Writing: "Sleepwalking"
Writing, folks! This may not mean much/make much sense out of context, but Jenny was nudging me to post it anyway, so I gave in. I'll try to give a bit o' context under the cut.
Edit: Indentation and italics now fixed!
Go to the bolded text if you'd rather just read the story without reading through all this context/backstory.
Okay, so basic setup. This bit of writing takes place in that still-unnamed collaborative storyverse that Jenny and I have going on. It's also a fair ways into the story, chronologically. (Around 1/2 mark, probably).
The collab contains some almost-AU versions of some of our other characters, with the other person setting up basic story/character for the characters that are based on the OTHER person's existing brain-babies. These two are based on Jenny's Danielle/Carter and Jonathan/Dingo, and I've posted two bits of prose with them in the past.
The basic backstory is that collab-Jonathan AKA Jathan was trying to boost his celebrity cred by joining in the game of making political statements, but he pissed off the wrong people in the process. So basically, he gets abducted by the people that recently are/will soon be (need to clarify my timeline) responsible for what basically amounts to a coup. Even worse, Nelle (collabverse Danielle) had the misfortune of being sent by her boss to schmooze/interview Jathan to her great annoyance, and was abducted as well for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Jathan was snatched. What followed was an extended period of imprisonment, mistreatment, experimental procedures, and suffering for the two of them. They got to see each other stripped down to their cores, and they came to depend on each other for their sanity in this Hell, getting past all the blame and petty differences and coming to really need and care about each other. Eventually, however, their captors managed to utterly and irreparably break Jathan down into a crazy wreck, in a combination of the experimental procedures and the incredible physical, emotional, and mental strain. Nelle descended into a state of numbness and a different kind of insanity, so that she's sometimes sane and sometimes an uncontrollable, wild, animalistic, paranoid, obsessive basket-case.
Eventually, they're liberated by an underground resistance force, but their "conditions" forced their rescuers to lock them up as well, though admittedly in a much better environment, which included bedding, bookshelves, lights, etc. They're in adjoining rooms, with a glass wall between them. The only people that ever go back there are the people who are supposed to be examining her in search of a cure. She secretly suspects that they have no intention of really helping her, and that they may be more interested in figuring out how her condition works to exploit the unnatural strength, reflexes, and ferocity she has in her "episodes." Speaking of, she has her mind most of the time, but when she has strong emotions (or sometimes for no reason at all) she'll fall back into another uncontrollable episode. Jathan, for his part, has taken to calling himself Jackal, and he's seemingly sealed off all knowledge of his former identity. Instead, he's unstable, highly-emotional, and strangely childlike. By the time in this prosebit, they've been more-or-less alone there for quite some time, and Nelle's gone through multiple emotional and mental phases as she deals with her situation. She tried everything in her power to reach out to Jathan through Jackal, trying every strategy she can think of to pull out a glimmer of the real him through this identity. She's had no success.
I think that's the basic (ha) gist of it all. You can obviously see some definite parallels to Jenny's vamps, which is largely the intention. I also think I channeled some of my mental state post-Dark Knight into this, which is probably a much better use for my periodic moments of emotional unease than just brooding. It's also not proofread, so there may be repeated words and typos and whatnot.
Enough talk. Onto the story bit, if anyone's still reading.
Sleepwalking
“Are you mad at me, Nelley?”
Though Nelle’s reply was weary, it also possessed an emotionless resignation that had come to characterize most of her life.
“No, Jackal. I’m not mad.”
“You never talk to me anymore.”
“I’m talking to you now.”
The corners of Jackal’s lips pulled taut, his eyes wide with childlike smallness.
“It’s not the same. You don’t like me anymore. What did I do? I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything. I’m just tired.”
