}| 20 |{

[never_very_good]

This office is slick and modern; well-appointed but not cluttered. There’s a massive white desk, with a comfortable, large chair behind it, and a smaller seat on the other side. Above it is an unfamiliar logo-- a large white circle with a rectangular piece bitten out. Everything is strangely lit from unlikely angles, the whole room crisscrossed by dim blue shadows. When you look for the edges of the room it seems to bend, blurring in a way that suggests it’s not all there; an imperfect reconstruction from distracted memories. Perhaps that’s why this mundane place seems so ominous.

A little further down the wall, about a yard from the end of the desk, a wide picture window breaks the white plane. Frankie Dalton is standing beside it, staring down at something you can’t quite see, from where you are.


[ooc; all threads are different instances of the dream, and what you see below will vary by person <3 so feel free to tag on in! May be slow, will backdate forever and ever and ever. ilu.]

Comments

[never_very_good]

He nods.

"Doesn't matter," he says curtly. It's a lie, but not as much of one as it would be for most men. Frankie's scared of dying; it's an inevitable part of living, he knows, and he's come to think that's part of why he turned when given the opportunity, part of why most people did. That's the one thing he hates about having his life back-- he knows it's only temporary. And, he knows, his is more temporary than most.

It should be ending, right beneath them. But at the very least it should be ending well, a death that serves a purpose. Instead he's here, and Ed is going to be torn limb from limb by creatures too starved to be called men.

He's perfectly safe, and helpless.

[eiremagic]

"Don't be daft." Eden might have impulse control issues, but Frankie is one giant mess of guilt. Guilt over things he won't tell her about, over things she never pushes to learn about, because she has a past she doesn't talk about, too. She never says anything about Danny, who found her. They are masters of keeping silent.

"Of course it matters. This is the only thing that does matter." Saving a sibling. Eden didn't do what Frankie did, and her little brother died.

[never_very_good]

He chews at his lip again for a long moment, eyes still fixed on the nightmare below them. It advances in slow motion, drawing out his discomfort.

"I'm terrified of dying. Fucking terrified," he admits quietly, because in some ways-- right now-- that's the worst part.

[eiremagic]

She reaches for his hand, but doesn't grip it. Instead she offers it, if he wants her comfort, right now.

"As long as I'm next to yeh, I won' let yeh die." It's not much. But it's as much as she can offer to him.

[never_very_good]

It would mean something-- would mean a lot-- if he wasn't stuck in the dream. As it is he takes her hand, but only in a vague, reflexive way; a motion expected of a motion, without any real agency.

Below them, the swarm has finally descended on Ed and his friends, pulling them down beneath the rush of bloodlust.

[eiremagic]

Eden doesn't look away. She watches, even though maybe she shouldn't, because there's nothing else to do.

[never_very_good]

Frankie's dreams don't have much more to offer. And you won't get any more out of him before the dream fades; though it takes some time. As distant as it ought to be, as buried in the sea of tearing teeth and yellow eyes, each moment of his brother's agony is painfully visible.

And once Ed is gone... so is Frankie, off to other troubles in his mind.