Difference between revisions of "Log:Sweet Dreams"

22 May, 2018

After her last foray against the wildfire Olivia's sent to the hospital, and her mind goes on a wild ride.

Riverside Hospital - Residence Wing

The second to last thing Olivia saw was the woman she rescued getting some o2 as the emts were readying her up for a stretcher. Next was the concrete rushing to hit her right in the face. As her eyes flutter open she finds herself still on that street. The air is still pregnant with the smell of smoke along with something a bit stronger. A look around reveals that much of the street lies in cinders and ash. Nary another person can be seen, but she can see that she's not completely alone. Here and there charred bones litter the street as what little meat remains on their bodies still cooks.

Olivia's eyes flicker open slowly, her entire body aching, her lungs more than anything else. Her face isn't too happy either. Groaning softly, she pushes herself upright slowly, glancing around the now-abandoned area. She frowns, brow creasing deeply at the peculiar scene in front of her. "What...?" She rises up onto her feet, turning a bit in place to try and figure out what's going on. Why would everyone just leave her here? She starts walking slowly through the street, looking around as she picks her way around the charred remains. "Hello?" she calls, seeking ANYONE.

Initially, her search bears no fruit. Nothing of the destroyed clothing or burnt bodies tells a clue of who or what they might be. One, however, looks familiar enough. Around it lie the scorched bodies of several dogs. A bit of counting numbers them at seventeen. In the middle of it all is skeleton of somebody a slight bit shorter than Olivia. A few traces of white hair are are burned into the scalp and the leather the deceased wore seems to have melted into the ground. It doesn't take Olivia that much longer until she realizes it to be Velvet's corpse. Further and and off on the horizon towards the rest of the town and Fort Brunsett the blaze still churns as it burns away at the fuel that is the city and its people.

Olivia doesn't spot anything immediately recognizable. It's not like she makes attempts to identify charred corpses on a regular basis. But picking out Velvet isn't too much of a stretch as she gets close enough. Her breath catches in her throat and her eyes go wide as she steps back, shaking her head a bit. "No," she breathes softly, looking around again before her gaze goes back to the one familiar corpse. "How... you were fine... weren't you?" She swallows a bit drily, lifting her hands up to slide them into her hair, looking around the area a bit frantically. The fire wasn't that bad, was it? She spots the still burning blaze quickly enough, hands dropping back to her sides as she starts moving in that direction at a brisk pace.

There was no sound around. No screams, nothing breaking. Nothing. The closer Olivia gets to the edges of town she finds nothing of her surroundings town. Tamarack is a wasteland of ash covered in the husks of burned buildings. As she nears Fort Brunsett things come into vivid color. Much of the landscape is draped in the amber glow of flames tall enough to reach the heavens as chaos is wrought below. Buildings crumble. Sirens wail. The loudest of all are the screams. Men. Women. Children. As the seconds turn to minutes the cacophony becomes blinding white noise that can't be ignored.

Olivia looks over the city, vague horror at the sight of the entirety of it up in flames. The wildfire wasn't that bad! It wasn't! "What happened?" she says to no one in particular, trying to process the fact that the place where she grew up is being utterly and completely destroyed. Her hands rise again, pressing gently against her ears as the sounds of screaming simply grow louder and more difficult to ignore. She can't do anything about this. She can't help this. It's too much. It's too big. It's too late. Her eyes dart left and right a bit frantically, searching for something, ANYTHING she can do that might be useful.

The more she looks around for something to help more and more of the townsfolk die. Not a single soul is safe as the blaze consumes anything and everything. Her proves worthless as the town's life is burnt away by the second like a candle near its end. Olivia soon finds herself before the crown jewel of her family. The Red Clover Hotel. That once beautiful sign falls down as fires eat away it, and inside it sounds so much worse. Older sections collapse as flames wreath every inch of it, and the renovated areas are nothing more than a bottled display of burning death as people beg mercy before they're ripped from this mortal coil.