That was true. Jackal hadn’t changed at all, not once in the entire time she’d been with him. That was, in fact, the problem. For far too long, she’d fought for a glimmer of the man he used to be, for the person who had gotten her through the endless torment and hopelessness. The man she had once hated, held responsible for her destruction. The man she’d learned to forgive, to depend on, to care for. The man she’d loved. Was that love? Leaning on a person when you had every reason not to, enduring because you had one person to keep you from falling off the edge, searching for them long after you know in your soul they’re gone . . . was that love? Ironic, if after all those years of nagging from her family, she’d felt it without even knowing. Maybe it wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t that giddy spiral of weightless desire she’d expected, not that passionate hunger or half-crazed high. Maybe that wasn’t love either. Maybe love was just the name they used for wrapping your soul around another person, tying your insides to them without even realizing what you’re doing. Maybe love was simply a pretty name for weakness.
It didn’t matter.
Whatever she’d had with Jathan, it was gone now. He was gone. She’d finally come to terms with that. The creature in the next room was not Jathan, would never be Jathan. He wasn’t buried somewhere deep inside, trapped in some secret compartment that she could glimpse for a moment if she just knew where to look. The man she’d cared for no longer existed. All that was left was Jackal.
“You’re always tired.”
Yes. She was. But she’d stopped struggling to stay awake.
She didn’t answer.
Jackal waited for a response until he became antsy in the silence.
“You sleep a lot. How can you be tired when you sleep so much?”
He was right, of course. You couldn’t be tired when you were already asleep. She supposed she’d passed tired some time ago. These days she went through life like a sleepwalker, going through the motions and following the same pattern unthinkingly without pause. It was easy to fall into a rhythm; Jackal’s presence was constant, the men came at the same time every day, and she filled her time with the same activities and inane conversations as the days blew onward.
Her only options were numbness or insanity. If she stopped to think about things too much, tried to keep herself engaged or struggling, she’d be overcome by despair and boredom, utterly wrecked by the suffocating claustrophobia. What’s more, her episodes were often triggered by strong emotion, so dulling all feeling was the best way to minimize relapses. The vague threat of anguish and frustration always lurked in the corners of her mind, waiting to pounce on her if she unchained her brain. The endless routine was the easiest way to keep it restrained.
Jackal darted over to the large window between their rooms, slapping his hand against the thick glass.
“I think you’re lying. You don’t like me anymore. You hate me! That’s why you don’t talk to me anymore. You hate me! What did I do Nelley?”
“I don’t hate you. Don’t get yourself worked up.”
She used to hate him. For a while, when she’d first admitted that Jathan was dead, she’d hated Jackal. She’d wished he had died; it’s harder, really, when someone continues surviving after the person has died. It’s harder to accept it as a death, when you can still see their face, still hear their voice. You continue hoping that the person you love still exists, convincing yourself that they’re just lost. But he wasn’t lost. He was physically alive, but on every other level-every level that mattered-he was dead. He was dead, and she still had to look at his face, still had to talk to that feral, simple animal that had taken up residence where he’d once existed. He was there, a mockery of Jathan that had tormented her with her loss in every moment. In a way, it was worse than death. She didn’t get the luxury of imagining peace for him, clinging to the hope of an afterlife. Instead, there was just nothingness. If he knew what he’d become, he’d wish he were dead.
Nelle pressed her molars together. She could feel the pressure in her head rising, the fingernails clawing again. Stop thinking.
“See, Nelley? You’re doing it again. You’re not talking to me anymore. You do hate me, don’t you? Why do you hate me? It’s not fair!”
“Fair?!” she barked, a strange, strangled syllable of laughter.
His face flipped with a switch, the light flashing on. When she fell silent again, however, it shut off once more.
“You hate me. You hate me! You hate me, Nelley! You hate me!”
“Calm down,” she said, though her heart wasn’t in it. (Was it ever anymore?) There was no point. Once he started, he wouldn’t be stopped until he spent himself. It was as regular as everything else.
“You HATE me. Well I hate you too, Nelley. You’re mean, and you scare me sometimes, and you never do anything and you never say anything and you hate me and I hate you too! I HATE YOU!”
He began to pound on the glass, screaming and crying in hysterical rage, slobbering on himself in his frenzy. Nelle closed her eyes. She’d seen it so many times that it had lost its grim hypnotism. Now, it was just tiring.
