applesaucedream | [open] Locked within a room of memory, locked up away with no light of day

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[open] Locked within a room of memory, locked up away with no light of day

Seth sits in his bed, back against the wall, facing the door.

This is not his current room. No trace of the sleek, clean style he favours. No decorations, no furniture at all except for the bed. The walls are brick and stone, the floor dirty cement, the air musty and heavy, with just a hint of smell from the sewers coming from the toilet in the corner. There's a constricting feeling of anxiety and dread, his attentions focused on the heavy, bolted door.

There used to be books and writing equipment at least, but they took that away before they returned him here. They even took away his nice blanket. It's funny the simple things you get attached to when there's nothing else.

Any moment now, he knows, one of the rebels will come through that door and discipline him. Tell him he'll do as they say, or else. He wonders what it is he did this time. There's been quite a few times over the more than three months they kept him here that he didn't want to do what they told him to.

He's had this dream before. He doesn't quite know it's a dream yet, but it'll soon come to him. And while it's not a nightmare that makes him wake with a start and a strangled scream, it's the sort that weighs heavily on him the entire following day, like a weight on his chest, making it hard to breathe, making any small room feel like a trap.

The door opens, and someone steps in, the door closing heavily behind them.

[This is a recurring dream for Seth, so he can have a different visitor on different nights. If you tag in, merely pick a date.]

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Seth looks up at the sound of his name.

Oh no. "Johnny." He sits up straighter, suddenly scared. What's he doing here? Has he been captured? He wants to yell at him to leave, run, save himself before it's too late!

An even worse thought occurs to him then. What if he's here by choice? What if he's part of it?

"What are you doing here?!" he asks, moving to the edge of the bed, looking like he's about to flee, or possibly come at Johnny.

Edited 2014-07-01 21:50 (UTC)

"Whoa, whoa!" Johnny raises his hands, trying to calm Seth down before he does any of those things. But he's hindered by his own inability to answer the question posed. What is he doing here? Where is here, anyway?

"Are you okay?" Johnny inches closer, leaving his confusion behind for a moment.

"Peachy," he replies, in lieu of a proper answer. He's currently not sure if he should be afraid of Johnny, or for him. Probably both.

And perhaps because he is subconsciously aware that Johnny knows about the drugs, some of that is seeping into his dream tonight. And perhaps his worry about Gabe is making the nightmare worse than usual. Like a weird mix of withdrawal symptoms and the effects of some of the other stuff they tried him on, making it hard to think rationally, amping up his anxiety.

A closer look at Seth would probably reveal signs of mistreatment, besides the various marks from injections (easily visible with him wearing a t-shirt). Bruised wrists from fighting while strapped down. Rings around his eyes from insomnia. A cut on his cheekbone he doesn't remember how he got. That happened more than once.

"Jesus," murmurs Johnny, taking him in a bit more closely. "You look like shit."

He comes a little closer now, leaving the threshold and the door open behind him. "What the hell happened to you?"

Seth gives a short, humourless laugh. "I've been doing the good work," he answers, in a way that shows he doesn't really believe, but he's been told it so many times. "Ridding our beautiful city of the evil that threaten to overcome us."

It's not entirely clear if he's lost it or if he's being sarcastic.

"What?" Johnny feels knocked off center by this bizarre response, and a little scared by it. What is that supposed to mean? How long has this been going on?

He comes close and crouches down, bringing himself nearer to eye level. He's not sure how with-it Seth is right now, and wants to be sure he's getting through. "I can get you out of here," he says. "I can take you home." He reaches out for one of Seth's hands. "Okay?"

Edited 2014-07-01 23:18 (UTC)

Seth sits back a bit when Johnny comes closer, watching him distrustfully.

"Right," he answers, unconvinced. He's not sure where 'home' even is anymore, nor does he know how Johnny would manage it, or if he even believes that's Johnny's real intention. There is something in him that tells him he should trust Johnny, though. But he doesn't act on it, just looks down at Johnny's hand, then back at his face.

Johnny frowns at Seth's uncertainty, his - mistrust? What have they done to him? He feels angry on his friend's behalf, but he bottles that up for now. He takes Seth's hand and straightens up, trying to tug him up with him. "Come on," he says as gently as he can.

Seth doesn't immediately respond, neither by pulling back nor following. For a moment he just frowns at Johnny, as if trying to figure him out. He feels a bit like he's been treated as a child, which he dislikes. But he thinks he can see that the root of it is concern.

So he decides to play along, planting his bare feet on the floor and standing up. The floor is cold, and his muscles and bones object, but he lets Johnny lead him.

Johnny lets go of his hand as soon as he's up - he isn't Charley, he's not gonna hold hands with Seth the whole way out. But as soon as he turns he sort of misses the contact. His adrenaline spikes and he feels like he's going to be sick.

