Universal Remote [Open to All]

[applesaucemod]

Here's an interesting scene: the dreamers of Manhattan are on a pirate ship. Or perhaps they're standing in a busy ER, wearing scrubs and holding a scalpel they may or may not know how to use. Or perhaps they've found themselves in the middle of a world cup championship game, or an old-fashioned highway robbery, or an interstellar dogfight, or a dramatic, 'unscripted' showdown between arguably attractive people they've never seen before in their lives.

Whatever the situation, rest assured: it probably won't last long.

Maybe the Rift is bored. That might explain why the dream keeps changing, as if someone were idly flicking through the channels and switching up the genre. The poor dreamers are just along for the ride, the only constant amidst a shifting array of scenery, clothing, and overall mood. Perhaps, if things are sufficiently interesting, the dream might settle a little to see how things play out. But given the Rift's definition of 'interesting,' that might not be a good thing for whoever is providing the entertainment.

[OOC: the usual dream party rules apply. All are welcome, regardless of whether they're in the game or not. Dreamers can remember or forget the events of the dream at the players' discretion. Dreamers' clothes may change to reflect whatever scene they're in, but their memories and personalities will remain intact... though the overall mood of the setting might influence their mood, as well. Feel free to throw NPCs into whatever scene you find yourself in, with bonus points added if said characters treat the dreamers as if they're established parts of the 'canon.']

Comments

[singthesong]

He's used to dealing with murderers, and he's fast enough to dodge some punches. He's just not always fast enough. If he were, he'd have pushed Greta aside - but she was quicker, and now she's the one who's hurt.

The Balladeer clenches his fists in sudden fury, rounding on his double. "What did you do that for? She doesn't have anything to do with this, you - "

Then the world lurches sideways again, and he's standing in a bright hallway glaring down no one at all. He rocks back on his heels, carefully uncurling his fingers. "...Greta?" No Greta at his side. No one behind him either; just a few people down the hall, and a jumble of clacking wheels and confused shouts in the distance. The Balladeer takes off towards the sounds, anger draining away into cold fear.

It's only a dream, of course. But he knows it still hurts.

There's a tight crowd of people surrounding the gurney, and at first he can't even see who's in it. But upon hearing his name called, the Balladeer puts his sharp elbows to use. "I'm here!" He shoves through and grabs the edge of the gurney, both to keep pace and to try and keep from being separated. "Oh god, I'm so sorry!"

Around him, doctors and nurses are running and barking orders. He's vaguely aware that he's wearing scrubs too; the persistent goatee probably makes him look like some kind of evil dentist, but at least he's blending in. "Nurse!" calls the woman leading the charge. "I need 20 ccs of anaprovaline, stat!"

It takes the Balladeer a second to realize he's being addressed. "Uh, what?"

"20 ccs of anaprovaline, STAT!" the doctor repeats impatiently, glaring at him over the gurney.

"No, I don't - " He glances about wildly, and his gaze falls on the wound in Greta's side. Being covered by someone's disgusting hand. His blood runs cold, and though this all looks very modern, he suddenly flashes back to other doctors, other wounds, other ill-advised operations and the slow lingering deaths that resulted. Guiteau shot the president, he liked to say sometimes, but it was the doctors that killed him. "Go wash your hands!" the Balladeer yelps, swatting at the doctor.

[andhiswife]

Oh, thank goodness. She was beginning to worry he'd been left behind, and the thought of him being stuck with that armed madman wasn't any more appealing than the thought of her being in a hospital by herself. Greta seizes ahold of his wrist, not wanting him to vanish on her. "Not your fault," she says tersely. At least he's here.

And at least she's figured out that she's in a hospital in the first place (fourth place?). She can't seem to avoid being hurled into random locations and scenarios, but there are much worse places she could have landed than here, all things considered. They'll patch her up, hopefully before she ends up anywhere else. It's only a dream. She's been through worse. It'll be fine.

... Or perhaps not. Greta glances uneasily between the doctor and the Balladeer. It's clear that he has no idea what the woman is asking for. Neither does she, which makes his bewilderment easy to recognize even before he starts to protest his own ignorance. It's when he starts to protest the doctor's hand over her wound that Greta really starts to worry. She'd just assumed they knew what they were doing. Do they not know what they're doing? She jolts on the gurney, though there's nowhere for her to go and the movement only sends a fresh stab of pain through her.

