Dark and quiet Characters: Dahlia and Jake When: Tuesday around 1am Location: Keep – The Pool room Warnings/Rating: NA Summary: Dahlia doesn’t like people leaving Status: Complete
Otis was gone. A familiar ache had taken up residence in Dahlia’s chest but she didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t want to give it room to grow…or etch itself in so deep that she couldn’t get it back out again. She wanted to…forget. She was a forgetful person. She forgot food. And sleep. All of which was starting to show. She forgot to check on her father. Or to take him to his appointments. She forgot when she’d completed the last coat of paint on a project to know if it was near dry or not. She started things and forgot she’d started them at all, all the time. So why couldn’t she forget this ache? Why couldn’t she forget the people? It would be easier wouldn’t it? To not remember them at all…
Dahlia shifted slightly on the pool step; resting her head against the edge as she watched the water faintly sway under the movement. The room around her was pitch black; every inch of light had been banished the moment she’d slipped into the water. Maybe it wasn’t fair; what if someone else wanted to use the pool? Maybe it wasn’t kind; what if someone was scared of the dark or tripped coming in the room? Dahlia couldn’t get herself to care. She wanted the dark. She wanted no one else to be able to see her.
A little paw reached out and tugged at Dahlia’s hair; Max curled up on her pile of clothes, had been doing that each time Dahlia rested her head near him. Whapping at the damp strands, chewing on them sometimes, then falling back to sleep.
She didn’t know why she’d grabbed him before going into the Keep earlier. He was fine in the cabin with Sin. That’s where his toys and food were. She told herself he wouldn’t even want to come with her into the Keep but…here he was anyways. She didn’t want to want him here. She was trying to distance; to remove that care to make the ache go away. Max made it worse.
He didn’t seem to realize that.
His claws pulled her hair and with a dramatic flop of his head; he was asleep again.
Dahlia sighed faintly as she slowly detangled her hair from his grasp and slipped further into the water. She couldn’t swim, not really, but she found comfort in the still water around her. The…vacant feeling the room had. The…utter silence.
It wasn’t silent in her own head…no not at all. That only made her crave the silence of the room around her even more. She already had too much noise; too much chaos…she didn’t need more to muddle her head up. Could her head get any more confused? She had thought no…this place liked to prove her wrong.
Everything she’d thought about the dome was wrong. All her reasons for coming here. Her reasons for staying. It left her uncertain. She wanted to ask them…the others around her…why they stayed. She knew why Sin did and Dahlia was certain there were others like her; others that had only jail or prison or bad things to return to. There had to be those like Dahlia however. Those that choose to come here and now choose to stay in all of these games for…..why?
Why.
She still had nowhere else to go but what did that matter? She’d never really had anywhere to be before the dome so what did it change to have nowhere to go now? What if her father had sold the house? What if all her things were gone? Dahlia had no money and no skills for the real world. She could barely function in her own world of her own making let alone outside of it.
Fingers curled against the stair; claws chipping some of the material as her fingers tightened their grip and frustration spurred their presence. All she ever had were questions. Questions and aches and confusion.
It made…
A part of her was angry. The part of her that mocked and pushed and argued. The part that didn’t care about being nice and agreed on not caring about others either. A part of her that made the ache throb and twist until she wanted to nearly claw at her own chest to make it stop.
Lips set in a hard line as Dahlia pushed away from the steps and walked further out into the water. One step and another until she struggled to keep hear head above water.
And then…she just didn’t.
Letting the world, the dark, the thoughts, blur away for a moment to the water.