Who: Melissa Woodcock and Raz Callaghan What: Dreamplot! Where: Melissa’s subconscious? When: November 15th Why: Because Melissa had some tea and now she’ll never have tea again. Rating: TBD? Though I wouldn’t imagine too high Status: In Progress
It took Melissa a few moments to figure out where she was. Which was odd considering she knew this place rather well. It was the house they’d had in Spain--one of her favourites. The walls were brightly coloured, but not in an overwhelming way and there were tons of bookshelves. She was in her bedroom, or rather the bedroom she shared with both of her sisters. But for once, everything was put away. Virginia and Bethany usually attempted to keep things tidy for their youngest sister’s peace of mind, but this was beyond that. This was organized the way Melissa preferred it. The books were sorted to the Dewey Decimal System, and the clothes were organized by item and color and even the desk was cleaned and orderly.
It was quiet. Which was also odd. Five siblings and two boisterous parents meant that things were rarely so serene in the house. Still, it was a comforting sort of quiet, rather than an eerie one. There was soft music coming from...well she assumed somewhere. Piano. It was relaxing and nice. She closed her eyes for a moment, just taking in how peaceful it all was.
When she opened her eyes, the lighting in the house had changed. Well, and the house had changed. This was Brazil. The room was much smaller and there were things everywhere. And the foliage from outside had a habit of creeping inside. They were practically in the jungle and the weather was downright oppressive. Somewhere in the hut there was someone arguing...though she couldn’t tell whose voices they were. She glanced around the room and as her eyes settled on the bookshelf she could feel her chest getting tighter. She couldn’t tell if it was the humidity or the fact that half the books were on the floor and the other half were shoved into the bookshelf haphazardly and without any sort of order. She tried to take a deep breath--her usual first step--but it didn’t help. She was trying to remember how the books were supposed to be arranged in the Caverna da Pedra Pintada house, but these weren’t the correct books. Or she wasn’t remembering correctly, which didn’t make sense because she always remembered correctly. She was picking up and reading titles, but none of them were volumes she recognized. She could feel herself getting worked up as the piles of books seemed to grow around her.
---
When Raz had come across Melissa’s sleeping frame, she’d already read the warning and heard the subsequent announcements on how to wake up those who were still asleep. There was absolutely no hesitation when Raz seen the other girl, she crouched down and placed a hand over Melissa’s and waited. The transition from waking to sleeping was oddly smooth, Raz didn’t even remember falling asleep when she was in the middle of a house she didn’t recognize, in a country she couldn’t possibly place. There was jungle at every window, thick green plants that seemed to be creeping inside and Raz watched them momentarily before looking around at the rest of the house. It was dark, dank and almost grimy looking, she frowned as she walked through what appeared to be the living room and then down the hall. Each room looked just as neglected and abandoned as the last.
When she reached one of the last doors, Raz noticed it wasn’t exactly closed but it wasn’t open like the others. She peered in through the small crack and the door creaked open as if she’d pushed it. In the middle of a dark and mess room sat Melissa, an ever growing stack of books surrounded her. It was unmistakable chaos and disorder. She looked stressed and upset, Raz crouched down next to her and touched her shoulder briefly to get her attention. “Hello Melissa,” she said in a low, calm voice. “Do you remember who I am?” Raz offered her a small and comforting smile.
---
Melissa had been trying to sort through the mess, but it seemed like everything she tried only made matters worse. When she was able to stack and organize one section, something else fell out of order and by the time she fixed it, the first section was back in disarray. Logically, she knew that the chaos in front of her wasn’t particularly life threatening, but this house had always left her on edge and those feelings were coming back in full force as she stared at the growing mess in front of her. Her palms started sweating and her breathing was becoming slightly more shallow as the beginnings of a panic attack were starting to show.
She hadn’t heard the other girl enter. It wasn’t until the hand hit her shoulder and she heard the voice that she realized there was someone else in the room and she jumped in surprise.
“Oh.” She held a hand to her chest and could feel her heart pounding beneath her fingers. “I---Um.” She was already flustered and trying to place the girl was difficult. She was very clearly not a native of Brazil and Melissa knew all of the other children of her parents’ colleagues very well. But her face was familiar. She hated not having the answer at the front of her mind. She was usually much quicker than this. “I know that I---” She broke off, shutting her eyes and sifting through memories. “Raziela. Calaghan. 6th year at Olympus. But what are you---” She broke off again, her face going sheet white and her pale eyes widening. “Sp...Spider.” She managed to stammer out, raising a hand to point over the girl’s shoulder. Which, being Brazil, wasn’t quite an accurate description because it was definitely not an ordinary house spider. This was a massive, blackish brown spider, crawling across the wall over the door.
