Dream Log
Two recurring nightmares from Alain's past, plus the thrilling conclusion Which only took two months to post, oops.
Totally not part of some meme that Octopus' mun made up, just now, due to her habit of doing such things anyway...
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
He's picking at a rough patch of dried dead skin on his lips. It's really annoying, that piece of skin. If he can just get his fingernail under it- there. It peels off slowly but easily; there is no pain. The skin beneath is smooth, soft.
Except... now that he's done that... the rest of his lips feel so much rougher by comparision. So methodically, he begins to pull off other bits of skin until his lips are completely smooth and new again.
But it's not enough. Because now he realizes the rest of him is also buried under deadness, hidden beneath ugliness.
Well. That should be easy enough to fix.
The rest of his skin comes easily as well, like picking at a peeling sunburn. But there's always another rough spot, another blemish, another flaw, and he has to peel those away as well, because he wants to be better, wants to be perfect, wants to be pure and clean and loved-
He only stops clawing at his skin when he realizes, after pulling away everything of him that is undesirable, that there's nothing left. He's peeled himself away to the bone.
Where did all this blood come from?
As he lays now, bones and blood and torn strips of flesh, dark shapes dance on the edges of his vision. He hears the sound of wings.
Ah, good, he thinks. At least I'll be of some use, even as I am.
The birds come to a landing, and the ground is soon dark, completely black, black with the shifting of birds' bodies - but around him, around his remains, there's a circle of white.
They won't even touch him.
Not even the birds want his unworthy corpse.
Not even the...
And he squeezes his eyes shut now, because he doesn't want to see, doesn't want to know what kinds of birds they are, even though it's his own nightmare and he already knows-
There's nothing left of him, and still no one wants him.
Salty tears sting his raw flesh.
There's nothing left of him, so how can he be crying?
§
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
He runs a finger over his chapped lips. But he doesn't dare pick at the cracked flesh, because he remembers last time, knows what will happen. Now he knows that he can't peel away everything wrong and bad and worthless about himself, because that's all there is. That's all he has.
Even though he did it wrong last time, he knows better now. He can't get rid of himself, just to leave himself with nothing.
He has to replace himself. He has to be somebody else altogether.
And now he sees there are other bodies here, strewn across the ground. Raw materials, flesh and skin and people who aren't him, countless somebody elses. Countless opportunities. Like a butcher or a leatherworker, like Doctor Frankenstein, he runs from body to body, stripping away their skin, keeping the best parts for himself.
Some of them are screaming. He does his best to ignore it.
When he's done, hands slick with blood, he begins to dress himself in the stolen parts, in a life of falsehoods. Carefully, he clothes himself with the skins of others - people who were good, happy, pure and lovely (until he ripped them apart with his teeth and fingernails that is). He tears himself apart again, replaces everything, absolutely everything entirely - bones and organs and muscle and skin and hair and teeth and his eyes, even his eyes, especially his eyes...
The one thing he can't replace, he realizes only after he's finished his gruesome task, covered himself with the stitched-together hides of others, is his soul. But that's okay, right? So long as his body is beautiful, no one will ever know. No one will ever see the ugliness inside.
No one will ever see him. But he's okay with that. Really, he is.
While he's been busy, the birds have returned and are pecking at the remains of the people he tore apart to recreate himself. Well, that's fine. He's done with them. Content, he sits crosslegged and naked upon the bloodysnowy ground to watch them eat their fill.
After a little while, one lone bird approaches, a little larger and, even though the birds are all absolutely and perfectly black, a little darker than the rest. It hops over to stand before him and regards him quizzically. He smiles at the bird and reaches toward it with an arm that is not his own. "Hello birdie." The voice he speaks with is not his own either. Good.
Except... the bird isn't looking at him, he realizes. It's looking right through him. And... doesn't seem like it heard him, either.
Too late, he realizes he does mind being invisible. He does want people to see him after all.
