2021-07-02 - Convo with Addison (Percy)
Rumors have been spreading about dreams people have been having of Addison McNeely since her body was found a little over a month ago. There is even a Friendzone group dedicated to "Convos with Addison".
This is Percy's.
IC Date: 2021-07-02
OOC Date: 2020-09-05
Location: New Hampshire House
Related Scenes: None
Plot: None
Scene Number: 5994
If God's color pallet was ever praised for a single thing it would be for autumn in New Hampshire.
The trees adorning the street are a vivid mix of yellows and reds. A light breeze comes through and sifts a new lot to the ground, but there are still plenty affixed to their branches to make any still photograph taken on this lovely day 'pop'.
Percy's childhood home in New Hampshire hasn't changed in at least a decade. Well, it has - all things change - but for where he finds himself now? It hasn't. He might as well by nine years old at present but he isn't. He's him and he's full grown. But the 'life' in these trees and on this street and in this yard is the sort of vibrant life that only youth can bestow on the world.
It seems all too natural that Percy would have a rake in his hand at the moment, and so he does.
"You missed a spot," giggles a familiar sounding voice. It could be any young woman's voice from his past. It is familiar but not able to be placed.
Percy's attention snaps to the sky, light brown eyes staring at it in wonder, curiosity and some mild fright as he finds himself somewhere new. "W...what...?" It's the normal response that anyone might have when first encountering a scenario like this. Confusion. Fear. Abandonment, perhaps? With a rake in his hand as he stands outside his old home, a home he hasn't lived in for near on a decade, he takes a look down at the collection of leaves that he has gathered at his feet. The front pathway was mostly cleared, the winding walkway neatly cleaned for visitors and residents to the home alike.
The familiar voice that giggles off to his side earns a hard squint as Percival pivotrs on his foot to look around him. "This... is it. Oh my God." He mutters, breathing quickening as his heartbeat starts to race. "This is what I've been trying to get back to. The old dude... he was right. Gray Harbor is a nexus point." Still gaping and looking around him, the young man keeps a keen grip on his rake. He had been in Dreams several times before, and at this stage he knew the trigger signs and warnings. Heck, journeying in the Dream is one of the reasons he ventured to Gray Harbour in the first place. And in only his first day he had crossed over! He hadn't even found an apartment yet!
Despite all this, he is still keen on knowing exactly it was who called out to him. With a steadying breath, Percy tries to calm himself. "Hello? You can speak English?"
"Can you speak English?" the voice asks.
The voice is coming from a girl who wasn't there the first time he looked after hearing her speak, but she's there now on his walkway. She is wearing a simple black dress - the sort one might be buried in. She has no earrings and around her neck is an imprinted lace design from where she might've once worn a choker earlier in the day.
Her eyes are soft and brown and they are just completely fascinated with Percy. Her straight black hair is pulled into a braid that hangs in front of her left shoulder.
"I can." Percival smiles widely as he finally finds the source of the voice. The simple black dress is taken in, as is the rest of her form. "You're... not real. Well, not human, I mean. Yet you certainly look it." Despite venturing into... well, whatever this is, Percy had yet to encounter any beings inside of it before. They were all just on his own, so one can imagine the excitement in his tone as this discovery is made. With the rake still in hand, a slow approach to the girl is made, as if she were some wild animal that he didn't want to frighten or scare. Stepping down his old home pathway, he stops once he gets a bit closer. "Fascinating."
"Did you do all of this? Create all of this?" Gesturing around him with arms spread wide, he notions to the colourful leaves that paint the surrounds of his childhood upbringing. "It's very nice. Accurate, too. It's like I've stepped right into an old photo." With another steadying breath, Percy tucks his hands in front of him, fingers lacing together. "I'm Percival, but most people call me Percy. What's your name?"
The way the black haired girl watches Percy is innocent and pure, but her soft brown eyes grow dull and the colors of the street becomes less vivid when he speaks. She finds his attention and approach unsettling in a way that seems to reflect in his own vision as the visage of the young woman becomes blurred.
Her voice is still sweet and crisp, though. It could even be his mother's voice if his eyes were closed. "What are you doing Percival?" The nearer he tries to come to the girl the further away he seems to drift.