Nelle did her best to empty herself of thought and feeling, allowing herself to slip as close to nothing as she could manage. It was some time later that she noticed Jackal’s stillness. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been quiet. She was improving. He now huddled under his sink, eyes emerging blank and haunted over his knees. He’d turned off the lights of his cell, and was now lit only by the light that filtered onto him through her window. If she didn’t know where to look, it would be easy to miss him, to assume she was alone. She felt alone. Wasn’t that what she’d always loved about Jathan? He kept her from feeling alone, whereas Jackal just reminded her of how alone she really was. That didn’t sound like love, needing someone simply because they kept you from being alone. That was weakness. Was she right? Was that all love really was? Maybe it was. She missed it.
She was awake again. And now she was tired.
Trying to fend off the meathooks that pulled on her heart, Nelle dragged her feet to the light switch. In spite of everything he wasn’t, Jackal was sharper than she gave him credit for. At least he understood that when the pain gets too hard, you needed to turn off the lights. Darkness was closer to nothingness.
She flipped the switch.
A column of light erupted at the end of the hallway outside her room. Nelle froze, half-melted in the darkness. This was off-schedule. She was awake.
A hand entered the room through the dark, followed by a face. The person behind it took a few hesitant steps out of the light toward the blackness, the backlight simultaneously obscuring him and making him glow. He turned, and she could see his face, a strange contrast of gentle curves and stark lighting.
Nelle flipped on the light.
For a moment, they stared at each other, caught by a sudden line that spanned the distance between them. The moment hung there, trembling but forceful.
Then it split.
Another figure came from the light, putting a hand on the shoulder of the first.
“Ciris?”
The first opened his mouth, but any response was cut short by a third figure, which snapped through the doorway until it blocked the others from her sight.
“You can’t go in there. That area’s restricted. Come on. We need to get out of here immediately.”
There was a moment of thick silence, until the second figure spoke again.
“Come on. We should go.”
The second two men stepped from the light, rendering the first visible once more. Soundlessly, he raised his hand toward her. She responded in kind. He then stepped from the room, vanquishing his light, leaving her alone with her own.
Nelle stood there for almost a minute, watching the brightness from her room cutting across the floor of the dark corridor.
She was awake.
She turned off the light.
Fin
Edit: Indentation and italics now fixed!
Go to the bolded text if you'd rather just read the story without reading through all this context/backstory.
Okay, so basic setup. This bit of writing takes place in that still-unnamed collaborative storyverse that Jenny and I have going on. It's also a fair ways into the story, chronologically. (Around 1/2 mark, probably).
The collab contains some almost-AU versions of some of our other characters, with the other person setting up basic story/character for the characters that are based on the OTHER person's existing brain-babies. These two are based on Jenny's Danielle/Carter and Jonathan/Dingo, and I've posted two bits of prose with them in the past.
The basic backstory is that collab-Jonathan AKA Jathan was trying to boost his celebrity cred by joining in the game of making political statements, but he pissed off the wrong people in the process. So basically, he gets abducted by the people that recently are/will soon be (need to clarify my timeline) responsible for what basically amounts to a coup. Even worse, Nelle (collabverse Danielle) had the misfortune of being sent by her boss to schmooze/interview Jathan to her great annoyance, and was abducted as well for being in the wrong place at the wrong time when Jathan was snatched. What followed was an extended period of imprisonment, mistreatment, experimental procedures, and suffering for the two of them. They got to see each other stripped down to their cores, and they came to depend on each other for their sanity in this Hell, getting past all the blame and petty differences and coming to really need and care about each other. Eventually, however, their captors managed to utterly and irreparably break Jathan down into a crazy wreck, in a combination of the experimental procedures and the incredible physical, emotional, and mental strain. Nelle descended into a state of numbness and a different kind of insanity, so that she's sometimes sane and sometimes an uncontrollable, wild, animalistic, paranoid, obsessive basket-case.
