discord. | instead the risk lies on the journey home.
summary: ellie, linnaea, lucien, and rory encounter monsters on the way home. trigger warnings: blood, suggested gore.
Ellie pressed down on the gas, trying to get as far away from the monster that they just disabled as she could. "What was the part of the prophecy, about coming home?" Ellie asked, Rory, trying to refresh her memory. "Maybe that'll be helpful in avoiding all of this."
“Uhh,” Rory, dropped down into the seat next to Ellie, trying to rack her brain for the exact wording. “Shit, something about care and being cursed to roam without it?” She glanced at the rear view mirrors, seeing if they were keeping their ground. “I might have to blast it with another wind tunnel soon. We have to come up with something though or I won’t be at full strength.”
Lucien stuck his head out the window as far as he dared, trying to get a view of the beast chasing after them. By now he was used to seeing these things keep up with cars, so he didn't bother asking Ellie to speed up. "It has... goat horns?" he asked no one in particular. Sliding back into the car, he turned to his sister. "Maybe we can throw something at it."
"I can't do anything with my powers unless I touch it," Ellie replied. "And well that's a little hard."
Linnaea had her back pressed firmly into the seat, with her head pointed straight ahead and hands vice gripped onto her seatbelt. Through gritted teeth, she replied, "Great idea Luce, just toss a banana peel out the window, that ought to do it."
Rory groaned, burying her head in her hands for a second. “Fuck.” She took a breath and dropped her hands. “At least we’re close to camp. Worst case, we hold big ugly off and they can run.” She looked up to glance out her mirror again, but instead saw another, smaller monster coming full force at the truck. “Fuck! Look out!” She screamed out in warning, just seconds before it made impact.
Lucien couldn't help himself from making jokes in high stress situations, and huffed out a laugh at his sisters comment. "You have a banana?" he asked, while at the same time reassuring her, we'll be okay. He was about to search for something to throw, when the RV rocked with a hard impact and he crashed into the wall. Pain lanced along his shoulder and the whole car smacked into a few trees, bending metal far too close to his face for comfort. "Fuck," he gasped.
Ellie's head slammed to the window as another monster made impact with their car. Her whole body tensed and she tried getting the car running again, but it wouldn't work and there was no time. "We need to get out and run," Ellie said.
Rory had been flung towards Ellie’s side of the van after the impact, and luckily smacked her head on the side of the other girls seat, still leaving her disorientated, but not injured with a head wound. It took her a full minute to register Ellie’s words, pushing her body back upright slowly as she got her bearings back. “Yeah.” She gritted out. “We need to go.”
'We need... and run...' '...need to go.' A sharp ringing drifted from Linnaea's left ear to her right. She brought a hand up to press against the part of her forehead that slammed against the seat in front of her. "Oh, fuck." Linnaea felt around for her seatbelt, pawing at the clasp to get it undone. Why did it feel like she was moving through syrup? Luce, help.
Lucien surged for his sister, blinking stars out of his eyes. He felt a little trickle of blood somewhere on his back, but didn't think about it as he fumbled to get Linnaea free. Once the clasp was undone, he grabbed her and started pulling her out of the car, not wanting to risk her falling behind. Both monsters were coming in fast, and he looked to Rory and Ellie. They'd given him and his sister knives, but they didn't seem like much now, in the face of this. "Which way do we go?"
Ellie helped get Rory out of the van. "Come on Rory, today is not the day to be slackin'," she said, resorting to lightening the mood, an instant coping mechanism to deal with the situation at hand. Hell would Ellie lose any of these people, not after they have gotten this far. "Go, right, run!" Ellie told the twins. "We're right behind you."
Run. Linnaea waited for the signal to travel from her brain to her legs. Run. Why was this taking so long? RUN. Linnaea picked up one leg and placed it in front of the other. Then again. Then again. Did running always feel so... voluntary?
Rory shook her head as Ellie helped her out, trying to get the world back into focus. She unsheathed the sword that was strapped to her hip, breathing for a second before letting trickles of electricity run down the metal as Alex had taught her. “Me slacking? Never.” She looked back over at the twins, speaking after Ellie. “Get to the hill, you’ll see a tree. Keep running, and don’t you dare stop.” When they took off, she looked back to Ellie. “If we need to, you go after them and I’ll hold them off.”
Once Linnaea finally started to pick up speed, Lucien let himself go faster. He was a few steps in front of her, his hand clasped around hers, trying to urge her to keep up. He glanced behind them and saw the monsters getting closer. "Sis, don't fight me," he said, and scooped her up in his arms. With the sight of the lion-goat-snake thing zeroing in on them, Lucien started to sprint.
