Smoke & Mirrors: Xia's Dream
4/20/2006
07:49 PM
Logfile from GarouMUSH.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (49% full).
It is currently 19:39 Pacific Time on Thu Apr 20 2006.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the west at 5 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.87 and steady, and the relative humidity is 66 percent. The dewpoint is 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius.)
[In Xia's apartment...]
Xia had been reading in bed before she had drifted to sleep with the quiet that fills the apartment building. Birds still chirp outside the windows as the evening begins to creep up quickly. The Shadow Lord kin has been stressed out by her upcoming finals along with her future as a whole. Her future as an adult and as a kin remains blurry to her.
As is like most nights, the world of sleep is peaceful, or the dreams that come to mind are relatively uneventful, likely to not be remembered when the kin wakes. Tonight however, her dream takes her to the lecture hall on campus of her business class. The professor is explaining something indistinct, and the notes on the board are going by just too quickly before she can catch up in her note taking. The overhead Power Point presentation scrolls by with words both in English and Japanese, but the professor seems to be speaking in her adoptive grandfather's voice, and in a foreign language as well.
The kin straightens in her seat, trying her hardest to write all of the notes down. She quickly grows frustrated as she cannot keep up or even get her hand raised to ask for professor to slow down. The mixture of languages also confuses her, and she is even surprised to hear her step-grandfather's voice being replaced by her professors. It sounds like static noise, the langauge on the Power Point with the proffessor's foreign tongue.
"Xia? Xia? MISS AKSENOV!" After all that note taking, the professor's lecturing has stopped altogether, or faded off. Instead, there is a very insistent, attention getting, sharply toned voice practically yelling at her. It sounds unbelievably close - as if the professor were standing right in front of her.
Xia quickly looks up from her note taking, wincing at the yelling that is so close to her. A sharply toned, attention getting voice is not knew to her, having grown used to the tone while in the military academy. "Yes?" she asks, her expression blank.
It's hard to see the professor's eyes behind his glasses, as they catch the light coming in from the small windows and glint off. "Don't take that tone of voice with me, young lady," the professor snaps. "I asked you a question and you are to answer /immediately/! Who are the Shadow Lords, and what is their mission?" The professor's voice all but booms like Thunder himself, though he still sounds like the fierce Ivan Aksenov.
The Shadow Lord kin works her jaw for a moment. "Who are you?" she questions in a whisper to the professor. Her expression turns quickly to one of confusion, and she freezes in her seat. "The Shadow Lord are the dark warriors of all Garou-- we are cold, proud, vengeful, and ruthless. We are ambitious and stop at nothing to take command."
Slap! Before she can take her next breath, a heavy handed slap stings across her right cheek, hard enough to knock her out of her seat. "We /are/ in command, you freakin' idiot. Or are you not connected enough to your own tribe to see who's in power?" That voice. It's not her grandfather's. It's not her professor's. It's Kenneth's. The philodox hops up onto her desk, and peers down at her, looming overhead so that the lights silhouette him. "You have no idea who we are. You're just a parrot who spits back the same BS that everyone feeds you 'cause you're too weak to do anything by yourself."
Xia feels the heavy hand across her face and is knocked out of her seat. She looks up with her eyes which turn cold as the words of the figure standing before her sting as much as the physical harm she just received. "Shut up!" she screams at the words she does not wish to hear.
"Is that all you can do? Tell me to shut up?" The halfmoon's tone is cold, scornful. "Who are /you/ to tell /me/ to do anything? I was born to make war, and you... you're nothing but a part of the brainless sheep that crawl pathetically on the face of the earth. Useless bitch. Just die with the rest of them." With a scrape of the desk's feet along the linoleum floor of the lecture hall, the shadowed figure of the halfmoon gets off the desk with another hop. There's a snap of fingers, and suddenly the doors to the lecture hall burst inwards. Beastly howls and bloodthirsty snarls fill the room, contrasting with a sudden crescendo of human screams of terror. The light in the lecture halls dims to a stormy grey as thunder and lightning storm outside. Visages of black furred monsters, Crinos, tear into the room, and all around her is chaos and death. A bloody, gored off hand flops wetly across the kin's slapped cheek, falling to the floor. It has to be her professor's hand - that's his wedding ring on that finger there.
Xia is about to retort but the figure leaves her before she is given the chance. She suddenly shivers as she hears the Crinos tearing through the room. As the dismembered arm touches her cheek and then falls to the floor, the kin gives a bloodcurdling shriek and crawls away from the limb. Her stomach churns over as she grows sick and places her hand over her nose and mouth, attempting not to gag.
Gagging? That's inevitable. But whatever's in her stomach, it refuses to come out. She can see people. People she knows from class, people from her past before she even came to St. Claire, they're trying to run from the invading Garou. But these monsters show no quarter. One girl, a friend from military school, one who the kin just had a feeling for that she wouldn't make it later on in life, falls forward onto the floor and reaches out plaintively for help. Her face is a picture of a silent scream, as a giant black werewolf leaps upon her and those dagger sized fangs bury themselves into the back of the girl's neck. A wild shake, twist, and a sick ripping noise after, the whole spinal cord is ripped away from the rest of the body. A splatter of blood covers the kin's side and face as she can't help but look on, frozen as she is in the sheer horror of the scene. It's nothing like the movies. It's thousands of times worse. The crinos is huge, with an aura around it that seems to absorb what light there is into it. When it turns to look upon the kinswoman, its eyes are not there, but a pair of mirrors that reflect her face. In them she can see her own wideeyed, bloodied expression. The military girl's face is frozen in a similar open eyed, open mouthed silent scream.
