OOC ❦ Dream Dust (1)
Cloud had gone to the Clinic that morning, just like he had any other day. With one difference-these days he didn’t usually take his box with him. But he wanted to restock his supplies, for when he next had a shift in the Wilderness. You never knew where you might find yourself, or what dangers might be waiting down there.
After checking with the person in charge of the desk today, a woman named Paperclip, Cloud headed back to one of the rooms.
While pulling out one of the many drawers, he disturbed something. It fell out of his box, skittering away across the floor. “That’s odd…”
He quickly found where it had gone, fetching up against one of the storage shelves, and picked it up. It appeared to be a vial full of rainbow sand. “I don’t remember putting you in there. Where did you come from?”
As if in response to his voice, the vial popped open and sand started swirling around him. Too late, he recalled stories of people with rainbow hourglasses… and then everything went black.
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Cloud found himself in a strange place, one where everything seemed… unreal, distant. It almost looked like he was underwater, though he could still breathe… he tried to check himself for gills or a fishtail, thinking he’d somehow gotten changed back into that form again, but it seemed he wasn’t in control of his body.
He could see his hand now, reaching out and trying to grab something in the murky greenness-small, much smaller than his normal hand. It was about then that he realized he had a much broader line of sight than usual. Two eyes?
Fire. Where had the fire come from? He was walking toward it, unable to stop himself. He didn’t know why… shadow. His head turned, and cold hands grabbed his wrist. Cloud approved. Whoever this was, they had more sense than-
"Let me go. I need to go back. Let me go back. She's still-"
-Pollux. That was Pollux’s voice. Was this… his dream? A memory? It must be one of the two. Cloud was left reeling by that sudden realization, struggling to keep thinking through the surprise, though he did note that the cold hands didn’t let his brother go, forcing him-them-to the floor. He watched the tendrils of black rise up, brush against his brother’s body, and then… engulf them.
When he could see again, they were standing on a street. This place seemed more solid than the green room.
"No. Don't do it."
Pollux was apparently talking to a man, someone Cloud didn’t recognize, who was raising a gun to his head. If Cloud could have, he would have tensed, looked away… something. But he couldn’t.
There was a bang, the sound of a body falling, the scream of a woman, shouts. More green... this dream seems to be very green in general…
They’re back in the room again. It must be a dream; reality isn’t fragmented and chaotic like this, in Cloud’s experience. There was a gun in his brother’s hand now… Cloud could feel its cold weight. And there was something black in front of them, a mask, wings, soft chuckles that reverberated in the air.
Pollux raised the gun. Cloud could feel his finger, shaky on the trigger, and couldn’t help himself. Don’t do it, Pollux, please… But his brother couldn’t hear him.
The finger stopped trembling, became firm, confident. The sensation of swallowing.
Poly-
Bang.
[[ooc: I'm assuming someone found his cocoon and got him into a more visible place? Maybe one of the beds. Anyway, wherever he was, there is now a pile of sand and a short note which reads:
Need a little time to myself. I'll be back as soon as I can.
-Cloud
He'll be in the Wilderness for a bit, but he did promise Sniper he'd leave a note.]