Elijah, striving.

Elijah

He didn't leave the apartment. Luckily, he did actually have clothes there that did not consist of him having to go out and leave and change clothes because, truth be told, he wasn't sure if he was going to come back. He wasn't sure if he was going to lose his nerve or talk himself into having a conversation other thant he one that he started and now... now he had to explain. A lot. More than a lot.

He had to explain everything.

So, there he was, showering up, clothes in some neat little pile washing his hair with someone else's shampoo and contemplating how he was going to go about this. He even practiced.

"Okay," he said as the water started to go cold, "Jenn, magic is actually a legitimate thing and I didn't tell you about it because I was afraid you would have me committed."

The water was still getting cold. And it sounded dumb. He rinsed, let his conditioner set, and tried again.

"Jenn, I didn't tell you about this first because I didn't know what was going on and-" he has to pause there, amidst waiting and feeling the water grow cold, like a reminder that he was running out of time, and he muses that maybe... he doesn't have a good reason to have not told her. Kalen said it might be a bad idea?

"Ugh, since when have I listened to anything," he grumbles to himself, leans back and finally gets the damn conditioner out so he can get out of the shower and dry out before Jenn came home.

--

Elijah was laying in the floor, staring at the ceiling. The coffee table had moved, but mostly because he'd finally actually broken the coffee table. It was a cheap IKEA thing, so now he had something else to explain aside from magic.

Mostly, that magic was real, and they needed a new coffee table.

radiant

Jenn comes home later. The door swings open and there is the usual ritual whereby she divests herself: of keys and of coat, of gloves and scarf. Of the messenger bag - heavy - slung over her body. The quiet thunk of her laptop as it hits the hardwood floor. She has brought back a brown paper bag of take-out, the cheapeast sort. A large container of hot and sour soup and another of vegetable fried rice from the Chinese take-out place on the corner. That plus the vegetable spring roll she ate on the walk home (because it was hot and fried foods are always best fresh) cost four bucks. The soup has spilled a bit and the brown paper bag is damp and fragrant with it.

She grabs the Brita pitcher out of the fridge and pours herself a glass, walks around the small apartment until she can seat herself on the edge of the couch, near where Elijah is laying down, staring at the ceiling.

"You know, I didn't think I'd find you still here."

Elijah

"We're having big, earth shattering conversation of doom. If I left, I was gonna chicken out and just avoid it for another-" he waves his hands to approximate some period of time that he hasn't quite figured out how to say in words, so hand waving was appropriate.

"I even stayed sober," he tells her. Something smells delicious, so he sits up. He still has no idea where his shoes are, but knows that they're somewhere in the apartment. Has faith that they will turn up eventually.

"How's class?"

radiant

Jenn is watching him, her attention somewhat sidelong, her mouth compressed and perhaps pulled into a mildly sardonic expression when Elijah announces that they are having a big, earth shattering conversation of doom.

Something sober about her then, too.
Something a little bit sad.

Sad enough that she looks away and gives Elijah a one-hooked shrug of her right shoulder.

"It was alright. Professor Wayburn lectured the whole time and did that thing where he never looks up from his fingernails while he's lecturing. I dunno, I feel bad for him but I think if you are that shy maybe you shouldn't go into a profession that requires you to speak in front of people every day."

Elijah

"Dude, that guy... The only thing I can think is that he tried that picture everyone is naked thing that they tell you to do when you're nervous, and his imagination went to some Lovecraftian shit and Things Can't Be Unseen," he goes from sitting to standing, meanders to his coat to acquire cigarettes.

He doesn't smoke inside, not often anyway. He never even finishes one or two before he concludes he's done for the evening. An uncommitted smoker, more interested in the smoke than the tobacco.

He offers one, polite as always. One does not smoke alone, not if they can help it.

radiant

"You're giving him way too much credit for imaginary potential. I don't think he takes things far outside the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, or maybe Forbes Business Weekly."

Jenn shakes her head quietly as Elijah offers her a cigarette: no. She doesn't want one. Not right now.

The scent of hot and sour soup slowly pervades the room.

