41st of Summer, 513 AV.
The oily scent of sweaty human flesh fled up into his nostrils, and he inhaled it, sucking it in as if it was a delicious delicacy. He could not remember a time when the stink of body odor was actually appetizing to him, but for some reason, he now could not get enough of it. He turned, oddly blind, a lack of light causing his surroundings to be suffocating darkness. He was not disturbed by this, and instead was stricken. A sense of desperation flooded through his veins, and with a cry, he reached out. The darkness did not scare him, it simply hampered him. He needed more of the stench, more of the sweat, more of the skin that reeked with the scent of having recently slapped against another drenched body. His reaching hand suddenly found flesh, and he quickly dug his fingers in, lunging forward and pressing his lips to the toned muscle he had discovered. Caring little for who it was or what it was, he hurriedly dragged his tongue across the sweat, quenching the thirst that plagued him. He lapped it up like a dog, eyes rolling back into his skull as he reached a pleasurable height he had never felt before.
Suddenly, he awoke, bare body shooting up in his thin blankets. He ran a hand through his curly dark locks, blue eyes darting wildly about, a disturbed feeling slamming through his tightened gut as he recalled the dream. He had been like a wild animal, like any other hot-blooded man, giving in to primal urges that demanded he feel another's flesh. Taste another's flesh. He wiped a shaking hand across his drooling mouth, noting the saliva in horror, snapping his hand away to fling the intruding liquid to the side.
Underneath him, his bed split open, and he realized he was still dreaming.
He swirled downwards, his already squirmy stomach now tossing and turning even more. It flipped over and over inside of his gut, spinning the opposite direction as his bare body. He felt as if he was getting tugged in two, and he wanted to cry out, but he couldn't seem to get control of his tongue. He merely fell, over and over again, blue eyes wide as they stared into the endless abyss of dreaming darkness. How cliche was this, he had a moment to think. He was having a falling dream.
~
Matthew was one of the only men around the University who would actually dress up to go to the library. It would be obvious to any lingering passerby that he had primped himself for this very occasion, especially any that had been in his previous class. While had been wearing one thing there, he had now completely changed. Black-rimmed glasses sat on the tip of his nose, his blue eyes intently staring through them as he absentmindedly chewed on the hoop in his lower lip. A green coat sat on his shoulders and clung to his back, open at the front, hanging down the and reaching almost to his knees. A white button-up shirt was underneath, and with matching black pants, the young golden-skinned man looked like quite the gentleman indeed. All he needed was a pipe, and a few deep murmurs and "hmmms" would put him among the very elite of the bookworm social circles. He paused his nibbling on his lip stud, noting a few dirty looks cast his way.
He ran a hand through curly hair, sky-blue eyes flicking around the various books he had laid out across the library table. They were all wide open, and they were quite the colorful variety. In a professional library that was teeming with all sorts of intelligent books, he had managed to find an assortment of the most erotic. There were multiple romance novels opened to the most steamy of scenes, a few books on the anatomy of both males and females, and then some books on "starting your own business 101". That last bit of subject matter was the oddest.
Another look was tossed his way, and he was pretty sure he heard a whisper with his name in it. Glancing up, he shot his eyes around, clearly irritated. Was the stud in his lip that big of a deal? A librarian shot him a dirty look, and he glowered at her. While he had no intention of taking advantage of his status as a rich child, he would throw around his family name at equally self-entitled rich persons. They always hesitated to discipline him here at the school, mostly because they knew who he was. That was good, because he needed as much time being a trouble-maker as he possibly could. Turning his head back down to the various books, he only had a second to refocus before hearing whispers again. His head shot up, and he glowered (not incredibly intimidating) around.
"Sir, you'll need to put all the books back." Matthew shot a look at the older male librarian who had approached him, his response quick and snarky. "I'm reading them." The old man lightly shook his head, a look of exasperation in his old eyes. "I meant the ones you used to construct your fort, sir."
Ooooh.
That made sense. Matthew couldn't hide his sudden grin, spreading his arms wide, his voice playful. "I dare say you can't tell the King of the library what to do, peon." The reason for the looks wasn't because of the small hoop in his lip, but because the rich son had constructed a castle made out of books. It wasn't fancy, but it was rather large, and managed to encompass two whole tables. Not only that, but it was smack-dab in the middle of the library. It was colorful and tall, with a single open door allowing access, and various little windows constructed here and there. Somewhere or another he had found a red flag, and perched it atop the roughly-made structure, as well as hung a banner over the entrance. "For The Inverted" it said. Matthew frowned at the man, pouting, instantly reverting from his confident "King" charade. "Just thirty more minutes. Then I'll clean it up. Promise." The old man sighed, shaking his head, shuffling from the book fort. "I'll hold you to that, sir."
He walked away, and suddenly, Matthew paused. This wasn't right. What was he doing? He spun, gawking at the book fort he had constructed, jaw held slack as he stood in the middle of the Zeltiva University Library.
Where had the blackness gone? He had been falling and spinning, his stomach wrenching with the bile of what he had drank in the beginning of his dream. He had been plunging into darkness, trying to scream out... and now he was in the middle of a library, with a three-story book fort in front of him.
Three?
It had been one floor earlier. He knew it had. It had now turned into a spiraling mass, with an intricate book wall constructed out of all sorts of novels. The ones he had previously been written were decorating the sides of the doorway, jutting out as if to tempt him into snatching them out. He hesitantly approached the doorway, unaware that the rest of the patrons in the library had completely vanished. The Inverted, the banner said? He distantly recalled them, from books he had been purchasing from the Nuit girl in Syliras. Was he trying to show off for them? Had he really built this fort just to show off to people he knew little about? Ionu impressed him, intrigued him, but he had never gone to any lengths to explore it in depth. He reached out, stroking a hand down the book door frame, blue eyes cautious in their thoughts of what to do next.
