Something Seriously Bizarre For You To Peruse

[Shenmue654]

(Author's Note: Okay, that's it. I've officially gone mad with boredom. I'm writing down something which no legitimate writer should write down ever: the odd Mary Sue thing that my friends and I have been doing for the past six years with ourselves as "characters". Names and physical appearances have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent and to avoid copyright infringement. XDD This will start with "me," but I will switch perspectives next round if anyone cares to see more. Events have also been rearranged or eliminated at my whim. "Never let the truth interfere with a good story." Or a bad one. x3 Warning: This abomination contains the desires and fantasies of what initially are adolescents in high school. I claim no responsibility whatsoever for its quality, even though I'm writing it. XD You have been warned! :D))

For Sharon, it had begun with him.

Sethys. Or rather, the dreams about him.

She'd heard that it had started in different ways with the others. That Tim had found it much earlier than her and that Samantha ran into it on the exact same night things got a little crazier. But with her it was always him.

She wished she could say that Sethys was a beautiful, sparkling person who loved her. That he took her out on fantastic dates and they spent hours gazing longingly into each other's eyes.

The problem with that was that Sethys was a monster of a man.

And many of these dreams turned into nightmares.
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They began innocently enough. Actually they started a lot like flying dreams, except without the flight. The exhuberance and ecstasy that you felt were there, though. Sharon was running at what felt like close to a hundred miles per hour, the bright lights and toxic fumes of a city speeding past her. The dreams always gave off a sense of nostalgia, as if she'd been to the place they happened in and it felt very much like home.

Her body stopped, somehow, atop a very tall building. Dreams always had weird jumps of logic like that. Looking down below her, she could see the entire city. A vast array of glittering lights, all shifting in various patterns as they flashed or turned on and off. If there was something sparkling in her dream reality, it was this place. Sharon smiled and relaxed on the top of the building, the wind blowing a bit cold against her odd skintight outfit. The vividness of these things was always a bit of a shock.

This segment was sometimes longer or shorter, sometimes involving complicated and criminal acts of great skill and daring. Hey, it was her fantasy. This time it was unfortunately short. Sethys' harsh and cold voice echoed through her ears and into her head, somehow. What they talked about was never explained, but it didn't matter. It meant that she had to leave.
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Sethys lived in a metallic realm of clear lines and right angles, entirely different from the blurred and bouncing lines of the city. For all she knew, the two dream segments could take place in entirely different dimensions. Going back to this place was a little like re-entering school after a long weekend, except worse. The sense of dread was far stronger, and Sharon didn't really fear school.

When she entered, she always saw him from the back due to the location of the entrance to his room. Sethys was huge from her perspective, although she wasn't sure if this was because he was tall or because she seemed to be pretty short. Or possibly just because she was terrified of him. He had long, matted white hair that fell from his head and behind him, although it spiked bizarrely in some place. Maybe Sethys used a whole ton of hair gel.

He dressed in a black and red outfit similar to hers, although it was armored in places (such as his chest and arms) that hers was not. She didn't know what he looked like (as he wore a black mask with red stripes underneath his eyes), but guessed he was maybe forty or fifty years old. His voice was too rough to be anyone young.

They didn't speak at length, and Sharon appeared to have gotten lucky this time. Whatever she was doing out there in paradise, she had done it correctly. This happened in some of the dreams. But she could quickly recall others in which bones were shattered and skin was ripped. In which she was talked down to and called worthless, unfit to live. In which all of these wounds were healed quickly and painfully by some substance so that she could go out and do it all over again. And though she grasped that he was no relation of hers, Sharon got the feeling this had been happening for some time.
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Sharon woke up with a jolt in her own, warm bed. Sharon glanced around the room, her books lining the walls and her stuffed animals to the side of her bed. Sharon rubbed her forehead irritably. She wasn't really sure what in the world the source of these dreams was. She had lived with sweet, forgiving parents and had switched between loyal groups of friends her whole life. There was no reason she understood that she'd be working for a madman and getting beaten to death in her dreams. It didn't make much sense.

Granted there was part of her that was inexplicably drawn to the creep, but only while she was awake. Dream Her couldn't stand him. This discrepancy she supposed came from the different perspectives they had on the situation. But why would there be a difference? Dreams were supposed to reflect the dreamer's innermost thoughts.

