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 Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:44 am
Espen growled angrily at the mirror as he stared at himself while he brushed his teeth. Despite his best efforts he was still tormented by night terrors and the slumber party was only two days away. Espen’s stomach turned at the thought. The notion of not going to sleep at all had struck his mind, but he knew that was impossible and would defeat the purpose of a slumber party. Suddenly, the harsh reality that no mater what he did, he would probably wake up in the night of the party screaming, clawing at his sleeping bag, or eating his pillow and that everyone watching would think him strange, loomed over his head. He spat his tooth-foam into the sink bitterly, angry that he had once thought of this party as a god idea.
There were still two nights left, he reminded himself as he trudged off to bed in his pyjamas. That was pleanty of time for him to get over his own fears, wasn’t it? The trick wasn’t just to get over them though, but figure out what the dreams meant too. Unfortunately, Espen was too afraid of what the dreams were (and too tired) to find out what they meant so instead he just ended up in the same cycle he’d been in since the day he woke up in Shane’s house.
“G’night dad,” Espen managed to choke out as he passed by Shane’s office while he typed up shipping orders for some of the things he had discovered that day. He’d gotten so used to Espen waking up at night, that he decided to change his own sleep schedule a little bit so that he was always ready to wake Espen up before he ever did any real damage to his room or vocal chords.
“Good night Espen,” Shane replied with a friendly smile and nod, not wanting to give the boy any reason to worry. It worked, Espen felt more relaxed as he continued to his room and slid into his bed, then slowly and hesitantly closed his eyes.
********
The dreams always started off the same, in a liquid nebula. Fog so thick that it suspended you in midair; so thick that there was a strange liquid-like resistance while attempting to move through it, but it was breathable like heavy air. It was impossible to see what exactly was beyond the peach coloured fog, and it was impossible for Espen to move closer to examine his surroundings because in the dreams his arms and legs was bound by invisible chains, suspended in midair. Like with most dreams, Espen couldn’t really tell that one was dreaming, but he knew what was about to happen: in the distance a group of dark and hazy human figures were getting closer and though he couldn’t see from where he was, he knew that they had needles.
Survival instincts started to kick into his brain and he started to wiggle about, trying to find some way of freeing himself from whatever it was that was holding him in place. Whatever it was was strong and tied to some sort’ve wall behind him to prevent him from turning his back away from the figures that were approaching. The smell of steel and rubbing alcohol increased and subsequently so did Espen’s heart rate and movement. Back in the waking world, his body twitched and flipped uncontrollably with small yelps escaping from his mouth. It was two days before the party and Espen’s dreams were just as violent as ever: and only getting started.
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Posted: Sat Jan 16, 2010 10:56 pm
It didn't take long, it never did. Pepper strolled through the darkness which was the dream world on edge...annoyed, and paranoid. The wraiths lurked just outside the feild of his vision and on two accounts he snarled and struck out at them.
As usual they scattered out of reach of his claws. Taking slow steading breaths he tried to calm down. He was antsy...he shouldn't be here...but his body was exhausted and when he slept he always was here. No rest for the weary...
Trudging along he tried to not think, it hurt his head to think. Running his hand through his hair he plucked a blonde strand of hair from his head he examined it with little interest..it was the only thing about him that represented his angelic parent. Who...was..
Shaking his head he tried to get his head to not think on it. His angelic parent was dead...his demonic parent had..killed and eaten his soul. It made him feel queasy. He had been on more than one occasion been compared to his demonic parent. Did that mean he would end up like him too?
Summoning to him the many countless orbs, that glowed dimely in the area he needed a distraction. Sometimes the dreams were quite entertaining..other times he had to invade to get the wraiths out from torturing the person who was dreaming.
He made sure to touch not a single one as it tended to transfer over to his head more than he would like. So he peered and watched trying to distract himself for the time being.
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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:14 am
The feeling of danger settled into Espen's mind, there was no escaping his fate. The shadowy figures were coming closer, and their snails pace of inevitability seemed to suck all the hope out of Espen's heart. With each step they took he could hear their harsh whispering getting louder, their indifferent words like poison. Were they not aware that he was right there in front of them, begging for help?
"No, no please!" he pleaded, almost pathetically as he continued to try to break free from his invisible chains "Please, let me go. I-I just want to go. I just want a hug. I just want some water. Or some candy orsome..." his thoughts trailed off and became more frantic and nonsensical. His body too, began to make spastic movements; hair and feathers flew everywhere. The closer the figures came, the more confused Espen was, his fear overtaking him.