"No no no no no," Olivia says, the word coming over and over as though she can will it to be so. She hurries over to the hotel where her family resides, the walls lit up in flames along with everything else. Crashing and crumbling, screams and cries of agony, the sounds just don't stop. The fire doesn't stop. She stops outside the building, watching. Part of her wants to go in and help, but more of her knows she'd just watch people die. And burning is a terrible death. So she begins to back away, the urge to run taking hold. Get away. Stop listening. Stop watching.

Behind her the screams turn to cries for help. Please for forgiveness. Whatever mercy God can give. A few call her name out raspily until nothing remains beyond the crackle of the flame. From Red Clover Hotel she runs, and she finds herself near the old high school alma mater. The doors have been barred shut from the outside, and the screans from inside are near infinite. One of the many faces to be seen in the windows is of a young, red-headed girl banging on the windows as the fires come behind her. As she bangs on the window the distant sound of thunder can be heard.

Barred from the outside? Who would have done that? Olivia stares for a moment, confused, before moving to remove the obstruction keeping the people inside. Who would trap someone in a burning building like this?! But that's not important right now. "Hang on!" she calls, the sound of thunder vaguely registering somewhere in her mind, but not important.

Thunder booms once more as another flame approaches. The fire behind the little girl soon takes the shape of something red, scaled and pointed as it reaches for her. "Help!" she cries in a voice that sounds all too familiar. The window cracks under the little one's ministrations, but those lines are tiny. "Please!"

Olivia pauses as the flames behind the girl change, alter shape into something far more sinister. She just isn't sure who or what that is. Which is not exactly reassuring. "I'm trying!" she shouts back to the girl behind the glass. The familiarity is vaguely registered, butt it also falls under the category of 'not important right now.' She hauls at the barrier, pulling hard to try and get the door open.

"Hurry!" There's no give to the handles of the door, and, worse, it's blindingly hot to the touch. However, added effort eventually gets it open. The girl's almost within arms reach, but that great claw reaches out and catches the girl by her shirt. In the blink of an eyes she's yanked back and down a hallway. The hallways are lined with lockers - once blue now singed black. The small skeletons and bodies of the young can be found further and further down until hallway nothing remains but darkness everlasting.

"NO!" Olivia screams the word once more as she reaches out for the girl, only to see her snatched away by... something. She stops just inside the doorway, trying to process what's just happened. Or is happening. It isn't making a whole lot of sense yet. Slowly, carefully, she begins to pick her way down the hallway, into the darkness. Past the tiny skeletons, past the charred bodies, past those who are beyond help. The girl was taken, but not immediately killed. Maybe there's still hope.

Through the abyss Olivia goes. It takes what feels like forever to find any hint of light, and when she does its blinding. Searing and painful. For a beat she's forced to close her eyes, and when they open she finds the source of the little girl's capture. An overlarge, scaled beast large enough treat a car like a plaything. The little girl can be found behind its foreleg, and every time she tries to get around the beast simply pushes her back while turning its glowing red gaze down at Olivia. Smoke bellows from its nostrils, and flames lick its lips as a growl rumbles in its belly.

Olivia makes her way down the hall. Slowly and steadily. She has little to lose now. Family is dead, most likely. Money won't bring them back, not that she has a LOT of that stashed away. She squeezes her eyes shut briefly at the brightness before blinking a few times and opening them again, head tipping back so she can see the entirety of the creature that the girl has been taken by. "What the hell are you?" she asks, glancing at the girl briefly before looking back up at the creature's face. "Did you do this? Did you destroy this city?"

Her initial question elicits a growl of anger. The second gets the brunt of its ire as it brings it massive maw down to stare into Olivia's gaze as best it can from its gargantuan height. Its lips curl into a snarling grimace, and as it opens its mouth to rumble a reply the little girl shouts, "Don't listen! It only lies!" Thie draws the dragon's attention away from Olivia, and it knocks the girl aside once more. She stumbles backward, grabbing at her head as blood begins to drip from her nose.

"I can't figure out if it's lying if it doesn't have a chance to speak!" Olivia shouts back towards the girl, frowning as the child is struck down. "Leave her alone. You dwarf her. She can't possibly be a threat to you. Now answer my questions." She flexes her fingers at her sides, clenching and unclenching, more of a subconscious nervous gesture than anything else. Liv swallows a bit drily, studying the giant creature. But it's likely immune to fire, so any assault she may mete out wouldn't work.

