Bill
**If you stare at the abyss for long enough, __it shall stare back__.**
**Should the abyss speak, the burning silence shall __madden__ those __unwilling to embrace it__.**

A dark room, it was featureless but seemed to have no walls, an endless void. In the darkness, eyes formed and dissipated, akin to an AI-generated image. The darkness shifted and pulsated, reached and grasped at the girl's legs as she laid still on the floor, splayed out. They didn't even attempt to fight the darkness, only tears fell, but the darkness did not pull or try to take her into it, the darkness only embraced her in a chilly hug, which she did not return. Just as she cried her inky tears, the darkness did as well soon after embracing her. It brought her up close to its figure and the abyss began to tremble and pulse. The voices of two screaming adults, loud and overbearing, began to create a potent emotion, powerful enough to permeate the outside world. A red, yet tattered string. It shook vigorously, vibrating with enraged intensity.
Richard
*Where am I?* 

White eyelashes open to dark eyes, looking around the landscape with confused yet cautious eyes. It had been an sudden transition— one instant walking down the stairs, heading to the kitchen to fill their kettle with tap water, the next feeling something in their head *Snap* And being pulled somewhere, far, far, away, limp body falling down the staircase landing. 

"Hello?" Uriel called out, into the darkness. A speck of white against the abyss, looking around the strange, foreign yet familiar world they found themselves in. 

"Is anyone here?" 

Their voice reverberated in the darkness, echoing against the shadowy walls. Would anyone answer?
Bill
Nothing...
A small voice in the distance called out quietly, "I just want to be normal..."
A sudden slam echoed all around, and the scenery changed to rolling hills of grass filled with flowering plants, surrounded by a forest and a mountain range, A figure frolicked far away in the grass, flailing about wildly, but emanating a feeling of happiness, despite being overshadowed by the sea of negativity underneath this fake landscape. 
If Uriel decided to get closer, they'd notice the figure was small, pale, but had no facial features, and looked very simple. They wore a white sun dress, the large mass of curls on the figure's head looking more like an animated scribble than actual curls. The whole place was like a kid's crayon drawing come to reality. Suddenly, after a lapse in attention, a large black figure was dancing and flailing around with the small figure, standing at least twice Uriel's height. The black mass held the pale child's hands with its own. But as the black mass danced, it began to slowly corrupt the area with darkness. The sun gave off no heat, despite it being directly overhead. It was cold, actually. Unbearably cold. There was no life here, the image being produced was all a thin shell to alleviate its creator's urges and wishes.
Calm, ambient music played under everything, but despite the calmness, it had hints of that same melancholy and grief that could be sensed under this cold, crude mask.
Richard
Uriel shivered, and approached the child dancing with her partner. As they approached, they brought the sun with them— an unconscious need to *Bring the sun* Brought to life, the warmth of dawn following them as they walked through the grassy plain. 

"*It's alright, now.*" They didn't say it, but the soft smile Uriel put on conveyed the sentiment well enough. 

*You're safe. The bad things can't hurt you.* 

Uriel starkly contrasted with the rest of the background— perfectly vivid and normal compared to the watercolor scenery of the dream. It was obvious, simply from taking a look at them. They were a foreign intruder— an entity that didn't belong in this world, jarring and life-like in all the ways they shouldn't be.
Bill
The calm music would descend into string-based violinic chaos and ascend in volume as Uriel made his presence known, but as it reached its peak, it quickly faded away, an echo of it remaining for a few moments. The dark figure would back away from the sun, slowly letting the girl's hands go. The girl, however, was not as calm, it put its hand out towards the figure, which looked back as she grasped ine of the many hands that came from it, but the hand and arm melted away, with the figure doing so afterwards. The corruption remained, but the violinic chaos came back as an air-thickening whisper of sound as all others faded away into a burning silence as the girl fell to her knees, making no noise but clearly feeling an intense grief as she clutched her hair and began to claw away at the earth and tear away the grass around it in a silent frenzy. As Uriel slowly got closer, the violinic chaos grew louder and the faceless girl's frenzy grew more agitated, her chest rising and faing visibly as if to breathe, but nothing, no facial features to make noise with, not even a muffled voice. 
The girl would then stop and fall to her knees again, facing away from Uriel again, the musical chaos died down...
Richard
Uriel tentatively puts a hand on the girl's shoulder, crouching down to her level to appear less intimidating to the younger, smaller figure. 

*Appearing less intimidating...* It was a good idea, and as Uriel toyed with the idea in their mind, they transformed into... A sheep. A tiny, yet fluffy sheep, with thick wool soft and wispy like a cloud. 

