Dream 03 → Fire Down Below

[irregular]

Warnings: Situations of peril. Spoilers for Ken's backstory, but nothing you don't know by Episode Four.
Dream Effects: INTERACTIVE.
Notes: Aside from Ken himself, the figures in this dream all resemble the same young Japanese man. Ken knows who this is, but he isn't saying. The men will not reply if spoken to and are quietly menacing, but not overtly aggressive. They just like stalking people.

This is how Ken dreams of fire.

He never knows how he came to be there - not in the dream, at least. Lying on concrete with the reek of petrol clinging to his clothes and his hair, he opens his eyes on flame.

The building is burning. Catwalks, gantries, machinery: all burns. Flame licks at the windows of the warehouse, at the very walls: he can feel the heat on his face, hot and oppressive as the air of a kiln, hear the roar of the fire in his ears. It deafens him, it leaves his head ringing. He can feel the heavy, heated air burning in his lungs - get out, damn it, got to get out of here before he chokes--! The smoke, thick and black, burns his sinuses; It gags him, blinds him with tears and sends sweat pearling up acrosss his brow, his back...

Ken springs to his feet, the breath catching in his chest; he can think of nothing but the need to flee, but he never runs for the doors. The doors are blocked, or blazing. There's only one place he can go and that's up.

Up.

He sprints for the nearest stairway just before a burning beam scythes down from somewhere above him and crashes to the ground where he had been lying. Ken looks back, then runs again, the treads of the stairs shuddering against his feet. Everything burns - flames lick at the gantry he runs across, and it yaws violently beneath his feet, chunks of debris rain from above, and that is burning too. The breath burns in his lungs.

After a time, he becomes aware that he is searching. Searching for something, or someone - the catwalk gives way beneath his feet, and the scream is choked off in his throat as he throws himself desperately forward, snatching at stairway or girder or anything that will arrest his fall-- Panting, he hangs from the broken walkway for a while, before pulling himself up and struggling on...

And, after a time, he becomes aware of the figures, looming through the choking smoke. Circling, and growing ever closer.

All he can do is keep moving. Keep moving forward because maybe, just maybe he will be faster.

Comments

[slantedcross.livejournal.com]

"Ken," Youji answers with a tired sigh. "Let me see your hands. There's a reason I usually wear gloves on missions."

Even as he says it, he's scanning the room peripherally, but for all the firelight, the smoke keeps the building dark. And the circle is tightening. There are definitely others surrounding them; how he knows it, he's not sure, but he wonders if maybe he's still missing something. There is a meaning to the fire; there should be a meaning to who is chasing (?) him.

Where is the doorway? Youji didn't walk through one, he knows that. He remembers entering Ken's room (well, the spare room Ken was sleeping in) and maybe seeing him asleep, but it blanks out after that.

It takes a bit of effort to rip the bottom his shirt to make something he can wrap Ken's hands in. He thinks about asking if Ken had a sharp weapon with him, but dismisses it quickly. Definitely not an experienced assassin sitting there at his feet.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

"Sorry."

Is that his voice? How awkward he sounds. Ken raises his head, gives Youji a guilty grin. It's almost shy, the way he holds out his hands, as if he's embarrassed to admit to what a mess he's made of them in simply trying to get away. He sits there, hands outstretched, as Youji bandages his palms with shreds of his shirt, and wishes he didn't feel like such a burden.

Should never have tried to climb up, and yet--

And yet something in Ken knows, it just knows that going up is the only way out of here. He can't explain it, he can't even define that feeling, but everything he has is screaming at him, demanding to know why he came back. He wasn't close to the exit: nothing like it, but voluntarily resetting the damn level just to say he's not doing it solo... what the Hell was he thinking? The flames are crackling and hissing; somewhere he can't see, metal groans in sickening protest, and something tumbles from the ceiling to land heavily on the ground behind them. He can't help but wince.

If they stay here they're going to die. It's that simple.

"We've got to get out of here," he says, when Youji gives him his hands back and draws away: Ken hardly knows why he bothers wasting the breath, when it's so obvious. "There's no door down here."

[slantedcross.livejournal.com]

"There's no door up there, either," Youji says dryly. "Unless you really think you can walk on air."

He did take a quick step forward when a large mass of debris fell behind him--close one--but otherwise, gives no indication of distress. Unease, yes; his eyes are everywhere, scanning constantly, and he's listening, too.

It occurs to him that listening to Ken--dream logic--might be a good idea, however, and he starts to walk.

"Are we in a basement?" he wonders. "Is the door on the next floor?"

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

"But that's how it works."

Tearing his gaze from Youji's face, Ken glances about himself - at the flames, at the figures looming up through it - and he swallows. They will come no nearer, he knows, but still... Anxiously, he looks back up at his friend. Though even Ken knows that what he is saying makes no sense, he looks almost as grave as he does just plain fearful.

