teens.

This is where he needs to stand strong, call his people in, retreat to the house and defend it. To encourage his pack, to call them to arms, to pump them up so they can fight for their territory, to remind them of their bonds to himself and to each other. But he feels paralyzed, frozen in his tracks, watching as the Wraith approach, armed with guns and captive bolt pistols and other weapons he's never seen before. Paralyzed. Terrified. Completely without the ability to move or think or react.

"What do I do?" he asks no one, everyone, "What am I supposed to do? They're all going to die!"

geralt of rivia | the witcher

[gynvael]

cw: violence, gore, blood, death of all kinds, other canon-typical things all the way down

I. Night Walk (OTA)

[ He's been here a hundred, a thousand, times, but it always feels like the first time. A door, rotting from the dank and cold. A stone floor, rickety wooden beds that are notably too small for grown men, the sheets filthy and stained a muddy red. Blood that sticks to the bottom of his boots. Every step squelches. Outside, the wind howls. Or is it something else? The sound is shrill, piercing. Sometimes, he doesn't leave the cellar. Sometimes it never occurs to him to try, sometimes the door won't open and he gives up because deep down, he knows there's no point.

But sometimes he tries once more. Twice, three times. Pushing, twisting with a curl of desperation around his heart until the lock splinters and the door swings open. If his hand is bleeding, he pays little attention.

He stumbles out, nearly falls through the door. What he steps into is different each time: a thick blizzard that batters the mountain trees, a crashing seashore, a winding dirt path, a darkened village. Fuck, maybe he's stumbled into something of yours. Does he know you? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he thinks he does, but you've never met before.

No matter what, one thing never changes: wherever the scene is set, there are bodies scattered across the ground, bloated, torn apart. The remnants of smouldering flames lick the rooftops or scorch the ground. The air is heavy. Stifling. Smells thick of rot and death and fire. It's difficult to breathe.

The howl hits the air again. And mixed in it, perhaps, what sounds like the cry of a young girl, tangled up in the echo of screams.

(Be not afraid of Her.
For She is your friend.)

II. Horizon (OTA)

[ Far out in the dusty Badlands, Geralt hasn't a clue that something is amiss. Unsettling dreams have haunted him for so long, he can't remember the last time he truly had a restful night. He pushes aside the images as always, tells Sam he's fine, offers to keep watch for longer during the nights seeing as he can't fucking sleep, anyway. What else is new? He's found bruises, a gash now and again, an ache in his joints—but that, too, draws little attention from him. They've been traversing the desert for nearly three weeks, scaling jagged cliffs, hauling heavy rocks out of old mines and caverns. He hardly blinks at yet another scrape or cut appearing.

When sleep eludes him more than usual, he slips into the Horizon instead. Not often, but. He's got someone to watch his back for once. A rare thing. It lets him enter with more ease.

He isn't here to do anything. Only to get away for a bit, perhaps find some modicum of comfort in the snowy peaks he calls home. The large white wolf which lurks the grounds outside the keep is there, as always, a silent presence. He's come to consider it as much a friend as his horse.

But as he steps on the bones that are buried beneath the snow, the way he has for ages, he feels a sudden give. A softness. Like flesh. He stops, glances down—stares. Blood seeps into the snow, dark, nearly black. No. What the fuck—

Any footsteps crunching behind him or a greeting will startle Geralt into spinning around. He's been having a time and it shows in his gaze, though it might be hard to tell for those who don't know him as well. ]

ciri.

[gynvael]

[ He can't find her.

The fear that seizes him is choking. It tightens around his heart, makes every step heavy. It isn't the first time he's lost her, but he isn't sure. The sand that swirls around him is scorching, stinging his eyes. Pounding hooves echo around him; the horses whinny. He can hear them, though he can't see them.

It's not dark. It's not dark, but there's no sun, either. Not the way one might expect. The world is red, as though the sun's been hidden behind a dusty sky. The earth stretches for miles. ]

Ciri! [ How long has he been searching? He doesn't know. He doesn't even know where the fuck he is; it's familiar and yet not and a part of him can't care. He's only after one thing. He only wants one thing.

She belongs with us.

No. No, he thinks. She does not. She belongs with him. Where is she? ] Ciri.

Hythlodaeus | Solvunn | The Empress

[lackingtalent]

Night 1: The nightmare

[lackingtalent]

[There is a voice. Hythlodaeus is not wholly certain if it is his voice or anothers, if the voice is an internal one or external. Nor does he ask. Nor does he question, nor does he interrogate. For this is a dream. It simply is, and that is all.]

