Written by saka, January 22, 2004
saka[at]belvedia.net
Pre-story Notes:
Story points:
A dreamcatcher is an Indian mobile hung over beds to "catch" nightmares from being dreamt.
Read between the lines and you can tell when Jet is dreaming and when he's awake. When he switches staes, the narration changes, and starts abruptly and ends fragmented. Dreams are a lot like this.
Wild ARMS Advanced 3rd belongs to Media Vision and Sony. Story is mine.
Hallucino
Chapter 3: Dreamcatcher
for he was scared and cold and homeless.
Such darkness gave him a chill that pierced his bones. He tried to hug himself warm but his arms felt so heavy. The harder he tried, the more hopeless he felt.
All he wanted was warmth. He could feel it above him. He stretched his hand towards the sky as high as he could, but all he could touch was the cold feel of nothing.
He closed his eyes and said
"It looks nice, doesn't it?"
I stared at the eloquently-designed hanging mobile and pondered at Virginia's question. "Yeah, it looks nice," I said. Actually, I thought it would look better in the trash. But there was no reason to speak the truth, and besides, Virginia seemed to like it a lot. She hates having her bubble burst.
"I can't believe that woman sold it to us for so cheap!" she continued on, touching the mobile, smoothing the feathers that dangled from the arrangement of beads and string. "It goes great in here too."
I looked around and had to agree. The dreamcatcher, what the woman merchant told us it was, meshed with Gallows' house perfectly, right down to the nicely lit fire that's always present next to the beds. Virginia bought it for herself, really, but found it right in her mind to hang it above Gallows' beds, as we usually stay the nights at his house, I suppose.
To me, all this trouble was pretty worthless, but whatever makes Virginia happy. After all, she calls the shots.
She's my leader.
I silently shuddered an ew.
It was getting dark, so we both stopped staring at the mobile, and went outside to call Clive and Gallows' for bedtime. I should've taken the chance to dash on out of here.
Who needs these guys?
Not me, that's for sure.
Those two sentences replayed over and over in my mind like a chant as I fell into a quiet sleep on my bed, under the stars, under Gallows' roof, under the dreamcatcher.
Not me.
woke up, surprised that he was lying on his side, in a pool of water, and he was watching himself from above.
He lifted himself, feeling heavy, feeling ached. He observed the surroundings and saw what looked like an old sewer. He wiped at his skin to shake the water off, but only to find that his skin was dry. He stared at the water he was sitting in and found his reflection, undistorted by his presence, unrippled. He bent down to run his hand through the water to effect it, but a voice smoothly said, "Don't touch it."
He looked up and turned around to face the soft, familiar voice. He stood up, walked over to the voice, and with a smile, raised his hand for a high-five. "Hey, Mors, what's up?" he said.
He got his expected response; a friendly slap to his hand and a firm grip lingering afterwards. "Nothing much," Mors said with a warm smile. "How about you?"
He sighed and rolled his eyes. "Okay, I guess," he said, gesturing to his surroundings. "I always wanted to live in raw sewage."
Mors laughed, the sincere, throaty laugh, the handsome features of his young face crinkled up as he smiled. "Attaboy. You were always the smart-ass kind."
"You know me," he said. And when he said that, another thought popped into his head. "How long have we known each other?"
Mors laughed again. "Oh. Since forever."
He thought about what Mors said for a second. Then he shrugged. Sounded about right.
"I'm sorry to tell you this," Mors started, scratching the back of his head and looking uncertain yet playful, "but I've got some bad news for you."
"Oh, really," he said. "Shoot."
Mors laughed again, the nervous, unwilling laugh. "Sorry, but... it's time, man."
He gave him a funny look. "Time for what?"
Mors gave a kind of sharp inhale and said
"Sleep's the best medicine."
I looked at Virginia suspiciously. "Don't you mean 'laughter'?"
Virginia shrugged. "You could use some of that too."
I dismissed her insult and yawned. I haven't slept in days. Something was keeping me awake, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I rolled over on my bed and shut my eyes, trying so hard to fall asleep. I kept thinking of how tired I was, how comfortable the bed felt, and how the dreamcatcher above my bed seemed to taunt me: I'd save you the trouble of nightmares... if you could sleep in the first place!
I felt like I was in a nightmare already. I just wanted some sleep.
pushed his way into a room and saw his friend on the other side.
"Hey, Hypnos!" he jogged over to his friend to greet him. "How's it hanging?"
Hypnos crudely dug into his ear with his pinky finger and tsked. "S'all right, I guess. I need to talk to my brother. Have you seen him?"
He looked back at the door he just entered from. "Mors? I just talked to him; he's back there. He's doing all right."
Hypnos looked uneasy. "Did he tell you the news?"
He thought for a minute. "Sort of... we got interrupted or something, so he didn't tell me what. But he did say it was bad news."
