this is Salem, a land filled with magic and maladies. It is a place where witches and their elemental familiars gather, a home to legend and
lore that predates time itself. Yet of all the wicked and wonderful stories the past can tell us of, the most magical are the ones yet to happen.
This is Salem - this is the start of your very own journey. Welcome to starfall
Starfall is an animaga witch roleplay set in mostly modern times. Members play as witches in a world plagued by monsters, where the only safe spots are walled cities. Starfall strives to be a character-driven roleplay with expansive lore and a highly interactive plotline. We want to allow members to
create and look back on a magical journey, and mold the site and its plot as their characters grow.
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 25, 2017 4:31:18 GMT
❝
WHIP, WHIP, Run me like a racehorse; Pull me like a ripcord- break me down and build me up. I wanna be the slip, slip, word upon your lip, lip- Letter that you rip, rip,break medown and build me up. Whatever it takes, 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins. I do whatever it takes, 'cause I love how it feels when I break the chains. Whatever it takes. You take me to the top I'm ready for whatever it takes- 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins, I do what it takes.
❞
His heart skipped a beat as the coffin he had shut slowly creaked open. Bodies hit the floor and he stood there too shocked to react. They were gone. Literally gone. They were there a moment; but, no longer. It was as if he'd blinked and they were gone. His throat was starting to hurt now and he could hear someone screamed- what was happening? He looked down at his hands, taking in the fact he was starting to vanish. No- no, no, no.
A moment passed and he caught on quickly that the scream was his own. He coughed- his throat aching- and recoiled from the encroaching supposed undead. Each step seemed to suck the residual heat from his skin. It was a personal insult. Now, when he couldn't feel his partner- his familiar... He focused on his hands, trying to bring the warmth back; but, the magic just wasn't there. Without Malicei trying to draw on his elemental magic was useless. But perhaps something from another source would work. Now, it was going to be sloppy, but he concentrated on the hazy memory of a scroll. He could see where he'd seen it last. It was on his desk. That scroll was one of the only two to his name. He'd poured over it- Knockerbacker.
Pouring his full concentration into the spell, he raised his hands up and shouted the incantation- his own eyes now red in their own way with tears beginning to well up. For a moment he was sure of his spell, it was directed right at those..... things. The spell took the wind out of him for a moment- it didn't usually do that though. Oh. No, he'd messed something up. It was too unpredictable to try and rely on the memory of a spell-
Something reminiscent to an explosion sent him flying through the air, at an alarming rate, sailing away from the doppelgangers. "Oh, Fu-" He was cut off as hit the ground with a thud, landing some ways away from both the clones and the other two fading survivors, lucky enough to have landed on his side and avoiding injury to his skull.
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
A beat passes between
Pepper's last retort and Erin's own. It's for dramatic purposes only—she's always liked her melodrama—and it's entirely out of place, when faced with literally everything else around them. The creepy corpses, the absence of their familiars, the random faceless mourners, not to mention the infinitely expansive plains they seemed to be surrounded by. The list could go on. Still, she finds the time to give him a one-over in the most condescending air she could manage, expressly to emphasize her point and, let's be real, annoy him, before she speaks. "You certainly don't."
Erin doesn't expect that to be the last sassy remark she'd get to deliver to him. If she did, she'd probably have made it count. Alas, things were not going according to plan.
Laughter does end up bubbling up out of her lips at his reaction to her impromptu hug. It makes for such a stark contrast against the somber setting that it's almost maddeningly hilarious. How cute, she thinks. She feels the puff of breath against her hair when she finally pulls back. Pepper blushing was not an everyday sight, for sure. The enchantress ponders sharing this scene with the rest of their friends, but soon decides against it. The starcaller's softer side could better be used as an instrument for manipulation.
She notices Pepper's fall before that of the other woman. Being just in front of him does help a lot, but there's also his flailing hands, whereas the latter only begins to reach for her throat after she's fallen and started to bleed. "Pepper," Erin calls, once again shortening the distance separating them. She tries to breathe, but her lungs fail her, although not in the mortal way that the two other witches' do. An incessant chant of He's choking begins to play in her mind, over and over again until it feels like background music rather than her own thoughts, but her lips refuse to give it form. Saying it makes it real, and Erin does not want to make any of this real.
"Remember when I said you and Salt had a terrible sense of humor? This is a new low, even for you. Seizures are too edgy."