What meaning does life hold? For what end do we strive?

[There is a sea of stars. Distant, cold. Uncaring. Unfeeling. Unattainable.
The ground beneath his feet is part of a series of landmasses, interconnected one and all by long alabaster roots that seem to stretch out forever and ever- unifying each and all together, always.]

There is no satisfactory answer. Only memories of an age long past.

[The vegetation is long, golden. Shimmering in the distant starlight, yet nonetheless giving off a light of its very own. Azure butterflies can be spotted in their delicate perch upon certain stalks of golden plantlife, unbothered by his approach. He, this shadow, upon this land.]

There was a time when we were lesser, and in our nescience sought purpose- struggled to justify life's worth. That was, of course, before we achieved perfection. Now, condemned to our paradise, we understand the fatuity of existence.

[There are structures. Structures that at once, are both familiar and are not. Elegant structures with marble columns, spaces designed for group habitation. Spaces of which are vacant, for all that would inhabit them are outside, gazing unto the stars.]

There was a time when we believed in our legacy, thought ourselves marking a worthy path our successors might follow. Our enlightenment proved our dreams empty. Our efforts futile.

[In the distance stands a great tree. It is from that tree that all comes. He knows this- though he cannot quite explain why. Like most dreams, it is something that is simply fact. The hows or the whys are not perceived. For it just simply is.]

As individuals we struggled to know what was right, yet in perfect unity there is naught to question.

[He should be a stranger here. He should query the voice, he should inquire as to why it says such terrible things with such clarity, such certainty, Yet there is a feeling- a feeling he knows. A feeling that only grows with each and every step he takes. It is inevitability. For he knows, as he moves along the meadows, that it is right.

As an individual, he had not found an answer. Instead, he had deferred to others. Accepted what was presented, for the group opinion- the work of people wiser than him, better than him, was always something he had leaned upon to silence doubt.

Yet hope- Himeka's answer.
Inspiring, most certainly. For her kind, so flawed, so broken, born one moment and deposited within the ground the next- hope was something sorely needed. For his own people...]

We are infinity constricted by the finite.

[Did the same answer apply? What good was hope when all had been answered, all was known, and all was immaculate?

Hope was only needed in times of adversity.
But when strife was eradicated, when all that is, is paradise...
What good was hope?

He continues to walk, turning his head to regard a series of masked, robed figures kneel before a similarly masked creation.]

Is my time not come?
Please, set all to rights.
Free us!
I beseech you. Free me.
With your golden wings, please. Grant me peace!

[He stops, his eyes wide as each figure swiftly disappears. The aether they leave behind lingers within the air. ...There is nowhere for it to go. Nowhere for it to flow. Nowhere for it to be drawn. So it does nothing but glimmer before it fades.]

We will be granted the mercy of annihilation.

[The creature stands, motionless.
And then it looks to him.]

cole cassidy | closed starters

[gunspins]

— goro

[gunspins]

[ It doesn't seem to matter where he goes or what he does, Cassidy is haunted by the man who had once been his mentor. Whether trying to escape to his horizon, at night when his eye lids droop and he can't stop sleep, or even during the day when he's trying to outrun Gabriel's shadow, the man always seems to be there, mocking Cassidy for being unable to stop him.

And one day, another Summoned gets to witness an event from Cassidy's past, playing out without being able to change anything about it. Time and time again, Cassidy reacts just a moment after the deed is done and the gun is fired. And suddenly sirens go off and all hell breaks loose. ]

This is your fault, Reyes!

[ There's anger in Cassidy's voice, but also a hint of disappointment. He'd never expected this from him. ]

Julie Lawry | Free Cities | The Wheel of Fortune

[princessvegas]

[ bitchcraft / bitchcraft#2753 / Plotting post ]

NIGHTS ONE & TWO

[princessvegas]

[ This is a place that Julie is depressingly familiar with. It's nothing new to find herself in the store again, lost forever in the aisles or in the sea of couches. The walls are somehow both claustrophobic and impossibly cavernous all at once, the air stale. But most of all, there is the silence, deafening and complete silence, and it is also something to which she is deeply accustomed to. The same sounds in her ears, over and over -- her pulse, her steps on the concrete floor, the memories of the rasping and gurgling that are all she can remember of human life.

