Feel The Earth Move

[Cicadan]

Clay didn't truly pray, as it were. His conversation with God stalled when he had not certainty of what he wanted to say.

"Well..." It was a fearful pause, a breath drawn quietly as if he'd wake some nearby beast with any louder a tone.

"... I think..."

Clay knew how he had to answer. He didn't know if he wanted to.

"...

You do. Definitely."

Chills cut deep, spider-like legs spindling through his veins. Sun warmed and bleached, now, iced over.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Cybil leaned back and planted his hands firmly on the flaking roof. He exhaled through his nose, a sharp, punctuated breath.

"I-"

Something struck the spot of the roof next to him, and hit it hard. It kicked up a few pebbles with it, flinging them a couple of inches into the air, before they violently fell to the ground. A loud boom came from a long ways away, but Cybil's attention was drawn most prominently to the hole that the impact left. It was strangely round, and-

and then another one, this time a few more feet away, and another crack, and another hole, and suddenly Cybil snapped out of it and stumbled to his feet.

Someone was shooting at them.

Instinctively, he jumped for his sword and bag.

[Cicadan]

Crumbly bits, scattered, showered, powdery impacts onto Clay's bag-cradling hands.

Cybil on both feet.

Explosions through the ear. Into one, out of the other, echo between.

Clay stared wide-eyed at a distant shadow, a million odd miles away, a swimming vision of hot sun illusions that he could get lost in, away from this world.

So adrenaline, once more, did the honors. Clay sprung to his feet and his bag was on one arm and he was running desperately for the skylight, open, sanctuary, right there under his feet where they thudded against the frame when rational thought suddenly intruded unwanted and he glanced back twisting head over shoulder and saw Cybil running not for safety but for supplies-

"CYBIL, MOVE!!"

Another shot rang out.

[MethodicalSlacker]

A shot that Cybil could not see, but one that he definitely heard.

He lobbed his bag through the open skylight with everything he had, the noise is made when it hit the ground drowned out by the thumping pound in his ears. Spatha in hand, he looked up for a moment. There he was, on a neighboring roof, barrel pointed straight at C-

-ybil leaped into the skylight, tucking his arms in to shield his face as he careened through the carefully piled boxes, scattering them around on the floor and letting go of his sword as he made impact. Landing in a roll, he slammed into the wall and uncurled, falling back onto his back and yelping in shock as his head fell into the side of one of the boxes. He shifted his weight to his left and rolled out of the light cast by the opening in the ceiling.

When he opened his eyes, the point of his sword was just a few inches away from his nose.

[Cicadan]

Adrenaline reminded him that he was a fucking idiot. Also, so did the sudden stabbing, blinding pain in his left calf. The accompanying disgustingly dry sounding crack of something splintering open.

Clay silently fell.

Backwards, his vision rushing past in a blur of mote reds and cool grays as the sun vanished. Indoors, he was safe. Safely toppling with his flailing arm clipping a box by the elbow, safely crunching on the flat of his unrolled spine as he pancaked into the wood of the floor below. One arm already raised, the other arm that hadn't been hit, he reached for his aches, with a crippled bend to the joints.

"..."

Then, a low, animal hum of agony.

Clay had landed some distance from Cybil. He bled from his leg, profusely, from the tattered flesh-lipped crater of drooling, fatty reds and yellows.

[MethodicalSlacker]

Cybil sat up and backed away from his sword. Picking himself up, he stooped over, careful not to expose his back to any of the windows. He had no idea how many gunmen there were, and for some reason it felt fishy to him to suppose that the one he saw was acting alone. He bent further over to pick up his sword, cringing at the metallic noise it made as it left the-

"THUMP!"

-ground.

Cybil dropped the sword, the clang of metal on floor echoing around the room. His hands shot up to his ears, shielding them from the Spatha's brief banshee shriek. Stumbling over, he caught himself on the wall and turned, pivoting to see Clay's bleeding body sprawled on the floor. Red pooled out from his leg, and all it took was the sight of it reaching Cybil's eyes for him to have to bite back his own bile.

His legs carried himself over to his bag. He willed his hands to open it up, look for medical supplies, and get to patching Clay up. It came as no surprise, though, that instead his hands slung the bag around his shoulder, reached down for the sword, and then went back up to cover his mouth.

He didn't have it in him, did he?

"You do. Definitely."

Cybil sprinted out the front door, every muscle in his face tensed to keep it from falling off of his head, ducking behind buildings to avoid being spotted by the gunmen. He hoped that there weren't too many of them around, but at least he knew where one of them was.

With any lucky, he'd be the only one around, and Cybil could move unhindered.

[Cybil Price continued elsewhere.]

[Cicadan]

He lay there and bled, for a long time. Only the occasional gunshot in the near distance would gently prod through his reverie, like a friend tapping his shoulder, a gentle reminder of the world outside.







Bang.

He'd been taught, and yes, he had listened. Words of wisdom, anointed by the lips of the wise.

They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary.






Bang.

He knew not to question.

Some little locked away part of his mind did anyways. Yet, he had lost the key. Doubts seeped through the cracks of the doors, the crevasses time-worn through the stone walls of his monastic mind.

Yes, HIS plan is unquestionable.

No, it will not carry me from this Earth gracefully.

Ah, how it did hurt. Clay tried to roll over, but could not manage even that without a commandment of pain from his shattered bone, humbling him, quieting his pitiable animal cries.





Bang.




... Doubt was an unwelcome friend. The presence in his life he'd grown accustomed to.




He would not allow it.



So he stood, with great difficulty. With heaving of his torso up, and heaving of breakfast onto his shirt, slimy bile, rank smell. He professed his difficulty in innocent oaths of 'fuck', so on and so forth.

He looked through the broken sky light. A moment of awed silence.

Then, he moved on, hobbling from the home, his figure shrinking away onto the street horizon.




Bang.

((Continued At Dinner and a Movie))