Story Thread - 8/17

[Aquinas]

First topic message reminder :

A memory (cw: hydrophobia):

You awake with a start to the sound of your alarm. It was only a dream.

You roll over with a groan and force your bleary eyes to make out the numbers on your clock. 8:30. The last Tuesday for a while that you'll get to sleep that late.

You go about your morning routine - shower, breakfast, switch on the TV. You're disturbed by the news - still no sign of Mikayla Li. Her mothers are begging anyone who knows anything to come forward. The details of the dream are already starting to fade in your mind, but you think Mikayla was in it. You decide you've been watching the news too close to bedtime.

You check your email. Vice Principal wants to see you today when you get in. You've seen her a few times at various meetings in the last few weeks, but you haven't had the chance to talk to her one-on-one yet. Good, now you'll get the opportunity.

You hop in your car, or on a bike, or on a bus. The town rolls past you - the bars of Dear Bellam are tossing out the garbage and putting up their breakfast menus for last night's patrons with this morning's hangovers. Someone's working on fixing the skylight on the roof of the art museum - it must have taken a beating in that hailstorm last month. The joggers in Meadows U shirts are out in force in Syme Park, a few of them stopping for a water break around the theater troupe's stage. There's a long drive-thru line at Big Bang Burger, but what else is new.

Finally, you roll up to Barton High School.

The facade hasn't changed much since the 50's - and that gives it a certain charm, you think. Today the charm is accentuated by the flowers out front, pink and white and yellow, which Mr. LeFleur has spent all summer cultivating to bloom in a pattern that spells out

WELCOME BACK CRUSADERS
WE'VE MISSED YA

Robbie's out front now, trimming his masterpiece - he gives you a wave as you pull up. As you wave back, you're still running over your day in your head - you need to finish setting up your room for tomorrow, but first you need to swing by and see Vice Principal Hunt. And that's when you notice the others, heading down the lawn beside you towards the front doors.

It seems the four of you arrived at exactly the same time.

[Aquinas]

If one of the four teachers was in a whimsical mood, they might liken stepping through the sheet of rain to stepping through a bead curtain. If they were feeling less whimsical, they might liken it to falling through a terrifying wormhole. The truth was likely somewhere in-between. They would instinctively reach to wipe the water from their eyes, only to find nothing there - their clothes weren't even damp. The rain had abruptly stopped - it seems it had never been happening here at all. But where was here?

That was a really, really good question.

The chunk of rock they were standing on was made from marble tile in a checkerboard pattern, suspended in a vast space. Said space was lit with a cool violet tint, despite the fact that there was no obvious source of light. The corners of the platform were jagged, as if it had been ripped from the ground and thrown into the air. As they looked around they could see countless other platforms floating in the void, some so far away as to be barely visible, other close enough that they looked almost reachable with a good running leap. They were moving, circling, barely missing each other every time they passed, disconnected planets orbiting unseen stars.

Once the general geography had been established, there were three additional things that stuck out as particularly strange.

The first was the red drawbridge. Looming in front of them, taller than anything in the world, was a massive, ruby-red set of walls surrounding a raised drawbridge of the same color. It was set into a chunk of rock in front of them, much larger than the platform on which they stood, and the only object in the space that seemed not to be moving - or at least, was moving at the same rate and in the same direction they were. The drawbridge, when lowered, looked just tall enough to bridge the gap in space between their platform and the other, but it was shut up tight, and it strained the imagine to picture any force on earth moving something so colossal.

The second thing - or things - to note were the people that surrounded them. Rather than looking left and right and seeing the three teachers they'd grown used to, they had rushed through the portal accompanied by... a bunch of high-schoolers? True, they resembled their fellow teachers a bit, but these kids couldn't have been older than 17 or 18, maybe younger...

"Ah, I had a feeling thisssss might happen."

The voice, higher-pitched but familiar, belonged to the third thing of note in this bizarre landscape. Curled up on the ground in front of them, studying them sympathetically, was a snake. Well, not a snake that looked like any they'd ever seen before. Its features were odd, difficult to describe - cartoonish would be the most apt word. It had exaggerated dimensions, as if they had stumbled into a Disney movie, and it seemed to be wearing... glasses?

"Yes, hello. It'ssss me. Please, don't panic, everything isss under control. Take a moment and ground yourselvesss before you ssstart asking quessstions. And, err, perhapsss don't get too clossse to the edge."

[GM_3826]

Naomi blocked out everything else for now. She could feel a familiar fabric hug her skin. What am I wearing?

She looked at her sleeves. She was wearing a blue kimono patterned with white lilies. She looked around, snapping back to reality. I don't know much, but I do know this is not a festival. Her eyes widened as she recognized that her fellow teachers were now high school age. Of course she had never been to high school, so that only made this situation more distressing.

The shock of the situation wasn't enough to make her cry, but she began to make a noise resembling sobbing she tried to hold back, and she was visibly upset even though she was lacking tears. As the others got a look at her, they would probably notice her expression before they noticed her age, as she looked only marginally younger.

"It's been 7 years since I last wore kimonos as everyday wear." She sighed. "I hated it. Can't get it dirty, can't complain about how tight it is. According to my parents, I was the Shimizu family's doll, and I was to play dress up and otherwise stay in the house."

She looked around again. "What kind of dream world is this? It's like a fever dream more than anything else." She began breathing in and out to try and calm herself. Her mind stabbed at her heart as she felt a need to change clothes. When will I get the chance to do so? Should I ask, or should I wait?

She stopped herself, her heart heavy. Am I making a big deal out of nothing? The feeling would not go away no matter how hard she tried to shut it down.

[[VIOLET]]

"H-hey, uh..."

The voice that came out may have sounded entirely unfamiliar to the group at first: running as far below a moderate alto that it could, the control--or the effort--put behind it gave it an almost melodious sound... a slightly hoarse edge giving it a faintly harsh texture. Cold like a stiff winter breeze; coarse, like the fabric of its owner's brand new uniform.

The person Naomi saw stepping towards her may have seemed entirely unfamiliar as well. A young woman in a crisp Catholic school uniform, her stiff blazer squared her vigilantly straight shoulders and framed a white button-up shirt. A long, pleated skirt in gray, navy blue, and pine green plaid ran from a snug band around the young woman's waist to her calves, where the task of covering every centimeter of skin below her neck was passed on to knee high black socks and blocky dress shoes--all kept in impeccable condition. Her hair, a curtain of warm brown, was pulled over one shoulder into a thick ponytail full of bouncing curls that seemed to dance like waves around a thin, straight braid hanging from the side of her face.

Her glasses might have seen better days, though--if any of the onlookers squinted enough, they would have noted a length of dark-colored tape coiled tightly around the bridge: an odd contrast to the young woman's soft-featured face, already softened further by concern.

