A. Curtain call - Locked to Ciro - Something has been off since yesterday in a way that Ran can't quite put her finger on. She noticed it in her boyfriend and his brother -- something different in the way they look at her, hesitation where there normally isn't any. They're "off" in the same way that Ciro has been "off" -- doing nothing out of the ordinary, really, but with a shift in energy like a switch being thrown.
She's tried to tell herself it's nothing. As she told herself with Ciro, everyone had days, and neither one of them attested to anything wrong when asked. She's oversensitive lately; her mother came home far too late (and far too tipsy) a couple of nights ago, setting off an argument in the wee hours of the morning that speared through the floor. That's got her riled up. Probably it's her. Probably she's the one who's off. She does her best to ignore it, pushing it away and trying to go about her tasks. She's watering the flowers in the shop when the voice sounds in her head.
Everyone! We are being hunted, and if we're to survive we need to band together. Get to the school!
She nearly yelps with surprise at the clarity of it; she's alone in the shop. Blue eyes whisk towards the window, trying to see if there's anyone outside.
(Though she already knows it didn't come from there.)
The dread begins immediately: Something's wrong. Really wrong. It chews away inside her stomach, acidic and impossible to ignore.
Her fingers slip to her phone in her apron pocket, tightening around it. She wants to call Harley, wants to hear his voice. But desperately she's trying to talk herself out of it.
Go to the school. The words are an imprint on her brain, the anxiety still gnawing through her gut. She doesn't want to go.
B. The Shadows Rise (Part 1) - They move fast. Looks like they've already trapped you in here...
Being trapped in the corridor for so long was unnerving enough. The lights going out was worse.
And then the scratching, scurrying . . . it tingles at the edges of Ran's nerves, sends a sharp twist through her chest. It's all around them, everywhere -- in the hallway, in the pipes, in the walls . . . Her hands dart towards her ears, the panic yanking up through her throat -- though her palms don't clamp down, just as afraid of not hearing as she is of hearing.
And then the room twists.
Reality twists. The tiles part.
And there they are. Rats. Thousands of rats, too impossibly many to count. Ran's eyes are enormous, pale. No muscle in her body seems to work. She can't move. Later, she won't even be able to remember if she screamed.
C. The Shadows Rise (Part 2) - It's the people around her that jolt her into action. The shouts and the cries and struggles of those around her jolt her into movement even before her brain has quite caught up with it. She doesn't think, she can't think; she dives in without considering. Hands and feet lash out, strike into anything she can manage, do whatever can be done to keep rats from tearing into others.
But she's not Awakened; she has no abilities of her own, and her karate remains buried in the recesses of her mind. Rat teeth and claws slice into her flesh; rat bodies collide into her, knock her to the floor. She's Unawakened, and she needs help.
D. Awakening - She's battered and bleeding. They're still coming, unyielding, unending. The corridor is a nightmare of corpses grinning from portraits, from the yawning, black maws of the lockers, from a sea of glowing rat eyes. It's not going to stop. Her mind undulates in a silent, unreleased scream.
The time is now. I am thou, thou art I! Your mind is trapped, but I can set your soul free! My other self, will you die, or fight back?
Accept me for who I am! Forge this contract by letting go of your fears! Revolt against this world, and TEAR OUT YOUR HEART!
Her heart is glowing in her chest. It feels like fire, hot and searing. Her hand moves towards it; without thought, it plunges in.
Her shriek rips free of her throat. It hurts worse than anything she's ever felt -- like she's tearing herself free of her own body with the movement, muscle fibers and skin and veins snapping and popping in the wake. She's not sure she'll ever stop screaming; the sound consumes her mind and her being in one single, wild note that ripples through her frame.
And then, suddenly, the world goes dark. Silent. She feels her body slump. Feels herself strike the tile. But the world is suddenly far, far away, and she's not a part of it.
Is she dead?
Yes?
No.
The memories trickle, then surge. Murders. Blood. A boy with a mischievous smile, pulling a cold soda away from her cheek. The feel of her muscles, practiced and confident, the strike of a foot snapping through the blade of a knife. Her mother's face, its honed intelligence plain. Her father grasping her shoulders, impossibly breaking down into a sob to find her unharmed. A small girl in her arms, gunshots biting into the pavement around their bodies.
Blue, blue eyes staring into hers, fingers tight around her arm, trying to make her see something, trying to make her understand.
Her heart thuds.
She gasps once like a drowning woman coming up for air, and glows. Her clothing melts away, shifting towards armor, towards long ribbons, towards a dark visor that arches over her eyes. Energy surges through her; for a moment nothing aches or hurts. She could do anything. Conquer anything.
There's a woman standing before her, impossibly tall, in a long, deep red gown and breastplate, her shoulders down to her hands webbed in red threads and white wings jutting from her back. She's blindfolded, and her hands fold calmly over the handle of a long sword whose length reaches all the way down to her feet. A jeweled eye watches impassively from the blade. She waits as though she has all the time in the world.
Her name is already known.
"Zepar . . ." Ran pushes herself slowly back to her feet. Her eyes flicker back towards the rats just outside her circle of light, and she presses her lips together, feet bracing. She can do this. She can move.