She's tracking his every movement. There's something (self) protective about her tonight. She could ease him back into the conversation they started earlier. Pave the way. Make things smooth.

She's not, though.

He's the one who left.

He's the one who has kept her in the dark.

Elijah

He doesn't do things easily. Ripped off bandaids too fast and only counted to two when yanking hard on stubborn baby teeth or puling out stingers or stickers. He doesn't give much warning, doesn't know how to do anything other than stand back or dive in, so... he dives in.

"For the past three and a half years, I really, honestly thought I was going crazy. It would be a lot easier if I was going crazy, and I thought that I was seeing things and hearing things that aren't actually there and I wanted to move because I thought that... if I wasn't around a bunch of people who thought I was crazy, then I could be normal."

A second passes, he purses his lips and lights a cigarette, but he isn't smoking it. It's just... burning. Burning because he needs something to do with his hands. Elijah inhales deep.

"Then I met people who... like... saw what I saw and heard what I heard and I figured that I wasn't normal and I wasn't ever going to be normal and there was this huge pressure to... like... be separate. Because the world and, fuck, reality doesn't work like I've always been told it works, and it turns out people can define that for themselves.

"A lot of really messed up stuff happened and I thought that if I told you then you would either think I'm crazy and have me committed or you would end up in serious trouble. Both of these reasons don't have anything to do with the way that you actually think and reason, and they're pretty much just backed by me buying into a bunch of bullshit and being too afraid to face the idea that being honest with you might scare you off."

radiant

Jenn breathes out, deeply and all at once. It sounds like a sigh.

"Elijah," patient this, and perhaps a bit weary. "The only reason I would ever do something to have you committed to a psychiatric hospital is if I thought you were suffering from a mental illness and were a danger to yourself or others. Just being a little bit - " here she pauses, her mouth pursing at the sides, " - off isn't enough. It's not fair that you don't have that faith in me to do the right thing by you.

"And - being schizophrenic - it's just a disease. Like heart disease or It's not a judgment on you, you know? And there's, like, literally no one in the world who has any kind of imagination or any hint of self-awareness who thinks they're normal. And normal people don't even fucking think about it, that's how normal they are.

"And I'm glad you've found people that you like, that make you feel like you are okay the way you are, but I hate the way you left me and the way you've pushed me away. I've been worried about you and I've been lonely and I - "

Pause here, implicit.

This brief, outward sigh.

"I just want what's best for you, okay? But I don't even know where you live. And I - I mean, I don't know what to say. Like you don't really live here but you kinda do, and if I make your brownies though, where the hell would I take them if you didn't decide to bring them over? It's just - "

Elijah

"I've been a shit to you, Jenn. And it's not fair, you haven't done anything to make me think I can't trust you," he exhales, takes a drag off his cigarette because if he doesn't it will go out soon.

"I live in a warehouse, and it's kind of awkward. I don't actually know if Kalen is completely cool with me bringing people over, but I don't think I actually want to keep living there," he takes a moment and looks at her, "I've not been cool, and for someone who is an incredibly important part of my life I haven't been good to you. Like-"

He takes a minute again.

"If this is going to make sense, I have to explain that I-I'm not sick, there's nothing wrong with me. There's a whole other world out here, though-" he stops.

"What do you need from me to make things okay?"

Elijah

[Per+aware: go go gadget dont-suck-at-being-a-friend!]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 5, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

radiant

"Elijah, if your boyfriend isn't really cool with you bringing people over that's not really okay, and if you don't want to live there you should stop living there." Jenn returns in a quick sling-shot, with a deep sigh of frustration as Elijah tells her that he's been a shit to her and he hasn't been cool and on and on.

"I don't need anything from you to make things okay. You know? I'm not spending my resenting you or disliking you or being mad or hurt because you've kept me in the dark. Things are okay.

"And I know that you have digested and encapsulated this stigma about mental illness and you've like tattooed that everywhere in your psyche and yourself and I know that has everything to do with your family and the shit way they treated you and the waay society is but I'd wish you'd stop thinking that or go to counseling or do something to break through that stigma. You know?"

