[Drama] Darkly Dreaming

[Miriam Bell]

Sleep. It wasn't so much that she got tired anymore but more of a rising anxiousness as the sun creeps over the horizon that makes her want to curl up or hide away. Only then she actually finds some rest and falls into what borders on a coma. But recently the blackout curtains hung around her bed and the blanket she wraps herself in don't really do the trick anymore. Maybe it's the strange situation of living with Sam and her... peculiar mind that's more vast and expansive than most peoples or maybe it's just her new nature catching up with her.

As she's lieing in bed she can certainly see how someone might chose to sleep in a coffin. The concept certainly doesn't strike her as completely ridiculous anymore. Is it a layer of safety? Some strange metaphysical affinity? Either way it's beginning to seem less embarrassing than pulling her blanket over her head like a damned child. But finally she does drift away, curled up underneath her blankets and sinking into the darkness of sleep.

Her dreams are erratic, slipping through her fingers even as she still sleeps. Disjointed feelings and impressions, long empty corridors connecting vast emptiness, rooms that aren't rooms, crawlspaces that turn into narrow corridors with ceilings that stretch into infinity above her. Below her? It's all a jumble, nonsensical, things connecting weirdly or not at all, she falls upwards into an ocean of pitch black water...

And in the real world her bed is beginning to be usurped by stone slabs with reliefs showing swirling designs encircling distraught faces, slowly pushing out from nowhere and closing up around Miriam until her bed is replaced by the large stone sarcophagus.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam returns just before dusk, frowning at the redecorating as she makes her way in.

"...and I thought I was going to be the difficult roommate," she mutters.

[Miriam Bell]

There's no response from Miriam and Sam can certainly feel her in there, agitated thoughts swiftly rising into disorientation and not quite panic then certainly something approaching it.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam sits down at her desk chair and sends out one of the flock just to figure out if Miriam meant to do this or not.

[Miriam Bell]

Properly reaching Miriam is difficult, she seems semi-conscious at best and, for lack of a better term, muffled in her thoughts. But it doesn't feel like she's doing this on purpose. Sam feels disorientation and fear and the choking (yet not suffocating) feeling of thick, almost muddy water pressing in all around, making her head swim in a throbbing haze.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam frowns at the sensations coming off of Miriam, finding it difficult to stay above water herself, so to speak.

"Miriam, can you hear me? It's okay. You're safe."

[Miriam Bell]

"Where am I? What is this!? Sam?" come Miriam's disjointed thoughts as they coalesce into consciousness without the dreamlike impressions seeming to change. If anything they become more tangible as she wakes.

There's a faint thump from inside the stone coffin.

[Samantha McManus]

"You're in the dorm room. You ah... redecorated again. Stay calm. Do you need help getting out?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Out of what? What is this?"

There's another thump and this time the lid moves slightly.

[Samantha McManus]

Sam frowns, going to help get the lid off.

"You'll see for yourself in a second."

[Miriam Bell]

There's some resistance, but not because of the lid's weight. With an odd sucking noise it moves and crimson liquid wells up from the crack, droplets spilling over and running down the side of the sarcophagus, followed by a couple thicker streams as Miriam's arm breaches the surface and finds the edge of the lid. Her head and upper body soon follow as she sits up with a wild gasp that's less about drawing in air and more of an expression of panicked relief.

[Samantha McManus]

"That can't... actually be blood, can it?" She asks, taking a step back.

[Miriam Bell]

"What's it bloody look like, Sam!?" Miriam ask before coughing up, well, more blood.

It does seem like the rivulets that are running down the side of the sarcophagus and collect in little puddles on the floor are slowly dissipating into thin air.

[Samantha McManus]

"Well usually blood doesn't dissolve into smoke, but giant stone sarcophagi don't just appear out of nowhere, so maybe we're off the bloody map, Miriam."

