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 Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:18 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:39 pm
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Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2010 7:52 pm
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Posted: Sun May 02, 2010 8:33 pm
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Posted: Sun May 09, 2010 5:36 pm
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 8:46 pm
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Posted: Mon May 17, 2010 11:35 pm
_Go for a Walk_
SOLO ~ a nightmare
He had had this dream several times before, or one like it, but it was not really often enough for Ian to think of it like a recurring dream. Usually, by the time he had it again, he had nearly forgotten the last time. Maybe some details were different each time, too, but things like that tended to fade quickly from his memory. Dreams were just like that.
Ian was in a place that looked a lot like Destiny City, but with the color saturation turned down. The sky was not blue but dark light night time, however there was still enough light at ground level that it did not appear to be night from where he walked. He followed a sidewalk that ran with a street to his left and a low iron fence to his right; the Destiny City park was just on the other side of the fence, and Ian could smell the carefully-trimmed boxwoods. Spaced intermittently along the walk were lamps, in various colors, though only the brightness, not the color, seemed to reach the environment. As a result, everything was bathed in a dull sort of twilight.
There were no cars along the road, but instead lots of people. The city was filled with noise regardless, though - it sounded like hundreds of thousands of voices all speaking at once. Ian could not pick out what any individual one was saying, though. And, strangely, nothing else seemed to make a sound; his footfalls were silent on the pavement.
And so were the footsteps of the person walking with him. Ian was human enough, if shorter, like he remembered seeing the world when he was five or six years old, and around his neck was a collar. Another person, an adult, walked several paces behind him, and held the other end of the leash.
Ian was being taken for his daily walk.
He admired the scenery, his attention held primarily by the people milling about the park. There were others like him there, being walked, and occasionally the red-haired boy made eye contact with one of them and they traded a shy wave. As he walked ahead of his master into the park, he noticed a man with long red hair playing chess by himself at a table up ahead by the side of the path. Ian felt he should wave to him, to communicate with him, somehow, too, but could not catch his eye.
As he got closer, he went out towards the table, realizing that the length of his leash would allow him to reach it when they were close enough. The red-haired man remained focused on the layout of pieces: his opponent who was not actually present at the table was in check, and had an easy way out that would make it easy for the man to trap his pieces again. Or, he could sacrifice his queen to the red-haired man, and give himself a shot at winning through cunning. It had to have been the absent player's turn - Ian knew by looking, somehow.
He was barely tall enough to reach the table (had it grown taller as he approached it?), but he reached out to move the queen to interpose. In spite of the lack of other sounds over the white noise of countless voices, the felt bottom on the chess piece whispered across the checkered board with deafening profundity, and the man with the long red hair raised his eyes to look at Ian, and smiled.
There was a tugging at Ian's throat as his master tried to jerk him away from the chess game, but Ian had to see if his newfound opponent would take the queen. The boy followed the motion of the man's hand down to the board - he picked up the bishop as Ian had hoped - but as soon as he lifted the piece, the one holding Ian's leash gave it a sharp tug that forced the boy's breath to catch in his throat as he staggered back from the table.
Ordinarily, he thought, this was where he woke up. Now, or a moment later when he fell to the ground.
But he was still there, in the town, staring up at the star-filled sky from where he now lay on his back half on the paved path and half on the grass. Would the man with the long red hair pick him up? Would his master come back to him first? Ian's limbs felt leaden and he could barely move them. Perhaps the feeling would fade in a moment and he could pick himself up.
But suddenly, it was as though Ian moved in slow motion as a ball of brilliant light blue light shot towards him. At first he thought it one of the lamps, but they did not move anywhere, certainly not on their own. And this light engulfed him, and filled his body with searing pain. It burned away his skin on his impossibly slow-moving hands as he tried to sit up, stand up, roll away, get away, anything, but as Ian looked away and then back, his flesh was renewed only to crumple to flames and then dust again.
Or, there would have been pain, but he was asleep - instead, there was a strange electrical feeling over his body that seemed even more unsettling. Ian cried out and tried again to move, but now something was holding him to the spot, as well. The grass and pavement, barely visible around him in the painful attacking light, seemed too close for him to be lying on the ground - had he sunk in halfway? The ground itself was holding him prisoner?
His arms became freer, at least, able to move, but it did little good as the light burned his skin away again and again. Ian struggled against it, now feeling weight from the insubstantial light pressing him down more into the ground, as though the pavement was now wet concrete and it was trying to embed him there forever as it tortured him.
"I don't know!" he shouted, his voice sudden and painful in his throat, as though he was not supposed to be able to speak but was managing to anyway. "I DON'T KNOW! LET ME GO!" Whatever the assailant wanted, he could not provide it. Ian tried to fight it off, his fists clenched. Was he still dreaming?
Then there was something in his hand. Or the awareness of something small, like a chess piece, pressed into his palm reached his mind. Trying to turn away, to shield himself from the unrelenting light, Ian slowly uncurled his fingers, to see what he had grabbed. Or what had been given to him.
It was a chess queen.
