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visible_sarielThe floor is wooden.
Sariel's standing on the bar floor, incongruous in full uniform and stocking feet. Her toes are curling in the cold.
one two staring at you
Someone's sketched another circle and X symbol on one of the floorboards, striping black ink indiscriminately over traffic-smudged wood and the polished metal of a new-looking nail. As she watches, the limbs of the indecipherable shape start to lengthen, to wriggle, to slide across the floor like the legs of an insect, dragging their central circle along in heaves and scuttles.
one two coming for you
Sariel swears she can almost hear the sound of a centipede's legs clattering as the symbol moves. Clickity clickity background noise, clickity click--
clickclick click click clickclick clickclickclick
one two leaning on you
The floor is metal.
Sariel's feet are freezing on the deckplates, and her uniform-blouse-nightgown is spattered with blood, flecking both hands, sticky at her collar and trickling down her calf. It's her own.
She doesn't remember changing locations. She doesn't remember how to retrace her steps. What she remembers of her injuries is horrible enough for being hazy, and every time she moves the comm panel lights
brighter, brighter
glare, casting phantom black willow branches on the walls as the shadows alter.
click clickclickclick click clickclick
That centipede-scuttling shape is still there, smeared across the floor and crawling on its diagonal limbs. It squeaks like an old-fashioned ink pen. It rattles like an insect's myriad legs in motion. It
clickclick click click clickclick
sounds familiar.
one two playing with you
Sariel recognizes the figures the lights don't entirely reveal. Hazy memories are not completely devoid of substance, say true and say sorry. The branches dancing on the walls are lashing like a scientist-surgeon's instruments, slicing the air with jagged edges, and Sariel has little doubt who's controlling them. Any second, she's irrationally sure, they're going to hit home again, going to isolate knowledge and separate it irrevocably from the whole, whiting out skills and memories and processes. Goodbye favorite abilities, not yours anymore.
one two stealing from you.
Any second they're going to find her higher cognitive functions and cleave, leave her like a puppet with cut strings, a creature of animal awareness who'll never come back to herself. Fight. Flight. Nothing else. Any second they're going to hit a nerve, a junction of muscle and bone, a layer of soft tissue, and they're going to sink. In. And saw with jagged edges, and she'll be too sedated to scream but she'll feel--
one two tormenting you
--and she'll remember. Do anything, try anything, try everything but nothing. will. help. She'll be laid open and vulnerable and violated and the hell if she'll break, bend to their will intentionally, but she won't be in control of a thing.
They're pulling the strings. He's pulling the - they're pulling the - they're cutting the--
one two working on you
Sariel knows exactly what she's doing when she turns and dashes down the corridor, feet slipping on trickles of blood and traces of melting ice.
one two following you
And ribbons of running ink.
The door at the hallway's end is wooden. It only hisses at her touch because a shower of leaping sparks burst from it as it crumbles, settling in her hair as she pelts across the ashes. The air now wreaks of smoke and paint. And worse.
Somewhere in the far distance, somebody screams. It's not her.
The corridor walls are gone. The lashing branches are still visible.
one two torturing you
This is not a hurricane in Castries. This is not an alien planet's forest. This is not Sherwood in summertime. This is the Milliways grounds, and there's ink staining the grass. The stain is in the shape of a--
click clickclick click clickclickclick click
--circle and X.
Those branches don't belong to a simple wind-tossed willow tree after all, but they're casting shadows, and Sariel recognizes the vague shapes those shadows conceal.
All but the tallest one. That one's new.
one two coming for you
It's not just curious. They're not just curious.
When Sariel wakes up, she does so abruptly enough that she nearly falls out of bed from the force of her horrified recoil. It's a full five minutes before she's entirely certain that her pajamas and skin are free of blood and ink, and that no cinders are lurking in her hair.
She doesn't stay upstairs long, even with the lights on.
It's far from tangible proof, and she knows it. But that was...
"Mother of God, what the hell? That was absolutely..."
Sariel Rager is no stranger to nightmares.
