peckenpaugh | HE IS HERE

the vines have run wild

it's over Everything is in shambles. Walls and floors torn and broken from roots and branches sprouting through. They block doors and crowd passages and pulse with sick life. The Thing sits in the center of it all, angry and starving, its trunk both still and moving in ways you catch only when it is in the corner of your vision. Branches that look less like bark and more like skin stretch in every direction, lush with shadowy leaves and dotted with bits of glowing blue. The ruined floor is littered with those little twinkling dots. Seeds. Everywhere, seeds. They hang on boughs, and rest on banisters in the upper levels. The one thing in this nightmare that doesn't radiate that awful, pervasive hunger.

The roof is gone, replaced with a writhing canopy of shadow and muck. Some parts of it are complex spiderwebs of tendrilly shapes, others solid formless movement. The only consistent thing about it is that it is terrible to behold, faintly nauseating to look at for too long. Ash rains down between gaps in its branches, and what glimpses of sky are visible are nothing but swirling gray clouds. What stars still shine are magic, man-made, floated between balconies by prom committee before the dance.

Those remaining begin to stir. Each one of you has heard Pocket's words, "Find the roots." And if you want to save your friends, your family, the holler — hell, maybe even the world — that's exactly what you're going to do.

You climb from protective cocoons of dying moss, push your way past walls of solid ice, emerging into utter destruction. Things move and make noise at the edge of your vision, but for now, at least, all is calm. What to do? Where to start?

it's ruined Among the twinkling maple seeds are the dropped possessions of students and staff, lost when they were pulled away. A compact mirror, a cell phone, a pair of glasses, cups of punch spilling across the floor. A single red heel sits at the edge of the jagged pit that peers down into the Sorting Path. The air here is hot. Too hot. If you jump, you'll surely be boiled alive.

Though locked when everyone tried to flee, vines and roots have torn the doors to the auditorium off their hinges. The splintered remains of heavy oak doors litter the entrance halls and stairwell alcoves, leaving an open path outside. Not that you'd want to flee, by the looks of it.

A cool night breeze is the only relief from the growing heat of the auditorium, yes, but even that is tainted by the heavy scent of flowers. Outside, vines and purple flowers have exploded over every surface. They climb up lamp posts, engulf buildings whole, hang from trees. It would be beautiful if it weren't horrifying. Campus is unrecognizable.

there is no hope Roots and vines clog the way to the Sorting Path, and most stairwells are completely obstructed by the growths of that horrible tree. Up above, something buzzes and wails, a mockery of a cicada's cry, and beyond that the twittering of birds nesting in the tree's highest branches.

Pouch coalesces in the middle of it all, a one-winged magimagicicada, weak and weary but undaunted. Resolute, if not reinvigorated. He bends down to touch a seed, and the moment his obsidian fingers light on it, a blue-white portal to somewhere else rips right through reality. A memory begins to play. Somehow, the bug seems to know what he's seeing.

She gave us what we need, the one who ran says to the gathered students, his voice in their heads as much as the air. Let's all not let her down, huh?

Find your friends. Find my siblings. It's time to fight.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Awash," Aris repeats thoughtfully, not entirely understanding what she means but thinking that he understands enough. He gives a small nod and tries to find something to say to make all of this chaos seem a little less daunting. He's still searching when Viola's fingertips carefully touch his knee, prompting him to glance down. The pant leg is torn and dirty and the leg beneath is covered with gradually emerging bruises.

"Ah, you know," he reassures her with a smile, "Looks worse than it is! I think the suit's a goner, though."

Looks worse than it is! Always so effortlessly cheerful. It’s infectious. Viola has to laugh, a soft, rueful chuckle. “I’m sorry,” she tries to brush a grass stain from the once white fabric, “It was a very handsome suit.”

She looks down at her own prom outfit: wide legged, high-waisted black trousers, a simple silk camisole, and an undone oversized black suit jacket. “I should have warned you. I feel like I knew something was going to happen,” she confesses. It’s no secret to anyone who has been listening to her speculate about her imminent death for week. “I can’t say this is what I expected though,” she smiles. Tries to make a joke. “I would have picked out a safer memory.”

Immediately, Aris shakes his head and gives her shoulder a gentle bump with his, "...Hey. You couldn't have seen this coming. And the memory was plenty safe. It's not your fault some aggro flowers crashed the party." Even if she is making a joke, the last thing he wants is for Viola to blame herself for any of it. He touches the thimble in his pocket again, hesitating. She hasn't even asked yet, but because of the nature of that shared memory and the revelations it had brought to the surface, it's already beginning to feel like he's lying to her. And he hates that.

