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 Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 8:03 pm
I'll prolly put something poetic here later idk
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2016 8:13 pm
Prompt 1 bad moon rising--1700 wednesday may 18The time is 1700 hours, and a man has just turned into a ******** monster right before your eyes. Or rather, not before your eyes, but close enough that you probably could've seen him become a monster if something hadn't gotten in your way.
That's not the problem, though. The problem is the cordon of state police outside the library: who knows why. There are bleeding people in here, dead people, but until the scene is provably secure not one of the law enforcement personnel can enter. You could've left in the first rush of panic, but you didn't.
Why didn't you leave? Because he physically could not.
Amiss the chaos and the destruction left in the wake of the beast, Shiloh could not move. He'd been in high stress situations before, and his body had grown to handle them well enough. It boiled down to flight or fight instincts. His senses felt sharper, his heart would beat faster, and it was like he could both see everything and nothing at the same time. His mouth had run dry and his legs were trembling and yeah, part of it really was fear, but most of it was pure adrenaline pumping through his veins.
A more heroic part of him would claim selflessness; he couldn't leave because he cared about some of the people here. He couldn't leave because Chris was here, and Thorne was here, and even though he didn't know Autumn or Zac as well they were here to. He wished he could claim it was some raw inherent urge to protect—and don't misunderstand, Shiloh definitely had a streak in him that was more "protect others and not myself"—but in that moment that he saw the monster, his reaction was much more instinctual, much more primal. He dove behind that booth without a second thought for anyone else in the room, and it sort of burned him.
Because now, around him, lay more people dead and injured than there should have been. Shiloh felt like he should have been among them—not lucky and unscathed.
And he would count his blessings once he came back down from the survival high, but as it was, his feet were planted here. Shiloh was in too deep whether he wanted to be here or not. If he left now, it would come back and haunt him.
Word Count [293]
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2016 1:39 pm
PROMPT 2 blood and guts--1830 wednesday may 18The time is 1830 hours, and the first of the casualties has arrived from the crew clearing the upstairs. Oh, there have been civilians, two of them. There's been the woman now sitting near-catatonic near the stairs, cradling a bloody bundle and tended by a nursing student. But this one. This one is really ******** up, and the men and women tending him speak only in hushed whispers.
The police still haven't let you out.
How are you doing? Are you okay? No. Shiloh was not okay.
Honestly, he was blind to the whole situation downstairs. He was blind to the whole situation on the right side of the room. Lara was a figment in his mind at the moment, because there wasn't time to consider her dead dog or the dead were. He had tuned out the crackle of the radio for a reason—he had, at that moment, more important things. Things like Jamie, keeping him soothed... Things like Chris, and going after that were they spotted.
It all felt surreal up to that point. Sure, the initial incident with the nurse was a wake up call, but Shiloh didn't know her. She was a nobody to him—a nobody which, granted, never deserved death—but someone faceless all the same.
Watching Thorne—really watching him slide down the wall, covered in blood and pierced with holes... That was someone he knew. Worst yet, it was someone he cared about, and it absolutely wrecked him.
That nurse became Thorne, bloodied and dying and choking on their own fluids. That nurse became Chris, face shredded and mangled and writhing. That nurse became Jamie, savaged and mauled and limp at his feet. That nurse became a lot of things—things that Shiloh saw every time he closed his eyes, so much as blinked, so much as—
He could still hear the sound of claws rending flesh. He wanted to cry—god he wanted to cry... but he didn't. He bit his lip, bit his tongue, ignored the taste of iron in his mouth. Why hadn't it been him? Why was everyone getting hurt like this? He was still unscathed; lucky. It felt so unfair.
How long would it be until someone else he loved took to the ground?
Word Count [296]
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Posted: Tue May 24, 2016 4:11 pm
Prompt 3 waiting--1830 wednesday may 18The police are slow to believe the efforts of the negotiating team. Insisting that help is required has no impact on the negotiator from the state troopers, and the CDC requires evidence of hypertrichosis before it'll clear the area from suspicion of being a biological attack site.
You're getting by, but how? What keeps your mind off things, if anything does? Honestly, it was the pain.
None of this really had sunk in—really felt real—until the burning sensation set into his shoulder. There was the death and the blood—there had been Thorne, laying limp against the wall, and Chris with his face gashed open. Even now there was Jamie, chest splayed red. It all felt entirely too surreal for Shiloh. It was hard to focus, it was hard to come back into his body, it was hard to understand the situation—was it a nightmare? Was it something more?