The door, the door he just came through, is gone.

"No!" He lunges forward, instantly panicked, pressing his palm flat against the wall. He tears it apart in his head, carving out the gap, fitting the door back into the space, but it won't come. The wall is solid beneath his fingers. He drops his hand and staggers back, shaking. Oh god, not again. Not now.

"Fuck!" He swivels sharply toward the adjacent wall, slamming his palm against it, hard enough to hurt, trying to make an exit, to collapse it, something. He doesn't want to be enclosed here. Nothing's working. He knew this was a trap.

He can't do it. He backs away, breathing heavily. Ostensibly they're in no danger here, but he knows that won't last. The dread, creeping up inside him, that iron taste in his mouth. Any minute now something's going to come out of the dark and devour them both. And it'll be his fault.

Seth practically feels Johnny's surging panic - in fact he does feel it, but that doesn't make sense when he's not lucid. As soon as he sees that the door is gone, the anxiety solidifies into a lump of ice in the pit of his stomach.

He has the opposite reaction of Johnny, just standing there, watching him rage and panic. Perhaps because he's always been trapped. Nothing's changed for him.

But what about Johnny? He feels a sudden protectiveness of him, now he's so helpless while Seth is calm. Well, not calm, exactly. Not focused, either. But perhaps more numb. Or perhaps he simply doesn't fear circumstances all that much. Not for himself, anyway. But he needs to help Johnny, he can't let him be trapped here as well. What if they do the same thing to him?

"Come on," he echoes Johnny's words, reaching to take his hand and tug him along. He does hold onto it though, knowing that this won't work if he doesn't. He doesn't stop to consider how he knows that. And then he simply walks through the wall where the door was, helping Johnny do the same. Though whether what they find will be anything better than what they left, he can't tell.

Johnny lets Seth guide him, slumped and frustrated with himself for having failed. He tries to tell himself it's okay, it doesn't matter, as long as one of them can keep it together at a time, they'll be fine.

Moving through a wall is a pretty bizarre experience, unsurprisingly, but it's painless and it's over quick enough. He staggers through and is about to offer thanks, but he's cut short by the discovery that the setting has changed. They're not at all where they were.

Everything is dark, almost completely lightless, low ceilinged and untextured. Not wood, or earth, or stone, or metal beneath their feet - soft but solid, almost like ash. The space is broad and expansive, from what he can make out, a network of walls and no doors, just vast, labyrinthine space.

It's the house.

"Oh no," he says quietly, wanting to sink into the earth. "No, no, no."

Seth looks down at the ground, his bare feet feeling almost like they sink a little into the soft floor, but not quite.

"What's wrong? Where are we?" he asks, since Johnny seems to recognise it. He can only sort of make out his shape in the darkness. Perhaps it wouldn't be a terrible idea to keep holding onto one another, but he doesn't intend to leave Johnny's side anyway.

Johnny can't quite reply for a few moments. He's never been here, not really, but he knows it, intrinsically. The details are cut into him like scars.

"It's-" He shakes his head. How can he explain this? "We have to get out of here." He grabs Seth's hand again, automatically this time, and starts moving. "Stairs. We have to find the stairs."

It all makes sense now, doesn't it? Why he couldn't use his power. He can't use it here. This is where it comes from. The house has reclaimed it. Reclaimed him.

They haven't made it far at all before the noise starts, inevitable and blood-chilling, a loud, sharp BANG in the distance, of a door being slammed, or pounded on. Johnny starts and jerks around, still clutching at Seth, staring terrified into the dark. It's coming closer. Coming for them.

"Shit," he whispers. He's made this so much worse. He always makes it worse.

Seth allows himself to be pulled along, since he has no idea what's going on. The terror of his own dream seems to have faded into the distance. He doesn't need drugs and guards to be scared at the moment. This freakish place, whatever it is, is doing a good job on its own, especially with the effect he can feel it having on Johnny.

His head whips around at the noise. Since there's nothing to see, he looks at Johnny again. "What's that? What's making that noise?" It would be extremely helpful if Johnny actually seemed to know the answers to these questions.

Not waiting for a proper answer, figuring Johnny can give it on the go, he decides he doesn't want to stick around, so he hurries forward now, pulling Johnny along. At least he knows what they need, stairs, stairs, where are the stairs...

"I don't know," says Johnny, hurrying alongside him, and it's only half a lie, he sort of knows, but it's impossible to explain. "I know we don't want to find out."

