2019-06-17 - Dreams Inside Dreams

The heat is so overwhelming that before any other sense kicks in, it envelops the body and sets the tone. The blindingly beige-ness of the light and the environment comes next, with it's tans, browns and taupes. And soon in becomes clear that they are on the move, in a tightly packed military vehicle bouncing along the roads at a steady clip that feels interminibly slow due to the oppressive, ever present heat. Everyone in the vehicle is turned out in full gear, from helmets to weapons safeties on in their laps. The HUMVEE is packed to the gill and in fact has an entire extra row of Marines behind them, the men who actually rode on this mission, that wouldn't exist in the real world. Aidan, Baylee and Bennie line the middle row, equipped like all the others, as if they belonged. They do not.

Up front Second Lieutenant Tom Richmond has the wheel, sunglasses on he has his game face on but keeps up a steady stream of jokes and stories as he drives. In the passenger seat is Easton, likewise in full gear, a backwards baseball cap that is definitely not allowed but worn anyway on top of his head instead of a helmet. He smiles and jokes along with Tom as they ride, eyes scanning the road ahead with alertness but still very much invested in making sure that "Banks" gets the details right.

Tom continues, "So he gets about half the pineapple up his ass, in chunks and.."

And right there Easton looks back into the backseat and his eyes go wide, and all the color drains from his face. He makes a sputtering, choking noise as he tries to yell. The panic on his face is clear as he punches Tom hard in the shoulder indicating to stop or pull off the road. Tom for some reason views this as him continuing the joke and doesn't deviate or slow down at all. Easton, almost wild with panic at this point looks at the road ahead and sees it. The pile of garbage on the side of the road, the one he failed to see as a threat the first time around. He tries to grab the wheel from Tom, waving frantically at the three in the backseat to get out. There's no sound coming from his throat though, only the frantic movements and roiling waves of panic rolling off of him.

Pineapple smells like vacation.

The bump of the uneven road, the sweat dripping into her eyes. The heaviness of the helmet as it caps her blonde hair. Bennie knows all of this is wrong, but that doesn't stop it from feeling so incredibly real. She looks down at her dusty hands gripping the metal of her assault rifle that lays across her lap. Normally manicured nails have grit beneath them, knuckles so dry they're cracked. She hates guns with a passion, but knows they are a necessary evil. She really should field strip it and give it a good cleaning, oil it so that the dust doesn't slow its mechanics but she just can't remember how to do that. The press of likewise kitted out bodies is almost stifling and claustrophobic, and she finds herself looking forward to the details of the story that the driver tells because it's a welcome distraction from their mission.

Wait. What is their mission again?

Bennie's head snaps up as the HUMVEE jerks from Easton's frantic grip on the wheel and her eyes widen as he warns them in a soundless scream.

"Get out, get out, get out!" She shouts in a hoarse voice, throwing her shoulder into the door as she pops the latch, heedless of the velocity they are traveling and the impending pain of launching herself from the moving vehicle.

Sand.

It gets everywhere. It always does, and it isn't always the most pleasant of things even when there is an ocean out there to rinse off in, to cool off in. But here there isn't anything to cut the heat, except the drops of sweat that slide down grimy skin and drip into eyes to cause them to sting and burn. Baylee doesn't seem to be any more happy about the oppressive heat and press of bodies that make the heat even worse, her shoulders tense, and a glare offered for the sand outside the moving HUMVEE.

Wrong. Wrong. It's so wrong. Maybe that wrongness is what really bothers her instead of the heat? It's a puzzle that she never really has time to work out as not Easton's wordless scream, but Bennie's hoarse shout reaches her ears, and her attention snaps over towards her, eyes widening in alarm at the jerk of the vehicle and the popping of that door open, "We're going too fast!"

