Snippet #1947719

"HOLY SHIT."

When Izzie awoke that morning, it was to the sound of Agoraphobic Nosebleed's 'Trauma Queen' blasting into her ears...just a bit loudly. It was not the music that had awoken her--she'd just slept right through a good five hours of nonstop musical violence without so much as a twitch in her sleep and the typical cavernous snoring. Needless to say, waking up to it was a bit different from sleeping right through it. She shot bolt upright as though she'd been jolted with enough volts of electricity to zap Frankenstein to life.

"Jesus Christ," she muttered, tearing the headphones out of her ears and all but throwing her music player across the room. She had no recollection of falling asleep, but judging by the fact that her music had been left on and she was still completely dressed right down to the boots, she reckoned she'd wandered into her bedroom after last night spent out in the downtown area with the rest of the group, seen that irresistible, fluffy mattress simply beckoning to her, and let herself sink into it. And then, moments later, her mind and body, starved of sleep for much too long, could no longer take it. Her willpower was overridden by her own much-accursed humanity and need for sleep. And just as she'd expected, those dreams had not passed up the chance to seize upon her.

She could never really remember them very well after she woke up--vague flickers, images and sounds, that was all she could recall. And now all she could recall of that night's wanderings was...a playground. A very familiar, rusting, ancient playground, inhabited solely by a little brown girl in smudged, dirty 3/4 jeans and a stained white shirt revealing spindly arms devoid of the many marks they now bore. And she could recall tantalising laughter--that was all. Even if she wanted to try and call to mind what had really happened, she couldn't--and she didn't want to. It was best to leave that playground to her memories and leave that malicious laughter unknown and anonymous. And most of all, it would be best to simply let that little girl fade back into where she belonged: non-existence.

Alex was already in the dining room, 'all by his lonesome', as he would have put it, quietly and neatly partaking of a bowl of cereal when Izzie descended into the kitchen area. From, he noted with mild surprise, the bedroom wing. Well, even Izzie had to sleep sometimes, he supposed, rarely though he'd seen her do it in those few times in their youth when she would sleep over at his house to escape the chaos unravelling in her own home. And he knew for sure that Izzie had been sleeping those times, because she'd been snoring like a bear in the deepest throes of hibernation, and he'd gotten no sleep whatsoever. Well, it was only to be expected--he knew he'd sure as heck been right petered out after the night before; it'd been all he could do to sustain himself until he got to bed to let the blissful state of sleep overtake him. And, much to his joy, Izzie had not brought up the little...'thing' they'd discussed previously. Towards the end, Alex was relatively sure she was just too tired to--but Alex was also beginning to think that maybe she hadn't brought it up earlier in the evening because she'd actually been enjoying herself. Imagine that, he mused with a smile. Isabelle Vieira enjoying herself in the presence of other living things. Who'da thunk.

"Mornin'," he greeted Izzie as she entered the kitchen. She wordlessly trudged past him towards the cabinet as though it contained the antidote to all her pains and miseries, and then reached into it, searching thoroughly for some sort of direly unhealthy food item. Eventually, she re-emerged with a package of pop-tarts held in the vice-like grip of one hand--apparently that was all she'd be eating this entire stay--and walked over to sit at the table with Alex.

And then, for once, she was the first to speak. "Had more dreams last night," she grunted as she dove a hand into the package to begin an eating rampage that would undoubtedly run right through every last crumb contained in the box. Alex looked at her curiously, setting down the spoon into the bowl of cereal. "What happened?" he asked, trying not to come off as overtly curious lest he cause Izzie to shut herself up within herself again...and simultaneously trying not to act like he didn't care, because that would probably just offend her. Talking to Izzie was a rather complicated affair.

"Dunno." Izzie's fingers played around with the plastic wrapping of the poptarts, but didn't seem willing to tear it open quite yet. "All I remember was someone laughing, and...a playground. And me as a kid, in the playground." She sounded...unusually troubled over it. He'd heard her mention her dreams in passing--she'd often shrug and say that they were 'just a lot of bullshit', but now she seemed genuinely disconcerted by it. "And I remember this weird feeling...like something really, really bad was about to happen. Or already happened."

Playground... Something seemed to hit Alex as he thought of that. "....didn't we meet in a playground? When you were a kid?"

Izzie glanced up to look at him, and then she simply shook her head. "It was nothing. Just some stupid dream." And then, with an aire of finality. "No more. Forget it ever happened."