Encounterlogs
Yasmins Odd Encountersrtomas
Yasmin, a White Oak student, is abruptly called into action to cure the insanity of a fellow student named Arthur duBois by entering his dreams. After soothing her cat and downing a cup of tea, she drifts off to sleep, aided by the drugs she had taken earlier. Yasmin's spectral figure floats through the stormy night to the Longhouse, where she finds Arthur, a boy terrorized by imagined rats and shouting voices, a victim of misuse of hypnotic powers. The dream reality is stark, with Arthur suffering a profound and traumatic mental breakdown - one that has manifested as physical wounds in the dreamscape. Yasmin finds herself in an Islamic mosque she conjures as a place of peace and safety, but the calming environment quickly turns perilous as Arthur's condition is revealed to be dire, with pests and demons emanating from his dream-wrought wounds.
Despite the weight of the task at hand, Yasmin tries to stabilize the situation, engaging with an affluent voice. She is confronted by venomous creatures that demand prescient knowledge from Arthur about avoiding death and prophecies of the end of the world. Yasmin, however, is bitten, and as she fights back, the venom starts to infiltrate her system. In a desperate attempt, she tries to reassure Arthur, reciting Islamic scripture and the Shahadah in hopes of granting him solace and strength. Yet the power of her faith is not enough to reach Arthur, whose experiences have shattered any belief he might have held. As demons encircle them, Yasmin succumbs to the poison within her as Arthur somberly dismisses religious convictions just as Yasmin is dragged back to a tortured consciousness.
style="color:#008000"> (Yasmin's odd encounter(SRTomas):SRTomas)
[Tue Nov 14 2023]
In the Small Kitchenette
In this kitchen, the glossy tiles in a herringbone pattern contrasted with the matte greige counters the cabinets are painted soothing light blue color with the island extension serving as an extra dining area. Marrying both, the floor tiles are a custom mosaic pattern reminiscent of an old-school Parisian bistro. A floral arrangement enhances the kitchen aesthetic.
It is night, about 50F(10C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining outside. There is a waxing crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies have been tasked with helping to cure someone's insanity by delving into their mind with dream invading to solve the issues keeping them from sanity.
)
The midnight hour had been quiet and peaceful - something easy for Yasmin to relax into, something soothing and balming and carrying the promise of a well-earned sleep... But alas, the woman's new organisation had other plans. There's a double-triple beep from her phone... Not her ringtone, then, but a specific alert.
Oh, nice - an app had downloaded itself onto her phone. The icon was only a black square, with an outline of a fist in white - and there was a notification badge hovering over its corner.
Yasmin had just finished preparing herself a cup of tea - ginger tea, good for pain - steam still wafting from her cup, barely a single, tentative sip taken of the scalding drink when the beeping sounds. There's a little furrowing of her brow, momentary confusion, but she doesn't seem truly surprised at the new app that's downloaded itself without her knowledge; she moves over to the couch, taking a seat after pausing briefly to pet the cat, and taps it.
The app doesn't open into a menu or a landing page or anything like that - no, it takes Yasmin right where it wants her; work. '`dMISS AHMED,' it reads. '`dA situation has arisen with a fellow White Oak student that we would like you to handle for us. A Mister Arthur duBois, 18, has suffered a psychiatric malady as a result of misapplied hypnotic techniques.' That's a... vaguely familiar name. '`dHe is a fellow White Oak student. He has been removed from the campus to facilitate your task: Mend his fractured psyche before he can breach the secrecy we work so hard to maintain, and embarrass us in doing so. You can find him in the Longhouse. The effects of the drugs we have given him will be wearing off shortly. We suggest using his dreams as your avenue of entry to his subconscious.'
Well, that's that, apparently. duBois must have a class or two in common with Yasmin for her to have been chosen as the agent to handle this - if there's a reason at all.
Yasmin's app doesn't open into a menu or a landing page or anything like that - no, it takes her right where it wants her; work. '`dMISS AHMED,' it reads. '`dA situation has arisen with a fellow White Oak student that we would like you to handle for us. A Mister Arthur duBois, 18, has suffered a psychiatric malady as a result of misapplied hypnotic techniques.' That's a... vaguely familiar name. '`dHe is a fellow White Oak student. He has been removed from the campus to facilitate your task: Mend his fractured psyche before he can breach the secrecy we work so hard to maintain, and embarrass us in doing so. You can find him in the Longhouse. The effects of the drugs we have given him will be wearing off shortly. We suggest using his dreams as your avenue of entry to his subconscious.'
Well, that's that, apparently. duBois must have a class or two in common with Yasmin for her to have been chosen as the agent to handle this - if there's a reason at all. (fix)
Her eyes linger upon the word 'dreams', the woman heaving out a quiet sigh before she can think better of it. She remembers the name, just vaguely, the realization upon her face obvious - but Yasmin's hardly been to many classes at all to know anything /more/ than the name. Still, nothing to do about it now. Yasmin reaches for her cup of tea, downing the entire thing in one go before she slumps back against the couch, curling up and closing her eyes - the cat joins her, eventually, tucking herself behind the woman's knees. It doesn't take long for her to drift off - the drugs she'd taken while anticipating a quiet night definitely help.
