[center]They say that if you fall in your dreams, you die.

It's why you always wake up before you hit the ground. 

It wasn't true. Not only because of the logic behind it, but also because he tried it. Dreams like this one, with the plane, graced his sleep every now and then, lucid ones where he could do anything. And he fell. Over and over, he made himself fall in his dreams, only for nothing to happen when his fall broke.

So when he met the man with the long nose and ended up ejected from his seat, he didn't fear the fall.

Maybe, just maybe, this would be the one to work......

.....

....

...[/center]

[center][h2][color=A52A2A]Vincent Cawler[/color][/h2]
[b][i]8:22 AM[/i][/b][/center]
Vincent's eyes peeled open, none of the urgency one usually had waking up from a nightmare. He had too many of them to be bothered anymore.  A beige ceiling greeted him, perfectly matching the beige walls and the slightly-lighter beige carpet. The air was stale, circulated only by the dull turn of an old ceiling fan that could barely muster the strength to make a cool breeze. With a long inhale, Vincent sat up, the mattress creaking under him, and tossed his covers onto the floor, along with piles of clothes, scattered trash, and the odd book. The room was a pigsty, but Vincent didn't care.

It's not like he lived there by choice.

Picking through the dirty, forgotten clothes, Vincent pulled together a decent enough suit, the only issue being that the jacket and pants were different colors, black and blue. Everything else was stained, no good to go out in public with. He also fished out the pants he wore the day before and rifled through its pockets for his wallet. As ready as he ever is to face the world, Vincent opened the door leading out of his room and into... a parking lot.

The [i]Right Rest Motel[/i], that's what it was, a simple place close to the Gulf where Vincent was holed up for the past 7 years. Most of the people who'd rent a room here only did so for a day or two, making Vincent something of an anomaly. As he closed the door to his room, #4 on the ground floor, a stocky middle-aged woman poked her head from around the corner of the building.

"Oh, look who's awake!" She squeaked in her high-pitched void, knowing full well what time Vincent usually left his room. It was the manager, Paula, though that job title is used very loosely. She made her way towards him, making a show of taking off the thick rubber gloves she was wearing and stuffing them into the pocket of her apron. "You know, sir, I really do appreciate your patronage here, but, uhm..." She put on an obviously fake look of polite concern. "The rent for yesterday didn't come. And, and I know how important it is for you to stay here, in this room, right where you were put, sir, but rules are rules, and there is the, uh, the late fee..."

Vincent stared at her, blank as a board. Paula was a savvy, sneaky woman, who knew exactly how to squeeze her special clientele without ending up in hot water. There was nothing to be done. Vincent pulled his wallet out and took out a couple of bills. $200, twice the cost of a room and most of Vincent's money which Paula snapped up quick, almost just hiding her grin.

"Ah, yes, thank you sir! You have a wonderful day, and, and I do hope that your usual rent for will be [i]sent[/i], tomorrow." With that, Paula scampered off back to her office, not even in the same direction that she arrived from. No doubt at the corner just to wait for him.

Letting out the tiniest of sighs out of his nose, Vincent pocketed his wallet once more and crossed the parking lot, heading to his first stop of the day, every day.
[hr]
[center][b][i]8:40 AM[/i][/b][/center]
The corner store two blocks down from the motel wasn't the best place to get groceries, but Vincent didn't have the means to buy or even store proper food. This place was cheap and not too far from where he called home.

In other words: it was his only option. Vincent came here every morning to buy what he could to eat for the day, and sometimes splurge on a magazine to pass the time. With Paula's shakedown for rent, though, he was working with only twenty bucks. No taxis or buses for him today.

[i]“...indicate this incident to be just the latest in the string of so-called protests against alleged police corruption turning violent in recent...”[/i] The store's TV droned quietly as he picked out his goods, a simple box of granola bars and a six pack of vegetable juice. He brought them to the counter and tossed them on unceremoniously. The cashier, a pimply teen with curly hair, gave him a lopsided smile.

"Packin' light today, man?" While the teen scanned the items, Vincent reached to the right of the register, grabbing what he thought would be a burner phone, but instead only grabbing air. Vincent stared at the empty space for a full three seconds before the teen cleared his throat. "Yeah, man, last night my manager? He got rid of all those phones cuz nobody was buyin' them, 'cept you. I know ya liked them but I wasn't workin' to stop him. Sorry, man. Yuh know, maybe you should get a real phone, so you won't need to buy those crappy ones all the time?"

