Dreams of Fire

[Katya]

The cold seeped in, but she felt hot to the touch. Her body ached in places they had never ached before. It was nearly too much, but the buzz outside of her body was nearing hysteria. People were frantic around her, only Thalia had come to her side. Katya wondered if anyone had even seen what she had saw. Was she going crazy?

Katya couldn't manage to make her mouth work, the pain was getting worse. She shook her head, she had not hit her head. But she wished she had, wished that she was not awake to feel this pain.

It had never been so bad before. It was barely a whisper, but it was soaked in fear"I don't want to go to the hospital, don't let them take me."
She had known Thalia for all of a few minutes, or hours now, but she put her trust in the woman. Bad things happened at the hospital. Katya pulled herself into a tight ball and tried to ignore the pain, but mostly it was to try and stay warm despite the fever that plagued her body.

[Dane Gregory]

Thalia's smile was sweet. She was a doll that'd been splattered by the careless hands of a little girl's painting. Her big eyes fluttered pretty and soft. There was a whimsy to her that reminded Dane of a wind chime clinking in the breeze.

Then she had to go and disagree with him. There was nothing particularly inherent in her difference of opinion that struck a fatalistic match in his heart. She was simply wrong. He would correct her someday soon. "Then perhaps you will critique my work some time? I like to consider myself a professional, but I am only just beginning to perfect the craft."
He nodded reassuringly, but their conversation was cut short by a scream.

Music to his ears.

He glanced in the general direction of the victim. The woman's shrill voice hurt his ears, and Dane pinched the inside of his cheek to keep from silencing her. Others leaped at her beckoning, pressing their grubby palms against the glass completely unaware that a monster had been in their presence the entire time.

He crossed his legs and attempted to discern the sudden source of panic when a chill crept across his skin. Dane shuddered at the strange sensation. There was little in the way of air flow. Nor a reason to suspect changes in temperature. He was rubbing his arms when Katya seized into a fit and fell. He changed the crossings of his legs so she would not touch his shoe, and watched with genuine interest at Thalia knelt at her side. With one pounding force he could crush the girl's face with the bottom of his shoe, but as he already shifted away, he was not interested in bloodying this particular pair. If he had a bat? Or even a crowbar? Surely trains kept something stocked for such emergencies.

He leaned forward, but made no apparent effort to leave his seat. "Did you hit your head?"

[Thalia]

Somewhere in the back of Thalia's head, what Dane said registered an oddity. A doodler who occasionally enjoyed painting, who also considered himself a professional, but of pieces only he considered tasteful. No fusion provided an answer, and she was too preoccupied to give it more thought than a split second observation. Her heart was pounding, rushing blood through her ears. If the train had not been stuck in the tunnel, she might have fled just to avoid the splintered memories shunting carelessly through her care-free bubble. But there was nowhere to go, and she felt some arbitrary connection to the girl crumpled on the floor. Caught in such a net, Thalia was forced to focus.

"No. That wouldn't be a good idea." She murmured it half to herself. Apparently she wasn't so maternal as to offer comfort and reassurance, even if Kat were able to hear it now she was curled in on herself to avoid the maelstrom in her body. Shit shit shit. The spikes of memory were unbearable, and she couldn't smother them so easily with scarlet paint to block them out. Past and present collided. Fever and pain, screwed up bits of paper flung chaotically about the sweat slicked room. And the face.

The face.

And then she recalled the second good samaritan, and the world began to swim in such a way she thought she might actually throw up, because he was going to come over wasn't he? The moment he realised one of the passengers had collapsed, he was going to want to check if she was okay because that was what samaritans did. Although Dane was taking it pretty calmly, and she suddenly wondered if he'd have even nudged her with his shoe to check she was all right had Thalia not already scooted down to the floor.

She was losing it. Her sanity was sinking through her fingers, and she needed to get off this fucking train.

"You need to sit up, Kat." She attempted to pluck her from the floor, even if she had to cradle her like a broken doll in order to do it. It never occurred to her to ask for help, perhaps because the only person who had noticed the collapse showed interest only insofar as demanding an answer to the question he clearly thought Katya had ignored. "And when this train gets to a station, you'll need to stand up and you'll need to walk." She tried to remember the last stop the loudspeaker had announced, tried to calculate how long it would take to get to the station at the Guardian. Aylin would know what to do. Aylin had to know what to do.


