The Shavings Off Your Mind are the Only Rent [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Picture a house. Actually, picture two houses. They're (almost) identical structures that share an uneasy coexistence, tangled together on a quantum level. One of the houses is Good: bright, cheerful, full of comfortable furniture and a pervasive feeling of safety. The other house is Evil: dingy, dilapidated, and haunted by the dreamers' greatest fears.

The good news - and bad news - is that travel from one house to the other is as simple as passing through a door. All a dreamer has to do is walk through a doorway, any doorway, and they'll find themselves in whichever house they weren't in before they crossed the threshold. Perhaps they'll step out of a beautiful library and find themselves in a threatening hallway - or perhaps they'll flee a menacing kitchen and find themselves in a perfectly safe dining room. That is the nature of the houses' entanglement: every door is a portal between the two.

There are, of course, complications. Dreamers in one house can't perceive the other; if you're in the Good house and looking through a doorway, the space beyond will look as nice and inviting as the space you're in now (until you step through that doorway, of course). Dreamers also can't really perceive one another if they're in the same room, but in different houses, though they might see a flash of movement out of the corner of their eye, or think they heard something.

Perhaps the greatest complications are the houses themselves. They have rather strong personalities, and they aren't very fond of one another. Each house will want to keep you if it can (keep you safe, in the case of the Good house, or keep you for itself, in the case of the Evil one). Dreamers may attempt to cross a hall and find the door that looked open and inviting a moment ago is now barred shut, leaving them trapped in the hall - or have doors suddenly close in their faces before they can end up anywhere unpleasant. Still, there's only so much either house can do, and even a locked door can be jimmied open or busted down.

Escape from the houses is possible, but the formal gardens beyond are similarly entangled, with neatly trimmed lawns and expertly plotted flower beds becoming overgrown tangles of nettles and algae-choked reflecting pools. An archway is as good as a door, as far as the gardens are concerned, and there are plenty of arbors and arches over the paths. Of course, dreamers may find that a sound arbor in the Good garden has collapsed in the Evil one… and heaven help anyone who dares to explore the hedge maze.





[ooc: y'all know the drill. ALL characters are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game. Characters can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.

Also, this dream party marks the aforementioned calendar freeze. For the next three weeks, the IG date will sit on July 3rd. Posts dated July 3rd or earlier are allowed and encouraged. The calendar will resume forward motion at a 4:1 ratio on Saturday, July 26th.]

Comments

[heysoulsister]

Christ, this is weird. It's like… like rummaging through someone else's closets and trying on their clothes, mixing and matching until they come up with an outfit that actually fits. His voice continues to shift as he speaks, weird combinations of Cole and Nathan, her mother, assorted DPA scientists, kids from her old neighborhood, Ryan, Vince, Nick, and then Johnny, Andrew and James, until the sharp pangs of recognition fade and Edgar's voice slowly settles into something she can no longer place, a sort of standard teenage boyish blend.

"It is getting better," she reassures him. God, he must have to go through this whole spiel with everyone he talks to; at least she's only going through it once. Then, because she hasn't forgotten what happened in that room even if it does feel better out here, she adds, "Are you okay?"

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar's face falls, going blank even as pain flares in his eyes. The hand holding Jodie's twitches, but somehow what happened in the other room doesn't seem as painful out here. The memory of it seems far away, difficult to grasp, and Edgar is able to think about it, acknowledge it, and then step back from it.

Yeah, I'm okay, he replies, giving her a nod and the faintest hint of a smile.

He shifts his attention to where they are now. It's a wide hallway with plush carpeting and the kind of wall hangings that remind Edgar of the illustrations in his books of fairy tales. Do you know where we are?

[heysoulsister]

Maybe she shouldn't have asked - she regrets it, a little, when his face falls - but hell, what was she supposed to do? Pretend it didn't happen? Fuck that. She's not pretending godawful shit is no big deal, something you can just sweep under the rug and leave behind you.

But that doesn't mean she's going to pry, either. "Okay," she agrees, giving his hand a little squeeze before turning to examine the hallway. "And no, this is all new to me. I came from down that way," she adds, gesturing back down the hall, "but I haven't been in any of the rooms besides… that last one."

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar appreciates the squeeze, and gives her a small smile. That smile fades to a frown, though, when she answers his question.

This looks completely different from the other room, he says, confused. He supposes it's possible to have such a run-down room in a place that seems as large as this one, but it still seems unusual. Maybe the other rooms are more like this? he asked hopefully.

[heysoulsister]

"Maybe," she says dubiously, frowning at the door of the room they just left. From out here, there's nothing to suggest that its interior is awful, no warning signs or construction material. If she opened the door again, she'd expect to see something as nice as this hallway.

She's not opening the door again.

"Let's head this way," she says, nodding in the direction she and Aiden had been going before. Maybe Edgar's right, and things will remain pleasant. They can put a little distance between themselves and this particular room, if nothing else.

[edgar_sawtelle]

Okay. Edgar starts off in the direction Jodie indicated. He has no desire to stay where they are and shares her sentiment about getting away from the room she found him in.

As they walk, Edgar idly wonders what time it is. The hallway is an interior one, flanked by doors but not a window in sight. There had been light in - in there - but the windows it filtered through had been so dirty, it wasn't possible to tell if it was sunlight or moonlight. Or even artificial light.

He also wonders about where they are. It seems to be a very large place, and while it doesn't seem abandoned (he refuses to think about the room they've left behind), it doesn't appear to be bustling with the number of people who might require so much space.

Do you think anyone lives here? he finally asks. It seems so quiet.

[heysoulsister]

"I haven't seen anyone but you," Jodie says, deliberately not counting the body in the room they left. "But it's too well-kept to be abandoned." Well, the hallway is too well-kept. "Maybe it's being renovated or something. But it's kind of quiet for that, too." No sign of any construction, no equipment or tools, no sound of hammers or drills.

She tilts her head toward the doors they're passing and asks, "Wanna try one?"

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar nods. Jodie's explanation makes sense, but it doesn't feel right. Nothing about this place does. So when she suggests trying one of the doors that line the hall, he doesn't argue. Maybe there's something right behind one of them.

Okay, he says, giving her hand a faint squeeze. You pick.