He glances off into the darkness of the ruined stage, his uncertainty showing more clearly on his face than he realizes.

Finally, his dark eyes turn back to hers and he asks, "Can we...talk about the memory? Or is that too weird?"

The appearance of those wicked purple flowers in her memory where they should not have been sends Viola's mind spinning. If that dark force can enter memories here, was it able to enter the memories locked away in cicada shells? Were those memories as false as 'Lionel Qualls' had been in the bowling alley basement? She's always known reality is a little false but this is more than she can wrap her mind around.

Viola blinks back to attention at Aris' change in tone. "Oh, I don't mind talking about it with you." She has to admit that she is a little curious. "Just spare me the details if I was too embarrassing," she smiles. She is imagining a memory filled with half-constructed song lyrics crumpled up and scattered around the blankets, swaddling her unwashed suntanned limbs. Day three of a t-shirt. Greasy roots or unkind words to her older sister. Throwing up on the beach after smoking too many cigarettes. Those types of embarrassments. She has no idea what's in store.

Aris smiles back at Viola without thinking, because seeing her smile always wants to make him do the same, but the expression is short-lived and his uncertainty clearly hasn't gone anywhere. Even with her permission, he doesn't know where to start. After a small nod and a long pause, he moves to take the hand that's still lingering by his torn slacks. He turns it gently as he removes the glowing thimble from his pocket and places it in the center of her palm.

"It's...from that time. By the river. You and me, you know?"

Oh, the thimble. Viola could write a whole book of poetry about all of the mixed emotions that little iron thimble unleashed inside of her: jealousy, suspicion, curiosity, excitement, trepidation, and now guilt. "You've found me out," she bows her head. She shouldn't have lied to him. "I didn't mean to keep it from you," she tells him, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"I get it, Vi. It just...fell in your lap. And you didn't want to make things weird. Right?" Aris answers, dark eyes staying on Viola even as she lowers her head and tucks her long hair behind one ear. He swallows. Ever since leaving the memory, he's been trying to put things together and he still isn't certain about much of anything. Had the way she'd been looking at the him-that-wasn't-him wishful thinking? Had those feelings of warmth and longing tangled up in everything there been hers or his? The more he thought about it, the more impossible it all seemed.

"Like I'm doing now, I guess," he admits with an awkward smile, finally looking down at his shoes before going on, "...But I kept something from you too. Maybe you already know. But I think I should just say it, so we can...do whatever we do now."

Viola can feel his eyes on her. She's always felt at ease under Aris' gaze, a rarity and a gift, but just now she's overwhelmed by an electric current of anticipation. Her cheeks flush beneath her freckles and her heartbeat flutters in her chest. It's a pleasant sensation, like fingertips being traced over bare skin.

She nods along with him as he speaks. People like to tell Viola that she's good with words, which is funny because it seems to her that it's Aris who is always finishing her sentences and finding the exact right thing to say. She slips the thimble into the pocket of her trousers and turns her knees toward him, leans close. "Tell me," she urges, eager to get to the 'doing.'

Keenly aware of his quickening heartbeat and his tightening throat, Aris isn't certain that he'll be able to go through with it until Viola turns toward him. Moves close. He can't leave her waiting now that he's promised to tell her the truth. His eyes return to hers and he says slowly, "I...was talking about you. You know?"

Viola's gray gaze—normally so impassive—sparks alive with delight. She wants to memorize this moment. The stillness in the center of chaos, the thrum of her heart in her ears, the glide of his Adam's apple as he swallows his nerves. If she ever gets the chance to climb back inside of this moment, she'll be sure to lay her lips just there, where his throat meets his jaw. Tell him that he doesn't need to be scared.

"I know," she breathes.

Immediately, Aris' expression softens, the anxiety giving way to emotions that better suit him. Eager hope and warm affection. Undisguised happiness with only the smallest hint of caution. As predicted, his heart feels like its well on its way to beating out of his chest. He turns more toward her, just as she had toward him, his knees clumsily but gently bumping hers. "...Yeah?"

"Yeah," Viola laughs and lays a hand against his chest. Runs her fingertips over the once white lace. This is where she might ask what they 'do now' or if he's changed his stance on 'doing this stuff' but she doesn't. There's no time for talking. She can sense the tide coming in.

In this moment, she has only one question that needs urgent answering. "Do you want to kiss me?"

It seems that Aris may have the same unspoken understanding that this moment can't last much longer because he doesn't say anything. The heartbeat beneath Viola's hand and the way he gently touches her cheek are answer enough. There's only a moment of hesitation before he presses his lips to hers.

HE IS HERE

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris

RESCUED: Viola & Aris