bakerstreet | NIGHTMARE FUEL MEME

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NIGHTMARE FUEL MEME

The Nightmare Fuel Meme

WARNING: This is not a nice meme, and will likely contain triggers for violence, pain, death, sexual situations, and all kinds of other unpleasant things. Click through at your own risk.

Nightmare Fuel: This is the stuff so horrifying that it can give people the creeps for years. This scares the pants off of just about anyone to the author/creator's delight. This makes you shrink in the back of your chair, look over your shoulder, and remind yourself that what's going on is (usually) only fictional....

HOW IT WORKS:
♦ Leave a comment with your character's name and fandom, and state any preferences. If you'd like to roll for/pick an option here, go for it. If you'd like, you can fill out this handy form to make things easier for others:

♦ Tag another character. Pick one of the options, either by using the RNG or just selecting one that interests you.
♦ Play out the results and respect others' preferences.
♦ Have fun and/or be traumatized!

1. ACID TRIP - Things are starting to get weird. Very weird. Your hands just popped off and are dancing the tango in the living room with your pet alligator while a Weeping Angel watches from the corner. There are invisible spiders crawling all over you and you don't dare open your mouth lest they fall in. It can only get as strange as your imagination will let it.

2. JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE PARANOID DOESN'T MEAN THEY AREN'T OUT TO GET YOU - You just can't help the feeling that someone is watching you. Someone is out to get you. Who are your real friends? Is that person really an alien in disguise? Are there surveillance cameras in your bedroom walls?

3. THE STUFF OF NIGHTMARES - Think about the worst nightmare that you've ever had. Guess what. You're now in it, and you just can't seem to wake up.

4. FUN WITH PHOBIAS - What do you fear? The dark? Heights? Swarms of insects? Snakes? Drowning? Whatever it is, it is now your reality.

5. TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCES OF THE NON-SPARKLY KIND - Something has gone wrong. You're...changing. And not in a good way. Are you turning into an animal? A demon? A monster? Were you assimilated by the Borg?

6. AND I MUST SCREAM - You can't move. You can't scream. You can't do anything but remain conscious of every passing second. Did you choose the wrong words for your wish? Were you turned to stone? Trapped by a curse? Turned into a doll, unmoving but forever beautiful? Sealed inside a tree for a thousand years?

7. A PLAGUE ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES - The dread spectre of disease has raised its head. Do you have days to live? Hours? Seconds? Or will you waste away slowly? What will happen in the meantime?

8. EYE SCREAM, YOU SCREAM - Something terrible has happened to you. It could have been an accident, a curse, an attack, a disease, or a surgery gone terribly wrong. But you've been horribly mutilated (or are in the process thereof) and are disturbing to see. Perhaps the Phantom will let you borrow his mask.

9. HORRIBLE TO BEAR - Congratulations, you're with child! Except...this wasn't supposed to happen. Did you just wake up one morning and discover the surprise? Is it part of a bizarre science experiment? Are you carrying the child of the devil? Or did you just get a Face Full of Alien Wing-Wong and hellspawn is about to burst out of your chest?

10. THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO - This is a really tiny space you're in. And it looks like you're going to be here for an awfully long time. Did the other person shut you up in here? Are they a fellow prisoner? Or can you somehow convince them to let you out?

11. WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE - The world is ending. In fire, in ice, in the zombie apocalypse, in a collision with a giant asteroid? Whatever it is, it's horrible. Do you even want to bother trying to survive?

12. SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE - You're hungry. Really, really hungry. Nothing seems to satisfy you, nothing at all. Except that other person standing nearby looks awfully tasty. Cannibalism? Can you?

13. MINDS ARE FOR GAMES - Mind control? Brainwashing? Total amnesia? Whatever it is, you certainly aren't completely in control of yourself. Perhaps the other person is....

14. THE PLURAL OF DIMENSION IS DEMENTIA - Everything looks familiar, but it's just a little bit off. Did your neighbor always have that mustache? Was the sky always that shade of green? Welcome to the mirror universe, where you're the crazy one.

15. THE LATEST DISPLAY MODEL - You're so pretty that you belong on a shelf. Or behind bars. Perhaps magically frozen in place so that you can't escape or mar those lovely features. Maybe someone just wanted you safely hidden away, kept all to themselves. Or did they want to show everyone in the world that you belong to them and them alone?

16. JUST KEEP RUNNING - Something is chasing you. Maybe you don't even know what it is, you just know that you have to keep running, because if you stop the consequences are worse than you can bear to consider. No matter how exhausted you are, you just have to keep going.

