#touchoffinale

For once when Cassie got out of work she saw daylight. At this point the fact that she didn’t burst into flames at the sight of it was almost surprising. What time was it exactly? Sunday sometime. The sky was pretty clear, not quite at its peak, but well past dawn was her guess. She put her vending machine coffee down for a second to rummage in her purse to check her cell. She passed her hand over the zippo lighter and felt the cool metal scrape across her fingers. Crap, she was supposed to have given that back last week. The second thing was the post-it note reminder to do just that and she rolled her eyes at herself. Moving the deodorant out of the way she fished out her cell, checked the time and shoved it into the pocket of her jacket and decided against heading back to the apartment just yet. If she killed a few hours before slinking back maybe she could avoid Mrs Ackerman’s latest attempt at an inquisition over what calls she took with names and places for the latest round of town gossip. With the coffee nursed against her chest she took a walk along the seafront a little away from the station and the hospital to watch the sun creep across the sky and get some air. The breeze coming in from the sea perked her up a little as she ambled along towards the docks.  

Beatrice was doing the grocery shopping for the week, and Bridget had decided that she needed to clear her head. Go out to the Cave of Voices and wade throughout the water, even though it was far from warm. But Maine waters rarely were truly warm, and the very end of August provided some of the better ones. Her Converse sneakers were in her backpack, and she carefully made her way into the cave, pulling out her phone briefly to respond to a text from Beatrice - they did need more peppermint tea, Bridget had just used the last bit the other day. The echoing of the water all around the cave still sent a small shiver down her back, but this was one of the best places in town to explore, so she took in a deep breath, running her fingers along the side of the cave, trying to see if anything had changed since her last visit.

Was it always this quiet down here? Apart from the water moving with the tide and the wind bustling around her and through her hair it was silent. Paused even. There were no birds. No seagulls swooping down at the first sign of a human with food in their hands, nothing. If she was smarter she would have taken it as a sign. The further Cassie walked the more everything felt dimmed down. Which was why the flickering in the cave caught her attention so quickly. Like something from a high budget nineties dream sequence it rippled with a pearlescent haze as she drew closer to try and figure out what the hell she was looking at. At the mouth of the cave she watched as it shimmered in place. The walls seemed to echo farther inside where they distorted into what sounded like wails and cries. She put the coffee down outside and ventured inside, it sounded human. It could have been human.

She knew that she should be grateful that she'd never slipped and fallen in the cave. That none of her on-occasion reckless behavior here had gotten her hurt. The town was far from calm, but Bridget had managed to sneak away from work, which had to count for something. She'd fought with Marley, and she'd not seen Veronica in ages, but there was something calm about this cave, though it made her miss Wren terribly. She turned around to glance back toward the entryway - where a figure stood. Bridget startled briefly, almost slipping into the water, but regaining her balance just in time. "Hey?" She called out, in question. She couldn't make out the figure well enough yet as to tell if it was a stranger or someone else.

This place was usually fenced off, at least it had been back home. Venturing a little inside Cassie hadn’t accounted for the water being as high as it was.  Even a little into the entrance the ankles of her jeans were submerged as she trudged towards the sound from before. It was definitely human, someone in pain, like they’d-well-like they’d done the exact thing she was doing but couldn’t get back out. She just couldn’t get a read on where it was coming from. Their voice, or voices now, covered everywhere the sound could echo. The pearlescent haze looked thicker now, brighter despite the darkness of the cavern. She took a tentative step towards it to gauge the water level. Her attention was snapped away from it by someone speaking behind her. “Wha-“ she turned to answer and knocked the top of her head against a chunk of rock face and cursed audibly. The noise bounced around the walls like a backup group. Once the pain ebbed she scrunched one eye open then the other to look towards the entrance to see a figure looking towards her. “Were you in here in second ago, I uh,” she pressed a palm to her head to check for damage, “heard someone yelling up by that light.”

"You heard someone yelling?" Bridget moved closer to the other figure. "I - well, it wasn't me. I like to try and be as quiet as possible, but I know the water can sound like screams." Unlike when Wren had shown Bridget her powers, and real screams and voices had echoed through the same cave. The other individual's voice sounded vaguely familiar and she waded through the water again until she could make out the other's face. "Cassie?" She asked, incredulous. "I've been here for a decent bit, but everything seems normal - or as normal as this cave ever is. I probably spend more time in here than I ought to." Bridget bit her bit, offering Cassie a small smile. "I promise I'm a safe person, honest. We just keep meeting in my less-safe moments. I like libraries a lot!" She blushed suddenly, "Which, I mean, you might assume given my profession. Hi again."

“It’s too far in for anybody to get out there that fast,” the throb on the side of Cassie’s head had dulled to an ache as she registered her name being called. She looked properly at her new companion and raised her eyebrows in recognition. “Bridget, Hi,” she gave an incline of her head in greeting and waded back towards the entrance and put her hands up, “I can’t talk,” she gestured towards where her shoes were under inches of water, “I’m-I was, uh, urban exploring…again...sort of.” That sounded even more feeble an excuse than it did in her head. “I didn’t come here on purpose, just wanted to kill a few hours here before I got home, “ she admitted. “Guess I’m a weirdness magnet. I think there’s someone’s in there,” she registered Bridget’s idea that it was the tide causing it but she shook it off. “Doesn’t sound like water, it sounds like a person. It’s different every time. Like they were in pain.” She waded a little farther and tried to ignore the object that brushed against her ankles in the water. Probably driftwood, but her mind was conjuring images of bones, or gnarled fingers and  ligaments. “Hey, is anyone down there?” Cassie called out and stopped to listen for a response. The sounds that returned wasn’t an echo but a frightened cry that sounded nothing like her own. Multiplied. Two, no, three people now. “You think that light thing’s from a phone? Maybe the water’s doing it I don’t know,” she squinted at it, trying to make it out. The inside of the cave felt charged, static almost. It happened again. Wails and moans whistled through the empty spaces and bounced from wall to wall. It made her shudder to the base of her spine. “Please tell me you heard that.”

"That's true." She murmured in agreement. She strained to hear whatever noise Cassie had heard, but shook her head when the other woman continued. "I suppose neither of us can, huh?" Bridget brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "Living in Ashkent certainly ups your likelihood to attract weirdness." She moved closer to where Cassie stood, straining to hear the voices she did. "I don't see a light, I'm sorry." Bridget glanced around, heartbeat increasing just so. Cassie had sensed other things in the building, maybe there was something more to see now. "Tell me more about what you see, though. I might just be too adjusted to it already, having been in hear who even knows how long, y'know? You're a fresh view."

“Guess not,” Cassie said in agreement. Maybe at some point she’d get used to it, long time from now, who knew. She could hope. “guessing you get used to it, right?” If Bridget couldn’t hear it did that mean it was all in her head? No, she’d heard right, she was looking right at the ting. “It’s like it’s right in there, you’d have to be further in to see it maybe,” she twisted round again to get a better look at the thing, “hang on.” Cassie tested one of the rocks jagging out from the sand for purchase and moved further inside the cave. “I won’t go in past my knees, l’ll come back out in five,” she called over to Bridget as she pushed against the water to walk towards the source of the light. The water crept up slightly to the bottom of her calves as she moved under an arch. The thing in front of her was like something from a sci-fi. It rippled and shimmered like a nebula in the middle of the arch. “Nope definitely not from a cell phone,” she called back out to Bridget, raising her voice so it would carry back. “It’s uh,” she sifted through her brain to find the right words, “it’s this-I sound crazy, but it’s like this fog almost, like a veil, but it has this shine,” she titled her head and narrowed her eyes to look at it. “Kind of like the inside of a shell”. As she stood he voices had quietened now,  he hadn’t noticed until she looked away. It had gone silent again. She couldn’t hear anything. She frowned at it, the hell was going on? She wasn’t looking to hang around in there till high tide to find out. She started to move back out towards the entrance when something behind her moved and the veil shifted.

"You get at least used to your normal being almost any other town's wicked weird experience." Bridget shrugged. She wanted to see whatever it was that Cassie could see, but she couldn't. No matter how hard she strained her eyes, she couldn't see anything at all. She watched Cassie move forward for a brief moment before calling out. "Oh heck no, I learned my lesson back at that building. You are not going anywhere alone." Bridget began to move in the water toward Cassie. "I believe you." She nodded rapidly. "I just can't see it, but I trust that it's there." She chewed on her lower lip, squinting in the low light of the cave before something moved and all of a sudden the light was more clear and swirling, shimmering though without much in the way of fog. "Cassie, watch out!" Bridget called out, grabbing Cassie's arm and pulling her back, water splashing all around their legs. "What on earth is that?!"

Cassie barely registered the fact that Bridget was there until the silence was shattered with the sound of her yelling at her and grabbing her arm as she was pulled away from it. As she did something sparked from the centre of the light and shot out in a white flare. “You saw it, right?” Cassie asked incredulously from where they stood just out of view of the centre of what she now saw was some kind of opening, a portal.  “I have no idea.” The water felt higher than it had been just a few minutes ago. The air full of moisture. The wall she leaned her shoulder against felt warm. The rough surface of what she thought was the stone shifted under her touch. She stopped, and stepped away, eyes wide. Since when did cave walls move? “Uh, Bridget,” she kept the panic out of her voice and didn’t raise it past a soft rasp.

"I see it now." Bridget replied, giving a nod. A shaky nod, but a nod nonetheless. There was some sort of opening that had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, exactly where Bridget had been exploring before Cassie showed up. She kept one hand on Cassie's shoulder, staring in shock and awe at what had just materialized in front of the two of them. The air was thicker, suddenly, and the water that had splashed up against their legs seemed to remain, pushed to a higher level than it had been before. "That's never happened before." She said, whispering to Cassie. She took another few steps back, doing her best to keep steady so that she didn't fall and injure herself. "Is that the thing you were talking about before?" She gestured toward the portal.

Cassie followed Bridget’s gaze to exactly where the light was coming from, she was looking right at it now. “That’s it,” she gave a brief nod and her face paled. If there was someone in here before then they sure as hell weren’t there now. They probably went through that thing. “I think I’ve seen this before.” This one was different, not like the one that had been at the warehouse, this one was bigger, tangible, but just as dangerous. It sparked off flares of pearlescent light like the specs of an opal and the jagged rocks lit up where the light touched. She’d seen enough. She wasn’t about to let Bridget get sucked into that thing. “Time to go,” and moved to steer Bridget towards the mouth of the cave when something moved to their right, that side of the cave grew dark and the water rushed in a small wave towards them. Cassie concentrated for a moment on keeping her footing steady and tried to pave a way through the water and avoid the sharp edges of the rocks underneath the water.

"I was about to say the same to you." Bridget glanced back over to Cassie. At least this portal didn't entrance her like that awful, miserable, and terrifying poster had last year. The very idea of beauty pageants made her sick to her stomach, but this wasn't that at all, and she had to focus on other things - on staying alive and not having Cassie get sucked into the - whatever exactly the shimmery space was. "Wait," She paused - would have skidded to a stop if they'd been on solid ground. She whipped her head around, trying to squint to see what had just moved. Because something had moved, though it had gone at least partially under the water. "I don't think I can go just yet - I need to see what that is..." Bridget moved a few steps closer to the dark figure.

At least they were on the same page on the ‘lets get the hell out of here’ front. They’d learned their lesson from the first Hammer Horror matinee back in that hell building. Or they were until Bridget stopped where she was. Cassie continued to push her legs through the water but stopped and looked over to where she was standing. “What-no-let’s just get the hel-“ but she knew even by the time it was out of her mouth it was pointless as Bridget waded towards the movement. Glancing towards the entrance and the daylight farther away than she would have liked she opened her mouth to try and get Bridget to drop it and hightail it out of there, but stopped. The sound of water and air puffing out from somewhere in the caverns further back almost sounded like something was breathing. Like some kind of Orca. The cluster or rocks in front and to the left of her lifted from the floor and curved along the water. No, not rocks, the- she wasn’t going to say it. That wasn’t a damn tail.

