ph_logs | January Event - Lost in Dreamland

January Event - Lost in Dreamland

**Plain text version here.

Lost in Dreamland

Bedtime Story

{ CONTENT WARNINGS: Unreality, dream logic. Mind the CWs in individual threads, as they will vary! }

It is no secret that in the Emerald Isles, winter and sleep have a deep connection. To some extent, this is true everywhere. The whole world seems to fall asleep under the blanket of snow. Plants recede back into the ground, trees stand leafless and slumbering till spring, animals hibernate. Nights are longer. But the local folklore intensifies this, as Mortanne presides over Winter and the Beyond.

As the tales go, the Beyond is the realm of souls, the place where the essence of a person goes when it separates from their body. And while this primarily refers to death, it can also refer to the half-step between living and dying--- the unconscious mind. Sleep, and moreover, dreaming. And thus, winter and dreams have always been kindred spirits. Connected through their ties to Mother Mortanne and to a hushed and sleeping world.

Perhaps it is for this reason that when you go to sleep on the night of January 19th, 16:55, it is a deeper, more consuming sleep than you’ve ever felt. One that swallows you whole, dragging you down, and down, and down, into a sunken place that is deeper and more terrifying than dreams.

By the time you think to feel afraid, it is already too late to jolt yourself awake.

LULLABY

Beautiful Dreamer, Wake Unto Me

You wake. Or do you? It feels a bit like waking, and yet, it does not. It is similar enough to waking that one might believe it to be so. You feel ground beneath your feet, or perhaps a bed beneath your back. Or something. You feel… something. It isn’t like waking. But it’s a little bit like waking. Perhaps it is not. But perhaps it is as close as you are able to get. Let’s try this again.

You “wake.” Your mind solidifies and reality defines its shape around you. Your eyes focus and you become aware. What are you aware of?

Whatever it is, it isn’t good. Perhaps it seems good at first, but it is not. Wherever you are, only horrors await you here, pulled straight from your own mind. Or the minds of others.

Move. You must move. The dream is a landscape. You must traverse nightmares to escape. Seek other dreamers, and flee. To the center, to safety in false daydreams. To the underground, where the Necropolis will conceal you. To the edges, where you can feel your consciousness break free of this sunken sleep and return to the world of hard objects and light. But you cannot stay here. Gods help you if you stay here.

[ Your nightmare can look however you desire. Laws of reality and physics do not apply. Fuse them, reshape them, choose your flavor. Be liberal with content warnings and respect sensitive content guidelines, but otherwise, there are no rules. ]

Starlight and Dewdrops are Waiting For Thee

If you reach the center of the dreamscape (or perhaps you “woke up” there), you will find an oasis. You find yourself immediately embraced by a beautiful dream. All of your wishes granted, your deepest desires pulled directly from the core of your soul and brought to life before you in vivid detail.

What sort of dream do you find yourself in? What do you dream of? Is it success, love, peace? A life that never came to pass? For your troubles never to have occurred? Do you dream of fame or glory? No matter how beautiful or extravagant, no matter how simple or selfish, the things you desire most are yours.

You cannot escape from here. This is the center, as far away from the waking world as you can go. But the dream entreats you, as do the illusory figures within it. ”Stay,” they croon. ”There is nothing for you beyond here. Only nightmares, only terror. You are safe here. You are loved and wanted and happy here. Why would you ever want to leave?”

Time blends together. It often does, in dreaming, but this feels different. How long have you been here? Do you remember what you were doing before? How you got here? Have you ever even been to a town called Pumpkin Hollow? You can hardly remember.

Maybe that was the dream, and this is your reality. Even as the edges of it bleed together with that of your neighbor, even as fleeting memories come back to you, even as a little voice deep within you screams at you to wake up--- you have no reason to doubt the legitimacy of this place. Here you are happy and safe. Here you are everything you ever wanted to be, living the life you always wanted. Here there are no debts, no suffering, and you shall never die.

You belong here. Surely.

Sounds of the Rude World Heard in the Day

With how far you had to sink into unconsciousness to be here, it’s hard to believe one could go any deeper. But the Beyond is a many-layered place, and perhaps by descending a bit further, a bit deeper, a bit closer to death, you can find another place. Maybe you have a connection to death that brought you here. Perhaps you find your way by mistake. Either way, you may find yourself on a more peaceful journey through the Beyond through the Frozen Necropolis.

