Welcome to Gaia! ::

Standing on an endless field of ice, Wynn awoke.

Wynn snapped up from his bed, his entire body giving a violent jolt as he awoke amid cold sweat.

He glanced side to side, his brows furrowing with the growing sensation that something was wrong. Wynn gazed across the vast expanse of breathing frozen water, observing the chilly fog that drifted across it and the gleam of the hazy sun's reflection against the ice. There was nothing to hear, no howls, no wind, not anything...

Without even pausing to think or calm himself down, the young Inuk boy glanced around in the dark from the thrown blankets of his bed, helplessly seeking comfort that he knew wasn't there. He had to find someplace safe, and, breathing heavily, Wynn scrambled up from his bed in his pin-striped pajamas and rushed to the bedroom door. As he passed by the coat hanger, he threw on his coat, not caring that it was backwards, and rushed out of the dorms without his shoes.

CRACK!

Suddenly, a sick engulfing crack belched from underneath him in the heart of the ice. Stumbling, trying to keep as still as possible, Wynn snapped his head to stare with fright beneath his feet where a crack split open the ice beneath him. Wynn gasped. Instincts told him to run, but terror commanded him still.

But that was where he went wrong.

The ice buckled beneath his shaking legs and suddenly Wynn was swallowed by the crack into the frigid sea, disappearing underneath the icy plate that see-sawed back to place, completely blocking Wynn from the sky and air. Cold, like the gripping hand of a rock beast, crushed him with such intensity that he lost his lung full of air in a shocked yelp. His breath escaped him explosion of bubbles that gathered against the rough icy underneath. In a panic, Wynn felt himself swallow icy water as he scratched uselessly against the dim glowing ice. He could feel the frozen sea water saturating his body, killing him inch by inch and stealing his warmth away, stealing his life. Absolute terror and dread filled him.

He was trapped.

And there was nothing his weakening limbs could do could save him. No amount of pushing, clawing, or screaming would save him now. He was six feet under the ice, buried alive in a watery grave. An agonizing icy pain stabbed his chest as his lungs began to fill with the freezing liquid and his eyes burned with such intensity that he was sure they were freezing solid.

A small fleeting shadow, Wynn raced across the school's campus, his face haggard and terrified as if he were being chased by a wild moose or berserk polar bear. His bare feet slapped against the cold pavement and he swallowed the cold saliva that froze in his open mouth as he ran, barreling blindly as if he were posessed.

Wynn felt himself slowly freezing to the core and as he froze he sunk lower and lower from the ice into the darkening depths of the black ocean. He was freezing, stiffening...frozen. He was frozen, losing sight of the light in the shimmering pulse of the water. Within a few terrifying slow moments, he couldn't move anymore...water sloshed in his frozen lungs and Wynn heard his heart crack with ice as it struggled to give one final beat...

Wynn pounded against the door with his curled fists. This was Micajah's room, he was sure of it, the numbers were the same. He prayed that the magic student would hear him, and when he did open that door, Wynn would tackle the other as if he were a life saver in the frigid water of his terrible nightmare.

What slammed into Micajah as soon as he opened the door could only be described as a...well...Terrified, freezing cold, young Inuk named Wynn Darbinian in an inside-out coat and a fearful bleat. His arms wrapped tightly around Micajah's torso and Wynn pressed himself close to the older student, his entire body shivering against the cold and his grip as secure as a tree's roots into soil. There wasn't anything really for Wynn to say, except give baleful sounds of fear, and he didn't really want to do anything else save cling as tightly to his friend as if, at any moment, the nightmare would come back, pry him from Mica and drag him into the icy depths once more to experience a classic Baltic Sea death.

The Inuk hardly even noticed that Micajah had fallen back, dragging both boys to the ground, he was absolutely terrified. Falling so that he was attached to the magic student's side instead of his front, Wynn clung tighter as the questions were asked. He was trembling terribly, curling his legs tight to him as he pressed his cheek into Mica's clothing. When he tried to open his mouth to explain to Mica that he had just experienced the worst nightmare ever, his voice got caught in his swollen throat. They almost seemed frozen there. So, trying to force some words free, Wynn struggled to speak.

"B-bad...Bad sleep, bad vision!" he managed to choke out at length and when those words burst free so did his tears. Small pearly drops rolled down Wynn's frost-bitten cheeks and he gave a series of sniffles, focusing his caramel eyes at Micajah through the darkness of a three-o-clock morning. To be quite honest, Wynn hadn't had a nightmare this real before. Sure, he had nightmares where he woke up with a gasp, but he couldn't remember what they were within a couple minutes. Never had he been visited by a dream so foul, so real! It terrified him utterly and he wept now, his mouth pulled into a shuddering frown.

As soon as Micajah guessed what Wynn was trying to stammer, he stopped trying to force out the words. He gave a series of nods to Micajah, affirming that what had scared him so much was a nightmare as he tried to swallow down his tears. While in any other situation, Wynn would've been hard pressed to let himself weep in front of another, this was completely different. Particularly, since ages ago, when Wynn was perhaps half his age that he was now, he had been chased out onto thin ice by a polar bear. The ice, thin as it was, couldn't bear his weight and the boy slipped into the freezing ocean. It was by pure luck alone that he was with adults at the time who were trying to lure the enraged bear away while another carefully plucked Wynn from the freezing ocean. He was immediately stripped of his soaked jacket, wrapped in furs and blankets, and rushed back to the village where he was taken care of. That probably was the single most horrifying moment in his life and it terrified Wynn to have seen it come back to haunt him.

