Participants:
| Scene Title | Extremities |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gillian and Squeaks go to see Eve when she returns from Kansas City to tell her about the tape that's making it's rounds. |
| Date | June 08, 2018 |
Cat’s Cradle: The Oracle Room
Down the stairs leads into a small hallway lit by dimmed down by blue Christmas lights, at the end are two doors, a white painted one with a padlock and a black painted one. The black door has an old-fashioned clock embedded into the wood. The gears seem to be spinning backwards.
Inside of the black door there is a room that is almost always filled with a smoky haze. The vents in the corners of the room help with the place not becoming too stuffy a couple large fans are positioned to help with the smoke if it becomes too much. Fabrics of various vibrant and muted colors and large comfy pillows fill the room, there is a work area in a corner filled with blank canvases and unfinished paintings. A few cabinets and bookcases are placed around the room. The room at large seems to hold a large number of completed paintings. Hanging on the wall or stacked against each other or in piles, the Three Mothers hangs over a fireplace tucked into the corner. There is an old beat up roundtable which an ornate glass bong sits in the center placed alongside a large black hookah. A deck of playing cards and a few candles are placed in the center.
Upstairs the Sassy Bartender who keeps the place running while Eve is off saving the world had told them that Eve had actually recently returned, and while he spared a glance at the child that Gillian had brought in tow, he didn’t comment on it, not even to be sassy. He did not imagine either of them was here for the alcohol. Or the other things sometimes found downstairs. At the smell of the place, the librarian and council member suddenly wonders if perhaps she should have called Eve to meet her instead. But it was too late for that now.
“Don’t do any of the things you see here,” she warns the young one, before leading her down into the Oracle Room. It’s the easiest way she can say not to do drugs, even if she hoped most of what went on here had been at least legal. Though really it sounded like the kid had probably seen worse, so. Maybe she shouldn’t be too worried about it.
“Eve?” she called out as she led the way down the stairs. “I heard you took a trip out west without saying anything to me.” She just hoped she wasn’t hunting down that Adam character again.
The last time she’d been in this building, she’d pilfered snacks and drink garnishes. But that was a time when Squeaks was barely finding a meal a day and boldly going into places most people wouldn’t consider as having foods. It was a risk she willingly took, and she left with a quieted tummy. Which was a good thing, considering the craziness that broke out. So she’s probably vaguely familiar with Sassy Bartender. At least, whoever was tending that night didn’t try to stop her, and the look she gives him says she’d be brave enough to help herself to more foods in the bar if she needed to.
The warnings from Gillian are replied to with a small nod. Not only is she obviously too young to have a drink upstairs, she remembers twists of paper being flung around that had a weird, tickling smell. Squeaks didn’t try those, either. She stays just behind Gillian, peeking around the woman and casting a backward glance up the stairs.
Down they went, descending into a light haze that fills the hallway downstairs. Music, some cinematic score reving up higher and higher in energy and there's a voice echoing out of the black ajar door where the smoke and all the noise is coming from. There's a shuffle and the backwards rotating clock embedded into the door faces the pair, the hands spinning slowly and incorrectly.
“Gilly?” A voice calls out, the rasp is familiar. Eve sounds good. And as the two women walk into the place they discover Eve lounging on a large couch, just brought in while she was away. There are so.. many pillows on it. And she seems pretty damn comfortable sitting there with her deep brown eyes staring up at her best friend and a vaguely familiar face.
She's puffing on a joint and it can't have been her first because of all the smoke in the room. Her fan works in the corner of the room. The other one had just been turned on a little bit ago. Smoke was slowly funneling out of the room but the seer doesn't seemed phased. Luckily for Gillian and Squeaks the smoke really isn't harsh, a hookah that sits in the middle of the table has just stopped being used. Wild dark brown hair is loose and hanging around her face, shaping it. Her eyes are alight with excitement at seeing Gillian. She had just arrived back home yesterday. A wiggle of her pale fingers at Squeaks with a wink.