If he'd had a moment to understand where they are, what's happening, he might have been able to keep it from finding them. He could have grounded himself, knowing it wasn't real, and given them the stairs to climb, back up out of the earth. But as it is, mere horror at the idea of it catching up to them is enough to manifest it at his back, unseen in the void but heard and felt well enough, carrying the smell of smoke and blood, enough that he can taste it on the air. Too late to turn or try to lose it. He leans heavily into Seth, shoving him aside, and feels it rush at him, all claws and teeth, slicing into his back, dragging four long gashes from hip to opposite shoulder. He screams and collapses forward onto the ground, and it's gone for now, swallowed back into the dark, but he knows it's still there, waiting.

Seth goes hurtling against the wall, barely catching himself, and he hears the horrible sound behind him, and Johnny's scream.

He feels sick from smell and the sound and terror, and the fact that when he looks back, all he can see is Johnny on the ground, something dark at his back. Seth hurries to his side, falling to his knees, looking around himself, then at Johnny.

"Shit," he whispers, looking at the gashes, hovering above them, afraid to touch. "Fuck, okay, Johnny? It's gonna be okay, I'm gonna give you a power to heal yourself. You'll be fine," he reassures, taking Johnny's hand again.

And then there's a blinding white light from where their hands connect, Seth closing his eyes against it as he feels the power surge out of him and into Johnny. It's over in a few seconds, and Seth instinctively reaches out to stroke Johnny's hair in a comforting way. It won't immediately heal his wounds, nor would it regrow limbs or anything, but it'll work quickly enough that he won't bleed to death, and hopefully that the pain is dulled somewhat.

Edited 2014-07-02 19:39 (UTC)

For a moment Johnny remains, trembling, unable to move or think or even really listen to Seth. He's sure it'll be back any moment. He's sure it will kill them both. He doesn't really know what's happening when Seth takes his hand, but the light snaps him out of it, so brilliant and such a relief against the dark, until it fades, leaving him more blinded than before. Almost immediately he feels the pain dissipating a little, just enough that he can come back to himself.

"Th-thank you," he murmurs shakily. He pulls himself up partway, still huddled on the floor next to Seth. "I'm sorry I brought you here. I didn't mean to."

"I know," he answers, watching Johnny to make sure he's alright, looking around every now and then. Considering he's yet to see anything even as it attacked Johnny though, he's not sure if he will actually have any warning. It seems to have disappeared for the moment, but who knows how long that will last.

They probably shouldn't stay here, but he doesn't want to drag Johnny around too much when he's hurt, and he doesn't want to leave him either.

"We'll get out. We just need to find some stairs, that's what you said, right? There's got to be some around here somewhere," he says, trying to sound more confident than he feels. Even just sitting here, he feels like something is about to sneak up behind, something breathing down his neck. He's not sure if that's the place or if he's just imagining it.

"It doesn't matter." Even as despair begins to overtake him, Johnny struggles to get to his feet, leaning part of his weight on Seth. He's never been the type to lie there and die, even when it's the only sensible option remaining. "We're not gonna find them. Even if we do we won't make it out. The house won't let us."

He stands a little unsteadily, offering his hand to Seth. "If it wants to keep us, it will."

Seth supports Johnny, a little worried he'll keel over, but he seems okay once he's up. Well, considering the circumstances, at least.

"Maybe it doesn't want to," he says, taking his hand, and the lead. Somehow he doesn't think continuing down this road will help, but when he's gone through the wall, things had changed drastically, so maybe they will again.

And they do, but they don't really improve, as they step through the wall once again. They're out in the open air now, having apparently stepped out of a crypt and into a vast, dark graveyard. "Well, that's promising," he comments sarcastically.

What. What. Johnny stops short as soon as they clear the wall, staggering back against it, rather painfully given his wounds. The pain is forgotten for now, though; they're outside. They're above ground. Johnny could care less about the setting; for him, the open air is all kinds of improvement.

"How - how did you do that?" He steps forward, relieved beyond caution. "I don't understand."

"Dunno..." he answers, not quite as relaxed as Johnny is, slowly stepping forward, looking around. He knows this place. Although it seems to go on for much longer than it should. Or perhaps it's just too dark to see that far.

"This is Thamesmead. London," he adds, looking back at Johnny. "Where I used to live."

"Oh," says Johnny. He frowns. Wasn't the house meant to be in Vermont? Or Maine, or somewhere? But if Seth knows this place, then... well, it doesn't matter. At least it's not there.

He wanders further out, amidst the tombstones, looking around at the expansive distance. "Which way should we go?" he asks, turning back.

Seth doesn't answer. Something's caught his eye, and he can't seem to pull his focus from it. Just a little ways away, there's an open a grave, and next to it an open coffin. He steps slowly towards it, feeling his heart starting to race, the closer he gets. Inside there's a girl in a floral dress.

"Shannon." His voice breaks as he says it. And then she sits up, violently sudden, and Seth jerks back, and her mouth is covered in blood, and she's looking at them with hungry eyes. Just staring.

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cw: brief but graphic violence

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