thecapitol | Once Upon A Dream

Once Upon A Dream - 4th wall

The Tributes will not be warned for when their injections will occur. For those who are known to be compliant and willing to work with the capitol, they may be taken aside and told they are getting a shot or whatever else may convince them. Others may be injected within their sleep (and have been drugged earlier to keep them that way).

If you are not a tribute, your injection comes on your decision, having cashed in your ticket at Hypnogogia for a good rest and stay.

Everyone is ushered to bed at once and everyone will be quick to discover why.

The first effect is a sort of paralysis - not the terrifying inability to move, but a signal to the brain that says why move? Moving is so much effort. It's quickly followed by drowsiness, and then a chill that radiates from the needle into the body, and finally, unconsciousness.

This shared dreaming carries on whenever you sleep for seven total days, with the Expos running during their waking hours. Those with Vistors will meet them within the dream.

Day 1: It starts as a typical day in the tower. You may very well not realise it to be a dream. The only difference is that there are others here, ones who won't be around when you wake. They've been instructed to wait for you. You can show them the whole of the Capitol in this time, if you wish.

Day 2: On this day, the world is... yours. Some of the world will bleed into the mini worlds of others, so long as you have the wish in mind to visit them. Some details about the worlds may be off but it will initially seem as though you've finally returned home.

Day 3: A paradise. Any paradise. Whatever your characters would personally deem as a paradise. Like with day 2, the dream worlds will bleed into one another.

Day 4: On day four, it starts off somewhere inspired by a District. It's been tailored to suit the Capitol of course but

̨̙̟͒̒̔ͬ̄̌̓̓s̋͒ͩ̈́ͯ́̾ͭ͑͘҉̮͈̪̲̼̜̟͡ó͔͔͖̼̂̓̌̓m̰̹ͩ͑̽̆̽̚͟͞e͙̰̬̻̋ͣ͑ͭ̄̌̀ṭ̡͈͔̺̀͂̈́ͯ̎͛̓́́ḣ̍̉͌҉̮̖͔͉̜͉̘͓į̶̥̼͙͒̏́̈n̼̬̼͖͖̳͊͐̈g̷̱͈̦̀ͣ͒̒̅͛ͯ̐̿ ̵̡̻̳̯ͫ̓̃ͭͨg̵͚͚͖̏̒̏ͨ̐̏ͦ͞͡ȏ͚̳͓̱̩̞͚͙ͮ̊̄̐̂͊e͇͇̦̳̦ͥ̽͌̆͂̇͆ͤͅs͙͙̠̝͍̹͔͓͛̽̾͑͂͆ ̠͖̘̥̤̑ͧ͘w̛̰̰̗͕̻̯̰͕̃͌͘r͖̰͚̋o̵̭̺̺̘͈͕͆̐̇̌ͣ͆͗͟n̷̫ͦ̆ͯ̀g̛̥͖͎̺͙͈ͮ̓͐̄̇.

The dream world seems to distort. From the setting, to those in it, for five seconds everything is warped and wrong, caught in an echo chamber. Then it goes dark and silent. From the dark, the nightmares crawl out. The nightmares may have things taken from memory, but most of it is a new and horrible scene where making sense isn't mandatory.

Capitolites are quickly awoken and refunded. They are given a (poor-tasting) drink that will offer them totally dreamless sleep. But they don't have to drink it if they do not wish...

[OOC: This is the day that D13 players will finally be able to participate and on every day following. You are allowed to post for this early.]

Day 5: The Capitol tries again to take back control of the dream, starting out with a fun and cute arena with super-soakers, glitter bombs, and weapons made from foam. It's happy and colorful. But it doesn't last long.

Soon enough, the dream warps again into a nightmare. The arena loses its harmlessness, becoming one that's very much a threat. This may be an arena from memory or something totally new.

