(no subject)

[indigo_events]

Who: Everyone who wandered into the nightmare forest!

Where: Inside the nightmare forest!

When: October 22nd-29th

Summary: The culmination of weeks of worsening bad dreams comes when all that accumulated power is enough for the Pokemon to sprout an entire forest meant to trap people and harvest even more power. Now people from all over are lost in the woods...with very little distinction between what's real and what's not.

Log:



Whether by being drawn in or by simple curiosity (or poor decision making skills), people and their Pokemon have wandered in amongst the trees that have sprouted overnight. Only to find that once inside? There doesn't seem to be any way back out. No sunlight can pierce through the dense foliage overhead, but there is an eerie sort of green-tinted light with no source that gives people enough light to see by. The thickness of the woods varies--in some points it’s practically easy to move forward, and in others the trees are so close together that your character might have to squeeze between them. Phantump flit through the air and Drowzee can be seen occasionally running along the ground.

And in the background, a Trevenant and a Hypno watch. And wait.

Wait for these lost souls to finally drift off into sleep.


Full event info and questions can be found here!

Comments

Heather Mason

[foolishwren]

[THE WOODS]

<sub>[Does anyone else ever think about how fucked up it would be to be using Surf in the middle of the ocean and suddenly just find acres of FOREST that isn't supposed to be there? Anyone? Bueller?]

[Because it's really fucked up.]

[By comparison, finding patches of visibly out-of-place trees back in the streets of Goldenrod was only slightly less jarring, if only because she'd heard the news before getting home. But that didn't make seeing the neighborhood littered with copses of old-looking forest any less disconcerting. Especially when that itch to go in starts kicking in every time she passes one on her way to the Center or store. She recognizes it-- GOD does she recognize that unnatural, coercive urge to go into places that are so obviously not somewhere anyone in their right mind would want to go... and she was determined not to do it. Big obviously-evil patches of forest growing out of the town square? AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.]

[But then, well... then came the day she got up for a not-out-of-the-ordinary early morning walk, before anyone else was up, the streets were empty, NOTHING FELT REAL, and there came the insatiable, unignorable urge to just poke her head in, see what those woods were all about. A few steps. Just a peek.]

[And now she can't see the street, she's only got two Pokemon with her (and only because they refused to stay at home, to her slight and now-regrettable annoyance at the time), and she hates how every molecule of her being is so aware of how fucked they are.]</sub>

Stay close, do not let go of my hand. Okay?

_{[She says this lowly to the small, golden Riolu at her side, who is silent and tense, eyes wide with combined trepidation and deliberate alertness. He takes her hand obediently with one paw, but his ears and eyes are trained on the trees around them. The Fletchinder on her shoulder needs no instruction-- it's already clear from the talons digging into her bare skin that the little fire bird isn't going anywhere. Somehow they knew this was going to happen.]}


[THE DREAMS BEGIN...]

<sub>[The first time she falls asleep, she doesn't even know it. As far as she knows, she's still walking.]

[And then she finds the rocketship ride.]

[It's one of those spinning ones where you get in a little cart and the machine lifts it up off the ground and goes round and round-- although it won't be doing that now. It's choked with rust and vines, as though abandoned for years.]

[Dimly, in the trees ahead, she can see other stationary shapes looming. Popcorn stands and rollercoaster tracks. Which is creepy ALL BY ITS FUCKING SELF, but the truth of it all doesn't hit her until a piece of paper crackles under her foot.]

[It's a flyer that reads Lakeside Amusement Park, and it's only then that she realizes her Pokemon aren't with her.]</sub>

... Oh, hell.


[WILDCARD]

<sub>[When it comes to 'nightmares' and 'Silent Hill', the possibilities are ENDLESS. If you'd like your character to wander into Heather's little patch of woods and get a miniature Silent Hill adventure tailored to them and/or their specific CR with her, LET ME KNOW and I'll (excitedly, evilly!) whip something up! Some of you have already gotten custom inbox dreams for the earlier part of the event-- these can be continued here!]

[This can also apply to any variation of the above-- Heather's Pokemon can be with her or not, the characters can be in the woods or in a dream or in a melding of both, and Silent Hill can even collide with your character's nightmare scenario to create something even crazier than either!]

[Standard Silent Hill trigger warnings apply-- let me know if there's anything you DEFINITELY need me to avoid while writing up horrors, and I'll make sure to steer away from it!]</sub>

Dreams/wildcard

[exeggutorhead]

[Waking up at practically noon had been Envy's first clue that something was wrong, and for a good few seconds he'd been too gripped by panic that what had happened with France was happening a second time to do much of anything.]

[He'd found the note about her going on a walk, but...she should have been back. And a glance out the window had shown him Godzilla in the pool, clearly worked up over something. Something wasn't right.]

