[META 4 START] A hole in the world

[Seussi]

Like Chel had said, or rather, loudly exclaimed, now really didn't seem like the time to chat. With the gaping rift, and a crazy woman shouting and the voices and the stars, with the weight and the other people yelling and the magic that was tried though it failed to make a difference. It was all so much, all too much.

He would have backed away, but that weight, those voices, that compulsion rooted him to his spot. Jack's question about Peeble's earned him a glance, and Connor only gave him a minute shake of his head in response. He hadn't brought her, and seeing what he did now, he was glad that he hadn't.

People were beginning to make the leap into that chasm, and still Connor hesitated. Sunny mocked them, gave them an ultimatum, and still he stood back. Chel was gone, and Jack followed not far behind. <********> He muttered, and ran a hand down his face again. He didn't want this, but he also knew he didn't exactly have many other options. Still, all he could do was walk hesitantly, slowly, closer to that edge, and as he got nearer, he felt fear clutch at his chest, felt panic, felt his brain rebelling against what he knew needed to be done.

He stopped near the edge, unable to make himself go closer, and unable to make himself back away.

medigel

just for mention mostly

the semblance of unity

he's ready take him down

 

[azuredreams]

Jeremiah blinks and touches his pocket with Mister Bitterberry. Then stares as Sunny speaks, his fingers clenched tight around Algie's hand.

Algie speaks and then, in something of her glitching, his head finally clears.

That or calling him a liar and Alg a coward was enough to anger him into putting order to his mind himself.

He laughs.

"I told you, Ascencion, whatever it takes is what I would do for you. That wasn't a deal you took but-" Jeremiah would uphold it all the same. To protect her, to kill her, to do whatever it was that was necessary. "Maybe when we get back out I might actually make good on having that cigarette. Then we're having a long talk about your lack of understanding humans and your utter lack of faith."

Perhaps, in the end, that was the promise he had broken the most (to sit with her, to enjoy the time) but that was if Sunny didn't end the world because they had brought about their own destruction. People were going in and there was purpose.

"Not quite like old times," Jeremiah turns to face his husband as he speaks, one hand holding the other and the other coming up to cradle his cheek, "because we're together now, aren't we?" He walks them towards the rift, standing at the edge of it, hand still pressed to Algie's cheek.

He kisses Alg, arm going around his waist tight and taking those last steps to see them both fall into the rift together.

iloveyouDIE

shibrogane

jer gonna have WORDS with you later sunny. kid gloves off.

 

[Smerdle]

She was correct. It wasn't the right answer, but Chester suspected it was the only one they had. He wanted to believe that Sunny was lying, but everyone else in the vicinity who knew more than he did—including that voice that smoked at the back of his throat—seemed to be taking her very seriously.

When the Mercers went in, he knew he couldn't wait any longer.

"This isn't how I would have chosen to start my November, but I have to go. Good luck to you if you follow." And then Chester approached the edge of the rift like an elderly woman getting into a hot tub, and dropped himself daintily in.

quite uneventful

 

[Melancholies]

All the words around him face into static.

"We need to go in." His voice sounds like something strange and foreign, even to his own ears. He watches Sunny glitch and he stares at the bewilderment etched into her features and then he stands there as she screams. Her hands are dark with blood. His eyes are watching her like she's his salvation. "We have to, there's—"

Others are leaping, and Sunny's goading the ones who aren't. He feels physically compartmentalized, like his head is separate from his body and his mind isn't in his hands anymore telling them what to do; his nerves aren't his own and he can't tell what he's feeling, because his senses are overwhelmed with something that is him and yet is not. He wants to gag, but his throat doesn't twitch. He wants to scream but his chest continues to rise and then fall and then rise again. He looks to Jamie again as the people around him rush like lemmings to their death, and yet he's also the one so inexplicably bound forward. In the back of his head he's still sour at Zac's predicament, and Kaleb is still there and he still feels that pounding protect, protect, protect, but for a split moment—

His hand relaxes around Jamie's, and then it gently squeezes it again, like some sort of silent apology for his nails earlier.

"We're gonna die." and he laughs and it's light and airy and not at all there. It cuts through the chaos like a knife. There's spring-green vines looping themselves down his arm and out from under his sleeves, and then they're gently tugging around Jamie's fragile fingers. The chokecherry constricts his neck like a choker. He wants to cry, but can't find the right emotion to. "So you wanna go out together?"

There's a part of him that thinks that maybe they won't perish, and then there's the part that absolutely "of course we're going to ******** die Beaumont", but they aren't really fighting one another. He feels calm, and there's something behind his eyes that doesn't quite make it out into words.

Jamie would understand him.

