applesaucedream | The Tropical Vacation of Your Dreams

Current Music: May 20th, 2013

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The Tropical Vacation of Your Dreams

The communal dreams of Manhattan have been downright pleasant lately, haven't they? Here's another sunny day for dreamers to enjoy in their sleep, though of course the tropical climate may prove just a little uncomfortable for northerners. The verdant jungle has its own sort of charm, though, teeming as it is with all sorts of exotic animals.

Make that very exotic animals.

Those who arrive close by any of the old buildings or fences will see that it's been a long time since the humans that made them disappeared. Everything here was once sleek, shiny, and state of the art. Now formerly electric fences stand bent and torn, automated SUVs sit rusting on their tracks or lie smashed to pieces where they were thrown by some enormous creature, and the jungle slowly works to reclaim a mildewy hotel and visitors' center.

Whether one finds oneself in the formless jungle that was once paddocks, in the aviary that would have housed a luxury resort, or even in the halls of what should by all rights be the most heavily fortified hotel in the world, one is always in danger here. The barriers that once separated human from dinosaur have long since fallen. Here dinosaurs have eked out a new ecosystem, the carnivores not particularly bothered about eating herbivores from entirely different epochs…or, for that matter, the funny little hairless apes that have appeared here on occasion. Here one is always in danger of running afoul of hungry tyrannosaurs, stampeding triceratops, or cunning ~~deinonychus~~ velociraptors (they're totally velociraptors, yup). Enjoy the eye-searing venom of that ~~strangely undersized~~ dilophosaurus, by the way, as well as the toxic bite of the swarms of compsognathus. Or maybe the dreamers will luck out, and the worst they'll encounter is an indifferent, bumbling brachiosaurus or an unassuming microceratops. Who here is ever that lucky, though?

Welcome to Jurassic Park.

[Mod note: Same drill as always. All players and characters are welcome, current members or no. Characters will remember or forget any and all dream events at players' discretion. Death in the dream does not result in real death.]

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Oh, fuck.

Jodie vaults over a wall of a tree root and presses herself into the crevice between it and its neighbor. The air is thick and humid, and it feels like she isn't getting any oxygen - but she keeps her breathing quiet and steady. If she starts gasping, it might hear her.

There's a low rumble from behind the tree, and the ground shakes as the tyrannosaurus steps forward, head swinging from side to side as it seeks out its prey. She can't outrun it, and she can't climb this tree fast enough to get out of its reach.

Aiden, do something! she thinks desperately.

Aiden swoops around the dinosaur, frustrated at his lack of options. He can protect Jodie if the creature attacks her, but only for so long, and there's nothing here for him to throw - nothing large and heavy enough to do real damage. He presses in on the beast… and realizes with a jolt of surprise that its mind is open. Possessing people hasn't been an option for some time, but dinosaurs, it seems, are fair game.

The T-rex rears its head back as if it's been pushed. When it lowers its head, the eyes are milky white. Aiden, for the moment, is in control.

Jodie cautiously climbs out of her hiding spot and stares up at the dinosaur. "Okay," she breathes, still thrumming with adrenaline. "Thanks." It's still eerie as hell, but at least she's not in immediate danger of being devoured anymore. "Just, uh… stay in there, okay?" The dinosaur remains still, which she takes as a 'yes.' Pushing her hair off her forehead, she starts to pick her way through the jungle, the possessed T-rex lumbering along behind her.

He's dreaming. He's dreaming.

"Oh no no no no," he whispers, crawling along the ground. He can hear some kind of animal nearby, hell knows what kind, but he's not waiting around to find out. "Goddammit not again, not this shit again."

He curls up at the base of an enormous tree and takes a minute to breathe. Okay. He's gonna be okay. As long as Zagreus isn't anywhere near him, he can just ride this one out and wake up like normal, right?? Maybe if he just stays absolutely still and doesn't think about anything, Zagreus won't find him.

There's still some rustling going on around him. He stays as still as possible, holding his breath. Whatever it is, it'll be out of the brush and onto the path soon enough, and it'll see him, and then he will die, or he won't. He wonders what happens if he dies in a dream. Will he wake up or will he just die?

Then it shows itself, and his heart drops deep down into his stomach, and for a moment he can't breathe at all.

"Oh god no NO NO NO." Fuck stayng still. Fuck Zagreus. Zagreus is the least of his problems. He gets up, his feet scrambling in the dirt. It is unlikely that he can outrun whatever the hell kind of fucking DINOSAUR this is, but the entire rational part of his brain is totally gone. He runs. He runs like hell.