She's fallen to her knees, too, in an attempt at stilling him, in an attempt at finding whatever it was that was choking him and removing it from his body. She calls for it, tries to reach the depths of his throat with tendrils of what little mana there is in the air, but it's too hard, there's too little mana, none of it is stable or malleable or enough, and nothing's coming out, nothing's working, nothing, there is nothing. She's trembling so much she doesn't realize the body in her arms has stopped moving, until after an intermittent light catches her attention out of the corner of her eyes.
"Could you stop playing with that blinking spell?" she snaps at whom she assumes to be Zephyr. It's not. It's— "You're not doing it on purpose, are you?" she realizes a second too late. It's all three of them. All three survivors, if one could even consider surviving as synonym for not collapsing. Their bodies are flickering, fading down to translucency and back. She looks up, and mentally curses herself for not having securely locked those caskets in place. A chill runs down her space. Whether it's because of plain fear or a legitimate drop in temperature, she can't tell for sure.
A loud explosion sends her long tresses flying all around her face and her dress, and the redhead flying a few feet back. She tuts in annoyance. "Zeph, we're getting the fuck away from those revenants. Can you run?" There's little need for her to say it, as she suspects him to be sane enough to reach the same conclusion, but the enchantress does wonder whether Zephyr will be able to keep up, with those prosthetics of his. "Help me incapacitate them." They were not in a good position, and Erin could not drag both Pepper's and Zephyr's bodies on her own, given the drought-like state of mana around them. Oh, if only she had her wand on her, or even just access to her elemental magic.
The witch is vaguely aware of the other girl's collapsed body behind her, and of the surely aching redhead a bit farther back. She turns to him. "Heard that, blabbermouth? Pick yourself up and get running!"
[attr="class","gearcore"] "If ya honestly think I look anythin' like a barbie, this shit must really be gettin' to ya," Zeph replied with a cold stare towards Pepper.
While Erin was busy being weirdly intimate, Zeph was eyeing the mourners warily. They seemed more like a background -- merely a rare detail of the otherwise pale scenery. His eyes flicked back to the faced individuals as two of them fell. "Erin..." She was preoccupied with kneeling beside her fallen friend. "It's not physically blocked." he says, unmoving as she tries to help.
Either this was all a brilliantly crafted illusion, or they weren't in a place where the usual material and magical laws applied. He'd felt it in when he cast a spell on the coffin lid earlier and seen it in the mourning humanoids with no orifices with which to breathe. The two who'd stared at their lookalikes both feel to the ground at once, while the others flickered into a transparent state. It wasn't normal -- these weren't things that just happened. They were clearly orchestrated, however, and he suddenly felt very much like a rat in a maze.
As the lid to his own coffin opens, he ignores the enchantress' question in favor of a more urgent "Erin!" Almost simultaneously, the redhead's spell backfires, sending him flying.
As Erin insists they should run, Zeph gives her a sideways look as he grabs whatever part of her arm he can reach to help pull her up from the ground. "Brilliant fuckin' deduction. Did ya think I was plannin' on stickin' around for a nice batch o' tea? No shit we're gonna' run. I'll manage." And so he did. He did not flee towards the fallen ginger as to avoid drawing any of the shamblers his way, but certainly tried to put some distance between himself, the lookalikes, and the faceless ones. "Ya mean incapacitate 'em all for ya?" he shot back at her next request. He'd known Erin long enough to know that she didn't know that kind of offensive spell. "Easier said than done, mate."
However, as much as he hated to admit it, his own clone had some obvious weaknesses. Aiming another knockerbacker spell, being especially careful to not fall into the same trap as the ginger, he sent a blast of energy at the at the prosthetics of his clone. Those damn things weren't quick to reattach, assuming the clone knew how to reattach them at all.
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 26, 2017 5:42:07 GMT
❝
WHIP, WHIP, Run me like a racehorse; Pull me like a ripcord- break me down and build me up. I wanna be the slip, slip, word upon your lip, lip- Letter that you rip, rip,break medown and build me up. Whatever it takes, 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins. I do whatever it takes, 'cause I love how it feels when I break the chains. Whatever it takes. You take me to the top I'm ready for whatever it takes- 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins, I do what it takes.
❞
They were shouting back and forth as the redhead picked himself up off the ground and took off sprinting after... Erin, was it? He Tried to pour his ability into another blast and this one was significantly more successful, albeit weaker than the first. The impact aimed strategically at his doppelganger's legs. Trip, trip, trip! He crossed his fingers.
"Really?" He started- sounding rather appalled, "Is blabber mouth the best insult you can muster?" He made a sound that was intended to be a scoff- but his nerves and physical exertion drained the life from it, and it sounded more out of breath than anything.
