Shawn watched the stream of garbage flow around the stage on either side, an island in a river of sludge.

"Can I... Just take a peak at something in here?" Feddler asked.

Shawn knew what that meant in a way one can only understand in the logic of a dream. Feddler wanted to just poke around in Shawn's brain for a bit. He wanted to make himself more at home in the way that a new tenant would want to make a room more his. This would involve taking a look in the different spaces of the room or house.

Or in Shawn's case, the brain. Or more specifically, Shawn's brain. Or Shawn's mind. Or however Shawn thought of it during his waking hours.

Shawn felt weirdly vulnerable in this moment, like Feddler was going to get a sense of the ‘real’ him, something he didn’t even really comprehend. But he was worried about what might happen if Feddler got desperate or angry. “You can look around, but don’t mess with anything unless I say it’s okay, all right?”

Shawn felt a crinkling of paper somewhere in the back of his head. It felt like someone was combing his brain waves, the way a mother would comb a child's hair: with a tender touch and with much attention to any knots that were encountered.

Then he felt a sudden jolt of pain.

"What's this?" Feddler asked.

Before Shawn's eyes, soemthing appeared on the stage.  It was as if his mind was a movie projector, bright lights illuminating the stage in front of him. A hologram like figure began to speak. It reminded Shawn of the movie Star Wars, with the he projection coming from R2-D2's computer, only this time, from Shawn's eyes.

It was some kind of memory. The figure came into focus...


She coughed, then swallowed awkwardly. Her lip began to tremble and she covered her
face with her hands. "Shawn I...don't think I can...be here..." she cried softly, the echo of her voice bouncing around the hollowed tunnel. Her shoulders shook silently.

Shawn was used to seeing kid actors and the occasional adult ones cry during scenes. Sometimes a kid cried because, well, they were kids and there was a lot of pressure to act.

But this was the first time he could remember in a long while seeing a kid his age cry outside of a movie set. It was an odd feeling. She lifted her head, wiped her runny
nose, stared up at Shawn with wet eyes and despair, the flashlight showing half her face.

A second figure came into focus, and Shawn could feel the projector of his right eye twitch. It was an image of himself. An image of Shawn...

Shawn sat down heavily beside her, trying to hold in his own tears like he'd failed to before. "It'll be okay...right? We can get out of here, away from all this where it's safe. Both of us..." Once again, without an immediate objective or threat, the reality of the situation was setting in and his eyes were welling up as he thought of Mom and Dad and even Mr. Sellick, and how he might never see any of them ever again.

Shawn looked on, seeing himself in his memories. It was strange; he dreamed about that night constantly, and the emotions felt raw and inescapable. But here, looking over himself and Jody projected into the room, it was more distant. It was like he was watching a performance. “What are you looking for, Feddler?”

Shawn the sifting of different memories in his head, but his mental image of Feddler faded as he he watched the memory play out before him on stage. Feddler's voice became more of a background to ongoing scene.

"I am a representative of my Dark Lord. I am trying to find a way out of this mind,  your mind, that I am trapped in."

Shawn felt that Feddler had stopped for a second. Stopped sifting through those memories and cluttered feelings. Through the dreams and raw emotions.

"I do not think I can get out of here." He said in a resigned tone.

"I am going to open another of these boxes to see what is inside..."

Shawn felt the sifting continue.

Jody started to ease her own self down, all the while face frantic with growing fear. It was a long way to the edge into darkness, of that there could be no doubt. A long,
and a lonely pit below Shawn's dangling feet. The sight of the bones in the cave had worried both kids everyone. The passing shadow had made matters worse.

Now, dangling on the edge of the cliff, Shawn saw what turned the corner.



It was a hideous looking clown. Small and thin framed and shirtless. Its fingers were too long, its head too skinny. The lantern creaked as it made its way out of the tunnel and started towards the cliff where Shawn and Jody were hiding. Shawn could see fangs peaking out from its lips, its long tongue rolling over them like it was hungry.

"It's a clown. It's a clown!" Jody said, voice still a whisper, but sounding alarmed.

"Shawn. Listen to me. Trust me OK? Like I trusted you. If it comes over here, we can't let it get us." Jody said, voice harsh but summoning some sense of command. Bravery.

Shawn had felt it well up inside of her since he convinced her to leave the rock, probably saving her from the Clown who surely would have found her.

"We have to..." she started, taking a look down into the depths of the pooling, inky blackness below them, which seemed to go on forever.

"We have to let go. We have to trust that there's nothing below us." she said, not sounding that convinced that it was a good plan.

"If it comes towards us, we'll just let go." She said, this time sounding more convinced.

"Just let go." She said, voice warming to the idea.

"Before it gets us."

And that's what it was doing. Edging closer and closer to the Cliff's edge. Shawn could see, feel the shadow looming over him. Any moment, the Clown would be upon them, close enough to touch. Or for it to reach out and grab them.

"What happened?" Feddler asked, the scene before Shawn fading as the inner question came to the fore-front of Shawn's mind, Feddler suddenly becoming identifiable in form and thought.

Shawn's eyes blinked, the beams of light emanating form them like projector lenses.