Her attire is casual, a dark blue robe of light material covers her. Feet bare and face make up free, her lips purse as she pulls again from the joint and blows the smoke out from her nostrils. “I.. had to go see Vinny Benny! The Vaporizer.” Her tone ethusticaic but the older woman looks tired.
“I left a note!” Taped to her own room door on the inside. At home.
Various paintings finished and not lay around the large room as usual. But no new ones, not prophetic at least. A fresh, unfinished painting sits on an easel in one of the corners. The curves of a man’s proud jawline are prominent, one lone streak of yellow in the hair. She had hoped to finish the portrait that night.
The hookah is a little less worrisome, though she doubts the seer could be considered as using it for religious purposes. Gillian does a customary wave in front of her face as she often does around such things these days. One would think all her experience with drugs as a teenager and young adult would have changed her opinion, or maybe that had informed her opinion on the topic. Either way, Squeaks was far too young for that. She could make her mistakes as an older teen and young adult all she wanted.
“I’d heard you were out of town.” The ‘Vaporizer’ sounds familiar, but she didn’t have much experience with Vinny Benny personally, so it doesn’t make her think too much about why she might have been seeing him. Her eyes trail over the paintings. They don’t seem to be her usual style, the kinds that she painted left and right in the past. “Is your ability still not back yet?” she asks quietly, having not had the chance to for a while, even if she’d been keeping track of her activities as well as she could.
With a gesture to Squeaks, she moves closer and settles down on one of the comfortable pillows, setting down the laptop bag that she carried with her on top of the hookah table. She doesn’t usually bring a laptop with her on these things, so that alone would tell the seer that something is definitely different about this visit, even if she hasn’t gotten to the topic at hand yet.
The room as a whole is taken in with wide eyes and open curiosity, though it’s quickly reigned in with a wrinkle of her nose at the haze and smell. Squeaks pulls the collar of her hoodie up over her mouth and nose to filter all that stuff out. And from just above that collar, she gives Eve a guarded look. The girl remembers that lady and the random act of violence that she started, and it makes her a little bit cautious.
When the grown-ups start talking, she starts looking around again. Those paintings are interesting, and Squeaks starts to get closer for a better look. She tilts her head after a couple of steps eyeballing the newest creation. Another few steps closer and her head tilts the other way. Her eyes follow and pick over the paintings like she might at a museum, all looking but no touching. And no thought to asking if she could look or not, she just does it.
Until Gillian’s motions, caught out of the corner of an eye, draw her attention back to the grown-ups. Squeaks turns around and shuffles back to sit criss-cross on the floor next to Gillian.
Thinking of her lost ability makes the woman frown and she waves a hand as she exhales smoke from held deep within her lungs. “Sadly, no… I still don't get the echoes… no whispers… no dreams..” it's a relief but it also makes her feel.. not like herself. Eve isn't sure if she misses it or not. There is a real love and hate relationship with her gift. She feels blind again though just like when she was actually blind.
Eyeing the young girl as Gillian pulls out the laptop, “Some of those can be scary. But you seem tough.” A wide smile on her face as she speaks in regards to the looking over of her work. She doesn't mind of course.
Noting the laptop as she turns her gaze back to Gillian the dark-haired woman tilts her head and her nose wrinkles. “Is there another meme?” She sounds apprehensive as well as.. Excited?
“No, not a meme. Though it probably could become one if we uploaded it.” Gillian responded with a small smile, but not one that seemed to find the idea humorous. They would not upload it, after all, they needed to keep some secrets. “Squeaks here liked to go exploring, nooks and crannies and the like in the city. She would have made a good member of Phoenix or Pariah back in the day.” After all, those two groups tended to hold up in the strangest of places. Sewers, old subways, abandoned libraries.
Loading up the laptop, she toys around with the screen to get something loaded, as she continues to speak. “She found something underground. A camcorder with a tape still inside. There’s more to talk about than just what was on the tape, but I wanted to show it to you, see if it jogged any old dreams you might have had to your memory.”