Hypnos shook his head. "Figures. Can't trust Mors with anything." He made a luring gesture with his finger and walked towards a glass panel, bright white from the blinding sun shining through. "Come here."
He looked at Hypnos with distrust. "Are we hanging at your place again?"
"Sure," Hypnos said, in a jest manner, purposely vague in his answer, and encouraged him to follow.
"I don't know," he said, definately unassured. "It doesn't seem right."
Hypnos, calmly and friendly, gave him a stern and firm look. "Hey, c'mon. You can trust me. I've known you all your life. We're not going anywhere that's freaky or scary. We're just gonna go talk to my brother." With another hand flick, Hypnos hinted at him to come along.
"Who, Mors?" he asked. He decided to bite and ran to catch up to Hypnos.
"No," Hypnos said, looking away, looking uneasy.
"You have another brother?" he asked.
Hypnos chuckled. "Yeah," he said, his hand on the door handle of the glass panel, "you haven't met him yet though."
He raised an eyebrow at Hypnos. "I bet he's a jerk."
Hypnos smiled. "No no. I think you'll like him."
Hypnos pushed the door open, and blindness seeped through even more, and soon as the light faded the
I stared into the dreamcatcher as if it were telling me a story, a legend, an old monologue no one could hear but me.
The more I stared, the more beautiful it became. Shhyeah. Still, it induced none of the much needed sleep that I begged for.
What was keeping me awake? It was like some inner demons in my brain were causing a death-by-insomnolence. I could feel it moving in my brain, something strange, something making me move, and sleep would be the only cure. Something was making me move! I turned to my other side, squeezed my eyes shut, and flipped my pillow over my head to drown out the noise that was already absent.
I didn't want to move. Just give me my sleep.
Then I felt a tap tap on my shoulder. A familiar fragrant scent hit me by then, so I got ready to ask Virginia what the heck did she want.
didn't want to go.
"Hypnos," he started, looking around this strange new room of candles and eyes that he felt reaming into his mind. "I want out. This place gives me the creeps."
"Don't worry," Hypnos said. "You're going to be fine."
Surely he did not doubt his friend, but his words were not comforting. The eyes continued to bore. He wished for the eyes to close, but they remained awake, unblinking and haunting.
"No, no," he said, shaking his head disapprovingly, "I have a bad feeling about this, Hypnos. Just take me back to your place. I'd feel better there."
Hypnos walked over to him calmly and said, "Please. Just relax and we won't hurt you."
At that moment his heart began to sting, each pound resounding with pain, a deafening pulse in his temples. He cried in suprise at the sharpness of his pain, as his heart seemed to spit acid into his body. Soon he cried in despair for the eyes were still watching, never sleeping, never ending his suffering.
"Hypnos...!" he clutched the clothing near his heart is if it would stop the pain. He felt his shoulders being rubbed soothingly by his friend.
"Let go," Hypnos said, only now his brother Mors and another figure--his face blurred by the tears that streamed down his own face--were with him. "Just let go and it won't hurt. Let go!!"
A trust in his friend and a want for the pain to end, he shut his eyes and let go. He felt the hurt begin to convert itself into something else, not much like pain, but more like... drowning.
"Hey."
He turned around to see the man with Hypnos who he couldn't identify. He looked a lot like Hypnos, as Mors was, so he assumed the obvious. "Are you Hypnos's brother?"
The man nodded. "Yeah. My name's Thanatos." And then he looked away.
The first thing he thought was that Thanatos was a quiet type. It did not dawn on his that not only was Hypnos and Mors not in the room anymore, but Thanatos and him were alone in a completely different room, that was strangely familiar to him.
"Do you remember this?" Thanatos asked him with a sullen look to his face.
He looked around and saw nothing and everything. The drowning sensation was still there, but he breathed. He was breathing water. He remembered, and saw him. That man who would alway be familiar to him, in good ways and bad. Even though he drowned in liquid air, he screamed out to his hallucination.
"WERNER!!"
His cry did not move Werner Maxwell.
It was like a flash. The sensations, the emotions, and visions, they were gone, as quickly as they had come. A piece of his life had just flashed before his eyes.
Oh.
So that's what Mors meant when he
"It would be wrong for me to expect you to stay," Virginia said, "but you're our friend."
I sighed and pulled my blanket closer to my face. It still bothered Virginia. "Look, it's nothing personal. I mean--" I glanced at the door for a second, subconsciously I guess, "--...I like you guys too, but there's just things I gotta do by myself."
"Let us help you!" she pressed, almost impatiently, as if she said this to me all the time. "Look at how much we've accomplished by working together! We can help you."
I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't let me. "What if something happens to you? You know how hurt we would all be. And you're one of my best friends." Virginia's eyebrows wrinkled towards her nose in worry. "You are my best friend! We've helped each other a lot. Why won't you let me help you now?!"
I thought about that. I guess I couldn't really see why she thought of me as her best friend. I knew we all helped her depression when she learned the truth about her father, but the key word was we. Maybe I did something that stood out to her. My mind raced backwards but couldn't think of anything. I saw her as my friend too, but not exactly best. She was a little rocky right now.
The fact that she was rocky was the reason why I didn't want her to help. She has her own problems to deal with. I shouldn't bother her.
"I'm just tired of you guys bothering me," I said. "There's just things that a guy's gotta do alone."
I spun so my back faced Virginia, and yawned loudly. "Go away and lemme sleep."
But she still wouldn't let up.
red.
"Get up," Thanatos said, offering a hand to him. "It's time."
He sat up from the bed, looking at the red sheets that comforted him. He immediately recognized it as one of Hypnos's guest beds. I knew if he stayed he would be healed, the eyes that stared would sleep, and all would be well. His time was near, though, and he grabbed Thanatos's hand and they both walked towards the blinding light that plagued his entire life.
"It'll be over soon," Thanatos said softly. "There's something I have to ask you, though."
He looked at Thanatos questionably. "What?"
Thanatos handed him a compass and smiled. "North or South?"
He studied the compass he had received. The needle flickered between northwest and west, almost like it wanted to point north but something was in the way. He shook the device, but the flickering remained.
"North doesn't actually mean North," Thanatos said quietly, still walking towards the light ahead, "and same for South. To a lot of people, South means something bad, but South could be good. North is always good, but it's a rare thing to see people who know exactly where it is."
He looked at Thanatos in amazement. "Well, jeez, it's obvious where I wanna go!" He shook his head at his friend and groaned. "You shouldn't even have to ask."
"So, what," Thanatos spitted, "North or South?"
He was thoroughly confused. He stared at the compass, which continued to flicker towards North, but not exactly there. He knew he would rather go back to that bed that was so comfortable, but he was being forced a choice between North or South. Could both free him of his suffering?
Where did North point for him?
A voice. A soft, feminate voice, made him turn back to face a girl with a sweet smile on her face.
"Hi," she greeted. "Do you remember me?"
He nodded. "Yeah. I'm your best friend."
The girl pouted playfully. "That's not what I asked." She shook her head, still smiling, and reached out her hand towards him. "Come here. Let me help you."
He looked at Thanatos, and Hypnos, and Mors, whom all smiled at him. He returned his eyes to the girl. "I don't need your help. I've got things to do."
The girl still smiled, unrelenting. "I know you're hurting. You're scared. I know I can help you. Just let me try and I know you'll be okay."
The girl's words gave him such comfort, words he had needed to hear a long time ago. He allowed her words to breeze across his mind, and decided to walk away from his friends, and towards the girl.
"Mors!" he called back as he walked away with the mysterious girl, "wrong again?"
Mors shrugged. "Obviously." He waved his hand good-bye. "I'll be here when you're ready. Again."
He nodded at Mors, then looked at Hypnos and said, "See you soon, right?"
Hypnos laughed. "Be there in a couple minutes."
And he nodded at Hypnos, then looked at Thanatos, and smiled. He had always wanted to do that.
Thanatos smiled back.
The blindling light was gone. And he was back on red sheets, the girl at the edge of the bed, and she smiled.
"You'll be okay," she said. "Just let me help you, and everything will be okay."
Comfort filled the void he had felt. And the eyes were no longer there to see
"Thank the Jesus he's finally asleep," Virginia said. She pulled the blankets over my shoulders, walked towards her own bed, and slumped into her pillows. I could hear her mumbling to herself.
That was really nice of her. The warm milk she brought me was kicking in, and I started feeling like I was actually falling asleep. I wish she wouldn't be so pushy on being so helpful though. It's not a good look on her.
She thinks I've fallen asleep. I'll give her that satisfaction for now. I'll fall asleep soon, and maybe dream of the good times I've learned to experience because of my friends. Maybe I'll dream of overcoming this sense of lonliness and trust my friends. Maybe I'll dream of Virginia, being my best friend too. No matter what I'll dream, I know things will be okay, things will be okay even when I don't want it to be, and help will always be there, and if I'm lost all I will do is take out my compass, and I will always know where North points.
chapter 3: end
Sub-story Notes:
Jet's "dream" fluctuates. Which one is his dream? Is he dreaming of Mors and his brothers, or is he dreaming of being awake, unable to sleep, under the dreamcatcher?
Mors, Hypnos, and Thanatos are not just made up character names. They are from Greek mythology: gods of Doom, Sleep, and Death, respectively. They are not violent and hateful; they are actually peaceful and bring their work peacefully. Mors is like fate; he determines your death. Hypnos brings restorative sleep during the night, while Thanatos brings eternal sleep.