A seemingly endless maze of stone walls, mismatched in their depth as if they were patchworked together over centuries. Mausoleums, slotted tightly against one another. Covered marble passageways. Stone statues and carved reliefs depicting gargoyles, knights, Virtues, mages with skull motifs--- necromancers, perhaps? Banshees and dullahans, elves and humans and dwarves and orcs and fae folk of all sorts. All of these things line a network of cobblestone pathways lined with powder snow drifts and crunchy brown grass. Names are carved into the arches above mausoleum doors. Some are familiar, some are not. Fairbanks, Gladwyn, Dirthariel, Leeds, Larson, Endrin, Applegate, Brenning. Above you, white pillar candles float magically overhead, burning bright, lighting your way through the dark pink sunset sky.

In the distance, you see the achingly thin spires of the Winter Cathedral. An austere grey monolith with ornate carvings of horses and snowflake-shaped stained glass windows. Perhaps you will find some solace there. Otherwise, make your way to the river. A familiar ferryman awaits you--- though returning to reality this way will have a small consequence.

[ Encountering Mortanne here is possible, though her threads will be heavily restricted. You can do a thread here with someone else, though! It’s fine to be here without encountering her. Returning to the island by ferry will cause your physical body to die in the process, leaving you a ghost for the usual amount of time. You can also return to the nightmare and get out through the edge. ]

Lulled by the Moonlight, Have All Passed Away

Should you find the edge of the nightmare, you will be able to push yourself through the iridescent membrane at the edge of consciousness. You float through the seemingly endless darkness for a moment, then another, then a third, senses dull and drifting drunkenly, until suddenly---

Like breaching the surface of water, you return to the solid, bright sharpness of reality. Actual reality, firm and true. You are where you went to sleep the night before, though some time has passed. It might take you a bit to figure out exactly how much, though…

Those who escape the nightmare will find themselves home sometime between 1/20 and 1/30. Those who stay in the dream oasis will be comatose until the dream ends, and will not wake until 2/8. They will find the return to reality deeply unpleasant. What are you willing to endure to keep dreaming a while more?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Connie slips between CT's ribs as deftly as a knife, tearing the wind from her lungs and leaving her gaping, dumbly, with tongue tied and eyes wide. Aborted, shaky sounds that don't make it all the way to words slip out, until she swallows hard again to clear her throat.

Keep it together. Keep. It. Together.

Con— CT finds her voice and lies more easily than she can breathe. "I-I caught myself on something."

"Must have been a very large something," Ash says, punctuation in the form of incredulous head-shake. He tuts; isn't buying it. Neither does Ripley but she doesn't weaponize this quite as aptly, nor as quickly as he does.

She isn't stupid, either. Not privy to context, sure, but certainly not stupid;

And so the breath that drums an unsteady rhythm into the atmosphere does not go unnoticed. It's so opposite the sounds she'd made before, shaken yet steady enough...

Connie. The name strips her composure utterly. For what reason?

Ellen's not given the time necessary to mull it over, for Ash crosses the infirmary to thumb over a few tools. Surgical blades, clamps, small vials of liquid capped and hanging in their spot on the wall. Her eyes don't leave him— can't.

He prepares a syringe.

"No doubt you're in excruciating pain. You'll need your faculties to return to the bridge. This should do the trick..."

Pinched between his fingers, a bottled something.

She has no idea what.

"Ash-"

The warning comes instinctually and for a reason she can't quite understand.

CT's eyes follow Ash's motions just as compulsively as Ripley's own, catching on every tool he passes over, on every little motion of his hands. Something in her is screaming: danger, danger, danger—louder and louder with every passing second that the needle, the unidentified bottle, are in his hands.

Connie wants to run. CT tries to remember that she is covered from neck-to-toe with thick kevlar.

"I'm fine, really. It doesn't hurt that much." Another lie, even as she forces her voice to steady.

She's never liked him. Never never never. From the moment he set foot onboard the Nostromo, taking hold of his controls with inhuman grace. The way his fingers danced across a million knobs, keeping Mother's impossible pace without a drop of perspiration. Not one. No disaster startled him. No insult ticked his nerves. At the time she'd felt rude-- stupid and perhaps immature-- for thinking it, but it's thought nonetheless; there is nothing behind his eyes. Not like Dallas, insouciant yet thoughtful; like Kane, curious to a fault; like Parker, a blazing glory that never seemed to dim. Her crew was alive. And him--

Nothing.

