He was looking around for the man named Cathedral, while trying to keep track of the weird creature formed of legs. It was slowly restoring a wicked form of order to the streets, piling up carcasses. Soon after Herman had hidden behind the wooden stairway, a second creature just like it had emerged from some hidden place and was now crawling its way up a building to retrieve a corpse that was spiked on a pointy ornament from one of the balconies. It climbed the walls like a spider, as if changing to a vertical surface was not the same as defying gravity.

When he looked into the opposite direction, still trying to find Cat, somebody came running around the corner and almost bumped into him. He staggered backwards and grabbed on to the wall behind him. His heart was pumping so hard that he could feel the pulsation in his stomach. For a moment he had thought that one of the legged creatures had surprised him and was jumping for an attack.
However, it was not one of the wicked workers, but a girl with bright red hair. He didn’t think, but grabbed her arm and pulled her behind the stairway, out of view.

“Who are you?” She asked. He didn’t answer yet, but inspected the street instead. The buildings were still fogging away in time, breaking down into dust that swerved in long wisps to unseen places. The bodies stared at him with eyes as empty shells; broken prisons for their souls which had been released. Or at least he assumed so. The blood still flowed as if it were pouring from the skies. Yet rain seemed to come only in the form of death.
He turned to the girl now, realizing he had instinctively sheltered her with his body, putting himself in the line of danger that wasn’t there. He put his unshaven face close to hers and whispered.

“My name is Herman. Where did you come from? Did you find anybody? A man named Cathedral? I was looking for him.”

At that moment he heard his name being called. He shifted his attention back to the street, recognizing the voice. It was Cathedral, calling for him; telling him they needed to get out of this place fast. He couldn’t agree more.

“We have to go. Don’t you dare slow us down.” He stated to the girl, not knowing why he added that last part. She was probably more agile than he would ever be, faster and possibly even stronger. After all, he still felt like dropping on his knees and giving in to pain.

Not much later they were walking down the streets, moving fast. Around them, the cleaning leg creatures hauled body after body, seemingly multiplying every time they blinked. But as wicked as they looked, they appeared to prefer the stink of the dead over the warmth of the living.

The streets spread out before them as they went uphill. Blood flowed faster now, and Herman’s feet slipped over the greasy cobbles underneath. It was as if he was being dragged back to the place where he had woken up. It was like the little pit in the shower, where all the water and dirt got drawn to. He was trying hard to get away from it, taking every step more conscious then he ever had. It was tiring, to say the least, but he was not alone anymore. There were others up and about in this city of damnation.

“Where did you go? He asked Cat, while they moved. “And more importantly: where will WE go?”

(OOC: I didn't include Fletch yet. I don't know what your agenda is right now. You can join us, or you can try to find your own way through this game. It's all good. )

“Where did you go? Herman asked Cat, while they moved. “And more importantly: where will WE go?”

“I…” Cathedral paused, not knowing how to explain. “I went back, I think, for a moment. Hospital somewhere. I was doing something – a procedure and it went wrong. The patient died…” It all sounded too weird to him Then why am I here? Not her?
He plodded on, saying words that came to him although they didn’t seem to make sense as he said them. “We aren’t in the dreamscape. If we can get to the dreamscape, I can create a portal and get us back .” or me at least. I never had passengers before.

But how? Cathedral didn’t know. “Listen. Let’s see if this place is eidetically protoplasmic. Everyone think that over this hill is a grassy plain. Just picture a grassy plain and concentrate hard upon the image. What am I doing? Dreamscape? Protoplasmic?

Cindi was about to answer that she didn't know the name of the other person she saw, but it seemed unnecessary, for at that moment, the missing person arrived.

Cindi listened to the man, the one referred to as Cathedral. To her, his words did not make any sense at all... or well, a considerable portion of them anyway... was he even real?

"Am I hallucinating?" Cindi asked, even as she continued to follow Cathedral and Herman anyway, "Am I crazy?"

That last question seemed to spark something within her... a memory? Nope. The moment she tried to concentrate on it, it was gone.

"Oh well, I'll do it anyway; it's not like I have anything else to try really." Cindi murmured to herself.

And so, she visualized a plain of grass, uncertain as to what Cathedral was trying to have happen. She wasn't sure if she should trust him, but if he was going to try to leave, she might as well stick around.

Herman looked at the man trotting alongside him. Cathedral was making no sense to him. It was as if the man’s mind had lost its balance on the present, and was skipping back and forth between moments and memories or false delusions. He was talking about a dreamscape. Herman concluded that Cathedral was thinking that they were in some kind of land of nightmares; a place where bad dreams waited for a connection with the sleeping souls in the world. Were they caught in such a place? Had they crossed over? The more the locksmith thought about it, the more he started to believe it.

Wait a minute… why had he just been referred to as ‘the Locksmith’. Was this a memory returning, or was something else the matter. He felt … lonely, and disconnected from himself. Like somebody he could not see was controlling his mind and actions. He had to get a grip on himself.

“Ok, I can’t do this while we run.” He said as a response to Cathedral’s request to imagine a grassy plain, and stopped immediately.
“You might be on to something here, my friend. I hope you’re right, for all of our sakes.”

He followed the girl's example, shut his eyes and conjured the image of an enormous field of grass. As far as he could imagine, hills of green waving blades stretched out. Wind danced freely under the blue sky, as if the world was a ballroom of spring refreshment. It was a complete contrast of the desolation they found themselves in.
Herman could smell the herbal crisp rising to his nose. He heard the smooth static of wind around his ears. He could almost feel the cool breeze, but when he opened his eyes, all of that was gone. He was still standing in the blood drenched streets and was ready to continue his journey without the ballast of another illusion. Then he looked ahead.
In the distance lay a field of grass that had not been there before. He could see it stretch behind the hills of the city. Just like Dorothy he knew he only had to follow the road to get to his destination, but just when he wanted to take his first step he heard a voice. A voice that sounded as if it was created by four vocal cords, of which at least one had been replaced with a rasp.

“Just where do you think you’re going now?”

The sound came from the left, and when he looked, there was a fearsome creature standing there next to them.
It looked like a naked human man, but with hooves instead of feet, and skin red as blood. Its belly was huge, and it crawled as if whatever this monster had consumed was still alive and actively trying to find a way out. Smoke rose from its back, yellow as sulphur, forming two ever-shifting wings. Its head was pointy, almost triangular, with three long horns curling up from the top of its skull. Hollow sockets stared at them, and a twisted smile displayed teeth as rotten as its smell.