[Envy] Instruction for a Life

[jmlevitt]

A new time rising up on us.

He slipped away while they were fighting, while the mad pirate shot at them. He was injured. Slow. Exhausted. Bringing them down. Burdening them. He was sure of it. Better to leave. Better to hide. Nobody else to slow down with his pain and his tired.

It's all going to shit.

Another cycle end and another cycle begun.

Comments

[nthelizard]

"You can do what you want, Flavius, but I'm only human." He grins wryly.

Apparently, this doesn't mean anything. Hastur's going nuts and Novak wants to throw up, and his injuries begin to throb again, and his head and god there's a bell and he grips his head with his remaining good arm. Steel yourself, you idiot. Steel yourself and you have to get the fuck out of here before you become a zombie or become eaten by some freaky thing.

Remember when you had headaches when you first became a lizardman, Novak? When you were first adjusting to your tail. Think about it like that.

His snout is bleeding from the headache, and his head throbs, pounds, screams, and he see the blackness at the corners of his eyes but he has to go. Has to find Phoenix. Has to get out of here. Has to get home so he can tell everyone he's okay. So he can date pretty girls and piss off with people. Squinting from the pain (god, are his eyes bleeding? He can't really tell. He can't really see. Stagger on, Novak. God damnit, you have to see Seris again), he scoops up Hannah and tosses her limp body over his shoulder.

His run isn't his usual long sprint - rather a wobbly, aching gait - but he runs. He runs and he leaves a bloody, dripping path, but it's a run, and for the love of god, please let it be a fast enough run.

[4_20_100]

It's barely a voice, now, more like a rumbling/shrieking/singing/whispering that vibrates in the sternum, hums through the sinuses, skirls on the very edge of hearing, passes the ears to go directly for the mind. It tells Novak and Hannah to run. It tells Gabriel to open his eyes. It tells Jeff and Soze to stay still.

Whatever Hastur is, now, it glides foward, reaching toward the bound pair, yellow energy gathering at its fingers. A cleansing energy. A huge, bright, horribly beautiful energy, rendering reality into fractals, movements leaving trails, angles fragmenting themselves.

[jmlevitt]

Something is wrong.

Bodies held in place. Bodies held in place with bonds of PAIN.

Want to scream. Have to scream, but the pain tells his bodies to be still. The pain tells his bodies to be quiet. The pain tells his skins to blister and his eyes to bleed. The pain is touching him and the pain doesn't BELONG.

More pain comes. Closer. C L O S E R. Atoms awaken and remember old lessons. Cells awaken and remember ESCAPE. Cells twist and shrink away from the one who brings the YELLOW and the HURTING.

The pain is inside. The pain is INSIDE GET AWAY GETAWAYGETAWAY...

But cells forget. Forget how to stay together while EEESSSSCCCAAAPPPIIINNNGGG. Skins TEAR and PEEL and SLITHER away, muscles come LOOSE, bones TWIST and SHATTER.

GETAWAYGETAWAYITHURTSITHURTSIIIITTTHUUUUURRR--

Nothing left. Nothing left but RED and RED and RED.

It's over. But more RED comes. More RED comes from the shaking earth.

It comes. Like a mountain it comes.

RED WORM TIME.

[one_drafted_man]

Meanwhile, off in the distance, a voice resounds from the nearest hill to the town, drowned out in the sounds of the RED WORM's arrival.

"sonofaBITCH!"

[mrseysidescousr]

[Gabriel is accustomed to being the glove to the hand.]
responding to the bright words in his mind and opens his eyes
they reflect the glow in his own shining color, so out of place here with the ringing bell and the twin stars that form one sun, bathing all in light light light

fragmenting

[He sees it all as if he were a spectre at his own funeral.]

earth rumbling, shaking, something RED (fire?) the RED WORM, it comes it comes the bell tolls, it tolls for thee, it comes to engulf thee (allen?)

[Something inside is cracking. Without focus, his shields are gone and he is at the mercy of the spores and the golden, Eldritch light, and the coming of the red worms.]

SCREAMING

[4_20_100]

Screaming. A sound that could only be called a scream because it could scarce be described as anything else tears itself from an ancient inhuman throat. The sound of an unwanted perspective shattered. The sound of a mind driven over some kind of edge and clinging with sharp, painful, bloody claws. The sound of a subluxated soul.

Make of that what you will as the sound of every scream possible and some that are not fills every molecule of the air, bouncing and rebounding off of every object, making it difficult to breathe, so filled it is with sound. Signal has become noise.

The twin suns want anyone who sees them to run. Run and run and run until you cannot hear the screaming any more.

And when Yellow meets Red, there will come a great thundering detonation, such as this world has never seen; conflagrate Light and Energy and Force in this shivering, rumbling Air. In it will reside all the Envy, all the Sorrow, all the Pain of single Being, so close is He unto a God that Yellow way well overtake Red, on this knife's edge of Probability, wherein Chance itself could fall either Way at the turn of a single Number.

1

0

1

0

[in_verbatim]

The worm may be a giant, red, horrible creature, but in the end, it's just a worm. It's solid. And, so, when faced with a physics-defying burst of energy, it does what anything else would do-- it explodes.

It explodes beautifully too, the worm bits incinerated before they hit the ground, the ground rumbling, a bright light like a nuclear explosion... it's over and done in less than ten seconds.

The worm is, at least.

Everything else, however, is just getting started. The villagers had been approaching the area ever since the sound of the bell, but now they pick up their pace, taking unnaturally long steps, leaping, jumping, pushing, tearing, doing anything to reach the area and get a piece of the two invaders. The animals, too, are suddenly active. The dogs burst out of the backyards, their chains still tied to their worn necks. Ants converge and swarm to the area, crossing over the ground in long, dark waves. The birds are deafening, approaching, anxious for a chance to pull out hair and flesh and eye-balls...

You might want to start running.

[mrseysidescousr]

silence, in his mind, in the world, no colours left at all

and then

Gabriel opens his eyes again, finding himself on his back. His thoughts are

still broken and not
quite
right but he tries to sit up and,
sees the carnage from the worm and--is that a gigantic tin of meat?--hears the roar of a thousand eyes upon them, and acting on instinct he thrusts his hand into--

He got rid of the coat. [stupid fucking flatscan mistake] it was in his coat. how stupid could he have been? FUCK.

"F..flavius, if the mans from belowSHUTUP! if you're still in there, work the soft--nngh-- work some of that... yellow mojo on this shit, huh?"

You know, that wave of people and animals and birds and likely more red worms converging on them? That's what he's talking about.

[4_20_100]

Maybe it's hearing his human name that snaps him out of this state a little.

Or maybe it's the biting and pecking of the insects and birds that have reached him so far.

But Hastur gasps and staggers, choked sounds escaping him.

"Run must ... run... run... run until... can't hear...." His voice is an echoing ruin from some unknown time, but that doesn't seem to matter as he sways dangerously, nearly falling, and grabs hold of Gabriel.

Reality pulls in on itself.

And they vanish into everything that is yellow.