it was all just the dream of an angel

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text=At least I'm honest with my intentions.
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= …ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
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A storm rages outside, raindrops hitting the cabin's exterior walls with the force of claws. A single figure trudges towards the shelter, heavy with muddy water and the waterproof bag slung over her shoulder. All that's visible of her face is a pair of cracked coke-bottle glasses, bloodshot eyes behind them.

From the outside, the cabin is more boarded up window than it is shelter, nails and scrap wood sticking out at all sorts of odd ends and angles. She pushes the door open and is greeted by the conspiracy board inside. Her wall is covered in newspapers and magazines and any photographs she could get her hands on; a constant reminder that the world outside of the boundary they create is dangerous.

The oldest, worn, torn, most perceived piece of newspaper she has is right her the rotting mattress she sleeps on. **Several Injured and One Dead in Freak Firework Incident**. The day she left home for good, freed from any reason to stick around. On the rotting mattress she sleeps on, she dumps out the bag. Her supplies: pilfered batteries, cans of food, a music disc, bullets. Everything she'll need until she's forced out into the world for another trip.

Her name is Jessie Tamlin and she is a shadow on the wall, she is //the Blackwoods Beast//, she is Bigfoot. She is a man with an axe, with a chainsaw, with a rifle. She is whatever it takes to get people from getting too interested in poking around. She's made a good life for herself, by herself.

There's no power, which isn't new for her. She makes due with candles and a flashlight. A wind brushes past, the whistling sound it makes seeping through the cracks of her shelter has a rhythm like laughter to it. It's enough for her to pause and take in the feeling of an omen.

She finds an empty area to sit and meditate through the storm. She closes her eyes, refusing to sleep but dreaming nonetheless. With enough maladaptive daydreaming, she can pretend that she's in her former apartment, elevated far above the floodwaters. It's sunny even, warm light casting through an open window. Her brother is with her, standing in just the right position to keep the sun out of her eyes.

It was a peaceful life she once lead. What changed? Or what was always there in the first place?

**Joey:** Hey, do you remember our old friend [[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-3002 |Lily Veselka]]]?

A jolt runs up Jessie's body. She's used to the feeling of weightlessness that comes with projecting herself into Oneiroi West. With her body confined solely to the space she built for it, she's become well practiced in astral projection. But this is a violent feeling that overtakes her, as though she were flying and something has swatted her down.

She lands hard into the jaws off a childhood memory.

//<Jessie is ten years old. --She is waiting for her uncle to pick her up from school.-- She is waiting at the bus stop alone. Lily approaches and points at the empty space on the bench.>//

**Lily:** Can I sit here?

**Jessie:** Who are you?

**Lily:** I'm Lily!

//<Jessie shifts uncomfortably.>//

**Jessie:** I don't know you!

**Lily:** But you could!

//<Lily hops onto the bench next to her. She reaches out to touch Jessie's kandi bracelets. Jessie pulls her arm away.>//

**Lily:** I like your bracelets!

**Jessie:** Thanks...

//<--Joey arrives on his bicycle. Their uncle has gotten drunk and passed out again, but he doesn't want Jessie to know about that, so he covers for him.-- The bus arrives. Lily stands up first.>//

**Lily:** Let's get good seats.

//<Jessie is hesitant. She usually tries to find any empty seat and pray no one tries to sit next to her, but today the bus is packed. Is it worth the chance that her bench mate might be cruel?>//

//<Lily grabs Jessie's wrist.>//

**Lily:** Don't hold me up.

**Jessie:** //<Flustered>// Um, sorry.

//<Lily walks Jessie all the way to the back of the bus. The last row is empty. Lily lets Jessie take the window seat.>//

**Lily:** You're really quiet. What're you thinking about?

//<Jessie fidgets with her bracelets, fingering the large flying saucer shaped charm on her favorite one. --Through the cracks in this memory she can see herself clinging onto Joey as he struggles to peddle them home.-- There are no cracks, everything is how it was.>//

**Jessie:** I'm not supposed to get too close to anyone. In case the aliens come back for me.

//<Lily leans in conspiratorially.>//

**Lily:** The aliens?

//<Jessie nods.>//

**Jessie:** I got abducted when I was five, but they decided to take my parents instead. That's why I live with my uncle.