And he leaves Zac and Kaleb as he approaches the edge of the rift, calmly as if they have all the time in the world to make this decision. He doesn't want to do this. He knows Jamie doesn't want to do this. He knows they both have to do this anyway; still, he falls short of the edge, eyes cast down into the dark starry ravine. There's another step there; and it's a final step that Jamie's going to have to take, because they're not doing this together if it isn't mutual. If Jamie wants to fight—

He looks back to Kaleb, and he feels pity. It's like Blackfrair's, when everyone started transforming into beasts and people started dying and he was only human. He's not human anymore. "It sucks." He tells him with another laugh, except this one is dead and dreary and empty. "I remember the first time I had to act too—" the blonde reminds him a lot of Jamie; timid, scared—but still strong deep down. It's always the ones like him that turn out to be the strongest. "—It's your choice."

Which was to say, none of the people here had much choice at all.

saedusk

im gay

Grey Dragon

smol blonde i am So Sorry

 

[prolixity]

"Is that how it works?" Jordan stood near the edge of the chasm; this was all a mystery, an unknown quantity, something he didn't know enough about to make an educated choice. He was still going, because it seemed like that was what they'd been called here for, and if the rest of the jumpers would be lost if not all of them went, the conclusion was inevitable. But maybe Preacher knew what she was talking about. Or maybe she was bluffing. He didn't know.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Preacher looked up at the man standing near her. She hadn't expected anyone was actually listening to her; even Sunny wasn't, not anymore. "It's..." She swallowed. "It's how it's s'pposed to, y'know? Friends catch friend when they fall and all that bullshit." Preacher supposed she hadn't known Sunny long enough for the 'friends' part of that, but what the hell.

She hung her toes off of the edge, looking down and down and down.

prolixity

 

[prolixity]

"Is she your friend?" The glitching, erratic creature on the other side didn't seem like she would be a particularly reliable friend. Maybe she had changed, or maybe Jordan just didn't know enough. He knew so little. He looked sideways at Preacher. "I guess everyone's going," he said, half a question.

The Semblance of Unity

 

[lizbot]

As Jeremiah and Algernon made out before leaping into the big scary hole, Mr. Bitterberry grimly gurgled the bluejay version of, If all your friends jumped into a bottomless death pit, would you jump too? Of course you guys would. Of. Course.
 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Zac tugged her towards the chasm and she tried to dig in her heels, but he was quicker, full of purpose and potential. "Zac, we should wait, we-" He moved onward and her hand was caught in his, her fingers tightening through his. Temperance didn't want him to fall into that black nothingness, regardless of the words Sunny spoke. Flailing backwards, she grabbed on to anything she could reach: a branch, someone's surprised arm, another sleeve. Finally, her fingers gained purchase in the cloth.

She glanced back to see Connor's face. Zac's feet left the groundand she stumbled, too. In the moments, the hours, before she tipped in, too - she should have let go of Connor. But her terrified fingers would not move, her mouth could no longer make words. And she fell too, one hand in Zac's, the other wrapped up in a shirt sleeve. Hah, she thought hazily, they wouldn't die alone, at least.

show spoilerhide spoiler

endejester

seussi

 

[saedusk]

They needed to. They had to. Jamie didn't watch Sunny anymore because he was too busy watching the rift. Beyond his gaze he could hear her laughing and it chilled him, but didn't destroy him. If he let it, he'd never find the courage to leap with Shiloh into the unknown.

"We're probably gonna die," he agreed, letting the vines coil through his fingers, up his hand, and around his wrist like it was normal. At this point it was. The flora was as much a part of Jamie's life as Shiloh himself. They were less an accessory and more an extension and through them it was almost like Jamie could feel Shiloh's intentions before he spoke again. A soft blush, a vague answer for a vague question forming on his tongue, he responded, "Yes," and that was all, nothing more, nothing less. Either way, he meant it.

Wordlessly he followed Shiloh to the edge of the void, to the unknown where many of the others had already gone. For once his expression was calm, but internally his heart beat too fast, his nerves frayed, he was scared, because who wouldn't be scared? Who wouldn't see this and want to run? They couldn't turn back, but that didn't mean Jamie didn't want to. Yet he stood his ground, he went with Shiloh and they wouldn't have to be alone. He glanced at Kaleb, too, and he smiled, empathy playing at the corners of his mouth.

"I-I'm... ready," he told Shiloh, "This is it..." Their hands clasped together likely would've been more than enough to keep them that way as best they could expect, but in that moment Jamie turned and threw his arms around Shiloh. The hug was tight, close, and as Jamie tipped them into the rift he silently promised he wouldn't let go. This was all he could do now.