The tiny, baby sheep looked over at the girl, nudging her side gently as their soft, downy fur tickled against her side. Children loved animals, didn't they? It was certainly more approachable than their human form, which... Well, they'd been told was a bit uncanny. 

The sheep's legs buckled as it gently laid next to the girl, its content eyes closing in small satisfaction. 

*There's no need to worry,* The sheep seemed to murmur. *My fur is soft like yarn, and soft things can't hurt you.*

Was it spoken outloud? It didn't matter, even if it was— the sentiment seemed to ricochet through the dream realm, molding the surrounding area to accept the new statement as a fact. The laws of this world were at Uriel's fingertips, and solidifying their presence as a peaceful one took top precedent. 

Law number one: *I will not hurt you.*
Bill
The girl turned around to face the sheep, and slowly accepted its company, letting it under her arms and onto her lap. Even as the realm became peaceful, this dream was, at its base, one of remorse, but alas, the sheep seemed to distract the girl from it temporarily. For a while, the small figure did nothing but caress the sheep and rub her face into its fur, having begun to cry partway through the process. The tears felt heavy whenever they fell onto Uriel. For the moment that he was looking away, the small figure had gained eyes, or rather, eye sockets, just two gaping holes that looked like endless, non-euclidean tunnels from the outside. From these, the heavy, inky tears leaked. Even at peace, the figure found it hard to feel true joy, as despite the whole realm now appearing to be photorealistic, the sadness still persevered, coming directly from the girl. 

She hugged the sheep tight and more of the black liquid streamed from the eyes. 

The small, yet disembodied voice of the dreamer spoke again. "Come."

They stood up, and the eyes were gone, now having let go of the sheep, as they began to walk. It seemed like the figure was subconsciously aware of this outside element, as they had realized that they were not in control of this... Thing. Whatever it was, it stood out too much, it was too *Different*.

The scenery, with an electronic stuttering and a brief moment of pure darkness, had shifted to a giant hall with enormous metal bars at the end, pipelines and cracks running along the walls, with even more hanging pipes and ducts making up the visible ceiling. This was no sheer change in scenery, the dream itself had become aware, it had become *Lucid*.

"You wish to alleviate pain.

If so...

Then talk to *It*."

The figure pointed to the giant gated cage, sealed with chains thicker than a man and a lock big enough to house someone inside it, the inside of the cage remaining a pure black, a solid shadow, even with the bright yet muddled lights of the giant hall. The air suddenly became thicker, the figure only stared at Uriel, it pointed to the cage. Even if addressed, it did not speak any more, it only stared directly at Uriel and kept her hand pointed to the cage.

`Note: in the other direction (eg. Away from the cage) is nothing, it simply fades into darkness.`

`Note 2: By 'This was no mere change of scenery', I meant that Uriel was literally taken to a visual representation of the true Yari, the one she's *Afraid* To show, repressed, hence the cage.`
Richard
A cage.

The metaphorical representation of what *That* Could mean was a bit... On the nose. Something hidden deep inside, not meant to be seen by prying eyes. Something *Dangerous*, a monster that warranted the thick, oppressive chains that hung from the cage doors. 

It didn't matter that it was a dangerous, feral beast. Uriel wanted only to help the girl's pain, and they wouldn't leave such a creature to hurt as it pleased. It couldn't hurt Uriel— after all, it was just a dream. Nothing more, and nothing less. 

*You can't hurt me in any way that matters,* Uriel repeated in their head. From the dark, murky ground, Uriel began to weave, and the strings holding together the chassis of the dream began to knit themselves into shapes. The landscape distorts, vision momentarily blurring, and outside of the cage sits two new objects: a table, with two piping hot cups of tea on both sides, and a chair facing the cage. 

Uriel transforms back into their human form, each step they take closer to the table and its seat echoing through the hallway walls. The clack, clack, clack of their heels provide a steady rhythm until Uriel sits down on the chair, and looks at the monster expectedly. 

What else to say? Uriel might be in a dream, sitting one on side of a tiny table pressed next to a cage containing a feral monster, but they hadn't forgotten their *Manners*. They scoot the other cup of tea closer to the opposite edge, now able to be properly held by the monster if the other snaked an arm through the gap.

"Sugar? Milk?" Uriel asked, taking a sip of the drink. It tasted... Exactly how they wanted it to taste, a fresh blend of drink that reminded them of home. 

"How are you?" They followed up, looking over at the monster with uncanny, unflinching-yet-kind eyes.
Bill
The entity faded away as Uriel walked closer to the table, all it said were concise words that served as advice.