The pure absurdity of the situation was starting to sink in, perpetual disdain for anything even related to death gnawing on his nerves like starving termites on balsa wood. How had he even gotten into this situation? Where were they running? He had half a mind to throw one of those faceless things at the enemy; but, what if they did the same thing to him as they did to the girl with the mace- or that 'Peps' kid? It was too risky. "So, what in Salem is a Revenant?"
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
She's not crying.
She's not leaving Pepper behind. She's not letting Zephyr be harmed. Three simple actions Erin is not willing to waver on. Coincidentally, these three duties of hers are of conflicting interests. Not leaving Pepper behind would imply dragging his body around, which would imply their movement would be greatly hindered, which would imply putting Zephyr in harm's way. At the same time, losing the young man she's come to see as the brother she never wanted in the past year would surely make her cry, and so would abandoning the body—the corpse of one of her oldest friends.
Pepper's body vanishes before she can even fully taste the despair of having to choose between two people so important to her. He disappears, and she's afraid she's really going to cry now, and then she'll only have Zephyr left, and she regrets every single moment during which she's tried to hurt either of them. Except perhaps the last time, and maybe the second-to-last time, and the time before that as well, because all three were really funny moments. For her.
Erin lets some external force pull her up to her feet. When she looks up, tears threatening to break free from her lacrimal glands, she realizes it's Zeph. Zeph is safe still, she reasons. "Zeph," she repeats, out loud this time. She's thankful for the physical contact, for the reminder that he's still there. Despite his sarcastic delivery, Erin feels just as pleased as if she'd been picked valedictorian for her class again.
Then, she finds herself running close behind him, well away from the soul-sucking vampires.
She turns just in time to watch the fake Zephyr's prosthetic limbs blow up. It sends her brain cells an stimulus to feel relief, but her mirror image is quick to take its place in her line of vision. "Do something about mine too!" She's practically screaming from how quickly her blood's pumping through her veins, loud and hot and terrified for both of their lives. Erin doesn't hear him agree, but she watches her own copy's left leg be separated from the rest of her body in horror. "What the fuck! Don't dismember me either, Zeph!"
If they weren't currently running for their lives, she'd be giving him a playful shove. Or a serious one, most likely.
The redhead's running behind them, too. She realizes this when she hears him complain about her choice of nickname for him. Rolling her eyes would be her prime reaction, if she didn't currently need her eyes to look where she was going. "Unless you want it to be dimwit, shut your mouth and keep moving," she answers, dismissively, instead. At least he's pulling his weight and trying to disable his own doppelgänger.
your group completed the win condition of the previous round. no particular deaths have occurred, though injuries may occur/continue to occur at your own discretion. [break][break] the previous win condition was an individual effort. the condition was to attack your corpses congratulations, and good luck once again! you'll be needing it.
[attr="class","stafftemptitle"]
group d
"There is nothing left but sorrow for those who defy their own temptations. Giving in is to receive from yourself the greatest gift."[break] - Unknown, untitled grimoire [break][break] When the corpses are blasted away, the group of five three is given the chance to run away. No matter how far they run, the setting does not seem to change. It is still the same dreary day with the ominous wailing of the mourners. However, the corpses are no longer on their tail and for the moment, that's all that matters.
[break][break] When you distance yourself, you find your opacity slowly returning. Taking a look at your surroundings reveals that the faceless mourners are no longer faceless. To them, you still do not exist. And to you, they suddenly bear faces- fathers, mothers, people close to your heart. The ones that weep for the sight of your casket. [break][break] Before you can reach out to these now-familiar faces, there is a sudden change in the earth. Decaying, rotten hands suddenly reach out from the ground. The hands attempt to pull whole bodies out of the earth and you suddenly remember you're in a graveyard. The hands reach out for anything alive-- and what's alive now are these people, so caught up in their grief that they do not seem to notice the world about them change. [break][break] And then there are noises from the distance. Your clones have reappeared, and their aim seems to be the same. Maybe you ought to just save yourself.
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 26, 2017 17:32:25 GMT
❝
WHIP, WHIP, Run me like a racehorse; Pull me like a ripcord- break me down and build me up. I wanna be the slip, slip, word upon your lip, lip- Letter that you rip, rip,break medown and build me up. Whatever it takes, 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins. I do whatever it takes, 'cause I love how it feels when I break the chains. Whatever it takes. You take me to the top I'm ready for whatever it takes- 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins, I do what it takes.
