JAWS • DECEMBER 2025 EVENT/TDM

[uruz]

TDM & EVENT: JAWS

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Show Me Those Pretty White Jaws

The dream has been coming in waves for those new to Sleep's touch, as a shoreline that never stays still. As a sky that never remembers to include its stars. Beneath it all, there is a voice. Her voice: silk-sweet, coaxing from just beyond the approaching wave that towers like a moving mountain. She tells you to come home. She promises it won't hurt, even if she never tells you what waits beneath. You see the shape just before the dream ends: a massive black tidal wave, yawning wide and black until it looks like a pair of jaws breaking upon you. You don't have time to resist.

You and your veteran Vessels will awaken in water.

There is no surface. No bottom. No sky. No sound but your own heartbeat and the echoes of water being slashed though, dull and endless in the still, frigid dark. You are suspended, weightless— Some may have difficulty to breathe without inhaling water the first few times, while those aligned with the waves will feel it come like second nature. Once you acclimate yourself, you'll notice that around you drift glowing filaments; thin, pulsing threads that coil like jellyfish tendrils, softly luminescent. They curl and twist through the water, and when you look closer, you realize: they show you things. Memories, maybe. Dreams, maybe. Each one unique to your gaze: a hand reaching for yours in the dark, a goodbye that never finished, a face you haven't seen in years. They are what you think love looks like. What you once needed it to be. And when you touch them, they wrap around you, gently, warmly . . . Hungrily— and begin to pull you down.

To ascend into the next level, you must let go. But not everything that binds you wants to be released. The filaments drifting through the water show you what you think love looks like— what you've built it into. They are gentle at first, beautiful even, but the longer you cling, the more they pull.

There are ways to escape them: You may bind your filament with another's and together speak aloud a shared truth: what you believe love really is. If your hearts align or at the very least come to an agreement, the threads dissolve into light and lift you upward. If your beliefs clash or contradict, the threads knot tighter, and something . . . May take interest in you.

Beneath you, something moves. Huge, silent and almost regal. It glides through the deep like a phantom, almost too large to be real. You feel its presence before you see its flash of pearl white and glowing red eyes, three on each side of its face: a shark.

The shark is here to choose its next meal. It smells grief, fear and seeks out trauma most of all. It is drawn to the most unspoken parts of you, the very parts you thought were buried, roused from the tightened ropes of what you crave in your heart. And when it chooses you, it does not bite immediately. It invites, with its jaws opening like a sanctuary and slow towards you.

Inside is I, whispers Sleep. Allow Me to have you whole, and you will be at peace. Show Me love.

Fight against her, or even with your current partner about what love is, and Sleep will open her maw, spilling tendrils from her throat and begin to stalk you. Best be prepared to fight the possessed Megalodon— She will laugh, amused as you do, like a great cat playing with its food. And if you were to be caught, well. You'll wake in the dream's next level with an undeniable prey drive, whether Token or Offering.

She will do anything to keep you here.

NOTES:

