Pinkgothic played:

Rapture

Short draconic fingers twisted themselves into the duvet the instant she woke. No hesitance; she half threw herself, half fell out of bed, half of her tail caught in the blanket and softening what would have been a full-body flop in favour of an awkward posture. A frightened, thin, forcibly subdued keen accompanied her as she tugs herself free with a few frantic twists and winding motions, then she bounded forward, almost forgetting to breathe.

Out, out, kitchen, out. Kitchen. Where was the kitchen? The main house had a kitchen but their also had a small one so where was the kitchen she'd forgotten where the kitchen was she'd forgotten and now she wouldn't find it in the darkness except THERE IT WAS. Memory reasserted itself, however feebly, and with only the barest hint of a whimper transitioning her from her paralysis back into motion, she sprinted kitchenwards, nearly tripping herself on the edge of a carpet laid out on smoother ground.

Her heart hammered in her chest, body burning with adrenalin. He might be here any moment, catching her first with that red gaze, then grinning past black, scaled lips as a paw locked around her. In her mind's eye, she saw herself suffocating, and another curt sound leapt from her throat. A meagre part of her mind pointed out she was acting entirely irrationally. He was in the other Team. He couldn't get at her here, not without Dread's help. She was safe unless she tried to start a similar conversation with the Puppet replacement of her best friend here.

Former best friend? She didn't even know. She just knew that come hell or high water, her heart would shatter against her ribs from exertion if she didn't feed her urge to protect herself with a tangible weapon.

Knife, where was a knife?! There had to be cutlery here. Erratic breath coming in spurts as her body protested against her forgetting about it, she clambered up the set of drawers almost with disregard for safe footing. Each slip of claws spurned a fresh low whimper that found itself stubbornly aborted as the panicked part of her decided silence was crucial to her own survival.

She struggled with the top-most drawer for a moment, coordination shot, clung to the edge of the workspace with her left arm like a fleshy hook against it, right arm trying to claw at the corner with enough force to dislodge the drawer from its confines. After a moment, it jerked open, nearly causing her to topple with the abrupt motion, and predictably prompted another soft noise.

In the darkness of night, the silver outlines were unassuming and barely visible, but her mind was honed and she thrust one hand forward at first blindly, then found... a bread knife. It didn't matter. It had a metal handle and felt cool against her palm and it was now hers. It was totally a weapon.

Without closing the drawer, she dropped back down, careful enough to avoid impaling herself on the procured knife. For a moment, her attention to the kitchen door, posture like an alert meerkat, both her arms simply wrapped around it and held it like a plushie, the cool metal to her scales serving to calm her most primal panic down to something tentatively accepting rational objection.

In the other Team.

But what if they were linked? What if the server synchronised the experiences between the real person and the Puppet person and then the next time she saw that black-scaled muzzle it would clamp around her and CRUNCH and CHOMP and there went her miserable little life, a nutritious raptorian breakfast? Nevermind there was no evidence of any synchronisation, Dread had said as much, but on the other hand, he was still Dread, and as much as she trusted him to speak the truth nine times out of ten or even ten times out of ten if she was brutally honest with herself he was still the devil incarnate or something much like it and why did she even talk to him in the first place? Frederick was right. What was she thinking? Did she get OFF on that? What use was her feeble little alliance except to completely obliterate her self-respect? Did he have to demonstrate no thank you he didn't have to do that she understood perfectly well thankyouverymuch.

She forced herself to exhale, a wavering, breathy sound accompanying that, and a twitch later was back to moving. 'Just keep going. Stay quiet. Stay focussed. Leave the building, hold on to your weapon, and hide.'

Maybe it had just been a regular nightmare.

And maybe, just maybe, if she thought that hard enough, it would actually come true.