Whatever. It didn't really matter. The whole house was lighting up, anyway. Time to head to high school and meet the day. And whatever came with it.

((Ohgod, why did I write that? Ohwell. I may just get another brain aneurysm and write someone else's segment. ; )  ))

[KitsuneMarie]

I love how the dream you describe is utterly fantastical and full of unusual imagery that is juxtaposed with some things that are much more typical to dreams (suddenly appearing somewhere else, certain feelings or bits of knowledge that defy logic, recurring dreams). I think everyone can identify with large sections of what you're describing.

I also really enjoy how you talk about how Sharon is attracted to him outside the dream yet repulsed by him within it. For me, things are generally the other way around, so I'm interested in this twist and definitely want to read more!

And don't worry about sharing this. We all have our stories we've been nurturing over a long time like this, whether we've written them or not. At least yours is substantive; I would be far too embarrassed to write mine

[itw2009]

uh-oh. embarrassing? that means you should definitely write yours, marie.

also, i second a lot of marie's post- i like your writing very much. :3

and sometimes people just happen to like 'mary sue'. xD i mean, twilight?  and large portions of harry potter?

i dunno. maybe mary sue is just the way to get people into your story..... O_____o maaaaybeee....

[Shenmue654]

Apparently this abomination isn't as godawful as I expected. Though it is really embarassing to write for obvious reasons. I mean (other than Stephanie Meyer *Groooooaaann*. Who apparently is not a very likable person at all, judging from Bella) nobody writes this kind of thing down! XD

So thank you for acknowledging me, and I'm debating writing more of it for some mad reason. But since I have the GESB as "readers..." ...I want advice as to what "direction" I should take with the next run.

Sharon should be easy but embarassing to write for obvious reasons, and you get a creepy voyeuristic glance into my perception of high school at age fourteen. But I also need to establish the starting points of the other four lead characters. So should I take up where I left off or start another person's version of that night? I know them all; we've discussed it at length.

[KitsuneMarie]

I think I want a hint as to the perspective of other characters soon, but that's your call on whether you want to introduce them immediately.

[Shenmue654]

((Alright, here we go. Since Tim is going to be the easiest to write I'm starting the next segment with him. ))

Timothy Vance lay flat on his back waiting for sleep. It had been another terrible night. He'd had one of those "talks" with his father---the kind that usually ended with the man yelling about "what a gay pussy he was." Tim wasn't gay. He just wasn't a complete slobbering idiot when it came to women or life, and he preferred ladies with a little psychological strength. Did that mean he was somehow wrong and not manly enough? Ugh. The complaints never stopped.

Thankfully Tim wasn't planning on sticking around very much longer. In a few minutes he would be living in his true home---as a warrior in the Dream Realm. A fighter of Nightmares, a protector of the innocent. He had a beautiful wife and planned to have kids soon. His father did not know about what happened when he slept, nor did anyone else. They would all think I was mad, mused Tim with a slight grin. And I might be. But they've never had lucid dreams on this level before.

Tim felt himself losing consciousness and noted as he left that there were a few things left unfinished at the office. He'd been seeing some bizarre activity in people's dreams in the region and he wondered dimly if all was not well with the minds of people in the big city. But...it was time to go. He'd have to think of it when he got there.
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The dream he actually was supposed to have that night was utterly nonsensical. Something about how his homework was late and how everyone in school was a fish. The underwater effects were pretty spectacular, though. He'd have to try to remember what he saw when he woke up, as it would make for an interesting sketch. Either way it was pretty easy to find the door.

Tim opened the door and wandered calmly into the white hall just outside of his personal dreamscape. He was wearing shining metal armor coupled with chainmail and leather. It was painted with a pleasant multi-pointed crystal in some areas---the official symbol of the Celestial Knights on Eremis. He carefully checked his belt to make sure his weapon was present and started off down the hall. Several knights who had a transport system similar to his casually waved to him. Tim waved back with a warm smile.

The hall led out into a vast lobby, with various cusiony chairs for visitors and Knights to sit in. Simple signs in the Dream Realm's language were printed on the walls. The whole place was kind of doctor's office esque. Waiting in the hall for him was a very short but dangerous-looking man. The man wore deep blue and silver armor, with his helmet covering his face. Tim bowed low. This was his boss---the Black Knight of Eremis and one of the lead Knights.

