|
|
Post by eden . kaiya . novus on Mar 4, 2009 10:55:14 GMT -5
Eden was supposed to be at home, playing happy families with her parents for yet another interview. She knew they would shout when she got back, but right now couldn't care less. She wanted to continue looking through these files. It gave her a certain thrill, to know that the government and public so fascinated and sometimes frightened by her existence didn't have a clue of what she got up to a fair amount of the time. At home her parents were probably waiting anxiously for her return, hoping it wouldn't be another no-show on her part. They'd try and ground her again, but fail miserably when she just disobeyed them and went out of her own accord. They'd try contacting her friends, and also fail due to the fact that none of them had any idea where she was either. She was very secretive about where it was she went, and had received numerous questions about it over the years. Coming across another nasty code that needed navigating around, Eden found herself yawning. She wasn't sure quite how long she'd been doing this, so for all she knew the reporters could have gone by now, but she wasn't taking that chance. Plunging forward at a steady rate into the task of hacking through protections, Eden didn't really notice her eyes closing as she slowly fell asleep...
[white]She awoke slowly, blinking a few times to look around. And... here she was again. The place that looked like her home, but had no one else there. She looked around quickly, wondering if the other man was here this time. What was his name... she couldn't remember. Her times in this strange place, that she didn't even know if really existed, were very vague memories once they had passed - just like normal dreams.[/white] |
|
|
|
Post by << NINE on Mar 4, 2009 14:21:46 GMT -5
Sleeping was getting to be more and more of a chore for Keenan, not because he didn’t want to, but because it was getting harder to find time to do it. There were days when he wanted nothing more than to just fall over in a random corner and close his eyes for a few sweet, short moments, just to let his mind recharge. And lately, with the dreams…the strange dreams he’d been having, the ones he wasn’t even sure he remembered correctly when he woke up…it was hard to keep himself focused sometimes.
But tonight, they’d finished sorting the supplies they’d been working on organizing, and it was storming, which meant that it probably wasn’t a good idea for them to head out for another foray into downtown Amsterdam. So Keenan had actually been given the chance to go to bed at a reasonable hour, something he was incredibly thankful for as he sank down onto his cot, his muscles relaxing in grateful approval as he let himself fall back onto the pillow.
The dreams he’d been having, the ones that kept him distracted, hadn’t taken definite substance yet, but he always had the recurring sense that he was somewhere else, somewhere entirely different than where he had been before he fell asleep, and that he wasn’t alone there. But every time he woke up, he could not remember for the life of him whether he’d seen a face, whether someone had spoken to him, or if it had been that same lingering feeling that someone else was there. Tonight, though, he was so tired that he hardly had time to even wonder about that sort of thing before his eyelids began to feel so heavy that he couldn’t resist letting them drift closed…
It happened without much noticeable transition, Keenan’s leap from his own sleeping form to the place he didn’t know, the place he found incredibly unknown and strangely, familiarly comforting at the same time. There were walls around him, not caging him in, simply existing, and offering his tactile mind the opportunity to orient itself. Blank space would have been more confusing, and instead, there seemed to be actual rooms around him. He was dimly aware of furniture, of walls, of the outline of the structure surrounding him, but the structure itself wasn’t what was important.
He walked slowly, trepidation present in his mind as he proceeded, allowing his left hand to trail along the surface of the wall beside him. He walked through one room, into another, into an open space that if he thought about it, might have resembled some sort of dining room or living room. And again, that overwhelming wave of instinct that told him he wasn’t alone.
”Hello?” His own voice was strangely unsettling, as if it was less at home here than he himself was.
[/size] |
|
|
|
Post by eden . kaiya . novus on Mar 9, 2009 15:15:37 GMT -5
[white]
Blinking a few times in an attempt to make her vision clearer, she gave up eventually and squinted around to see if she could make out anything. It was a street, that much she could make out, but she couldn't tell if she knew the place or not. There were street lights, at least, and some tall brick houses that went together perfectly with the neatly trimmed gardens. Bronze leaves had fallen onto the road and pavements, but the whole feel of the road was of a ghost town. No one else anywhere to be seen, no birds twittering away in the trees and skies... In a way it was horribly haunting, but in another... it was peaceful. No one looking over her shoulder asking what she was doing, no one stopping her in the street and asking if she really was Eden, the 'Net-born girl'.
Swivelling once more to look around, she noticed an oddity in the surroundings - one of the front doors to a house near to her was open. Strange... checking, Eden noted that every other door of every other house as far as she could see was shut. Slightly wary, but really not very much and spurred on by her sense of adventure, she made her way to the house. Lucky there was no litter on the floor, considering how blurry the whole place was. Although... blurry wasn't really the right word. Pixelated, that was more like it. As if this was a place that had been uploaded but a virus had hit its graphic display, so it was now difficult to view. Perhaps this was why no one was here.
Going up the few stone steps that led to the open door, Eden poked her head through and looked about. No one here... at least, not that she could see so far. So why was the door open? What made this house different? Curious to know more, just as always, she checked in a few of the rooms closest to her before making her way up the stairs to the landing.