Elijah

[C'mon spirit 1, that cigarette should be burning pretty well by now, yes? Calling it diff 6 because I'm not super sure if this is coincidental or not]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah

[and extending?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (5) ( success x 1 ) [WP]

Elijah

(and again, because damn it all magic you need to work]

Dice: 1 d10 TN7 (7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]

Elijah

[Paradox, why you gotta do?]

Dice: 1 d10 TN6 (10) ( success x 1 )

Elijah

[Stamina: Oww.]

Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 6) ( success x 1 )

Elijah

He took a long, hard drag off the cigarette.

Truth be told, he wasn't a big fan of cigarettes, but he was a fan of deep breathing. Inhaled well enough that he could feel smoke in his lungs and he exhaled and he was paying attention, or at least seemed like he was paying attention right up until he wasn't paying attention and, instead had repositioned. Flicked ash into his hand because he didn't have anywhere else to put it, didn't plan that far ahead but knew he couldn't very well ash all over the hardwood floor, not when he didn't intend on cleaning up.

And he thinks about people. Thinks about the things he's learned and how he's learned and thinks about Serafine. Thinks about how achingly beautiful the world is, thinks about Ian and how excited he had been to show him-

The stars. Every blistering, glimmering frozen light in the sky. Elijah got up, took a seat on the couch next to Jenn and wiped his hands off on his jeans. He's holding his cigarette like it's a formality, focuses on the way that the smoke curls and leans a little against her, like he needs to be aware that she is there because soon enough he knows something is going to happen.

Because he wants it to happen.

Because he desperately needs this to happen, and the idea that magic- with a c or magick with a ck isn't real. That the world isn't consensual, that it just is the way it is and there is a feeling in the air. Something that sparks and something that can't sit still. Can't rest, can't just be. No, it is a quiet upheaval, probably the same kind of upheaval that ruined the coffee table and he is determined.

"Just, close your eyes for a minute, this is important."

he sounds distracted. The kind of distracted that one gets when they are focused. Very... very focused.

It has to be perfect. It has to be real. He exhales again, and something nags and aches for a second, but he doesn't care. This is important.

And, at some point,t he world will yield, will do as it does and the tenuous strands that keep people anchored to this particular world will give way. The connections seem tenuous and the sky is alight with stars and half the floor is gone and there is something there. The colors are bright and dull. The walls seem gossamer, and the world seem smore itself. Unhindered by the things that are not strong enough as ideas to stand the testament of time. Only that which is forged by belief remains.

"Don't panic, okay? When you open your eyes, things are gonna be weird, but it's so fucking beautiful," he tells her. Insists, and speaks like this is reverence. Like this is sacred and perfect.

Elijah

(try this again)

Elijah

He took a long, hard drag off the cigarette.

TRuth be told, he wasn't a big fan of cigarettes, but he was a fan of deep breathing. Inhaled well enough that he could feel smoke in his lungs and he exhaled and he was paying attention, or at least seemed like he was paying attention right up until he wasn't paying attention and, instead had repositioned. Flicked ash into his hand because he didn't have anywhere else to put it, didn't plan that far ahead but knew he couldn't very well ash all over the hardwood floor, not when he didn't intend on cleaning up.

And he thinks about people. Thinks about the things he's learned and how he's learned and thinks about Serafine. Thinks about how achingly beautiful the world is, thinks about Ian and how excited he had been to show him-

The stars. Every blistering, glimmering frozen light in the sky. Elijah got up, took a seat on the couch next to Jenn and wiped his hands off on his jeans. He's holding his cigarette like it's a formality, focuses on the way that the smoke curls and leans a little against her, like he needs to be aware that she is there because soon enough he knows something is going to happen.

Because he wants it to happen.

Because he desperately needs this to happen, and the idea that magic- with a c or magick with a ck isn't real. That the world isn't consensual, that it just is the way it is and there is a feeling in the air. Something that sparks and something that can't sit still. Can't rest, can't just be. No, it is a quiet upheaval, probably the same kind of upheaval that ruined the coffee table and he is determined.