[Going out to look for her had been the obvious answer, Lilith following at his heels. Chimera wasn't fast enough to bring, and Lucky he hadn't been able to find fast enough. And when he'd passed those trees...he felt like he needed to go into them, like there was something he needed to see. It hadn't taken long for the idea that he needed to go in because she might be in there to take hold, and once it had? He'd succumbed to the urge to enter the forest almost immediately.]

[Of course, what he'd found was that finding literally anyone or anything in these woods, even the way back out of them, was a lost cause.]

[Now, even Lilith is nowhere to be seen. The rusted out themepark in the woods was...different. It certainly wasn't something of his, it must be from someone else. He'd figured out that much by now.]

[But he doesn't know whose until he sees a familiar figure standing next to a dilapidated popcorn machine. Relief floods him, at least he's found her, but after everything else he's already encountered...he can't help but be wary, too. He doesn't rush to her, but he does call out:]

Heather! Over here!

[He bites back the urge to ask if it's really her this time. He'll find out one way or another.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[IS it her?]

[The silhouette turns. And then begins to walk towards him VERY FAST.]

[Oh.]

[OH it's super not.]

[With eyes like blazing embers, a charred and mangled vision of what maybe once was Heather Mason is striding through the trees. It doesn't seem like the same one that Envy once talked down in a hotel room all those years ago, even if it looks the same-- its movements are jerky and puppetlike. This is clearly something conjured by the forest, or at least the dream, a one-note being with only one thought: murder.]

[He might want to run.]</sub>

[exeggutorhead]

[Oh fuck oh fuck he's made a mistake--]

[He does recognize the burnt form, but...yeah, he also definitely recognizes that this is not the same as it was when he kept a lookout for her that one weekend.]

[It's pretty clear that she means business...and he's not about to try and find out whether or not if you die in these dreams you die in real life.]

[He turns and books it, jumping over roots and dodging around any pieces of rusty amusement park in his way.]

It Follows (2014)

[foolishwren]

<sub>[It's good that he's fast.]

[Because while her-- or its, this doesn't feel like Heather or even the doppelganger he met at all-- stride is brisk and forceful, it doesn't ever run.]

[Before long, he's actually gained distance, and it disappears into the fog behind him.]

[Whew. Is that it...?]</sub>

[Dreams - Wildcard]

[a_sin_for_him]

[This is not a place that Lust has seen yet. She's been wandering through this strange, formless darkness from horror to horror, and this one is new. Her steps slow as she wanders into this part of the woods, the nightmare realm claimed by Heather's mind. It's like being lost in a maze, this journey into the woods. A maze of the darkest phantasms, fever dreams made real.]

[Many of them her own. Terrors that until now had only plagued her sleeping mind. But some, like this, were new and strange to her. She feels something like a child in some dark fairy tale, traipsing wide eyed through the nightmare wood.]

[What is this place? She frowns, her visage flickering before settling into the corpse-pale, inhumanly beautiful appearance she wore in her last life.]

Hello?

[foolishwren]

<sub>[She honestly doesn't look out of place here. With the wisps of fog curling through the trees, Lust could easily be the subject of some kind of aesthetic gothic princess photoshoot.]

[But there's no cameras, no lights.]

[She is alone out here and the fog is heavy and oppressive. Her voice falls flat against it-- almost smothered under its weight. There is no answer. Only the creak and groan of old wood settling.]

[The only thing to do is walk.]

[But eventually, something will loom up from the mist besides trees... a staircase.]

[One of those rickety ones with gaps between the steps.]

[Where does it lead? It's impossible to tell-- it only goes up. Up, into an opaque white wall of fog.]

[Honestly, no one would blame her for opting NOT to climb it... but it's the first thing she's encountered that's even slightly not another tree.]</sub>

[a_sin_for_him]

[This feels the most like a dream.]

[An eerie and otherwordly sense permeates the dim place, like some poet's limbo. An eternity of wandering alone in the mist, through some nameless woods. It could almost be a dream of her own design.]

[She pauses when the staircase rears ahead of her, idly wishing she had a cloak to wrap about herself. She feels exposed in her strapless, slit skirted dress. The dense mist ahead is intimidating - god knew what could be hiding in it. It's the first thought that occurs to Lust and she isn't entirely certain why. There's been no indication there's anything alive or moving here besides her.]

[And yet...]

[There's little option, though. Remain in a poet's limbo? No, Lust knows her cliches and adages. The only way out is through. Lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, Lust begins to ascend the stairs.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[It seems to go on forever-- soon she won't even be able to the ground below. Just that ocean of fog, rolling past below.]

[But eventually, there's a faint light above, and it's accompanied by a subtle electric hum. Both grow as she climbs, until at long last...]