"She can be... Difficult. She is hard to contain."

She chuckled to herself, then said a few more words.

"Sometimes I wonder if these chains are purely cosmetic..."

As Uriel sat down, the searing silence permeated the air again for about twelve seconds before a thin, pure black hand snaked out from the bars, twitchy and uncoordinated, the arm belonging to this hand was about the same size as the other figures', but as mentioned, pure black. The arm looked like it had joints all along it, zigzagging in odd directions at slight angles. The hand was large and had massively elongated fingers. It grabbed the teacup shakily, then retracted quickly back in between the bars, somehow not spilling a drop.

Two uncanny eyes stared back at Uriel, only two small eyes, distant in the void behind the bars. 

The Abyss Stares Back.

Once the eyes had pierced through Uriel with this half-squinted stare, a booming voice yelled out from the bars, as if a female giant had yelled them at the top of its lungs, shaking the

"***WHAT- DO- YOU- WAAAAAANT***!?"

The voice sounded anguished, in pain, as if going through severe mental torture. The eyes remained stationary, and the teacup had been returned to Uriel, but as it was done so, via throwing it at very high speed, an overbearing rage came from the cage, as if the rage of an entire crowd had been condensed into one being. The teacup flew right past Uriel's ear and shattered on the hard stone floor some twenty feet away. Notably, the cup was empty, so the tea had been presumably drunk. 

"***WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, WHY DID YOU COME, GET THE FUCK __OUT__***!!!"

The first time Uriel tried to speak after it was done yelling, they were interrupted by another scream.

"__***NOOOOOOOWWW!!!***__"

After this though, Uriel could speak without interruptions.
Richard
<3 fank you my darling dearest

The tea shatters with a crack, and another filled cup instantly takes its place on the cage side of the table. It was a courtesy, one that cost Uriel nothing in this strange world— not the time needed to boil another kettle of water nor the leaves needed to add to the drink. 

Uriel says nothing as the monster continues to rage, taking a long, drawn, sip of their drink while they wait out the raging storm. Nothing could hurt them, here— maybe mentally, yes, but nothing permanent, nothing that would ache in the morning besides the shaking of their hands, the vague tingling sensation in their head, and the guilt of unwanted voyeurism weighing on their shoulders. 

"I was told to talk to you. Therefore, I'm here."

They turn over to the girl for a split second, looking at her with a quick glance. If they weren't welcome here... She wouldn't have escorted them to see *This*. Surely, some part of whoever's consciousness this dream belonged to wanted them to witness the monster and the cage, in some shape and form. 

"What's your name?" Uriel asks, maintaining an even tone of voice despite the multiple prior interruptions.
Bill
The creature inside the cage would simply close its eyes, making its presence disappear within the darkness, but soon enough, the music playing faintly in some vague location seemed to calm it down, as the eyes would soon reappear at the edge of the cage, now wide instead of squinted. The air lifts, the mood of aggression lifts to a degree. It grabbed the cage's immense bars, ones wide enough to fit a person, but a cage the monster decided to stay in despite the clear yet vague ability it showed to escape. "Are you... Not scared?" 

One had crept out again, then another, then suddenly, many arms trailed by many-jointed limbs began to spill over the edges of the cage,, over the walls and onto the table, one of the hands grabbing the tea again. "My name...? What do you mean..." It looked around for a bit, trying to think, but as soon as it did, it put down the teapot again and the hands began to twitch and flail wildly as the feeling of aggression spiked drastically again, the hands retracting back into the cage. "My name. Yarimiel." From inside the bars, many voices whisper, and a cacophony of the yelling adults from earlier came from it, and after a few seconds of it getting to unbearable volumes, it stopped as the monster let out a screech, to which the sudden feeling of aggression went down, but persisted, yet much more than a few moments ago.
Richard
"You're concerned about whether or not I'm scared? You're rather kind." It's hard to properly offer the creature a smile; with the darkness of the cage and the many limbs erupting from the... Thing, trying to distinguish its dark form from the edges of the cage proves to be difficult at best. Still, Uriel tries their hardest to offer a small, quiet smile at the other— no teeth, only the barest hint of gratitude for the unexpected concern visible by a soft flutter of snow-white eyelashes.

"As to that... No, I'm not scared. I apologize, but you can't hurt me in any way that matters. *Should* I be scared?" 

Even if that was technically the case, Uriel was still glad for the change in mood, giving a small sigh to no one in particular. Angry, out of control beasts were difficult and often exhausting to handle, and not having to tip-toe around this creature sparked a small feeling of gratitude within them.

