(no subject)
verse;;
Twisting, screaming, falling, fucking, fading, nothing.
And he woke with a start. A thin coat of sweat danced along his skin, seeping into the creases of his brows, scowl and eyes. His cheeks felt cool, and upon touching them lightly with fingers, flinching at his own touch, wet streaks were traceable down his cheeks and over his jaw, and he rubbed the salty water into his fingers as he brought them away.
It didn’t take long for him to be up and ready, despite only having been asleep for four hours. There wasn’t a chance he was getting back to sleep. Not if those creatures continued insisting on dragging him to hell every time he closed his eyes.
Coffee tasted like water. Caffeine worked as a placebo to those running on empty, and this was the most sleep he had gotten in two weeks. Three. Four. Five. He lost count, rubbed his eyes, sipped his sludge. Tasted like sweat, and bad breath.
Like them. Fangs could range between one inch to forty inches long, and the breath always stank. Not the kind of stink one encounters from a lifetime of poor hygiene, or even the type that came of eating meat. This was the stink of raw, bloody flesh mixed with dead and decayed tissue. In living, Leon had only encountered it once, briefly in his medical studies with a poorly treated body. But in the realm of the Sandman, beyond the fields of consciousness, these things reeked of it. And the smell always overtook him, wrapped around his senses and choked him and made his eyes tear up, bile rise to his throat.
He yelped, coffee having spilled all over his lap. Damn shaking useless hands. He couldn’t operate like this, with shaking hands. Just the hands. Leonard got up, a few mumbled apologies tossed out to the other patrons of the mess hall and stalked off to change.
His office was fine as a second room. His chair was just uncomfortable enough he couldn’t fall asleep in it, and his desk was too cluttered to lie on top of. It never used to be that way, but then again, he never used to have this problem. He wasn’t going to bring up what he saw to the psychologist, not after all the pain the ship was already going through. He actually was going to avoid the psychologist all together, since they did nothing but prescribed him drugs to sleep. And if he was ever stuck in reality of dreaming with one of those terrors, his terrors, he might claw his eyes out.
Then he would look just like them. No eyes, just sockets, lids clearly ripped off their bearings. Nothing staring back at him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see behind them when there was light in his terrors. Not everything took place in the dark, some of it was in broad daylight, in a park in Georgia. Those were the worst, he knew he needed to avoid people when it was dark. But when the sun bathed him in it’s glory, and he felt free, he would suddenly find the dream ruined as one of the creatures stalked out. They were always rotting, always dead, but not dead. Some screamed, some were silent, all were hungry. They’d rip apart whoever he’d managed to find, family, friends, strangers, and then they’d come after him, chase him until he couldn’t run anymore and he kept running, then he was trapped.
On second thought, maybe his office was the exact opposite of where he wanted to be. And he was covered in sweat, but a small cramped place like a sonic shower was the last place Leonard wanted to be caught in.
To be caught dead in.
He left his office. He needed to find Christine, she would know what to do.
And if she didn’t, they were all damned anyways.
Twisting, screaming, falling, fucking, fading, nothing.
And he woke with a start. A thin coat of sweat danced along his skin, seeping into the creases of his brows, scowl and eyes. His cheeks felt cool, and upon touching them lightly with fingers, flinching at his own touch, wet streaks were traceable down his cheeks and over his jaw, and he rubbed the salty water into his fingers as he brought them away.
It didn’t take long for him to be up and ready, despite only having been asleep for four hours. There wasn’t a chance he was getting back to sleep. Not if those creatures continued insisting on dragging him to hell every time he closed his eyes.
Coffee tasted like water. Caffeine worked as a placebo to those running on empty, and this was the most sleep he had gotten in two weeks. Three. Four. Five. He lost count, rubbed his eyes, sipped his sludge. Tasted like sweat, and bad breath.
Like them. Fangs could range between one inch to forty inches long, and the breath always stank. Not the kind of stink one encounters from a lifetime of poor hygiene, or even the type that came of eating meat. This was the stink of raw, bloody flesh mixed with dead and decayed tissue. In living, Leon had only encountered it once, briefly in his medical studies with a poorly treated body. But in the realm of the Sandman, beyond the fields of consciousness, these things reeked of it. And the smell always overtook him, wrapped around his senses and choked him and made his eyes tear up, bile rise to his throat.
He yelped, coffee having spilled all over his lap. Damn shaking useless hands. He couldn’t operate like this, with shaking hands. Just the hands. Leonard got up, a few mumbled apologies tossed out to the other patrons of the mess hall and stalked off to change.
His office was fine as a second room. His chair was just uncomfortable enough he couldn’t fall asleep in it, and his desk was too cluttered to lie on top of. It never used to be that way, but then again, he never used to have this problem. He wasn’t going to bring up what he saw to the psychologist, not after all the pain the ship was already going through. He actually was going to avoid the psychologist all together, since they did nothing but prescribed him drugs to sleep. And if he was ever stuck in reality of dreaming with one of those terrors, his terrors, he might claw his eyes out.
Then he would look just like them. No eyes, just sockets, lids clearly ripped off their bearings. Nothing staring back at him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t see behind them when there was light in his terrors. Not everything took place in the dark, some of it was in broad daylight, in a park in Georgia. Those were the worst, he knew he needed to avoid people when it was dark. But when the sun bathed him in it’s glory, and he felt free, he would suddenly find the dream ruined as one of the creatures stalked out. They were always rotting, always dead, but not dead. Some screamed, some were silent, all were hungry. They’d rip apart whoever he’d managed to find, family, friends, strangers, and then they’d come after him, chase him until he couldn’t run anymore and he kept running, then he was trapped.
On second thought, maybe his office was the exact opposite of where he wanted to be. And he was covered in sweat, but a small cramped place like a sonic shower was the last place Leonard wanted to be caught in.
To be caught dead in.
He left his office. He needed to find Christine, she would know what to do.
And if she didn’t, they were all damned anyways.