His laugh, hollow. His eyes, without that distinctly human gleam.

"All that paranoia coming up again." He says; to whom it's not clear. He smells their combined distrust, thick and miasmic, but his expression doesn't change.

"You just need to rest a little."

That much is clear.

Ripley is frozen. The scene before her plays like a memory and not an action.

He reaches toward Connie, syringe in one hand with the other splayed out--

And attacks.

Instinct is a powerful thing. There is a moment—somewhere between the split second where CT catches the subtle wind-up of his hand and the moment it slams into the side of her skull—when CT reaches for a holographic decoy that is not there. Months upon months of hard-trained reflex betraying her in a misguided attempt to save her, leaving the real her, the unarmoured, injured, vulnerable her at the mercy of an instant concussion and the all-too-familiar scent of iron beneath her nose.

Connie's heart starts beating a thousand miles a minute and CT screams, more rage than fear but plenty of both, grabbing and clawing at the hand that now yanks at the long half of her hair and groping around wildly for something— anything— anything at all she can get a hold of to fight back.

One wild, thrashing kick catches his torso and it's like kicking armour. The pain erupts out of her in a gasp.

Chaos.

Metal utensils clatter, fist meets flesh to create a packing rhythm. Knuckles to skull, knuckles to the valley bridge of CT's nose, releasing a gush of hot scarlet liquid. Pack, pack, pack. The damage Ash does is done with one hand, groping and hitting. The other keeps a tight hold on the uncapped syringe, as if it had melded to his person; a plastic taloned finger sprouting up from a violent palm.

Ripley freezes for one second too long, crystalized by horror. One second and her nose is bleeding. One second and his hand wrenches fistfuls of black hair. One second to allow the woman's guttural one-note scream. One second—

"Ash— Ash!"

But he is not a thing that can be reasoned with. She knows this, yet speaks as a sort of fleeting human instinct to reason.

He doesn't respond. Of course he doesn't.

She's on him the next second, raking hands down his shoulders in an effort to pull him away. He doesn't budge. Ripley snarls, hands reaching around to his face now, scraping cheek, mouth, eyes especially. Any soft pit of skin she can find.

His eyes are hard, wet marbles set into a synthetic face. Her stomach drops at the texture of them.

The Science Officer peels away from Connie, not pleased to be someone's scratching post, to shove Ellen into the nearest surface.

Momentum carries and CT hits the table with a painful thud that sends fresh agony through her ribcage and jars her shoulder, joining her throbbing head in the cacophonous chorus of pain. With a shake of her head that sends crimson scattershot across the clinical white surfaces, she grits her teeth and shoves herself up with a frustrated, wordless sound.

Think quickly. Tight space. Ash shoving Ripley against a wall. Ripley fighting back with no success. Medical equipment out in the open. Act.

Her leg almost gives under her own weight and her abdomen burns, but she has a hand on the table and stubborn determination on her side. One step, then another, hand from table-to-wall, other hand grasping, fumbling, locking around the first medical blade it finds so tight her knuckles pale. Whirl around, lock onto the threat, use every bit of strength she can muster to lunge and aim for the unnatural thing's throat.

Ripley's back hits the center module and sends metal trays scattering from atop a high shelf, the noise like lighting in an aluminum sky. She gasps, thunks, wheezes for breath and sinks to her hands and knees. So much force in his stupid, stout body. In his thin arms and legs, betraying every human sense and appearance in synthetic strength.

She has to do something. Do. Something.

Ash makes no noise. Perhaps that's what unnerves her so. The manner in which he catches CT's arm, making no noise. No grunting declarations of power. The way he squeezes the lithe wrist until she drops her tool, making no noise, to then spear his syringe into the patch of muscle below her collarbone. It breaks, the needle nestled deep into flesh and the syringe discarded. No noise. No words.

He doesn't need them.

Like something in his brain— whatever it's made of— is rendered mute by violence.

Ripley's turn. She steals a pair of medical scissors up from the floor and lunges. Drives the twin blades into his shoulder. Out. Into his shoulder again. Out. A quick one two three.

A milk-like substance seeps from the wounds.

He makes no noise. Turns to her and gropes a fistful of curly hair, driving her face into the center console.

CT feels the bones of her wrist, so delicate and precisely arranged in the way the oh so fragile human body often is, grind together and threaten to crack. Every noise of exertion past her lips is met with empty, silent air and she is reminded against her will of the cold, silent silhouette of the last android to drive metal through her skin.

