A/N: Sorry again for another delay - multiple projects to work on, some medication changes, and of course, putting some extra care into making these asylum chapters shine. Here's hoping it paid off! I had to do a buncha alterations to this one so ideally it still works out well, or at least, makes for a very interesting world.
Brief side note - thank you for 35 favorites and almost 10k views! I deeply appreciate all the support, the readership, the comments, the continued updates to Tvtropes, everything. And of course, I appreciate the betas as well... thanks again for helping out!
Frazie thought the asylum couldn't look any worse, yet it delivered once again. Before, it'd just been decrepit and eerie... now, it was falling apart at the seams.
She leapt across a huge gap in the ground, stirring loose some stray pebbles and making them fall down a floor in the process. The hall was basically swiss cheese at this point. Even the walls weren't safe - heck, the walls had it worse. Huge swathes of concrete were ripped out in indiscriminate chunks, leaving entire rooms and lattices of steel wire open to the night air.
On the bright side, the place was sturdy enough if she was careful. There wasn't any risk of the floor crumbling out from under her, and the rats hadn't bothered her in awhile.
On the downside... the wreckage could prove to be a hassle.
Frazie stumbled to a halt when she rounded a corner and found herself face to face with a huge pile of rubble blocking the staircase up. "Oh, for the love of..." How did Loboto move around this dilapidated deathtrap? He had to take this route sometimes, or he'd have shut it down instead of hiring security for it. She'd guess it was his scenic route, if there was anything here worth seeing. Then again, who knew what kind of aesthetic appealed to crazed dentists...?
She finally groaned and turned back after her hard glare failed to shatter the blockade. Alright, fine. She'd find a different route up.
The only other way she could find, unfortunately, was through one of the holes leading outside, forcing her to scale the side of the building. She stepped out, shivering a bit from the cold, and peered down to see the courtyard far, far below. Of course she wasn't afraid of heights, she was an Aquato... but she had to admit, she was higher up than she'd ever been before, and on a shaky foundation no less.
Reminding herself she could slow her descent with a thought bubble if something slipped out from under her, she took a breath and got climbing.
Scaling some exposed rebar, she clambered up it as a ladder, slotting her foot into hole after hole to use as rungs. At the top, she reached for the lip of the wall for stable ground... and lost her balance as it crumbled under her grip. Catching herself, she buckled down and launched herself up over the edge.
Almost to the next floor. Getting an idea, she materialized her Levitation orb and springboarded off it the rest of the way to the top.
She landed with arms outstretched... right in front of Elka.
Or rather, a photo of her, taped to a jar. Confused, Frazie stepped closer, turning the container to move the photo aside and peer within...
And found herself face to lobe with Elka's brain. The organ sat still, floating in green goop.
He'd already harvested her? And not just that, he'd carelessly left her mind ON THE SIDE OF A CRUMBLING BUILDING?! Anger welled in her - the doctor worked fast, but not as fast as she was gonna kick his ass for this.
Alright. Okay. Now she knew she had to look for the camper's brains up here, too. She could do that... sheeeee just needed some way to carry them. She definitely wasn't going to be able to fit these in her pockets.
Looking around, Frazie spotted a discarded bed nearby laying on its side. An idea in mind, she conjured a Psi-knife in her hand. She was gonna get mileage out of this new power already.
The fabric ripped as she carved into it. Some careful cutting later, she held up the finished product in her hands. A makeshift backpack, constructed from an old pillowcase with sliced blanket handles stuffed through holes she'd poked into it. Tying it around her arms, she looked back, humming with approval. It wouldn't get in the way of climbing, would keep the brains safe and secure, and allow her to carry plenty of them.
She just had to, you know... actually touch a live human brain. And fish it out of some unknown, slimy substance. Yeah. Easy. Not gross at all.
Frazie knelt in front of the jar, taking her sweet time looking at it. Finally mustering the courage, she yanked the lid off and flipped the whole thing over, dumping the unknown crud all over the floor. Holding her breath, she snatched the brain up and stuffed it in her new pack, immediately wiping her hand off on the wall. "Ugh, ugh, UGH!"
