Dream 001
All she sees is blue.
It's hard to tell whether the sky or the ocean below is clearer or brighter, and harder still to tell where one ends and the other begins. A crisp, salty wind blows off the surface of the water, enough to blow her hair back and out of her face so she can deeply breath in.
"Hello!" Behind her, Argilla can hear a familiar, chirpy voice, easily as bright as the sun on her skin, and warms her up just as well.
"Um, today we all came here to the beach!"
"Aww, c'mon dat was boring! Spice it up a little! Like dis; 'Hey dere, dis is Sera, de ocean makes me feel so free~!
Like dat, y'know?" Without looking, she can already tell that there's trouble brewing in the form of Cielo.
"Stop messing around you guys!" Argilla says, trying to make it sound stern but failing. She feels the water from the ocean lap up against her feet as she laughs, and tries to savor it and the breeze for a moment longer.
"Idiot, you're blocking me! Get your damn mop-head outta the way!"
She turns around to see that Cielo and Heat have both managed to start rough housing in record time, and wonders how long it will be until a bucket full of wet sand poured over the head comes into play. To his credit, Serph is somehow keeping the camera steady, even if he looks (in that faint sort of Serph-like way) very amused.
"Stop acting like children." Argilla speaks up, this time crossing her arms to show that she means business. The waves sweep past her knees for a moment when she says that, and Argilla can't help but worry that might make it harder to play volleyball.
"Guys, we're still recording!" Sera joins in, and the ocean seems to roar a bit louder when she speaks again.
"Hey, come join the rest of us!" Argilla can't tell whether she's talking to her, or to Serph, but they both move forward at once. Her feet splash through the water, which has followed her as she moves towards the others.
…Or tries to move to where they are. Somehow, they don't get closer, not matter how much she lengthens her strides. And the tide keeps coming in, deeper and deeper. By the time it reaches her hips, and the waves start to splash against her stomach and back, she decides that saving Sera's sandcastle will be a lost cause. She looks for the others, wanting to tell them that they should probably get Sera out of the way of the waves. There's no sense taking chances, and she's about to move herself-
A wave breaks over her shoulders, and Argilla realizes that her feet aren't moving like they should. Or maybe it's just that the water won't let her go. It hard to see the beach now, or get her head above water when another wave washes over her head-
And then all she sees is blue.
She floats.
Her arms and legs hang by her sides, useless, and Argilla finds that she can't get back to the surface to get a clean breath. Her lungs should be screaming for air right now, but they don't. It's as though breathing suddenly isn't important, or that her body needs less air then before. It's even hard to remember what inhaling feels like, or if she ever did that before now.
Maybe all there ever was, was just a cold, calm ocean.
Sometimes, her face gets close to the surface, and her eyes almost fix on something beyond the water. But then something else churns through the sea, stronger then the tide (there was a tide before this, wasn't there?) and pulls her along behind it, away from the surface and leaving her to drift.
Her eyes remember how to focus when it happens again, and Argilla watches as a long bar of dull gray metal goes sweeping by, stirring the water. She's dragged behind it, and this time she realizes that she isn't alone…Or at least, isn't the only thing in this sea. Something vaguely human shaped and milky pale is also pulled along, just beyond where her arms would reach if she could move them. Argilla thinks she can see another shape vaguely like a hand or an arm beyond that…
…And then something that is definitely a hand breaks through the water, and clamps down on her shoulder. It yanks her upwards, until her head breaks out of the water with a splash and a gasp, as her lungs suddenly remember how to work. Argilla gets dragged out of the water, shivering as every inch of her skin suddenly gets exposed to the cool air, and left on the floor of…Somewhere.
She can't hear the sound of the ocean any longer. Just a rush of water being poured in from somewhere, and a low chugging sound from a giant machine as it turns through the water.
The floor is hard and unforgiving beneath her back, and the water running off her skin and forming into a puddle beneath her doesn't make it any easier to lay in. Her body doesn't listen to her when she tries to move it, however. The best she gets is a twitching from her fingers, and her eyes blink, blur, and blink again.
It feels like there's something seeping out of her as she lays there, other then the odd-half warmth from being submerged in the water. There's something falling out of her head, and Argilla can't even focus on what it is; just that for a moment, losing it leaves her feeling oddly hollow.
Her eyes focus again, staring up at the pale, purple and vaulted chamber she's laying at the bottom of. Argilla focuses on breathing, feeling control start to flow into her body, and wondering if there's something else she should be looking at; something warmer, and a brighter color…But she can't remember what any longer.
--
Argilla comes awake almost at once, staring straight up at the ceiling in confusion, and doing a mental check to confirm that, yes, she still is with the other two Embryon.
There's a pause as she takes that all in, but it doesn't last long enough for the Dreamberry to turn off by itself. Argilla picks the device up, staring at it for a moment. She untangles herself from the others, stands up to walk, and then finally finds words.
"What…Just happened? Can anyone explain that?"