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 Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 9:02 am
Being undead, Shehk didn't truly require sleep in the same sense as a living body would. She went through the motions of laying in a bed every night and sitting there for hours with her eyes closed while her mind wandered, but she hardly ever actually slept. It was a rare occurrence in the world of the Pricolici. Though it wasn't so rare it never happened.
Perhaps twice a month, at most a third time. Which was a 1/10 chance when the odds were considered. But even rarer then was when she actually dreamed. It wasn't that she had nothing to dream about and for all she knew she dreamed all the time and didn't remember them. However, dreams just weren't something on her daily 'to do' list when night came.
Dreams had a way of setting up hopes and then letting her down when she had them anyways.
But that night... that night was a dream night. It had called to her subconscious and thus, she had gone. To where? It was a place she was familiar with. She was standing on the crumbling train station at Shady Hollow, the town in the same state of disrepair she remembered it being. Buildings falling apart, stray bits of fog that just eerily loomed in awkward places, and nobody...
absolutely nobody to be seen.
Shehk placed her hands on her hips and laughed;
"It seems I just don't have it in me to escape this place entirely, now do I?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 5:34 pm
In hindsight, peeking into a stranger's dream had been a really bad idea. After the first two times she had poked her head into someone's dream--both of whom she considered close friends of hers--Xiu wondered just how far she would be able to go. Were there limitations to her adventures? A time limit, perhaps? She already knew that she couldn't interact with anyone or anything but the dreamer, but so much of this ability was still a mystery to her. Her solution to this was to do a little bit of...experimenting.
...And by experimenting, she really meant diving into a random student's dream and poking around.
Surely it wouldn't hurt to do so, right? She would keep anything that she learned to herself, and no harm would come to the dreamer from her intrusion. As evening had fell long ago, there were plenty of students who were sleeping now. She would just have to figure out which one to choose.
Wandering outside, Xiu settled herself down in what she hoped was the approximate center of all the dorm buildings. If there were dreamers in range, then she would pick up on them. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and concentrated.
Her mind grasped around her, searching for the paths that would lead to dream worlds. It didn't take long until she found one, then another, and then yet another, with more popping up rapidly. It seemed that most of the paths led to students in the demon or monster dorms. The undead dorms, on the other hand, was almost completely devoid of paths...except one that stuck out in particular. There was something about it...
Without any hesitation, Xiu went right for that path, following it until a setting began to form around her. There was fog, and a platform, and...a train station? In the distance, Xiu could make out a female figure. The dreamer? She wondered, knitting her brows together, Or is she just a character in this world?
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Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:32 pm
Shehk was unaware her dreams were being observed, stepping off of the deck and down the stairs. It was an..interesting place. It felt right, but at the same time, the pricolici looked around, her tail twitching from side to side and leaving a path of glowing light beyond it as a sort of after-image of the movements.
It wasn't too bad of a place, she knew. Certainly it was dark and foreboding, but that was mostly by human standards. There was a moment where she looked around, as though sure someone else was there, but she didn't see Xiu, looming out above her. It was just her... in the middle of the old spooky abandoned town.
Hmm....
Thud SCREEEEE, Thud, SCREEEEE, THUD. THUD. SCRAPE. SCRAPE SCRAPE, HUFF, Thud.
Shehk's tail puffed up at the sound. She'd never heard that noise before. She made a face and walked towards it. Naturally curiosity was to be had. As she walked, fog started to follow her, sweeping over the buildings of the ghost town and devouring the buildings into crumbling pieces, nipping at the pricolici's heels. Would it devour her as well?
It was a possibility.
Where she ended up was a clearing. A clearing with two men - gravediggers, perhaps? - sitting there, burying something. Most of something. It was curiously something-like. Shehk approached, watching. What they were burying was a dog. A dog up to it's neck that barked and yelped and cried. It probably would have thrashed as well, if it weren't for the fact it's body was buried.
Just leave it here for a week or so, it'll die off then.. one said in a voice that reminded her of rust rubbing against itself. It was horrible. Do we think this'll work? It's never worked in the past... the other one said. It'll be fine, worse case, we'll release this one into the forest with the others.
And then the pair laughed, as though they had never seen Shehk at all.
Leaving her staring face to face with the helpless dog.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:04 pm
Either the either ghoul was just a character in this dream, or she simply hadn't seen Xiu. Whatever the case, the Baku followed her quietly, looking a little unnerved when she realized that the fog was trailing after the undead ghoul. Well...it made sense, didn't it? Even if dreams were usually a little wacky, the mind usually seemed to make an effort to make things relatively consistent from the point of view from the dreamer.
She made a little mental note about this--she wanted to try getting a good grasp on how dreams worked from all these mini excursions she was taking-- and carried on after Shehk.