Bodies more armour than flesh. Effortless violence. Unstoppable. Inhuman.

Fresh blood oozes through the punctured kevlar and she falls, almost hits the ground but hits a trolley instead, wheels rolling across the floor, her feet scrambling. Finally she finds purchase, forces herself up, to keep moving despite the pain, the futility.

Knowing how it would end didn't stop her in the bunker. Why would it stop her here?

Push off the bottom rack of the trolley and jump onto the android's back, arms around his throat, knees in his sides, trying to use all her weight to do— something, fucking anything, even as darkness threatens the edge of her vision, adrenaline and spite all she has to give.

Why must the men in her life be useless even in dreams? Where is that bullish Parker when she needs him? Where are the strong arms, the bat and thwack and spewing of marbles and wet, milky insides? Why can't he get up from his place of rot and rest, punctured by the alien who crawls about the vents now, to help her? Them? Fuckers!

Tears begin to streak down her face. Their being there stokes a rage she's well-familiar with, a searing iron beneath thin facial folds. She cries not for Parker or anyone else's memory, but in response to pain. Out of anger. Of face against sterile white wall. The force of the blow blots her vision with stars. Red trickles down her face. And she's angry. So fucking angry to afford him anything by way of a reaction. If she could turn off her tears like a water spigot she'd never cry again. But she's human, unlike their foe, and so too are the tears.

Connie's spite serves her well. She lands upon Ash's back and he's unable to tip her off. Bucks and thrashes, but to no avail. His hands can't reach her and although she doesn't topple him with her meager weight, she creates the perfect in for Ripley to strike.

And strike she does.

With a shrill war cry, like a crow pierced through the gullet, Ripley steals forward with scissors in hand. She fists Ash's collar, wrenching him close to drive the steel blades into his face. She hits something hard and plastic, pulls out and drives them in again, this time in the supple fold between marble-eye and eyelid. A splash of white. Out, in again. Another cry. Why did the Company create such a thing? In, out. The marble eye is flung from its home. And who thought to give it such strength? Under the jaw, in. Out comes strings of gelatin. And why shove a god damn newspaper in someone's mouth?

She staggers back, drops the tool.

Disgusting white sprays from every strike that hits home, some of it catching CT in the face, stark against the warm brown of her skin and hair. CT flinches but she does not let go, clinging on with all the strength left in her, every thrash and jerk a fresh shot of agony from every wound. If anything, the pain only makes her fight harder, arms digging deep against the unyielding girth of his neck with force enough to bruise herself.

But Ripley has proved one thing: it can be damaged, and now there are openings in the chassis.

CT jams her fingers into the tear in Ash's synthetic flesh beneath the jaw, digs and digs, ignoring the revulsion twisting in her stomach at the sensation of it until her digits close around something and yanks. Wires, artificial tendons—whatever the hell they are she doesn't care, she only cares that they can be torn loose. Her other hand digs past the hollow of his eye socket seeking the same, seeking to do whatever damage she can.

Ripley paws at the wall, streaks of milk-white soaking her hand, forearm and scissor blades. She drops them and they clatter to the ground, no longer of any use to her seeing how Connie has begun to eviscerate the synthetic's face.

It gives her ample time to address her own. She drags sleeve and skin alike across her eyes, her nose, her cheeks, collecting blood and tears in equal measure. Ripley bites back a sob, which fights her in turn and comes out in ceramic pieces through a raw throat.

Out, out, out comes the spillage. Through his eyes, seeping from the wound in his neck. Out comes the marbles, the wiring, the gelatin strands like glass noodles in a frothy milk broth. His jugular slops out and down, hanging by thin wire strands. And only then does he begin to make noise. The drone of a wild insect. A bee shaken in a jar, knowing it will die. He screeches, less a human noise and more a mechanical whir of fans and processors, as he fights to escape.

He can't. She's got him through the face, splitting facial muscle to reveal the contorting white under-layer.

The thing screeches and CT screams with it, animal rage and survival instinct erupting from her as violently as the fluids that escape him. Her hands are covered in artificial viscera and her face fares little better, but she does not stop. Pulling, yanking, twisting, tearing—there is no logic to it, no thought, just fight.

And when he starts to stumble, when the body cannot withstand the damage being done to it, she finally looses her legs from around his body. Hangs from his shoulders like a counterweight and jerks, throwing her weight to the side and taking him off-balance. Slams him down into the infirmary bed neck-first, picks up the nearest freestanding object without so much as a glance at what it is and starts whaling on him until the screeching mechanics crescendo in a death rattle.