He's not in any amount of shape and the thing is pursuing him and he knows it'll catch him any second now--

--which ends up not mattering, because when he sees what's up ahead he skids right to a stop and falls down.

"Hhhhhhhhhh," he says shrilly, staring up at it, its immensity, its complete towering dominance over him. It's a t-rex. It's real.

His smaller pursuer has changed its mind, naturally, but that's only a tiny blessing, because the monster has already turned, already seen him.

Jodie glances back when Aiden stops, worried that they're being pursued. She's looking for something big, so it takes her a moment to spot Johnny sprawled in the dirt. Her shoulders slump in relief, and she trots around the T-rex, giving it a wide berth so she doesn't risk touching it accidentally and forcing Aiden out.

"It's okay," she calls, raising a hand to get Johnny's attention. "Aiden's controlling it." She offers him a hand up, glancing around to make sure nothing else is about to come thundering out of the underbrush.

"J-Jodie?" Christ, lucky him landing anywhere near her. He takes her hand and pulls himself up, staring up at the possessed t-rex. "Jeez, Aiden, didn't recognize you there," he says nervously. He can see a faint shimmer around the creature now. "Hhhow long does this last?" It's convenient, having a dinosaur bodyguard, but it also seems like a potentially terrible double-edged sword.

"As long as no one touches him, we should be okay," Jodie says. She's been debating the relative merits of having Aiden just walk the dinosaur off of a cliff or something versus keeping him around as a deterrent to other dinosaurs, and the latter has been winning out. "As long as Aiden's in there, I don't think anyone else is going to bother us."

"Yeah, let's stick with that." Johnny hugs himself and looks around uneasily, watching for velociraptors, or Zagreus. "Jesus, if it weren't for you I'd be lunch right about now. Where the hell are we?" He peers up at Aiden. "And since when do dinosaurs have feathers?"

"I don't know." That pretty much covers both his questions. "I mean…" she shrugs, her brain feeling more sluggish than usual as she tries to come up with an explanation that makes any kind of sense. "The rift can take people through time, right? Maybe it… brought us back."

"Well, but we're dreaming," says Johnny, gazing into the woods, trying to place why all of this feels so familiar. "So I guess it doesn't... have to be anything in particular... I don't really know how this dream bullshit works." He shakes his head. "Maybe we should keep moving? See if we can find like... a shelter, or..." He doesn't really want to say anyone else. Jodie and Aiden are about the only people he trusts around here. "I dunno, somewhere we can... hole up, in case Aiden loses his advantage. And... in case Zagreus shows up." He says this quietly, as though the fucker might be hiding around any corner, waiting for the sound of his name.

Jodie blinks. "Shit. Seriously?" That's… weird. Reassuring, because it's more believable than any other guesses she might make, but weird. She gives her head a little shake to clear it, then reconsiders their options in light of that fact. "Um, yeah. Or else…" she frowns. "I mean… when you die in a dream, you wake up, right?"

"How the hell should I know?!" demands Johnny, his voice strained. "I've died in dreams and KEPT dreaming, and I'm not into getting stuck in a dream again, thank you." He shudders. "Besides, is that really a theory you want to test?"

Edited 2014-02-23 04:32 (UTC)

"Okay!" she says, raising her hands defensively. "Christ, it was just an idea." She probably shouldn't snap at him, given that he's the one who's been through all the weird dream shit lately. Then again, she's apparently the only one of the two of them who spent the last twenty minutes thinking she was actually going to die in the jaws of a fucking dinosaur, so maybe it evens out.

"So we'll look for someplace safe, then," she says, wanting to make sure they're both on the same page. "Someplace we can just hole up until this is over."

He pushes his hand through his hair. "Sorry, sorry," he mutters. "I'm just... I'm just freaking out a little."

He turns away, not wanting to dwell on it, looking around. "Let's stay off the path," he says. "I don't trust the path. Let's go... that way." He sets off into the tree cover, hoping Jodie will just follow him without argument. He does not have the energy for it.

It occurs to him that Aiden might protect them, but he'll also make them pretty noticeable to other dreamers. He hopes Zagreus at least has the sense to be afraid of dinosaurs, if he's here.

Whereas Jodie is freaking out substantially less than she was five minutes ago. That's probably why she follows Johnny without complaint or argument, letting him pick their path through the jungle. Aiden follows at a safe distance, the T-rex moving with somnambulistic simplicity under his control. Well, he's never driven a dinosaur before; it's challenging enough just to keep it moving without also making its movements realistic.

"How long have you been here?" she asks instead, wondering if there's anything specific to this dream that has him on edge (besides the obvious).

