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How silly was he? A Geology teacher, believing he could help make contact with a GOD. That dream he had, he’d believed it was a prophecy. But no. Nothing good could have come out of this.. and now Beryl was gone. He certainly had his regrets. Especially now that he was some kind of strange, pink caterpillar creature. He certainly didn’t think that color fit him.. but he had other problems. Which was being a pink caterpillar in general.
Unlike his remaining two colleagues, he’d been given the permission to stay in Sam’s now quite cramped apartment. He wasn’t sure what had become of Jasper and Aurelius.. maybe they stayed up on the roof or left. He wouldn’t know.. but he did know that Jasper certainly wasn’t happy about the whole flawed ritual.
It was nighttime, and like most nights, he couldn’t exactly sleep. He was cooped up in the living room, taking up almost the entire corner beside that weird hole in the wall. Sometimes, he thought he heard noises coming from in there. In fact, the entire apartment was noisy. Despite everyone being asleep, he could hear thoughts. No, dreams. They kept him from sleeping, disturbing the little amount of rest he could get.
He sat curled up, higher set of arms on his torso being used to cup his head in his hands. The lower set was being used to hold that strange ball he had. He didn’t want to let it go for some reason, and with how many arms he had, it wasn’t difficult to carry it everywhere. He scanned the dark living room, eyes observing all of the weird roommates Sam had. Three children.. which were actually leaning on the lower half of his body, Joel, Ratticus and Sophie. While he wasn’t too discomforted by Joel, Ratticus put him off. He never liked rats, but he supposed the little thing wasn’t too bad. He enjoyed listening to him talk about space, something he still loved to do. He liked that.
There was also that unnerving masked woman that slept on the couch most of the time. Her name was Hellen, and she intimidated him. On the other hand, he knew Lyle to an extent. He used to live in one of the apartments on Floor 2, so he saw him often. Then there was the sentient vending machine, that shadow thing with the mask, a bunch of roaches, and the list went on. The roaches didn’t seem to dream, but everyone else did, and it was oh so overwhelming…
It wasn’t straight up words. It was muffled, not truly able to be made out. Not yet, at least. He blinked slowly, visibly peeved. He wasn’t one to be irritated easily, but the noise.. maybe if he didn’t think about it, he could ignore it. As he was glancing back down at the three children, he noticed something. The noises became more clear, almost beckoning to him. He couldn’t tell what was telling him it, but he wanted to.. take them. At least one of them. If he could just.. grab it.
He reached out, but hesitated. You can’t just grab dreams, what was he thinking? Just because he can hear them doesn’t mean he can gra— did he just grab that. The noises had ceased, coiling themselves into a little.. disc, or thin ball in his hands. It glittered unlike the ball he already had, different colors reflecting into his eyes. He just.. grabbed someone’s dream. It did disturb Sophie, the one he grabbed it from, slightly, but she didn’t seem to wake.
That got him thinking. What could he do with it? He couldn’t just hold onto it, it would be weird to just keep someone’s dream with you. He glanced around, blinking a few times before slowly.. eating it. He just ate someone’s dream… he can DO THAT?? Why was that even his first thought? Ohthatissosoweirddd— he put his hands onto his trunk, contemplating to himself about what he just did. HOW he just did it. Why it was his first thought.
He wasn’t going insane, was he? Surprisingly, the dream disc tasted amazing. Sweet, like some kind of cotton candy. Did all of them taste like that? Would it be weird to figure that out? He scanned the room one more time to make sure no one was awake before lifting the top half of his body up, keeping the lower half still so he didn’t awaken the three children.
How did he even.. do that? He wasn’t paying too much attention when he acquired the dream disc, so he wasn’t sure how he initially snatched it up. He pulled the front half of his body over to Audrey, the vending machine. He took a moment to chew on his nails. This was.. strange. Really strange. Sampling people’s dreams… eeugh that was strange.. but hey, no one would know.
He hesitated before reaching out, watching yet another disc materialize in his hands. Would it taste the same..? He had to find out. Curiosity was gonna kill him, and it already almost had, but he just couldn’t help it. This one tasted.. a bit mundane. Maybe a bit on the salty side, but it wasn’t terrible. Just boring. He let out a strange huffing noise from his trunk, moving himself away from Audrey. So they didn’t all taste the same..
He has to figure out what all different types tasted like.
If he didn’t, it’d probably eat at him forever. He’d just try them, then never do it again.. maybe.. he took a single glance at Lyle. Then immediately turned away. He knew how Lyle was.. he was NOT gonna take that chance. Not in a hundred years. Some things must go unsolved.
He scuttled over to the door to Sam’s room, quietly pushing it open. The other witness was curled up in a ball in the corner next to that weird hole in the wall. He couldn’t help but cringe at the sight of him. He didn’t want to judge, but he just had.. so many eyes and mouths. It made him feel awkward. He passed the bed, the spot those weird two had taken up after Sam couldn’t sleep in it anymore. Just.. one try. Once. Then he’d never do it again.
He took the dream disc in his hands, a tinge of cold going through his weirdly long spine as he held it. Something about this one was unsettling. Did he want to do this? It’s for the name of.. science… he thought to himself, if it could even be called science.
As he put the disc to his mouth, he flinched. The things that flooded his head were terrible. Guilt, fear, pretty much everything negative. Not to mention how terrible it tasted. He didn’t know that Sam felt that way— he didn’t seem like the kind of person that would be so troubled. Sam was what he’d describe as an empath. Knowing he felt all that honestly made him feel bad.
He backed out of the room, closing the door only to feel something hit into his back. He quietly yelped, spinning around to see that shadow thing. It stared, unblinking and tilting its head. Did it see him? Of course it did— it never slept. He held eye contact for a few moments before slowly starting to maneuver around it. Before he could get far, it reached into its cloak.
As Aster paused to watch it, the cloaked being took out.. an amulet. HIS amulet. Where did it get it from? He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by the shadow holding it out to him.
“I—… thank.. you…?” He muttered, slowly taking the amulet and carefully putting it back around his neck. The shadow backed away before returning to its own corner, watching him. He stared for a moment before shuffling back to his former position. It was.. quieter now, more bearable.
He laid his head down, using the hood of his cloak as a little blanket. Well.. he knew what he could do now. It made things more bearable. He had less of a headache. He could deal with this.. he let out a short sigh and shut his eyes, tucking his torso arms into the sleeves of his cloak.