It can be a tricky thing to navigate the world of dreams without losing your focus, particularly without a dream identity to help shore the burden... but fate would have Yasmin's specter drifting southwards anyway, adrift in the liminal current between consciousness and dreams of her own. Southwards and southwards, down along Elm Street, then jumping the bay, crystal waters glittering with the lights of a small town, staying up past its bedtime. The Longhouse isn't difficult to find, of course - it's the first thing that Yasmin encounters as she drifts through Westhaven, and through those walls, a scrawny young man sits scrunched-up in the corner of one of the hostel rooms, panting and panting and slick with sweat and panting some more. This is not a subtle madness that has infected him - he is cracked open and raw, and his eyes seem almost to lock with the woman's spectral figure before they continue their sweep past, endlessly checking the corners of the room for hidden threats.
"Please," he whimpers. "I didn't mean it. I won't do it again. I don't - I don't want the rats, please, no -" He shudders, drawing more tightly into himself, and then begins to rant in a completely different voice, "You will do as you are told! Look into the mirror and try again. The mind is nothing but a vessel. You need to /fill it!/"
There's a lot to be explored in the minds of those who live in Haven; it's a place filled with predators and prey, of course, each one just a little bit more cracked than the last, a downwards spiral that leads straight to Hell itself if one tries to follow the threads far enough... and yet, this is a mind more broken than the others that lures Yasmin to itself, the threads of fate pulling the spectral figure to the man who sits in the corner of the hostel room.
Rats? Changing voices? A possession by a jinn? Even disembodied, the reaction in Yasmin is visceral - she may be more out of her depth than she had anticipated, if there's more forces than just the Human mind in play here. There's a second of hesitation - or observation, however you want to put it - where the woman attempts to figure out what details she can - taking in the image of the man - barely a man, more a boy - half out of his mind, if not fully, before she reaches out, brushing against his psyche with the tenderest of touches. Sleep, she wills him. Sleep, and be taken to a safer place. A place of refuge. A place of mercy and self-reflection. A place...
A large crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling, its golden glow spreading warmly across what feels like endless acres of carpeted floor, reflecting off the domed ceiling. It's distinctly Islamic architecture, Arabic calligraphy painted in gold across panels in the sandstone walls. It seems endless, standing here in the centerpoint of it all, archways leading further into the mosque, - because that's certainly what it is - giving glimpses of more chandelier-lit corridors that lead to further, massive domed chambers, large pillars holding up the ornately carved ceiling, a sense of /quiet/ that pervades. There is nobody else, here. Yasmin, barefoot now, the young man, and the endlessness of the mosque... or is there?
Somewhere in the world of the waking, Arthur duBois's frantic twitching comes to an end as the sedatives in his system and Yasmin's gentle insistence whisk his mind away elsewhere. His body, finally, has a chance to rest.
Of course, things are not so serene or perfect within the hijabi's grand mosque - the colours seem to leach out of the building's walls and the carpet goes wholly grow, and thin cracks begin to surface inside the dream-conjured stone. Where Arthur stands on the very centre of that carpet, though, blood begins to pool in tiny little drips - here, in the dream of a safe, holy place, it becomes apparent that he's hurt. He's badly hurt; it looks as if someone's taken an axe to his skull in an attempt at brain surgery. Whoever had been working on the boy had done such harm that it beggars any belief in the idea that they weren't intentionally causing trauma.
He hunkers down immediately, adopting the same semifetal position that he'd been practicing while awake... and things begin to creep out of those hideous injuries; serpents and demons and rats; insects and vermin in unending masses that threaten the sanctity of Yasmin's safe place. They do not lash out, though - they simply spread, finally given enough space to be free of his physical body's confines.
"Who," asks a voice - a voice without a source, with Arthur's lips obscured by the arms shielding his face.
"Are,"
"You?"
Somewhere in the world of the waking, Arthur duBois's frantic twitching comes to an end as the sedatives in his system and Yasmin's gentle insistence whisk his mind away elsewhere. His body, finally, has a chance to rest.
Of course, things are not so serene or perfect within the hijabi's grand mosque - the colours seem to leach out of the building's walls and the carpet goes wholly grey, and thin cracks begin to surface inside the dream-conjured stone. Where Arthur stands on the very centre of that carpet, though, blood begins to pool in tiny little drips - here, in the dream of a safe, holy place, it becomes apparent that he's hurt. He's badly hurt; it looks as if someone's taken an axe to his skull in an attempt at brain surgery. Whoever had been working on the boy had done such harm that it beggars any belief in the idea that they weren't intentionally causing trauma.
He hunkers down immediately, adopting the same semifetal position that he'd been practicing while awake... and things begin to creep out of those hideous injuries; serpents and demons and rats; insects and vermin in unending masses that threaten the sanctity of Yasmin's safe place. They do not lash out, though - they simply spread, finally given enough space to be free of his physical body's confines.
"Who," asks a voice - a voice without a source, with Arthur's lips obscured by the arms shielding his face.