As they came to a clearing, Xiu's ears perked up slightly as two voices floated towards her. Scrambling forward so that she could get closer, she listened with a hint to their conversation with a hint of confusion. What were they talking about? And...what did they bury? The answer made itself clear when the two men moved aside, allowing her to catch a glimpse of the poor, trapped dog.
W-what kind of dream is this? She sneaked a little closer, brows furrowed as she hesitated. If the undead ghoul was the dreamer, and therefore could see her, Xiu feared the possibility of being recognized in the waking world. With this in mind, she shed her skull-pin human form in favour of her natural form. Perhaps it was cowardly of her to do so, but the fact was that the little Baku was already a coward anyways.
As no one, with the exception of one person, had ever seen her in this form before, she assumed that she was safe as she trotted up beside Shehk.
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Posted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 8:57 pm
Shehk nearly jumped out of her skin, and actually, to an extent, did at the appearance of the Baku, hitting the ground on all fours and in fur when she did. It was probably the quickest shape-shift that Shehk had done yet. She shook out her body and turned her eerie glowing eyes onto the small creature. If she'd had the lips for it, they would have tightened into a face.
An epic face.
She sniffed the tiny creature for a moment.
"You don't appear to be food." she said, her mouth moving in a strange opposition to the words she spoke. However, she nudged at the tiny Tapir-like creature with her nose. Hmmm...
....
"I don't think I've seen you before." she said after a moment of observation, before turning her head towards the thrashing dog. It's eyes fixated on the pair, like horrible burning eyes of Sauron. They pierced and were very angry. Then the neck of the wolf started to undulate awkwardly and Shehk's fur puffed up. Immediately she stepped over Xiu, her fur bristling.
If this was what she was thinking it was, this was bad.
In a few more moments, the neck split apart in a gnawing, crunching, thrashing, and teeth. There were teeth, so many teeth. Teeth, blood, muscle.. it ripped apart in a sinew-y mess and the head of the dog went limp, falling into that mouth like an apple into a garbage disposal
With grinding and a mess spewing everywhere.
Shehk froze in horror of what she realized was happening.
"s**t, we better move before it digs itself up."
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Posted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 1:00 am
Xiu's first instinct when the ghoul suddenly shape-shifted? Run like hell. However, before she could, the ghoul-turned-creature had already moved forward to sniff at her. The Baku froze completely, the only movement coming from her being her ears, which she laid back in discomfort. She...she wasn't going to eat her, was she? Bakus didn't taste good at all! They were small, and not very meaty, and--
Xiu emitted a sigh of relief at Shehk's conclusion. Well, at least she knew that she didn't have any intention of eating her...right this moment. "I...I'm new here." She explained simply, her ears still laid back in anxiety. She couldn't be sure that she was completely safe yet, and that this ghoul wouldn't snatch her up in her jaws when she wasn't looking.
...What would happen if she got eaten in a dream anyways? The thought had never crossed her before.
Before she could ponder over this, she was suddenly made away of a terrible sound--the sound of tearing flesh and crunching. Something splat on the ground right in front of the Baku and, after a long, frightened pause, she slowly looked down to look at the blood.
Then at the dog, or what it had become.
Yelping, she immediately jerked backwards, her body quivering as she turned her panicked gaze onto Shehk. "W-what is it?! Why did the dog...!?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 10:32 am
Shehk continued to bristle. "i-I don't know why it did that, but that thing there is not something we want to be near. We need to hightail it now" The fact that Shehk was rather big and terrifying in her own right, yet scared shitless of the thing was rather telling. Shehk wasted no time in grabbing the Baku in her jaws, albeit as gently as one could with those fangs, before turning to bo-
"s**t"
The words came even if Shehk's mouth didn't move. She hadn't noticed that the world had been crumbling behind her. She keened a bit, before just jumping into the darkness anyways; clearly it was preferable to leap into the pit that had no real visible end than be near that creature that had just formed.
The pair would be falling for a while. Perhaps eerily long. Was there a bottom at all or would they just be spending several hours doing this while Shehk couldn't snap herself out of the dream?
It came up on them faster than anybody would have expected. The ground, that was. It was like one second there was falling and then Shehk slammed into the ground with enough force for her legs to shake, accompanied by a crunching noise that could have been something breaking. Shehk shook it off and seemed to be fine, setting the Baku down before looking around at the new scenery.
All of the trees twisted, seeming like something out of Dr Seuss mixed with Hellstar Remina. It was very..organic, yet somehow implausible. Possible, but not likely. The focus was like walking through a giant mirage; shake-y and unclear... but they were in some sort of hell-forest where it seemed likely that something was going to reach out and smash them.