"Don't worry, okay?" The young woman ran a hand through her hair, sending its picturesque structure into a far more-familiar disarray. Glancing to the side hesitantly, she shook off her blazer ("what the hell," she mumbled, briefly squinting at the unfamiliar garment before tugging it off of her leanly muscled arm) and held it out to Naomi. "Whatever the shit this is--"

--Castillo coughed and hacked, as if trying to clear something from his throat... and finding no luck, he simply flashed a deep frown and shook that off as well. "W-whatever it is, it'll be over in a blink of an eye... and you'll forget all about it in the morning. Here, maybe this'll... take your mind off of it."

Castillo kept the blazer offered out for Naomi to consider while he turned his gaze towards their surroundings. Never mind looking like a dream--his dreams were, generally, fairly "normal" in their contents... this looked like a fantasy fresh out of a video game. Hell, there was even a cute little monster snake wearing Nicus' glasses in front of them now--and there was a nonzero possibility that that snake was, somehow, Alexander Nicus, but by this point he'd exhausted all the energy he already didn't have for bewilderment; he simply directed a raised eyebrow downward at the unfamiliar creature.

"So, this is Wonderland. Interesting. Any... particular reason..."

...suddenly, Castillo dropped his left platform onto the black tile in front of him with a sharp clack, his unoccupied hand tugging the school-issue skirt he knew all too well to the side, as if to display its pattern for their snake guide to examine.

"...we have to be dressed like THIS?!"

[Sharks]

ups, downs, turn-arounds:

Betty, abruptly a teenager, was dressed in easy, comfortable clothes, and seemed to have put as little care into her appearance as was physically possible. Her hair was in that awful in-between phase where it was too long for short haircuts and not long enough for anything else, a curly mess kept partly concealed under her gray-black beanie cap. Her lips were cracked, her eyes were bagged, her nails were bitten short, her face was pockmarked with piercing holes in the process of healing and closing up, and her posture was absolute shit. Her red-and-black long-sleeved flannel, her """ironic""" My Chemical Romance tee, and her ripped, sunbleached jeans were all just a little baggy, the last even held up by a belt, owing less to some desire to hide herself and more to a tendency for forgetting to eat, back when this was what she looked like.

Betty, of course, processed absolutely none of this; right now, her head had room for one thought and one thought only.

Alexander Nicus is a snake.

Snakes aren't supposed to wear glasses.

Or talk.

Something about that fact, the bare, sense-defying reality of it, brought Betty's nearly manic energy to a stuttering, crashing halt. She had no idea why. It's not as if he was particularly frightening. She wasn't scared of him. By all means, she should have found this fact completely delightful. Given a minute or two to process it, she probably even would. But it was like she hadn't truly expected anything strange beyond the curtain - something that weird, that out of place, was jarring enough to knock her for a loop, make her reassess what was going on.

Shit, I must be tripping balls right now, she thought. You'd think I'd have smartened up after my first three times dropping acid, but noooo, Betty, you must have just been in the wrong headspace before, this time will totally be different. Even that didn't feel quite right; things were... too consistent. Strange as this place was, it was fairly static, at least in the short time she'd been there. And... she was anxious, sure, but not paranoid.

Where would I even have gotten acid? I don't know anybody around here who's into that stuff. No, no -- I'm dreaming. It felt so obvious, now, that she could hardly believe it hadn't occurred to her sooner. Alex had turned into a talking snake, for crying out loud. For a moment, she had the absurd thought that he was the devil, here to tempt her as in the Garden of Eden, but she'd broken away from the Christianity of her prepubescence a long, long time ago. Besides, I doubt the devil, if he was real, would need his eyesight corrected.

She wondered how long this had been going on - had she fallen asleep at the bar? Or had those earlier visions been part of this dream, too...? If she hadn't even woken up yet today, it'd sure explain a heck of a lot. It felt like way too much time had passed for that to be the case, but... time getting wonky was a dream thing too, she was pretty sure.

Betty examined her surroundings in a new light. It was pretty cool, actually - she'd never lucid dreamed before, and she was excited for the opportunity. Why the hell is Naomi wearing a kimono? Wait, everyone looks younger - why the hell is everyone younger? And did my subconscious just assume young Naomi would wear a kimono because she lived in Japan??? Is my subconscious racist??? God, that would suck. Actually - where the fuck was Castillo? If she could control the dream-scape, she was totally gonna pinch his head between her fingers. And who the hell was the newbie? The uniform brought to mind her old classmates, before she'd been expelled, but... the face wasn't ringing any bells.

Suddenly, she realized that people were talking. She'd missed whatever Naomi had said, and the stranger was - the stranger was...

With the hair messed up, with that cough, something clicked. It was absolutely inexplicable, and yet absolutely true.

CAS?????

Why the fuck had Dream Cas turned into a Catholic schoolgirl? What the hell kind of subconscious decision was that? What the fuck was her brain trying to tell her? Was she tripping after all? Or - no, Cas hadn't been turned into a girl, exactly. The way... they were speaking, and - yep, that indignation at wearing a skirt - Betty was starting to think her subconscious was telling her Castillo was a trans man, and when he'd been hit with the Youth Beams like everyone else, it had undone his transition? Which, you know, she had no idea if that cantankerous grandpa bastard was trans in the real world, and even if he was it sure as fuck wouldn't be any of her business. Except - wait, if he's trans, then is bullying him about his height, like, making him dysphoric? Is it a hatecrime?? AM I A HATECRIMINAL???

Amidst Betty's metaphorical blue-screening over recent revelations, from the very moment she registered Oh that's Cas, she had attempted to use her powers over the dream world to turn Castillo back to normal. It... didn't work. She moved her hands in vaguely mystical gestures, over and over again, to absolutely no effect. She even made a low humming noise, deep in her throat. As a last resort, she even attempted to squish his head between her fingers using perspective tricks. You know, as a mercy kill. It... didn't seem like she could actually manipulate her dream at all. Which pissed her off, because that was, like, the whole point of lucid dreaming. But - fuck, if her dream was going to torture Dream Cas like this... she wouldn't stoop this low, even against him, even in a dream. Or a nightmare, or whatever the hell this was supposed to be. She needed to help.

And if she couldn't warp reality directly, well... he'd given Naomi his jacket, earlier. She could do something similar for him.

And that's how Betty wound up taking off her pants in front of her co-workers in another dimension, right after miming a bunch of pointless mystical mumbo-jumbo for no apparent reason. It was a whole procession; she had to take off her skater shoes first, of course, and then her belt, and then finally her jeans, one leg at a time. She was wearing shamrock-covered boxers, her legs were distinctly unshaved, and the look on her face was uncharacteristically solemn as she held up her - again, ripped at the knees and sunbleached to hell - blue jeans.