"Are,"
"You?" (fix)
The Arab woman bows her head for a quick second, offering a quiet prayer; the sanctity of the mosque will remain intact, once the cause has been dealt with - the devil has no power here. That's what she tells herself, anyway. There's a grimace on Yasmin's features when she notices the state of the boy's skull - it's hard to miss, when someone's been going at it with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, and she remains standing - this is /her/ dreamworld, her safe space, the manifestation of her faith. No amount of serpents or rats or insects are going to make her leave, even if she shudders as they spread out, attempting to dodge out of the way of the ones that crawl close to her feet, a horrified look upon her features and a startled scream barely-stifled before she catches herself. Calm, calm, calm.
"You are Mister Arthur, yes?" Yasmin asks - she doesn't give her name, she knows better than that. "I am here to help." Even if that's /not/ Arthur, given how little she knows of him, he's obviously in need of help anyway. Nobody this severely injured, even if only mentally, can hope to keep going. She keeps her distance, a couple paces away, her eyes flickering away for a single second to take in the damage to her surroundings before they return, inevitably, to the man in front of her. "What has happened to you?"
The plagues of parasites bursting from the teenager's mental wounds surge and recoil in response to Yasmin's voice, and the boy curls more tightly upon himself. "I'm not like you," he sobs. There is fear in his voice, and pain, and a longing for this all to end - duBois had reached the stage where he might call for his mother well before now... And time enough had passed for him to at least begin internalizing these demons of implanted thought. "I can't see the future," the boy insists, sniveling into his arms. "Please, god, I tried - I'm trying, I'm trying, but I can't, please, I /can't."
Whatever had happened to the boy, he is fully delirious. He's not being difficult; he's barely cognizant of the situation to begin with. His guests, however, are not... and a viper speeds sinuously towards Yasmin's ankle with a surprisingly rapid burst of momentum, seeking to bury its fangs into her delicate skin - whether or not this dream of a mosque truly qualifies as a house of God.
Whether or not it qualifies as a house of God, Yasmin is certainly not going to disrespect the image of it by wearing shoes upon the now-bloodied carpet, even in her dream; it makes it all the more easier for the viper to find its mark in her ankle, a startled scream erupting from her throat before she jerks her foot free to shake the serpent away, trying to send it flying away. She doesn't curse, but there's certainly a newfound fear in Yasmin's eyes when she turns back to the young man in front of her, voice louder and more demanding now, attempting to piercing through whatever he's got going in his head: "What is all this?!" Yasmin demands, "What are you trying? Stop! Stop thinking of this - you're-" she breaks off with a sharp exhale, a single step taken closer and her hand reaches out to tentatively grasp the man's shoulder. "Look at me," she demands.
"Tell me how I avoid my death," rasps the bloody-fanged serpent, its tongue flickering out to taste the air. It speaks in the voice of an old man; one that had, at one point in his life, smoked heavily. More offputting is the follow up - a cloud of mosquitoes which begin to descend upon Yasmin, their needle-like proboscises punching through the many layers of her clothing as if they are not even there - which, in a sense, they are not. Their wings beat out a chorus in harmony, sounding not unlike a text-to-speech synthetic voice: "Show me the end of the world, boy! Show me how to avoid it!"
The boy himself - Arthur - seems to be doing his best to curl so tight that he falls inside himself and out of the world, whimpering at those spoken words - a personification of his mistreatment so tethered to him that he drags his tulpas with him even within someone else's dream.
Another scream wrenches itself free of Yasmin's throat, the woman slapping at the mosquitoes that find themselves clouding around her - there's blood on her palm, but the one or two she manages to slap, and hopefully kill, are hardly going to make any difference. There's a wild-eyed look to her, trying to catch sight of the bloody-fanged viper amidst the cloud of mosquitoes - it doesn't take a genius to interpret the meaning of a snake in a dream. There's not going to be much use in yelling at the helpless boy further - Yasmin rushes out from the buzzing cloud of mosquitoes, straight towards the snake, ignoring the twinge of pain in her ankle; maybe she doesn't have anything on her to kill it, but her hands will surely do the job... right? Never mind the myriad other vermin crawling about - that is the one who spoke first.
Yasmin is slowed by the throbbing pain coursing her leg - getting bitten in the first place was a costly mistake - but she is outstandingly nimble regardless, and that tethered serpent has nowhere to go to escape. Snatched up from the earth in an attempt to strangle it, the serpent nevertheless still possesses fangs, and it lashes out to sink them deep into the base of her thumb, injecting its psychotic venom to course through Yasmin's veins even as she crushes it to death. One tulpa is slain, killed with violence rather than words - but perhaps this had been the more effective approach to begin with. If only she'd quite had the reflexes to avoid that bite, there wouldn't be fissures opening up in the mosque's groundwork as her psyche weaks, threatening to collapse into nothing but a wreck of failure and misplaced optimism.
Remaining still are the insects, the rats, and the shadowy demons with bodies of mist.
"They hurt me," whimpers Arthur. "B-... Because I'm psychic. But I'm... I'm human! I can't control the future! I can't control the prophecies!"
