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@mischievous-thwapling

*Picks you up off the floor and hands you ice-cream, saying, ‘it seems we always eat ice-cream when we run into each other on here,’ and then, ‘if you really don’t want to have to read all of that, I can give you a short summary!’*

SHORT SUMMARY:

All our characters have been lounging about in the tunnel after the fight. Wylo and Kiark are gone, and now Gavril, Liorah’s brother, has arrived. That’s about it. There you go. Really, I’m not kidding. 😛

@rose-colored-fancy

Awesome! Tell me when it’s ready!

Sure thing, thanks! 😉

@this-is-not-an-alien

Welp…it would be awful for me if Rosario wasn’t comforted/healed/helped in the end cos I very much channel the things I’m struggling with into my characters and try to figure out how to redeem them as a way to learn how to heal myself so (this is why all my characters hate me. Except Ehud. But he loves everyone. And he’s so betrayed by me!!!)…idk how yet but, she better get a good ending XD
And…

Then you had  better give her a good ending — and pronto, otherwise I will be forced to!! 😛

I just wanna say I LOVE DANCROW ALREADY!!! I can already feel so much personality in the way he talks he’s gonna be soooo fun to interact with!!!

Thank you! 😀

DANCROW CART

In five minutes they will detonate. I can feel my heart pounding with excitement.

I fly out of the boxcar and land in a crouch on the ground, then pop up again and take off in a burst of dust. Louis is on my heels as we rush past Graas, who just has time to signal to Candy with his little mirror. Tamp and Excel pull up beside me and Jicky sprints ahead to open the gate as we stampede out of the trainyard. I huff like a locomotive, the cold air burning my lungs. My legs are on fire. I don’t ever run if I can help it, but right now my feet are pounding the ground like a racehorse’s.

Just several more yards till cover.

We reach the junk-pile, dancing around barrels and crates and stepping over pots and pans. I collapse behind a rusty old pickup truck, leaning against one of its tires, my chest heaving. But after only a second, I am on my feet again, peeing through the broken windows back toward the trainyard, a few hundred yards away. The others crowd around and I hear Graas counting down slowly, watching the little hand on his watch. I can hear my heart thumping in my ears. I can’t believe it. Our biggest one yet.

Three minutes.

Two minutes.

One minute.

Thirty seconds.

“Tech, lep, capro,” Graas is counting in his native Deprieme, but soon we join him in Karodvian. “Seven, six, five, four, three, two, ONE!” we all but whoop.

Nothing happens.

Several seconds pass. My throat is dry, and it ain’t from the running. I know I’m scowling, and so are the others. Did we really just plan all that to —

BOOM! BOOM!

A sound like a thousand firecrackers and a hundred bombs snaps the air and I can feel it reverberating in my ears and bouncing my brain inside my head. I stagger backwards in surprise and my heart drops. Right before our eyes the boxcars explode into a show of flames, red and yellow shooting into the air, an ugly contrast to the soft lavender of the moon’s light. It looks like a giant built a campfire in the middle of Fancho, and it crackles and pops just like one.

Slowly I turn to look at my friends, and their eyes are wider than saucers in their soot smeared faces. Then suddenly we are shouting and jumping and clapping each other on the backs and waving caps and dancing weird shanties. It’s pure joy, and I don’t even care that I look like a total idiot.

I do an exploding fist bump with Jicky, complete with sound effects, just before I lose all consciousness.

*******

My eyes fly open (I can’t ever wake up gradually). For a second, however, I wonder why I’m not seeing anything. The flash from that explosion wasn’t that bright, was it? Then I blink several times, yelp, and smash my head into something hard above me.

*******

My eyes open for the second time, but this time, I keep my panic inside me by gulping a huge mouthful of air. After several deep breaths, I frantically start feeling around. I barely have room to turn over. Am I in a coffin? How did this happen? What in tarnation is this?

“Hold your horses, Danny boy.”

There is space down by my feet, so I squirm that way. Suddenly, however, there isn’t anything else to squirm onto I discover as soon as I drop and land hard on my bottom, right on a rock meant just for me. I can’t help but cry out. It’s worse than that time I fell in front of all the girls at the roller rink.

Standing up, I look about me as I rub my throbbing behind. I’m in a dark tunnel, but some soft light is coming from a bend to my left. I look up and see the strange cleft I was stuck in. The wall is slick; it would be quite a scramble to get back up there. So I look around at all the reddish rock. I feel the dampness in the air. I smell the murkiness. I pat my side, and feel my hand-gun. Good. I check my pockets; everything’s there.

Then I stand, all shaky and scared, unable to think.

Or maybe I’m just unable to think clearly.

Why am I here? How did this happen? Is this a dream? Folks in movies always pinch themselves….

I pinch my arm and conclude painfully that it is not a dream.

So… what is it!?! What is what? What just happened, am I sleeping, is somebody playing a trick on me, am I dead?

I can’t organize my thoughts; they just race all over. So I take a deep breath. This is insane, Danny. But insane or not, I can’t just stand here. I must head toward the light; that is how guys always get out of things in books and shows.

“Then, of course, there is always something to block them from it,” I say dryly. I fiercely want to apply logic to this, but I can’t, and thinking about it makes my brain hurt and makes me want to freak out again. Usually I am calm in most circumstances, but this does not fall under most circumstances.

I creep along the tunnel, very slowly, still running things over in my mind. The wall is cold and clammy, smeared with slimy red clay. I pretend not to feel the centipede scampering over my hand as I place it on the wall to steady myself. I come to the turn, and see another tunnel. But I actually can’t see the tunnel, because I’m staring at someone’s backside. I stop short in shock.

There are muffled voices coming from the tunnel. I kneel down and peek between the fellow’s legs, wondering why the voices are so muted. Oh, I’m staring through a sheet of one-way glass.

I’m not a superstitious fellow. I don’t take tall-tales seriously. I take miracles as coincidences. I don’t believe in magic and I don’t believe in fate.

But I do believe in overactive imagination, and that, apparently, it’s to where I have fallen, because only somebody with a vivid imagination could contrive a prank like this.

It makes no sense, but none of this makes sense. Suddenly, I just want to turn around, run down the tunnel, slide myself into the coffin-slit and go to sleep to see if I’ll wake back up and be home. I very nearly do so before stopping myself.

No, that wouldn’t work. Logic.

Yeah, like all of this is logical at all?

I very nearly scream.

So, I decide, that, even if this is completely illogical, I will apply what logic I can to it. I tap on the glass, frantically trying to think of something to say as I see the boy/teen/man turn around.

I think I’ll just wait for him to figure out how to move the glass, actually.