What's Stopping Us From Breathing Easy [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Dreamers of Manhattan, you've lucked out. Rather than finding yourselves in some kind of dystopian nightmare, you'll end up in a series of formal gardens on a lovely day, the air filled with birdsong and a cloud-scattered sky arching overhead. Some of the gardens look a bit wilder than others, in an artful sort of way, but it's clear that all of the gardens are well kept and frequently tended. Aside from each other, dreamers aren't likely to run into any creature larger than a rabbit. True, there are no actual exits - every doorway or arbor leads to another garden - but that's hardly a problem. It's beautiful, it's safe... what could go wrong?

Well, that depends on the dreamer's honesty. No uncomfortable truths will drop unbidden from anyone's mouths like last time, but the dreamers will find that any time they attempt to lie or prevaricate, they'll be beset by a sneezing fit. A tiny lie by omission might only prompt that uncomfortable feeling of an impending sneeze; a larger, more significant (or more stubborn) fib will lead to a sneeze attack so crippling that the dreamer might just need to sit down for a minute.

You could try to pass it off as allergies, if you could get the words out without making everything worse. But while telling the truth is not compulsory, lying is punishable - and pretty well obscured - by sneezes.

[OOC: Usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome to participate regardless of whether they've been apped in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion.]

Comments

[ecks]

This is not where she was.

The absence of distant screaming is a positive development. The absence of a charging dinosaur more so, though perhaps only in the short term. The absence of her companions -- very bad.

The absence of the quiet, insistent voice in the back of her mind, while a relief, is likely the worst development of all.

Ecks gazes about herself at the neatly manicured lawn and sculpted bushes, one hand clutching what appears to be a cane with the air of someone who expects to do something quite violent with it in the near future. They didn't have a plan for anything like this, and without knowing what this is she is momentarily stymied as to the correct course of action. She silently runs through likely scenarios, recalling the last several times she appeared somewhere unexpected without warning, and weighs the probability of this being some sort of vision against the improbability of none of her compatriots being included.

"Bottle-God?" she ventures after spending a few moments literally frozen in indecision. That is not his name, but she will not speak his name in case this was not his doing and there are others listening. He will know she means him if he is listening. "Did you do this? Are you here?"


[OOC: Please note that Ecks is pretty alarming in appearance. She's Frankenstein's monster flesh golem stitched together out of parts of a lot of different people (even different species), and she's wearing battle-worn leather armor. She doesn't really do facial expressions, and her voice remains near a monotone when she's not making a particular effort to emulate emotive speech.]

[deadeyedchild]

Jay's midway through inelegantly clambering over a hedge when he hears the unfamiliar nearby voice and freezes. The voice is addressing someone else, someone who doesn't seem to answer.

So after a moment, Jay lets himself down awkwardly and takes a few steps around a cluster of little trees, trying to get a peek at the speaker.

He couples his approach, thoughtlessly as usual, with a ventured, "Hello?"

Then he sees her, and he immediately regrets this decision.

She's tall - several inches on him, and that's not the most imposing thing about her, not even close. She looks - well, hellish, visibly sewn together like some kind of monster.

He staggers back unsteadily, breath catching hard in his throat.

[ecks]

It's not Olidammara who answers the call, but the call is answered. Ecks blinks at the young man (human, male, unarmed, physically slight, strange clothing), puzzled and a little hurt by his response to her appearance. Has it happened again? She glances down at her own hands and sees that yes, it has happened again. "Oh," she says. "I meant to be disguised."

She feels the top of her own head and receives more bad news: the hat is not nonfunctional, but actually gone. She adds this to the growing list of puzzling, troubling things to be resolved. "What is this place?" she asks, attention back on the human.

[deadeyedchild]

Disguised? Well, that's - understandable, if probably hard to accomplish. He tries to force himself to face her steadily, realizing she must just be another victim of the rift. It's probably not her fault she looks like something out of a horror movie.

"Uh," he says slowly. He's not sure he wants to just get into this with a stranger. Probably best if he acts innocent and dumb, ducks out as fast as possible. "I'm not s-" He breaks off with a sudden violent sneeze, shaking his entire body. "Ugh," he groans into his hands. Is he suddenly developing hayfever or something? "Sorry. I, um, I don't-" He sneezes again, even louder. "Jesus. Uh." He gives it a few seconds, but no more outbursts seem forthcoming, so he carries on: "I have no id-"

He starts sneezing again, and tries to keep talking through it, but he can't. It finally fucking stops when he just gives up, by which time he ends up sitting on the ground, holding his head. What the fuck.

"Okay," he says, highly unamused. "I have no idea what THAT was."

Well, at least he got through that sentence okay.

[ecks]

And then he sneezes repeatedly. Ecks stares at the display. It looks very uncomfortable and messy, and she wishes he would stop but doesn't really know how to make that happen. He does stop, finally, but only once he's felled himself with the force of the attack. She waits with bated breath, but he makes it through his next sentence without starting again.

