Dreamscape - Alina Luddite


 * Introduction
 * Dream #1: The Golden Thread

Introduction
The following is a selection of dreams which have taken place for the character Alina Luddite. These dreams will develop/change as she progresses with recovering her memories over the course of her story. Like most dreams, there is a bit of reality mixed in with other random imagery. None of the events hinted at in these dreams happened literally as they are being written. This is mostly a character-building exercise for me, as well as something that might be useful to some NewType characters who encounter Alina.

Dream #1: The Golden Thread
Like all things, it begins and ends in darkness. Oppresive, omnipresent darkness so close that it seems to press down on her chest, forcing the breath from her lips. Lines of color shoot through the vast expanse, flowing like some demon pulse drawing venom in from some distant wound, bringing it closer and closer to the heart of all things. A fierce, burning fire rips through her veins, the pain lashing wildly into her mind as if every nerve were set on a razor's edge.

There is no escape. Her hands are bound into place, fingers tense around the glowing orbs beneath them. Muscles spasm, convulsing, trying to break free even as the strong hands force her back into place. The empty, faceless men have no sympathy. Can they not feel it? The way that the fire seems as if it were trying to consume every part of her, down to her very soul. Pleading, begging, they don't seem to hear her as they only tie the restraints ever tighter.

Try as she might, shutting her eyes only seems to redouble the pain and the disorientation. The jab of a needle pierces a vein, the cold chill that seems to stop the worst of the seizures, but replaces it with something far worse. A sick, empty feeling lingers in her stomach, making it harder and harder to breathe. The ice chills her fingers and toes as they start to feel disconnected, numb.

A scream rips through the darkness, moving like a wave of energy that seems to shake the very core of this world. But who's scream? Someone else, or her own? The squeeking of wheels comes nearby, and as she tries to look, her head is caught once more by those restraints. A child, a boy no more than ten is being dragged from a cockpit, his limp, pale body looking more like a broken doll than a human being. His mouth is drawn open in a look of abject horror, blank eyes rolled back. As they wheel him by, his hand slips from the gurney and the cold, dead fingers dangle against her arm.

And then it comes to her again, that presence that forces her back into the seat and rattles her bones. Her breathes turn to gasps, a cry forced from her lips as she writhes in agony. There is a sickening feeling as if her flesh were being torn away, cutting down to the core, to the only bright place left in her heart of hearts. All thought, all hope, all sense of herself is slowly sucked away, the light dimming, growing ever more feeble as bit by bit her body is replaced by that of the machine. Detatched, cold, analytical, slowly whatever it was that made her human is torn away. Like a dying candle flame, that light gives one final, fatal sputter before going dark.

All is quiet. Even the faceless men seem to be holding their breath. All their needles, all their hands cannot hurt her now. The lines of color flowing into the distance are stable now, as there is no more heart to fight against their pull. Immortality. Power. Control. Strings pull those metallic arms, guiding them into place. A puppet, a doll just like that dead boy, but still somehow still breathing. Their delighted faces as her arm lifts, a gun held tight in her grasp. Their final test as she is set to stand upon the battlefield, her gun aimed at the image of a boy.

A boy, no older than she is, with familiar blue eyes. Like images in a mirror, the two level weapons at one another. The images flicker, first showing him as the machine, and then her, and then both children as humans. The men command them to obey. To fire. To prove themselves. Blood splatters across her face. Warm. Rich. Who's blood? No... /Their/ blood. Slowly, the gun drops from her fingers as she looks down to the gaping wound in her chest. She topples to her knees, watching the boy with the trembling hands.

But where he stands is no longer the darkness. It is the edge of a deep chasm, the clanging, grinding sound of the monster machine echoing from deep below. Like a siren song, it seems to call to them. It calls to her to pick up the gun. It calls to him to finish what he started. He levels the gun towards her head, taking a step closer as his eyes narrow with that cold, inhuman stare. His face, the agony drawn out in his lips, perhaps that alone is enough.

A heartbeat. A single breath. It is no longer the boy standing there, but the machine's puppet. Whatever kind face he had once had, it is nothing but empty metal now. The chasm calls even as he steps forward, pressing the gun against her forehead. The pain returns, starting not at the wound in her chest, but instead in her heart. Like a flicker, the light returns even as it seems that the boy has become lost to that same nothingness. She closes her eyes.

Click. Nothing happens. The gun holds no death, no sweet end to this empty, hollow pain. There is laughter from below. A shaking, crackling sound as the land beneath them begins to give-way. A fissure splits the dry, red earth beneath them, and then he starts to fall. There is no tought, no consideration as she lashes out, grabbing onto his metallic arm as she tetters on the precipice. The pain in her chest is forgotten, all that matters is holding on.

There is an interminable moment where the two hang there, on the edge between life and death, living and becoming the unliving. She whispers. A few short words. Words that have so much meaning to so many. Her tears, her pain, her will alone seems to be the binding thread that twists in golden light, wrapping around her hand and then down to circle the boy's forearm. The metal encasing him breaks away, leaving him looking up into her eyes. Emotion returns like a flood of warmth finally coming home. With that renewed strength, she pulls him back onto the ledge.

No matter how hard the machine might try, they were stronger now. That pain could no longer reach them. That cold emptiness could no longer tear them apart. Arm in arm, the golden rope seems to sink into their skin, the twined thread binding hearts, souls, spirits. So even as a new darkness looms, a new threat offers no comfort or safety, they know that they are never truly alone. Whatever new roads may come, they will travel them together.