70. [DREAM/DREAM/DREAM/DREAM]

[foolishwren]

[So while the rest of Johto alternately panics, cries, or rushes around trying to capture as many of the soulstealing insects as possible, there are dozens of souls floating around in that dream limbo, drifting in and out of each other's slumbering thoughts and visions. Whether it's nightmarish flashbacks or just those dreams where you're at school

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[restardom]

[ Rise isn't at all happy that she's come to this point, because Kanzeon is both insisting this is the right path and sending off sharp warning nudges. All the same, she doesn't have much of a choice at this point, and very slowly moves through the door. ]

[foolishwren]

[For Rise, the door comes open fairly easily, but with a hideous, nails-on-chalkboard screech of rusted metal. One the other side, the first sound she'll hear is a clank as her foot meets the rusty old metal grating that serves as a floor in this place. Above it? ... Lights-- brightly-colored, festive lights that somehow do little to penetrate the pitch-black sky above... or the equally-inky abyss below the grating, for that matter...]

[Ahead of her? A cheerily-lit building that nonetheless doesn't have a single soul inside it. The carnivalesque, decorative sign above the front window reads MAGIC in big, fancy letter-- and below that, ICE CREAM HOUSE. But despite the fact that it-- as well as several similar buildings around it, and what appear to be small kiddie rides off to the side-- are lit, the place appears completely abandoned. There's trash everywhere and no matter how cheery some of the lights are, the signs of wear, tear, and lots of weathering scar everything in sight

[restardom]

[ she almost doesn't hear the sound of her own footstep, too busy wincing from the grating shriek of metal. It's not as bad as she'd feared - the lights are cheerful, bright - but there's still unease lingering in the air and Rise shivers before she begins her investigation.

... There's no one here. And as Rise realizes this, the discomfort grows... even as she steps towards that bright thing on the ground. ]

[foolishwren]

[She's right to be uncomfortable. There's definitely something very, very wrong with this place.]

[Drawing closer to that prone figure will reveal that it's... a costume. One of those big mascot costumes so often seen at sports events and theme-parks. It's a big pink rabbit, dressed in comical blue overalls and a little red handkerchief. The face might have been cute once (... well, unless you were the sort of person who was freaked out by mascots, in which case there was probably no saving it), but the big red stain around the mouth turns the cartoony smile from 'cute' to 'disturbing' pretty thoroughly.]

[This is Robbie the Rabbit, Rise. He'd be happy to meet you if whoever was still inside him, judging from the sulfurous stench rising from the costume, wasn't probably dead.]

[Of course, the suited body isn't the only thing that reeks... the popcorn, too, smells like there's something wrong with it... not just stale, but tainted somehow. Like everything else in this place.]

[usedfeint]

[Okay, the sign is more than a touch creepier than she's used to, but she's no chicken. She's not scared of ghosts, or even the undead- she's fought them both. She's not exactly cocky, but she is pretty sure she can give anything that comes her way at least a decent fight. She shakes herself a little, catching herself staring at the sign, just staring like an idiot.

Like a sign is going to scare her.]

I'm not scared of blood. I'm a girl, I bleed every month like clockwork. [It's not so creepy when it's put in that perspective! She's bled before- she's not scared of blood. Hasn't she been injured enough fighting? Just because the Judges keep clans that fight monsters safe from death doesn't mean they prevent injuries, and Ritz has been clawed, gored, stabbed, shot, frozen, shocked, set on fire, and half-drowned in the course of learning how to fight in Ivalice.

Ritz is totally going to open that door.]

[foolishwren]

[Spunk is a good thing to have in Silent Hill, if Heather's case is anything to go by. But spunk only carried you so far... and what lies on the other side of the door is probably not in the least like anything she's seen before. This town's not friendly to kids... at least, not in Heather's experience, which is the only one that matters in her own head.]

[The door comes open with some difficulty-- and on the other side, there's... rust. Rust, and lots of it. No blood, though... even if the corroding metal of the walls and the pipes that run all along the ceiling, sometimes in odd, bent lines, sort of makes it look like they're splattered with blood. But no, no gore here. Just a dark tunnel and a faint gurgle of running water, accompanies by the sulfurous smell of a sewer.]

[She's underground, that much is clear...]

[But if she tries to open that door again once it's shut behind her, she'll find herself unable to. The lock is broken.]

[usedfeint]

[Oh, god, ew. Ew. That smell. Ritz wrinkles her nose a little at it and resolves to breathe through her mouth for as long as possible. That's a new one to her. She's trying the door again, just because it'd get her away from the smell, and growls something uncomplimentary under her breath. Right. The door is not an option, so she's going to keep going forward.

She severely dislikes having her options cut off, though.] Ha-ha, very funny. This isn't creepy, just gross! [Seriously, at a later point in canon than she's from, she says that dead people in the snow intrigue her. :|]

If you want to creep me out, you're gonna have to try harder.

[foolishwren]

[Understandably, there's no reply. Just the hollow echo of her own voice, accompanied by the sound of running water. What are you doing yelling at an empty tunnel, Ritz? Jeez. Talking to imaginary people isn't gonna get you out of here any faster, you know!]

[Heading down the tunnel offers more of the same-- the water gets louder, so at least she's headed towards something... but no signs of life. Just... rusted walls and grating underfoot. How long can that go on?]

[fathersbeloved]

...Hello?

[Quiet steps. The darkness around her is enough to make her hush her feet as much as possible, fearing something might hear her if she walks too loudly.

And the door comes into sight. Beatrice looks around, but she finds only the cold fear she has been walking away from, and when given the choice to go back into the darkness or opening the door, the door seemed the best option.]

