04-08-2017, 04:22 PM
Twenty stories up, riding atop a giant centipede, Luci is panicking. All around her, the world is melting into the Haunter's black, sticky tendrils. She scrambles up the building even as it starts to melt from the bottom up, climbing desperately. She casts her weird gold eyes around wildly, looking for anything at all to grab onto, when she sees her companions get sucked into Haunter's giant, gaping maw.
Luci dives headfirst into the mouth.
***
Darkness.
***
Luci takes deep, rasping breathes. All around her, thick cloying tentacles are writhing excitedly. She pushes forward, but the darkness clings to her, and it is like moving through sludge. She hears the muffled bang of gunfire, and sees a spark of light from the muzzle. She pushes forward relentlessly. The gunfire increases, then stops.
Luci bends down to grab Jacket's limp body, and starts to drag him. Slowly, step by step, inch by inch, they move through the darkness, until finally, she sees them.
The Sage is deep in meditation, concentrating on maintaining a shield of brightly glowing, swirling words written in his arcane alphabet. Within the shield, his sword at the ready, is Kazura. He is the first to spot Luci, and gives her a sardonic grin.
The Sage merely frowns as Luci approaches the shield with Jacket, very briefly creating a point of entry for them, then closing it, and resuming his concentration.
"You're alive," says the demon neutrally. "I guess I owe someone some money. You're too late for him."
Jacket lay face down on the floor, his body already becoming a pale sort of ghost as Haunter slowly eats his dreams.
"But," Kazura says encouragingly. "You're here just in time to die."
A tiny spiderweb crack appears in the Sage's shield. Luci kneels down and rolls Jacket onto his back, removing his mask and gazing down at his unconscious face.
How many dream levels deep was she now? Haunter's dream within Jacket's dream within Haunter's dream within Jacket's dream? Any deeper and she'd be scraping at the bedrock of Jacket's mind. Luci decides that this could not, in any sense of the word, be considered 'safe'.
Her hand shakes as she touches her spraycan to the center of her forehead and comes away with a glittering silver thread. She takes a deep breath, and then touches the can to Jacket's head.
***
Luci clenches her jaw as the full force of Jacket's psychosis is laid bare down to every last screaming, exposed nerve. A cavalcade of violence and trauma and fear and death and hatred all assaults her, and it takes all of her willpower to gain her composure.
Luci glides silently over Jacket's subconscious mind. It looks like a warzone. Luci passes over it as quickly as she can, looking past the murders and violent attacks, and then she sees it; a memory, pulsing with a steady rose-tinged light and loving energy.
Luci floats down gently, watching Jacket's most deeply concealed memory through the window of an apartment, and she knows what she has to do.
She would worry about the moral concerns later.
***
Jacket is sitting in the deepest levels of his subconscious with his head on his knees and his uzi in his hand. He suddenly stands up and swivels around, his gun pointed at Luci's face. Only, it isn't Luci's face.
"You," Jacket says as he slowly lowers the gun. Luci smiles with her new mouth.
"That's right baby, you wouldn't hurt me would you?" Luci asks. Jacket's eyes roam over her newly-curvaceous body crammed into a tube top and fishnets, up to her makeup-caked face and long blond hair.
"You're dead," he says flatly. Luci laughs in her new voice, a kind of bubbly giggle.
"Dead stupid, for ever leaving you," she says coyly, batting her long eyelashes.
"You're not real," Jacket says, dejected. Luci pouts cutely.
"Aww, sure I am! I'll prove it; come meet me at the library on Tier-5 when you wake up," she suggests brightly. Jacket shakes his head.
"I'm never gonna wake up. We're gonna die here, Hooker," he says, turning his gaze upward to the encroaching darkness. If Luci is uncomfortable being referred to as 'Hooker', she does not appear to show it. She grabs Jackets head with her hands.
"I know you're scared baby, I'm scared too," she says, her bright blue eyes trembling. "But you can't fight fear with anger, you've got to fight it with hope, and love, and courage. Now on the count of three, you're going to wake up, and this will all have been a bad dream. Say it with me."
Jacket only nods and wraps his arms around Luci.
"One," they say together.
