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[A traveler might, some night in a dream, happen upon a desert. Beyond are hills and cliffs and stones. They rise against the flatness of the desert before them. It is sunset, but the heat of the day still rises from the road and the air still shimmers with the heat a while yet. Behind the traveler the sun squats on the western rim of the world in the blooming colors of the red clouds.

In the utter austerity of this landscape all shapes and things are given a strange equality and no one thing living or dead or never to live nor die nor bird nor tree nor plant nor animal can make a claim of superiority or ownership. The very clarity of these things inverted their familiarity, for the eye of man understands the whole of a place beginning with some first part and here was nothing brighter than another and nothing more shadowed and in the lucid and luminous democracy of such places all preference is made irrelevant and a man and a stone find between them unexpected and hitherto unknown shared blood.

This is a place where iron will not rust nor tin tarnish.

The ribbed frames of dead cattle under their patches of dried hide lie like the ruins of primitive boats upturned upon that shoreless void and the traveler will pass lurid and austere the black and desiccated shapes of beasts who had died with their necks stretched in agony in the sand and now upright and blind and lurching askew with scraps of blackened leather hanging from the fretwork of their ribs they leaned with their long mouths howling after the endless tandem suns that passed above them.

Cross now a vast dry lake with rows of dead mountains that ranged beyond it like the works of enormous insects. To the south lie broken shapes of stones from some fallen or ruined mountain as far as the eye could see.

Strange how fast the night falls. Strange how quickly the darkness descends. Strange how the darkness swallows up stones, sky, all.

The hills and cliffs rise up in the dark, drawing closer now. The shadows lie blue and black in the stone folds of those corrugated mountains. Beyond them there must be more, crushed in butcherpaper folds or standing blue and footless beyond a field of salt.

Constellations wheel and rise in their burning patterns. Orion rises like an electric kite; Cassiopeia scrawls in the heavens like a witch's signature.

It is both night and day in this crepuscular realm.

Ahead among the hills is a dry lakebed. The white salt sand has cracked here into a fractured pattern as regular as any tiled floor and dried to stone. The blackened skeletons of trees rise out of this alkali floor and there is no sign of burning or scorching anywhere save the trees. They have been burned one by one as though lightning struck each in its turn and they burned. Or perhaps something else set fire to them and let them burn. They stand as blackened skeletons against the sky and their shadows and shadows on the hills and the stones behind them are very long.

In their midst is a white ring in the dried white ground like a scar of some injury done to the place as though more injury could be done to it. Here is a place. Here is a moment in dreams wherein one feels the awareness of dreaming but in which one is incapable of awakening and all the horrors of not a dream but a nightmare will be witnessed in full view with no recourse nor shelter from them and the dreamer knows that these things will be witnessed and the nightmare begins without beginning by the awareness of the horrors yet to come.]

[ooc: He's been walking in your dreams, now you can walk in his. Feel free to explore the landscape or look for the dreamer. There's quite a bit to explore. Who knows where you'll end up if you start wandering...]

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Oh dear. Rain wasn't sure she liked this place. It was strange and dry and didn't seem very happy.

She steered clear of the white ring. It felt bad and scary to her so she went back to where it was night and she could see the stars.

And then she wondered, Can I plant flowers here? And from a pocket she didn't even know she had, she pulled some seeds and knelt down to see if she could dig them a hole to grow in.

[It reminds him of... something. Maybe it shouldn't. It's not a place he's ever been, or at least, it's not a place he's ever consciously seen before. And yet, there's something about it, something familiar about the dry lakebed, the burnt trees, the shadows. No, he's never been here, but it stirs something in his memory nevertheless.

So instead of lingering near the white ring on the ground, instead of standing by the trees, he starts walking. It seems like the appropriate thing to do, though where he's walking to or for what purpose is unclear. Maybe he just wants to find someone else, something that convinces him that this entire place isn't dead.]

[Once the song began, some of the dreams took up whispering in their passing. No discernible words, only bits and pieces of sound.

One briefly slips into tune with him. It's enough for him to try chancing a look.

Leans into the dream. Softly sings the last two lines before a desert; checks the sky for a sign of clouds.]

There is little rain to be had here and there are bones beneath the hard surface of the sand.

[The burned trees stand sentinel in their places. Beyond are rocks and stones footed in their shadows and looming. There is one who has walked here before though there is no mark of his foot on this ground.

Out beyond this place and pressed into dried mud perhaps can be found the demonic tracks of the javelina where once there was water.

