Another character dream
Jun. 24th, 2004 02:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightrosefoxThis one did not make me happy. Not at all.
At first I was just observing, watching; the author watching her story unfold in its own world. Dana and Ian were asleep in bed, spooning. Shadows on the walls coalesced and converged on her side of the bed, brushing against her until she rolled away from Ian to try and bat them away. She was pulled abruptly and fiercely into the astral plane.
This was a slightly different entrace from the other projections, though. It wasn't that she suddenly was there; she fell into an ocean of white light and had to swim down, across, up, limbs working frantically as light filled her nose and eyes and she could barely breathe. As she broke the "surface" of the flood, I was thrust into her with a very violent pull. So I was now my character in my dream.
I (Dana) struggled against the light-waves until I touched "land" and saw the familiar plane with its indescribable, undefinable array of colors and shapes. Almost immediately, the "sky" above me exploded from gold and blue hues to utter black as a hole opened over my head and expanded like a thing with tentacles, writhing across the expanse of astral atmosphere. A few feet in front of me, Jeremy appeared, with the Shadow avatar blazing out from his eyes. Those eyes were not ice blue anymore; they were black and glassy. He looked corpse-like and his hair streamed around his face and soaked up the pitch of the thing around him. It reminded me of the last dream, when Dana and Kara were being chased across a Lovecraftian landscape by Jeremy himself.
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked. The Phoenix unfurled inside me and surged against the trapping of my skin, so my blood simmered and sizzling golden-red light licked my lips when I spoke.
"You're being difficult," he growled, and lowered his head and charged. I thrust my arms out reflexively, calling my avatar, but of course in this plane the Phoenix and the Shadow are essentially equal; and my Phoenix could only flare furiously while the Shadow laughed with Jeremy's voice and hurled Jeremy's body at me. He slammed into me, knocking my breath out, wrapping his arms around me in a steel grip. We crashed to the ground, upsetting clouds of gold sand. Sand grains skittered across my eyes and mouth but I didn't have time to wipe them away. I beat at him with my fists as we slid back toward that raging sea of light that was now tinged with stormy gray. He surged upright with me still clasped to him, so we were midair and locked together, and our avatars were screaming and rampaging inside us, desperate to attack each other but knowing it would just wound and not kill. Jeremy kept his arms around me but his mind did the hurting, pulling no punches, making no taunts and teases; slamming into mine over and over and cracking the strongest and deepest of my shields. My body couldn't move, but it didn't matter because astrally we were not bodies. I was screaming and my voice was torn from the air by the wisps of shadow that swirled around us. Yet through the howling of those shadows I could still hear his mental voice, as his mind was seeking more ways to violate and tear, hurt and batter: "You think it's so easy to keep eluding me, don't you? You think all this is just a game and we're playing tag and as long as you keep hiding I won't find you? You think they can protect you? I keep sending out those creatures after you because I'm still gathering my strength to come get you myself. I know where you go. I know what you're trying to do. Don't you dare think you've got the better of me. I'm not who you believe I used to be."
I screamed one last time, and finally the Phoenix broke through the static hold that the universe always seems to place on it and the Shadow when they're together. I howled with a fury I'd never felt before and stabbed all the power I could into Jeremy. He couldn't even cry out; he was swept up in the blaze of fire and vanished. The shadows broke away and faded. The sky returned to normal.
I buried my face in my hands and curled into a ball. The astral winds and my telekinesis propelled me toward the now calm light and I tumbled back toward my physical body.
That was when Dana and I separated in the dream. She jerked up in bed with a strangled gasp, waking Ian, and I was flung away back to my observing dreamer position. As the dream started to fade, I watched Ian pull her close; I watched her literally crumble into his arms.
I woke up, barely, and found a light sheen of sweat that had broken out over my entire body. Adam was spooning against me in a very tight embrace. I gently disentangled myself, went to the bathroom, and came back and lay down. He opened his eyes and smiled at me, and I smiled back, because the dream was already fading into the back of my mind. I haven't been able to fully recall it till now. My hands are shaking as I type.
I have a very bad feeling about the character of Jeremy now. I had originally created him to be sympathetic. A sociopath and psychopath at the same time, but you'd still be able to identify and understand and feel for him. He didn't want to take over the world or any kind of cartoon villain megalomaniac thing. Yes, he had certain goals that would involve destroying all of reality, but he had his reasons and I wanted them to be realistic: He wanted Dana to love him again. He wanted the Phoenix to give its power to him, so he could recreate the whole of existence for himself and Dana. He wanted Dana and the Phoenix to be at his side. Not a bad thing. Extremely disturbing, stalker psycho tendencies, but still human.
But the Shadow is not human. And now, I'm starting to think that maybe Jeremy never really was...human. I mean, I never wanted him to go this far. Yes, he is cracked. Yes, he is completely fucked in the head beyond all repair, cold and empty and nothing inside, devoid of true compassion, perhaps even what we'd call evil. But now I don't think I can make him very sympathetic anymore. It saddens me, a little. Yes, he is my character and I can change him as I wish, but there is still an underlying idea of who he is. After all, I really do believe that when we create fictional characters, they start to exist in an alternate reality, not just in our heads; and maybe they crossed over to be born through us in the first place.
I know that anyone who's not a writer might not be able to understand this and will think I'm crazy. That's okay. I just needed to get it all out.
