#highway violence

[inniave]

houses of the holy.... this lost highway...

[allhailthe70shousewife]

10/13/1977

My mother told me that I was not allowed to watch Midnight Express or The Boys from Brazil and I have followed that edict to this day.

[revvnant]

i'm fucking sobbing i love kart racers and you won't see me in any vehicle that isn't the flying purple porsche.

[coffincoitus]

every time I neglect uni my habits get so much better eg I go to the gym consistently and read more. idk if it's just the academic load in itself that's such a burden or if it's more to do with the fact that the 2 hour drive between the two apartments creates a feeling of a descent into hell every time I go to campus

[eastendies]

And Keanu Taylor severely regretted pissing off callum that day

[nerice]

Hello hello on this fine day I want to ask what the seed in the seed arc stand for? A literal botanical seed? A seed more in a metaphorical way? A third more sinister thing?

lore ask anon i love u like the sun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! here are terrible answers bc it is for the most part the last option with a little of the former two mixed in !

for context the term usually turns up in the following situations > - seed arc (post lhnh travel arc for sky(+jack)) - seed kids (blood-related children of soulless. put a pin in this) - seed mode (their inevitable end) all of these are meta terms and not used in canon bc [seed] terminology goes back to outdated lore (pre-2015 moon system overhaul) where soulless immortality worked via "influence rules" essentially them being untethered from time meant the exact opposite where they'd fade away unless they anchored themselves into existence by influencing it. & it just so happened that everyone's least favourite oc of mine (hot minute since i last posted so yeah this is abt gray. yes we are skirting rabbit territory here. knife emoji locked and loaded) anwy his chosen method of influence accumulation was via "seeds of immortality" aka. lab-grow some landmine children and yeet them thru time portals so when they cause calamity all up and down reality it quadrubillions ur power.

now forget everything i just said bc this was pre black swan era where gray was a much more one-note machiavellian villain type guy. impossible that he used to be even more boring than he is now <3

anwy that's where the basic wording comes from, and in broad strokes it's still the same concept but the particulars have changed !! without getting into stupid soul birth rules the tldr is. after he accidentally gets stuck with a daughter, hold for [🐇], gray realizes that for the time he is linked to a mortal btwn incubation nd blossoming of a soul, it acts as a fairly reliable pain relief. nowhere near the levels of linnea's cold touch cure, but after losing her he has to make do, bandaid on a bullet wound etc. so he whores around a bunch and gets stuck with children he has no use for (hold for. 🐇) and disposes of them via time portal. the funniest thing is that he has no idea what happens to soulless halfbreeds after this.

what happens to soulless halfbreeds is this: any child of a mortal and a soulless will inevitably die when their moon blood eats thru their soul. for 99.9% of seed kids this happens around the time they come of age (20 yrs) with the one notable exception ofc being sky bc her birth mother was a descendant & having some of reina's spark in her translates to the bastard strength i am insane abt for the rest of my life, slightly more resistance to soulless blood (despite all the. 💉🐇🩹 yknow) so her total time wld have been at least a century, if not centuries, if she had not burned thru most of her soul to keep leah alive to see dream game. :) [i am exited from this line of thought]

INCOHERENT SORRY. wheres the road where's the point. this is a vry freeform answer my apologies OTL

it's not a botanical seed but it is very much a family lineage seed. soulless lineage, to the detriment of all involved. the main, named oc corners it touches are [ofc sky 💚] and also nashua in white crown. half-siblings the two of them, though never meet :3c & then there is ofc, seed arc; the terrible, terrible interlude. the decades after lhnh wherein sky grows into her own as she travels the world, and inevitably runs into children & young adults who carry a hint of night traces. who sometimes look a little too familiar. who are afflicted with an obstinate patch of bruises somewhere on their body, a condition she knows all too well. & who, without fail, die in agony the moment they reach adulthood. bc here is the last terrible detail,

seed kids don't simply die. they turn soulless for a short period of time when the invisible moon floods their body. congrats you have won a moon worth of pain !!!!! unspeakable agony in every nerve and cell !!! not quite soulless enough to bear it, but not quite mortal enough to die a quick death from it. some seed kids bloom into light illusion powers, some even unlock a little temporal distortion, but none of them are in a mental state where they can harness those abilities for anything more than extreme local destruction of everything and everyone around them before they burn out. so before long seed arc becomes about sky putting her unfortunate half-siblings out of their misery before they can hurt their own loved ones. killing children goes over so well for her psyche too <33

