did you say your prayers?

[attitude]

You can live through anything, now. You'll survive if the world is turned inside out. And it will be. Sooner than you think.

There are days when sleep seems to be a shroud that slips over Faye in waves, occasionally clinging to her shoulders, eyelids heavy as lashes touch her cheeks. It's easy to sleep here. It grow still more so by the day, only the occasional interruption keeping her up at night, but her life has been a transient one ever since she woke up in that chamber, and so she's learned to cope with that long ago. People might disappear. People will, if patterns persist. But she'll survive through anything.

She always has.

A touch, cold like ice, brushes against her arm. Another, against her calf. A hand brushes away the sensation with an irritated flick, only to feel something hard knocking against her knuckles. Brow furrowing, Faye's hand turns, pressing harder still against a smooth, rounded surface, until glass jars against glass and her eyes fly open. Revealing butterflies in the sky.

The most beautiful butterflies in the world.

Her breath starts to shake as she glances down, gold darting between pearls of cerulean blue, marble after marble closing around her from all sides, scattered across the sandy beach, a sharp pain under her hand as she shoves herself to her knees.

"No. I need a knife, I need—"

Hands desperately grabbing through air, she tries to push them away, every one of the butterflies, until a face suddenly appears only yards away.

"Get back."


[ There are a thousand blue marbles scattered across the beach, most of them pooled by Faye's side, her 2012 NDPD. The butterflies mentioned in the narrative are not real; they're the result of nanomachines in her bloodstream. Faye thinks that the marbles are biological weapons as she once encountered in her world, but they're actually harmless, although she's very obviously panicked as a result. ]

Comments

[radical_cowgirl]

"Marbles!"

Edward scampered across the sand picking up the blue marbles one after another, occasionally tossing one up in the air. They looked familiar, but she couldn't place them and it didn't matter. Marbles were for playing. Playing what, she couldn't remember, but they were for playing.

[notfaking_it]

It's strange that this is kind of getting familiar now, although of all the people she might have expected to see panicked, Faye isn't one of them. Still, she can't walk away. Couldn't walk away from Nina, couldn't walk away from Sawyer and she can't walk away now. It's part of getting attached to people, she thinks, which isn't something she has a problem with, it just isn't something she's expected to have happen so quickly.

"Faye," she says sharply, trying to get her to focus for even a moment. That way she can ask what's going on, why there are marbles all over the beach and, most importantly, why Faye's acting as if they're the end of the world. Someone's bound to step on them and take a pretty spectacular fall, but it isn't that bad. It isn't.

"Hey, come on," she says and her voice softens a little, but only slightly.

[victorofthe65th]

Finnick notices the marbles first, the tiny blue spheres nearly blanketing the beach shore.

He notices the girl half a second later, her violet hair shimmering in the sunlight as he approaches her carefully, drawn to her frantic movements. Trying to make sense of them.

But he stops short when she whirls around to face him, raises both hands palms out. "It's okay, I'm not trying to hurt you."

[keepurshirtonlt]

"Hey, Porthos, come back here!"

It had only been a few day since the beagle had arrived and he was taking to the beach quite well. He'd been good so far for Trip...but he should have known that wouldn't last. The dog had run off down the beach and Trip had to run to catch up.

And what a sight he found when he caught up. Porthos was nosing a few of the blue marbles around in the sand, whinging softly, but staying out of the way. Which was a good thing since Trip only had eyes for Faye, who didn't quite seem all with it at the moment. "Faye? You 'lright?" He inched closer, not wanting to startle her.

[weary_head]

"Faye."

From a distance, it'd been as if she'd been sleeping in a puddle of deep, blue water, and the sight of her surrounded by marbles makes even less sense, now that Dean's close enough to see it.

He'd been hurrying, faster still to see the way she surged up and away upon waking, a call for a knife on her lips that makes his blood run cold. He doesn't understand, but he knows enough. She's afraid, frightened like he's never seen, and like hell is he staying away.

"Calm down," he says, both hands up and fingers spread wide in front of him. "It's okay, were you dreaming?"