And then it was a figurine of the man with the long red hair, carved out of the same wood as a chess piece, in such intricate detail that Ian could see each individual strand of his hair, the tiredness in his eyes, every grain in the wood itself--
Finally, his heart pounding, Ian jerked awake, pushing himself up as he studied his sweaty palms.
His hands held nothing here.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 7:02 pm
_Unscheduled Sleep_
SOLO ~ Ian, pre-Tartaros
It was nearly summer time, in spite of all the tests, but Ian thought that made it all the more necessary to get out and take a walk. He sort of wanted to look for a summer job, too, in spite of his natural shyness, mostly because he liked having a plan. He wandered downtown, trying to think of places where he liked to shop and where he might not be wholly opposed to the idea of being on the other side of the cash register.
And where he was sure that he felt like dealing with the other customers on a regular basis. He had a feeling he would at least be alright at performing in a service capacity, like working a register, since he knew he could always be nice if nothing else, but he was not always sure of wanting to deal with other people. Ian nearly asked for an application at his favorite coffee shop before remembering several of the altercations he had seen snooty customers attempt to start with the baristas there.
Ian knew he would be far too nervous to take anyone up on a fight over type of milk or darkness of coffee roast but at the same time, he was not sure he wanted to spend the summer getting crap from people over such things.
So he left the coffee shop with an iced coffee and nothing more.
His wanderings too him by the library, as well, which seemed like the best option in his mind - quiet, books ... what more could he ask for?
Before he got back on a bus to head home, though, Ian found himself heading to one of the miniature golf courses that Destiny City had. This one, Emphatic Kana, was unashamedly based upon and centered around old Japanese monster movies, and featured all sorts of miniature buildings (complete with fleeing citizens) as obstacles. It had been a while since Ian had played mini golf anywhere, let alone here, but the sign (much more faded than he remembered it being) brought back some fond memories.
There was the booth where people paid for their games and got their cards, clubs, and balls; Ian knew it also contained a freeze locker full of ice cream treats, too. It was not air conditioned, as when he approached it, he saw the bored-looking girl seated within fanning herself with a trio of scorecards while an old fan rattled in the window behind her.
It seemed a nice enough job, sufficiently sedentary for the admittedly not-so-outdoorsy young man, and he was fairly confident that he could find some way to occupy himself during slow times in the little booth. Use his paycheck to purchase a thick book of chess puzzles or something. Or possibly sneak his laptop in and try to play chess online, if he could get wireless from anywhere. And something about being surrounded by kaiju monsters and models of toppled buildings amused the red-haired boy.
When Ian walked up to the counter, the girl fixed him with a lazy stare and blew a bubble with the gum she was chewing before she asked, "How many balls, and what size club?"
"Oh, I was wondering, do you have applications for employment for the summer?" he asked her, hoping he did not sound too nervous or anything.
"Oh, uh, yeah," the girl replied, looking stunned into alertness by the unexpected question. She pulled out a sheet that was folded in thirds already, and slipped it under the window to Ian. "Gets a little dull, but if that's your thing, it's not so bad," she informed him with a light shrug. "And so far, we haven't had any of the city's real monsters attack us yet."
"That's good," Ian acknowledged, taking the form and unfolding it to scan the fields. Then he refolded it and stacked it with the application from the library in his other hand. "Thank you," he told her, flashing a quick smile and waving before he turned to go. "Have a good day."
Wondering if any of the monsters from the news had stopped by the library yet, the boy made his way back to the nearest bus stop. He probably could walk home from downtown in about half an hour, but he had been out and about for a while already. On top of that, now that he had finished his iced coffee, he was pretty sure he would have to pee a little sooner than he would get home if he went on foot. There were places to stop on the way home, but still. If he made it to the bus stop in time, he could be home in closer to ten or fifteen minutes.
And there would be a trash can at the bus stop for sure, Ian figured, shaking the remaining ice around in the bottom of his cup. Then he could stop worrying about water condensed on the outside of the cup getting on his job applications, and it would be one less thing to carry.
Just as he was reaching the bus stop, though, something happened. Ian fell off into sleep rather suddenly, along with everyone else in the general area. And instead of taking the bus home, he would be picked up in an ambulance and taken to the hospital. He, and the girl from the miniature golf course, and everyone who had been playing there; those on the bus and those waiting for it; everyone too close to the center of the city.
But of course he would not know that part until much later.
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Posted: Tue May 25, 2010 7:11 pm
♚Enter Tartaros♛METAPLOT♟Too Dark in Here ~ Ian AloneBetter to steal a torch than curse the darkness. ♜Probably Better a Fantasy ~ Ian, Mister Darrow, and AbigailAlas, Sir Benedcitus, we knew him ... not. ♜Camelot ~ Ian, Mister Darrow, Abigail; Sailors Sirona, Saiph, and Alcyone; Nemesis and DudeThere has to be a way out of here somewhere!
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Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 9:19 pm
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Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:51 pm
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:21 am
_Chess is Safer_REGULAR ~ Painite and Ian ;;Why me?
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Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:22 am
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 9:20 pm
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 9:39 pm
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