Vincent awkwardly brought his hand back to his side. With no burner phones to buy, that threw a wrench in his routine. A big one. As he was about to pay for his 'food', Vincent's eye caught something at the magazine rack. Sticking out from the side of a stack was a small, thin blue book; a Sudoku book. Vincent didn't have many whims these days, but the dark blue was strangely familiar to him. Something he couldn't place. Whatever the reason for it, he plucked the book free and passed it to the cashier.

"Alright man, that'd be..."
[hr]
[center][b][i]9:07 AM[/i][/b][/center]
Once back at the motel, after tossing his bag into his room, Vincent was around the back of the building, his sleeve rolled up to his elbow and his arm stuck right in a trashcan. He was to call his boss every morning at 8, on the dot, but since he couldn't get a new phone to do so, he had to resort to something else. After a minute of rooting around, Vincent pulled his arm free, a small flip-phone in his fingers. He gave it a shake, dislodging a chunk of hair that had stuck to the antenna, and flipped it open. A few keystrokes later, and the dial tone began to ring. The thing really stunk, not helped by how close Vincent held it to his nose, and now his whole arm did too. If he was already going to dig around in the garbage, then he could've at least worn the dirty--

"Is this not the [i]same number[/i] as yesterday, boy?"

Orland Oliva's voice was deep, overpowering even over the phone, and heavily accented. Vincent didn't say anything in response. He never had to.

"I would think by now, simple instructions would be easy for you," Orland continued, his tone calm, but his words steeped in venom. "Was yesterday's sloppiness not enough for you? Was the missing payment today not clear enough for you, boy? Do you want to be given up to the streets?" He let the questions linger. Vincent only breathed, silently, his eyes drilling holes into the wall in front of him. Eventually, Orland spoke again.

"No, of course not." His voice softened into that of a kind uncle's or a grandfather. "You're a good boy, I know this. You're not [i]stupid[/i]. I will forgive this mistake for your sake, boy. Just this once." He cleared his throat, the sound of a chair scraping on the floor underneath. "Now, onto business, yes? I have a meeting later, a lunch with some friends. Come by early, if you will, boy, half past ten. Yuxley's Diner, Poling Avenue. I would feel [i]much[/i] safer if you at my side." Orland paused again, but didn't hang up. "And, destroy that phone you're using, boy. I expect better from you."

The call ended then. Vincent was quick to take the phone in each hand and snap it right in half, tossing the pieces back into the garbage. He rubbed his head, staring into the sky as he walked back to the front of the motel. Poling was all the way across the city from where he was. He'd have to start walking in a few minutes to even make it in time. 

He paused, eyes still skyward. It wasn't different from any other day, really, but already things were turning out messier than normal. Something in his stomach churned; he had a bad feeling, and he's been in enough bad situations to trust his gut like that. Still... what could he do? Go against Orland after all this time, after all the things Vincent was made to do? There wasn't a chance in hell for that to happen.

...Hell...

[center][b][i]”I must admit, your situation is not an enviable one. I couldn’t blame you if you called it Hell. After all, you’ve been thrown to the wolves, so to speak.”[/i][/b][/center]

Vincent shook his head. That dream was starting to come back to him, the plane, the man with the long nose, the woman, and the explosions. It felt almost real, and the man sounded so sincere. Thinking about it made the hair stand straight along his arms. Something about today was getting to him already. Pushing the thoughts to the back of his mind, Vincent went back to his room, taking the briefest of moments to eat a granola and drink a juice before he set out once again, to the meeting place.
[hr]
[center][b][i]10:28 AM[/i][/b][/center]

The walk across town was tricky. Vincent's line of work afforded him good enough exercise, but having to walk for nearly and hour and a half takes its toll on anyone. By the time he arrived in front of Yuxley's Diner - more of a back alley pub than a proper diner - Vincent was sweaty and tired. He managed to arrive before anyone else had, at least. With a few moments to himself, Vincent sat down on a short half-wall of a staircase leading to some basement club. Only for those few moments, of course, as no sooner had he gotten settled that a black car with tinted windows pulled up along the curb.

Vincent practically jumped to his feet, hurrying to open to rear door. A thin, old Hispanic man in a green suit stepped out onto the sidewalk. He stood nearly two heads shorter than Vincent, with a buzzed head of gray hair, friendly mutton chops, and harsh wrinkles. He clapped Vincent on the arm as the car pulled away from them again.