17. WILDCARD - Pick another option, mix and match, do whatever you'd like. After all, when it comes to nightmares YMMV, so feel free to invent your own.

(original meme by

enthymeme)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

Jay reaches for the next branch, feeling his way up and over it, and -

Wake up, Timothy.

Did it happen? Did any of it happen? It couldn't have. It couldn't have, because now he's watching the shape of a man crumpled at the foot of a tree, the blade stained black with blood. He blinks, hard, breath dragging in between gritted teeth.

Wake up.

"Jay."

That was important. Jay - he was here. He was here, he was here, and he needed to get him out. That hasn't changed. What has changed is that something...

Something went wrong.

You shouldn't be here.

He's faster this time, moving at a brisk clip regardless of the flurry of leaves he kicks up in the process. "Jay!"

Something's wrong.

He's on the ground again. He's on the ground, and that's not how this happens. The scenario plays out, Tim's voice fades or is cut short, and Jay keeps wandering until it happens again. It doesn't...it doesn't skip like this.

"Tim?"

He hears a rustling behind him, he hears his name, and he's scrambling to his feet as best he can. "Tim?"

That can't be him. Not twice. It has to be another formless, faceless voice echoing in the trees, but there are footsteps.

Did that just happen? Did he...he remembers. He remembers. Something was wrong with Jay's eyes. He always remembers the directions his dreams take, and this one - this was all wrong.

"Do you remember?" Gone is the world-weary polish to his stance, his words. It's all frantic, desperation renewed, as he skids to a halt several paces away, eyes raking over the thin, fragile body curled there. "Do you remember what just happened?"

Because it did just happen, didn't it? It had to have.

It had to.

He remembers. It sounds like Tim remembers. Jay knows better than to hope, but it's becoming harder and harder to suppress it.

(And what's he hoping for, anyway? That Tim's gotten lost in the woods, too? He doesn't deserve this.)

Jay finally manages to get his feet under him. Gripping the rough bark to keep himself upright, he turns to face Tim, and he knows he must look awful, but that's not important right now.

Jay nods, yes, absolutely he remembers. The motion's more than his inner ear can handle, and he sways, the nod turning into more of a clumsy dip of the head. "Nothing after the tree, but...not sure if there's anything to remember."

"What happened?" As if he has to ask. As if it's not obvious what happened. Stuff got...it rearranged itself. Time screwed itself up again, just like it did in the house, in the basement.

("Brian, when an object enters the time-stream, time...starts to correct itself.")

The thought drifts idly by before he can fully conceptualize its origin, and his mouth drops open briefly before he snaps it closed again. Jesus - no. No, god, he doesn't need to think about the failed philosophies of Alex Kralie at this particular goddamn moment.

"I think..." Jay folds the knife one-handed, pressing the blunt side into his leg. Slipping the knife into his pocket, he tilts his head toward where he last heard Tim, more a habit than anything else. When he speaks, he's not sure he can keep the whisper of hope out of his voice. "We might've broken the pattern."

Then he snorts.

"Not sure what that means, but..." Sarcasm's easier, more familiar. "This place doesn't seem to want us up there. Or maybe--maybe it'll be expecting us this time, and we'll have to try something else. Or it might be a fluke, I dunno."

He shrugs, and it feels...demonstrative. They're in new territory now, and as much as he likes to think he's gotten decent at adapting to change, his uneven breathing and the tremor in his hand say otherwise. He shoves the offending hand in his pocket, grips the knife handle because at least it's solid.

He remembers. More than just a fleeting moment, he remembers. And they broke the sequence, and - and then what? Then what? Then it was as though everything rearranged itself in the blink of an eye, like everything never happened.

("And now that I'm back...?")

The thought is invasive, predatory. Tim reaches a hand and rakes it through his hair, the rank scent of his own sweat and adrenaline thick in his nostrils.

Feels real.

"What else can we try?"

What else is there? Jay's been wandering long enough that he's not sure where he's gone and where he hasn't. He's not sure if wandering itself is the problem. Maybe if he just stopped, if he sat here under the tree and waited until he dissolved the rest of the way, it'd be better.

But he can't do that. He knows he can't do that. Doesn't have the patience for it.

"We can head back up and see if it happens again. Maybe try walking around, but that might put us back on some..."

The air's electric. He can feel it prickling at the back of his neck.

"Tim?" Jay presses back against the tree, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "You feel that?"

("I just feel like a depressed teenager all over again.")

No matter what he does, he can't shake it. Alex's corny fucking dialogue that he was so damned proud of, back when he was more prone to smiling and clean-shaven and peering out from under the rim of his stupid baseball cap.

