[BiTPR2] Hell Episode: Like a Bat

[Rater202]

"Not a bit. Hollows don't work that way. ...There's a desert. A desert of broken souls beyond pain... How do I know that? Where did I learn that? Point is, the hunger is a hole in the soul. Only putting in more soul stuff can fix it. Broken souls without pain... That's my best bet for becoming close to whole again... You gonna let me pass to get to it, or do I still need to kill you, eat you, and then find a pretty girl and have sex on the spot where I killed you for the sole sake of desecrating your memory."

[Frozen_Feet]

"... I see. Then you are still a slave to your hunger. Pick up your burden and go." The monk strikes the ground with his staff and with that... he's gone. Only the shrine remains, but the candles have snuffed out.

"Hey... girl..." , the armless man groans from the ground. "Have you ever... met any Hollow... who got fixed by doing that?"

[Rater202]

"... I see. Then you are still a slave to your hunger. Pick up your burden and go." The monk strikes the ground with his staff and with that... he's gone. Only the shrine remains, but the candles have snuffed out.

"Hey... girl..." , the armless man groans from the ground. "Have you ever... met any Hollow... who got fixed by doing that?"

"I know that the stories say that Vasto Lorde regain most of their rational mind and don't have to eat souls anymore. I know that Vasto Lorde exist--I've met two... Somewhere."

It seems that Sarah's mind is still somewhat addled.

She picks stumpy up and keeps going.

Worst case scenario, if I eat the whole desert and I'm still hungry, I should be strong enough to survive ripping off my mask and getting back whatever else of Sarah is still in here.

[Frozen_Feet]

Stumpy, or rather, Burden, weighs a damn lot more than he used to. Before, it was easy to leap up and down with him. Not anymore. It's like if instead of a man, Sarah's now carrying with her a man-shaped barrel filled with liquid gold. The armless man's legs hang limply as Sarah carries him and his feet drag against the ground, digging grooves where the volcanic terrain has yet to completely solidify.

Ahead, another shrine can be seen. It is made of petrified corpses, with their faces stuck in everlasting expressions of horror. As Sarah approaches it, she feels like she's being followed. As if four shadowy arms are grasping around her. "D-dreams... w-what have y-you dreamt...girl? S-show me... your d-dreams..."

[Rater202]

"Sorry. I don't remember my dreams."

[Frozen_Feet]

There is a gasp of horror and an infernal scream. "U-unacc- Unacceptable! Dreams! You will show me d-dreams! L-let me see!"

There is a humming sound an a ghostly form briefly appears before Sarah. It is a woman in white, torn robes, twice as tall as her. She seems to have no real arms and legs. Just four insubstantial arms of shadows reaching from under her robes. A black bandage runs over both her eyes and her hair is long, grey and filthy. The iron collar around her neck seems to be locked on too tight. Someone has driven a nail in her forehead.

One of the shadowy arms reaches towards Sarah's head. For some reason, she gets the mental image of the woman opening her skull as if it's a treasure chest and plucking her unremembered dreams from her empty head.

[Rater202]

sarah backs up as much as she can, trying to avoid the arm.

"What right have you to my dreams, witch?"

[Frozen_Feet]

It creates a weird effect where the arm seems to stretch, growing longer and longer and thinner and thinner, like a needle heading for Sarah's eye, always getting closer but never quite touching her, as long as she keeps moving back.

"R-right? I-I d-do not... u-understand" , the woman croaks in utter confusion. "P-people... d-do not... possess d-dreams. D-dreams... po-possess pe-people."

The concept that she'd require some special right to view Sarah's dreams sounds entirely alien to this person.

[Rater202]

"They're my dreams. You said so yourself. Grammar indicates that this word makes them my dreams, makes them my property, ergo you have no right to take them."

Sarah tries dodging right instead of backing up.

[Frozen_Feet]

The arm bends in a right angle, the approaching fingers the exact same apparent distance as before.

"Urgh... I don't think... idiosyncracies of grammar... are gonna help you..." , the armless man mutters. "You're... too slow... drop me. Drop me! Now!"

Two other arms are approaching from Sarah's right and her left, snaking through the air like long transparent threads.

[Rater202]

The arm bends in a right angle, the approaching fingers the exact same apparent distance as before.

"Urgh... I don't think... idiosyncracies of grammar... are gonna help you..." , the armless man mutters. "You're... too slow... drop me. Drop me! Now!"

Two other arms are approaching from Sarah's right and her left, snaking through the air like long transparent threads.

Sarah drops Stumpy and tries to avoid, but...

Damn. It's looking like she might be stuck.

[Frozen_Feet]

The shadowy hand dives into Sarah's eye and...

... the world changes.

She is on a beach.

Her armor is gone. Most of her skin is bare. She is wearing a drab, plain bikini.

There are people here, bathing in the sun, playing beach volley, enjoying life in general. There is a bar at the beach and a bartender is mixing Pina Coladas for people. Club music is blaring loudly from a portable stereo.