"Only just got here," he says. "I want it to be done as soon as possible. I wish I didn't have to dream like this." He sighs heavily. "This is so fucked."

They wander out into a clearing. He doesn't want to be out here, so exposed, but on the horizon, he can see some kind of human made structure. It looks like a massive fence.

"Hey, look at that," he says faintly. "Civilization."

"No arguments here," she mutters as she wades through some ferns. This isn't exactly the sort of dream she'd choose to have, either, if she had any choice in the matter.

She squints at the fence, lifting one hand to shade her eyes. "Maybe," she says dubiously. Fences can run a long way through otherwise unoccupied territory, and if civilization is on the other side of that fence, they're in for a hell of a climb. Assuming they can climb it at all, because it looks like it might be electrified. Still. "Let's check it out," she says.

They only make it halfway to the fence before she hears a faint whoop in the distance. Jodie turns sharply, frowning as some kind of dinosaur crests a hilltop some 200 yards away. "Fuck," she hisses. It's heading right for them.

Atop said dinosaur, Sadie Doyle points triumphantly at a certain possessed T-rex. "Look, Frank! We've found one!"

"Oh shit," whispers Johnny, inching back behind Aiden. "That's, uh... that's a triceratops, right? Those only eat plants, don't they??"

He holds up a hand to shield the sun. Something is not right with the oncoming dinosaur.

"What the fuuu..." He trails off, stunned. "Are there people riding on that?"

---

There are!

"Oh why Sadie, look at that," says Frank. "It looks like that tyrannosaur might be about to devour those two bedraggled young people!"

"Not if we bag it, first!" Sadie says, looking forward to her first regicide of this trip (and fourth career regicide). Raising her voice, she calls, "Hellooooo, bedraggled young people! Never fear that tyrannosaur! The Doyles shall save you!" She punctuates that declaration by knocking back the remains of her drink and passing her glass back to her husband.

"Frank, be a dear and refill my glass?"

---

"What…" Jodie gapes at the oncoming triceratops. There are definitely two people sitting on its back. One of them calls out, but she can't quite make out the words. The tone, however, sounds… confident. And something else -- annoyed? If she could see what the riders were carrying, she might more accurately judge it as 'drunkenly enthusiastic,' but as it is, she's convinced that they're in trouble. Dream notwithstanding, those people are literally riding around on a goddamn dinosaur as if they own the place.

Which makes her and Johnny trespassers.

Aiden steps forward, head lowered towards the threat. The T-rex's jaws open, and a low growl shakes the ground beneath her feet.

"There you are, my love!" Frank hands Sadie a refreshed beverage, and then eyes his own. "And there you are, my other love." He downs it with proud glugging sounds. "Oh my, Sadie, that tyrannosaur is looking suddenly aggressive. We'd better bag it in a hurry."

---

"What should we do?" hisses Johnny, taking a step back from Aiden as he verbalizes the T-rex. The triceratops is getting closer, slow but steady, and he squints. Is that... is that a gun?

"Shiiiit," he whispers. Shit, it's definitely a gun, and it's raised.

"Aiden!" he shouts frantically, but it's too late.

"Right you are, my dearest darling!" Sadie drains the last of her refreshed beverage and passes the glass back to Frank, leaving both her hands free to handle the rifle. Her aim is not particularly steady, but the tyrannosaur is a large target, and her inebriated swaying is cancelled out, to some degree, by the swaying motion of the triceratops. "Bang!" she shouts as she pulls the trigger.

---

There's an explosion of feathers and gore, and a lance of sympathetic agony brings Jodie to her knees. "Fuck!" she groans, curling her arms around herself as the tyrannosaurus falls to the ground. Aiden recoils, rattled by the sudden expulsion from the dinosaur. The triceratops is too far off yet to attack, so he sticks close to Jodie, ready to shield her (and, fine, Johnny) if they fire again.

"Good shot, my dear!" shouts Frank with a triumphant clench of the fist. "Another and you've got him. Here, another!" He sloshily tops off her drink again and they toast merrily with a bright, reverberating CLINK!

---

"Shit, shit, SHIT!" Johnny struggles to catch Jodie as she goes down, but he only succeeds in collapsing alongside her, keeping his arm on her back. "Are you okay? Is... is Aiden..."

Can Aiden die? Can he die like this?

No -- Aiden's still there, shivering away from the reeling dinosaur, lowering back down to them.

"Fuck," he whispers. Jodie's hurt, Aiden's whiplashed, and he's fucking useless. Their ridiculous aggressors are straight up laughing. Not cruelly, not even victoriously, more like... with genuine cheer. He sees something else, too. They're... drinking something. Oh my god. They are not just packing guns, and the guns are not the only things that are loaded.

