Cloud Strife (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
anonfantry) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
onepassingnight2012-03-24 06:15 pm
anonfantry) wrote in onepassingnight2012-03-24 06:15 pm
oo1 ❄ I've seen this somewhere before
The scenery within this new (perhaps not quite) foreign subconscious is a confused jumble, as if its unsuspecting creator cannot quite decide just where to be — a snowy mountainside has burst up from beneath the streets of a staircase city set into the rise of sheer, seaside cliff. The pieces are whole, details sharp and clear on narrow, towering buildings all crammed close together and rocky outcroppings with their blankets of heavy snow (still falling, as it is, in weird pockets only over corresponding ground).
But these little scenes are shattered among each other, shifting constantly, uncertain as the blank, white sky above, which reflects a dull grey in the ocean below. Where these two endless, colorless stretches of space reach to meet on the horizon, they blend seamlessly, as if meeting the edge of this conflicting reality might be as easy as setting sail for the fragile inner boundary of the eggshell shape it almost appears to be locked within.
Bright and cold, the silence falls as heavy as the inclement weather, in each vacuum of space that covers the mountainside, doing its best to muffle the staccato beat of his boots on uneven pavement broken over icy faces of stone and the competing race of his heart, now trying its hardest to burst clear out of his chest. (And in a dream, who's to say it mightn't?) With his rifle hugged tight against his back by its strap, where it beats a solid rap against his shoulder blades, a sharp reprimand for every stumble, a lone soldier in drab blue is fighting a very literal uphill battle.
The uniform he wears obscures all of him but the lower half of the pale, strained expression writ across his face, solemn as he barrels up the insurmountable slope in leaps and bounds, shadows chasing behind as he rounds a street corner onto another craggy patch of open ground. Snow kicks up in misty clouds around his ankles as he stumbles, but doesn't stop, always only one step ahead of his pursuers.
They're monsters, or maybe only the distant memory of a child's imagining of such, solid enough as they crumble up out of the earth in his wake. But they fade to dust as phantoms while he manages still to evade the catch of claws and snapping jaws at the heels of his badly scuffed black boots, the shirttail tucked under his belts. Shameful as it is not to stand and fight, outpacing them is this dream's objective, instead, and he can't seem to stop his feet from moving on, hands scrabbling at each new hold to pull himself higher.
At least not on his own.
But these little scenes are shattered among each other, shifting constantly, uncertain as the blank, white sky above, which reflects a dull grey in the ocean below. Where these two endless, colorless stretches of space reach to meet on the horizon, they blend seamlessly, as if meeting the edge of this conflicting reality might be as easy as setting sail for the fragile inner boundary of the eggshell shape it almost appears to be locked within.
Bright and cold, the silence falls as heavy as the inclement weather, in each vacuum of space that covers the mountainside, doing its best to muffle the staccato beat of his boots on uneven pavement broken over icy faces of stone and the competing race of his heart, now trying its hardest to burst clear out of his chest. (And in a dream, who's to say it mightn't?) With his rifle hugged tight against his back by its strap, where it beats a solid rap against his shoulder blades, a sharp reprimand for every stumble, a lone soldier in drab blue is fighting a very literal uphill battle.
The uniform he wears obscures all of him but the lower half of the pale, strained expression writ across his face, solemn as he barrels up the insurmountable slope in leaps and bounds, shadows chasing behind as he rounds a street corner onto another craggy patch of open ground. Snow kicks up in misty clouds around his ankles as he stumbles, but doesn't stop, always only one step ahead of his pursuers.
They're monsters, or maybe only the distant memory of a child's imagining of such, solid enough as they crumble up out of the earth in his wake. But they fade to dust as phantoms while he manages still to evade the catch of claws and snapping jaws at the heels of his badly scuffed black boots, the shirttail tucked under his belts. Shameful as it is not to stand and fight, outpacing them is this dream's objective, instead, and he can't seem to stop his feet from moving on, hands scrabbling at each new hold to pull himself higher.
At least not on his own.
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"Of course not! I'm just-" With another deeply serious frown, he rounds back on the open end of the room, busted out window, pink-clad stranger and all. "Going to make sure the coast is clear."
His statement of intent probably only serves to prove her point (and his hypocrisy), but-
(What kind of guy do you think I am?)
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"You should wait here," he says, anyway, if only because it's his job to do, as he sets his shoulders and starts for the stairs again.
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"I'm used to danger. You didn't notice that already?"
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That creepy quiet prevails, down below, and he steels himself for the worst as he begins clomping noisily down the staircase to the slightly worse for the wear shop's front room.
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He clomps, but she tiptoes; her light footsteps punctuated only by a soft squeak from the well-worn boots.
"Anyway, we worked together pretty well before. Just think of it as insurance. ...It is kind of creepy..."
She wouldn't have enjoyed being in this place on her own either. Not one bit. What she thinks of most is the store front and the monsters they laid out flat; and when the quiet starts creeping back in after her voice it's enough to make her slip to the door, cracking it open to make sure that they're still perfectly laid out flat.
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Even if she does have a point. Sort of.
"Creepy?" he wonders aloud, wandering around an empty row of shelving, briefly losing track of her. There could be something more that'll be useful, lying around here, and- By the time he remembers he's supposed to be in the lead, she's already at the front door. "Hey, stand back from there!"
Picking up his gun again, Cloud runs over to the storefront to join her, but there's nothing outside. No squashed bodies, no more monsters charging - only a little standing forest of half-smashed and splintered barrels, a short walk of cement, and then the misty, whirling wall of the blizzard.
Want to wrap up soon? I'm blanking on how to continue
The door is a completely separate matter once she sees what's past it. Her seal would have worn off completely by now...and the monsters are all gone? She's not one to be a pessimist but that sight is not a reassuring one.
"Um..." Aerith's just going to carefully shut that door. And bolt it in case. "I don't really want to go out that way. How about we try...that one?"
Most shops have more than one door, after all: a front and a back is typical, and the back is what Aerith points out now.
lol yes, I have no idea where I'm going with this anymore either
He only catches a glimpse of what lies beyond before she shuts and bolts the door, but none of it looks distinctly amiss, to him- His mind is clearing a little, though (and perhaps too literally), as the fear dissipates as quickly as the world outside seems to have done. Wakefulness is no more than a few steps away, with the trap of his nightmare competently thwarted, and when she indicates the other door, he nods and pivots roundly on a heel.
The narrow alleyway beyond the shop's back exit he can already picture with an almost uncanny clarity, dark cement and steel building sides lined with rusty piping and the few stray garbage bins, all of it slightly darker with damp - from the wind of the sea and humidity of a smoggy coastal spring, or maybe a passing drizzle of rain. The sound of a stray clattering away from one of those cans in a hurry as he opens the door abruptly will make him jump, startled, but the thin strip of grey turning blue sky overhead might be pleasant enough, after this, to turn away any more thoughts of fog and snow.
"All right. Let's go."
The transition between his former nightmare and the patch of dreamless sleep just before waking is oddly peaceful, as he steps out.