Edited by Thalia, Apr 28 2014, 05:08 AM.

[Katya]

Katya looked up behind her at Dane and glared, she wanted to tell him off, but she kept her mouth shut and shook her head. Maybe he'd see it this time and stop repeating questions she'd already answered

Thalia's urging would have been forgotten left unheard, if it hadn't been for the woman's insistence upon moving her around. Katya did the best she could to return to a seat. It felt like a thousand needles were piercing her skin and a fire so hot that it was almost cold. Katya longed for home, her bed and a good nights sleep, but that didn't look like it was going to happen anytime soon. The train was going nowhere, fast! Katya wanted to throw a tantrum like the child down the aisle from them, but her body hurt too much to move.

It took every ounce of Katya's strength to remain sitting upright. She couldn't imagine what she looked like. Her shattered wallet lay on the floor, parts of it were scorched. She whispered, mostly to herself, "I had signal."
But what could she really have done. They already knew the trains had stopped, they already knew where they were. But they didn't know something was down here with them? Katya couldn't begin to imagine what was down here. And every time she tried, the world grew dimmer.

Distracting herself wasn't going to work. Katya had to keep her thoughts on being alive.

[Dane Gregory]

Katya's transformation was amazing. Dane watched her fight for strength with rapt attention. She was ghostly and worn. A sheen of sweat glistened her brow. The urge to put a finger to her trembling lips pulled strong. Dane was a keen actor of normal, but there was blood in the water now, and the need to pretend grew less and less important. He stared.

Thalia remained a sweet caretaker for the sickly girl. The stern press of her voice was an unexpected contrast to the soft ripples of her demeanor. He wanted to take Thalia's hand and use it to push the hair back from Katya's face. He wanted to help Thalia take care of the girl, and show her what to do; comforting distraught women filled much of the time he shared with them.

As more and more voices lifted, and more fingers swept grandiose gestures across the windows, Dane had to acknowledge that he had seen something himself. Enmity for Katya, and the compulsive need to possess Thalia were hard obsessions to suppress, but Dane found his neck twisting around this way and that like so many others.

Another shadow slung a slender limb and Dane whipped his eyes toward it, yet again missed full sight of the creature. He grew more and more furious of its evasion.

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly. The gentlemanly softness he wore like a scarf was discarded in favor of a hawk-like sharpness to his focus. With the focus, torment and fury followed, and suddenly his world illuminated bright as summer sun. Invincibility raged through his chest, and he slowly took to his feet.


Edited by Dane Gregory, Apr 30 2014, 07:31 PM.

[Jon Little Bird]

Still no life to the derelict metro carriage, and still no indication as to what lay in the darkness. Was it worth forcing a door open, thus possibly endangering the people within to whatever might be out there? Though they were sitting ducks at the moment, at least their space was defensible. He stared outside and remembered -- with a chill -- what it was like to be caught unawares by a creature of the darkness. I won't be a victim today.


The sudden, unexpected presence snapped Jon away from the window. Another man was holding the Great Spirit, someone in this car. Jon snapped his head toward the source like the filament of a compass. It was that man, Dane Gregory. He was holding the power -- and he was as strong as Jon, maybe a little stronger. He was with those two young women again. The young, blonde girl was supported by the other as if something was wrong with her. Something had bothered Jon about that man and the way he was watching those girls since he'd sat down. And there he was holding the power.

And then Jon saw the face of the other young woman. It can't be.
His pulse surged among his arteries until it crashed against his skull.

"Nimeda!"
he yelled. Concern overpowered reason and Jon fixed Dane in his vision as he ran toward the man. "Get away from them!"
He seized hold of the Great Spirit and fired away thick bands of air like ropes to pin the man against the wall.

