[It feels familiar, but Onni has never dreamed before. It isn't his dreamspace, comfortable and safe, where he can rest in peace, it's something else entirely, and yet, he remembers going to sleep in the inn, safe at home, in civilization. But there it is, a broken moon, an approaching wave, and then he's subsumed in the oncoming wave, dark and cold and this...this is familiar.

He feels himself floating there in the darkness of the water, and wonders for a moment if he's in Tuonela again, but the voice he hears isn't that of the Swan, no, he knows the voice of the Swan, and the Swan speaks in Finnish - this voice...he can tell it isn't speaking his language, and yet he can understand. Could it be Tuoni herself?

Silently, he accepts this, every instinct screaming that he shouldn't.

But the darkness is absolute, he can't see the sleeping forms of the deceased, safely encased and floating in the water around him. And then it recedes, and he sits up in a new place entirely. It's warm, warmer than he's used to, and the trees are lush and full of fruit. He's seeing it through the eyes of a mask, and his hand comes up to brush the smooth painted surface of the thing, making a low grumbling hum in his throat. It's surreal, strange, like being pulled into the wrong dreamspace, but it feels somehow even more foreign than that. Underlying the calm that's suffused him, he can feel a familiar panic start to stir, but he suppresses it for now.

There are others nearby in masks, he wonders if his own looks like that, but is soon distracted by the sight of a small, onion-shaped fruit he's never seen before dangling on a branch, and he lifts his hand to pick it, almost without thinking. After studying it for a moment - the translucent skin, the vibrant flesh inside - he takes a bite, and the taste floods his mouth. He's never tasted anything like it, and he makes a small noise in his throat, something like surprise.

A few moments later, a small, glowing bird, fat and fluffy, appears beside him. Eyes wide, he lifts his hand to her. She lands on his finger, and he looks at her in wonder as he continues to walk through the orchard. She doesn't speak, but she moves a little, fluttering her wings and puffing up and turning her head back and forth.

Accompanied by the little bird floating near his shoulder, Onni makes his way over to one of the fruit trees that has relatively straight branches. Choosing the most sturdy one that he thinks he can break, he starts to bend it, mouth set in a straight line behind his mask, focused on the task. Once he's done, he won't be able to use the branch as a spear, because he has nothing to sharpen it with, but the ragged end might do some damage, and it could be used as a club. It doesn't feel right to be outdoors outside of a town without a weapon.

He's focused enough that he doesn't notice when someone approaches to see what he's doing, and jumps slightly when he becomes aware of their presence, unused to not being alone when he sleeps, still.]

Ah! Who are you?

[It isn't like the ruins back home. There are, of course, some things that are familiar - broken furniture, half-ruined structures, discarded items that are evidence of life having been lived here before. But it's more sporadic, not concentrated to areas people had obviously been living before some catastrophe.

It's also not the forest he's used to. The environment feels alien without trees everywhere, interspersed with lakes. Eyes flicking this way and that, Onni holds his broken branch at the ready. The bird, Tuuri, is long gone now, and he feels the loss of her keenly, exposed from every side as he is.

Pausing, he leans down to touch a framed photo, the glass broken, his breath catching in his throat, but when he pulls it free from a tangle of grass, the people in the picture are unfamiliar. For just a moment, he'd expected a photo of him and his sister and cousin, but...

It had just seemed so familiar.

Frowning, he lifts his head and looks at that figure in the distance. He can feel the pull of that figure, can feel the desire built in him to follow that figure into the future. As if that's the right way to go. He isn't sure he trusts it. Glancing around, he notices another of those people who've been around since he'd awakened.]

Do you think it's wise to follow?

[He hears them before he sees them, just like it had always been in the Silent World. The whispers, the chanting, the obscenities, the cries for help, he's heard them before. Or at least, something like them.

Brandishing the branch he'd broken from that tree earlier, he pauses, looking around him at this breaking world, the moon falling apart, the weeping red of the sky, and he wonders if the whatever world this is is ending. It's terrifying, he can feel the beating of his heart in his ears, can feel the panic clawing up his throat, the trembling in his hands clenched around wood still sticky with sap.

The monsters, though, the Beasts, the Trolls, those things that come towards them, though, they are familiar, if slightly different to what he's used to. He couldn't put a name to them like he can with most of those at home, but he recognizes the twisted forms, the plant life growing in matted fur, the fungus that breaks skin, the mutation, the decay. Kalma rules here too.

As the creatures approach, despite his fear, he steps forward, in front of anyone that might be nearby, and holds his branch at the ready, holding it like a spear.]

Stay behind me. Don't let them touch you, or get any fluid on you. We don't know yet if anyone is immune to these things.

[The message is telepathic, accompanied by sensations, fleeting but intense - the scent of the forest, of woodsmoke, the laughter of a loved one.]

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

[The 'voice' is almost monotone, mid-toned and a little gruff around the edges.]

Feel free to write me your own starter, or ask for one! I'm willing to try other fruits in the first prompt! If you want me to write something for you, hit me up at onlilypads, onlilypads at discord, or PM!