"Two," they say.
"Three,"
Luci kisses Jacket deeply, and his brain fills with a cleansing white fire, and for the briefest of instants, Luci hears Haunter scream.
Luci dives headfirst into the mouth.
***
Darkness.
***
Luci takes deep, rasping breathes. All around her, thick cloying tentacles are writhing excitedly. She pushes forward, but the darkness clings to her, and it is like moving through sludge. She hears the muffled bang of gunfire, and sees a spark of light from the muzzle. She pushes forward relentlessly. The gunfire increases, then stops.
Luci bends down to grab Jacket's limp body, and starts to drag him. Slowly, step by step, inch by inch, they move through the darkness, until finally, she sees them.
The Sage is deep in meditation, concentrating on maintaining a shield of brightly glowing, swirling words written in his arcane alphabet. Within the shield, his sword at the ready, is Kazura. He is the first to spot Luci, and gives her a sardonic grin.
The Sage merely frowns as Luci approaches the shield with Jacket, very briefly creating a point of entry for them, then closing it, and resuming his concentration.
"You're alive," says the demon neutrally. "I guess I owe someone some money. You're too late for him."
Jacket lay face down on the floor, his body already becoming a pale sort of ghost as Haunter slowly eats his dreams.
"But," Kazura says encouragingly. "You're here just in time to die."
A tiny spiderweb crack appears in the Sage's shield. Luci kneels down and rolls Jacket onto his back, removing his mask and gazing down at his unconscious face.
How many dream levels deep was she now? Haunter's dream within Jacket's dream within Haunter's dream within Jacket's dream? Any deeper and she'd be scraping at the bedrock of Jacket's mind. Luci decides that this could not, in any sense of the word, be considered 'safe'.
Her hand shakes as she touches her spraycan to the center of her forehead and comes away with a glittering silver thread. She takes a deep breath, and then touches the can to Jacket's head.
***
Luci clenches her jaw as the full force of Jacket's psychosis is laid bare down to every last screaming, exposed nerve. A cavalcade of violence and trauma and fear and death and hatred all assaults her, and it takes all of her willpower to gain her composure.
Luci glides silently over Jacket's subconscious mind. It looks like a warzone. Luci passes over it as quickly as she can, looking past the murders and violent attacks, and then she sees it; a memory, pulsing with a steady rose-tinged light and loving energy.
Luci floats down gently, watching Jacket's most deeply concealed memory through the window of an apartment, and she knows what she has to do.
She would worry about the moral concerns later.
***
Jacket is sitting in the deepest levels of his subconscious with his head on his knees and his uzi in his hand. He suddenly stands up and swivels around, his gun pointed at Luci's face. Only, it isn't Luci's face.
"You," Jacket says as he slowly lowers the gun. Luci smiles with her new mouth.
"That's right baby, you wouldn't hurt me would you?" Luci asks. Jacket's eyes roam over her newly-curvaceous body crammed into a tube top and fishnets, up to her makeup-caked face and long blond hair.
"You're dead," he says flatly. Luci laughs in her new voice, a kind of bubbly giggle.
"Dead stupid, for ever leaving you," she says coyly, batting her long eyelashes.
"You're not real," Jacket says, dejected. Luci pouts cutely.
"Aww, sure I am! I'll prove it; come meet me at the library on Tier-5 when you wake up," she suggests brightly. Jacket shakes his head.
"I'm never gonna wake up. We're gonna die here, Hooker," he says, turning his gaze upward to the encroaching darkness. If Luci is uncomfortable being referred to as 'Hooker', she does not appear to show it. She grabs Jackets head with her hands.
"I know you're scared baby, I'm scared too," she says, her bright blue eyes trembling. "But you can't fight fear with anger, you've got to fight it with hope, and love, and courage. Now on the count of three, you're going to wake up, and this will all have been a bad dream. Say it with me."
Jacket only nods and wraps his arms around Luci.
"One," they say together.
"Two," they say.
"Three,"
Luci kisses Jacket deeply, and his brain fills with a cleansing white fire, and for the briefest of instants, Luci hears Haunter scream.
![[Image: V4Dvvfy.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/V4Dvvfy.gif)