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The Abyss Stares into You
Topic Started: Mar 16 2014, 08:17 PM (373 Views)
Rockets
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Every so often, someone tries to reraise the question of why we need sleep. On the surface, it seems obvious. Sleep is so universal and familiar as to be forgettable and unworthy of our time and mental energy. Yet it is a huge part of our lives. In general, we spend about a third of our total lifespan unconscious, in a state of sleep. That is--in a phrase--a buttload of time. That is time we could be spending doing other things, like working on projects or playing games or curing cancer. It seems so inefficient for our bodies to be hardwired to need it on such a regular basis, limiting our productive time. Yet there it is impossible to simply go without it. Being deprived of sleep is almost indistinguishable from mental and physical illness, bordering on madness, until we just drop dead on the spot.

The first answer anyone brings up is that sleep recharges our batteries in a way. We run low on energy and we need to sleep to regain it. But that does not make too much sense. We get our energy from calories derived from food. Sleeping is eight straight hours of fasting, albeit with low calories usage. So then the answers become split between a biological need and a mental need. Perhaps we need sleep so that our bodies can have some down time to repair itself and return to a baseline state before the new day, where we will inevitably run our bodies through the wringer again. Perhaps it is our brains that is more in need of sleep than our bodies, and it uses the unconscious time to sort and organize our thoughts, like defragmenting a computer.

The latter answer is usually given as possible explanation for dreams as well. As our bodies rest and our brains pick through the day's memories to figure out what needs to be kept or thrown away, the process throws our unconscious minds on a roller coaster than can either be smooth and a gentle, or wild and insane, or prophetic, or bed-wettingly terrifying. Yet no matter what happens or in what way, it all feels so very real.

Real-ness was the issue for a lot of people, or at least a lot of people who wrote movies about dreams. How could a person tell if they were in a dream or in real life if dreams felt every bit as real as, well, real life? Was it the strangeness that tipped them off? No, in some cases even the weird stuff just felt concrete and true and solid.

Solid. Solid as the beds the four unfortunate souls found themselves when they were stirred awake, as if naturally waking up. Shirena, Hiriko, Mugen, and Tristan would find themselves in their own beds, complete with all of their sheets and PJs(Or whatever they wore to bed). However, they would find themselves unable to get up from their beds, as if they were strapped to them. If they looked around, they would see that they were no longer in their bedrooms, but in an infinite white expanse with all four of their beds arranged in a square. Their beds made up the side of this square, head to foot all the way around.
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KingIfreet
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With a look around, it took Tristan a moment to realize what was different- this wasn't his room. With another look around, he noticed other things that were odd. One, he was unable to get up. Two, there were other beds, with people on them. Three, the room seemed to go on for an infinite amount of space. Tristan didn't know whether it was simply an optical illusion or some strange reality. He didn't care.

He knew he wanted out.

Nothing seemed to be right, he felt like nothing good would come of this, and he wanted out. He wouldn't struggle, that never helped, but he could see if anyone else who could help.

"Hey! Can any of you guys get up? Anything seem really wrong to you guys?"
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DigitalDude
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Mugen had been enjoying the first honest to goodness full night's rest he'd had in ages. His nightmare had been getting worse and worse over the last few days. It was a brutal cycle: The sight of that digital sea, the finality of its ending, scared him so badly that when he awoke, he could not even hope to fall back asleep, and ended up staying awake through the rest of the night. Then he'd stumble through his day at school, chugging coffee and energy drinks by the gallon just to stay functioning. By the time he was finished with classes and homework, he was exhausted. He didn't want to sleep, but he needed it...badly. Night after night he would struggle to stay awake, to ward off sleep as long as he could in the hopes of skipping the horrifying nightmare that plagued him. The ordeal had left him thinner, more unkempt than usual, and the dark bags under his eyes were impossible to miss, even with hi/s glasses on. Perhaps most distressing, it was no longer one bad dream he had to fear. More of them haunted his sleep every night, and they were getting worse. Mugen didn't know how much longer he could go on like this, but had no idea who to turn to for help.

Mugen had surrendered to sleep that night at his desk, in a matching set of dark blue cotton pajamas, his glasses pushed up against his forehead. Imagine the young Technopath's surprise when he awoke not at his desk, in the familiar confines of his little dorm room, but tucked tightly into his bed, in a room made of glaring white. It took him all of a second to realize he was dreaming. Dreading the terrors he knew were coming, he let out a frustrated groan and tried to get up, only to find that he was completely unable to move anything but his head. Another voice caught his attention, drawing his focus to the other beds situated nearby. "No, I can't! Who are you? There's never been anyone else in my dreams before!"
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Rockets
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((Apologies for the delay. I'll start this up in a few days if the others post or not.))
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Hiriko
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Invisible box...? How is dis possible..? ā—‹uā—‹
As usual, she would be the one who would fall asleep before her night owl of a room-mate... Though their were times were it was really difficult to ignore her chatting up perhaps other fellow students, that she considered to be friends with. Their also were those nights, were she longed to be in her true home. Feeling the warmth of the fireplace on winter nights while sipping on a fresh cup of hot cocoa, before crawling into her bed sheets and hand-made blankets.

