Nightmares

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Seppun Chisei
Posts: 306
Joined: Sat May 16, 2020 4:34 am

Re: Nightmares

Post by Seppun Chisei » Sun Jun 07, 2020 12:01 am

It started as so many tales of horror did. With a young couple making out. In this case, Chisei and his wife, Takako. Chisei smiled as they kissed, again and again.

And then someone slipped a scroll through the flaps of the tent.

Pausing the make-out session, Chisei reached out, unrolling it carefully. He frowned down at the words, struggling to read them, even though there weren't very many.
What are you doing with my daughter?
-Signed, Takako's mom
"How curious." Chisei said, holding up the scroll for Takako to see. "It's from your mother." Takako frowned.

"But my mother is dead." She said.

Chisei's eyes opened wide, a look of slowly dawning horror spreading across his features. Of course, her mother was dead. He'd known that. He'd never met her, in fact. But if her mother was dead...

"THEN WHO WAS SCROLL?!?!" Chisei cried, as the dream dissolved into darkness...
Seppun * Former Isawa * Shugenja * Philosopher * Husbando
Status: 1.0 | Glory:2.0 | Reputation: What is Expected
Carries: Scroll case, scrolls. Jade.
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Ko
Posts: 307
Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 11:18 am

Re: Nightmares

Post by Ko » Sun Jun 07, 2020 5:51 am

Ko's dream is always the same:


She had been walking a long time. Days? Weeks? On her left were the familiar hills and woods of the coast, all leafless and gray. On her right, the mud and pebble beach stretched away endlessly. The sea was gone. She could see a dull gleam like lead at the gray horizon that might have been the water, but might as easily have been her imagination. Her bare feet alternately shuffled through soft, unstable dry sand and dragged through mud laced with jagged shells.

It was very hot, and everything stank.

Ko was hungry and thirsty, but all the streams were dry, and when she dug in the sucking mud the only clams she could find were dead and already rotting. She ate them anyway, retching, and somehow kept walking. She knew she had been doing this for some time. She could see that her flesh was wasted and her whole body engrained with dirt under her ragged clothing.

Time blurred. With the same relentless, painful strength, she hauled herself over the ridge of rock that sheltered the west side of the shore people’s village. The roundhouses looked neglected, their straw roofs bleached and patchy. No smoke rose from the people’s fires. Above the waterline—what had once been the waterline, before there was only a foul-smelling expanse of mud where the sparkling water should be—the fishing boats, many with their hulls stove in, lay wreathed in a tangle of sea-wrack, broken oars, and ruined nets. The totems on their prows had all been smashed and mangled as if with knives, or maybe claws.

But there were people here. Ko’s heart leapt as she sighted the first few figures moving among the houses. She skidded and tumbled down the homeward side of the ridge with a sickening loss of balance, almost pitching over when she reached the bottom. But she scrambled upright and dashed into the village. Was that her cousin Rin? Her uncle? They looked as wasted, sunburnt, and filthy as she was—so changed that she should not have been able to recognize them by sight. She knew them anyway. Ko tried to greet them, but her mouth was so parched she couldn’t make a sound. Salt tears burned her dry eyes.

Somehow they knew her, too, and came to welcome her with clawlike hands and bony embraces. By gestures they indicated that she must be hungry, and Ko felt faint at the thought of food. They led her inside the Pearl roundhouse—up close, she saw mold on the balding straw walls, and inside smelled rank, but her aunts’ woven blankets and her mother’s baskets were still there, it was still home. They sat her in the place of honor and, with their dirty hands, brought her a big bowl of steaming fish stew.

Ko had never smelled anything so delicious. She forgot about her own filthy hands and blackened fingernails as she scooped up a big bite of sea vegetables and the soft, tender white flesh of some large fish, still clinging to a fragment of translucent bone. Just as the morsel touched her lips, the contents of the bowl shifted. Something round floated to the surface and rolled, almost seeming to… wink?

It was an eyeball. Green iris, bluish veins, a silvery quality to the white that marked it as not quite human. Impossibly, the pupil widened as Ko stared, as if to get a better look at her. She knew, suddenly, that this was Tsamaru’s eye. Flesh of her kin.

