#tma reference btw

[aipurjopa]

uu spoke is wet cat and ls spoke is all that is fear and all that is terror and all that is the awful dread that crawls and chokes and blinds and falls and twists and leaves and hides and weaves and burns and hunts and rips and bleeds and dies to me

[minimum-wage-patd]

[Even though she has no need to, she creeps into a sleeping bag on the ledge of the Observatory and slips into sleep as the sun rises behind her.]

---<0>---

[She is wrapped up in spider silk. It is not a bundle, but a suit. One that is too small to be comfortable in. She cannot move, until a large spider steps above her, picking up the threads that hang her from the ceiling. She is dropped above a stage. But she still lingers over it as she is strewn about to dance the tango with a marrionette missing its face. She cries. She hates this. She can't even fight back, the silk is too tight. But then the strings are gone, as the dance ends. She is lifted up a few more feet before the strings are cut and she drops onto the stage, hesitantly standing up. Before her is an audience, filling the entire circus tent with their grins, all too wide and showing too much teeth. They are all missing their eyes. Mannequins? Before she has any time to ponder on this, she is thrust into a nuclear wasteland, the radiation prickling her skin and sending spikes of pain into her glowing body. She feels like she might throw up, but it stops for a moment. And then spikes of nausea course through her body, her head spinning and wracked with fatigue she didn't think was possible, being this intense and beckoning. She is then set ablaze, but her skin melts off like wax, white dust floating about the floor. The fire spreads quickly, too quickly, for that to just be wax. It must be some kind of accelerant. Her eyes feel like popping, so she darts for the only exit as the flames converge. She enters the rotten landscape, thick viscous sludge coating her flats-when did she start wearing flats?- as she tries to free herself from the thick lake of mud. Insects swallow her yelling form and she is on a table, tied to a plate of porcelain, a gag wrapped too tightly around her skull. Her hands are literally tied, and cows converge on her form, biting into her flesh with teeth too sharp to belong on such an animal, as the smell of flesh purges her lungs, and they turn into dark, hungry wolves. Her restraints are gone and she runs, flipping through the jungle. She recognizes this. The wolves' breath stunk of flesh. They don't want a meal- they want adrenaline. They want the thrill of the chase. Like her. She flips up onto a vine, waiting for the wolves to pass and dropping down onto the smallest one. She wrestles with it, getting on top and tearing off its head with strength she could only have in a dream. She takes the head and smothers herself in the blood, wearing its mane as the badge of honour that it is. The wolves turn back, confused. She glares at them with animosity that beckons to them. They chase her and she runs, turning and slipping into a coffin. She hears the boards nail shut and she accepts her new fate as she slowly runs out of oxygen. She thinks. If this was supposed to be a nightmare, then it's a pretty shit one. She hasn't been scared. Panicked or alarmed, yes, but never scared enough to paralyse her, save for the one with the...spiders. She is about to run out of air when suddenly she is upright in the coffin, a yellow door opening. She sees a therapist, eyeless, featureless, and most of all a liar. She drops her eyelids and sits on the chair. The therapist gaslights her only once before she tries to leave.]

You're not making any sense, and this session is over.

[The therapist takes out a knife as she stands, and attacks. But Dragon is clever. She summons her weapon of choice- a scythe. She attacks and attacks and attacks, slicing into the indescernable doll as rainbow blood spurts out of its wounds. She rips off the name tag. 'You are here'. She bites it and cuts into the place where its eye should have been. More spawn and she decapitates them all, the sharp reapers' tool in her hands slicing cleanly through their cotton and styrofoam necks, veins spurting blood that did not belong. She laughs as more spawn, killing each and every one of them with incredible grace. She looks around, waiting for her next toy, and is suddenly plunged into darkness. She breathes, leaning back and taking comfort in the quiet, empty void. She feels the annoyance of something else. Something trying to scare her, and is failing miserably. Well, except for that first one. Suddenly, her rest is stolen by a large empty space. The floor is a mirror, but it is blurry. She cannot see herself. It is quiet here. She sits down, feeling the mirror turn out to be a thin pool of water. She stares into the fog. This feels familiar. Like she's seen this all before. She falls into darkness, like before, but it's lit up slowly. Stars. Small little flecks of light. They seem so small to her, from so far away. She knows that they're not, but...it's nice. She relaxes, even as she notices the nauseatingly large hand coming towards her. It's not here for her, she knows that. She's...calm. At peace. The stars fade and she floats in a deep void, cold. Like death. And even when she is enveloped by a dark room and watched by eyes in the walls. She is calm. She is finally, finally, calm. She can slow down and take it all in.]

---<0>---

[She wakes up, upset about her rudely interrupted Dream. She wakes up in time to see the sunset. It didn't feel long enough. She wished it had lasted longer, even in the parts where she was irradiated, even when she was set on fire, even where she was strung up. Those she could've put up with even longer if only she could stay in that blissful silence any longer. She crawls out of her sleeping bag and opens up the Observatory for the night.]