applesaucedream | This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

Current Music: Evening of September 6th/Morning of September 7th, 2013

This is My Island in the Sun [Open to All]

The Rift wouldn't say it's sorry for the fit it threw the other day, because the Rift never needs to apologize. It is (mostly) perfect, and all of its decisions are well reasoned and just. Obviously. But perhaps it has fallen into a bit of a post-tantrum sulk, because this dream is milder than one might expect. In fact, it's downright nice.

The dreamers will find themselves in an archipelago of small islands - most only a few acres in size - connected by narrow strips of sand or pebbles. The surrounding waters are calm. Little waves lap against the shorelines, and no rising tide will cut the islands off from one another. The islands themselves seem to have been lifted from every climate zone on Earth and several from beyond. Some are tropical, some colder and home to hardy conifers, some mossy and boulder-strewn, some covered in multicolored sand and odd, coral-like trees.

Most of the islands boast some kind of manmade or otherwise non-native structure, be it as small as a bench or as large as a pavilion, though there are no houses or shops to be seen. It's more like parkland, just civilized enough for a nice picnic. Some of the islands even have little grills, and a sufficiently motivated dreamer might be able to rustle up some hot dog or burger fixings if they poke around a bit.

And they'll have an extra pair of eyes to help with their searching, because their beloved dæmons have returned… again. Or perhaps they're being introduced for the first time. Regardless, it's the bi-annual dæmon dream party!

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"Oh." Well now it just sounds dumb. He steps forward shakily. "Well, no, it's not. This is a dream. It's just we're all dreaming from Manhattan, or... I guess most of us are." He lifts a shoulder, not sure how to explain. Also not sure how to proceed. He goes with, absurdly, something close to a chat-up line: "Sooo, where are you from, then?"

This is a dream. Mako is flooded with the distant memory of the last odd dream she had - trees, and talking birds, and houses built into the branches. This one is so like it, but she does not remember Hitoshi being there.

"Hong Kong," she says, because it is where she is even if it is not, technically home. That disappeared years ago. She can hardly remember. "And you - are from Manhattan?"

"I'm from LA," says Johnny, and feeling sufficiently confident that she's not going to throw him down again, he starts picking his way past her, back toward the beach. "I was brought to Manhattan. You might be, too."

Not a very cheery welcome but it's all he's got. He walks on, assuming she'll follow him.

He moves past her and she stays where she is for a moment, turning to watch him. Hitoshi nudges her around the ankles and finally, almost reluctantly, she moves to follow.

"I do not plan to leave," she says, uncertain as to what he may mean by 'brought'. And she stops, frowning, concerned. "I did not realize Manhattan still existed. It is so near the coast."

But Mako had, like so many others, lost count of the cities sent crumbling, the death tolls rising, the buildings that were reduced to rubble. So many were destroyed in the first few waves alone.

Well that's - ominous. He stops and turns halfway to look at her through narrowed eyes.

"Your plans don't have much to do with it, unfortunately," he says after a moment. "What the hell does that mean, 'still existed'? What's going on in your universe?"

He realizes belatedly that he's not doing a very good job of putting this in perspective for her. Maybe she'll piece it together herself. He feels too tired to give her the full explanation straight out.

That sounds vaguely like a threat, or would if Johnny had put any true menace behind the words and if she had not already proven to be more than a match for him.

Mako watches him uncertainly. Does he have no idea? He cannot truly have no idea at all. Even in isolation, the attacks were well-known.

"The kaiju," she says slowly. "The attacks. Coastal cities were hit hardest. What do you mean - universe?"

A chill enters her bloodstream that, she thinks, has very little to do with the vaguely marine breeze rustling the treetops.

"Kaiju?" he repeats with an incredulous expression. "You mean like Godzilla?"

He may be far as hell from "real" Japanese but he knows that word at least.

"So-" He stops himself, catches his face in his hand, rubbing slowly at his forehead. "Okay. So this rift, okay, spacetime thing, it pulls people in from different universes, makes us have these dreams, and sometimes people in the dreams are just - outsiders. Like you." He makes a vague gesture at her, lets his hand flop back down in defeat and turns to keep walking. "So you and me, we're from different - dimensions or whatever you wanna call it. And it might pull you in after this or it might not. I don't know why it does the things it does."

Still not a very good explanation but it's an explanation, at least, one he's obviously tired of and bitter about.