"Besides, this is far from my first rodeo." A small glean of amusement at the phrase, an idiom Uriel learned from the pages of a novel they'd read when they were first learning English, confusedly trying to put the phrase together piece-by-piece in their head. 

Language, like most things, didn't make sense by ripping apart individual words and analyzing the broken pieces. Only by looking at the whole picture allowed one to make sense of the *True* Meaning behind something.
Bill
The creature did not know how to respond to this compliment, it was called kind. These were simple, yet powerful words, clean and precise like a surgeon's scalpel, but this is not a normal human being, more accurately, like a bullet to the chest, chaotic, devastating, and painful. The creature recoiled back, then got closer to the bars, grabbing onto them, and one hand appeared from the bars again, but it wasn't odd or uncanny, it looked more normal, proportional, not uncanny, and large, befitting the size of the cage. Silence, it was processing.

After a few seconds of the eyes' bottoms going up, a quiet sobbing could be heard, then suddenly, the quiet sobbing broke into a screaming ugly-cry, complete with the coughing and hiccups, the bars of the cage began to scurry off to the side, and the darkness receded with the bars, creating a clearing big enough for Uriel to creep closer to the figure. 

As the darkness had receded away though, dark arms tried to cling to it, but the small figure, looking close in shape to the one that brought Uriel here except with all of its features being pure darkness, no lightning, no darker shadows, swatted them away as if it did not wish to have them grab it, it would keep doing this until they stopped trying. It was simply as if a piece of reality had been snipped out, except for the two eyes, and a heavy amount of an inky, dark liquid, the same color as the small entity, began to spill on the floor as it began to bawl violently like a child. Once the last of these arms had been swatted away, the dark child would run to Uriel, presumably to take solace in their company. Amidst the sobbing, hiccups and coughs, Uriel could make out a few words, put together between the heavy stuttering, nasal voice and other noises. "*Get me... Get me out of here!*" They began to scream into their body, hugging them tightly, this was a sharp change in emotion, their sheer aggression seemed to turn into grief... *Perhaps that might be the origin?*

The mourning of what never was, the loss of what could've been. 

Their sobbing and crying only got more intense and stuttery as they embraced Uriel. They even grabbed onto their clohes, their shoulder, they just wanted to not be alone. "PLEASE DON'T- DON'T GO!" She yelled into Uriel's ches, hugging him tightly. They continued to quietly plead with him over and over, "Don't go..." "No, no, no, no, no..." "Don't leave me here... Please..." Among others. It was a harrowing sight, the entire mood of this realm turned into an intoxicating grief, an overbearing sadness and depression, even stronger than the highest spike of aggression. 

"Don't let go of me, please..."
Richard
"I won't leave you until morning, I promise." Their voice is low and comforting, a steady mumble providing constant noise like the babbling of a brook, soothing water attempting to cleanse the deep, scarred, angry wounds that permeated the girl's fragile mind. 

"Why don't we... Go somewhere happier? This world can be anything, after all. Let's leave this prison behind, hm?" 

The dark, nightmarish world dissolves around the two. From the ashes, a new dream is born; scratches of shadow clawing at the ground replaced with a green meadow, orange hues bouncing off of individual strands of grass as the fiery rising sun envelops the scene in warmth. With dawn comes light— not the harsh, unforgiving fluorescent bulbs of an artificial too-clean clinic, but the soft, tender caress of sun. 

*You're alright. You're safe, now.*

It's not a sentiment told from a sound leaving their lips, but expressed via the slow meandering breeze and the soft rustling of grass as the meadow all-but-literally whispers its gentle platitudes, breathing the essence of comfort and security.
Bill
For context, this. That is all.]]

The girl continues to grip at Uriel and hug herself ever closer to them, somehow being even weaker than Uriel, perhaps a projection of their real world self, or their weak will and lack of control over their violence, their mistrust, the scars that they have acquired over their life, never closing, never healing, never drying out.

The girl takes in all of their well-meant emotions and dispenses ten times as much misery, grief and agony, the way they shifted in odd ways alluding to their possible *Physical* Agony.

The scars begin to bleed, they never closed, they grew, they grew and began to cover and taint flesh untreaded by any body or thing. The scars infected their insides, their very emotions, thoughts and their most fundamental aspects as a living, sentient, reasoning creature. The girl only wishes to live these moments under a real, warm sun, even if they were to be her last, even if she had left no mark on anyone, even if she had lived a short life full of nothing but pain and rage. Even if these were her last moments, she would only wish to live them in the warm embrace of another.