It is all the same as it normally is, and she feels the sting of pain she has felt before. That all she has done is wake up from a dream, one where she wasn't alone anymore. She is alone. She's the last one left. She'll always be the last one left.

She reaches for her shotgun and realizes there are strings attached to her, seemingly growing from her fingers, up her arms. Dozens from her back. She rises and the strings come with her, so she turns to see where they are going, following them over the backs of several sofas before they come to a stop in denim.

Not alone. He is there, and she supposes it makes sense, that he would come back to find her, bind her to him. There must be no one else, all his other chosen lackeys gone. He raises his glass to her with a smile, and she wonders where he got cold milk.

The power has been out in this place for weeks.

Still here, huh, kid?, he asks her, and she doesn't respond. What is there to say? She will always be here. She can't escape this place.

The crushing sensation of isolation permeates the air until her lungs fill with it, and she sits back down on the couch. ]

Goro | The Free Cities | The Chariot

[fourarmedandangerous]

Nightmares and Defeat

[fourarmedandangerous]

Finish Him

Normally Goro does not dream. His sleep is deep and dreamless, and he does not miss the intrusion of dreams. He has never been one to indulge in pointless fantasies. But he'd take the most self-indulgent, wasteful fantasy in lieu of the nightmares that begin to plague his sleeping hours.

The dream is partly born of memory; facing off in his lair, his real lair on Shang Tsung's island, at the culmination of the tenth Great Tournament, what should have been his moment of glory...snatched away by a single, pathetic Earthrealmer.

Liu Kang.

"I did not expect to have to fight in the tournament." Goro begins, stepping forward onto the arena floor. "But eventually, even the Shaolin produce a warrior worthy of the Shokan."

"I know who you are!" Liu Kang retorts, slipping into his stance. "I'm ready!"

"I will give you a warrior's death." Goro promises in turn...and the fight begins.

If it can be called that.

Liu Kang moves like lightning, leaving a trail of fire in his wake as he leaps into the air, flying towards Goro and slamming feet-first into the Shokan's chest, driving him backwards with a series of repeated bicycle kicks.

The dreams only get worse from there.

Fatality (CW Gore, MK violence, sign of The Lovers)

Every night, every attempt at sleep, it gets worse. The beating Goro takes from Liu Kang becomes more painful, more protracted. And Liu Kang begins to change with each battle. His skin slowly becomes more sallow and ashen. Then the volcanic veins begin to erupt from his skin. His eyes begin to glow with orange fire. The Champion's transformation to revenant is complete.

It's bad enough when the "fight" begins with a slow, sluggish punch from Goro is met with a standing split followed by a most undignified strike between Goro's legs. What happens after that, is, well...even less so. The last thing he sees, for the briefest of moments, is a red sky, twin suns...a dwelling of some form...and indistinct figures floating in the red haze. He feels no heat, no wind, but the image imprints itself upon him...right before death takes him and forces Goro back into the waking world.

This is the form the fight takes for the remainder of Goro's nightmares. After the first night he suffers this dream-death, he wakes up in a cold sweat...and finds a bleeding cut on his forehead, right where he was struck by Liu Kang's initial strike.

Jayce Talis | The Magician | Arcane

[hextechhead]

The Nightmare - OTA - TW for character death and dead children

[hextechhead]

It begins in the middle of action, instead of slowly creeping up. There's violence in the air, blood and mayhem, chaos. Jayce is in a violent fight, his hammer being used to very violent effect. The power in it vibrates, the way it crushes people like they're nothing. It is made obvious as it goes that he's been holding back the entire time, the hammer cocked into a sort of rocket launcher, and it shoots out lethal energy blasts. During this time, Jayce's usually gentle and warm features are curled into pure rage, glowing blue at times with the hammer itself. He is causing maximum damage with no trouble.

The end is different though. Instead of hitting a child, when Jayce shoots the hammer, it is Viktor instead in this nightmare. Viktor, as people have seen him, looking at Jayce with stunned eyes as he unsteadily wavers and then falls over the rail to the ground below.

One version of the nightmare just plays this moment over and over again. The action, the death of Viktor, watching the light in his eyes go out, falling away. Sometimes he even says Jayce before he falls. This cycle doesn't seem to end in some instances.

Later in the Nightmare, or another version of it, Jayce is on the ground of a facility. Bodies are all around him, but instead of the alien-looking bodies from reality, they all appear to be children. It's a horrific sight. Jayce however is curled around the body of Viktor, this is where the body must have dropped. He has pulled Viktor into his lap and he's holding him, rocking it and sobbing. Jayce cries and holds on. He whispers please come back, please, sometimes I love you, I'm sorry, head bowed over the body and unable to move.