It's words carry the weight of mountains and the echo of distant thunderstorms. "Don't. Fire." The little girl puts her hand to her nose, although it doesn't do much to stymie the bleeding. "He's going to eat me!" To this the dragon growls, and shoves the girl again. As the light of its breath dies down it becomes clear that the thing is covered snout to tail in black scales that gleam in the fires that surround them. "Quiet," it bellows down at the girl.

Olivia steps closer to the giant creature, a few slow and careful steps. "Stop. Talking," she says to the girl, giving her a hard look before lifting her eyes back to the dragon. "And YOU pay attention to me. I asked you some questions. Answer them. What are you? Dragons don't exist. So I must be dreaming or something. So what the hell is happening? What is going on? You can't burn ME, so don't even try it."

"No," it rubmles. Again it answers, "No." Louder than the first time as the ground begins to shake. The girl pushes herself to her feet, clutching stomach with one hand and wiping away blood with the other. "See!? I told-" She does get another moment to speak as the beast steps back, and crushes her under the full weight of its forefoot. The only thing of the girl to be seen is an arm that fidgets for a few short moments, and eventually goes still. "No."

Olivia's eyes go a bit wide, some of her boldness getting squashed along with the small girl as the foot crushes the child like a delicate flower. She shudders a bit and goes still, her approach halting as she force her eyes to pull away from the limp arm and back up to the large scaled creature. "It's just you and me now," she whispers, voice a bit hoarse, not entirely steady. "So now what?"

"No," it echoes as before. It moves forward just a bit for its size, but it may as well be a solid few yards for Olivia. Its other foot goes into the air, and blocks out the pale moonlight as it nears Olivia. "No. Wake. Up. Die. Now."

Olivia steps back as the dragon comes closer to her, self-preservation still somewhat intact. "What no?" she asks. "Why do you keep saying that? And I'm not dying yet. Not today. Not here." She glances towards the large foot as it rises into the air, shifting to get out of the way. She isn't really wanting to get stepped on.

It opens its mouth belching out a torrent of fire that does nothing more than blind Olvia. Before she has enough time to breathe its foot is upon her. The blinding hot heat soon turns to darkness that envelopes her every being, but she't not dead. She can't move, but she can still feal the heat swelling up around her. Stifling heat worse than what the beast wrought and hotter than any flame she's ever touched.

Olivia closes her eyes and turns her face away, a reflexive gesture more than anything else as her arms come up to protect herself. She doesn't seem the foot as it comes down on her, but she can feel it as she crumples down to collapse on the ground under the weight. She tries to move, but it isn't terribly successful. A soft groan escapes her lips, and she keeps her eyes closed for the time being. The heat won't kill her, but she has no idea what else is happening out there in the darkness. She can tell that it's hot, moreso than anything she's experienced, but that isn't what will kill her. Being crushed might, though.

Muscle, tendon, and bone strain under all that weight. She can feel things pop. Break. Snap. She soon becomes numb to the pain, but the intensity of the heat grows. Fire licks at the edges, there's no mistaking that feeling. It isn't a painful as everything else. Soothing. Comforting. Like a long lost love finally returning home. Its hot, but it feels so good. The fire is her own, and it feels like its coming home.

She can feel the joints pop and separate, the muscles ripping and tendons pulling off her bones. But indeed, the human body will only endure so much before it feels nothing at all. And Olivia finds comfort in the warmth, in the heat, as it wraps her up and absorbs her. Rather than continuing to struggle, Liv gives one long exhale and goes limp, letting the flames take her where they will. Along with the rest of her family, and everyone else in the city.

That fire grows in seconds. She can feel it burning hotter and hotter. She may as well be bathing in the sun at this point, and as as she sinks into nothingness the fire is all she can feel. However, it isn't all she can hear. The great beast roars in pain, shaking the earth all around. Eventually that too whimpers off, and leaves Olivia with nothing but darkness. No more pain. No more heat. No more fire. Nothing but a cold, black sea of emptiness.