After a few more minutes of this quiet hugging, four slow, silent, blood-chilling notes begin to play over the environment, the warm feeling once again turns to a chill, the stubborn, boiling emotions, the scars overflowing, their very nature to lash out and destroy any threats to their wellbeing begin to corrupt and tear this dimension apart once again. 

The girl goes quiet.

.
.
.

Four. The sky begins to darken to a moody gray, reminiscent to a storm without the rain.

.
.
.

Three, the fabricated nature goes dark and gray, the distant mountains begin to grow spikes, and the trees crumble to dust, leaving jagged trunks and piles of sharp, rough sticks, branches and leaves.

.
.
.

Two. The wind picks up and the sun turns dark with a ring of shimmering white light, bit even this light seems ominous and aggressive, filled only with hate and malice.

One, the girl began to shift, and she began to step back from Uriel.

.
.
.

The violinic chaos began to set in again as the small figure put two hands to their head as a mass of malicious, evil and low whispers began to emanate from her, the ring of menacing light shimmering and shifting wildly around the dark sun would then begin to grow more intense as the girl began to point at Uriel and shout, seemingly having filled her own mind with affirmations, their beliefs that this was too good to be real setting in, *Despite this being what they were looking for.* The dark sun, or what now seemed to be a hole, would manifest an eye within it, and it would look at the abyssal apparition of the girl, then at Uriel, and the pupil in the middle of it shrank. The violinic chaos would rise in tone and volume, and then everything went dark once again. The girl's form would shift with odd, wet, organic sounds and the popping of bones, their fingers, arms, legs, just about everything elongated until the figure that once was the girl stopped to be about fifteen feet tall, estimatedly.

The violinic chaos reached higher and higher, but then...

Silence... Everything went completely dark again.

A piercing, dramatic melody began to blare over everything as the elongated form of the girl, now having reappeared as a gargantuan, bone-chilling visage of teeth, eyes, and limbs, but the legs seemed to now be gone, the form now reaching a length so far that the setting they were now in seemed to block the sheer length. They were now placed in a gray, dark forest, full of gray, charred trees with flailing branches, razor-sharp leaves flying about, and arms that snaked along the ground and attempted to catch Uriel, as well as the beast that chased him now, having officially announced it's full presence with a deep, guttural, hellish roar befitting the monster it came from. The chase ensued, as the arms, which appeared to be the only kind of limb it had, thumped into the ground with the full

Weight, rage and power of the creature.

[covers everything from beginning to the sudden start of the song after the short silence]
Richard
Uriel watches with awe as the girl and the scene transform in front of their eyes, shedding their prior weaving and turning into a perverse, distorted scene. The grey, desaturated scenery whispers faintly to Uriel, attempting to call out to them and cling onto their poncho, their braid, any bit of *Light* The sentient trees and grass and shadows could grasp onto for even the briefest of moments before they escaped its clutches once again. 


"I'm not running from you." Uriel announces, standing stalwart and still in the midst of the chaos. 

It was pointless, anyway. They couldn't run— this forest would stretch on forever, or a tree branch or root would appear from the ether and materialize just to trip them. This forest was *Alive*, a fact Uriel was aware of deep down, and they were subject to its whims. 

"I'm not turning away from you, or looking away from who you are, or denying the reality that's staring me in the face. This... This is you, too, and I'm not running from this." 

Uriel takes a step closer to the creature. It was a horrible, horrible idea, one that they were prepared to suffer in blood for— but blood was only dye in the land of string, and their wounds always healed in the realm of the unconscious.
Bill
Each of the jabbing notes of the melody playing amongst the chaos would continue, and the monster would swipe a hand at Uriel. Fury was not the emotion, though, the fury and grief turned into a feeling of defense, it was defending itself from being found out, it had to eliminate this intruder before the true nature of the girl escapes. The monster would swipe, stomp and tear at Uriel, every time they came back, it would dart over and brutally tear them apart, but as it was revealed before, it was scared, it was defending itself, the emotional shock from this sudden kindness reopened the dry, flaky scars of abandonment, dug out by a white-hot knife, amputating all ambitions, desires, all hope, all joy, all emotion except for the ones on display. 

The monster was simply a scar in and of itself, the forest did not seem to pick a favorite over the monster or him, as wear could be seen on the hands of the monster, scratches of pure darkness, bleeding out onto the floor and onto Uriel's ethereal yet earthlike form. The creature made pained wails as it kept being lashed, cut, stabbed and torn, like a thousand papercuts, by the forest itself. 