It is possible that The Entity will be seen as a creepy flash or observer at times, a young boy glowing with lightning zipping around him.

Jesper Fahey | Grishaverse | The Wheel of Fortune

[itookashot]

The Nightmare - OTA! TW for gambling and drug addiction

[itookashot]

This doesn't start out slowly, it starts out in the middle of action, where you're either watching or experiencing Jesper running frantically through the dark alleyways of Ketterdam. There are people after him, trying to kill him, and he knows he has to get somewhere, he has a mission to finish, and if he doesn't get there in time, everyone loses. Everyone he loves will die. There is desperation in the way he bobs and weaves. Ketterdam seems even darker here, grimy and foreboding.

He is too late. He can't get into position. Jesper stops abruptly, knowing the time has counted down. The only thing he can do is take a shot. In the real moment, he made the shot. In the nightmare, he finds a pouch in his hand, full of parem. It's a drug, a dangerous drug, there is fear in him when he looks at it. Maybe you know what he knows, that it is addictive, that people who take it almost always die horribly, strung out and unable to think before that. But he downs it in one go.

He takes the shot, a loud boom in the air, and maybe there is a taste of victory, but immediately his body reacts. Power rages through him, stronger than anything felt before, it's like being on top of the world, capable of anything. Suddenly everything can be felt; every air molecule, every person nearby, every object, all at his fingertips, anything can be felt, anything can be taken. It's all his, the world is his. Reaching out leads entire buildings to collapse, touching anything makes it instantly turn into dust, including people, as Jesper walks through the streets, too jacked up on parem to think about what he's doing.

The power fades into a sense of panic. Hunger ripples mixed with pain and there is nothing you wouldn't do for more. It is needed. There is no more parem left, and his body turns on itself, eating away, feeling strung out and desperate. That high is too far away, you are filled with an unbelievable need for more. Anything to get it, anything to have it. Everything tears apart in front of him as he goes searching for it.

Eventually a cold-looking young man with a cane can be seen, he says Jesper's name, but Jesper is on him, needy, hungry, holding him down. More, he begs, and when he's told there is no more, the man screams as his body melts underneath Jesper's overpowered hands, turned into liquid and nothing else. Sometimes that face is someone else; maybe it's you, people Jesper has grown close to, dying as he tries to find the parem at any cost.

If he hears a command, he'll do it. He'll kill armies, he'll suck the life out of innocents, all Jesper can do is search for the next hit, crawling on his hands and knees at the promise.

viktor | free cities | death

[techmaturgy]

general cws: blood, self harm, medical stuff, canon-typical discussion of terminal illness, maybe some light body horror for entity times

i. night walk

[Viktor is dying.

This is not new information. He’s known this in one way or another for years, but here, in this strange dreamscape, he knows it to be imminent. Even more than simply knowing, at this point. He can feel himself breaking down, every minute not spent looking for some kind of cure wasted as he pours over his notes, watches the Hexcore, draws the plunger back in a syringe full of purple liquid. There’s blood in his mouth—a reminder of both a ticking clock and everything he’s failed to accomplish.

The lab is different from what’s available to visit in his domain. This is an ominous place, seemingly built into the side of a cave and awash in greenish light that emanates from containment tanks. The workspaces are cluttered, strange shapes float within specimen tubes, and Viktor himself is hunched over one of the tables, a shifting device spinning in front of him, casting a purple glow across the surface. The space in front of him is disorganized—even worse, it’s covered in blood, a tray of tools haphazardly tossed to the side.]

If you’re not going to assist me— [Viktor doesn’t make it through the sentence. He stops to cough, a wet sound that shakes his thin frame. Purple veins snake up his arm and neck, and he holds a scalpel in his right hand.] —then, please keep your distance.

ii. cadens

[Work doesn’t stop for a few strange nightmares. For someone like Viktor, used to compartmentalizing, the strange recurring dream is easy enough to brush off, even if it plays on, perhaps, the most pressing anxiety that he has. After the first few nights, however, it becomes more than a dream when he awakens with the imprints of runes on his chest, his arms. That in itself is alarming, though as with many of these phenomena, he isn’t quite sure where to start.