**Lily:** Is that why you always sit alone.

**Jessie:** Yep. That way, no one else becomes a target.

**Lily:** I bet I could fight them off.

**Jessie:** You think so?

//<The cracks struggle to conceal themselves. The long rides home with her brother are far too burned into her memory. Jessie digs her fingers into her hair and pulls.>//

**Jessie:** What am I saying? Where am I?

**Lily:** Hey, hey, don't get overwhelmed! Wouldn't you rather be here with me than ride home with him?

//<Jessie stands and starts marching towards the front of the bus.>//

**Jessie:** I want off this bus now!

//<Lily grabs Jessie's wrist and she falls back, hitting the forest ground hard.>//

Jessie looks up at her cabin in the woods. Whipping ice cold winds scratching at her through her many layers. She thinks again of that damning question Joey once asked her, remembering, like she remembers all things, the day in perfect detail.

**Joey:** Hey, do you remember our old friend Lily Veselka?

**Jessie:** Who?

**Joey:** Lily! We went to school together. The three of us were best friends.

One of his new obsessions, something for him to insist until it became true. As though his mind were incapable of imaging a world where the two of them had different experiences.

**Jessie:** Joey, we were in different grades, I doubt we shared a friend group in school.

**Joey:** No, no I swear you two were really close! You really don’t remember her?

**Jessie:** Nope.

Even this ghost that hunts her now must be shared.

Once she's calmed down and reorganized her thoughts, she sits and projects out of her body again. This time she's ready for whatever's out there. She settles her spirit down in the forest and looks around. There's a thrill to this moment, of finally confronting this ghost, of putting down one of her brother's obsessions.

"Hello?" She calls, only for her voice to echo around the inside of her mind and slam back into her. The distant sound of TV static gets louder with every steps she takes, no matter the direction it's in.

In the place where her cabin should be is her old apartment bedroom. It's as though the room has been cut out of the complex it once was a part of and dropped haphazardly onto the marshy ground. Throwing all her momentum into it, she shoulders open the front door and nearly falls headfirst into a her-shaped hole in the floor.

//<Jessie is seventeen and she is moving all of her stuff into the apartment she now shares with her brother. --Joey is busy, and she has no friends to call for help.-- Lily appears in her doorway with a housewarming gift.>//

**Jessie:** Woah! Lily, you made it! I thought I'd never see you again!

**Lily:** Surprise!

//<Lily sets down her gift on the still-being-set-up desk: a box set of the X-Files on DVD. --It's more thoughtful than any gift Joey has ever gotten her. Every little green man and plastic flying saucer are a reminder of how little he pays attention.-- Never mind him, it's Lily who deserves her attention. Jessie gives her a hug.>//

**Jessie:** I'd offer you a place to sit, but I don't know which box my chair got put in.

**Lily:** I can stand, it's just good to see you again! How have you been?

**Jessie:** Fine. I'm on some medications now which have helped me sleep better.

//<While she talks, Jessie unpacks her boxes. The first thing she gets out is her trusted cork board, which gets first pick of the wall space.>//

**Jessie:** People thought I sounded a little nutty as a kid, but you couldn't imagine how Joey sounds calling all medicine placebos. God forbid his precious little sister have diagnosable mental illness!