Day 6: The Capitol hasn't given up fighting District thirteen's interference but they've taken to a new tactic. In attempt to drive them out, or at least pin some of the blame on thirteen, the sixth round of sleep is set in a bad memory. It can be any memory at all; something in the arena, something offworld, even things around the capitol or area around so long as it could've been caught on camera. Essentially, unless it's a blind spot, it's fair game.

Individuals who are free of or manage to fight through this torment are free to help the dreaming characters as they will-- or make things worse.

Day 7: War. Terrible war. This is what will be heard on the final day. It will echo out over the dream world. And that dream world will reflect the very terrible war spoken of. Is that your friend over there, looking shell-shocked? Is that your family laying there motionless? Who is that in the fray crying out? Could it be the one you love most?

This dream will leave very few survivors and will not last long. Those that do, will hear this: "Know the cost of selfish acts. Consider what you stand for."

[OOC: With this you may consider the fourth wall live! All tributes and any guests, Capitolites, and D13ers who are signed up may tag in here. Alternately, you may make your own logs! If you are tagging in here, you MUST warn with headers for any relevant topics that may upset players.]

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Peggy isn't sure where she is or why she's there, but she hears the screaming, and she knows what she has to do.

She has a butcher knife. She kills one man and takes a handgun from him. She shoots more soldiers. Her clothes are splashed with blood, but she doesn't mind. Killing these people doesn't disturb her like it should.

She comes to the room with the screaming and kicks the door in. She sees James in the chair, she sees the cryochamber, she sees the the doctors: what comes next is pure instinct.

The doctors only have time to look and see who just came in. The gun is most effective--she raises it and uses all the ammo she has left, peppering the walls with holes and leaving all but one of the doctors dead on the ground. The survivor tries to run past her, but she drops the gun and twirls the knife in her hand.

She makes a graceful arc with her knife. His throat sprays blood and he backs up, but it's not immediate death, and her hand remembers what to do, remembers what she used to do in the arena.

She hits the butt of the knife against the doctor's sternum, getting a satisfying crack and give as she breaks it. He gasps for breath and she turned her knife to dig the tip into the crack, then rips it downward, splitting him open like she were butchering a cow.

He collapses on the ground. There's no movement except for his blood draining out of him.

Bucky strains in the chair, whimpering at the electricity crackling above his head. Any second now it will come down and clamp around his skull, bringing it with it agony and forgetting. He'll lose everything, every hard fought for emotion and memory.

Then the script deviates.

She comes and does that which he could never do, could never bring himself to do even though he had the strength and the training to take them all apart if only he'd had the will. Bucky's eyes widen as Peggy sweeps into the room like a force of nature and slaughters his tormentors with the wrath of a righteous Valkyrie.

It doesn't seem possible except that she's there right in front of him, the last doctor bleeding out and falling to the ground. His eyes lift and meet hers as he shakes, restrained and struggling with words.

"Peggy?" it's choked out, muffled around the bite guard they slipped into his mouth like a kindness when it's more to keep their pet killer from damaging itself.

He looks pathetic, like an abused animal on a chain. It's all wrong to see him strapped down like that, shaking.

She tries for a smile, but it's weak. "You didn't think you could have a party without inviting me, did you?"

She moved quickly to the chair, wiping her knife on her leg and putting the emptied gun to the side. The first thing she does is take the mouth guard out--it feels too much like a muzzle for a whining dog than it does any kind of safety equipment. After it's out, she dares to cup his cheek, trying to give him a little reassurance. "It's okay, James. I'm here now. I'll get you out."

But first, she needs to turn the damn thing off. It's crackling--not on his head like it should be, but close enough that she's not sure if he can avoid hurting himself if he tries to get out while it's on.

"Sit tight, darling. I'm going to turn this off, and then I'm going to unstrap you, okay?" Soft, gentle, kind--she wants him to be calm while she works.

He flinches at first when she reaches for him, but he has nowhere to go. Bucky makes himself still and passive, opening his mouth as docilely for Peggy as he would for his handlers when he's not malfunctioning. It feels better instantly but he's still afraid, still locked in the potential of vicious trauma hanging over his head.