The room grew darker and the voices harsher. Suddenly they were upon him. One of the figures lashed out pinned him against the fog, sinking him into it while the other readied two needles, one in each hand. Soon they would descend into his bloodstream and then...the change would happen. He wasn't sure if it came about before or after the needles hit his skin, but he knew that it was violent, malicious and empty. The worst part was though, that something about the change felt...right. That's why Espen hated it. How could something that was so empty make him feel complete? It was disgusting and Espen wanted no part of it.
The dream didn't care. The dream continued.
Espen's scarlet eyes darted around in disbelief of the futility they were witnessing. He was screaming now, but the screams weren't loud enough to reach reality. Not yet. Familiar commands like "Hold that thing down!", "Keep it steady!" and "Watch its claw!" were barked back and forth between the figures which signaled the end of Espen's fear, and the beginning of his torment.
He gave one final fruitless jerk forwards, as they gave him one back and drove the needles like stakes into his arms. Espen's body and mouth froze and he choked, unable to breathe. His eyes grew wide, there was a ringing in his ears and roaring in his head. The boy's wings flexed out sharply as though trying to burst free from the back of the body they were now attached to. The fog began to lift, and the chains were gradually becoming looser until the figure fell to the ground of a familiar dark room.
The raw loathing that was felt for the two humanoid figures seemingly burst them into splatters of blood that were now smeared on the wall. The room stank of iron and stale air. Air that it had been breathing for far too long, in a room it could never leave. The claw marks on the walls, floors and ceiling were proof of this. The monster snarled, it wanted out. It wanted to escape and hurt those who were responsible for what it was being subject to, day in and day out. It was no longer about kindness: it had asked nicely and failed, begged even. The beast raged and roared, for the longing of revenge for its humiliation, betrayal and own foolishness. It eyed the door, daring it to open, biding its time, knowing that it would. All doors opened eventually.
Back in the waking world, the screaming began.
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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:37 am
The was no question about it, being distracted by the colored orbs it was hard to get past that he buried deep inside of him. He wanted to hurt people, more so...he wanted to hurt the people who tried to hurt his friends. The desire to protect was something that sometimes overwhelmed him. Trying to seperate the urge to hurt from the urge to protect was harder than he expected in fact it felt nearly like it was one and the same emotion.
Though deep in thought, as deep as Pepper seemed able to go anyway, he was suddenly distracted but a rather violent dream. The image had shifted violently, he had only seen it out of the corner of his eye before but now it had his full attention. The desperation that seemed to emit from globe, caused him to hesitate. He knew...right now trying to fight off wraiths was not a good idea. His mind wasn't stable...what if he got carried away again like last time?
Still...he found his feet being dragged forward, standing before it the swirling globe of disjointed images. It was like watching a broken television where someone kept changing the camera angle. He saw red, blood...before he even placed the palm of his hand onto the orb he felt like he could nearly taste the blood in his mouth.
He stopped his fingers milimeters from the dreams surface, he couldn't reconize the dream or the dreamer. He shouldn't get involved. THe darkness around him seemed to inch closer to him, he could make out the wraithes black forms at the edges of his vision...they always waited for him. To lower his gaurd to strike out. He had killed a great many of them before this point...they knew better than to take him lightly.
Taking a breath he laid his fingers on the warm orb, the mix of emotion, and senses flooded in him. It was overwhelming. Above all though...was rage....and fear. Whatever was happening in that dream...it wasn't good. Dragging his hand off he had to force himself to breath, he couldn't get caught up in the emotion. If he did then...the wraiths would of won.
There was a lingering feeling of ...familiarity. He knew this person, he couldn't place his fingers on who it was...not until he had entered the dream. The monster that rampaged within the nightmare was unreconizable. Still he felt the need to interfere. The wraiths were abusing the dreamer...feeding off his fear. He would right the wrong.
He had learned to enter dreams with a bit more grace than smashing himself into the globe. This one...was thicker harder...the wraiths didn't want him to interfere. Like he ever listened to that nagging warning in the back of his head before. It felt like being immersed in thick sludge. Soon though he had entered the dream.
THe darkness around him seemed to blind his senses. He could smell blood...but the only thing he could see at the moment was a door directly in front of him. He felt the prickle of warning along the base of his neck. He tried to will up more of the area, but everything was dim...like the power had gone out...and only this one light was available. The wraiths must of invested everything into what was beyond this door.
Out of nowhere a being materilized before him, she wore a white lab coat was slight of build. She had no eyes...she wasn't a figure who was meant to be reconizable. Automatically she reached for the door handle seemingly unaware of the fact Pepper was directly behind her.
