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 Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2014 12:56 am
Have You Any Dreams You'd Like To Sell?
There are so many things she dreams about that keeping track of them all is a task not everyone would even be remotely interested in. But Abbi has time to spare, she has an excess of minutes and hours to devote to the numerous journals she keeps and has cultivated a keen sense of recording her unconscious musings. It is largely because of this that when she does dream it is in vivid colors and emotions and senstaions, that she feels things more acutely than she had before arriving at Deus. Her strict studying of the images that pass through her brain are undoubtedly the reason they have become more stark, it is surely the reason they are all the more lifelike.
It cannot at all be something else, it cannot be that when Abbi wakes gasping as though she were drowning in the early, still dark hours of the morning that things are getting worse. It cannot be that when she lies awake at night and stares into the dark that her dreams seem more like awful fortellings of the future and that sometimes when she wakes that the girl has trouble discerning what is real from what is not.
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Posted: Sun Oct 26, 2014 9:55 pm
Bad Things
She has an extra day of leave that catches her by surprise, and always reluctant to let those days slip her by when earlier in the year she has untouched vouchers of freedom, Abbi choses a Saturday night to go out on her own.
Already she has gone out into the world with two others, she has escaped Deus for a day with Leslie and marked her skin with memories and ink and brought back a ridiculous amount of clothes and pictures of the two friends, and then has gone out with Jack and seen stars and suns and moons and constellations in a tower and received a rare form of hope from drinking with him.
The teen thinks no one else will want to go with her, which is probably false should she give the manner any consideration but does not in favor of finding that her original assumption is correct. Melancholy is easy to continue when loneliness is what she is used to, going solo is normal and Abbi has a habit of falling into ruts. She tells no one of her plans, only gets dressed in a periwinkle dress with a scandalously short skirt and styles her hair totally differently than normal before she sashays to the portal, requesting a nondescript city with a good bar.
One of the portal techs chats with her, says he likes her dress and she laughs because she doesn’t think he is flirting with her. No one does that so she only waves at him when it is time to go and hops through. Later that night the tech will still be on duty, he will offer her a hand as she stumbles through the portal, lacking all her vim and vigor and naive excitement, but Abbi will not take his hand. She refuses help that is offered when sober, why would she accept it when drunk?
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 12:51 am
The Love Club
”I think I’d like to stop trying.”
{ Why is that? }
”Because no one noticed me when I tried. I want to prove to you the same will happen when I stop trying.”
Viveca says nothing, but Abbi knows that’s also a form of consent as far as ghosts go.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 12:54 am
Bad Things
The bar that Jack took Abbi to had a deal of class mingled with rustic charm but the one she finds herself in now looks like something she might normally never have chosen for herself. It was tucked back into an alley with a lazy looking bouncer, a tall thin guy who seemed unwilling to bother with anything but getting to the end of his shift. He glanced at Abbi’s ID, a fake one she’d bribed for that passed basic inspection, and waved her in without another word. A single, young girl in a bar wasn’t unheard of, not in this college town where so many young people come and go, so he didn’t care and the teen hurried into the darkened doorway and found nothing but more darkness and neon lights inside.
The room opened into a large lounge area with a bar tucked to the left side and large TV’s on the walls, a reflective dance floor positioned to one side and the rest of the room filled with long, thin tables and round booths. A slick blackboard with drinks combinations written in gleaming gel ink sat behind the bar, the names catchy and funny and brightly colored.
Abbi is immediately in awe of her surroundings, of the people milling about with their drinks, how they lean too close and shout above the music, each person smiling or letting their eyes become clouded, or trying to look mysterious or uninterested. Everything is new, everything is the same but painted in dark club lights and therefore wholly different.
She hastily stumbled to the bar and orders something sweet and candy flavored, laughing when the bartender remarks about her bright hair. With drink in hand she edges to the end of the bar, her gaze now caught by something forbidden on Deus: A large TV screen perched at the corner of the room, flicking between shots of some sports show. Because she asks nicely, and because no one else has asked, the bartender obliges her and changes the station to something with cartoons, the bright colors lost on the attendants.
But someone bumps her elbow, apologizes and notices her rapt gaze fixed on the television.
“You like Adventure Time?” He asks, dipping his head down toward her forehead so she can hear.
Initially Abbi is startled by his closeness, she nearly spills her drink from wanting to get away because that is what she does. But his mouth has a touch of a grin, and he isn’t looking at her.
Suddenly, it is a game. So she says yes.