She ignored Cassie's words. She knew that it was Basic Survival 101 not to ignore something like that, but she couldn't help herself. There was something drawing her over to the movement. Something was breathing, causing ripples in the water and Bridget sucked in a sharp breath. There was no way - was there a tail, there? She turned to Cassie, motioning. "Just - come over here, please." She bit her lip. She was seeing things. Things that she'd wished for day after day, but that couldn't just - unless? Bridget glanced back over to the giant swirling and shimmering space in the cave, ducking as a few pieces of rock fell from the top of the cave and fell into the opening. "Is - do you -" She gestured at the space about twenty feet from where she stood, almost knee-deep in water. If it was what she imagined, it was not too large, though the tail (if it truly were) appeared to be rather long.

“Whatever it is, we need to leave,” Cassie breathed, her tone serious now. There was something in there with them. Something with part of a tail the size of a dinner table.  Worse, Bridget was trying to get close to the thing, signalling her over there. The nerves in her limbs were on fire, fighting with her to get her to move, but she couldn’t leave Bridget in there. Fragments of rock from above fell into the opening and Cassie darted her eyes up  in alarm and waded towards where she was standing. “There’s something in the water,” she nodded slowly, “I thought the cave was shifting after that…portal,” it sounded insane, “opened, but I think it was this thing.” Cassie held her breath as something brushed against her leg. A segment of driftwood she guessed and snatched it up into her hand for something to throw to get whatever it was to look the other way so they could scramble out of there with as much time as it could give them. “Okay, okay,” she repeated like a mantra, “just stop moving. It’ll feel it in there,” she gestured to the water around them. Like the freaking shark from Jaws.

"We don't." She responded, her voice barely above a whisper. "I - just trust me on this one, please?" Bridget closed her eyes, and in turn, took in a deep breath. She needed to approach this without getting too many of her hopes up. Because dragons were extinct, and almost none lived in the water. But there was still part of her that couldn't help but hope - maybe whatever that - portal, she thought, scrunching her nose - was, maybe it had linked to somewhere where dragons or something similar to them were still alive. Because this wasn't just an alligator or crocodile. That much she was certain of. "Just hear me out. I'm also good at getting out of this cave quickly if need be, I promise." Bridget turned to offer Cassie what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "Plus, it's not guaranteed to do harm." She chirped, trying to keep her tone as light and optimistic. Everything would be totally fine, absolutely no doubt.

Trust her. Kind of a big ask then, which she felt a pang of guilt over, but that was soon overridden again by the need to get the hell out. “I do trust you,” Cassie said with a steady voice that surprised her considering her teeth were chattering and her nerves felt singed, “just not that.” How big was this thing exactly? That tail was only part if it and there were corners and crevices towards the back that nobody could get to. Not if they weren’t looking to make a one way trip. “How big is this cave?” A back wall rippled and curved that she realised was this thing’s torso and held her breath. The wet sand beneath them flattened in one spot and she felt her legs sliding towards it. The side of her shoe hit against something solid and curved. It was joined by four more as they splayed outwards in a stretch of a limb and pushed down and away. Not going to cause harm. Right, it was going to take them on adventures and give them lessons on life to a folksy wholesome soundtrack. “I’m not interested in finding out.”

She clenched her teeth at Cassie's comment, briefly. It was not a slight on her. "That's fair enough." A small murmur. "The cave? It goes a ways back, though I've never tried to go all the way back. That seemed to be pushing it." That did, and this did not? Bridget shook her head, but didn't voice that thought aloud. Instead, going against what she was certain Cassie would wish, she knelt down, soaking her dress in the salty water, and reached out a hand to touch the creature. She ran her fingers across the skin, a small smile crossing her face. "I just need to figure something out, that's all." She used her free hand to brush hair from her face. "Cassie, watch out!" She squeaked, as the portal shimmered and something else seemed to emerge - something long and possibly segmented. "What the hell is that?!" She shot up, splashing more water.

A ways back. This thing was huge. Where parts of it curved itself where the light reached were covered in scales varying in size in a deep teal sheen. In the darkness it had looked black, blended in with the surrounding walls so Cassie kept away from them and stationed herself beside a rock jutting out to a spike and remained still. “This is why there’s usually a fence around this thing.” Cassie started as if to move to stop her, but Bridget was already kneeling down in the water beside the thing and reached out a hand to touch it. No good could come of it. She was about to remind her of the last time she’d decided everywhere was a petting zoo but heard Bridget calling her name to watch out and whipped around to look where Bridget’s gaze was. The portal sparked and shimmered as something much faster coursed through the water along the bottom of the sand. A centipedal form emerged and it’s flank as it rose upwards. The ridges underneath and the bristles lining its body became visible. At the head was a set of pincers stretched out on either side of its mouth. Cassie did an about turn and let out a long string of profanities as she treaded water to grab Bridget, not caring about the noise it was making or the attention it carried. Her legs moved for her and pushed towards the narrowing exit.

"It's not exactly the safest of places in general." Bridget admitted. There was no point in not telling the truth - not that she ever believed in lying, but right now seemed an especially poor choice to claim that this cave normally held a sense of safety and warmth. "But it's not normally like," she gestured around, "like this. Just rocks and crashing waves and the occasional skeleton - animal, that is." Which I don't mind as much as maybe I should. Bridget thought to herself. But her thoughts were momentarily distracted as whatever the heck had just exited the portal slithered into the water, pincers moving in rapid motion. She felt a shudder flow through her body at the sight of the creature. She was not supposed to feel distaste for the unknown but she couldn't help but make a face that likely matched up well with the list of profanities Cassie had decided to start off with. "No," She said at Cassie's movement. "I can't - I - look, this is what I study." She motioned toward the teal-colored creature in the water. "If this is what I think it is, there's no way I'm leaving here, I'm sorry. I can't."

Bridget wasn’t moving. That hideous thing was snaking around the crevices and curves of the cavern like it was feeling around for them and she wasn’t walking on water to see daylight. She didn’t understand it. At the mention of skeletons Cassie looked down involuntarily and thought about the things brushing her legs. Her mind decided to conjure up a gnarled hand and part of an arm reaching out with sinewy fingers. Something bounced from the side of her right leg and she squirmed. Cassie looked up out of the corner of her eyes towards Bridget, everybody had stories about this place. Skulls washing up and collecting in the pockets and pools, the girls in her old homeroom who swore it was a mafia dumping ground. Stupid stories people told to keep kids and teenagers who should know better away from the place. “Which is exactly why we should motor.” A piece of rock crumbled and fell to the ground a few meters from her as she moved closer to Bridget and lost her footing for a moment. “Is it worth not getting out of here over?”

It was dangerous, and both Veronica and Beatrice would tell her to leave, that no matter what, her safety was first priority. But as she'd ignored Cassie's words, she pushed away the ones in her mind. Bridget scrunched up as more rock fell, and looked straight at Cassie. "We're not going to die." Oh, she wished she had Deirdre around, that would be so much more helpful, she'd be able to say that without a glimmer of hesitation. "But - yes, this is worth risking possible injury. At least for me - you can, if you need to, you can leave me behind, or whatever." There was no way she was going to pass up an opportunity like this, not ever. It was once-in-a-lifetime (and previously she'd thought it impossible, at least until time travel was invented). "I think it's a dragon." She breathed, looking up at Cassie. "That's why I can't leave it be."

“I’m not leaving you in here,” Cassie gave Bridget an are you serious? look. “I can see that it’s a…” she didn’t finish but gestured towards where she assumed the head of the dragon would be. “They must be real wherever the hell it came from-“ she ran a shaky hand through her hair, “look, take a selfie or a sketch or something but we need to-”A scraping from the back wall scratched along and more rock pieces felt to the ground with a heavy thump a few meters from them. There was a shriek of pain from the second creature that reverberated around the cave walls. “I can’t go if you don’t go,” she yelled over the din. “That thing,” she gestured back to the portal, “is spitting this stuff out like a conveyor belt. Anything could be in there and I don’t know how long we have till it pulls us into that thing with it, but it will. Please trust me on this.” Cassie took a steadying breath and shut her eyes for a moment to focus before opening them again, “so no, I’m not leaving you behind here.”

"They are real here, too!" She sputtered. "Just extinct. So wherever they are from, they were never driven to extinction." The whole cave vibrated then, and she gave a small huff. Bridget was not about to let this opportunity just slip away. "Okay, but I don't want that -" She gestured at the worm-looking thing. If worms were giant with huge pincers. "To hurt it." She moved closer to the dragon, resting her hand on its back. "So we can get out, but I can't let this die, it's done nothing!" She practically squeaked. She ducked as something spewed rocks towards where the two of them were standing, and Bridget pressed her body against the other creature (dragon still seemed weird to actually say), who shifted suddenly, causing a wave to flow throughout the cave.

“Okay,” Cassie put her hands up, “okay, sorry. Still…-new to this. I know that, it didn’t ask to be here. It’s stuck like the rest of us. Not its fault,” she paused, “I get it.” The last thing she needed was for them to be arguing semantics when the cave felt like it was crumbling away around them. A tail flick from the centipedal mutation sent a shower of rocks towards them. Cassie leapt in the opposite direction with the water wading up past her knees. “So what do we do?” She shrugged, ”I don’t know,” she dropped her hands down by her sides, “clap it on its side to get it to blot like a horse; let it cruise the coast?” There was nowhere for it to go, no way.  Not outside with people around walking the seafront by now. Not with that other thing trying to burrow between the crevices of the cave. “Aside from a anchor sized fish hook for that worm thing it has free reign.” As it to prove a point there was a clicking sound  and a rush of air as something snapped at the tail end of the dragon. A wave surged from movement in the cave and hit against the rocks and anything around them. The sand underneath felt like it was shifting and the deep teal scales she could make out in the dim light of the cave rippled and contracted as it shifted position. Raising part of its body upwards.

"I'm not -" She began, wanting to say that she wasn't stuck, that she'd moved here. She wasn't whoever her other self was - someone she only knew vague things about. "That's true. It didn't ask." A small smile offered at Cassie. She hadn't tried to intentionally annoy Bridget, and she was at least willing to understand the fact that a dragon was right by the two of them, she wasn't spewing out denial after denial. "That could -" She began again, before whatever the other creature was continued to cause a disturbance. It didn't deserve to die either, but - but it could do harm, clearly. The dragon then moved all of a sudden and Bridget jumped back - almost her entire body was soaked, now. But that didn't matter - it started to move forward, towards the light that was at the edge of the cave, though not all too quickly.

It was making a break for it. As Bridget jumped back and the water rushed towards them in waves again it pushed itself up to stand and waded its way towards the light at the mouth of the cave. To her right Cassie saw an outstretched claw dig into the sand the side of a coffee table. As it twisted its body round the jagged rocks jutting out from the ground the side of part of it hit against her and pushed her towards a rock formation. As it moved towards the exit the cave darkened till she could just about see in front of  her and looked towards Bridget as the ground underneath seemed to vibrate. Where did the worm go? She darted her gaze around the rest of the cave and strained her eyes to see. She looked to where the light of the portal was illuminated now in one corner but saw nothing. The ground juddered beneath her as sand shifted and sunk with the movement of something underground. After a few moments of silence something burst free from the water and lunged forwards.

She'd never quite realized just how large some of them could be. Bridget shook her head, half in awe, half in shock. The worm was gone - until, suddenly, it wasn't. It jumped out of the water and Bridget grabbed Cassie's arm, pulling her over to the side as the worm swooped just past where they had been and crashed into the opposite wall, causing a cascade of rocks to come tumbling down, some getting sucked right into the portal. The worm paid no attention, swooping back over as it made an attempt to bite the dragon's tail, which, in turn, swiped across the cave, only narrowly missing the portal's entrance.

Cassie jolted away as Bridget pulled her just as the worm burst out from the water and knocked into the wall they’d fled from sending fragments of rock to tumble free into the water. Cassie’s eyes were wide and looked to Bridget in a silent thanks. A piles of rubble flew through the air and a jagged boulder juddered and lifted from the ground as it was pulled violently in the portal a few feet from them. “It’s starting,” she couldn’t keep the fear out of her voice, “it pulls us in and we’re not coming back out.” Around them the worm struck again if Cassie didn’t know any better she’d have sworn it was in anger, but the dragon simply swatted it away. The tip of its tail slammed into the midsection of the worm and knocked it into the back wall. The portal sputtered and crackled as an almighty crash erupted. A piercing shriek from the worm rang out and reverberated around the cave before chunks of rock fell and buried the worm under them. She couldn’t see the portal anymore. Just the cracks in the rock where the light shone out and flickered in rays.