"Trade you for your skirt."

Wait, she still needed to resolve that earlier thought. She... treating him differently after learning he was trans might feel even shittier for him than the short jokes would. How could she navigate this? Obviously if he told her to stop, she would. That would be true even in a world - potentially the real one? - where he wasn't trans; she wasn't that much of a bitch. But until then, she'd need to go with her gut, which was telling her to find a way to call him short but in a gender-affirming way. (She was, of course, steadfastly ignoring the fact that this gesture was only possible because they were the exact same height.)

Well, at least this was a dream, with no consequences whatsoever for messing up. At worst, she'd feel guilty and sad and maybe be nicer to real-Cas for a couple days to compensate.

"...That thing doesn't suit you, ya fuckin' manlet."

...Hey, wait, if I'm dreaming, why the hell aren't I taller than him?!

[[VIOLET]]

"AY SUS NA LANG KA, WHAT ARE YOU DOING"

was Castillo's immediate reaction to Betty offering up her pants. Giving a lady your jacket when she felt cold or underdressed was just the gentlemanly thing to do--but he didn't understand what Betty (that waifish girl with the messy red hair who just called him a manlet was definitely Betty, he wasn't going to waste any more time asking unnecessary questions he already knew the answers to) was doing up until he realized one of the people around him was suddenly only in their underwear, and diyos ko po NO.

In seconds, he hurriedly shuffled up to her and raised the sides of his skirt perpendicular to his waist like a pair of ugly, plaid bat wings in a vain attempt to defend her dignity.

"...what is WRONG with you, Bright?!" he hissed--though in the midst of doing so, he suddenly had several other realizations leading to the rise of an embarrassed flush to his face. If everyone here had, somehow, reverted to some younger-looking version of themselves... that meant he also... and then his voice was... aray.

If his guess was right, he probably looked... and sounded... like a young lady right now.

...that didn't explain the weird interpretive dancing prior, but he could pretend to overlook that for the time being.

"I--I'm used to it, it's fine. I don't actually care that much." He continued speaking in a hush, through grit teeth, as if it was going to keep the others from overhearing on this small platform amid a dream-void of floating rocks. He also made a very strained effort to try and make eye contact with Betty while also avoiding any imagery below her waist; never mind that she was his junior by a decade at minimum, she also now looked like an actual kid. "I mean, you already took them off, so I--I guess I'll take it, but also, for the love of Jesus Christ, please never, ever, do that again."

He pinched the jeans between his thumb and index fingers. Though he frowned deeply, his avoidant gaze, slightly tensed shoulders, and flush of embarrassment easily gave away a timid gratitude.

"But, like... thanks."

If Betty recognized Castillo at all in his current form, the agility with which he slipped the pants on under his skirt, then unhooked the skirt's fasteners, slipped the skirt four inches down, tucked his undershirt under the pants, pulled the skirt off the rest of the way and in front of Betty like a curtain, all together would have given that perception at least a stutter of doubt. Beyond being agile, it was efficient and hurried, about ten times the concern he'd shown for anyone in the past millennium as far as she could possibly be aware. And as soon as Betty took the skirt from him, he would turn around and continue covering her with his silhouette until the sounds of shuffliing stopped.

The ripped jeans might have ruined the harmony of his outfit, but after shedding his jacket for Naomi and then trading his skirt with Betty, somehow, the resulting image actually looked fairly normal--a tomboyish young lady, or perhaps an effeminately-featured young man, in casual garbs serendipitously befitting of the time Castillo would have been in school. Or, after school, anyway; he would have been paddled all the way home if he brought something like this to Saint Martha's--not that he would have ever thought of it in the first place. He'd always been teased for dressing like a prude.

[GM_3826]

"Um... Thanks." Naomi reluctantly accepts the blazer Castillo offers her, although the only reason she can tell that it is Castillo and not some stranger is because the other three that are present are visibly those that attended the meeting with VP Hunt. The jacket doesn't totally relieve her anxiety, as white lilies are still visible beneath her torso, but she can at least say she is not the teenage girl whose clothes were provided by her parents again. She would have never had a man offer her his blazer when she was home schooled, after all. That said, it takes her a second to recognize that the lady that looks about her age right now is a man.

When Betty starts freaking out and removes her pants, Naomi snaps. "Betty, this isn't a dream!" Naomi can only explain how she knows that is why Betty is acting that way by the fact that it is uncomfortably reminiscent to a scene from one of the anime she watches. She always recognized that it would be a less enjoyable thing to see in real life, and getting a look at Betty's hairy legs from when she had given up on life confirms that. That said, she is visibly jealous that Castillo can change out of his skirt, turning to face her senior and lifting an eyebrow, although she brushes off that feeling and sighs. There's nothing else she can do.

She takes a glance at Mr. Nicus. Yes, Mr. Nicus is a snake. It's kind of cute, actually. She blushes and looks Mr. Nicus directly in the eye as she frowns, as if to say I am so sorry. She sets aside the worry that Mr. Nicus might get the wrong message. They will need to wait until their existential crisis has ended to move forward. They can hardly fight whatever demons they find in this state.

[Sharks]

Heh. Heheheheheh. Betty mentally chuckled at Castillo's flustered attempts to protect her modesty. First, this was obviously a dream, so she didn't give a shit about that. Secondly, this was probably the biggest reaction she'd gotten out of Cas that she could recall. Made sense, since she usually tried to keep up at least some kind of veneer of professional propriety, even if it was thin as hell. Thirdly... "Chill, dude, I'm wearing boxers. That's, like, basically shorts," she whispered, an amused lilt to her voice. Still, she accepted the assistance in the spirit it was given, and it didn't take long of her to get the skirt on after that. Damn, she was gangly now, if someone as modestly-sized as her could be described that way. And... her legs still weren't totally hidden away, since she wasn't wearing stockings or anything, but it was probably better than nothing. "And don't mention it. I've been feeling nostalgic about skirts like this anyway," she lied. Now that she'd had a bit more time to examine herself, in the process of changing clothes, she'd realized exactly what time she'd reverted to, and... honestly, she still preferred it to going back to her Catholic schoolgirl days. Truly, Castillo had it rough. I probably look like shit, but at least I look like me, mostly. Just gotta make sure these sleeves don't roll up or anything. Easy.

