dreaming;;;

[makes_you_tick]

It's dark. It's possible to tell this because it's not pitch black. No, there is the occasional flourescent light on- security lights, of course. Nothing seems secure about this place, though. That light keeps blinking off occasionally, for instance, and it looks like one of the glass doors down the hall is shattered onto the floor.

It becomes clear after a little observation that this is an office, of some sort. Wide halls hide rooms with office desks, cabinets and computers. In one other direction, the glass becomes concrete at intervals. A giant number five is spray-painted onto it, in black.

The halls are the sort of quiet that comes from everything being shut down for awhile. Offices on the weekend, maybe even in the middle of the night. It's hard to tell, as the blinds are firmly drawn.

There is a bit of a sound, though- growing louder as if it's getting closer. It's the tick of some large clock. This is not the same as what the City hands out as punishment for being alone, this is different. This doesn't distract, it focuses. It almost seems to be pushing things along in an otherwise dead world. It's comforting, actually, having something to hang onto in a place that's so still.

[ooc: Feel free to have your character enter and interact. This is...uh, a normal dream for Sylar. Enjoy, guys! Oh, and just a warning- touching certain things in this dream will pull up memories.

ETA: I've been sick today, but I'm still slowly working on tags, I promise. <3]

Comments

we are surrounded by all of the quiet sleepers inside the quiet earth

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

There's the sound of shattered glass in the distance, towards the hall of concrete. The ticking speeds up.

"Alone again, are we." Sylar's voice doesn't seem to have a source, other than right next to the ear. But there's obviously no one there.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[adamantined]

She's been here before: the endless and winding halls of Primatech feeding and pouring into each other, the belly of some monstrous beast. In those memories Claire carries a shot gun in her hands, and her father is at her back. In this reality she is alone and unarmed, her footfalls subdued and dull to her ears. Claire wonders if this is a dream, all her senses blurred and balled up in cotton, and wonders why it's a dream she's having if it is.

Her fingers move across the walls as she walks and walks, and she remembers that a woman died down here, and that Claire herself became a killer, too, in this place. The Company is nothing but a massacre, a real monster, living and breathing, and even though Claire has been here before she walks on pins and needles. "Where are you?" she breathes, though she says it to no one.

In her dreams, he's usually here, too, just out of sight, a shadow on her peripheral the way he had been at Homecoming.

we are surrounded by all of the quiet sleepers inside the quiet earth

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

A few seconds pass and as she gets closer to the shattered glass, the jagged outline of what's left of the window remains. It's hard to see the two figures inside, but one is holding the other by the throat. A look of fear crosses the face of the first, and he yells.

There's a bang and red splatters against everything.

The ticking stops for a few moments, then restarts, slower once more.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

One of the halls she moves down gives way to brushed molding, the wood frames and doors of a house. It leads into the familiar, still dark. But the rattling shutters don't make any noise this time, they just hide the promise of palm trees behind them. The lights flicker on and off just the same as before, but the only sound is the ticking.

"Aren't I always here?" Sylar asks. His voice is right next to the ear, and he's nowhere in sight.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[adamantined]

It's not the dark or the ticking that keeps her on edge, looking back and down across the floor, in the corners, as she moves cautiously. At once it's like being back in Costa Verde, alone in a house with an unearthly presence, something too big and strong for her to wrap her fingers around but still tangible, still breakable. At one point, at least, no longer breakable.

The voice in her ear is tangible, too, a paradox: soft and salient and weighted and jagged. It doesn't scare her, doesn't startle her into running. You can't be afraid of the monsters that you've already face, can't be scared when you know that you're never going to die. But the bottom of her stomach does drop out in sick anticipation, and Claire whirls on the heel of her foot to find the space behind her empty. She moves across the floorboards, her heels slapping hard and confidently in the stillness.

Come out, she thinks, in the darkest parts of her own conscious. Come out and, quieter, where are we? She wishes she would have thought to pick up the glass on the floor.

we are surrounded by all of the quiet sleepers inside the quiet earth

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

"All that potential, and they had to wash it down the drain." He sounds more disappointed than anything else.

