Paint the Town Red // Clem, Shosh & Dani
The absence of presence was not something Clementine was familiar with. To her, Presence meant that everything had always needed to be loud and apparent; it had always been the thing that bound her, kept her together — wrapped firm and tight and constant — that it stopped her from crumbling. Without it, it was suddenly clear she didn't know what to do.
It was the ensuing silence that had caused the realisation to dawn on her. She had expected something — anything — in the air after her reactive spellcasting, but there was nothing. No pounding of her heart, no ringing in her ears. Silence peppered with a fizz of arcane energy in the air.
Instead it was a warmth at her neck that set in; so pleasant and soft that it made her feel light. But it was different to the cool evening air she'd become used to in this southern climate, and it felt wrong.
Her senses sank back into her body, eyes fixed on the rigid, frozen body of the animal before her as her brain wracked to identify what sort of creature it might be.
The sudden need for air pressed at her lungs as she released the breath she'd been holding. It fell from her, damp and abrupt, and she tried to pull another breath inward before it near choked her, wetness catching.
Then began the moment her body started to tremble, the rapid pounding in her chest jerking a hand to the sensation at her neck, where the touch burned so hot and sharp and wet that it fused still in shock. The rest of her felt like it was about to be dragged down - swallowed whole into the earth with nothing to stop the fall. Clem pressed her wand hand against the bark of a nearby tree, nails digging deep into skin and wood as she braced herself and clung to something solid. Another gasp for air dragged clarity closer, eyes darting ahead of her in the evening twilight in the hopes someone - anyone - might be nearby.
Deserted in the wilds of nowhere, isolated with herself and this… big fucking animal ahead of her, unsure if it was dead or temporarily paralysed. Whatever it was, was vast in size and resembled some kind of dark feline, and the more she tried to focus, the more her vision hazed.
A pressing voice in the back of her head told her she needed to leave. It screamed at her, piercing through the full-bodied fog, and barreled her flight response to the forefront of her mind.
It just so happened that the usual pressure of apparition was no longer familiar either. Pain burned white hot at the edge of her mind, threatening to overwhelm her and pull focus. But Clem insisted, determination set on the first place she could think of.
Clarity of a familiar world threw itself back into her vision — deep in the early morning corners Liverpool — and a brief relief seeped into her when she spotted the familiar manhole entrance.
But she struggled to stand, all balance off-kilter.
Her back hit a wall and knees buckled, body sliding to the floor. The pressure at her back poured a fresh and searing pain over her.
Right, Clem thought, Back is bad. Grabbed me from behind.
In a desperate effort to try and inspect the other damage, she battled to prise the remaining hand at her jaw and saw deep red; sticky, damp and warm.
A reactive breath dragged wetness to her throat once more and she coughed, blood spluttering from her mouth and between the shreds of flesh that were left at her cheek. She pushed her hand back to her neck as firmly as could, but the pressure slipped amongst the wetness of everything.
The honest realisation of injury came at the cost of a thread of consciousness. Blind pain had began to seep away with each frantic pound of her heart, a weightlessness coming to her in waves.
But she really needed to move. The street was quiet and abandoned, no sign of aid around her. The metal cover on the ground ahead was her target for help, beckoning her to it.
Clem tried to stand again but stumbled.
With vision blurred at the edges, she tried a further bodily check to determine why she couldn’t hold her weight. A glance to her leg held deep red tears gashed across her jeans and into her thigh that hadn’t been there before… right?
So it was bad. Catastrophically fucking bad.
Things continued to slip.
Her vision shadowed as each breath demanded more focus.
She needed to get to the Den.
The entrance was there — right there — within reach if she could just move.
That defiance she always held inside her threw her forward, faltering steps landing on the entrance and the familiar sensation of being transported downward.
The landing threw her to the ground, impacting the concrete with a thud.
A fresh searing pain pulled a cry from Clem’s throat, wet and strained. Tears tracked her cheeks.
Everything hurt. Everything hurt and ached with the weight of pain. She had done what she needed, but now it was overwhelming.
The relief of safety made her nerves burn at her. It made not difference how she moved, it all hurt; so she pushed herself to sitting, slumped against the nearest wall. She couldn’t hear anything but ringing in her ears, and squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to offset the pain but it still seared through her.
She couldn’t hear the sound approach from behind her — footsteps on the hard ground — but saw the body pass her eyeline as she opened them, letting out a forced, pained and wet laugh.
Of course. One last final, patronising punishment.
"Surprise," she let out weakly, defeated and losing grip.
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