Daz said nothing when Quinn’s body turned against her, but when she held herself over the railing, she’d feel a steadying hand on her back, holding her braid out of the way. As she emptied her stomach into the water, it seemed to blacken beyond nightly sheen, as though she’d thrown up ink into a bowl of water. With her eye squeezed shut she couldn’t see it spread, couldn’t see the vile taint inside her stain the good waters of the lake. But she could feel it. That burning in her gut, in her throat and nose, it ran deeper. While her muscles clenched, her breathing hitched, and her tongue curled at the taste, so too did her blood boil, did a pinprick burn seer itself into the back of her skull and the front of her mind. In that moment the pain was everything to her; it was touch, and taste, and smell, but it was also heard. [color=black]Quinnlash[/color] [color=black]Quinnlash[/color] [right][color=black]Quinnlash[/color][/right] [color=black]Quinnlash[/color] [center][color=black]Quinnlash[/color][/center] Foggy through the acidic haze, but there. There in her ears, further back in her mind, [i]there[/i]. That pain that had been with her in her home, in her room, in every waking moment that ooze that she felt in her bones even in her teeth [i]itching[/i] and [i]burning[/i] it was heard there in the water below her [color=black]Quinnlash[/color] not a stain but a dye you are dyed Quinnlash you are dyed with pain and it was heard [color=black]I[/color] am heard Quinnlash heard and felt and [color=black]I[/color] am there in the smell of the water in the salt in your wounds and the sobbing in your ears and when your eye burst from your skull and our blood touched you Quinnlash in that blackness [color=black]I AM SEEN[/color] [color=black]QUINN[/color][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/HFWWlXq.jpg[/img][/center][right][color=black]LASH[/color][/right] [center][color=black]RUN[/color][/center] [hr][hr] “[color=darkorange]I won’t.[/color]” Daz’s other arm closed around her. Fingers stroked her hair. These were slow and tenuous moments, but Daz was an anchor in the storm. When he leaned back there was certainty in him, and even cut with shadows he held the warmth of a fire. In the distance, the sounds of battle, the flashes of fire and ghostly light. Daz sat between her and all that. “[color=darkorange]But I made a promise to my daughter that I would protect you, and I intend to keep it,[/color]” he said. “[color=darkorange]Seeing you taken away again, locked in a room to have those…things, done to you. Living your life as an innocent prisoner.[/color]” he shook his head firmly. “[color=darkorange]That would be failure. That would be pain you don’t deserve. Quinnlash, I think you should stay with me until tomorrow, and then I think you should ta[sub]lk to Besca. I think…I think perhaps this pla ce is hurtin g you m ore[/sub][/color] It became harder to hear him. Slowly, but surely, it became harder. It became harder because she was still dyed with [color=black]my[/color] blood. Still dyed, Quinnlash, and you sit here and you ignore [color=black]me[/color] but you know it you feel it something is wrong something is happening and it’s happening now and you need to [color=black]RUN. YOU NEED TO RUN.[/color] [color=black]RUN QUINNLASHRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRUNRURNURNRURNURNRUNRURNRURNRUNRURNRURNRURNRUNRURNRURNRUN[/color] [hr][hr] “[color=darkorange]Quinnlash.[/color]” Daz’s hands on her shoulders. Cold night air. Ghosts of a burning in her throat, acid on her tongue, and the smell of iron in her nose. Blood, but not her blood. The fish. The fish still there on the deck, shorn open by its own deformities. The metal jutting from its corpse vibrating so fast they were blurs in the air. Twitching. Splitting. Growing. A plop from the water. Not in, but out. Up. Floating towards the hull, another fish staining the black water with blood from its torn body. Another, further out. [i]Plop[/i]. Another. [i]Plop. Plop. Plop. Plop—[/i]until there were dozens and dozens of dead buoys popping to the surface, all ashine with moonlit glint. [hr][hr] “[color=gray]This doesn’t make any sense…[/color]” Besca muttered, eye narrowed on the energy reading. “[color=gray]We’re seeing spikes but…guys, are you sure nothing else has come out but the swarms? We’re peaking the parameters but there ought to be a modir by now.[/color]” “[color=92278f]Well, I don’t know what to tell you! There’s nothing yet![/color]” Lucis said. The inky creatures kept coming, crashing harmlessly against the Saviors’ feet, pulverized by heel and blade and what managed to slip by them was annihilated by the barricade. “[color=red]Wait,[/color]” Ghaust said. [i]Grauritter[/i] came tensed, clutched his sword. “[color=red]No, you’re right. It’s here.[/color]” And as he spoke, a figure emerged from the singularity. A giant, like them; a mottled black and steel colossus with a sheered maw and gangly limbs. It moved with more grace than the creatures, with intent, with a mind. It stood at the threshold, and the Saviors noticed then that it was not a bare thing, but clad in a dark, tattered mesh of metal that almost resembled a cloak. It was shorn across, and only ran long enough on one side to cover a single arm. The other it held aloft, fist closed, and as it lowered there sprung from its fist a black light. When its arm came perpendicular to them, it was wielding a sword only just smaller than [i]Grauritter[/i]’s. Its crossguard was sharp and the fuller in the blade was alight with white fire. “[color=gray]Glad it finally decided to show up. Now mulch it and lets call this a night—[/color]” “Doctor Darroh!” Besca didn’t need to look away to see what the analyst was trying to show her—she saw it herself. When the modir emerged, the singularity’s levels ought to have plummeted. In truth, they had, but the readings from the Hovvi area in general [i]hadn’t[/i]. The singularity was dying, but Besca realized in a moment of dread, that it didn’t matter. There was another one. [hr][hr] There were new sounds on the boardwalk, not from the speakers, or from the crowd, but from below. Not waves, not the [i]plop plop plop[/i]ing of dead fish. No, it was more like…skittering. Like feet on hollow wood. Scraping, clawing. People began to notice, mumbling, looking down at their feet only to find the blackness of dirt and water below. But some looked outward, to the reflection of the moon at the center of the lake, once utterly crisp and pristine. Now it was boiling. They burst up from the wood, bouquets of pitch that did not splash or break but [i]pierced[/i] and [i]sheared[/i]. Blood and screams spray the air in equal measure as the crowd lurched away, broke. More of the things exploded out from the water, shadows that leapt and dashed and fell upon anyone slower than the person in front of them. The smattering of soldiers close enough to open fire did so, but as the creatures swarmed the docks and the lights came crashing down it was impossible to tell innocent from hungry. So they didn’t try. [hr][hr] The distant screams reached them before the water began to bubble. “[color=darkorange]Out of the boat,[/color]” Daz said, paradoxically urgent and calm. He stepped onto the dock, squinted into the distance. It looked like waves crashing onto the boardwalk, only they moved and leapt and never seemed to end. Blessedly, they didn’t seem to be emerging this far down. Yet. The alarm began to blare. Daz turned north. “[color=darkorange]We have to get to the elevator. Quickly. Stay close, stay low. Can you do that?[/color]”