dream recording 🔶 life flashing before your eyes

[noblegarnet]

Warnings: blood, death, past suicidal ideation, decapitation

—You have to go, angel, your mother urges you as she holds back tears, your father doing what he can to lift a fallen, crackling beam for you to go past, his glasses askew. The smoke is already horrible, the heat alone suffocating enough. Your right arm stings and throbs, blood dripping from your useless hand, but you can't afford to pay attention to it. Vision blurring—

I love you, you sob.

You barely remember stumbling through the fiery hallways. Something lands on your back at one point. You notice that the knob of the front door has burned your hand before you collapse.

You'd almost thought that was the end. Maybe it would have been easier if it had been. You still aren't sure how long you were unconscious at the hospital.

—The horrific, twisted whale fall pulses, choking you even through the breathing charms with its dark sickness. You're infected, you know, the plague taking advantage of your Fae nature, and you can already feel it crawling through your veins to get to the rest of you. You wait as the magical bomb is activated, even after the dragon calls for all of you to flee. A young woman with white hair takes you by the arm.

Now's not the time to throw your life away, she cries. Your argument doesn't last long, the explosion blinding you with blue light and breaking your fragile wings against your back as you try to protect your friend with your body, at least.

That wasn't it. The dragon caught you as you were all launched out of the ocean, and the medical witches cured you before the infection was irreversible. What would have happened if you died in another world, you wonder?

—Your best friend isn't with them, you notice. Curious, you turn your eyes about to find him, however bad a decision that might normally be when you're fighting the rest of the group—but it's not like they want to attack you, anyway. When you finally spot him, you see he's unnaturally obscured in shadow, aiming at the back of your guardian, the man who took everything from you and then became your family.

You use your new magic to teleport in the way, ignoring the strain of it. Nobody says anything to you before you're struck by the bolt shot by your best friend and your guardian's blade. Your vision goes white with pain and you collapse in the murderer's arms.

You survived then, too. He healed you, for all the good it did.

—I know you wouldn't want to hurt anyone like this.

A redheaded prince in a devilish costume torn by the same kind of gem shards your hands and legs have become stands in front of you, hesitating. You've sunk to your knees, head hung and waiting in your hopelessness, dark pools growing around you and threatening to create more monsters from your nightmares. You don't care. You don't care about anything, knowing there's no point. He will end it, finally.

He lifts his sword and lets it drop fully on the back of your neck, slicing through—cutting off your awareness of the rest of you, but you have just long enough to realize you no longer have a throat to scream—

NO, PLEASE

Ferran wakes in a panic.

Comments

Sender: Susato Mikotoba

[judicialassistant]

[ Not the first time Susato will have died in a dream, or at least feel like she has, as she watches the scenes unfold. It probably would not be the last. It was difficult to tell at first, whose dream she may be watching. Watching everything in the dark, the explosion is even more blinding than usual.

Normally she is content to keep flipping the page and allow for whoever it is to keep their privacy, but by the end, it feels so familiar. She places a hand over her own neck, rubbing it gently at first as she closes her journal. She realizes then that she can actually check for the sender behind the dream, and she opens it again, seeing the familiar name.

... ]

Ferran? [ It's a hurried scribble. She doesn't know what else to say, just yet. ]

[noblegarnet]

[It's close to twenty minutes before he even thinks to look at his journal, unable to sleep after the terror and its unfortunate results fade to something more dull. He only feels worse after the message makes him realize others must have seen the nightmare.

His writing is shaky, like he's struggling to hold his quill properly.]

sorry

[judicialassistant]

[ She may have dozed off or gotten distracted in those twenty minutes, but she is back quickly enough. She frowns, almost wanting to give him time to calm down before she forces a response out of him again, but she doesn't want to just ghost either. ]

For what? [ That's meant as a rhetorical question, by the way, so she adds: ] Don't answer that.

Just breathe.

[noblegarnet]

[He answers it anyway. He hates that his worst memories and thoughts just get put on display where they might upset people.]

nobody should see that

[He's... breathing better than he was, but the shaking is another thing.]