Bridget nodded back to Cassie. At least they were both in here, because just one of them would likely not do much good. "We're not going to let it get that far." She whispered. "No way am I getting pulled into that." She motioned vaguely back toward where the portal was. "We've survived some sort of living building, I'm not about to not survive in one of my favorite exploration spots!" She shuddered as the worm got knocked against the wall and fell underneath a pile of rocks. "Okay, okay now I'll listen." She looked over at Cassie. "But I don't want that," she nodded at the dragon, "to die or get stuck so, let's hope it decides to explore the great outdoors, okay?" She bit her lip, tasting saltwater, and possible something else - residue from the now-partly buried, partly exploded worm. She spat into the water and brushed her hair out of her face.

The portal was gone and that thing taken with it. The stillness that followed felt jarring, but Cassie shook it off and turned back to Bridget, she was listening to her. Just at the exact moment when she had no clue what to do. Bridget wasn’t leaving without the thing now blocking the exit coming with them. A small crescent shape of light remained at the front of the cave a few meters away as she looked towards the dragon and hesitated. “Uh,” she tried to think, and you know what, if it got them out of here at this point why the hell not. A breath of exasperated laughter escaped her, “we just need something to get it to mo-” No sooner had she spoke when a chunk of rock fell from the top of the cave and landed square on the Dragon’s flank. Its skin shuddered and the ground shifted and it was moving again. Standing full and snaking its way to the mouth of the cave and out to the daylight beyond. Debris rained down in small scatterings as it made its exit knocking against the rocks and rubble in its way in its escape.

Things were still, all of a sudden, and somehow that almost felt stranger than the chaos that had ensued just moments beforehand. Bridget shook her head. It was all fine, everything was fine. She had to keep up the optimistic attitude, lest she find her nerves getting to her too much. She was practically soaked from head-to-toe with sea water and worm goo, but she'd found a dragon. "I-" She began, moving to pull out her cellphone to try and take a photograph of the creature just as more rock broke away from the cave and sent the dragon out into the daylight - she snapped a small photo, though it wasn't as clear as she would have liked it to be. "We can maybe go now, then?" She turned to Cassie as she shoved her phone back into her backpack, so that it didn't get soaked. "I - thanks. Again, you're quite a hero, you know." She grinned over to Cassie briefly. "Plus, hey, two for us, zero for our weird town."

The message on the newspaper's site had said 'healing spell'. Which Lea could do. Easy-peasy totally fine. She sat up in her bed - it was only 7am, and since it was still summer vacation. One more day, but still technically summertime, Dustin was asleep. Dustin was asleep, her father was asleep, and her mother was already at work. Which meant that if she was going to act, she had to do so now. She swung her legs over the side of her bed and yawned. Stood up and quickly pulled on a pair of leggings and a purple t-shirt, and a Barnard sweatshirt that one of her aunts had sent her. She quickly slipped her feet into ballet flats and tiptoed down the stairs, grabbing her bike from the garage before setting off for the zoo. Once she'd arrived at the gates (locked, thanks to the decree her father had helped to put in place) she gave a tug against them before huffing. She had to help the town, didn't these stupid gates get that?! Lea pushed against them again, making a space just barely big enough to squeeze through. Once she was through, she sighed and pulled out her phone. Opening up a new text to Noah, she typed it out quickly. 'Had an idea. At Zoo. All's good.' He was probably asleep anyhow.

Feeling his phone buzz within the confines of his sports bag Noah sighed slightly keys jingling in his hand. It was the first day back to morning practices for the football team and while he’d survived the switch, Noah couldn’t help but feel like he’d be run over by a bus or something. A large 250 pound bus wearing pads, that didn’t care that his stupid shoulder had a 5 inch gash in it. Or at least that’s whay Eliza had said when she looked at it. It felt like 10 sometimes though. Getting to his car though Noah dug out his phone not really wanting to answer but needing to know who was texting him at the butcrack of dawn I eman he hardly knew why he was up this early let alone why any one else would be. Looking down at the text id though Noah stopped, Lea. Why the heck would she be texting him at this hour? And from the very dangerous and now closed Zoo of all places. Hitting the call button Noah opened the door to his car, stepping right back into the big brother mode he’d left behind all those years ago. “Hey, Why are you at the Zoo?” He asked when she picked up.

Lea jumped when her phone rang, but quickly picked it up. "Because I've got to help." She squeaked out. "This town is my home and maybe, if I can do something to help make sure it doesn't all go to hell, it will give us a break for a moment. No more disappearing animals, no more mobile snowmen." She sighed, running a hand loosely through her hair. "Sorry if I woke you up, but I figured it was basic politeness to text you, y'know." Lea pressed her phone against her ear and against a shoulder, quickly digging a pebble out of her shoe. "That's all, don't you worry about it!"

Sighing at her initial response Noah tossed his gym bag across the center console “First I would just like to say that helping doesn’t mean you have to go rushing head first into a burning building, or in this case a raging portal with demon problems.” Noah pointed out as he slid into the truck “And second what do you mean by help?” It was a legitimate and serious question, because he had no idea how she could even help at this point. I mean to Noah it just seemed like there were more portals popping up every day in the news and more and more stories of these monster things walking around before having to be dispatched with. Violently. Something he didn’t exactly think tiny little Lea should be out doing. Closing the door to his truck though Noah just placed his hands on his truck steering wheel, begging the lords above for more strength, or like some coffee. Yea coffee would be nice right about now. “Also I wasn’t asleep. But now I am actually worried. So you should spill before I just drive over to the Zoo myself and see what you’re up to.”

"I am aware of that." Lea said, sighing. "But sometimes you've gotta do things." She bit down on her lip at his question - there was no way she was going to out of the blue tell a still-near-stranger what she was, what she could do. "Oh, you know - borrowed some legendary weapon, that should do it." She new it sounded fake, but it wasn't like telling the truth would make Noah believe her, and then she'd have outed herself, so double-bad. "I'm fine! You're welcome to continue on your day, I just wanted to call you to," she sighed, "because you told me to, though that might've been a mistake." Lea ducked as a tiny flying - cow?! - whizzed past her. She had to make sure the animals were safe, that her family was safe, that this near-freaking-stranger was safe. "You don't have to come!" She squeaked, ducking again, "I promise, I'm sorry for calling you and worrying you! It was all a bad dream, I'm in my bed at home and my brother'd freak out if you came over."

Resisting the urge to just bang his head against the steering wheel in frustration Noah just shouldered his phone, grabbing his seatbelt and pulling it over his body “Hope you know that was not convincing in the slightest” He breathed out once he was buckled in knowing that he was not going back home. Because there was no legendary weapon he knew that, and she knew that. What he didn’t know however was why she was trying to keep him at arm’s length. “Lea, I don’t want to just continue on my day I want to make sure you’re ok” he said seriously into the phone as he put the keys into the column. And that was when he heard it the little squeak in her voice telling him his hunch was right. “And Judging by the sound you just made you’re not.” Noah muttered to himself before he revved his engine. He didn’t usually drive while on the phone but he was making an exception for her “Also don’t try to lie to me, It’s too fucking early for that kid.” He gritted out easing the old 67 chevy out onto the main road. Not waiting for an answer though he updated her on his position “So I’m just pulling out onto Ranch road now I should be at the Zoo in 10 minutes. Get somewhere safe and just talk to me ok. Tell me a story. Like about your brother. Tell me about him.”

"It is too convincing." Lea muttered. He didn't need to get hurt. Nobody needed to, she could solve all of this and make sure that her best friends, her family, and even people like AJ and Blanche who she'd grown fonder of than she was wholly able to admit didn't get hurt. Noah might have been almost a foot taller and almost twice her weight, but that didn't mean that he needed to endanger himself right now. "I am okay!" She squeaked again, "and I'm not lying! My brother would be mad if you showed up in my room. I've got experience with that, but that's not the point right now. I'm listening to Taylor Swift and I am fine." She began walking towards where the goats had been, taking in a deep breath. "What about my brother? He's a dork and annoying. Like all older brothers." He was going to be a Senior, starting tomorrow. "Why do you wanna know about him, anyhow?" A small snake slithered by her, before it grew legs and began walking. "What the hell?" Lea squeaked again. "So, why are you up so early anyhow?"

“Lea cut the crap, you literally texted me that you were at the Zoo five minutes ago” Noah huffed into the phone grateful for once that it was so early, and the roads were clear. He might even make it to the Zoo in like 6 minutes if he caught all the right lights.“Plus I’m all hopped up on adrenaline here so I’m going to the zoo to fight some portal monsters whether you want me too or not” He said into the phone hoping that that might get her to change her tune. Listening to her keep lying to him though Noah rolled his eyes. “I know taylor swift and nothing in the background sounds like taylor Swift, so you’re going to have to find a better lie than that one” He continued biting his lip slightly as he hit a red light. Ugh. Well there went some of his speed. “And I don’t really need to know about him, I just want you to keep talking so I know you’re ok and that seemed like a safe subject” He shrugged in his car aware that she couldn’t see it. Tensing as she squeaked into the phone Noah willed himself to calm down. just a few more minutes and you’ll be there and she wont like die or anything and all will be ok. Ok noah he thought to himself before answering her latest question with a grumbling “Football practice.”

"I - fine." She sighed, fiddling with the edge of her sweatshirt. "Fighting the monsters isn't even the most important, they're all freaking weird right now, but haven't done anything." The word yet hung empty in the air, implied well enough but not stated. "It's her new song. It sounds funny through the phone. Fine, it's not Taylor Swift." Lea sighed again as she began half-jogging toward where the portal was. "Football's cool, I guess. I do field hockey, which you know, obviously." She tapped her free hand against her thigh. She'd manage this, it'd all be fine. The biggest healing she'd ever have done, and would likely ever do, but she could handle this. She skidded to a stop just about twenty feet away from where the portal was, the air and wind from it whipping her hair around.

“Yet” Noah retorted flying over the west bridge over the Whye river. Because he wasn’t going to let a word like that hang in the air for too long. “And that’s what I thought, plus her new song sounds like that I’m too sexy for my shirt song, or so I’m told” He shrugged out cheeks going slightly pink. There was nothing wrong with liking Taylor Swift ok. But fighting off the slight embarrassment Noah was glad the Lea kept talking to him, even though he could hear that she was doing anything but laying low and staying still. “Yea its my last year too so it’s going to be a little sad” He replied finally pulling into the parking lot of the Ashkent Creek zoo and aquarium. Shutting off the engine faster than humanly possible, Noah opened the door and leapt out already hearing the sound of the portal through the phone. “I’m here, and I’m hanging up. Don’t do anything rash till I get there” Noah said before he hung up the phone praying she really wouldn’t do anything stupid in the 2 minutes it would take his mutant werewolf body to vault over the fences and get to the goat enclosure. Closing the door to his truck Noah picked up the bat he had stashed in the back of his truck before he made a beeline to the park entrance, his tired legs aching.

"I don't know that song. It's probably too old for me anyhow. I only turned fifteen this year." Lea nodded, bouncing lightly on the balls of her feet, trying to push away any lingering anxiety that kept swirling around her brain. "Cool, it's my brother's last year of high school." She paused, rolling her eyes. "I'm fine. But bye, I guess. See you soon." She shoved her phone into her purse (one of the mini ones from Vera Bradley), before stepping a little bit closer to the portal, giving a small flick of her fingers. She couldn't touch it, but she'd just have to use all her will and might to get it to close - and it would work, she'd make sure of it.

Getting to the entrance Noah tossed his bat over the fencing noting where it landed so he could grab it later. And now it was time for the fun part, getting over a fence he wasn’t supposed to get over. Yay. Feeling his muscle protest at the work they were doing Noah gritted his teeth and just manhandled his way over the gate and back down onto the concrete on the other side. Looking back though Noah did have to smile at himself. Yea take that you fucking gate, you’re no match for a werewolf on a mission are ya? He thought to himself before picking up his bat and running to join the other girl. “Hey! You better not be starting the party without me” He yelled her way brandishing his bat as he sprinted down the path and skidded to a halt next to the goat enclosure.