"Just, close your eyes for a minute, this is important."

he sounds distracted. The kind of distracted that one gets when they are focused. Very... very focused.

It has to be perfect. It has to be real. He exhales again, and something nags and aches for a second, but he doesn't care. This is important.

And, at some point,t he world will yield, will do as it does and the tenuous strands that keep people anchored to this particular world will give way. The connections seem tenuous and the sky is alight with stars and half the floor is gone and there is something there. The colors are bright and dull. The walls seem gossamer, and the world seem smore itself. Unhindered by the things that are not strong enough as ideas to stand the testament of time. Only that which is forged by belief remains.

"Don't panic, okay? When you open your eyes, things are gonna be weird, but it's so fucking beautiful," he tells her. Insists, and speaks like this is reverence. Like this is sacred and perfect.

radiant

Jenn is making noises at Elijah as he starts to work. He has to Work. His skills are small enough - his connection to the world is narrow enough that even the smallest changes require time, ritual, attention, focus. Jenn wants to tell him that she knows it is important, that it is okay, that everything will be alright and if he wants to move out of the warehouse but doesn't want to move back here, that's okay, she'll be there to help him figure it out.

That's what friends do.

But something about the way Elijah moves through the space, something about his distance draws her brows together in concern or curiousity. He sits next to her. He leans against her.

She leans back.

And closes her eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, her free hand finds his free hand.

Something strange and something small at the back of her throat. It reminds her of the last time she got high, the scratchy burn of the marijuana, the foggy halo of it around her head, softening the edges of her perception and making her feel both more settled in her skin and closer to its edges. She wonders if - perhaps - he has something more than tobacco in that cigarette he's smoking.

Then she opens her eyes.

And her breath goes all out of her, all at once.

Her hand grasps his, hard. Her fingers dig into his knuckles.

"What - What - "

--

Amidst the umbral reflection of the living room, the gossamer, half-real, half-substantial, half-unraveled building, the burning stars far above, the dark shadows that lurch and lurk on the streets, the buzzing hum of the electricity elementals skimming through the walls, faint and superimposed or sunk beneath the substance and reality of the world they inhabit there is one perfect thing, perfectly formed, in the middle of the reflection of the living room, which has no physical analogue.

A mirror.

A hallway. A corridor, long and dark.

At the end of the corridor:

an open door.

radiant

Jenn is making noises at Elijah as he starts to work. He has to Work. His skills are small enough - his connection to the world is narrow enough that even the smallest changes require time, ritual, attention, focus. Jenn wants to tell him that she knows it is important, that it is okay, that everything will be alright and if he wants to move out of the warehouse but doesn't want to move back here, that's okay, she'll be there to help him figure it out.

That's what friends do.

But something about the way Elijah moves through the space, something about his distance draws her brows together in concern or curiousity. He sits next to her. He leans against her.

She leans back.

And closes her eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, her free hand finds his free hand.

Something strange and something small at the back of her throat. It reminds her of the last time she got high, the scratchy burn of the marijuana, the foggy halo of it around her head, softening the edges of her perception and making her feel both more settled in her skin and closer to its edges. She wonders if - perhaps - he has something more than tobacco in that cigarette he's smoking.

Then she opens her eyes.

And her breath goes all out of her, all at once.

Her hand grasps his, hard. Her fingers dig into his knuckles.

"What - What - "

--

Amidst the umbral reflection of the living room, the gossamer, half-real, half-substantial, half-unraveled building, the burning stars far above, the dark shadows that lurch and lurk on the streets, the buzzing hum of the electricity elementals skimming through the walls, faint and superimposed or sunk beneath the substance and reality of the world they inhabit there is one perfect thing, perfectly formed, in the middle of the reflection of the living room, which has no physical analogue.

A mirror.

A hallway. A corridor, long and dark.

At the end of the corridor:

an open door.

radiant

STOP.

radiant

Jenn is making noises at Elijah as he starts to work. He has to Work. His skills are small enough - his connection to the world is narrow enough that even the smallest changes require time, ritual, attention, focus. Jenn wants to tell him that she knows it is important, that it is okay, that everything will be alright and if he wants to move out of the warehouse but doesn't want to move back here, that's okay, she'll be there to help him figure it out.