He at least seems to be... /marginally/ better, with the loss of the serpent. Assuming he does not relapse, Yasmin has at least achieved something good.
A pained hiss escapes Yasmin, the body of the viper thrown aside with a reflexive jerk of pain - only after it's gotten its spine crushed between her hands, of course, and she squeezes tightly at the base of her thumb - isn't there something about sucking venom out from a bite? Whatever it is escapes Yasmin at the moment; instead, she tears off a strip of cloth from the end of her headscarf, winding it tightly around the base of her thumb, constricting her own blood flow before it can spread much further up her hand and arm, and then limps her way closer to Arthur - she shouldn't have run, if it was going to make the pain worse, but it's too late for that. "Psychic," she repeats, kneeling next to the man now that he sounds just marginally less insane, her breath heaving. "What- what can you do?" Yasmin's gaze goes up to the chandelier for a split second, mind racing even as pain wracks its way up her leg. "Fire," she decides, "We need fire." What better way to get rid of insects, of course. What part of this crumbling dreamscape would be sound enough to endure the cost of a fire remains to be seen.
It is, of course, Yasmin's dream - not Arthur's. It's rather impressive that his tulpas are as powerful as they are, given that - but fire crackles into being around the woman's feet at her desire, slow to form but quite insistent in not winking out immediately. "He can save /lives/," buzzes the swarm of flying, biting insects - and the rats begin to fan out around that ring of fire, separated from their host. "He can save /my/ life," the rats chitter as a single being. "If he just tells us how to change the prophecy!"
The boy, on the other hand, grows less frantic at Yasmin's touch. He's still deathly afraid of her, deathly afraid of every /thing/, but there's quiet, at least, as he stares up at her.
"He doesn't /know/!" Yasmin, at least, is quick to believe the man, scowling at the creatures that swarm around the ring of fire - it's spreading out, the carpet quick to catch on flames, smoke lifting high into the air, between the spaces those buzzing insects occupy, the area beneath the chandelier the only respite from it where the two of them kneel, like a bubble of its own amidst the roaring flames that climb higher and higher instead of burning out where they run out of fuel, a pure white in hue.
Yasmin's other hand comes to join the first on each of Arthur's shoulders, her thumb turning an ugly purple by now, the light touch the only bit of contact she'll allow. "Everything will die," she tells him, certain and impossibly /content/ in the knowledge. "Every soul shall taste death." That is more of a quote, holy scripture that leaves her tongue, even if it's translated to words that will make sense for the man instead of in the original Arabic script. "There is no saving - it will come, one day, soon or late, you will die, and you will receive your reward on the Day of Judgment. This world is only an illusion. There is no escape from death." Yasmin's eyes bore into Arthur's, willing him to understand, if the words are even getting through to him. "You cannot find the answer; there is no answer. You have to accept this."
"You can't tell them no," Arthur moans, shaking his head loosely. "They'll hurt you. They'll give you drugs and rape your brain." Indeed - either swarm, insectoid or rodent, ripples with shock and disharmony at the outrage of being denied, and the mosquitoes put Yasmin well enough to rest - only for the great ring of fire to belch up and around them, centered on the mosque's grand carpet - which seems to have regained some colour by the flame's glow, rather than having paid any price to sustain them.
It's a difficult thing to say whether the recited scripture gives strength to the mosque, or if the mosque lends power to the scripture, but Yasmin feels it nonetheless - though she could still likely not afford another mistake before her work is done, the confidence she places in her faith is a potent thing to wield in a dream of her own making, and with only a sea of rats and the too-still demons remaining, there may well be a future ahead of young duBois - but time is not something in infinite supply, either, with the venom coursing through the Omani girl's veins...
"Shhh, it is only an illusion. They cannot hurt you in a way that matters." Does Yasmin really believe that? It's hard to tell, but maybe it doesn't matter too much at the moment. She shifts in place in front of the young man, a momentary glance cast askance at the horde of rats and the too-still demons, her skin looking flushed and beads of sweat trailing down her forehead - it's not from the fire, given that the heat hardly seems to be affecting Arthur any, safe in this little bubble free of smoke, the crackling of flames that form their boundary a comforting noise. "This world is nothing - it will pass. Your deeds will lead to your reward. There will be paradise forever, gardens with rivers of milk and wine and honey, with fruits of every kind, and beautiful mansions in which to live in endless bliss. You will be with your friends and family, and there will be no pain, no tiredness. Only peace. Put your trust in God, yes? Believe in Him, put your faith in Him, and let yourself rest. All your suffering will be over."
The next words that leave Yasmin's lips, the woman herself half-delirious by now, are unmistakably Arabic, yet familiar enough a phrase to have been heard at some point before - Shahadah, the profession of faith, the first, fundamental pillar of Islam, said with a conviction that rings loud and clear, 'La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah'.
There's... not the response Yasmin might have been looking for, even as that aching, envenomed pain seems to reach the beating muscle in her chest. Arthur may be weary and tortured, but thrusting trust of the Prophet onto a man just-forced into becoming a prophet in his own right is... undesirable. He does not recoil away from her, at least - but this man has seen Gods, and he has seen the end of the world, and he has seen what Yasmin as seen and acknowledged a personal truth that Yasmin could not - his faith is dead, if it was ever there before. What it provides Yasmin, and thus her dreams, does not register to a man to whom the scripture is alien... and the demons of smoke and fog leap across the ring of fire, dragging Yasmin down into screaming wakefulness as the venom reaches her heart.