("Stuck in a loop of unhappiness.")

Is that what they are now? Stuck in some sort of...loop?

"Feel what?" If he means the impending sense of doom, sure, he feels it. Feels no different than the background radiation that's always plagued his life, except maybe more immediate, more potent here. "Is this...just gonna set us back to the start, every time we do anything different?"

Feel what?

This had better not be in his head. Carved his eyes out so he won't see things, and now he's feeling things instead. Great. Just great.

"Not sure." He's trying to keep his composure, but he smells copper and ozone and it's hard to fight the instinct to bolt. "Could just be the one. I mean, maybe it won't always happen. I don't remember a hard reset or a--a skip like this one before. It's like we, maybe, we--alright, we need to move, now."

He lurches forward, partially colliding with Tim. After a bit of fumbling, he grabs a handful of Tim's shirtsleeve and pulls, leading deeper into the woods.

Jay surges forward without warning, practically crashing into Tim with an abrupt spring of motion that catches him off guard. One hand automatically leaps upward to steady Jay on his shoulder, the other planting firmly in the center of his chest, but he staggers back several paces regardless.

(He'd forgotten how damn wiry the guy was. How when he was really riled up, in the absolute throes of his own panic, holding him down was like trying to contain a live adder.)

"Woah. Woah." He has to keep his voice level. Has to not feed whatever has Jay panicked. "Jay, stop. Think."

Why the hell hasn't Tim noticed yet?

(He can think of one reason, but he doesn't want to think of that reason any longer than necessary. If he can't trust his remaining senses, he won't be able to determine when to run.)

"Tim, it's close. There's--" Tim's holding him steady, and he's not about to bolt just yet, but the confinement bothers him. Electricity still crackles at the back of his head. "Please tell me you can feel that."

"I don't know what it is I'm supposed to be feeling." He's trying, god, he's trying not to sound exasperated at the guy, but he's making it hard. He's making it hard because he's got no clue what he's meant to be looking for, what's supposed to be setting off his alleged sensors.

"Just...just slow down, okay? What's close? How do you know?"

He doesn't need to make Jay feel more miserable than he does already, and therefore doesn't feel the need to point out that he's deprived of one of the five senses - and a very vital one at that. But hallucinations don't need to be visual to be hallucinations.

They both know that a little too well.

"You know what!" Jay doesn't make an effort to hide his exasperation. It's like Tim is playing dumb. He sounds like he's trying to help, so why is he just making things more difficult?

"And it feels like--like electricity, like you're next to one of those, those museum...the--the Tesla coils! It's like lightning just hit five feet away, and you're just--" Something catches in his windpipe, and he yanks back from Tim's hands to double over coughing. His throat's already tight from before, and the extra stress is apparently enough to send it over the edge. A muscle in his throat painfully contracts, just for a second, and the coughing turns to desperate wheezing as Jay tries to pull air into his lungs.

Shit. Jay's losing it - assuming he's not lost it already. The words are too rapid, uncontrolled, and Jay looks almost on the verge of collapse, his chest seizing.

"Breathe. Jay, breathe." He glances up, darting a quick, surveying glance at his surroundings. The trees are black and bone-skinny, the inky dark all but uniform. Nothing white stands out. No faceless face hangs suspended in the midst of it all, staring coldly out at them.

"There's nothing here. Not - yet, anyway."

Breathe. It's easier said than done, but he manages some shaky breaths through the pressure on his throat.

He wants to fight back, to insist Tim's wrong, but experience says otherwise. He's seen and heard things here that don't exist. Not a huge jump to feeling them.

Dammit.

It could even be that Tim's not here. (And he wouldn't be able to tell, if he can't trust his sense of touch, either.)

Is this what Tim has to deal with all the time?

"You're still here, right?" Jay croaks.

God, there's no good way to verify it. Conflicting signals, and there's no good way to filter out the junk. That thing might be here, and Tim might not, and Jay won't know until it carves out another space in his head.

(And then he still won't know, because he'll forget.)

How long has he been here?

"I'm still here." I'm not leaving you again.

Don't make promises you can't keep, Tim. You know full well that you can't follow up on that, or any other. Not in liminal places like this. Not when everything, from the trees to Jay himself, is stark and ephemeral.

So. Start fresh. Start from the beginning.

"Is it...going away? That - static, or whatever?" If it's getting worse, maybe that means something to. Its own tuning fork they can use to gauge if they're doing better, in the context of this nightmarish construct, or worse.