"I'm very happy to see you here, boy," he said, taking a small carton of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. "The others should be arriving soon." He passed the lighter to Vincent, who leaned forward and brought it up to Orland's mouth, lighting his cigarette. Orland gazed up at Vincent, his eyes trailing up and down the man as he smoked. Vincent kept his eyes on their surroundings, watching out for anyone eager to get at Orland, but his usual concentration found itself drifting. There was something very strange going on.

In the sidewalk just a few feet from himself, there was a crack. Obviously, a lot of sidewalks had cracks, but this one was different. It was tiny, narrow, almost as if the concrete had been stabbed with a knife. At first, Vincent didn't pay it any mind, it was probably a twig or a piece of trash, but as he kept glancing at it, it seemed to grow. Slightly, over time, but definitely getting steadily bigger all on its own. Soon enough Vincent was just staring directly at it, not even blinking. Was it the start of a sinkhole? An earthquake?

Eventually Vincent was snapped out of it when another car arrived and parked in front of the diner. Three men exited the car, nothing more than ordinary businessmen. Orland's face split into a wide smile. "Ahh, there you all are! Come on, now, let's move this inside. I'm a friend of the chef, you see, I have a special meal planned for us today."

Vincent stuck close to Orland, following the man inside and locking the doors to the diner behind them, thought not before taking one last look at the widening crack.
[hr]
[center][b][i]1:00 PM[/i][/b][/center]
As it turned out, it was a [i]strategy[/i] meeting. After exchanging pleasantries and idle chitchat for a while, the group of men got to business over their food. The three men all worked for the same company, in different departments, and Orland was discussing the possibility of a takeover. A secret one, of course, so that Orland would effectively steal the company under the CEO's nose, gaining all the assets while remaining in the shadows. Some of it went over Vincent's head - he never learned much about business before - but he was able to understand the gist. Standing watch over Orland's shoulder, Vincent could swear that more cracks were showing up, in the polished floors, the walls, even right under the table. It might've just been his mind playing tricks on itself...

The hours passed uneventfully, and once all was decided on and their stomachs were full, the men bid each other farewell. The three all left, though Orland remained seated, wiping his mouth with his napkin. He gestured sideways, to one of the unoccupied chairs at the table.

"Come on, boy, sit." Vincent sat, putting his hands in his lap. He kept his eyes on Orland, whose expression was hard to read. It seemed... pensive. Orland suddenly picked up his plate and put it in front of Vincent. "[i]Eat.[/i]"

Vincent glanced down at the food. Two strips of uneaten steak, a smattering of roasted vegetables, all stewing in a thin pool of cold gravy. It was table scraps, but also the only good food Vincent would be eating this week. With a slightly cautious look back to his boss, Vincent picked up a knife and a fork, and dug in. Only a few bites later did Orland begin to speak.

"It's been quite some time, hasn't it? Since I first took you in. Ten years..." Vincent's eating slowed to a crawl. The reminder of how much time passed, what landed him under Orland's heel in the first place, it weighed heavily on his mind. Orland knew that. "And in all that time you have been outstanding, boy. Truly one of my best. I thank you for that."

There was another pause. Then, with such suddenness that Vincent couldn't even see it happen, Orland reached out and grabbed a handful of Vincent's hair. 

[i]"AND JUST LOOK AT YOU!"[/i] His voice echoed in the empty diner, giving the loud scream even more of a punch. "I ask you for one, ONE thing today, and you show up like THIS?!" Vincent instinctively fought against it, straining to push against Orland's fist, a battle that was lost the moment he was grabbed. His head jerked forward, slamming into the plate, flinging gravy and bits of food everywhere.

"Absolutely disgusting!" Orland was standing now, yanking Vincent's head back just to . "SWEATY-" [i]Wham![/i] "Smelling like complete SHIT-" [i]Wham!![/i] "And you can't even DRESS YOURSELF?!" One final shove forward drove Vincent's face right through the plate, shattering it into pieces. A shard cut the bridge of his nose, immediately spraying blood over the table. He was pulled back, enough force to completely toss him from his chair, falling to the floor dazed, bruised, and bleeding. 

Laying on the floor, Vincent had his eyes closed, focusing on the pain in an effort to drive it away. There was another feeling, though. His cheek felt warm, not because of the blood seeping from his nose but more like someone was blowing gently on his face. As Orland's assault subsided, Vincent opened his eyes, and looked down at the floor. He landed over one of the strange cracks in the floor, and the air came out of it. Was he going crazy? Had the attack given him brain damage?