"Good morning, sir," stated Tim very politely, saluting. "There was something you wanted to ask me about?
"Yes, before you awake," muttered the Black Knight in a deep echoing voice. "There's been some kind of...problem talked about recently. A Nightmare has been sighted wandering these halls. But he doesn't match any known species or entity on record. And he is not any variation of Lord Nightmare himself."

"That's weird," stated Tim cautiously, frowning. "New Nightmares are few and far between, sir. I fight the same six guys practically every week. He didn't look like a new type of minion?"

The Black Knight shakes his head. "He...looked cold and cruel, and quite young. I assumed at first that he was the form of a sleeping dreamer. But he radiated dark power. He seems to be wandering the halls of dreamers in your area. I want you to investigate, Timothy. Something is going on here and I don't like it."

Timothy nods, looking disturbed. The Black Knight did not usually ask him to do odd favors like this. From his tone it was clear this little run wasn't exactly okay with the higher-ups. He was basically asking Timothy to pry into other people's dreams without permission. But his intuition was also probably right. "Y...Yes, sir," said Timothy hesitantly.

The Black Knight then walked away without a word. He wasn't big on small talk. But try as he might, Timothy wasn't even really sure where to begin with the big guy's mission. The best place to look would be inside the dreams of kids in his own school. He had noticed some strange stuff earlier. But before he could begin, he heard the dim sound of somebody screaming at him. What the hell was that...
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"Timothy, get up right now! You have to get to the bus! We don't have all day to wait for you!"

Timothy groaned and forced himself up. Great, mission's going to have to wait. I have to go to school. At least I'll see Joshua there. He's always good at cheering me up. Timothy then threw on his shirt and pants and pulled his school books and sketchpad together. It was time to get inside the car with his family. Time to wake up.

[KitsuneMarie]

Beautiful descriptions, as always! I really liked the moment when Tim shifted from the normal dream to the office area. You do a great job of letting us know a lot about a character in a short space. Dang, I wanna be a Celestial Knight of Eremis! That sounds awesome! XD

[Shenmue654]

I can't believe I'm seriously thinking about starting up this madhouse again. Maybe it's just because I'm getting bored of my life and have nothing better to do. XD But...here's a question for those of you who actually did read it:

There's a third perspective I could bring into the story at this moment so that I can establish the full background of the dream sequences and their aftermath. But...that third perspective belongs to a person who is no longer my friend.  I think writing it would be painful to me, and this horrible thing is all about me screwing around and having fun.

So I might just kind of ignore her when I write this, or not. Or I might switch into the school scene, in the perspective of someone who didn't have a "dream sequence." Suggestions?

[Myitt]

Wow, great stuff Kells!  I think I know who some of these people might be analogues of   Love the detailed descriptions, it's always so easy to get into your character's stories!

[KitsuneMarie]

Hmm, if you don't want to or aren't ready to face something painful, I wouldn't push myself. Someday, you may decide to write a memoir of sorts and be ready to write about something painful, but if today's not the day, then today's not the day.

[Shenmue654]

((Hmm. I guess I shall bring in the third now, seeing as this person will exist from "Day One" and I need to introduce one of the major settings. This'll be a more "normal" chapter given the writer, although it is weird as hell to try and write as someone you talk to almost every day. Although she's going to kill me for naming her Samantha. XD And yes…this madness is where it comes from. ))

Samantha Revall's dreams were on the more normal side in comparison with those of Timothy Vance. Although they did involve a rather large number of fantastical scenarios and...spaceships. These were mainly living spaceships that spoke to you and were sometimes irritated by the thought of carrying another loud, boring human passenger. Sam wasn't really sure exactly what attracted her to the glorious transports of the sky, but there was something deeply romantic about them and the world they lived in. Space in general, really. It was vast and beautiful and shining, a void in which the only method of transport was graceful flight. Sam had an awful lot of flight-related dreams, too.

Sam was smiling and sketching parts of her dream on the bus that morning. There was always a bit of nervousness that accompanied entering a new school. Samantha was the type of girl that would have preferred her summers to never end. School was a tedious thing and it took her forever to do anything in it. Not to mention that middle school had been a bit of a hellish affair in some spots. With any luck, high school would be much easier to deal with. Unfortunately, both the old idiots and her close friends   from middle school were coming here.  It was great that her buddy Shawn was coming back, but to say that she was less than thrilled to see that moron Daniel was the understatement of the year.

