ceiltastic (ceiltastic) wrote in morningstar_mnr, @ 2008-08-22 00:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | gilly, grace |
Nightime, Thursday into Friday, Nightmare, Gilly & Grace, NPC Hunter.
There was blood in the Andover hallways. Gilly felt dizzy, like the room was spinning around her. She heard the distinct popping sound, she'd learned very quickly in early February of 2006, to associate with gunshots. The maniacal laughter that accompanied it was nothing new to Gilly's ears either. There was the screaming too. She remembered robotically running through the halls when this had happened in real life. Her palms were just as clammy as they had been bac then. They were, however, unusually steady.
"It's just a dream," She closed her eyes and reminded herself. "Dreams can't hurt you..." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"Guess again, 'Bullet'," The voice that had been letting out psychotic laughter seconds before, was talking now. The voice echoed over the loud speaker, reverberating off the walls of the otherwise empty building around her. It gave her the chills. "I'm coming for youuuuu!" The voice, that of Hunter Lockewood, rung out from the speakers. Gilly's breath hitched in her throat. Her heart sped up a lot. She imagined herself tossing and turning in her bed, ready to wake up. Clenching her eyes shut, she fought to visualize waking up. When she opened her eyes again, she was still in the Andover halls, Hunter's laughter echoing all around her. Gilly backed up the hall toward the closest stairwell.
She bumped into someone and then spun around with a gasp. As she backed away in a new direction, she tripped. Looking down, she realized that it was bodies she had tripped over - bodies of people she knew, people who were actually still alive, she reminded herself. Her breathing, nonetheless, became more erratic and heavy. She tried closing her eyes and visualizing waking up. When she opened them again, she discovered that she was now partially submerged in a river of blood that was flowing in the hallway. It was maybe half a foot deep. Here eyes were about as wide as they could be. Hunter lifted the intercom microphone to his mouth as he took a step or two closer to Gilly as she scrambled to crawl back away from him.
"Ohhhhh...poor little Gillian Madsen," He sung out, the words echoing still through the whole school. Hunter drew the words out with an exaggerated pout at her. "And her cute little Hero Complex." he laughed, edging ever closer as Gilly backed in the blood, slipping and sliding as she tried to get to her feet. A deep, throaty, heavy sound of derisive laughter rang through the school halls. Finally to her feet, Gilly backed against a classroom door which she immediately realized was a horrible mistake as it turned out that the door was locked.
"Awwwww," Hunter gleefully sang again, mocking her, clicking his tongue with a 'tsk, tsk, tsk' sound. "Oh no!" He gasped comically. "What to do! What to do!" He imitated a scared girl, making his voice go higher. "What do you do when there's no one left to save you?" He pouted at her again and reached one hand up to pretend to wipe his eyes as if he'd been crying.
Gilly sunk as far back against the door as she possibly could. She closed her eyes tight and turned her face away from Hunter's advancement. She tried not to start hyperventilating. Everything she'd tried so far to wake up hadn't worked. Usually, realizing it was a dream and picturing herself waking up had worked. Now it just seemed useless.
Hunter let out a gleeful little chortle at her discomfort and bounced on his toes, as if he was on a sugar high, before moving right on in to Gilly's personal space, leaning his face close to hers. "I'm in your head, not really here, hmm?" He inquired, laughing as he swung the intercom microphone into her gut. Gilly doubled over and slumped down to her knees, back into the red river, winded and hugging her stomach protectively. It had caused a dull 'thunk' sound over the speakers.
"Am I really here?" Hunter went on, leaning over in Gilly's face. "C'monnnnnn!" He suddenly shouted. "Where's that 'fight or flight' response, hmm?" He goaded. "What were people calling you? Altruistic? Ha! Where was that altruism when you knocked me into a coma? Huh? When you locked me into a closet afterward? Huh? Answer me!" He screamed, this time, he kicked her in the side to knock her further to the floor on her hands and knees.
"You're a murderer!" Gilly found her voice and shouted the comment, half her body was drenched in the blood on the floor as she climbed back to her shaky feet.
Hunter grabbed her by a handful of her hair and pulled her head back to look at her face. "So are you." He growled at her.
Gilly gritted her teeth together. She grabbed her left forearm with her right hand and reeled back, swinging her elbow into Hunter's gut as hard as she could. She didn't wait for his reaction, just knew his grip faltered and he'd released her. She scrambled away, sloshing in the pools of blood as she ran. The waterfall of of thick red liquid followed her down the stairwell, causing her to stumble and slip the whole way down. It cascaded in front of her as she burst into the first floor hallway and tried to slide to a stop before she collided with someone who had stepped out of a nearby classroom and right into her path. She tripped and sailed by the person's legs. The woman leaned over at once to stop her and Gilly started flailing as she let out a scream.
