HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME

[unstill_life]

[ you have been here long enough

the damp hallways of the sunken level are familiar to you. this is where Fawn's dorm is, after all. the water laps at your feet ... but drains downward, for some reason. you're in a hall but there is another hall beside you, spiraling down, forming a double-helix with yours. as you look down a wall raises between them, metal grating that you can still see the helix through, and the floor turns to metal as well. the way behind you is blocked.

will you go down? after all, you're almost there. ]

Comments

[grandstanding]

[that's not normal... but then again, what here is? he gives the strange hall a long look, but the tug of metal wins out after long. he heads down the hallway.]

[unstill_life]

[ soon enough, at the bottom of the hallway, you see a set of golden doors. ]

[grandstanding]

[comes to a halt when he sees them.]

These are...

[unstill_life]

[ they look heavy ... but not impossibly so. ]

[grandstanding]

...

[strides forward and pushes them, then]

[unstill_life]

[ they won't open.

you need something else, you realize. you need to state your wish -- your desire. ]

[grandstanding]

I want -- the rest of Fawn back. From the portrait.

[unstill_life]

[ the door doesn't open. ]

[grandstanding]

...not something you can do, is it. Destroy the portraits then.

[unstill_life]

[ the doors don't open again. ]

[grandstanding]

Useless.

[crosses his arms and thinks...]

Since you can't do any of that, then I wish for safety. I want somewhere safe for my kind... somewhere no human can reach. A haven for mutants.

[unstill_life]

[ there's a pause ... and the doors open.

inside it is dark; you can only see the vague outlines of tables... and one well-lit pedestal, a sword buried into it. ]

[grandstanding]

[walks in, and approaches the pedestal. the sword isn't familiar, he's never owned one. but...

he pushes up his sleeve briefly, looking at the tattoos there. numbers, and a sword. of course. reaches out and grabs the hilt of the sword with that hand.]

[unstill_life]

[ if he makes a motion to pull -- the sword will throb as if with released energy, from the blade all the way down to the hilt, into Erik's hand. and all at once any memories that had been lost to him will return, not as in the usual memory regain where the experience is lived through again all at once; but instead slotting in neatly, not overwhelming, as if they had been there all along.

you can feel it. you're almost there, you're so close. ]

[grandstanding]

[oh.

oh good.

now I'm furious.]

[unstill_life]

[ you don't have much time to stew in that. soon after you regain those you ... wake up, in your bed at Fawn. the cool feeling of the sword's hilt in your hand is still there, the dream extraordinarily vivid.

you know where those golden doors are you, realize. the path may not be the same but you know if you walk out now you will be able to find them again, and retrieve the same sword from within them. ]