Whatever thoughts went through his head were quickly snuffed out as Orland walked over to Vincent again. The man looked down at him, disapproving and infuriated. "If I did not know better, boy, I would think you have a death wish. You're becoming a liability." He reached into his jacket, and for a moment, Vincent was scared. Terrified, even. It was happening, after all this time. Orland was going to kill him.

Only, no, that's not happening. Instead of a gun, Orland produced a small folded note, and flicked it over his body. "One job. If you do this for me, boy, I will once again forget this has happened. A little weasel shirked on his dues. He's a student at the university, not far from the motel I'm keeping you. Get me my money."

Composing himself, Orland strode out of the diner, leaving Vincent alone on the floor. His mind was going blank. Cracks, dreams, Hell, none of it mattered now. Vincent didn't care about any of it. His place was shown to him once more, and now all that mattered was to do what he was told.
[hr]
[center][b][i]3:31 PM[/i][/b][/center]
It was another long walk. It was already a trek back to where the motel was, and from there the university was another couple miles away, not to mention the added time for how awful Vincent felt. But he still did it. He trudged, no matter how much his feet burned or how woozy he got. He was on a mission. A job. It was all he was good for, the only thing he could do. By the time he made it onto the university's campus, Vincent was a wreck. His knees trembled, his breath hitched in his throat, his eyes bugged out of his head. More of those damn cracks formed as he walked, a sure sign that he finally lost his mind. Well, insanity was something to look forward to, at least.

Vincent lurched across the campus towards the dorms. The name on the note was Tyler Bennet, and what dorm he lived at too. Most of the students were in a class so nobody disturbed him on his way. It was like his luck was turning around.

When he got to Tyler's dorm, he found it empty. The kid was no doubt in class too. Barging into the dorm room, Vincent began searching around, through papers on his desk, notes on a corkboard, looking for any hint where Tyler was at this time. After a while, he found an old schedule buried under a mountain of discarded papers. He was about to leave when...

"Hey!" A shout from the door. The door Vincent left open. Another student peeked around it, eyes wide at the sight of Vincent. "What're you doing in Tyler's--" Vincent rushed the door, slamming it closed in the kid's face, not that it really mattered, he had already been seen. Already he could hear the kid on the other side calling the cops - [i]"Hello, yeah, there's this creepy man breaking into our dorms! He's in a suit or something, and..."[/i] - so he had no time to lose now. Turning to the window, and grabbing the gym bag left on Tyler's bed as he went, Vincent opened it up and climbed out onto the campus grounds.

He moved as fast as he could without attracting too much attention, rushing to one of the main buildings in search of someplace private. By sheer luck he managed to enter one of the lecture halls and pass by a handicap bathroom. He ducked inside, locked the door, and upended the gym bag onto the floor. A towel and a pair of baggy clothes, noticeably unwashed, spilled out. They'll be looking for a man in a suit, so changing out of the suit would at least buy Vincent precious seconds if he gets seen. And as he changed, he saw more cracks, but these ones were different. They seemed to [i]move.[/i]

The cracks started at the corners of the bathroom, extending out in jagged patterns before Vincent's eyes. He stopped midway through putting on the shirt to watch. He was transfixed. As the cracks met in the middle of the room, they connected, growing as a wide singular crack, out under the door. Vincent followed it, leaving his clothes and the bag behind where they lay.

Out of the bathroom, down the hall, out the front doors. Vincent wasn't sure where he was going, he just knew he had to be somewhere else. He couldn't wait for Tyler to finish classes, there'd be too many witnesses, not to mention the approaching threat of the police. He was pretty sure he could hear their sirens. Whatever the reason for this seemingly sentient crack's existence, Vincent continued to follow its path. It's not like he had any better ideas. Soon he saw where the crack was leading him, a dock just on the other side of the street, overlooking the water. It could work. It was out of the way of the public eye, afforded him a good view of the campus, and there already seemed to be people there to blend in with.

So Vincent wandered over to the dock, practically dragging his feet over the wooden planks. He walked right in the middle of the gathered students, a sweating, stinking, injured man, wearing gym clothes a size too short for himself and taking heavy, rasping breaths, sat right down among the rest of the people drawn to the gazebo. He braced his hands on his knees and, after taking a moment to collect himself, raised his head to stare at everyone individually - from Benny, to Alina, Caelum and Mila and Dakota - and said the first words out of his mouth that entire day, his voice weak and strained from its lack of use.

"If... the cops come around here... you tell them I'm a friend. Or else..." And with that, Vincent collapsed backwards and let loose the longest, loudest groan imaginable.