what does it mean when you drown in a dream

[lastofthekellys]

WHO: Kate Kelly
WHERE: The Fountain
WHEN: 15th July
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: Potential panic attack
STATUS: Open

---

Kate wonders if her family has a touch of foresight. Ned predicted two deaths: Constable Lonigan, Justice Barry, both died as he said. She dreams of drowning and wonders. Wonders and then drinks, not that drinking helps her when she's already asleep and she opens her eyes underwater and thinks, Again?

There's light, which there isn't always, and a current that pushes her up, which never happens, and she kicks, kicks her way up.

(Is it her imagination or is she actually getting closer in this dream?)

There's weight on her back, pulling at her, digging into her shoulders, making it harder to move her arms. Her imagination or no, no, no, something always goes wrong, she always drowns and this is it, isn't it isn't it isn't it maybe she should just swallow water choke and wake up but that doesn't work she can't wake up she just has to kick and kick and kick and swim and oh God oh God she's actually drowning isn't she air air air air she needs air-

She reaches the surface, gasps, bobs back down, then kicks herself up again.

Air.

Coughing, spluttering, Kate swims over to the edge of the fountain. She takes a moment to haul herself over the edge, falls, but the fall isn't much. More of a roll until she hits the ground, struggles to all fours, all the while coughing up water fit to throw up.

She knows what she needs to it. Sit up, take stock. This isn't a dream, it's not. She needs to get her long, heavy hair out of the way to see, but she can't. All she can do is crouch, cough, and gasp in air.

Comments

[rangerbecket]

Raleigh has gone to the fountain a few more times since that first day, trying to get the measure of it so he can see how, exactly, the damned thing works and how it managed to cough up a dozen or so people. It just looks like a fountain, nothing extraordinary, and he happens to be standing close by when it sputters up another person.

This one is a woman, small and dark-haired, and Raleigh kneels down next to her and tries to see if he can calm her down. He doesn't touch her, not yet, but he wants to. He wants to make sure she's all right after that dizzying, disorienting climb; it had made him want to scream a few weeks ago and he wonders if she feels the same.

"You all right?" he asks instead, keeping just enough distance that they aren't touching. He's trying not to crowd her as best he can.

[tobeclosetohim]

Since the two new arrivals, Jo has been keeping her continued check out of the place further away from the center of town, and its person spewing fountain. It doesn't, though, keep her from being a little more on the lookout and in absolute readiness for the arrival of more new people to be suddenly showing up. Like the girl who just appeared not too far from where Jo was.

Smaller than either of the other four she's seen around. Closer to her height, her build. Bright red scrubs on her.




"You definitely look new." But relievingly unfamiliar, too.
The still being slightly wet didn't help that at all either.

[seekingvinland]

Thorfinn had arrived the day before. His first night was spent emotionally compromised and trying to grasp what was happening around him. That still didn't have much in the way of answers. Answers would come in time he had supposed. But when morning came, he made quick to slip out in the morning and go explore the beautiful strange new place.

He was making his way back, looking for the strange house Jo had taken him to the day before. He couldn't quiet recall what it looked like at the moment. He had had so many things on his mind when he arrived and, left in a whirl wind to explore he never thought to look over Jo's Hall.

It was in this wandering that he came across a lady in bright red, wet red which to him seemed to be the color of blood. He came to a stop not to far off from her. She had the same hair color of the woman he met first, but he was certain it wasn't her.

[thecatinahat]

After Jensen, Cougar has been watching the fountain more carefully. He spends a few hours outside of it each day, unmoving and almost unblinking as he waits to see whether the rest of the team is going to come through. When the water starts to splash and someone surfaces, he's on the balls of his feet and surging forward, even if it isn't someone he recognizes.

"Easy," Cougar coaxes her in his heavily accented English. He mimes his hand up and down against his chest, nodding with encouraging. "Respirar."

[igotacrossbow]

Sometimes Jake comes and hangs out with Cougar as they sit and watch the fountain to see if anyone comes out. He'd love for Pooch to appear randomly; there's a lot of stuff around here he's pretty sure Pooch would go nuts over. The only problem with Pooch appearing would mean that he'd be leaving Jolene and the Poochling behind, and Jake's not cruel enough to want to break up a family like that. Maybe it's better that Clay come through, although he's not really sure how Clay will handle being stuck in this place. Probably not nearly as good as Cougar and him, but then again, nobody's as good as Cougar and him, are they?

Aisha would adapt in no time. He's not even going to bother thinking about Roque.

He's not as patient as Cougar. There are days he grows bored and decides to leave him to it, wandering off to try and catch some of the livestock that stubbornly refuses to be caught.

He's coming back from an unsuccessful attempt at goat-wrangling when he sees a young girl he's never seen before, wearing soaking wet scrubs, her hair clinging to her neck. Clearly she's just come through the fountain. His heart leaps in his throat; did the others come too?

"Hey!" he calls out, as friendly as possible, raising a hand to wave at her as he lopes easily up the path. "You okay? I'm Jake, are you new?"

[thenewways]

Nerys had been avoiding the fountain, partially out of remembered embarrassment and partially because she found it incredibly uncanny. It reminded her, if nothing else, of getting thrown into the Intendant's universe, but if this was a different universe altogether (and from conversation with some of the others here, she figured it was a safe hypothesis), she couldn't see any way out.

It was a relatively pleasant day, though, and she was feeling stubborn and proud, having successfully planted a snare that caught a good-sized rodent-type creature--a 'rabbit', apparently, and just fine to eat. It was time to look the enemy in the face, then, or as much of a face as it had.

Suffice it to say, Nerys hadn't been expecting the fountain to actually cough up someone new, but the eeriness of actually seeing someone come out of effectively nowhere was overwhelmed by the need to help them out.

"Hey," she said, jogging over from the other side to crouch next to the figure. Feminine, with a long sodden curtain of hair, but Nerys was careful not to touch her without asking, as it was a good way to lose a hand. "Hey, it's going to be all right, try to cough the water out."

Going to be all right was maybe wishful thinking, though.