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[img]https://i.imgur.com/unQ2imY.png[/img]
[color=254f28][u][b]Location[/b][/u][/color]
💀 New Haven State Hospital.

[color=254f28][u][b]Interactions[/b][/u][/color]
💀 Event Post.

[color=254f28][u][b]Time[/b][/u][/color]
💀 Saturday - Afternoon.
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Relaxation was a desperate pursuit, one which would allow for a moment’s rest, and a spell of respite. A week embraced by chaos and destruction, alongside confusion and countless questions. Rashawn was alive, and a Variant to boot, Midtown had been attacked, and Mr. Pernass also joined the ranks of local ‘Monsters’. Though, in regards to that most peculiar statement, Conner would be lying if he claimed that doubt hadn’t been sown.

The smiling, quirky young man who maintained a positive outlook appeared to have taken a backseat to melancholy. How fickle it was, a teenager’s state of mind. Where it at one moment allowed for laughter, the next scene expressed tears and a quivering voice. Indeed, emotions were a chaotic tune, and pinpointing them was at times a herculean task. 

He could hear the shuffling of feet accompanying a ceaseless trickle of machines beeping in tandem with heartbeats and stability. The song of a hospital, a never changing string of lyrics Connor had memorized, and could very well turn into a painting with closed eyes. An ironic thought, marrying sound and color in an attempt to witness harmony, or discord, depending on the long awaited result.

Slowly, each claw clicked against the long since chipped table Connor had adopted in regards to homework and assignments. Not an activity native to Saturdays, but responsibility overpowered comfort. Though, having been promised dinner with his mother for the first time in what felt like a millennium, Connor could not abandon a chance at the scenario. Something he had been looking forward to. An odd prospect, perhaps, for what teenager wanted time spent with their mother? It was a vacancy only truly understood if felt. 

Closing his book, Conner exhaled a long breath. Maths, his worst enemy. The Variant would rather have stood beneath the sun than withstand another hour of numbers circling his mind like merciless blades. Rather, Connor substituted his notebook with a sketchbook, which in itself offered a world of difference. He dragged his pen across the page in a repeated fashion, the boy’s free hand resting beneath his chin. A knight slaying a dragon, the forces of good striking down at those of evil intent. The display caused Connor to chuckle quietly. If only the world beyond his sketchbook was as easy to manage. If only it was as black and white as the image coming to life before him. 

Easy to manage, a curious string of words, indeed. Reality was anything but simple, and the many shades of grey coating a beautiful, yet cruel world made itself known through every action rippling across time and space. Connor could still recall the term for it.  ‘Butterfly Effect’. Everything was a chain reaction. No matter how miniscule an act, no matter how complex or pedestrian, monuments find their infancy in pebbles.

It was impossible to tell what had led to Midtown’s unfortunate disaster, as a slideshow of events would end in the very beginning of time. However, what continued to branch from such misery had found its way far closer to home. 

An explosion echoed throughout the New Haven State Hospital, causing Connor to nearly fall from his chair. Cries of agony and terror shot through every corridor like banshee howls, the scene shifting from a mellow, if relaxing moment to chaos, and destruction. The transition was abrupt, a line in the sand which promptly shifted calm past to disastrous present. Despite being on the fourth floor, Connor saw how walls shattered in response to an attack, every calculated strike rippling from within the hospital by enemies who knew exactly where to position themselves.

[i]An attack.[/i] When the situation dawned on him, Connor found himself frozen by the threshold separating a long corridor from the nurses’ lounge. Dust particles floated throughout the building, remnants of interior which the now paralyzed boy tried to summarize within his mind. [i]An attack.[/i] One reads of this constantly, every news outlet covering one disaster after the next but no matter how close, Connor found it impossible to equal that with what he was feeling at this moment. Dread. Never before had he understood the true meaning of such a word, as when he stood in the middle of a warzone. 

If he was to describe the situation, slow motion would likely do it justice. He was unsure if he remembered to breathe, or even blink. Every second passed as if a prolonged eternity, chaos swirling like a tornado across what he had once considered a second home. Once the shock began to slowly settle, it was instead replaced by deafening screams, accompanied by what could only have been inhuman powers. It was an assumption which bore fruit, as Connor’s obsidian gaze slowly turned towards the end of a shattered hallway, where three Variants were paving a path through bloodied shapes coating a previously white floor in red crimson. 

Another explosion echoed across the fourth floor of New Haven State Hospital, only moments before Connor felt himself pushed into the nurse lounge. His ears were ringing, body aching from the pain of a shockwave, but the Variant could still note a presence above him. “C-Connor..,” came a forced statement, the boy’s eyes widening as he saw his mother shielding him.

[b][color=254f28]”Mom..,”[/color][/b] the little ‘Monster’ tried, a warm sensation seeping through his clothes, and blanketed the pale skin beneath. [b][color=254f28]”Mom!”[/color][/b] Connor exclaimed, his eyes adjusting to the dust-ridden sight, clawed hands attempting to gently move his mother over, where a sanguine picture confirmed every terror and fear which had been building since the moment Connor regained his composure. [b][color=254f28]”Mom!”[/color][/b] The boy repeated, tears now forcing themselves through black orbs where they were fixed, on his mother who had protected her son from devastation. Splinters filled her back, wooden debris forcing itself through her frame haphazardly. A mere look further down would reveal for Connor a black substance trickling down his side. 

Words were traded for cries, trembling hands attempting to lift the woman enough to meet her gaze, a faded lifeless expression which caused Connor’s heart to stop beating, if such a thing was possible. 

The sound of footsteps across shattered glass and splintered wood turned the boy’s attention forward, a gathering of three Variants standing in front of him. Pain, fear, and anxiety gripped the boy with iron fists. A lifeless mother laid motionless in his arms, breathing growing heavier, and less stable. [b][color=254f28]””M-Mom.., please.., wake up..,”[/color][/b] Connor pleaded, his consciousness slowly fading in response to a wound tearing itself through his side.

“Come with us,” a voice pierced the silence, though it was not possible to deduce who of the three had spoken. 

With his claws nearly digging into the body in his arms, Connor’s tear-filled gaze fixed itself on those who had joined him in what remained of the nurse lounge. It was anger, the feeling taking over every fraction of the little ‘Monster’. The anger which remained hidden behind countless layers of confidence, security, and alleged understanding. Anger which soon turned to hatred, which in turn resulted in an inferno. Much like Connor had learned the meaning of dread, he would also soon understand the meaning of absolute, unhindered hatred.

There was no response to the trio, but rather, a roaring scream, the boy’s ghostly voice shaping itself into its true purpose. A spectral shout, a warcry, accompanied by an extended hand which had been coated in a liquid darker than the deepest of night. As if a wind, a torrent of force manifesting itself into a furious wave of crashing energy, Connor called forth a necrotic judgement slamming into the Variants before him. 

Skin was ripped from place, flesh melting, and rotting in response. Limbs were torn from their sockets, eyes withering into nothing but liquid. Screams once belonging to victims were soon replaced by attackers’ anguish, their bodies ripped asunder beneath Death’s embrace. With wounds ripping themselves open across the Variants’ frames, mortal coils flayed and rotted, little remained other than faded memories of shattered bones. It was followed by absolute darkness, and at long last, silence, where Connor’s vision faded into obscurity alongside his consciousness.