Duck
🦆 quack quack
- 5,750
- Posts
- 3
- Years
- Age 33
- Seen Feb 23, 2023
Ingo pages through a book and scoffs at a familiar passage. He'd read this book every night for the last two weeks and time had yet to dull his disgust for that passage. He makes a mental note to mention how awful that whole chapter was to Laventon the next day - as he had fourteen times before - as he continues to read the offending piece of "literature".
His eyes are stinging. He stands, taking care not to knock the candle - the last thing he needs is to start another fire - and rubs his eyes as he stretches. He walks towards the window and finds himself looking at the gate, the lit torches being focal points in the middle of the darkness.
He idly considers that he should volunteer, but ultimately decides against it. That's just shifting the problem around really. He sighs and goes back to his desk, struggling to open his eyes with each blink. He makes it through the chapter before collapsing.
--------
He dreams of bright lights and of Pokemon battling in ink black tunnels. He sees himself in white - he never wore white, not really his color - laughing among the flames.
"I like winning more than anything else" the duplicate says and Ingo shudders at that. He walks towards the other man but the floor shifts and no matter how much he walks, he finds himself further and further away from his target.
Ingo wakes up with a start, panting for dear life, his face wet and his eyes red and puffy. He checks the desk and finds a small pool of drool dangerously close to the book, but fortunately the book is damage free.
He groans and gets up. There's work to be done.
----------
Ingo misses the terrible book. Sure, it was awful but this new book is so dull his mind wanders … not very useful. He tuts as he forces himself to read a sentence through the darkness - ah, how he misses the soft moonlight he had; the new moon could be so unforgiving.
A few minutes later he gives up and lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. His back had been screaming at him for the last few days and since the night was going so terribly, he might as well give it a treat and black out on a flat, soft surface for once.
He considers his tasks for the coming day, the changes he wants on the training of his Pokemon and many other things before he ultimately falls asleep.
He dreams the same thing he's seen for the last few fortnights: someone who looks like him - he refuses to believe it is actually him, he'd never be so callous about all this destruction … would he? - laughing among the flames.
This time, the other man steps toward him. Ingo is stunned as the man produces a sandwich out of his voluminous sleeves. "Here you go Ingo," he says with a flourish "I can tell you're hungry."
Ingo stands there mouth agape - except not really, he feels himself smiling against his will - , as he sees himself grab the sandwich in a fully automatic move. The other man snaps his fingers and it rains in the tunnel. The flames die down as he starts a conversation about Pokemon strategy.
The conversation is lively and full of supporting details, yet as soon as a phrase ends, Ingo can't remember what was said. He knows the basic gist of it, he can remember saying and he knows, with every fiber of his being that he agrees with what he said, but he can't remember.
At some point in the fog, he sees a disturbing amount of Joltik crawling on top of the man in white, who coos at them like it's a normal occurrence and not an attack of a swarm of man eating bugs. The worst part is that the Joltiks coo back and ask for pets.
Ingo finds himself awake on the floor, face planted firmly in the wooden planks while he's swaddled with blankets. His face hurts and as he gets up, he decides his tears are from the pain, certainly not from the nightmare.
The whole day, Ingo finds himself looking to his left at the oddest of times. It takes two more nights until he finds himself collapsing into the land of sleep again.
His eyes are stinging. He stands, taking care not to knock the candle - the last thing he needs is to start another fire - and rubs his eyes as he stretches. He walks towards the window and finds himself looking at the gate, the lit torches being focal points in the middle of the darkness.
He idly considers that he should volunteer, but ultimately decides against it. That's just shifting the problem around really. He sighs and goes back to his desk, struggling to open his eyes with each blink. He makes it through the chapter before collapsing.
--------
He dreams of bright lights and of Pokemon battling in ink black tunnels. He sees himself in white - he never wore white, not really his color - laughing among the flames.
"I like winning more than anything else" the duplicate says and Ingo shudders at that. He walks towards the other man but the floor shifts and no matter how much he walks, he finds himself further and further away from his target.
Ingo wakes up with a start, panting for dear life, his face wet and his eyes red and puffy. He checks the desk and finds a small pool of drool dangerously close to the book, but fortunately the book is damage free.
He groans and gets up. There's work to be done.
----------
Ingo misses the terrible book. Sure, it was awful but this new book is so dull his mind wanders … not very useful. He tuts as he forces himself to read a sentence through the darkness - ah, how he misses the soft moonlight he had; the new moon could be so unforgiving.
A few minutes later he gives up and lays in bed, staring at the ceiling. His back had been screaming at him for the last few days and since the night was going so terribly, he might as well give it a treat and black out on a flat, soft surface for once.
He considers his tasks for the coming day, the changes he wants on the training of his Pokemon and many other things before he ultimately falls asleep.
He dreams the same thing he's seen for the last few fortnights: someone who looks like him - he refuses to believe it is actually him, he'd never be so callous about all this destruction … would he? - laughing among the flames.
This time, the other man steps toward him. Ingo is stunned as the man produces a sandwich out of his voluminous sleeves. "Here you go Ingo," he says with a flourish "I can tell you're hungry."
Ingo stands there mouth agape - except not really, he feels himself smiling against his will - , as he sees himself grab the sandwich in a fully automatic move. The other man snaps his fingers and it rains in the tunnel. The flames die down as he starts a conversation about Pokemon strategy.
The conversation is lively and full of supporting details, yet as soon as a phrase ends, Ingo can't remember what was said. He knows the basic gist of it, he can remember saying and he knows, with every fiber of his being that he agrees with what he said, but he can't remember.
At some point in the fog, he sees a disturbing amount of Joltik crawling on top of the man in white, who coos at them like it's a normal occurrence and not an attack of a swarm of man eating bugs. The worst part is that the Joltiks coo back and ask for pets.
Ingo finds himself awake on the floor, face planted firmly in the wooden planks while he's swaddled with blankets. His face hurts and as he gets up, he decides his tears are from the pain, certainly not from the nightmare.
The whole day, Ingo finds himself looking to his left at the oddest of times. It takes two more nights until he finds himself collapsing into the land of sleep again.