"You have got to be SHITTING ME," he snaps, and he stands up sharply, stepping in front of Jodie, like a hero, or an idiot.

"STOP," he yells across the closing distance between them. "PUT DOWN THE GUNS AND GET OFF THE TRICERATOPS, YOU DRUNK FUCKING LUNATICS."

Sadie's face crumples into an indignant pout. Why is that ragged youth shouting at them in a manner that is not conveying gratitude? "Why, Frank, it seems as if we've upset them," she cries, so taken aback that she fails to finish off the tyrannosaur or her drink. She peers at the girl, one eye narrowing as she focuses - to the extent than any extremely inebriated person can focus, that is.

"Do you see that, darling?" she asks, gesturing unsteadily with her rifle. "It looks as if the dinosaur has produced a ghost!"

---

"I'm okay," Jodie insists through gritted teeth. "It just… hurts like hell when that happens." She's hoping the implication that this has happened before will reassure him a little, but a moment later, Johnny's on his feet and shouting at the people on the triceratops. Not just shouting, in fact, but accusing them of being drunk, and suddenly some of their previous hollering makes a horrible kind of sense.

"Oh, god." Jodie forces herself back onto her feet, though she can't quite straighten. It still feels like someone's cut out a chunk of her torso and done a shitty job stitching it back up. "Are you fucking serious?"

And then the rifle swings in their direction, and Aiden curls around the both of them, a ripply distortion appearing in the air.

"Odd sort of ghost, isn't it?" Frank shields his eyes from the sun for a moment, peering at the apparition. "Why, now its GHOST seems to be terrorizing the angry youths! Better finish that t-rex off, just in case." He fires off a shot himself this time, and that's that for the tyrannosaur, but the ghost does not fade.

"How peculiar," he says. "Something's keeping that dinosaur spirit tethered to this mortal plane." He clears his throat and raises his voice. "Excuse me, young people!" he calls. "Did you know there's a ghost with you?"

---

When the shot fires again, Johnny hits the ground, dragging Jodie down with him, which isn't necessary, since they weren't aiming for them and Aiden's protecting them anyway.

"They're sloshed," he snaps indignantly. "Jesus Holloway Christ." He struggles back to his feet and pushes through Aiden's shield cover. Aiden bristles palpably at the contact, but Johnny's out of patience. "Let me through, goddammit!"

"What a determined tyrannosaur!" Sadie exclaims, eyes wide. "Even in death, it will not stop devouring those young people! What a pity it couldn't turn its single-minded efforts toward a less harmful activity, like drinking." She glugs down her own beverage as the triceratops continues to lumber steadily toward the downed dinosaur and its vengeful ghost.

---

Jodie winces as they hit the ground again, but the pain is fading, and she's soon back on her feet. As Aiden lets Johnny through the barrier (and he probably should have taken a little more convincing, but this is a dream, so she'll let it slide), Jodie flaps her hand. Just stop, okay? She can barely make out what's happening on the other side of the barrier, and it's not as if it fucking matters if they shoot her. She'll just wake up. There's a sullen murmur from Aiden, but the barrier vanishes, leaving Jodie free to glare at the two plastered socialites approaching on their triceratops.

"Oh my," says Frank in a hushed tone. "Why Sadie, I do believe that ghost is actually attached to the young lady. What have we stumbled upon!"

The boy is approaching them. "Hello there, young man!" he says, and generously offers the bottle of vodka. "Care for a drop? You look much too sober by half."

---

The sad thing is, Johnny actually really wants the vodka.

"Put the guns down first," he says as diplomatically as he knows how (which is not saying too much). "And get down off the dinosaur. And then tell us who you are and what you want."

"They're frightened, the poor dears," Sadie concludes, her indignation rapidly displaced by pity. She slides off the triceratops and staggers a little upon landing, as much because of her high-heeled shoes as her high blood alcohol level. "Well, there's no need for that," she says reassuringly. "I'm Sadie Doyle, and this is my husband, Frank." She gestures to Frank with her glass-bearing hand as she makes a little show of setting the rifle down with the other, propping it up against their obliging cabbie's flank. Then, every inch the gracious hostess, she says, "Do let us make you a drink before we…" and now she gestures vaguely toward Jodie, "exorcise your friend."

---

"Wait, what?" Jodie takes a step back, scowling suspiciously. Did they just say 'exorcise'? The tether hums with Aiden's displeasure, and there's a sudden, marked drop in the ambient temperature. "I don't need an exorcism," she snaps, her breath fogging in the previously hot, humid air.

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