Lea was not going to back down. There was no way, no how, that she was going to give this portal-thing that she didn't even fully understand the upper hand. At the sound of Noah's voice she whipped her head around, hair hitting her back and her shoulder. "What, the party doesn't start until you walk in, or something? I've not done anything yet, but like I said - you don't need to do anything!" She huffed, ducking as another tiny flying cow zoomed by. In fact, you being around while I do what I am going to do might be worse for all of us.Lea sighed and took another few steps toward the portal. "This shouldn't take too long, but you might wanna close your eyes." She chewed on her lower lip, "or, I dunno, make sure no imaginary creatures have made their way out of this."

“No it does not!” He replied vaulting over the goat enclosure fence with relative ease, adrenaline now coursing through him. Looking at her as she suggested he close his eyes though Noah raised an eyebrow “Why would I want to do that?” He asked. “I mean I doubt you want me to play demon pinata blind” He asked waving his bat around a little again. He’d thought about adding nails to, like Negan from the Walking dead. But he figured that might be taking it a little too far, so he just settled for good old trusty wood. Standing there next to her though Noah put on his game face on eye darting from Lea to the portal “Lets do this.”

"No, I don't, but," you also can't see what I'm about to do, "you know, if this thing closes the way it might, and if it makes a big flash of light, I don't want you getting blinded or whatever." Lea brushed a strand of hair from her face and gave a sharp nod, taking another few steps towards the portal, reaching out one of her hands to try and sense whatever energy she had to have felt on Sunday. She waved her fingers softly, trying to send out a feeling of closure, of healing. Far more than any baby birds in her backyard, or even compared to AJ's injury. She sucked in a deep breath of air and reached up her other hand, not bothering to look to see what Noah was doing. This would require incredible attention. Black holes - or whatever this was - didn't have anatomy, but it was a tear in the universe (Dustin would understand this more, and maybe Lea really did need to take a physics course at some point), which meant it could be healed just the same. Had to be.

“Trust me I’ll survive,” Noah grunted out eyes zoning in on a large centipede like creature that was flying out of the portal thing. Stepping forward Noah took a swing careful not to disturb Lea and well whatever she was starting to work on. His mission after all was to keep her safe and that was exactly what he was going to do. Watching the portal again Noah sung his bat round as an alligator like creature popped his head out. Banishing it back into the rainbow hole of doom. Or whatever it actually was.

"You'd better." Lea muttered, not daring to take her eyes off of the portal in front of her. Focusing all of her energies towards it. On fixing it - even though she couldn't magic her friends into leaving AJ alone, and she couldn't fix Dustin's chronic asthma, and she couldn't fix the fact that her parents kept fighting when they thought that nobody could hear. She smiled a bit when she noticed that it started to close, just slightly. Every bit of progress in this had to count, and Lea briefly shrugged her purse off her shoulder and let it fall onto the ground. Balance in her own body would have to be key.

Watching her work for a few seconds Noah just smiled. She was actually closing the portal, wow, she must be a witch. How cute. But what wasn’t cute was the large black hand that came out of the portal again bracing against the edges, like it didn’t want it to close. “Watch out” Noah yelled as the other black hand reached out as if to swipe at the girl. Good lord The portal was fighting back. But luckily for them Lea had brought back up. Or rather Noah had forcibly made himself her back up… but you know semantics. Diving in front of her Noah took aim at the hand again smashing one of the long fingers into the ground before it could reach Lea. “Keep up the good work ok” Noah encouraged with a smile, before lifting his bat and attacking the hand again.

"Shit!" Lea said, ducking briefly as the hand swiped out at her. "Yeah, I'm working on it." She took in a shaky breath, letting her gaze break briefly from the portal to where Noah lay. There was no way he knew what exactly she was doing - no way that she was going to so obviously go against her mother's wishes. In that brief moment of faltering Lea let go on her concentration and the creature seemed to push right up against the edges of the portal. "Oh, no you do not!" She glared, taking a few steps more toward the portal, trying to regain the strength she'd had before. She just needed to manage this, manage this and all would be well and fine. Even though she could already feel her brain growing slightly foggier.

Still whacking away Noah felt the bead of sweat drop down his forehead and his arm start to throb with a dull ache. He’d almost forgotten about the scratch these might claws had given him if not but two days ago, but he definitely couldn’t forget about it now. Pulling himself back into a standing position Noah trained his eye on the other hand trying to keep the portal open. Yea that was the hand he needed to get but how? Hearing Lea start to get into it though Noah couldn’t help but, well want to help. “You tell ‘em Lea!” he yelled hoping to keep this energy up, or rather his energy up. Especially not he was starting to feel this morning's practice already weighing heavy on his bones. Glancing back up at the hand though Noah prepared himself for a small running leap swinging the bat against the creatures knuckles as hard as he could.

She wasn't going to let anyone in this town die. She wasn't going to screw this up, even though she didn't have as much experience as whomever had posted that notice would have likely expected. But the edges of the portal started to ripple again and started to pull shut, still slowly, but with progress. Lea bit her lip softly and focused everything she had toward it. This was more than baby animals in their backyards, even more than the head-splitting headaches she'd on occasion done her best to partially take from Jenna and Katie. She concentrated on imagining the zoo just as it had been, on making it so that people could come and visit. Because she didn't hate Ashkent, even though it was incredibly odd at times - there was no reason that if she could do something she shouldn't. Besides, this was nothing more than a giant wound, which meant she could handle it no problem. Her head was feeling a bit heavy, and she did notice her fingertips shaking just slightly, but she kept concentrating on making sure that it closed, pulling her fingers towards one another (without interlocking them, but moving them close-by), keeping her body tense but calm, all in one. Trying to not be anxious about the fact that she was full-on willingly admitting to somebody who was still technically a basic stranger that she could do magic. With a final movement of her hands, even clapping them together at last, she pulled the portal together. "Noah?" She called out, her voice barely above a whisper, "I think it's -" Her head was swimming, and she felt her whole body grow weaker and go slack as she began to collapse toward the ground, eyes shut.

Cece pulled up to the curb of Shelley’s house and was slightly disturbed by how eerily quiet the place was. Her last memory of the place was particularly unpleasant and incredibly loud. Cece still felt like her ears were ringing from the gunshots and screaming of the officers and Juarez and Cece and Reed trying to yell over them. “This your place?” the voice cut through the quiet and immediately pissed Cece off, but for the moment she still needed to keep him following her blindly, so she tried flirting. “Well I wouldn’t bring you to a stranger’s house now would I?” She laughed softly and pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek, ignoring the nausea rising in her throat. She had picked this guy specifically. He was one of the regulars at one of the bars she frequented. Always drunk off of his ass and always hitting on any girl that walks through the doors. She didn’t find out until a couple of months ago that he had been acquitted of two separate sexual harassment charges. Perfect fit. “Well let’s get inside then” he laughed. His breath stunk of whiskey, the same kind she had been drinking before working up the nerve to actually drive over here. “Let me just grab my bag.” She was playing drunk too and hopped out of the car, stumbling to her trunk and pulling the heavy bag out of it. “Want me to take that for you sweetheart? Looks heavy.” He could barely walk in a straight line, yet still deemed himself more suited to carrying a bag. “No thanks.” Cece answered flatly, losing some of that drunk, flirtatious charm she had been faking. She led him up to the house and through the front door, once again walking in on the portal and… Reed? “Reed?” She called out to him, not exactly surprised that he was here but still unhappy about it. The drunk guy behind her had been staring between the portal and Reed before finally resting his eyes on Cece, “Woah. I don’t know how I feel about a threesome. With a guy anyways.” Cece actually groaned this time. “Seriously? A giant portal in the house and that’s what you’re worried about? Ew.” She grabbed the man by the wrist and led him into the living room towards one of the chairs. “Sit down,” she shoved him down into one of the chairs before reaching into one of the pockets of her bag and fisting a pile of dust she had prepared earlier in the night, “and shut up.” She blew the dust across his face and his body language immediately began failing him. His eyes fluttered shut and his body began sagging before he eventually lost the battle entirely and passed out. Now she just had to deal with Reed. “Hey there” She smiled widely at him. 

Since talking to Blanche and a few others about closing the portals going only by the solutions given to them in a Strange Times article, Reed believed there was some sliver of a chance he could close the one in Shelley Song’s home. More importantly, without death — without sacrifices and bloodlettings and property destruction. He hadn’t stopped feeling appalled since reading the article after he got home from the hospital Monday evening; a majority of Ashkent’s population would laugh it off and believed it to be some kind of hoax, those not in the majority would take those words by some faceless Scribe representative as encouragement. It disgusted Reed as much as it alarmed and ticked him off. So he returned to Shelley Song’s house, stepped over charred snake monsters and ducked under sagging caution tape to get inside. The house was completely quiet and still. The plus side, as far as he could tell so far, was that there were no snakes around; as if their presence was only activated by a warm-body brushing against the iridescent wormhole. Officer Juárez had gotten too close and it cost him his entire left leg; a harsh shudder ran down Reed’s back at the memory. That all only happened less than two days ago. He stepped up close to the portal in the kitchen and stopped short of its vacuum pull, gaze transfixed on its opal surface. It was bright like a white light and it shimmered still like glitter swirling around in water, but whatever was on the other side of it had to be more terrifying than mesmerizing. Standing there, he didn’t know what he could give up to close it. He didn’t know how to transfer power or memories, didn’t think tricking it would work, didn’t really have anything of sentimental value. His first car succumbed to the ravenous appetite of a wendigo and his two dogs were somewhere in Ashford River hopefully still alive, and... All that was really left was the pride he put into his work at the station and his friendships. With a look down at the tan bandage wrapped around the length of his forearm bite and sucking marks the snake devils left all over, Reed sighed helplessly, wishing he could do and give more. He thought about arresting James and wondered if that was even possible or if he would end up in a situation like he was in now. Stuck. Unable to help. But all of that went away, soon replaced by the redirection of his attention to the front door opening behind him and two muffled voices. One suspiciously familiar. He turned around just as Cece said his name and his entire body froze at the sight of someone behind her. Threesome? What? He watched Cece go out sight with the stranger for a moment before coming up to him with a smile that looked more pressed on than real. “You’re not happy to see me, are you?” Reed asked, dumbfounded. “Look—” He heaved out a breath, “If this is about me not inviting you out to the hashtag—” Start finger quotes, “Portal Is Over Party—” End finger quotes, “I’m sorry— I really have no excuse.” 

Cece really didn’t want Reed to be here. If this were any other normal spell than Cece wouldn’t have minded so much. In most cases having extra bodies, even if they were regular humans, could help empower spells and make them stronger. But in most cases Cece also knew what she was doing for a spell long before arriving on scene. Or at least had a general idea. She had no idea what was going to work with this portal and her last case scenario was currently asleep on the couch in the other room and she really didn’t want Reed here if it came to that. The last thing she wanted was for anyone in Ashkent Creek to see her do anything like she used to do for the coven. Reed maybe most of all, he would probably have a funeral for a fly if he swatted at it too hard. “Damn straight you have no excuse.” She swung her bag off her shoulder and set it on the ground, unzipping it and starting to pull objects out of it. A set of those small candles, a mason jar filled to the brim with blood, a knife. She began setting up candles in a large circle surrounding the portal. She made sure she kept her distance, just as Marley had warned. She had seen what had happened to Juárez when he hadn’t. “I know you’re not going to listen to me, but you should really go home and let me handle this by myself.” Obviously Reed wasn’t going to leave, he was too stubborn to. But it was at least worth a try. “But since you’re going to refuse you might as well help me.”