The jagged glass opens up into a sudden new spread of glass on the floor, and the blood from the cut in her hand drips onto the leftover pieces, onto woven rugs in an apartment of so many colors that it seems unfair that it's mostly drained of them. Everything that should be so vibrant is dark and grey, the way colors are before the dawn hits.

There's glass shattered on the floor, of course, but everything else seems put in it's place. Knick-knacks that had seemed strewn about before are ordered neatly somehow. There's a large map in the far corner with a few pictures and lonely strings attached to it, and Peter lies dead on the floor, a large shard of glass embedded into the back of his skull. The ticking speeds up again.

"Someone else is here?"

Action

[dreamsofnoah]

Her shoes tap against the floor as she walks down one of the halls, fingers trailing against the wall. She's singing softly as she makes her way along the corridor.

London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.

Road seems at ease in spite of the ominous environment - dreams have always been her playground, her element, and she always favours the darker, creepier kinds of dreams. It could almost be something she thought up herself, if it wasn't for the more modern aspects, computers and fluorescent lights.

Break it down with sticks and stones, sticks and stones, sticks and stones.

She's half consciously tapping her fingers in time with the ticking, wondering whose mind it is who came up with this dream.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

I'm not hiding, he says, still out of sight. The blinds stop moving- everything stops moving, except for the clock on the wall.

Te blinds are gone, and the kitchen is different. A framed picture of Claire, smiling obliviously in her cheerleading outfit, sits on the kitchen counter. There's a jug of iced tea still beading condensation, a cell phone broken into three pieces on the floor.

There's the sound of glass shattering towards the front door.

we are surrounded by all of the quiet sleepers inside the quiet earth

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

The apartment door opens. Suresh stands in the doorway, walking in to stare at the scene, shocked. "What on earth did you do, Eden? Why would you do such a thing?"

The body of Peter shifts an inch on the floor, groaning slightly.

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

It's quiet, other than the ticking. Well, for a minute or two.

"Nice song." The voice is right at Road's ear, but Sylar isn't visible. His presence is soaked into the environment, but he doesn't seem lucky enough to have a form here, yet.

The lights flicker.

[stokerwasahack.livejournal.com]

Henry's accustomed to the quiet of buildings after the day's work is done. While there's always life to be found in the night, his paths take him to empty places often enough, a brief respite from the modern chaos that can be overwhelming to a vampire's senses. Henry straightens his robes--the Garter robes this time, and honestly, the wardrobe changes he's subjected to by these dreams are becoming ridiculous--and sets out down the hall. Where is that damn clock?

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[adamantined]

Claire breathes hard through her nose, somehow wishing and hoping that she might become part of the decor, phase through the walls and out of this dream to stumble into another. That voice feels halfway across the room and like it's traveling down her spine all at once, too close for comprehension, and as she moves into the kitchen, it's less to get away from it than it is to get into an open area so maybe she can see it. She feels like she can't see - some warped, half-world vision that won't let her look up, sick with blindness and too much sound - but she can see the photo of herself just fine.

She knows where she is, memories moving to fill the void that time has created. This kitchen went up in flames, exploded in a nuclear mess. Sometimes when everything is still, Claire can still smell her skin flaking and knitting itself back together, and she's heard enough breaking glass in her life to know to move toward the sound when she hears it. On her way to the foyer, she bends to pick up the cell phone pieces, eyes moving too fast for her mind to keep up.

"Mom?" she calls, and her voice is hopeful that Sandra will answer but more hopeful that she won't.

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

The clock is nowhere to be seen. Everything here is still, even the air. Dust hangs in place in the few shafts of weak light provided by the fluorescent glow. The ticking of the clock increases very slightly in its pace.

"What are you looking for?" The voice is quiet and close, but there's no one nearby.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

Sandra lies in the foyer, her left hand held up by the jagged glass left in the cabinet. Blood has dripped down that arm, onto the carpet. The body is still, cold. Bled out, even.

Light peeks around the edges of the front door, as if it's threatening to open. It could expose this all to the harsh light of day. Is that really what Claire's looking for?

