IC -2 - Yesterday Upon the Stair - Everyone

[Mephistophilis]

The glinting blade slices towards Darren, he ducks back, to avoid Roger's reach. But he can't get far enough away. The knife...darting at him, then...crunch...Louis impacts into Roger and knocks him to the side, the two boys crashing to the ground locked in a struggling embrace. Fists ineffectually pounding against a disconcerting, intangible, body. Writhing and wriggling in Louis's hands. He struggles to get a firm grasp, the limbs seeming to contract, like the contents have slipped from beneath his grasp leaving nothing but elastic, pliant skin. Thrashing on the floor, Louis feels something sharp in his ribs, a searing burning pain, deep, tearing, hurting... He rolls off Roger and puts his hand to his chest in disbelief, his fingers come away wet. Blinking his eyes, Louis's vision blurs, he holds up his hands to see the blood dripping from his fingers.

Louis suffers 7 points of damage, that's a Major Wound. Tick the Major Wound box. Roll CON to remain conscious.

-----

Seeing Louis and Roger go down, Shirley screams, 'No!!!' and fires several more ball bearings at the swaying, blank eyed figure of Ace he stands between her and the witch. The tiny metal pellets spatter across his face and he raises his hands dumbly against his skin. The little rips in his skin stretch and tear, the splits coalescing to form a break across his face, beneath one eye and running down to the corner of his mouth. He staggers backwards probing the gap with clumsy fingers as something begins to spill out of the hole. It looks like little insects and worms, dropping from the wound and dropping down to the ground where they scurry and scuttle away. He opens his mouth in a silent scream and the break in his skin tears open to run across his open mouth all the way to his ear as his whole head begins to dehisce and fall apart. Toppling backwards, the disintegrating form of Ace Simmons collapses into the bulk of the witch and propels her back into the wall of flame that has engulfed the books, papers, and shelves in the niche beyond her.

-----

This is the moment. Harry is completely at one with his surroundings. He can feel every tendril of existence, vibrating, humming around him, the eternal symphony of the spheres. There is no time, there is no space. There is only Harry Enslin. The alpha and omega. The all. And the nothing. The everything. He looks at the witch. Truly sees her. Sees her pathetic attempts to cling on to her tortured half-life. She does not deserve to live. She does not deserve to exist. And with a single thought he snuffs her out.

The flames roar and the witch is consumed in an inferno, her sagging flesh charring and melting, the fat liquifying, spitting and dripping to pool in the mud. Her face is nothing but a blistering, distorted mask of pain and hatred.

'Now I Am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.'

-----

As the witch burns, Darren watches with a grotesque fascination as the prone form of Roger starts to lose its definition, seems to come apart at the seems, flaps of skin becoming disconnected from the whole. And from inside centipedes, wriggling earth worms, maggots, earwigs, beetles, cockroaches, even mice and little rats seems to spill out and spread across the dirt floor.

Above their heads the bats and bat-things emit an unearthly shrieking scream. And from the tunnels in the earthen walls, and among the scurrying rodents rushing across the mud, they all stop for a second and raise their little whiskered snouts to join in the screeching, howling lament.

Hits Darren or Louis (50:50): 1d100 64
Large Knife damage 1d6+1: 1d6+1 7

[Mr. Handy]

"We should go now," says Harry, once the adrenaline drains away. He considers teleporting all of them out of there but decides that the risk of materializing inside a solid object is too great.

[aine]

CON 75 roll: 68. 8-7= 1hp

Louis leans back against the wall looking in bewilderment at the large gash in his bin-liner top. Everything blurs and goes dark… and then he hears Harry’s voice, only it sounds like Harry is three rooms away.
“Urrrrgh.” Louis mumbles

[Mr. Handy]

Harry goes over to help Louis. "The witch was keeping this place together by the force of her will," he explains. "Now that she's dead, it's going to start collapsing. I've solved the equations and unlocked the power she used, but I'm not as experienced with it as she was. I'll keep it standing as long as I can, but we'll have to hurry and get out of here."

[BoyBlunder78]

Darren snaps out of ot as he glances over and sees Louis and Harry. "LOUIS!", he shouts in horror seeing his friend bleeding and rushes over to help Harry putting his arm around him, supporting his weight. C'mon Louis I'm not gonna lose anyone else in this shit hole! SHIRLEY LETS GO!!"

[aine]

Louis allows himself to be lifted up and stands there, swaying. He puts his hand to his chest; it comes away dripping red.
“I’ll try.” He says with a grim smile.

In my last post, I should have written: “1 hp left.

[LiviaBlue]

"Be free! Get out of here and be free!" Shirley shouts at all the insects amd critters that emerge as the witch is finally losing control.

When the boys call for her she goes to them and immediately helps Louis stay upright.

"Here, hold this and put a lot of pressure. We can't stop now." She hands him her swan cape. The once pristine white feathers are stained with ash, mud and now blood.

[BoyBlunder78]

"Thank you Shirley " said Darren, as he helped Louis apply pressure with one hand and his other arm supporting him as they started to move out of the cellar.
Looking back at the writhing mass that was once the witch he thought,

"We got the bitch [b]Ian[/b] thinking:   she won't hurt any more kids. im soo sorry for leaving you, losing you, letting you down. What a shit big brother I am, should've sent you away at the start!No idea what im gonna tell mom and dad!"

He could feel the tears welling up behind his eyes.

[Mephistophilis]

Harry strides ahead, using pure mental energy and force of will to hold together the fabric of the crumbling house. The others stagger after, Darren and Shirley unsteadily supporting the wounded Louis between them, gripping a ball of blood stained feathers and cloth against his chest, fingers slick with congealing blood. Head fuzzy, eyes swimming.

Behind them the remnants of the witch are a misshapen puddle of fat, gristle, and bone, like the nub of candle wax when it's burned through. The insects, rats and mice, lizards and snakes that were under her command are scuttling and crawling away, tunnelling into the earth.

On the faces of the children as they walk towards the camera there's a mixture of emotions, horror, pain, fear, and even triumph.

FADE TO BLACK

OOC:   Epilogue here.