Quoted By:
>SICKO MODE
>66, 73, 20 vs. DC 60 -- Success
>Pat: 49, 14, 19 vs. DC 55 -- Failure
Thing about your nightmares, though, is that it's not <span class="mu-i">you</span> in them— <span class="mu-i">you're</span> conked out cold. It's shitty, ineffectual Dream Madrigal who takes the reins, gets shot, trapped, drowned, whatever the fuck, then helpfully kills herself to let you wake up and forget all about it. It's a nice system, all things considered. You're appreciating it more and more as you stand here, fully conscious, unhurt, paint scraper in hand, and completely unable to move.
Well, that's a lie. You can tap the paint scraper against your leg as hard as you want. But no matter how cocky the smirk on your face, no matter how long you replay the obvious course of action (fucking rush her!), your feet won't unstick from the floor. And it's not raw fear that's doing it— you've pointedly avoided glancing at Pat while she does her whatever-the-fuck. It's not even self-preservation, which you have little of. There's just this gut feeling, this slimy crawling stuff, rooting you inexplicably in place.
You've never been one to trust your intuition, particularly underwater, where people's "intuitions" tended to encourage them to, e.g., wander off into the wilderness. In any ordinary situation, you'd be flipping this one the bird and charging off already. But this is a nightmare, not an ordinary situation, and you're not yourself at all but shitty, ineffectual Dream You. You'd been gullshitting about that earlier, but with all this now? You're certain. This is not your body, and this is not your you.
Which gives you some new sympathy for Dream Madrigal, honestly. Maybe her shittiness isn't really her fault. Maybe she doesn't want to cry, or scream, or die, but the dream takes her over and <span class="mu-i">makes</span> her. Or whatever. You don't know how any of this works, and you don't really want to— that's somebody else's problem. What you do know is that you can't move, and Pat is making a lot of squelching sounds.
Well, that's still a lie. (Not the squelching sounds. The other part.) You can move... backwards. Your gut is strongly encouraging you to move backwards. To cut and run, even, but you have your fucking limits. You pace backwards slowly, then more rapidly, waiting for Pat to call you not just a bitch but a fraud and coward or so forth, but nothing comes. Just more squelching.
(1/6 jfc)