So he does what he usually does, and puts his head down, and tries to get things done. It would be easier, if he was getting any rest, or wasn’t seeing things in his periphery, but he does his best. Maybe you’re picking something up from his workshop—maybe he’s just bumping to you in the marketplace, offering a halfhearted apology.]

I’m sorry. I haven’t been sleeping well, lately.

[Fishing for a similar experience, maybe. Not subtle.]

iii. horizon

[He keeps having the dream. It recurs, and every time that happens, some outside force gains more and more control over his Horizon. It inches up from the fissures below, sending tendrils out like creeping vines until it encroaches on the higher levels, criss-crossing fractal webbing with a strange organic quality. Trying to make it up to the lab starts to feel like delving into an otherworldly cave.

Should you seek out Viktor in his domain, he doesn't seem responsive to visitors. There’s someone in the lab, hunched over a worktable, though at first glance, in the poor lighting, it’s difficult to tell who, even with the approximate silhouette. He seems to be working, at least, which is not necessarily out of character.

Then, he startles, lashing out at something unseen.]

I don't have time for this.

iv. wildcard

[hello. all of my stuff is open so feel free to hit at your leisure, smush your nightmare into his, etc, even if we didn’t make plans. my plotting post is here, for reference, but feel free to hit me up on plurk at whitticus or on discord at whitticus#8139.]

i

[cryptsleeper]

[The content of Alucard's dreams are not new or changed. Since his father's death, he has seen that looming face of decomposing flesh reaching towards him. Since the matter with Sumi and Taka, he has relived that moment and the immediate aftermath, running through the castle in terror and grief and rage and collapsing on the floor of his old bedroom, wrecked and sobbing.

They're dreams that are fuzzier at the edges when he is a wolf. They're less frequent. Being a wolf changes certain parts of his brain. But the past few nights--

--He's learned to leave the room before Dracula looms over him again, arms outstretched, the faintest hint of redemption gone from his face. Down the stairs. Open a door to the right. Go down the corridor. Repeat, repeat, repeat until the dream fades or else the scene changes and--

--this is not one of his parents' labs.

His father having a lab in a cave would be appropriately dramatic and bat like, but not true to him. The technology is all wrong, and in that quiet moment of measuring differences, the nightmare morphs into a gentle, confused wander. More like being in the Horizon rather than a dream.

But it is a dream. Alucard knows that when Viktor's voice addresses him, basking in purple glow.]

We already have that agreement in place, Viktor.

Lucifer | Thorne | The Devil

[thedevilwhorose]

Contact: ShadowSpirits | Sleepwalker#5336 (Discord)
Notes: Will match style. Plotting comment here.
CW: Isolation, Abandonment, Family Issues

Recurring

[thedevilwhorose]

The darkness is unnatural. A void. It looks like it could go on forever, you might even think you're still floating the the abyss of your own dreaming, but if you move about you'll find the four solid metal walls easily. Fiery-orange sigils flare up under your touch, old language, unrecognizable to most, and gone when you pull away.

You're trapped.

You think you're alone.

Then, when you make one more turn about, you see the fuzzy radiance around a scrawny, unshaven figure, standing with his arms loosely at his side, innocuous. Maybe this confinement is his nightmare? He hardly looks bothered though. Instead, his eyes are across the way, no clear sign as to what he's looking at.

There's the distant sound of muffled thunder. You can't see the lightning from in here. Simply darkness, darkness, darkness.

“Don't worry about it,” the scrawny man says, almost scripted. He nods across the way in indication. “He can't hurt you here.”

Then you see it, the slowest of shifts, the gleam of two red eyes looking up, and then away again.

Someone else is here.

If you look back, the scrawny man is gone.

Fandaniel (Endwalker Spoilers ahoy) | Hanged Man | Free Cities

[endcaller]

(Plotting comment here)

Dreaming

[endcaller]

[Fandaniel doesn't sleep, not unless he wants to, so he is surprised when he sees the expanse of star-lit nothingness stretching around him. This is a dream and one he knows well.

Somewhere both far away and hauntingly close, some massive machine ticks, counting down seconds to a moment that never seems to come. Every tick sends a shudder through his body that reminds him of guilt, an emotion he hasn't felt since he was a very young man.

Before him is a forest of gnarled, black trees and still, murky water. He knows where he is before his mind says the word "Elpis". This is not what it looked like in the ancient past, of course. It isn't what it looks like now either. There is no Elpis now. Like every other part of the ancient world it is shattered and dead.

