@fadcn ( starter call ) // for tim.
For the last few weeks, Sebastian has been visiting places he's been to before-- perhaps not in reality, but in the hellscape that STEM had been. Krimson City buildings that had been crumbling and rotting in that shared consciousness now stand tall, devoid of traps and monsters. Rivers are clear instead of reeking of rot. Towns and villages, no matter how ancient-looking, have their own living populations, even if it isn't much of a life at all. And while the abandoned church really does have its bizarre catacombs, all the living experiments there died ages ago.
After all his backtracking, Sebastian ought to know now that STEM had been a dream: one that was based on elements of reality, certainly, but a dream all the same.
It's what has him convinced the only reason he's driving to the Victoriano Estate now is obsession.
The papers all said the mansion burned down years ago. He drives knowing he'll find nothing but rubble; he drives fully aware that the beautiful, haunting home he'd roamed in a dream will be nothing but ash and stone. As he drives off the asphalt and his vehicle trembles on the dirt road, he tells himself over and over that there aren't any benefits to this excursion whatsoever.
...still, Sebastian doesn't take the U-turn back the other way.
Once he pulls up to the estate, all that's left are the pathetic remnants of a place he could never afford in his lifetime. He can see the big outdoor walls, of course, and he can see what was once a beautiful garden turned into an overgrown disaster, but the imposing building of his memories is more or less gone. Sebastian walks through it, drying grass crunching beneath his shoes, and though his breaths quicken along the way, in the end it's all instinctive-- there's nothing dangerous here at all.
If he were in the dream, the picture of safety despite his rising adrenaline would have rung alarm bells in his head. He wouldn't have kept walking, nor would he have hummed as he considered the two steps left of the foyer staircase. But it's strange to see a place that haunted him so intensely end up so harmless, and in the end Sebastian's hand touches the railing. His feet go up one step, then two, and there's a
sudden
shift
onto a third.
The world tilts, and his step takes him a ninety degree angle on a forward trajectory. Sebastian's stomach lurches, caught by the change in gravity, and though his foot lands on some type of surface he stumbles forward anyway, landing on his hands and knees.
"What--?"
It's a dream, he tells himself, except it can't be-- not when he's been in reality all this time, not when he's been documenting it. And yet the oppressive feeling in his head, on his shoulders, and on the back of his neck are too familiar to ignore, reminding him of the nightmare he lived and has been reliving for almost two years now.
"No way," he breathes, looking around him: at the darkened sky, at the buildings that have seemed to rise out of nowhere, at how the whole world has shifted from the Victoriano Estate into somewhere else. "Not again. Not fucking--"
Sebastian gags, and it takes everything in him not to throw up. Focused as he is on trying to calm his stomach and steady his breathing, Sebastian fails to notice someone else in this bizarre world around him. He's no doubt caught their attention, but a man struggling not to puke is a pretty disgusting sight anyway.
