Participants:
| Scene Title | The Day the World Ends |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Delving into the mind of a paranoid psychotic isn't a good thing to do all alone. It's a good thing that dream walkers come in pairs. |
| Date | November 3, 2010 |
A Field of Dreams
November 8, 2010 the US Army in cooperation with DHS raided the safehouses,
including The Lighthouse.
Every day at eight in the morning breakfast was prepared by Juniper, the oldest of the kids of The Lighthouse, and brought to the table for the rest of the orphans — but today it didn't come. Doyle and Brian had stayed up late the previous night fixing a leak in one of the pipes that just couldn't wait. Brian had slept in.
The puppetmaster, on his way down for a cup of coffee, is startled by the shrieks of small children in the kitchen. One of them unmistakably Mala's. Lance runs out in front of the stairs looking for help only to be stopped by the prongs of a taser and a jolt of electricity that sends him into seizures on the floor.
When he finishes twitching, his eyes are pointed directly at Eric but not seeing him.
The Ferrymen were crippled.
A few hours later the riots began…
The clink of a broken window and hiss of gas is what bids him good morning. Apparently whomever is attacking isn't worried about the children as much as they are the adults in the house. A fog of suppressant spills from the open doorway and makes a slow swirling climb up the stairs towards Doyle.
There's only one way to escape.
Up.
evolved and non-evolved
pitted against each other in war
Shadows of armed and armored soldiers rush by the window, visible to the man inside. The sound of a small cough alerts the caretaker to the presence of a child, Lucy. Spying Doyle, she rushes from her hiding place under a table and begins the long run up the stairs toward him.
"Santa! San — " Her voice is cut short by a loud bang and a spray of blood decorates the wall, trickling down like a watercolor.
that cleared the way for genocide.
"Up, up, get ups— "
The desperate calls from the stairs, emerging from the lips of one Eric Doyle, are cut short just as Lucy's life is cut short by the bark of a single bullet and the sudden pollock splatter of crimson across the wall. One hand's held out helplessly in the girl's direction when she falls, his eyes widening like pale saucers in a round, bearded face that's swiftly turning just as pale as his sclera.
"No…" A whisper, barely audible, one foot drawing back a step on the stairs away from the reaching tendrils of suppressant fog, "…oh, no. Oh, no, no, no…"
"NO!"
The hand twists towards the window - the shadows of men stiffening against the window suddenly, fingers twisting up as if he's holding a gun. He sweeps his hand to one side, and the barking snarl of weapon's fire roars in the night, followed by the darkly satisfying scream of men whose flesh and bone shatters beneath gunfire.
The coil of gas reaches Doyle and that scream, however satisfying, will likely be the last the puppetmaster causes for a long long time. The crash of the door as its blasted off its hinges dissipates the gas after most of the residents of the house are incapacitated, dead, or otherwise disabled.
A rush of soldiers dressed in black from head to toe clomp over the threshold in a militaristic cadence. Lucy and Lance's prone bodies are knocked to the wayside to make room for more gun toting men than the Lighthouse may have ever seen. They split into three waves, one directing their attention to the basement, running through the kitchen to raid whatever loot they can get. The second tromps through the main level to clear it of any children that may be straggling. The last focus on the stairs and Eric himself.
"Eric Doyle, you are under arrest. Get down on your knees with your hands above your head!" Weapons are aimed. Ready to fire.
There's no response to those words; the soldier doesn't even have enough time to finish the demand. As the bodies of the children are literally shoved aside, the puppeteer's already in motion. His power bereft of him, he does something that he's never had to do in his entire life… use his hands for violence.
The barrels of the weapons are leveled on him, but Eric Doyle's lunging for the throat of the nearest soldier anyway. His life isn't something he puts much value in, anymore… and those that he did are lost.
The sting of metal prongs that dig into his skin leave him with the same fate as Lance. Seizing on the floor in a horizontal jitterbug until the sear of electricity is over. The voices of the outside world are nothing but an echo of sounds under water and Cimmerian shade envelopes him like a peaceful blanket.
You can save them…
A female whisper in the gloom, as though her lips were right next to his ear.
It doesn't have to be this way…
A brush of hot breath touches his ear as the soft tones disappear and that blanket turns to a warm gray. Purgatory perhaps, and Eric finds himself standing amidst a sea of dark clouds. The bleak contrast of this space compared to the vibrant colors of his world is depressing, then again… his colors were as well.
"What…?" A confused response from Doyle as he looks around the bleak greyness of his surroundings, whirling around, "…w-what's going on? Where am I? Show yourself!"
"You're nowhere and everywhere…" Riddles from a disembodied voice cuts through the silent world as it brightens further, looking nothing more like a holding cell for those facing judgment. There are no walls, no doors, nothing but gray fog so thick the puppetmaster can't even see down to his own feet. ".. an endless field of possibility."