Ko shoved the bowl away in horror, gagging and coughing. The eye of the murdered ningyo rolled away across the straw mats, coming to rest against a basked with its lidless stare still fixed on her. “How—?” Ko rasped. Her uncle and cousin watched her impassively from across the cold fire pit. What have you done? How could you?

“You were too late, child.” The ruined, still-familiar voice came from behind her. Ko whirled. Her mother was as transformed as everyone else in the village, shrunken and burnt-looking, but she was still Otsu. “I’m sorry, little Ko. They waited as long as they could. We had to live…” Otsu opened her arms to Ko, smiling sadly with broken teeth. Eyes welling, Ko flung herself into her mother’s embrace. Those arms were so thin, but still strong as they wrapped around her. Still her mother’s arms…

“I’m sorry,” Otsu’s voice creaked again. “You were too late.”

Ko felt her mother’s sharp teeth sink into her throat.



She twitched and whimpered in her sleep, but didn’t wake.
Shore People ✖ 'Bushi? That sounds right' ✖ Stone-tool-user ✖ Awkward ✖ On A Quest
Status: 1.0 ✖ Glory: 1.0 ✖ Reputation: Bad, real bad ✖ Character description

Wears: Simple clothing, pearl and coral jewelry, copper coin bracelet; light armor when expecting danger.
Carries: Walking staff or yumi (or both); knives; jade, pack with misc fishing & survival tools and small daily items. Warclub (tetsubo) when needed.

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Nozomi
Posts: 1151
Joined: Sat May 09, 2020 8:43 am

Re: Nightmares

Post by Nozomi » Wed Jun 10, 2020 12:39 am

This dream was different than the others. It felt a shade, a fraction more real. Tomorrow, they would descend into the pit, where the whole weight of hell was very much real, but all that Phi could see right now was the burning marketplace. Sickly green flames burst around various parts of this hellish landscape. As far as the eye could see, the remnants of the sick, twisted, broken and burned trophies of a demon's twisted lusts were strung about, thrust into walls and left to rot eternally in the visible signs of everlasting torment. The smells of rotting, burning flesh assailed her nostrils with a fierceness that didn't match a dream. But she wasn't here, she couldn't be here.

She gripped her head, fighting and failing to push away at the dreams again, wanting to run. Wanting to be anywhere but here. She lied to Matsu, lied to the Hikaru, lied to everyone but Shinsei and Miuna. She was just a scared little girl who'd put on armor and come down to this place, cocksure that she was going to become a great hero in the shadows and earn the respect of some kami she'd only ever heard of in fanciful stories about his mask. She'd been so stupid.

But, as she gripped her head, she heard the whimpering of a child. Her eyes went alert and she started to move. No, no, nothing should be here. It was a trap, her mind screamed, but her legs moved without wanting to, and she rounded the corner beyond where the smoldering corpse of the oni lay, covered in its own acidic, boiling pitch of blood. It had died, like so many others, but it had died to better hands than hers. When she rounded the corner, she saw in the midst of the flames a little pale girl in simple clothes, huddled there. A step towards her, and she froze.

"I'm scared!" the girl wailed, looking up as a figure drew close to her. They wore robes and stood with confidence, ease and calm. In the midst of everything, there was sureness in this one presence as the man reached down to offer a hand. "I don't want to be here. I want to go home! I want this to end!" The girl was pitiful, lunging upwards to hug the man.

Their faces turned towards Phi, and for a split second, she saw the face of Shinsei and herself as a scared little girl, the look of the girl she'd seen in the reflection of the river as her village burned. "There there. Together, we will put an end to all of this," the robed monk said as their faces melted away into nothing but a faint, sickly green aura. "We will find the last... and we will show them all, and I will keep you safe. I will keep them all safe."

...

Phi woke up with a start as dawn's light cracked into the tent, hands clutching her mouth to stifle the screams.
Disciple of Shinsei * Experienced Phi * Disturbing Countenance * Former Rappa
Status - 1.0, Reputation - "What is Expected," Glory - 2.0
Wears/Carries: Ashigaru Armor, Sturdy Clothing, Xun (Flute), Tonfa x2, Yumi w/ Arrows, Jade Bracelet
Profile * Theme Song * It's pronounced "Fee" * (The safe word is "Sea Cucumber")

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