& ofc ofc. thanks to all of this. even way past adulthood as she is, sky knows she'll end up like all the others sooner or later. and given her unholy strength stat, she will cause [kyubei voice] unprecedented amounts of suffering. damage beyond belief with nobody short of a true ruler able to kill her. considering her overall resilience so far she might not even burn out naturally but continue to wreak havoc, turn into mindless killing machine. some might even call that modus 殺戮人形 >:)

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Aborted - Highway 1-35

[tshifty]

i had to get a car thing done but im hoping to take and post my nash pics when i get home later toniiiiiight ahhhhhh my costume is FINISHED!!! my hair is PINK!!! i am so hyped yall

[antigonipapantoni]

[thatslayer]

hi yes hello, here is a quick little headcanon question for you: what is faith's absolute biggest regret?

Ooo. That's a toughie, because one would assume her biggest regret was killing Alan, because it all went south from there, right? Truthfully, I not sure Alan's death is the biggest problem she was facing --- her life was already a mess, she had already experienced so much heartache. I don't think Faith considers it the worst thing she's ever done. She's come to accept that it was an accident, although it does still haunt her.

(It's a dark subject, so I'm hiding it under the cut.)

I also don't think, at this point, that it's the falling out with Buffy that she regrets the most, either. She had to come to terms with the fact that she was never part of that group/family to begin with and I think the realization that there are different rules and consequences for her than there are for Buffy and her friends sort of put the kibosh on wishing things were different.

I think she's more torn up about what happened between her and Wesley. Of all the actions she can't undo, that somehow hits different for her. Something she would take back if she could, but maybe never admit to.

Second, and close, runner up is Riley. Riley, Riley.

The truth is, she feels all of it. Every tear shed because of her.

She's done some really awful things in her life. Sure, she's had it really hard. Maybe harder than most of the rest of the main characters. It's not an excuse she relies on. There are things you can't ever make right, and trauma, a bad childhood, loneliness and the like? It doesn't give someone the right to behave the way she did. It doesn't give someone the right to hurt people. She's trying, though. She's come a long, long way and is trying to be accountable, take her lumps and do what she can to make the world better. The road to redemption really is a rocky path.

Did I write and delete a tirade about Buffy while writing this? Yes. Yes, I did lol.

TYSM for sending this! I have to ask you the same question and please tag me in your response if you choose to answer!

[spookyspaghettisundae]

All Invited to the Black Wedding

A glass shard clinked, then another fell from the same shattered frame. Dust motes danced in the light pouring in through bullet holes in the walls.

Shadow came and went, a cloud of darkness hugging the walls and corners, and engulfing Agent Parker’s mind, only releasing it whenever her consciousness rose from the black bottom of the cosmos to the surface of the world.

Anima mundi. Here and there.

Alive and dying.

She was fading. Life fleeting.

Mikey, whispered the Shadow. It loomed in the dark of the room around them, and it thrummed like a pulse in the unseen to which her fading consciousness connected.

My MVP’s down for the count, so it’s up to you to pick up her torch.

Michael offered no response to the Whispers. With sweat beading on his forehead, he focused on the wound on her belly. Where her blood kept pumping out with each beat of her pulse.

The darkness swallowed her again for another blink of an eye. Her lids fluttered and only the white in her eyes remained as she crossed over boundaries between every world she could imagine.

Then he was back, ignoring the Whispers. Looming over her, Michael’s hand radiated an eerie warmth, hovering just above her weeping injury. A sharp sting of pain spread from there throughout her whole body, like an invisible explosion, taking her back into the world of the living for a violent split-second in which all things flashed bright white.

Then she started to fade again, fingers slipping from the sleek surfaces of glassy darkness on the edges of her vision, all creating a tunnel in which the last thing she beheld was Michael’s gritted white teeth.

Parker knew he could hear it.

The voice. The Whispers.

Michael’s face was twisted with fear and desperation. The stink of fear erupted from his pores, while he did all he could to stop her from slipping into the cold embrace of death.