She can't quite move in the coming seconds, but she can hear voices all around her. Near constant muttering. Two other voices - one surprised and the other calming. Eventually she can hear her name said a few times over, and then constant, tiny barking.

The heat is comforting. The cold is jarring. Uncomfortable. Unsettling. The silence changes into quiet sounds of voices, words she can't quite make out. Olivia can pick out her name, somewhere in the distance, the one familiar word in it all. Her fingers twitch a bit and she releases a quiet groan of pain, one hand moving to carefully push herself up. Or try to. Is the beast still there? "Hello?" she asks, voice croaking a bit.

There's no hints of that great beast, but it still feels like somethings pushing down on her chest. Eventually, one of the voices lines up as Weaver's as he argues with one of the doctors while a nurse attends to the now stirring Olivia. At the woman's side is that mini-doberman only barking more when it looks like the psychic might awaken. As drops fully into the world of the living she can nothing short of strangth.

The doctor, and older man. Man? No. He looks more like something made wholly of water with hair that moves as if a waterfall. The nurse at her side as pointed ears, a blackened nose, and is covered in splotches of fur colored variations of orange and brown. Oddest of all is the one with Weaver's voice. He's covered head to toe in black scales from what skin can be seen. Smoke billows from his mouth when he speaks and in twin pillars when he breathes through his nose. His faintly glowing red eyes are on the doctor as he treats something on the draconian's chest.

Olivia squirms a bit more as she becomes a bit more aware, the pressure on her chest seeming more like something manageable. There is a small cringe at the sound of the barking, the volume a bit more than she'd like while her mind tries to put itself back together. She inhales sharply as her eyes finally open, a deep burning in her chest from the remnants of the smoke. And she sees... people? That's... what?

Olivia blinks a few times, still looking a little confused and hazy in her expression. She isn't sure what she's looking at. Those are people, but not people. And why does one sound like her cousin? She peers at him for a moment before her eyes snap over to the nurse who is suddenly far too close for comfort. Olivia recoils suddenly from the not-entirely-human nurse, pulling herself off to one side of the bed, and possibly falling out of it if the rails have not been raised. A picture of grace as always.

The smell of singed flesh is in the air, but after looking around it looks plain as day like it comes from Weaver. Her dragon-looking cousing was hiving his chest bandaged up by the water doctor. In the next blin kof Olivia's eye it all looks normal. Maybe she was just dreaming or high on meds. Weaver runs a hair through his hair as the nurse announces that Olivia's finally awake, and with that comes a sigh of relief from Weaver.

Olivia hits the ground with a thud, grunting softly as she falls out of the bed, the tubes she's still connected to loose enough that they don't pull painfully. She scrambles back up onto her feet and presses herself back against the wall, eyes wide and somewhere between confused and terrified as she looks at the gathering of people in her room. "What the hell is going on?" she asks, coughing a little bit, voice still raspy. That's going to stick around for a while.

Weaver turns, already buttoning back up what remained of the dress shirt he wore. "I heard you were out playing hero with Velvet, and went off to lala land. Not just the smoke, but something else." With that he lifts up a closed fist and then splays his fingers in a mock explosion. "Rhonda and Kurta here," to this the doctor waves and the nurse rolls her eyes, "were able and willing to look at you without questions. They also won't be as freaked out if you have any kinda accident. They also-" Weaver doesn't get anything else out as that mini-doberman starts barking at Olivia as she stands fully. "They also wouldn't let me launch /that/," a nod is given to the dog, "out the window despite the fact that it won't shut the everloving fuck up."

Olivia shakes her head slowly, looking from the doctor to the nurse and then back towards her cousin. It IS her cousin, right? She isn't entirely sure. There is doubt written all over her face. "I didn't do anything," she says quietly, shaking her head. She has no memory of an explosion. She looks down at the dog as it begins to bark loudly, shushing it. It might be ineffective, but it's worth a shot. One hand rises as she gestures at the group of people in the room. "What is... all this? You... all of you... you weren't..." She looks over towards the IV pole, squinting a bit to try to read what is in the bag. "What did you give me?"

