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

cw: now we're just getting gory (torture, autopsy fantasies etc)

[dedikated]

Katherine, you're scaring the girl. [ Julia's words come through a gargle of blood that drips from her lips, three teeth knocked onto the floor of the Colosseum. Distantly, Kate is aware of some long-held repulsion for the red liquid that seeps all around her, of the fact that there is far more than there should be for three wounds like this. Yet, she can't conjure up any emotion other than the pulsing, snake-tight clench of fury that wraps around her entire frame and holds her still and drawn so she looks taller than she is. ]

I didn't know you cared about humans, Rosenberg. [ After all, so many of them lay dead or permanently incapacitated due to imprisonment and experimentation on her orders. Kate tilts her head, strokes her gun while regarding the woman knelt in front of her. It would be so easy to slice open Julia's chest, to saw through her rib cage and expose organs and the glowing, gunmetal heart of her powers. It would be all too simple to wrap her hand around the organ that floods each spiderweb vein with the ability to absorb powers and crush it, drag it out of her body and step on it. She knows exactly how much pressure a power core can stand, knows exactly how painful it is to have your skills ripped out of your body (and she knows Julia will stay alive, because, hell, she's here now after taking a sword to the chest seven years ago - a simple autopsy is nothing) and the thought sends a shudder through her body. The screams would be wonderful, would be the only time she's ever relished the sight of someone trembling in fear at her.

... But she doesn't have a saw.

(Still, there are other options.) ]

You might want to look away. [ It's directed at Emily, who really shouldn't be here right now. Who should be in another place, another dream that isn't this one. And somehow, just somehow, that's Rosenberg's fault too. More daggers are plucked from her pouch - where is she getting all of these from - and plunged into each of Julia's shoulders, limiting the mobility of her arms. Left in, they'll stifle any bleeding, which is exactly what Kate needs.

After all - ] You can't have them bleeding out too soon.

[ Kate just laughs, focuses on the fact that finally - finally - she can do what she should have done seven years ago.

Repay Julia for years upon years of misery. ]

So, Rosenberg. [ And her voice sounds far too casual now. ] Tell me. [ If there's one thing which Kate, in some twisted way, should thank Julia for, it's that she now knows which parts of the fingers to twist and snap to cause the most pain. Knows how to grab a person by the jaw in just the right way to keep them talking while making them wince in discomfort. All of it would never be possible without the woman's twisted idea of punishment.

Of course, it should never have had to be possible in the first place ] Who did you take out that hit on? [ She doesn't bother to expand, because it's obvious to both of them which hit Kate means. ]

Would knowing that bring your parents back? Or Marc? [ Kate has her last blade in her hand before Julia even finishes that half-answer, half-taunt of a response. By the time Julia gasps out Marc's name, Kate's dragged it down one of Julia's cheeks, slicing open a long-healed scar. ]

[[ okay I swear this is going to be the most graphic of it. ]]

[unfollowing]

[Of course when you tell someone to look away, the very first thing they do is not look away.

And that is remedied when the first dagger is stuck into Julia's shoulder.

Emily gives a small cry, squeezing her eyes shut, lifting a hand to cover the sight of the creepy-ass woman while allowing her to still see Kate. It's hard not to watch her as this unfolds. The Kate that Emily knows from Hadriel is pretty unflappable, but here, she's... Emily almost understands this kind of anger. The desire to hurt, to seek revenge for being hurt by someone. Slapping Ashley had barely scratched that itch for Emily in the basement, after all, and she still hasn't gotten the chance to take her anger out on Mike.

'That hit' -- Emily knows which one it is, what they're talking about. She knows this piece of shit deserves all this pain, but she can't watch Kate injure her. Emily just looks at Kate, watches her eyes, waits for the moment the cold anger turns into sadistic satisfaction.

And then this will stop. Then they'll be back in the hellhole.

She won't be able to take much more otherwise.]

[dedikated]

[ There's a vague, fuzzy memory of the first time she ever had to torture a prisoner that floats to the surface as the knife twists into skin. The images of another Superhuman - a young man with piercing amber eyes and dreadlocks that fell to the floor as the scientists shaved his head clean for the experiments - crying as she pressed cigarettes into his skin.

He was only three years younger than her at the time, not even old enough to attend university. Probably he'd never even intended to be involved in the crimes The Agency accused him of.

(But then, it wasn't her job to care about innocence while working in Interrogation.)

She can remember leaving the room and her legs trembling so severely that when Jay found her in the break room, he had to help her stand and make her way back to the prisons.

But it isn't that hard any more. She doesn't even feel anything as Julia screams in response to each injury, waiting for the real answer. The one she wants. The only one she's ever really believed in the first place. ]

I never raised a blade to any of the people you're angry about.

[ And Julia's so fucking calm every time she gets a chance to breathe. So fucking smug with that even tone and blank eye that doesn't leave Kate's face. ]

Giving the orders is the same thing. [ The noise that escapes Kate's throat is strangled, as if even her coldness is shattering under Julia's stubborn indifference. Her knife marks aren't as precise, aren't as calculated as before. They're harsh and fast, blood spraying all over Kate's clothes, soaking her knife as she finally-

stops. ]

Say it.

[ And Julia's grin is bloody and toothless. ] Fine. You win. There was never a case of mistaken identity. [ And she says nothing more as Kate's knife drives into the side of her neck and back out, gunmetal grey smoke spiralling out of the body as it collapses on the floor. ]

[unfollowing]

[Strange, how satisfying it is to watch Kate as she works, as she torments this monster in front of her. Strange how Emily is both horrified by this and also feeling like she should cheer Kate on.

There's a stab of guilt, too, because indirectly causing someone's death doesn't mean you don't have their blood on your hands, and Emily... Emily has the twins' blood on her hands.

But this isn't her dream, her vision, her victory. It's Kate's.

Emily lowers her hand and watches the smoke pour out of the corpse, then walks over to Kate. Staring down at the woman with the eyepatch, Emily spits on her.]

Good riddance.

[dedikated]

[ The strangest thing is that Kate feels nothing. When Rosenberg expires, the victory is hollow and empty, like receiving praise for a test she cheated on. When Emily spits on the woman, Kate neither smirks not flinches. She just watches the saliva drip down off the corpse and onto the body. ]

She'll be back. [ Not here, or now. That comes across quite clearly in whatever link the dream is creating. But she will be back. In Kate's nightmares, as few of them as she remembers. She'll be back with that smug arrogance and orders Kate never wanted to follow in the first place. Back with punishments and schemes and everything else that's left a scar.

She'll be back to remind Kate of every body that lies in her past.

(Because, no matter what, Rosenberg cannot totally be blamed for Kate's obedience.) ]

[unfollowing]

Well, whenever she shows her face again, remember this. Remember you won.

[Dramatic, sure, but goddamn, Emily is here for kicking the ass of any asshole who tries to fuck you up as bad as this one did with Kate.]

[dedikated]

[ And maybe that's it- maybe that's why her dream doesn't jerk her out into the waking world as soon as the knife plunged into Rosenberg's neck. Maybe that was something that needed to be said.

The last image that burns into her mind before she's back in her bedroom is Emily's face, the movement of her lips - Remember you won.

But did she? ]