Eventually, they're liberated by an underground resistance force, but their "conditions" forced their rescuers to lock them up as well, though admittedly in a much better environment, which included bedding, bookshelves, lights, etc. They're in adjoining rooms, with a glass wall between them. The only people that ever go back there are the people who are supposed to be examining her in search of a cure. She secretly suspects that they have no intention of really helping her, and that they may be more interested in figuring out how her condition works to exploit the unnatural strength, reflexes, and ferocity she has in her "episodes." Speaking of, she has her mind most of the time, but when she has strong emotions (or sometimes for no reason at all) she'll fall back into another uncontrollable episode. Jathan, for his part, has taken to calling himself Jackal, and he's seemingly sealed off all knowledge of his former identity. Instead, he's unstable, highly-emotional, and strangely childlike. By the time in this prosebit, they've been more-or-less alone there for quite some time, and Nelle's gone through multiple emotional and mental phases as she deals with her situation. She tried everything in her power to reach out to Jathan through Jackal, trying every strategy she can think of to pull out a glimmer of the real him through this identity. She's had no success.
I think that's the basic (ha) gist of it all. You can obviously see some definite parallels to Jenny's vamps, which is largely the intention. I also think I channeled some of my mental state post-Dark Knight into this, which is probably a much better use for my periodic moments of emotional unease than just brooding. It's also not proofread, so there may be repeated words and typos and whatnot.
Enough talk. Onto the story bit, if anyone's still reading.
Sleepwalking
“Are you mad at me, Nelley?”
Though Nelle’s reply was weary, it also possessed an emotionless resignation that had come to characterize most of her life.
“No, Jackal. I’m not mad.”
“You never talk to me anymore.”
“I’m talking to you now.”
The corners of Jackal’s lips pulled taut, his eyes wide with childlike smallness.
“It’s not the same. You don’t like me anymore. What did I do? I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t do anything. I’m just tired.”
That was true. Jackal hadn’t changed at all, not once in the entire time she’d been with him. That was, in fact, the problem. For far too long, she’d fought for a glimmer of the man he used to be, for the person who had gotten her through the endless torment and hopelessness. The man she had once hated, held responsible for her destruction. The man she’d learned to forgive, to depend on, to care for. The man she’d loved. Was that love? Leaning on a person when you had every reason not to, enduring because you had one person to keep you from falling off the edge, searching for them long after you know in your soul they’re gone . . . was that love? Ironic, if after all those years of nagging from her family, she’d felt it without even knowing. Maybe it wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t that giddy spiral of weightless desire she’d expected, not that passionate hunger or half-crazed high. Maybe that wasn’t love either. Maybe love was just the name they used for wrapping your soul around another person, tying your insides to them without even realizing what you’re doing. Maybe love was simply a pretty name for weakness.
It didn’t matter.
Whatever she’d had with Jathan, it was gone now. He was gone. She’d finally come to terms with that. The creature in the next room was not Jathan, would never be Jathan. He wasn’t buried somewhere deep inside, trapped in some secret compartment that she could glimpse for a moment if she just knew where to look. The man she’d cared for no longer existed. All that was left was Jackal.
“You’re always tired.”
Yes. She was. But she’d stopped struggling to stay awake.
She didn’t answer.
Jackal waited for a response until he became antsy in the silence.
“You sleep a lot. How can you be tired when you sleep so much?”
He was right, of course. You couldn’t be tired when you were already asleep. She supposed she’d passed tired some time ago. These days she went through life like a sleepwalker, going through the motions and following the same pattern unthinkingly without pause. It was easy to fall into a rhythm; Jackal’s presence was constant, the men came at the same time every day, and she filled her time with the same activities and inane conversations as the days blew onward.
Her only options were numbness or insanity. If she stopped to think about things too much, tried to keep herself engaged or struggling, she’d be overcome by despair and boredom, utterly wrecked by the suffocating claustrophobia. What’s more, her episodes were often triggered by strong emotion, so dulling all feeling was the best way to minimize relapses. The vague threat of anguish and frustration always lurked in the corners of her mind, waiting to pounce on her if she unchained her brain. The endless routine was the easiest way to keep it restrained.
Jackal darted over to the large window between their rooms, slapping his hand against the thick glass.
“I think you’re lying. You don’t like me anymore. You hate me! That’s why you don’t talk to me anymore. You hate me! What did I do Nelley?”
“I don’t hate you. Don’t get yourself worked up.”