Hospitals are always so clean and white and drab. Velvet arrives as things are apparently winding down from craziness. What she wasn't expecting when she walked in was a spooked patient and a burned up fiance. Her eyes dart around the room, taking everything in for a moment from the door. "As much smoke as you inhaled, you probably need to be lying down."

Weaver narrows his gaze on Olivia until Velvet speaks. He turns to velvet, nodding at her words as he crosses the room to Olivia. "You were sucking in smoke for god knows how long, and using what you-" He clears his throat. "Masters, Rhonda. Can you give us the room?" The doctor moves to Weaver, the two shake hands, and the doctor whispers something into the elder Utridge's ear before departing.

"A blood thinner and some acetylcysteine. The IV was for pain relief." Weaver clears his throat again as she gets the hint. Her hands go up in the air as a sigh rattles from her that almost sounds like a pur. "So much for appreciation." Then the nurse is out of the room next as she shoots a coy look Weaver's way.

Olivia visibly jumps as Velvet speaks, her head snapping over towards the other woman and her eyes going a bit wide. "You're not DEAD," she observes, seeming pleased and surprised by this. She presses herself back against the wall as the doctor and nurse take their leave, watching them intently until they're actually gone. While not openly afraid of the pair, she doesn't seem entirely confident in them. When they're gone, she carefully slinks back towards the bed, leaning against it, but not quite willing to lay down again. "What. Is going. On?" she repeats slowly.

"I'm surprisingly difficult to kill," Velvet assures, giving the doctor a bit of a squinty eyed look as she leaves. Hm. She glances back over towards Weaver, eyeing his shirt and then him. She bypasses him to move towards Olivia's side. "Atleast sit in the bed. Keep in mind, that refusal is going to end up with you being laid in the bed." Her tone is forceful. She may be small, but there's a weight behind her words.

"No," Weaver echoes, "she's not dead. If she is I'm in hea-" He shakes his head, and turns to grab his jacket. In those few seconds when he's facing her the singed hole in his shirt about the size of her hand is plain to see, but he's quick to turn right back around to retrieve his jacket. "Please listen to her if you're not gonna listen to me, Liv."

"But I saw... you..." Olivia gestures a bit absently, trying to figure out what's happened as she looks between the two of them. She scowls a little bit at the demand to sit and slowly pulls herself up onto the edge of the bed, perching there, ready to bolt. "Why aren't people answering me? And I'll listen to HER." One hand rises, pointing at Velvet before pointing at Weaver. "'cause I'm not sure I was THAT high, and I'm not entirely sure you are who you say you are. And I'm not entirely sure those were ACTUAL doctors."

Velvet is there to help Olivia if help is needed, but she recognizes the 'ready to flee' body language and reaches out to give a brief squeeze on the woman's shoulder before pulling her hand back away. "I wasn't here to know what happened, so I can't answer. What did you see?" Her eyes flicker towards Weaver, hand lifting to point to her eyes then to his, as if guiding him to look in her eyes. Which is weird.

Weaver doesn't turn around just yet as he adjust his jacket, and begins buttoning it up despite the fact that things are fairly warm in the room already. "I know you like to go to fucking space mountain when you get high, can drink me under the table, and wanted to be a rock star before you could actually make true on those childhood threats of setting my boxers on fire." He turns around then, as serious as ever. "I remember you showing me about what you could do when we were young, and you calling me before you got here. I'm also the one that asked for you to come here so we can help, even if that somehow includes playing hero." That last bit comes with a brief pointed look towards Velvet. Now, Olivia Julianne Utridge, if you'd like me to call your mom I can do so right now if you'd like." That last bit comes with that cocky, shit-eating grin of his.

"Goddammit Weaver, I am NOT fucking high right now!" Olivia tells him, seeming quite insistent as her voice raises a bit more than it probably should. "I know what being high is, and this is NOT a high!" The stories he offers up seem to reassure her at least a little bit, but the uncertainty of the entire situation remains. Olivia turns her eyes back towards Velvet at the question and she lifts her hands to rub at her face. "Corpses. The entire city in flames and destroyed. A big dragon type thing. That doctor was... made out of water?" She frowns a little bit, seeming confused by that fact. Maybe she was high? "And YOU." She looks back at Weaver, peering at him intently. "You were like... a little... dragon smokey thing."