That's what friends do.

But something about the way Elijah moves through the space, something about his distance draws her brows together in concern or curiousity. He sits next to her. He leans against her.

She leans back.

And closes her eyes.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this, her free hand finds his free hand.

Something strange and something small at the back of her throat. It reminds her of the last time she got high, the scratchy burn of the marijuana, the foggy halo of it around her head, softening the edges of her perception and making her feel both more settled in her skin and closer to its edges. She wonders if - perhaps - he has something more than tobacco in that cigarette he's smoking.

Then she opens her eyes.

And her breath goes all out of her, all at once.

Her hand grasps his, hard. Her fingers dig into his knuckles.

"What - What - "

--

Amidst the umbral reflection of the living room, the gossamer, half-real, half-substantial, half-unraveled building, the burning stars far above, the dark shadows that lurch and lurk on the streets, the buzzing hum of the electricity elementals skimming through the walls, faint and superimposed or sunk beneath the substance and reality of the world they inhabit there is one perfect thing, perfectly formed, in the middle of the reflection of the living room, which has no physical analogue.

A mirror.

A hallway. A corridor, long and dark.

At the end of the corridor:

an open door.

Elijah

His fingers intertwine with hers, and he can feel her fingernails press into his skin and it hurts, but it isn't an unfamiliar pain. Isn't unwelcome.

"The first time I saw it, I thought there was something really wrong with me, because I thought the world shouldn't look like that but... it does. It's the reflection of our world- and they're near infinite. Our truth makes their truth, and their truth makes our truth. This is the umbra," he says, pulls her hand up to his and kisses the back of it.

"You're not high, you're not stoned, this is just... pushing past a barrier. It's true magic, not bullshit stage stuff."

But in the room there was something, a mirror, another reflection and he peers at it. A mirror that has no physical analogue. Nothing that matches up with it in the apartment, and he tilts a little at the corridor, the hallway long and dark and at the end that open door.

"Once you see things, once some doors are open, you can't really go back, ya know? Whatever happened back in high school opened that door for me."

Speaking of doors, he does start to get off the couch, not quite ready to depart from her side, not ready to let go of her hand, but interested in the mirror.

radiant

The mirror does not react to Elijah's interest.

It is a mirror, or maybe it is a reflection, or maybe it is a door.

It sits there. It does not move.

--

"Oh my god." Jenn murmurs, a low note of awe wrapped up in the skein of her voice. What else can one say to this: the world into which she has fallen. She half-turns, following the darting movement of some small spirit skittering up the gossamer wall, cranes her head to catch glowing blue lines of radiance skittering with small spiders creating and maintaining and repairing those highways of electric connection.

Her breathing is ragged. She knows that she isn't stoned. She turns and she glances at Elijah, her eyes dark on his profile, breathing - carefully - in and out, out and in and wonders if this will stop when she lets go of his hand.

Does not just wonder.

Lets go of his hand, then. Flexes her own against his - once - and kind of shakes herself free and stands up and starts this circuit, watchful, reverent, aware. "It's like a world of metaphors. Umbra means shadow. Is this like, inside things? Or some kind of exoskeleton? This is incredible. Do those - those things know we're here?"

"Can I touch them?" - but no.

No she can't. It's just a vision superimposed on her own vision, nothing like walking there, nothing like slicing through that barrier. Nothing like -

"You can do this whenever you want?"

Elijah

And thus, since it does not move, since he knows he can't touch it, it doesn't stop him from going up and trying to touch it. He doesn't expect anything, doesn't expect to feel cool glass against his hands or anything of the sort. But he has to, has to because he needs to know if it will yield, needs to know if he can pass through that particular barrier.

There has to be a way to move there.

"I don't know how to touch things yet, I haven't figured that out," he says.