Xia feels the blood spraying in droplets across her skin and clothes, making her grow pale skinned and lifeless. She is startled to see those eyes reflecting her face like a mirror. Her eyes cannot look away from those eyes while the muscles in her face involuntarily twitch.
The mirror-eyed crinos lets its quarry drop from its jaws, and the dead girl's spine spluts onto the red pool oozing out. Black nostrils flare as the beast drinks in her scent. Fear. Terror. Tunnel vision sets in, as the screams of the dying and cries for help fade away. A flash of reactive instinct zaps through her as she stares into the reflective eyes of the monster. Run!
Xia picks herself up from the ground, her knees wobbling as she gives a few hops forward. It takes less than a second before instinct settles in and she begins to run down the halls to try to escape the large Crinos. She does not even notice through the blood and the sweat that she has tears wielding up in the corners of her eyes. As she runs, she occasionally stumbles and runs into obstructions, pushing over trashcans behind her.
Somehow, she passes the other crinos in the room. As she does, though, she can see the burning hatred in their eyes, tracking her. Out into the fresh air, out of the lecture hall, away from the gore. Run, run, run! The campus of the university is still and pristine, if just darkened by the gloomy skies above with grey stormclouds swirling overhead slowly. She runs until she can run no more, her legs giving out, causing her to fall once more and hit the dirt. Where is she now? It's unknown. Only the sounds of the forest intrude between gasps for breath and sobbed exhales. Her heart still pounds in her ears, but the terrifying visions are for now, behind her.
Xia places her head in the grass and dirt, sobbing and sniffling loudly. The kin can feel her head pounding inside her skull. She cries out in fear and loneliness, slowly balling herself up where she has dropped to the ground in exhaustion.
The words from before come back to haunt her. "Who are /you/... useless bitch... just die..." It's whispered in the wind, menacing and unforgiving. Her wits, what's left of them, are tweaked enough so that she feels someone watching her. A creepy voyeuristic sensation is what it is, taking in her every move. Thunder rumbles overhead, distantly, and what sunlight is swallowed up in grey clouds that have blocked it out. From above her, just by her ear, a heavy growl issues forth. The scent of blood is huffed onto her in hot breaths.
Xia bites her lip as she can hear the breathing just above her ear. Her fingers curl in the dirt, balling it into her fist. Taking all that she can fit into her palm, she makes a defensive move and throws the debris into the Crinos' face. "Never!" she screams at the black figure while trying to escape him again.
A thick clod of dirt strikes the beast, and she manages to get up and run once again. Looking back, the black figure huddles in a hulking shape that radiates with dark swirling, visibly smokey energy. It bares its fangs in a grin and fades from view. Another figure in the distance can be seen as she runs. Hazed out, the feeling of comfort supposedly emits from the figure, urging her forward to meet. The feeling of running into safety in this one's arms, to be embraced, all that lies ahead. She just has to go to the waiting figure.
Xia continues running towards the other figure before her, the one that gives her the feeling of comfort and safety. That must be her goal, her way out of this never ending nightmare. "Oh God, Oh God..." she breathes in a hissing sound. How much more of this can she take? She looks like shit. Blood, sweat, dirt... you name it is covering her clothing and bare skin. Blood and grass stains that will never washout, never become clean again from her clothes.
Come on, come on. Running and ever running... the figure, no matter how much she chases after, doesn't seem to be getting any closer. Her legs move too slow, her breath is just too short. Her body is on fire with pain from cramps and effort. All of it is unrewarding. "What's wrong with you?" echoes her mind's voice, "Hurry up! It's all right there, hurry up!" Then all at once, the landscape blurs forward and she hits that warmth and comfort like a runaway train. Eyes closed with tears, she can feel the throb of a beating heart against her tear-streaked skin. Who is this figure? Does she want to know?
Xia feels her body broken, abused physically and mentally, by this traumatic experience. She coughs while regaining her breath, feeling the warm of the figure that she finally comes in contact with. Having enough energy now to raise her head from the chest, she leans back to see who this figure is that stands before her.
And she looks right back at herself. Those eyes. The mirrors on the black crinos' features capture the kin's face perfectly, as she sees the dawning realization on her face appear quite expressively. A face that would make movie producers lament the poor acting of their girls in B-rated horror flicks. Fangs dripping with gore and ichor show a twisted smile from curled back lips. ~Stupid girl...~ comes the air vibrating, menacing growl. Somehow it's said in a way that she can understand. Before she can scream, the monster's jaws open up and lunge forth, enveloping her vision into darkness.
Near instantaneously, she wakes with a jarking start. Back in her apartment. Back where she'd fallen asleep, her book strewn onto the floor. A cold sweat covers her body, making the sheets and her hair stick to her skin in a way that is unbearably uncomfortable.
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