"What was that? A Clown? How did it end?" Feddler asked.

"It was a clown, yeah. And we let go and got away. For a while, at least." Shawn tried to look around and see Feddler. The imp was in his brain, but this was a dream, so this whole place was in his head. Maybe they could talk face to face. "How would looking through my memories help you escape?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:43, Fri 09 Mar 2018.

Shawn looked around, the bright beams of projecting from his eyes cast light across the stage and onto the flowing river of garbage that surrounded it.

"No, that will not work." Feddler said, retreating away, deeper into Shawn's head and away from the forefront of his mind.

"We're in a dream together. But it still will not work as you want it to. You cannot see me, no more than I can escape. I thought maybe you might have information in here that you might be keeping from me, because you knew that my goal was to destroy you."

"So if you did have information that would allow me to escape, you would surely keep it from me to prevent me from getting out." Feddler explained.

Shawn stopped looking, letting Feddler come back to the 'front' of his mind whenever he felt comfortable. The last thing he wanted the imp to be was afraid right now. "I think we're on the same side, Feddler. If I knew an easy way to get you out of my head, I'd do it."

"We have a problem." Feddler said, seeming to accept Shawn's answer and move onto another topic.

Shawn felt a little relief that Feddler had accepted what he had to say and was willing to move on. "What sort of problem?" There was the obvious issue, of course, but sounded like yet another thing he had to worry about.

"I am looking at a big pile of Polaroid photographs here, inside your head. I see that you have lied to Ralph. And that you have lied to Bobby."

"I do not know who these people are. But you are a bad boy."

"You must not lie to me. Because if you do, I will do a bad thing to you. Even though I am stuck in your head, I feel like I can still do a bad thing to you."

"Do you want to feel the bad things that I can do?" Feddler asked Shawn, an undertone of malicious glee in his voice. A dark shadow that wanted to come out into the light, where it could be seen for the monster it was. This was the sense in Feddler's voice, even if it was clear he sounded less bent on Shawn's destruction than before.

"I lied to them to keep them safe. To protect them." Shawn felt defensive - he didn't want to be a bad person, even if he did bad things. He didn't like that Feddler would be able to see his excuses. "But you're in my head, so I won't lie to you. Even if I could. Is that okay?"

"No." Feddler replied, with all the simpleness of a jab to the face. "You lied because you are bad. But I am also bad. I am evil and that is why I have been created and forged and sent forth to torment those who live beyond the Krinner. I was going to destroy you and if I get out I might still have to destroy you to satisfy the whims of my Dark Lord, so that he may not inflict pain on me. But since there is no way for that to happen now, I will seek a truce with you." Feddler offered.

The offer of a truce managed to silence any objections Shawn might've made to being called 'bad'. He wasn't, bad, right? Anyone would do what he did in the situations he was in. "I'd like a truce with you, Feddler. We don't have to fight."

"Every truce has a duration because wars plant the seeds of future wars. The duration of our agreement will last as long as I remain trapped within you, at which time I will resume my duty-bound obligation to destroy you because you are bad."

"Also, I will require access to your memories so that I can become more comfortable in here. If you do not grant me access, then I am afraid that my presence will be uncomfortable. That could make this difficult because I am an evil imp. I will carry the resentment with me and then I will take it out on you at a later time, forcing me to break our agreement. I might not even know that I was carrying around the resentment. For this reason, I ask you allow me to explore this prison that I have been trapped in."

Shawn was caught off guard by Feddler's oddly formal explanation of why he needed to see his memories. Had the imp always been this articulate? "Umm, sure. How does exploring my memories make you more comfortable? Not that I'm not going to let you or anything!"

"This is a very tight space, that's why." Feddler answered, relaxing from the formal speech. Perhaps Feddler had always been this formal. Or perhaps it was a consequence of his placement inside Shawn's head. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was a dream and that Shawn's own mind was trying to 'work out' the current situation that he was in in the real world.

"I like to eat sweets." Feddler said suddenly.

Shawn wasn't sure if that comment about a tight space was an insult or not, but either way, it wasn't like he could do much about it. He tried to focus on their common ground instead. "I like sweets too. When I wake up, I could buy some candy, and then you could visit my memory of eating it?"

"Yessssss." Feddler said, happily. Shawn could almost see the Imp in his own mind, pumping its small, fists.

"Sweeets." Feddler repeated.

Then there was a moment of silence, Feddler waiting for Shawn. Or maybe it was Feddler fading into the background.

Shawn waited for Feddler to make a further reply, but the imp was quiet. He stood awkwardly on the dream stage, looking out over the river of garbage until the silence became too uncomfortable. “Umm...is there anything else I can do? To make this easier for you?” It was an injustice, having to cater to someone who’d invaded his most private space, but it was hardly a new sensation to him.

There was no answer. The sounds of garbage became fainter and fainter. A bright light cut through the middle of the stage as if the roof had been sliced and the sun was shining through. Shawn could see above him the blinding light of total, whiteness. And with it, a dawning sense that wakefullness was upon him.

Suddenly, the dream ended.

OOC: End Scene