"Excuse me?" the doctor snaps, her glare intensifying. The two other people shoving her cot along - other nurses? - exchange a look. She's whisked into a room, more bright lights overhead. Somewhere in the process of being efficiently transferred to a different cot, she loses her grip on the Balladeer. "Get me that anaprovaline, or get out of my OR," the doctor orders.

"I--I don't want him to leave," Greta protests, before one of the nurses does something to her wound that makes her snap back onto the table with a gasp.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer is accustomed to fierce glares, and bristles in response. "You heard what I said. Have someone else get your stuff, but you can't just run around sticking your hands in - hey!"

He certainly had no intention of leaving the OR, but it seems one of the others has a different idea. There's a firm hand on his upper arm tugging him away, and without Greta's grip on his wrist he loses his own on the side of the gurney. "Can't handle the pressure," mutters someone nearby. "Bad case for a newbie - a stab wound like that."

"I am not new to this!" he points out, trying to take his arm back. What, like he's upset just because there's blood?

He's not resisting as hard as he could; he doesn't really want to kick up such a fuss that he distracts from helping Greta. As long as they're actually helping her and not just spreading pestilence! Or worse!

[andhiswife]

"Don't," is about all Greta can manage in between gasps, but they're not listening to her. What happens if they actually get him out of the room? Will they be separated? The thought terrifies her, though some not-so-distant part of her knows she's being ridiculous. None of this is real. They'll both wake up soon enough, and everything will be fine.

But it feels real. The pain in her side is sharp and insistent, and she doesn't want to be alone, and dream-strangers don't count.

And then the scene changes again, though not as much as it could. She's on a more comfortable sort of bed and dressed in a hospital gown - she recognizes that much from when she and Jay brought Tim in. The cacophony of the operating room is gone, replaced by only a faint, rhythmic beeping. Greta cautiously pushes herself upright with a wince. Her side still aches, but when she gives it an exploratory prod, she can feel a thick pad covering the wound.

Well, that's something.

"... Balladeer?" she hazards. The door's ajar, and there are people moving about in the hall; she just doesn't know if he's one of them. "Balladeer!" she says again, louder this time.

[singthesong]

"Listen to me!" The Balladeer grasps at the man's hand, trying to break his grip. There's not much in the way of music to draw on; this isn't a real person. The best way through these dreams is to play along. "She's my friend, just - "

And then he's gone entirely, and the Balladeer is alone in the hall once more.

He glances down at his new costume. It looks like he's been promoted - his scrubs are replaced by normal clothes, below a white coat. There's even a stethoscope around his neck and a clipboard in his hand. The sound of his name interrupts his investigations, and he hurries towards it, shutting the door behind him as he enters Greta's room.

Thank god, they're alone for once. These dream characters are testing his patience. "I'm still here. Are you okay?" She looks better, at least.

[andhiswife]

"I think so." She's still bewildered and not a fan of what she's wearing, but that seems to be an inescapable trend for this particular dream. "They've patched me up, at least." Maybe she could will the injury away, like the Balladeer managed with his gunshot wound, but that would require a bit more peace and focus than they've been afforded since this nonsense began.

For the moment, she lifts her hand and frowns at the tube that seems to have been inserted beneath her skin. Ugh. Sometimes she wonders why people extoll the wonders of modern medicine when so much of it is just ghastly. She grits her teeth and yanks out the needle, then swings her legs over the edge of the bed.

"Help me up?" she asks, just a bit breathlessly. "Maybe we can get out of here." At which point she presumes she'll end up dressed in something a bit less awkward.

[singthesong]

The Balladeer winces as Greta yanks out the IV. "Yeah, yeah. C'mon." He moves to offer her an arm up, and a shoulder to lean on.

"They might have your clothes around here somewhere," he muses, glancing around the room, "but I'm not sure it'd make a difference anyway." Her outfit will only last as long as this portion of the dream does. He watches her carefully as she stands. "Are you okay to walk? I can probably find a wheelchair." Knowing how this has gone that's likely to end with him wheeling her at breakneck speeds out of this hospital, but you know. That's fairly tame compared to rapiers.

