Wired

[un1uckyst4r]

To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

~Hamlet, III.i.71-76

---

Alison burst out the door at exactly 8:26 that morning in a flurry of untied shoelaces, disheveled hair, and papers that hadn't been properly secured in binders streaming out from behind her like oversized confetti. It was a wonder that she hadn't bust the door right off its hinges, the way she slammed it behind her. It was a wonder that she hadn't tripped all over her shoelaces yet. Heck, it was a wonder that she had gotten those shoes on the right feet to begin with, let alone put her shirt on frontwards and got a brush through her hair without inadvertently leaving it in there. It would also be a wonder when, upon bursting through the door of her Renaissance Iconography class exactly ten minutes late, she would find all of the notes she needed for the day's lecture safe in her binder despite the fact that she had left about half the semester strewn haphazardly around campus. She knew, because it had always been this way.
She made for the crosswalk at full-tilt, knowing that the light would go green in three seconds. It did. She also knew that there was a fire hydrant coming up on the other side of the street, and she gave it roughly five seconds before it inexplicably blew its top and soaked everything in a neat twenty-foot radius, including herself. And it did.
Wet tennis shoes squeaked their way into the Fine Arts building. Alison made for the elevator, pressed the up button, and barely concealed a grimace when the elevator cable snapped and sent the car plummeting several stories to a rather loud and messy end in the basement. She knew that was going to happen, of course, and sprinted for the stairs instead, taking them two at a time despite wet shoes and precarious shoelaces. By this time the building was in absolute bedlam - lights flickered erratically, the fire alarm couldn't decide whether it was going to stay on or off, the sprinkler system decided it was going to stay on (not that she didn't already look like a drowned rat), and to top it all off, the metallic creaking behind her informed her that the suit of armor in Professor Anderson's office had sprung to life and was now chasing her down the corridor. Which was okay. She knew it wasn't going to catch her. She also knew it was going to get really damn close.
She barely had time to duck under the swinging axe blade behind her as lecture hall 404 came into view. This was where things had a tendency to go haywire; yesterday morning she tripped over a bench and was almost decapitated by the angry suit of armor at her heels. The day before that, she had slipped - slipped, of all the stupid things - and near as hell put herself through the door. Today, nothing of the sort happened - although, she noted, the suit of armor must be running faster if it was able to swing at her head, that or she was running slower - and so with no further ado she reached out and took hold of the classroom door...

---

"...and that's it," Alison finished lamely.
Her therapist - a sharp-featured woman in an angular dark bob, whom Alison only just took seriously as a therapist because the framed certificates on the wall suggested that she do so - arched an overplucked eyebrow. "That's it?" she repeated.
"What, were you waiting for me to click my heels three times and go home?"
"Of course not." Dr. Halsing skimmed her file quickly. "I'm not sure how much more I can say about this, Alison. You've had the same dream for a month, and we're no closer to either figuring out what it means or finding out why it's affecting you so adversely." Her tone became softer, missing patronizing by just a hair. "Are you sure there isn't any undue anxiety in your life? Maybe writing your capstone, exams, a job opportunity, family stresses? A new relationship?"
Alison resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Dr. Halsing, if any of that was bothering me, I'd have told you a month ago. Besides, I haven't been in school for over a year. My life's as normal as can be, Doc. Maybe even boring."
Dr. Halsing nodded and closed Alison's file. "If you say so." She smiled up at her with a distant, disinterested sincerity as she pulled her long frame off of the chaise. "I think we could be close to a breakthrough, Alison. You'll be in next week, same time?"
"Sure."

---

Alison stifled a yawn as she exited the health centre. A whole month's worth of one dream that made no sense at all, and the woman didn't think she was losing her mind. She hated it, hated the feeling of having slept but not slept for thirty straight days, hated that despite having closed her eyes for eight hours she still guzzled down coffee like an SUV did gas. It was that feeling she hated most, the feeling of dragging herself around like the living dead. Coffee, but tired. Wired, but not wired. Maybe the diner by the French Quarter was still serving breakfast. She stood at the corner and raised her hand to hail a taxi.
The fire hydrant beside her promptly blew its top and soaked everything in a neat twenty-foot radius. Including herself.
If she wasn't so terrified, she would have found the situation quite funny.

[Caelitus]

Sitting in a coffee shop, he sat there reading on his laptop. The coffee here was crap but they had free wifi. Even for all the hints and whispers he's heard New Orleans still didn't seem to have the answers he was seeking. He stared lazily out the window. He felt it before anything else, like electricity firing over his skin. He closed his laptop and stared more intently. A woman outside, across the street, was wrapped in a web. No one else seemed to notice, then he knew this was that same web of magic. He had never seen anything like it. Wrapped so tightly around her it seemed like a second skin. He put his laptop into his bag just as she raised her arm. He watched it happen, the most unlikely thing in the world. A strand of the web, struck out and hit the fire hydrant nearby. Nothing happened. She raised her hand in the air, the fire hydrant burst and sprayed water everywhere. Everyone noticed that.