"There's no kaiju in my universe, or in the rift's Manhattan," he says as an afterthought. "Not outside of movies."

Mako watches him, her frown growing progressively darker and more concerned at the dizzying amount of information he's thrown at her. Rifts - spacetime? Dreams and dimensions - Mako has the vague understanding of the Breach far at the bottom of the ocean, which sounds distantly like this. It is not unthinkable, but for there to be places unaffected by the kaiju, other worlds -

"You have never - you mean there are worlds, places - " She stares at him, caught between the conflicting surges of relief, amazement, confusion. "Places where people - have not had to fight the kaiju?"

She cannot imagine it. She has never not thought about anything but fighting them, about making them pay for what they destroyed and what they took, and for a minute she cannot say anything but can only stare at Johnny, staggered.

"Well, yeah," he says uncertainly, shrugging, not sure what to do with her awe. It seems so natural to him. "I mean there's all kinds of places. Aliens, angels - I mean Godzilla showed up once in Manhattan but that was, uh, kind of a one-time thing. And also not real." Super unimportant detail, Johnny, good job. "It's hard to explain."

Finally he breaches the treeline and gets them back out to the beach. Much better. He likes it open, where people are less likely to be hiding and watching him. He turns and faces her again.

"My world, it was 1999, and then I got yanked into the future, and now here I am, dreaming, with a talking rabbit." He shrugs again. "C'est la fuckin vie."

Mako trails after him unconsciously, her thoughts a turbulent, unnerved swirl. She would assume this is all some dream and nothing more, except she could not have pulled this from her own imagination, not something so complicated and different and unreal.

"1999," she breathes, and looks at the ground. "That was before - before everything. I was not even born, I - how do you know?" She looks at Johnny, alert and anxious. "The first kaiju did not make land until 2013. How do you know if it has not happened?"

Great, now he feels old on top of everything. He can't be that much older than her, can he? Hard to tell. He has kind of a little kid face, and so does she.

"Well..." He wants to say something about because it's ridiculous, shit like that doesn't happen there but he's starting to learn shit like that DOES happen, everywhere. There's a haunting thought. Sorta puts things in perspective. He shrugs. "I guess I don't."

He carries on quickly, "But it's 2013 in Manhattan, and nothing like that is happening there, I mean... everything's normal, apart from the rift."

"Yeah, that little thing," Nova interjects dryly. "No big."

"2013?" Mako's look of concern only darkens further. "When in 2013?"

"It was August," whispers Hitoshi, looking uncertain as to whether he should address Mako or Johnny or the rabbit. "August. What if it hasn't happened for them yet?"

Mako looks back at him, at a loss. There is not much she can do to help if that is the case, other than warn them. And they may not even believe her.

Edited 2015-05-07 19:11 (UTC)

Okay, she's starting to freak him out now. "It's September," he says slowly. "It's okay. Nothing happened. We don't even have access to the rest of the world. Rift doesn't let us leave Manhattan."

He walks toward the water's edge on an unknown impulse, perhaps just needing to feel it on his feet. It's been a while since he went to the beach. He misses it, kinda. Never thought he would.

Can't tell if this is Pacific or Atlantic. Probably Pacific given all the damn islands, though they're not arranged in a way that makes any sense. Do these dreams even have real Earth-based locations? Probably not.

She does not understand how he can be so calm - though if he has never seen the kaiju for real, maybe he does not understand how terrifying they are. He says he has seen them in movies, a concept not unfamiliar to her. That was how they tried to make the attacks seem inconsequential, saturating all of it in media, turning fearsome kaiju into franchises and entertainment. The thought sends another chill through her.

How is any of this even possible?

Mako watches him step into the water warily, diminished and uncertain. The waves seem innocuous, the pale sand peaceful, and yet -

Perhaps it is her instinct. Perhaps it is that Mako has grown accustomed to searching for the unnatural cresting of waves that indicate subaqueous turbulence. But she sees it before he does, the rippling and bubbling of something beneath the water. Something moving toward him.

"Johnny - " she says, eyes widening abruptly, prefacing the wet slap of something hulking and terrifying bursting in an explosive crashing of blue-green water.

"What," he starts to say, starts to turn, catching movement in his periphery just as Nova shrieks, "Johnny!", more or less drowned out by the deafening breach of water. What the fuck is that? Giant fucking squid, kraken - well, it's a goddamn kaiju by sheer definition, is this what Mako was talking about - does she drag around her monsters just like he does?

