comeclosercomeclosercomeclosercomecloser

[returntous.livejournal.com]

Who: Mabel, Integra, and possibly her merry gang
What: NIGHTMARES
Where: Mabel's apartment
When: Veerdi (Friday), midday
Notes: Taking place because Mabel has been noticeably AWOL due to horrible nightmares.
Warnings: t-tentacles? And HORRIBLE NIGHTMARES

The first day Mabel stopped talking to everyone, she coated her walls with as many self-made wards as she could think of. Get out. Go away. Keep out. Leave me the fuck alone. They don't work.

The second day, she had covered those with x'ed out circles. After that, she stopped counting the days. Her Sharpie ran dry. She used another. Her tape ran out. she started using glue.

In the first dream, she's sitting at a campfire, surrounded by other children. "The Tree Man comes when nobody's looking," she explains. The other children listen rampantly. The fire dances in a breeze she can't feel, scattering shadows over the eyes of the others.

"He comes for you in the dark, he comes for you during the day. He waits for you to see him, and when you do, you can never escape. He'll follow you to the ends of the earth."

A white girl, blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail, raises her hand as if she was in class. "But why?"

Mabel smiles. They were all listening to her now, giving her the respect she never got in school. This was her story, her place. The trees around them all sway, all except for one. "Nobody knows. Once he sees you, he will never stop chasing you. Once he catches you, you'll never leave him again."

"That's stupid," another kid says. Mabel recognized him. He used to kick the back of her chair all through fifth grade. She holds up her hands, smiles, and watches her fingers begin to change, bones piercing skin and reaching out like branches. The unmoving tree begins to writhe.

"You are broken. You cannot be fixed."

When she was a child, the dead would comfort her as much as they would claw at her. They would slip between the walls and clatter across the ceiling, hide her from view and pull her away from danger. No dead seeped through her walls now, nipped at her ankles or dug into her flesh. There was no real danger here.

She covers the walls anyway.

In the second dream, she's walking along the edges of an outdoor party. The lake gleams in reflected moonlight in the distance, Chinese lanterns glowed in red rows above her head. Snippets of adult conversation drifted her way as she walked on through.

"...such a shame, her father..."

"...and you know, she's such an odd girl too, the stories her mother tells..."

"...why do they let her near other kids at all, she's obviously not well..."

A hand grabs her wrist, and spun her around to face a small boy. A cousin, one of them with a J-name. She could never get them straight. "Operator, operator, operator! Mabel there, operator? Can Mabel play?"

Mabel lets out a shriek, and swats at him. Laughing, the boy dances out of the way. "Operator, operator! Calling out to Mabel, operator! She doesn't listen, does she?"

"Brat!" Spinning on her heel, Mabel marches away. One of the lanterns was sitting on the ground, and she snatches it up.

"Don't go into the dark!" the boy calls. "The operator's waiting!"

She ignores him, stalking towards the lake. The lantern bounces against her thigh, the cheap paper tearing. Angry at it, she sets it down with a huff and stares at the lake. It was nice and quiet, all the way out here. She can't hear the party at all.

When she turns around to check if it's still there, her shadow rises up. Towering over her, she watches as it bends down and swallows her whole.

She covers the door with paper, plastering it over and over. She doesn't bother to lock it. After all, locks didn't work.