'Did she do that?' He thought to himself as he left the small coffee shop. The look of terror on her face made him think she didn't know she did it. It was unmistakeable, she definitely seemed to be at the centre of this random event however. Maybe this was the way to get the answers he sought. He thought out a spell he stumbled across in a library, meticulously thinking out each part of it. The web which clung to her changed colour, no one even turned a glance towards this soaked woman as she lit up like a Christmas Tree in his vision.

'I knew it was a good idea to learn that tracking spell, and now at least i know i'm not crazy for believing all this magic stuff.' He stood there waiting for her to make a move, he wanted to get her off the street alone. He wanted answers, and she seemed to be wrapped in them.

[un1uckyst4r]

There wasn't much left for Alison to do except to get out of the way of the freezing water and, more importantly, the overly curious bystanders, soaked and otherwise. She slid through the crowd as innocuously as she could manage while at a mental panic pitch, hands raised, absolutely unwilling to touch anyone even by accident. A boy on a longboard shoved past her and she nearly screamed. After all, if fire hydrants could explode around her, why not people's heads?
She cleared the chaos without incident and promptly set off down Tulane Avenue, wringing her shirttails in her hands and frantically trying to think of some sort of plan. Her first idea was to call Dr. Halsing and bump up her next appointment to five minutes from now, but the moment she pulled her phone out of her pocket, it literally gave a death rattle and shorted out in a puff of smoke - she didn't know if it was because of you-know-what (the euphemism was necessary; if she didn't really think about it, maybe it didn't really happen) or the fact that it had just been through the equivalent of being tossed into a swimming pool, and she didn't care to find out. Maybe she could grab a taxi - no, anything with wheels and an engine was out of the question, as was any and all complex machinery. Maybe she should still go for that coffee. Did coffeemakers count as complex machinery?
A sickening metallic crunch caught her attention, and she spun around. She was at the corner of Tulane and South Rampart and staring at a seven-car pile-up. Seven cars at 9AM on a Sunday when the French Quarter didn't wake from its self-inflicted hangover until 4 in the afternoon. No one was hurt - at least, not that she could see - but the seemingly normal sight of drivers cussing at each other over the dents in their bumpers made her blood run cold.
If I hadn't come down this way, this wouldn't have happened.
She backed up a few steps and made for the nearest empty alleyway she could find, sinking into a ball with her back against the grimy brick wall, tucking her knees under her chin. There, as far away as she could get from the rest of society for the time being, still soaked to the bone and shivering with cold sweat, she prayed to any and all higher powers in her vicinity that maybe, just maybe, she could stop blowing things up long enough to go home.

[Caelitus]

He followed along behind, the colours of the magic swirled around her. The more she seemed in a panic the more the magic seemed to swirl.

'Could she be controlling it with her emotions?'

Just as that thought crossed his mind, a storm of the magic exploded outwards into the street. Trying to cross the street so he could follow her better, seven cars all seemed to skid out of control at the same time. Jumping out of the way and onto the sidewalk he was able to avoid the cars just as they collided with each other.

'Maybe its not such a good idea to want to talk to this woman after all.' He stopped and stared at the accident along with several other pedestrians. He turned to continue following her and she was gone.

"Damn!" He exclaimed out loud.

"You're telling me kid," a cop who was standing nearby said.

He looked around him, as if he dropped some change to the ground, trying desperately to pick up the trail.

'Looks like I lost her.' He thought as he travelled down the sidewalk away from the accident. He ducked into an alley, to start heading home. Not paying attention he tripped over her and fell into a pile of garbage as he went around the corner.

[un1uckyst4r]

"Son of a---" Alison yelped, just barely managing to bite her tongue as a foot hit her squarely in the thigh and a body tumbled over her to an ungraceful landing in a heap of trash bags. "Watch where you're stepping, buddy," she began angrily, getting to her feet and gingerly rubbing the sore spot on her leg. There'd be a bruise there by tonight.
The man who'd gone flying over her leg slowly extricated long limbs from the trash heap with a groggy groan. She remembered that she'd been sitting in that alley for the purpose of staying away from people, and she skittered as far away as she could from the man, who was now raking a hand through disheveled blond hair and looking over at what he must have thought was a complete and total nutjob having a fit.
"I'm awfully sorry," she said - for all she knew, it was her fault he'd gone falling all over her anyhow. "I'd give you a hand up," she added, "but... uh..." I might take off your hand? I just caused a car accident by sheer force of existence? I'm a walking manifestation of Murphy's Law and you might want to get out of here, like, right now?
He stared almost bemusedly at her with remarkably clear eyes.
"...I don't think that'd be such a good idea," she finished lamely.