[Miriam Bell]

"I don't know! I just woke up in darkness and surrounded by blood!" she snarls, wiping at her face but mainly just succeeding in smearing things around. As she's getting agitated (hopefully) ornamental spikes begin pushing out from the nearby wall.

[Samantha McManus]

"Okay, let's... let's just take a few breaths, here."

[Miriam Bell]

"Fuck!" Miriam curses, trying to get up, slipping and barely catching herself on the rim of the coffin, knuckles pale from exertion underneath the crimson coating.

[Samantha McManus]

"Look, this is... responding to you somehow. So... think pastel?"

[Miriam Bell]

"So glad I have someone who has gone through the similar telepathic ordeals as me here to help me with this incredible advice." Miriam snarks but it doesn't take a telepath to tell this is a very thin veneer. She wipes at her face under the pretense of cleaning some of the blood off, but she leaves behind clear streaks from her eyes.

[Samantha McManus]

"I just don't know where any of this is coming from, Miriam. Unless you want me in there..."

[Miriam Bell]

"This one's from my own bloody head, I'm pretty sure... I'm the only one with a head this flavour of bollocksed."

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean yes, it's coming from in you, I just don't know what's spurring it on, aye?"

[Miriam Bell]

"What if nothing is? What if it's just me? Maybe the bloody drug kicked in a door to something and it's just letting all this ugliness out..."

[Samantha McManus]

"I'll take that as a 'no' then," she sighs.

"Come on, let's get you cleaned up."

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam stands up amidst a small torrent of blood and closes her eyes for a moment to steady herself. She's shaking but she does manage to slowly force the coffin to withdraw until all that's left is the blood coating her and stains soaking into her bed as she takes a wobbly step off of it.

[Samantha McManus]

"Alright, one step at a time here..." She says to Miriam as she casts her mind out into the hallways, anticipating running interference so Miriam can get to the washroom.

[Zandra Rogers]

And, indeed, there was someone out in the hallways -- one of the prefects. Zandra? Was that her name? Yet another person Sam didn't know.

She had a clipboard as she zoomed from door to door, apparently checking up on things. It probably would not be great to be spotted coming out with someone covered in blood.

[Samantha McManus]

"Okay, here's how it's going to go. I'm going to go out and distract the prefect. You see your chance to get to the washroom, you take it. Sound good?"

[Miriam Bell]

"Just what I needed... Okay, yes, go."

[Samantha McManus]

"Look, we can deal with... the other shite after."

Sam slips out into the hallway, making a bee-line for Zandra.

[Zandra Rogers]

"Hey, McManus. How's it hanging?" Zandra said over her shoulder as Sam popped out.

[Miriam Bell]

Miriam would really like to keep mental tabs on Zandra directly instead of just relying on the vague impressions she picks up through Sam, but she has no idea who this woman is or what her powers are and she'd just risk giving herself away. So she goes by the sense of Sam engaging her in conversation and creeps out of the dorm room and carefully closes the door.

[Samantha McManus]

"Got a problem," Sam says as she approaches.

"Got back and Miriam said there's been a bat in the dorms."

[Zandra Rogers]

"You're shitting me, right? Like, this is on candid camera?"

[Samantha McManus]

"I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. She said it was over by this stairwell," she gestures away from the washrooms.

[Zandra Rogers]

"You'd think she was bringing them in, y'know, with her aesthetic and all," Zandra groused, following Sam.

[Miriam Bell]

As the two are moving away Miriam hurries down the hall towards the showers, the carpet fortunately muffling her footsteps, but unfortunately retaining some faint bloody footprints.

[Samantha McManus]

"Don't they send prefects to sensitivity training?" She says as she steps out into the stairwell.

[Zandra Rogers]

"Pfft. You want huggy-feely, you got the wrong one, sister," Zandra laughed.

[Samantha McManus]

"The last one I talked to was... of a sort."

"Does that look like it up there?" She squints and gestures vaguely to one of the less well-lit areas of the stairwell ceiling.