//<Lily reaches out and takes Jessie's hand. Jessie stops in her tracks. Lily's thumb brushes against the beads of her bracelets. Outside of her room, Joey laughs with a group of friends.>//

**Lily:** I thought you said you didn't have any friends to help you?

**Jessie:** I don't have friends. I have Joey's friends.

//<--The sound of a party Jessie is a plus one to rages on outside.-- The apartment goes dead silent. It's just the two of them.>//

**Lily:** Now we have the place to ourselves. I'm sorry he treats you that way.

//<Jessie shifts, unsure whether or not to tear herself out of Lily's grasp.>//

**Jessie:** I shouldn't complain. He's good to me.

**Lily:** That doesn't mean you don't have anything to complain about! You can trust me to be there for you when you're having a hard time.

//<It's a beautiful feeling, having someone to hand her frustrations over to. --But the novelty of this feeling is what gives the illusion away. There is no childhood best friend. There is no friend that she didn't share with Joey.-- What is she thinking? Her best friend is right here.>//

**Jessie:** I really appreciate this gift! I wish I had something to give in return.

**Lily:** It's a housewarming gift, it doesn't need to be returned!

**Jessie:** Still...

//<Jessie interlocks Lily's fingers with her own. She selects the largest of her kandi bracelets and drags it off her arm, over her hand, and onto Lily's wrist. Lily looks at it in awe.>//

**Lily:** Oh, I just can't accept this! You spent so much time on it!

//<Jessie looks at her arms. --Somewhere between living here and her choice to leave, she lost all of her old bracelets and supplies. It would do her no good to cling to a memory of them--.>//

**Jessie:** I've... never actually gotten to give someone a bracelet like that before.

**Lily:** It's so beautiful! Does it do anything special?

**Jessie:** Uh, no, it's just beads. I'm not really an anartist.

**Lily:** You made anomalous fireworks.

**Jessie:** If this is supposed to be a memory, that's an anachronism. Besides, those almost killed me.

**Lily:** Still. The bracelet is really nice. I can't show my appreciation enough.

//<Lily approaches Jessie, backing her up into the wall. --Jessie gets that familiar prey animal feeling.-- Come on, just relax. Jessie puts her hand up to cover Lily's lips before they touch her.>//

**Lily:** Why do you fight me?

**Jessie:** Look, it's not that I don't appreciate the wish fulfillment. But, even if you were real, I'd still have to share you with someone else.

Jessie strains to push Lily out. Her bedroom spirals around her, years of reorganizing furniture, trying to make this space she shares with her brother feel like her own. A real memory pops up, featuring a real friend Jessie once had, even if he too was commons.

**Jessie:** I’ve gone through all the school records for every school both me and Joey attended at the same time. There was not one person named Lily Veselka at any of them!

**Tangerine:** Why does this bother you so much?

How does one explain to a man with a clear conflict of interest //why this bothers her so much//? Jessie paces, making a nuisance of herself to her downstairs neighbors, to get the frustrated energy out.

**Jessie:** It's driving me crazy! He keeps trying to get me to remember her. I’m used to him assuming or conflating things about me, but now he’s just made up a childhood friend I supposedly had! It's like me not remembering this chick is a personal slight against him.

Every deviation will be personal to a man invested in a false ideal, but who wants to unpack that?

**Tangerine:** //<Painfully neutral>// Maybe you did know her. Maybe you just forgot.

**Jessie:** I don't just forget things! Not like this! I wish Joey could just believe that I had one experience that he didn't have!

**Tangerine:** Are you sure you're not just letting your frustration block out important memories? Lily Veselka was a really nice person and a really good friend of mine back in school. Maybe she's just slipped your mind after so much time apart.

Even just the memory of this memory is enough to make Jessie freeze. As though the cold realization that dawns upon her is fresh every time.

**Jessie:** How did //you// go to school with Veselka if she’s supposedly my childhood best friend?

There is a dreamworld that exists in the mind of every lonely teenager that managed to become a lonely adult. The dream that their few current friends were always there in the years that they needed friends the most. This is not a dream Jessie feels like indulging.

**Tangerine:** She moved around a lot. Yeah, that’s right, she must’ve changed schools and that’s why you can’t find her in the records.