• There is no surface visible at first. Light only comes from the filaments. As characters resist, act, or ascend, a faint stained-glass shimmer begins to pulse upward, hinting at the dream's next layer.
• Sound is muffled— speech emerges as bubbles, but meaning travels regardless. Words feel heavy here. Some phrases may literally change the water (turn to light, birth dream-objects, or ripple with tension). You will do better using The Murmur as a means of communication. Luckily you have your mask on!
• The Shark always circles once it senses trouble within you. Sometimes close, sometimes far, but always felt. If characters listen closely, they can hear the echo of One's voice coming from inside it: pleading with a haunted, at times screaming melody.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• The dream bends subtly around Tokens, especially at the whims of an Aquamancer. Walls of pressure open before them, and filaments shift course as if expecting them. This can make their path easier, unless they start to doubt their purpose.
• Tokens perceive emotional resonance as currents in the water such as subtle flows of energy. These can guide them (or others) toward escape paths, or signal when the shark is near.
• When a Token speaks or acts with strong intent, the dream sometimes translates it into a symbolic structure: A word might become a floating glyph. A gesture might alter the filament's shape. A moment of clarity might reveal a hidden path. Other characters can interact with these dream-objects, but they're fragile, unstable, and prone to distortion by doubt.
• The deeper Tokens go, the more they feel themselves pulling apart and begin to experience dual awareness: one part dreaming, one part watching— some may even see flashes of within the shark's belly, and One's voice much louder. The deeper they go, the more detached they become, and the more they lack the ability to act at all.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The shark is more fascinated by Offerings. It circles them often, sensing kinship— or potential. The more monstrous the Offering, the more the shark "pauses' near them, almost curious.
• Offerings feel "the pull" more clearly, particularly Merrows and other aquatic-based Offerings—they can sense where the surface might be, and where the shark intends to strike next. They may even see pulses in the water that others miss, similar to Spider Man's "spidey senses".
• An Offering may experience rapid body changes submerged. Fins may appear, bones may shift, teeth may lengthen without warning and so on. This makes their movement easier or harder, depending on how much of themselves they're holding back or how apt their monstrous forms are at swimming.
• Some Offerings may feel drawn to the shark— not in fear, but in understanding. They may see themselves in it, and vice versa— One's song in particular is hypnotic, and for split moments you may understand his pain through his words. This might make you more prone to being consumed, though, so hopefully your partner can help you out of it—?.

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Watching Me With Eyes Of A Predator

The surface you breach is not water— it's glass.

You strike it with the force of falling sky. It fractures beneath you in a bloom of painted light. For one weightless moment, the dream hesitates, sputters. Then the world shatters, and you fall with the cascade.

Water pours through the crack in the ceiling, carrying you down in ribbons of color and a shattering splash. Stained glass shards drift like petals through the now collapsing roof, and you eventually land not in sand, but upon a cathedral floor, slick with tide. Around you, the water spreads, pooling across the stone and swallowing the walls in a rising hush as it finds escape through the doors.

The cathedral is vast, impossibly so. Its architecture towers, crooked and immaculate, built more from longing than stone. No altar awaits you. No congregation. Only the sensation of having trespassed into something meant to be private. Veteran Vessels may recognize this cathedral as St. Patrick's— before it was drenched in One's blood sacrifice.

High above and surrounding you, the stained-glass mosaics churn with captured light. f you linger beneath one of the window's rays, your appearance may begin to change under the light. You appear as someone else sees you. Be it a hero. A monster. A disappointment. A god. A weakness. A temptation. Even a burden. That version of you clings to your dream-body like a second skin; uncomfortable, intimate, and undeniable. For some, it may be beautiful. For others, unbearable.

If you and another stand beneath the same window, you may each appear as the other secretly imagines. There is no control and no negotiation. Only truth twisted through the lens of want, resentment, fear, or love. And it doesn't go away until you leave the light.

Eventually, the cathedral doors open by dream's will. Beyond them lies a cloister garden: narrow paths, pale trees, and wild flowers that bloom in stillness. At the far end, behind the overgrowth and ruined arches, you see a hollow.

It is a corridor where the dream collapses inward, twisting, warped, half-swallowed in fog and dread. Its stones pulse faintly beneath a shallow film of water. Black tendrils reach from its depths like roots, veins, twitching toward sound, warmth, and movement. You see them dragging matter into the earth, and between them lie bones, contorted and fresh, half-consumed.

And farther still, a body that still breathes. Glimpsed only briefly, A masked man's form is stretched by the hollow's gravity, arms pinned behind the veil. He does not move, or speak. Or perhaps, he cannot. The hollow does not let him go and will not, should you make your attempts. If you step foot in the hollows that have consumed him, you too will be consumed. A three eyed Tod sits at the hollow's edge, a single bushy tail splitting into three, as its body plays with illusion like smoke put to dance over fire. It says, as its head floats up and its maw splits into a grin too cheshire to ignore: Wearing shoes, yet no feet in sight. You'll hear steps pound in the death of night. What is it that you need, to cross this narrow blight?

It disappears and only leaves you the riddle to chew on.

Nothing living can cross the hollow, you'll soon find. Nothing except . . . The Nightmares.

