Event Log: Dreamwalker

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone!
What: The Dreamwalker event
Where: In your comfy bed and your sleepy head.
When: May 16th-26th
Warnings: Good dreams, weird dreams, bad dreams, straight-up nightmares. Please remember to tag for warnings in the header if things are going to be bad!

Have you been having trouble getting a good night's sleep? Tossing and turning, unable to rest those tired eyes? Or maybe you don't sleep at all, and never have. Not to worry! For a little while, you'll have no trouble at all falling asleep - in fact, as night falls, you'll find yourself overwhelmed with exhaustion whether you want to sleep or not. Lay down and rest your weary head, friends. Everyone could use a little extra sleep.

But what will your dreams bring? Something happy, images of a perfect day? Something hopeful, something you've wanted for a long time? Maybe you'll dream of anger, of the face of your worst enemy. Or maybe - just maybe - you'll have a horrific nightmare, and wake screaming, covered in cold sweat.

Not before others have time to see it, though. As you sleep, as you dream, the other residents of Hadriel, friends and enemies and people you've only met once, might find their way into your dreams. Or you might find your way into theirs - and then have to deal with someone's else's nightmares, or hopes, or anger. For the next ten nights, you'll find yourself either a host or a visitor, and no matter how you try you won't be able to stay awake once night falls.

Sweet dreams, Hadriel. Don't let the asshole fear gods bite.

► This log covers May 16th-26th.
► Feel free to make your own logs as well!
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► You can't die in the dreams, but if you somehow manage to trip and fall and kill yourself getting out of bed, please report it on the death post.

Comments

/steeples fingers together, mr. burns style

[dedikated]

[ Why does it seem to be taking so long? She lives next to the Colosseum, for crying out loud. But the path to it seems to drag on and on, like her building has been placed on the other end of the city. Why can't her legs move any faster? The buzzing in the back of her mind seems louder than she ever remembers it - maybe just because it's been so long since she heard it.

Even as distracted as Kate is, she can sense something - someone - behind her, hearing flashes of noise every so often. She doesn't bother to check it out until - finally - she's at the Colosseum gates. ]

... You- [ Then the buzzing cuts out

Kate- where are you?

She doesn't finish whatever she was going to say, and enters the arena instead, briefly glancing at Shadow as if to say - well, come on. ]

Shit. [ She grabs her sunglasses from their usual perch on her head and pulls them down, looking around at an arena full of humans fighting each other. The air becomes stiflingly hot with each step inside and the ground seems to tremble in response to the crowd.

Then two humans crash into each other and go flying. ]

Marc-- [ And from the source, a six foot blue haired man, bespectacled and in shirt and trousers. The almost formal looking outfit clashes terribly with the bright curtains of hair that frame his eyes and the tattoos peeking out from under his full-length sleeves.

He looks too young... way too young. Several years younger than Kate - early twenties -, and she winces as she stares at his face.

Behind you, 7!

But there's no time to waste contemplating guilt. She whips out a gun and sends shots at three coming to her left as Marc turns around and plays telekinetic dominoes with the meat sacks the creatures possessed. ]

Shadow - trust me, these aren't human. [ She flinches away from the corpses she leaves and concentrates on more, alive ones. There's never been any other way to end the possession - kill the host and the parasite. ]

[dedikated]

[ Marc, they're-

I know what they're doing.

The earth shakes almost as soon as that exchange occurs, rubble from the ruins of the building falling to the ground near them with sickening thuds on the corpses Marc sent flying.

Great, extra ammo. His quip immediately proceeded by the psychic movement of a large stone which gets flung into one humanoid opposite him crushing their skull instantly with the force.

Not that one, you muppet. Jeez. It's almost unsettling, how easy she finds it to slip back into this banter and fight. How quickly she forgets just how fucked up she had found this after leaving The Agency - how fucked up it was to simply forget that these were people simply because someone said that the only way to end the possession was to kill the host. Was that even true?

But time to think about it was something she didn't have, because the possessed being causing the quickly increasing quake was still up and alive. ] Watch yourselves. [ And now she talks to both of them, because trying to shoot something while the earth shakes beneath your feet is a feat even for her.