[A doorway comes into view, with a neon sign fizzing and blinking above it-- a star and a moon, pink and yellow, and the words Heaven's Night.]

[There's still fog, even up here-- little tendrils of it, drifting around the stair railings almost like something alive.]</sub>

the woods, with perhaps a horrible continuation later? :)

[notvaljean]

[How long has Jean been wandering in the woods?]

[He knows it can't be forever. There's no way he's been here forever, no matter how long it feels. He still looks the same, still wearing the same clothes, and if he'd really been here for a lifetime--like it feels like--those things would have changed. The clothes would have rotted off his back, he would have grown a beard (he hopes), his hair would be touching his shoulders. No, it hasn't been that long. It just feels that way.]

[So when he hears someone else in the woods, a voice he recognizes, even, Jean goes blundering towards it, Blitz and Donner rolling along in his wake.]

Heather? HEATHER! Is that you?

[Please be Heather. Please be someone who might know what's going on here, and what to do. Stephen Kringler is all well and good when you're reading his books, but Jean doesn't want to be trapped inside one of them!]

HELL YES

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Mentally she knows she came into the woods that morning. But time doesn't feel real here. Things are going out of order, nothing seems to make sense. And she's heard her name shouted at her from between the trees only to turn and see nothing more times than she can count.]

[But this time it sounds different-- the startled honk of a teenage boy is i>not what she expected to hear in these woods, if anything.]

[As she and her two Pokemon turn warily, the light falls across her face and proves that it is, indeed, her.]</sub>

--Shit. JEAN?

<sub>[She's equal parts relieved to see another human being and worried because dammit, now Jean's stuck in here too?]

[Was he even IN Goldenrod?]</sub>

[notvaljean]

[Jean was NOT in Goldenrod, he was all the way out on Cinnabar Island, but he's not thinking about that right now. He's blundering towards Heather, honking unattractively in relief and accompanied by his worried-looking Electrodes.]

Oh shit, I'm glad to see someone!

[These woods are super creepy, okay?]

Are you all right?

[foolishwren]

<sub>[She looks him up and down-- not in the checking-out sense, but in the checking-to-see-if-he's-bleeding-anywhere sense.]

[Once she's confident he doesn't have any knife handles sticking out of him anywhere, she lets out a deep puff of air she hadn't realized she'd been holding in and reaches out to give him a rough, one-armed hug. One-armed, because the other one is supporting Kite and she doesn't want the Fletchinder to try and take out one of Jean's eyes.]</sub>

Well, as all right as anybody can be when they're trapped in the forest of the damned or whatever.

How long have you been in here?

sticks leggy out

[armoredsoul]

[The transition from waking to dreams is fuzzy for Alphonse as well, enough so that he doesn't realize at first that his armored body is at all odd. His clanking footsteps are loud enough that Heather has plenty of warning as he approaches, ducking under some lower hanging branches.]

Heather? Heather, are you alright?

[foolishwren]

<sub>[You know, when you've been through what Heather's been through, hearing a brisk CLANKLANKLANK coming towards you through the fucking woods is pretty much a one-way ticket to Nopetown.]

[Which is why, when she whirls around, it's not in relief at her favorite surrogate little brother's presence-- it's with a fucking gun aimed right at him and a look of steeled 'I'm literally going to kill whatever's coming at me' on her face.]

[Fortunately for EVERYBODY INVOLVED, she does not have an itchy trigger finger.]

[Recognition lights up in her eyes.]</sub>

--Al. FUCK, you scared me.

I thought-- never mind.

<sub>[He's the armor again. She's only seen it once or twice-- but well, it's pretty memorable. That, and it's a lot more well-maintained-looking than any of the more inorganic creatures the Otherworld had to boast.]

[She lowers the gun.]</sub>

[armoredsoul]

[Unexpected or not, Al has a sadly automatic reaction to a gun being pointed at him.]

Woah, watch the ricothet--!

[Thankfully it isn't needed, and he sighs a bit and slows his steps for the last few feet, trying to walk a little quieter.]

Sorry about that. Kind of hard to not be loud in this.

[foolishwren]

_{[YEAH she. She's seen how badly trying to shoot things made of metal can go.]}

It's-- it's fine. Not your fault.

_{[But she's looking him up and down. If he's a suit of armor again... no, it's too early for one of those weekends. Which means he can't... literally be one, can he? There's something about this forest...]}

I think we tripped into something... bad.

... You are real, right?

_{[She steps a little closer, ALMOST wanting to give him a knock on the chest to confirm.]}

[WILDCARD] did you think i forgot about monster punching because oh buddy

[meteorman]

[Ford has hit the point of wandering in these woods where he can't comfortably be certain that he's awake. Sure, he remembers waking up, but that means very little when there have been extended periods of waking up over and over again into new and horrible dreamscapes. That these woods look very much likes the woods he first wandered into in Mount Moon only means that his brain can conjure up that image reliably.