Just outside the garden's boundary, you'll find horses built from wind and shadow, flickering at the edge of your vision. Their bodies are black— not the color, but the absence, swallowing all light. Some of their craniums cound be seen, others have a jutting horn of bone from their foreheads. Where eyes should be, there are six: three stacked on each side of the skull, glowing dimly red like distant embers beneath ice. Their manes flow like torn fabric, like drifting vapor that trails behind them like the smoke from a snuffed candle. Their maws are too damn wide to be herbivorous, yet they seem to enjoy the act of grazing. They wait, unchained and wild in a herd.

This is the only way forward. Only they can pass through the hollow untouched. But how to ride one—? You may chase them. You may plead, command, kneel. You may offer them all your need and all your love, promises that you will provide if they become your steed. But they were not made to answer it. For every Vessel, there is one single Nightmare that will choose them, and thus you will choose each other. They have their own personalities, some more aggressive or shyer than others. The harder you reach, the faster they vanish or harshed they will attack if unready. Try to mount one through force, and you'll regret ever trying. Try to bind one, and it will break you.

But if you are patient, if you figure out its nature and how to please it— your Nightmare may come closer. One may circle you. It may bow its head. Their snort is warm and real against your palm. If successful, it will lower itself to its knees. If you've got the height, they will simply wait, patiently, for you to get on their backs (Or not; there are plenty of sassy mares out there).

If you accept, you might not be taken somewhere safe, but you will be taken somewhere true, away from here. And if you force your want upon them, if you cannot let go— you will be left with something else.

In the distance, across the flooded cathedral floor, you may see One again. Flashes, glimpses. Always chasing a mare he never reaches, or the opposite— the mare chases after him.

NOTES:

• If a character successfully forms a bond with their Nightmare, it will return with them in the form of a waking world steed, officially introduced in the next event. You're free to give it the personality you wish.
• If a character attempts to force a connection with a Nightmare at any point (tries to catch, mount, command, etc.), the mare will bite or kick, which Vessels will suffer as a persistent dream-mark that will carry into the waking world.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Light clings unnaturally to Tokens in the cathedral, especially near the stained glass. It bends around their bodies like a false halo, casting them in divine or monstrous outlines depending on who watches.
• If a Token casts or channels any magic within the cathedral or near a Nightmare, the spell does not manifest, but instead, a cold mist escapes their mouth, and the Nightmare turns to look. The dream rejects force.
• When a Nightmare looks directly at a Token, their eyes eclipse, pupils vanishing into rings of shadow. In that moment, a fragmented vision floods the Token's mind . . . not from the Nightmare, but from another character nearby. It shows the Token how that character once dreamed of them, what they feared, needed, or hoped they would become.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• The stained glass causes a subtle change in scent and physical appearance turning into a more grotesque version of this— Offerings begin to smell or look like what others most want from them.
• Offerings may always know where the Nightmares are, even when hidden. But the more they try to act on this knowledge, the harder the Nightmares are to reach.
• An Offering's body will react before they realize it, flinching from lies, bristling in moments of emotional pressure, pulling away from contact, and so on. They may startle even at gentle contact, as if something inside them is as reactive as they are.

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Where The Delicate Stops

As your Nightmare takes you through the misty hollow, you may begin to notice the empty city of Manhattan as veterans remember. There is no warning but the eerie silence that surrounds you like impossible weights. The cathedral once behind you folds inward— wrong, deep and full of pressure. It bursts through the hollow's path, through the city's street, and then— The dream ruptures.

Stone peels backward like paper. Glass liquefies mid-air. The sky above the city pulls itself inside out. Time bends sideways. And from the edges of the dream, something, someone, begins to hunt. Sleep's presence moves like the very shark she chose as a vision of her physical manifestation. She does not speak or rage. But you feel Her, rising like fever beneath the skin of Her world as the hairs at the back of your neck do. She does not want you this deep, and neither does One.

Somewhere within the collapse, you may see them— entwined, shifting, trembling. One's face is turned toward you, screaming something that doesn't reach your ears. Sleep's hands are tangled in his body. She pulls him back with a gentleness that breaks the sky, and he screams, reaching for you with his last breath before consumption. The dream convulses.