He's paralyzed staring at it for a moment too long, and by the time his prey animal instincts kick in (Nova screaming "Run, you idiot, run!") it's too fucking late, of course it is. He's only just pivoted back around before three slithering appendages have lashed around him, waist, leg, and shoulders; it's all he can do to curl inward and cradle his arms around Nova protectively as it yanks them easily off the beach and into the air.

For a moment she's lost, feet pounding against sand, the world shut off and soundless save for the high tone in her ears and the deadened silence muffling her footsteps, and she charges at the thing unthinkingly with the roaring of water and the monsters across the sea, and Hitoshi unspools from beside her.

Mako has no plan, no jaeger, nothing but her fists and the otter who charges at her side, but the kaiju have taken so much and she will not let it happen again.

She slams into one of the tentacles as if tackling it, impacting the slick surface with the cold smack of flesh on flesh and she can feel the quivering undulation of contracting alien muscle beneath her as she tries to force it down, wrestle it into some form of submission, do something to release the human it snapped up so easily.

Johnny feels the vague vibration of contact made, trembling, shuddering up the tentacle wrapped around his arms, and though he desperately doesn't want to look down, he does.

"What's happening?" Nova asks fearfully, curled tightly against his chest, he can feel her little heart hammering away just like his own. She's scared and he can feel it sharpened to a point, because they both know what's going to happen, he's going to die, again, it's happened so many times he should be fucking used to it by now, but he never is, and he doesn't want it to happen like this, not with her on the outside, vulnerable.

Seeing Mako ram her tiny body into the monster is - something. Not really heartening. He's too numb with terror to have a real reaction.

"She's... trying to save us," he says slowly, like he doesn't understand.

"What?!" squeaks Nova. "Why?"

Well at least she gets it.

"Mako-!" he tries to call, it's not worth it, jesus christ, just run but the tension in the beast's shivering limbs keeps him from getting any further, tightening around him as Mako punches it again or whatever the fuck she's doing; the rest of the sentence comes out a strained groan.

"Johnny!" Relatively safe under his arms, Nova paws at him insistently. "Don't struggle, dumbass! Play dead!"

"Oh yeah great fucking idea," he says thinly, gasping. "Thank you so much for your advice, tiny creature from the bottom of the fucking food chain."

"I look like this for a reason, you know," she says, managing to sound vaguely affronted despite the circumstances. Marvelous.

Mako is having difficulties formulating a plan. Hitoshi has latched onto the tentacle as well, sinking tiny claws into it and the beast shudders, but it does not release Johnny. Another tentacle whips around, wavering, as if preparing to strike, and Mako leaps nimbly back, Hitoshi scrambling away beside her.

They need a plan.

They need a weapon, and they need a plan.

A blunt piece of driftwood is overlooked; too heavy, too unwieldy. A fallen branch, however - this she grabs, and snaps deftly in half. She glances back at the commotion, the thrashing, many-limbed thing that has stirred the waters at the shore into a seething, muddied chaos.

"Now," whispers Hitoshi. "The longer we wait - "

"I know," says Mako tersely. And she hefts the makeshift spear over one shoulder, winds back, and delivers to where she best estimates the central part of the beast to be. The strike is wobbly, the balance of the weapon too skewed, but she holds her breath and hopes it will meet its mark.

Johnny lets out a strangled cry as it convulses around him again, she must have hurt it the way it's shaking, the horrendous noises it's making, how, why she would put herself in this kind of danger for a total stranger is beyond him, and it might just crush him to death if she keeps going like that - but he'd be dead already if she hadn't tried, and that, he supposes, is something.

Then the creature flails outward, snapping him down so sharply he almost gets whiplash, swinging him toward Mako hard and fast. He has a fraction of a second to realize he's a bludgeon now. Fanfuckingtastic.

The weapon connects, it must have, because the thing shrieks like an injured kaiju. Mako grimaces in the subtle thrill of victory, snatching up the second half of the branch in preparation to strike again, but -

"Move!" shrieks Hitoshi, and leaps at her with enough force to send her sprawling in the sand with a startled grunt. The knot of tentacles holding Johnny is swinging at her, and she has a split second's indecision before she rolls out of the way, but Hitoshi - Hitoshi doesn't.

He yelps when the mass of tentacles catches him in a glancing blow and Mako buckles, gasping, feeling as though she's the one who's just had the wind knocked out of her. She tries to continue rolling out of the but can't. She can't move for the dull, lingering agony of the blow.

