Science of Sleep

[Kahll]

41st of Fall, 516 AV OOCEach chavi is an individual experience. Sometimes they overlap. This is that time. The timestamp is arbitrary, we will shift it around if need be so that everyone's timeline fits. He found himself on a hard surface. His eyes took time to adjust. He took in what he could before light became sufficient. The floor was uneven, parts of it smooth and parts gouged out and jagged. It smelled familiar, and when he drew his hand over the surface, he was certain – it was wood. The darkness beneath him was black, that much he could see. The gouged parts were of a much lighter tone. It almost looked like the scratches on his desk. Suddenly he felt tiny. As if the realization itself gave meaning to the wrongness of his size. His tools surrounded him, and he felt inadequate. Perspective was all. Once he turned from the window, the only source of light, he found that the room was actually well lit. The droop to the floor was a few steps ahead. The edge looked ominous to someone of his stature. This was a strange experience. Had an illusion washed over his home? These occurrences were uncommon, but not unheard of. Alvadas was Alvadas, after all. His contemplation was interrupted by a slow dragging sound. It felt familiar, almost like wood scraping on wood. It would not remain a mystery for long. As he looked behind him, he found an enormous hand slowly grasping what he judged to be a hammer handle. The table shook, and he fell prone. He could hear his own voice, mutated and thunderous, as it cursed for stubbing a toe. This would be comical in less dangerous circumstances. Standing up was interrupted by a giant hand flying over his head. He cursed himself as he rolled to the side. The second attempt was a success. There was little joy over it, as the hand reached over and grabbed him. He felt strangely inanimate in his own hand. His limbs stopped moving, and he straightened. His head remained mobile, and he could see he was being lowered towards two pieces of wood that intersected each other into an X. By the gods! He was a nail! A bloody nail! He did not need to look up to see what was coming down on his head in mere breaths. His pulse quickened, as his heart climbed to his throat. The dreaded moment came when the grip was readjusted to his feet. He couldn't end like this! Not like a bloody nail! He closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable. His mouth sprung open, as he tried to scream wordlessly. He would've probably burst into tears if he had the time. He didn't want to die. The hit sounded like thunder in the distance. He felt no pain, save for the annoyance of rain across his scalp. He moved his hands to the sides of his head, checking if everything was still whole. This new place was darker than his room. There were trees around him, and the ground was muddy. None of it looked familiar. Where in Ionu's name was he?

[Lorcan Gregory]

The dark void surrounded him; every direction seemed as if it were a bottomless pit, extending and extending into more nothingness. Though, as he bounded almost weightlessly through the thick muck squishing between his bare toes, tall trees loomed high overhead. Huffing and puffing, he could smell the sweet, earthy traces of the wild leaves, the damp bark. He vaguely wondered where he was. He vaguely knew this was a dream, but it was a concept far out of his conscious realisation.

With each pounding step he seemed to defy gravity a little more each time – his naked feet pushing off from the sticky ground as if he were a feather on the wind. Fear and panic swelled in his breast in a painful scrunch. Despite the darkness, he was not cold. Despite his exertion, he wasn’t warm either, yet sweat glistened across his naked chest as he ran.

Leth’s light was absent, but he could see clearly in the night. Was he an owl? No, he had legs not wings. A shadow caught in his peripheral – snarling, growling, biting! He dared not glance back – dared not put a face to what was hot on his tail. The demon chasing him felt familiar, he could feel the creature’s hunger as if it were his own. He could feel it’s breath smog behind his ears.

In one petrified leap, Lörcán blasted into the air! His shaggy, nut-brown hair flapped and blew as if it were being played with by the wind – but there wasn’t any. Suddenly he was falling! Butterflies flapped and cartwheeled deep in his gut as he cascaded helplessly through the abyss.

Lörcán gave himself over to it - allowed the darkness to wash over him without much of a fight. Closing his eyes, he flipped his body to face the forest floor as it rushed to greet him! Snapping his hazel gaze open at the last second he yelped at the top of his lungs! Flying head first into a man, the pair didn’t crash into the thick forest floor as Lörcán expected. No, the ground gave way swallowing the pair whole as they fell through a thick sludge!

Struggling to breath, Lörcán’s flailing limbs caught in the other man’s as they tumbled out of the bottom of the grimy forest floor! Dropping only a short distance further the pair of tangled extremities were suddenly hit with the freezing temperatures of snow!

A blizzard of snowflakes obscured Lörcán’s wide eyed gape as he peered at the frozen wasteland all around. Panting, he scrambled out of the small depression made by the pair’s rough landing, the snow soft beneath his hands and knees. Glancing down at the face of the complete stranger, Lörcán questioned with a hint of warning in his strained voice,

“Who the blazes are you?!”