But I'm falling, deeper, help me, please.... (Active/OPEN)

[spiritsbeloved]

Characters: Eva Lillian, Alphonse Elric, OPEN TO ANYONE. No need to ask first.
Setting: Greenhouse => East Hallway
Time: Juuuuust as Night 16 is falling.
Summary: Al and Eva decide to go hide in Al's room as night falls. Unfortunately, Plot frustrates their intentions. Needless to say, they're both extremely upset and scared shitless at this.
Warnings

Comments

[spiritsbeloved]

There was little more Eva could do than sob in Alphonse's arms, the terrified, somewhat-hysterical noises that accompanied the tears short and sharp and hovering just south of turning into outright screaming. Her eyes were wide and horrified, magnified by the tears that traced shining paths down her cheeks, impossibly green; she was half-blinded by them, but caught sight of Break, Emil, and Watanuki regardless, trembling almost convulsively in Al's arms as she reached a hand towards them.

The sickly, squelching sound of torn flesh was even louder here than it had been, only moments ago. A broad hand-shaped patch of ragged, bloody tissue was stuck to Al's coat, dripping and trailing strings of fat and muscle. It looked like her palm had ripped away entirely, judging from the quivering tendons and pale flashes of bone that could be glimpsed on the outstretched hand.

Hurtshurtshurtshurtshurtshurtshurtshurts....

If this was a sickness, it must surely be a supernatural one--not only to progress so damnably quickly, but to affect her clothing, as wel; it already looked like she were a wearing years' old burial outfit, tattered and decaying as it was to the point of falling from her in pieces. Beneath it, other than the rot itself and the wounds it had caused, she looked.... Unharmed. Untouched. Completely and utterly unnatural.

Her skin almost seemed to crawl as the rot bloomed unprovoked on and in it, festering and oozing as it started to slough off in pieces. Muscle and fat and even skin alike seemed to be decaying in stop-motion condensed time, progressing to the point where it seemed even to be melting itself, trickling in thick rivulets down limbs already slicked by the initial welling of fluids.

[pacifistatwar]

Quatre stopped dead behind Break when he saw what was happening, gaping silently at the poor woman in front of him. What was happening to her? Was it some kind of disease or was she one of the horrible monsters that only appeared at night? Something different? Who knew what she had been through?

It was Break's decisiveness that spurred him into action. He fought down his gag reflex and stepped toward Alphonse, dropping the staff he carried to the ground. "What can I do?" He was completely out of his element in this kind of situation, but that didn't mean he couldn't make himself useful. It just meant that he needed guidance first.

[flowing_alchemy]

Panicking though he was, Alphonse was surely plenty calm for a boy his age in such a situation - he was, after all, easily younger than all of the others there (barring Eva, of course), but he was managing to react with minimal panic, something that all but disappeared after the man commented that panicking was useless. Which was totally true, and Alphonse knew that; he might have been frightened, and a little scared, but there was no way that that would possibly help Eva. If she was going to get help - if he were to fulfill his promise to her that he would help her - then he would need to continue to be level-headed and rational. As horrifying as it was, with the memory and the sounds and the feelings - as much as it tried to drudge up old memories that weren't quite there... he had to ignore it all for Eva's sake. She was what was important here, and that was all.

"Emil!" Alphonse called out, finally, giving a nod of his head to him and the others, acknowledging them briefly but politely. All he was willing to spare for the moment, all things considered. He opened his mouth to reply to the question, even as he began to move curtly, following the strangely dressed man (he could tell where they were going, at least; he knew the layout well enough, and the idea was sound), but he was cut off with a wince at the sound and pain he suddenly heard from Eva. He still only felt that growing urgency, unpleasantness and wrongness, but his mind was torn away to stare down at the bloodied mess left on his coat that was once Eva's palm. "Eva," came the harsh whisper. "Be careful..." he bit his lip, holding her tightly to him, though it was growing to be a continuous struggled to keep her lifted off of the floor. And finally, he turned his attention back to the one person in this group he knew. "I don't know," he answered truthfully, voice grave. "She was fine one minute and then - " and then she was dying like this. "And then this started happening." It was unhelpful, yes, but there was little else he could say. He couldn't explain it, and he was pretty sure that neither could Eva. There was only one thing that they could do for the moment:

"We just need to help her." It was one of the rare moments where Alphonse actually wished his science worked to help people, too. A correlation he'd rather not be making with her current state. And though he hated to ask things of people, he knew that now Eva was far more important than that concern, and so he was able to make one request of the blonde boy, "I - I think I need help carrying her." With Eva's state and size, it was beginning to get a bit risky to do it all on his own.