[Thalia]

She got Kat back to her seat, which pierced a tiny bit of relief in her concern, and Thalia promptly sat back next to her,shuffled close shoulder to shoulder. Worry pinched her brow. She didn't know what to do beyond what she had already, and her desperation for the train to get moving again was mounting. The chaos that continued around them went unnoticed, and she never wondered why everyone was pressed up against the windows. Even Dane seemed to take note eventually. If I close my eyes it'll all be gone. At Kat's croaky words her gaze wandered to the fried Wallet laying in pieces on the floor, and she suddenly remembered that she didn't even have hers with her. She was utterly adrift in this nightmare.

She pressed her head against Kat's, felt the blazing and sticky heat from her skin. It never occurred to her how overly familiar the gesture was with a stranger, or that it might be unwelcome. "My sister works at the Guardian. Not the hospital part. She helped me when." The whispered words cut clean off, and pain vibrated in her skull. "I think she can help you." Doubt tinged the hope; she wasn't sure if she was trying to give something tangible for Katya to hold onto, or if she was only trying to distract herself.

Someone started yelling, louder than all the rest; not fear, not confusion, not panic. Anger. She had a moment to feel a tremble of apprehension before the world began dissolving at its edges. Dane jerked unnaturally in her peripheral, and it felt like everything shuddered when he suddenly slammed into the side of the train. Thalia's eyes widened, but she wasn't afraid until her gaze swivelled to the man - the good samaritan man - who came charging down the isle.

Finally, unequivocally, she saw his face.

She fractured; in the maelstrom every sense lay broken, panicked, and she knew she needed to block it all out. Shut your eyes, shut it out. Her legs drew up tight, and she grabbed Kat's hand hard, shrinking back into the seat. But she couldn't look away. Horror hollowed out her gaze. That face, that face, that face. She wanted to escape, she wanted to run, but trapped in a corner the worst possible thing happened instead. It felt like warmth blooming out from her chest, filling her, buoying her - and it should have felt wonderful, but she only felt sick and afraid and lost in the brightness of the light.

[Dane Gregory]

With the surge of invincibility came the heightened awareness in the dark. He could make out the flutter of Thalia's eyelashes, the beads of sweat on Katya's face. Dane slowly lifted his gaze to turn the powers of sight toward the exterior tunnel. Wrapped in the cocoon like in a warm blanket as he was, the sudden flood of animosity that rushed his senses was earth-shatteringly cold.

Hands, monstrously bright, and not of his own making, drowned him in light, and suddenly the train car rushed around him: poles, seats, wide-eyed witnesses. His back slammed into the far wall and punched the air from Dane's lungs.

He threw shaking hands to his chest, but the struggle for breath was overwhelmed by the rise of panic throbbing his heart with pain. His toes reached, but the floor teased its secure surface too far below.

The open-mouthed shock of the moment led him to flick narrowed eyes for the source of the assault. The source of the Light that was his weapon.

He found it. Jon. The man was near Thalia, now, and Katya, and a poisonous spit of possessiveness bored from the twin marbles that replaced Dane's eyes. His lip curled, disgust for himself and for the sensation Jon elicited from the depths of Dane's suppression.

He struck the ropes holding him with barbed whips of his own. The connection recoiled like a severed limb, and Dane dropped deftly to the floor.

He smoothed the hair that dusted his forehead with dishevelment, and he took a step forward. Those seated on his left and right pulled their legs in, giving him room to walk, while others huddled together. He paid them no heed.

His eyes darted between Thalia and Jon: the frightened butterfly and the man slapping at her delicate wings. But it was the aggressor in the cabin that quickly won immensity of Dane's focus. If he were closer, he would have drawn a knuckle down Jon's cheek and whisper in his ear.

Instead, he spoke, posh and distant. A warning. "You're playing with fire, Jon."
Yes, he remembered the man's name, and height, and hair color, and the pitiful accent.

Power raged like a beast trapped in the cage of Dane's mind. The English gentleman took a wide stance, body tilted ever so slightly at an angle, and seemingly transformed before their eyes into something raw and angry always kept out of sight that when unleashed, whipped barbs with enough force to chord the veins in his forehead to the surface.

