Nightmare (open)

[horrible_penny]

It's one of the most basic of all nightmares: Darkness. Complete, stifling darkness that presses in on all sides, immobilizes, and cuts off all sound. Try to move, to talk, to breathe. It won't help.

The darkness is abruptly shattered by headlights. It all happens at once. A sickening crunch, the scream of metal against metal, a wailing

Comments

[justcautious]

Chris flails against the darkness as soon as he's plunged into it, wide-eyed and frightened until the headlights and the sounds of a car accident and then--

"Penny?"

He doesn't particularly notice the poor and homeless people, or the piles of garbage, although he notices them enough to feel uneasy. Above all, he fixates on Penny, the only part of the dream he understands so far. He runs to her.

"Penny, you okay?" It seems like a bit of a stupid question to ask, considering the piece of metal sticking out of her chest, but Chris isn't clever at the best of times. It's all he can think of to ask.

[horrible_penny]

Penny is somewhat out of it (forgivable, perhaps, in light of the piece of Death Ray lodged in her body). She looks at Chris without fully focusing on him, then glances down at the metal as if to assess her injury.

"Not really," she wheezes, blood trickling out of her mouth. "I'm dead."

Which, of course, was already obvious.

[justcautious]

Chris swallows, and tries not to keep looking at the piece of metal, even if looking at the blood coming out of her mouth isn't much easier.

"Yeah, but you ain't really." You aren't supposed to take out whatever it is that's made the hole in someone's body until you have some other way of stopping the blood. But he doesn't know what else to do. He steps forward again and puts a hand on her shoulder. "Should...sit down, maybe?"

[horrible_penny]

She steps away from him, remarkably agile for someone who really should be dying. "Don't touch it. The... I've been here before. In this dream. It only gets worse if you take it out." All of this is, of course, accompanied by more blood.

Chris may not notice, but the broken humans in the garbage heaps are beginning to creep and crawl towards them.

[shiverandsing]

[Curt's nightmares must have bumped into Penny's, because he's ended up passed out on the street. He fits in pretty well.]

[horrible_penny]

[Penny doesn't notice Curt, but one of Curt's neighbors--a woman with deep-set black eyes and an emaciated look to her--does. She reaches out to prod Curt, fingernails warping into claws.]

[shiverandsing]

Lemme alone.

[Curt mumbles and tries to roll away, then tries to crawl a little because this woman is really freaking him out. That's when he spots Penny]

Red?

[horrible_penny]

[The woman hisses--yes, hisses--and crawls after Curt. Some of her fellow people-creatures, attracted by Curt's movement, start to creep towards him.

Penny turns and frowns at Curt, talking with what appears to be some effort.]

Curt, this isn't a good place for you to be.

[Which should, of course, be obvious, what with the zombie-things and all.]