"....This is new." Shehk commented, before looking at the Baku with a real look this time. Wait.... "..... You're new too." she added. When dreams were sparse, you remembered them all.
This was one of those cases where the new was baffling.
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 1:44 pm
When she felt teeth close around her, the only thoughts that were going through Xiu's mind were that she was going to die in this dream and, oh god, this ghoul was going to eat her. She clenched her eyes shut to wake for the pain of being crushed but...it never came. Instead, those sharp, threatening teeth settled around her quite gently.
Confused, the Baku opened her eyes, only to see the same thing that Shehk had cursed at. Why was the world...?! For Xiu, she would have hesitated between the two choices--was it better to face the creature, or jump down into the unknown? Fortunately--or perhaps unfortunately--Shehk decided for them.
At first, when the jump had initially been made, Xiu had squeezed her eyes shut in terror. It wasn't until a few moments passed did she open her eyes again, only to find that they were still falling. And falling. And falling.
Finally, when she thought that this would go on forever, she was suddenly jolted by the impact of Shehk hitting the ground. Ears perking up as she caught the light crunch, Xiu wobbly rose up on hind feet to bridge the height distance between herself and the other ghoul. "A-are you alright? That was quite the fall."
She took the time to take in their surroundings then, shivering slightly at the eerie atmosphere that seemed to emanate from around them. Her gaze briefly flickered towards the Pricolici and then away. "I-is that so?" She smiled nervously--was this ghoul a lucid dreamer then? It certainly seemed like it. "W-well, it's...it's not unusual for a dream to change, is it?"
Eying the trees warily, she slowly moved up to one and settled her foreleg on it with a small frown. Why did all the trees here look like this? What a strange dream this was.
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 4:42 pm
"To dream at all is unusual." Shehk answered to the topic of 'usual' habits within dreams. "This is possibly the second dream I've had in months." she added. Her last dream had been much more pleasant, if not still confusing.. and interrupted by throbbing joints. She'd have to work on that. Shaking her legs out, she walked into the mess of something-resembling trees to get the feeling to come back to her.
Though the trees themselves seemed to sway as though possessed to move quicker than they should have been able to. Shehk tried to not bark when one suddenly thrashed to one side and grabbed at her. Backing away was safer with sentient trees, she'd discovered, so she left it alone to do just that instead of waging war against something she'd learned was capable of smashing her to pieces.
The tree Xiu put her leg against throbbed and shifted under her weight, like it was evaluating the small creature and debating throwing all of its weight down upon her. That wouldn't have been very pleasant, now would it? But still, contact would have probably been safer to be limited.
"For the record, I have no idea where or what this place is, so it may be safer to not touch anything...just to be safe." the canine said, turning her bone-snouted head towards Xiu before nodding in the direction she was walking in. "I also don't wake unless forcibly woken, for the most part, so we'll have to sit this through until something wakes me up..... at least that's how it tends to be for me."
Shehk was a very aware dreamer, it seemed. Then again, the 'two dreams lately' comment probably said why that was.
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Posted: Sun Aug 07, 2011 9:05 pm
"Only your second dream?" Xiu seemed startled by this at first but, after some thought, realized that it really wasn't all that surprising. There was also the fact that she was an undead, and therefore didn't really need to sleep. At least, that was why she had been so surprised to find that one of the dream paths was coming from the undead dorms.
Jumping, she jerked around in time to see one of the trees swing down at the other ghoul. At once, Xiu scrambled backwards at the one she had touched, suddenly noting the way it was throbbing. Were these things actually sentient? The thought had the Baku backing away until she was right by Shehk again, the fluffy part of her tail poofed out in her shock,
"Y-yes," she agreed, shivering slightly as she stuck close to the Pricolici and followed after her, "I'll be sure to keep that in mind." It was definitely wise advice to follow. Ears drooping, her gaze darted from side to side rather warily before it fell back onto her companion.
"I-if I may...may I know your name?" Xiu liked to know whose dream she was traveling through at the moment, at least. An undead, though...she wasn't sure if they had ever met in person before. She definitely didn't know many undead students.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 11:42 am
Shehk made a conscious effort to not walk too quickly for the smaller body to keep up with. Even if there was a part of the dream that it didn't matter to, it was something she had to keep up with. For her own sake, she made a point of keeping as lucid as she could possibly be; it may not have been that her dreaming was 'special', but rather it was a reflection of her lack of actually needing to be there. She was lucid because she was aware of the dream.
As far as the Pricolici was concerned, that was indeed the case.
"My name is Shehk Iordanescu. I believe I may be the only Pricolici at the school at this time, so that may make me easier to find in waking...if you have any interest in such thin-!!!" Shehk cut off with a yelp as one of the undulating trees suddenly smashed over, the blunt of it nearly hitting her. It had, however, managed to hit her tail. Shehk took a moment, once the tree had lifted, to lick at her poor offended tail with a sort of simpering body language.