[judicialassistant]

I said don't

[ She's not thinking about who should've seen what, stubborn boy. There may be a cutesy faux-angry emoji along with that. ]

Do you need company?

[noblegarnet]

[You can't tell him what to do.

The answer is yes. They both probably know that even without him writing as much; as much as Ferran likes to keep his problems to himself, he knows that's how he gets into these things at all.

He just offers a warning.]

it won't be pretty

[judicialassistant]

[ Crap. Okay, maybe she hadn't been expecting that he would say yes. She kinda hoped she would though. She glances at a clock she has by her bedside (a fancy digital one, what?!). ]

Tell me where you live and give me [ A pause, like she can't decide. ] 30 20 15 minutes

[ ??? Small town, right. ]

[noblegarnet]

[It's a small town.

He draws her a small, simple map with a few landmarks in the residential area, leading her to a stone cottage. It's one of only a few residences not made mostly of tree, and Ferran picked it for a reason. Trees are, after all, highly flammable.

The cottage is unfortunately stained and smells of smoke whenever Susato arrives, but the lack of reddish light or heat should hopefully show that there's no actual fire clearly enough. The only source of illumination that can be seen around it, inside or outside, are a few firefly lanterns with glowing mushrooms.

The door is unlocked.]

[judicialassistant]

[ Surprise: as much as Susato wants to always appear like she knows what she's doing, she is 17 and does not, really. She begins rummaging around her room for things. What does he need? A snack? Tea? Tea is pretty much always needed in this situation.

What else soothes her?

... In the end, when she shows up to Ferran's house after following his map, it is with the aforementioned tea, a blue flower, a jar of what looks like more of them same (or its petals, at least) and... a black stuffed bunny.

The smell of smoke gives her pause, but her sense of smell has tricked her before in this place, so she will quietly ignore it until she is given a reason to do otherwise.

... She knocks quietly on the door. ]

Ferran? I'm here.

[noblegarnet]

[He's at least taken the time to button up his sleep clothes and shuffle towards the living area, and that will have to be fine for now. The floorboards and stones of the walls are cracked halfway through the space, spreading out from his bedroom where the damage is the worst but leaving the kitchen mostly intact. There's not much he can do about it.

Between using his hoarse throat and getting up from the small sofa on shaky feet to open the door, he chooses the latter.

He looks almost like a different person, compared to how he's presented himself with her. There are unnaturally dark circles under his eyes, his hair is a mess, and the black fractured markings on his jaw and wrists have spread, making them harder to ignore. To say he looks exhausted is an understatement, his shoulders weighed down with fatigue.

He leaves plenty of space for her to step in, and closes the door behind her whenever she does.]

[judicialassistant]

[ Susato steps in quietly without saying anything. Seeing Ferran's state, she is almost afraid to. She tries to distract herself with other things around the house, but it's hard not to notice the deep cracks damaging the walls.

She shakes her head, imagining the feeling of her hands hitting both her cheeks, only without actually doing it because she's not in court and that's weird. She's not here to make any judgements or anything about the house, she is here because of Ferran. ]

Hello. [ Alright, so maybe that was a little delayed, it's fine. What else she got, though? Where does she start? ...Did she bring too much stuff? ] Um... this is Iris.

[ Well then. Her hands decide for her, holding the black bunny out and making it bounce up and down a couple times. Again. This is fine. ]

sender; ken hidaka

[countersteering]

{ He can't keep watching once the first sequence ends. The fire is too much and Ken's own reaction too visceral to keep him going with the dream. It's... too familiar and too different at the same time. Something half out of his own nightmares honestly, and that's definitely not what he needs now, in a strange place like this.

