A Wrong Turn || Jack & Gloucester
Ever since she had found herself in a completely different world, surrounded by unfamiliarity and magic, Jack hadn’t been able to get the place out of her mind. She wanted to know more about that world and the people who lived there, but she didn’t dare risk getting stuck again. Not that another door had opened, but sometimes when she was wandering through the Neather, she would look and hope, no matter how much she knew she shouldn’t.
Which was why she had decided that today she would contact Dornan again. She’d been in his dream before and she was sure she would be able to find it again. Travelling between worlds didn’t seem nearly as difficult in the dream world than in real life.
Adina was crawling into bed beside her and Sam was laid out at her feet, and she smiled when her girlfriend rested a hand on her arm. “Good luck. You’ll have to let me know how it goes in the morning.”
“What, you’re not going to come?” Jack teased, rolling onto her side so she could look at her better.
Adina huffed a laugh. “Not in a million years, I need my beauty rest tonight if I’m going to deal with your exhausted mind all tomorrow. You know, you might sleep better with the machine…”
Jack shook her hated. She hated the walkers. They gave her a headache and made dream walking ten times more difficult. No one knew why, but she’d long since stopped asking. If it meant being a little tired the next morning, she would take that over a headache any day. “I’ll be okay. And I’m never sleep-grumpy anyway.”
This earned her another scoff from her girlfriend, but Adina didn’t say any more on the subject, perhaps thinking it pointless to argue. Jack couldn’t deny that, she was doing this tonight no matter what, and she was doing it without that damn machine.
It took a little while for her to fall into the dream world, but once she was there, she found her movements suddenly more loose and easy. Not bogged down by worldly aches or gravity. She was in her dream to start, this time she was in one of the old camps, sitting by the closed fire all by herself. It was a better dream than she could have hoped for, but she had no plans to stay long.
Imagining the door she’d fallen through into the Neather, Jack saw a flame flicker for a moment. Then another. And another. All of the flames started to dart toward the open, twisting and turning their way around each other until they formed that wooden door, sturdy and plain. Rising to her feet, Jack stepped over to it and hesitated a moment. Was it really going to be this easy? If she opened this door, would Dornan be on the other side, trapped in a strange dream of his own? She didn’t know Dornan as well as she knew Adina, and pulling up doors wasn’t ever so simple, even for her. What if she got it wrong?
Then I’ll leave.
It was a simple solution, and she doubted the dreamer would even know she had been there if she left in time. Nodding resolutely, she pulled the door open and stepped through.
Only to immediately start falling from a high ceiling towards a cold, stone floor. Before she could try to fly, invisible strings started catching her. First her ankle, then her arm and in a second she was tangled up in a web, hovering a few feet above the ground. “Holy fuck, that was unexpected,” she muttered as she flexed her fingers, giving her hands a wiggle and shaking away the strings. It wasn’t a graceful fall back to earth, she landed with a thunk, but luckily it hadn’t woke her, only left her more aware.
As she tried to figure out if she got the right place, she took in the high ceiling and the pleasant architecture, admiring the stained glass windows, though they hardly looked familiar. “Dornan?” she called out hesitantly, hoping he might hear her.
