Unraveling Chloe - Death of a Nightmare

[Suzthulhu]

[<@Tobias`Brewer> "Wait..." he began but it was too late. She'd made up her mind. That was an excellent question: the shamans had many replies to it; the scientists, none. "It's not death. Not really," he said. "But it's like eating your limbs off. You become crippled, incomplete, unable to function. Possibly trapped in this hotel. But I've never actually seen it happen." He floated forward, ready to intervene if worst came to worst.

<@Chloe> "But..." But there were two of them. How did that work? The truth was, there was no truth. Chloe drifted around to the opposite side of the table, and touched the final chain. It sprang away with the nasty hiss of blood spatter. Droplets suspendd in the air as though unaffected by gravity at all. The rules of physics did not apply here. She looked at Tobias. "Do you have a knife?" The churning maw below had not ceased its gnashing, and strands of barbed wire snaked out of it, hovering menacingly around Chloe's ankles. They kept their distance, for the moment. Her hand hovered over the gurney, trembling even here. She could not tell Tobias her intentions; everything and everyone here would hear them.

<@Tobias`Brewer> He extended his hand and the smoky silhouette of a knife sprang into being before it coalesced into a physical one - nice black handle and a silvery blade which had a blue psychic sheen to it. He put two fingers around the blade and extended it to her, handle-first. "Somehow, I think," he said, looking at the gnashing teeth. "You two might not be the worst of each others' problems."

<@Chloe> "Ignore it." Chloe was not paying it any mind at the moment, in spite of its obvious interest in her. "Yes, ignore that, too. Just ignore EVERYTHING." "And YOU shut up. Just stop it. I'm giving you what you want." The two of them bickered back and forth. Chloe took the knife from Tobias, and held it up in front of the doppleganger laying on the gurney. "Isn't this what you want?" Black gaze flickered to Tobias, and something in her expression was terribly sad. She sliced the tendons holding the flesh jacket around herself, deftly, and in but a few smooth motions. It hurt, both of them it seemes, as one Chloe screamed and writhed on the gurney, and the other simply clenched her jaw.

<@Tobias`Brewer> Moral support. There weren't actually two people, he reminded himself. It was too easy to fall into the trap of illusion. He's used it before. But it wasn't exactly true. Still, her mind was still convinced that there were two, for now. He stood behind them, pineal gland glowing, holding back a tryptophonic tidal wave.

<@Chloe> Gurney Chloe got up, suspended over the maw of mouth and wire, and hovered there, her back to Tobias. Her skin shriveled, forming around her skeleton again. Real Chloe let the knife go, letting it fall, or return to Tobias, whichever it would do. Now what? She moved forward, arms outstretched, and embraced the... thing. It wasn't a thing, it was her. She looked at Tobias over her own wasted shoulder, and hair that had been hanging flat stirred slightly. Her mouth formed one word, and her embrace tightened around the second Chloe as they hung there over the churning waste below. "Please." If he was holding anything back, now was the time to let it go. She spoke then, eyes shutting tight. "Now, Tobias. All of it."

<@Tobias`Brewer> He was only an illusionist. But he was able to observe firsthand the power of a well-placed thought. It came to him in a flash of lightning. An echoing chorus of deep voices swelled within the chamber, vibrating its walls apart. A deep suffusion of blue bathed the duo, the floor fell away and they were suspended over the howling abyss in the palm of a giant hand. Fleshy tubers sprang forth from their bodies, seeking each other and joining together until their flesh melded and grew together, coalescing into one form. The clinical aura of thorazine began to lift.

<@Chloe> Chloe held onto herself for dear life. She shut her eyes tight, and even as the horribleness of her other self fought to get free, they began to join together as one, vibrating in synch to the frequency of the chorus of voices that tore down the very walls of the asylum they had both been imprisoned in: real Chloe in the outside world, and Hell Chloe in her own mind. Glass shattered all around them, the individual rooms dissolving into mere particulate matter. Concrete walls became powder, and what was left behind resembled nothing of what it had been before. It was clean, underground, dirt and roots, and nature would take over from there. Their bodies warped and writhed, until at last there was only one. White skin glowed, underlit with blue energy, so fiercly lit that the features of its bare form were undiscernable. Only the same black, snake-like hair still flowed in shadowy tendrils. She came to rest in the palm of that great hand as the churning maw below narrowed and closed. Chloe stepped down from the hand, a being of pure psychic energy, and stood before Tobias. Her voice was many, pleasant and untouched by the rage that had so recently consumed her. "Thank you, Tobias. Thank you for knowing, and understanding. It is not the end... but it is a beginning, I think. A beginning to healing."

<@Tobias`Brewer> "The end's not until you close your eyes, maybe sixty years from now." He said as the cerulean stars faded back to his eyeballs. "It's a lifelong process. I'm glad I could help. But it was you. You did this. I just passed the scalpel." He smiled in a weary way. Relief sagged over him like a merry thunderstorm after a hot summer day. "Now how about we celebrate by grabbing a bite to eat?"

<@Chloe> The almost ghostly, angelic white form of Chloe smiled, and reached out a hand, gently caressing his cheek. "Wake up... wake up Tobias. I will be there." He would feel that momentary vertigo as she gently pushed him from her mind. On the couch, where all of this had begun, lay Chloe, perfectly still, eyes closed. For a moment, she was so still that it might be called into question if she were actually breathing or not. But the slow, deep rise and fall of her chest gave away that she was merely sleeping, and peacefully at that. She stirred, slightly, and whispered, "Tobias?"

<@Tobias`Brewer> Blinking back white sunspots. "Yeah," he said in a sleepy way, squinting as he rose and immediately leaned against the couch cushions from a wicked headrush. "I'm here. Here." He extended his hand to her and pulled her up into a seated position. It was in these moments that it was the hardest to believe in what actually happened, so similar they were to waking up from dreams. But he already felt relief and satisfaction knocking to be let in. He didn't just avoid hurting her. He was actually able to help.

<@Chloe> She inhaled deeply, breathing in and exhaling some of the cobwebs. Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, they were black, as black as night, and then the black faded, swallowed up until it revealed a bright, brilliant yellow green. She took his hand, her own small and slightly chilly, and pulled herself upward. "Are you alright?" Leaning against him, she closed her eyes again for a moment, but then sat up, looking at him with a pleasantly surprised expression. "I don't hear her... me anymore. I mean, it's -just- me. The others are quiet right now. A good kind of quiet." Was it over? No. It might not ever truly be over, but it was worlds better than it had been. It was a huge step, one that might leave a once shattered and broken Chloe at least a little more whole and functional.