We will drown in the deep rivers of blood...
At exactly midnight on October 26th, 2009, something that's been lying in wait since Flagg's death earlier in the day grips Chicago tightly. It's been building to this moment all day, a sharp feeling that most will dismiss as anxiety from the television broadcast. It's just leftover trauma- nothing more, nothing less
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He was in the shower, head tilted forward, hands braced against the wall, feeling the water run over the back of his head in a warm stream. He can't stop it, can't stop replaying it, the image of a person torn to pieces like that in front of kids who are now dead.
Children. Tiny, fragile heroes, broken because there was no one else could stop that man.
The devil.He's still religious. As much as he'll deny it, as many holy laws as he'll break without a second thought, he's still religious. He doesn't know what it means, that Chicago chose the devil to guide it, but god it makes him cold and sick and everything smells like blood and he would swear the tracks of water trickling down his arms and off his elbows are red ( ... )
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He has no fucking idea where he is. There are a dozen places, a dozen corpses that could keep him company.
Then Rachel speaks and he snaps back to the present, where the shower turned bloody and the toilet reeks and his back and head are sore. The shower is still on. Oh god, he has to turn it off.
He really doesn't want to touch it.
"Rachel." Relief. No one is dead.
Someone has to be dead.
"What's happening?"
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Rachel steps into the room, gingerly picking her way around splashes of blood on the floor. She reaches into the shower and turns it off, wiping her hand on a towel when she's done (and hoping her twitching doesn't show).
"The same thing happened in the kitchen when I was trying to wash my hands. It's... It's real blood, as far as I can tell."
She crouches on the floor beside him, careful not to sit in any of the blood, but also making it clear she's not distancing herself from Adrian. "You okay?"
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He doesn't want to touch her. Not while he's practically soaked with--god, he can't think about it without wanting to puke again. "Is it everything? Just the water?"
Another little shudder. "Please tell me the alcohol is still alcohol. Please tell me there's something to get all this off."
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She reaches up and plucks a towel from the rack above them. And then, because this is Adrian, because she loves him, she rises to her feet and holds out a hand for him to take, forcing herself to ignore all the blood on his body.
"There's alcohol, yeah. I used vodka to wash my hands. There's plenty of booze left. I'll help you clean up, if you want."
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He's naked. He's blood-covered and naked and he does not like this. There's a helplessness in it that makes this whole thing worse.
"Please," he mumbles.
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"There's not a lot of privacy in the kitchen, but, uh. It's not all covered in blood like this room is."
Again she has to hold back a shudder. She squeezes Adrian's hand. "And the vodka and tequila are out there. We can get you cleaned off so you can get dressed."
She tugs at his hand, coaxing him to step out of the room; once they're both in the hall she closes the door firmly, leaving that horrific scene behind.
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