The monster did this for a good while, the wind becoming harsher, the dark hands, the trees, the leaves, all becoming more aggressive over time, before the monster tried to crawl towards Uriel one again, but now, the forest wasn't harming Uriel, or even targeting Uriel at all, the leaves naturally passed by them, as if probability were to be on their side. 

The forest began to attack the monster. Each scaly pike that erupted from the ground, each golden, glowing blade, each dark, rusty chain, a jab in the music. They kept attacking it, it wriggled and fought back, managed to break some of the smaller chains, but they simply came back stronger, thicker, the shackles spiked and jagged, meant not to clamp around it, but rather *Into* It. At the very end of this struggle, the monster reared back only to have its back pierced by two

Immense golden blades, to which it let out a powerful, earth-shaking screech that echoed around this mind realm, shaking the forests into stillness, the blades no longer glowing, the chains now limp, the pikes now retracting into the earth, leaving large perforations and bone fragments all over, the restraint and submission of the self, repressing one's true feelings and intentions, the scared monster just wanted an escape, it was simply looking for a was out, attacking the intruder, Uriel, in its own blind terror, in a fit of terrified chaos.

The music silenced itself, perhaps the lucid dream had become self-aware in a sense, and began to freely manipulate itself to its own whims, beyond even the reach of this monster.

The creature still tried to force itself to stand up, but its arms only managed to weakly get themselves into position before cracked bones shattered, torn muscles did nothing, or shattered hands squished disgustingly in its final struggle. Only weakened, slow breathing came from it, the creature no longer attempting to attack Uriel.