They talk about the show, about video games, of which is he is surprised she knows about, and knows more than he about. She waves her hands excitedly and he laughs, he is tall and cute, just shy of handsome because Abbi doesn’t know much about him. But he buys her a drink, and then another, and another, and she forgets why she came out by herself tonight.
It doesn’t matter because he’s smiling so widely and she remembers the portal tech, and her friends, and wonders if anyone is wondering about her.
A thumping rhythm on the dance floor tells her no, and Abbi doesn’t have enough wherewithal to contradict it.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:15 am
Dreams of Loneliness/ Have You Any Dreams You'd Like To Sell?
Never before in her life has she had a recurring dream until after her trip to Wonderland. She might have dreamt about similar themes before, or recurring events told in varying shades of colors, but nothing that ever could even remotely compare to another dream other than in the broadest of descriptive strokes.
But since Wonderland, things have been different. There she had had a nightmare first about running through a city, stained with blood and in flight when she should have stood her ground. In the end it made a significant turn for the better, and instead of running from something, she ran to someone she was going to save.
Once free from the web-like structure of that world, Abbi carried that little idea tucked away in her heart, which was very likely the reason she kept seeing it play out again and again in her dreams at night. It didn’t happen every night, thankfully, but there were a good number where she spent a considerable portion of her sleeping hours running through a maze-like city. The longer she took to get to the alleyway with an ally bleeding out was the lower their HP bar ran, but Abbi always made it in the end.
Recently the Hunter in the alleyway had been a man, and for the past three months it had consistently been one that was well-dressed and handsome. Each time the girl sprints to him, a grateful smile splashes across his face. He says her name in a grateful sigh, as though he is more glad that she is safe than he is happy she has arrived to save him.
“No worries! Gonna getcha all fixed up!” She chirps at him as her hands pull out a long, pure white ribbon of bandages to begin the healing process. In the dream she is deft and sweet, planting a kiss on his cheek and brows and mouth to keep him quiet and still. Each time she is loving, but the Abbi who watches this from an objective point of view wants to scream. She wants to grab his hair and yank it out into the nothingness that it really is. She wants to spit at his words of adoration, to reject herself and him, to leave him there, and to walk off alone. She wants to be free of this apparition because she knows he isn’t real. He never was, and never will be, and all this dreaming business is just wishful thinking that isn’t going to happen. Its false hope, that man who is hurt and who she can save not from himself or from some idealistic standpoint of changing him, but simply because he’s bleeding and she knows exactly what it will take to stop it.
Most of all, she hates that dream more than the others because its so wonderful to have, to feel (just for a moment) completely secure in herself and her abilities, to have someone so that the burden of being alone is lifted.
But instead she wakes alone, save for the ghost in her head, and knows that in the end its simply a dream.
And dreams are a wish your heart makes, only Abbi doesn't make wishes anymore.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:22 am
Bad Things
And somehow, she isn’t sure, she can’t recall, there was dancing and then she’s in the alleyway.
Only it is a different alley than the bar, maybe its a street down, or two, or four, the world has gone fuzzy and Abbi can only remember that she ought to stand up straight. Cold air bites at her freckles, at her skin, at her mouth so that her breath forms murky pale clouds, and the man from before leans over her, at least she thinks it is him. There is something like a wild cat to him now, threatening and scared, all at once.
He is relentless in his pursuit of the truth, he keeps repeating ‘You’re in this bar, you gotta be 21 right?’, it is his anthem. ‘You swear you’re over 18?’ as though that will make a difference between what he is attempting and what she is refusing. He calls her ‘baby’ over and over again, holds her slim wrist tight in his sweaty palm that he presses against the rough brick of a building. She struggles limply because everything has gone fuzzy, but in the end instinct kicks in when she says she wants to go home, and he tells her he’ll take her there.
And it is then Abbi remembers she is small but that the small ones fight hardest. Someone has told her that recently, someone has said that its the little ones you have to look out for (taller than you anyways) but taking the time to remember hurts her swimming head and instead the girl lashes out. For once she realizes she does not need a scythe taller than herself to make a difference, she recalls the pressure points on the human body and where arteries are, and the man is left crumbled in the alley as the teen rushes off, hating that she thought it a good idea earlier in the day to wear heels, but pleased in a far away place that she can still run in them.
A small voice, its so small, she’s so sorry but its so small when she drinks like this and maybe that’s why she drinks (maybe, maybe I can’t think it or she’ll hear), but the voice is brusque and proud and hisses in gentle tones that she is an angel, or something better, something with sweet wings that can soar with human legs. The girl laughs as she runs down the city sidewalk, Abbi sucks in a breath and realizes it is her own self that is the one rushing away from danger.