((ooc: ... I hope this tag is half decent, especially with how long I took!))

[slavetoyuuko]

Break is here Break has a plan, listen to him. It was no small relief to see Break, to know that he could depend on at least one person (andEmil) in the hallway.

"Eva..." The pained look that flashed across his face was quickly squashed, concern lingering. She was almost as big as the boy trying to carry her. "Here, let me take here." He kept moving backwards towards the bathroom, watching the boy and the person (don't know him, knows Break) who had followed Break into the hallway.

Oh god, Eva, what in the worlds have they done to you?

But his voice was calm and even as he spoke. "We will help her. Just try to stay calm." Who was this boy and why was he with her- oh. "Are you linked? Is there one of the red strings? Did she feel anything strongly when this started?" Better to find out what was going on, arms out to take the girl the moment the boy saw fit to turn her lose. "It's going to be alright, Eva. I need you to tell me if you saw anything before this started?" If it were supernatural...well, he needed to know now, if it was physical, then he needed to know that too. "Did you touch something?" A double meaning, she would know what he was talking about.

If it were related to their powers...

Emil Knows him. Emil knows them both, but Emil knows him. Alphonse. The boy holding Eva. If Emil knows him, theyarefriendsandhewouldn'thurtEva. NotathreattoeEva,helphimhelpher.

Through it all Luffy growled, eyes never leaving the girl for an instant. Watanuki was too close now for the fox to get between him and the thing in the small human's arms. His ears were flat against his head, doing his best to stay between Break and the thing, rotting, wrong, broken, dead thing. But it had always been wrong. Watanuki needed to get away. They all needed to get away. It was wrong. It was broken. It was dangerous.

[chaos_squirrel]

Somebody was taking charge, leading them somewhere. Emil didn't recognize the man, but he could feel that Watanuki did, and Watanuki trusted him. That meant Emil could trust him, too. And the man was right, panicking wasn't going to get them anywhere. It was hard to just calm down when Eva was literally falling apart right before everyone's eyes, but if they didn't her condition could turn even worse.

He fumbled around with his supplies, listening to Alphonse explain what had happened and hurrying along with everyone else as he did. He came up with a Miracle Gel: one of the stronger healing gels, something he would normally be more conservative about without shops to restock at. He wasn't even entirely sure it would do the job. (They'd need real healing magic to treat her best, and without treating the main cause even that would only be a temporary measure.) But with Eva as she was, Emil had no qualms about using it. He had a few more gels, but there was only one Eva and he didn't want to lose her like this. If there was a chance it could help her, maybe even save her life, then he had to try it.

Emil quickened his pace so that he walked right next to Alphonse. "Okay. I'll help you carry her." He took another look at her and flinched for a second (he couldn't believe she was still alive when he'd seen people die of much less than that, and never so gruesomely--he hadn't even thought anything this was possible, even after Palmacosta!), but tried to collect himself. It didn't matter, he told himself. This was still Eva. He stuck out his left arm to support her, and with his right hand he held up the Miracle Gel. "Eva. Oh, god. Please tell me you can hear me. Try taking this gel. Maybe it will help you. We're trying to do everything we can, okay? Just hang in there, please!"

[omnomnomsweets]

Break didn't have a plan-- not a good or thorough one, in any case. He just didn't think that standing around and being mortified was doing anyone good. And he was worried about Luffy's reaction. Luffy had never been fond of her, even when they had met up in the bedroom, but he'd never seen the fox get so agitated over another resident, even when if they were hideously maimed. He was treating her like a threat. It was useless to point this out, though; concern, however well-intentioned, could make people very stupid and he'd rather not make himself the villain here. So he said nothing, but stooped to retrieve Quatre's staff when he dropped it (it wouldn't do for the boy to lose that) and patted Luffy on the head, urging him forward.

"He won't listen," he whispered, which was probably silly; it wasn't as if Luffy could understand him. Probably.

He watched with mild curiosity as Emil fed her some kind of mysterious blue thing, presumably medicine. And what did he expect that to accomplish? Medicine usually did more harm than good, as far as he was concerned, and he had even less faith in it when her affliction was clearly supernatural. But they were doing what they could, and he could hardly criticize that.

