DeJoker
Master of Mayhem
This thread starts the story involving Allen Black an artist from sunny California that has become a fairly recent immigrant to the bleaker region of Massachusetts. And a man in search of the less common information that lies hidden in various places, some that he has already visited but most that he has not even heard of yet. Today the newspaper will bring him an item that may not only tickle his muse but torture it as well. Will this fuel help explain his nightmares or simply make them worse.
Allen woke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest, the sweat congealing on his skin. Not necessarily an uncommon experience over the last five years, but never a pleasant one either. He always had a sense of foreboding and paranoia when he initially awakened in this state but he could never remember enough to figure out why. Just flashes of color in various hues of blue, red, and black was all he could ever bring up from the depths of his mind. He also knew there was no sense of trying to get back to sleep either. The feelings would pass in time but until they did they never let him sleep while they were present. So he simply got up and slipped on a robe and headed downstairs. Descending the stairs he could smell that Arianna was busy in the kitchen, which was another situation that made no sense to him. Still it is what it is, and for him it was rather reassuring if not a bit awkward at times.
Stepping into the kitchen he is greeted by the usual cheerful Arianna in the manner that she always did, "Hi honey, coffee's ready and the newspaper is on the table. I will have breakfast finished here in a bit. How did you sleep?"
The question might seem innocuous by most but Arianna was quite aware of Allen's sleep issues and while she did not share his room she did share his house. Further she proved to be a solid grounding mechanism for Allen to talk through his feelings and such. The getting it off his chest and out into the air, no matter how many times he did it, always seemed to start the recovery process and if he did not do this, which happened from time to time, he found that those feelings stayed with him a lot longer and generally poorly affected his day and that often meant they would revisit him on the next night. He had yet to fully test what might happen if he did not go through this recovery process but if the short trials he had embarked on were any indicator he most likely would eventually either get no sleep or the sleep he got would be completely filled with whatever it was filled with when he woke up in this state. There was a chance, from what he had learned thus far about the occult that the line between his dream world and the real world might blur or even go away altogether. Neither of those concepts made the thought of actually finding out what might happen all that appealing.
For now there was the morning paper and Arianna was already pouring him a cup of coffee for him to get things started.
Allen woke with a start, his heart pounding in his chest, the sweat congealing on his skin. Not necessarily an uncommon experience over the last five years, but never a pleasant one either. He always had a sense of foreboding and paranoia when he initially awakened in this state but he could never remember enough to figure out why. Just flashes of color in various hues of blue, red, and black was all he could ever bring up from the depths of his mind. He also knew there was no sense of trying to get back to sleep either. The feelings would pass in time but until they did they never let him sleep while they were present. So he simply got up and slipped on a robe and headed downstairs. Descending the stairs he could smell that Arianna was busy in the kitchen, which was another situation that made no sense to him. Still it is what it is, and for him it was rather reassuring if not a bit awkward at times.
Stepping into the kitchen he is greeted by the usual cheerful Arianna in the manner that she always did, "Hi honey, coffee's ready and the newspaper is on the table. I will have breakfast finished here in a bit. How did you sleep?"
The question might seem innocuous by most but Arianna was quite aware of Allen's sleep issues and while she did not share his room she did share his house. Further she proved to be a solid grounding mechanism for Allen to talk through his feelings and such. The getting it off his chest and out into the air, no matter how many times he did it, always seemed to start the recovery process and if he did not do this, which happened from time to time, he found that those feelings stayed with him a lot longer and generally poorly affected his day and that often meant they would revisit him on the next night. He had yet to fully test what might happen if he did not go through this recovery process but if the short trials he had embarked on were any indicator he most likely would eventually either get no sleep or the sleep he got would be completely filled with whatever it was filled with when he woke up in this state. There was a chance, from what he had learned thus far about the occult that the line between his dream world and the real world might blur or even go away altogether. Neither of those concepts made the thought of actually finding out what might happen all that appealing.
For now there was the morning paper and Arianna was already pouring him a cup of coffee for him to get things started.