Because she knew the dreamer remembered a lot of her dreams when she had them. And that sometimes she didn’t understand what they were until she saw them in action.
With that, she spun the screen toward her, made sure the volume was turned on and hit play.
“I’m not afraid of pictures.” Squeaks’ reply is mild and quiet, just an added comment to Gillian’s description. She’s not sure if that bit about Phoenix or Pariah is good or bad — maybe half good since phoenixes come back to life, but pariahs aren’t so good. When you’re a pariah you’re not wanted, like you have a disease or something. “Some of them are kind of primal.”
Further explanation of the where and when she found the camcorder is held off so Eve can watch the video first. Squeaks braces her elbows against her knees and cradles her chin in her hands. In one hand, after a second, because she leans over to watch the video too. Maybe she’ll see something she missed the last few times she watched it.
“We would have loved you!” Though Eve would have recruited Squeaks way before Cameron ever would have. The soothsayer peers at the laptop again with a puzzled expression. How curious all the mystery she feels how most people must feel when she's dancing around an dancing, throwing limbs at it than words. Finally as the video file begins to play Eve tilts her head before her eyes flash and she looks over to Gillian before rapidly returning to the screen and leaning forward, pressing her nose almost against the screen.
Eyes slide this way and that way. Liz.. A lone tear falls down the silent woman’s face as she continues to watch. A lost Valkyrie. She.. she thinks back to a conversation she had with Ygraine years ago that maybe Liz was just out there somewhere. And she was.
Lady Zeus, that Pizza Boy that everyone talked about and Otter Eyes. “The Other Otter,” another tear. “He's real.” For someone who often rolls her eyes at people that don't trust in her gift even she has her doubts at times. She sees Mateo’s portals. A young man who controls gravity and talks a lot about it. Lady Zeus.. wow beautiful in every timeline. A true Queen. But it's Liz and Otter Eyes, the other Otter that draw her attention most and the freak out at the end. Brow furrowing as the tape ends. “But I haven't dreamt of the Other Lady Zeus.” She comments softly more to herself than anyone else. Is that why he's moving forward?
Eve leans back and tokes more of the smoke, holding it in her chest as she stares at the now blank screen. And then she laughs. A loud laugh, brass. She's clutching the front of her dress with a cry, “Hahahahahah oh hold on hold on.” Shaking her head from side to side, banging it on the table. It takes a moment for her to see. “A door, the door. He's the door. The Other Otter. Maybe even my Otter Eyes here…” the thoughts racing in the woman’s mind are just that, racing. “She's alive! Or another Liz, no it's ours. Gilly!” She looks over to her friend before looking at Squeaks and dipping her head towards the young teen. “Thank you for your service, in getting a message to us. From our friends.” A soft smile crosses her lips and she holds a hand to her heart. More tears fall. “They’re hopping through the doors, just like Chinese checkers.” Her grandmother Helga was a pro at Chinese checkers. “Hop hop, right on through.”
It’s a lot to take in, Gillian knows, so she doesn’t say anything while Eve watches the video. It’s a long video, or it feels long. It seems shorter the more she watches it. She knew both Liz and Magnes pretty well, so hearing their voices again had been nice, and of course she knew Lynette. Something about the tone seemed different than the Lynette she knew. Even if the ability display had been… similar to something she’d done in the Ark.
But the other two guys in it… “Wait, that’s the Otter guy?” she says when she realizes what she’s talking about there. Otter Eyes. Yes, she’s heard about him more than once. “That’s what we’re speculating. That Liz and Magnes somehow got stranded in another… place. And that they’re trying to find a way back.” That’s certainly the theory.
Though it’s not entirely why she had brought it up. “But the kids, when they watched it the first time, something strange happened.” She looks at Squeaks, so she can figure out how to tell it. Kaylee wasn’t there to show it, but she’s sure certain details will be enough to peque Eve’s interest.
