Play@YSDC

OOC: Sorry, double post.

"Yes, I've got a cellphone." Charlie answers as he start dialing the number.

Charlie's phone is answered but the only thing he hears are garbled words half-shrouded in static that sounds like his wife screaming for him to help her before it finally becomes an ear-splitting shriek that makes his very skull seem to vibrate within his head. He slumps suddenly toward the ground but regains consciousness before truly losing it (basically, a half-faint) and manages to keep his footing ... just as a dark shadowy object of swirling ash lands in front of them. It's massive darkness that stinks of blood and carnage, emitting sounds like the throbbing of a heart beat and whipping up the air around them.

The still shaken Charlie instinctively takes a few steps back, eventhough he has nowhere to go.

His wits have yet to return and leave him unable to react in a well thought out fashion.

"Charlie, are you all right?" asks Lionel. "Let's not try that again. There's no need to anyway, that's the helicopter - I can tell by the noise it's making. It looks too big to be the police helicopter that Sarah described and I can't make out any details, but that ash and the smell indicate where it's from, all right. Sarah, are you in there?!"

"Daddy ... <<the word is vaguely hard to hear - did she say 'terror'," says Sarah's voice from one of the figures that emerge from the blackened silhouette.

"Yes, and I'm with her," says a horribly snarling voice that is completely unrecognizable as anyone you've met before. "I'm you... <<voice slides off into inconmprehensible babble>> Agnes, are you there? Brianna and Ronald are with us too, along with some other friends."

Lionel's heart jumps for joy at the sound of his daughter's voice. The distorted voice that claims to be him puzzles him. He knows that when you hear your own voice played back it doesn't sound the same as when you're talking, but it's never totally unrecognizable. "Sarah, over here!" he calls back, waving and smiling. "Agnes is with us too!"

OOC: Can Agnes recognize the voice? It's easier to another person.

-It is you? So that means that we succeed in saving the world?

"I can't tell," says Lionel to Agnes. "He doesn't sound much like me, but maybe that's because he's not close enough to the library. That's definitely Sarah, though. There's ash all around the helicopter, so it doesn't like we've succeeded yet."

A few figures come out of the helicopter, moving cautiously, the stink of carnage flowing over and around them. Where they step, chunks of gore come loose and fall on the ground, leaving a trail of blood behind them. Their flesh, now that you can see them more clearly, writhe with worm-like shadows that twist beneath their shuddering skin. Each figure have eyes shrouded in shadows, and when they open their mouths, their teeth gleam bone-white.

But for the two little girls and Ronald, who are recognizable, the ones appear as recognizable as monsters.

-Ronald! Your back with Brianna! Hum, and what are those things?- she points to the monsters.

"I don't know," says Lionel. "Where's Sarah? Ronald, what's going on?" He scratches his head. "They don't seem afraid of the monsters. Brianna, it's so good to see you again. You look...taller, somehow. And who's your friend?"

Brianna stares wide eyed, ignoring them as she turns on one of the monsters. "What!" She shouts incredulously. "How come I'm over there and here! How can that be! And Cael what do you think you're doing!"She stares at the gun, shocked, "You're not actually going to shoot me are you? I mean...future me! Not AGAIN!" She fist punches the gun out of the way, then starts hitting him with her fists balled up, tears streaming, "STOP IT! STOP IT WITH YOUR STUPID GUN! STOP!"

"Your stupid gun and your stupid shooting!" Brianna continues, in hot pursuit of a monster whose arm ends in a twisted rifle of flesh and steel. "You think you're protecting but all you're doing is shooting innocent people! I was one of those innocent people! And you SHOT ME IN THE BACK! I'm not letting you do it again!" She follows after him, continuing to beat on him over and over again. Her voice is choked and ragged, and tears stream down her cheeks.

"I don't think we can fully trust our senses," says Lionel. "Perhaps one of them is really Sarah. I know I heard her voice." He starts moving forward. "Brianna! It's okay, sweetie, I'm here. I won't let anything happen to you. He shot you?! Maybe that explains the hole we found in your head, in the bomb shelter." It must have been some kind of accident, he thinks. He was trying to protect her, but he hit her by mistake.

"He won't shoot if it's you kiddo will you Cael!" says Ronald looking to the monster with the gun. "Be 100% before you shoot Cael! We don't know what might happen if you hurt someone out of time. And if anything happens to Brianna..."

"Ronald, Brianna!" says Lionel. "It's me, Lionel!"

Brianna resorts to snivelling and wiping her tears, and lags back in the rear, away from the rest of the bunch. She'll hang back as far as Ronald will let her, and clings to his hand, still feeling sorry for herself. After a while her sniffles turn into hiccups.

"How come they can't hear you guys? " Dahlia inquires, approaching your group.

Ronald approaches slowly with Brianna in hand. He shines a flashlight at Lionel, Agnes, Charles and Jill, somewhat defensively.

"But we haven't met Dahlia since this started," says Lionel. "I'm not really sure what's going on or why we can't hear anyone else. If they're disguised, it's not a very convincing disguise." He faces Dahlia and smiles at her, speaking up. "You're Dahlia, right? I know I've seen you during your stay at the hospital, and I also remember you from a vision of the future I had when I was in the bomb shelter with Ronald, Brianna, and Agnes here. I was with you in a room with chemicals, and there was ash around us. Sarah mentioned when she called me that you got out of the hospital with her in a helicopter and you were on your way to a military base, but I don't know what happened after that. I heard Sarah's voice earlier, but I can't see her. Is she with you? If she can hear you, then you three will have to relay our speech back and forth. Can you ask Sarah what her mother's maiden name was, so I know it's really her?"