That heat makes everything feel like molasses. The air, the movement of the vehicle, the thoughts that run through Aidan's brain. It brings a faint familiarity that's rapidly overcome by the creeping sense of Wrong. Things shouldn't be this hot. Things shouldn't be this beige. Things shouldn't include a gun in his lap and a helmet making it feel like even his hair's sweating. Things shouldn't include that silent scream that interrupts the story with Easton's jerk on the wheel, or the wave of panic that comes off of him.

It washes over the trio in the middle seat, Aidan finding himself almost automatically starting to do as he's shouted at, hand on the other latch. Heat or not, their pace does seem suddenly faster than it did, now that the concept of jumping out's at hand. And now that Baylee's mentioned it. A thought shoots through his mind, quicker now despite the heat -- a bottle across the room to a hand, a distant door slamming. "Hit the brakes," he says urgently, trying to share the thought with both Baylee and Easton, the image of their powers, even as he's still getting that door open. Are there better plans? Probably. Does he have one? Nope.

Easton is at least somewhat relieved that the three in the back seem to get his meaning even if he can't talk. He then turns to grab Tom roughly by the shoulders, not remembering about things like paranormal abilities. Tom shrugs him off though with a laugh as if this were some hilarious prank that he were pulling, all the while driving straight towards his would be death. Thankfully Aidan remains a cooler head and is able to communicate a plan to Easton in the midst of the chaos. Easton closes his eyes and pushes down on the brake and lifts Tom's foot up off the accelerator. He knows it's not enough to stop in time, but it's enough to slow down the vehicle so the others could jump. They can make it out, and Easton figures he's supposed to be in the vehicle. Yes, it doesn't make much sense if you think about it and what could happen, but in the moment it just feels right.

This noble move is interrupted, not by an exploding IED, no, but by a 20 foot tall severed leg. Look, it's fucking weird dream.

The leg, or more precisely burnt and mangled left foot with most of the shin and calf attached to it kicks the HUMVEE, sending it rolling. The whole crew is thrown about, bashing into ceiling and one another. Easton cracks his head against first the window and then the ceilings. The vehicle does multiple rolls and somewhere in the middle Easton's voice returns. He calls out, not for Bennie or his other fellow Glimmerati, no, but "Banks!" Because even in the chaos Easton can clearly seen that Tom is dead, a lifeless, charred corpse crashing around. The severed giant foot may have saved them from exploding in this dream, but it didn't undo history. The carrier lands with a thud, upside down, Easton slumped awkwardly on his neck on the roof. And as much as he would like to check on the people in the back seat, to snap into action and get everyone clear and to safety, he finds that he can't. All he can do is screw his eyes shut so that he doesn't have to see Tom's body again. And soon the heat fades, the disorientation of being upside down fades, but the memory of it remains very much in tact.

One minute Bennie is contemplating jumping out of the moving vehicle, and the next, the HUMVEE is sent tumbling. She remembers being thrown out of the open door and the feeling of tumbling....tumbling...tumbling...

The four suddenly find themselves in what Easton would recognize as Bennie's trailer, huddled together on the kitchen floor. It is one of the least glamorous in the park, and that's saying something. The linoleum they are sitting on is cracked and stained, most of the cabinet's doors are hanging crooked and the appliances look as if they work simply by sheer will and slapdash repair done by an unskilled hand.

The rolling of the HUMVEE has become the violent shaking of the trailer, as if a tornado is threatening to pluck it from its slot. A fierce wind howls outside, rattling the windows and punctuated by the eerie creak of vinyl siding being torn off. But no, it's not the sound of wind. It's the raucous laughter of voices. Voices taunting and jeering as the trailer continues to rock back and forth like it's going to be pushed over.

"We know you're in theeeeeere. You can't hide forever! Come out, come out, where ever you are, or we'll BURN YOU OUT."

Bennie pulls her knees tight to her chest, hands clamped over her ears and eyes pinched shut as if she can just will them to be gone. "If we just stay down, they can't see us. They'll go away. They'll go away. They'll go away." It becomes her mantra.

