The crew will see them slinking off, disappearing around hallways--shifting shadow shapes and the backs of heads ducking around corners. They're always people they think they know. Dead loved ones, perhaps, or loved ones they're not sure are dead or alive. They lead crew members into dangerous places, sudden drops, parts of Stacy where things can go wrong.

And they do go wrong. Floors drop out. Ducts become damaged somehow, invisibly, and suddenly spew hot steam. Around the children, items slam into walls--poltergeist activity.

Whether these are really those lost souls, or just illusions, is hard to tell. Either way, those that are part-ghost or have supernatural powers will have a helluva workout. The upside is the presence of the ghosts might disrupt the Waking Dreams to allow people to escape them more easily.

Which is good because the dreams will start to cause injuries now. Real ones.

And refusing to go to sleep doesn't save you when the dreams can happen while you're awake.

[ooc: Waking dreams will continue--and start causing injuries. Furthermore, ghostly apparitions will start to cause poltergeist activity and lead the crew into danger. Start to raise the alarm, meatship. It's starting.]

Kelly was in her armor. The olive drab plates were polished to a glossy sheen, something that wasn't exactly practical if a soldier was trying to infiltrate...anything. But here on the ship, it hardly mattered. She could always dull the shine if the mission called for it. Behind her visor, her eyes were red and she knew her movements were sluggish. Or at least, what counted as sluggish for her. But she couldn't bring herself to sleep. The things she saw weren't things she would have willingly exposed herself to at any time. Chief Mendez had always said that a soldier's greatest weapon was their mind and that the most effective way to attack any enemy was to screw with that first. Apparently the Nightmare King agreed with that hypothesis, and she wasn't about to let him have the satisfaction of breaking her.

Still, even in wakefulness, she didn't feel safe. She's wandered in those 'waking dreams' that had been spreading, and it was beginning to get to the point where she didn't want to leave her armor. Here, inside the suit, she felt safe. She'd spent more than half her life behind the armor plate, and though she'd been trying to integrate with the crew outside it, for now she needed it. She felt at home. Still, her mind was foggy as she wandered aimlessly through the city. Her weapons were with her, loaded and ready, not that there was anything that would attack her here, but it was her routine. It was habit. She felt safer with then close by.

She couldn't tell how long she'd wandered here, among the buildings. It could have been hours, it could have been days, she simply kept walking, not caring where her feet brought her. Simply needing to stay awake. So it was that she found herself walking up toward the peak of a hill, the ruins of a familiar temple looming up ahead. Behind her visor, her lips curled in a wry smile as she ascended the cracked, weather-beaten marble steps and stepped onto the floor. She simply stood there for a long while, staring up at the broken statue of Athena that still stood on its pedestal. There was a sort of peace here. She didn't believe in gods, or fate, or destiny or any of that other crap, but in this place, she couldn't deny that there was...something that seemed to soothe her soul, a sort of calm that cut right through the exhaustion. She'd wondered of course. Magic existed, this Nightmare King was powerful beyond anything she'd faced yet. She'd seen things on the ship that she'd never believed existed. Who knew. Maybe in some far corner of some universe, the gods really did exist.

Shaking her head slowly at the thought, she reached up to pull off her helmet, leaning back against a wall and slowly lowering herself to the floor to sit. The armor plates clinked quietly against the floor as she set her helmet down, looking up at the statue of the goddess. Wisdom and war. Leaning back comfortably, she took a deep breath, closing her eyes. Maybe...just a few minutes. Maybe...

"Thank you." She whispered to the air.

Nightmares blow. They totally blow chunks. It's late for Superboy as he wanders around the City, trying to shake off thoughts of mind control and hurting loved ones, though early for others--everyone on the ship is on their own sleep cycle, pretty much. What's the middle of the night for him is early morning for someone else.

Right now, he's seriously considering going back to cuddling the gorgeous blond babe sleeping in his bed, but he needs to shake off the heebie jeebies first and try to forget the crunch noise his fists made in his dream when they slammed into her face--the same noise they made for real when he'd attacked her while under Luthor's control.

He hates that he knows the sound his fists make when they hit his girlfriend in the face. He'll never stop hating it, even though it wasn't his fault.

Superboy meanders his way into a building he knows he should probably recognize but totally can't because he wasn't paying attention in history class, and is surprised to find someone else already inside, in a room fill with wooden chairs and tables. The chairs in the modern-day Independence Hall are from the same period, lovingly restored--these are slightly different.

That's because these are the real thing, the actual chairs that were once in this hall. Everything in this hall is exactly as it was on August 2, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed.

"Wow, those are some tiny chairs." What? He's a big guy and people were smaller back then. Them chairs is tiny.

Brenda and insomnia used to be old friends.

Back when every minute of sleep felt like a minute of her mother's dwindling life being wasted. Back when dealing with her father kept her on her toes, even at rest. Back when healing injuries kept her half-aware at all hours. Back when there was a better reason for not sleeping than stupid nightmares.

Knowing that something out there was deliberately messing with her sleep now, with that sleep she had only had a few months really to savor the normalcy of, was infuriating. But anger didn't do much to undermine all the fear the nightmares still made her feel.

There were too many times now that she'd nodded off out of sheer exhaustion only to be woken groping to find reality in the dream fog. It was way too much to be half-awake, scared out of her mind, still TASTING blood and hearing shouting and screaming. Tonight it took her scrambling out of bed and walking headfirst into the door frame on her way to the hall to shake her completely out of the nightmare's grip.

Shaking, cold, freaked out as all hell, there was just one place she thought to go to first. She wasn't going to feel okay until she knew that Paco was safe and sound and not a beaten heap on her imaginary front porch.

She tried to knock on the shared door halfway softly, hoping to wake just one of her two best friends - although she wouldn't have said no to a Jaime-hug at the door either.