She'd never forgive Loboto for making her do this. ...And for leaving kid brains in dangerous places, that too.
In the end, it'd been a good thing she'd been forced to take this detour. Now she knew to keep an eye out for her fellow campers up here, too.
She carried on on the new floor, checking out every room from now on - and it paid off. She soon added Benny and Bobby to her collection, the bullies a lot less bold in brain form. At least the mad doctor had been nice enough to label all these.
Tiptoeing across a rickety plank, Frazie moved on down the hall, once more finding her route blocked by a caved-in ceiling. Rolling her eyes, she ducked into a side room in search of another path up a level.
No holes in the wall, but there WAS one in the high ceiling, shining light down below onto an old bed.
An occupied bed.
A lanky man laid arrow-straight on it, hands clasped over his stomach, dressed in unkempt red pajamas. His skin was a rich purple, his nose way too big for his face... and most strikingly, his eye bags had eye bags. Had this man slept at all recently?
His eyes were shut, so maybe he was taking care of that right now. Cautiously, she crept forward, trying not to disturb him. She just needed to get up through that crack in the up above...
She hadn't made a sound, she was sure of it. Yet the instant she drew too close, his eyes snapped wide open, blurry and red.
"Who's there?!" he snapped, pushing himself up slowly. It took a second, but he finally noticed her standing nearby. "Is that you, Dita? Come on, I already told you your lullabies don't help..."
Frazie held her hands up, shaking her head. "Uh... no, I'm a visitor, just passing thro-"
She shut up when he leaned closer, the bauble on his sleep cap swishing to the side of his head. "Not in the mood for your games, Dita. Stop kidding around!"
"No, really, I'm not-!"
"ENOUGH!" The man lashed out surprisingly fast, grabbing her shoulders and making her scream. She was about to swat him off, until his demeanor changed. He peered even closer, hazy eyes scanning her face... and finally let her go.
"Oh... I'm sorry." He yawned, laying back down. "Thought you were someone else. Hard to tell. So tired..."
"Clearly." Dusting off her shoulders, she crossed her arms. "Did I wake you up?"
The man scoffed, eyes shutting again. "Good one. Kid... I haven't slept in almost a week."
A week?! This guy must've been on the edge of consciousness, if not the edge of the mortal coil. No wonder he was grouchy and confused. "Wow. Are you okay...?"
His head slowly turned to her, as if to point out that was the stupidest possible question. "You know where we are, right?"
"Riiiight. But you sound like you need a hospital more than an asylum."
He threw his hands up. "Believe me, doctors have already done everything they can. They finally sent me here because, you know... sometimes I'm a bit craaaanky, and sometimes I halluuuucinaaate, and sometimes I snap and try to wring someone's neeeeck..."
"That'll do it. So why can't you sleep?"
He shrugged, arms falling limply off the edges of his bed. "Not sure. I get just enough to get by, but the rest of the time..." His eyes cracked open again, staring blankly at the ceiling.
Yeeeeah, she got the point. This guy's life sounded like a living hell. She felt for him... but she really needed to move on. "Sorry, but mind if I get up above you...?" she asked, pointing up.
He shut his eyes again, but she knew he wouldn't be sleeping. "Knock yourself out..."
Leaving him be, Frazie ducked down by the side of his bed. She leapt up high as she could, arms outstretched.
And missed.
She swiped at air, landing on the other side of his bed. She turned and tried again, once again too low to grab the edge. She tried a few times with her orb, making it higher, but never enough to pull herself up.
"I think I'm hallucinating again. Where is that ball coming from...?"
Frazie huffed, bouncing up for another attempt. "Don't worry about it. Just shut your eyes and get some rest."
"Would if I could..."
She tried again and again, getting frustrated now, all while the man watched from below. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to try counting sheep, not teenagers..."
After one last attempt, she gave up, landing on hands and knees with a grunt. Alright, this wasn't working. But she HAD to get up there, there was no other way. So how could she...?
Her eyes flicked back to the patient, at the cot below him. Lightbulb.
She could spring off it, using the extra bounce and better angle to escape. The only problem was it was kinda occupied at the moment. But she could fix that.
"Hey," she began, "mister... uh, what's your name?"
The man took a concerning amount of time to answer, his fatigue-addled brain struggling to remember even the most basic information. "Jack... no, Jakob. Jakob Winkle."
"Jakob." She pointed up again. "Can I borrow your bed for just a second? Seriously, just one second."
"No."
"Thank y-" Wait. "What do you mean no?!"
"I mean no." He rolled to face away from her, waving her off. "You think I've got enough energy to get up? If I rolled out of bed, I'd be stuck on the floor for days."
Frazie stepped closer, offering a hand. "I could help you move to a different cot! Or push yours away so I can bring in a new one! Come on, just-..."
"Don't touch me!" he roared at her, making her yelp. At least he immediately regretted it. "Sorry, sorry, just... it was already hard enough to get myself into bed. Let me rest..."
Frazie backed down. She didn't like it, but she understood it. If she was up all night, she'd be touchy and obstinate too... and that was after only one night. But his stubbornness was putting a damper on her progress.
She paced back and forth, thinking. It might just be time for her tried and true solution... and she had a good idea how to go about it.
Whisking around, she pulled out her Psy Portal and waved it. "Actually... I think I can help you get to sleep."
Jakob scoffed. "Yeah, and I'm the king of... something."
"No, really! Besides, what have you got to lose?"
Even if there was a good counter to that, he wasn't in a state to think one up. "Alright, fine."
"Good. Just cloooose your eyes..."
A request he was more than happy to comply with. Once he'd done so, she crept to his bedside, reaching out and plopping the door straight on his forehead.
"What the-" He tried to protest and pull it off, but stopped himself. Suddenly, he smiled. "Hey, wait a minute. I think it's working...!"
He went quiet, mouth hanging open as the door clicked open. But it wasn't sleep that'd overtaken him... it was the portal's trance.
Shifting her stance, Frazie shut her own eyes and let herself drift off into recesses of his exhausted mind. Projecting her focus outward, she spiraled down into the gateway's light.
All she had to do was help the guy get some shuteye. How hard could that be?
Now entering:
Winkle's Dreamy Domain
Frazie felt... at ease.
She'd arrived at nighttime in a little open-air area surrounded by dark and fluffy hills. Colorful, moon-shaped lamps casting a dull glow over the area. Small purple clouds floated everywhere, forming a faint mist along the ground, bigger ones drifting lazily across the sky. Frazie reached out to run her fingers over one nearby. Soft as a pillow.
Frazie couldn't help but yawn - there was something about this place that oozed comfort, made her realize just how much she'd been running around the last couple days. It was the perfect place for a nap.
Of course, she knew she couldn't. But it seemed someone else here had realized the same thing.
A big bed took up most of the clearing - REALLY big. It looked like it was made for a giant. Yet, a normal-sized Jakob laid under the covers at the far end, looking just as tired and crotchety as real life. His patchwork quilt was big enough to cover the entire mattress, covered in a strange myriad of symbols. Horse heads, phones, and tires to name a few - and most commonly, Zs.
Frazie had to suppress a chuckle when a violet-fleeced sheep suddenly appeared, arcing over the man, his eyes loosely following it. Clearly, he was trying everything.
So why couldn't he sleep?
Only one way to find out. "Hey!" she called across the massive mattress between them, walking around the side.
"Eh?" Jakob's head slowly flopped her way, his mind taking a long moment to process the new arrival. "Hggggg... could you keep it down? I was almost there, I could feel it..."
He hadn't looked any closer to slumber from where she'd stood. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Heck, with a place this comfortable, I'm surprised you're having trouble to begin with. What's wrong?"
He sighed, long and drawn out. Clearly, he didn't like having to think or answer questions. "Well..." he began, pausing to yawn. "The problem... is..."
His head drooped, his eyes creaking shut as he dozed off mid sentence. ...Well, that'd been easy. Mission accomplished.
But that's when the sky exploded.
An earthshaking, ear-cracking combination of thunder and lightning lit up the night, making Frazie jump. For an instant, the cozy atmosphere completely dissolved, the lamps flaring wildly, the clouds jumping and contorting. Jakob jolted back awake in an instant. "Snrrrk! ...That. That's the problem."
He pointed behind him, and Frazie peeked behind the bedframe. Far, far in the distance, up in the sky, a big cluster of dream clouds clustered together... only these ones were more like storm clouds. They were big, pitch black, and crackling to the brim with electricity.
Slowly, everything died back down to stillness, yet the air still felt charged. Poor guy. He didn't even dare to try again, just leaning against the headboard looking miserable as another sheep flew by.
It landed by Frazie's feet, and she knelt down to pat it. "Has it always been like that?"
Surprisingly, she got an answer from the lamb instead. "Watch it, toots!" it snapped, standing up on its hind legs with hooves on its hips.
That hadn't been zoolingualism, it was actually shouting at her. Sheesh. Sleep Sheep were touchy. While she gaped at the rudeness, Jakob provided a much more cordial answer. "Nah..." he murmured, sounding faraway. "I don't know what, but there's something over there stirring up a monsoon. I can hear it sometimes, calling to me in a scratchy voice. But I can never make out what it says..."
Ominous. Whatever it was, it was causing a ruckus. That meant it had to be dealt with. "Mind if I have a word with it, then?"
"Please." Clearly, Jakob had had enough of his noisy neighbor a long time ago. "Please, make it stop. I don't know how to get over there, but let me give you a place to start."
He pointed off towards the corner of the area, and like a gust of wind passing through fog, the clouds split apart. Even the hill sliced in two like jelly, folding in on itself to create a path in-between.
She nodded, giving the mouthy sheep a sharp glare before heading down the new route. "Back in a flash."
"Don't say flash..." the man groaned, looking up at the sky for another burst of light. "And I really, REALLY hope you're right..."
The rest of his mind was just as dreamy and puffy as his resting area had been, perhaps even moreso. Eventually the ground beneath her gave way to nothing but clouds, which she could thankfully still walk on. But as soothing as the scene was, she stayed on high alert. Something lurked deep in his mind, not to mention the typical baddies making an appearance so they could be promptly blown away. The Censors' new pajamas did nothing to protect them.
Around her, the landscape bubbled and shifted. Everything may have been clouds, but those cottony puffs took different shapes to build a world around them. They seemed to form things at random - some were tall fluffy buildings, others were rocket ships, and still others were big toy blocks. There was no rhyme or reason to what they imitated. Some hadn't even changed at all, just being regular old clouds that let Frazie hop across them as platforms or even bounce off of occasionally.
But eventually, the path came to an end. A curved wall of clouds blocked the way forward... but one big, thick one floated alone in front of them. It even seemed to glow, a multicolored sheen glimmering across its surface.
Mistaking it for another springy one, Frazie launched herself onto it, thinking she might bounce somewhere new. Instead, all she got for her troubles was the puff swallowing her whole.
"Whoa...!" Taken off guard, she took a tumble, rolling to a stop atop some... grass?
She sat up on her knees, confused... and then blinked in awe as morning sunlight shone down on her. There wasn't a trace of cloud left. Instead, all around her was a vast plain, gargantuan mushrooms and trees as tall as skyscrapers far off in the distance.
Why the sudden shift in scenery? With nowhere else to go, Frazie got up and walked off towards the distant landmarks.
Yet somehow, she managed to cross the mile between them in just a few steps.
"Huh?" It was like the world was bending around her, shrinking in on itself to close the gap. In seconds, she stood in the shadow of massive fungi and foliage.
She had to take a moment to dwell on that one. The moment she'd fallen in that bubble, things had gotten weird. And after a bit of thought, she think she knew why.
She was inside a dream.
How many times had she had a dream where things had made absolutely no sense and she'd just accepted it as normal? Teleporting, flying, randomly ending up in entirely different places. The only difference now was that she was awake enough to realize how bizarre it was.
Was that what all the cloud shapes were forming outside? Slowly growing into dreams of their own, to eventually mature into their own little self-contained world? Maybe that was why there was so many dang clouds around in the first place... so many dreams left undreamed and unused because Jakob wasn't asleep to see them.
A graveyard of neglected fantasies... it was sad, in a way. She hoped she could do something to let these visions be realized.
But first, she had to stop warping all over the place. Thankfully, now that she was in the forest, everything seemed stuck in place. Absolutely humongous, but unmoving.
Rolling up her sleeves, Frazie approached the nearest mushroom and started climbing. Time to get a better view of the place.
She jumped from cap to cap, swung from vine to vine, climbed branch after branch, ascending higher and higher all the while. For her, this extensive obstacle course was basically a playground. It took time, but she finally made her way up to the tallest reaches, where a tall and sticky palace awaited... a big beehive.
At first, she feared that meant Godzilla-sized bees, but a quick peek inside revealed the place was hollow and abandoned. She stepped inside... and the empty dome reacted, stretching out in a way similar to the forest path shrinking. Numerous doorways sprung up along the walls, leaving her stuck in the world's yellowest hallway.
Alright, this was getting ridiculous... and it'd only get even sillier when she cracked open a door to find a classroom her size. The next one held a strip mall, and the one after that, an upside-down France? Napoleon would be outraged.
She kept trying. Blue pyramids. Airplanes. A door with a hungry lion that she quickly slammed shut.
It was like the Collective Unconscious, only somehow more nonsensical. Which path was she supposed to take?
As it turned out, it didn't matter. She finally chose the classroom at random, passed through the row of desks and out the door at the other end... only to end up inside the airplane's cockpit. They were all connected. Just like how you warped from one area to the next in your dreams.
It was a maze. A creative one, but still a maze. Wanting to get out as soon as possible, Frazie started sprinting, charging through room after room and shoving doors open all the while. The temperature and time shifted wildly as she entered each new area - a tropical island, a hamster cage, a world made entirely of cheddar.
At last, she barreled throw one last entryway that led to another dream cloud in the void. "Get me out of here!" she pleaded, diving into it headfirst.
Wish granted. She landed back atop fluffy clouds, back in a different part of Jakob's psyche. She took a moment to catch her breath, looking off into the dark sky - the shadowy cluster of dark dream clouds was closer, though still a ways away.
She was on the right track. And it was a strange one. But hey, she'd been in everything from medieval times to space today, only now was she was experiencing all these imaginary locales in a row.
Frazie got back up and dusted herself off, ready to continue on her journey... but her blood ran cold when she saw the path ahead.
Another road filled with cloudy objects, with some not-so cloudy occupants. A bunch of guards sat here and there, dozing softly, their heads tilted downward... at least, the flashlights they had for heads.
Object Permanences.
She remembered the destructive force they'd demonstrated back in Maloof's mind, swallowing nervously. At least this time, they were asleep. It seemed even Jakob's awareness was worn out.
Grateful for her good luck, she tiptoed along the path, keeping clear of the unconscious powerhouses. Creeping around a puffy facsimile of a brontosaurus, she stepped over its tail, careful to avoid the Permanence passed out against its thigh. She snuck right by the sleepy guard, sticking her tongue out at it along the way.
And as if karma for her cheekiness, the sky lit up again in another world-quaking display of sound and light.
In an instant, the Permanences clicked their lights on as one, looking up. That included the one that she was presently blowing a raspberry at. Its circle of light washed over her, catching her in the act.
It wasn't amused. Bounding up in an instant, it raised a fist, swinging at her with lethal force.
Clifffffhaaangeeeer. What else lies in store in this weird, dreamlike world? What's stirring up a storm in the depths of Jakob's mind? Is Frazie's face more durable than a fence? We'll find out soon. I've cut my workload in half and my new medicine is working well, so hopefully, I can get the next chapter out a lot quicker!
