Character Dream

There was a pause, almost as if the voices would not answer. Almost as if they had never been there at all.

_{i am called the lost} said a far-away whisper.

_{who are you} said the one who was nearly in his ear.

_{the one called}

_raphael?

breath lingered on the back of Raphael's neck, in his ear, near his shoulder, far too close for comfort.

edited 2nd Apr '12 9:19:41 PM by ohsointocats

Qrlil turned and looked at them. "For me, it is anything but."

While she might have been trying to not focus on the surrounding environment, it was becoming harder to avoid doing so. She blinked a few times, trying to shed the disorientation. "The lights do not bother me, as I have said; it is the dream itself. I know what you have said before, but I do not think you quite understand. I - "

Abruptly a jolt of pain stabbed in her head, and she pressed a hand to it, the thought chain lost. "I... am beginning to think I should find somewhere to sit down."

The multicolored lights flickered briefly out in the fog again.

"Nobody promised you sweet dreams." Nara replied. "Probably should have given up on that the moment you saw the fog-choked street."

Nara looked around again and started laughing, managing to get it under control again after a few seconds. "Though this could easily be my idea of a relaxing escape from reality."

What had he just gotten himself into?!

"Why... Y-yes. That's my name. Raphael Cline." He paused. "How do you know it, by the way?"

And then he realized just how pointless of a question this was; he was in a dream, right? Dreams are repositories for the nighttime sorting sessions of the brain, combined into a frequently incoherent or mistakenly didactic mess.

Night.

edited 2nd Apr '12 9:34:37 PM by CrystalGlacia

"Whoa!" Corey smiled enthusiastically and curiously at the man Raphael Cline acting all weird. "Did an insect just crawl into your brain and eat it from the inside. Which splits it into two and now you're talking to yourself?"

Hector glanced over at Qrlil. "Uh, hey, are you alright? Is this something that comes with Qrtxian biology?"

The lights before Hector shimmered, waving from side to side.

Someplace to sit—

Ahead of the group, an oblong conference table, complete with nameplates with gibberish written upon them and iced tumblers of water, appeared out of the fog. Hector stopped and stared at it for a couple seconds.

"I guess we can sit there."

_{a name is a thing}

_{a thing that is not}

_{i am the keeper of all things not}

_{but you are not a thing not}

_{you are a thing i know not}

the chorus of voices whispered on, the phrases overlapping, one beginning when the one before it had not quite finished speaking. But it wasn't as if they rushed — it was like a fugue, intended.

"Not an aspect of my biology, precisely," Qrlil said. She moved to the table and sat gratefully in one of the chairs, not bothering to wonder about where they had come from.

"That is," she continued, "I am not sure, but I believe this is related to my backup - my neural implants. Something about this - place - is causing them to malfunction, either within the context of the dream or in reality." She pressed a hand to her head again.

"Now that I think on it, the biology of this must be quite fascinating. How, in neurological terms, do you make a species that does not dream consciously do so?"

edited 2nd Apr '12 9:57:06 PM by nrjxll

Hector raised his eyebrows. "Neural implants? So, we've got posthuma—sorry, postqrtxian technology? Very impressive. On our part, we've only started the briefest forays into that field. I can't say anything about this place. It just...happened, I suppose. I've never had a lucid dream in my life, and yet, here I am. It's as if it just came to be, and all the issues attached to it being were discarded or ignored. Until now."

deleted

edited 2nd Apr '12 10:03:13 PM by PsychoFreaX

«I would indeed help you,» said Shaurei, with some amusement. «It is always fascinating to see the breakdown of a human mind confronted with no illusions. One particularly insolent human once claimed I was nothing more than a particularly skilled mage, attempting to goad me into showing him my memories. I showed him a microscopic fraction of a microscopic fraction of my experiences, and he promptly declared me a god.»

He continued examining the massive structure. «What do you mean, <we don't have anything to wager with>? You may have gathered this already, but wagers are my specialty, and there is nothing outside my grasp to give. Would you require something to bargain with in order to fully experience the break?»

"Well, you already saw that," said Jonathan, gesturing at the diorama. "Right now, I don't see anyt-"

His voice stopped as he noticed another exhibit. An armored car traveling down a city street, its path blocked by angry rioters, some carrying signs with blurred-out slogans. The car was cut in half, allowing people to see who was sitting inside it. Jonathan himself was restrained and handcuffed in the back of the car, with several guards around him.

However, instead of recognition, the only emotion on Jonathan's face was confusion. "I... I don't recognize that. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before." He silently turned to Zacharias, unsure of what to say.

edited 3rd Apr '12 10:05:11 AM by TeraChimera

"Hey Prisha! You gotta check this out!" Corey pulled to his side a grim looking boy with wavy blue hair(yep changed a few designs :P).

"Corey??! H-h-how did you-" Prisha said, both shocked and confused. "Wait weren't you already in bed?"

"Yep! This is a dream world," Corey smiled ever so enthusiastically. "can't we do anything inside a dream?"

"Not to the point where it even affects reality," Prisha answered monotonously. "So you got a good reason for interrupting my research on ancient fossils in real life for well... you people's sake?"