There is a very broken scream of surprise when that HUMVEE goes flying, and against all better instincts Baylee's arms go out to try and brace herself, the gun lost in the shuffle, and when everything rights itself once more and they end up on the floor of a trailer, her arms are still spread out, like she's really about to save herself with the position.

"Bloody hell..." The words are slowly whispered out as she takes in the new surroundings, then as soon as she recognizes this is still so very NOT RIGHT, her eyes find Aidan. It's a quick check, making sure he's not some poor broken doll on the san......kitchen floor. It doesn't help. No, the shifting of the realities and situations only serves to actually set her off, and the words from the creepy sorts penetrate a brain that simply is not equipped to handle this kind of bad trip are answered by her doing exactly the opposite of what Bennie says they should do.

"I'll come out you fucking wanker! You just stand right there and stop shaking us like we're bad little children and I'll fucking show you!" Listening, not her best ability when her blood is up. Sorry Bennie.

Considering he suggested it, Aidan should probably be more prepared for the jolt as the vehicle sharply slows, but as it is he lists dangerously toward the unlatched door, and has to grab on more tightly to keep from tumbling right out immediately. As it is, his gun does instead, and he clings in place waiting for the moment the speed seems low enough to go. It's just got to that when two things happen: it registers with him that Easton doesn't seem to be moving himself, and a giant ruined leg appears from nowhere to try for a field goal. He looses a sizable yelp as the vehicle starts to tumble, and tumbles out the door along the way with a cry that breaks off fairly suddenly as they go.

When the dust settles he's outside on the sand, but not for long before he is, in fact, inside on the linoleum, sore but apparently intact, and pushing up to desperately look for and at the others. Baylee first, then Easton and Bennie as the voices carry into the trailer. He looks that way, catching his breath, eyes narrowing as the voices get to their threat; something tightens through him there. A hand grabs the counter, then another, and he hauls himself up to his feet as Baylee yells out at them. "Who are they?" he asks, a good deal quieter, as he tries to drag himself over to where he can peek out the window without falling over. Or being spotted, he can hope, though who knows. "If they wanna try to burn us, I'll burn them first..." Still quiet, but with a fierce anger in it, a heat that seems like it could become somehow palpable any moment. Like it wants to, whether he necessarily does or not. But no immediate screams of anyone bursting into flame outside, as yet...

Easton doesn't even realize they've switched places until the voice comes in from outside. He opens his eyes, looking around in confusion, the sweat still streaming down his face. He tries to orientate himself in the new surroundings. He seems to be dazed until Baylee yells back. He says first in a whisper, "..they're armed.." before he finds his voice and states louder to the group, "They're likely armed. Be careful." He's not sure if this is the same scenario he was in before, or just another variation on what was possibly a common occurrence for her. He didn't feel like it was something you should ask. Stupid not prying.

He's still dressed in his camoflage and greens but of course he looks around to find that his weapon is gone. That would be too easy. He looks to Aidan and Baylee and says, "Only one entrance, be ready to take them if they come in and stay away from the windows."

And then he's moving to Bennie, putting an arm around her and saying, "It's alright. This isn't real. It's just.. super fucked up. But I'm here. And you kicked the shit out of these guys last time. You're not a little helpless tiny you here." Having just gone through his own version of this he knows how little those words might mean or help, but it's worth a shot.

At Baylee’s yell, there is a round of sardonic laughter from outside, echoing off all the walls inside the trailer so it’s impossible to tell where it’s coming from, if it’s one voice or many surrounding them.

“Show us yours, and we’ll show you ours!” The shaking continues, noises as if the gang outside is tearing their way in straight through the walls. The scrape of wood, the screech of peeled siding, the twisted sound of wrenching metal. They’re not taking conventional ways in as Easton has warned against, they’re taking the direct route of straight through.

“They’ll go away. They’ll go away.” Bennie repeats, looking at Easton almost blindly, as if she doesn’t recognize him in his BDUs or at all. But what she does see is the bottle of pills on the counter just past him, and she lurches for it. “They’ll go away.” Only this time, the words seem more resolute.