--
The halls of Andover High School weren't unfamiliar to Grace. She'd filled in and helped out after Nurse Kate Highmore had taken her maternity leave. She struggled to figure out just whose dream she was in. Then she heard the voice over the loud speaker. She'd never heard the voice before, and her urge to investigate started to lead her toward the door of the classroom she was in. She stopped when she'd heard gunshots and now the voice of what she suspected was Hunter Lockewood, was speaking to Gilly Madsen. Grace was sure this had to be the girl's dream. A wave of sympathy hit her. It had been two and a half years and this girl was still having nightmares.
Grace listened to the intercom and what was coming over it. she wasn't sure where in the school Gilly and Hunter would be. Grace opened the door to the classroom she was in but stayed put. She wouldn't begin to know where to start in searching. She listened more intently, fairly shocked and feeling a little helpless, to the intercom. Grace sometimes went in to sit with Hunter. She'd tried to get into his coma dreams but had never succeeded. Instead, she'd spoken to him, wondering why he'd done what he'd done, letting him know someone was there to sit with him so he wasn't alone all the time, trying to urge him to wake up - despite the fact that he'd spend the rest of his life probably in jail.
A flood of red liquid came rushing down the hall deep enough to cover up to Grace's ankles. She moved into the middle of hte hall, like she was wading into the shallow surf along the beach. What she could only assume was a blood-covered Gilly, came skidding up the hall. Grace reached out to stop Gilly's sliding trek and Gilly promptly started swinging and screaming.
"Gilly!" Grace shouted, grabbing the girl by her upper arms. "Gilly!" She added, louder this time and firmer.
Gilly stopped, deflated even. She was trembling as she stared at Grace, too scared to recognize the woman just yet. "I...I can't wake up. I can't wake up." Gilly repeated the mantra over and over in disbelief and clearly in shock, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Gilly, listen to me," Grace kept eye contact and spoke slowly. Gilly's eyes were clenched shut tight and she was whispering the 'I can't wake up' mantra still as if that would free her from the nightmare. Grace could see the pulse in Gilly's neck, it was racing so fast and hard. She gave Gilly a shake. "Gilly!" She shouted. Gilly's eyes finally popped open. "Listen to me," Grace repeated, voice firm. "This is just a dream. You're okay. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you." she promised as Gilly trembled. "We're gonna get out of this nightmare together, okay?" She asked, keeping everything about her, her demeanor, her voice, her facial expression, everything, calm. She'd been in a lot of nightmares, but wasn't sure she'd ever seen anyone so frightened of one before.
It took Gilly a long moment to recognize Grace, and a longer one for that hero complex to return. "You have to get out of here. Hurry! He's going to catch us!" She stumbled a bit and sloshed her way to a steady stance on her feet and tried to tug Grace toward the exit up the main hall full of that raging half foot river of blood.
Grace caught the comment, particularly the 'you have to' and not 'we have to' part. "I'm not leaving this building without, Gilly," She insisted.
Gilly kept glancing nervously over her shoulder. "Someone has to distract him." She argued.
"No, Gilly," Grace insisted again. "You don't have to protect me from a dream. It's not your job to protect me."
Gilly ignored her and dragged Grace by the wrist to the doors. The doors, however, were chained shut. Gilly pulled Grace then through the sloshing blood river and to the closest classroom, the one Grace had come out of. Grace watched Gilly and the door carefully. She had to be observant in dreams in order to be of any help. When it proved impossible to unlock a window, Gilly resorted to trying to break one of them with a desk chair. AFter repeatedly hitting the same window, the glass didn't even crack.
Grace's brow scrunched up at that. "Gilly," She didn't to to say anything more than that before a gritty, dry voice interrupted them.
Floating around the corner, Hunter moved like he was coasting on air, dragging in puddles of blood with him. "Well, well, well," He droned, unsurprised. "What do we have here, Gillian?" He grinned a wicked, crooked, twisted grin. "You've brought a visitor this time?" He threw his head back and laughed, ignoring Grace for the moment.
Like it was a reflex she couldn't control, Gilly dropped the chair and pulled Grace behind her. "this is my nightmare," she declared. "Don't make her live it." She said as she stared at Hunter, her voice shaking.
Hunter laughed merrily. Grace was piecing it together. Gilly couldn't escape. She was reliving a warped version of the shooting. This was not the first time, either. Without another word, Hunter grabbed Gilly again by a handful of hair and forcefully threw her out of the way and into the desks and chairs. Grace gasped and tried to head toward Gilly, the nurse in her taking over. Hunter sidestepped, grabbing her by the throat and giving her that twisted grin. "I know you..." He said, his face suddenly confused. He stared at her a moment longer.
Just as suddenly as it had started, the dream ended. Grace woke up in her bed, immediately propping herself up to her elbows. Gilly woke up in her bed, the result of J hearing her cries and shaking her awake.