Lab coats?
Pepper reached forward to grab her shoulder to yank the person back but she was already half into the room. . .
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Posted: Wed Jan 27, 2010 8:23 pm
A steady horse pitch of rang throughout the house, followed by a deep and audible breath, and the pitch again. Shane ran into Espen's room and noticed that he was sitting bolt upright in bed. The worst had begun; it started off with the screaming, and it used to be that was all it was. These days though, Shane could tell if they were getting worse or not based on Espen's other actions.
If he went back to sleep, well, all Shane could do was make sure that Espen's head hit is pillow instead of anything else, and make sure there was a large glass of water for him to drink in the morning. What happened these days was usually something more severe, which set Shane on a lot more edge and he braced himself.
********
A grin of madness spread across his face as the door opened. It was here sooner than expected, probably to hook him up to some sort of device. Good, less time to wait. Espen was ready, and hung back in the shadows, eyes wide and set, bare claws sharp and ready to strike. Once the figure had entered the room, with a ruffle of feathers and a roar of pure loathing, he flung his whole body at her face and tore as much out of it as he could before dashing out the door. He was off to find the others, and he would find them. As he slunk off into the darkness, a cackle of dark victory erupted from within.
********
Espen's body leaped to its feet in bed and flung itself; Shane's job was to guess where. He was ready for Espen to fly off the side, but tonight he spun around and almost threw himself against the wall on the opposite side; Shane caught him just in time by the back of his pajamas. It used to be at this point he'd try to put Espen back under the covers, but knew from previous nights that any attempt at that would result in his body spasing and potentially clawing at him.
Instead, he waited until the screaming stopped and the whimpering resumed, but these were different than the initial set. First, Espen's eyes were wide open; second, he had lowered himself onto the floor and was wandering about; third, he was muttering for everyone he'd ever met to hide.
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Posted: Thu Mar 18, 2010 8:54 pm
Jay Pepper watched with eyes wide as the creature grabbed the woman and tore her to shreds before it bypassed him, single minded and focused. THe dream was expanding to carry along with the nightmare. At first it had taken Pepper a moment to realize that...the creature that had killed the dream technician wasn't a wraith. It was...the dreamer. The room was fading rapidly due to it no longer being needed and he hurriedly got back into the hallway, the woman's body fading with it. More technicians were coming out of the woodwork. Literaly. Out of the walls the ceilings...Pepper found his hackles rising as he reconized the scent the feel as the wraiths ignored him to go after the boy. He wasn't their prime focus..in fact the dream was so intense they didn't even realize he was there. That...was new. Blinking he tried to summon up the energy and the focus to locate the boy. The dream was too rapid...it changed and altered souly focusing on where Espen was at that very moment. Fine then. If he couldn't get the dream to listen to him he would just have to go to Espen on foot. He ran forward growling and snarling tearing apart wraiths that were getting in his way, some feebly tried to stop him others were just destroyed too slow to move. He gave a roar, trying to summon the will of the dream to respond to him, it was unyeilding. This is here as a reference, Jay and I are continuing this in AIM.
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Posted: Mon Feb 14, 2011 11:23 pm
A distant roar didn't stop Espen's body from moving forwards, nor the nightmare from stopping, but somewhere in the back of his head Espen felt that Pepper was there too. When he felt it, there was a strange shift in the dream, as though Espen was both simultaniously inside his dreaming form as well as watching it happen. He couldn't stop what he was about to do, but the removed part of himself was seemingly hovering directly behind Pepper, and was a little more concious of the situation at hand. He was dreaming, he knew that, but he was also at home writhing about as well as running forwards in the dream towards death and destruction.
Both his physical body and his dream body he knew were lost, but the strange ethereal bit of him that was around Pepper he tried desperately to speak through.
"Pepper! That's not me!" it echoed "I swear that's not me! I don't want to--AHHHH!"
Suddenly he felt more flesh and blood rip through his teeth and claws as a dream aspect of himself ripped through a projected image of Rhys in the facility without any regard for his even being there. It unrealistically became like grusome shreds of paper strewn about the corridor.
********
For some reason now Shane could tell something was different than before. For starters, it was almost as though Espen had gone back to sleep again because his body had stopped moving about and he had stopped muttering, but his eyes were still open and his muscles were rigid as though he was catatonic. Unsure of what to do, Shane decided it was best to run and close the door to his room to keep him from getting out and then as fast as he could, place a blanket around Espen in case he suddenly collapsed back to sleep.
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