[Caelitus]

Getting up from the pile of garbage, he looked at the woman he had been following. The web of magic around her had changed colour again.

'Looks like my tracking spell wore off,' he pondered to himself.

He mumbled something in German under his breath.

"Where are my manners, hi my name is Alex." He reached out a hand to her. "It's ok I don't bite. Don't worry about the tumble, I'm fine, but i do hope i didn't hurt you."

She looked visibly worried as if just touching him would cause his hair to catch on fire or something.

"Are you ok?"

[un1uckyst4r]

"I'm..." Alison took his hand tentatively, with a so sorry I didn't mean to take off your arm/melt your face/blow up the buildings we're standing between at the ready just in case. They were unnecessary; for the first time in a good hour, nothing happened. Her whole body breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm so glad you didn't just explode," she gushed.
Alex blinked quizzically at her.
Crap. The relief vanished; she dropped his hand, vaguely aware of a sense of having let go of something that felt familiar, something that was somehow like her and yet not like her all at once. She dismissed it - it was way too early to be dealing with this much weirdness. "I'm glad you're okay, I mean," she recovered with as much smoothness as she could muster. "And I'm sorry for... um. Sitting in your way."
She backed away slowly, heading towards the street. She wasn't about to push her luck because of a marked lack of strange happenings, she wanted nothing more than to get home and hide in her bed for an hour or ten, and not to mention that this entire run-in was just oozing with awkward. She raised her hand in a faint wave. "It was nice meeting you, Alex. Maybe we'll run into each other again," she added, grinning weakly at the joke. Then she stepped out into the sunlight, heading back down Tulane, ignoring the wailing sirens from the emergency crews a short distance away. It was going to be an awfully long walk home.

[Caelitus]

She left without giving him even a moment to talk to her.

'Damn it, I'm just going to have to follow her.' He thought.

He followed after her, "Wait!" He tried shouting over the sounds of sirens and shouting emergency workers. He caught up with her and grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back down another alley. He held her so her stunned face was facing his.

"Look, I know what's been happening to you. It started with dreams, dreams of thing happening that literally can't happen. Then it started happening in real life, and you get the strange feeling you have been causing it. Maybe a little different but still generally close to what you've been going through am I right?"

He looked at her trying to gauge her reaction. 'I hope I'm not making a complete fool of myself here,' He thought.

His shyness kicked in, "Oh My God, I'm so sorry." He let go of her and took a few steps back, not able to bring himself to make eye contact.

"Im so sorry, I didn't mean to offend you or anything. I just want to help if I can."

[un1uckyst4r]

"Okay, wait," Alison cut in, taking a reassuring step forward. Maybe this was all chock-full of awkward, but she thought it would be best to keep this guy talking as he was the only thing resembling any sort of sanity today. "Just... wait a minute." She paused, taking in his downcast mien. "And take a breath; you look like you're about to pass out from guilt."
She slid down to a squat against the wall, pulling a hand through her stringy, still-damp hair, and shivered in spite of herself. There had been a strange sort of prickling sensation on her skin where he'd held her to pull her back into an alley, and it reinforced that strange notion of familiarity - something that was starting to make an absolutely absurd sort of sense when she took what he'd just said into consideration. "Can I make sure I'm understanding you right?" she asked. "You're saying that not only did you see me a) blow up a fire hydrant and b) cause some fool pile-up on a practically empty street corner, but c) you know it was me and d) you know why this is happening. Is that what you're saying?"
Alex nodded.
"Well, shit." Alison sighed resignedly and got to her feet, pacing back and forth slowly. "Okay, look. Assuming I don't make anything else explode on the way there - or when I get there - could we go to my place and talk?" She stopped in her tracks, realizing how forward she must have sounded to a guy who might keel over if she looked at him the wrong way. "I'm cold," she added in explanation. "I'm starving, I'm despairingly under-caffeinated, and I need a dry set of clothes like you wouldn't believe. But you're making an absolutely stupid amount of sense right now - and honestly, you're the only thing that's made sense all day."

[Caelitus]

"I think i can help with the not making anything explode at least for the time being."

He saw the rolling swirls of magic around her, somewhere in that chaos was order. He had read about it once. He reached into his bag and pulled out a notebook, and flipped through it until he came to what he was looking for. He read through it to make sure this was it. Taking a look out of the alley he wanted to make sure no one saw this.

He closed his eyes, he could feel the magic flowing and ebbing through the woman's body swirling around her. He opened his eyes and read out loud the spell he had written there. His hand began glowing a bright blue. It tingled around his skin, he reached out and touched the woman's forehead with two fingers, immediately the magic swirling around her came into balance. The raging aura calmed down and settled around her.

"That should help, it won't last long though, so lead the way."

'Going to her house seems logical at least then I'll be able to find out more about this magic thing.'