Fandaniel realizes he is sitting in the shallows of one of the pools and drags himself out. Beneath him he sees the pale limbs of Asahi sas Brutus flashing within his robes.

How broken is his mind that he is wearing this flesh even in his dreams?

Oh well, no matter.

He strides forward into the trees and emerges on to a platform. The sky is now black and starless, stretching above him as an infinite void. Below him is a sea of masked figures.]

Poor old relics of a long dead age...

Despair not for I shall be the instrument of your deliverance!

[He lifts his arms wide and at first it seems like the masked figures don't hear him. Then, slowly, they turn as one, look up towards him and hold their breath waiting for something to happen...]

sephiroth | the tower | free cities

[supersoldier]

((ooc; my plotting comment is here if you want to do something with sephiroth! ))

NIGHT WALK;
(( CW; blood, body horror ))

[In the first nightmare, there is a vast sense of nothingness. A void of isolation given form by a great distance between yourself and another figure just barely noticeable in the gloom — strain, and you can make out his tall frame, the length of silver hair, but not much else. Call out, and your voice is deadened by the dark distance between yourself and the faraway man.

And yet, beyond that great distance where Sephiroth stands alone, the environment flickering in and out from fog to darkness to fog again, he sees clearly who exists across the way. He can hear their voice; he can view the consideration within the pauses of any who pass by, and even worse, the dismissal of those who leave him here.

He calls out, but his voice doesn't carry. In some strange desperation, where he no longer feels the need to bear this isolation, this oblivion of being alone, he reaches out and casts a bright flame at his fingertips. Sends it hurtling in the air, where it coils brightly, and shimmers, before it, too, is choked away by the fog.

He hopes it is enough. He needs someone to see him, to talk to him, to cross that distance—

The second form the nightmares take is a different sort of unpleasant, eschewing the devouring sense of solitude for an uncomfortably cramped scene. The floor is cold, slick and hard, and Sephiroth remains on his hands and knees, pressed against it, heaving. His upper body is bare, his muscles clench under duress. Glass tanks, packed so tightly with grotesque creations—of claw, tentacle, skin and sinew writhing in their containers—encircle him, tower above him. A shadow passes through each one, the form of a man with a twistedly hunched back, distorted features that observe from behind the glass. The man's tattered lab coat coils into its form, sinking back into each monster as though subsumed, but his presence is keen in Sephiroth's consciousness — like a knife gliding across his mind.]

Go— Go… away—

[He hisses through not the disorientation, not the sickening feeling of being watched, but the pain. Beneath his skin, something moves and writhes and pries upwards, fighting to break the surface of his flesh. For too long, it feels like it may erupt, until finally, it gives — and a procession of feathers, thick and black and heavy with blood, slide out centimeter by centimeter. At his shoulder blades, down the length of his back, along the line of his arms. Everywhere they should not, growths of them, longer and longer, trying to splay like wings.]

CADENS;

[The waking hours are barely a reprieve. Every inch of him aches where the feathers resided in his dreams; dull, sore, lingering, sensations deemed impossible before. He does not speak with anyone; he spends too much time in the training yards, slower than usual with each swing of his sword.

There are times, if you happen to catch him at just the right moment, when he rolls up his sleeves and tends to the wrapping of bandages around his arms. They reveal beneath them small cuts, mostly healed, but adorned all up and down his skin nonetheless.]

nightmare #1!

[godshattering]

[ Claude opens his eyes and he, too, is alone. There is silence all around unlike anything he's ever heard to where the lack of noise causes it to ring in his ears. Or maybe that's just the strain of listening for anything, some sign of hope, and the fog drifts heavier towards him like it's noticed his presence. With it comes a hissing refrain: you are not enough, you will never be enough. You don't belong. You don't. You-

No, he tries to say but Claude can't tell if he's just imagined opening his mouth. Those whispers grow louder like he's being mocked for his attempt. Then there's a flare, briefly, of something that looks like flames in the distance - it looks both farther away and closer than he thinks it is. It has Claude raising his hands, drawing the sigils for Bolganone to cast it carefully into the air above where it can't hurt anyone. Never mind that in real life he's never learned this spell, doesn't have the first idea of how to cast it and has never mastered anything but less intense wind spells; a subconscious can accept just about anything.