Ash's synthetic body comes undone. His face is unrecognizable, jaw partially torn from its skull, slacked open to reveal a line of perfect ivory-key teeth and flapping pink tongue. Fingers fit into empty eyes sockets like holes in a bowling ball, and once inside Connie is able to split him like a coconut. Tear, squelch, spit. Out comes the white water. Pours in endless quantities through every crease and crevice of Ash's maimed face.

Ripley whets her lips, tasting without intention the sallow silicon blood on her face and hands. She can do nothing but watch the scene in front of her. Locked onto it with the same intensity one watches a terrible accident, knowing they shouldn't.

And that scream. An animal's scream. A cathartic scream; she knows the kind.

Air comes in hard-earned pants. She rakes wet fingers through her hair until it, too, soaks in the wetness. Plasters itself to her skull.

"Hey..."

With effort, Ripley hauls herself to her feet and approaches CT. Ash's cadence is suppressed to a dull, gurgling whine. She touches her arm.

"Hey. ...He's— he's finished."

A touch, a jolt—CT whirls around as if to strike out at a new threat, only for the fight in her to fall away like a switch has been flipped the moment wild eyes land on Ripley. Her makeshift weapon clatters to the ground and her body sags, leg half-collapsing from under her and chest heaving with strain. Adrenaline seeps out of her nervous system like blood from a wound.

And then she falls to the ground, half-grabbing at Ripley's arm on the way down.

Violence sweats from the room's atmosphere in opaque droplets, leaving behind the condensation memory. White on walls, on floor, on the crooked infirmary bed. Robot slime makes the floor slick where Ash's body lays. Not so much as a twitch from him. Red, too, joins the mix. Creates a pink concoction where the two meet, one a living essence and the other not. One thick, the other of a more vicious quality. Like water and oil, they detest each other.

But the threat is gone. Connie's made damn sure. Damn sure.

Ripley's hands find her opposite's forearms as their center of gravity shifts, legs folding down to meet the floor in shared exhaustion. She isn't sure what to say first; thank you or I'm sorry, and so says nothing. Instead she acts as a pillar in which to bear her weight, muttering 'it's over' with the solemn relief one might say it's okay or well done, having endured a trial.

Finally, a chance to fucking breathe.

She takes it without complaint. Smooths a hand across CT's blood-silicon slicked arm thoughtlessly.

Her eyes fall shut, but she is still awake—no, not awake, of course not awake, no one here is awake, but aware. Aware of every breath taken in the now quiet space, aware of every ache and pain that still throb beneath her skin, aware of every nerve ending that fires under every touch.

They are alive. It's over. It's over.

CT takes a deep breath in and Connie breaks down into full-body, hysterical sobbing.

The air stinks of blood and silicon sinew. Her feet slide where the ground is wet from their efforts, but she doesn't care. Reprieve is reprieve. The quiet is well-earned and there isn't a single thing on the Nostromo, human, alien or otherwise, that disrupts it.

Just the noise they make themselves; Ripley's a quiet panting, a hushed lull-voice, and Connie's a chorus of wracking sobs.

She wraps her arms around Connie's shoulders, careful to avoid what seems like a dozen active wounds across her body. One hand rests on the nape of her neck, pressing. Grounding. Real flesh to real flesh. The other glides slowly across wet, black hair.

"It's over. You can breathe."

It's over. Like 'it's okay' but without the lie. It isn't okay. She's never liked the taste of a lie. They sit oddly in her mouth and more often than not she finds herself spewing truth instead. The truth stands firm; it's over.

"We'll find our way out."

Connie gasps and wretches, every attempt to breath like trying to swallow down air underwater. Fingers clutch at the back of the hand at her neck, lacking purchase for how slick the skin has become. Tears streak through the splashes of pale colour caked to her face and the taste of iron still dances across her tongue from her bleeding nose and where she must have bitten her own tongue. Every sob shakes her whole, broken body like an earthquake followed by tsunami.

Her head droops toward Ripley. She tries to breathe. In and out. The tidal wave can't go on forever. There must be an end to this, just as much as there was an end to the violence that broke the still waters in the first place.

Inhale, exhale. (Salty tears fall past her lips, mingling with the fluids already drowning her tastebuds.) Inhale, exhale. (Her head feels like it's been bashed in with rocks.) In, out. In. Out.