When Naomi called out that this wasn't a dream, Betty just tut-tutted in her head. She'd given the game away; if she wasn't dreaming, nobody would have been able to tell that she thought she was dreaming, she was pretty sure, so Naomi was obviously just - in this moment - representing her fears and anxieties about the shrinking possibility that this was real. Still, explaining to people that they were actually figments of her imagination sounded like a drag, and then she'd have to confront the kimono thing again, so she just raised her eyebrows. "Never said it was," she said, and she thought about following that up with a my good bitch or an I'm just like this or maybe some dumb flirty pickup line, you know, but now I know it must be - where else could I see a beauty such as yours? but she just wasn't feeling it. She got the sense that Naomi maybe wouldn't quite understand the tone she was going for with the first two, and even jokey flirting felt weird now that everyone was a teen. Bleh. So instead of doing any of that she just "hmmm"ed suspiciously, slipped her shoes back on and slung her belt over her shoulder. The Celtic cross belt buckle could probably smack some nightmare in the face pretty well if she needed it to.

"So! Alex. Snalex. Snicus. Snalexander Snakus. Why the fuck are we babies now." Honestly, Betty just wanted to see where this dream was going. It seemed like it was going to be a real adventure - Nessie, she hoped she remembered it in the morning. She totally couldn't wait to tell Alex about the snake thing.

[[VIOLET]]

"Did regressing back into a high schooler pump all the weed you were doing back into your system, too?" Castillo folded his arms, repressing a powerful urge to sass Betty back to her senses after she had just near-wordlessly offered to assuage his dysphoria before it even set in--at the expense of her own dignity, at that. He wasn't so uncivilized as to not show some kind of gratitude... even if it meant holding his tongue while she prattled on like a complete moron (e.g, boxers are most definitely not "basically shorts," and anyone who thought otherwise--his dear father included, God rest his soul--was a fucking barbarian).

At least Naomi still seemed to have some semblance of her wits about her. While he had a feeling the blazer didn't really make her day, she seemed a little more comfortable, at least: and something about seeing a young woman with short black hair wearing an unusual combination of a kimono and western jacket lit a spark of familiarity in the back of his head... but he couldn't quite put his finger on what that might have been, exactly.

Actually, while the discussion was turning on its own to a page he was interested in, he felt around his...

...ah, shit. He'd just passed off both the things on him that had pockets to the girls. But if his things were in the pockets corresponding to the ones he last knew they were in... that might mean Naomi now had his phone and a small but dense flashlight--good for pinpoint striking; and Betty had... some Tylenol. Maybe his keys? That... was a worrisome thought. Momentarily, he envisioned Betty making donuts in the parking lot with his Corolla; then entering his apartment and attempting to raid his pantry, only to find it stocked entirely with whole wheat cereals, rice, and canned fish--and finding absolutely nothing else of greater interest to take or vandalize, she simply appends something idiotic to the last will and testament in the top left drawer of his desk before leaving in overwhelming but not entirely unforeseen disappointment.

Of course, the persistence of his non-cosmetic effects would indicate that his cane had to be somewhere around here, as well. Doing a quick spin in place, he tried to locate it again: it was entirely possible that he dropped and lost track of it amid all the excitement of the past few minutes.

Right now, his body felt like it was floating in water--no pressure or pain in his joints from the pull of gravity against rusty machinery... though, putting the dreamlike nature of that sensation aside, he still wanted his cane in his hands. The emptiness in his slightly-more-delicate-looking hands was making him restless. Hell, maybe if he didn't need to lean on it, he could more effectively weaponize it if things started taking a dangerous turn... but before anything else, he needed to find it.

[GM_3826]

Oh no. Naomi was confused, angry, and worried. Confused, because she could not separate why Betty had responded the way she did. Angry, because she was upset that she could not get through to her. Worried, because she should be taking this situation more seriously. It was a dangerous cocktail. She could unfortunately not work up a proper response, as she hated yelling. So she just stood there and looked disappointed at Betty. So much had happened within the past couple of minutes, it was mind-numbing to keep track of.

[Aquinas]

The snake that was once a man ping-ponged his little head back and forth frantically, tossing in words where he could – “Well no, not a – no, you’re not – apologiesss, it’s – ahhhh, please don’t take off your-!” He went red – literally, from head to tail – as the clothing swap occurred, and swung his tail around to cover his eyes. When the coast was clear, and the articles of attire had settled into place – making for quite the interesting tableau – he tried to answer each question.

“This place issss…” He paused, as if expecting to be interrupted. When no interruption came, he soldiered on. “This place issss no dream world, no. I’m afraid it’ssss all too real. Betty, you mentioned magic before, and I don’t think you were too far from the mark...”

The harder they looked and listened, the more unmistakable it was that this was indeed Alexander Nicus. The timid style of speech, as if constantly preparing for a rebuttal; the timbre of the voice, squeakier and with a stress on the “s” sounds, but recognizable in its professorial timbre; the glassy eyes with their hidden dimensions, magnified by the comically large spectacles resting – somehow – on his serpentine face. It was inexplicable but undeniable.

“As for your, ahem, restructuring ,” Nicus continued, “I had a feeling ssssomething like thisss might happen. Courts are sssympathetic, in a sssense – they resssspond and reshape themssselves to ssssuit their ssssuroundings. And that ressshaping includesss the resssidents.”

They were growing more accustomed to Nicus’s snakelike visage. So accustomed, that his strange manner of speaking became less and less noticeable, until not even the narration remembered to include it.

“This particular set of Courts is linked – inextricably – to Barton High. It has chained itself to the inner lives of the students here, a boiling cauldron of adolescent insecurities that overpowers everything in the area. It’s become a playground for their Shadows – or a hunting ground, more accurately. And everyone that enters here is reverted to a form that fits.” He scratched his head with his tail. “I suppose that’s not a very clear answer, but I don’t completely understand it myself. As you can tell, I’ve been a victim of it too – look at me, I look like I’m barely two years old!” He waved his brown-speckled tail through the air with a look of distress on his snakey face.

Before he could say anything else, an echoing cry of strong emotion – fear? rage? – boomed from behind the massive scarlet walls behind him. It was over quickly, but it echoed around the surreal space, bouncing off the floating fragments of stone, ricocheting from one side to another, weaker every time, until it was only a ringing in their ears, a memory of sudden and distressing noise. Nicus, who had immediately spun to watch the drawbridge with apprehension, turned back to the group with a new tremor in his voice.

“I, uh, need to talk faster. It seems likely that the Red King and Queen are aware that we’re on their doorstop, which is unfortunate. Here’s what you really need to know – we seem to be able to access the Courts through water, but only late at night, and only on school grounds. I believe Mikayla somehow got through the same way, and that that’s why she’s missing – but I have no idea how she did it, because only Champions like you should be able to access this place on command. In any event, I’m sure she’s behind that drawbridge, in the personal Court of the Red King and Red Queen… which is a very bad place to be...” He scratched his nose with a frazzled motion, overwhelmed by the amount of information to convey. “Perhaps now would be a good time to open the floor for questions?”