"What the FUCK was that," demands Nova, at least one of them is still moderately unharmed, though she twitches and paws frantically enough that her little claws hurt a little whenever it squeezes him too hard.

"Hit her otter," he manages to rasp out. He wriggles, trying vainly to kick free, and the monster responds by slamming him into the ground, the blow mostly softened by the fleshy limbs still tangled around him, but then it starts to drag him through the sand, toward the water. Johnny struggles in renewed panic, half-choking on sand and saltwater, because he knows what's happening, it's like a fucking bear slapping a fish on a rock to kill it, or is it birds that do that, or humans, he can't fucking remember. It's trying to subdue him.

"Mako!" he screams just before it pulls him below the surface.

She rolls to her feet, automatic and reflexive, one hand wrapped around her midsection as she wheezes and tries not to stumble to the ground. Johnny yells, a barely audible plea and something in her chest wrenches.

No. Not again. Not again.

"Go," Hitoshi pants. He's heaving himself upright, dragging forward doggedly. Mako snaps her head around to stare at the thing in the water and tightens her grip on the branch, the hold that even in the shock of the impact she has not relinquished.

She charges. The tentacles are at an even level with her and she leaps, lands on one of the massive slithering things, the branch's sharpened end digging into mottled, sea-flecked flesh for a grip.

It does not halt the inevitable slide of the tentacle dragging into the water and Mako chokes when the spray of seawater washes into her mouth. She shuts her eyes against the rush of water, breath tight in her chest, and distantly she can register the faint splash of Hitoshi lurching into the waves behind her. She digs the branch in viciously, desperate to pry away the grip of its tentacles, but the monster does not release its hold.

He feels the thud of her landing almost on top of him just as acutely as he feels Nova struggling against him, the water is too churned up for him to see anything and the salt stings his eyes. He remembers drowning too well, held under by Zagreus, and the memory doesn't prepare him any better now as he gives in too easily to the urge to take a breath.

But then Mako stabs it, or something, and Johnny lurches back up, breaching the surface, back up into the air and the roaring, unbearable sound it makes. He coughs and chokes, shivering as it drags them upward, dangled high overhead, like maybe it's just gonna eat all of them.

Mako's still gripping on, still got her sharpened fucking branch, and he looks at her, still struggling to breathe even as he chokes out, "Why are you doing this? Just let me go!"

It's just a dream. This has happened before. It'll probably happen again.

Johnny says something and she can make out the thin slice of his panicked, desperate face between the cage of the monster's tentacles, but Mako has no answer other than to wrench her weapon out with a sickening, sucking pop and plunge it ruthlessly in again. The tentacle shudders and writhes beneath the assault, but it's become her only handhold on an impossibly slippery surface that has lifted itself so high above the water in a dizzying drop she does not dare look at.

She can think of nothing else to do but force the branch in deeper. The water echoes with a low, rebounding screech that sounds so wrong to her ears but she throws all of her weight onto it, driving it unrelentingly downward.

With another reverberating cry, the monster lurches, tentacles unraveling in a wild flail, and the harsh movement tears the branch from Mako's grip.

She realizes too late that her hands are sliding helplessly off the thing's slick exterior, and she glimpses the glittering crest of churned waves before she reaches the peak of gravity's arc and feels herself begin to fall.

He thinks, okay, this is it, she's agitating it and it's going to kill us both. It's got him practically cocooned now, he can't breathe against it, and it'll get her too and they'll each wake up somewhere else and maybe he'll never see her again, and that'll be fucking that.

And then it just unravels.

He still has his grip on Nova - and there's Mako beside him, and her otter beside her, all of them fucking plummeting downward, wind rushing loud in his ears, not loud enough to drown out the noise it's making, oh god, fuck - he can still see it towering up over them as he drops, he curls around Nova again, holding onto her as gently as he can.

And then they hit the water.

They sink in way, way too far down, he's already flailing to come back up, kicking frantically, Mako's got her arms and her otter knows what he's doing, there's that at least - but he can see it, it's still thrashing, seeking them out, and they're in its element now, there's no fucking escape.

He fights his way to the surface anyway, because that's what he does. A little snatch of a book he read when he was a kid flashes too-appropriately through his head: Whenever they catch you, they will kill you; but first, they must catch you.

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liam neeson showed up ten minutes late with starbucks to release the kraken

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