“Why—” Reed’s question was clipped, immediately honing in on the glass jar filled with... Was that blood? It was too dark to be ketchup and honestly, he learned to assume the worst in Ashkent. It didn’t take much for things to escalate to really extreme points. Flippantly, he commented, “I hope that’s spicy ketchup.” He was tempted to grab the mason jar and test its weight out in his hand but something told him Cece wouldn’t let him get as far as brushing his fingertips against it. Then his gaze flicked back up to Cece momentarily, his eyes going back and forth while he followed her movements. “Well, you’re not wasting any time at all,” Reed said out loud, a little impressed by how quickly she was placing things albeit concerned, left with open-ended ideas on what exactly she planned on doing with everything she pulled out of her bag. She told him to leave and before Reed could reject the notion and insist otherwise, Cece was already miles ahead of him. Reed’s mouth screwed up and he crossed his arms over his chest. She was right though. Reed’s eyebrows pressed down, confusion, really having no solid ideas on what she planned on doing and why she had all of those things with her and why that stranger was even here. She was going to close the portal, he could surmise that much. But the method of which lended itself to being a riddle. “The article mentioned something about healing magic,” He said with no clear direction of the point he was making, “You healed one of my wounds before. Are you gonna do that?” That prospect made him feel hopeful, reminded of when an undead entered her laboratory and tried to attack them both. He watched her heal the opening on his hand in a way that looked so effortless to him. It was amazing what she could do with magic, beautiful even — like the portal mere feet from them.

Once everything was set up and ready Cece turned back towards Reed, “Sure. Whatever you need to tell yourself to feel better.” The coven had a common practice of bloodletting and storing each other’s blood for use in spells. Blood was a powerful ingredient in spells, but supernatural blood of any kind was an automatic enhancer. Cece made sure that she had stored plenty of blood from the other witch’s in the coven before she left, just in case of a rainy day. She had never assumed that hell portals would be the thing that caused her to break the jars out, but she wasn’t surprised either. How the portal would know that the blood was of her enemies Cece couldn’t be sure, but assuming that the coven had worked out exactly who had thrown them under the bus and gotten them all arrested she figured that she could count on them to hold a grudge. She mixed a small amount of blood from each jar she had at home to fill this one up which currently held a mixture of about thirteen different blood samples. Magic was all about the numbers, and thirteen was about as unlucky and supernatural as a number could get. “I’m going to try a healing spell, but healing magic isn’t my specialty. I don’t know any spells that I think are going to be powerful enough.” If Cece had known that someday magic would actually come in handy for something like this maybe she would have been a little more motivated to learn. But obviously it was too little too late for that. Cece stepped into the circle of unlit candles and waved Reed into the circle also, “Let’s get started. Ignium” Cece waved her hand in a wide arch and the candles all around the circle immediately lit. “Sit down and I’ll start the spell.” The strongest spell that Cece knew was healing semi-serious wounds. She figured that an appropriate spell for this portal would be some sort of spiritual cleansing spell, but that was way more advanced than Cece knew. Regardless, she closed her eyes and started chanting, holding the palms of her hand out like a wall up to the portal.

Reed sat down, mindful of the candles as the wicks burst into flame, and looked back and forth from Cece to the wormhole as she began the spell. He didn’t know what to expect really, he felt clueless. And redundant, like a rag doll just hanging around without any specific purpose. While he waited in silence as she performed the spell, speaking in tongues and using her hands, Reed wondered if getting blood from the hospital would be a viable option (explanations for why he needed thirteen packets aside). Would it count if thirteen people willingly donated the blood? Or could the portal somehow distinguish between all of that? Sitting on the ground, Reed only wished he tried that method. He’d have to try that next time — if, god forbid, there ever was a next time for these portals. Shifting his eyes back onto the wormhole, Reed waited, expecting something to happen but not sure what it was he was meant to look out for or hear. It didn’t seem to budge, not a lot anyway. The edges wavered like a ripple but nothing else happened beyond that. “I don’t...think it’s working,” Reed guessed with a grimace. Not entirely. He looked to Cece again, waiting to see her next course of action, before he turned around and pointed towards the direction of the living room where the stranger was. “Who— Why is he here? Was this a pitstop for you guys or something?”

Cece heard Reed but was hoping that it was just a delayed reaction and by the time she actually opened her eyes the thing would have closed. Finally, she peeked one eye open and saw the giant glowing death trap still there just feet from her. “Well, shit.” She sighed and pushed herself off of the ground and stepped out of the circle to reach for her next attempt, the blood. “Oh him? He’s my date for the night.” She joked, hoping that she could distract both of them with humor and roll right into her second attempt without ever getting into a deeper discussion. If things worked as planned Cece would be dropping him off in a gutter somewhere on her way to the hospital. Next was the stone that she had picked up from Bridget. Unknowing what she should actually be doing with it, Cece just grabbed it from the floor and chucked it into the portal. Nothing. “No luck with that either apparently.” Cece picked up the jar of blood, and headed towards the portal, unsure of the safest way to pour it in. “Reed, you have longer arms than me want to help a girl out?” She handed the mason jar of blood out to him, “Just pour it directly into the portal.” He did as he was told, but as the last drop hit the portal and it hissed and the blood steamed Cece thought they were actually getting somewhere, but nothing more happened. “You didn’t happen to bring in magical swords of legend with you, right?”

Reed made a facial expression caught between ew and oh as he reached for and grabbed ahold of the mason jar. As curious as he was, he didn’t ask. Later. If there was one. Pouring the blood into the portal was nerve-racking for Reed, half-tempted to just throw the entire container into oblivion rather than feed it blood like he were flying a spoon with mushed peas and carrots into a baby’s mouth. His heart hammered against his chest, the whole of his body feeling the pull become stronger the nearer he was. “Please don’t send any snakes out,” He muttered repeatedly under his breath as he tipped the jar forward, feeling offset by what he was doing. The blood didn’t work either. His shoulders fell forward before he turned on his heel and quickly created as much distance between him and the portal as possible. “I didn’t really have enough time to rob a museum on my way over...” Reed quipped before stepping to the edge of the kitchen, at the halfway point between them and where the man in the living room was passed out. “So... All that’s left is thine.”

Cece sighed. Because the blood was sort of her last ditch effort. She figured if anything was going to work it was going to be the blood of thirteen witches who probably wanted nothing more than to see Cece dead or shoved into one of these portals. If those weren’t enemies, Cece didn’t know who was. And if that was the case, than Cece knew exactly what had to come next. She had fiddled with the idea of sacrificing her own power or whatever the Scribes had insinuated in their choppy newspaper article. Cece had no idea where to even begin learning how to sacrifice one’s own power or nature or whatever bullshit. She also hadn’t looked very far into it. In part because she was trying to look at the bigger picture. Her magic had done good in this town, she couldn’t risk losing it when whatever else went wrong inevitably went wrong. But the more selfish part of her also knew that she was more willing to kill that man in the other room than give up her own magic. It was all she had at this point. “Reed.” Cece began, her entire tone of voice changing. No longer was the playful Cece here, the kind that tried to get him to leave but knew he wouldn’t. “You need to leave. Right now.” She hoped that he would be able to tell from her demeanor that he needed to go. That she wouldn’t have to force him to leave or put him to sleep as she did to the other guy. No matter what, she couldn’t have Reed watch this. She didn’t want him to see her like this.

This was it. The turning point. Somehow, Reed felt that he expected this more at the beginning than now. It made sense to hear her say those words again and insist that he leave with a firmer tone. It became obvious to him that she was up to something more than what they just did, like before was merely child’s play, or futile attempts to avoid what now appeared to be the inevitable. The only option left was thine — and god knows what that exactly was to a portal. To Reed, in the moment, it seemed like another way of sacrifice yourself. Give up a part of oneself or everything. Reed had nothing to give of himself, nothing to throw in or come back out with. And looking at Cece, well, he assumed she was in the same predicament as him. Which left the guy in the other room. Reed didn’t want to jump to conclusions but the tunnel at the end was narrowing and so were the possibilities. That’s where all of this was leading to: a sacrifice of some kind. Had she originally planned on doing that when she got here? Would she have done that already if Reed wasn’t here? He wondered, remembered how easy it had been to set the risen on fire when they were cornered in an alleyway, remembered what she told him about her time with the coven. He reached towards her, intending on passing some reassurance onto her that everything would be alright. “We’ll find another way to close it,” Reed told her like it was a promise he could find some way of fulfilling. There was plenty of subtext beneath what he said. I’m not leaving, I won’t let you do anything rash, were just some of what went unspoken. He still believed death and sacrifice was avoidable. And perhaps that was a naive, unrealistic mindset to have.

God damn it. Why did Reed always have to be so optimistic? Like this portal was just going to get tired and go to sleep eventually, or that they had enough time to leave the place and come back in a few days after they found some magic sword or whatever. No. Their time had run out. Cece didn’t know much about portals, but she knew when dangerous things had a clock that was quickly running out. Neither of them knew when those snakes were going to start slithering from the portal again, and god knows what else might come out of it if given the chance. This right here was the only option, whether she wanted to or not. And god she hoped that Reed knew that this is the last thing she wanted to do. She felt the tears running down her cheeks and used her arms to wipe at them. “Reed. Please don’t make me force you out of her. Because I really don’t want to do that.” Maybe if she lied to him then the two could move on from this. Or even if Reed hated or and didn’t forgive her, at least he would be alive and safe from this portal. “I cannot do this power and nature stuff with you around. I need you to get out.” She eyed her bag. The sleeping dust was still in it. Worst case scenario she would have to use that on him. “Please.”

He stared at her, trapped in a daze again for several seconds before he scoffed. Don’t make me force you out of here. There was a lot going through Reed’s head — thinking he could get her to leave too, knowing she had magic on her side and could probably get away if she wanted, knowing it would be no use even if he tried. Their friendship had a purgatory standing more and more these days, rocky and hesitant yet still chipper and going on with life like there weren’t several elephants in the room with them. There was a lot about Cece he still didn’t know and he was sure that he didn’t need to know any of it, the here and now is what mattered to him, but there was always something to be said about the past wasn’t there? The past spoke of someone’s character, where they had been and what they could go back to. The past didn’t necessarily always make mention of how someone changed though. And, from what she told him about herself, Cece changed. She was capable of terrifying acts — his own experiences with her was a testament of that — but she had good intentions, he believed that. So did James. Yet, something was different. James was wrong to Reed. Bad, evil, nefarious. No matter how James meant for things to be before — no matter how good his intentions were. Reed was caught in-between, not sure if this was a last option for Cece or if it was a first. He felt that he should know but he didn’t. Did that make him a bad friend? “If you kill him...” Reed was afraid to speak those words aloud, afraid to acknowledge how incredibly grey living in Ashkent made him, afraid to acknowledge his own confusion and conflict with these kind of situations when confronted by them. Before, his feelings of disgust were just that — feelings, in his head, based on his beliefs and morals. Now... This was reality, not ideals, not a narrative that went his preferred way. It made him a hypocrite. I don’t know. “There are other ways, Cece.” Reed tried, weaker yet still stubbornly set in his own conviction. Then he spun around, facing the man. He thought about it some more, stalling for time really. Was it necessary? Could it be justified to take away one life to save the many? Could he excuse this and live with it, simply just turn his cheek the other way and pretend he never saw it happen? Was that what that man’s life was worth at the end, was that all he really amounted to? Having death forced upon him. It was so cruel thinking about people’s lives like that, like the collected thoughts of a judge, jury and the executioner. It was selfish — to not want to die only to then offer up someone else. Reed’s legs were stiff, unwilling to move. His only option was to leave, of his own will or of Cece’s. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to. “I’m not going,” Reed was adamant when he looked back at Cece before he closed his eyes. The portal’s light burned through the skin of his eyelids. It wouldn’t be fair — judging her for this. “I’m not going to let you do this alone,” He said flatly with a heavy heart, eyes still closed, before he started towards the unconscious man in the living room. Standing beside him, Reed elaborated, “You can force me out or you can let me help you and we can do this together.” Strangely, he felt better with that as being their compromise. In a way, he supposed this was the sacrifice he was making. His own thine.

