"Salutations! This is Penny's Pokégear. I am VERY sorry I can't answer right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible! Thank you!"
"Sal-u-tations, Pyrrha Nikos! It's an HONOR to finally meet you!"
The nightmare doesn't start as a nightmare. Rakka's practically flying, having the time of her life. Unseen crowds are cheering. She's surrounded by a whirlwind of explosions and blades and gunfire, but it's exhilarating. Every dodge and swoop is a test of skill, each success bringing a new rush of adrenaline.
"This is going to be so much fun."
But even as the rush of the dream accelerates, something seems off, somehow? A little niggling piece of worry at the back of her mind. Like someone calling for her she can't quite hear. A mounting sense of dread bubbling up under the excitement, almost like a countdown.
And just a moment before the dread overtakes the thrill- she hits it. It feels like nothing, like part of herself, like a bar of steel midair.
It doesn't hurt, even as her body bends at the middle around it, yanked back against her momentum; and then the panic sets it. She tries getting away, to continue to glide through space, twisting away; but every move she makes slams some part of her into another thin, invisible barrier. They wrap around her, yanking and tangling and biting into her the more she tries to escape. It's not long before she's brought to a halt, kneeling on the ground, arms painfully pulled up and out to her sides.
She's at the center of a small circle of light, anything past its edge dropping abruptly into shadow and darkness. It's quiet, the cheering of the crowd fading to a dull, staticky roar at the edge of awareness. And then, with a series of echoing clicks, a girl in armor walks deliberately out of the shadows to face Rakka. Armored, almost regal in her bearing; her face hidden in shadow. She seems to advance slower than her strides should be taking her.
Her form flickers occasionally, seeming to slip seamlessly between different people for just an instant. Some of them Rakka might recognize, in more than just that dreamlike way of knowing, some she might not. But here, all of them seem intimately familiar and dear. A girl with a long mane of hair that seems to shine like sunlight; a boy with his face enigmatic behind a pair of sunglasses; another girl, eyeglass lenses reflecting harsh light; a dark-haired boy with an angry stride; a girl with short, brown hair; a dark figure hidden under a billowing red cloak. It's on this last form that the girl finally settles, standing quietly in front of Rakka. Within the dream, she can feel a dull ache, a fear and longing, in her chest, as she speaks with a voice that's not her own.
"Don't- don't go. Please."
"It's okay," the girl says, her voice for a second filling Rakka with warmth, hope. And then she takes a step forward, and another.
And moves past Rakka entirely, somehow ignoring the taut wires holding her in place.
"Something has to be real before you can leave it."
"N-" Rakka's voice catches in her throat as she tries to cry out, shout past the lines wrapped around it. "No! Don't- DON'T LEAVE ME-"
The pain, her stomach dropping inside her, is almost enough to distract her from the armored girl rushing out of the darkness in front of her. A lance raised in her hand, slashing downward, seeming to yank the wires tighter as it does so. There's a sudden sharp spike of fear as the loops of wire spasm closed, and then sudden, endless darkness before Rakka wakes up.
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in4apounding) wrote2037-12-29 12:00 pm
cw; death imagery I guess?
The nightmare doesn't start as a nightmare. Rakka's practically flying, having the time of her life. Unseen crowds are cheering. She's surrounded by a whirlwind of explosions and blades and gunfire, but it's exhilarating. Every dodge and swoop is a test of skill, each success bringing a new rush of adrenaline.
"This is going to be so much fun."
But even as the rush of the dream accelerates, something seems off, somehow? A little niggling piece of worry at the back of her mind. Like someone calling for her she can't quite hear. A mounting sense of dread bubbling up under the excitement, almost like a countdown.
And just a moment before the dread overtakes the thrill- she hits it. It feels like nothing, like part of herself, like a bar of steel midair.
It doesn't hurt, even as her body bends at the middle around it, yanked back against her momentum; and then the panic sets it. She tries getting away, to continue to glide through space, twisting away; but every move she makes slams some part of her into another thin, invisible barrier. They wrap around her, yanking and tangling and biting into her the more she tries to escape. It's not long before she's brought to a halt, kneeling on the ground, arms painfully pulled up and out to her sides.
She's at the center of a small circle of light, anything past its edge dropping abruptly into shadow and darkness. It's quiet, the cheering of the crowd fading to a dull, staticky roar at the edge of awareness. And then, with a series of echoing clicks, a girl in armor walks deliberately out of the shadows to face Rakka. Armored, almost regal in her bearing; her face hidden in shadow. She seems to advance slower than her strides should be taking her.
Her form flickers occasionally, seeming to slip seamlessly between different people for just an instant. Some of them Rakka might recognize, in more than just that dreamlike way of knowing, some she might not. But here, all of them seem intimately familiar and dear. A girl with a long mane of hair that seems to shine like sunlight; a boy with his face enigmatic behind a pair of sunglasses; another girl, eyeglass lenses reflecting harsh light; a dark-haired boy with an angry stride; a girl with short, brown hair; a dark figure hidden under a billowing red cloak. It's on this last form that the girl finally settles, standing quietly in front of Rakka. Within the dream, she can feel a dull ache, a fear and longing, in her chest, as she speaks with a voice that's not her own.
"Don't- don't go. Please."
"It's okay," the girl says, her voice for a second filling Rakka with warmth, hope. And then she takes a step forward, and another.
And moves past Rakka entirely, somehow ignoring the taut wires holding her in place.
"Something has to be real before you can leave it."
"N-" Rakka's voice catches in her throat as she tries to cry out, shout past the lines wrapped around it. "No! Don't- DON'T LEAVE ME-"
The pain, her stomach dropping inside her, is almost enough to distract her from the armored girl rushing out of the darkness in front of her. A lance raised in her hand, slashing downward, seeming to yank the wires tighter as it does so. There's a sudden sharp spike of fear as the loops of wire spasm closed, and then sudden, endless darkness before Rakka wakes up.