[spiritsbeloved]

Just existing hurt. Eva could feel hands on her, arms around her, holding her up, moving, the shuffling of feet and echoing of voices, the sway of hurried walking and the creak of the bathroom door as it opened. It sounded like the babble of running water, a current rushing over her ears and through her head, a nearly incomprehensible din that she had to work at to decipher. It was hard to focus on their voices; the pain and overwhelming sense of wrongness were eclipsing all else, and Eva could only curl closer to the three holding her, making noises somewhere between sobs and barely restrained screams.

Did she see anything? Did she touch anything? Could she hear? Hear, hear, hear, here, see it touch it feel it breathe it sense it be it stop it stop it stopitstopitstopitstopitstop--

"No." The word slipped out in a cracked, hoarse whisper, choked and gurgling with mucus and blood. Something felt like it was cracked, broken, flooding out--it wouldn't stop. The words came out in a hot, slippery rush like blood from a slashed artery, a litany, a protest, a warning, a plea--she hardly seemed aware of her surroundings. "Nononononononononononononono...."

The Lanternkeeper stared at them from across the Grand Room as they passed, her expression somewhere between anger and upset and outright disgust. The dead woman and her lover drifted in the bathtub, sobbing as they found their way into the bathroom. The dolls stood and stared with glassy eyes, immobile and mundane. Luffy's vicious growling formed a counterpoint to Eva's low, desperate chanting.

The chanting soon melted into urgent, unintelligible, almost animal-like noises of terror as the blood welled up; her teeth fell out with wet, squelching tears, rattling their way down Emil's arm, jets of nearly black, stringy, clotting blood following; they streaked her shirt with lurid gleaming webs, providing a sticky trail for her tongue to follow, shriveled and pus-caked, useless. She nearly choked on the Gel as it was fed to her.

Her palmless hand came up to clutch Emil's wrist as he tried to feed her, skin sloughing off entirely, the bone splintering and shattering, crumbling away into fluid-slicked dust. Her fingers showed black beneath the bones as they disintegrated entirely; Eva's touch was a sharp, tingling bite of bitter cold, far too strong for a girl who was dying in his arms.

It all came undone. She fell apart like a doll whose stitches had been ripped out, unraveling, rotting, dying with unnatural speed beyond even the past few minutes. The flesh and muscle congealed and fell away, the skeleton crumbled, the rotted-through organs squelched their way to the floor in a shower of warm fluids. Her hair withered and fell away, her face became unrecognizable. Her eyes were the last to go, impossibly, unnaturally bright green, filled with horror as they locked onto the three clustered around her. They melted and ran from her sockets like thick, viscous tears, leaving behind nothing but blackness as they slithered down cheeks that were rapidly disappearing.

It ended as suddenly as it started, the last fragile bits of flesh and blood falling away, the last vestiges of humanity shaken off. Blackness lay underneath, shuddering and struggling as it freed itself from the mess, like a chick hatching from an egg, or a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, or a snake shedding its skin. The shadow's fingers remained wrapped around Emil's wrist as it sat up, bound now only by the red string that still tied it to Alphonse. A wave of stench rolled off it that only Watanuki could smell, dark and bitter, corrosive and poisonous and tainted and wrong, much like what Alphonse could feel through the continued link.

A moment passed as the shadow hung in the three's arms, surveying its surroundings, recovering from its own emergence. But it started to move just as soon, inhumanly fast as it lunged. Its grip was cold and hard and strong, hands like talons as they tore into Watanuki and Emil, savaging the pair with brutally thorough efficiency. Alphonse was left untouched--perhaps because it was simply distracted, or refused to hurt him because of the link, or possibly even to protect him from the people that surrounded them.

[slavetoyuuko]

There was a moment, with the foul stench filling his nose and her flesh melting off her frame, where his hands just slipped around her face, ignoring the boy, ignoring Emil, ignoring Break or anything else going on around him. She was the entire focus of his world, for that single, instinctive moment, heart screaming for him to do something, and mind knowing he couldn't. His forehead pressed against hers, needing the contact, even as she melted away to nothing, hands gently cradling her face. Ignoring the chanting, pushing his words past it as he forced them out. "I love you, Eva. It's going to be alright."

