Dream 03 → Fire Down Below
Mar. 25th, 2010 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
irregularWarnings: 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.
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.
no subject
Date: 2010-04-04 03:33 am (UTC)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?"
no subject
Date: 2010-04-13 01:26 am (UTC)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."