She’d been to the high school once before, and recognized it as the bus was coming up on the grounds. Everyone in the freshman class had had to go to an orientation meeting with their new home room teacher.  The homeroom teacher was…an excitable old man named Mr. Stephens.  He seemed alright, for an overly-enthusiastic Special Education teacher. It had to be better than the odious jerk she’d had before. But then again, you’d pretty much have to be Hitler to be worse than him.

The school was rather large and average-looking on both the inside and the outside. The overall color scheme was a rather timid blue and white, but the layout just screamed “We’re a well-funded institution that rich kids go to! Donate money to us!” Every inch of the place was sparkling clean all the time (well, except for the bathrooms), and her classmates seemed to mostly consist of fun-looking boys in shirts too big for them…and preppy girls. Oh, the joy of education.  

Samantha’s homeroom actually wasn’t in any of these gleaming made-for-visitors areas. It was in a dark, out-of-the-way hallway that looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in two months.  The lights probably hadn’t been changed, either. There were a couple kids hanging around on the outside of the hallway, waiting for class to draw them into the homeroom.  All of these kids were varying degrees of scruffy and out of the way themselves.  Most Special Education participants were, though. Sam prided herself on at least having a well-kept appearance.

Before she could ready herself for the no-doubt-dull lecture ahead however, something very bizarre happened.  At first she thought the school’s PA system was on the fritz, but that didn’t really explain why there were so many of them. There were a thousand voices chattering all at once in her mind, filling her head with an almost party-like effect. She could barely make one out from the other, and laid against the wall to attempt to stem the tide. Whatever this was, it was insane. Maybe she hadn’t taken her medicine that morning?

“Hey, are you okay? You look kind of sick,” said a rather serious-sounding voice.

Sam looked up and pain and noticed a concerned-looking female student around her own age. The girl had hair that looked like it had been through a freaking hurricane and survived, but other than that she looked okay. Average, really.  However, she was making it even harder to concentrate.

“Look, can we please talk later? I’m busy,” Samantha carefully uttered. She’d said the same thing many times to get other people to leave. It’d probably work here.

“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” said the girl, looking even more worried. Ugh, how annoying could you get?

“It’s okay! I’m seriously busy!”  Samantha said again, a bit louder this time.  The girl really needed to learn how to take a freaking hint.  However, that was about when the muttering came into sharp focus.

For some reason she could now clearly hear the high, arrogant voice of a German man.  There was something very regal about the way he spoke, almost princely. But it also wasn’t right somehow. He was saying, “Oh honestly, I know there has been some unusual interference in the network. But you can’t possibly blame me for it. I haven’t made a move on the Source’s channels in decades.”

The person responding to him was much more laid-back. He might as well have been some jock watching football on his couch for all she knew. However, there was a squeakier note to it. "Oh, who else could it possibly be? Either way, we can't have the cute little normal ones getting involved in our affairs. You will hear from the Big Four again. Not that it matters to you."

Sam slowly got off the wall and sat up, also now hearing the bell to cue her going into homeroom for that day.  The voices slowly dimmed away and then stopped.  And that was the last she heard of it for the entire day.  Ordinarily she would have said something about it, but didn’t seem to be coming back. Samantha also didn’t generally burden other people with her personal problems. Maybe it really was a fluke of the medicine.

Still, she didn’t like the incident at all. It was an ominous way to start a new year in a new school.

[KitsuneMarie]

Weeeeeird! I wanna read more!

[Shenmue654]

((And we're back to this insanity. Oh well. I kind of like it. I'm desperate to write something. Not using my "art" makes Kelly Sad Mode. We've also rebounded to Sharon. We'll switch between the POVs of the three characters for the time being. Also, you have no idea how many times I've re-used "Destiny Heroes" as a possible kid's show name. XD ))

Sharon's day at school, on the other hand, was ordinary in every sense of the word. There were a few changes between high school and middle school, however. It seemed as though rather than the bizarre half-day system her middle school had used, you transferred between classes in high school in numerical order. This made considerably more sense to Sharon, although it meant that she went through seven classes each day rather than four. The teachers seemed somewhat more respectful and easier to deal with as well. Well, with the possible exception of the insane Special Education gym teacher.