A lie, the oldest lie a parent ever told, cradling a dying child to their chest and telling them everything would be ok. Because they needed to reassure that tiny life, that fragile flame, that it might be. Even if it would surely not. He knew. He could do nothing.

Even as she crumbled, he could do nothing.

I love you, it's going to be ok.

She was like him. She was his, irrevocably, unbreakablely his. From that first moment, her stammering confused introduction. From the soft acknowledgment that she saw the ghosts, like he did. She was his. And she was dying. His shoulders shook with emotion as she crumbled, looking frantically for the nonexistence spirit.

Where, Where...Where is she...She has to be...

wrongwrongwrongwrong.

"No." His voice was small, the word raw and needy, as though it had barely managed to claw its way free of the depths of his soul.

nopleasedon'ttakehertoo.

("My name is Eva." "This is your house, right?" The soft weight of arms around his waist. Eva helping, Eva earnestly leaning over him trying to make sure he was alright after the Phantasms. Eva, always Eva. Bright, helpful, earnest, loving.)

Wrongwrongwrong. He didn't react as the shadow rose, eyes wide with horror and grief. This was wrong, where was her soul...her soul should be going to the basement, to the Phantasms so they could fix her. wro-

He died so quickly he didn't have time to scream.

[pacifistatwar]

Quatre followed the group to the bathroom, still hoping to make himself useful in some way. He kept close to Break, feeling like a spectator among these people who were suffering both directly and indirectly because of what was happening. The woman- her name was Eva, probably; the other blond boy had called it when he arrived- was dying here in the hands of her friends and companions. It should have been a deeply private moment, not something a stranger like him should see. It was only his hope that he could somehow be useful and his tie to Break that kept him there, silently watching the proceedings.

When they reached the bathroom, Quatre lingered by the door. He wasn't sure if it was best to close it or leave it open- on one hand, they were at risk of attracting attention from outside. On the other, it would mean being trapped in a small room with the ghost sobbing in the tub and the legion of glassy-eyed dolls. They hadn't attacked immediately, but that didn't mean they wouldn't. He settled for keeping watch, hoping not to have to disturb the others in Eva's final moments. She should at least be allowed to pass peacefully.

Because of this, he was slow to react to the shadow that emerged from the decaying body. He had been keeping his focus outside, where no one was rotting horribly or sobbing over their loved ones. It wasn't until the two strangers were dead that he knew what was happening.

"Xerxes!" He shouted, stepping back. It was a mindless warning more than anything, but it was also a call for the long staff that the man had picked up. The bathroom was now a battlefield, and that was (sadly) where he was at his most effective. Against an enemy like that, unfortunately, he doubted that anything other than a retreat would save their lives and the other boy's. A split second later, he realized that nothing in his power could save Alphonse. The dark monster was linked to the boy as inescapably as Break was to Quatre.

Massive apologies for the lateness. School ate me.

[chaos_squirrel]

Emil had only a moment to register what was going on. Eva was falling apart, and if the gel was doing anything it wasn't anywhere close to what she needed to recover--there were pieces of her on him and that was wrong on so many levels, even if Eva was a friend. And her hand was so cold, almost biting into his arm, and if the circumstances had been anything else he might have tried to pull it back. But he couldn't recoil, he had to hold on or else she would lose some of her support and then what would happen then? It couldn't really get worse at this point (if there were worse things than this he didn't want to know what), but if he just held on then maybe they could get through this.

He'd died and seen other people die more times than he ever wanted to, but none of them ever happened like this. The closest would have been Palmacosta, with dozens of dead men and women and children and the sheer hopelessness that came when the savior of two worlds became the icon of their town's destruction. But now Eva was dissolving into things nobody had a right to ever become, and it was horrifying on another level altogether.

"Eva, hang on, just please don't die, it'll be okay." The words spilled out of his mouth, everything he never got to say to his parents back in Palmacosta. If he could will her into survival he would, even if it meant his own life in the process, but he couldn't. The gel he'd tried hadn't done anything. But they had to save her. They had to--

Then Eva just fell apart entirely, and though Emil wished he could tear his eyes away he couldn't. Eva's eyes remained until the end, staring out and cutting into them, until those melted away and quickly she was gone.

