✿ Kanda's Heart ✿

[dramatispersonae]

This world is dark, and it's hard to breathe . . .

There seems to be a heavy weight on your chest. A sensation like a hand over your mouth, fingers gripping you tightly. You can't see anything, even though you can feel your lashes fluttering hard, struggling to open. It's cold, and dark, and your face feels damp. Every breath in is a struggle, thick and oppressive.

You feel the sudden urge to drift away from it all . . . to just let unconsciousness claim you, to stop fighting, to stop feeling this constant struggle for breath, this pressure on your chest, the low buzz at the back of your mind—a consistent cold ache and press.

. . . your eyes finally open with a rush of disappointment.

Comments

[the lotus field]

[dramatispersonae]

The sky above is a blindingly bright blue.


The ground as far as the eye can see is covered in thick mud and pink lotuses, heavy and wet. The mud sucks at your feet if you try to move. If you stand in place too long and you find yourself sinking, dragged down with a slow, unpleasant drift.


The only break in the monotony of flowers are the occasional perfectly round holes in the ground— several feet across in diameter, heavy with completely still liquid. Some are fairly unremarkable: a murky, muddy hole; one filled with clear water and looking down into a rock-lined pool; yet another filled with a viscous, undeterminable fluid.

Others . . . one reflects the sky above like a perfect mirror, bright and still. Another you might smell before you approach it: a rotting, sickening stench of blood and copper, the pool and everything around it slick and red.

Re: [the lotus field]

[seaside_cherry]

[NOTHING IS OKAY, slamming a hand over her mouth and nose to block out that smell and trying to back away, pulling her feet up from the mud]

Re: [the lotus field]

[pchaaair]

[oh.

well, approaching the gross blood pool thing anyway. :C]

Re: [the lotus field]

[irishluck]

Where the hell is this...

[ making a bit of a disgusted face at the smell, and trying to pull his feet up from the mud, trying to figure out a way to just walk. ]

Re: [the lotus field]

[galacticfairy]

[ next to the mirror pool, looking from it and the lotus to the blue expanse above. She's captivated by the wide-open space and the unusual flowers, even as she keeps moving from foot to foot to try and alleviate some of the sucking feeling of the mud ]

"The sky where you can..."

Re: [the lotus field]

[wildnight]

[draws herself up for a moment, shuddering off the unpleasantness of the entrance and taking a deep breath—then looking around to get a sense of who else is here]

Re: [the lotus field]

[badnewsboy]

[kinda feels like he has to vomit, but the feeling passes as he slugs through mud.

he hesitates, but it only lasts a moment before he approaches with a new determination]

Ugh, gross.

Re: [the lotus field]

[galacticfairy]

[ COMES TO SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER. PAIN SCARY CLOWNS PAIN SWEET JESUS ]

Re: [the lotus field]

[seaside_cherry]

[Not screaming, but definitely terrified, shocked still and not even caring about the sinking thing what the fuck was that I think I hate clowns now]

Re: [the lotus field]

[yourewaitingforagate]

[THAT IS NOT A HAPPY WELCOME ugh, fumbling a little as he pulls himself up out of the mud, looking around]

What the—lotuses—?

Re: [the lotus field]

[wildnight]

[going back to the fluid!]

Re: [the lotus field]

[imaginemeandyuu]

...

[looks for his own hole]

Re: [the lotus field]

[telltaleheart]

What...?

[moves with effort to look around, heading towards the reflective hole]

Re: [the lotus field]

[imaginemeandyuu]

[goes to the one that reflects the sky]

Re: [the lotus field]

[yourewaitingforagate]

[getting up out of the mud, heading over to do a check on all the holes except the clear one]

All right . . . which pool will it be.

Re: [the lotus field]

[imaginemeandyuu]

[lies there a bit. If he sinks into mud, that's fine]

Re: [the lotus field]

[performing]

[oh that's ... somehow not as terrible as one might expect, actually. in some ways the smell is kind of hideously nostalgic.

picking his way carefully among the flowers, towards that clear-water pool.]

[bootleg]

[you know what. guess who can walk on the air now since she finally took all of her skills and stuff. this lady

so trying to activate the Dark Boots, straight off first thing.]

Re: [the lotus field]

[imaginemeandyuu]

[blood]

[blood]

[dramatispersonae]

Blood fills your mouth and nose, forces you to close your eyes, heavy and acrid and suffocating. You probably choke—you almost certainly gag.