"And it's like the inside of things and how they work as well as the framework for it. What we do in the physical plane impacts what happens there, what happens over there impacts how we work here- like, if I squished a whole bunch of those spiders- which I wouldn't do because that would be a dick move- the power might go out, or they would get angry and I don't know.

"I think... sometimes things know we're here. I've looked before and found stuff looking back."

He looks back at the mirror, repositions so he can inspect it closer. He is waiting for something. Waiting for his reflection to come back, to jeer, waiting for eyes that are not his own to look back at him.

You can do this whenever you want?
"And some other stuff, but this? This is my favorite... it's exhausting. Magic isn't easy."

radiant

There is no glass. It feels like smoke and his fingers skim right through.

He waits.

There's no reflection.

No other-self jeering.

Just a hallway.

Just an open-door.

--

Jenn has sunk back down onto the couch. Tipped her head back to watch the tracing lights criss-cross against the sky. "How? I mean - how do you do this. How can I do this. Why doesn't everyone?"

Elijah

"Reality is stuck together by the general belief that everyone holds, and it's kind of majority rule. But it's consensual like the consensus agrees and it's consensual like I consent to this being my reality. when I died, I think I kind ofmetaphysically tore up my "I believe this is reality" contract."

He paused.

"I don't know how to show someone else how to... like... get over that first step. That first big earth shattering moment of realizing the universe's, like, infinite potential. I think anyone can do it, it's a lot of will and that all the barriers in the universe are just temporary. I don't know how to help someone else get there, it's like some part of you just... well... wakes up."

He looks at the mirror a little longer, inhales deep and holds his breath and takes a few steps because he doesn't feel glass, expects to feel nothing on the other side, but hopes... hopes that maybe this is a door way.

radiant

It doesn't feel like anything, it doesn't feel like anything at all: walking through that glass. There is no shattering, there is no sundering, there is no undoing. Elijah is both here and there. He can hear Jenn's voice though by now it is more background than immediate, and something about the pattern and pace of his

heart.
beat.

suggests to him that he is somehow suspended here. Somehow between. Somehow -

else.

He is in a hallway. It is long, it is dark.

The air is cool and it has a low, quiet hum to it, and that hum changes with each moment.

There is light at the end of the hall: an open door.

Between there and here - a half-dozen others, all closed.

Elijah

He sees light, an open door, and he follows the path, though he keeps to the edge of the corridor. Idly, the young man puts his hands out to touch the sides, to feel the passing of it under his fingertips and he is at once here and not here, and his curiosity has gotten the better of him.

He can hear Jenn talking, but he knows that something about this isn't quite the same, this isn't like the usual world that he sees. A half a dozen worlds, and another ahead of him, far, far away but bridging the gap. The cigarette is forgotten, pocketed and shoes still forgotten because they hadn't been important enough to take on the journey but his lighter was.

radiant

Elijah sees a hallway lined with doors and imagines it a path. He reaches out and feels the walls beneath his fingers: warm and slightly viscous, perhaps, or perhaps merely warm. A wall.

Like a wall.

Then a doorway, humming, closed. Energy behind and beneath.

There are no echoes here, except perhaps the remnant background of his best friend's voice, not even the sound of footsteps.

The light is brighter in the center.

There is another doorway

humming,

closed.

He has a lighter in his pocket, and he walks, and the hallway lengthens and the door - ahead - which sheds light but offers no view of what is on the other side - is starting to close.

The light diminishes. Behind him, beneath him, beyond him: the world rumbles. He can almost make out what it has to say.

Elijah

There's another doorway, humming and closed, and his hands find a knob or some means that he thinks it may open, and he tries the knob. The world rumbles around him and he can almost make it out. Curiosity got the better of him, but the humming, the thrumming, the intensity around him-

All these options and he seemed intent on going for the most obvious one but... perhaps he could explore? Time was running out, there was a sense of urgency, and he could have turned around, talked to his friend, tried to answer her questions, but he needed to know what he's doing.

"I'll be back," he calls back, insistent because he would be back.