Without the strangeness that happened the very first time the video was watched, it really is interesting to see the experiments a bunch of times. If there’s things she missed the first couple of times watching, they’re now small and insignificant. The faces aren’t any more familiar now than they were before. At least to Squeaks, who’s never met the absent Liz and Magness. She’s heard of Lady Zeus, though. And Mateo, she’s seen him once before. But all the same, the video is captivating enough, even to the point of finding herself hoping that it works this time without going scary.
She sits back once it’s over and pops a shy shrug to Eve’s gratitude. Squeaks certainly didn’t know what she’d found when she picked up that camcorder. And now it’s got not just a message from these people that were dead — but really aren’t now? — but also the cursed camcorder is cursed, and there’s still the things that happened when she and her friends first watched it. And when Gillian brings that up, she meets her look and gives a tiny nod.
“During the second part, that’s when things got weird.” Squeaks scoots forward a little and hops onto her knees rather than sit criss-cross. “The bad sounds from the radio were in the house. Then there’s two voices that were talking to us, telling us scary things. Even Brynn could hear it. It was talking about not being able to save people and the underworld, and fighting on your terms. And …then the lights started going off and on and the house was shaking and the voice kept talking.”
The girl pauses, looking from Gillian — she saw it through Joe’s eyes, when Kaylee did her mind meld thing — to Eve. It’s still scary to think about, like talking about a nightmare that happened and how it makes it all fresh in your mind.
Squeaks takes a breath and continues. “The voices started demanding to be let out. And it kept going, the lights and the talking and shaking even after Lance and Caspian unplugged the TV and all the cables to make it play. The video kept playing too. Then, that explosion at the end, that’s when everything just stopped. The screen went black and no more lights flickering or house shaking. Just stopped. There was a voice that came from the TV after, with two gold rings on the screen, saying ‘I can see. Eye to eye.’” Another short pause, then she remembers, “And the camcorder ejected the tape and the screen went totally black again.”
Another breath follows the story of what she saw. Squeaks again looks at Gillian and Eve, then rocks back so she’s sitting on the floor again, chin resting on her knees.
“Yes Gilly! You really do need to meet him, he's a sweet gem. Much like our friend here!” Looking at Squeaks as they girl spins her tale, Eve is leaning in drinking up every word. Poltergeist and hauntings, voices from the radio. All things that seem interesting to Eve until she utters about gold rings and the saying. “I can see you, eye to eye.” Softly at the same time as Squeaks. Her eyes widen and the seer leans back into the pillows behind her more at an attempt to hide herself than to get more comfortable.
The fabric of her dress rustles with the movements and she stares between Gillian and Squeaks with her joint hand raised the smoke curling around her wrist, Eve’s breath caught in her chest those doe brown eyes begin to fill with a look of resignation. “Then it is too late.”
Pulling the smoke to her lips to pull a few times in deep thought while wiggling her toes individually the pale appendages doing a rendition of the wave as smoke blooms downward when the oracle exhales. “What I'm about to tell you is not something most people would want to know my sweets. The knowledge of it. Only makes it stronger.” Eve’s gaze trains onto the wall behind the other two females. “There is a thing that exists, its origins a mystery. An idea, ego.., Old.. maybe old as the dirt itself.. something..” her mouth moves in a funny way. “Something so terrible.. beyond our wildest imaginations.” Eve twitches while thinking of the entity.
“It ripped my mind from my skull when I crept upon it. Seeing it's plans, pieces of the puzzles. Darkness, white. Two in one. It's a jumbled mess.” A wave of her hand that sends smoke flying up to the ceiling to dissipate. “Took my eyesight and my gift. I think it would have ripped me limb from limb.” in a singsong voice that is swallowed by the haze.