Cece was not going to cry right now. Those stray tears were a fluke, just to serve as a reminder that things were not the way they used to be. Cece always knew that what she was doing was wrong, but she had never shed tears over her actions. To her, she was surviving. First and foremost Cece had always thought of herself and what she was willing to do to survive after getting kicked out, while in the coven, and after getting to Ashkent Creek. But now she was thinking about others. Herself too, but she was still thinking of others. This portal needed to be eradicated and the world could live without another lowlife taking advantage of any girl unable to fight off his advances. Ten years ago Cece wouldn’t have batted an eye for this, she might have even enjoyed being able to rid the world of some scumbag like the man currently passed out on the couch behind them. “Fine. Fine. Don’t go. But I need to set up then.” Cece couldn’t do this. Not with Reed here with her. It wasn’t fair to him. “You’re a good friend Reed, the best anyone could ask for.” She started ruffling around in her bag, pulling out a book that was in actuality useless to her, but it made her feel better to be focused on something other than Reed at the moment. “I wish I could be the same for you.” She reached into her other pocket and grabbed out the dust, standing up and gesturing for Reed’s hand. “You’ll need this.” She poured the dust into his hand and smiled the gentlest smile she could force onto her face. “I’m really sorry.” Then she blew. He would be out in seconds. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met in my life. You don’t deserve to have this weight forced on you. I can’t let that happen.” Then she grabbed onto his body, towering over her and tried as much as she could to guide him gently down to the floor. She had work to do.

Reed stood there beside some unknown man, willing to help carry this burden and share moral judgement, confused. He had made his peace with this in a very short time knowing the only other alternatives were to leave or just watch, and neither of those options made him any better of a person than her. In this situation, they had to be the same. He couldn't judge her for this, it wasn't fair, it wasn't right. But she refused his help all while looking like she was close to tears herself. Reed was as frustrated as she was that this wasn't easy, even though he wished it was. But then fine particles were blown into his face and his eyes squeezed closed. He was stunned, not sure what was going on or why she did that before he felt his entire body give away beneath him, going limp within seconds. The last sensation was her hands catching his body, melting into him, but Reed wasn't really sure that even happened. He was passed out, laid gently onto the ground by Cece.

There was a portal in her house, and monsters kept slithering out of it. There was a portal in her house, and monsters kept slithering out of it. It didn’t take long after the blonde woman disappeared into the portal for Blanche to get on her feet and hide behind the car. The first thing was to open the garage door so those stupid bat things stopped flying straight into the door. The second, was to start taking pictures with her phone. Braced on the other side of the car, Blanche took pictures and posted the warning online.

Nothing had come through from that yet. Blanche had rushed back into the house, slammed the garage door, and locked it. There was no sign of Granny. There was no sign of Rebecca. She was on her own. Blanche rushed to stop the bleeding in her shoulder. It stopped eventually, but she was pretty sure

There was a portal in her house, and monsters kept slithering out of it. Blanche paced—with crutches—and tried calling her parents. The first few times her mom’s phone rang a couple times and it went to voicemail. The next few, it didn’t ring once before it went to voicemail. Too her frustration her dad’s phone was left on the counter.

Blanche did the responsible thing. She dragged a chair the best she could, propping herself on the counter so she could watch what few monsters slide out of the garage, and she called the hospital. Immediately, she started sobbing when she talked to them, talking to whoever her parents bosses were about the death of poor Great Grandma--- and how they needed the week off.

Apparently medical professionals shouldn’t take the week off, but it had worked.

Blanche paled as she watched a snake slither out of her garage and down the drive way. She could hear snarling and the like from the garage. Blanche blankly looked at the door, and thought of her aching shoulder and how her leg hurt like hell.

The smart, responsible thing to do would be to figure out some way to close the portal. To investigate and try to figure out what kind of monsters they were--- to figure out how to close the fucking portal to Hell in her garage.

She killed someone. She should figure out how to close it for the person that was killed because it was her fault.

Blanche, instead, felt the burning sensation in her throat that meant she was going to cry. She wasn’t equipped for this. She couldn’t do this—she wasn’t superman. Blanche curled up, watching another bat thing fly out of the garage and into the town, and she shook her head. She had no one that could help—She couldn’t even help herself, how was she supposed to help everyone else?

Blanche couldn’t just stop a portal. The only thing she had ever been good at was seeing ghosts, and she had never really even helped any of them until Rebecca had told her she could. She selfishly watched them float about…. And she couldn’t even really dwell on that because the throbbing in her shoulder and her leg were distracting her.

She didn’t realize she had snatched the bottle of wine off the counter until she ended up on the couch, content to just ignore the giant portal spewing monsters into town. She was useless. Just like in the exorcism. Just like usual.

Come to think of it, Blanche realized, she wasn’t useful anywhere. There was no magic in her, she could just see things everyone else couldn’t. Maybe she was hallucinating. And she caused someone to die. That blonde woman came in to save her, and she fell in because of it. If you added everything up, the results would be that she was just one giant fuck up who couldn’t do anything. 

It was only reluctantly that Dustin rode his bike all the way north to the Overlook Drive-in Theatre. He wasn't on a mission to watch a movie, no (it would be more than lame to go to a drive-in theatre and watch something sitting on your bike). He needed to get a job. After all, maybe it was a bit unfair to let Lea pay for most of Aria's supplies. He really needed to earn some money as well. He'd felt incredibly lucky when he'd seen the poster at the store that the theatre was looking for more employees. He enjoyed movies a lot, and this job couldn't turn out horrible, right? When he chained up his bike and made his way towards the concession building where he would talk to the manager for his interview, he caught a brief glimpse of the screen. He couldn't see much, except that someone was running through some dark tunnels... the sign to his left showed that this was Alien (1979). Ah. A classic - just one he'd never watched before.

The interview went well. It didn't seem like they were looking for any specific qualifications, since Dustin had pretty much none. They just wanted someone who was available most weekends and wouldn't object to being paid nothing more than minimum wage. Now and then, Dustin could hear yelps or screams from the visitors outside, but at some point, he almost had a feeling they were getting much more frequent and louder. It had to be an especially frightening part of the movie. "Jesus," Dustin remarked as a piercing screech nearly shattered the window. "Are they always this loud?"

There was a strange shine coming out of the Overlook cinema. Izel'd never been one for the cinema, especially not since it had been replaced, and at first she assumed it was the cinema screen. But no, the shine danced in her periphery, and whites and blues and a black light she knew human eyes were not meant to see. But it was too big by far to be an aura. Frowning, she stepped through the gate with a concerned quizzical look. A porter asked her to buy a ticket but she waved him away with a promise to be out in a few minutes. Around the other side of the concession building she saw it fully, flickering in and out like it was shining through a crack in a doorway. There were people milling around, even a couple walking straight through the light like it wasn't even there. On the screen a black worm erupted from a man's chest, eliciting a few brief screens, but no one blinked twice at the slit of light hovering nearby

"Excuse me, ma'am, if you're going to stay you really need to pay..." The young porter said, approaching her quickly and quietly.

"Can't you see it?" She asked, pointing right at the light. "It's not a person, I don't understand where it's coming from."

"Uuhhh, see what?" The porter looked at where she was pointing and back at her, eyebrows raised skeptically. "Um, security, I need helping escorting a lady off the premises, I think she's confus-" Izel didn't hear the last word as the light slammed open into a wide shimmering pool of liquid light, unlike anything else she'd ever seen. Now people were staring at it and screaming.

A large stick or pole started emerging, seven foot long with fine bristles covering from head to toe. A second joined it just as the first bent sharply downward. Then a third and a fourth, tapping the ground and stepping forward. Stepping, that was so not the word she wanted to be associating with this, but it fit the moment it flitted into her mind. Time seemed to stop as a giant body started to emerge, with six beady eyes and pincers that could hypothetically slice through cars. Or not so hypothetically.

Izel screamed. "RUN!"

Dustin’s manager, Craig according to his nametag, chuckled. "Yes, they can get very scared sometimes during the Sunday shows. But as long as it's this kind of screams everything is a-ok and nothing to be concerned about."

Dustin frowned. There were a couple of more screams now, loud and terrified, and most importantly, the screaming didn't stop. That was odd. Normally, a movie had maybe one scary scene followed by another moment of suspense. This was more than strange. "Sorry. I really think there is something wrong," Dustin protested.

Craig shook his head. "Don't worry, boy, after working here for a while you will see that this is-"

The glass of the window next to him burst into a thousand pieces as long, black thing pierced through the window. Craig's eyes flew wide open in terror before the thing sliced right through his chest and pinned him to the opposite wall like a dart. Dustin, who had cowered down the second the window burst, tried his best not making a single sound. Because this thing... there were bristles on it. And it seemed to be alive... like this was its leg. Fuck. How big was this thing? And where did it come from? It was only after the leg moved back, leaving Craig to collapse to the ground, that Dustin moved towards him, feeling for a pulse. "Come on, come on," he whispered to himself despite the giant gaping hole in his stomach leaking blood didn't look good. There was no pulse. Hands shaking, Dustin got up from the ground. He tightened his grip around the doorknob before opening the door to see for himself what the hell was going on outside.

Spiders. Why did it always have to be spiders? Why did it have to be spiders that made her feel like that ant in Bug's Life? Izel dropped to the ground as a leg swung over her head, shards of glass dropping from its bristles. Jumping to her feet she sprinted to the side of the concessions building, hiding from the portal. If anything else came through she didn't want it seeing her first. While at first the spider was slow and disorientated, skittering fast for something that could take on an elephant, but as it got its bearing its eyes focused in on the glimmering green beetles around it, ejecting a giant silk line and trapping a car inside it. Izel watched with her fist in her mouth as it tipped the car over, rolling it over and over and sealing it in a silver nest. She only saw one flash of red inside the car as the metal crumpled and crushed. She felt nauseous as it clearly pushed the now mumified car aside for later, looking for new prey. A door nearby swung open as it happened to step in her direction. The taste of lavender filled her mouth. She spun and spotted purple, and instinctively grabbed the boy's arm as she ran and hid around the furthest side of the building from both the portal and the giant spider. He had a little blood on his hands. Eyes wide, she demanded "Are you okay?" Something was buzzing, and with every step of spider the trashcan nearby rattled.

Whatever it was that Dustin imagined to find outside the door, it wasn't a giant spider cocoon an entire car in its silky web. What the hell. Before Dustin could dart back inside (even though technically he knew that staying inside the building wouldn't help him, as Craig's fate showed) something grabbed his arm. Dustin let out a loud scream, but as he was dragged towards the side of the building he noticed that no, this wasn't another dinosaur-sized spider, this was a human being, a woman. Dustin gave her a panicked nod. He wasn't okay, not at all, but she probably wasn't asking him about his psychological wellbeing right now. And he wasn't injured, he'd gotten lucky. The glass shatters easily could have blinded him. "And you? Are you hurt?" he asked. Fuck his promise, if this woman was injured, he was damn well going to heal her right then and there. A loud, screaming noise of terror made him freeze, and he darted around the corner to see. This wasn't just a spider, no. There was this thing - it was huge, and its tail was red, but it had wide, nearly transparent wings. In its legs, it was clutching a screaming woman with dark brown hair. Before Dustin could take his next breath, the huge thing - it looked like a dragonfly in some ways - rose up into the sky before the woman came crashing down onto an old pick-up truck, denting its roof.

"NOO!" The scream was coming from a teenage girl, holding onto the hood of another car. Her shirt, originally white, was stained dark red at the front, and so were her hands. She stumbled forwards, then fell to her knees. Heart racing like an army of elephants was galloping inside his ribcage, Dustin darted towards her.

"Sorry sorry sorry!" Izel hissed at his scream, pressing her fingers briefly against his lips to stop him before they noticed. Did insects even have a sense of hearing? Did monster insects? She didn't let go but eased her grip, hoping it became something among the lines of comforting. "No, not yet, but we need to get out of here. Look, I have to ask, do you know what caused it? What kind of W-" Izel tore away from the young man - the boy - and followed him around the corner at the sound of the scream, already too invested in getting the kid out of this alive, especially if he had something to do with it, however accidentally. Her heart stopped as a body crashed to the ground, 60 feet away from the silk wrapped car. Her blue and pink aura went out like a broken fuse as her skull smashed, contents dripping out like a dropped egg. All the king's horses... Izel felt sick. The kid was suddenly nowhere near, sprinting to a girl with a wavering aura. "Kid, no!" Izel warned, reaching for her phone only to discover it wasn't in her pocket. Probably forgotten at home. No help was coming, not from anyone who actually dealt with monsters. Gunshots began to ring across the cinema as gun owners open fired, but the spider's exoskeleton didn't even chip, but instead just drew its owner's ire. Eyes fixed on the spider, Izel hurried to hide by a nearby abandoned car, away from the open exposed pair of teenagers she was watching, the sickening dread of an awful certainty spreading in her stomach. But there was no way to warn him.