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo was quickly snapped out of his distraction by the distant cry: what in blazes could make a sound like that? Everything around him right now seemed to defy the imagination--setting aside that he didn't have much of an imagination in the first place...

"Okay..." He squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his thumb and index fingers tightly against his temples as he forced himself to focus. Drawing a sharp breath through his nose, he spoke slowly and carefully: "I'll just run with you on this. This is the Court of the 'Red King and Queen,' let's say the Red Court: and the Courts, are... well, there's more than one of them, so they're components of a semi-conscious magic dimension that at the moment... thinks we should be... or percieves us as children? That includes you... a snake... and this happens because... ugh."

The familiar creases of a deep, deep frown were folding across the young Castillo's face--the still-smooth contours of his face twitching at the sheer force behind his expression--as he continued to struggle against his own reason. Finally, however, he lowered one hand from his forehead to gesture vaguely in front of him. "Becauuse... the consciousness of the court is... attached to our students. So it's sort of... dreaming of them."

"The Red King and Queen, who rule this Court, are dangerous..." He looped his left hand (bearing an uncharacteristically cutesy woven bracelet--red, teal, and silver string braided together with a tiny silver pendant bearing the likeness of two dolphins swimming to form a yin-and-yang-like shape) in a circle, "and judging by 'Court,' I'm guessing there's some kind of organized, like-minded group operating here--consisting of these Shadows."

His gaze returned to Nicus with a heavy punctuation, hand still rolled out: "and you think our missing student is here, even if it should only be possible to access this place willingly by a select few people--not necessarily just us. If Mikayla is here, that means there's either an exception to that rule, an agent that is breaking that rule... say, a white rabbit... or she is one of the people who is, allegedly, 'supposed' to have access to this place."

"...and let's just skim past the 'water' part, for now."

Castillo paused, studying Nicus closely for a moment to let him get a few words in edgewise, if he had any urgent objections: that stutter of his was annoying--but regardless of how much trouble he had wedging into conversations, he was the one they were all trying to hear from, so they may as well try to make room. What an oddly-shaped creature. If he were to be released into the wild, would that... work out for him? Especially because he had such a large head. What would happen if his glasses fell off?

If Castillo could continue, he would raise his chin. "I suppose we have time to stand around and shoot the shit, but something has noticed us--and judging by the state of that drawbridge, it seems like outsiders aren't welcome."

"So..."

A glint seemed to catch in his glasses: "is there anything more imperative right now than figuring out how to get over there and find our kid? If that's all we need to do... we can iron out the fine details later."

He shot a glance around the group, catching everyone by the eye one by one.

"Right?"

[Aquinas]

Incidentally, Castillo's search for his cane would be in vain. It seemed it had vanished the moment he'd stepped through the rain. But as he looked around, he noticed something almost imperceptible at first - a faint flicker behind him, where he had entered a moment ago. A little tear in the air, just about as tall as he was, through which Castillo could glimpse the football field.

"You've got the hang of it," Nicus affirmed encouragingly. "I like that, the Courts are dreaming, remarkably succinct. Err, well, I suppose I should say I'm fairly certain you've got the hang of it. All my knowledge of the Courts are more or less instinctual, I'm afraid. I don't remember how I learned it all - it's like someone wrote it all down on a note and affixed it to the inside of my head. And I'm afraid it was infuriatingly vague about how many of these Kings and Queens and Courts there are, or how exactly we're meant to lower that drawbridge and get inside this one. All I knew was, I needed to find the Champions - that's you - and that one of you would be the Red Knight. And that Knight should, in theory, be able to get it open." Nicus looked between them all hopefully. "I didn't expect to come across you all at the same time at the meeting today... that was unexpected, and odd. But I know you all saw something strange, and the moment you did, I just, somehow knew you were the ones. I think it would be a good idea if you could all share what it was you saw - perhaps then we can figure out which of you is the Red Knight, and go forward from there."

[GM_3826]

"Er, so you have instinctual knowledge of the Courts?" Naomi butted her head in. She had been thinking about this ever since Mr. Nicus's accidental bait and switch with the part about him being hardly two years old. "I had initially thought you were human and were transformed into a snake, but this is your true form? You're from this place?" Naomi paused for a quick second before figuring that given how they had already been handling this dialogue she could answer his question and ask a new one at once. "Um, I don't really remember a whole lot, as I was freaking out too much to get a very good read on the setting, but I was in a castle at a feast... alone. I could see the waterfalls changing colors outside, but the door was locked, and I couldn't see anything else out there but thick fog. And then these golden statues of a king and queen materialized..." Naomi shivered. "I have no idea what that was about, but it made me feel dreadfully alone. Like I was left there to die."

[Sharks]

With the word "magic," Betty was once again rapt with anticipation, but the infodump didn't really seem to head in that direction, much. She was about to ask for a little bit of clarification on that - you know, "can we learn to cast spells," "can you teach us how to cast spells," "are we wizards now," "can we be wizards now please," that sort of thing - when, before she could settle on her first question, Cas spoke up.

And, despite everything, Betty felt vaguely ashamed. Yeah, this is probably a dream. I'm willing to bet on that hard enough to take my pants off in front of my co-workers, for crying out loud. But there isn't a level of risk that's acceptable when it comes to the lives of my students. Even if the chance is infinitesimally small, this might be real, and if it is, and I don't take it seriously, I will absolutely never forgive myself, and I'll be right not to.

And it was Cas saying this. Taking point, getting things on track. Betty... wasn't uncharitable enough to think Cas didn't care about his students' actual lives, but at the very least, their mental well-being hadn't been his highest priority last year, and... no, yeah, shit, there was no vaguely about this. She didn't have any proof this was a dream. She didn't - how could she be such an idiot? How could she let Cas be a better person than her, for fuck's sake? And - see, even there, she was making this about her. Idiot. Coward. Narcissist. Fuck. Just... stay in the moment.

When Naomi said her piece - and hey, yeah, she should probably be curious about how the fuck Nicus was a snake, anyway - she realized, quite suddenly, that she would also need to talk about what she saw. If Naomi's hallucination was as personalized as hers, then... she was probably pretty lonely, huh? Well fuck, who wasn't? And... trapped. Jeez. Castles... her family was rich, wasn't it? It wasn't any of her business, was what it was. Just get through this.

When she spoke, it was more quietly, more hesitantly than before. Just shy of subdued. "You said you don't know how many courts there are... based on the Wonderland stuff I would've assumed, you know, red and black, maybe, with hearts and diamonds and spades and clubs being subdivisions within those, but..."

A room. A light. A reflection, a...