"Please." his voice breaks, cracks under the strain. "I don't want to forget again."

Every memory he has he's fought for, won back over months and months of trying. It's not just those previously forgotten; it's the new memories he's made too, the friends he's met, the things he's done. It's everything that makes Bucky Bucky.

The nightmare makes his worst fear palpable because without memories he's no one, just the monster Hydra wanted him to be.

The way he looks at her, like a trapped, scared child, breaks her heart. It makes her angry to see that fear on his face, and she wishes that she hadn't killed those people so quickly. They were the reasons he was afraid. They were the reasons he didn't know how to talk to people very well. They were the reason he was so damaged. "I promise that's not going to happen. I'll take care of it. Trust me."

She straightens up again, now looking at the chair properly. The joints between the metal bars that connect the headpieces to the rest of the chair look like they're her best bet, since she doesn't want to try pressing buttons she doesn't understand. If she takes out one headpiece, then he should be able to get out, because both headpieces would be required to complete a circuit.

A metal joint can't be destroyed with bare hands, though. She scans the area, then makes a beeline for all the tools set aside to repair and maintain James' arm. She picks up a wrench, weighing it in her hand before grabbing the lone pair of rubber gloves.

"If something goes wrong, these will break the circuit and the machine won't work on you," Peggy says as she walks back to Bucky and lays the rubber on either side of his head. "I'll keep you safe."

She could probably use the gloves to keep from getting electrocuted herself, but she's too worried about tripping some kind of fail safe by tampering with the machine. It's best to just make sure that it can't hurt Bucky in the first place.

Now for the joint. There aren't any visible nuts or bolts on it, so she settles with wedging the wrench into it, using it as leverage to try breaking off one side of it. It suddenly flies off with a crash. Without the siding, the bar holding the headpiece falls down, slamming against its base and breaking the circuit.

He does trust her. He trusts who she is and who she isn't, two different women he can't quite pull apart in his head right now. Peggy is one but two and above all else she is safe.

While she works he desperately tries to keep still and stop himself from struggling further. The scent of burned air continues to sting fresh in his nose despite how long he's been struck here, there's never ever going to be a chance that he could get used to the presence of it. Conversely the restraints are almost a comfort as much of a horror, restraining him from any motion that could cause harm to her.

Right after forgetting is the fear that he will cause harm to someone he cares for.

There's no stopping the frightened sob as she comes closer with the wrench, not because he fears she'll hurt him but that her attempts to break machinery will somehow cause it complete its purpose instead. He has no idea how it works, no advice to offer her. Bucky doesn't even know which of the damn switches sets the cycle going.

His whole body as Peggy works and he struggles to keep his breathing even, to not go right into hyperventilating at the crash of machinery but then suddeny, mercifully the crackle of electricity above his head cuts off and is no more. Right about the same time the restraints power down, becoming no match as he throws himself against them and tumbles gracelessly onto the floor.

"James!"

Peggy, sweat beginning to bead her forehead from all the effort, now throws herself to the ground with him, catching one shoulder to keep him from cracking his head on the floor. Now that the machine is broken, she's seized with the fear that she somehow failed, that it completed its mission while she was working or she made a mistake and it hurt him because she broke it.

She can't fail him. She can't. She's seen what has been done to him. She can't betray his trust and add to his fear of people.

"James, talk to me. Do you remember who I am?"

Please, please remember her. Please don't let her fail and lose someone else she cares about. Please. She doesn't want to do it again.

"Peggy..." Bucky fights back his urge to vomit as he braces himself against the ground with his hands. It's cold against his skin, making him shiver with all the sweat that covers him. "Peggy."

His head lifts and he turns to look at her. Peggy's hand is like a firebrand on his shoulder, small warm and alive. Real. "It's you... it's really... really you." he fists his right hand into her shirt, ready to sob with relief. "You saved me."