[black]"Hello?"[/black]
The voice echoed through the hallway from below and she turned quickly, searching for where it had come from. It sent a familiar excitement through her, but it wasn't just that that seemed to ring of familiarity. Where had she heard that voice before? Like the surroundings it wasn't exactly the best quality - there was static to it, as if the person's sound transmitter wasn't working properly. Heading back down, she went further into the house, eventually coming to a room with chairs around a table. In that room, stood a man - very pixelated, but there nonetheless.
A little grin came onto Eden's face at the confirmation that this was the person she had come across before - he was so familiar, there was no way it could be anyone else. Even if she didn't exactly recognise his face, she recognised his presence. "Hey there," she spoke from the doorway, probably far too relaxed considering how she barely knew this person. "How're you doing?" She came further into the room and leant against one of the painted walls, careful not to knock the painting just beside her head.
[/white]
|
|
|
|
Post by << NINE on Mar 24, 2009 17:15:46 GMT -5
Her presence added something to the place, something Keenan couldn't quite identify. It stabilized everything, seemingly dissolved the mist that had been around him, and the room came into focus in one breath. That didn't help him realize where he was, though; it was still a familiar but completely unknown location. Somehow, though, he thought the location wasn't so important as much as the people within it, himself included. Something was at work here that went beyond his suppressed adolescence conjuring up a pretty girl. This was deeper than that, and much more powerful. He rested his hand on the wall, the texture incredibly real. Even more real, it seemed to him, than real wallpaper would have been. Almost as if the texture of it didn't have to go through the nerve endings of his fingertips and was instead transmitted directly to his brain instantaneously, sharper, clearer than real tactile things.
"I'm all right, I think." he replied, not really sure if that was a guess or a fact. Strangely enough, the thought of introducing himself didn't even occur to him. That wasn't why they were here. He didn't quite know the reason for their presence here, but something told him it was a little more important than making new acquaintances. "I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. I don't remember dying." He could sense light, not really seeing it, simply knowing it was there, emanating from the front door. And somehow, he got the feeling that he couldn't leave through that door, and that if he found a way to, he would never come back in the direction he'd come. And for some equally unknown reason, he felt utterly terrified of that concept.
He saw a chair, and decided to sit down in it. It was comfortable, or at least, he thought it was. It was more convenient, not really stimulating in a sensory fashion one way or the other. There was something about this place that wasn't like any of the other dreamscapes his subconscious had conjured up. "How'd you get here?" he asked, although he had a feeling that he already knew the answer. She hadn't come with him, so she must have come through the other door, the one he could not pass through. But maybe she could tell him what was on the other side.
He looked down at his hands, so familiar, his own form only thing in this whole place he felt he really like he was controlling. That wasn't right, this was his dream, wasn't it? He should be controlling all of it. But he knew that wasn't the case. He knew that unlike other dreams, he couldn't just will the room to change form, or even the girl within it, the one who'd just spoken to him. His own body was his, though, clad in familiar blue jeans and the worn leather jacket he wore to shield him against the chilly Amsterdam winter air. He wondered if he'd be able to just change his clothes with a thought, but again decided that wasn't his purpose here. |
|
|
|
Post by eden . kaiya . novus on Apr 3, 2009 12:32:31 GMT -5
[white]The man seemed a bit dazed and confused about being there, and didn’t reply straight away. While he appeared to be finding his bearings, she did something similar and looked around again. The wall she was leaning on was painted a pale colour – she couldn’t really tell what colour. Something ranging from FFFFFF to FFFCAD probably. So used to technology surrounding her life, Eden knew colours by their hex codes rather than the names that normal humans in the real world might understand. Say ‘green’ to her and she’d ask for its code to understand what it was. Tell her 5bdb4e and she’d know the exact shade you were describing. Not everyone was like that – some did still use the original names. But hex codes were just so much easier to process for a lot of people on the Net, especially those who were children when uploaded – or born in the Net itself, like Eden.
But enough about painted walls. On the other walls, there was wallpaper, and the table and chairs were made of a deep wood. There was a set of doors that led out to a pleasant-looking patio with a stone path leading up the short garden. Above the fence at the back she could see another house and its garden, again completely deserted. It looked sunny, but she couldn’t really see any sign of the sun. The light was just... there.
[black]"I'm all right, I think."[/black] His words brought her attention back to the man just as he spoke again. [black]"I'm pretty sure I'm not dead. I don't remember dying."[/black] She looked him up and down again, trying to make out details despite the pixilation. From what she could see, he looked a little taller than her – she couldn’t tell by how much, though. Brown hair... a little older than her probably, but not by much. A few years. His clothes were casual – a jacket that looked like leather, and jeans.
[maroon]”Well... not dead is good,”[/maroon] she replied, not entirely sure how else to reply to that comment. She paused as he sat down, but didn’t move herself. Leaning against this wall was perfectly fine for her. [maroon]”I... didn’t exactly get here on purpose. I fell asleep... and either woke up here, or this is a dream. It’s... empty. Everywhere, there’s no one out on the streets or anything. Which makes me think this is probably a dream... that feels very real. I dunno. How did you get here?”[/maroon]
[/white] |
|