The air still buzzes at the back of his neck, and the metallic tang still stings his nose, but he can think through it.

He says he's still here, whatever that's worth.

"Think it's leveled off." Jay straightens out his back, wrapping his arms around himself to ward off the chill. His voice is still raspy, scraping against his swollen throat. "I'll say something if it gets worse."

He needs to do something, needs to distract himself. "So, 're we trying another tree?"

Edited 2017-07-25 19:26 (UTC)

Trying another tree, while Jay's still blinded and probably on the verge of panic as it is? Yeah, sounds like a suggestion on par with Jay's other past ideas. Which is to say, not very good at all.

"You really wanna try?" He can't wholly keep the incredulity from his tone because - really? "I mean, we can...there's gotta be something else we haven't tried yet."

There has to be something he hasn't -

It occurs to him in the same moment his fingertips brush up against the familiar lump in his pocket. The same objects that are always nestled there, asleep and awake.

Jay bristles at Tim's disbelief. It's like he's looking at Jay and can just tell how tough it'd be for him to climb another one, even if it's definitely possible. "I mean, we can try walking in some direction and just hope it's not one we've done before, or we could stick here, or we could, I dunno, dig a hole or something, but I'm not sure..."

He's rambling. He's rambling, and he needs to cut himself off, and the leaves are quiet, which means Tim's either gone oddly still or he's not there anymore.

"What?"

He slips the lighter silently from his pocket, forgetting once again that Jay can't simply look at the thing and take it in. The click of the little flame wicking into existence might not be enough either; the glow of a little orange tongue of flame would hardly stand out when all you can see is a featureless black void.

"...my lighter," says Tim, not without reluctance. "I, uh...I still have it."

He'd guess that maybe he's tried something like that before. The hope is that he's wrong</i. but - what are the chances of that?

He has his lighter. Jay can't see it, but he can picture it after months on the road, trying to keep his eyes on the highway while Tim dangles a cigarette out the passenger's side window.

"You're not..." And Jay tries, he really does, but he can't quite keep the grin from tugging at the edges of his mouth. "You're not thinking...?"

If they tried to burn the place down, would they get caught in the blaze? Would they just be able to keep running? Would they ever reach the edge, if they did?

(Would it be worth burning, just to bring this place down with him?)

"It'd break the sequence," says Tim, perhaps a bit drier than necessary. Dry enough to set his words afire and watch them spark in a sheet of red flame. "Wouldn't it?"

Would that just skip them back to the start again? Would burning the setting damage the timer?

If they've got an infinite loop to toy with, to break out of, they've got every opportunity, don't they?

Jay's fully grinning now, and it feels wrong, thin and crooked and too-wide, but that's how it should be, isn't it?

This place is exhausting. It's terrifying.

But after a few
thousand
times through, it starts to become
home, even if it is
boring.

But now that Tim's here and solid and maybe even real, there's a chance things'll change. They already have, and even if this just sets them back to the beginning again, at least they'll have tried something.

"Should, yeah." His head's still buzzing, and he reaches up to rub at the back of his neck. "I say go for it."

The look on Jay's face is unnerving in its unfamiliarity, a smile all but bisecting his thin, pallid face, which, when paired with the weeping pits where his eyes should be, manage to make him look rather deranged. The fact that Jay, he of the poorly-rationalized decisions and debilitating paranoia and complete lack of strategy, finds the plan of potentially self-destructive arson a sound one should be a warning sign. It is a warning sign.

Tim just doesn't care.

It's simple, and without ceremony. It's like touching a flame to sheets. Squirreling the little silver prism away from the nurse who took the same three minutes of smoke break every day when he thought no one else saw. No one but the gaunt, too-quiet child who never spoke unless it was to answer the doctors or to scream when his head began to burn. Waiting for the day when he'd set the lighter down on a table or a counter instead of slipping it in his pocket. And when it come, tiny fingers netted about it in a scabbed, slightly grubby cage, and he'd huddled back in his room with his heart beating in the taut cradle of his chest.

Hadn't wanted to then. Don't want to now.

But it is, in its own way, easier.

He clicks it on and crouches to the base of the tree, still stained with the rusted black blotches of Jay's blood. The wood is dry, and the flames lick up the crackling bark eagerly.

With an angry whoosh, the tree goes up in a beacon of yellow, and Tim steps back as the heat grows unbearable. The fire leaps from branch to branch, creeping steadily about them, encircling them. The heat waves shimmer at the air, clouding his gaze no matter how he blinks. Singeing his hair. Scalding his skin.

There's no point in running. It'll find them regardless.

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