００１ 。 DREAM
Warnings: FIRE? DEATH? SANTA HATS? Possibly a weeny bit spoilery for T&B?
Effects: None :D
Your mother ensured you wrapped up warmly for the winter weather, so you barely felt the cold outside, bundled up in layers. But so close to home, you feel it prickling your fingers and your nose and the tips of your ears. Stepping inside is like stepping into a warm bath, and soon your arms are weighed down by bright paper gift bags and your folded coat and scarf and a santa hat you were given as an extra little present.
You can follow the music to your parents, so the moment your gloves are off you're heading down the hallway to the room the aria is coming from, the door ajar.
You're faced with a sudden and absurd desire to turn and run.
It's drowned out by a sound, sharp and sudden and so loud.
You don't remember making it to the door but you're there, in front of it, frozen a foot away from the handle. The paint, the lacquer on the door - it begins to peel in front of your eyes, cracking and curling into hundred of tiny pieces. The handle glows, and the music is distorting - you need to go, you need to get out - and drawn out, as if somebody could grab either end of every note and tug to pull it apart, it tears, it tears and in its wake is a crackle and nothing more.
The air is blistering all too quickly, and the door should burn your fingers but you don't notice when you curl them around the edge and look beyond.
The light takes a sudden, dizzying turn, candlelight catching upon the carpet and spidering out across the floor like wires. Fire frames the room, turns its skeleton gold and orange and red, flames licking along every surface and around every corner, curling up the Christmas tree and shimmering in every bauble.
Don't look don't look don't look -
but you can't not look, and your eyes follow the trail of fire and land on your parents.
Your mother is leaning back, too far back, over the arm of the sofa. Her glasses have slipped, but she isn't moving to fix them. She isn't moving at all.
Your father is sprawled upon the floor, like he's sleeping. He has to get up before the fire spreads, you think. He could be sleeping, but he's not.
And the voice telling you to turn and run is muted, silenced, lost in the tumult.
A shadow, tall as a giant, stands unmoving, gun in his hand, his hand emblazoned with a curled snake. And the flames catch on his coat.
You should know who he is.
The coat disperses, crumbles to ash and then to nothing as he turns, sees you over his shoulder, and smiles.
You should know his face.
The white hot glow rages along his shoulders and swallows him up, shrouds him.
You can't forget this.
His smile is eaten by the fire, turning huge, distorted, monstrous.
Remember.
He starts to walk towards you, and the flames turn gold turn red turn black.
And the roar of the fire becomes white noise. And the roar of the static becomes rain.
[He awakes with a start, face a picture of distress, but it's quite clear that he's not particularly surprised by it, suggesting he just might be used to this. His brow furrows into a deep frown, thoughtful, trying to figure something out, and he leans back, sighing, hands scrubbing back into mussed hair.
And then he realises the dreamberry is on, and then he quickly puts two and two together and realizes what's just happened, and he's certainly not used to that.
For a moment, he seems too stunned to move, and then he moves quickly, switching the feed off, giving only the briefest glimpse of anger that implies he was fighting the urge to throw the damn thing.]
Effects: None :D
Your mother ensured you wrapped up warmly for the winter weather, so you barely felt the cold outside, bundled up in layers. But so close to home, you feel it prickling your fingers and your nose and the tips of your ears. Stepping inside is like stepping into a warm bath, and soon your arms are weighed down by bright paper gift bags and your folded coat and scarf and a santa hat you were given as an extra little present.
You can follow the music to your parents, so the moment your gloves are off you're heading down the hallway to the room the aria is coming from, the door ajar.
You're faced with a sudden and absurd desire to turn and run.
It's drowned out by a sound, sharp and sudden and so loud.
You don't remember making it to the door but you're there, in front of it, frozen a foot away from the handle. The paint, the lacquer on the door - it begins to peel in front of your eyes, cracking and curling into hundred of tiny pieces. The handle glows, and the music is distorting - you need to go, you need to get out - and drawn out, as if somebody could grab either end of every note and tug to pull it apart, it tears, it tears and in its wake is a crackle and nothing more.
The air is blistering all too quickly, and the door should burn your fingers but you don't notice when you curl them around the edge and look beyond.
The light takes a sudden, dizzying turn, candlelight catching upon the carpet and spidering out across the floor like wires. Fire frames the room, turns its skeleton gold and orange and red, flames licking along every surface and around every corner, curling up the Christmas tree and shimmering in every bauble.
Don't look don't look don't look -
but you can't not look, and your eyes follow the trail of fire and land on your parents.
Your mother is leaning back, too far back, over the arm of the sofa. Her glasses have slipped, but she isn't moving to fix them. She isn't moving at all.
Your father is sprawled upon the floor, like he's sleeping. He has to get up before the fire spreads, you think. He could be sleeping, but he's not.
And the voice telling you to turn and run is muted, silenced, lost in the tumult.
A shadow, tall as a giant, stands unmoving, gun in his hand, his hand emblazoned with a curled snake. And the flames catch on his coat.
You should know who he is.
The coat disperses, crumbles to ash and then to nothing as he turns, sees you over his shoulder, and smiles.
You should know his face.
The white hot glow rages along his shoulders and swallows him up, shrouds him.
You can't forget this.
His smile is eaten by the fire, turning huge, distorted, monstrous.
Remember.
He starts to walk towards you, and the flames turn gold turn red turn black.
And the roar of the fire becomes white noise. And the roar of the static becomes rain.
[He awakes with a start, face a picture of distress, but it's quite clear that he's not particularly surprised by it, suggesting he just might be used to this. His brow furrows into a deep frown, thoughtful, trying to figure something out, and he leans back, sighing, hands scrubbing back into mussed hair.
And then he realises the dreamberry is on, and then he quickly puts two and two together and realizes what's just happened, and he's certainly not used to that.
For a moment, he seems too stunned to move, and then he moves quickly, switching the feed off, giving only the briefest glimpse of anger that implies he was fighting the urge to throw the damn thing.]