Drifting through a sea of stars, she caught glimpses of the shot-up walls and windows of Klemens’ old ranch house. The roof of the porch outside sagged where one of its thin beams had been blown away by bullets. The old dry wood and rusty metal and glass, all torn to shreds by automatic gunfire and rifle shots.

An odd sensation flowed from her digits through her limbs, all the way into her center, until she perceived the warmth of her own blood soaking the worn rug beneath her lower back, and the fabric of her clothing having absorbed it like a heavy sponge.

Where a bullet had torn up her insides, more pain flared up as reality checked back in with a hammer to her forehead, and another bright flash of light from her inner eye. And Michael’s hand, burning with power, was slowly drawing all the bullet fragments out, sliver by sliver. His deathly magick drew the deathly mundane to his palm with a painful slowness.

Then the pain eclipsed all. Darkness engulfed her again. And through that darkness, the Whispers reached her anew.

No longer speaking to her. Riding the waves of invisible wavelengths in the ether, dark tendrils of nothingness caressed her fingertips like thin and silky tentacles. They wormed themselves though this oblivion, while she wriggled her fingers between them. A gentle, soft touch.

It was like catching stray radio waves.

Words not meant for her. Not meant for her to hear them thus.

Mikey, I’m sure your mommy told you not to talk to strangers growing up, but surely you must see, our goals align. I know you want that book, and I can help you use it. You know I know how to. You know I’m the only one who knows how to use it right.

You can do whatever you want with it. I’m only interested in what follows. The world beyond. Chalk it up to shared curiosity. From one explorer to another. We yearn to poke our wee little fingers through the fabric of reality, and see what light shines through? Right?

“What are you?” Michael whispered through gritted teeth, a hiss that reached Parker’s ears, pulling her back into the realm of consciousness.

She wanted to respond. Her spirit waned, failing to reach the Whispers and demand any explanation. Her lips moved and her lungs only pressed out a wheezing gust of air, attempting to warn Michael of listening to the Whispers.

Her signal fell upon deaf ears and a walled-off mind.

Another sharp spike of pain and a flash of light followed instead. The darkness encroached again as explosively, dragging her back under. The cosmic ocean’s surface distorted her vision of Michael above her, of his hand wielding magick to heal her, of the shot-up ranch house.

It was like being pulled deep down by the undertow.

When she next could see a face, it was no longer Michael’s. She sat in the leather chair in Doctor Wolff’s practice, surrounded by Gothic windows and extravagant paintings and bookshelves and ornate busts of ancient Greek philosophers and… a scene of pure carnage.

Another flash, another world, overlapping with the one in which her life was fading, and the one in which she drifted in the ocean of darkness between the stars.

Here, too, in the psychotherapist’s office, bullets had torn up furniture. Here, corpses lay strewn about, resting in the gore of an obliterated skull, and a human body torn in half by a shotgun blast, and a sea of blood, pooled beneath a man with a hundred stab wounds.

The face she saw was no Michael’s.

Nor was it her smiling mirror image in the Shadow, dripping with tar as it rose from a strange hole in a stranger Earth.

Nor was it Wells, nor Aria, nor anybody else she was familiar with.

Instead, she stared into the eyes of Jericho Kane. Glittering blue like crushed gemstones, they darted all over to scan Parker’s face in return, flitting about in complete confusion.

“How the fuck did she get here?” asked a vaguely familiar voice.

The woman in the track suit from the crime scene. The one who could teleport through windows and doors.

Her symmetrical face leaned into the way. Dark brown eyes and long dark hair obscured the vision of Jericho’s face. She, too, studied the helpless Parker closely.

“Beats me,” Jericho said. “But if this is our ticket out, I’m fuckin’ takin’ it.”

The two of them crowded around Parker and Jericho waved his hand in front of her eyes, as if to check her for consciousness.

“Yo, what is up with you?”

Parker’s lips parted to respond but she only eked out a croaking wheeze. A sharp pain in her belly almost dragged her off, and the entirety of Wolff’s practice shuddered. Quaked. The whole room shook, and spiderwebs of cracks started spreading across the walls with alarming speed.

Yelled the dark-haired woman, “Shit, what now?”

Jericho Kane gripped Parker’s shoulders. He shook her.

“You gotta get us outta here! Now!”