Sticky textures on her hands, clinging to the table, long and sinewy, couldn't rub it off. All those empty costumes, all those empty roles. Blank faces, watching her.

The murmur of an audience, losing its patience.

"I was... backstage, in a theater, pretty much." Leave the soul-baring to someone else, thanks. "At the end there were... two figures, and I got the sense they were, you know, royalty, but... they were definitely blue. If... all of us got different colors, and, um, you didn't get a vision, Alex, that's probably four Courts, right?" That was useful, right? She was doing a good job, right? "Maybe - red for hearts, blue for diamonds, gold for... no, that doesn't work..." No, gold didn't really fit clubs at all, right? If clubs was anything other than black, it was... green? Like a clover. But spades weren't supposed to be bright, either. Think, Betty. Dreams were symbolism, she was an English teacher, symbolism was her jam. Four courts in four colors, what things came in fours? Card suits didn't work. Humors?

"Red for sanguine, blue for - uh, melancholic" - she hoped they didn't read into that - "gold for choleric, and then... maybe green for phlegmatic?" She tapped her fingers nervously at her hips, not looking at anyone. "Or it could be elemental, maybe, red for fire, blue for water, yellow for... earth?" What the fuck color was air? Didn't feel yellow, didn't feel green. Red blue yellow was a primary color model, she was pretty sure. If you combined them all... "Maybe white for air?" But that would place more importance on it, which didn't sit right with her. Fuck. Moron. God, she was swingy today. That's what happens when you hallucinate your own personalized psychedelic nightmare scenario, get fucking wasted, jump through a magic portal into Spooky Floating Platforms Land and transform into yourself at your absoluuuute worst, I guess!

"Or, uh, you said kings and queens and... knights, right? Are there pages?" Could it be tarot? No, she - she needed to get a hold of herself. She didn't know if there even were themes beyond the colors. Maybe it was set up like a rainbow? Had Alex implied that they were the only champions? She couldn't remember. Idiot. Either way, it didn't matter right now. "No, uh - sorry, forget that, we only need to worry about the red court right now anyway. Is this - is there, like, off with her head stuff going on over there? Cricket games? If they" - her voice hitched - "took her, they're not just - going to give her up, right? We'll have to... be sneaky. And fast. Or, um, good at fighting. Is - are we going to fight?" Why the hell had she been so confident earlier? She didn't - she wasn't - she wasn't a fighter, not a real one, at least. Not anymore. That armor, that costume, that facade... was never going to repair itself. Did she really think she really going to smack some nightmare shadow monster around with a belt?

But - no, it was because this was a dream. It was a dream. She could do it in a dream.

Thread that needle. Sure enough it's a dream that you can fight without freaking out, not sure enough you stop taking it seriously. You'll get through this. Just... if you believe it, it's possible. If it isn't possible, you'll make it possible. Fuck the rules. You're not a piece, you're a player, and there is absolutely nothing keeping you from doing things you're not supposed to. Cheat. Bribe. Flip the board. Walk away. Anything is possible, dream or no dream. You never gave up on that, it just... slipped your mind for a while. You'll hold on this time. You'll hold on tight.

Because Mikayla Li is depending on you.

Because you're depending on you.

Cool. Calm. Collected. Betty smiled, and it was almost real. "Because if any of these freaky bastards hurt my student..."

She kept her breathing even. Her voice didn't break, her eyes didn't water. She could wear a mask. She was good at that. She did it all the time.

"They're going to wish they hadn't."

[[VIOLET]]

Castillo wanted to quietly say something to the effect of "nobody's going to leave you alone to die, Shimizu," as Naomi described her dreamscape--though he hesitated, biting his lip. Never mind. She was his coworker, not his little sister; it wasn't his place to get so personal. If anything, it'd probably just creep her out.

Betty chimed in right in time to continue the round, at least, rattling off some nonsense about... actually, that wasn't a half bad place to start, if theorizing the themes of the courts actually mattered. If one of the four people present was the Red Knight--which, based on the pattern he was seeing here, seemed to be very cut-and-dry--they would likely have no need to think on it much further. Not until another kid fell through a puddle or some shit anyway, God forbid.

Still, credit where it's due, and all that.

"Look who's back on the cutter," Castillo remarked, angling his face to catch Betty from the corner of his sight. Jesus, finally. "The people... uh, things... I saw were green, for the record. So I guess that leaves..?"

He looked back towards John.

[Aquinas]

"Ah, yes," Nicus replied to Naomi. "I ssssupose it was inevitable that you'd ask about... this..."

Nicus's serpentine cheeks flushed as he fiddled with his glasses, the glare from the lights of unknown origin obscuring his eyes. "My memories are... conflicted, and difficult to explain briefly," he said finally. "I remember being Alexander, but I also remember waking up here in this place as a snake just a few weeks ago, and it feeling right, and... I don't know." He looked agitated. "I don't understand it myself. All that's clear to me is my mission.

"And I think we may need to be prepared to fight, Ms. Bright, yes indeed. My understanding is that whatever is behind that drawbridge is neither friendly, nor weak. But, you're a Champion!" He beamed, his eyes briefly looking more like stars than eyeballs. "That gives you power, I know that much! You are a guardian to these students, and your attitude proves it! I know you'll all find that power when you need it most!

"And ah, this is good, this is good! Thank you all! This makes things clearer. If you're the Gold Knight, and you're the Blue Knight, and you're the Green Knight..." Nicus joined Castillo in looking at Joshua intently. "Mr. MacLeod, I believe there's a high likelihood that you are our Red Knight. Tell me, did you see red figures in your-"

The snake suddenly swiveled towards Betty. "Wait - what did you say a moment ago? Pages?" Nicus slithered back and forth quickly. Pacing, maybe? "Knights, Kings, Queens, Pages... it would make sense. Brilliant, Ms. Bright, brilliant! Four colors, four suits, perhaps some sort of Tarot scheme... but who are the Pages, and where could we..." He looked back up at Joshua. "I think everything rests on you right now. Please, tell us what you saw."

[Mirkwood]

All of the insane things that had happened really kept Joshua quiet. First, Nicus melted into the rain, after giving a speech that was basically the Red Pill, Blue Pill speech from The Matrix, except that it was more awkward. Second, making a likely unwise decision, he followed the others into the 'portal', where everything was floating, like some subpar 3D platformer. Also, Nicus was a snake, apparently. And everyone became student aged, including himself, dressed appropriately. The cargo pants and two wolves howling at the moon shirt were almost nostalgic, but mostly kinda weird. He felt pretty good though, considering that he was a bit more fit back in his senior year of high school. And he certainly could have been in worse clothes. Castillo was in some sort of dress, at least until he traded clothes with Bright. Joshua quickly made sure to avoid staring, instead looking over the great red drawbridge. It seemed almost familiar, as if it were part of a dream he had, but had forgotten... Oh right, this morning. The whole reason he went to a football field at midnight. It was a strange experience, but it was better to think about that than the extremely awkward exchange of clothes going on behind him.