"Youji," he says, "this isn't... I've been here before. It's just how it works. You have to climb and I know it doesn't make sense. But there's no other way out. There just isn't."

He scrambles to his feet and, without waiting for permission, leans heavily against Youji as much to keep his balance as for the reassurance his friend's presence offers. He's still, much to his embarrassment, shaking, and he closes his eyes briefly as he forces himself to calm, concentrating on evening out his breathing. For a moment he does nothing, simply stands and counts his breaths - one, three, six--

He pulls away as Youji makes to move forward, stumbling after the man as he picks his way cautiously through the flames. Youji doesn't know where he's going, that much is obvious but with the stairs - those stairs, anyway - out of the question, there's nothing for it but to look for another way up.

(The figures follow, quiet and patient. They have all the time they need.)

"A warehouse," Ken corrects him. "But you've got to go up. It's... just how this works. I'm sorry."

[slantedcross.livejournal.com]

"The fact that you look frightened is enough for me," Youji admits. "It's really not something I'm used to."

So climbing it is. Is it possible to latch a wire on to the rafters, bypass the floors (and individuals lurking therein?) and just climb up? But no; the smoke impairs his vision and it's getting harder to breathe; harder still the higher they go.

"I wish it wasn't that way," Youji mutters, more quietly, as he begins walking the perimeter of the room, looking for the staircase. "You know smoke rises, right? Not that it will matter once the room is full, but I'd like to not deliberately go looking for death, if it's all the same to you."

Something snaps in his mind after that tirade, and he looks back at Ken. Eyes narrowing.

"How much do you know about this setting?" he asks neutrally. If he knows the only way out...? But if he's wrong...

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

How much does he know. There's a loaded question, if Youji only but understood it. Ken shivers in spite of the heat, resting his hands on his upper arms for a moment and, momentarily, hanging back.

"We're not," he says, "supposed to be able to get out--"

He breaks off, coughing.

There are no doors in the warehouse - Ken knows this in his blood. He's checked, checked dozens of times, he's been here often enough to know it for a fact. No doors, and the only windows are small, set high in the walls. The only way out is to climb - to break a window, or try and find a way to the roof. Smoke rises, and it's getting hard enough to breathe down here: Ken coughs again, wiping at his eyes with his bandaged hands. It's no choice at all, but it's the only one there is - unless, of course, Youji really wants to burn.

Ken doesn't. He'd rather choke. Rather climb until he was sure he was high enough that the fall would kill him, and jump. It had been horrible enough the first time, and he barely remembered it...

He swallows. Says, "I know it's supposed to kill me. I'm meant to die here, Youji. That... that's why there's no door."

[slantedcross.livejournal.com]

"Block your mouth," he says briskly. "Taking in this much smoke should not be attempted except by a seasoned professional. And not without enough nicotine to make you think it's worth it."

He nudges Ken towards the perimeter of the room. Overexertion probably isn't a good idea, but staying still was even less so.

He didn't really want to acknowledge Ken's final statement, but his curiosity is piqued. And he has a feeling he needs Ken lucid and thinking straight in order to make his way out.

He stopped at a staircase, and just sighed. "Well, if you do die here, somehow you recover long enough to really annoy the hell out of me sometime in the next three years," he says. "Any ideas what we'll find at the top?"

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

It isn't a very good joke, in fact Ken isn't even totally sure it's a joke at all, but he laughs weakly all the same. It's a weird kind of relief to have something to laugh about here of all places, even if the giggles catch in his throat and leave his chest aching, even if the laughter tails off into another fit of coughing, and even as he doubles over and struggles to suck in the filthy, too-hot air, it leaves him feeling weirdly better.

Youji's right, though, and he covers his nose and mouth with one cupped hand for a lack of anything better to do it with.

He says, "Okay." And follows.

The flames roar all about them as they pick their way across the baking, cracking floor: behind them something vast and heavy falls with a loud whumph, sending sparks flying through the air and Ken winces, hurrying to catch up with his friend. Youji doesn't know where he's going, but then Ken can't say he's any surer on that himself - all he knows is that they've got to climb, that whatever's waiting for them at the other end of the maze of shuddering catwalks and stairways strung above their heads like a great steel cobweb, it has to be better than this. Anything would be better than to burn...

Though Youji hesitates at the foot of the stairs, Ken doesn't wait. He pushes past him, clambering quickly up the first few steps, only stopping short and turning back when he realizes that Youji isn't following.

"No," Ken admits, letting his hand fall from his face. "I don't know. We've just got to go up. And..." He hesitates. Wonders, for a moment, if he wants to admit to this at all. "I said supposed to. Something happens and I don't. I'm supposed to die but I don't and I think they--" He gestures vaguely about him at nothing in particular, "--don't like that."