[Jon Little Bird]

Jon reeled as his sliced weaves recoiled. The sensation was like paper cuts to his brain and he would likely never get used to it. Jon's grasp on the power rocked, but he drew in more and clawed his way back on top of that violent, surging balance.

Jon would not have expected the man to have known how to slice away a weave. That meant Dane had been around another man who could wield the Great Spirit before. The only reason Jon knew how to sever another weave was because he'd seen Nick Trano do it.

Dane stood and was doing something with his own connection. Drawing more and -- was he poised to strike out?

"You're playing with fire, Jon."
The man's voice echoed like a brass cymbal against the power that Jon could feel surging in the other man. He was holding a lot. Probably more than Jon safely could.

Playing with fire? He didn't know a thing about Jon. Jon chuckled at the man and narrowed his eyes. "You don't know the half of it."
He prepared weaves of his own. Essence of spirit, to slice, and the delicate web of his mind medicine. At the next sign of hostility, he'd strike back and sedate the man. In the meantime, if he didn't show any further aggression, Jon would leave the man alone.

He turned to Nimeda and the other young girl. They were seating, and neither of them looked well at all. The young blonde looked ready to fall over -- but it was Nimeda whose behavior most puzzled him. She had pulled back into her seat, legs drawn up, the color drained from what Jon could see of her face. As if she'd seen a ghost.

Or like they'd both been poisoned.

"Nimeda, you remember me, right? What happened?"
He strode toward her.

[Thalia]

He was moving, and that terrible instinct burned so terribly bright she felt as though every inch of her skin must be glowing. She didn't know what it would do, to him or to her. The memories, of before, were dim things; even now, released unexpectedly from their chains, they cowered in the shadows cast beneath that terrifying radiance of power, barely brushing her conciousness except to refortify the intensity of her fear. One, terrified blink. When she opened her eyes, it was as though someone had taken up a marker pen and scribbled ferociously in the air an arm span's length from her face. The cross-hatch grew thick, gleaming gold, so bright and tangible she almost loosened her grip on Katya's hand to touch it. But the anomaly faded, taking her brief respite with it. When her vision cleared, the man was still there. But he had not come any closer.

He was talking to her. It took a second for that realisation to seep into her brain, and once it did fear spiralled loose once again. She stared, not afraid of what he might do, but of who he was: of the simple fact that he was flesh and blood and consciousness, that he breathed and spoke and lived autonomous. And worst, that he seemed to think he knew who she was. Just the thought, punctured through with other, older memories - demon! A woman's phlegmy spit on her shoe - was enough to make her feel sick, but she couldn't tear her gaze away. The familiar lines of his face had been etched behind her eyes for months, spilling out onto sheets and sheets of sketchbook paper. She barely had to look to know the shape and colour of his eyes, the contours of his lips, the angle of his cheekbones, but look she did, desperately searching for discrepancies.

"I don't know who you are." The words were small, fragile things, and she laid them out honest, forlornly imploring him to admit he had made a mistake. Her name was not Nimeda. Why did he even think it was? You remember me, right? A stream of curiosity bubbled to the surface, but it was short lived, and it died from her guileless expression quickly. No. She didn't want to know, she didn't want to know, she didn't want to know. Her wide-eyed gaze finally broke to find Dane; strangely, it took a second, like she had forgotten how he'd ended up almost the other end of the carriage. Savagery twisted his reserved poise, and veins chorded sharp against his skull. The anger pulled his skin tight, like something clawed to get out.

It occured to her Dane must know him. He'd called him Jon.

What had happened? It was a good question, but Thalia was content to drown in the waters of oblivion, and her mind had already begun its self-protective retreat. The air felt heavier when the light slipped away as swiftly as it had descended, and when the colours pressed a little dimmer she finally closed her eyes. Beside her Katya was hot as a furnace. Where she clutched the girl's hand her palm was warm and clammy. "My friend is Sick."

A hum vibrated through the train. The lights flickered back on a section at a time, and then the engine began to rattle to life. A deep, heavily Russian voice crackled over the intercom, but it was muffled and distorted. They began to move again.

[[There is a wall of Air in front of Thalia. She and Kat are sitting close enough that it would prevent anyone from physically approaching either of them.]]