Her fingers fumble the bottle, and the orange plastic container hits the linoleum floor, sending a shower of white pills plunking on the cracked linoleum floor just as Aidan peeks out the window and a beer bottle smashes through it. It’s that combined sound that carries them back into the dark ether of shifting dreams.

"FUCK YOU!"

Baylee makes a lunge towards the door, prepared to fling herself outside and fight whatever mysterious thing is trying to punch it's way through the trailer, but then the rocking of the trailer, the screech of the metal, and the smashing of glass twists and morphs into music. The walls of the trailer are gone, replaced with the press of sweaty bodies all gyrating and moving to the sound of the music in euphoric ecstasy.

Bright lights flash and dance in an otherwise dark warehouse, the air thick with pot smoke, cigarette smoke, and the sickly sweet vapor of fog machines. Baylee trips when the door vanishes, and hits the ground on her knees, "Oh...fuck..." The sound is a pained one as she seems to recognize the place, or the time, and her usual too cool for school exterior starts to fall apart, "No..no no no no..."

The perceptive would notice that while everyone dances there is one lone figure on the floor, the moving feet of people stepping over, and on, them while they lay motionless beneath them, not even seeming to breathe. "Fuck, no...not again." She starts to scramble across the floor, not even bothering to get up from where she's fallen, and entirely blind to the fact that she didn't end up here alone.

Aidan doesn't do any flinging, but he does look like he's probably right about to start taking the invaders up on their invitation, eyes closing as though it's easier if he's not distracted by what's around him. And if he's planning to attack people he can't see, maybe it is. He's still holding on tightly to the counter to stay upright through the shaking, so when it suddenly stops -- and the counter is suddenly gone -- he stumbles hard, eyes opening into the darkness and the flashing lights. He manages to catch himself, though it involves bumping into a dancer who gives a 'hey!' of protest and gets a distracted, confused 'sorry' in reply. The dancer probably concludes Aidan's high, which isn't exactly unfair.

Hard to be certain whether Aidan's perceptive enough to catch just what has Baylee's attention among all this noise and movement and visual chaos -- he does seem to follow the look that way, but there's a lot in the way -- but he's more than perceptive enough to see her, either way, and starts after her, faster as he's on both feet but winding through dancers to catch up to her. "Baylee," he calls, trying to draw her up to her feet when he gets close enough, but not to stop her progress. "Where are we?" Aside from an otherwise pretty decent-looking party, presumably. It's clearer then that he does see the form there; it gets a worried look.

Easton stands up inside the trailer and concentrates on the chairs at the dining room table, feeling their weight with his mind, getting ready to fling them at the first person through the breach. He keeps an eye on Bennie but somehow loses sight of her after a long blink. Or maybe it's the smoke and flashing lights. Wait what?

Easton takes in the beat of the music, the atmosphere around him and he looks for Bennie. A grin slowly creeps along his face, "Oh fuck yea.. someone knows how to party." He doesn't seem to have learned his lesson that good things can be deceiving in a place like this, despite his prior experiences. And then something catches his attention, his head snaps around with his full focus on something he caught out of the corner of his eye. That was a drug deal! Easton smile grows even broader, and he is about to go off in search of a score when he catches sight of the person on the floor. He tries to look back for Bennie before moving towards the down person, face shoving dancing revelers out of the way, "Move!"

Bennie is likewise on her knees but not because she launched herself at the door like some sort of hero, no she’s busy frantically searching the ground from the spilled pills amidst the feet of the gyrating bodies. Her palms find nothing, and a sad little mewl of despair leaves her lips. It’s not until she sits back on her haunches that she realizes the dream has shifted again, and she slowly rises among those dancing like a pale wraith.