Parker swallowed and squeezed her eyes shut, like she used to do, growing up, to center herself whenever things became too much. Shutting down.

Maybe it would fuse all worlds together?

She coughed, and found blood on her hands when she groped her own belly. The wound was still there, and the practice still around them—its walls tilted inwards, groaning under the weight of a collapsing world. The window panes in the Gothic frames clicked and then cracked before exploding, showering them with a rain of broken glass, eliciting shrieks of surprise from the two other people in the room.

Parker finally managed to breathe out weak words, “I… want… I… don’t know… how.”

Huh? You say something, Mikey?

With the Shadow’s reply, the room quaked more violently.

A panic to mirror Michael’s now gripped Jericho, twisting his face in similar fashion. He shook Parker by the shoulders again. Karma gripped his shoulder in return.

“You—you tell Klemens Weidmann! The Way King!” Jericho shouted into her face, as if trying to reach a person hard of hearing. His face scrunched up when a hot gust of wind swept over them, and an unnatural howling filled the room. Yet Jericho continued. “Tell the Way King! Tell Klemens! It’s me, Jericho, we’re fuckin’ trapped here!”

Karma shouted at Jericho, “We gotta get the hell out of this room, dipshit! It’s fucking breaking apart!”

“We can’t—you fuckin’ psycho! We can’t just leave her here like this! Look at her!”

THOOM.

The room shuddered again and the ceiling dropped inches lower. The walls screeched and bricks exploded from shredded wallpaper, obliterating wood and glass and brass parts of furnishings, showering them all with more debris.

No light shone in through the cracks and the holes in those walls.

Only liquid darkness seeped out from the cracks. A tar emerged, bubbling and squelching and—

Oozing.

A viscous, awful mass now pumped and squeezed its way inside, pouring in through every seam and hole.

That wasn’t you, was it, Mikey? That was…

Booming laughter ripped through the void. It sent the cosmic ocean into turmoil. It caused the darkness around Parker’s vision to grow again, and it caused the vision of the shot-up ranch house to shimmer over everything like a third, ghostly layer.

The dark-haired woman grabbed both Jericho’s and Parker’s wrists before the ceiling collapsed on them.

That was the last thing Parker saw before the translucent vision solidified. Bright outlines of daylight reflected from every surface in Klemens’ home, and Michael’s face once more dominated Parker’s narrowed field of vision.

He smiled and a bead of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose, landing upon her lips to spread a salty taste of despair.

“Welcome back to the realm of the living,” Michael whispered.

Good job, Mikey. You’re the new MVP!

Anima mundi. All-connecting.

The dying old man on the other side of the room coughed, then wheezed.

Klemens Weidmann himself.

All connected in a marriage of worlds and souls. He coughed again. Parker was unable to speak. Her throat felt like sandpaper. On fire. Her vocal chords disobeyed.

“Where are Jericho and Karma?” asked the old man, feeble in volume, fighting to sit back up, and failing.

The homunculus that resembled Agent Parker sat by his side, resting his head on her lap.

“You need to stay calm till Michael heals you,” said the homunculus in Parker’s own voice. “It’s—your injury is severe.”

Parker felt no more fear over seeing her doppelganger. It seemed so harmless. So helpful.

The darkness returned, threatening to drag Parker back down into the depths. The shimmering surface, where stars glittered on the ocean of the cosmic sea, started taking shape again.

Her vision blurred.

Healed, yet still hovering on the brink of death.

Had Michael only done so little to save her life, or had it been so bad that he had to limit himself?

Parker understood too little of his magick. She knew nothing of the necromancer’s sacrifices made to fuel it, nor of the true extent of his power.

And the fog of darkness encroached further.

Easy, Mikey. Be cool. It’s probably tempting to gloat over the old man now, but you know better. You should…

Be cool.

Michael���s sigh sliced through the different worlds, cutting so deeply that it sent an anchor into the sea of Parker’s fading consciousness.

Her feeble spirit fingers wrapped around the silvery metal until they found purchase and she locked it into her grasp, keeping her sinking any deeper.

“They are trapped,” Michael said.

What is this? Why are you doing this now?