The Nightmares bolt with you still on them.

The city rises to meet you from the shadows, but it's not the city you know. Skyscrapers twist at unnatural angles. Streets flood, then dry, then flood again. Tendrils burst from subway grates and gutters, slashing upward like tongues. Streetlights spin like compass needles. Cars levitate, crash, freeze midair. You move through it all at breakneck speed, but the exit keeps shifting— a hole in the world that flickers just beyond reach where you see your body, fast asleep.

Somewhere in the chaos, a few Nightmares are caught. Sleep strikes like lightning— she coils like a viper and tightens like a vice. One touch from Her, and your Nightmare collapses mid-gallop, its body unraveling into smoke and light. No sound. No scream. Just absence. And you fall right off it like a ragdoll.

Others fall beneath impact, too— a wrong turn, a shattered wall, a burst of heat from One's grief. A broken leg. A crash. A wound too deep to ride through. If your steed is lost, you fall. And if no one reaches for you, you stay fallen. Others are near, and their Nightmares still run. All of you have a terrible dread in your bones— if you are caught or left behind, the consequences will be dire. You might not even wake up. So, call out. Cling. Climb. Share. Two Vessels on one mount. Anything to survive and flee as the dreamscape tightens its wrathful grip around you.

Sleep calls inside your spine. You can't make out what She says. One answers, the same blur of garbled words in your marrow. And then, just before the dream can take you, just before you reach an exit— you rise.

Your body lifts from the Nightmare as it paddles the air with desperation, it too rising. You're pulled upward, weightless, as if a thread inside your heart has been yanked by a furious god. You float, twist in the air. Your vision glows white.

We've got you.

And then you wake up— mid-air in the waking world.

Your body slams into your bed, floor, street, soil, wherever it was that you had slept. Reality greets you with terrible impact.

NOTES

• If a character does not find a mount in time, they may be caught in the dream collapse. They still wake— but they wake broken. These characters may wake up bruised, disoriented, or emotionally fragmented, and this can be explored in the next waking world event.

TOKEN EFFECTS

• Any Tether they feel becomes unstable—splintered. For brief moments, they feel it breaking and re-forming again and again, with slight differences each time.
• The more emotionally charged they are, the more the dream pulls toward them; tendrils snap faster, debris veers unnaturally close.
• Their body flickers with signs of their own magic—sigils, symbols, runes— burning just beneath the surface of their skin like constellations. These glow brighter as the dream collapses, as if trying to tear free.

OFFERING EFFECTS

• Where Offerings are grazed or injured, they bleed light, not red. It floats up like mist.
• They hear One's heartbeat, not theirs, and it speeds in panic. It affects their own pulse, the mare under them . . .
• The Nightmare no longer follows the Offering's will—it will respond to their fear instead.

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OOC NOTES

➤ Welcome to Somnia's third TDM, which doubles as the month's gamewide event!
➤ This TDM is considered game canon. You are free to have your character remember as many details as possible when they wake up.
➤ Only new characters are free to experiment with the Vessel options, Token or Offering to your liking; this is a dreamscape, so multiple/different situations for you to really test which option you like most is possible. Current characters must remain as their chosen Vessel type unless you requested a switch, which can be done on the Taken page.
➤ All TDMs take place within a dreamscape, meaning characters can interact with the setting without needing to apply. Come have fun with us!
➤ Veteran players, I ask to please refrain from making post-event threads for the time being! We have some important information to take into account in next month's event when characters are slated to "wake up". At the very least, please wait for the information to be offered on the next plotting post. Thank you everyone for your patience!
➤ Please comment on the TDM's INVITE TL if you are a new player interested in joining the game, but don't yet have an invite. Current players or the mod may reach out to extend an invite. Once you've got one, please don't forget to comment on the Invite page so you may properly link it in your reserve and app.
➤ Questions? Please direct them to the designated questions comment linked below!

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Shelley Lang | oc | new character, current player

[dustyroad]

Jaws- Drowning

[The detective, all weathered layers covering lanky limbs, awoke with a jolt of panic. Anxiety rattled his nerves and made his heart tapdance in his chest- his last memories were of a winter snow storm, with the creeks frozen over and power lost to the cabin they were hunkered in.

There was no indication of which way led to the surface, only a sweet voice beckoning him to join her. Swimming anywhere would quickly spell his doom. His vision, still blurred from a recent brush with death, started to grow dark as the seconds ticked by-

His lungs rebelled. Instinct forced him to gasp to--

Nothing.

Shelley Lang, bweildered, coughed in his surprise and stared at the bubbles that trickled forth. There were tendrils, gossamer thin and glowing like a creature from the abyssal zones of the oceans, tangled up around his arms and legs

...

He tried to swear, but it only created more bubbles.

What the fuck had he gotten himself into?]

Jaws- The Meg

[He wasn't a scientist, but Shelley knew that physics wasn't supposed to act like this. Water was a sound amplifier in his memory- sounds carried across distances but didn't breach the surface, as if the space between the bottom of the lake and the unbroken divide that separated water from air were it's own dimension. He wasn't a diver, but he always had respect for bodies of water.

It could give life as swiftly and easily as it could bring death.

And hide death.

The weight of grief was with him, always. It lived in his bones as a heavy weight- shadowy, shapeless, constant. It was his memories of his friends from his youth, how death had come too early for one of them and caused Shelley to flee from the wreckage it left behind.

He couldn't stay when it was important that he did. And, while he couldn't undo the past, he could make it up to those he had abandoned before they even had a chance to meet.

These weren't things he had ever spoke of- but the water, the water...

He had found one of those he had abandoned in the water, and it was hard to forget the glassy look in those dark eyes.

Shelley shook his head and pocketed his useless glasses in a compulsive move, trying to set the grief aside in favor of action.

He had to get out. But, the currents shifted and a shudder went down his spine.

Something was here.]

Nightmares- The Cathedral

... Really? Really?

[Hair dripping and plaid overcoat soaked through, Shelley turned around in circles as he stared up at the vaulted ceilings and stained glass of what was obviously a traditional cathedral. Now on the 'surface' where details mattered, he found himself squinting and putting his glasses on as he tried to make out the details through the halos gaussian haze that made up the current bulk his vision.]

A church. Why a church- what is this, St. Mary's? Notre Dame?

[Any visible text was indistinct to him- and he was holding out his glasses a few inches in front of his nose, as if that would help him make sense of anything.

It didn't.

He sighed, dramatically.]

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. [He intoned with gravitas, not knowing what else to do.]

I'm not a church goer, and I'm pretty sure I shot someone I thought was a friend.

I'll take my place if this is hell, but I need to make sure a couple of people are okay first.

Wildcard

[Don't see anything you like? Make something up. It's Basil here, so HMU on Plurk at woodrift if you want to chatter.

Info about Shelley is on his journal. Basically- he's a very stressed middle aged detective who has seen a lot of loss and now has the effects of chronic illness and a peppy little nature spirit to help him deal with it.

Oh and don't ask him to read anything. He's not totally blind but his vision has taken a hit with everything.]

cathedrals

[paravore]

Nah, it ain't hell. Just a dream. Well, kinda. Yer dreamin', but yer not asleep where ya think y'are.

[ There's a teenage boy, about sixteen years old, sitting on one of the pews near where the stranger fell. His clothes are sopping wet; he arrived only a few minutes earlier himself. ]

Who'd ya shoot?

[dustyroad]

An Asshole.

[He said, turning his head towards what sounded like a teenager. Just his luck- teenagers could go in any direction.]

We were friends when we were your age. But a lot of stuff has happened and a lot of time has passed.

He crossed a line that isn't fully covered by the law.

[paravore]

Dang.

[ He can practically hear the capital-A of that Asshole. Frowning, he studies the man for a stranger before rising to his feet to offer to help him up. ]

There's a chance he might be nearby. Sometimes folks show up here with a handful of people from home. But ya might be here by yerself, too.

[dustyroad]

Rather be alone than with a man who's the reason I'm probably dead too.

[He accepted the assist, tried and failed to straighten his plaid coat, and peered at the teenager that had joined him.]

Rather the girls not be here, too. They're a little older than you, I think. It's hard to tell once teenagers start sprouting like winter greens kept in a bucket in the basement.

[paravore]

Here in the dream, ya mean?

[ He snorts. This guy's taking it all pretty casual so far, but maybe that's his vibe. ]

Yer better off forgettin' all that and focusin' on where ya are. These dreams can be real dangerous, and weird, too. Like that.

[ He points at the stained glass above them. Instead of the man's regular reflection, there's a small orb, like a ball of fire burning in slow motion. ]

No need to freak. But there's yer example.

[dustyroad]

Being honest, my reality was getting pretty weird.

[The orb above them may as well have been no different from another lamp- it stood out among the fuzz of different colors above them that was the stained glass, but only because it was more concentrated in it's color compared to the rest.

He had to take the weirdness with a casual manner- too much of his life had become strange and he just couldn't react to everything.]

That Shark isn't going to break through, is it? I don't have a big enough harpoon to deal with it.

[paravore]

No...

[ 'Hikaru' glances around the cathedral again, narrowing his eyes. ]

I think she's gone. This place feels different. I think this is somebody else, not Sleep.

cathedral

[didiwin]

[Forgive the Robot in the room for snooping on Shelley’s monologue - in his defence, he is speaking out loud in an empty cathedral. Words travel.

He doesn’t do much to announce himself, but the heavy metal footsteps do the job well enough.]

Is that what you’re supposed to do here?

[He’s not all too familiar with the concept.]

[dustyroad]

[In fairness, Shelley was so turned around he had mistaken the mech as part of the cathedral.]

What in the Dubstep-?

[Because Dubstep sounded like robots getting it on with each other.

Shelley looked up (and up-and up!) at the robot in bemusement.]

Heck if I know. I didn't go to church much, and one of my school friends was Orthodox. This looks Catholic.

[He shrugged.]

Orthodox and Catholicism are both heavy in ritual and images. There's saints, there's angels- there's some kinda order you go through in prayer to ask them for help before you get to the Big Guy himself.

Catholics also have a thing about confessing their sins. Even kids do it, and you see it a lot in movies if the characters are religious or the church is involved.

[didiwin]

Yeesh. Sounds complicated.

[He jerks his head dismissively.]

So that’s your big sin, huh? Shooting someone?

[If he sounds like he’s not taking it so seriously…it’s because he’s not.]

[dustyroad]

In fairness: he got me first. This is probably all some kinda weird dream I'm having before I bleed out, but I had to get him before he got the girls who hired me.

[He sighed. Despite all of what he had said, he seemed oddly resigned to this reality that he was describing.]

Murder is generally considered illegal in general law and a 'sin' in most religions- with very few exceptions, large scale war being one of them.

I'm of the opinion that certain people committing other certain crimes can't be rehabilitated in even the kindest of prison systems, and that they need to be removed from society somehow.

Also, sometimes you don't really have a choice if you want to live.

[didiwin]

Hey, you’re preaching to the choir here. Sometimes, you gotta put a bullet in someone.

[That was, after all, what the Wreckers did. Not to mention the thousands of years of war.]

No judgement from me.

[dustyroad]

Wouldn't matter either way- what's done is done. I don't know how it ends, but it's bleak enough that confessing seemed a good idea if we're in a church.

[He shrugged. The wasn't particularly religious himself, but he could respect the rituals of it. More importantly:]

What was the deal with that shark, anyway? Did you also hear a lady?

[didiwin]

Listen, I’ve got about as much of an idea of what’s going on here as you do. [Pause.] Actually - make that even less.

[It’s not like Rotorstorm to admit to being out of his depth — but, desperate times.]

I didn’t hear anything. Saw a lot though. You think there was something in the water?

[Anything to induce some kind of mass hallucinations…]

Drowning

[digitalprincess]

[Compared to most, Aelita was relativity calm. Yes, the sudden change in scenery had been disorientating. But she'd not needed to breathe on Lyoko. Her and the others had gone through the motions, but that was it.