When the woman had asked him about whether he knew where these monsters were coming from, Dustin shot her a confused glance. Why would she assume that he knew anything more than she did? He had just wanted to get a job. Well, at least she wasn’t hurt.

Blood kept seeping out of the poor girl’s stomach, and as he got closer, he recognised her face. Mary Cooper. She hated doing maths in her head, but she was almost the quickest in the entire class if you gave her a calculator. Her perfume had made Dustin’s sneeze on numerous occasions. They’d never really talked. “Don’t worry,” Dustin whispered as he kneeled down. “Everything is going to be okay.” He lifted her shirt which had begun to stick to her skin due to all the blood. This was not the time to worry about privacy, and they both knew that. When he saw the wound, he was nearly sick. He’d seen blood before, he’d seen scratches and stabs and even ripped stitches. But never anything like this. He pressed his hand to the skin right next to the gaping wound. Fuck, how did he even- How could he fix this when he didn’t know exactly what needed fixing? How deep was this wound? What needed to be repaired? This went way beyond the first layers of skin.

“Dustin?” Mary’s voice was faint. Hopeless. “My mum. That thing just-“

“Shh,” Dustin said again, closing his eyes as he poured magic through his hand. He tried to concentrate on what was wrong, on all the tissues that needed fixing, but the sound of gunfire drew his head out of what he was doing. Fuck. He needed to do this. Now. Before that giant dragonfly are that spider came back to snack on them. “Come on, come on,” Dustin chanted to himself, redirecting blood flow, trying to do something. Eyes shut tightly, he managed to close top layer of skin at the injury site.

Mary’s eyes fell shut.

Clank. Clank. Crash. Izel tensed with every smash, looking around the side of the Chevrolet she was crouched behind as the Spider dragged an SUV through the dirt, a crash shaking the dirt each time it was turned to be wrapped. The doors were sealed shut with silk like steel, but the windows were rolled down and a middle aged man inside with a brilliant green aura was hacking at it with a pocket knife every time he found his balance, trying desperately to escape. Swallowing, she looked back at the two teenagers, the boy she'd dragged out of the way focusing hard on the girl's exposed stomach. Izel didn't need to see her insides to know it was bad, and even as the guy's aura started glowing warmer, purple flitting around the turquoise and fresh splatters of black, the girl's faded, flickering briefly under his administrations, but then flashed out too. Izel gagged, and carefully crept forward. He'd seemed to know her and grief was one heck of a paralytic. "Look, um, you need to go. We need to leave." People were pouring out at every exit, and she didn't want to be the last fish in the barrel. If he didn't come... Izel was pretty sure she'd leave him.

"Come on, wake up. Don't go to sleep now!" Dustin instructed his classmate, taking his hand from her stomach to shake her shoulders. She didn't open her eyes, and her body shook moved obediently in the rhythm of his shaking. "Fuck!" When he lifted his hands, two bloody handprints on her shoulder marked where he'd touched her. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sudden voice talking to him, but it was just the woman who'd grabbed him earlier. "Are you sure? I can't just- I mean, maybe she will wake-" In the middle of his sentence, he pressed his fingers to her neck. No pulse. "And if she is- we can't just leave her, right? Those things are gonna get back and what if they eat her?" He jumped at the sudden whirring of the giant dragonfly making her way across the theatre ground, grabbing one of the last people in line by its feet.

"Yeah, I'm- I'm sure." The words caught in her throat. Izel wanted to slap his hand away, wasting valuable time feeling for a pulse he wouldn't find. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. It was getting closer. Her heart pounded faster in her chest, trying to escape her and get to safety itself. "We have to. Unless you want them to eat you??" She put an urgent hand on his shoulder, looking up at the dragonfly up above again. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so, so sorry, but unless you have something impressive up your sleeve we have to go now!"

Dustin shook his head. No, he didn't want them to eat him, or her. But it felt wrong to just leave her like that. She'd just died, a couple of moments ago, if they brought her to a doctor or a skilled witch or someone like that, maybe they could help? But then, trying anything like that, and he might as well die himself. "Okay," Dustin murmured as he felt her hand on his shoulder. If only he'd known how to fix a wound like that. If only he'd practiced more, if he was more skilled in anatomy... But for now, he needed to get out. Reluctantly, he pulled away, awkwardly getting on his feet. His legs were shaking badly, and for a second he worried they would not bear his weight. But they did. He ducked underneath the next car. "Do we... do we make a run for it? Or try to sneak off?" he whispered. Right now was a painful reminder of how useless he was in these situations.

Izel took a deep breath as he stood up, looking at him mournfully before diving for cover by a blue mini. "That is a really, really good question," Izel answered, scanning through the glass for other auras. Several were crowded around the entrance, trying to squeez around or over two abandoned cars, parked as if the drivers wouldn't let the other go first and instead had abandoned them, the gates completely knocked. In the other direction, the dragonfly was collecting a... a nest, a nest of dead bodies staining dented cars red. In a couple, she could just about see the outline of dead bodies in the cars too, where impacts had crushed them. "Sneak - fast- until we get to the exit, then run like hell. My home's not far, it's safer." The car they were crouched by bounced as the ground shook from the spider's step and the car the dead child was lying next to was dragged away by spider silk. Izel bolted, running three cars further, hoping he was following her, and glanced again for the dragonfly. Of the two, that one was the most inescapable. Her eyes caught the screen, showing a young woman running through metal hallways from an unseen terror. Where her waist should have been, a big red stain coated the screen. Izel swallowed, looked at Dustin, and ran the next stage, illuminated by the red sunshine pouring from the portal.

Sneak fast? Dustin wasn't sure if he could do that. Most of the time, whenever he had to move fast, it couldn't exactly be called sneaking. But he nodded. If he wanted to get out of there alive, he needed to follow this woman's lead. And he didn't even know her name - though now didn't seem like a good time to ask. As the spider got closer, Dustin pressed his hand to his mouth to stop himself from making any noise, and then quickly pulled away again as he smelled the blood on his hands. Fuck. He had to concentrate hard on not throwing up. When the woman made a run for it, he followed her without second thought, he just needed to get away. Frowning, Dustin's eyes followed the woman's gaze. The movie was still running... Doing his best to make his shaking legs follow his command, he ran the woman. The exit was close now... And after they were through, they would have to run. Dustin swallowed. Running wasn't his thing, the asthma making it impossible to keep up tempo for any time, and it wasn't like he was in good condition, either. "If I can't keep up," he whispered. "You need to run."

Izel pun to look it, eyes stern, scanning his face. "Then you better keep up, okay? You've got this, you're running hot on adrenaline." She'd drag him if she had to, she hoped. It was easier to envision yourself a hero than a coward. "Ready? Run!" She grabbed his wrist and set off into a deep sprint, holding tight as she squeezed through the gap between the cars and onto the open road. She looked back to make sure she still had the boy in her hand, the slick blood on his hands and wrists spreading to hers, but they couldn't stop yet. Something like a dog sized pill bug climbed over the cards and scuttled towards them at breakneck speeds, forcing them to sprint again. Izel could feel Dustin's grip slipping in her hand as she outpaced him, forcing herself to slow down to stay with him as the store front came into view. "Nearly there, come on!"

Adrenaline wasn't going to open his lungs though, Dustin wanted to say, but before he could voice his protests the woman started running. Seeing as she had grabbed his wrist, he had no choice but to follow after her. He didn't look back, didn't try to see if one of the monsters was following them. If they did, they'd be fucked either way. He was too focused on getting further, running a bit longer, trying to breath regularly. Suddenly, the woman picked up more speed. Fuck, he couldn't keep up. The ache in his sides was becoming nearly unbearable fast, and his breathing was going faster, and more shallow. It felt as if one of the spiders had caught up with them and was squeezing his trachea shut with its spiny legs... Just a bit more. Dying off an ashma attack had to be more pleasant than getting eaten, anyway. "Com- ing," Dustin breathed in response of the woman's words, finally catching up with her.

Izel pulled the keys out of her pocket and half slammed into the store door, key fumbling in her hand before she heard the satisfactory click of it unlocking. She fell through as it swung open and dragged the boy through it so hard she pulled him off his feet. On the wall behind her desk she'd mounted the bleeding sword she'd won from the auction, the only weapon in sight. Pushing Dusting behind a bookshelf and out of sight Izel lunged for the sword, awkwardly lifting it from the stand. She'd forgotten how heavy it was and it slipped in her hand, slicing a thick corner off the edge of her desk and cutting into the carpet. The door rattled as the giant bed bug skittered through. There were ugly in the photos from infomercials, but up close its roughly shingled exoskeleton sent shivers up its spine, and even while she couldn't see its mouth, she could hear it as it wriggled around, looking for a meal. Before it got to her, it turned towards where she'd abandoned Dustin, and started crawling over a book table to reach him. Izel sturdied her grip on the sword, climbed over her desk, and leapt, driving the sword straight into it. The exoskeleton shattered and greek gunk sprayed out as the tip of the sword sank through it like butter, shattering it's abdominal shell too and sank 6 inches into the floor. The Bed Bug squirmed but was pinned in place. Izel couldn't looked away as it frantically scratched its legs for any purchase whatsoever. Slowly, it stilled, and Izel carefully stepped over it to reach the boy, who was looking very pale around the gills. "Hey, you - hggggh- alright? Can you breathe? Do you have an inhaler? ...Sorry."

Dustin let out a loud yelp as the woman hauled him into the bookstore, and he had just gotten back onto his feet before the woman pushed him again, this time to hide behind a bookshelf. Shit, what were they going to do? The creatures seemed to come out of the liquid-thing at the theatre, and who knew how many had pushed out of there since they ran away. There was no way they were going to stay in one place once they had finished their meal... of people. Fuck. They were going to eat Mary and the others. From one moment to the next, the woman carried a sword in her hand. Who the hell kept actual swords in a bookstore- and wait a second, did that sword just slice through the wooden material of the desk as if it was a slice of cheese?! He jumped at the sudden noise at the door, bumping into a bookshelf behind him. Several books fell to the floor with a loud crash. Dustin winced. This was almost more terrifying than the giant dragonfly. He hated bugs like that, and even more when they were the size that they might consider him their meal. And it was coming right towards him... shit shit shit. There was nothing he could do. There was no spell he could remember that could save him from this. Without keeping his eyes off the bug slowly crawling towards him, Dustin grabbed one of the heavy books from the floor. As this thing crawled over a book table, antennae twitching in anticipation, he was briefly reminded of one of the books he'd been forced to read for school. The Meta-something. How he had hated that book. He took more steps back as the thing got even closer, even though there was nowhere to run. It was right then that the woman sliced right through its abdomen, green ooze spraying out of it. Eyes wide, he looked at the woman as she came up to him, giving her a shaky nod. He could breathe. He didn't have his inhaler - it was somewhere in his backpack which he'd left at the theatre - but he would make it through this. He knew he could breathe, because his chest was moving up and down and there was definitely oxygen going to his brain, even though it still felt like something was pushing on his chest, keeping a tight grip around his throat. He glanced at the dead bug behind the woman, at its thick shell and long legs and sharp mouth parts. What were the other creatures doing, were they currently eating- Dustin barely had time to tilt his head away as he was sick all over the floor. "Sorry," he whispered, his voice shaking a little. "I'm really sorry. I-" He had to stop. He had to get it together. "I'm-" He threw up a second time. "I'm Dustin," he managed to say between gags.

Izel took a half step back, tilting her head away and closing her eyes as he heaved, wishing there was a way to close her ears. "It's okay, I probably need a professional-" she grimaced and squeezed her eyes shut further as he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the floor, "-cleaner, anyway. I'm, um, Izel." She took a deep breath and straightened up, looking at the dead beetle she'd pinned to her floor. God did she hope these things didn't swarm. "Let's get you cleaned up." She offered a hand to him and helped him around the bug as police sirens squealed past. "Oh!" Izel looked around for her phone, but couldn't see it anywhere, and dialling the desk's landline got her a failing dial. "Phone's down, which means internet is. You got any slayers in your phone book? Um, bullets ricocheted off that spider like nobody's business and the police aren't..." Izel sighed, wiping her forhead and smearing blood across it. "Kitchen's through here..."