“What?” Klemens scoffed. The wizened old man stared past Michael as if the shot into his spine had not only paralyzed him from the waist down, but also robbed him of his eyesight. The old man’s lips quaked like the walls of Wolff’s practice in the otherworld. “What do you mean, boy?”

“They’re trapped,” Michael repeated, then with more resolve. He wiped the back of his hand across his face, smearing Parker’s blood across it like a crude war paint. “Your favorite proteges are lost in the House of Change, Klemens. I saw it all in a vision.”

“And you… you only tell me of this now? Why? Michael, what is the meaning of this?”

Michael smiled at Parker, seeking the light of life behind her fluttering eyelids. Banishing the encroaching darkness.

Why indeed, Mikey?

“This—this is the end, old friend,” Michael said, finally peeling his gaze from Parker to stare at Klemens as he cast his final verdicts. “I will now tell you, out of respect for all you have done for us, and this world, and all your good intentions. You deserve the truth.”

Klemens was not blind. His foggy gaze met Michael’s.

Maybe I spoke too soon about my MVP.

“You are old and going to die,” Michael continued. “And your kingdom will crumble with you. The king is dead, and long live the king!”

“And you, my boy, you fancy yourself a new king?” Klemens asked.

Smiling on his own. A strange smile.

Michael loomed above Parker like a statue. Majestic in his disheveled appearance, as still as a pillar.

“No, old friend. But I will give birth to a new world. The Shadow speaks, and I listen. Agent Parker’s consciousness swims at the edge of oblivion, and I will use this to finally locate the book. All according to plan. Well, minus me getting shot. And once I have the book—”

Are you that arrogant or just plain foolish? You really don’t need to tell him every single thing, Mikey.

Parker heard every Whisper. They no longer resembled the Whispers she had known. The Shadow spoke no riddles. It spoke to Michael with clarity. With authority.

It spoke with—

SUBSTANCE.

Klemens chuckled, cut short by a choke and a cough.

“So be it,” wheezed the old man. A feeble old hand patted the homunculus-Parker on her forearm. “Dear, please help me… bring me into the Heart.”

“Shit,” Michael hissed.

Does it matter? Just keep moving, Mikey. We’re close. Really close.

I can taste it. Tastes like vanilla milkshake.

Light shone through the bullet holes in the walls, where motes of dust danced. Light bulbs deeper inside the house crackled with electricity, responding to all these surges in unnatural power.

Another invisible light flashed.

A surge of strength shot through Parker’s limbs and forced a groan from her throat. The surge of energy crossed the boundaries of otherworlds and a fading consciousness and—

The same way she gripped that silvery anchor in the cosmic ocean, she gripped Michael’s wrist like an iron vice, causing him to jolt, and stare into her eyes.

The homunculus spoke with the same detached coolness as Agent Parker when it offered, “I can kill him. Right now.”

Klemens shook his head. “No, my dear. Your mission is one of peace, as we discussed. Please, now, take me back… into the Heart.”

The homunculus rose, lifting up and bracing Klemens to help him into the darker bowels of his home. To where the light bulbs glowed. To deliver him into the Heart of THE HIGHWAY. The clockwork machine at the center of all ley lines, the system controlling all systems. The dying heart of a withering world.

Michael stared at her, but he addressed Klemens.

“You won’t be able to do anything to stop me, even when you recover in there. I know a good retirement home, you know?”

Klemens chuckled again, though it bore no charm nor amusement.

Only pain.

“I won’t do anything to stop you,” said the old man. “My reign has crumbled. It is… like you said. All pot holes, and decay. Broken homes, and a broken country. I did all I could. Now, I leave things to you. I hope your brow is not crushed under the weight of the crown.”

Unable to walk thus, the homunculus hooked an arm under the gaunt old man’s legs and hoisted him up with a grunt. She carried him like a newlywed partner, right over the threshold, into the darkness of the corridor beyond.

“Goodbye, Agent Parker,” echoed the Way King’s weak voice through the ranch house halls, gaining distance with each strained step the homunculus took to carry him away. “A shame we never got to speak more…”

You’ve been listening all this time, haven’t you?

The Shadow was addressing her. Agent Parker.

Heard everything I was telling Mikey?

“I owe you nothing,” she finally managed to press out, followed by new waves of pain.

Her body refused to move.