❞
What was this hell? He would have shouted back another criticism at Erin, but he was too focused on running. Each footfall feeling lighter as their own undead corpses disappeared behind them. The world was now this graveyard... when had he started noticing the gravestones? Thick weeds sprouted from the soil rich with the dead. He felt a gag in the back of his throat as he slowed his pace to a light jog, a walk, and then finally a stop to catch his breath. The incessant wailing was still too clear in his ears. He finally snapped at the mourners, "Would you st-" He stopped speaking. He couldn't move, he felt his heart drop as well as his stomach.
"D-dad?" He took a single step towards the group. Tears began to stream down his face, and he clutched at his chest with a hand. He could barely breathe as he gazed on, unblinking. He was scared if he blinked that his father would disappear... just like before.
For a moment he all he could do is watch, but as twisted undead hands rose up and grasped at the legs of his family, he shouted "No! Get out of here!" And began to book it towards his family. His mother and father were really the only ones who he recognized in the crowd. He had no friends growing up. No one else would miss him if he died. But his mother was still ill- so why was she there? "Get out of here! I'll be fine! You- you can't-" He choked on the words that tried to follow.
They couldn't what? Be here? His mother was too ill to walk so how was she standing there? His father... maybe... maybe he wasn't dead? No, there were too many demons that night. He sacrificed himself so there was no way. No way he was still alive- but, they hadn't found his body...
Conflicting thoughts poured through his mind and he found himself tripping and falling to his knees on a tomb, grasping his own skull and curling up on the ground like a frightened child. He couldn't watch this- he couldn't bear to see his family torn to shreds by undead claws. He didn't look to see the spindly arms and tattered flesh attack his family and the other innocent bystanders- he didn't look to see the doppelgangers encroaching.
All he could do in that moment was despair and let his own fear consume him. The only sounds he could muster being a weak, pathetic sounding "No, no, no."
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
Running in high heels
is hard. Unnecessarily hard. Erin can't seem to figure out why she's still wearing those pumps—stylish as they may have looked once—after everything that's happened in the last few minutes, but she doesn't stop to take them off even then. There's no time to waste, and she's too scared to stop. She just keeps running, tailing the crafter, cursing when she almost trips, wondering why they aren't getting any closer to the horizon. The footsteps behind her seem to stop, and she turns with a frown. I swear, if he fell flat on his face— Oh."They're gone," she voices, mostly for Zephyr's benefit. Erin's sure he'll appreciate giving his prosthetics a breath.
Though they were trying to keep their distance from the groups of faceless background props, Erin notices they actually find themselves even closer to them than they were before. And she notices they're not faceless as she previously thought. Was she going crazy, or had something triggered the change? Stress. It's probably stress, she tries to reassure to herself. But, if it wasn't just stress, and they had actually been given faces only recently, that meant whomever was behind this sick prank was close, closer than she'd thought at first—and they had her friends and family.
She loses all semblance of calm when she looks more closely and finds Pepper's face in the crowd. No, not Pepper's. Salt's. No doubt it's Salt, come to judge her for letting his brother die in her arms. Strangely enough, she doesn't blame him. Can't bring herself to. She hates herself, too, for being so useless, so helpless, so weak. Without her wand, and without Siri, she's utterly useless.
She wants to look away, to divert her gaze and act as if nothing's her fault, but her retreat leads her eyes straight into Maddox, and Aeris, and even Fane is in the crowd of mourners. By now, calling them mourners would be a bit of a stretch. None of the people she knew were actually crying. She guesses it's those that came to mourn the redhead that are responsible for that endless wailing, although the way he's snapped at them just moments ago makes her think twice. This is too much, too overwhelming. None of them have their familiars out and about, and it makes the enchantress think the absolute worst.
Erin reaches for Zephyr's arm, the one thing she never expected to keep her grounded in the face of dementia. It's cold. "Zeph, what's going on?" she asks. What she's really asking, between lines, is Have we been caught? Have we all been caught? Nothing makes sense. For so many novices to have been caught, something really big must have happened. How come she couldn't remember what it was?
And then she sees someone that should never have been involved with Leviathan. "Paul?" she asks, tentatively. Her feet take a step forward, towards the crowd.
Erin's confused. Upset. She can't believe she's gotten even people from her life back in Mirrorlight involved in this petty feud. Paul Wolfe stands among the crowd, standing languidly but somehow proudly next to his wife, and then she sees Cass. Cassidy, her dearest friend, whose gaze is fixed on the caskets that she and Zephyr and the annoying redhead have already left behind. An arm is wrapped around her protectively: Julius. It feels as though their entire group is here to judge Erin's failure.