But wait! He still has his soul! Surely the bird will be able to see his soul, once he's freed it from these rotting cadavers. "Wait, bird, wait!" He rips away the fake smile, claws open the skin far too smooth and flawless to have ever been his, rips out the stolen hair and teeth and eyes and...
Finally, once again he's nothing, just a soul and a pile of castaway body parts. But the bird still can't see him; it merely flaps away, flies right through where he should be standing but isn't, and rejoins the flock.
Once again, the birds are refusing to feed upon the body he'd used and torn apart.
He can't feel it, but he knows he's crying.
§
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
His lips are dry. He doesn't care about that or anything else. He just wants to wake up.
This time he doesn't do anything at all. Just drops to the ground and cries. Might as well get it over with.
If he can't destroy himself... if he can't rebuild himself... what can he do?
There's nothing he can do.
Nothing at all. He's stuck like this, and nothing he can do will make him better.
For what seems like hours, he simply slumps there, sobbing, falling snow clumping and melting in his ginger hair. When he hears a familiar rustling of wings, he doesn't even look up.
Although... it seems to be quieter, this time. Finally, a soft croaking gets him curious enough to raise his head.
The bird is back. And it's... looking at him.
"What," remarks the man bitterly. "You can see me now?"
In reply, it flutters closer, perches upon his knee with another quiet croak.
He glares at it and scoffs. "What is this, some kinda stupid feelgood 'be yourself' allegory?"
The bird merely looks at him.
A few minutes pass in silence. Man and bird stare at each other. Finally, he asks with a smirk, "Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"What-- get outta here, ya wiseass!" Alain shoos the raven away - it takes off, wheeling in the sky over his head and making noises that sound suspiciously like laughter.
Well, he did ask, didn't he.
Glaring up at it, finally under his breath he quotes a different part of the poem: "Other friends have flown before - on the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Quoth the raven, "Oh, would you quit with the emo crap already, you shithead?"
"...." Huh. Even his subconscious is a smartass.
It's then that he glances down at his hand, notices the bird has left him a gift.
A tube of lip balm.
Before things can get really ridiculous, he wakes up at last.
Totally not part of some meme that Octopus' mun made up, just now, due to her habit of doing such things anyway...
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
He's picking at a rough patch of dried dead skin on his lips. It's really annoying, that piece of skin. If he can just get his fingernail under it- there. It peels off slowly but easily; there is no pain. The skin beneath is smooth, soft.
Except... now that he's done that... the rest of his lips feel so much rougher by comparision. So methodically, he begins to pull off other bits of skin until his lips are completely smooth and new again.
But it's not enough. Because now he realizes the rest of him is also buried under deadness, hidden beneath ugliness.
Well. That should be easy enough to fix.
The rest of his skin comes easily as well, like picking at a peeling sunburn. But there's always another rough spot, another blemish, another flaw, and he has to peel those away as well, because he wants to be better, wants to be perfect, wants to be pure and clean and loved-
He only stops clawing at his skin when he realizes, after pulling away everything of him that is undesirable, that there's nothing left. He's peeled himself away to the bone.
Where did all this blood come from?
As he lays now, bones and blood and torn strips of flesh, dark shapes dance on the edges of his vision. He hears the sound of wings.
Ah, good, he thinks. At least I'll be of some use, even as I am.
The birds come to a landing, and the ground is soon dark, completely black, black with the shifting of birds' bodies - but around him, around his remains, there's a circle of white.
They won't even touch him.
Not even the birds want his unworthy corpse.
Not even the...
And he squeezes his eyes shut now, because he doesn't want to see, doesn't want to know what kinds of birds they are, even though it's his own nightmare and he already knows-
There's nothing left of him, and still no one wants him.
Salty tears sting his raw flesh.
There's nothing left of him, so how can he be crying?
§
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
He runs a finger over his chapped lips. But he doesn't dare pick at the cracked flesh, because he remembers last time, knows what will happen. Now he knows that he can't peel away everything wrong and bad and worthless about himself, because that's all there is. That's all he has.
Even though he did it wrong last time, he knows better now. He can't get rid of himself, just to leave himself with nothing.