Until the pain hit his shoulder, melting away all his doubts. It burned and ached in a dull, satisfying sort of way. Pain was always his come down. It was the way he reigned himself in, let himself breathe, relaxed. He could take a deep breath despite the hammering of his heart. It kept him focused, kept his mind in this weird stalemate between cloudy and not. It staved off his guilt. It kept him sane because now he was another one in the crowd, being battered and bruised and bloodied. He wasn’t just another lucky one. He took a hit that fate could have easily decreed towards someone else, someone a little more helpless, someone a hair closer to death.
Bring it on—let him hurt, let him bleed. He would be the sponge if it meant one less person on their death bed, by all ******** means.
And it wasn’t because he was a hero, no, he’d never be a hero. He was still eighteen. He was still a kid. Shiloh was tired, in all senses of the word. He was still afraid; he just placed a higher value on the people around him. Jamie had places to go and Thorne had things he needed to mend and heal and Chris had people to help. Jeremiah was a natural leader and people would look to him, would need him… Shiloh? He would only be a temporary void, easily filled, better forgotten.
Word Count: [ 329 ]
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 4:42 pm
PROMPT 4 victory 1--1930 wednesday may 18
Somehow, the police have been convinced that they are better served helping than waiting for news. There are paramedics swarming the first floor, people being carried away to ambulances and triaged in the concourse.
You survived.
How does that make you feel?
Between Lady and Jamie and rounding up all the weres, the point was almost lost on Shiloh.
They survived. The alpha was gone and they were all still standing. It was a slow realization, but somehow he had managed out in one piece. All that was left to deal with were the police charging up the stairwell.
It was a bittersweet victory. Thorne was still downstairs somewhere, battered and bloodied and, for all he knew, dead. Aside from the familiar faces, there was the rest of the faceless crowd—the ones who were torn to shreds, trampled in the stampede to escape, buried under bookcases. They were people like the nurse; people Shiloh didn’t want to feel for in all honesty, because it was an unnecessary guilt to burden when his mind was already so heavy. It made him guilty because they all had families, or friends. They had lives—they had certain things Shiloh felt he didn’t really have, like futures. Now they were dead.
It stung because it didn’t feel like a real victory. They had survived, but had they really won? He thought this over and over every time he came back to the otherworld gate, every time they tossed in another broken and battered Moonwalker. Had they honestly won anything aside from the skin on their backs? He had lost his peace of mind. He had lost what shreds of innocence he had saved. He had lost his ignorance and his naivety. All of it had been tossed away the second they shoved Micheal into the portal.
But here he was, still standing, still breathing. For everyone that laid dead or broke... it would be selfish not to be thankful for that. He could grieve his guilt later.
Word Count: [ 290 ]
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2016 4:47 pm
PROMPT 5 victory 2: finale-- 2000 wednesday may 18
Someday, the police, your family, someone will ask you: what ******** happened in there?
There will be news stories to direct them to, of course, but they're asking for different reasons. They want to see the look on your face. Record the facts. Hear the trembling in your voice.
What will you tell them?
There’d only ever be one person who’d ask.
”Your shoulder, Shiloh…”—he could hear the voice perfectly in his head (mostly because it was the same timbre of his own, but besides the point). Even now in his down time, he put his hand to the sore wound. The blood had long since dried, but the gash was still nasty and caked over with a scab. It was rough and it'd crack every time he tried to pivot his arm.
”Why didn’t you come home last night?”—what was he supposed to tell him? He told Oliver everything, but wasn't there a point when secrets became necessary? He could repeat what would inevitably be on the news, or he could drone on about his own sob story, or he could play dumb and admit that ‘sorry, it all happened so fast’—but was Oliver that stupid? Would he buy it?
”That wound doesn’t look human”—ever observant. Oliver would be able to pick it out. He’d know something was up—god he always did. But how the ******** was he supposed to tell him, when Shiloh himself hadn’t believed anything before this night either? The Moonwalkers, Other Ashdown, magic. Yeah, Ollie would really think he was ******** losing it. There’s these people—they’re animals—and also there’s an alternate world parallel to ours where it always rains?—yeah, totally ******** loony.
There was no way he could get his brother involved with this mess. Jamie and Chris and Thorne were already three too many people; he’d have to lie and it’d kill him, because he knew Oliver would see through it immediately. How long would it go on, he wondered, before the tension broke? Ollie wouldn’t let it slide, but did that mean he’d pick at it? Or would Shiloh have to live with the hurt of knowing that his brother—whom he did truly trust with everything—no longer believed in him?
It was exhausting, and Shiloh was over thinking things. Fix up the shoulder first, make sure Jamie’s safe. Oliver would come the morning after.
Word Count: [ 337 ]
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