The Seething Chaos [Mass Child Awakening]

Those who had signed the contract presented by the Crawling Chaos in their dreams would have their subconscious transported into a special part of Limbo. Each of the children who had signed the contract would find themselves lying face first in the middle of a street. It was strangely cold, and a thick fog blanketed the area making visibility almost zero. Each of them would have been put in the center of an intersection of the empty city, and so when they all came to their senses it wouldn't take any effort to all spot each other. For now it'd be completely silent, giving them time to gather their bearings and maybe even socialize amongst themselves.

(OoC: I'll give you all some time to speak to one another before posting again. So you may skip my next turn to post and I'll post when I feel there has been enough talking)

'In my dreams.....so odd......Yeah.....I accept this contract....' her thoughts went as so. Though for whatever reason, it was as if she was responding herself, and it was not a dream, and she was controlling her actions. 'Lucid dreaming was it....?' she could not remember, much less think properly. Though, it shocked her in her dreams, to the point where she would blink, as if trying to wake up. Though once she finally awoke, she found she was not sleeping where she thought she was. In fact, it caused her to sit up rather quickly once her eyes opened.

She would slowly stand up in what appeared to be a fog-covered area of town. The town was completely deserted, and she saw she was in the middle of a road, part of an intersection. "Is this still a dream...?" she would say aloud. She would get no response, by ear or by eye, as the fog was so thick, she could not even see much beyond this intersection. She could not see much around her. She would think it be a silly trick, but she found her arm reaching to her other and giving it a pinch. She would feel pain, but despite that, she was still unconvinced. "Hello....?" she would say looking around for any sign of life. She would continue to stay in the middle of the intersection, hearing no cars, or anything that might influence her to get out. 'What is this place...? Is it even real...?' she would think. It was worrying her slightly. She would check her hands, and touch her shoulders, checking to see if it all felt like she might be awake. And it seemed like she was. She would look around once more, trying to see if anyone was there, and once again feel her body, trying to confirm whether she was awake or not. 'What did I just wake from? I was sleeping right...? ....In my bed. What was I dreaming about...?...' she would think. But she would oddly enough, remember quite well. In her dream, some figure...or something came up to her, bidding her to sign a contract, and she did not think too much of it. It involved, supernatural power and something...."The Crawling Chaos...." she would say out loud. She looked around once more, half-hoping someone might have heard her talking. But to no avail. Though her asking herself these questions was slowly starting to confirm something in her head, that this may in fact be real. Did the dream have something to do with it? She would continue to ponder, trying to make sense of what just happened in the span of her sleeping and waking up.

‘A contract?’ Gabby asked. This was a very unusual dream. Normally dreams were a confusing mess of a nonsensical story. This was going relatively smooth though. Maybe she was still partially conscious and was halfway between sleep and a daydream, ‘Sure. I’ll sign it.’ She gasped for breath, her eyes shot open, and her limbs all jerked as she found she was lying on the cold ground. This was a strange dream indeed. It wasn’t strange to feel in a dream, but this was a bit too real.

She propped herself up and looked around. Wherever she was, it was dark, foggy, and cold. Why would she dream about something like this? Standing up, she’d try and concentrate on what she was going to do. She jumped up trying to fly, but always came back down. That meant this definitely wasn’t a lucid dream. She was about to close her eyes and try to change her dream when she heard a voice. She knew it fairly well by now, “Lori?” She called out and walked in the direction of the sound. It didn’t take long to find her, and she looked just as confused as Gabby did, “Lori, what are you doing here? Wait, why am I dreaming about you in a dark, cold, barely visible road?” She scratched her head, “I think I need some serious help?” She sat down again and leaned back, “So, what does dream Lori want to do until I wake up?” It hadn’t hit her yet that this was reality. After all, things like this didn’t really happen.

Cain let out a small groan as he picked himself up off of the ground. It was freezing here in...wherever he was. Where was he anyway? Well, he could guess where he was physically. In reality he was probably at home, wrapped up in a blanket. Probably in his bed or slumped over on his desk.  What he was wondering was where he was supposed to be. What sort of surrounding his subconscious had crafted for this rare dream he had been 'gifted' with.

"Let's see... fog, fog, and -surprise- fog.  I thought my mind was a little more creative than that. Especially after all that 'Crawling Chaos' stuff." Cain joked to himself as he looked around. From what he could tell it was a city, but if that was true it was far too quiet. He doubted this entire city would be deserted, especially for no apparent reason. Then again, seeing as this was all a dream maybe he should stop over thinking things? Maybe he should stop talking aloud as well? Especially considering that  he apparently wasn't alone here. He could spot a few others, some of them more familiar than others, so announcing every thought he had seemed like an idiotic idea. Then again, if this were a dream they weren't real, so what did it matter what he said?  Wouldn't they be created by his own mind anyway? So they would probably know everything that he knew anyway? Unless...