"Religion is made up."
Despite the weight of the task at hand, Yasmin tries to stabilize the situation, engaging with an affluent voice. She is confronted by venomous creatures that demand prescient knowledge from Arthur about avoiding death and prophecies of the end of the world. Yasmin, however, is bitten, and as she fights back, the venom starts to infiltrate her system. In a desperate attempt, she tries to reassure Arthur, reciting Islamic scripture and the Shahadah in hopes of granting him solace and strength. Yet the power of her faith is not enough to reach Arthur, whose experiences have shattered any belief he might have held. As demons encircle them, Yasmin succumbs to the poison within her as Arthur somberly dismisses religious convictions just as Yasmin is dragged back to a tortured consciousness.
style="color:#008000"> (Yasmin's odd encounter(SRTomas):SRTomas)
[Tue Nov 14 2023]
In the Small Kitchenette
In this kitchen, the glossy tiles in a herringbone pattern contrasted with the matte greige counters the cabinets are painted soothing light blue color with the island extension serving as an extra dining area. Marrying both, the floor tiles are a custom mosaic pattern reminiscent of an old-school Parisian bistro. A floral arrangement enhances the kitchen aesthetic.
It is night, about 50F(10C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. It's raining outside. There is a waxing crescent moon.
(Your target and their allies have been tasked with helping to cure someone's insanity by delving into their mind with dream invading to solve the issues keeping them from sanity.
)
The midnight hour had been quiet and peaceful - something easy for Yasmin to relax into, something soothing and balming and carrying the promise of a well-earned sleep... But alas, the woman's new organisation had other plans. There's a double-triple beep from her phone... Not her ringtone, then, but a specific alert.
Oh, nice - an app had downloaded itself onto her phone. The icon was only a black square, with an outline of a fist in white - and there was a notification badge hovering over its corner.
Yasmin had just finished preparing herself a cup of tea - ginger tea, good for pain - steam still wafting from her cup, barely a single, tentative sip taken of the scalding drink when the beeping sounds. There's a little furrowing of her brow, momentary confusion, but she doesn't seem truly surprised at the new app that's downloaded itself without her knowledge; she moves over to the couch, taking a seat after pausing briefly to pet the cat, and taps it.
The app doesn't open into a menu or a landing page or anything like that - no, it takes Yasmin right where it wants her; work. '`dMISS AHMED,' it reads. '`dA situation has arisen with a fellow White Oak student that we would like you to handle for us. A Mister Arthur duBois, 18, has suffered a psychiatric malady as a result of misapplied hypnotic techniques.' That's a... vaguely familiar name. '`dHe is a fellow White Oak student. He has been removed from the campus to facilitate your task: Mend his fractured psyche before he can breach the secrecy we work so hard to maintain, and embarrass us in doing so. You can find him in the Longhouse. The effects of the drugs we have given him will be wearing off shortly. We suggest using his dreams as your avenue of entry to his subconscious.'
Well, that's that, apparently. duBois must have a class or two in common with Yasmin for her to have been chosen as the agent to handle this - if there's a reason at all.
Yasmin's app doesn't open into a menu or a landing page or anything like that - no, it takes her right where it wants her; work. '`dMISS AHMED,' it reads. '`dA situation has arisen with a fellow White Oak student that we would like you to handle for us. A Mister Arthur duBois, 18, has suffered a psychiatric malady as a result of misapplied hypnotic techniques.' That's a... vaguely familiar name. '`dHe is a fellow White Oak student. He has been removed from the campus to facilitate your task: Mend his fractured psyche before he can breach the secrecy we work so hard to maintain, and embarrass us in doing so. You can find him in the Longhouse. The effects of the drugs we have given him will be wearing off shortly. We suggest using his dreams as your avenue of entry to his subconscious.'
Well, that's that, apparently. duBois must have a class or two in common with Yasmin for her to have been chosen as the agent to handle this - if there's a reason at all. (fix)
Her eyes linger upon the word 'dreams', the woman heaving out a quiet sigh before she can think better of it. She remembers the name, just vaguely, the realization upon her face obvious - but Yasmin's hardly been to many classes at all to know anything /more/ than the name. Still, nothing to do about it now. Yasmin reaches for her cup of tea, downing the entire thing in one go before she slumps back against the couch, curling up and closing her eyes - the cat joins her, eventually, tucking herself behind the woman's knees. It doesn't take long for her to drift off - the drugs she'd taken while anticipating a quiet night definitely help.