He has to replace himself. He has to be somebody else altogether.
And now he sees there are other bodies here, strewn across the ground. Raw materials, flesh and skin and people who aren't him, countless somebody elses. Countless opportunities. Like a butcher or a leatherworker, like Doctor Frankenstein, he runs from body to body, stripping away their skin, keeping the best parts for himself.
Some of them are screaming. He does his best to ignore it.
When he's done, hands slick with blood, he begins to dress himself in the stolen parts, in a life of falsehoods. Carefully, he clothes himself with the skins of others - people who were good, happy, pure and lovely (until he ripped them apart with his teeth and fingernails that is). He tears himself apart again, replaces everything, absolutely everything entirely - bones and organs and muscle and skin and hair and teeth and his eyes, even his eyes, especially his eyes...
The one thing he can't replace, he realizes only after he's finished his gruesome task, covered himself with the stitched-together hides of others, is his soul. But that's okay, right? So long as his body is beautiful, no one will ever know. No one will ever see the ugliness inside.
No one will ever see him. But he's okay with that. Really, he is.
While he's been busy, the birds have returned and are pecking at the remains of the people he tore apart to recreate himself. Well, that's fine. He's done with them. Content, he sits crosslegged and naked upon the bloodysnowy ground to watch them eat their fill.
After a little while, one lone bird approaches, a little larger and, even though the birds are all absolutely and perfectly black, a little darker than the rest. It hops over to stand before him and regards him quizzically. He smiles at the bird and reaches toward it with an arm that is not his own. "Hello birdie." The voice he speaks with is not his own either. Good.
Except... the bird isn't looking at him, he realizes. It's looking right through him. And... doesn't seem like it heard him, either.
Too late, he realizes he does mind being invisible. He does want people to see him after all.
But wait! He still has his soul! Surely the bird will be able to see his soul, once he's freed it from these rotting cadavers. "Wait, bird, wait!" He rips away the fake smile, claws open the skin far too smooth and flawless to have ever been his, rips out the stolen hair and teeth and eyes and...
Finally, once again he's nothing, just a soul and a pile of castaway body parts. But the bird still can't see him; it merely flaps away, flies right through where he should be standing but isn't, and rejoins the flock.
Once again, the birds are refusing to feed upon the body he'd used and torn apart.
He can't feel it, but he knows he's crying.
§
He's not anywhere. It's dark. Or maybe it isn't. Whatever. Not important.
His lips are dry. He doesn't care about that or anything else. He just wants to wake up.
This time he doesn't do anything at all. Just drops to the ground and cries. Might as well get it over with.
If he can't destroy himself... if he can't rebuild himself... what can he do?
There's nothing he can do.
Nothing at all. He's stuck like this, and nothing he can do will make him better.
For what seems like hours, he simply slumps there, sobbing, falling snow clumping and melting in his ginger hair. When he hears a familiar rustling of wings, he doesn't even look up.
Although... it seems to be quieter, this time. Finally, a soft croaking gets him curious enough to raise his head.
The bird is back. And it's... looking at him.
"What," remarks the man bitterly. "You can see me now?"
In reply, it flutters closer, perches upon his knee with another quiet croak.
He glares at it and scoffs. "What is this, some kinda stupid feelgood 'be yourself' allegory?"
The bird merely looks at him.
A few minutes pass in silence. Man and bird stare at each other. Finally, he asks with a smirk, "Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"What-- get outta here, ya wiseass!" Alain shoos the raven away - it takes off, wheeling in the sky over his head and making noises that sound suspiciously like laughter.
Well, he did ask, didn't he.
Glaring up at it, finally under his breath he quotes a different part of the poem: "Other friends have flown before - on the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Quoth the raven, "Oh, would you quit with the emo crap already, you shithead?"
"...." Huh. Even his subconscious is a smartass.
It's then that he glances down at his hand, notices the bird has left him a gift.
A tube of lip balm.
Before things can get really ridiculous, he wakes up at last.