Quest 220

[primrosella]

[Dream | Off-Network]

She is walking down the stairs in the ancient manor house, taking the steps in time with the ticking of the grandfather clock--tick, tock, tick, tock--holding her skirts out of the way with one hand and guiding herself along the bannister with the other. Tick, tock. The room is dark. The lights are out. There is somewhere that she needs to go, she knows, and something in the room upstairs that she does not want to be near. The wood is smooth beneath her fingers, and she does not look behind her. Tick, tock.

Down, down, down she goes, the floorboards creaking as she walks into the next room, the parlor. The painting on the wall follows her with its eyes as she crosses the room, past empty shelves and dusty furniture. Her steps are quicker now; once, she was keeping perfect time with the clock, but now she is walking more rapidly, almost to the point of doubling her original speed. She must hurry. There is a latch on the wall. The painting stares at it for her, and her fingers fumble to locate it. The metal is old, and stiff with lack of use, and it takes her several precious moments of effort to urge it to open.

The something is on the stairs now. Tick, tock.

She pushes, and pleads, and finally the hidden door begins to swing open; she grabs at it as soon as there is room to slip her fingers through, foregoing the latch to pull it open manually instead. Another precious few seconds lost. The painting is staring, its eyes fixed on her actions, and the footsteps are getting louder, louder, like the ticking of the clock. Something is coming. The door continues to resist.

At last she urges it open enough to slip through, pulling it closed behind her to conceal the hidden room. Will the portrait give her away? It knows where she is.

There was a shovel here, once, propped against the stones near the foot of the winding wooden stairs, but this time the hidden room is dark and empty, and littered all over with cobwebs. There is scratching at the wall behind her; she cannot go back. She must go up, up, into the stairs and the clanking creaking gears. She can hear them grind above her head, shifting and rattling as they move in time with the ticking. Ticking. Ticking.

Up, up, as fast as she can, her feet threatening to slip on the narrow, slick wood. Up the twisting steps, around and around, her hands clasped over her ears. Has the something opened the door beneath her? The webs hang down into her face, clinging to her hair, and they only get thicker as she gets higher and higher. And soon she cannot cover her ears any longer; she must use her hands to bat them out of the way, clearing a path for herself to go on.

Where is the something? Tick, tock. Is it on the stairs? Tick, tock.

And soon the wisps of web turn into wisps of fog, and she steps out into blue sky and white cloud. A dragon once loomed here, but there is no sign of it now, not in her dreams in the Land of the Clouds. She will hide here, she thinks. She is safe here. It will not get her now.

There are faces behind the trees, glimpses of people she knows. Dark hair. A blue jacket. A silver-topped cane. A brown braid.

Where are they?

Their voices whisper in time with the clock: "Help me. Over here. I don't want to die alone..."

She hurries forward, finding her way through the clouds as easily as if she were dancing the steps in a ballroom. She is not afraid of the edge. She knows where to step, which footholds will support her, and which wisps disguise nothing but empty air below.

She is three steps from the edge when the spider's legs burst from the clouds.

The gears rattle as she screams, as she stumbles backward, as the voices of her friends spill from the giant spider's jaws as it lurches toward her. The clouds are webs beneath her, sticking to her, engulfing her, and the more she struggles, the tighter she is bound. She falls back, catching herself on her hands, and screams and screams and screams--

And then she is falling, falling through the webs and the clouds, falling through the air as the river rushes beneath her and the ground opens up into a grave, as the darkness swallows her and the clock begins to sound a death knell and rotting hands reach up from the catacombs to pull her in, pull her down, drown her in its depths--

[/Dream]

[Accidental Video Post]

[The device switches on to the sound of a clatter and a sharp gasp, as the video displays a crooked view of what appears to be a very messy bedroom, as viewed from a camera that has just been dropped on the ground--or, perhaps more accurately, knocked off a bedside table. It is dim in the room, and difficult to see; all the indoor lights are off, but there is enough light seeping in from the window to make out the shape of someone sitting up in bed, clutching her rumpled blankets to her chest.

The motion of her head is visible as her eyes dart around the room, apparently looking for something, but then she lets out a slow breath as her shoulders slump, having found nothing. Her hand comes up to rest against her chest, as if the light pressure will help to calm the rapid pace of her heart. Then, after a few calming breaths, she silently swings her legs out of bed and creeps to the door, pulling it open a crack and peeking out as though expecting to see someone outside it.]

Sam...?