Cain slapped himself on the forehead as he walked to a nearby storefront. He really needed to stay focused. Especially considering the way this started. This Crawling Chaos had offered a contract and he'd accepted. After all, it was all in his head so why not? It might end up leading to something interesting.  Still if all that was in store was empty buildings and fog he'd be sorely disappointed.

Cain pulled on a door, seeing if there was some way to get inside. Maybe there was a chance that it'd be a little warmer inside, right? Plus sitting indoors seemed like a better choice than standing around in a foggy intersection. Well, it seemed like a more comfortable choice. Who knows, there may even be a way up to the rooftops. If he got high enough there may be a chance he could actually see something or figure out where to go. It probably wasn't the best plan, but it seemed good enough for now.

Lorielle would keep pondering to herself. She was getting a bit frightened. Even lucid dreams surely did not feel this real right? Though she would lose her focus and hear a familiar voice from the fog. "Gabby? Where are you?" she said turning to her as she started to come over to her. She looked like she usually did. A bit short, androgynous, and in the same city with her. "Gabby....this is odd. I swear to you. This might be real. I dunno. Is it? It is so hard to tell...do you see anyone else?" she would ask. Looking around once more, she made a slight sigh of relief. She knew there was at least one of her friends here.

She would look around, and look back to Gabby. "I guess we should wait here and see if something develops?" she asked more than said. She would look around, and soon, finding another familiar face. He saw him exploring the buildings about the area. She would then call to him trying to get his attention. "Cain!" she would shout. Should he join them, she would smile slightly, it turning quickly back to a frown. "Nice to see that someone else we know is here. Are you alright? Dreaming at all, or am I just the only one going insane?" she would ask. She had to be going nuts. She was clearly dreaming right? But it was so cold in here, the feeling she adored so much, was now frightening and confusing her. But this could be because the blanket went from her body in her bed. Probably the case right? Might as well see where this will go. But she at least head a friend with her, possibly two. Maybe more of her friends would come up, hopefully this may turn out to be just a silly dream. She would much rather wait up with a cold sweat than be in a place akin to a ghost town.

Gabby looked at Lori with concern when she thought this was real, “I hate to make you think you’re crazy, but this can’t be real. Unless we both slept walked to this exact place, woke up, and found one another, it’s impossible for us to both be awake and seeing each other right now. I don’t know about you, but I don’t sleep walk.” She laughed a little, “It’s not like you and I are sharing a dream. That’s just voodoo nonsense.” There were just some things that she wasn’t willing to budge on, “But you’re the first person I’ve seen.”

When Lori asked her the question, she shrugged, “That’s the advice for if you’re lost. Maybe it would be better to walk around and find out what’s going on. Seeing as we can’t see.” She pointed at the obvious fog. She looked around when Lori shouted Cain’s name, “Is he here?” She looked over to find him, “Hey, Cain, come join us over here.” If Lori was able to make her comment, Gabby would sigh, “We’re not insane. One of use is probably just dreaming and the others are acting as the dream dictates. Though I’d like to know what the Crawling Chaos is and why someone would have that in their dreams. It’s such a peculiar term. Whoever has the answer is the culprit.” If she wasn’t able to, she would just get up and go over to Cain, telling Lori to follow.

He would awaken to the sound of voices; the pavement under him was pressed up onto his face. Without his glasses, he was blind to the situation around him, only hearing the conversations of the people around him. As he slowly moved his head from the pavement he looked around a few times to make out the situation, quickly taking his glasses out of his suit pocket and placing them on the bridge of his nose. Sagami sat up on the pavement of the street and looked around, this couldn’t possibly be a real place, and it must be a place his sub consciousness created. But why an un-busy street, he was a bit curious as to what lay ahead, maybe it was as interesting as it seemed. As he stood and dusted off his suit from any dirt that had clung to it; but that was another thing, he almost never slept with his suit, another point, this had to be a dream. His headphones hung around his neck, it felt like he was going to school the way he was dressed.

Looking down the street, the boy would study the area; it looked like he had ended up on a small street. The voices of other individuals could be heard from down a small alleyway near him, looking down it, he noticed there were about three figures down it but he couldn’t make them out. The heels of his dress shoes clicked as he walked towards the alleyway. Entering it, he noticed a lot of discarded boxes on the ground near his feet; they seemed irrelevant so he pushed them aside, looking forward. The alley was dark due to there being no light emanating from anywhere. He neared the exit and heard a familiar voice, although he could not tell who it was. As he exited he noted who owned that voice. He would step into the light so anyone could see him and immediately looked towards the only person there he could remember meeting. “Lorielle, what are you doing here? Why would I dream of you…” He barely knew the girl, but, he did know her. Looking at the other people he noticed another female and two males, yet one of them looked female as well. So one’s gender was unknown. “Well if it is any consolation, to all of you, my name is Sagami Sokida…” There really was no reason to be rude if these people were figments of his imagination.