Pass on further, traveler, and a road will unroll before you like a black ribbon, shining in the white desert noon and passing in its way across a wasteland from wasteland to wasteland. It is a place only of passage. It is a road.]

[If there are clouds, they ring the edge of the world and rise up over the mountains in the far distance. There has perhaps been rain here before but that seems like it was long ago. Now there are only the burned trees and the broken soil and the hills and the rocks and the gaudy desert sky in its great dome above.]

[There's something about this place that makes him want to draw a weapon, though there's nothing and no one here, at least not evidently, to protect himself from. It's not as though he's short on weapons, not with two guns in his shoulder holsters and a knife at his ankle, not to mention his own hands, which are often his preferred choice. But something stays his hand. Maybe there's no need for a weapon. Or maybe it's simply too strange here for him to respond in his usual manner.

He comes to the road and considers it for a long moment. He doesn't know where it leads, and that bothers him. But maybe it leads away from those blackened trees, and the eerie sense that something's out there, watching him, though the landscape before him is just as desolate as ever.

So he begins to follow the road. It's somewhere to go. A destination, though he doesn't know what kind.]

As she dug she found bones and it made her cry. Such a sad place!

What would happen to any seeds that she left here. She cried over them and covered them up, leaving them to keep the bones company.

[Sees those distant clouds.

There'll be water in the desert, if God wills it.

Small cautious hope rising within. Luke whistles, low and dark, the previous song.]

If she thinks on it, if she can foresee within this dream, she will know that the seeds and the bones will lie there together. This is a region where iron will not rust nor tin tarnish. In time perhaps the seeds will turn to stones.

The only water here would be her tears. Think on that.

"This place is too sad," Rain called, standing and yelling up to the sky. "Where am I supposed to go?"

At her call or as though at her command there is a road drawn through the dry lakebed. It is more path than road, a faint scratching in the dust. It sweeps across the place and white dust hangs in the air at its passing as though it were a traveler itself in that place. And the road is the first and last traveler in a place now and ever.

[If there is any sign within that landscape that the song is here, it is not visible. The dead and dry lakebed lies as before with its blackened trees as sentinel over the waste.]

[Further down the road there is place which may have once been a field. There was once a fence here which was once painted white but now the ravages of the sun have left these picket fenceposts askew as broken teeth and coated vaguely in white paint crackled like strange porcelain. Behind them is a cabin or a shack or the remains of a homestead. It is empty and it is broken. The windows are boarded up or gape like empty eyesockets.

Come in, come in. Don't mind the dirt trapped in between the siding boards, don't mind the weeds creeping up through the porch, don't mind the sagging porch and the rusted tin roof, don't mind the peeling paint where there was paint to peel, don't mind any of it. Home sweet home. It welcomes you in. The windows are boarded up, yes, but the door--well, it was locked and nailed shut. It seems someone has kicked it open, and not so long ago.

It's dark inside, with the desert light filtering in through the cracks between boards and where the boards have fallen away and in places where the wood has rotted away. The windows are broken on the inside. It smells faintly of darkness, of cold mildew, of grave dirt.

There is a battered wooden chair. There is a battered wooden table. There is the stub of a old candle on the table. An old and empty gas lamp hangs from a roofbeam. Some parts of the walls were plastered once--that's crumbling and the paint is peeling and blistering there too. Some parts are covered in tarpaper. Nobody cares. There is black dirt and black grime in every corner and every crevice. It's nestled there. It belongs there. A fly passes through, rattling along.

Farther, set in the midst of the torn tarpaper, in is a door. It is closed.

A crow lands on the roof, settles its wings, and calls three times.]

[Though he doesn't consciously want to, though his brain should be telling him not to approach the dilapidated little shack, for fear of what might be within it -- but then again, why should he be afraid? What's he expecting to be in there? What could be worse than what he's already seen in his waking life? -- he walks up to the porch, crosses the creaking floorboards, enters through the broken in door.

He looks around the room once, then again, eyes adjusting to the dimness, a contrast to the desert sunlight. There's nothing of note here, nothing spectacularly strange, nothing out of place, but it reminds him of...

... no, it couldn't possibly remind him of anything. Even in dreams, his innate need to be logical at all costs overwhelms the feeling creeping up his spine, the feeling that he's been here before. It's not the sight of the room, not the desert, both of those are alien to him, but that smell, mildew and something darker, that seeps into the nooks and crannies of his brain and threatens to overwhelm that logical protest that this is all new to him.

