(no subject)

[negative_feedback]

dated: Oct 5/6

It's been over a week, and nothing has happened. Nothing bad, anyway. Her family is getting used to the idea of her strange, uninvited friends crashing with them. So far, everyone's followed the rules, and most of the people who'd followed her here have enough of a grasp on Sign Language to hold and follow silent conversations.


And thanks to her mom, Regan's able to keep people somewhat entertained with board games that won't make a racket.


But it's still weird. Regan still doesn't know how she's here, or how all of her friends are here, too. She's come home, but she remembers Darrow. She didn't think that was supposed to be possible.


And yet here she is, standing off to the side while she watches all of these people that she's grown to love and care for, trying to adapt to this new, silent life. How long will they be here for? Is this forever?


It's time to get more fish, because the incredible excess of mouths to feed means they're going through their food much faster. Some of the people who'd come along are more than capable of fending for themselves, so Dad organizes them into groups, with whoever he decides is trustworthy and smart enough to keep people safe and quiet to lead each one. Regan can tell Marcus is relieved he doesn't have to go.


But she still wants to. There are enough people that she allows herself to get easily lost into one of the groups, and they make their ways out, each going in different directions. It's just smarter that way. The fewer people going through the same sandy path, the less likely they'll be to make a fatal mistake.


At least, that's the plan.


It's nice to get out of the yard for awhile, anyway. Some people have stayed behind to help Mom and Marcus get more sleeping areas set up. If they start to think this is permanent, then they'll probably have to find a way to house everyone. They can't all cramp into one space. That's a surefire way to get killed. But for now, spreading out beds is a good move. People need their privacy, and their space.


She doesn't know how it happens. She doesn't know the cause. But suddenly, people are trying to scatter, trying to hide.


And there's a creature. They move so fast, it's easy to overlook them, but she sees it. She'd recognize those movements anywhere, she thinks. And her body responds in instinct, hands clamping over her mouth and staying stockstill.


[ Another gathering! As before, jump in at any point in the post that you want to. Be one of the hunting/foraging parties that gets attacked by one of the creatures, or stay at home and maybe have an encounter of your own! Tag each other, tag around, utilize the NPC Abbott family as needed. Whichever group you want Regan to be apart of, she will be, because Darrow is MAGIC and reality is what we make of it XD be the reason the creature hears your group, or be part of a group completely unscathed and just have a nice little vacation trip to the waterfall! As before, any questions you have can be directed here, and I'll do my best to answer them! ]

Comments

[loficharm]

Martin follows Regan's lead, even though he feels like it should be him leading - she's the one with experience here. It's incredible how strong the urge to scream is - instinct just rises up, to try to startle the creature off, to shout for help, something. He can hear blood pounding in his ears, can feel his heart hammering against his chest and the throb of his pulse all across his body. How much can they hear? If he breathes just a little louder? If even the tiniest little gasp should escape?

Marcus has gone frozen again, and Regan is struggling to keep him moving, but he's just white with terror, pinned before the knowledge the thing that's stalking them. Martin looks at them, his palms itching with sweat, trying to decide what to do. And then the tall stalks of corn shift and part, snapping his attention back, and the creature emerges, fully visible, his body an awful sort of carapaced monstrosity. It casts about slowly, moving spider-like enough that he feels, for the first time, like he understands why people might be afraid of those. He sways dizzily as it slinks closer, searching, listening; it's all he can do to keep his balance. He doesn't think there's time to get to the barn now. There is no escape but stillness and patience. Christ he almost wishes he could just go sort of foglike and invisible, though he barely had a grip on that before coming to Darrow and hasn't been able to do it since. It doesn't matter either way; it wouldn't protect the kids, and he's not about to leave them. So he just he holds his breath and prays Marcus can keep himself together. Don't move. Don't move. Don't make a sound.

[negative_feedback]

The creature swings its head to the side, and its scalp... opens. Regan doesn't know how else to describe it. She's heard about it before, glimpses of a conversation her parents were having, but seeing it is... It's something else.

She gasps softly.

Not softly enough.

The creature's head snaps towards them, its carapace closing with a clap. But it can't see them, and Regan covers her mouth. It chitters again, moving forward with a grace impossible for its long, spindly form. It's coming closer. It heard her, and now it's coming closer.

[loficharm]

It is Regan, in the end, who lets out a breath, and Martin stiffens as the creature's focus narrows instantly, its horrible form rearranging itself in ways that bring Martin to mind of too many Statements about meat. He's panicking, distantly, and Marcus is panicking beside him, his hands pressed over his mouth but his breathing growing more and more difficult to quell. It's coming toward them. Unless it hears something else, Martin is sure it's going to keep coming toward him.

There is no one else here and no way to alert anyone to their predicament without giving them fully away. There is only Martin and two children who are terrified, the smaller of them inching steadily toward a scream.

He has never considered himself a particularly brave person, and it's not entirely bravery that motivates him. It's mostly a kind of sick desperation for the tension to snap, a frantic desire to do something. He barely thinks about it at all, really. There isn't time for that. There isn't time for the consequences, the pros or cons, or the thought that this is really it, not at the hands of a known monster, not the sacrifice he'd planned that might save the world, as if that ever sounded anything like him - just this, lonely in this strange place, to save some children he barely knows. There isn't time to think that maybe that's enough, which is already a truth lodged somewhere in his gut instincts. Most of all there isn't time to think about how he's never going to see John again.

Martin breaks into a run, faster than he thought himself capable, cutting directly past the monster and for the corn behind it. He doesn't try to be quiet. He tries not to be quiet. He feels the creature turn its head, and only then does he really let go.

There's no words. Just shouting. Screaming, really. Just a panicked, raw cacophony intended to make himself the sole target, intended, he realizes like it hadn't been wholly obvious, to end his life.

[negative_feedback]

Martin runs. Not towards the house or the barn, like he's trying to hide. He runs towards the corn. Marcus claps his hand around Regan's wrist, because even if this is a terrible moment, he's going to take it for the chance that it is. Martin might be okay. He might manage to escape.

Maybe.

Regan follows her brother, reluctantly at first. Her free hand swings out towards Martin, like she can pull him back on will alone. But of course, she can't, and too soon, she's disappearing into the barn to hide with her brother.

The creature shrieks as it turns to chase the sudden explosion of sound rushing its ears. Its long limbs eat the distance between it and its new quarry.

cw: violent death

[loficharm]

It is, somehow, both arrestingly sudden and agonizingly slow.

Martin feels it all - the sharp piercing ache in his lungs, the burn of strained muscles not used to this much exertion, the blinding terror of his actions, the knowledge that he is going to die, there is no uncertainty, that in a fragment of a second he has made the decision to die so that Regan and her little brother may live. He hears his own shouting at a great distance, the unexpected noise violently puncturing what had become an accustomed silence as he draws the creature away from the children, inevitably toward himself.

The impact hits him hard in the back, reducing him to breathless gasping as it leaps, dragging him up and hurling him back down to the ground at least three meters from where he'd been caught. He feels the rip of teeth or claws or whatever these creatures have as it comes down on top of him and begins to tear him apart. He might still be screaming but he doesn't think so. In a few seconds it doesn't matter anymore.

Then he wakes up.