"I know that I've been taken away from my home plane," she informs him as though nothing just happened. Gripping her cane, she draws out just enough of the blade hidden within to show the gleam of steel. "I need to know where and by whom."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks up at her wearily, and then spots the sudden flash of sharp metal and jerks back, sprawling on the ground.

"Okay, just-" He holds his hand out, trying to keep her at bay. "Just calm down. It's a dream, okay? We're dreaming. What, are you new?" He squirms back a bit more before moving to pick himself up, gingerly, slowly, hoping she doesn't take this movement as aggressive.

[ecks]

She leans forward slightly to peer at him, hand still on her sword. He seems to be telling the truth, but what he's telling her isn't possible. He seems more frightened thananything, and she doesn't want him to run away. She comes to a decision and sheathes the sword, knowing it will not take long to arm herself should she need to, by that or other means.

"Very," she admits. "But I don't dream. Or sleep."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay relaxes only slightly when she puts the sword more or less away.

"Yeah, well I've got bad news for you," he grunts. "You're dreaming now. The rift doesn't really care if it's normal for you or not." It doesn't care about the specifics for a lot of things, he's learned firsthand.

"I'm Jay," he ventures, not particularly comfortable with engaging but not exactly in a position to back off, either.

[ecks]

His name is also a letter! That's quite a pleasant coincidence.

"I'm --" she pauses as a sudden itch in her nose makes her sniffle unexpectedly, but soldiers on, "--Ecks. What's the rift? Are you its messenger? Is it a messenger?"

[deadeyedchild]

She's X? Okay then. J and X. He smiles faintly, a little raggedly, and lets out a dry laugh when she asks if he's a messenger. Sort of, he supposes, in a hilarious not-at-all-funny way.

"It's... I don't really know what it is," he says warily, and for a moment it almost feels like another sneeze is coming, but thankfully, it does not. "I don't think it's a messenger. It's just this thing that scoops people up and puts them in its own world, I guess. If that makes sense?"

It doesn't. And it's probably more than a little alarming. He really does not want to alarm this spooky monotone sword-carrying Frankenstein creature.

If she's not aware, he realizes with a jolt - then she probably hasn't come through it yet. Just like he hadn't, in that first dream where he'd seen Tim, and Tim hadn't believed he was there. Shit. Maybe she'll get lucky.

"I mean it, it might not be interested in you," he says. "This could be a fluke. It's f-" He sneezes again, abrupt and a little bit painful. He frowns, still feeling the itch at the back of his throat. "I'm sure it's-" he tries again, cautiously. That lands him an even bigger sneeze.

Okay, these are too well-timed. What is happening here.

He looks up at her. "Anyway," he hazards, "I'm definitely not its messenger. I'm nobody im-"

Explosive fucking sneeze. Okay. All right. He's pretty sure he knows what's going on here and he is not happy about it. Nor is he happy about the implication, if the sneezing indicates what he thinks it does, that he's still very much on the rift's goddamn radar.

[ecks]

"It doesn't make sense," she admits. As far as she knows only the gods can do that kind of thing, and it's obviously not one of the Dark Quartet -- her world is their world. It would have to be a dead god like Zeus, or an almost-god like Olidammara, but none of the ones she's heard of are named anything like 'the Rift' and she can't see why any of them other than Olidammara would bother with her. Interference is dangerous for them, that much has been made clear.

"Define its world," she requests, wondering if perhaps he is sick. He doesn't look sick aside from the sneezing. Allergies? Irrelevant. "I'm not aware of any -- achoo! -- of anything outside -- asdjoo!"

She trails off to take a moment to wipe her nose on her sleeve. "That's not normal," she notes. "I don't understand. If it doesn't serve the gods, why would it be interested in me?"

[deadeyedchild]

Outside what? Now that he knows what the sneezing indicates, he realizes this has created a distinct imbalance in the conversation, one that hits a little too close after the time Tim was subjected to forced truth-sharing. But she has a sword and he has no real reason to trust her. He might as well have something over her.

"I... don't know," he says. "I don't know about any gods. The rift is like... a portal, I guess? Between worlds? So like, you and me, we come from different... places. I got pulled out of mine and dropped into a different time and place. This city. The rift doesn't let us leave."

This is disjointed but at least it's all apparently true enough to pass the sneezing test. He shrugs haplessly. "That's all I - all I can-" He catches another eye-watering sneeze in his sleeve.

Well, fine. But he's not going to just offer up more information. He looks up at her warily.

[ecks]

"You don't know about any gods?" Ecks actually modulates her tone that time, putting the appropriate emphasis on any to express her surprise. It's important that he knows she's surprised, and also incredulous. Everyone knows about the gods, whether they worship one or not, and if they're in the Eternal Empire he would be burned or beheaded or butchered for failing to acknowledge --

But they aren't in the Eternal Empire. She wasn't even before this. She doesn't think she's on the island anymore, either, or she might suppose he was the offspring of some hidden colony of hermits. A portal, he says, and with the voice gone she's inclined to believe him. "Oh," she says quietly, processing this. A portal to a new place and time, and maybe a place and time without gods. Certainly without the god-fragment that's plagued her mind for two days.