[ But after a moment of inspection, she sighs again, shaking her head as she pushes her door shut with a click and returns to her bed, murmuring under her breath: ]

No. No, of course not. Silly, thinking that...ngh.

[Once she has taken the time to straighten out her covers--apparently still oblivous to the fact that her device is on--she climbs back into bed and settles herself in with the covers pulled to her chin, her hair pooled around her on her her pillow as she stares tiredly at the ceiling.]

Drat that ticking.

[And the video holds silently on that image for another minute before finally flickering off.]


[OOC: So last Wednesday, Rosella got a fortune cookie that read "Darkness will bring many things to light"--namely, the fact that she still has nightmares about the events of the past few months, and more notably that she's back to hearing the ticking at night again, now that Duo has gone home and she's once again alone in the Warehouse. Little did she know that bringing them to light meant...broadcasting them to the Network. >>

So yes, this post really does take place in the middle of the night, but feel free to backdate, forward-date, have your character respond to it hours after the fact, whatever! Time is a fluid and beautiful thing. Just let me know so I can have Rosella respond accordingly, since she'll be a lot more startled at random voices in the middle of the night than she will at commentary in the morning.]

Comments

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Well, if they were trying to give me a good fright, they certainly managed that. I think I must've jumped a mile when people started speaking with me all of a sudden and I didn't know where their voices were coming from.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Of course, all those voices were out of concern, you know. I did see what happened.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

I know.

...I tried to take it down, you know, and it wouldn't let me.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

That's not so unusual. I've had the same problem myself before.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

No, but I still wish I could've. It was only a nightmare, but that doesn't mean it's something everyone needs to see.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

And we all have nightmares from time to time, of course.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's only to be expected, really, with some of the things we see that go on here. Curses and murders and that awful Rumplestiltskin running around...ugh.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

After all that, yes, it's only to be expected.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

But it helped a little, having Yvaine around. And...really, there's no sense in dwelling on it now. It's only a nightmare, and there are much nicer things to think about than something silly like that.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

You are the optimist between us, and that does seem the optimistic approach.

Shall I suggest the nicer things to think about? Perhaps the fact that we're now more than halfway through the month and the curses have been milder than usual.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I like that much better. And it's true, they have been rather easy, haven't they? I remember there was talk of one where everyone was trying to behead each other, but I think I must've missed that one. And it's so nice to have a quieter month now, without all the trouble and mischief and worry.

Perhaps it's just a lucky month, this one. It certainly started off on a pleasant note.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, there was that one early in the month, but most all of the ones after that have been mild.

I don't believe in luck, but I will say it hasn't been as bad as it might have been.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

I would've called it a fortunate one, you know, but that just makes me think of those silly cookies we had earlier this week. They really do seem to be the talk of the Network lately, don't they?

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

They really do, which is ridiculous, of course, since it's only chance that made one pick this cookie over that one, so the fortune only means something because one wants it to. Everyone's more or less talking about having noticed a pattern in a particular cloud and putting some kind of meaning on it.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Still, they're harmless, aren't they? And it's something to talk about, whether or not there's any truth to it. After all, true or not, isn't half the fun of a fortune the way it makes you think?

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Of course they're harmless, but people seem to believe them a little more than I think is sensible. Because the other half of a fortune is believing or half-believing that it might just come true.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

And perhaps they'd think you believe in them a bit less than is sensible. It is the City that's behind it, after all.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know, but even the City doesn't know the future.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

At least not our futures at home. I suppose it might know our future in that it knows what it intends to send at us next, though, wouldn't it? But that's a little different than these fortunes, even so.

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

The 'deities' might know who's going to be struck by which curse and when, that is quite possible. But there's no way for them to know any more of our futures than that. And I wouldn't be surprised if even that can change.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

You don't think there's anything set about the future at all, then? It's all still waiting to be made?

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

Of course there's nothing set about the future at all. It hasn't happened. How can any part of it be set?

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

It's just something to wonder about. If perhaps there are some things that are always set to happen, no matter how we go about them. I don't know if I believe that everything about my future is set and I can't change it at all...but there might be some things that won't change no matter what I do, either. That'd take care of both sides of it, wouldn't it?

[misterblackbird.livejournal.com]

It would, but it puts you in a rather pathetic and helpless situation--one with which I do not agree.

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

That what bothers you most about it, isn't it? The thought of being helpless. It doesn't matter whether the future you see is good or bad, it's just that you have no say in what it is.