He doesn't know why, or how, but he finds himself with his hand on the doorknob to the closed room beyond. Now his hand finally does go to one of his shoulder-holstered guns, but only to touch it, only for the sake of feeling somehow secure. He doesn't know why he wants to open this door -- or why the sound of the crow on the roof suddenly makes him feel so uneasy -- but he knows he has to try.]

Edited 2014-01-07 22:52 (UTC)

Rain hesitated, then cautiously started along the path, keeping a close eye out to see what might appear next.

[Uncertainty calls for another tactic.

Pulls out his blade. Vampiric strength makes for a deep carving of 'Valentine' into the baked ground.]

A name to to find this stranger by.

[Hums the song's final refrain and exits the dream.]

Edited 2014-01-09 03:48 (UTC)

Farther along and father along but at what distance one cannot say if only because time and space and distance and place are strange in dreams there can be found a field of corn.

Or the remains of a field of corn. The season seems late. The stalks stand dry and dusty and emptied of the harvest. The stalks stand in rows and the wind moves through them. The wind is dark and damp with the promise or warning of storms someone nearby. The wind moves through the corn. Crows come down among the stalks to peck and scratch at what can be found among the rows.

[The door opens easily, almost unbidden, as though it were hanging ready to open and needed only the faintest touch, the mere change in atmospheric pressure brought on by the presence of a real and true and breathing person in the room to open.

On the other side are three steps, which lead down to a room with a dirt floor. The room is small and perfectly square and damp and cold and smells of water and mold, as though it's underground. There are no windows, there is only the one door to be seen. The steps are painted red. The walls are painted red. The ceiling is painted red. From the middle of the ceiling hangs a single incandescent light bulb, which is burning but also flickering. It casts a halo around itself but it isn't quite enough to throw back the shadows in the corners.

The crow calls again.]

[He doesn't want to walk down the three steps. He doesn't want to step into the red room. He doesn't want to know what lurks in the shadows in the corners. But his feet seem to be guiding him on their own, even if his brain is screaming at him not to go any further.

He still has the feeling that he isn't alone, and maybe it's just the presence of the crow making him feel that way. It certainly seems to be the only other living thing around. He's been in places like this before, damp, cold rooms that smell this way, but never one painted this way.

Why does it occur to him to speak out loud, to try to see if anyone else is around? Clearly there's nothing here but him. Clearly the room is empty. But he tries anyway.]

Hello?

It was dark, but Rain didn't mind so much. She liked the wind, even if it was a bit scary and she'd always loved crows.

A friend had given her a feather once that let her talk to birds and she loved listening to the stories of the crows.

And it smelled as if rain was coming. That always made her happy.

[And the door closes behind him, as one would almost certainly expect. This is a dream, after all. Isn't it? If the dreamer and the visitor within that dream realize such.

The dreamer seems to know. Such a scene cannot have been set by pure chance.

The door shuts. The bare lighbulb overhead swings almost imperceptibly and yet the shadows in the corners move. There is no reply to his call.

But there are insects, beetles and worms and flies and maggots and writhing things and spiders, coming up from the dirt floor.]

[ooc: Just as a warning: if I get too creepy for your taste or comfort in this dream sequence, please just tell me! I have multiple versions of this dreamscape and it can be more surreal or more creepy if changes need be made.]

A crow lands near to her and cocks one bright eye up in her direction, appraising her, giving her due consideration.

It stays a moment, thinking, regarding this newcomer to the field.

Rain carefully sat down near one of the dried corn stalks and began pulling it apart, looking for a last piece or two - ah, there were a couple!

She took them out and carefully set them on the ground in front of her, offering them to the crow.

[He should have expected that. While doors don't normally close themselves, in this dream they certainly do, should certainly be expected to. He knows it's a dream, in an abstract way, but that doesn't stop him from being any less concerned by the way the shadows seem to move. Maybe it's a trick of the light. Maybe it's a trick of his mind. Maybe it's something altogether more ominous.

It takes him a moment to notice the insects coming out of the floor, takes him another moment to respond to it, because he's not scared of insects, certainly not, not when he's been faced with so many other, worse things in his life. Not scared, no, but disgusted, maybe a little shaken, more unsettled than before.

Is it any good to try to squish the beetles and spiders? He has the feeling that they'll just keep crawling out of the floor, just keep multiplying, because that's what things like that do, they multiply and they swarm and they eventually devour whatever's in their way.