So she'd been drifting. Not really sure what to do.

Then she noticed the bubbles, reflecting the light back. So the very pink elf treaded water that way.

Hello sir! Um... She's just going to wave.]

[dustyroad]

[A pink stranger. How... Normal. Bemused by not needing to breathe normally, Shelley just waved back and made to swim over.

If the two of them were lost, at least they could be lost together.]

[digitalprincess]

[Moving here was so strange. Aelita had mostly been slowly waving her arms and legs to get by, but the stranger's movements seemed more effective.

There might have been an attempt to speak. Her mouth had opened, alas there was only more bubbles.]

[dustyroad]

[This wasn't his first time having a near drowning experience and hearing a strange lady somewhere in the water. Shelley figured that maybe it was a help in this circumstance. If he was indeed dying, it was only natural for the brain to replay life events in it's final moments- right?

Right?

The truth was, he had no idea. It was all just an educated guess. As he approached the girl, he placed a finger up to his lips and shook his head. Talking was clearly useless, so why bother?

And then, he pointed up in the direction that he assumed was the surface- or, at least answers.

The whole charade was punctuated with a shrug, as if to ask what the harm would be.

- there had to be an easier method of communicating.]

[digitalprincess]

[There wasn't water in the digital world. Not really. The digital sea was just a name for the mass of data that one could be lost in. So Aelita had no experience with water or how to navigate it.

Fortunately for him, she'd picked up a few gestures from her friends. Enough to understand that she shouldn't speak anyway.

Though she missed some of it. Cause when he pointed up, she looked.

Then pointed up as well, looking at him with her hand still raised.]

[dustyroad]

[Brilliant.

Shelley let out a huff in a cloud of bubbles and shook his head. Charades were clearly not going to work, and neither was writing or another form of signaling if they had no agreed communication methods.

Instead, he extended an offered hand and nodded towards where he thought the surface was.

Did she trust him?]

Jaws - The Meg (cw: mention of eye injury and body horror)

[guidingbookworm]

[Sirius understood that grief, its weight felt like a noose around his neck. The vastness of the ocean only added to that helpless feeling and he let himself sink. He was already dead so he didn't need to breathe and there was something hauntingly beautiful about the dark depths.

His body had changed again. The right eye he sacrificed to Sleep in the waking world eroded into glowing silver sand that shimmered like the stars. The erosion ate away the right side of his face. Crystals that shined with a light blue glow formed along the gaping hole, revealing a storm of swirling silver sand inside.

Sirius could sense something in the water but his fear was soothed by a strange sense of understanding. He could feel their pain. There was someone else in the water too but it wasn't the same. Another dreamer? He should help them but the ache in his soul when he turned away made him hesitate. His glowing silver eye flickered with indecision. Who should he save?]

[dustyroad]

[Who to save indeed. Shelley didn't understand what he was sensing in the water- it was a tug on his awareness, not unlike that on a fishing line. The immediate impulse was to tug back- but he held on that impulse.

It was too big of a fish to deal with.

Instead, he locked in on the other figure, the one that was much smaller than the beast that tugged at the currents, and swam towards them.

Saving himself would have been the smart move, but he wasn't going to leave anyone behind.]

the snail escapes the holiday hibernation! sorry I'm late

[guidingbookworm]

[Shelly was right. He should save himself, not put himself in more danger for someone like him. The sharp pang of survivor's guilt and disbelief was enough to wrench Sirius's attention away from the beast's pull.]

What are you doing?

[His panic rippled through his thoughts. He didn't know how to swim but he still struggled to move. He couldn't let someone else get hurt because of him.]

[dustyroad]

[The verbalized question was enough to get Shelley to stop in his process and stare at the young man. With a bweildered frown on his face, he pressed a hand against his ear while he processed this new form of communication.]

Is this kid serious?

[He unwittingly transmitted through the murmur, in a tone of voice that suggested both a dry wit and a sense of irritation- before he shrugged and swam up to the kid to grab his hand.

Sorry, you're going to be dragged off if you don't stop him.]