When he stumbles upon a road in the middle of the woods that starts suddenly and winds away through the trees, he starts to suspect that maybe he's still asleep. But what else is there to do but follow the road?

His Shiinotic shuffles along next to him. At first he thought her presence meant he couldn't be dreaming, but the realm of dreams and sleep are a Shiinotic's wheelhouse. Of course if any of his Pokémon could join him here it would be her. One of her overly-long arms grips the hem of his coat, less because she's afraid and more simply to remind him that she doesn't walk nearly so brisk as he does, especially when he's antsy.]

my dream just came true

[foolishwren]

<sub>[What else is there to do? At least a road might possibly MAYBE lead to some kind of man-made thing, as opposed to deeper into the woods.]

[But oh wait, that's reality logic.]

[That doesn't apply here.]

[The path winds and twists through the trees, and as Ford walks, a haze of fog-- thin at first, but steadily growing thicker-- starts to hang in the air.]

[For the longest time, there's just no sound except for the crunch of Ford's big old explorer boots and the light shifting of his Shiinotic's ruffles across the leaf-laden ground.]

[But then-- a rustle and a snap, somewhere off to the right. It's hard to tell whether it's close or far, somehow sound seems to travel strangely in here. But it was definitely a thing, and it didn't come from either of them.]</sub>

[meteorman]

[Ford immediately reaches for a gun that he remembers too late isn't there, then reaches for another gun that isn't there, and gets halfway through reaching for a knife he should already know also isn't there before he gives up. The one problem with living in this particular universe is weaponry just isn't as acceptable to have stashed all over your person.

Anyway it was just the snap of a twig. It doesn't matter that this whole area and particularly the oppressive fog are putting him on-edge. If that had been the sound of a tree snapping in half then he'd have to be really worried, right?]

...Come on, Angel.

[If his ears are now even more trained for any unusual sound, well, that's just being reasonably cautious.]

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Poor Ford. It's okay, you're not alone in having faced this problem in transitioning to life in the Pokemon world. It's rough, buddy.]

[But hey, just a snapped twig somewhere, right? No big.]

[Silence reigns once more for a few minutes.]

[And then there's another rustle.]

[Louder.]

[It almost sounds like something running quickly for just a few steps and then stopping.]

[Silence again.]

[Then another single snap, from a completely different direction.]</sub>

IN DA WOOOOOODS

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[Hours...days...Henry isn't sure. He trudges through the undergrowth with bags under his eyes that would never fit into any overhead compartment. In his arms is a big exhausted purple pomm pomm with compound eyes and droopy antenne. Abe the Vennonat is really regretting wanting to go on this outing.]

[They've gone though all the snacks in Henry's pack and one of his hands is badly scratched up from getting tangled in some brambles when he reached for what he thought was a candy bar.]

[Abe is the first to spot the flicker of yellow between the trees up ahead. He lets out a panicked chirping sound. Not another Hypno! He struggles in Henry's arms, unable to pick fight or flight.]</sub>

Shhh shhh, Abe. Hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay.

_{[Henry's voice is high and thin. He's so tired he can't tell if he's whispering or stage whispering.]}

[foolishwren]

<sub>[Just-barely-audible voices from the surrounding thickets are nothing new. She doesn't look up at first.]

[But the overvigilant red bird on her shoulder does. In fact, Kite starts hopping, flapping her wings, and making a BIG NASTY RACKET.]

[Heather WINCES, head whipping around to see what caused that reaction-- as much as having the Fletchinder refuse to move from her shoulder despite being very excitable (it's literally covered in cuts from those talons and there's really not much she can do about it) has been painful, she IS grateful that the bird's senses are so much more powerful than hers.]

[That shape through the trees...]</sub>

... Henry?

<sub>[The call is more cautious than relieved.]

[Because he may very well not be real.]</sub>

[no_ufo_ending]

<sub>[The shaggy cryptid slowly comes into view from between two twisted trunks. The Venonat struggling in his arms stops squeaking when he sees that the golden thing isn't a big-nosed hypnotist but a doggo!]

[But also now there's KITE and Abe's antennae curl up tight against his head. NO PULLING TODAY, SATAN!!!!]

[Henry almost feints forward at the sight of a familiar face with the right number of holes in it.]</sub>

Heather. Are you okay?

[foolishwren]

<sub>[There most certainly IS Kite, and it's very fortunate that the Fletchinder seems to be glued to Heather's shoulder. But those horrible beady black eyes definitely make contact with Abe's compound ones. It's not a friendly stare.]

[Heather, though, seems tentatively relieved. He seems real. He still might not be, but at least he's acting right.]</sub>

Not really. But alive, at least.

Shit, how did you end up in here too?