She used to hate him. For a while, when she’d first admitted that Jathan was dead, she’d hated Jackal. She’d wished he had died; it’s harder, really, when someone continues surviving after the person has died. It’s harder to accept it as a death, when you can still see their face, still hear their voice. You continue hoping that the person you love still exists, convincing yourself that they’re just lost. But he wasn’t lost. He was physically alive, but on every other level-every level that mattered-he was dead. He was dead, and she still had to look at his face, still had to talk to that feral, simple animal that had taken up residence where he’d once existed. He was there, a mockery of Jathan that had tormented her with her loss in every moment. In a way, it was worse than death. She didn’t get the luxury of imagining peace for him, clinging to the hope of an afterlife. Instead, there was just nothingness. If he knew what he’d become, he’d wish he were dead.
Nelle pressed her molars together. She could feel the pressure in her head rising, the fingernails clawing again. Stop thinking.
“See, Nelley? You’re doing it again. You’re not talking to me anymore. You do hate me, don’t you? Why do you hate me? It’s not fair!”
“Fair?!” she barked, a strange, strangled syllable of laughter.
His face flipped with a switch, the light flashing on. When she fell silent again, however, it shut off once more.
“You hate me. You hate me! You hate me, Nelley! You hate me!”
“Calm down,” she said, though her heart wasn’t in it. (Was it ever anymore?) There was no point. Once he started, he wouldn’t be stopped until he spent himself. It was as regular as everything else.
“You HATE me. Well I hate you too, Nelley. You’re mean, and you scare me sometimes, and you never do anything and you never say anything and you hate me and I hate you too! I HATE YOU!”
He began to pound on the glass, screaming and crying in hysterical rage, slobbering on himself in his frenzy. Nelle closed her eyes. She’d seen it so many times that it had lost its grim hypnotism. Now, it was just tiring.
Nelle did her best to empty herself of thought and feeling, allowing herself to slip as close to nothing as she could manage. It was some time later that she noticed Jackal’s stillness. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been quiet. She was improving. He now huddled under his sink, eyes emerging blank and haunted over his knees. He’d turned off the lights of his cell, and was now lit only by the light that filtered onto him through her window. If she didn’t know where to look, it would be easy to miss him, to assume she was alone. She felt alone. Wasn’t that what she’d always loved about Jathan? He kept her from feeling alone, whereas Jackal just reminded her of how alone she really was. That didn’t sound like love, needing someone simply because they kept you from being alone. That was weakness. Was she right? Was that all love really was? Maybe it was. She missed it.
She was awake again. And now she was tired.
Trying to fend off the meathooks that pulled on her heart, Nelle dragged her feet to the light switch. In spite of everything he wasn’t, Jackal was sharper than she gave him credit for. At least he understood that when the pain gets too hard, you needed to turn off the lights. Darkness was closer to nothingness.
She flipped the switch.
A column of light erupted at the end of the hallway outside her room. Nelle froze, half-melted in the darkness. This was off-schedule. She was awake.
A hand entered the room through the dark, followed by a face. The person behind it took a few hesitant steps out of the light toward the blackness, the backlight simultaneously obscuring him and making him glow. He turned, and she could see his face, a strange contrast of gentle curves and stark lighting.
Nelle flipped on the light.
For a moment, they stared at each other, caught by a sudden line that spanned the distance between them. The moment hung there, trembling but forceful.
Then it split.
Another figure came from the light, putting a hand on the shoulder of the first.
“Ciris?”
The first opened his mouth, but any response was cut short by a third figure, which snapped through the doorway until it blocked the others from her sight.
“You can’t go in there. That area’s restricted. Come on. We need to get out of here immediately.”
There was a moment of thick silence, until the second figure spoke again.
“Come on. We should go.”
The second two men stepped from the light, rendering the first visible once more. Soundlessly, he raised his hand toward her. She responded in kind. He then stepped from the room, vanquishing his light, leaving her alone with her own.
Nelle stood there for almost a minute, watching the brightness from her room cutting across the floor of the dark corridor.
She was awake.
She turned off the light.
Fin