It can be a tricky thing to navigate the world of dreams without losing your focus, particularly without a dream identity to help shore the burden... but fate would have Yasmin's specter drifting southwards anyway, adrift in the liminal current between consciousness and dreams of her own. Southwards and southwards, down along Elm Street, then jumping the bay, crystal waters glittering with the lights of a small town, staying up past its bedtime. The Longhouse isn't difficult to find, of course - it's the first thing that Yasmin encounters as she drifts through Westhaven, and through those walls, a scrawny young man sits scrunched-up in the corner of one of the hostel rooms, panting and panting and slick with sweat and panting some more. This is not a subtle madness that has infected him - he is cracked open and raw, and his eyes seem almost to lock with the woman's spectral figure before they continue their sweep past, endlessly checking the corners of the room for hidden threats.
"Please," he whimpers. "I didn't mean it. I won't do it again. I don't - I don't want the rats, please, no -" He shudders, drawing more tightly into himself, and then begins to rant in a completely different voice, "You will do as you are told! Look into the mirror and try again. The mind is nothing but a vessel. You need to /fill it!/"
There's a lot to be explored in the minds of those who live in Haven; it's a place filled with predators and prey, of course, each one just a little bit more cracked than the last, a downwards spiral that leads straight to Hell itself if one tries to follow the threads far enough... and yet, this is a mind more broken than the others that lures Yasmin to itself, the threads of fate pulling the spectral figure to the man who sits in the corner of the hostel room.
Rats? Changing voices? A possession by a jinn? Even disembodied, the reaction in Yasmin is visceral - she may be more out of her depth than she had anticipated, if there's more forces than just the Human mind in play here. There's a second of hesitation - or observation, however you want to put it - where the woman attempts to figure out what details she can - taking in the image of the man - barely a man, more a boy - half out of his mind, if not fully, before she reaches out, brushing against his psyche with the tenderest of touches. Sleep, she wills him. Sleep, and be taken to a safer place. A place of refuge. A place of mercy and self-reflection. A place...
A large crystal chandelier hangs from the ceiling, its golden glow spreading warmly across what feels like endless acres of carpeted floor, reflecting off the domed ceiling. It's distinctly Islamic architecture, Arabic calligraphy painted in gold across panels in the sandstone walls. It seems endless, standing here in the centerpoint of it all, archways leading further into the mosque, - because that's certainly what it is - giving glimpses of more chandelier-lit corridors that lead to further, massive domed chambers, large pillars holding up the ornately carved ceiling, a sense of /quiet/ that pervades. There is nobody else, here. Yasmin, barefoot now, the young man, and the endlessness of the mosque... or is there?
Somewhere in the world of the waking, Arthur duBois's frantic twitching comes to an end as the sedatives in his system and Yasmin's gentle insistence whisk his mind away elsewhere. His body, finally, has a chance to rest.
Of course, things are not so serene or perfect within the hijabi's grand mosque - the colours seem to leach out of the building's walls and the carpet goes wholly grow, and thin cracks begin to surface inside the dream-conjured stone. Where Arthur stands on the very centre of that carpet, though, blood begins to pool in tiny little drips - here, in the dream of a safe, holy place, it becomes apparent that he's hurt. He's badly hurt; it looks as if someone's taken an axe to his skull in an attempt at brain surgery. Whoever had been working on the boy had done such harm that it beggars any belief in the idea that they weren't intentionally causing trauma.
He hunkers down immediately, adopting the same semifetal position that he'd been practicing while awake... and things begin to creep out of those hideous injuries; serpents and demons and rats; insects and vermin in unending masses that threaten the sanctity of Yasmin's safe place. They do not lash out, though - they simply spread, finally given enough space to be free of his physical body's confines.
"Who," asks a voice - a voice without a source, with Arthur's lips obscured by the arms shielding his face.
"Are,"
"You?"
Somewhere in the world of the waking, Arthur duBois's frantic twitching comes to an end as the sedatives in his system and Yasmin's gentle insistence whisk his mind away elsewhere. His body, finally, has a chance to rest.
Of course, things are not so serene or perfect within the hijabi's grand mosque - the colours seem to leach out of the building's walls and the carpet goes wholly grey, and thin cracks begin to surface inside the dream-conjured stone. Where Arthur stands on the very centre of that carpet, though, blood begins to pool in tiny little drips - here, in the dream of a safe, holy place, it becomes apparent that he's hurt. He's badly hurt; it looks as if someone's taken an axe to his skull in an attempt at brain surgery. Whoever had been working on the boy had done such harm that it beggars any belief in the idea that they weren't intentionally causing trauma.
He hunkers down immediately, adopting the same semifetal position that he'd been practicing while awake... and things begin to creep out of those hideous injuries; serpents and demons and rats; insects and vermin in unending masses that threaten the sanctity of Yasmin's safe place. They do not lash out, though - they simply spread, finally given enough space to be free of his physical body's confines.
"Who," asks a voice - a voice without a source, with Arthur's lips obscured by the arms shielding his face.
"Are,"
"You?" (fix)
The Arab woman bows her head for a quick second, offering a quiet prayer; the sanctity of the mosque will remain intact, once the cause has been dealt with - the devil has no power here. That's what she tells herself, anyway. There's a grimace on Yasmin's features when she notices the state of the boy's skull - it's hard to miss, when someone's been going at it with all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop, and she remains standing - this is /her/ dreamworld, her safe space, the manifestation of her faith. No amount of serpents or rats or insects are going to make her leave, even if she shudders as they spread out, attempting to dodge out of the way of the ones that crawl close to her feet, a horrified look upon her features and a startled scream barely-stifled before she catches herself. Calm, calm, calm.
