perfect storm [vaati x reader]

"from decimated dreams "

You don't know when the feeling first appeared, but it's been around for as long as you can remember. The feeling that there's something more to the world, something bigger, something deeper that exists just beyond the glittery fabric curtain that obscures the rest of the universe from view. You know that there's something more out there, and you want to find it.

It's not something you've told anyone about, of course, functioning adults with functioning lives aren't supposed to frequent conspiracy forums and constantly daydream of a world beyond the world, and you'll have to be one soon. This universe moves at a breakneck pace and will only move faster when you graduate with your degree in business and start climbing through the office hierarchy, which you know will leave you too breathless to continue your late-night web searching and weekend road trips towards places that might lead somewhere beyond.

You've got a finite amount of time before you'll have to consign yourself to forgetting about your passions entirely, then remembering and trying to catch up with everything during a lunch break, only for the lunch break to end and for you to forget about it all over again. You've got a finite amount of time before you lose it all, before you'll have to give up your moderator status on the forums in favor of being a supervisor for a bunch of hopeless interns who keep stealing your goddamn office supplies. You've got a finite amount of time before the hopes and dreams you've held since childhood are replaced by nihilism and corporate greed.

You've only got a finite amount of time, but that doesn't mean you'll just sit down and let it pass by. With that thought spurring you onwards, you pull on your shittiest-warmest jacket and your clunkiest boots, flick the lights off in your dorm room, and head out down the dorm hallway and into the night.

The light on your car's gas tank blinks red, a 'f-ck you' of sorts to your dreams of adventure, but you can't be stopped that easily. You're willing to jump over any hurdle now, you refuse to let anything stop you until you hit that brick wall looming in the distance. At least then you'll be certain that you did as much as you could.

It doesn't matter, you decide. You're only heading out into the woods, and though the dial of your watch ticks ever-closer to one A.M. and you have class at nine tomorrow, they aren't too far away and you won't be staying for too long.

The night chill bites at your skin even through your shittiest-warmest jacket and you really wish you'd had the foresight to bring a cap because the tips of your ears feel like they'll freeze off. You can't see the moon through the heavy gray clouds that blanket the sky-- another 'f-ck you' to your research, because you're certain that there's something that's lurking on that barren space rock-- but that doesn't matter because the pale yellow streetlamps light your path.

After five more minutes of losing yourself in thoughts of deadlines and death, you make it to the mouth of the woods.

Nobody remembers what their original name was, the folks around town never bother to address them. They're plenty creepy, with trees large enough to swallow you whole and no clear-cut path through them. That's just part of their charm to you, though, as thoughts of danger and secrets only served to excite you rather than turn you away.

As you enter through the woods, a feeling like fog wraps itself around your shoulders, soft as a blanket but cold as ice. A shiver tears through your body, and you wrap your arms around your shoulders for an extra feeling of comfort.

You pick a direction and go in it, a luxury you never quite had with the real world, where your parents and teachers had picked your future and planned it years in advance. No, there is no beaten path to success in these woods, only the crackling of dead branches beneath your feet and the rustling of leaves above you.