She’s lost track of the others, and that alone raises a new panic in her throat. She starts weaving through bodies, bumping shoulders and getting shoved aside, bouncing between the unfamiliar faces like a pinball in a game of human flippers and bumpers. “Guys! Easton?” She calls, but her voice seems rather small amidst the thrum of music. It’s just happenstance she converges with the others, more or less stumbling up on the immobile body on the floor and her hand reaches for Easton’s elbow.

“They need help!”

"No no no...no... no." Baylee is quite insistent on whatever is happening NOT happen. But no one is that lucky, because people keep moving, keep dancing into the way, blocking her. Even Easton only seems to get so far before another wave of the dancers wanders in between him and the shape on the floor.

The music is hard hitting, the bass thumping in that way that literally causes the chest to vibrate with the sound, and it just starts to get louder, pulsing to the beat of....a heart? It has that steady pace, like either it is influenced by the beat of a heart, or it is influencing the pace of their hearts. Baylee turns to stare at Aidan, easily drug up onto her feet, "Birdie....not Birdie." She pleads with him, but doesn't quite seem to see him for who he is. A kind, helpful soul that is keeping her upright.

Not stopping, though. As soon as her feet are under her, and her lamentations are shared, she tries to drag herself out of Aidan's arms to head forward again, only to get pushed back by the swell of the crowd.

Flickering light, the rhythmic heartbeat-bass and sharper percussive hits, the warmth of that press of bodies all around -- for a moment, as Aidan fruitlessly tries to help move people aside so Baylee can get through, it's as though nothing's changing, nothing changed. But there's a different quality to the way the light changes, less rhythm to the crackles and pops that take over the soundscape, and that warmth edges swiftly toward a heat as oppressive as the desert in which they began. The press of bodies impeding them lightens, dissolves, letting them move freely again. But the form on the floor is gone. The people are gone. The warehouse is gone, or at least appears to be.

What they're surrounded by instead is-- confusing. Built in the way only a dreamscape could be, though in the moment it feels as real as anything. Closest to them it feels like a house, a house about double-scale, or maybe they're just smaller than they should be. It would be a pleasant house, a comfortable and homey place, if it didn't appear to be constructed entirely of flame. Flame composes all the forms that suggest walls and furniture and lights, and THAT flame appears to be on fire as well. Everything around them is fire except for a circle that surrounds them, only a foot or two beyond their reach and seeming to be closing in. Within it, there's nothing but the four of them.

The crackles and pops are louder now, threatening, threaded with whispers and threatening murmurs from which only a word here and there can be caught. And quietly, at the edge of hearing, crying; it intensifies into whimpers, then screams of terror and agony that seem to echo from every quarter, never quite drowning out the unintelligible but mocking, gloating hiss of the voices.

In the center of the unburnt circle is Aidan, suddenly stock still. His eyes are wide, gaze flickering everywhere but not quite seeming to see; hands clenched by his sides, a faint nimbus of flame surrounding them and creeping very slowly up along his arms. No visible burns occuring, and he seems oblivious to it. The heat continues to rise around them, both sets of voices melding into a louder and louder cacophony of hate and pain as the ring of fire slowly but inexorably converges.

As the waves of people push back against him Easton starts to get more insistent. Pushing people aside becomes punching people, he snarls, "Move it shithead!" As he tries to get through the crowd. When Bennie takes his elbow he spins on her before realizing who it is. "Shit. Sorry, I'm trying!" He turns back to the wave of people and then stops short as they dissolve into flames.

Easton stands very still and pulls Bennie closer to him instinctively despite the heat. He looks around and says, "Oh fuuuck." as he takes in the seriousness of where they are. Sure he doesn't get the implication yet that they're seeing the house burning as a child sized versions of themselves, but he might piece that together later. For right now he's trying to stay in the safe circle with Bennie.

"Aidan. Aidan!" He calls out to him and then tries to reach him mentally. He closes his eyes and projects the image of someone blowing out a candle. Sure a fire extinguisher might be better, but this is what he comes up with.