[andhiswife]

Greta almost manages to straighten before her injury stops her, and she stills with a wince and a sharp little gasp, her grip on the Balladeer's shoulder tightening. "Well," she manages after a moment, "I can probably walk, but... not quickly." More of a shuffle, which wouldn't do much good if anyone actually tried to stop them.

"If we can just get somewhere else," she gives a vague flap of her free hand, "that might help. Maybe I wouldn't be injured anymore." Or that could just be wishful thinking, but her side hurts badly enough that she'd just as soon wake up as continue playing along with whatever this is. She presses her lips together, then ventures, "Maybe if we did something completely mad. Like..." she trails off, then nods pointedly at the window. No one will stop them if they try to leave that way, she'd guess.

[singthesong]

"Maybe." It makes as much sense as any of this, doesn't it? The Balladeer follows the gesture and frowns thoughtfully. "Here, let me - "

He gestures for her to sit back on the bed; there's no reason for her to take the few painful slow steps over to the window with him. He just wants to check it out real quick, going over to peer outside. "No, we're pretty high up. Maybe there's a back door we could try somewhere." There's got to be a service entrance or something. If nothing else, he's fairly confident in his ability to bluff his way out with her - people don't question a guy in a lab coat too much.

Of course, it might not be necessary at all. "Or we could just wait here until it resets again?"

[andhiswife]

The height is rather the point, Greta thinks. Either they'd wake, or the setting would be forced to change just to keep them 'alive.' Both options sound better than the current scenario in which they seem to be stuck.

Climbing over the sill would be difficult in her current state, though, and she's not sure she ought to ask for the Balladeer's help with something so morbid. She grimaces for reasons unrelated to the pain in her side. "Do you think it would? If all we're doing is just sitting here--"

And then, as if out of spite, the setting changes. She's no longer sitting on a hospital bed, but on a couch. At least, she thinks it's a couch. She's too distracted by what's happened to her to pay much attention to their surroundings. She's... she's yellow. And she doesn't have as many fingers as she ought to, and she looks strangely flat, as if she's been... what was that word Iman used?

Animated.

She looks up at the Balladeer, who is similarly hued and only barely recognizable. "Um." At least she still sounds like herself. "This is... different."

[singthesong]

Sorry, Greta. Even in dreams, the Balladeer's mind doesn't leap directly to "attempt suicide" as a possible solution.

He's still looking out the window when the world shifts again, and then he's looking out at a curiously flat landscape. The colors are the first thing that get him - they're strangely simple. The grass is all a single shade of green, and the sky above is a flat expanse of blue. The Balladeer frowns, first at this and then down at his own hands. Yellow, with three uncomfortably large fingers about the same size as his swollen thumb.

"Yeeeeeeah...this is...something." Suppressing a shudder, he turns back to the yellow Greta, whose hair looks like it's transformed into a single mass. "Are you still hurt?"

[andhiswife]

It doesn't count if it's in a dream okay

"Um," she says again, looking down at herself. It takes her a few moments to realize the dress she's wearing is her own. The colors are too stark, the pattern too simplified. She presses a hand to her side and winces - not in pain, but in general discomfort. Her wound appears to be gone, but the disparity between how real her dress feels and how wrong it looks is incredibly unnerving. She lifts a hand to her hair, next - again, it feels normal enough between her pudgy fingers, but all she can see out of the corner of her eye is a brown, textureless blob.

"I'm not hurt," she says, getting to her feet. "But this is... I don't like it." Which sounds petulant, especially given how much worse off they could be. Neither of them are injured or under attack. Compared with those possibilities, being a cartoon ought to be a treat. She bends her arm experimentally, and the way it curves almost makes her ill; she has to shut her eyes and take a few steadying breaths.

[singthesong]

"Noooooo..."

The Balladeer shakes his head and folds his arms so that he can't see his deformed hands. He promptly regrets it, as Greta bends her arm. There's not even an elbow there! Her eyes are strange too; they're much too big and round. Sort of soulless. Uneasily, he turns away. "No, this is creepy. Let's - "

He stops up short as a thin brown bug-eyed creature runs through the room. What...was that supposed to be a dog? Stepping back, he starts in the opposite direction.

"Let's go. Maybe it'll change to something else."