The sensation of falling turned his stomach, but he closed his eyes and hid them against Shiloh's chest and tried to think of anything else.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Crunch.

"Answer already, goddammit..."

Crunch. Crunch...

The leaves were sopping underfoot, but the branches from the forest were numerous. The water did little to ease their joints, and under Oliver's foot they snapped with ease. His eyes were ringed with exhaustion and his hands were bound by posh looking gloves, because for some asinine reason of late they were disgustingly sensitive. Texture had never felt so real; fabrics gave him cottonmouth and smooth surfaces made him nauseous, but that was neither here nor there. He had woken with a start and the pounding in his head had surpassed any migraine.

He felt so guilty, leaving behind his cats, leaving behind Eli, but he'd explain it later—he'd have to, whatever... this was.

"Come on..."

His phone shimmered uselessly in his hands, the touch screen frizzing and twitching with every drop of moisture that landed on it. Jamie wasn't answering him, and he was honestly his only window into weird magic s**t, which was exactly what these seemed like.

Oliver didn't know what to expect. He didn't know if he should have expected the other people, or the enormous chasm in front of him. He definitely didn't expect Sunny, and his mind was overwhelmed before he even got there; there was a rush, the scent of the woods in his mouth and the crisp clearness of night in his eyes. He felt the wind in his hair, except the hair was everywhere, and the wind was everywhere too—and he felt like he was drowning, but the sea was stars and his lungs were full of space. He gets there—actually gets there—and see's Sunny and her audience, and his mind breaks.

He's not even sure he believes the whole magic thing. He's too new to this; he only just came back home—but the rush is indescribable. Undeniable. Immense. Too much. Pure in the way that unrefined dark chocolate was sickeningly bitter. There's one thing that stands out to him. It's the needle in the haystack but he manages to spy it; it's the twosome, silhouetted in the vantablack of the ravine, hands clasped and bodies soon embraced.

It's when they tip over, and Shiloh makes that one in a hundred glance over, and they make eye contact.

Shiloh thinks he's gone crazy. His first thought is to tell Jamie it's Beel—Beel's back and he has my face and he's here and I don't know why, but this isn't Court and this isn't Otherworld and Beel is a fetch. Beel will always be a fetch and he'll always be his subordinate and Shiloh will always be blueblooded. This isn't Beel, though, just another person who happens to wear his face. He hasn't met him yet—he hasn't met him yet again because Melany made him forget.

Shiloh, you have a twin brother.

He was falling with Jamie, his arms wrapped around him—and then he wasn't. For a second he was hanging, he was still, he was floating and his eyes were still trained forward. Oliver ran. He ran and screamed and Shiloh didn't catch it, nor did he understand the unintelligible fear in his twin's eyes—(NOT AGAIN, NOT AGAIN, SHILOH NOT AGAIN)—and he surely doesn't understand Oliver's hand when he reaches out and grasps the cloth of his raincoat (is that why he stopped falling, because of him?). Identical blue eyes stare into identical blue eyes. This isn't how Oliver wanted to reunite with his brother. This isn't how he wanted anything to end at all.

And there's no time to think, no time for regrets, because there's absolutely no way that Oliver can hold the weight of two. Despite this, there's relief mixed with the panic and the lack of understanding. Shiloh's real under Oliver's touch, and he knows his brother is okay (okay, okay given this). He's not dead, and if he ends up dead after this, then well—

—That was fine, because Oliver was careening into the depths of the abyss too, his hands a vice on Shiloh's sleeve. He calls out to him, but there's no words, there's no sound, there's only stars.

Silence.

saedusk

 

[Grey Dragon]

Kaleb wanted to curl up into a little terrified ball, but the next thing he knew people were actually braving the wide abyss in front of them. Including Shiloh and his trusting friend, who's name Kaleb hadn't even gotten before they left him. The teen wanted to shout at them to come back, but the fear choked out every last word he could have said. Not that he expected the pair to stay if he had been able to call out, it looked like they all had no choice. They couldn't go back, so there was only forward.

Some part of him knew this was the only path to take, leaping into that chaotic rift in the earth, but he couldn't bring himself to move towards it. As he watched Shiloh and the other teen fall into the chasm, his legs felt frozen in place, every muscle in his body tight with panic. He couldn't move, and this made the fear of being there, of being left alone there, so much stronger.

kuropeco

Nathaniel halp

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"I... not yet, maybe. BUT WE COULDA!" This was directed at Sunny, who more than likely was past hearing. "She was nice and stayed mostly on tha beach and I dunno... She seemed... lonely... n' s**t," Preacher finished lamely.

"Yeah, most people throwin' themselves in like lemming on fire." She sighed, then held out her hand for a shake. "I'm Preacher."

prolixity

shibrogane