InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I put it down for my hood!"

Vlad Drăgoi {Dracula} (nobleblood) wrote in bellumlogs,
@ 2010-05-24 22:44:00

Entry tags:

dracula, van helsing

Who: Vlad and Aiden
What: A dream encounter
Where: Dreamland
When: Friday night
Warnings: TBD

Vlad's dreams had never been particularly pleasant, but over the past few months they had become even worse: Dracula's influence began to seep into the territory which had once been his, and sometimes he wasn't sure if what he was experiencing was an actual memory or something fabricated by his imagination. It was a world of unending darkness, marred by the sweet stench of death underlain by syrupy-thick blood, and he did everything he could to ensure that Helena would never be able to receive even a whisper of what went through his mind during the night hours.

Tonight was no different. He was in the same gothic-style castle that appeared in numerous dreams, built of unfeeling stone meant to last centuries. The windows were nothing more than rounded openings in the walls, yet he had a perfect view of the landscape below from where he stood, regarding the (his) land below with a sort of cold calculation that wasn't entirely his own. It was almost beautiful in the sense that the view was breathtaking, rolling hills and vast expanses of flat ground as far as the eye could see, with the magnificent outline of mountains in the distance. Not even the carnage could take away from the wonder, and if anything only added to the visual sharpness. Impaled upon countless stakes were bodies, some long since dead and others still twitching in the throes of death.

In the blink of an eye the entire scene melted to nothing and reshaped itself, too quick for him to focus on for long. Now Vlad found himself outside, close enough to the impaled bodies to see that they were actually mannequins instead. None of them had any faces - thee was only smooth blankness where features should have been - and they were clad in a series of bizarre bloodstained outfits. Only the long-haired wigs indicated that they were meant to be female, and he cursed the building and its influence on his dreams. Even though he'd left that room and its riddle behind, it seemed he wasn't going to be allowed to forget about it just yet. His castle had vanished as well, leaving only himself and the impaled mannequins to fill the empty landscape.

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arcere
2010-05-25 05:02 am UTC (link)

Aiden had never been one for dreaming. On the rare occasions that he did, they were strange, fleeting, and uneventful, and by morning he tended to forget them. There had been a period of time where his dreams had been nothing but nightmares - eight years ago - but after a prolonged period of insomnia they went away. And in any case, he'd never been a lucid dreamer. There were better things to do at night than run around inside yoru own head. Working, for one.

So when he passed out at his desk late at night (or early in the morning, if you looked at it that way), he didn't expect to start walking. He didn't expect to be ... coherent even while he knew he was sleeping. For a while, things were faded gray and silent; under his feet, the ground crunched like it was dusted with snow and frost. He smelled smoke. Something burning, following him.

Then the grayness darkened, sharpening into shapes - long, thin, cylindrical ... trees? Aiden paused and put a hand against one, feeling bark under his fingers. Yes, trees ... then what? Where was he dreaming about? Above him, some of the leaves gave way to a dark, starless sky.

-- and then he was at the edge of the trees, looking out over a valley with a castle in the center. He didn't know the castle, but someone else did. Someone whispered the familiarity in the back of his mind, and a cold feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. It was made a thousand times worse when he took one step forward and was suddenly on the castle grounds, at the edge of the courtyard, which was filled with --

Jesus Christ!

-- No, not bodies. Mannequins. Long-haired ones, impaled on massive spikes. Just like ...

The chill in Aiden's gut spread to his entire body.

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nobleblood
2010-05-25 05:49 am UTC (link)

Vlad was aware of the way dreams worked in the building, and he had never quite forgotten his encounter with Emil all those months ago - but no one had intruded upon his dreams in quite some time, so it had ceased to become a major worry.

Until now, that is.

He could sense the arrival of someone else; an intruder, someone who didn't belong here. Although the content of his dream could have been much worse, faceless female mannequins impaled on spikes wasn't exactly innocent. He suspected that he knew who they were meant to represent, although it wasn't something he would ever admit to. His head turned slowly, almost leisurely, as though Vlad was generally unperturbed by the fact that he was no longer alone. His gaze locked on Aiden's with instant recognition, and he felt a flame of bitter hatred that was far too old to have belonged to him.

For a moment he just looked at him, the man who wanted him dead both as himself and Van Helsing. Vlad wondered which one of his loved ones he'd killed, whether it was his wife or his sister or perhaps even a daughter. He would give no apology and seek no redemption, because it was too late for any of that. Now, there was only this.

"Hello." That single word was spoken calmly and devoid of emotion, simply a means to begin the inevitable.