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Post by The Wyrd on Jul 7, 2021 14:47:32 GMT -8
I should've known
I'd leave alone
Just goes to show
That the blood you bleed
Is just the blood you owe - Billie Eilish
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At a pulse rate of one-seventy-five, Rowan could feel the pounding of his heart in his throat as he scrambled up the building wall. Steed's blessings that he had abandoned were restarted; it was the only way he stood a chance of getting enough distance up the wall before the hundreds of ravening hands could find him. His Glamour and life force burning bright gold against the greyscale world of the dead, he realized his only hope alone was to find a place to hide, to let things settle, to make a plan.
Maybe Bonnie Hill had an answer. Maybe Dormarch would save him. Maybe Saturday himself would come...? Hope was dying in the face of Agrippa taking things from bad to worse. As the world tilted into a straight line and the Darkling hustled along on his injured leg, sharp, stabbing pains tore through his ankle and up his calf.
Downside?
It meant the swarms of ghosts after him howling for his flesh had slower prey to chase.
Upside?
At least the pain reminded him he was still alive.
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Post by Rowan on Jul 7, 2021 16:35:59 GMT -8
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Post by The Wyrd on Jul 7, 2021 16:44:42 GMT -8
The reality-bending Darkling chose to rely on brains, rather than braun. Smart -- with a bum leg, Rowan was in no position to compete against these creatures on their terms. Relying on his skill at navigating the urban maze, the Darkling cheated, slipping into the reflections of mirrors and coming out through back doors, darting up walls and over rooftops as he aimed to succeed by guile.
Beneath, around, behind -- everywhere he looked, screaming, howling monstrosities darted, the swarm spreading out to try to cover off all the angles. There were hundreds behind him, far too many to count, but as he navigated a 3-D world in 2-D with the blessings of Steed, he eked out a lead.
There it was, in the distance. A well-concealed vent descending into the underground. Could he make it?
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Post by Rowan on Jul 7, 2021 16:51:28 GMT -8
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Post by The Wyrd on Jul 7, 2021 16:58:50 GMT -8
Rowan wasted no time moving from the fourth-story window that he had spotted the grate from, stepping out onto a balcony and sliding down the wall with his hands and feet. The ankle screamed as he moved, pain firing up his leg that made him wonder if he was going to need surgery, but the prospect of a limp was nothing compared to the prospect of the howling dead consuming his Glamour and flesh with desperate tongues. The screamers moved below him as he leapt and rolled from one rooftop to another, ghosts bending reality as they saw glimpses of him moving overhead and down and around.
The Darkling knew better than to go directly to the ventilation shaft. He was a sun against a bleak background, and if he left a trace, they'd find him. Making his way through a school building - familiar, perhaps? - he popped out the gymnasium, clambered over a fence, then doubled back along a deserted alleyway. The creatures were far behind.
Opening the ghostly padlock with a finger-claw, he settled down into the darkness, going further into the heating tunnel beneath some ancient building, where no light would escape.
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Post by Krakenbox on Jul 7, 2021 22:46:33 GMT -8
His breathing was rapid and shallow, unable to rest in the rumbling Twilight that was normally so quiet. The heating felt like it was closing in, despite the shelter it was providing as danger passed above...
And below.
The scuttling was within the walls and pips, the Darkling trying to make himself smaller in very much the roll of prey. The rustle and echoing shrieks called from the entrance as bricks started to wiggle with searching fingers. Rowan moved, his ankle well and properly swollen and numb at this point where walking on it only added to the danger. The ghosts were a churning mass—too far and too dark to make out the details—but they were flowing towards him and only slowing each other down in the frenzied eagerness. The first one he clawed at, fending it off with its shrieks with a face stretched and jittering with broken memory. The second, third and forth piled on, undaunted as rakes were dragged across his useless leg as he tried to pull free. Kicking and screaming, he rolled up high into an even tighter corridor, hands hauling to drag him out as his talon snapped from the dragging pressure of him clinging to metal and earth. He was learning. And he was terrified, feeling the grip of Autumn as the surge of discovery kept him fighting while hands methodically scored flesh and glamour.
Relentless.
The silver spilled from his torn clothes, and he watched dumbstruck as the spirits immediately started grabbing at the coin instead with far more interest. Hands darted away, as if scared the others would try and snatch their find.
The tunnel fell silent, a shaking breath escaping his lips as he remembered oxygen—or whatever the hell he was breathing to exist here.
That's when the storm of hands broke free from the ephemeral walls, tearing and prying him apart, a bone or two snapping as even his fingers were snaked around, choking the life-
The tunnel fell silent.
Without his beacon, only the pain and laboured rattling gasps told him he had not died as the world was plunged into darkness. Rowan knew he was alone.
But for once that was a comfort.
A heat bloomed, and he was scared it was blood, but it felt deeper. As he reflected, alone in the dark, nearly dead from his obsessions that he could not let go... he understood that knowledge had not saved him at all. It was the fact that Agrippa was willing to sacrifice themselves to keep him here, and that held more Truth than any secret he had ever dug from the unforgiving night.
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