“Even speaking of it gives it more power. The more people who know… it feeds.” Kam was right. She would need to see the new head of Yamagato again and soon. “There is a way to drag it back out of our world, burn the ground where it slipped through. Most of the people who did that many years ago are dead..” a troubled expression on the woman’s face. “But I know someone, a fine, respectable lady.” A soft smile on her face. Because Kam is all that and more. “Whatever ritual or sacrifice.. this is not something to just allow.” echoing her sentiments to Kam earlier this month. Everyone telling her to slow down when stuff like this is happening. She hears a loud clock in her head. Tick tick tick boom. “I dreamt.. about that.. the black hole.” Before she even had met Mateo. “The firefly dream, remember Gilly?”
Tick tick tick doom more like it.
“We’ve tried to be careful not to tell too many people about this, because of Magnes and Liz, but… apparently we needed to be careful for another reason,” Gillian responds quietly, frowning at the young girl. “When they watched the video, they heard the voice over the radio. It spoke to them, so we don’t know if it said what the others heard. The ones in the video.” It could have been the same, but she didn’t think so. For one, the radio specifically said Lance, and she doubted that Lance of any kind had been there.
“Kaylee also saw it. The memory. All the Lighthouse Kids. They’re staying near that guy, Caspian? Like the Prince.” From the book. That’s how she remembered his name. “He pitched solar panels for the Market at the last council meeting.” The one that Eve had pitched the horse ranch, which she has been working on in her spare time.
But— she did remember the firefly dream. “The one you used to save me after…” After the birds. After they tried to rip her to shreds. She still had scars from that day. But she had also nearly drown in the freezing river. Until Eve plucked her out of it. “I guess you don’t have that painting anymore.” Or any of the ones left behind on the island.
“What is it?” Squeaks’ eyes bounce between Gillian and Eve while the two grown-ups speak. Only after does she really lay into the questions. “Don’t we need to know what it is in order to stop it or keep it trapped?” If it’s even dangerous and needs to be stopped. It definitely sounds dangerous, being a power or something that talked through the television and made the lights flicker on and off. “And then how do you trap it, if it gets stronger when you talk about it?” Certainly, she’s not really helping matters, and realizing that makes her close her mouth.
Her gaze angles off to the pictures for a second, and Squeaks readjusts her line of thinking, picking up on a comment Gillian makes. “The first told Lance that they couldn’t defeat what they couldn’t find. Then the second voice, that’s the one that said to fight on your own terms. And something about the underworld. I think… maybe it’s the first voice wanted to be let out, and then the second, and…”
With a shake of her head, the girl stops talking about it again. At least for right now. “I haven’t told anyone else.” Except those Gillian already knows about.
“Ahh Sir Handsomelot yes.” Her thoughts on Caspian and the LHKs, “I hope they are behaving,” absently though she had seen Lance recently and he was definitely behaving while Eve did not.
Dark hair gets a hand ran through it and the pale woman looks up to the ceiling before closing her eyes, swaying a bit. “They are somewhere, those paintings..” some of many she has “lost” over the years. Only to turn up in the most unlikely of places. Eve liked that bit, spreading art through the world even if most of those paintings were of truly dark shit.
Looking to Squeaks, “I'm not sure yet dear. But I'm on the hunt.” Lopsided smile from the kooky lady and she's stretching an arm out. “It's not here yet.. it wants in.. out.. however you wanna look at it.” Her expression pensive as she runs through the options, “I do love your questions prezioso. All the right ones, cookies for you sometime soon.” When they weren't trying to prevent a god from raining destruction on them.
“I think.. we have to make people forget. Once it's finished. As we finish it, if we finish it.” There are multiple options for that. A plan towards the future. “But first I need to see Kam.” Spreading her free palm open and wiggling her long, fingers, “That woman from the gala.. Kam Nisatta. She’s apart of this. She feared it wasn't too late but she was wrong.” Kam had said she would see Eve soon.
“I’m relieved to see something changed your mind about it, honestly. I thought I would have to try and get you to understand.” That Golden Eyes was not their friend. Or their Mother. Gillian nods toward the young teen, looking at her with the same look that she used to give the Lighthouse Kids. Like she had promise, like she could do anything with herself. She couldn’t help but be proud of the kid and how she handled things. It made her wonder if maybe she hadn’t completely failed the original Lighthouse Kids. That they could find and help someone like her.