Michael squinted, studying her face as she lay helpless in his arms. He cupped his hand around her cheek and supported her head with a firm grip.

“You are,” he began, then breaking it down into a whisper. “You are speaking to the Shadow, aren’t you?”

Well, this is new.

Parker’s nostrils flared. She took sharp breaths and gritted her teeth to stave off the new waves of pain washing over her belly region, spreading through her body like shockwaves.

The fog of darkness had not been dispelled entirely. It still lingered around the edges of her vision, and whispered like white noise from the fringes of her hearing. The tar-like SUBSTANCE crept up behind her like the Shadow, crawling from dark recesses in her mind, from where she had—

Let it in.

Just a polite request, followed by a polite answer. A simple ask in a game of low stakes. A hand extended in friendship, hiding its other faces. A talking cat in a dream, warning of danger, to conceal the true menace it represented.

You know, I can hear your thoughts, right?

I’ve been here all along.

“What are you, exactly?” Michael whispered, staring at Parker.

I am the future. And I am the thing that can snuff her out right here, right now. I doubt we need her any longer, Mikey. Seems to me you picked up the slack just fine.

Parker smiled. The first time in a while she had felt such a thing.

Schadenfreude.

What are you smiling about? You let me in. So I can just shut you down if I want to. It would be like flipping a light switch.

“Easy on the trigger finger,” Michael said. “We still need her. I still need her to get the book. Unless you want to find someone else to work with, I suggest you follow my lead on this one.”

Parker still smiled, now projecting her Schadenfreude at Michael. Convinced his endeavors were fated to fail.

Like her failing body, her fading sense of self, helpless in his arms, there was nothing she could do to realize his dreams, even if she wanted to.

But did she want to? Was all of this a mistake? Had everything been a mistake?

She knows it herself, Mikey. We don’t need her to use the book at all, you know? She was just in the right place at the right time. A string of coincidences. Nothing special about her.

She walked through the door you’re going to open, and she brought the book with her.

“Tell me where the book is,” Michael said. His eyes sparkled with wetness as he begged. “Please.”

Parker emitted a revolving, rasping sound. The closest thing to mocking laughter she could muster.

“I don’t know where it is,” she breathed. A shade of strength returned to her, and lent her words more vigor. A cold sense of superiority returned. “It wasn’t… me… it wasn’t me who walked through that door. It was the me from another world. So I couldn’t tell you, even if I wanted to. And I don’t.”

Like I said. Nothing special about her.

The wetness in Michael’s eyes intensified. Tears welled up in their corners. In contrast, his smile widened, and he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand, smearing more of Parker’s blood there, completing the death mask of his face painting.

He inhaled sharply.

Exhaled.

Then Michael chuckled.

The smile faded from Parker’s face.

In all her work at the FBI, she knew that kind of shift. That shining confidence. It shone through the fog of her fading consciousness, a brilliant and terrible light.

She had seen it when interrogating the serial killer Freddy Fletcher, and others like him.

A confident smile, looking down at her where he loomed, knowing he had won.

Michael said, “It’s wrong. So, so wrong. You… you are very special. Everybody in this world is special. Like I have visions, I see the special things in you… in all of you. All beautiful, even when you look like coal. Just add enough pressure, and… you turn into… diamonds.”

Oh, Mikey. When you’re done waxing poetic, can we get a move on? I think I see where this is headed.

Her face flushed with heat, and a fury flowed from her heart, a yearning to break free and rise up and fight back and—

Agent Parker found herself trapped in her own body. Awash with pain, paralyzed with—with magick? Had he done something to her beyond healing her lethal wound? She couldn’t even budge.

A helpless sack of meat in his bloodstained hands. He hadn’t even healed his own gunshot wound, but acted like someone in perfect health.

“You,” Michael said, ignoring the Shadow’s whispers. “I don’t need to add any pressure to you. You’re perfect. Perfect the way you are. And you’re all I need to find her—the other you. You’re a living effigy. Like the homunculi Klemens created in your image. Silver threads connect you all, and as it so happens, I am an oracle.”

He blinked away the tears, still smiling.

Confident over his victory.

“Man, I do kinda feel like gloating,” he rambled. “At least a little bit. But… it’s unbecoming.”

The world spun around her. Michael grunted as he lifted her up off the ground. The absence of the rug soaked in her own blood opened a cold spot on her back.