She fires off a round as Marc gets grabbed by a humanoid neither of them saw coming, as the humanoid tries to wrestle him to the ground - to break his arms so his telekinesis won't work any more - the bullet manages to take out the one responsible for the quake, stilling the ground beneath them.

Had to bring these with you, didn't you? ]

[dedikated]

[ Kate doesn't even glance at Marc's fight, doesn't seem worried about it at all. He's managed to flatten skulls without having the distance his telekinesis requires on more than one occasion, so really she's just wondering if that creature is completely stupid in its decision making. Instead, she turns to Shadow where-

That isn't human. That isn't even close to it. The grotesque, looming form of a Creature that wasn't possessing anyone slinks its way towards the hedgehog with those mismatched legs and knuckles that drag across the floor. It walks like primates but there is nothing else in its tar-black form that resembles the animals.

She doesn't notice the collapsed, unfamiliar body it had made its way out of until there's a knife directly between its eyes. ]

Creatures. Possessed humans. [ her breath comes in gasps and now there's thoughts running through her head - how did it leave the body? They shouldn't... They were never able to do that.

(Were they?) ] They- their powers are more concentrated when attached to someone.

[ The buzzing in her head starts stuttering, skipping like a record. ] N-no. Kate--

[ when she spins back around, the body the creature was possessing stands with that characteristic, stiff movement of a new possession. Where they're still figuring out how this body works-

It brushes a curtain of blue hair out of its face and Kate can't move, can't breathe. ]

No...

[dedikated]

[ No. No no no nononononono-

She isn't- she cannot be witnessing this, of all things. Cannot be witnessing one of the basic rules of her reality be turned on its head like this. This place, this hell cannot be doing this.

They can't bring him here just so she can lose him again. It isn't fair.

He - it - stutter-walks towards her, tilting Marc's head one way and the other as it adjusts to his muscles.

The weapon in Kate's hand shakes as she tightens her grip on it, tries to raise it and her jaw is so tight it's physically painful to shift her head even the slightest. ]

Is it that hard? Haven't you killed us before? [ It speaks with Marc's voice but the patterns are all wrong. The wrong lilt, the wrong airiness to his speech, like he's being choked from some invisible gas. There's something all too heavy in the way the word us is stressed - like it doesn't mean just these Creatures. ]

[dedikated]

[ Perhaps it's a good thing that she saved that last bullet, instead of shooting the creature behind Shadow.

It's far easier to pull a trigger than aim a blade.

Please work - the shot is her last hope, that maybe whatever has been rewritten means that a non-fatal shot would drive it out and let Marc stay alive.

His body collapses to the floor as smoke seeps out of his pores and she dives for him, tugging off the jacket she wears and presses it to the bullet wound. ]

C'mon... Hang on and-- [ He's breathing, but it's so shallow and uneven, sweat soaking his face and her head is still so quiet- ]

I can fix this. [ First aid worked on bullet wounds, right? ] Don't you dare die.

[dedikated]

Where? [ Her hands shake as she ties the makeshift bandage of her jacket around the wound. They're soaked in the blood that soaks through her jacket and the smell is overwhelming, filling her nostrils until her stomach clenches painfully in that way it does when she needs to vomit and there's nothing there to bring up apart from acid.

And her breath is caught, chest constricting, pushing her heart into her throat and making thought impossible.

What can she possibly do? Her body refuses to move and the blood just won't stop and he's so fucking pale and he was never pale always bathed in sunlight until he was golden and--

Her back shudders and shakes with each gasp she forces out, unable to even keep herself completely upright never mind move Marc.

Not again not again-

Why is this happening again ]

[dedikated]

[ She can hear Shadow, but the words don't penetrate, form no meaning like the screaming of fans at a concert. They're just sounds that disrupt the thundering in her mind for seconds.

Nothing makes any impression until the body underneath goes completely still. No rise or fall of his chest and the warmth seeps out faster than the blood does. ]

No. Please. No.

[ She doesn't even recognise her own voice, it comes like a distant, broken cry. ]

[dedikated]

[ Everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like the rambles of another person, echoing back at her and everything is



Gone.

It's her bedroom after the war. Sterile and mundane as ever. Nothing to ever indicate that any of that just happened.

Apart from the trembling of her limbs and the nauseated clench of her stomach. ]