DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Alternate Reality IBT: Island of Broken Toys Dorm 3-A

Cecil awakens with a start. The pain the needles - Enkidu’s burning hand. Those things don’t leave your memory, they are burned in indelibly. What woke him up is the sound of a girl sobbing. Likely someone being dumped off after some form of experimentation. That was the way of things in the ‘stockyards’. If you were a success you were used. If you were less broken you were dumped here. But now and again the broken toys were picked up and played with again. And the ‘games’ were rarely pleasant for the toy.

He could see a shock of almost white-blond hair in another bed which must represent the source, he had to blink his eyes, the girl in question was … flickering. glitching? It’s almost as if sheets of vaguely purple electricity coursed along her frame, distorting her in their wake, looking for all the world like an image from a damaged projector..

Cecil



His eyes open. The details of the dream, the pain associated with it, sweeps through his body. Slowly the dream fades into the recesses of his mind. Forgotten for now, thankfully.

Blinking his eyes for a moment, the rooms ceiling comes into focus with the early morning light filtered through the small single dirty window on his right. The ceilings peeling paint and cracks is the first familiar thing he sees. For days too many to count since he was brought here, the sound of a girl crying is not new in this place, yet it is the source of what woke him up.

Drawing in the hot humid air, he finds his tongue quite dry as he sits up to spot the sobbing girl lying in the bed across from his.

Feeling the beginning of a headache coming on, whether it is because of his condition or from being dehydrated, Cecil quietly puts on his sneakers, walks over to the girls’ bed, and squats down so as not to be seen as towering over her.
The girls flickering visage makes him wondering what sort of power she has, but he is not too concerned about his own safety. Cecil figures his death will only be his way out of this place. When it happens, he really does not care.

Clearing his throat, he speaks in a dry voice. “Hey, you. I’m getting some water. Want some?”

The girl rolls over.. It almost looks like she flickers.

“I…” She pauses, gathering herself. “I… y-y-yes p-p-please.”
Static moves across her. She screws up her face, fighting against something internal.
“H…ha… ha…” The stutter catches hard on the H-sound. She tries again, fails, stops trying. Just points at herself instead.
“Dash.”

Cecil

He nods, with a rare brief smile of his own.

"Sure. Back in a minute."

Cecil approaches the only exit from the dorm room. He takes a look both ways and sees a couple standing in heavy shadows within the long hallway. He can not see their faces and their voices are too low for him to understand. The other way is clear to the central room where an ancient water tap is mounted on the wall. Luckily he gets there without too much attention, and he quietly moves to it taking two paper cups from a dispenser that is one quarter full, and fills both of them up. Cecil remembers that they used to have old white and grey pewter mugs, but they were taken away at some point when someone started throwing them around as weapons.

The water is not very cold at all, but it is at least clean enough not to get sick from it most of the time. With both hands full, he picks up his pace and returns to Dorm 3-A, its black lettering above the door faded and peeling just like everything else.

Plunking himself down between two beds where Dash is lying down, he scoots up to place his back up against the wall. The relative coolness of the concrete wall seeps through his thin grey shirt. Placing the cup on the floor within easy reach for the blond girl, he studies her strange features for a moment in silence. She is obviously struggling with whatever is happening inside her, so to try and take her mind off of her pain, he introduces himself in a calm quiet voice, "I'm Cecil. Not sure if you've seen me before."

Cecil does not remember seeing her before himself, but then again he has his own problems with his memories and dreams sometimes so intertwined, he can not remember every face he sees.

"I've grown up here. Told I'm 15. I thinks that's a long time. Pretty sure there's other kids been longer than me, but could be wrong. It's funny though. Don't really see much older kids. I sort of wonder what happens if you get too old though, but really can't figure out where'd they go."

He takes a gulp of water, and lightly swishes it around his dry tongue before swallowing it.

"I know a story. A story I remember when I was really little. Want me to tell it, Dash? Might help take your mind off things?"

‘Dash’

She drinks shakily, water spilling slightly at the corners of her mouth. Her hand trembles as she lowers the cup.

“I no know w-w-w… time th..th.. time I ‘rrived. B…b…b…Blake say was here as b…b…baby 8 seasons afore?”

She looked like she had to be at least in her teens. She was nearly as tall as he was, awkward and coltish.

“B…b…b”. A pause. ‘B…b..Blake say B…b…Blake is ten and three and two old. Say not see m…m… not see lots h…h…have more seasons.”

She screws up her face hard as if concentrating and manages “Blake tell stories sometime. I like.”

Cecil

He watches Dash closely as she drinks. Cecil again wonders what sort of condition has made her like this, but he does not want to think anymore of the man that does this to them all. Bad memories threaten just behind his eyes, and unconsciously a hint of annoyance can be seen in them as he listens to Dash stuttering out her words at first.

Cecil snaps out of his reverie though when Dash manages to speak without stuttering.

“I don’t know Blake."

The actual truth would be that if he had met someone named Blake, he has forgotten his face. Days tend to blur into another, and there is no calendar to measure the months and years that has come and gone.

Taking another sip of his water, he adds, “Ok, well hope my story is as good as Blakes.”

Leaning his head back to rest against the concrete wall, he closes his eyes to help stem his growing headache. The childhood memory of an old book used to help him read comes to mind. The cover of the book had a simple cartoon fish on it.

“It’s a story of a little fish. His name was Arty and he was a smarty.
One day all the little fish were swimming side by side.
Little fish like to swim the same way at the same time.
So the little fish all swam this way.
Then they all swam that way.
What did Arty the Smarty do?
When the fish went this way, Arty went that way.
When all the fish went that way Arty went this way.
Soon the little fish were all mixed up.
Then the fish began to swim together again.
This way.
That way.
Along came Arty the smarty again. What did he do?
This time he was upside down.
He was making a funny fish face.
All the little fish began to laugh.
They all made laugh bubbles, and they all got mixed up again.”

Cecil opens his eyes and picks up his cup. Putting the water up against his lips, he lightly blows into it to imitate the small fish laughing in the water. Perhaps it was finding Dash crying in her bed that this story had popped into his memory. Cecil tries to put some inflection into his voice to make the story more fun for Dash.

“One day Arty saw some little fish crying.
Mean old crab made them cry.
The little fish were afraid of mean old crab.
Not Arty!
Arty sawm up to the old crab.
Mean old crab was eating his dinner.
Arty took hold of Crab's dinner.
Old Crab wanted his dinner. So he did not let go.
Arty pulled and pulled.
He pulled the crab around and around.
Mean Old Crab was dizzy.
He had to let go.
He was so dizzy he went around and around, till he was far away.
‘Arty is a smarty!’ cried the little fish. ‘He made Mean Old Crab go away.’ "

His headache comes into full force as he finishes the story. There was more story to tell, but he needs to lie down again.

“Sorry Dash. My heads hurting again. Need to lie down. Want a refill?”

Cecil figures he can make it to the water tap and back before his headache becomes too unbearable.

Dash

She giggles slightly.
“Like Y…Y…You. M…m..make laugh.”

At his request for water, she shakes her head.

“No. I do. W…w…w…wait.”

She takes the cup from his hands and before he can react there is a flicker and a hint of motion. A brief few seconds later, the time it would take to fill a water cup, she’s back, the cup only slightly sloshed.

“I Dash.” She says, tapping her chest.