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?

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Helena's hand is warm, closing over hers, as if this could protect her.

"Do you remember what we talked about that day?"

Gentle. Gentle. But it will still shatter her.

"We wanted to understand each other better. We told each other our stories. Do you remember this?"

"Of course," again, still untroubled. "You told me about that terrible place, the Manor, and how you and the others came to be there. And I ..."

Her voice trails off. Pauses.

"I told you," slowly, "I told you about ..."

Another pause.

Very small, and still only puzzled: "That can't be right."

"You told me about your family."

Quiet, and careful, and measured.

"I have not told another soul what you told me on that day. I remember it, clear as if it were yesterday."

Wake up. Please wake up.

"You were only twelve years old."

Nothing disturbs the scene. The air is still mellow and flower-scented, the sun still bright, the breeze still brisk and soft; voices still sound all around them, blithe and untroubled, occasionally laughing. Tiny pieces of ice chime gently against the inside of a glass, very close by.

Cassandra's fingers tighten convulsively on Helena's, and her breath is abruptly too slow, too deep, rigidly steady.

Her hand is still there. Her own breathing even, careful. Eyes closed, unseeing, listening to every little sound, feeling the warmth of the air.

(They're not coming. Even as her heart had ached and leapt at the idea that she could see her sister, her companion again, they're not here. They're elsewhere. She knows. She knows. She's known.)

Here, she waits for Cassandra's mind to open itself, and understand the reality of what is before her. It is a beautiful lie. It is a perfect one. She's so sorry.

It is still a lie.

Ever so slowly, Cassandra leans close, until her temple brushes against Helena's. From any distance it would look like a spontaneous affectionate gesture.

Barely a breath, lower than a whisper:

"Are we observed?"

"No. We are not."

This Helena is certain of. If there is observation, it is centered where the suffering is most obvious. She cannot feel eyes on her back, on her skin, the way she's had to learn to know when a merciless gaze is approaching. Such is absent, and so, she will chance saying this.

Edited 2025-03-05 11:06 (UTC)

"What's happening here? Where are we?"

Still in a whisper. She trusts Helena, but can't make herself speak openly yet.

"You've been lured into a dream. I came here by chance. We cannot stay in this place, for I do not know what will happen."

How, why, all those can be sorted. The important part is that Cassandra is waking up.

Edited 2025-03-06 21:04 (UTC)

Her carefully steady breathing pauses, holds. Exhales, long and shaky.

"How do we leave."

Helena thinks on this, hand still closely clasping Cassandra's, and then inhales when an answer comes to her. Of course. It's so simple.

"We have to listen for the exit. Where the wind is strongest, that is where the door is to escape."

It's a dream, and Helena knows that dreams work on what one thinks should happen - that's why it's so easy to be lost. So easy to believe them, because the mind says that this is happening, that it will keep happening. So what happens if she says there is a dungeon that will take two? If she draws on every memory of it she has, and asks it to exist somewhere? The metal hatch - others say it is red, an old red door. The place where the wind rushes past, it has always taken her to safety.

"All right." Lower, but no longer the faintest. "All right. The way out. I ... think I know where that should be."

She draws another unsteady breath, and rises to her feet. And gives a practiced smile, and says in an almost perfectly natural voice:

"Will you walk with me, Helena? I'd like to show you something."

"Of course," she replies, tone steady and calm. "You know I'm eager to get to know more about your home."

Standing up, she gives a nod, knowing Cass will see it. They can do this. They will do this.

"Just --"

Still holding Helena's hand. Her voice drops again, to a tiny whisper, sounding very young.

"Please don't tell them."

"Of course not."

She won't breathe a word. No one but Cassandra will know the news she bears, the awful truth of it. As much as she can, this place will be left intact. Illusion or not - they are still her family. Still her loved ones.

Cassandra squeezes her hand again, and leads her silently up the flagstone path, through the bright and murmurous courtyard.

"Where are you off to, Cass?" It's a young man's voice -- younger than Lord Frederick's but otherwise rather similar to his, cheerful and genial.

"Just indoors for a few minutes, Julius," says Cassandra, and her voice gives almost no sign of the tension in her hand. "This is my friend Helena, she's had a touch of the sun, nothing serious, I'm sure. Helena, my eldest brother Julius. I -- please do excuse us."

"Pleased to meet you," she replies, manners taking hold where they need to. "Sorry for not staying - I'm a little overheated at the moment."

She's good at looking a little bit passive, when she needs to be - someone to be pitied for a moment, but Cassandra has it well in hand. If she's docile, sweet, they won't notice anything awry.

"Of course," Julius -- the dream-Julius -- says at once. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss Helena -- have a little rest, I'm sure you'll be right in no time. Come back out when you feel a bit more the thing, eh? And Cass --" His voice softens with affection, just a touch. "It's good to have you back home."

There's a half-second's pause before Cassandra can say anything, or maybe before she can say it without choking up. "It's good to be here, Julius. I'll see you later."

And they're moving again, not running but moving, with a kind of terrible restrained urgency in Cassandra's stride.

It hurts, a twisting of screws into wood, one motion at a time. If only she could have woken Cassandra on the outside and gently brought her back to the Isle. Let the happiness be extended until the last possible moment. But that was not her choice to make. Instead, she keeps pace and time with Cassandra, the grip on her hand as much a guide as her cane is.

The cane finds the edge of a doorway ahead of them, as cool shade takes the place of bright sun and stillness replaces breeze.

"We're inside the castle," says Cassandra in an undertone. "There's a back stair ... "

She swallows.

"I'm afraid it may go to a worse dream. I don't want to take you there."

"Nor do I want that for you. But if it does...I have you with me. What comes, we can face it together."

Optimistic thinking, yes, but she has never let that spark in her dim, even in the most hopeless cases. Steady and stubborn, as Cassandra well knows.

"If we stay near, we can remind each other what is true."

Cassandra nods, and then reminding herself that it won't be seen, whispers "Yes."

Stone floor under their feet and under Helena's cane, then carpet over wooden paneling, then a narrow doorway and bare wood stairs going down. Then stone underfoot again, and more stairs, and air that's both cooler and stuffier, and a still narrower doorway, weirdly irregular in shape.

"This is the dungeon," Cassandra says, very low. "It hasn't been in use for some years. No one should be here."

Helena pauses there, listening to the air, touching the edge of the doorway. And the wind, it rises, stronger in her ears, and she nods once, decisive.

"This is it. There was a secret exit, in all the matches at the manor - if you found the dungeon, when hope was lost, you could still get away. This is our way out."

"Let it be so," she whispers, and moves through the doorway.

The air is close and stuffy, and stinks as it did when she first came here, of stale urine and old blood and worse. As hard as she tries to tell herself that it isn't like this anymore, that it's been scoured clean and left empty, she can't clear the stink from her memory.

It reeks like the basements used to, the scent of fear, which is all ammonia and iron and rot. It makes her grip onto Cassandra's hand harder, the one sign she'll give that she's expecting something worse to manifest from the darkness, pain from any one of so many sources.

"Do you see any doors set into the floor? That would be what I know."

Barely audible, because she can't help it, this place is as chilly as she remembers, she remembers, the one place to hide in those twisted up dreams that were also memories.

Distant. Very far away. The strange sound of metal clicking against stone, it still resonates in her head.

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not_the_last - 2025-04-02 02:53 (UTC) - Expand

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