If the door doesn't give, he makes a run for the door that seems to be closing, the door he knows is open.

radiant

His hand on the handle and the handle is warm and the handle is molten and the handle is melting in his hands and the door swings open as if it were waiting for him, as if it were bursting at the seams or at the hinges, and the handle is warm, and it molds itself to the sharp of his hand, as if it were made for him, and the door gives,

inside is dark.

inside is the smell of salt water and sea-spray.

inside is the movement of the ocean.

Dark dark dark. Nothing to be seen but this low moving rumbling that is deeper than the shadows behind him. Jenn's voice is still everywhere and nowhere, slower than he came imagine (tick. tock.) beside him: the door he has opened.

Ahead: the rapidly closing -

Elijah

He wants to pull his hand back, wants to pull away because it is hot and it is molten and he can smell the sea spray and he can taste the salt water and something inside of him seizes because he knows, he knows he can't swim. Expects to step in and feel nothing. Expects to plunge into the darkness and be eaten up by whatever was there.

There was a light at the end of the corridor. The door that was rapidly closing, a place that he knows he saw his doppleganger come through. Poke him and prod at him.

"Fuck that guy," he grumbled. He drew in a deep breath, and took a step inside of the door, closed his eyes and closed the door behind him. He could have followed the light at the corridor, could have followed the rapidly closing door, or taken a path less marked. Something waiting for him, something unknown and dangerous.

I am not a coward, he thinks.

I will not be a coward, he thinks.

And through and into the darkness with him.

radiant

So much expectation. So much anticipation. So much bracing, as the handle molds itself to his hand and he steps through the door, into darkness -

- darkness which feels absolute. The sound has changed. Gone is the vaguely settled slow-roll echo of Jenn's voice (as if he were inhabiting not syllables, not even phonemes, but the broken down half-life of phonemes, or perhaps something even smaller than that). Gone is the rumble of the world upended, overturning, erasing itself: through the door and into the rush of an ocean.

He can't swim.

There are such forces here.

This moment where he is caught in the upcycle of a breaking wave, another where he is plunged beneath and half-a-second to gasp for air and then -

thrown under again.

Some glimpse of a shore then, the only light in the darkness the reflection of the moon along the strange but - he's plunging under, is being plunged under again, water fills his lungs.

Elijah

[Permanent willpower: because water is kind of a phobia]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )

Elijah

There was shoreline. There was the briefest of brief moments, knowing the moon was there, knowing there was shoreline, knowing that there was air at the shoreline, and he feels water, water everywhere. He feels water in his lungs around his body and his mind screams at him we're dying, we're dying- again and again!

And there are thoughts, and there are no walls, just water, just the world around him that seems so small and all he can think of is to spread out and try to be bigger in hopes of maybe floating to the surface, not flailing and just going with the current.

You're going to drown, his brain tells him. He's too busy trying to hack salt water out of his lungs to notice. He's doing his best imitation of a dead body. He might not swim well, but he has watched enough Forensic Files to know that they tend to float.

Elijah

[Do I get this? wits+enigmas, diff 8]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (1, 6, 6, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )

radiant

There's noise in his ears, not just the surf but something else, that hum again, some low song like music-not-music. It has rhythm but also formlessness, it is made of chaos, it is meant to be overturned and upended, and Elijah has just walked through a mirror into a hallway and opened a doorway with a molten handle that molded itself to the shape of his hand and flung himself into darkness and found himself enfolded by a great dark sea with the vaguest evidence of light, with the promise and suggestion of a shoreline, and his first reaction is

oh god I'm dying,

and his second reaction is

Forensic Files and Dead Man's Float

and there's that noise, not just the surf but something else, that hum, and he's floating up to the surface, his conversation with Jenn echoing in his ear: reality is what you make it. Reality exists because we agree and because we consent. What happens when you stop?

Hmm?

Consenting.

"Christ, kid." That voice again, that hum, that voice from everywhere and nowhere. "Get a fucking move on. Just do something, why don't you?"

---

He's floating. He's floating.

If he keeps on dead man's floating, soon enough he will come to the sure.

radiant

(note: soon enough he will come to the shore.

Elijah

What happens when you stop consenting?