Claude watches as the bright flames course through the air a few feet before the fog smothers them and they sputter out into just a few cinders trailing streaks until they fade out too. Was it visible to whoever waits for someone to answer their attempt? Or has he only angered the gloom since now it seems to pool around his feet and tug at his ankles like tides crawling along a shoreline? Loneliness had been his constant companion for so long until one day it disappeared. Now here it is again: an old friend he hasn't missed.

He can't stand here and wait any longer. Even as those disparaging murmurs hiss down the back of his neck, Claude steps forward once and then again when it seems nothing is keeping him where he is after all. With sigils at his fingertips he casts the fire spell again as if to say, hold on. ]

Sasarai | Judgement | Thorne

[harmonian]

(plotting comment here)

Night Walk

[harmonian]

[Sasarai dreams of the Ashen Future.

The land around him is gray and desolate. There are no animals, no bird song, no wind, no movement at all. The air is stale.

Slowly, he creeps forward across the cracked earth and peers around at the surrounding city. All of the people are gone and the tapestries and carefully laid bricks have turned to a dull, overcast gray. Even the sky is murky and filmed over like the eyes of a dead fish.

He stands alone in the street, the one colorful thing in this dead world.]

Mat Cauthon - Wheel of Time - Wheel of Fortune

[a_better_man]

Nightmare 1

A small village is on fire in the middle of the night. There are screams. Horrific, bestial creatures on two legs are everywhere. They stink of blood and dirty fur. They're armed. Some with swords, some with hammers. They slaughter indiscriminately. The leavings of what they've already managed litter the ground. Corpses litter the open square - decorated as though for festival - and lie between simple, thatch-roofed buildings. The ground is slick with blood and offal.

Mat stands in the center of it, wide eyed and panicked, calling out but no sound seems to come from him. The terror that fills him is the terror that robs the voice. There's blood on his clothes and on his hands.

Where are his sisters? He can't find his sisters. He can't find anyone...


Nightmare 2

Empty city streets. A dark ancient place of towering buildings and high walls, all slate gray and black. The sky above is dark with clouds that threaten downpours and worse. This place is in disrepair, with broken stone littering the streets. Cracks run up the sides of walls and fresh dust makes a blanket. Something feels wrong here. Something feels tainted.

Mat walks alone down a wide street, a shifting darkness following behind him. It floats like a cloud, shaping and reshaping itself as it chases his heels like a playful puppy. It's cold here. Somewhere, he knows, there is a great high ceilinged building filled with bodies. No one is left but him.

His hands are covered in blood. It drips from his fingers to splatter on the stones of the street. It's eerily bright against the dim, grey shades of Shadar Logoth. A dagger is at his hip, with a ruby set in the handle.

Somewhere, there's a great groaning sound from deep in the earth.


Horizon

The only place Mat can think to try and get respite is in the Horizon. But as soon as he enters his domain, something feels...wrong. There's signs of rot on his trees. A damp and unpleasant odor. Patches of flowers and grass seem to have wilted and died overnight. He does his best to set things right, but can't quite erase the wrongness entirely.

Even his own home seems affected, cracks in the wall and dirty windows. Inside seems mostly alright, though Gizmo seems upset and nothing Mat can do will settle him completely. He ends up simply settling the mogwai in his arms and speaking softly to him as he ventures to inspect the area around his house, meeting a similar distressed state in Hend, his giant badger.

Shit. Even this place isn't safe...


Castle Thorne

Sleep has become a misery. Mat's no stranger to nightmares, but these...these are like the ones that had consumed him when he'd been under the dagger's curse. So vivid and somehow shared...No, he doesn't like this one bit. And just when he'd started to settle and accept that perhaps, here, things really are different. Perhaps he isn't subject to the same rules and curses as he was back home...

Apparently not.

He'll be spending a great deal of time in the dining hall, drinking more than he tends to. As well as trying to relax in the baths, but relaxation isn't coming easily, and he's just as easily found wandering the halls of the castle at any given hour of day or night.

For Rhy

This time, when Mat wakes, his hands are still bloody. And not from whatever atrocities had occurred in his dreams, but from vicious cuts across his palms. Shit. Shit shit shit. Now what was happening in nightmares was carrying over?

Cursing under his breath, Mat stumbled out of his room, still wearing his pajama pants and not bothering with a robe. Both his hands hurt like a bitch and he can't even patch himself up as it's his hands. He makes his way to Rhy's door, knocking softly and hissing through the door.

"Psst! Rhy? You awake?"