[covers the frantic melody, ends at the violin/piano jabs, the music fades out after this, and will remain silent until further specification]

```Aftermath: A large area of forest is now trashed, in every sense of the word, uprooted trees, gashes, holes and shattered wood all over, dark grayish undergrowth and black inky fluid pooled all over, like a scene straight out of a war, but grayscaled, caused entirely by this one thing. At the very end, The monster's untouched but clearly exhausted visage lay about three meters away from Uriel. A full moon revealed itself, and the giant golden swords, giant golden pins, pointed auric bones, rusty chains, exposed, black flesh and pools of inky blood all glimmered in the moonlight. The trees were now calm, the wind would calm to a near-halt, and the leaves no longer flew about or seemed razor-sharp to the touch, gently flowing over Uriel's shoes along the weakened breeze.```
Richard
It tore them into ribbons. Literally. 

Every time the creature's claws would slice through their torso, or grab them in its massive hands and chew them to pieces, or slowly rip their limbs off of their body, it revealed their body's true form— not a vessel made of flesh and blood, but of stuffing and string. Claws would tear through their body, and they'd close their eyes momentarily, willing the world of the dream to sew up their gaping wounds before being torn to shreds again. 

It was painful, horribly so. But it was just *Pain*, and pain was something Uriel did not fear. Pain was easy, pain was temporary— they'd take the physical sensations of being ripped apart over and over than have the weight of not being there for someone who needed them press against their chest and squeeze the breath from their lungs. 

Pain was an old friend of theirs, and they did not fear it. Heartbreak, however, was *Terrifying*— far more so than the familiar sensations of sharp edges digging into their body and blunt objects slamming against their skin. 

It didn't last forever. 

Uriel approached the monster, now collapsed in a heap at their feet, the soft crunch of leaves under their boots punctuating every step they took. 

"It's alright," They said, kneeling down on one knee in front of the monstrosity. A gloved hand reaches out, stroking the monster's head with a soft touch. 

"I'm not going to hurt you. You don't have to worry." 

It was afraid, and hurt others because of it. How often did Uriel see other humans do that exact thing? Lashing out, fear turning into anger at perceived threats— every time, Uriel would forgive them, trying to understand that they didn't *Mean* It, the much older people of their town only doing so because they were afraid of the quiet child too-often seen inside people's heads.

Uriel forgave them, every time. And so, as they looked down at the creature, they forgave it, too. 

"Please, allow your weary soul to rest." They spoke.
Bill
`Music for the following post.`

He music continued.

The creature would try to continue moving something, an arm, a solid faceplate, jaws, anything out of instinct, but it knew that this was its eventual recapture and subduing, but this time was different... It felt like it had nothing else to look forward to once the ethereal arts-and-crafts project allowed it to rest... Forever.

The beast would continue breathing, but they kept getting slower, and Uriel could see the muscles under its thin, pale skin relax, the head as well, the jaw clamping shut slowly. 

The beast would then begin to bleed from the mouth, moving its head towards Uriel, almost as if it wanted an embrace, a final rest before it was all over. This was something it did not think about, but for once it's mind was clear. Despite its want for freedom, it knew that nothing awaited it on the outside, and this show of subduing, it has endured it many times, the mind never giving this manifestation of the true self the permission to rest.

But now, it had been given the permission that it was looking for all these weary, painful years. It could finally rest. Forever. It took in one more lungful of air, and then let out its final breath, it could finally rest, and with that final breath, the same inky black fluid began to leak from what were supposed to be eyeholes on the side of its head. As the final breath ended, a faint whisper of a voice could be heard in the distance. It was barely recognizable when just listening, but Uriel could probably figure out what this meant. 

"Thank you."

The beast would slowly turn black all over, and it slowly began to disintegrate, the soft breeze picking up, yet it was not aggressive, it was more calm and serene. The final send-off. The flesh withered away into dust, then the muscles, organs and other flesh. Finally, as the music began to pick up in a more final manner, and the bones remained, pale and perfect, entirely inert and lifeless, but they too, would wither with time as the mind healed.
.

The environment began to shake and crumble apart, the ground fell first, but Uriel did not, they would simply remain in an invisible surface as they watched the ream crumble.

The trees fell away with the ground, noiselessly into the abyss below, and not too long after, the sky began to crack and crumble away like glass, but the individual shards would appear to simply fall away and disappear, away from Uriel, none of them even coming close to him in the slightest as the colossal panes of ethereal, cloudy night skies were annihilated.

The moon remained, still and eerie in the now pure-black environment, but soon, it would slowly be overtaken by the void, slowly absorbed into it, the music once again reachin a high point before ceasing and echoing into a burning silence. (1) Once everything was gone, even the noise, nothing remained around Uriel except the skeleton of the creature and a single leaf, all three of those lit up as if illuminated, but with nothing to do so.

Uriel would see images of past memories pop up around him, like sets of a show, singular rooms or small spotlights of an open area, all of them being the papercuts, the invisible overhead light disappearing as Uriel and the bones now receive light from these memories, some faded, some clear as day, but all of them centered around the host, the mind, they all looked like the faceless little girl from the fields, but no, they had a face, this was... This was the host of the dream. Whether Uriel recognized her after hearing her name earlier was something else.
.

In a good number of them, two adult figures, blurry and with heads that simply appeared to be chaotic scribbles were yelling at her, locking her in the room, or performing any number of abusive acts, but one of them seemed particular.

One of the brightest and clearest ones was when an object, what seemed to be a steel cooking pot, was thrown at her head, hitting her square in the eye, to which she bled and wailed wildly after falling over, remaining curled up on the floor.

Another, the girl was wrestling both of her parents, to which she seemed to be failing, as they tried to wrangle a stuffed toy from her. She continued pulling on it until the tearing of stitches could be heard, to which she reacted by biting the hand of the one who tried to pull it away. Their gender was not clear, as their bodies were very similar, and their voices were corrupted and low, but extremely aggressive.

Between those two core memories, more began to play, and they never got better,they kept playing en masse, but they were so silent, barely audible, no noise present in them, as if the girl's adrenaline blocked out the sounds in these memories.