A white van has been been parked near the bar. A man in a blue T-shirt and dark grey jeans is laying back in a chair and drinking orange juice through a straw in the shade od the van. His skin is pale, his hair light brown and his eyes are coveres by a pair of mirror shades. On the ground next to him, is a black leather jacket, crumpled in a heap.

[Rater202]

Sarah has the strangest sense of deja vu right now.

The fact that she was just speaking to someone talking about dreams... she's still a bit addled, but she's good enough to know that this probably isn't real.

That, and the fact that nobody's freaking out about a girl with paper white skin, black tattoos, a bone mask stuck to her face, and a hole clean through her chest.

Assuming they can see her.

that guy next to the jacket seems more distinct than everyone else here. She slowly, casually wanders over... For some reason, he wonders if she should worry about sudden snow.

[Frozen_Feet]

As Sarah approaches the man, she can, just barely, see her reflection in the man's shades. It gives her the answer of why no-one's freaking out: in this dream she's having, she's human. The details are blurry, but her reflection does not have a mask or a hole through its chest.

The man takes a while to notice her. His head perks up a little and he glances at Sarah through his shades. "Hmmm? Something on your mind, girl?"

[Rater202]

"Does anything about this seem at all out of the ordinary to you?"

[Frozen_Feet]

"In some other way than some random jailbait coming to talk with me?" , the man asks with a raised eyebrow. "Nope." He relaxes and goes back to sipping his juice. Watching the older girl play beach volley is apparently more interesting than Sarah.

[Rater202]

Can't tell she's a Hollow...

Sarah wanders off again, to think on why all of this is so familiar.

[Frozen_Feet]

One of the beach volley players notices her and walks to her. "Hey girl, are you lonely?" The speaker is a tall, blonde woman in downright indecent gold string bikini. "Come play with us! It'll be fun!" She reaches out with her hand. Sarah could grasp it and be pulled into the game...

[Rater202]

This would have been very tempting if Sarah was still operating on human logic.

"No. I'm fine."

this is wrong... This isn't even her dream, she doesn't think... her dreams usually involve hugs...

[Frozen_Feet]

The woman looks somewhat disappointed but squeezes out a smile. "Okay. We'll be over there if you change your mind." She turns around and returns to her friends. As she does, Sarah can see she has a tattoo on her left shoulder blade: a snake or a dragon biting its own tail.

She has seen it before. She has seen it on another person who was dearer to her, but then too, it was wrong. It was a dream, a long dream, but it wasn't a pleasant one.

Over the sea, dark storm clouds are gathering. That, too, Sarah has seen before.

The man behind Sarah stops sipping his juice, sighs, rises up and starts packing things in the van.

[Rater202]

Snake... Ouroboros, perfect self-contained creature, usually symbolic of immortality or natural cycles.

And a symbol of someone who...

Messed with her dreams!

How did she get out of that before?

Sarah sits, closes her eyes, and lets her instincts draw her connection to the soul of the natural world.

[Frozen_Feet]

She finds no soul of the natural world... because she is in Hell. She can momentarily hear the tortured screams of the damned through the sounds of this pleasant facade.

This tells her that while she might be dreaming, she has not, physically, moved more than some dozen paces from where she was. The sand is really just an illusory cover drawn over the crags. That blonde woman might be that blindfolded witch, enjoying this brief change of scenery conjured from Sarah's memories. The man might be her Burden, or even not really here at all.

However, she does connect with something... or someone else. Around her, the world freezes and turns colorless. Then, this black-and-white image cracks and shatters like a pane of glass. Through the hole in reality, Sarah can see a different place: a lake during a spring night, with full moon shining above and being reflected from the lake. There is someone standing on the water, her back turned on Sarah. A girl, probably of same age as her, dressed in a white shirt and red hakama.

Will she step through?

[Rater202]

Of course she does.

[Frozen_Feet]

The rest of the beach fades away as she does, being replaced by cool spring night. She can't feel Hell anymore - she really is asleep now, even if she is lucid.

The girl walking on the water hears Sarah step into her realm. The darkness and the moonlight give her hair and eyes a truly strange hue. "Oh? Who are you?" Her tone suggests she wad expecting someone else.

[Rater202]

"Soul banished to Hell by a psycho, mind's not all there, currently fighting someone with dream powers. You're either someone else they messed with or a figment of someone's imagination. Trying to figure out which."

[Frozen_Feet]

"Oh, I can help you with that. I am a figment of your imagination.

Hands behind her back and curious, the girl walks the silver bridge of reflected moonlight to the shore, leaving behind ripples at every step. As she comes closer, Sarah can see her eyes are of different colors, one darker than the other.

[Rater202]

"Then you can't tell me how to break the illusion?"

[Frozen_Feet]

"You're short-selling your own imagination by asking that" , the girl says with a smile. "Tell me: do you usually remember your dreams?"

[Rater202]

"No... I think. Last time was... A fake dream? Someone using dreams to do something to me and... Mom. Yeah, that."

[Frozen_Feet]

"What separates a fake dream from a real dream? Who makes your real dreams?"