That was the only thing on her mind tonight.

Untiil it all changed for the worst. As Hiriko felt a rather chilly yet blank mysterious atmosphere around her. Jolting up awake in bed, she rubbed one of her eyes and questioned out loud. "What...w-what is going on..? Where are w-we..?!" She was rather startled, as she was in a room with complete strangers. That was when she came to of course, she realized one person....

"Shirena-san!!!"
Edited by Hiriko, Mar 31 2014, 12:19 AM.
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bmsman816
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Turning misery into meaningfulness!
Shirena plopped down into his bed upon realizing just how late he was playing his various games. He felt a certain melancholy in himself. The sort that you don't just see, or think about, but the sort you kinda....just feel within yourself, be it...past regrets, dark overtures, and the like, Shirena knew that he had his own regrets, despite trying to live a more...socially healthy lifestyle. And thus, sleep beckoned, and so he did.

Or so he thought.

A white landscape, devoid of anything but his own bed, and 4 others, along with 4 other people, only one of which he recognized, who called out to him, a voice he could never forget. "Hiriko?!" He said, caught completely off-guard by the chain of events taking place currently. What was the purpose of this dream, and....what caused him and Hiriko to be here.
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Rockets
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Their voices and questions rang out into nothing. The white expanse possessed an odd property of sound. There was no echo, no reverberation of any kind. Their questions and cries ended immediately upon leaving their lips and into the nothingness. It was difficult to discern if the other three could even hear their cries, but fortunately they could. It was a disturbing silence between every word, between every syllable, as if the very act of making a sound was forbidden and that their words were the very least this void could afford to them.

The only thing left for them to hear, when they were not speaking, was the sounds of themselves. Their heartbeat. Their breathing. The clenching of their muscles and the fluids running through their bodies. It seemingly grew in the silence. A cacophony of squishing and gurgling and tensing and beating and shifting of their fleshy innards that would not stop as long as they drew breath.

"dOwN."

A voice from nowhere spoke. It was shaky and malformed, as if made by the dying breaths of a soon-to-be corpse. They could hear the blood and spittle and broken teeth in it. Most of all, Hiriko would FEEL it. Feel it on the nape of her neck as a force pulled her back down onto the bed, tightly. It grabbed her neck and pulled her roughly to the pillow. It grabbed her wrists and ankles and yanked them to the sheets, lying her face up and open.

The white of the room disappeared, leaving all four in pitch darkness. They couldn't even make out the noses on their own faces for how dark it was. But they could still hear each other, and whatever else had joined them.

A sickening wet sound pulsed and squished somewhere around them, like flesh being forcibly slapped and pushed against more flesh. It seemed to be coming from the direction of Hiriko's bed, and she would feel a hot breath blow across her head.
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KingIfreet
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Tristan couldn't move, but he could hear the others. They seemed to know just as much as he did- a grand total of nothing. They seemed just as confused and sacred as he felt. One mentioned dreams, which seemed odd. It rang oddly in Tristan's ears...

Next thing he knew, a strange voice spoke. After that, the room went pitch black. He tried to create a fire to lighten the room, but he knew it wouldn't work. Suddenly, he heard the most disgusting sound. He shivered at the noise as horrible thoughts filled his mind. He had no issues with the dark, but it was causing a problem.

He struggled, but nothing worked. He yelled frantically, calling out to the girl. "Hey, what's going on? Are you Alright?"
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DigitalDude
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Codesmith
Straining against the bedding in silence for a long moment, Mugen was horrified by the sounds filling his mind. It was appalling, his heartbeat hammering away, as loud as a bass drum stuck in a rising crescendo. He screamed, but it was drowned out as the sound of his own longs stretching and then compressing to make the scream possible filled his mind. He thrashed, and now the sound of muscles flexing and contracting added to the inconceivable biological orchestra he and his fellow captives were forces to endure.

Then there was the voice, that awful, painful voice! Mugen was reminded of his grandfather, broken by cancer and left dying in a hospital bed. Every movement, every breath torturous pain as his own body betrayed him, tore him apart on the cellular level. The pain that had been in that dying old man's voice echoed in the one that resounded around him now, and it made Mugen cringe.

