|
|
Feb 12, 2019 15:14:02 GMT
Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2019 15:14:02 GMT
She found out if she let herself un-focus, let her thoughts fade and linger, that the world slowly turned to black and white. It was beautiful, like a drawing. But if she lingered and faded too much, it was hard to trace her way back. It got darker, muddier. Shapes became liquid and people became fuzzy, dim lights and distant sounds. Dreamwalking was a delicate balancing act of practice, patience, and concentration.
If you lost one, the others went down with it. Like coming up for air from submersion, she gasped awake and jolted, sitting up immediately only to flop back down and catch her breath. Nurses were already at-the-ready with plenty of things depending on the response she'd give - positive or otherwise - and watched carefully. One extended a piece of paper to her, a hand-written note to herself should she need reminding of where she was, but a tired hand pushed it aside before resting over her eyes to block the bright lights of the medical bulbs on the ceiling.
"Claire Elliott," she mumbled the beginning of her recognition speech, "Agent Ink, San Francisco," her fingers rubbed into her eyes. "...What number was that?" How many times had she gone in and out in the past session? They were testing her limits, pushing her further, trying to find the inconsistencies and consistencies where they could. Now that they'd discovered her skin's slender scales receded during walks, it opened so many new possibilities and questions. The sooner they figured it all out, the more answers they'd have. The more answer they'd have, the closer she got to finally convincing them for her father to come visit. Phonecalls and Facetime weren't cutting it anymore.
NOTES: Tagging both because uncertain XD.
|
|
|
|
Post by Melvin Newton on Feb 15, 2019 1:00:08 GMT
The young woman lay on the bed. The room was white and light by a hard fluorescent glow. There was the sound of movement, quiet words, the beep of monitors. Melvin had his eye on the brainwaves monitor and so had just a moment's warning before Claire sat bolt upright and relaxed back down onto the bed. She was becoming better at keeping her mind in order when she woke unexpectedly; she hadn't tried to run since that one unfortunate incident. She gave her name and location. Good, she still had a mind for where she was, then. She asked what number that was. “Fifteen. Look at me, please.” He shined a light in her eyes, checking for dilation, then squeezed one of her fingertips and watched the capillary refill beneath the nail. “How do you feel?” A nurse pushed a form and a pencil towards Claire for her to fill out about the last session. They had told Claire that this was an endurance test, an attempt to see how long and how hard she could go, which was true, but, as he had explained to Claire before, sometimes the nature of this sort of testing meant the subject had to be ignorant of exactly what was going on until after the test was over. There was so much more to look at. What drugs worked best, her speed of travel, if she could view objects inside locked boxes and how far her ability could take her. Since meeting Claire, Melvin's desire to understand abilities had grown almost to a ravenous hunger. He poured over her results, reading the same reports over and over again. When he arrived home to an empty house (Melody was at school, that was good, it was good for her to be there even though it left the house so quiet and empty) he kept a copy of the file at his elbow as he sat down to eat dinner. The opportunity they had here was incredible. The possibility for advancing human knowledge, vast. Yet progress was slow. He tried to tell himself not to worry. Science took time, always. Yet it was frustrating how a breakthrough seemed to be always just one test in front of them. They were constantly on the cusp of understanding, yet never quite reaching the knowledge that vanished like a mirage when they came within reach. It frustrated him- infuriated him, even. In the great game of hide and seek that every man of science plays with the universe, he felt as though he was being outwitted. And he hated the feeling. A nurse began fiddling with the electrodes on Claire's head, re-taping those that had come off when she sat up. Melvin picked up an ear thermometer. “Must you bolt upright every time? You're dislodging the sensors.” He hadn't meant for it to sound disapproving but it seemed to come out harsher than he had intended. Oh well. That hardly mattered; the science was what matter. He checked her temperature, compared it to the reading on the monitor. They had sensors monitoring everything from her blood sugar to the function of her kidneys- a treasure trove of physiological information, the vast majority of it likely completely useless except to assert that Miss Eliot was a healthy young woman. He paused for a look at her blood sugar in particular- an endurance test for Claire meant being put under multiple times in succession, and as was the case with any anesthesia, the biggest risk was aspirating vomit into the lungs. As a result they'd put her on a diet of clear liquids for 24 hours prior to the start of the test. It was both a safety measure and part of the test itself. “If you are not choosing to tap out, we'll begin prepping to put you under again. Your target this time will be the room labeled 6A.” He indicated a printout taped to the wall across from Claire, a map of the facility with rooms labeled by number and letter. “There will be three envelopes on a table in there...” Claire ElliotNathan Havelock |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 26, 2019 8:18:33 GMT
"Fifteen. Look at me, please." Begrudgingly, she removed her shading hand from her eyes and let their weight pull them off to the angle where Doctor Newton would be able to test their dilation. She did her best not to wince at the blinding beam but eventually gave into it halfway into the short check on the left side. Fifteen. Fifteen. She'd never done so many sessions in a row, not even half that amount. Sure, her sessions were usually longer-lasting than these short bursts, but the effort it took to pull in and out of dreams in and of itself was massively exerting. "Tired... Hungry," likely unhelpful notes. She reminded herself to think of symptoms. "Mouth is dry. Head is ah-... pretty swimmy I think. I don't if that's the Walking or not," she swallowed, trying to cure said dryness on her own.
The edges of her fingertips that he pressed were the last to be touched by the slow wave of very faint pale blue that returned to her, reacting for the most part like regular skin with decent-enough blood flow beneath. Not remotely together enough for the pad and pencil to report her latest session, Claire instead lied her head back after seeing it set beside her to let her mind rest momentarily which allowed the nurse space to fix the leads along the sides of her forehead. The disapproval in Doctor Newton's tone didn't anger her. Maybe it would have for someone more confrontational or if she'd been more awake with a deeper well of energy. Instead, a small bit of guilt built in her chest not unlike someone who'd been woken up for snoring too loud and waking others.
"Sorry, sorry..." her head shook only once or twice with heavy, slow momentum, eyes shutting. Not wasting any time for instruction (that was the point of this after all, but damn if it wasn't starting to wear on her), Doctor Newton had them opening again to look at the now-blurry image of the building layout along the wall. "Envelopes?..." she asked, her eyebrows pulling together. That didn't make sense. "I couldn't see in the boxes, I couldn't even touch them," her groggy tone was confused, concerned, but already defeated. The plan wasn't likely to change. Her hands moved through everything in dreams; they couldn't touch, they couldn't feel. Her eyesight was dependent on external sources, just as if she were there. In an unlit room, it was dark for her. She could put her face through the wall of a room or an object, but if it wasn't lit it was just... black. They'd been through this, but he seemed intent on trying to find a different outcome with different situations.
NOTES: Tagging both because uncertain XD.
|
|
