Day Two

[burningpainting]

((OOC: I'd just like to let you all know that anybody can start a new thread whenever they feel like it, so please don't think that it's just a mod thing to kickstart new scenes aside from character introductions!))

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[staff_of_one]

Nico showed up in the doorway to Karolina's room, looking absolutely exhausted. Under normal circumstances, she was a morning person by absolutely no stretch of the imagination. Lately her sleep had become increasingly troubled by various betrayals of loved ones, separation anxiety from her friends, and leadership worries, so in the mornings she often looked like something the cat dragged in.

This time she made even that look glamorous. "Morning, Karolina," she muttered, wearing her usual oversized black t-shirt with a faded skull design -- it was what passed for her sleep attire these days. Her makeup hadn't been applied, and the bags and wrry lines around her eyes were evident. "You look like you're in a good mood."

That was about as much small talk as she could manage, so after Karolina's reply, she announced in a quiet voice. "I didn't get any sleep last night. I had a nightmare."

[burningpainting]

"Morning, Karolina, you look like you're in a good mood."

"Mornin' Nico," Karolina pulled her hair over her shoulder to braid it up. "Did you sleep we-...whoa." She turned away from the dresser and winced at the witch's appearance.

"I didn't get any sleep last night. I had a nightmare."

"You look it," she said quietly as Nico dragged herself into the room. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

Karolina had thought for a while that Nico hadn't been sleeping that well, but then, all of them (with the possible exception of Molly, who slept like a rock anyway) had strange dreams. After what happened, it'd be weirder if they didn't. But it was something they'd never talked about between themselves. And Nico had been so withdrawn lately anyway, Karolina was honestly surprised to hear her confess.

"Was it because of yesterday? The flashback spell, I mean?"

[staff_of_one]

"You look it," she said quietly as Nico dragged herself into the room. "Do you...want to talk about it?"

Nico nodded, then flopped onto Karolina's bed. Standing seemed to require too much effort, as exhausted as the goth girl was.

"Was it because of yesterday? The flashback spell, I mean?"

Nico stared at the ceiling, nodding slowly. "I've ... I've never seen anything like it. It's ... imagine a movie. A disaster movie. With the ... the biggest budget ever. No detail is left out, and not only can you ... can you see it and hear it ... you can smell it, touch it, taste it. All those dead bodies. All that destruction

[burningpainting]

Karolina tied off the bottom tail of her braid and sat down beside Nico. Her good mood dissolved as she listened to the nightmare, or the flashback, if there was any difference between the two at all.

She tried not to flinch away from Nico's eyes. They were downright haunted, and only the slightly giddy thought that that was a really cliche way to put it kept her from looking away. She wracked her brain for something to say that could possibly make that look go away.

"If we do this right," Karolina said at last, reaching over to pluck a bit of pillow-down from Nico's hair, "then none of that will ever happen. We can undo it. Uh...retroactively, that is." She puffed the fluff away and offered her friend a reassuring smile. "Maybe then you can use a flashforward spell to make sure everything turned out better."

[slick_the_rper]

Despite all the energy he had spent yesterday, Victor didn't sleep well at all. Sure, he slept, but his dreams were thoroughly disturbed. Between Mirai Gert's horrific memories, plus his own haunted psyche, Victor suffered through several nightmares. He had awoken several times during the night, each time to fall back into a restless tortured sleep moments later

[burningpainting]

This wasn't the first time someone had faceplanted just inside Karolina's doorway in search of coffee. You'd think nobody else knew how to work the stupid machine. Thank goodness they'd all stopped sleeping in their underwear after the first few weeks of living together.

She didn't speak much spanish but, truth be told, she wasn't really listening. Victor was sporting the worst case of beadhead she'd ever seen! Or...wait a second. She looked back to Nico, whose hair was purposely styled to resemble Sonic the Hedgehog even before being slept on, and compared one to the other.

The mental tally came back a tie.

"God," she snickered, knowing that she really shouldn't be laughing, "It's like 28 Days Later in here..."

[staff_of_one]

Nico listened as Karolina tried to reassure her. Her blonde friend was good at that. She breathed deeply to calm herself and reduce her heartrate after her nightmare had gotten her worked up.

Then Karolina moved close and touched her hair, and Nico's pulse raced again. "Ehm, eh, uh-uh," Nico agreed, then tried to recall what they were talking about.

Victor appeared, mumbling something in Spanish. Nico sat up and made sure the blanket covered her from the hips down. The large t-shirt she wore was long enough to almost reach her knees, but she didn't feel like taking chances.

"Could we ... help you?" she asked, unable to understand more than a syllable of Victor's language. Growing up in Los Angeles, she knew a little bit, but Victor's tired rambling made it sound like gibberish.

Karolina looked at Victor ... looked back at Nico ... and started snickering. "God, it's like 28 Days Later in here..."Nico raised an eyebrow, trying to figure out what she was talking about. Oh, right, the zombie flick. She looked in a mirror on one wall,

[slick_the_rper]

Victor merely leaned against the doorway, and rested his head there. He closed his eyes, vaguely aware of the faint giggling before him as he drifted off slightly, to some middle ground between sleep and consciousness. His head will filled with images, memories?, of a history that may or may not come to pass. While the death and destruction was disturbing, the domant image was the most disturbing. Victorious was standing right in front of him, holding Nico's severed head in his hand. She was the first. Stupid little puta... thought she'd stop me from being evil, but got me started instead. Sealed her own fate, and got exactly what she deserved... For Victor, the scariest part was that a good part of him was agreeing with that. ...and guess who was our second kill? With a sick grin, Victorious pulled a second severed head from behind his back, this one belonging to...

"Karolina? but... would never... she... no...NO!" That last shout was enough to bring Victor back to the present where he found himself looking at Karolina, with her

[slick_the_rper]

((ooc: *translates to "you look like shit"))

[burningpainting]

"Umf!" Karolina clawed the pillow away from her face, still grinning. She'd been knocked to her side by the blow, vision and even hearing obscured by fluffy whiteness. She stuck her tongue out at Nico and climbed out of the bed, flicking her braid back over her shoulder

[slick_the_rper]

((I speak a little spanish, but just pull up stuff here and there from www.freetranslation.com .... and I should've made that clearer, it was part of the dream.))

Victor allowed Karolina to pass, and followed her to coffee, having no clue where anything was in this place. He still had no change of clothes, so he just slept in his boxers and tank, but threw on the pants and shoes he had on yesterday.

Victor glanced back at Nico as he walked, and she did look... well, not at all dissimilar to when Victorious was holding her severed head. She clearly didn't have a peaceful nights sleep. Serves her right, he thought bitterly... She should be bothered by what she did to me... of course, if that were the case, then maybe she did have a soul, and maybe didn't deserve to have her head cut off.

Maybe...

Victor looked away as he realized he was staring at Nico, and turned his attention back to the one he did like, Karolina, as she fiddled with the coffee machine.

[staff_of_one]

Nico had lived here for quite a while, but in her current addled, sleep-deprived state, she couldn't remember where the coffee was either. She wasn't yet alert enough for such things as directions to make sense in her head.

Still, playing along with Karolina's zombie reference was an entertaining use of what little brainpower and coordination she had. "BrrRAAaiiiNNnnSss..." she moaned as she lumbered, tugged along by her shirt.

Then she realized that Victor was staring at her uncomfortably, so she snapped out of it. "Sorry," she apologized quietly. "Little attempt at humor there ... very little."