A flit of red interrupts the dull place, winking in and out of existence as it skips across the sky, getting closer. The ribbon wavers in the air, weaving and rippling until its close enough to distinguish. A long swath of hair. It's joined to a body dressed in a plain white cotton dress, though she is no angel. It's the nurse from the clinic at Gun Hill. "November 8th is coming."
"D-Delia?" A hushed, confused stammer of her name as Doyle regards her as she drifts towards him — tears streaking his rounded cheeks, eyes reddened at the edges and mouth opening and closing a few times as he tries to figure out what to say, what questions to ask. "What is— what are you doing? Where is this? Where are my kids?!"
Instinct. A hand jerks up, fingers dangling downwards… and as he calls on his ability, the dream reacts since he expects it to. Only here, in the dreamscape of Eric Doyle, there's more than flesh to react.
The great shadow of a hand mimics his own in the greyness of the bleak dreamscape, as if reaching out of a field of featureless grey clouds, grasping a puppeteer's wooden airplane. Woven threads lash out like a striking serpent, reaching out for the red-headed young woman's wrists, ankles… throat.
How effective it is, well, that's another question.
The dreamwalker's neck jerks up by the thread, leaving her head to dangle askew. Her wrists are caught in the same action; held up and out from her shoulders, they leave her hands dangling. Though the strands attempt a grip of her ankles, they settle up around her knees and force her to walk forward in a jerk that would make a dancer in Michael Jackson's Thriller jealous.
The jolting steps bring her toward him, her face looking wooden. Her eyes are like that of a doll's; glassy, round, and a shade of brilliant blue. As though tugged by a string, her lips twitch to one side as she gets close enough to him to touch. Then it becomes clear.
She's been playing his game.
Another set of wires all on her own wrap around Eric's body in the exact same fashion as hers. Both of them are hauled into the air, facing each other as they dangle from their confines. "November 8th is coming, Mister Doyle." The redhead repeats herself as the fingers on her limp hands lift and manipulate his strings the way a harpist would pluck at her instrument.
The puppetmaster, in dreams, is just as much a puppet. It seems.
"You're going to… tell me… what's going on…" Doyle's voice is a low and angry hiss as he stalks forward towards the dreamwalker as she's forced forward in awkward, jerking steps as if entire frames of motion were being cut out, his pale features flushing with anger stirred from the wallow of grief that her inflicted dream had awoken within his long-peaceful heart.
Then her own wires lunge down to ensnare him, and they're both drawn up into the air, dangling from heaven-bourne hands like Punch and Judy glaring at each other moments before the uxoricide that sets off the rest of the show. There he dangles in shock for a few moments, before he grinds his teeth, one brow arching sharply upwards and eyes bulging as his fingers twitch in a lift upwards— the noose around her neck tightening, pulling back sharply, twisting and tightening just beneath her jaw. "Let… me… go."
She's still playing his game, and he's got a lot more experience with it.
"No," the sharp word commands from the young woman. Regardless of his experience, she is her father's daughter and a tenacity flows through her blood. Her fist clenches and she whips it to the side, flinging him away from herself. Her face grows red as her oxygen cuts off… until she remembers the dream.
Somewhere inside Gun Hill a sleeping young woman takes a deep gasp of air after holding it for a long time.
"Mister Doyle, listen… I'm sorry for the dramatics but I'm tired of not being heard." A lifetime of being too young, too… female… and not enough of a son. Daddy's little girl. "November 8th is almost here and the visions are going to come true. These kids are in danger, whether they're registered or not… you are in danger."
Or, he's in prison.
The sudden snap of the dreamscape like a movie cut from one scene to another is jarring at first. Gone are cords and cables and tendrils, replaced by stark gray of concrete walls and a reinforced glass window with diagonal wiring pressed between the plates. Sitting on one side of the glass in an old-timey black and white striped prisoner's outfit, Eric Doyle does not remember picking up the phone he's holding to his ear, or how the young redheaded doctor from Gun Hill got on the visitor's side of the glass. But stone walls and barred windows are the last place Eric wants to be.
From her vantage point on the other side of the glass, phone held up to her ear as if visiting a convict at a correctional facility, Delia Ryans sees someone standing over Doyle's shoulder. Dressed like a police officer, Hokuto Ichihara has her hair wound up into a bun behind her head, tan and black uniform reading Moab Correctional Facility in some sort of odd juxtaposition of the Moab Federal Penitentiary and Riker's Island Correctional Facility.
Her gold eyes stare over Doyle's shoulder and to the redhead on the other side of the glass. "You're dreaming," is Warden Ichihara's explanation as she tips up the brim of her police hat with one gloved hand. "We're dreaming," she adds, her voice soft and smooth with a husky quality to it.
"It's a warning, and one my eager student is very concerned about getting across. I apologize for the theatrics, but it did perhaps help drive home a point…" Hokuto's head tilts subtly to the side as she crosses her arms over her chest and leans back against the concrete wall. "None of you deserve this future."