“I don’t like the idea of having to lose our memories,” she mutters quietly, but Eve may not hear what she’s saying. Because there’s something else going on in the room.
The lights flicker. Suddenly there’s that black hole that she’d seen in the video. Hanging in the air above them. Neither Squeaks, nor Gillian seem to notice it, because they don’t. But Eve does. She sees it, she hears it. It sounds like a subway train at full speed. It sounds like a rainstorm hitting the asphalt. It sounds like a rumbling of thunder drawn out over minutes rather than seconds. She can feel the rain hitting her, rain or water or the sea. She can see the room flooding. Trying to drown her.
Everything else she heard is drowned out by the that noise brown eyes widen and Eve sneaks a quick glance to Squeaks and Gillian, “Ah ah ah ah, Gill- the door above you!” the next thing that happens.. well. Eve screams loudly as she thrusts herself backwards into the pillows before realizing that's how she drowns in this scenario. “I can't swim with my leg like this! Help!”
The seer’s look of terror expands as she stares right into that black hole. Hands shaking, she's frozen in fear. In other times when she would have been spurred into action, outrageous action the only thing the older woman can do is flail uncontrollably trying to escape the water. Trying to escape the sea.
Trying to escape the roar that seeks to consume her. The woman whimpers as she shakes with no end in sight. “Helpp…” teeth clicking from the sensation of being cold, wet and full of fear.
There’s a sidelong glance toward Gillian, then a tilt of her head and a full look. Squeaks misses any meaning that’s intended. Or implied. She just stares at the woman for a minute then pops a quick shrug of her shoulders. There might even be a question or two about the look, but it all goes away as soon as Eve starts talking and acting scared.
Suspicion of the seer settles in, even though Squeaks looks over her shoulder to see what could have made Eve so frightened. Another look first at Eve then behind her, then to Gillian in complete askance as she gets to her feet. Because if scary things are happening again, it’s best to be ready to run. “There’s nothing here,” she nearly yells. She even makes a show of turning around to make sure there’s nothing there. No water or anything.
“Stop.” It’s not yelled, but it’s loud like before. Squeaks takes a step forward, toward Eve. “Stop, there’s nothing!” A hand is raised, but not to help the woman. At least not conventionally. It’s raised then swung, full arm and open hand to smack soundly across Eve’s cheek. Because that’s how you stop people having bad trips, right?
Like Squeaks, Gillian looks at a loss of what’s happening. She’s seen bad trips before, seen Eve freak out after a dream, but this happened so suddenly she doesn’t know how to process it. She looks around, but sees nothing that could be setting her friend off, so she closes the laptop, just in case it’s Golden Eyes at work again. Cause Golden Eyes is what she’s going to call this thing in her head. “There’s no door, Eve. Nothing’s hurting you!” Except Squeaks, who slaps her across the face before Gillian can even say stop.
But Eve’s head doesn’t even move. She doesn’t feel the slap. She doesn’t see what they are doing. What she does she is something else entirely. The gateway closes, the rain stops, and suddenly there’s hands touching her. A man’s hands. A woman’s hands. A hand with painted nails. A hand that looks like power armor. A hand made of shriveling bones. A hand with a sleeve that’s too long. A hand with gloves. A hand with a missing ring ringer.
The hands seem to overlap, shift from one to the other. A set of floating teeth appears in front of her, like a smiling skeleton. It moves as if to speak, but all she hears is the sea, the rain. All she hears is her own scream.
The hands push down on her, shoving her down under the water that only she can see, holding her in place. Even as Gillian tries to reach for her to pull her back up. She can’t move. She can’t breathe.
She's no longer in the waking world. She's somewhere.. else. And the shock of it all doesn't allow for Eve to get her bearings because the moment she's trying too there are hands rapidly shifting holding onto her. Shaking her head furiously she croaks out, “No, no noooo. Not there.” Body twitching as is greeted by floating teeth. Another scream and the woman reaches up above her blindly.