But once he himself calms down, visions of that burning warehouse fading from his own mind, he scribbles: ]

You okay?

sender: Ferran

[noblegarnet]

[The answer comes some time after the initial message, Ferran having to calm himself down, among... other things. Once he realizes where he is and how easily dreams can be seen, he reluctantly shuffles over and opens his journal to do damage control.]

enough

[The answer is no.]

sorry if you saw

[He barely tolerates the idea of telling people about those experiences, much less showing them in any way.]

[countersteering]

[ makes sense that there's a delay; Ken coming back to the journal a bit later to see it: ]

It happens. Just didn't expect it.

[ no apologies needed. ]

Didn't see it all, either

[ he adds slightly belatedly, knowing that he'd feel better knowing that if he was in the same situation. ]

[noblegarnet]

better that way

[He doesn't even care that people might know things about him through this, that he might be judged or pitied or whatever. He just doesn't want anyone to experience those kinds of things, even if it's just a dream.]

the rest wasn't better

1/2

[sleightofhans]

[So, someone is having a bad dream, and Hans is all over that. It can sometimes be a good way to learn about a person, even if some things aren't entirely correct. But hey, still good information, and Hans is more than willing to use any potential weakness to his advantage.

Except he's in the dream and what the hell Ferran??? at least dream of him in a better outfit

He knows the ending to this. He has more than enough time to look away, remove himself from this entire situation, but he can't help but watch, seeing himself raise the blade for one determinant swing. Multiple feelings bubble up within him, none of them being even remotely positive, and he'll just blame Ferran for that in the first place.]

Sender: Hans Westergaard; private

[sleightofhans]

[And then there's that final swing-- yep, completely awful. Guess it helps that he didn't look happy in the nightmare either, but.

0/10 dream, thanks Ferran.

Hans feels himself rubbing the back of his neck, as if making sure that he's in perfect health. A ridiculous notion, since he wouldn't be able to do such a thing if it actually happened, but the reflex is there. He lets out a slow exhale as he gets his emotions under control, his eyes closing before he musters up the energy to write back to this idiot.]

Thanks for showing everyone that I killed you.

[Maybe a petty response but emotions suck so.]

sender: Ferran; private

[noblegarnet]

[Well, with the new clarity he has on certain events and their result on his current state, it's a decent level of misery over here, too.

It takes almost twenty minutes for him to respond. His writing is shaky, the strokes slow to appear on the page.]

I'm sorry

[sleightofhans]

[For a while, he thinks that Ferran has gone back to bed, or just doesn't want to talk to him. It's a slightly irritating thought, but perhaps understandable given the circumstances. Reliving your death isn't an easy thing and Hans is quite sure that he would've ignored everyone that tried to reach to him.

That being said, it doesn't make him any less annoyed.

But he curbs his response, especially after seeing how shaky Ferran's writing is.]

Well, at least you didn't dream of me enjoying it.

[Not that Hans did but yanno.]

[noblegarnet]

[The fact that Hans in fact appeared to heavily regret that act is possibly the only reason he's responding to the man at all. Rather than acknowledge that in his reply, he starts to write out a request.]

can you

[Stupid line of thought. Why would you even ask that, Ferran? It'll just—

He regrets it just enough to spur on another physical reaction to the inner conflict, and there's a line of ink from his last letter that darts off the page.]

[sleightofhans]

Can I what?

[And okay, that's some reaction. Hans stares at the page in front of him for a while, trying to take a guess on what Ferran wants from him.]

Do you want me to come over? [Normally, he'd assume that the other person would want him to be far away, but this is Ferran they're talking about.]

[noblegarnet]

[It takes another minute for him to gather himself again. When the pain finally subsides enough to write, he realizes that, regardless of how stupid an idea it might be? He needs help. This isn't something he can just push back and ignore on his own.]

please

[sleightofhans]

You really want the person that murdered you to provide comfort.

[He doesn't know why he's bothering to ask, he knows the answer.]

[noblegarnet]

[He will beg if he has to, Hans.]

please.

[They can get into the technicalities of what counts as murder later.]

[sleightofhans]

You must be truly desperate.

[A minute passes here, before Hans writes another response to him.]

I'll be arriving shortly.