Dustin looked up as he was finished, wiping at his mouth. His eyes grew wide at her statement. "Shit, this is your place? I'm really, really sorry," he said again. He felt terrible for throwing up in her bookstore, although maybe her owning this place was a good thing. This way, at least they wouldn't have to explain the giant dead bug to a clueless and poor owner. "But nice to meet you, Izel. Though I wish this was happening under nicer circumstances." He followed her, frowning as she mentioned that the phone was down. There went his chance to call and warn his family and Quinn. "Slayers? Like vampire slayers? Those things aren't vampires, at least not how I would imagine vampires," he told her, following her into the kitchen. "You should- um, you should probably get cleaned up. You look horrible. No offense!" Ah, a tap. Great. Dustin went straight through the room, holding his mouth under the water to get the terrible taste out of his mouth. "What are we gonna do?" he wondered. His heart was still going way too fast. "I mean, those things- how do we- we need to warn people. What if people are out there and they just run into- into whatever it is those things are?"

Reza was bored to death. Or undeath. Hanging around in a cramped up basement with a very limited selection of books to read had gotten real old, real fast. Going out to buy a crummy pack of cigarettes that really, he could barely afford, was the best and only thing he could come up with to relieve his boredom. After a year spent doing nothing but drinking, trying all sorts of illegal drugs and getting dragged into ridiculous situation by a murderous vampires, anything else was bound to feel dull in comparison. Still, Reza felt mildly pleased as he left the store, a single pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He still hadn't shaken that particular habit but it wasn't like lung cancer was going to kill him now. Reaching for the pack, fingers itching to hold one, he only halted when his ears picked up on footsteps falling just a second out of beat to his. More than wary after his incident on Harris Island, Reza quickened his pace and then immediately took off on a sprint, not even daring to look over his shoulder. If there was no threat, he'd just get home quicker, right?

It wasn't exactly like Veronica had tried to be particularly stealthy or anything like that, which was something that she immediately regretted when the lanky vampire shot off in front of her. Moving only as fast as a vampire can, she sped after him, accelerating into a sprint as they hurtled down the street. The night rushed by them, lights whipping past her peripheral vision. She hoped she was quick enough to keep up with this one, because him sprinting off was the only thing that had stopped her from ripping his throat out. At least, she assumed that it was a him, from his general build and height. It could just be a woman, the hoodie was somewhat confusing on that front though.

Apparently, being a non-homicidal vampire didn't matter to slayers at all, which really didn't come as a surprise to Reza. At least, Reza assumed that it was a slayer who was currently sprinting like crazy to catch him. A marathon athlete mugger seemed less likely but either way, Reza wasn't keen on stopping to check. The wind suddenly whipped his hood off and Reza freaked; a slayer knowing his face was bad news. Desperately, he made a turn into a side street, almost banging into a large dumpster as his speed made him skid on the pavement. He just needed to get someplace with more people -- more witnesses-- and he should be... fine? Where the hell was he? Slowing to a walk, Reza looked around, dumbfounded. It was Ashkent but then it... wasn't. Like an alternate dimension. "Holy shit," he breathed, throwing his hood back up as a heavy stone settled in his stomach.

Veronica vaulted over a line of bins and sprinted after him. Most vampires wore out pretty quickly and she hoped that it would be the same here. She was trained for this, she had the stamina to keep up with him. His hood went down and she caught sight of the back of his head, but he was off down a side street that she recognised. It should branch out into an alleyway that was behind a dive bar she'd often find vampires preying on humans in. But, the alley way looked different and as she rounded the corner she found herself in unfamiliar territory. Which was something that she never really expected to hear herself say. Not in Ashkent Creek, she thought she knew the town better than the back of her hand. "What the hell?" she muttered as she rounded a corner. But, before she could really investigate she spotted the vampire, lunging after him, she clawed at his hoodie, hoping to grab him.

Before Reza could even begin to consider what this meant, that there was another Reza Burki strolling around here somewhere, hands were violently grabbing at his clothes. So he was still being chased by a slayer, and a very stubborn one at that. Thinking on his feet, Reza zipped down his hoodie and manoeuvred his arms out of the sleeves, once again sprinting. He really didn't have the training or stamina for this much running, vampirism or not, but there was no other choice. He wouldn't stand a chance against a slayer either. With the hoodie gone, he couldn't even risk a look back at his would-be killer. These streets were different and unfamiliar and Reza hoped it would give him an advantage as he turned another corner and luckily, spotted people. Still, in an alternate universe, there was no reassurance that the slayer would let witnesses stop them. Reza really didn't want to get dusted. Maybe he just ought to run into one of those bars...

It didn't take Veronica long to realise that she wasn't in Ashkent Creek anymore. Everything here seemed different and as her yellow eyes shone in the dark, she took her environment in. She was in somewhere unfamiliar now and she was determined to come out of this alive. Somehow, she would have to make it back to Ashkent Creek, not that she was quite sure how she was going to manage that. But, for the moment, the vampire was getting away. She was left with his hoodie hanging from her hand and as she sprinted after him she could see that he was indeed male. At least, he looked like that from the back. As he ran out onto the street, she too spotted people, more importantly someone who looked like a very dull and very drab version of herself? Except she wasn't wearing any makeup (seriously, going outside without contouring? Who did that?) and a silver cross hung from her neck. She seemed to notice the vampire running towards her, though she looked confused about what she was meant to be doing now that she was in this situation.

Reza slowed his sprint just so as he approached the small group of people, listening to the pounding footsteps of the slayer behind him. He needed someplace to hide, and fast; he couldn't risk the slayer killing these people and... no way. The mop of red hair seemed as mocking as ever and now, with the added benefit of a shiny cross hanging around her neck, Veronica looked more insufferable than ever. Running into two slayers in one evening, while getting thrown into an alternate universe? Where in the actual fuck was his luck... Recoiling away from Strange-Veronica and her friends, Reza found that he was backing up against a wall, drawing a blank for any ideas that didn't include running until he passed out. Unsurprisingly, he'd caught the group's attention while running down the street like a maniac and of course, he still had the first slayer's attention, creeping in from the side. And that slayer was... also Veronica? What? Oh no...

The other Veronica seemed confused by the appearance of the other teen, but as soon as they had appeared in Ashford River, they were gone. This time they were returned to the exact same spot in Ashkent Creek and the crowd of people that had been surrounding the vampire dissolved into nothing more than thin air. Veronica stormed over to the vampire and without thinking pinned him to the wall he was in front of. It was only at that moment that she recognised the face of a teenager that she'd spent so long trying (and not to mention failing) to help. "Reza?" she asked, confused. He was definitely who she had been chasing and that would mean that, "you're a fucking vampire?" she asked in a shrill whisper, "what the hell?" she asked, "who turned you?"

Reza was struck dumb, his feet lead, bolting him to the ground even as everything around him faded and shifted until the familiarity of Ashkent Creek surrounded him once more. Still wondering if he'd failed at his sobriety and was currently high as fuck on some very effective drugs, Reza barely reacted when a sharp and muscular forearm pressed against his chest, holding him hostage against the wall. It was Veronica; the one he recognised and not the one with the confused and almost scared gaze. Thankfully, this Veronica recognised him, too. "Veronica," he replied, somehow lacing his words with an amount of sass his shellshocked brain had somehow mustered. "Does it mattered who turned me? Or even why? Aren't you just going to slice my head off, anyway?" His tone grew more aggressive with every word, the final question practically spat at the slayer as fear and shock morphed into harboured anger.

Veronica considered doing it. The part of her that was remorseless, despite the fact that was a part of her that she was hardly aware of, but subconsciously she considered it. She could decapitate him with her bare hands, tell Bridget that she had nothing to do with it. In the end, it was Bridget's love of Reza that stopped her from doing what she would have done to every other vampire. She didn't want to see her beautiful girlfriend cry, not over someone who was barely a blood bag, less than that now that he wasn't even human anymore. She sighed gently and loosened her grip on him, looking down at the ground, she stepped away and shook her head. "It matters because someone who makes a habit of turning someone who is barely out of their teenage years isn't a good person, and they're the type of people I deal with." She paused, it was true that usually she would've just sliced his head off. "No," she lied, "I told you, I have a code, I don't kill vampires when they haven't broken my code. You've yet to break it, so I'm not going to kill you."

"They did it as a favor to me, so no need for another obsessive manhunt," Reza muttered, holding out a hand for his hoodie. He wasn't cold and it wasn't even one of his favorites but no way in hell was he letting Veronica of all people, take it from him. "You sound sure that I haven't," he retorted, not really sure why he was taunting her. Presumably because he was angry, feeling like he still had every good reason to be. "Not saying I have but I didn't take you for someone who sees the good in people. Especially not vampire scum like me."

Sighing gently, Veronica shook her head gently. "You wanted this? Why-why would you want that?" She could understand Reza being turned, he didn't exactly have a great track record of hanging out with people, hell he had a terrible track record of actually hanging out with actual people. "Well, at the very least I hope you haven't done anything wrong, not in that way at least, because deep down, I hope you're not a bad person, I hope you're a good kid who has had a lot of terribly shitty things happen to you." She shrugged gently and handed his hoodie over to them. "I know why you hate me Reza, really, I get it, I expect if I was in your situation I'd feel the same as you. But you're stereotyping me down to every other slayer, which is exactly what you accuse me of doing to vampires."

Reza scoffed, even as he felt some of the anger slowly seeping out of him. Being angry all the time was hard, and usually just made him feel like shit afterwards. Didn't mean he was forgiving Veronica, though. "I don't need to explain why I did it, it happened, end of story." Reza shrugged the hoodie back on, arms crossing over his chest defiantly. "I'm not stereotyping! You almost killed me back there, without knowing who I was or whether I was dangerous, which is exactly what every other slayer--" Behind Veronica, the... Veronica, the one wearing the cross and non-Veronica outfit seemed to, simply put, appear out of thin air. Reza fell silent, really at a loss for words now. Blinking, he looked between the two slayers, stance now defensive.

Veronica watched Reza argue with her, though she thought that she could see the fight in his words draining from his eyes. Yet she said nothing. "Whatever kid, just don't get yourself into as much of a mess as you did last time." She shrugged. "I just ran after you kid, how do you know I wasn't trying to return your wallet, besides, I didn't kill you. Did I?" Then he slipped into a fighting stance and Veronica whirled round and saw herself. She had to be honest this was probably the most confusing thing that had happened to her to date. But that didn't change the situation. This could get messy, the other Veronica might well try and kill Reza if her parents had anything to do with it.

AR Veronica had to admit that she was confused. She had seen and sensed the vampire and the red head before, but they had disappeared not long after they had ran into her life. Then she hand done her best to follow them and she found them, apparently arguing. Confused, she sighed gently before striding towards them. "You're a vampire and by all the rules they put in the treaty that means I've got to challenge you to a duel," she smiled sweetly, hoping that this duel went better than every other duel before this point, "so ple-" she then noticed that the red head looked exactly like her. "Woah, you're, me?" she was so confused, maybe the other her could help her find her parents, after all they were still missing. "We'll have to talk in a minute, I plan on duelling this vampire first."

The treaty? What? For a moment, Reza's presence was ignored as strange-Veronica noticed her... alternative self, before the apparent 'duel' was apparently back on track. "Yeah, fuck that, I'm not duelling anyone, lady," he gritted out, fists clenching all the same. "Just wanna go home, alright." His eyes shifted back to the Veronica he knew, the one who was apparently not going to kill him. At least not yet.

Veronica had to admit that she was confused by this situation. They were being faced down by herself? She wanted to try and kill Reza. As much as Veronica wished that she could just kill Reza and forget about him, she knew that Bridget held the young man close to her heart. That was the only thing that made her do what she did. "Reza," she said quietly but firmly, "I think it is time that you go home. I'll handle, well ... I'll handle myself." She smiled briefly at Reza. "Run along now."