Watching Afar [Twisted-Wonderland]

One

You have never been one to remember your dreams. Sometimes, you'll awake with a gut-wrenching sense of urgency, only to find the feeling dissipating within moments--the realization that it was never important to begin with working to settle you back in bed. Other times, you swear a deep connection was made within the dream and are left with a bitter hole in your chest. Vivid, faceless or otherwise--it doesn't matter--but they are always, always fleeting.

This one somehow feels differnt already.

As your eyes roam over the quiet room before you, a jolt of familiarity has you sucking in a deep breath. You've seen this room before. Certainly not at the same angle, but still. You remember this.

And right on cue, a little gray cat paws its way inside, grumbling in a surprisingly human voice, ignorant to the invested way you're watching. It--or rather, he--trudges up to one of several decorated coffins around the room, which are floating in place without interference, and smirks determinedly.

You barely notice how shallow your breaths are, staring with everything you have as if trying to use your mind to capture the moment on video.

The electric blue fire pluming from his ears seems to flash. He sets a paw on the coffin. "MRAAAAHH!"

And just like that, the cover is blown open. More blue flames are scattered around on the debris, and although it takes you a moment to get a good look at them from your corner, you hear perfectly well a muffled cry from inside.

"F-fire!?"

Yuu whimpers.

"Hey, human!" Grim, the cat, demands. What started out as a smirk turns almost murderous, "Gimme your uniform, and be quick about it--or else you're gonna regret it!"

It's exactly as you recall--Grim's antics, Yuu's terrified and confused reactions, the floating coffins themselves, even! Damn. Your dreams really need to get more creative; at this point, Disney could probably come sue your brain if they wanted.

Yuu doesn't wait for very long to make a break for it. The shock on Grim's face is even funnier in 3D, and you find yourself stifling giggles as he finally gets over the surprise and gives chase.

It doesn't seem like he can hear you from the way he bolts out of sight without so much as a second thought. This must be one of those out-of-body third-person types of dreams. Frankly, you're quite enjoying the scene. And it's even better once you realize you can move around normally. Sure, getting teleported to places in dreamland is efficient, but you're not always sure where you'll end up. This gives you much more freedom.

That said... you should probably catch up with Yuu. This feels like an opportunity--seeing the game like this is so cool!--and you like to think yourself something of an opportunist. Besides, where else would you go?

You set off down the hall, following close behind the fire-breathing grey weasel. Grim is fast, but he's not trying to stay hidden and it shows. Even as he dissapears behind more corridors and bends you can hear his frantic scrambling just fine.

Finally, he corners Yuu, visibly shaken, against a wall. It seems a little dramatic to you considering how harmless Grim is in this state. Maybe if you didn't know any of that and were being chased by a creature threatening to char you with the fire it wielded--which is still pretty much impossible from Yuu's standpoint--you would be a little nervous, too. Grim launches into his annoyed grumbling about how inconvenient Yuu is, demanding they offer "the Great Grim" their uniform. Out of nowhere, the cat cries out as he's whacked by a certain bird-brained character: Dire Crowley.

In his self-proclaimed boundless magnamity, he proceeds to berate Yuu with Grim still squirming in his hand. "The new students this year are a rowdy bunch, to be sure. Why would you bring along such an unruly familiar? This is a clear violation of the school's rules."