through the looking glass
spectriis:
spectriis:
shesascientist:
shesascientist:
cataclysmiicx :
[ @paravenkman | @makethembelieve | @endofeverythingabby | @iknownewyork | @emphasiscntheboo | @spectriis ]
The trio moved across the street towards the firehouse as quickly as they could manage. Which, unfortunately, wasn’t very fast at all. Rowan did his best to walk on his own, but his legs felt like liquid led, and every other step felt as if someone was repeatedly trying to set him on fire. He gripped Abigail’s shoulder as tightly as he dared, half limping, half hopping along at her side, and was desperately grateful that neither of his companions made comment. The blood on his shirt was warm, the rain, less so. Thunder like cannon fire filled the sky above them, and with the violence of the storm thrashing around them, it was little wonder that it took a few minutes for whoever was inside the firehouse to hear the group knocking on their front door.
At last, the door swung open and… He was never really prepared for the shock of seeing them all together. Alive and well, staring at the strangers on their doorstep for all the world as if they’d seen a ghost… Well. It wasn’t every day your doppleganger dropped through a hole in the time space continuum to say hello. Shock was something he’d gotten used to, after the first few times. By the third or fourth universe, other people being confused or surprised to see him was as inconsequential as the weather.
He struggled to disentangle himself from Abigail’s grip, swaying slightly, and wincing as he did. He pressed a hand to his side, acutely aware that he was dripping blood onto the stoop. His pale eyes ranged over the faces clustered in the doorway, and found… Abigail’s.
“She’s coming,” he blurted out before he could stop himself. He winced, dizzy, and raced through his thoughts, trying to make sense of the warning as he struggled to give it. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be blunt, but you’re all in terrible danger. And if you don’t listen to us now… you’re all going to die.”
(next up: @shesascientist )
Erin paces unsteadily across the second floor with her hands clasped together, three inch heels clicking in a steady rhythm, barely audible under the resounding roar of thunder rolling directly overhead. Lightning flares through the clouds, casting brief, fragmented flashes throughout the building’s upper floors, stark white and unsettling. She’s onto something, though, she’s certain. Perhaps it’s nothing big, but it’s a start, even if she appears to be stuck in a rut when it comes to finding the key to a breakthrough.
Erin can fill her ceiling high whiteboards all she wants; she can scrawl out equations and conflicting hypotheses until she can do nothing but scrub them into oblivion and begin the process again, but there are too many questions she cannot even begin to fathom the answers to. Alternate planes of existence. Afterlives. The microscopic components of the ectoplasm she constantly finds herself at odds with. She wrings her hands, pauses at the top of the stairs in time to watch her friends at the door, peering out into the raging storm beyond the barriers of walls and homely comforts she no longer finds at home, in her solitary apartment.
Rushing down the stairs, Erin finds herself standing behind Holtzmann and Abby and she swears that her heart jumps into her throat when she locks eyes with a set of all too familiar faces. This is impossible. It has to be some sort of joke, some kind of improbable trick, playing on the brewing darkness and the residual flicker of electricity lighting up the sky.
“ I… don’t know what you’re talking about, or… how you’re even here. ” Erin feels her jaw clench. There’s blood, and there’s him, and in her experience, where he goes, trouble is sure to follow. Her eyes wander, widen. “ Abby? ”
next | @spectriis
---------------------------------------- for the first time in many, many months, abby finds herself unable to focus. she taps her weathered pencil against the page of a book she’s tried for about an hour to read. to no avail, she reflects, sighing and placing the pencil in the center of it. abby shuts it with a flick before pushing it away from her, content to try again tomorrow. perhaps she would be more useful with holtz, if only to carry the tools as she tinkers with her machines.
she can almost feel the lightening as it touches down on earth miles away. maybe it’s the demanding call of booming thunder that has divided her attention. whatever the reason, she pauses for a minute to take in the glorious sound. some think storms are portentous, but abby can’t help reveling in the sound of rain slamming against their roof. how can something so calming bring bad tidings?
amid the pounding of the rain arrives a series of knocks, loud, DEMANDING. abby looks at the time on her plain watch and furrows her brow. who would come knocking at THEIR door? Much less this far into the night? she wanders over to the door and is followed quickly by her equally confused lab mates.
and the confusion only grows. first confusion, stopped COLD in her tracks. then disbelief, something abby has very rarely experienced in her life, but very clearly present. slowly, she grabs the door and shuts it, turning so that her back is braced against it. abby tries to make sense of what she’s seen, HER OWN FACE staring back at her. maybe it was a product of one too many sleepless nights in a row. maybe the years interacting with volatile and radioactive machinery has finally caught up with her. she opens the door one more time, peaking her head through and hoping to GOD that they are gone.
but no. there they stood, looking tormented and bleeding on their porch. a large intake of breath before she says, quietly and to herself, ‘ oh my god. oh. my. god. ’