Safety isn’t reached until she stumbles through the Portal and the balmy night air smacks her face and she sucks in the remnants of salt in the wind as a gentle hand touches her elbow. The tech from before is looking at her with such concern that she yanks herself away in fear of hurting him. Abbi doesn’t give him time to ask after her, she’s stumbling down the beach and to her room because if she lingers she might say something she regrets.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:02 am
Bad Things
Someone loudly clops into the girl's bathroom of the first floor on thick heels ( { Its you, its you ya dolt, ya idiot, ya Jack’damn fool, ye almost got yerself--} ) and Abbi trips over to a stall. Her fingers grip against the door to steady herself and she catches a glimpse of a girl in the mirror, a pale freckled girl with mascara streaked in inky lightning bolts down her face.
{ Its you, its you ya dolt, ya idiot, ya jack’damn gorgeous fool--}
Staring at the girl in the mirror, she has forgotten that earlier in the day she applied make up to her skin, that before now she had thought herself pretty for once and has the selfies as proof. No one else has seen them, save for the people in the bar who’d seen the real thing, and no one probably will because all Abbi can see now in the bedraggled girl that stares back at her with wide blue eyes.
This girl is small, she is red around the wrists (but fading) and her lipstick is smeared in a way that makes Abbi rub the rest of it off with the back of her hand because she can taste who it was that streaked the color in the first place. Her dress fits well, when Abbi tries out a pose or two on shaky feet she likes what she sees, but her hair is tousled and falling, she looks worn and worried and has cried at some point.
The girl turns, loses sight of herself, and the stall door slams angrily and the locks sounds with resentment and sadness and too many emotions for a small steel bolt to properly express. Abbi, small and just eighteen and too young to understand the mistake she made and the fear that is so different from what she aggressively fights against, pushes it all down. If she washes her face and hides the dress in the back of her closet she can forget whatever her goal had been at the beginning of the night.
When she falls into her bed a few minutes later, all she can think of before she passes out is that the portal tech who’d flirted with her had looked like the man in the bar, and that that night she has awful nightmares.
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Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2015 2:03 am
Drink Me
Someone in her life, she cannot recall who or if it were merely something she’d heard someone on TV say and assimilated it into the fuzzy memories she keeps of her old life, has said “Never drink alone”.
Abbi, in her infinite wisdom and disregard for heeding such things, ignores this advice.
In her defense, she has gotten drunk a few times with others involved. The trip to Prague with Jack will always be burned into her mind like a brand that has begun to fade at the edges, clear in places but remembered in waves of pure emotion in others. This past Halloween she drank with Chel and others, forgot about her own worries in the face of helping her friend have a good night.
But most of the time, she likes to be alone.
There are no messy emotions when she is alone, not the kind that she can spill out for others to see and react to. When she is on her own they stay in her head, or disappear as soon as she voices them, they leave her mouth and dissolve into air and she can forget them for a night. There is also no one to tell her “No”, and there is only her poor judgement to go off on. If she closes the door and invites only the ghost in her head into the room, she has no fear of worrying someone with the way she drinks to forget.
And how altogether tragic and childish is that? Drinking like she’s lost something, like she’s ever had anything enough to have lost it in the first place. Those thoughts put the girl off her cup, for they are self pitying and she does enough of that while sober to not bother doing it tipsy. Were Viveca able to speak properly during these times she might have offered the wise idea that maybe that’s why Abbi pursues such liquid indulgences, just a momentary set aside of her woes that she otherwise so tightly clings to and nearly attempts to define herself by. But the ghost cannot form anything but a wispy, half-fleshed out opinion and, though she won’t ever fully look at the idea straight on, that’s exactly how Abbi likes it.
So when the girl returns to her room after her conversation with Chel, where she spills what little she is willing to slosh of her heart out and then runs away, she locks the door and pulls out a glass. There is only a bottle of whiskey she meant to gift to someone, she can’t remember despite her best attempts and angrily uncorks it despite how much she loathes the taste. In the end she doesn’t drink it for the flavor (of which she is convinced only tastes like crushed up aspirin and apples, and therefore hates it all the more), but to dull everything.
Later on in the evening when she is sitting on her floor, a mess of books and notes and her own writing strewn across the pastel rug, she cannot figure it out. There is no indication in any of these pages as to where she misstepped, there isn’t a single day or entry or clue as to where she got off the path she’d laid out for herself.
And it is then, when her ghost is subdued and slurring, that Abbi remembers... Oh yes, she never had one. It has always been this alone, and this confusing, and this dark, and this arduous.
Even a good drink doesn’t help that.
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