The Vision:

Luckily for him, reviewing the vision in his mind helped Joshua answer Nicus when suddenly specifically addressed. "Yes. I saw two red creatures, made out of polygons, floating above me in the air. They did seem somehow to be a king and queen, despite their spinning and lack of smooth curves. So I suppose that would be the Red King and Red Queen. At the end, the king's hand reached out to me, literally knocking me out of my seat, if you remember."
It really was crazy that this was happening. Grand visions, saving the students from an ominous King and Queen of likely great magical power, given the looks of this place. Also the fact that they somehow were champions, meant to be able to fight them. Joshua tried to avoid thinking about what would likely happen when they faced off.
"If you want more info on what I saw, I was in some sort of control room, maybe, or an engineering station in a high-tech facility. They had holograms of schematics and a bunch of screens with a red scepter. There were also windows to the outside, where there were the Syme Park waterfalls, still, somehow, except they were glowing, and flowing off a cliff of a volcano surrounded by jungle, an island in the middle of the ocean."
It was actually a pretty interesting setting. Could probably make a decent game premise. Something like Portal, you're in this high tech facility, and you have to escape into the jungle, but then you actually have to find a way off of the island while being chased by some robot security.

"So, is that enough info for you, Nicus? Are we headed to a volcanic island to find the schematics for the Death Star, or is there some level of abstraction that you've got the key to?"

[GM_3826]

Mr. Nicus's response is distressing to say the least. Naomi's mind begins to wander. If even he doesn't know his origins, what does that say about the rest of us? Could we all be the product of the school's imagination? Puppets made to fill a role? If the others are paying attention to Naomi, they'll see her spacing out, curling her lip and staring off into the expansive void surrounding them.

Naomi does listen with one ear to Mr. Nicus, so she hears his encouraging speech to Ms. Bright. She perks up a bit and turns her head when Mr. MacLeod responds to them, if only out of anxiety about the unclear road ahead. It catches her off guard how unperturbed he is by the vision, which was everyone else's worse nightmare. Maybe he is just a bit more well-adjusted than the rest of us.

Naomi waits for Mr. Nicus to respond, briefly uncurling her lip and biting it as she lowers her head to glance at the serpent. I'm still a bit dizzy, but this is too serious of a situation to staring at my belly button, or whatever the expression is... She says silently to herself. Focus, please.

[[VIOLET]]

"'Death Star blueprints," Castillo grumbled, crossing his arms. "You could pretend to take this a little more seriously... but the hand reached out? That... didn't happen to me. I feel 'reaching out' would be a significant enough detail to the others that they would report it, too--so were you really the only one?"

One of his hands came back up to his chin, deep thought dulling his vigilant expression. "Given the circumstances, that's a disturbing detail... and I don't suppose Nicus is able to elaborate. The faster we get this over with, the better. Could you, like... just try and get to get a little closer to the bridge?"

[Sharks]

After she'd said what she had, Betty had... somewhat come back to herself, and thought something along the lines of Ugh, that was embarrassing. Alex's praise alleviated that feeling somewhat, but... she'd always found it easy to dismiss that sort of thing as people humoring her. Given the situation, though, she decided it'd be better to just accept that he probably meant what he said.

Joshua's description of his dream was... Betty actually wasn't sure how to psychoanalyze that. Nothing obvious came to mind, and thinking about it too hard would be prying, anyway. She didn't want anyone prying into her business; it was only polite to extend others the same courtesy. Damn, what the hell, though? Why's he get to be red? My hair is totally redder than his! Is this because I never truly extended Patrick that redhead solidarity? Well fuck you, too, destiny or whatever you are, Patrick was a prick and I'm not sorry.

She wanted to ask exactly what power Championhood granted her - she hoped she could fly, that'd be rad - but she'd said enough for now, so she just hung back, holding her hands behind her head as she watched and waited. If we get to fight monarchs, I'll get to cross regicide off my bucket list, she thought, dreamily.

[Aquinas]

"That is exactly enough info, thank you, Sir Red!" Nicus exclaimed, slithering excitedly in circles. "You're the Red Knight! My instinctssss were absolutely correct, I knew it! Red, Blue, Green and Gold - and all in one place! We have an excellent chance at..." Nicus's tail drooped. Slowly, he turned his head back towards Joshua. "Wait a moment. I just processed what Sir Green said. The king... reached for you?" He leaned in, eyes wide and blinking behind his coke-bottle lenses. "Asssss in... he reacted to you?"

A soul-withering scream put an exclamation point behind that question. It rent the air and blew out their hearing, and for a few moments, all they could hear was a ringing in their ears.

Which meant that was the only sound that accompanied a massive scarlet hand appearing from behind the drawbridge. It seemed to be the same red color as the walls, but somehow, in some way that was impossible to describe, it was more that color, deeper and richer, the color of a rose in a fairy tale illustration. The color of a ruby in a Technicolor epic. The color of blood on your hand, from a wound you hadn't realized was there until you went to touch it.

The hand gripped the wall, sending cracks splintering down its surface, and as it did the Champions didn't hear it make contact; they could, however, feel the rumble in their bones. All they could hear was that high, splitting ring, as a second, larger shape slowly appeared from above the drawbridge. At first, it seemed to be multiple shapes, scarlet spires like the tips of a castle's battlements rising from the ground. But as they surfaced, they revealed themselves to be connected, and the spires cohered into a single shape - an enormous crown. A crown which floated above a giant's head, a perfectly spherical one, rotating like a featureless globe as it surfaced to gaze at them without eyes.

The moment the sphere came fully into view, it flashed with internal light. The crimson hide of the titan, which had until now appeared to be some kind of stone or marble, was oddly translucent. It was like a lightbulb turning on behind a layer of skin.

In their heads, all five onlookers clearly heard a voice. The ringing in their ears was refining and cohering into words. It was speaking to them.

SCANNING...

KNIGHT ACKNOWLEDGED.

PAGE NOT FOUND.

RETURN, OR FORFEIT YOUR TURN.

And with that, the giant began to lean forward over the wall, its massive hand outstretched, just as it was in Joshua's vision.

If any of the Champions had the wherewithal to look at Nicus, they would have seen him mouthing unheard words, pointing urgently at the shimmering return portal behind them. If any of them didn't, they'd soon find themselves the recipient of a swift slap on the leg from his tail.