"Okay. Let's go."
She has people she has to find, and she's not completely aware of her abilities, but she'll do anything she can for anyone she runs across. She'll have to work it out as she goes.
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She's tried to tell herself it's nothing. As she told herself with Ciro, everyone had days, and neither one of them attested to anything wrong when asked. She's oversensitive lately; her mother came home far too late (and far too tipsy) a couple of nights ago, setting off an argument in the wee hours of the morning that speared through the floor. That's got her riled up. Probably it's her. Probably she's the one who's off. She does her best to ignore it, pushing it away and trying to go about her tasks. She's watering the flowers in the shop when the voice sounds in her head.
Everyone! We are being hunted, and if we're to survive we need to band together. Get to the school!
She nearly yelps with surprise at the clarity of it; she's alone in the shop. Blue eyes whisk towards the window, trying to see if there's anyone outside.
(Though she already knows it didn't come from there.)
The dread begins immediately: Something's wrong. Really wrong. It chews away inside her stomach, acidic and impossible to ignore.
Her fingers slip to her phone in her apron pocket, tightening around it. She wants to call Harley, wants to hear his voice. But desperately she's trying to talk herself out of it.
Go to the school. The words are an imprint on her brain, the anxiety still gnawing through her gut. She doesn't want to go.
B. The Shadows Rise (Part 1) - They move fast. Looks like they've already trapped you in here...
Being trapped in the corridor for so long was unnerving enough. The lights going out was worse.
And then the scratching, scurrying . . . it tingles at the edges of Ran's nerves, sends a sharp twist through her chest. It's all around them, everywhere -- in the hallway, in the pipes, in the walls . . . Her hands dart towards her ears, the panic yanking up through her throat -- though her palms don't clamp down, just as afraid of not hearing as she is of hearing.
And then the room twists.
Reality twists. The tiles part.
And there they are. Rats. Thousands of rats, too impossibly many to count. Ran's eyes are enormous, pale. No muscle in her body seems to work. She can't move. Later, she won't even be able to remember if she screamed.
C. The Shadows Rise (Part 2) - It's the people around her that jolt her into action. The shouts and the cries and struggles of those around her jolt her into movement even before her brain has quite caught up with it. She doesn't think, she can't think; she dives in without considering. Hands and feet lash out, strike into anything she can manage, do whatever can be done to keep rats from tearing into others.
But she's not Awakened; she has no abilities of her own, and her karate remains buried in the recesses of her mind. Rat teeth and claws slice into her flesh; rat bodies collide into her, knock her to the floor. She's Unawakened, and she needs help.
D. Awakening - She's battered and bleeding. They're still coming, unyielding, unending. The corridor is a nightmare of corpses grinning from portraits, from the yawning, black maws of the lockers, from a sea of glowing rat eyes. It's not going to stop. Her mind undulates in a silent, unreleased scream.
Accept me for who I am! Forge this contract by letting go of your fears! Revolt against this world, and TEAR OUT YOUR HEART!
Her heart is glowing in her chest. It feels like fire, hot and searing. Her hand moves towards it; without thought, it plunges in.
Her shriek rips free of her throat. It hurts worse than anything she's ever felt -- like she's tearing herself free of her own body with the movement, muscle fibers and skin and veins snapping and popping in the wake. She's not sure she'll ever stop screaming; the sound consumes her mind and her being in one single, wild note that ripples through her frame.
And then, suddenly, the world goes dark. Silent. She feels her body slump. Feels herself strike the tile. But the world is suddenly far, far away, and she's not a part of it.
Is she dead?
Yes?
No.
The memories trickle, then surge. Murders. Blood. A boy with a mischievous smile, pulling a cold soda away from her cheek. The feel of her muscles, practiced and confident, the strike of a foot snapping through the blade of a knife. Her mother's face, its honed intelligence plain. Her father grasping her shoulders, impossibly breaking down into a sob to find her unharmed. A small girl in her arms, gunshots biting into the pavement around their bodies.
Blue, blue eyes staring into hers, fingers tight around her arm, trying to make her see something, trying to make her understand.
Her heart thuds.
She gasps once like a drowning woman coming up for air, and glows. Her clothing melts away, shifting towards armor, towards long ribbons, towards a dark visor that arches over her eyes. Energy surges through her; for a moment nothing aches or hurts. She could do anything. Conquer anything.
There's a woman standing before her, impossibly tall, in a long, deep red gown and breastplate, her shoulders down to her hands webbed in red threads and white wings jutting from her back. She's blindfolded, and her hands fold calmly over the handle of a long sword whose length reaches all the way down to her feet. A jeweled eye watches impassively from the blade. She waits as though she has all the time in the world.
Her name is already known.
"Zepar . . ." Ran pushes herself slowly back to her feet. Her eyes flicker back towards the rats just outside her circle of light, and she presses her lips together, feet bracing. She can do this. She can move.
"Okay. Let's go."
She has people she has to find, and she's not completely aware of her abilities, but she'll do anything she can for anyone she runs across. She'll have to work it out as she goes.
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