No one had done that before. No one had ever stopped the chair once the sequence began.

She sighs in relief. He remembers. "Yes, it's me. I've got you." It feels like her heart may skid to a halt with the sudden adrenaline crash. She moves her arm to support him a little more and leans over to kiss his cheek, his temple, his jaw, anywhere on his face. His skin is slick with sweat and tastes like salt, but she doesn't care. "I've got you. I'm not going to leave."

Normally, she would be embarrassed by her show of relief and affection, but she can't find it in herself to. She pulls away enough to look at him, shivering and sickly and shining with his own sweat. "How do you feel?"

Terrible, she's sure, but she needs to know if he can walk. She can protect him while they leave the compound, but she'd have trouble carrying him.

"Sick..." he admits quickly, too shaken to even try to pretend otherwise. "Like m'gonna throw up. I thought for sure I... I'm so glad to see you." he's holding tighter to her, "I thought they were going to make me kill people again."

It's almost a funny statement considering their waking reality, except not really. He's terrified of being HYDRA's puppet again, but then on another level he's also afraid of the Capitol deciding they had better use for him than murdering other Tribute's in the arena. The two are so alike in many ways he could be forgiven for mixing them up in his head.

"They're never going to hurt you again as long as I'm here."

She can't protect him from the Capitol, but she can protect him from this. She holds him tight, keeping her eyes on the door, and breathes. The room smells like antiseptic, motor oil, and blood. The bodies will start attracting flies soon.

"Breathe. We need to leave, so what can I do to get you ready to go?" She doesn't suppose they keep anti-nausea tablets hanging around their laboratory.

He wants to cry when she says that, cling to her because Peggy has no idea how much those words mean to him right now, when Bucky's feeling as vulnerable and used as he ever has been in his life. All those times he'd been hurt and kicked down, aching for someone to make it stop and now here she was, like a guardian angel.

"Just... just need a minute." Bucky recovers fast, he always has. He takes the time to slow his breathing and the racing of his heart, getting some control over his body so that he can stand up. "Okay."

She stays there and holds him for as long as he needs her. She couldn't protect so many people that she cared about; she's going to protect him even if it kills her.

When he stands, she does too, picking up her knife and making sure it's clean. "Find a weapon. I killed a lot of people on my way here, but there's sure to be more."

"Yes ma'am." He replies, moving on automatic to follow her command. Bucky hunts briefly through the medical tool until he finds a scalpel to hold in his right hand; the left one is a weapon in itself. "Do you know the way out?"

He'll follow her into hell and back if needs to but things will be a damn sight easier if Peggy already knows where they're going.

"I... think so." It filters to her slowly. She came here from somewhere. She can leave using that entrance. "Yes, I know. Follow me."

She instinctively puts herself in front of him, even though he's the genetically modified soldier with a metal arm and she's not. She grips her knife and leads him out, retracing her steps out and waiting for someone to attack them.

Bucky rolls his shoulders as he stands, tests every limb. The calm settles back into his bones, the quiet before the storm. He is the Soldier, he is the Asset, he is Bucky Barnes. He is all and neither.

And at this moment, he is a man who believes in Peggy Carter.

He walks tall at her back, a silent shadow, and when an attack does come - men in dark combat gear, with guns now - he doesn't hesitate to snarl and throw himself into the fray. The scalpel takes one down, blood blossoming from his throat and Bucky lunges forwards, intent on getting the dropped rifle.

He really is magnificent when he fights to kill. She's never seen it anywhere but on screen before. A part of her wants to just watch him, because there is purity in his intent and grace that she hasn't seen in anyone else before.

But this is not the time for spectating. This is a team effort. A man is aiming his gun at Bucky's back as he moves to grab the rifle, and now she's moving too, bringing her knife down on the man's wrist. He's sent reeling back, screaming because his hand is barely connected to his arm anymore. His gun falls to the ground and then his throat is cut too.

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Once Upon A Dream - 4th wall

Day 6 | Screams

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