Cain narrowed his eyes and pretended not to notice the figure watching from the streetlight.  He wasn't sure who they were,  but in a place like this oddly quiet girls who didn't match the surroundings and kept their eyes on everyone were usually bad news... Not like he had much room to talk when it came to blending in, but at this point he wasn't considering himself a suspect in whatever weirdness was going on. For now he'd play it cool. pretend he wasn't even aware of her so he had a little time to plan. At least he would have if he didn't then hear his name being shouted across the intersection.

Cain rested his head against a wall and let out his second groan for the evening. their went any hope of keeping a low profile. It was hard to play something like that off when there were only four other people here. He'd just have to go with the flow.

"You ought to come too." he said pointing at the girl by the streetlamp as he rested his head. "Unless you want to seem suspicious, that is.  You do want to know what's going on, don't you?" he said casually before pushing off the wall and strolling over to Gabby and Lori with his hands in his pockets.

"Gabby! Lori! It's nice to see you two, but when I agreed to hanging out I was hoping for someplace a little less... "Silent Hill" Cain said without letting his annoyance show.
"So you two think this is a dream too? Well... that's not good. If you were acting normal I could just assume this was an average visit from the sandman and be on my way. If you know though that must mean Gabby's right and we're dreaming together, that Lori's right and most of us aren't real, or there's the crazy option: we aren't dreaming." Cain said, more musing out loud than speaking to anyone.

"Not sure which option is the worst one, but I guess it doesn't matter. We've all got our roles for now, so best to just stick to them." He said with a shrug. It seemed true enough to him. After all there was no way he'd be able to prove anyone here wasn't real. None that he could think of anyway. Best to just go on as normal and hope things sorted themselves out.  He looked over to the man he didn't know and briefly checked to see if the girl had followed him like he'd asked. Even if she hadn't he'd continue with introductions.

"So hey, how's it going Mr. Sokida?  You already know Lorielli it seems, an no doubt you heard my name.  That's convenient, saves time on introductions. Seeing as we all think we're dreaming let me take a wild guess. You all signed some weird contract with 'The Crawling Chaos' and then appeared here with no idea what happened. Close guess?" Cain said looking up to the sky with a bored expression, though it was taking quite a bit of effort to keep that particular mask in place.

"Well, you say nonsense, but...." she trailed off. Honestly, she had no real proof that this was real. She was probably being paranoid. But this was just felt way too real for her, but she would not finish her thought, and just go along with her. "Well, if this is a dream, I better be flying later dammit," she said, smirking slightly. That brought a smile to her face, if only for a short second. She started to calm herself down. It probably was as Gabby says, and she was just confused cause this has never happened to her before. So it'd be best to make the most of it, though her comment did catch her eye. "Oh! So you had that too? With the contract and the Crawling Chaos? Such a distinct phrase, bit hard to forget," she said. Dream or not, she was getting a bit interested in it all. At the very least, she wanted to see where this would go. "Hm, well, maybe we should look around soon, but we should at least see if-oh! Sagami!" she would call.

She would wave to him as he showed up, making sure he knew where they were. When hearing of his curiosity Lorielle would smile. "Well, obviously we all mean so much to you, you dream of us," she said, though with a half-smile and no particular laughter, so it might not have sounded like a joke to him. Sagami was a bit of a....fellow. She really did not know how to describe him. He talked so little, not out of shyness, but it was as if he had nothing much to say. Though he wasn't bad, just someone she did not know well. "You alright Sagami? Got the same dream we did?" she would ask. After hearing his answer, she would see Cain come by, and she would nod.

"Hey Cain. You seemed relatively eager to meet us again. But it is good to have people we know in this place. Any ideas on what is going on...?" she asked. Se would hear his suggestions, which was basically recounting what everyone already knew. So unfortunately, they did not know much else. They all showed up here of all places, only after signing that one contract. She would very much like to meet this 'Crawling Chaos' herself and ask some questions. Supernatural powers actually sounded kind of useful, according to her dream, which for whatever reason, she could remember clearly. Maybe later in the dream there will be something grand they have to do. This may end up being fun. Despite all of her worries, Lorielle was actually getting a bit excited on the inside, and was curious about what would happen next. She would turn back to Gabby, finishing her sentence she never got to when Sagami had shown up. "Yeah, we should probably explore the area if no one really shows up in a bit," she said. She would look around for any possible newcomer coming to the group of four, and would happen to notice a figure standing off to where Cain was coming from, though she could not tell who it was, maybe it was someone else she knew, or perhaps this 'Crawling Chaos'. She would wave her hand to the person, trying to see if they would come over. If they did, she would introduce herself as 'Lorielle', and ask if she came across the same dream. Though, if they did not come, she would turn to Cain, assuming he might have gotten a good look at the person, in order to ask him a question or two. "Hey Cain, you saw that person over there right?" she would say gesturing to the figure. "You know who that is?" She would adjust her hair keeping it behind her ears when she spoke.