Finally, through rasping breaths: "I-I don't know— how much l-longer— I-I can keep going."

She feels small in Ripley's arms. Is small. A world away from the Kevlar-guilded soldier belting war-cries and throwing herself on top of an android's backs. Who beats and beats and beats at her enemy's face until recognizable bone structure caves into a homogenous soup, unable— or perhaps unwilling— to stop her siege despite all evidence of its success. Not until that last sequel is wrung from his throat. Where does the instinct come from? What has she seen? Or more importantly; what has she been made to do?

These thoughts come and go in ebbing waves to match Connie's sea, until finally they're quieted by a greater purpose.

It's times like these where Ripley feels most useful. Able to take up the reigns when others have reached their utter limit. She folds around her, all long-armed and spined, gangly in that awkward sort of way, to break up her waves.

"Then we'll sit here until you're ready." A quick scan around the room. "The doors are shut, the vents are hatched, nothing's coming in here."

And he sure isn't moving.

Her mouth opens as if to protest, only for the words to be swallowed up by a leftover sob and leave her needing another moment to recollect herself. CT hates to be seen like this but Connie can hardly bring herself to care, appearances mean so little when what's left of you is spread so thin.

It should not be possible to trust Ripley the way she does in the moment. She does not understand why it is that, even in this exhausted state, she can make such a mistake as to put her trust in anyone at all. And yet there is something in the fabric of all this that makes it easier, a sense of good intention and honesty that despite herself she can't ignore.

So she lets herself be held, for now. Tries not to think about how small she feels, like this.

"Not— not sure how far I-I can even walk."

Had CT seeped through the cracks to voice her contempt, Ripley would meet her with a question; what makes this so different from rage? She'd watched her bash in a man's face, surely this can't be any worse. But in the prideful, covert corridors of her own brain, she gets it. It's not often she cries in front of others. Not often she lets herself cry, preferring sharp-tongued rage as her outburst of choice. Tears feel, for some reason, like a lapse in control. She hates it.

Blood catches in the line between her own lips. Ripley scrubs with the back of her hand at it. Swishes the blood in her cheek, swallows, tries not to wretch.

Her palm finds the other woman's shoulder. "I'll carry you, then. I've carried heavier. Big oil barrels from ships just like this. I know how to get us to the escape craft— it'll be easy." She wrenches her eyes closed, feels her flesh pulse at either temple. "I need to see straight first."

It is only the inexplicable sense of certainty that they will, at least, not find themselves back in that crimson soaked coffin that keeps her tongue still at the thought of climbing into another escape pod. They don't have the luxury of options, no simple plan As and Bs, only the single path forward as it appears to them in the moment.

"O-Okay," she breathes, swallowing down another mouthful of fear. "Okay. If— if you're sure."

Or at least, as sure as she can be. True guarantee is too much to ask.

God, what a mess they are.

Okay… A breath. A slow in and out. Incurred and expelled. Blood continues its steady dribble down her lip. She tastes it, feels it course through interventions channels to the pain-spot in her face. Okay. In, out. Slow. Slow. She’s bleeding too. We haven’t much time. What exactly will happen when their time expires, she isn’t sure. What Ripley does know is that this is the Nostromo. She knows this ship. She knows it.

Ripley smooths two dirtied hands over her face, pulling away to meet Connie’s eyes. She gets a feeling this woman likes to be in the know.

“At the end of the hallway to the right, there’s a hatch. We’ll go down that hatch to D, down another hatch to E, then another one to F. They’re just ladders, it’ll be easy. Once we’re in F, there’s an on-ramp and we’ve made it. Simple?”

Simple… It’s simple.

Please.

She rests with forehead tipped up, sweat and white and red gleaming under her neck, for one final second. “Okay. Time to get up.”

If she doesn’t now, she never will. They’ll spend the rest of their days crumpled together beside Ash’s corpse.

Her arms slide gingerly under Connie’s, coaxing them to wrap around her nape. “On my back,” she murmurs, hoisting her the rest of the way.

CT commits the directions to memory with a nod that feels like taking a sledgehammer to the skull. Connie lets Ripley guide her arms and gets her feet under her, steadying herself for a moment on shaking legs before doing what she can to help hoist herself up onto the taller woman's back.

Legs and arms lock in place. There's very little that could make her let go, now.

January Event - Lost in Dreamland

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CW: needles

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CW: needles, physical violence, continued

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