[He wakes with a start, a cold awakening, having kicked off the blanket sometime in the dream. His naked flesh is covered with goosebumps and he isn't sure how much of it is the cold.
That dream was not like him. Too rich, too colorful. And the woman, of course, who was very definitely not him and not anyone he knew, not even a passingly familiar fragment of memory. He's dreamed strangers before, of course, it makes sense - he isn't that devoid of imagination - but she was different. He feels... filthy somehow by having experienced her pain mixed with pleasure. For some reason, the pain is a profoundly alien feeling to him. And mixing pleasure into it is twisted, twisted...
He will not be able to fall asleep again tonight. The song echoes in his head and he can't place its language. Slowly, Ilyigan sits up, then kicks away the covers and stands up. It's four in the morning.
He pulls on a pair of trousers, nothing more, and goes out for a run in the night, hoping to sweat the clinging, smoke-like sweetness of the dream out.]
[His eyes open to stare at the ceiling, hands perfectly rested against his stomach. Hearing of dreams, he had forced himself to sleep. There's a pressure in his chest, thick and heavy from the dream and his back aches momentarily from each sensation. But realization hits him instantly at a soft meow. It's not the dream that presses heavily into his chest but the house cat.
It's not his dream. He knows it's not now. Pain and the thrill of pain were in some sense familiar but it's foreign. He does not embrace it.
Black is up onto his feet with a hand smoothly gliding to his back and he walks towards the rooms in the corner. Hand on the doorknob, his praticed movement opens it without a sound of that usual click. She's still sleeping and dreaming. He's at her bedside, black nailed fingers reaching towards her forehead. He doesn't touch but pulls away instead. The door shuts and he's gone.]
[The concepts in the dream weren't unnatural, she knew what she was doing, what was happening. It was strange, for it to be so vivid this time, to feel it so clearly, but it moved so elegantly into the latter half that she did not question it. What a memorial, how ironic.
Yet something spoke softly, called her up through the fog of sleep, and she managed to pull her eyes open enough to catch the tail end of a shadow slipping out her door, silent and dark. Wait...what? She sat up, but by the time she had her glasses, it was gone. Nothing was disturbed, nothing gave any sign that she hadn't been alone for any amount of time.
A hallucination? An aftereffect of the dream? Something else? She couldn't tell, and now it would pick at her for the rest of the night. Sighing, she tried to lay down again, working on willing the image out of her mind.]
[It was a strange, vivid, elaborate dream, and Ben passes from it straight into one of his usual ones. The contrast was striking enough to make him think, to make it lucid; in that vague, swirling gray world he sat, watched tiny starships flit around him like birds, and considered.]
[Why did he think of Juliet? The dream-world darkened as he thought of Silent Hill, but before ash could start to fall he controlled it again. He wasn't thinking about it. He was thinking about her.]
[She was a mystery. Alien enough to have an unreadable sense, at first; perhaps their experience had been enough to change that, perhaps not. He hadn't seen her more than fleetingly since.]
[Slowly Mona awakens. It was another of the strange dreams, dreams that she is not certain are her own or how this can come to be, but no matter. The red, the sights, the sounds... it was sensual and enjoyable. Even the slice, the way there had been anticipation and meaning, had not been entirely disturbing.
Grant them eternal rest forever. Who? Did it matter? Likely not. The dream served its purpose, she felt. She could not lose sight of what little she knew of enjoyment and herself in the days to come.
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That dream was not like him. Too rich, too colorful. And the woman, of course, who was very definitely not him and not anyone he knew, not even a passingly familiar fragment of memory. He's dreamed strangers before, of course, it makes sense - he isn't that devoid of imagination - but she was different. He feels... filthy somehow by having experienced her pain mixed with pleasure. For some reason, the pain is a profoundly alien feeling to him. And mixing pleasure into it is twisted, twisted...
He will not be able to fall asleep again tonight. The song echoes in his head and he can't place its language. Slowly, Ilyigan sits up, then kicks away the covers and stands up. It's four in the morning.
He pulls on a pair of trousers, nothing more, and goes out for a run in the night, hoping to sweat the clinging, smoke-like sweetness of the dream out.]
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It's not his dream. He knows it's not now. Pain and the thrill of pain were in some sense familiar but it's foreign. He does not embrace it.
Black is up onto his feet with a hand smoothly gliding to his back and he walks towards the rooms in the corner. Hand on the doorknob, his praticed movement opens it without a sound of that usual click. She's still sleeping and dreaming. He's at her bedside, black nailed fingers reaching towards her forehead. He doesn't touch but pulls away instead. The door shuts and he's gone.]
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Yet something spoke softly, called her up through the fog of sleep, and she managed to pull her eyes open enough to catch the tail end of a shadow slipping out her door, silent and dark. Wait...what? She sat up, but by the time she had her glasses, it was gone. Nothing was disturbed, nothing gave any sign that she hadn't been alone for any amount of time.
A hallucination? An aftereffect of the dream? Something else? She couldn't tell, and now it would pick at her for the rest of the night. Sighing, she tried to lay down again, working on willing the image out of her mind.]
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[Why did he think of Juliet? The dream-world darkened as he thought of Silent Hill, but before ash could start to fall he controlled it again. He wasn't thinking about it. He was thinking about her.]
[She was a mystery. Alien enough to have an unreadable sense, at first; perhaps their experience had been enough to change that, perhaps not. He hadn't seen her more than fleetingly since.]
[Maybe he should change that.]
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Grant them eternal rest forever. Who? Did it matter? Likely not. The dream served its purpose, she felt. She could not lose sight of what little she knew of enjoyment and herself in the days to come.
She rolls over and drifts back to sleep.]
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