In the end, he could see a memory that would play, with him present in it, but unable to interact with its contents, the bones of the monster would be overwritten by the scene. 
.

It began in a modest-looking house with very nice decorations, but a door in the far end of the hallway could be seen open, but nothing inside could be seen. The girl was getting yelled at, but Uriel could barely hear it, the sounds were muffled and echoing below the music as it unwound. The girl yelled back at them, with those same inky tears streaming down her face, as one of the parents was about to put their hand on her, her hand shot out to push their head away, but to little effect, this only achieved making them fall over, and the other brandished a knife, the girl's other arm extending into a long black tendril to swat it away. The parents would then recover immediately and try to just wrestle her to the ground again, but the girl would just run away beforehand, her limbs lengthening in panic as she scampered away from the two scribble-headed entities and out of the house. Uriel was not forcibly changed in position around the scene, it was up to him to watch the end of this. The two scriblle-headed entities would shift into scribbly monsters and barrel through the house, but ultimately stopping at the front yard, the girl able to be seen sprinting dow n the sidewalk and past a corner.
Richard
*A nightmare.*

As they watch the memories unravel and unfold around them, standing in the eye of a storm as scenes of heartbreak echoed against each other. There was nothing to be gained from this— nothing good would come out of witnessing years of abuse at their fingertips, nothing the girl would want Uriel to see and nothing they wanted to witness. 

They didn't deserve to see this, and they doubted their presence here would be welcome come morning. It was *Torture*, dangling old memoires just outside of the girl's reach, replaying and rewinding like a horrible, sordid never-ending dance forever receiving an encore. No one deserved to go through this, to have their heart revealed to a stranger without knowledge nor consent. 

"Listen," Uriel approaches the girl, crouching down to her level. "Looking at this... Replaying all of these memories... It's your brain hurting itself, hurting *You*. You have to wake up, alright? Wake up, and don't dwell on these old scars and past trauma. Please, move on— being here is only going to drive you mad, do you understand?"

They drop onto their knees in front of her, meeting her eyes and wrapping her into another hug. 

"I'm so sorry— I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this, that you have to relive these memories every night. You don't— you did nothing wrong to deserve this treatment. Please... Wake up, and forget about all of this. I'm— I'm sorry I can't do more for you, that the band-aid fixes and dreams I can provide only last so long before darkness seeps in once again. I'm sorry I can't give you the happy dream you deserve, so... Please, wake up." 

That was only half of the story— the longer she was asleep, the more parts of *Herself* Would bleed into the dream. More memories, more trauma would inevitably taint the scene. It was a darkness Uriel wasn't entitled to *See*, and the only way they could look away was if she woke up.

Reliving trauma is horrible, in and of itself. Having a stranger witness the parts of yourself even you didn't feel comfortable acknowledging was even *Worse.*
Bill
As Uriel approached the girl, the host of the nightmare's consciousness had butted into the fray again, the dream no longer influenced by the whim of the subconscious as it was for those few minutes before. The girl would once again look up at Uriel, then just cry again, even before they hugged her. Yarimiel cried, and the music had begun to reach its end, there was no more to show, no more to say, no more to fix. No words were needed. What could have been accomplished in one conversation had instead been achieved in a mental self-torture, this time with an outside spectator, one who could change the course of these events.

Once addressed, she looked up at them with tattered clothes, wild, unclean hair, and a face that had massive, inky smears all over it. She would just continue crying, but the fact that she had looked up towards him meant that she was listening, she heard them. She did not say any words, she only nodded into their chest softly, the sobbing continuing to get louder and louder, an ugly cry. She would keep crying into Uriel's chest, and the scene did not change, it just began to rain in sheer silence, there was no noise, the environment grew blurry and dark, and the only actual sounds were Yarimiel's violent bawling and Uriel's smooth, reassuring voice. Once he told her to wake up, it seemed to have done the effect. The girl stopped crying suddenly, looked up at Uriel with a surprised look in her eyes, then in the matter of a few moments, the whole thing unraveled like threads, Uriel was kicked out from the girl's mind, and the last thing they would see just before waking up would be two pinpricks of white in sheer darkness.

Her consciousness was kicked back into action, her body would spring into action, fueled by shock and adrenaline, and for the first time in years, she had woken up in a cold sweat, tears already having run down her face, and her pillow had a giant black stain on the side her head rested on.
.

Her consciousness was kicked back into action, her body would spring into action, fueled by shock and adrenaline, and for the first time in years, she had woken up in a cold sweat, tears already having run down her face, and her pillow had a giant black stain on the side her head rested on.

She began to internalize and absorb the situation but was fully incapable of comprehending it, so as an automatic response, she could only scream and wail. Her body, filled with adrenaline, would begin to try and access the instinct to fight, but she no longer felt the need to fight, she now began to ask herself why she even wanted to fight, what was the source of this madness, why was she so angry all the time, what made her act this way? 

*What hurt her*?

After these questions flooded her mind, she could only collapse into a crying fit, using one of her arms, and launching her hand out lazily towards the wall in the general area of the light switch. Her light was now on, and she could fully ground herself into reality after denying it for so long, after escaping it for what was essentially all she knew. It fully came to herself as to why she felt all of this anger, but now instead of rage, she only felt the need to cry and let it all out. She would slam her head into a pillow and scream, the same one that the monster made as to its final retaliation. The volume of it was enough to echo throughout the entire dorm section the same way the monster's wail did. What was now anger had been slowly replaced by fear. Fear of the world, fear of others, fear of what may hurt her, fear of what they would do to her, fear of the possibilities, but most of all, fear of *Herself*. She would then get up and look around again through blurry, stained vision and look to the door, but she was afraid of what might happen if he got out, what would people do once they realized that the monster she was trying to hide was really just herself, once they realized the reality, *She was a monster*...