Jessie storms out of the dream of her bedroom, finding the rest of her apartment waiting for her. It's full of holes she used to fill. Careful to avoid falling in, she storms up to her brother's bedroom door and kicks it open.

"I've had enough of you, Veselka!"

Joey lays haphazardly splayed across his bed, his head in Lily's lap. A hole in the ceiling lets rainwater drip onto his face. Every time a droplet hits, he trembles and Lily wipes it away. Lily looks like a sickly young girl, her skin tight over her bones, cheeks sunken, even her pale blue dress is reminiscent of a hospital gown. But as she turns to face Jessie, head cocked to one side, she brandishes a smile no human should ever wear.

"Oh, Jessie, oh Jessie, is that any way to talk to your best friend?" Lily says, grazing her claws against Joey's forehead. "This is so unbecoming of you.”

"I don't know where you came from, but you're not my friend!" She points a single finger outwards, as if to manifest a banishing spell. "You need to get out of here!"
"What would your fellow shut-ins in Oneiroi West think of you shouting like this?" Lily says with a pout. "All I ever wanted was to be friends, but you just have to keep shutting little ole me out." Lily puts her hands against her cheeks in a mock imitation of cuteness, a flutter of the eyelashes for emphasis. She's wearing the bracelet Jessie gave her.
"I'm serious!" Jessie turns red. "I don't want what you're selling."

Lily's smile grows angry. "You won't be able to escape me forever," Lily squeezes Joey like a doll. "I might not be able to get into your pretty little head, but I got into his just fine. Almost got him to blow you up with your own fireworks!"

Jessie swallows a lump in her throat. "That was... you?" She struggles to look through the eyes of her body back at home. The oldest and most preserved newspaper she has is from the last day she had with family, the day her art project exploded on her and she knew she would never be safe around people ever again. "No, that couldn't have been you. You're just a mind parasite."

"Don't believe me?" She leans forward and out of her body, torso elongating outwards, body spindly yet distinctly spider-like. She nods her head towards a hole on the bedside table, shaped like a tiny plastic flying saucer. "Take a look."

//<Jessie is twenty-four. Outside, her friends and family are setting up an art show. [[[https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/detained |She's setting something up too]]]; a firework show, each firework of her own design. It's experimental and it will be beautiful. --No one else looks for her.-- Lily silently sneaks in.>//

**Lily:** //<Playful>// Boo!

//<Jessie startles.>//

**Jessie:** Hey! Nobody's supposed to see this yet!

**Lily:** Oops! Oh well, guess you don't have any reason to throw me out now that I know the secret!

//<Lily grazes her fingers over the fireworks. Jessie turns red and returns to her work.>//

**Lily:** What's this all for?

**Jessie:** Joey. A little surprise for him. He... doesn't like to think of it this way, but he did raise me. Thought I should give him a show of appreciation.

//<Lily comes up behind her and drags her fingers through Jessie's hair. Jessie shivers.>//

**Lily:** I think more people should be showing you some appreciation.

**Jessie:** For what? Staying in my room all hours of the day until I'm forced to socialize?

**Lily:** Yes.

//<Jessie stops moving.>//

**Jessie:** I don't know why you try so hard to flatter me. Weren't we just sharing hateful words?

**Lily:** What's wrong with living in a little fantasy? Why don't you just let me convince you that I could be a friend?

//<Jessie walks up to the door and pokes her head. Joey is surrounded by friends. He can exist without her presence hovering over her. She slowly closes the door.>//

**Jessie:** Because it's not real. My whole life I've been criticized for being so attached to things that are //not real//. I don't need to start indulging that again. No matter how tempting it is.