The press of bodies turns in the press of flames and the arm around Bennie's waist is the only thing anchoring her. She turns her face into Easton's shoulder against the sting of heat on her cheeks, hands clinging to his shirt. They're trapped. This is how they're finally going to die but unlike a normal dream, she's not sure that means they're going to wake up. There's nothing she can do against the fire that rages, but as Easton calls out Aidan's name, she dares a peek in that direction only to see Aidan's fists engulfed by flames. Did he do this? Is he the cause?

"Aidan, please! Make it stop!" Bennie pleads, as she presses tighter into Easton's frame just as the smell of burnt hair reaches her nostrils.

As soon as the resistance ends Baylee makes a joyous sound that ends abruptly in horror as the warehouse and dancing figures is replaced with dancing of an entirely different kind. As someone that has been burnt a few times recently she back peddles. Quickly. "Shit..." There is a quick, panicked look around, trying to find an exit, a way through the fire, and not managing to find anything other than more fire.

And them. Aidan. Bennie. Easton.

There is a look towards Bennie and Easton, then how close the fire seems to be getting before she changes directions. No longer trying to get to some body out in the dance floor that isn't there, but towards Aidan. "Aidan!" Regardless of the potential flammability of her body, the burnability of her skin, she throws herself into him, hands grabbing his face and trying to more physically drag his attention back to them by grabbing for his face. "Look at me!"

The image gets through; that's clear enough by the fact that Aidan's gaze falls onto Easton then, and seems to actually focus. The look in it, though, is terror shot through by pleading, helpless, as if he doesn't know what to do with the image, or can't. A venomous mutter of words in no identifiable language yanks his attention away again, then, and the flames continue to converge. By the time Baylee grabs at him, the nimbus has climbed up along his arms and is beginning to spread over his shoulders and down alog his torso -- but just as it doesn't seem to be damaging him, it doesn't damage her, either. It does make him move, that contact, his hands coming up sharply to clap over his ears, fingers curling into his hair just above them, eyes closing tight.

And then they crack open again, focusing on her, registering more clearly, and a blink. Though the flames don't stop nearing, there's a faint sense of change in scale, the inferno around them no less dangerous but a little less towering, and his gaze flicks to Bennie, then catches Easton again. Maybe this time the memory of that image hits more fertile dirt; there's a furrow in his brow, and as he looks back to Baylee, it solidifies into determination, his jaw tightening. His hands drop to his sides, and then lift again, a fast and dramatic movement up and outward, like Moses parting the red sea, and-- the fire parts, a slim charred pathway opening between the four of them and an open doorway, dark against the blinding light of the surrounding flames. Tiny flames dance down that path ahead of them as if leading the way, even as the larger ones that line it writhe like they're fighting to burn the invisible barrier. It does nothing for the sound -- if anything, the sound is worse, the screams more pained, the voices more accusing, and Aidan's voice is hoarse with the volume at which he yells, "Go!"

If they run, they'll make it. Aidan stays where he is, with apparent effort, until the last of them is through. It's only then that he starts down the path as well, more slowly, and every step he takes the flames close in behind him. As he nears the door the walls of flame beside and ahead of him waver more sharply, the other noises joined by creaking wood, and maybe five steps left from the exit, everything collapses around him. The ceiling, the flames, the floor, everything falling through space.

Easton watches Aidan and keeps an eye on the fire, holding Bennie close and gritting his teeth. He's ready for the signal though at least and he's on the run, holding Bennie's hand as they go. He makes a break for it and is panting, sweating as he runs through the flames and then sits bolt upright in his apartment on the couch.

The dream breaks and Easton sucks in the cool air of the apartment, drenched in sweat and still sure that he can feel the heat of flames. He carefully pushes Bennie to the inside of the couch and sits up still trying to get enough air into his lungs. He slowly disentangles himself from Bennie entirely to stand up and walk around the couch. He walks out onto the balcony and leans out over the railing. He takes in some more of the night air before looking back into the apartment, at the assortment of bottles, pills, etc. all around and at the guests.

"Well. That was fun."