“You distract one, enough to get me close enough to use my powers on it and buy us time to get across the border,” Ellie insisted. “We need to disable at least one right now so we don’t have have two chasing after us.”
Rory nodded her agreement. “Okay, get ready.” Seeing the Chimera zero in on the twins, she raised her hand to send a strong blast of wind at it, knocking it off its feet and barreling into a tree. “Go!” She called time Ellie, lunging her sword at the smaller monster, getting its full focus placed on her as she turned it slightly away from Ellie.
Linnaea felt the earth spin away from her, and then she was floating. Looking up, she saw her twin's face, panting heavily. Above him, the clouds seemed to be fleeing from the horizon. Linnaea turned her head to the side. Just past Lucien's arms, she saw the ungodliest abomination, sprinting toward them on all fours. Linnaea opened her mouth to ask a question, but mustered instead a shriek of pure terror.
"Shh, hey," Lucien said between pants. He heard a roar, and a crash, and stole a look behind him. The monster had flown into some trees behind them and had crumpled to the ground. "We're gonna make it, sis, I think I see it." He tripped over a branch but quickly regained his stride, gripping Linnaea's shoulders to keep her steady in his arms. He heard another roar behind him, distressingly close, but this time refused to look back.
Ellie ran for the smaller monster. Fuck, Dad, you better help me. She slid in, trying to get close enough for contact and put it to sleep enough for them to buy them time, but it turned and caught the back of Ellie's leg, and she screamed, tripping and rolling, though she managed to catch it's leg, and she practically had a death grip on it, just enough for her to put it to sleep. She took a breath from the ground, and stabbed it with her knife, killing it.
Lucien. Linnaea tapped on her brother's arm. Lucien. The beast had left a crack in the tree that ripped all the way up to its branches. Angered now, it's eyes were locked with Linnaea's, and she could see deep into where its soul should be. Lucien, it's coming. Fur and scales melded into a single blur of speed as the creature rapidly closed the distance between them. Its beady black eyes became a ribbon of black. There were, two, four, six of them now. LUCIEN.
He didn't want to look, and he tried to tune out his sister's frantic pleading and just run, run. Legs burning, heart pounding, he gripped his sister a little tighter: a silent attempt at reassurance. I won't let you get hurt.
And then, like the cosmos had heard his promise and started to laugh, the beast was there, a pace behind them. He saw houses in front of him and screamed out a panicked, desperate, "HEL—" His voice melted into a garbled noise as the snake tail bit into the place where his neck met his shoulder, and pulled. Linnaea exited his arms as he was yanked backwards, feet dragging through the dirt. He gripped the serpent with numb fingers, trying to dislodge himself, too shocked even to scream.
Everything happened at once. She heard Ellie scream and almost fell over trying to get out to her in time. “Ellie! Are you okay?!” Helping her up, Rory frantically looked around to find the Chimera and found it breathing down the twins back. “NO!” She screamed out, and took off towards them, throwing her hand behind her to set off a blast of wind to speed her up. Regardless, she knew she wouldn’t make it in time. She saw the Chimera grab Lucien, yanking him back and pushed herself to speed up. Every bone in her body thrummed with the power of electricity but couldn’t risk it with Lucien right there, and wouldn’t let herself risk it.
Ellie heard Rory scream and she looked up, pushing the pain in her leg aside for the time being. All she could think about was 'we need to get out of here, we need to get to the border'. Ellie lifted herself from the ground, running after Rory and the twins, but Rory was much faster with the wind on her side.
Linnaea hit the ground hard and the ringing in her head became a deafening siren. Lucien! She watched the abomination take ahold of her brother. Stand up. Again, she felt the signal between her brain and legs dissipate. Stand up! "Lucien!" she screamed, unable to hear her voice over the ringing.
He remembered, belatedly, that he had a knife. His entire left side was going numb, venom from the fangs lodged in his arm, no doubt. Clumsily Lucien reached for the blade with his other hand and waved it in a wide arc. It glanced off the scales like nothing, and then a front paw of the monster wrapped around him, almost like an embrace. Then claws ripped open his stomach and something— he didn't see what— fell out. Blood coated his legs in seconds. A little whisper of sound fell out of his mouth as he was dropped to the ground, cold and still with shock.
Ellie got to Linnaea, grabbing her arm, to help her to the border as fast as she could, knowing Rory was closer to Lucien. "We'll get him, I promise."
Rory slowed down out of pure grief and shock when she saw Lucien drop, and she could almost feel that there was nothing left to do to save him. She wanted to vomit at the sight of all the blood and gore, despite having previously fought in a war. But blood was a lot different then layers of gold dust that took forever to wash off the body permanently. She glanced up as she saw Ellie her to Linnaea and looked back over, knowing that she had to get him out of there, regardless of how cold and still he was. She forced her legs through the shock, her sadness turning to anger as she ran towards the Chimera.