[[VIOLET]]

The gears in Castillo's mind ground to a halt as he laid eyes on the thing that had risen before them. His nerves immediately flashed with alarm at the sight: a perfect sphere, those flawless surfaces, the oppressively pure red... those were unnatural. There is no way for something like that to occur on that scale in nature, not on Earth, not anywhere, much less in the back of Barton High. So what the fuck was that, and what was that noise, and...


...it "spoke." The pounding ringing in his ears clarified into a booming voice.

"A page..?" He muttered quickly, glancing frantically around the area for a quick clue--something, anything. Given the themes of what they were talking about lately, his mind immediately made the connection "pupil," the student of a knight, but Mikayla was supposedly already here, wasn't she? Wasn't that the reason Nicus brought them in the first place? Were there supposed to be more children involved?

The hand suddenly outstretching towards them almost didn't make him budge--if anything, his expression flared with fresh, focused stubbornness: some long-sleeping part of him fully intent on barreling directly into the hand and forcing it backwards... but without knowing anything about it, or what exactly made him, McLeod, or any of the civilians here the person for this job, he failed to see any point.

The sensible (or possibly just cowardly) part of him finally got his feet to start edging back towards the exit... but his gaze lingered on the impossible entity, struggling to get the image to click in his head--to find a place among all the things he had ever witnessed where it belonged.

Restless, he stretched himself a little higher, bouncing almost all the way up to his toes trying to get another look at the castle.

Mikayla Li was there, in that hot, burning palace, with that freaky... shape... thing. What the hell did she do to deserve to be there? What the hell could any kid do to deserve to be there...

more than him:

Fighting against an old instinct, he would manage to edge to the portal eventually. His common sense wouldn't let him get caught now--but even a few smacks of Nicus' tail against his ankle would prove a weak means of snapping him fully to his senses.

[Mirkwood]

"Yes, he just about touched me-"
Interrupting Joshua's response was a horrible scream, that sounded like pain, and suffering, and horror, or perhaps it was made to evoke such feelings, like a scream of a horrific beast as it corners its prey. Joshua flinched away from the sound, but such little movement did nothing to lessen its effect. The air seemed absolutely still with the ending of the scream, and he felt his ears ringing intensely, worse than any time previous. Was this what it was like to be in a war zone, as tank shells detonated, causing the incessant ringing where nothing else can be heard? Such thoughts briefly crossed Joshua's mind as the giant hand, the same hand that had reached to him before, crushed a piece of the wall, causing a shaking that he felt in his bones. It was at this point that Joshua finally let the nonsense of this experience get to him. He had went with a group of his colleagues into another world, where he was a teenager, and now a giant golem, with a glowing red head, a red more intense than anything that he had seen before, with a crown signifying its royalty. This didn't make any sense. This is what happened in YA novels and in video games, not in real life! Would he die here, to a giant, merely an offending insect crushed by a giant hand?

Then the ringing became words. Knight acknowledged, page not found? If it were less dangerous conditions, Joshua might have laughed at the fact that a giant said the same thing as a 404 error page on the internet. But what did it mean by a page? If this was a tarot card thing, like Nicus said, would that mean that they would have to bring another person into this place? That would be dangerous, and who even would that be? Someone connected to him, somehow? One of his cousins? A student? There was no way that he could endanger these people by bringing them to face off against a giant that could crush them like grapes! And what was this about forfeiting a turn? Was there somehow some kind of game that the king was playing? That could be even worse, what with how 'games' made by beings of great power always seem to end very badly for most of the contestants.

And the hand approached. It was just as in the dream from before, only now, it seemed more solid, more ready to not just touch him, but grab him, never letting go, not that it would matter, as he'd likely be dead once the hand got a good grip on him. Joshua, frozen by the intense panic, and the inevitability of their unfortunate demise, watched the hand get closer, until a sharp slap on his ankle caused him to turn around, and see the return portal, with Nicus gesturing toward it. Oh, right. There was an escape. Joshua quickly ran back through the portal, breathing heavily once he had gone a few steps onto the other side.

[Sharks]

In the wake of the scream, Betty froze. It was a full-body thing, total and complete in a way that nearly defied possibility - a stillness belonging only to the dead and the soon-to-be, as if her very soul had taken on the quality of a wild animal in that infinite moment between sighting a predator and deciding to get the fuck away. And as that terrible thing's head rose above the wall, red like the endless, empty expanse of the Martian desert, red like the noontide Sun falling to the Earth as a dying bird, bleeding, broken, carving a wound across the sky for one last time before everything is baptized in a destroying fire - red like the rosary, like the soft and unwavering grip of Hell around her soul, like the unyielding Word of the Lord, full with hard boundaries and rigid, cutting edges, in a time she'd still believed and been more terrified than thankful for it - one thought and one thought only occupied the mind of Betty Beatrix Bright.

Holy shitting fuck. All objections formally retracted, Joshua can have this one.

The moment it stopped speaking - and why the fuck could it speak? - Betty bolted, a yelped shout of "OKAY BYE" announcing her immediate departure as she ran, head too thick with instinctive, animal fear to consider any other option. As soon as the danger had passed, she would remember Mikayla existed, and probably immediately turn around... but the Betty of that moment was beyond any sort of rational thought.

[Aquinas]

The scarlet hand kept creeping closer towards them as they bolted towards the shimmering exit, hearts pounding, ears still ringing, trying to avoid stepping on the slithering form of Alexander Nicus as he weaved between their feet. For Joshua and Castillo, the last to move, they may have felt some heat on their backs as the hand's long fingers approached, like a distant forest fire devouring its way toward them. Reaching the portal, some may have hesitated - it was, after all, at the very edge of the platform, with only empty space beyond - but the freaky giant behind them and its hand the size of a station wagon would have been a pretty good incentive to take a leap of faith.

The return trip was as quick as the first had been. Castillo immediately felt his leg go stiff as it made contact with the grass - but luckily his cane appeared from thin air in his hand at the same time. Everyone's clothes were as they had been, and the contents of their pockets were all accounted for. And Nicus, their not-so-fearless guide, looked like a human being again - a human being lying facedown in the wet grass and mud, still stretched out on his stomach as he had been when he'd leapt through the portal.

Which, incidentally, was nowhere to be found. The rain had stopped for now, though the sky still looked threatening. The water that had amassed in little pools on the ground still had a bit of shine to it, an odd light, but it was fading.

As for the ringing in their ears, that had cut off the moment they passed through the tear. The sounds of crickets in the field and distant cars passing by rushed in at once, like they were resurfacing from under water. Finally. Time to catch their breath.

"Mummm.... mmms mmymum mmn mm mmassms?" Nicus muttered, before popping his face out of the mud. "Excuse me - ptew, ptew - has anyone seen my glasses? I can't see a thing."

His glasses were on his face, covered in mud.

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