The somewhat haunting experience is enough to draw Percy into a level of uneasiness in which he has seldom experienced. The dulling of her eyes is enough to cause him to stop on its own accord, but the follow-up drift is just unnerving. "I'm... here." He finally answers, this time keeping his distance. He even backs up a little bit, arms raised to indicate he means no harm. "Talking to you, right?" The familiar voice causes him to bite on his lower lip in a moment of pause, before he dares to ask.
"You're not going to tell me who you are? Or maybe even tell me where we are. I mean, really where we are." Percy looks around at the environment once more. The colours, the sounds and the smells. Even the wind across his face feels the same, carrying with it familiar scents.
The girl's once enthusiastic features turn worried. The street begins to lose focus as if it's falling out of reality. The colors, once vibrant, are fading to a blended brown. The light is dimming, not to dusk, but toward darkness.
"What are you doing, Percival? No! What are you doing?" she asks frantically. "Why? Why? Why?"
As the world starts to cave in around him, Percy looks at everything with a silent look of awe and worry. It wasn't quite like that movie Inception where everything was literally falling down. It was more like everything was just fading, as if he were rousing from a slumber. The girl's worried expression mirrors that of Percy's own, who is glancing around with a concerned expression. No experience he had had in a Dream before had been like this.
"You're the one who brought me here, aren't you? Just... calm down, alright? Can you calm down for me? Relax. Take a breath. Just think. Focus on something good."
The girl looks horrified the more Percy asks her questions. She looks all around but especially behind her at the coming confinement of darkness. "I have to go..." she tells him. And then she does. She's just gone.
And then everything is dark. Gone are the trees, the leaves. Even the rake. The only sensation is a feeling of being hemmed in. A tight, claustrophobic darkness. Percy can't even hear his own breath.
A mere twenty seconds might as well be an eternity in that state until it's suddenly released. It's still pitch black, but whatever barriers were surrounding him now rapidly draw away until a feeling of free suspension is achieved in an endless space.
But then he can feel them coming again: those invisible walls. They seem to be rapidly closing the space back in on him, threatening a return to that claustrophobic state if not crushing him completely.
<FS3> Percy rolls Composure: Failure (5 5 4 4 2 2) (Rolled by: Percy)
"Wait, wait!" Percy calls, though the desperate pleas are met with naught but silence as she simply... vanishes. An anxious glance around will reveal that the young scientist is now standing in a black void. Despite the fact that he cannot see anything, he can feel it. The space around him was tightening, threatening to collapse entirely on him.
This was not going to plan...
"Oh no, oh no...!" His heart races, his mind alight with panic and worry about his own wellbeing. Is this how it all ends? On a plane that he knew nothing about, without anyone even knowing he was here? Then... GASP! With a loud breath he frees himself momentarily as those barriers draw away. Now just floating, he gawks all around him, trying to get some sort of semblance of reference or scale about where he is... or when he is. Was he even anywhere?
Then the walls come back in...
"Stop, please!" Percival cries out to someone, or anyone. "I just want to understand! Anything! Don't do this! NO!" Flailing as best he can, Percival's panicked eyes widen with fear as they threaten to crush him outright.
There might be some catharsis in yelling out if Percy could hear himself doing it. There might be some release in flailing about if his sense of kinesthesia was present - it's not.
The invisible walls keep rushing in from all sides. The space around him is being squeezed tighter and tighter.
Tighter and tighter.
Tight and tighter. Until...
He wakes up.
A final gasp is made as the space tightens in on him, more and more. A gurgle, a cry, before...
His eyes snap open wide.
Much like how he entered the Dream in the first place, Percival looks all around him as he tries to make sense of where he is. A light sheen of sweat covers his skin as he breathes heavily, a panicked expression looking back and forth. Given he only arrived in Gray Harbor this morning, it takes a little bit of time to ascertain exactly where he is. "Oh... right. Right." He's at the docks, having decided to get some salty air in his lungs after so much travel.
Standing up from his position on some rough sand, Percy looks around with a suspicious squint. It takes him a good long while to believe he's back in his 'home world', so to speak. Once he does come to such a conclusion though, he's up and moving, headed right back for the moped that he rented out. At least that's what his intent was, for as he takes a first step he finds himself still shaking from the experience he just went through. His entire leg quakes, like a novice climber stuck on the middle of a cliff wall.
"Get it together, dude... Take a breath." After taking a few deep breaths and steadying himself, he slowly yet surely gets to his two wheeled vehicle. Turning the key to switch the ignition on, he zooms away and to the residential area of town. Shaken, but not stirred.
Tags: addisonconvo