He figures the odds are high....

nightmare 1 baby

[lightkeeping]

This is not the first time she's seen a village in such a state--it reminds her of the Eclipse's sacking of the Sacred Lands and the way she ran herself ragged trying to get back from Carja territory as quickly as possible, only to find her home burning. Bodies along the paths. The overwhelming smell of blood and choking smog rising up over the mountains.

What's new are the monsters. She's used to fighting creatures made of metal, and though theoretically enemies made of flesh and blood are easier to deal with, this is something she's never seen before. ARTEMIS had been unable to repopulate the Earth with anything larger than wild boar, so to see an animal of this size, fully organic, is enough for inklings of panic to rise in her throat.

She has her bow, at least, and doesn't question it, simply letting arrows fly as she moves through the chaos, not thinking about anything beyond immediate survival.

"Hey--!" Someone's alive, though he's about to not be, if he keeps standing there like that. Aloy closes the distance quickly, reaching for his arm in an attempt to pull him to safety. "We have to move. Are you hurt?"

Sypha Belnades | Castlevania | The Tower

[speak_n_spell]

The Nightmare

[speak_n_spell]

The shape of the town may ring familiar to many of the Summoned, either from history or lived experience. It might best be described as medieval or anciently rustic; the homes and shops are stacked stone, most with thatched straw roofs, though some of the more impressive structures boast slate shingles. Carved signs hang over most business doors, describing goods and services to the illiterate masses. The town square rings with voices and travel and commerce, bisected by the shadow of its church steeple.

Sypha’s a child, riding high on her father’s shoulders. She’s a grown woman, masquerading as a man for safety on the road, one of her many cousins at her side. She’s a coltish girl, following close on her grandfather’s heels. Whatever she is, the skin between her shoulders crawls with premonition. The crowd presses in, jostling her, dwarfing her, until her hand slips from her grandfather’s, bodies block her cousins from sight, she falls from her father’s back.

The crowd is so close, so tight, she hardly stumbles when the first shove lands. The chatter of barter and business turns sour, sharp, harsh, as she’s pushed from person to person, hands bruising her shoulders and upper arms, the soles of shoes striking her knees and ankles. Somewhere, on the other side of the wall of jeering bodies, a familiar voice cries out in shrill fear-

-and cuts off

Sypha’s small, thin, whether she’s a child or a girl or an adult. She can fall to her hands and knees and crawl between the townfolks’ legs until she reaches the fountain. She pulls herself onto its stone rim and climbs, until she can see:

Her father, crumpled on his side, blood pooling beneath his head and a chunk of brick at his shoulder. Her grandfather, beaten down by thugs in clergymen’s robes. Her cousins, scattered spots of sky blue among the mob, pushed ever further from one another.

Her mother, back to it all as she stands on the threshold of the church. Witnessing something other than the rending of her people.

Sypha’s a child and a girl and a grownass woman and when she screams, the fountain answers. Water sweeps through the courtyard in a tidal torrent, flash freezing the violence and loss in crystal clear ice. And there she’s left, above it all, alone, clinging to her spire as the church bells chime.

The steeple throws a spear of shadow over the silent pool of ice. As this vision returns, night after night, the spars multiply, until a crown of daggers seems to loom above the truncated scene.

stephen strange | death | thorne

[sorser]

(( ooc; closed starters below! if you want to do something with stephen, feel free to hit up my plotting comment! ))

FOR GERALT

[sorser]

[There is nothing more than roiling color at first, layering itself like watercolor paint. The dreamscape is not quite a nightmarescape yet, but only nonsensical and strange, colored like the Multiverse, bright and lurid and changing with shapes that transform into the unknowable. Space itself, twisting up into atoms, twisting back into planets. Recollections from the subconscious metamorphosing from the stars to stare at him as he travels. This is nothing new; he has seen it before. Even in a dream — is this a dream, he wonders, but the thought slips away from him, as all dream-thoughts do.

Stephen flies with his cloak fluttering behind him for what feels like an eternity; finally, he sets foot on a swath of land, all swirling pinks and vibrant purples. There is nothing here, looking forward, only a tract of more cosmos, until he steps forward and the scene ripples outwards from his gait. Plants erupt from the ground, carpeting it in green. Trees stretch upwards and obscure the sky, turning blue. A trail forms in front of him — a well-trodden dirt path, which he follows until it forks in the road. On both sides, he spies movement. One, in particular, leads to a face he’s sure he recognizes.]

Geralt?

[He calls out. It must be. That ashen head of hair can’t be mistaken for anyone else.]