The warm breeze of desert wind swept over her burning cheeks. Michael kicked open the screen door, causing it to slap against the outer wall.

He grunted again with another sharp breath, readjusting his slipping grip against the slick of her blood, then carried Parker over the threshold to the world outside.

Into the bright light under a bright blue sky. Wind whistled through the husks of vehicles on the Way King’s ranch, this lonesome graveyard of cars. Gravel crunched underneath Michael’s boots. The world bounced in sync with Parker’s head bobbing upon every step.

A world upside down.

He carried her through the heat and past the creaking, whining metal of a rusting old gate, out into the dead fields behind the ranch house.

I understand now. Clever boy. We’re all connected through the same primordial soup. Didn’t realize that one of you good people could do the same thing I could.

The Shadow’s laughter reached Parker’s mind like cackling on the wind.

Michael carefully placed Parker in the dust of the dead field.

She gasped when another sharp sting of pain spread from her belly—where Michael had jammed his finger into the wound.

Riding the waves. Surf on, brother.

Her own blood dripped from his finger once he withdrew it.

He used it to paint occult symbols onto her forehead, then cheeks, then neck. Trapped inside her own body, she still burned with curiosity to learn what exactly those glyphs represented, blind to his workings, straining to catch a glimpse.

The smile had long faded from Michael’s face. A stern and stony expression had taken its place.

The world darkened—no longer through a fog of fading consciousness, as Parker now found herself painfully aware of her presence in this world—her world—helpless to Michael’s workings—as he lowered his palm upon her face, gently covering her eyes.

Thump.

A cloud of dust rose where Michael dropped into the dust beside her, joining her in the dirt. His callused, warm hand found hers, holding interlocking fingers with her like a lover.

They stared into the infinite blue sky above them.

“The oneiromancers of yore coined the term of astral travel. Now, as fate weds us, we travel together. We will see what awaits at the end of those silver threads, connecting you and her.”

You’re not going to like what you find. Neither of you, kiddos.

Another Shadowy cackle rode on the winds.

Where horizon kissed desert sands, blue melted into yellow. The burning sphere in the sky widened, turning everything bright white until it had engulfed all of creation.

“All I need is for you to accept this bond,” Michael said, a ghostly voice through the blinding white.

“Why would I… why would I?” Parker breathed.

“Because you want to know.”

“Know what?”

Hidden in the shambles of Klemens Weidmann’s ranch house, and the decrepit ruins of the chapel, the Shadow smiled as it watched.

As it listened.

“To know what lies beyond. Beyond every door. Beyond this world. You’ve always wanted to know, even as a little girl. But now, as a woman, you possess the vocabulary and the knowledge to ask the right questions,” Michael spoke in a dull monotone, with the relaxing calm of someone drifting off into slumber. Of something peaceful.

Something hypnotic.

“We are explorers. We burn bright, exploring the mysteries behind those doors. And together, we may open such a door, and shine light upon another great mystery.”

A gentle squeeze upon Parker’s hand.

“Do you accept this bond?”

The bright glare of the blue sky only lingered like a memory. Parker saw nothing but blinding light. For long, she pondered her reply. Her decision.

She mulled over every moment that had taken her here. Everything she had done and wanted.

Wells couldn’t help her now. Nor could Aria. She felt their distance like a hole in her heart.

Nobody could save her now. Nobody could stop Michael now.

But maybe she could. She herself.

Breathe. One, two, release.

Fidelity. Bravery. Integrity.

Hm. Interesting.

“I know you want to. All I await is your consent,” Michael breathed beside her, a disembodied voice in the unfathomable ocean of light.

Elicitation technique, first bullet point: pretend to have associations in common with them.

“I do.”

He smiled. Squeezed her hand again.

The infinite brightness exploded into a sea of glittering stars.

[emmriches]

i wonder if the demographic + area where the school is located determines/influences the policies on leaving during the day

[scholarofgloom]

[everymlmhybrid]

Okay getting iced coffee and NO more crying until 11pm

[creativemedianews]

At least 22 people were slain after having their IDs examined in Pakistan

At least 22 people were slain after having their IDs examined in Pakistan #Balochistan #BLA #gunmen #highwayattack