Velvet's eyes narrow on Weaver as their gazes catch, brows knitting together for a moment. Her attention jerks back towards Olivia a moment later. She's quiet for a moment before she pulls herself up onto a sit on the bed next to the other woman. "I believe you," she offers. "Sounds like some sort of strange, prophetic dream or vision, maybe?" She reaches out to pat the woman's hand again.

Olivia's words only draw Weaver's ire, likely the Ogre in him. He sidesteps Velvet, and thumbs at his chest. "If I wasn't who I said I was would I even be here?" The questions comes out more as a snarling growl affecting to a human voice. "If I wasn't me would I not've held you down so they could medicate you while you burnt the skin off of my chest?" he asks of of the smell of cooked meat in the room. "If you don't believe I'm me, then, please, Liv, fucking light me the fuck on fire right the fuck now."

Olivia's eyes shift over to Weaver as he steps around Velvet and closer to her, the sound of the growl in his voice doing little to reassure her or settle her nerves. "I didn't do that," she tells him, shaking her head slowly. And she believes that. She hasn't hurt anyone. She leans back a little bit, inching back towards the other side of the bed, putting that barrier between them as she struggles to sort out what's happened. "I don't know WHAT to believe! I don't know what any of you want with me, I don't know what's happening, I don't even know how long I've been here! All I know is I saw HER dead..." A gesture to Velvet. "YOU were nowhere to be seen..." One given to Weaver. "And I watched everything, and everyone, burn alive. And the one person who didn't burn alive was crushed alive. So if you're going to instead yell at me when I'm FUCKING TERRIFIED then I WILL light your stupid face on fire!"

Whoa whoa whoa. Weaver gets all up in Olivia's grill while Olivia tries to put room between them. Velvet scoots herself into the space that's made, rising up onto her knees on the bed so that she's face to face with Weaver. -He- can see the way her eyes suddenly shift into a deep red glow, her expression darkening. "If you don't back up -I'm- going to light you the fuck on fire," she warns in a low, growling voice. That noise is almost more animal than human. "She just woke up from some kind of trauma and is clearly still healing. She doesn't need someone growling in her face while she's dealing with confusion like that, now does she?" Nostrils flare. Predator versus predator.

Velvet draws his attention briefly as she moves to put space between him. When Velvet stares him down Weaver growls, baring teeth as he does so. To Olivia he looks the fool, but to Velvet his anger becomes obvious as his mantle flares in a tenebrous display for her. Eventually he does relent, but doesn't back away. He stands up straight, pull at the hem of his jacket, and goes through rote motions that seem far too casual. "What in the world do you want, Liv? You already set me on fire once. I can take it again."

"I did NOT," she insists, scowling at him from behind Velvet. "I don't WANT anything. What do YOU want? I'm the one hooked up to various fluids and wearing no pants. I'm in a far more precarious position than you are." Olivia pokes at the IV line going into her arm, frowning a bit. "I saw weird shit that I do not understand and I don't know what you want me to say here. It doesn't make sense. I don't remember getting here. I just... I don't know what to tell you."

"Why don't you and I go have a little talk outside while you're cousin, who is trying to heal in a hospital bed, tries to figure out what's going on in her head right now. We don't know what that mix of drugs might have done to her. We don't know if it was a hallucination because of extreme fatigue. Hell Weav, we don't know that her powers aren't growing and it was some strange psychic vision that had weird hallucinations mixed in because subconsciously she doesn't know how to process the information." Velvet stays firmly planted between the two. "You need to go in the hall and take a fucking breath. Olivia, we'll take a look at the medicines and see if there's something up, okay? Why don't you try to rest or watch TV or something?" She points towards the hall, glaring at Weaver. Clearly she'll follow after him once he starts moving.

Weaver's gaze remains on Olivia while she talks, and even still when Velvet does. "Fine. Olivia, rest. Do what the doctors tell you to. If I get a call from Masters, and found out that I wasted that favor you and I are gonna have a long talk." He huffs, attention turning to Velvet then. He simply stares, unblinking, before he turns towards the door and takes his leave.