At first I was just observing, watching; the author watching her story unfold in its own world. Dana and Ian were asleep in bed, spooning. Shadows on the walls coalesced and converged on her side of the bed, brushing against her until she rolled away from Ian to try and bat them away. She was pulled abruptly and fiercely into the astral plane.
This was a slightly different entrace from the other projections, though. It wasn't that she suddenly was there; she fell into an ocean of white light and had to swim down, across, up, limbs working frantically as light filled her nose and eyes and she could barely breathe. As she broke the "surface" of the flood, I was thrust into her with a very violent pull. So I was now my character in my dream.
I (Dana) struggled against the light-waves until I touched "land" and saw the familiar plane with its indescribable, undefinable array of colors and shapes. Almost immediately, the "sky" above me exploded from gold and blue hues to utter black as a hole opened over my head and expanded like a thing with tentacles, writhing across the expanse of astral atmosphere. A few feet in front of me, Jeremy appeared, with the Shadow avatar blazing out from his eyes. Those eyes were not ice blue anymore; they were black and glassy. He looked corpse-like and his hair streamed around his face and soaked up the pitch of the thing around him. It reminded me of the last dream, when Dana and Kara were being chased across a Lovecraftian landscape by Jeremy himself.
"Why did you bring me here?" I asked. The Phoenix unfurled inside me and surged against the trapping of my skin, so my blood simmered and sizzling golden-red light licked my lips when I spoke.
"You're being difficult," he growled, and lowered his head and charged. I thrust my arms out reflexively, calling my avatar, but of course in this plane the Phoenix and the Shadow are essentially equal; and my Phoenix could only flare furiously while the Shadow laughed with Jeremy's voice and hurled Jeremy's body at me. He slammed into me, knocking my breath out, wrapping his arms around me in a steel grip. We crashed to the ground, upsetting clouds of gold sand. Sand grains skittered across my eyes and mouth but I didn't have time to wipe them away. I beat at him with my fists as we slid back toward that raging sea of light that was now tinged with stormy gray. He surged upright with me still clasped to him, so we were midair and locked together, and our avatars were screaming and rampaging inside us, desperate to attack each other but knowing it would just wound and not kill. Jeremy kept his arms around me but his mind did the hurting, pulling no punches, making no taunts and teases; slamming into mine over and over and cracking the strongest and deepest of my shields. My body couldn't move, but it didn't matter because astrally we were not bodies. I was screaming and my voice was torn from the air by the wisps of shadow that swirled around us. Yet through the howling of those shadows I could still hear his mental voice, as his mind was seeking more ways to violate and tear, hurt and batter: "You think it's so easy to keep eluding me, don't you? You think all this is just a game and we're playing tag and as long as you keep hiding I won't find you? You think they can protect you? I keep sending out those creatures after you because I'm still gathering my strength to come get you myself. I know where you go. I know what you're trying to do. Don't you dare think you've got the better of me. I'm not who you believe I used to be."
I screamed one last time, and finally the Phoenix broke through the static hold that the universe always seems to place on it and the Shadow when they're together. I howled with a fury I'd never felt before and stabbed all the power I could into Jeremy. He couldn't even cry out; he was swept up in the blaze of fire and vanished. The shadows broke away and faded. The sky returned to normal.
I buried my face in my hands and curled into a ball. The astral winds and my telekinesis propelled me toward the now calm light and I tumbled back toward my physical body.
That was when Dana and I separated in the dream. She jerked up in bed with a strangled gasp, waking Ian, and I was flung away back to my observing dreamer position. As the dream started to fade, I watched Ian pull her close; I watched her literally crumble into his arms.
I woke up, barely, and found a light sheen of sweat that had broken out over my entire body. Adam was spooning against me in a very tight embrace. I gently disentangled myself, went to the bathroom, and came back and lay down. He opened his eyes and smiled at me, and I smiled back, because the dream was already fading into the back of my mind. I haven't been able to fully recall it till now. My hands are shaking as I type.
I have a very bad feeling about the character of Jeremy now. I had originally created him to be sympathetic. A sociopath and psychopath at the same time, but you'd still be able to identify and understand and feel for him. He didn't want to take over the world or any kind of cartoon villain megalomaniac thing. Yes, he had certain goals that would involve destroying all of reality, but he had his reasons and I wanted them to be realistic: He wanted Dana to love him again. He wanted the Phoenix to give its power to him, so he could recreate the whole of existence for himself and Dana. He wanted Dana and the Phoenix to be at his side. Not a bad thing. Extremely disturbing, stalker psycho tendencies, but still human.
But the Shadow is not human. And now, I'm starting to think that maybe Jeremy never really was...human. I mean, I never wanted him to go this far. Yes, he is cracked. Yes, he is completely fucked in the head beyond all repair, cold and empty and nothing inside, devoid of true compassion, perhaps even what we'd call evil. But now I don't think I can make him very sympathetic anymore. It saddens me, a little. Yes, he is my character and I can change him as I wish, but there is still an underlying idea of who he is. After all, I really do believe that when we create fictional characters, they start to exist in an alternate reality, not just in our heads; and maybe they crossed over to be born through us in the first place.
I know that anyone who's not a writer might not be able to understand this and will think I'm crazy. That's okay. I just needed to get it all out.