But there was something remaining, a dark shadow in place where Eva had been just a moment ago. It still held on to him, and still Emil felt revulsion at just being near it, even touching it. But it was where Eva had been, and there had to be some reason for that. Was it still her, just in another shape? Was she actually more than just a girl, and this was her true form? (But there couldn't be that many people like that, unless this place was some kind of magnet for them.)

As it hovered in place Emil could only stare. "E-E...va?"

The shadow descended and the last thing Emil remembered was the hands ripping into him and the string gone deathly tight around his waist.

[flowing_alchemy]

Alphonse was in something of a daze, managing only a stiff nod in response to the question he was given. Evidently he knew about the cords, too, which made sense, given the nature of the house and everything. "I couldn't - can't feel anything..." he said, a blanket statement about it. "Only that something was wrong." He was hesitant to give this same boy the girl, though - he was protective of Eva, and she was hurt and he was responsible for her. He had to protect her, he couldn't just hand her off - but he also could tell that he'd likely do a better job at supporting her and taking her to safety, simply based on size. Alphonse was strong, but small... And Emil, too, was offering to help. He began to shift her as Emil provided the 'gel' thing and a bit of support, glancing at Watanuki, a silent signal that he, too, could help take her, now.

But there was no time for that. Something was wrong with Eva - there were desperate, chanting words and there was blood and things rotting away and falling. Alphonse felt sick to his stomach, felt horrible, felt wrong still. Eva was dying, Eva was...

Gone.

"Eva!" he shouted, but she wasn't what he was holding any more. There was something in her place, something monstrous and horrifying and repulsive and wrong. He knew it was wrong, and he knew - immediately - that he had failed Eva. He should have somehow protected her from this, even if... it was surely impossible. He knew it was impossible, and still he wished he could have done something. She deserved anything but this. She didn't deserve this pain and now - now she was gone, and there was a monster in her place. There was barely time to register that before it was too late.

"Emil!" came the next shout, a desperate warning or plea a moment too late, before Emil and the other boy were dead. They had died at this monster's hand, the monster that had killed Eva and now another friend and another innocent bystander. He had failed them, too, he should have seen it coming, protected them, or something. But dimly he was aware he couldn't have. It just wasn't enough.

So when he registered the voice of one of the other boy's, the voice of the blonde that had wanted to help, and Alphonse remembered his presence again, along with the take-charge man's, and he snapped from his trance, he knew there was only one thing he could do for them. He couldn't protect them, too, and he couldn't get away from here - this monster was Eva, somewhere, somehow - so he just had to warn them in a way.

"Run!" he shouted, the third short plea, head turning to face the other two. They still had a chance, he would do his best only to get them away. It was the only thing left that he could do. "You have to get out of here!"

((ooc: Sorry for the delay. But. Yes.))

Oh geez I didn't have this tracked and I really should have, sorry

[omnomnomsweets]

Break had been facing the other way when it happened, foolish enough to think that nothing would happen so fast. By the time he'd turned around Eva was already gone, and his eye darted around the hallway searching for her until he realized that he had already found her, that the bits of bone and flesh and unrecognisable organic matter on the ground were all that was left.

"Watanuki--"

But the shadow had already swooped down on him and Emil, and it made short work of them, ripping them apart before Break could even think about jumping in to help. The efficiency and brutality of the violence left him frozen, feeling like someone had just sucked all the air out of the room. There was no way they could fight this. It would kill them before he could even summon the Hatter, much less attempt any physical attacks.

"Run!"

Break didn't think twice about heeding Alphonse's warning; there was nothing to be done for Emil and Watanuki, and he couldn't save Alphonse or Luffy. If he ran, Quatre would have to follow. It left a bad taste in his mouth, abandoning a companion and a child like that, but he knew a hopeless cause when he saw one. The least he could do was keep Quatre safe.

pff no worries.

[pacifistatwar]

Quatre hesitated for just a moment, his eyes fixed on Alphonse. This stranger was brave, a good person. He didn't want to leave him with the dark monster, but what choice did he have? He turned and ran with Break, surprisingly fast for a young teenager. He didn't look back.

[flowing_alchemy]

There was a wash of relief over Alphonse, that they were running, like he'd said. He was devastated and he was scared, but there was no way he would let anyone else get hurt. He couldn't shake the feeling that it was his fault. But Eva - this monster couldn't kill him, if his theory was right, without killing itself. So he could at least buy them some more time, let them get away. Do everything in his power to prevent these other two from getting hurt.