Flint
One of the core tenants of the god of love is that, to reach that special place beyond death, one must find another person to love, to help free them from the evils of money, that the two may reach that place together, hand-in-hand.
For that reason, Flint has always felt left out. There are very few believers who do not have a special someone to bring into the faith, and when they don't, they rarely stay faithful themselves. Among both, however, most would say he was too young for them to love him, and for those that didn't, Father Dominic would intervene without fail. Apparently, those who were not adults could not achieve true love, and trying anyway could harm them, making it harder to achieve true love later on, somehow. Over the years, Flint had started to feel like he would never find someone to love himself, and as time went on, he tried less and less.
He still wasn't an adult now, based on the arbitrary age of 18, though it would be less than a year until he was, and while he wasn't sure he could actually find anyone to love when the time came, Father Dominic had made it very clear that he shouldn't try it with someone he would have to wait long on. Dating just a bit before he was an adult was fine, but there was this whole talk about acceptable age ranges and how it started narrow and widened with age, and how people could approach him with apparent love 'only to be holding a dagger behind their back.' He never explained why people would do such a thing, or why an age gap was a problem, but the ultimate message was clear.
So, Daniel calling him cute was flattering, if anything. He didn't find it gross, and he couldn't stop his face from heating up from embarrassment from the compliment. He wasn't used to them, and would seldom get them for anything but his drawings, so he didn't know how to handle them properly. All that being said, when he looked back at Daniel's boyish face, all he could think of him was that he was someone who he couldn't achieve true love with. Maybe it was the disappointment from bringing back another kid his age to the church when he was younger and being told that it wouldn't work out, or maybe the feeling of incompatibility itself was what father Dominic was talking about with his age range stuff. Mathematically, things could work out between them, but that was a few years off, and starting something between them before then would supposedly only hurt them.
Ultimately, Flint didn't know how to respond before fog enveloped the room, turning everything hazy and then dark.
When Flint woke up in his bed in the church's compound, he found that, indeed, he seemed to have been having a realistic dream right on the heels of another dream.
He should make a drawing of it to show Father Dominic. It would be harder to explain why he needs to borrow Father Dominic's phone without a visual aid.
Radcliff
Radcliff's return to the waking world began with him coughing up water with an intensity that sent a sharp pain through his ribs and a volume to it that made it feel like he was vomiting. He had to lean over so as not to drown himself, perhaps for the second time in the last several hours, and as he did so, he found himself falling. Mercifully it was only a drop of a couple of inches, off a surfboard, onto the sand beneath. Wiping the salt water out of his eyes with his soaked but relatively sand-free clothes, he found himself surrounded by a pair of lifeguards, judging by the labels on their swimsuits, and a crowd of curious onlookers who were quietly celebrating the successful rescue with appurtenant levels of cheers and applause, as if a collective and disorganized sigh of relief.
One of the lifeguards asks him, "You okay?" But as he struggles to gain his bearings, scanning his surroundings, his eyes lock on to a piece of wreckage he recognizes as part of his boat. It was still silently being pushed back and forth by the tides.
Noticing his gaze, one of the lifeguards explains; "we saw you drifting on top of that thing through binoculars. Good thing we did, too, else we wouldn't have been close enough to bring you to shore when you fell off it."
Radcliff barely registered the lifeguard's words as he pulled out his phone. Dead, of course. He asks to borrow a lifeguard's phone with his scratchy, salt-water-abused voice and they lead him back towards their tower to get it while informing him that an ambulance is on the way for him. After calling up emergency services to unilaterally informing them that an ambulance is no longer necessary, he tries calling up the coast guard and then every hospital within a couple hundred miles to see if any of his friends were found. To his dismay, none were, and the lifeguards quietly watch on with a growing frown on their faces as Radcliff makes call after call, ignoring their offers of fresh water and oreos, all while Cliff's voice grows steadily more ragged from the overuse. Eventually he takes a deep breath before moving on to calling up the families of all of his friends and informing them of the situation, and by then, he just can't keep it together. Neither can the lifeguards, as they awkwardly watch on, hearing the story unfold piece by piece.
Flint
With a few sketches done of the velvet room, the velvet barracks, the velvet long-nosed man and the velvet humanoid figure Clerval summoned, Flint began looking for Father Dominic, ignoring the sounds coming from the rooms of any believers who had a habit of leaving their doors open. It didn't take long to find him, sitting in his office.
He greeted Flint with a warm smile, putting whatever he was holding away in a drawer. "Hello, Flint. What brings you here today?"
"I had a strange dream last night."It took a bit to recount the events of Flint's visit to the velvet room as he showed Father Dominic his drawings of the place, though with his impeccable memory, he was able to recite every last word spoken with exacting detail, which he did not do, since Father Dominic asked him to summarize after the first minute or so of him doing this.
"So, it seems the world 'as we know it' is going to end soon.""So it would seem. Though, if they do not mean the end of the world in its totality, then we must consider the future beyond, and I must say, there is a
friend of mine who would
adore paintings of this
velvet room."
"Oh? Sure, I'll make some for them.""That would be wonderful, my boy. As soon as you can, yes?"
"Could I call that guy, Daniel, first? Igor said that the five of us in that dream would be meeting soon, and I'm not sure if anyone else remembers his phone number.""Hmm? I suppose it wouldn't hurt, but remember, Flint, that dreams and reality are two separate things."
Flint simply nodded, oblivious to the subtext.
"Yes, father."To Father Dominic's shock and bewilderment, Daniel did pick up the phone.
"Daniel, right? This is Flint-"Father Dominic, thinking this an elaborate scam that poor, gullible Flint has fallen for, or otherwise an unknown number Flint has subconsciously grafted onto his dreams, grabbed his phone back out of Flint's hand. "Who is this!? Just where did Flint get your number!?"
Ah, maybe I didn't explain things well enough, Flint thought.