"That guy has an insect in his brain!" Corey pointed at Raphael.

"Yes I'm sure nothing weirder has happened in people's dreams," Prisha responded flatly staring at the man Corey pointed to. Though Prisha was surprise Corey's dream was still no where as weird as he was.

edited 3rd Apr '12 5:42:39 AM by PsychoFreaX

"We tried." Nara said. "The whole implant thing, that is. It did not work. Boomer parts, in the end, are only suitable for minds designed for them, though they can interface with others. Badly."

She paused. "We are, again, assuming this is a dream, and not merely a dreamlike state. Though the technical challenges posed by assuming that we still represent real people in such a case are equally difficult."

"The issue of reality versus simulation is one that my species learned to ignore quite a long time ago," Qrlil said, bending back into the chair. "If it appears to be real, then it is generally easiest to treat it as such."

Although what is real in a dream?

"Implants of the kind in use by qrtxians are uncommon among most cultures," she added. "It does not surprise me that your Earth has not managed to make them functional."

_corey, a voice whispered exclusively into one of Corey's ears, warm breath coming from behind.

_child... another voice with a different timbre took the other.

_{it is rude to point,} whispered a fourth.

_{don't you know that?}

"Wha?" Corey turned his head around. A voice called in one ear another in the other. But no one is next to him. How could that be? Then Corey smiled enthusiastically and asked back. "Wait are you like a street bum's ghost or something?"

If it could see him and talk to him it can probably hear him right? Prisha meanwhile just stood there bewildered by anything around him.

Kokabiel shook its head and said, <no. It's just a... tradition of mine. Me and my kin are co-aligned, but it is a lie to say we freely trade resources given how little we care for each other. Our very natures were sundered by a man called the Astrologer, who arranged things such that to oppose one another is within our very nature.> It shrugged. <So we "trade" by wager more often than by trade. Each of us has our ways — Tamiel and Shamsiel bring the innocent to corruption, while me and Bezaliel bring the corrupted to ruination. Organics sometimes perceive my acts as "justice", but I am not so deluded. I choose weak prey, and the weakest prey to my methods is simply that which has much evil in its past.>

<But I suppose a wager as to which of us can more thoroughly destroy a foe is unnecessary. Potentially amusing, but unnecessary. It was just a thought.>

A dim intelligence began to grow in the machine as it neared its full form. Cold, alien, ancient, and astronomically vast.

Zacharias looked over at the exhibit. "I do hope it's not prophetic," he said. "And yet, if it is... well, given what I know already of Shaurei..." he shook his head, then studied the crowd. "But the people make their opinions clear, it seems. I hope it's enough, if you truly do behold prophecy."

edited 3rd Apr '12 6:06:57 AM by KillerClowns

_{a ghost?}

_{a ghost...}

the chorus pondered.

_{a ghost is not what i am,} whispered a third voice near the back of Corey's neck.

edited 3rd Apr '12 6:25:20 AM by ohsointocats

"Then uh... I'm half right?" Corey joked vaguely intentionally.

Prisha still confused wondered. Corey really did seem to be talking to something or he's a good actor. For crying out loud, Prisha thought. This is Corey he's trying to figure out with normal people standards.

"Whatever, I'm out of here," Prisha walked away trying to see if he could wake up again. If Corey had pulled him into this dream, maybe he's actually asleep in reality. Also if any dream is dangerous, this seems to be it. But it could be like a short nap as long as he's not out for too long. Prisha will try waking up and see how that goes.

edited 3rd Apr '12 6:44:20 AM by PsychoFreaX

_{what is right}

_{is of no concern}

_{rightness and wrongness have little meaning}

_{in the end...}

the whispers, though airy and soft, almost spoke in a didactic tone.

"Hee hee," Corey giggled. He may be half right after all. Then decided to ask more straight forwardly, looking at Raphael, "So are you talking to that man too?"

He could wake up after all, Prisha found. However he's already sleepy and it's best to get the sleeping out of the way now rather than be tired later in the day. Also, going back to sleep somehow got him back into this dreamworld. He decided to look around for something to do for a while before waking up.

He can't be out for too long though. He still had work to do. Perhaps six hours sounds right.

edited 3rd Apr '12 6:59:11 AM by PsychoFreaX

_{i talk to all}

_{to all in time}

_{all are destined to become not}

_{ash to dust, dust to wind}

_{wind to sea, sea to naught...}

The voices whispered, the voices pondered to themselves. This was scripted, it had all been said before a thousand times, but each time the lost had to learn it anew. Such was his punishment.

"... And naught to..." Corey wondered curiously anticipating a response.

The faint smell of smoke wafted through the pondering silence.

_{you know not?}

_{he knows not}

_dense

_{they are dense}

_{he will learn}

_{you will learn}

_{or perhaps not...}

The voices all thrummed in rhythm, as if not speech but a performance.

"Umm... and naught to..." Corey continued thinking through the strange smell of smoke. Then exclaimed enthusiastically, "That's it! Then all become street bum stalking ghosts like you right?"

Meanwhile Prisha a little further away turns back to Corey's direction, "Okay what's burning?"