Gabby went completely silent when the new person approached. This was proof that she wasn’t dreaming. She didn’t know this person, and in dreams you only saw faces that were real. Then again, maybe she passed by him on the streets and was using his face in the dream. He appeared to know Lori though. So this wasn’t her dream, but she knew she was real and not part of someone’s imagination. That was when her brain finally started putting two and two together. She pinched herself on the arm, making a small sound of pain in the process. She lowered her face into her hands, attempting to think of any other logical situation. There was no other explanation though. She laughed nervously and started muttering to herself, “This is real. No. Pain can exist in dreams, so maybe this is just incredibly elaborate. This can’t possibly be real.”

She rubbed her brain as it felt it throbbing in agony, “I need to stop thinking. It’s going to be the death of me.” She then remembered that she hadn’t introduced herself to the new guy yet, “I’m Gabby. Sorry about the mental break just then.” She went quiet again and scratched her head, “Based on Cain saying that he also signed a contract with the Crawling Chaos, I assume we all did. But why did it ask the four of us and why are we all here now?” She started pacing, “This doesn’t make sense. Maybe we should all stick together for now. No one goes off until we understand what’s going on. Safety in numbers after all.” Her mind was reeling at all the different scenarios it was coming up with. When she saw Lori wave off in the distance, her eyebrow raised, “What are you doing?” She looked off in the same direction.

“Crawling chaos…” Sagami would move his hand to his chin and pinch it, he had heard something like that in London, but what was it. But Crawling chaos… And then it hit him. “…Nyarlathotep…” When he would say that one name his voice seemed to echo down the alleyway he stood affront, he had signed a contract, but he always signed everything even when reading it. He would grasp at his head lightly, what had he said, power… Something about power, maybe he had persuaded the boy himself to sign it. “Crawling Chaos, the god of Chaos, his surnames are the same. I have known his name to be Nyarlathotep… But if he is involved that means…” the boy would trail off, mentioning personas in a public place in front of these people, people he barely knew, he hadn’t thought of Kikuri-Hime, his old persona, since he had arrived in the region.

But this didn’t make since, the children of Nyarlathotep were supposed to be evil to the core, Sagami himself had supported one in battle and that specific child was eminent to kill that certain man… But the boy hadn’t realized what he had gotten himself into… So Nyarlathotep was involved, did this mean his persona Kikuri-Hime would be returned to him under another force of power? Either way, that persona was a part of him, a part that gave him great power; it would be good to use that power again, not feeling like a weak human. “Great power… He promised great power… “ What would happen? What was going on…

Cain folded his arms and scuffed  his shoes on the ground. Dreams and reality, Chaos and order, friends and foes. Already this whole affair was seeming like a hassle. Still  there was little he could do. Like he'd said before, the roles were cast. He just had to go along with it for now.
"Well if we're going to explore maybe we should check our phones?  Even if we plan on sticking together there's always the chance we'll get separated. It'd be nice if no one disappeared. Maybe it'd  be smart if we came up with a meeting place too." Cain said under his breath. He was more planning to himself than trying to lead the group anywhere. They could do what they pleased as far as he was concerned. This just seemed like the smartest thing to do.
"As for the girl over there? Miss Pale, Purple, and Peering? Well that's easy. I've got no idea who she is, and my guess is she doesn't want to tell us.  She'd rather stick to the shadows and watch from a distance. How much she knows, if she's on our side, and all that I can't say." He said to Lorielle before putting his hands in his pockets. In a quick motion he looked over his shoulders and said in a voice loud enough that he was sure the girl would hear.
"Honestly it's a little rude. Seeing as we know nothing about her and she's learning everything about us. Not very neighborly of her!" He said with a smirk in her direction before turning back and speaking in his normal tone. He'd just heard Sagami's musings and, even if he still didn't know everything about the situation some of those words were a little familiar.
"I think I heard some stuff about Nyarlathotep. Some stuff about 'totemic spirits' that people could control. Apparently he was some great ruler or pharaoh who became a spirit himself. Fought against some 'Butterfly of Calamity.' " Cain said with a shrug.
"Then again I kinda heard all that from what may or may not have been a cult, so I'd take it with a grain of salt, maybe a spoonful. Most cult's aren't really known for their reliability. Still, it's all I got." He said unsure of wether htis info would be of any use.