If you were suspicious about the aurora that started up a few days ago, it seems like you have good reason to be. Ever since they began, no one seems to be able to get a good night’s sleep. Fatigue is setting across the town, making people a little extra cranky. It’s a complete downer to the holiday cheer but no one seems to know what to do. There’s no sign that there’s anything supernatural about the aurora, but there’s certainly something odd about it. People lucky enough to even fall asleep only get to rest for a few moments before they are violently jostled awake by the sensation of falling through a rainbow of colors. Some worse off may suffer from the sensation of drowning beneath strange, rainbow colored water. People are passing out from fatigue and some people are suffering from strange vertigo. There doesn’t seem to be an end in sight.
The night the aurora started Afton had told Hartley that information about it and the investigations it spurred would pop up online as soon as everyone started to figure out what was going on. Within hours the first pictures had popped up and by the twenty-four mark it seemed like additional speculations were being made. A wave of insomnia had struck Destiny City; not too strange for a city that seemed as though it never slept to begin with, but reports of nightmares were also filtering in through various 'Strange Things' blogs.
Rubbing at his nose, Afton closed his laptop, the bright, white glow's disappearance making it all the more tempting to sleep. He was one of those who had been bitten by the insomnia bug and the odd dreams that accompanied it. He and Hartley had tried to chase sleep by staying up late and playing video games. Hart had, finally, drifted off, stretched out on the recliner and piled beneath blankets, and he... He felt like he was no closer to sleep than he had been hours ago, distracted by the thought of the colored lights dancing through the skies outside.
Grymoire
Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 1:28 pm
Hartley shifted in his sleep, scrunching himself up in the chair before he woke up with a start. His hands clutched at the arm of the recliner, half in fear of throwing himself off as his eyes looked around for a moment, not quite sure where he was as he coughed a few times trying to clear water that wasn't actually there.
Whatever he'd been dreaming had been so vivid he could still feel the water in his throat and feel it all around him. While he tried to get his breathing back under control he pulled the blankets tighter around him trying to convince himself he didn't feel cold or wet anymore.
He jumped as he heard Hartley suck in a breath of air, eyes wide as the other young man started coughing. It was enough to get him up off of the couch and over to the other's side after flipping on the light.
"Hart... Hey, Hart." He crouched down by the arm of the recliner, reaching over to lightly brush his fingers through the other man's hair. He didn't want to startle him any further, but if there was any way at all he could draw him back from whatever nightmare he was having, he wanted. to. "It's alright. I'm here."
Grymoire
Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 3:18 pm
"A-Afton?" Hartley's voice was a bit horse almost as if he'd been coughing for far longer than he had. He still looked a little dazed and out of everything but at least that was starting to fade. He knew he wasn't drowning anymore, could see that he was sitting in the recliner he'd fallen asleep in with Afton in front of him. But the cold chill of the water still clung to him despite knowing it wasn't real
After a moment he closed his eyes and leaned his head toward the comforting touch of Afton's fingers as he reached up to hold onto the other man's wrist.. "I ... i thought i was drowning. It felt like I was drowning."
The feeling was starting to pass but that wasn't something he ever wanted to deal with again.
"It's me, yeah." He nodded, threading his fingers loosely through Hartley's hair again. "You woke up pretty hard and then started sputtering. Just wanted to make sure you were alright." The dreams he'd had during the brief amount of sleep he'd gotten hadn't involved drowning, but he had felt like he was fallingsomething through something that was way too close to being the Rainbow Road from Mario Kart for his liking.
"Are you alright? Can you breathe now?"
Grymoire
Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 5:18 pm
"I don't know if I'm alright. I'm alive ... not drowning ... but alright seems to be pushing it a bit." He'd been so exhausted when he'd finally managed to fall asleep and now he didn't feel like he'd slept for even a minute. The whole feeling made him want to cry but he also didn't want to put that on Afton. His friend was just as tired as he was and as far as Hartley knew Afton hadn't been able to get any sleep. The last thing he needed to do was pile more crap onto his friend.
Hartley did nod at the question though. "Yea, i can breath. I'm sorry for waking you up or interrupting whatever it was you were doing." He reached up to rub his eyes before pushing his hair out of his face. He must have been tossing a bit in his sleep given how messed up it felt.
"Scrolling through the bottomless abyss of the internet to see if anyone's figured out what's causing the aurora... Or the lack of sleep... Or anything else." He sat down on the floor next to the recliner for a moment, eyes closed as he rested his head against the arm. He could sleep if he just settled like this, if he could just keep his eyes closed, if...
The moment he started to drift the flood of color returned and he was bolt-awake again, eyes wide as he sucked in a startled breath. "I think... I think I've got an idea. It's probably a stupid idea, but we're no good to anyone, let alone ourselves, if we don't get any sleep."
Afton pushed himself up to his feet, dusting his pants off before heading to the couch to pull together his blanket after stuffing a few pillows into it and rolling everything to a ball. "Get your stuff together. I'll be right back."
Grymoire
Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 5:52 pm
"You would think with how many smart people who live in Destiny City they'd have figured it out by now." Then again if people were really that smart they'd have figured out all of the other strange things that went on in the city. So far no one had been that smart so some strange lights that were causing people to not be able to sleep . No one had even been able to tell them how the lights got there. Despite all the theories that were floating around.
When Afton put his head down he reached out and ran his fingers though his friends hair, jumping when Afton started up and looked a bit freaked out. He'd have worried he'd done something wrong if he didn't know even nodding off wasn't a good idea now.
When the other man got up though he scrunched his nose, confused. "Idea? All my stuff's in my bag except my blankets ..." and he was wrapped up in those, and a couple of Aftons.
He'd gone to his room to retrieve the ring he'd found while going through an old cigar box filled with things that had been passed down through his family for generations. His mother, for whatever reason, had decided that he should have the box after she found it while cleaning out the attic. Fortunately for him, her hunch that he might take interest in some of the items was correct as one of them was a ring in which the sigils of Neptune had been etched.
He put the ring onto his finger before returning to the living room, scooping up the sack he'd made out of the blanket now carrying pillows to toss over his shoulder. "I know somewhere that we can go to get away from all of this." He'd been waiting for better circumstances to talk to Hartley about it; more confidence in what it was and what it meant, but... Desperate times.
"You trust me, right?"
Grymoire
Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2018 6:19 pm
"Well, yes. Of course I trust you." Hartley got up when Afton came back, wrapping the blankets around himself since he still felt far too cold to let them go. Wondering what was going on he pulled his pillows up off the recliner before joining his friend.
Hartley was confused but he also didn't think Afton would do anything actually bad to either of them. And if he could find a way to make sure they could both sleep? He'd take it, take anything, at this point.
"Perfect," he said as he stepped closer to Hartley, wrapping an arm around his friend to keep him steady. He'd only asked his Wonder to welcome him a handful of times; none that he'd spoken about with anyone other than the Cosmos Knight who'd encouraged the process. He had wanted to make sure that things were perfect before bringing Hartley, but sleep was so very, very important... Surely his friend would understand.