"You are Mister Arthur, yes?" Yasmin asks - she doesn't give her name, she knows better than that. "I am here to help." Even if that's /not/ Arthur, given how little she knows of him, he's obviously in need of help anyway. Nobody this severely injured, even if only mentally, can hope to keep going. She keeps her distance, a couple paces away, her eyes flickering away for a single second to take in the damage to her surroundings before they return, inevitably, to the man in front of her. "What has happened to you?"
The plagues of parasites bursting from the teenager's mental wounds surge and recoil in response to Yasmin's voice, and the boy curls more tightly upon himself. "I'm not like you," he sobs. There is fear in his voice, and pain, and a longing for this all to end - duBois had reached the stage where he might call for his mother well before now... And time enough had passed for him to at least begin internalizing these demons of implanted thought. "I can't see the future," the boy insists, sniveling into his arms. "Please, god, I tried - I'm trying, I'm trying, but I can't, please, I /can't."
Whatever had happened to the boy, he is fully delirious. He's not being difficult; he's barely cognizant of the situation to begin with. His guests, however, are not... and a viper speeds sinuously towards Yasmin's ankle with a surprisingly rapid burst of momentum, seeking to bury its fangs into her delicate skin - whether or not this dream of a mosque truly qualifies as a house of God.
Whether or not it qualifies as a house of God, Yasmin is certainly not going to disrespect the image of it by wearing shoes upon the now-bloodied carpet, even in her dream; it makes it all the more easier for the viper to find its mark in her ankle, a startled scream erupting from her throat before she jerks her foot free to shake the serpent away, trying to send it flying away. She doesn't curse, but there's certainly a newfound fear in Yasmin's eyes when she turns back to the young man in front of her, voice louder and more demanding now, attempting to piercing through whatever he's got going in his head: "What is all this?!" Yasmin demands, "What are you trying? Stop! Stop thinking of this - you're-" she breaks off with a sharp exhale, a single step taken closer and her hand reaches out to tentatively grasp the man's shoulder. "Look at me," she demands.
"Tell me how I avoid my death," rasps the bloody-fanged serpent, its tongue flickering out to taste the air. It speaks in the voice of an old man; one that had, at one point in his life, smoked heavily. More offputting is the follow up - a cloud of mosquitoes which begin to descend upon Yasmin, their needle-like proboscises punching through the many layers of her clothing as if they are not even there - which, in a sense, they are not. Their wings beat out a chorus in harmony, sounding not unlike a text-to-speech synthetic voice: "Show me the end of the world, boy! Show me how to avoid it!"
The boy himself - Arthur - seems to be doing his best to curl so tight that he falls inside himself and out of the world, whimpering at those spoken words - a personification of his mistreatment so tethered to him that he drags his tulpas with him even within someone else's dream.
Another scream wrenches itself free of Yasmin's throat, the woman slapping at the mosquitoes that find themselves clouding around her - there's blood on her palm, but the one or two she manages to slap, and hopefully kill, are hardly going to make any difference. There's a wild-eyed look to her, trying to catch sight of the bloody-fanged viper amidst the cloud of mosquitoes - it doesn't take a genius to interpret the meaning of a snake in a dream. There's not going to be much use in yelling at the helpless boy further - Yasmin rushes out from the buzzing cloud of mosquitoes, straight towards the snake, ignoring the twinge of pain in her ankle; maybe she doesn't have anything on her to kill it, but her hands will surely do the job... right? Never mind the myriad other vermin crawling about - that is the one who spoke first.
Yasmin is slowed by the throbbing pain coursing her leg - getting bitten in the first place was a costly mistake - but she is outstandingly nimble regardless, and that tethered serpent has nowhere to go to escape. Snatched up from the earth in an attempt to strangle it, the serpent nevertheless still possesses fangs, and it lashes out to sink them deep into the base of her thumb, injecting its psychotic venom to course through Yasmin's veins even as she crushes it to death. One tulpa is slain, killed with violence rather than words - but perhaps this had been the more effective approach to begin with. If only she'd quite had the reflexes to avoid that bite, there wouldn't be fissures opening up in the mosque's groundwork as her psyche weaks, threatening to collapse into nothing but a wreck of failure and misplaced optimism.
Remaining still are the insects, the rats, and the shadowy demons with bodies of mist.
"They hurt me," whimpers Arthur. "B-... Because I'm psychic. But I'm... I'm human! I can't control the future! I can't control the prophecies!"
He at least seems to be... /marginally/ better, with the loss of the serpent. Assuming he does not relapse, Yasmin has at least achieved something good.