But that was worse even than the usual.
Sariel's standing on the bar floor, incongruous in full uniform and stocking feet. Her toes are curling in the cold.
one two staring at you
Someone's sketched another circle and X symbol on one of the floorboards, striping black ink indiscriminately over traffic-smudged wood and the polished metal of a new-looking nail. As she watches, the limbs of the indecipherable shape start to lengthen, to wriggle, to slide across the floor like the legs of an insect, dragging their central circle along in heaves and scuttles.
one two coming for you
Sariel swears she can almost hear the sound of a centipede's legs clattering as the symbol moves. Clickity clickity background noise, clickity click--
clickclick click click clickclick clickclickclick
one two leaning on you
The floor is metal.
Sariel's feet are freezing on the deckplates, and her uniform-blouse-nightgown is spattered with blood, flecking both hands, sticky at her collar and trickling down her calf. It's her own.
She doesn't remember changing locations. She doesn't remember how to retrace her steps. What she remembers of her injuries is horrible enough for being hazy, and every time she moves the comm panel lights
brighter, brighter
glare, casting phantom black willow branches on the walls as the shadows alter.
click clickclickclick click clickclick
That centipede-scuttling shape is still there, smeared across the floor and crawling on its diagonal limbs. It squeaks like an old-fashioned ink pen. It rattles like an insect's myriad legs in motion. It
clickclick click click clickclick
sounds familiar.
one two playing with you
Sariel recognizes the figures the lights don't entirely reveal. Hazy memories are not completely devoid of substance, say true and say sorry. The branches dancing on the walls are lashing like a scientist-surgeon's instruments, slicing the air with jagged edges, and Sariel has little doubt who's controlling them. Any second, she's irrationally sure, they're going to hit home again, going to isolate knowledge and separate it irrevocably from the whole, whiting out skills and memories and processes. Goodbye favorite abilities, not yours anymore.
one two stealing from you.
Any second they're going to find her higher cognitive functions and cleave, leave her like a puppet with cut strings, a creature of animal awareness who'll never come back to herself. Fight. Flight. Nothing else. Any second they're going to hit a nerve, a junction of muscle and bone, a layer of soft tissue, and they're going to sink. In. And saw with jagged edges, and she'll be too sedated to scream but she'll feel--
one two tormenting you
--and she'll remember. Do anything, try anything, try everything but nothing. will. help. She'll be laid open and vulnerable and violated and the hell if she'll break, bend to their will intentionally, but she won't be in control of a thing.
They're pulling the strings. He's pulling the - they're pulling the - they're cutting the--
one two working on you
Sariel knows exactly what she's doing when she turns and dashes down the corridor, feet slipping on trickles of blood and traces of melting ice.
one two following you
And ribbons of running ink.
The door at the hallway's end is wooden. It only hisses at her touch because a shower of leaping sparks burst from it as it crumbles, settling in her hair as she pelts across the ashes. The air now wreaks of smoke and paint. And worse.
Somewhere in the far distance, somebody screams. It's not her.
The corridor walls are gone. The lashing branches are still visible.
one two torturing you
This is not a hurricane in Castries. This is not an alien planet's forest. This is not Sherwood in summertime. This is the Milliways grounds, and there's ink staining the grass. The stain is in the shape of a--
click clickclick click clickclickclick click
--circle and X.
Those branches don't belong to a simple wind-tossed willow tree after all, but they're casting shadows, and Sariel recognizes the vague shapes those shadows conceal.
All but the tallest one. That one's new.
one two coming for you
It's not just curious. They're not just curious.
When Sariel wakes up, she does so abruptly enough that she nearly falls out of bed from the force of her horrified recoil. It's a full five minutes before she's entirely certain that her pajamas and skin are free of blood and ink, and that no cinders are lurking in her hair.
She doesn't stay upstairs long, even with the lights on.
It's far from tangible proof, and she knows it. But that was...
"Mother of God, what the hell? That was absolutely..."
Sariel Rager is no stranger to nightmares.
But that was worse even than the usual.
