As everything went to hell, Tristan stood by with dull eyes, head throbbing. It wasn't really what he'd expected, but he couldn't have had what he'd expected instead. A unified response? Panic? Despair, like his? The Ghost Girl wasn't a ghost girl after all, he'd been right, she was something else from somewhere else. And to go there, all they had to do was kill themselves and become ghosts themselves. To sojourn in some other world. When Tabitha took to the tracks, the last of the hope in him for salvation died. [color=82ca9d][i]I wonder if she's thinking it. 

If we're the first ones to hear this song and dance.[/i][/color]

People were revealing themselves, the way they did during a crisis. Guns out. Dragging an unconscious Stormy. Tristan felt a weird pang, imagining her parlor empty, the tracks painted bright with her blood. All of their blood. Yelling, disbelief, fear, rage. Commonplace things that hinted at the extraordinary and unique nature of the hearts manifesting them into the world. [color=82ca9d][i]What am I revealing?[/i][/color] The gun, he realized, it was in his hand, he was pointing it. It was ugly, chrome and carbon, oversized, a generation behind the aesthetic of today. [i][color=82ca9d]Firearm,[/color][/i] he thought suddenly. [color=82ca9d][i]Prometheus stole fire from the gods, Moses on Mount Sinai, and this is what we did with it. Arms reaching out for each other, intent on the exact opposite of warmth and light and life.[/i][/color]

In the movies you could hear a pin drop when someone clicked off a safety or pulled a hammer back, a sound that echoed, menace for days, but he'd done it without really thinking about it while someone else was talking. He thought for a moment, absurdly, that he was pointing the gun - [color=82ca9d][i]the firearm[/i][/color] - at the kid on the tracks, the one who'd tried to offer him comfort before taking the devil's deal they'd been given. Who thought he hadn't been forced here. Couldn't be forced further. But he wasn't aiming at the kid. Officer Keahi was one of the good ones, in other circumstances, on better days, but he was cracking now. Not that he was wrong. Not that they weren't all insane. Yet there was something that wasn't a ghost standing up in front of them, telling them awful things, incredible things, and they were each holding a mask - [color=82ca9d][i]a face,[/i][/color] his rousing subconscious whispered unbidden - that wasn't just a mask. The guy shouldn't have drawn his gun. Not that Tristan should have either.

But he wasn't aiming at the cop. Just in that general direction.

[color=82ca9d]"Don't do it,"[/color] he said, hearing his own voice like it belonged to a stranger. [color=82ca9d]"Officer.

Behind you."[/color]