"Any gods?" she asks again, watching for some sign that he's hiding something from her.

[deadeyedchild]

"Wh- no, I mean, I know about gods," says Jay in exasperation. "There just - there aren't any here. At least, not that I know about." He tugs his arms around himself, feeling increasingly uneasy the longer this conversation goes on. "I've never met any gods," he murmurs, and he's really relieved that it's not followed by a sneeze.

[ecks]

"You're very fortunate," Ecks informs him quietly, trying to digest this claim. No gods here. This is, at least in theory, a place beyond the reach of the gods. She judders momentarily, quite literally shaken by the concept in a split-second twitch that travels downward from her shoulders. "Are you very sure they're not here? How did that happen? Did someone kill your world's gods? How did they do it?"

Inquiring minds want to know. That this opens up the possibility of simply leaving their own world altogether does occur to her, but she dismisses it out of hand. The world is dying, and to refuse to prevent a death is to be guilty of murder.

[deadeyedchild]

"Whhhhhat," says Jay, taking a faltering step back. These are a lot of questions he doesn't really know how to handle. He is not the person she wants to be talking to, he thinks. "Look. Where I come from, gods are just like - myths. I mean, some people believe in them, but there's no, uh..." Is he really getting into a religious debate with this creature? He huffs out an impatient sigh. "Nobody killed them. We just don't know if they ever existed. If they do, we sure don't hear from them."

How existential. But probably about the best explanation he can give.

"People from other worlds might have it different," he adds softly. There's angels, after all. It's not like he speaks for everyone.

[ecks]

"...You're very fortunate," reiterates Ecks. "The gods of my world take very...active roles. They killed the last pantheon."

She tilts her head at him, reaching up to brush her ragged hair out from in front of her eyes in the most human gesture she's yet displayed. "Do people still kill each other if there aren't gods to tell them to?" she asks. "Do the godless people try to be good? I try to be good. It's more complicated than I thought it would be, but maybe it's simpler without gods."

[deadeyedchild]

"Oh," he says, entirely nonplussed. "Um. If you say so."

And then that series of questions. He goes very still, shoulders tightening, staring vacantly at the ground, looking like he might be sick. How he is supposed to answer that? She can't know what it means to him - what it stirs up in him. How cruelly on point.

He's quiet for a while, and then he says, "I don't think people ever needed gods to tell them to kill each other." Though that's not exactly his experience, is it? That thing was no god, but it was controlling them, warping all of them outside themselves, until he was ready to take a knife to his only friend, until Alex was ready to pull a trigger.

"We do try to be good," he says, still very quiet, pulling his arms around himself. They all tried, so fucking hard. "Doesn't always work."

[ecks]

"Oh," she says, disappointed. In her experience people killing each other has usually been a direct result of a god giving them rules telling them to do so, or a god's followers sending them out to violate another god's rules about who they're not supposed to kill. "Sometimes the people in my world who don't follow the gods still do bad things," she says. "Even when they're trying to do good. I had hoped it was a side effect."

She watches him carefully, comparing his body language against the mental catalog she's spent her entire life building. He's upset, clearly, but it seems like something more personal than a general disappointment in the state of his world. "It's a process," she offers, because maybe he's struggled to know who to kill or not kill, too. "We can only try our best."

[deadeyedchild]

Hah. Well, glad he could shatter her remaining shred of hope that people aren't inherently terrible.

He shifts back instinctively - physically, from her, and internally, from her attempt at consolation, if that's what it's supposed to be.

"Yeah, well." He huffs out a sound that might have been a laugh. "Most of the time our best isn't enough. In my experience."

[ecks]

Did she misread? She blinks at him, re-cataloging. "Granted," she says cautiously. "But I think it's good to try. I hope it's good to try."

She pauses a moment to consider the net outcome of the last few weeks of her life. At least one thing has been made much worse by their involvement, but other things are better now. "I'm writing a book," she says, because it's important to share your contributions. "About how to be good."

[deadeyedchild]

Yeah, well. He hopes so too.

He's not sure how to respond to her next remark. He raises an eyebrow at her. That sounds like something he can't possibly help her with.

"That's... nice?" he says slowly. And then, because he can't actually leave it alone: "I mean... I don't know that you can really write that down. It's... subjective."

[ecks]

"No," she says, not particularly bothered by his objection to the concept. No one else has yet proven willing to use her book, but once it's complete things will be different. "It can't be. There have always been rules; we only need to find the right rules. If I write rules that are good and complete, then I'll always know what I should do."

[deadeyedchild]

"I..." Jay narrows his eyes slowly. "I don't think that's..."

Is this really a fight he wants to pick?

He raises his hands slowly. "Look, good luck with that," he says flatly. "I should probably go. Okay?"

He's not quite sure why he's asking permission.

[ecks]

"Okay?" she parrots back at him, unsure of the meaning. If he must go, he must go, though it's disappointing to lose a new friend so soon. He doesn't even appear to be a murderer. "Can you tell me how to return home from here before you go?" she asks.