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

"Oh, they can come at me," Mary Grace mutters, storming straight past Presley toward Patrice's bed. "Lemme fight them first."

Edited (i'll do it!!!!!!) 2020-06-10 22:15 (UTC)

Uriah is on Mary Grace's heels for an entirely different reason. "Whoa, wait," he says, but not because he's worried MG's about to cold clock their totally unfriendly roommates. "Do they just, like, hang out without us all the time? Are they—" He makes an incomprehensible gesture, mushing his hands together. "They coulda just joined us. McGee and I are practically married anyway."

And the he tries to loop his arm with Mary Grace's, which was probably a critical mistake.

Edited 2020-06-10 23:14 (UTC)

Mary Grace elbows him as hard as she can in the ribs.

Uriah yelps pathetically.

Desmond also makes no real move to interfere with whatever potential assault is about to occur. Comment was a bit rude, after all. And whether or not they'd even feel anything at all is sort of up in the air anyway.

"But we already took care of one of 'em, didn't we?" he points out in some attempt at counterbalance. "Be impolite to leave just half stuck here."

Des makes a good point. "...Can we somehow send Bear back in?" Felicity squints her eyes in thought. Did she just solve their problem?

Eventually, trunk at the foot of Wyatt's bed pops open. It smells like stale Lays potato chips, Koolaid, and ketchup, but there's a light coming from it. Looking down is like looking through a window. It's disorienting, but you'll have to jump in to get out.

You don't have to bring Cori if you don't want to.

HE IS HERE

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk

MEMORY: Shittalk