Well, Jenn, you walk into a random hallway in your living room and accidentally almost drown. Elijah has the presence of mind to try and roll over, maybe he could float on his back or something. He'd get to shore eventually, but eventually wasn't terribly quick.

"The shore's not going anywhere," he says, grumbles, but attempts to try and kick in the direction of land. There would be land, he just had to get there, he just had to ride the surf and get there, "I don't have to hurry."

Unless there are sharks. Were there sharks? Was there anything? It was so dark, and he has the presence of mind to pat himself down, try and feel his lighter and his pocketwatch to make sure he has all of his faculties.

radiant

"Why the fuck do you think you have to get to the goddamned shore?"

The voice, his voice? The voice that is always there.

Elijah grumbles and pats himself down in the midst of the churning of the violent waves, tries to find the lighter and pocketwatch but he is being thrown again, trying to swim.

"Why the fuck do you think there is a goddamned shore."

radiant

There's noise in his ears, not just the surf but something else, that hum again, some low song like music-not-music. It has rhythm but also formlessness, it is made of chaos, it is meant to be overturned and upended, and Elijah has just walked through a mirror into a hallway and opened a doorway with a molten handle that molded itself to the shape of his hand and flung himself into darkness and found himself enfolded by a great dark sea with the vaguest evidence of light, with the promise and suggestion of a shoreline, and his first reaction is

oh god I'm dying,

and his second reaction is

Forensic Files and Dead Man's Float

and there's that noise, not just the surf but something else, that hum, and he's floating up to the surface, his conversation with Jenn echoing in his ear: reality is what you make it. Reality exists because we agree and because we consent. What happens when you stop?

Hmm?

Consenting.

"Christ, kid." That voice again, that hum, that voice from everywhere and nowhere. "Get a fucking move on. Just do something, why don't you?"

---

He's floating. He's floating.

If he keeps on dead man's floating, soon enough he will come to the sure.

Elijah

"Because I don't want to drown-" he insists. He insists and there is intensity there and that is answer enough.

He has to get to shore because he doesn't want to drown.

No, strike that.

There is a shore because Elijah doesn't want to drown. Because he insists and it takes all of his energy and all of his thoughts to keep floating because he doesn't want to drown, and while it might take time, while floating might get him to shore, there is the curiopsity of what might be under the dark, dark surface. If the water was cold, if he could hold his breath for just a little while, if he could go down instead of up and maybe find some world there.

Find something miraculous before his body gives way. His eyes go to the sky, look for the moon and the stars. Something to orient himself by.

radiant

"You don't want to drown?"

The voice scoffs.

"Isn't that how you fucking woke up?"

Elijah

"I might not come back this time," he justifies.

And? some part of him thinks. Like it's a big important question. What would happen, what is the worst that could happen, he could pursue something different, could find the comforts of the shore, or he could chase something closer, deeper, lower. Elijah drew in a big breath, tried to push past that feeling of anticipation.

He didn't want to drown, he didn't want to die, but...

Elijah pushes the air from his lungs and takes another deep breath. The young man made a decision, felt the tide and the cooling sea breeze. He didn't want to drown, but he wanted to see what was beneath the waves more. He wanted to press further, see if there was something else. The shore was comfortable. The shore was constant, the shore would be there.

He didn't know how to swim, but he figured sinking couldn't be hard, just struggle downward. So, instead, he went... down. Into the water, into the feeling of what he feared, what kept him here, tethered, because he would not be a coward. He'd insisted, he'd been so emphatic. So intent that this would not be what defined him.

What was fear but an opportunity? What was death but a door?

radiant

Nothing.

Ev. Er. Y. Thing.

Three hours, four hours, seven hours, eleventy-seven days later he wakes up.

He's in his living room. Jenn's asking him How he does this and why no one else can, her head tipped back, her eyes hooded, watching the movement of the lights through the sky, against the sky, behind the sky. Elijah can feel the magic he shares with her and the way it strains reality, the way it deforms it, the way it remakes it.

Feels it shoving back at him.

Feels himself resist it.

Feels his heart beating, feels himself - well -

alive.