His shoulders and chest jumped with each trembling inhale, and, as he was pulled close to Micajah, his sweaty bangs being brushed aside, he curled up tighter and tighter, his arms tucking themselves underneath his chin. It felt nice to finally give up, to finally expose himself and let it all out within the safety of another's presence.

And like that he stayed for a good couple minutes before he finally calmed enough to uncurl himself and start forcing himself to breathe regularly. His sobs eventually stopped and he looked up at Mica with reddened caramel eyes, much quieter than before.

Wynn nodded slowly to Mica's question. He was done crying, he had shed all the tears that needed to be shed, and now there was a fresh, almost stinging emptiness that swelled up in Wynn's chest. It felt considerably better than the strangling dry tightness of fear. He sucked up the last of his shuddering breaths and rubbed his sleeve across his red eyes, wiping away the left over moistness. Despite feeling better now that he had finished crying, Wynn couldn't help but feel like the nightmare's presence was just out of sight, darting around at the corner of his eyes. Even blinking made Wynn nervous and he half expected to be dragged underneath ice and sea as soon as he closed his eyes into the darkness of sleep.

He edged himself a tad closer to Micajah, quietly thankful for the other's comforting croons and words. Back at his home on the tundra, Wynn didn't have anyone to run to when he was scared or had nightmares. He always wished that he had though, and when running to the grocery store or someone else's house that he didn't completely know or consider as a friend was just didn't work. In this case, though, Mica was a friend that Wynn was coming to trust. And he was glad that he ran all the way across campus to find him, barefoot as he was.

"Dream was trying to eat me,"' Wynn muttered, sniffling into his sleeve, "'M afraid. It was too cold, too cold."

"If I close my eyes, I see the bad vision again." he said pointedly. It wasn't an excuse or an argument, it was just what Wynn felt. Nightmares were so stubborn to leave, and once Wynn would close his eyes, he knew it would come again, he'd be crushed underneath tons of icy water and six feet of solid ice.

When Mica pointed out how cold his feet were, Wynn glanced down to his toes, and for the first time, realized that he was barefoot. Beforehand, he was too wrapped up in his fear to notice that he had bolted across campus barefoot. There was a dim part of his mind that knew that, but, now that he was quite awake, Wynn was almost confused that he wasn't wearing socks. Furrowing his brows at his feet as if it was all their fault for being cold, Wynn moved himself away from Micajah, not wanting to bother him with his cold feet. He tucked his legs close to his chest and wrapped his colds hands around his cold feet. Mica was right, they were like ice cubes!

Glancing over his knee to Mica, Wynn stated simply, "I don't know what happened to my socks," in his first unbroken English sentence. He sniffed against, wiped his face across his sleeve once more and tried to hold his shivering body still.

Rolling onto his knees, Wynn pushed himself up from the cold ground of the floor and scuttled over to Micajah's bed like he was told, wrapping his arms around his inside out jacket. He still didn't notice that his tag was hanging out, nor that the warmer fur exterior of his jacket was outside instead of in. He was too concerned with finding a comfortable out of the way place on the end of Mica's twin sized bed. The young Inuk crawled up onto the end of the bed and sat there, tucking his legs close to him.

He watched from his perch as Micajah locked the door (keeping away the nightmares, Wynn presumed sleepily) and watched again as the older student moved to his drawers and dug out a pair of socks. Wynn nodded his head in return to the other's question.

"Yes, socks. Please. So cold it is," Wynn said. He wasn't shy about accepting things from others, because Wynn thought that others wouldn't hesitate to take gifts from him when he offered them.

Wynn caught the socks as Micajah tossed them to him, catching them as dark shapes in the unlit room with his open hands. He slipped his feet into them and, as Mica warned, they were quite loose around Wynn's smaller feet. They were warm though, and that's what mattered. Doing the rest as he was told, Wynn started taking off his jacket, unsure towards the other's logic. He thought that more layers would make him warmer, not colder. At least he could try it. So, slowly, Wynn started prying himself out of his jacket until his pin-stripped PJs were revealed and he felt himself subjected even more to the cold. His mouth pinched itself into a tight frown, feeling the cold attack the cold sweat that permeated his clothing from his terror. His body gave a great shudder and he wrapped his arms tightly against himself.

As the other moved closer to the bed, he asked a question, one that startled Wynn because he had, quite honestly, forgotten to explain his nightmare beyond "bad nightmare" and "cold".

Pursing his lips together, Wynn furrowed his brows over his tired, but alert eyes, "My bad vision...Memory and new, together. I was on thin ice, and it cracked. It ate me and I fell into ocean, cold cold Berring Straight ocean and the ice covered the water, so I couldn't get out. Like a wall. I was so cold, swallowed water, couldn't breathe, couldn't move. So cold, very cold. The ocean took me and it got darker and darker, I could feel myself freezing and sinking..." Wynn ended his retelling of his nightmare and hugged his legs tight, his mind becoming heavy with the reawakened memory of the night terror. "When I was little, I made a polar bear angry. I ran onto the thin ice and fell in. Hunters distracted the polar bear and others saved me. It was so very c-cold. They say that the cold spirits stay with my still, why I'm always cold. It's because I fell into the ocean."