come_sailaway | END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

Entry tags:

END GAME: THE COUNTDOWN STARTS

[the prisoners wake up on cold, hard floors.

the lights are bright, glaring, a sterile cell with sterile bars facing a sterile hall. the prisoners with you, across from you, and no one else. no rocking of a ship in waves, nothing. just the prisoner and their prison.

time passes, one assumes. the rhythmic click of Friday’s heels down the hall. it’s almost like the ticking of a clock.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[the flames stop when there is nothing left to burn. this does leave the pointy bits, but a bit crispy.

the man steps forward and aims a punch to her gut.]

[Fucking OW

Natsuno raises his hands to protect his head, but with how tall the god is, success is partial. The box doesn't feel full, at least, but getting pelted with cardboard edges still hurts.

He can smell burnt feathers and realizes one of their weapons is gone. No point using the one Steve gave him them, or Flan's hair garrotte.]

Fever, tear the buttons out! They're not supposed to be there!

[Also it would probably hurt him enough to stop? Sorry dude]

[the blow strikes, and it's long held reflex to tense her muscles and absorb some of it. still hurts, but not going to flatten her. Natsuno's voice reaches her, and there's still the pointed parts of the quill left, still something there to rip and tear with. the buttons - it would make sense, wouldn't it? with Malin's own eye gone.

it's her body between Natsuno and Valdis and this threat. Fever had told him to back up. now she'll have to make him.

it's a simple, wordless cry as she takes the clarity of pain and uses it, launching herself forward at the tall man. one hand holds the burnt remains of the quill, trying to pry under the button on one eye, while the other gets just the inelegant version of her fingernails trying to latch on and pull. it hurts, with burnt hands, but it spurs her on.]

[Fever is perfectly capable of handling this, and there's not really room for two of them to fight the man, so while they struggle in the small space, she scoops up the cupcake/cookie and gets it to safety. They will need it for Steve.]

[the buttons come off.

they just happen to take everything with them, yanking out the very root of the eyes.

he immediately staggers back against the wall, throwing an arm over his face as blood like whiskey starts to pour down his face.

when he hits the wall, a door opens - and the other brother steps in, hooking his arms under his armpits and dragging him back out through the door. it shuts before they can even think to respond to it.]

[of all the things she expected to be able to do, ripping out a god's eyes was not one of them. the shock at actually doing it is what stops her from going further - and then he's gone, whisked away by the other as a warm current of satisfaction sinks into her. the urge and hatred towards anything and everyone else, drawn ever sharper by imprisonment, it is soothed by this violence.

Fever looks to the others in the room, and sees a wide eyed expression on Natsuno's face. looking back at her hands, the blood smells weird. like alcohol, tobacco - but when she sneaks a taste, that's definitely still normal blood. huh.

and she's keeping these. they might be useful to bargain with later. she can secure them to her clothes with the quill, pinning up a little section of her shirt to make a false pocket for them.

well. now she's got burned and bloody hands, and her stomach hurts. and they're still in the closet.]

...He still has Steve. We've got to get out and find him again - if we find him, we can find those two, and rescue him at the same time.

[she's going to start sifting through the boxes to see if any of them have anything inside them, now that they're big enough to open them with ease. no sense running after Steve if they dash in unprepared after a guy who's probably really upset that they just blinded his brother.

at least it's a little easy to track what ones she opens by the blood she leaves on the cardboard.]

[every single box, including the box with the hole she fell out of, is entirely empty.]

[Luckily the fight was short lived, and though she's anxious to race after Steve, she hunts for the box they came out up. Finding it oddly empty, she confers with the others. All the boxes are empty. Such a waste of time.]

We need to keep moving. If we can find whatever is blocking our powers it could help the others and we also need to find Steve.

If we find what's blocking our powers, it'll solve a lot of our current problems.

[if she sounds grumpy about this, it's the pain stacking up in her head and the way the boxes had seemed so promising. ugh. instead, she's going to where that door opened up in the wall and trying to reopen it.]

It certainly would make breaking everyone out easier.

[Valdis’ relief at not being able to feel anything from the others means she doesn’t need to slow down.

She heads over next to Fever and starts pushing on the wall]

Natsuno, Can you check the other walls too?

On it.

[He feels around the wall opposite of Valdis, behind the boxes. They're too big to fit into those vents, but maybe there's something else...?]

[the door is both still there and perfectly able to be opened.]

[okay. they can go out. also the next door or whatever, someone else has to open it, because her hands sting on grabbing and throwing open this one. don't grab fire, kids.]

Come on.

[out of the storage room and into the...wherever this leads.]

[they step out... onto a platform, of sorts, barely a foot across in either direction. there is nothing but pitch-black darkness to be seen.]

[Valdis opens the door and can't help but think this is starting to feel like the Labyrinth Sparkles had put them through. Rooms and puzzles and games. Over and over again. She'd never seen them, but she'd heard from the others.

She takes a breath, stepping out onto the tiny platform.

Nothing.

Just like always.

Just as everything has been all along.

Valdis takes another breath and experimentally pokes the darkness at the edge of the platform.]

[the platform is small, requiring them all to crowd in. Fever looks around, exhales slowly. more darkness. more unknowns. always.]

Where in the hells are we?

[at least the light from the storage closet behind them is still there if they leave the door open, enough for darkvision to try and understand the space by. she strains her eyes into the black, trying to gauge where they ended up.]

...do we have anything we can drop to see how deep it is?

[He squints at the darkness, straining his shiki eyes to see anything.]

The storage room doesn't have other exits. I don't know if we have anywhere else to go.

[...

very, very carefully, she shifts backwards to kick an empty cardboard box forward and then out into the darkness.

look, she's not dropping her shoes down, and they need the cookie to Grow Steve. this is the next best thing.]

[it disappears into the void. there is no further sound.]

[Valdis takes a breath, feeling like this might be the end, but if it is, at least they tried.]

Well, once more into the breach dear friends.

[She slips past Fever and jumps off the platform.]

[the darkness swallows her up.]

[without a sound, without a sign of Valdis, she's less sure of things. looking over at Natsuno, Fever bites her lip, and then carefully maneuvers on the platform. feeling as far out into the dark as she can around, trying to see if there's any hidden path or any other way forward that's not flinging themselves into the abyss to see where they end up.

if not, she's inching back towards the doorway.]

[there is nothing to be seen.]

[backing up, back into the door, and closing it so they're safely in the room.

and then reopening the door. look, it changed when it closed and reopened before, it's worth one try.]

[it is the same exact location.]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

tw: eye gore

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject