A figure clad in black stood out against the graceful setting of emerald waves and horticulture and soft, warm spring sunlight. A delinquent dressed in a black denim jacket with many pins, buttons, and patches, sporting a black T-shirt underneath mottled in fake acrylic blood as if the wearer had been stabbed in the chest. A studded belt wrapped around her waist, not necessary to hold up the tight-fitting jeans of faded dolphin gray to her athletic form but standing out all the same. One leg was crossed over the other, one of her checkered low-tops hanging lazily over one knee as her arms folded behind her head for comfort. A mop of raven black hair, feathered and messy with red tips and highlights hung over her dark grey eyes highlighted with too much black eyeliner, shielding them from the gentle rays in the serene clearing. She felt peaceful, relaxed... exhausted, and the lush green grass was the relief she felt she needed. Could do without the lame-assed lullaby, though. It was kind of distracting. The soft slipstream of air was much more pleasant to the ears than the calm plinks of a harp or lute or whatever the fuck. [i]"Wake up!-- Wake up! Or you will stay this way forever!"[/i] Mari Watanabe became annoyed at the nagging at the back of her mind. That's all it was. [i]Nagging[/i]. Pfft, stay this way forever? Sign her up! She could do with a vacation like this. Just chilling in the grass, grooving to dumb music, catchin' some Z's after a hard night of- "Oh shit..." Mari moved a hand to her forehead and peeled her lockes back, surveying the landscape. Soft clouds, bright sun, rolling hills in the distance, finely trimmed hedge maze... "Aaaah son of a [b]bitch[/b]," she groaned, planting a hand underneath herself to climb to her feet. The colors of the world were vibrant, happy, joyous. [i]Totally[/i] not where she should be. Mari was dreaming again. She cringed at the sickeningly sweet backdrop. If she was dreaming, that meant she was asleep. And if she was asleep, that meant that she had passed out at [i]Twisted[/i] after going two bottles deep in Soju with Yeeun. Again. She ran a hand through her feathered hair, feeling surprisingly clear-headed for being completely plastered. But then again, this was a dream. A weird dream at that. No, not that the dream was weird, it was the fact that it [i]wasn't[/i] weird. Most of her dreams were pretty trippy, but this one was fairly tame. Where were the backwards-talking dolls and the people with mouths for eyes and the snakes that vomited other snakes? Somehow she knew sooner or later the entire world would shatter and try to swallow her in its gaping maw, but everything felt too... real. It was kind of disturbing. As she glanced around, Mari noticed others lying around in the grass. She recognized most of them, but that wasn't too far out there. People could only fathom the faces of others they had seen, and they also most often dreamt of people that they knew. "Hmm. Funny. I usually get nightmares," she mused aloud, speaking to herself as she knew only her own mind was listening to itself. This was just [i]weird[/i]. Was this what lucid dreaming was? To be honest, it was kind of boring. Not wanting to upset the balance of the dream world, Mari only looked around casually, the other figures on the grass around her lying still. Around her there was nothing. Just fields of green, and the shrub forest off to her right. Where the weird music was coming from. Obviously she had to go there, it was pretty damn clear. Was the subconscious always this bonk-over-the-fucking-head direct? But what could it...? Nah, know what? Forget it. It wasn't worth thinking about. She was blacked out in some club booth somewhere and all she could do was fucking sleep, might as well get some sleep while she slept. This place was for the birds anyway. [i]"Get up! They are coming! In your hands there should be something that looks like a gun! Use it to fight them! Now! You have the potential! You need to use it to cast them away!"[/i] "There's that nagging again..." she seethed. Always had to interrupt her before doing what she wanted. Whatever the hell it was, she wanted Mari to wake up. Hell, it was probably Yeeun trying to drag her sorry ass back out to the car. Mari cringed again. She happened to remember what had happened last time she did this. No, not remember what happened. Fat fucking chance [i]there[/i]. What happened the last time she woke up from being stupid wasted at [i]Twisted[/i]. Woke up with a pounding head, her knuckles hurt, she lost her damn shoes [i]and[/i] expensive-assed sunglasses, covered in vomit with over 6000 yen missing. Apparently, she was hitting on some guy at the bar, but when he turned her down because she was [i]waaaaaay[/i] to far gone she punched him in the neck, got thrown out on her ass, and ended up wandering Yakibaru Street for two hours trying to find her car while simultaneously stopping to puke every five minutes. All of which had to be told to her by three different people. Needless to say, that fucking sucked, and she wouldn't like to repeat it. It was then that Mari's grey eyes caught movement in her periphery, when paper monsters scuttled from out of the hedge maze, stalking her like wildcats, bouncing and twisting and spinning on their thin bodies. "Pfft, seriously?" she snarked, raising an eyebrow. Normally the demons that haunted her nightmares were degrees more frightening than this. These things were... kind of lame, actually. Just as the bitchy voice had said, the delinquent raised her hand in front of her face to find a gun nestled in her grip. It felt like it had been there the entire time, and maybe it had, but all of this was just too convenient. Boring dream, boring monsters, oh, here's a gun to shoot the monsters. She hoped to God that she hadn't been slipped a roofie and this was what the susceptibility to suggestion did to her dreams. So, Mari did as anyone in her situation would do: she raised the gun and pulled the trigger. [i]Click![/i] ....... [i]Click! Click! Click![/i] As much as she tried to shoot at the arts-and-crafts lookin' motherfuckers, her gun was out of ammo. Figures. She held it up to inspect it, and found that it didn't even have somewhere to put the bullets. Figures. [i]Of course[/i] it didn't have any bullets. Mari's arm swung down lazily as she furrowed her brow at the monstrosities, when someone stood up behind her. [b]"The hell?"[/b] The hair on the back of her neck prickled, and she spun around to see some kid with bandaged eyes leveling his own gun at her. Eyes widening in shock, she quickly dove to the ground when she heard the telltale [i]Click![/i] of his own empty gun. Mari had recognized him. He was the blind guy that went to her college, couldn't remember his name. She didn't really hang out with him too much. Although tempting, guiding him into walls was far beneath her. But tempting. Especially after her pointed a fucking gun at her face. "You want to watch where the [i]fuck[/i] you point that!?" she screeched at him, dusting herself off as she stood to tower over him. "You could've blown my head off, dumbass!" Collecting herself, she folded her arms and stepped away from him to watch the paper creatures skitter about and hiss at them, moving ever closer. She glanced over to what he held in his hand, and noticed it was the same as hers. Just a useless fucking toy. "Tch. It's not like you'd be able to anyway. It's not loaded, [i]mine's[/i] not loaded, I don't think any of us have any bullets. Might as well throw the damn thing," she scoffed. Wait, why the hell was she talking to a dream person? He probably wouldn't listen to her anyway. They never did. With her luck, she was surprised he didn't happen to have some shotguns shells in that little handcannon. Wave goodbye to creature comforts like having a face. And why the hell did the blind guy have a gun anyway? Dreams made no fucking sense. Freud could go suck a fat one.