[stokerwasahack.livejournal.com]

Time frozen while the clock continues to tick? Henry bares his teeth in an instinctual response to the unnatural experience and the implicit danger of a presence he's unable to locate. "Can you hear it?"

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[adamantined]

The back of her throat burns as she croaks, and Claire isn't looking for anything anymore other than a way to get Sandra's hand out of the mess of twisted and jutting glass. Her knees squish against the carpet as she kneels in the mess underneath them, hardly conscious of it, focused only on yanking her mother's hand. She knows this isn't real, knows that it's some sort of hallucination or dream or curse-induced stupor. It isn't real, and her mother is at home with Lyle, and she isn't dead, and they aren't in Odessa, but the copper tang is sharp in her mouth and the stone wedged in her throat makes it almost impossible to breathe, this suffocating numbness, and Claire wishes the yellow fingers stretching across the floor from where the door wants to open would be creeping nuclear tension, ready to explode as soon as she breathes.

Claire slides her hand around to the back of her mother's neck and holds her against her, pressing her mouth to Sandra's forehead until she can breathe, until the urge to throw up has passed, before she stands up, wrapping her fingers around a chunk of discarded glass as she does. She's willed herself not to cry but that doesn't stop it from happening, and her eyes blur as she sets her shoulders and lets the glass in her palm dig into her skin.

She's been here before. She's been everywhere in this before, and she won't be afraid and she won't cry, even if she can't stop these reactions from happening, even if she's doing and feeling both at once. I'll kill you, she says, loud and shaking, I'll kill you again.

[dreamsofnoah]

She turns her head at the sound of the voice, but doesn't seem surprised when no one is there. Instead, she smiles far too wide, the grey skin of her Noah form looking unnatural in the flickering light.

"Hmm~. It seems appropriate ♥"

The disembodied presence seems vaguely familiar, but she doesn't appear too interested as of yet, preferring instead to just enjoy the sensation of walking through a dream.

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

"Always," is the response. "Don't be upset. It helps." The ticking speeds just a bit, as if to support this.

Quiet for a minute, and then a repeat. The words are soft and gentle, the tone low and deep. "What are you looking for?"

[stokerwasahack.livejournal.com]

"Come out," Henry demands, putting the authority of centuries and of his former station behind the words.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

"All that does is stain the floor. Will it make you feel any better?" The first sentence is far away, the second is close enough for her to feel his breath on the back of her shoulder. Again, it isn't there.

"I didn't want it this way, you know." The voice invades the house, and the door starts pushing in. Maybe the light is nuclear, it certainly shines like an explosion. The ticking speeds up.

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

"This place will fall soon, too. Want to help?"

More panels of glass crack and shatter, pieces scattering across the ground. A large crack crawls up one wall and down another.

[makes-you-tick.livejournal.com]

"I'm here," says the voice, the sound coming from all angles. Whoever's speaking, he sounds vaguely annoyed. "No one ever sees."

Another glass door inside the hallway shatters suddenly, and slivers of glass slide neatly to the ground, leaving a jagged frame.

you are not wrong, who deem that my days have been a dream

[adamantined]

She drops the glass. It's pointless to hold onto. Killing someone didn't make her feel better the first time that she did it, not necessarily. There had been no crunch of success, no slip of sudden contentment. She'd felt some thirst finally satiated, coupled with the pounding knowledge that she could do something like that if it came to it, that she could kill without thought if she meant it. It was as horrifying as being in the locker room with Jackie had been.

But she's not doing it again, not if she doesn't have to, and not if it means letting him win. That door wants to open so badly, then she's going to open it. Her shoes don't make any noise against the flooring of the foyer as she steps over her mother and reaches for a familiar knob, a door she opened for years and years and years. Her home. A safe haven. She yanks it open.

[stokerwasahack.livejournal.com]

The vampire spins and voices a deep-throated growl at the sudden noise. He tries to catch the speaker's scent, the sound of his heartbeat, anything to tell him where the voice originates.

[dreamsofnoah]

"Destroying is just as fun as building, even if I'm good at both~."

She pokes her finger at one of the cracks, mentally willing it to grow larger and larger, but not sure if her dream manipulating powers will work inside dreams caused by a curse.