A pained hiss escapes Yasmin, the body of the viper thrown aside with a reflexive jerk of pain - only after it's gotten its spine crushed between her hands, of course, and she squeezes tightly at the base of her thumb - isn't there something about sucking venom out from a bite? Whatever it is escapes Yasmin at the moment; instead, she tears off a strip of cloth from the end of her headscarf, winding it tightly around the base of her thumb, constricting her own blood flow before it can spread much further up her hand and arm, and then limps her way closer to Arthur - she shouldn't have run, if it was going to make the pain worse, but it's too late for that. "Psychic," she repeats, kneeling next to the man now that he sounds just marginally less insane, her breath heaving. "What- what can you do?" Yasmin's gaze goes up to the chandelier for a split second, mind racing even as pain wracks its way up her leg. "Fire," she decides, "We need fire." What better way to get rid of insects, of course. What part of this crumbling dreamscape would be sound enough to endure the cost of a fire remains to be seen.
It is, of course, Yasmin's dream - not Arthur's. It's rather impressive that his tulpas are as powerful as they are, given that - but fire crackles into being around the woman's feet at her desire, slow to form but quite insistent in not winking out immediately. "He can save /lives/," buzzes the swarm of flying, biting insects - and the rats begin to fan out around that ring of fire, separated from their host. "He can save /my/ life," the rats chitter as a single being. "If he just tells us how to change the prophecy!"
The boy, on the other hand, grows less frantic at Yasmin's touch. He's still deathly afraid of her, deathly afraid of every /thing/, but there's quiet, at least, as he stares up at her.
"He doesn't /know/!" Yasmin, at least, is quick to believe the man, scowling at the creatures that swarm around the ring of fire - it's spreading out, the carpet quick to catch on flames, smoke lifting high into the air, between the spaces those buzzing insects occupy, the area beneath the chandelier the only respite from it where the two of them kneel, like a bubble of its own amidst the roaring flames that climb higher and higher instead of burning out where they run out of fuel, a pure white in hue.
Yasmin's other hand comes to join the first on each of Arthur's shoulders, her thumb turning an ugly purple by now, the light touch the only bit of contact she'll allow. "Everything will die," she tells him, certain and impossibly /content/ in the knowledge. "Every soul shall taste death." That is more of a quote, holy scripture that leaves her tongue, even if it's translated to words that will make sense for the man instead of in the original Arabic script. "There is no saving - it will come, one day, soon or late, you will die, and you will receive your reward on the Day of Judgment. This world is only an illusion. There is no escape from death." Yasmin's eyes bore into Arthur's, willing him to understand, if the words are even getting through to him. "You cannot find the answer; there is no answer. You have to accept this."
"You can't tell them no," Arthur moans, shaking his head loosely. "They'll hurt you. They'll give you drugs and rape your brain." Indeed - either swarm, insectoid or rodent, ripples with shock and disharmony at the outrage of being denied, and the mosquitoes put Yasmin well enough to rest - only for the great ring of fire to belch up and around them, centered on the mosque's grand carpet - which seems to have regained some colour by the flame's glow, rather than having paid any price to sustain them.
It's a difficult thing to say whether the recited scripture gives strength to the mosque, or if the mosque lends power to the scripture, but Yasmin feels it nonetheless - though she could still likely not afford another mistake before her work is done, the confidence she places in her faith is a potent thing to wield in a dream of her own making, and with only a sea of rats and the too-still demons remaining, there may well be a future ahead of young duBois - but time is not something in infinite supply, either, with the venom coursing through the Omani girl's veins...
"Shhh, it is only an illusion. They cannot hurt you in a way that matters." Does Yasmin really believe that? It's hard to tell, but maybe it doesn't matter too much at the moment. She shifts in place in front of the young man, a momentary glance cast askance at the horde of rats and the too-still demons, her skin looking flushed and beads of sweat trailing down her forehead - it's not from the fire, given that the heat hardly seems to be affecting Arthur any, safe in this little bubble free of smoke, the crackling of flames that form their boundary a comforting noise. "This world is nothing - it will pass. Your deeds will lead to your reward. There will be paradise forever, gardens with rivers of milk and wine and honey, with fruits of every kind, and beautiful mansions in which to live in endless bliss. You will be with your friends and family, and there will be no pain, no tiredness. Only peace. Put your trust in God, yes? Believe in Him, put your faith in Him, and let yourself rest. All your suffering will be over."
The next words that leave Yasmin's lips, the woman herself half-delirious by now, are unmistakably Arabic, yet familiar enough a phrase to have been heard at some point before - Shahadah, the profession of faith, the first, fundamental pillar of Islam, said with a conviction that rings loud and clear, 'La ilaha illallah Muhammadur Rasulullah'.
There's... not the response Yasmin might have been looking for, even as that aching, envenomed pain seems to reach the beating muscle in her chest. Arthur may be weary and tortured, but thrusting trust of the Prophet onto a man just-forced into becoming a prophet in his own right is... undesirable. He does not recoil away from her, at least - but this man has seen Gods, and he has seen the end of the world, and he has seen what Yasmin as seen and acknowledged a personal truth that Yasmin could not - his faith is dead, if it was ever there before. What it provides Yasmin, and thus her dreams, does not register to a man to whom the scripture is alien... and the demons of smoke and fog leap across the ring of fire, dragging Yasmin down into screaming wakefulness as the venom reaches her heart.
"Religion is made up."