[foolishwren]

[When it came to fear, it was always better to take the horror you could see over the one you couldn't... the imagination is almost always more frightening than reality, and that empty black void out there leaves far too much to the imagination...]

[Beyond the door, Beatrice will find ... a stairwell. It's dirty and unkept, with dead leaves littering the steps ... the walls are coated in plastic and paper, the sort often put in buildings still under construction to keep wind and animals out during the night. She's at the bottom of the flight-- which is all lit dimly in red by the soft glow of an exit sign, which sits, flickering faintly, over the door she just entered through.]

[There aren't really any particular sounds of life... mostly just the creaking of foundations shifting, the low moan of the wind outside, and the faint buzz of that light ... Although the wind occasionally sounds almost startlingly like a fluttering breath. If she calls out, there will be no reply ... except for the sounds under the sound.]

[fathersbeloved]

[She walks inside slowly, her eyes darting from the stairs to the walls. She had never seen danger before, so the concept is quite new to her. Still, she knows what fear is, even when she can't put her finger on the first time she felt that cold sensation in her stomach. Step, step, step...

She goes up the stairway, trying to hush her heels as much as she can. The noise around her felt unnatural, and she didn't want to attract much attention.

At least some self preservation instint kicked in.]

[foolishwren]

[It's hard to hush the sound of movement when there's so much stillness all around... her footsteps will sound impossibly loud to her ears, in that way that only self-made noises can sound when one is scared.]

[The stairs lead upwards... one flight, then two... before she reaches another doorway. There's no door on this one. There may once have been, but it's gone-- the hinges look almost torn. But on the bright side, there's a room on the other side... one that's lit. Faintly... but anything probably looks better than the bloody light of the exit sign.]

[The contents of the room are possibly less reassuring. It's bare... save for a single, solitary wheelchair set neatly against the wall. It holds no passenger... except for a doll.]

[usedkunai]

[Yosuke's eyes caught those words, and it was instantly enough to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. It's not as if he'd never seen anything strange or disturbing before, but something about this made his stomach turn. More so than any of the other strange things he'd been seeing in this slumber.]

Wh.... what the hell is this?

[He draws in a breath, looking at the door with his head cocked for a minute. It would have been easier to stay there, to not open that door and see what lay beyond it - but he was too curious. Exhaling quietly, he takes a step forward, further pushing the door open to see what waits on the other side.]

[foolishwren]

[It's a door, Yosuke. You know, they open, and like, let you into other places. ... Unfortunately, this one in particular probably does not lead anywhere that he or anybody else wants to go... but it's better than infinite, black nothingness, right?]

[The door slides open, hardly making a whisper of sound when he pushes it. It's practically welcoming.]

[The room beyond, though somewhat dark, is nothing compared to the blackness that he just left. It's tiny, and cylindrical, with nothing of particular interest around its edges, unless he'd rather contemplate the crumbled concrete it's made of than pay attention to the big gaping HOLE in the middle of the floor...]

[There's a narrow metal ladder attached to the ceiling and descending down into the darkness. It's not even worth mentioning that this is the only viable exit to this tiny room apart from the door he just stepped through-- of course it's the only one.]

[usedkunai]

[He follows through to the other side of the door, blinking a few times to let his eyes adjust properly to the amount of light the room. They dart around, taking in the surroundings - it's eerie, to say the least.]

[It doesn't take long for him to notice the ladder; the room is small, after all. And there's nowhere else for him to go. He's reluctant - he's not sure what he wants to see what's really down below at the bottom of the ladder...]

[But it's interesting, it's something to do in this strange, vast emptiness and maybe a little danger and sense of complete unknowing would jolt him out of this. And so down he goes.]

[foolishwren]

[Climbing down the damn thing might be scary enough to give him that jolt all by itself-- the narrow ladder wobbles with each and every step and on more than one occasion, almost seems to strain from his weight. Whatever this place is, it's probably condemned-- it's the only way something that rickety could be left standing.]

[After what probably seems like an eternity, something dimly resembling a floor begins to come into view. There's even less light down here, but he's nearing solid ground. ... A solid ground of grungy metal, but still. Solid ground!]

[usedfuryswipes]

[Fear of blood? Ken was still covered in it from his own finally-escaped dreamscape, if he was afraid of the stuff he'd probably be having a bit of a mental breakdown right about now.

As it was, it was just damn annoying. Blood itched when it dried.

So no, he wasn't caught particularly off-guard by the door's message--not that it wasn't damn creepy, but he wasn't afraid. Just curious, worried--what was on the other side of that door? Was it someone who needed help finding the way out?

Nothing really to do for it but open it and find out. He steps closer, hand out to push the door the rest of the way open--the smell and sounds coming from the cracked door are more disturbing by far than any note, that's what finally sets him on-edge.]

[foolishwren]

[Ken is correct not to be too put-off by the note. It's close to nonsense, after all... creepy nonsense, but still nonsense. He's right on track with that initial worry too, though... or he will be.]

[The first thing he'll see when he pushes the door open is darkness. At first it'll probably seem not too different from the darkness behind him-- but after a second or two, it should become apparent that there is a difference... it's thicker, somehow-- fuller. More material, and more real than the void he'll be leaving if he steps through the door. There's a heat to it, and bearing a thick musk of copper so heavy that it could practically be cut with a knife.]

[It's not pleasant, whatever's in there... but the only way to find out is to step through.]

[gentiana_clusii]

[Well, he definitely didn't live this long by being careless. He has his weapon at his side, its weight familiar and oddly heavy at the same time, as if it wanted to drag him down.

Either way, he's got a fistful of knives to cut that darkness, if need be.

He steps forward, wary, wound tight like a hunting cat.]