//<Jessie tries to focus and push Lily out of her mind like she did with her other memories. Something shifts, but Lily herself doesn't disappear. Lily smiles, more teeth than lip.>//

**Jessie:** Why are you still here?

**Lily:** Silly Jessie! You can't push me out of a memory that I was actually there for!

//<Lily shimmers and takes on the appearance of Joey. She's gotten in his head and convinced him that setting off these fireworks is the only thing he needs to do right now.>//

**Lily|Joey:** End of the line. Except you can't even die when I want you to!

//<Lily pulls out a lighter and holds it up to the box of fireworks. Jessie pulls on her hair.>//

**Jessie:** Twenty years of //knowing// death could sneak up on me at any moment, and I don't catch the one time that it did.

**Lily|Joey:** I could make him remember. I could make him remember death, and then while I’m at it I could make all of his friends forget about him too. And when he’s all alone and broken with no friends I’ll make sure he remembers how to escape it all. And then once he’s here I’ll tear his pathetic consciousness apart!

//<How frustrating it is, for the one moment she's given a dilemma and her brother is all Lily has to hold over her head.>//

**Jessie:** And what the hell do you want from me, then!

**Lily|Joey:** I just want to be friends.

**Jessie:** And yet you try to kill me. It's like you're obsessed with me, but it's not even //me// who gets to be obsessed over.

**Lily|Joey:** According to you, everyone is lying to you and out to get you. At least I'm honest with my intentions.

//<Lily winks. Jessie cringes.>//

**Jessie:** No, you're worse than that. You pretend to be honest with your intentions when you're not, just like everyone else in my life!

**Lily|Joey:** Quit fighting me. I can rewrite your history, it will be you and me forever.

**Jessie:** Even that's not true. You're telling me this with my brother's mouth. It's always just been me and him forever.

//<Lily shrugs off Joey's face and sparks the lighter. She's still wearing the kandi bracelet.>//

**Lily:** It's not that hard. Let me into your mind completely or I kill your brother and then you.

//<Jessie crosses her arms.>//

**Jessie:** Okay, do it then.

//<Lily's lighter goes out.>//

**Lily:** Huh?

//<Jessie marches forward.>//

**Jessie:** Go on. Kill him. And then kill me too. Kill the whole world. Do whatever you want. Go ahead.

**Lily:** Uh. Okay! I will! I don't need you!

//<--Lily in Joey's mind lights the fuse. By the time the fireworks go off, Joey won't even remember what he did.-- Lily struggles to get the lighter to stay lit.>//

**Jessie:** I don't think you can do shit. I ran away to keep the assassins or the aliens or the shitty little demons away from my family, but you're not even worth it.

//<Jessie grabs Lily by the hair.>//

"Let go of me, you brat!" Lily squeals, clawing at Jessie's hand. Her mouth opens sideways and centipede like mandibles take a snap at Jessie's arm.

This is her moment. Finally, a moment for herself.

"You want it to be me and you forever, huh?" She wrangles Lily off the bed, more cat fight than wrestling move. "Then we're going down together!" Jessie throws herself into one of the many holes in the ground, dragging Lily down with her own weight.

//<She expected that to be the end of the dream. Either her spirit would find its way back to her body or it would get lost like most of the spirits that attempt to join the Oneiroi. Except she's not really lost. She exists on a long, flat, empty plane. The only other inhabitant is Lily, sitting on a bench at a bus stop. Jessie marches over and sits next to her.>//

**Jessie:** What are we waiting for? What is this?

//<Lily shifts uncomfortably.>//

**Lily:** Nothing. I'm not strong enough to do anything else.

**Jessie:** Oh. Really?

//<Lily rolls her shoulders, something of a shrug mixed with a stretch.>//

**Lily:** This is all that's left of the world I used to live in. And this-

//<She gestures to herself. She is hazy and blurry, like the memory of a childhood friend.>//

**Lily:** -is all that's left of me.

//<She hisses out a sneering laugh.>//

**Lily:** Just my luck that I waste the last of myself on a mind that rejects me completely. Couldn't even finish the job and see you dead.