Finally, he just lay still, quiet as could be, and tried to simply ignore it all. He zoned out for a few moments, dead to the noise as he almost became accustomed to it...and then something new erupted around them. It was almost as if some eldritch abomination had slipped through the veil between universes, apparently molesting some poor girl named Hiriko. He wanted to blank it all out wanted to simply be alone, in silence, free to move and think, not assaulted by fear.
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Hiriko
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Invisible box...? How is dis possible..? ā—‹uā—‹
Everything inside her froze, With fear crammed inside her chest.

She-ever-so-wanted to scream into this oblivion.

Hiriko wriggled about helplessly. As every attempt she tried to kick and escape out of whatever force was holding her down, it was no use. She felt the burning sensation of tears building up in her tear-ducts, wanting to be let out to pour. Though she wasn't going to give in that easy. It took her days prolonging into the hardest weeks of her existence, in the piercing cold winter to find her way home. Before she gave in when she was on the verge of death...

That couldn't be any worse than this.

Due to her nerves and barely even tamed emotions beginning to get to her, Hiriko's body slowly began to disappear before the four, or should I say five? Not fully though as the only thing/person that was keeping her somewhat calm, was gazing into Shirena's eyes. Also the word's from a stranger's mouth filled with concern about her safety. She was determined to escape from this nightmare. The only question was,

How?
Edited by Hiriko, Apr 10 2014, 02:08 PM.
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Rockets
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Everyone experiences the Darkness differently. That's what makes fear so gripping and intense. It is the subjective mind that scares and terrifies itself.

Tristan


Mugen


Hiriko


Shirena
Edited by Rockets, Apr 13 2014, 11:44 AM.
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DigitalDude
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Finally, silence fell...blessed, merciful quiet after a driving thunderstorm of falling corpses. He almost breathed a sigh of relief...until everything went black. It was almost as if someone had flipped the on/off switch for his eyes: Mugen had never experienced such darkness before. Pitch black and devoid of light or sound, Mugen had no idea what was going on to the others who had been taken alongside him. For the briefest of moments, he had hope that the nightmare was over, that he had made it through the night without that same awful scenario playing out through his mind. He couldn't have been more wrong, couldn't have known that the worst was yet to come.

It started with pain; in an instant he felt a blinding, ice-cold stab, as if someone had jammed a screw-driver into his brain stem. He screamed, writhing in the agony. His hands clutched at the mattress beneath him, back arched and body jerked as torturous spasms rippled down his spine. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes as they rolled back into his head. The voices started as dull whispers, then grew in volume. Random pictures and clips of videos flashed past his eyes, moving so quickly that he barely had time to consciously register their content.

"No....no no no no no nononononononomakeitstop make. It. Ssssstooooooop!!!" He whimpered and cried, his brain lightning up as if every nerve ending had suddenly burst into flames. In the gaps between every video, every picture, ever word, every voice flying around him was darkness shot through with streaming lines of numbers and symbols: binary code and information, all in its most basic form. "SOMEONE HELP MEEEEEE! OH GOD!" He didn't even realize it, but his sentences were garbled mixes of Japanese and English.

He could feel himself breaking apart, felt his body pixilating and fragmenting into data. He could feel as every bit of information. "No! I don't want this! I DON'T WANT TO DISAPPEAR!" This was insane! He was a technopath! The internet, electronics of all kinds, the very codes that pulsed throughout the civilized world, he was capable of controlling it all. At a whim. How could this be happening? How could he be fading away, deleted like some malfunctioning program? His arms and legs were fading fast, everything below his knees and elbows were already gone, spiraling away into the tidal surge of information that pulsed around him. He swallowed his fear, trying to put it in its place, trying to marshal whatever willpower he had left. He reached out with his mind, gritting his teeth as he extended his technopathic field into the ether and demanded that what he had lost be returned.

"I REFUSE TO FADE AWAY!" He didn't care if resistance was futile, if there was no chance to save himself: He couldn't allow himself to just quietly exit stage left.
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bmsman816
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Turning misery into meaningfulness!
Shirena gasped at the sound of Hiriko's gasps for air, for anything. He tried to move, but his body just wouldn't let him, he was forced to just...stand there, unable to stop the hurt he was feeling, the feeling his hands around her neck, he sobbed, the nightmare driving him to sadness. Seeing the life driven from her eyes, seeing her face change from one into another, from the site of Hiriko, into his own mother...at least, what she looked like the last he saw her.

The same white hair and red eyes he genetically inherited, the life, draining away...and he stopped, screaming at his father. "Dad...please..." he said, with a soft voice, choking back tears as much as he could. "Don't make me do this...." He said.
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