She's drowning. This is how it all ends.
Panic seized control, she doesn't see Gillian or feel Squeaks’ attempts to wake her. Instead she just freezes up before throwing her arm out above her wildly as if she's trying to not drown, reaching for a hand that would pull her up. That sound, it's so horrible. Skin turning hot, chest heaving up and down but she can't breathe. Eve feels the water going over her shoulders and then neck before her whole face is submerged.
“Stop!” The word punctuates the slap and Squeaks draws back to do it again. With eyes wide from the scariness of all this, she’s serious about slapping the crazy right out of Eve. If it’s even possible. Her shoulder drops slightly and she nearly commits to that swing when she realizes it didn’t work the first time. The seer’s head didn’t even move, and the woman is still freaking out at…
A look around shows the girl there’s still nothing there.
“Aunt Gillian.” Squeaks’ voice sounds very worried. It didn’t work. She skitters backward, ducking out of the path of a flailing arm so she can retreat to Gillian’s side. It’s safer there, and she doesn’t know what else to do. She looks up at Gillian then to Eve and back again, becoming afraid herself.
A hand wrapps around Eve’s wrist. It’s a hand with skin flaking off the knuckles, with blood dried in places. It’s a woman’s hand. A man’s hand. It’s a hand with dark skin, with pale skin. It’s a hand made of lightning. A hand made of light. A hand made of shadow. A hand with a broken watch on the wrist. A hand that’s not human at all, but with the twisted pink skin and fur and claws on the end.
It’s Gillian’s hand.
Gillian actually reaches out for the hand, wrapping fingers around the wrist. She doesn’t try to say it’s okay, but they both see the crackling of purple electricity on her fingers, the way it encases her friend, the way it runs up her arm. She’s augmented Eve before. She’s never done this.
But it seems to work. The vision fades as Gillian’s eyes brighten with purple lightning, as the lightning on her hands fade. The noise stops. The water is gone. Eve can again breathe. She doesn’t know who had been trying to kill her, or why. But she could feel the menace remaining. It felt like one of her dreams.
Only she had not fallen asleep.
Taking a loud gasp as reality swirls back into focus Eve’s eyes blink away tears, color rushing to her pale cheeks. She sags into Gillian’s side with a groan. “Wha..” eyelids flutter and her chest resettles, heart not pumping as loud or fast. The hands. All of them. “All the hands, dark, not, light, claws.. fur..” she looks confused.
This is.. not something Eve expected to happen. “I.. Gilly.. I just saw.” eyes widening in wonder as she gets over her shock. “My brain.. I think my brain is righting itself! But it's all off, I don't dream while awake.” Snorting as if to say, silly rabbit.
“Someone was trying to drown me.. but the hands. Oh the hands kept changing. I didn't see who.. teeth. A Cheshire Cat grin. They wanted me dead. Finished. Finito. Pronto.” Her tone growing feverish as she grips Gillian’s hand tight that purple light between them.
“No, wait.” The warning is too quiet and too late to be much good. And Squeaks can’t even explain why she felt the need to to stop Gillian from reaching out for Eve. Probably because her own efforts didn’t work and touching again just seems like a terribly bad idea. The hand she’d started to raise with her warning falls back to her side and she’s left to just… watch what happens next.
Whatever she was expecting — if she was expecting anything at all — it definitely wasn’t purple lightning. That’s almost as scary as Eve flailing at nothing. Unsure of what to think, or what to do, Squeaks starts moving backward. Her steps are slow, careful in the way of someone used to trying to avoid notice. And her eyes are wide and watching, darting between the two grown-ups in worried curiosity. She puts as much space between herself and them as the room will allow, soon finding the wall beside the door at her back.