It's a disturbing thought. It's enough to make him start trying to stomp the insects.]

[OOC: There is very little that I consider too creepy. I am a big fan of the creepiness in all aspects. In fact, I actively encourage it >.>]

Again, that bright eye: appraising, considering. And then:

"Such gifts, my lady. All things come of the fields, my lady, and of their own have you given me."

[Stomp away. Try for it. Try to crush them. They will keep creeping up out of the floor. The bare bulb overhead swings, throwing moving shadows around the room, throwing light off the bright backs of the beetles. A brown spider moves up his trouserleg.

Oh, but don't worry: there's a small door on the far wall. See? Didn't you notice it before? No? Well, see it now: a small, square door, perhaps only two feet in any direction, made of patched and pieced scrap wood. Painted red, as everything else. But hanging there on the far wall, not but a few inches above the dirt floor.

To pass through it, one would have to crawl. Down there. Among the beetles and the spiders and the millipedes.]

[ooc: I will do my best, then!]

[Does he truly have a choice? Can he really afford not to at least try the door, though it might require him to crawl through that mass of insects, all of which disgust him if he stares at them -- and how can he avoid staring at them? -- for too long?

No. There's no choice. He finds himself holding his breath as he crouches down, though he doesn't know why. He can feel the tickle of something crawling onto his leg, and he barely suppresses the full body shudder that threatens to roll through him.]

Fuck...

[It's a quiet mutter as he begins to attempt to make his way through the tiny door, crawling through the things that are also crawling, but it sounds loud in this room, alone as he is.]

Rain smiled at the crow. "I hope you enjoy it. And you are very beautiful, by the way."

The crow chuckles and ruffles its feathers a bit--something of a show, a little preening, the way a man might straighten his tie or the cuffs of his shirt if he were complimented in the same way.

"Say thankya, my lady.

[The unexpected benefit of crawling through the door is that, although the insects and spiders and crawling things swarm up and around the nearer he draws to the floor, they will not follow him through that doorway. A relief, perhaps.

The room is very low, very small, very dark. It smells of dirt. Indeed, it would seem the room entire is underground, some hidden place down under the house. A man can't stand fully upright here, in this underground room, this dugout chamber.

The door to the red room swings closed, but the light from the bare bulb filters through the cracks. It's enough.

The room is dark, but it is not empty. Something moves. There's the glint of light in something's eye, the glint of light on teeth. The shadows move.

Come in further, come in closer...

A face in the dark, too close, too sudden. Or the barest symbols of a face: lidless eyes and shining teeth, a face drawn up into a grin too full of delight, too full of merriment.

It speaks.]

How far you've come. How you progress. Well done. Well done, indeed. So many have turned back so much sooner than you, or they have not come at all.

Or perhaps they found their way into other rooms. For in this house, too, there are many rooms.

But hush. You've found your way to this room wherein we have been waiting for a very long time.

[There's more movement in the shadows. Small things. Furred things. Mice, rats.]

You carry guns--they will rust here. Your bones will lie here. We will unravel your clothes thread by thread. Of your jaw I will make a means to speak and speak ye shall but to another.

You can't move anyway.

Lie still, lie still.

We won't be a moment.

[They begin to gnaw.

A clever man would wake up now. A clever man would will himself to wake. A clever man would scream himself awake if needs must. But only a clever man...]

[The momentarily sense of relief that he finds when there are no crawling bugs here is immediately erased by the... the face looming towards him, the sickening sense of something deadly in the dark, the immediate feeling of helplessness, even before the voice starts addressing him, the knowledge that all the guns in the world won't do anything here.

He listens.

The words horrify him. More than they should. He wants to turn and run, wants to get out of this place and leave this room and this house and this entire landscape far far behind, but just as he'd been told, he can't move.

And then the gnawing begins.]

Don't. Please...

[Then it's lucky for him, perhaps, that he's always been a clever man, always considered himself clever above all else. His chief instinct in life, the thing that drives him above anything else, is the need to survive. That means fighting if he needs to, but it also means screaming if he needs to, or crying if he needs to (though he loathes it.) So he begins to scream.

And he screams and screams until he awakens in his office, slumped over his desk, breathing hard, sweating, shaking. Just another nightmare. It's not unusual for him. He wakes up screaming more than he'd like to admit. But it had felt so real...

He won't be sleeping again tonight.]

"I like this place much better now that you're here," she said with a grin.

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