Linnaea sat in their childhood bedroom, her bed opposite Lucien's. She pulled her feet up onto the bed, her back pressed up into the corner. "Lucien," she whispered, watching him sitting across the room. "What's happening?" The carpet beneath them darkened from its faded white to a deep crimson as a swamp of blood bubbled up from some aquifer underneath. Somewhere, Linnaea felt herself be lifted up off the ground. Here in the bedroom, she sat curled up into a ball, eyes locked on her brother, as their childhood memories sank deeper into the rising red flood.
Lucien stared back at her, in one piece, trying to move from his place at the center of the lake of red. He couldn't move, his body rigid, anchored and sinking fast. Somewhere else, something with large teeth was bearing down on him. But he felt nothing, nothing. "Linnaea," he called back, as if from twenty rooms away. "Leave. I can't go with you."
"I can't leave without you!" Linnaea's voice came out in a sob. "This is our place. You have to fight through it, you can't leave me alone." The room was filling up faster now, the red spilling out over her sheets, climbing up her feet and ankles. "What's gonna happen to us?"
"Dunno." The room was fading away, darkness spreading like ink stains from the corners of their bedroom. "I don't want to go," he suddenly sobbed. His head ached, like someone was cutting out the part of mind where his sister lived. "Linnaea. Linnaea."
Linnaea looked frantically around the room for a way out, but everything was now submerged in the blood. The other corners of the room seemed to grow darker around them. Picture frames, stuffed toys, clothes—she watched as they swirled around the center of the room before rushing out towards the darkness, carried away by the current.
A current?
"It's the river." Linnaea gasped, clawing her way to the edge of the bed, which now floated atop the deluge like a raft. "Lucien! Don't cross the river!" She gripped the bed post, struggling to keep her balance. "You're on the river! Don't cross the river!"
The river. Lucien was suddenly at a shore, standing alone, Linnaea's voice a distant thing. "Okay," he said. He couldn't tell if she heard him. "I won't cross!" he shouted. "I won't cross!"
His lips moved silently, eyes glassy. I'll wait for you, Linnaea.
The darkness folded in on everything.
Rory charged towards the Chimera, the sound of her feet slapping against the forest floor causing it to look away from Lucien and at the angered daughter of Zeus. It let out a roar, as if daring her to attack. She knew that she wouldn’t be able to get his body away without taking out the monster first. She took a second to calm herself, channeling the power that was running through her veins. Dad, please. Help me. Her eyes snapped open, glowing a bright blue. She reached her hands up, feeling and hearing the skies darkening as storm clouds almost appeared out of nowhere. She let out a half grunt, half scream, and as the Chimera lunged, she pulled.
"I'll find you." Linnaea couldn't keep her balance any longer. As her legs gave way, the whirlpool of red pulled her down and the surface collapsed over her head.
When Linnaea came to, the clouds were screaming through the sky, and all she could hear was ringing.
She let out another scream, this one laced with pain, feeling something very cold slide through her stomach. Then the ground lit up bright as a huge bolt of electricity struck down, electrocuting the chimera and turning it into dust as it screamed, it’s horn just barely exiting Rory’s stomach before it vanished fully. She felt all the energy drop out of her body alongside it, just barely having enough in her to pull Lucien’s body not even a foot away before she dropped. Her voice called out for Ellie, though it was so quiet she didn’t even know if she had heard it. Dad, please. she thought, before her body went limp and her vision faded away.
Ellie heard Rory scream and she felt herself tense. She dragged Linnaea over the border. "Stay here, I'm going back for Rory and your brother. " She ran out once again, the pain starting to push through now. Just a little longer, Ellie. When she came across Rory's bloody body and Lucien, her heart dropped. Her eyes focused on Lucien for a minute, her mind drifted to her memory of her brother's dead body. Ellie bent down next to Lucien, her fingers not feeling a pulse. She gulped and fixed her eyes on Rory. She could feel a pulse coming from Rory, but she was in bed shape. Ellie put her arm underneath Rory's, dragging her to the border, Ellie's breathing heavy, exhausted. Once they were over, Ellie put her hand in pocket, searching for her phone. Her hands covered in Rory's blood, she pulled up Ben's number, her shaky hands sending him a text: 'border, please help'.
Ellie hoped her boyfriend would respond before she went out for Lucien's body again. She wouldn't leave that boy out there, even if she knew his end. She grabbed his limp body, pulling him through the border to before her legs buckled and she collapsed to the ground. Her adrenaline ran low, and the world became fuzzy, and it went all black.