He was tall and muscular, and probably no younger than thirty-five. He had an unpleasant face and an unpleasant expression, which already made him incredibly unsuitable for his job. What made it worse was that he was also the school's football teacher. He spent his time belittling disabled students about their lackluster physical performances. Although this worked as a motivator for those in the higher-functioning ranges, it seemed contrary to the whole idea of a Special Ed gym class.

She suspected she'd met a new friend in the class, though. It was this girl she'd spoken to about earlier, Samantha. She had looked ill, but seemed fine once she'd made it into gym class. She liked being called "Sam" and seemed to enjoy anime and video games as much as Sharon did. They had talked about meeting online in order to have some fun. Sharon thought it was probably worth the extra effort. After all, she didn't know anyone in the entire school.

At the moment, Sharon was sitting up against the faded green backing of the school bus. She was listening to a boy named Daniel blather on for hours about various cartoons and shows they both liked. He was a decent enough guy to hang out with while coming back from school, but he seemed a little bit over-obsessed with certain subjects. Not that she wasn't.

"So do you know about Sethys yet?" Daniel muttered in one of his usual out-of-context statements. "He's really cool. He's the main villain from Destiny Heroes."

This particular comment sent a chill straight up Sharon's spine. It quickly brought up an image of that man from Sharon's constant nightmares. An entirely new bit sprouted up as if from nowhere. It showed a young Sharon, terrified, strapped to a bloody medical examination table. Sethys was there, too. His eyes were cold and pitiless.

Daniel, meanwhile, was totally oblivious to her expression. He was still talking. "It's about four heroes in the city who were chosen by magic light crystals and given great power. They live in a dystopian future in which crime is endemic and people called metahumans have sprouted up---"

Daniel frowned. It looks like he'd finally caught on. "...hey, are you okay Sharon? You look like you're gonna be sick."

Sharon shook her head back and forth. She'd gotten all worked up over a stupid coincidence. Her Sethys had absolutely nothing to do with this ridiculous show he was describing. He lived in a world of bright lights and pain, a world that only existed in her mind. Whatever was bothering her wouldn't make sense to anyone else. "I'm fine, Daniel. What were you saying?"

Sharon listened as Daniel continued to talk. All she had to do was get home. Just make it back and maybe she'd never have another one of those demented, alluring dreams again.

[KitsuneMarie]

More! More! Very intriguing. I love the juxtaposition of the mundane and fantastic; it's really jarring!

[Shenmue654]

((Apparently I'm coming back to the weirdness. I'm hopeless to my core. XP There's just something sickly enjoyable about conveying your private world to someone else, especially when you're bored out of your mind. We're back to Timothy again, in hopes that the poor guy'll get farther in the Black Knight's request. Which he will, probably. ))

Timothy's day at school had been fairly uneventful. He had met Joshua on the grounds as usual, and they had gone through their classes together. Joshua wasn't an unusual boy of fourteen, but he wasn't incredibly normal either. He had short, distinctive black hair with an odd texture to it and glasses. He spent most of his time in school attempting to work, but it seemed as though he never really enjoyed it much. What wasn't spent in class was used to convey various humorous anecdotes to Timothy during lunchtime. They hadn't known each other long, but it was good to have a friend he could trust.

After school, Timothy arrived at his house and had dinner with his family. Family dinners were considered an important element of closeness by his father and so Timothy's entire family had to attend. They usually didn't turn out too badly, and this one was uneventful. But as the years had passed, Timothy had begun to feel as if he were being talked down to. He was a teenager, and a person with his own life and interests. He didn't want to conform to his family's wishes at the expense of his own any longer. Still, it was better to avoid his family's anger than not.

After dinner, Timothy went into his room and tried to focus on his homework. He was a pretty diligent kid, and it was due tomorrow anyway. But try as he might, he couldn't think straight. He was still puzzling over what the Black Knight had told him to do. His boss had always been a stickler for rules and was downright paranoid about infractions. Ordering Timothy into another person's private dream world was not only an insult to the person but criminal in Eremis. The second problem with the order was that he had no idea how to jump into someone else's dream. The entrances in the Main Hall that led into another person's head were always locked. The only way he could get inside was by connecting to another person's mind when he slept. But he'd never done it before.

((I'll pause here so I can go home. ))
Post Merged: April 07, 2011, 09:52:18 AMApparently I'm too lazy and busy to finish this post. Ah well, I'll come back to it later.