---
Personally Raz didn’t have much issue with disorganization, she certainly kept her room in order but never found herself upset about it as Melissa was at the moment. She knew the other woman was special though, figured that out fairly quickly when they’d first met. Raz had taken a liking to her straight away but other than brief conversations or the odd moment of explaining something, they weren’t exceptionally close. Mostly because Raz kept herself at arms length from most people and was a little reticent to say the least. If she could help Melissa escape what she was realizing was a nightmare, she’d do anything she could.
Raz smiled encouragingly as Melissa struggled to find the answer to who she was. “Yes, that’s right,” she replied softly, nodding her head. She’d just been about to explain their situation when Melissa stopped and pointed over Raz’s shoulder. Following the line of her arm to the wall, Raz pulled back at the rather large spider on the wall and calmed her heart rate. Like most people she wasn’t overly fond of spiders, she took issue with their creepy, spindly legs but Raz was well aware that the spider wasn’t real and neither was anything else. “It’s alright,” she said coolly, offering yet another comforting smile. “That isn’t real, much like all of this,” gesturing around the room, Raz stood and walked over to the spider. “You’re dreaming, Melissa. I’m afraid you’ve ingested some magic substance that was in the water,” she reached out to touch the spider, hand hesitating a moment before going in. “None of this is real, you’re asleep on the floor.”
---
Melissa had been almost 5 when they lived in this house. They had lived in other parts of Brazil as well, but this house was from when she was 5. Her parents had been called in to help with the dig at Caverna da Pedra Pintada and had jumped at the chance. Melissa was young, but her memory being so good, there was very little she’d forgotten about it over the years. And that spider was definitely the same kind that she’d seen eating a bird while she’d been playing with her sisters outside of this very house. So when Raz went over to touch it, Melissa let out a small squeak of horror and reached to stop the younger woman. She wasn’t paying much attention to what Raz was saying about this not being real and so when the spider disappeared, she recoiled in shock, scooting backwards across the floor and slipping on one of the many books that still littered it.
“What---I don’t---What just happened? What is going on?” None of this made sense and she could feel her need for logic and order squeezing her insides.
--- It was strange for Raz to be in the middle of someone else's nightmare and she was glad she hadn’t drank any of the water. The idea of having someone in her dreams, in her nightmares was a horrible uncomfortable thought. As an extremely guarded individual, Raz rarely let anyone in and almost never shared her thoughts if she could help it. The only person who could claim to really know her was Eden. Oh god, Eden. Fear struck through her at the thought of her little sister going through precisely this situation and Raz felt an urgency to wake up Melissa.
Logically Raz knew she couldn’t let her own emotions affect Melissa, not when she was sitting in the other woman’s own personal nightmare. She took a moment to collect herself before speaking. “You’re sleeping,” she said again, looking down at Melissa with gentle eyes. “This,” Raz gesture to the room again, to the mess and chaos. “None of it is real. There was something in the water, something that dropped people into dreams which turn into nightmares apparently and I’m sorry to say, you were one of them,” Raz took a small step toward Melissa, held out her hand for her to take. “You’ll be alright once you wake up. You’ve only got to believe that this is just a dream and it’ll end. I think you suspect it might be,” a moments pause. “Why else would you have trouble remembering who I was?”
---
Melissa frowned as Raz spoke and she tried to make sense of what the other woman was saying. Sleeping? Something in the water? Her head was swimming and it was hard to focus on anything for too long because the mess was still growing in the room and Melissa was at least 60% sure she just saw another spider crawling near the bed. She shook her head in an attempt to clear it. Compartmentalizing was not one of her skills.
“A nightmare?” She questioned. “But I…” She shook her head again as she took a hold of Raz’s hand and let the younger woman pull her up to her feet. Logic. Reason. Order. Her pillars in everything. And none of that could be applied to this situation. After all, what was she even doing in Brazil? But before she could reason herself out of this madness, a scream--loud and panicked--came from somewhere else in the house. “That’s--That’s my sister.” She said softly, still holding onto Raz’s hand and unsure of what to do. What if Raz wasn’t telling the truth? What if her sister was hurt or in trouble or worse? It was a moment of hesitation but then the blonde was moving to get around Raz in order to find out if Bethany was alright.