//<Jessie looks around, but there's nothing to look around at, not even a gust of wind to blow through their hair.>//

**Jessie:** I'm assuming this is not what your world always looked like?

**Lily:** Was that a question?

**Jessie:** Uh, what did your world look like?

**Lily:** I don't know, normal? I only really know what it looked like in other people's memories.

**Jessie:** You're really bad at answering a basic question.

**Lily:** As if you're any better! I've sorted through your mind and you haven't held a successful conversation once!

**Jessie:** Oh, this is such bullshit! You claim to want to be childhood friends but you know way more about me than I do you.

//<Lily glares through her.>//

**Lily:** You want to know about me? Fine! I went to a normal school with normal people and then someone died and they put my in a cell for the rest of my life.

//<Lily clenches her fists.>//

**Lily:** And then I destroyed my cell and killed everyone who kept me there. And then I killed everyone else. And that was it. End show, exit universe right.

//<Jessie hears the sound of rain hitting her roof, her body still awaits her.>//

**Jessie:** Wow. You're really pathetic.

//<Lily huffs.>//

**Jessie:** I mean, you put up a cool fight, really frightened me up until the end there. And I was really banking on the idea that you didn't actually have anything to hold over me. But I thought I'd at least warrant a cooler demon to hunt me. You look like you're about to become nothing.

**Lily:** I could still make my final act killing your brother!

**Jessie:** I don't think that's true.

//<Jessie straightens up.>//

**Jessie:** I... gather you didn't have too many friends in containment.

**Lily:** I was too important.

**Jessie:** ... sure.

**Lily:** I'm spilling my guts to you and you can't even be nice to me?

**Jessie:** //Nice?//

//<Jessie throws her hands up into the empty air.>//

**Jessie:** Nice!? I'm being nice! We are sitting on the last remaining piece of a dead world after you threatened my brother! I'm being so fucking nice right now! I'm the nicest person you've ever met!

//<The two childhood-friend-less childhood friends turn away from each other.>//

**Jessie:** ... Tell me I'm not the nicest person you've ever met.

**Lily:** Your brother is nicer.

**Jessie:** Oh, whatever, fuck you.

**Lily:** That's probably why he has real friends and people who like him.

**Jessie:** It pisses me off that in all the memories you tried to fuck with it's always //Joey// that you're replacing. Do you know how weird that makes this?

**Lily:** I can only really exist in what you remember. Not my fault he's the only other person who loves you.

//<A pause.>//

**Lily:** I mean he's the only person who loves you.

**Jessie:** What did you say the first time?

**Lily:** I said he's the only person who loves you.

**Jessie:** Oh.

//<After a minute, Jessie's face scrunches up, she stands and points a finger at Lily's chest.>//

**Jessie:** You need to exist in people's memories to exist at all. But, what if you could exist in dreams instead?

**Lily:** Those count as memories.

//<They stare at each other.>//

**Lily:** Was there a point?

**Jessie:** I could take you to Oneiroi West!

**Lily:** You need to dream in order to enter Oneiroi West.

**Jessie:** I dream. You could inhabit my mind and come with me. On one condition.

//<A pause.>//

**Lily:** Stop pausing. What's your condition?

**Jessie:** I'm giving you space to-

//<Jessie closes her hand into a fist.>//

**Jessie:** Stay out of my brother's mind! Or anyone else's. You will stay in my mind and my mind only.

//<Lily give her an incredulous look.>//

**Lily:** Really? You'd rather die on this hill then just let me die completely?

**Jessie:** What can I say?

//<Jessie looks at the kandi bracelet on Lily's wrist.>//

**Jessie:** Having a childhood best friend wasn't all that bad.

On another plane, a thousand miles away, Joey sits up in bed and looks around the tiny ramshackle apartment he and his friends pooled their money on. It’s raining outside and there’s a tiny hole in the ceiling right above his pillow. He really ought to get that patched one of these days.

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it was all just the dream of an angel

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