Red fills all of your senses.


Alma . . .?

A sharp pain shoots through you. It hooks through your stomach, finds purchase in your guts, rends and tears, like you're being ripped apart. Stab, and pull. Slash and rip. All the while the stench and slime of blood trickles into your nostrils and your mouth and—

You find yourself crumpled on an enormous staircase, fully whole but still stinging and reeling from the aftereffects of that sensation, that brief flicker of memory.

The sky is gone, replaced instead with a domed stone ceiling. The stairwell proceeds both up and down from where you are, puddled and dripping with blood (none of it your own? you wonder). Down there—there's nothing but more blood, a whole sea of it, lapping grotesquely against the lowest step that you can see.

Rivulets of blood trickle slowly down from somewhere up high. Where? It's impossible to see the top of the stairs. All around you there are crumpled lotus flowers, stained red and crushed underfoot, some broken apart, petals ripped off or sliced in two.

Re: [blood]

[pchaaair]

[after taking a minute to regain his bearings because jesus fucking christ, he ... pauses, pushing himself up.]

Holy shit.

[fluid]

[dramatispersonae]

You sink down into the dark and quiet. It's cold, but not unpleasantly so—more like an all-over sense of numbness, a disassociation from your body. You drift . . .

Eventually you hear a voice calling you. Is that your name . . .? How long have they been calling? You have to—



[a memory washes over you]
(189-31 — 189-33)

Re: [fluid]

[wildnight]

[blinks and looks around 8|a]

[sky]

[dramatispersonae]

You sink down into the water. You don't feel much of anything—no pain, nothing. Everything in your gaze is white, and it takes some frantic blinking to get the world to resolve into shapes and images again. Blurs, first—the edge of a skirt, a childish form—


You struggle to place it, to remember exactly who . . . who are they? . . . who are you?

Re: [sky]

[galacticfairy]

... what...?

[water]

[dramatispersonae]

This is a small, dark room, bare and nearly empty. A single door is shut firmly—despite that, you can hear a faint melody being picked out on strings, distant and quiet. There is a narrow bed along one wall, with cold metal posts and sterile white sheets. A red blanket is folded at the foot of the bed. A set of half-cracked, slightly tinted windows go from floor to ceiling, behind a knee-high metal grate.

The only other furniture in the room is a small table, on which rests a large, hourglass-shaped container, with a single flower inside:

Re: [water]

[galacticfairy]

Music? In this guy's heart...?

[ listens to it for a moment because, idol, but shakes her head a moment later and goes to look at the hourglass with the flower in it ]

They're everywhere... -- eh? It's wilting?

[mud]

[dramatispersonae]

Groteque, angelic statues hang from pillars in the ceiling, webbed and straining to get away from their bonds. They are too high to reach, suspended and eerie, giving the room a sickly yellow glow. There is a single pole leading up behind them, disappearing into a hole in the ceiling, far above.

The room is pitted with perfect, narrow rows of gutted rock. At the bottom of each hole is a coffin. Lotus flowers force their way up from between the dirt and muds and cracks in the floor.

There is a low, constant buzz here, an unearthly, nervous energy—electric, dangerous, and uncomfortable. From all around, you hear whispering, teeth-grinding, sibilant hisses at the precarious edge of hearing.

Re: [mud]

[imaginemeandyuu]

[NOPE CAN I LEAVE AGAIN NOW backing up]

[the lotus field]

[dramatispersonae]

The sky above is a blindingly bright blue.


The ground as far as the eye can see is covered in thick mud and pink lotuses, heavy and wet. The mud sucks at your feet if you try to move. If you stand in place too long and you find yourself sinking, dragged down with a slow, unpleasant drift.


The only break in the monotony of flowers are the occasional perfectly round holes in the ground— several feet across in diameter, heavy with completely still liquid. Some are fairly unremarkable: a murky, muddy hole; one filled with clear water and looking down into a rock-lined pool; yet another filled with a viscous, undeterminable fluid.

Others . . . one reflects the sky above like a perfect mirror, bright and still. Another you might smell before you approach it: a rotting, sickening stench of blood and copper, the pool and everything around it slick and red.

There is a child standing knee-deep in the mud. He turns slowly to look at you.

Re: [the lotus field]

[imaginemeandyuu]

Yuu!!

[I'm covered in blood and look like everything hurts and I'm miserable BUT EXCITED TO SEE HIM]