She looked up at the trees and huffed at them.
"You're not so big, stupid trees. Back off!" She growled a bit, before shaking out her fur and continuing to walk. It felt like everything was just..warping around them into a continuing walking pattern that never ended. The pricolici, despite having not mind the trees to begin with, didn't seem too pleased by the fact everything was melting and distorting and taking her to nowhere.
The more they walked, the foggier things got.
"As long as another one of those.... things don't come out, I think I can handle the trees..."
It almost looked like the trees were... looking at them.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2011 4:26 pm
While Shehk seemed generally unfazed by the trees, even after that attack, Xiu was visibly terrified as she quickened her pace so that she wouldn't lag behind the Pricolici. What were with these trees anyways? Was this place some kind of reflection of somewhere in the waking world, or was it just some kind of dream world that Shehk had built up in her mind?
The thickening fog didn't help ease Xiu's nerves in the slightest, and she glanced over every so often to ensure that the other ghoul was still right there beside her. Depending on just how thick the fog got, then it would be easy for the pair to get separated and lost.
...Or for something to come bounding out and surprising attacking them.
The thought, matched with Shehk's comment, made the Baku shiver. "'T...those things'?" She echoed, looking up at her uncertainly, "Do you mean...like that...that dog we saw?" She still wasn't sure what that had been, and honestly, she didn't know if she really wanted to know. So long as they didn't run into one, then it was fine by her.
"If I may ask...where are we going?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 1:29 pm
Shehk paused in her step when Xiu asked about the dog, her limited canine features not telling much about what she was thinking. She did, at the very least, establish one thing; "Yes. I hope you never meet one in waking, they're quite horrible." This was coming from Shehk, who was finding herself startled by very little lately. Perhaps it was because of that plain fact of Grinders being horrible.
She had refused to even refer to the 'dog thing' by name.
The pricolici tilted her head from side to side thoughtfully when the destination was questioned, before rolling her canid shoulders a bit.
"I will be honest; I'm not sure where it is we'll end up. I feel like I read a story with these sorts of trees before..." Shehk growled at one of the trees and it seemed to growl back at her, inspiring Shehk to at least back off a bit, take a few more steps... and then crumble through the ground again, into darkness.
Shehk yelped as she fell through, but it seemed it was time for a change of scenery, at the very least... and to somewhere less disturbing looking. The middle of a clearing in a forest, filled with long grass and fog. The pricolici just settled into the grass.
"This place I know. This is not too far from the train station..."
The one that the dream had started at. Perhaps the trees she'd walked endlessly through were a subconscious connection to the forest this place was in?
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Posted: Wed Aug 17, 2011 7:58 pm
Xiu shuddered at the very idea of meeting one of the creatures in the waking world. It was one thing when they were merely in a dream and there was very little real threat, but to be physically attacked by one of the dog-creatures? The Baku didn't even want to imagine what that would be like.
The fact that Shehk didn't know where they were headed was not reassuring in the least, but it wasn't entirely surprisingly either. The Baku was well aware that dreams sometimes had a life of their own and lead the dreamer around on a leash. Though considering that the other ghoul was a lucid dreamer...
"But Shehk, can you not control your surroun--!?" She didn't even have a chance to finished when the ground below them crumbled away, causing panic to well up in the small Baku once more. There wasn't much that she could do aside from fall through after the pricolici.
Despite her initial fear, when they landed in a new scene, Xiu actually felt kind of grateful to the darkness they had fallen into. This place, while still a little eerie, wasn't nearly as twisted as the previous place had been.
Perking up at her words, Xiu cocked her head to the side. "You know this place? Is it...somewhere that's important to you, perhaps?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2011 4:03 pm
Shehk yawned and settled into the grass. "It may be." she answered. "It was my safe place for a long time this summer. It provided me with many things that the home of my sire couldn't." she explained, looking about the scenery. It seemed pretty spot on to her memory of the place, but that also may have been just what was her own memory of it all being faulty.
"But it may have been more important.....before......" it was a vague addition to the equation, but she added an explanation to it quickly, looking to Xiu - "I'm a Pricolici - that means in life I was still a denizen of Halloween in the form of a Werewolf. Sometimes this place has a certain...deja-vu to me, hence I wonder." Because wondering was all she could do.
She stretched out in the grass, laying down on her belly and yawning, a large huff of fog coming from her mouth before she took a glance around the area. Somehow, she didn't quite seem at peace.
"You haven't introduced yourself to me yet." she suddenly added upon realizing she didn't have a name to refer to this other by.
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