They're surroundings that are as familiar, in their own way, as the peaceful and child-filled rooms of the Lighthouse. The suit that he's wearing, however, is a little less familiar - unless someone actually watches old black and white movies, presumably. Eric glares at Delia through the window, his jaw tensing… and then there's that voice behind him, and he turns to look back to her sharply, shoulders rolling forward in a tense posture.
"I'm… I'm dreaming?" An uncertainty threaded with anger still, "That was— all fake? Show… what the hell would she— show that?"
"It won't be fake if you put it off any longer." Delia's tone quivers as she weakens a little in her position. Her surroundings, even in the position of a visitor, have her trembling slightly in fear. Her father was one of the people that put others, people like Eric, herself, and Hokuto in places like this. A place that doesn't exist anymore. "The visions are real and they're going to come true… Please Mister Doyle… I'm sorry…"
Her shoulders slump forward as the apology ekes out of her in a long breath that ends with a sigh. She looks up at the man through the glass and slides her lips a little to the side in a regretful grimace. "I.. I'm tired of people not listening when this is serious. They play it off like a joke. It's not a joke."
Leaning back against the wall, Hokuto furrows her brows and averts her eyes down to the floor, offering an askance look to Eric before squaring her eyes on her feet again. "For the children's sake," is difficult for Hokuto to say, knowing all the things she has done in her life, "you should get them out of the Lighthouse sooner, rather than later. There's only a few days left, and there's nothing I can do from here to help you…"
Closing her eyes and lifting up a hand to thread an errant lock of dark hair behind one ear, Hokuto slowly shakes her head. "Waiting any longer… it could be disastrous. I've tried to warn Gillian as well, she's seen what you have, seen what could be. What will be if something isn't done soon."
"No," Eric all but snarls in Delia's direction, "It's not a joke."
She gets a sullen glare from the puppeteer, and then he turns back towards Hokuto, one hand coming up to scrub against the nape of his neck, his gaze hooding. "Is… they're going to attack the Lighthouse? Who? Why?"
"They're going to attack everyone, the Lighthouse is an easy target." She doesn't mention the Refrain or the weapons. Whether it's true or not, she doesn't want to know. "Gillian said Brian won't agree, that he won't move the kids out beforehand." She gulps and turns her lips downward, looking toward Doyle before she drops the phone and presses her hands to the glass.
Then she's on the other side with him and Hokuto. Once again, she's dressed in her simple cotton dress. "In my vision, Kaylee's been shot trying to rescue kids. I want to make sure they're not yours. Because… If she doesn't get shot, I don't have to be at the boats… If I don't have to be at the boats, my dad won't die."
Hokuto remains silent. She didn't see anything in the future, but the mentor that trained her has seen things — more things than she even leads on about — and that much has Hokuto's tongue caught. There's a fine line between telling someone what they need to know, and telling them too much. A woman as guarded as she is, only delivers the information in digestible bites.
For ill or good.
Doyle's expression turns more serious — if no less angry — as he looks between the two, his brow furrowing in tight lines. "And this is… all going to happen on the eighth?" An uncertain, dubious tone of voice as he looks between the pair, "I can talk Brian into it if I have to. We can— I mean, we can just go for a trip, and come back after, or something…"
A long breath of relief and Delia's head is thrown back in a silent prayer to whatever power that be that might be looking down on them. Straightening again, she gives Eric a weary smile and nods, "If you can take them camping over the weekend… something like that. Just don't be here at all on Monday; not in the morning, not at night, not at all."
There's so much more she wants to say but just doesn't have the words for. Instead, she fades to a translucent shade, her hair and eyes still as bright as they were when whole. Like Hokuto's bright yellow eyes and inky hair, there's just some things that don't fade. "If you need help, I can get some. I know I can."
"I'll get them out of here…" A quiet statement from Doyle, who turns a dark look back on Delia, "…but you could've just told me. I won't forget that you did that, Delia Ryans." There's an implicit threat there as he pushes himself up from his 'seat' near the window where he was sitting, "Now get— get the hell out've my dreams."
Could she?
Would he have listened?
It is the aim not to allow
the escape of a single one.
As Doyle's scenery slowly turns from gray to black, from bleak to the comfort of restful sleep, he's left with the disturbing images of the consequence of inaction. Not a repeat by Delia's ability but a false memory left behind.
Imagination is a powerful muscle to flex when it's at its full strength. Eric Doyle still has the experience while Delia Ryans is only learning to stretch.
To annihilate them all,
and not leave any traces.
In a small bedroom on the top floor of Gun Hill, the redheaded nurse lays in bed with her eyes open, unable to close them for fear of the violent dreams that plague her. Cocooned in a thin blanket against the cold night of winter, she's shielded from freezing by a body laying next to hers.
In the next room her sister sleeps peacefully, blissfully unaware of the demons that haunt the younger of the two.
What will tomorrow bring?
What will happen if she ever meets her latest victim again?
THE DAY THE WORLD ENDS
November 8th, 2010.