While the dream, or whatever it had been, seemed to have faded from Eve’s eyes, there’s still the softest hint of movement in the corner of her vision, as if her ability was only disipated, not nullified. It might be those hands, creeping toward her, it could be something else. The purple lightning remains in Gillian’s irises, but seems gone from her hands as she sits back on the floor. “It’s okay, Squeaks. It’s part of my ability,” she says, looking toward her for a moment, before looking back at Eve.
But her having a dream while awake— that definitely could be what had happened. She could feel the woman’s ability pulsing energy within her, which is what she had grabbed onto more than her hand. She doesn’t know if that’s what it was, a dream, but it seemed likely. “I think your eyes turned black for a minute,” she says out loud, noting something very different from when Eve would sometimes go into a trance and dream.
Her eyes would usually turn white.
“But you’re okay. No one’s drowning you. You’re safe right now.”
Head tilting as Eve listens to her friend about her eyes. “Black as night… hold them tight.” Rubbing the space between her eyebrows with a thumb. A dream while awake. A vision. Her eyes turning black. It all made the woman sink into deep thought. She doesn't know. That.. “It felt so real.” Is her only comment. Lost in thought Eve pushes herself off from the pillows.
She knows. She can feel it, the whispers in the dark, the echoes. That door in Eve’s mind cracked open again. She hadn't even noticed that it was. And as she creeps down the dark stone hallway in her mind’s eye she comes to that door and lays her cheek against it. Feeling the vibrations of the whispers and the movements beyond the door. The door leads to the forest but Eve doesn't dare open it. Not until she knows what's going on foher sure.
“I think I feel it, the door is back..” she whispers in astonishment coming out of the haze that is her mindscape to come back to reality in the Oracle Room.
Squeaks makes a sound, sort of like a confirmation but not really committed to it. Her arms wrap around her middle in a sort of self-hug and she stays backed up against the wall. If Eve’s eyes turned black, she never saw. Her eyes dart back and forth between the two women again.
“I won’t tell anyone what happened.” It’s quick promise, but cross her heart honest. Squeaks’ eyes go from Eve to Gillian.
The creeping in the edge of her vision continues for a few more moments, and then dissipates. It feels like it’s passed now, even if the dread remains. Gillian looks sympathetically at Squeaks, “You’re fine.” She understands why the kid is so worried, it’s a lot going on. With everything that’s going on, it had looked, for a moment, like Eve had been possessed or something. “I should get her back to the others,” she says to the psychic. “Has it passed? Do you think it will come back?”
They all had a lot to do. They needed to look into the Yamagato connection, the others who had already seen Golden Eyes. But now Eve had a new worry. Whatever had happened to her. “Maybe you should stay the night somewhere else for a few nights. You could stay with me again.”
Or somewhere else. She didn’t know. But she didn’t want her friend to be alone right now.
The dark haired woman sits as the vision passes fully. Peeking over her shoulders every now and then. The shadows, hands were gone but the sensation.. that darkness weighed on her still. Drifting off her gaze falls upon her sketch book on the table with the hookah in front of her. Reaching forward Eve brings the book to her with a piece of charcoal to the side. Gillian knows what this means.
“You both have done me a great service. Thank you.” Keeping her updated, helping her. Eve flips the sketchbook open to a new and fresh page running her long fingers over it. “You go ahead..” trailing off as the charcoal hits the paper and she makes a broad stroke. Her head bows and she begins to draw, her movements becoming more and more erratic. “I'll see you tonight.” At her place, Eve can have Sassy drive her when she's done. It's a familiar feeling recording her visions. The confusion around her ability pushed to the back of her mind as she focuses on bringing the vision to life on the pages before her.
Hair falling into her face, Eve doesn't seem to notice Gillian or Squeaks as they depart. Totally and utterly tuned into her art. The only sound from that room is the scratching of charcoal to paper and a low whistle coming from deep in the woman’s pit of her stomach. The shape of a hand encased in power armor is the first, she doesn't seem to reflect on the image before tearing it out of the book to start another.
Brown eyes flicker to an onyx black. She has work to do.