Something's grabbed onto her pumps. She startles, mercilessly stabs at what looks like a disgusting, rotten hand with the tip of her other heel. It feels gross and boney, but the heel does its job well enough. They weren't called stiletto heels for nothing. She jumps back, kicks, finally gets rid of those double-edged shoes, and silently thanks her parents for forcing her to take ballet dancing classes when she was small. Wherever they were in the crowd of mourners, they're the only ones that keep her from scratching her knees and possibly a lot more skin in the process of falling to the ground.
It's only thanks to her fall that she notices their corpses reappear. "Fuck." She stumbles to get up on her feet again. The redhead's hugging a tombstone for some unsanitary reason that Erin's unwilling to think about, or he looks to be doing so at any rate. "Fuck," she curses again, reaching out to grab him by the arm and very literally drag him as far away from the corpses as they can manage. Again.
"Zeph! Zeph, come on!" she screams, letting go of the redhead's arm in favor of the blonde crafter's. "Round them! Our corpses are after us, they won't stop for the crowd. But maybe those hands will stop them before they get to any of us." If, on the other hand, their corpses were smart enough to go around the sea of undead hands, they were probably fucked either way, but at least they'd be putting some distance between them.
[attr="class","gearcore"] As their transparency fades and the shamblers behind them are nowhere to be seen, Zeph slows to a stop. "This's bullshit..." he huffs as he starts hitching up one of his pant legs with frustrated curtness, "Absolute. Fuckin'. Bullshit." He begins tightening one of the straps around his thigh which secured his leg in its position. Soon afterwards, he takes off his shoes and tosses them Erin's way. They weren't anything fancy, but at least they weren't bloody heels. "You'll lose all my respect if ya break your ankle an' die like some dumb chick in a horror play." Zeph warned.
He only had a few brief moments to finish readjusting his legs before Erin's touch and voice caused him to look up at the no-longer-faceless crowd. At first he thought it was just a bunch of people from Leviathan, and for a few moments considered that they had been trapped in this place as well. "Why can't they see us? I don't--" he began before abruptly stopping as his gaze fell on three other familiar faces. His birth parents and brother -- grown, but immediately recognizable all the same.
Zeph had loved his family, that was true enough, but their image did not incite thoughts of hope and affection in him. His first memory, rather, was how his mum's face had been crushed by a crumbling support beam amongst the flame last time he'd seen it. He had watched the skull shift and break through the skin as the light left her eyes in an instant. He saw his dad's face distorted in panic and blatant denial as he tried to get her and his familiar's limp bodies free.
He didn't wait until the end of Erin's instructions, though thankfully they had a similar idea.
Post by Rafik Bousa'id on Jun 29, 2017 15:55:42 GMT
❝
WHIP, WHIP, Run me like a racehorse; Pull me like a ripcord- break me down and build me up. I wanna be the slip, slip, word upon your lip, lip- Letter that you rip, rip,break medown and build me up. Whatever it takes, 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins. I do whatever it takes, 'cause I love how it feels when I break the chains. Whatever it takes. You take me to the top I'm ready for whatever it takes- 'cause I love the adrenaline in my veins, I do what it takes.
❞
He was still curled into a fetal position on the ground trying to block out the world; until, he felt someone pull at his arm. Naturally, he started and attempted to shrug away, a look of shock and despair, smeared with dirt and tears plastered across his face. His wide eyes tried to focus on who touched him- and he made out Erin's blurry form was dragging him along. He stumbled but somehow managed to get to his feet- albeit shakily- and take a few steps beside Erin before she let go of him, to grab a hold of the blonde kid.
He tried to wipe the tears from his eyes, but only managed to get more dirt into them. Fuck. Still, all he could do now is march after Erin, his mind still trying its hardest to process what was going on. A hand sprung up at his heel, and he shot off a weak knockerbacker that let him move his ankle away in time. There was no way this was real. This wasn't happening. It was just a dream, it wasn't real. There was no way in hell it was real. He turned his head away from his family, trying to ignore them on the premise that this wasn't happening.
"It's not real. It can't be real. I'm not here. He's not..." He began to almost silently repeat to himself, in an attempt to assure himself that none of this was happening. But, if it wasn't happening why was it so real?
your group has failed to meet the win condition of the previous round. the win condition was a group effort, and it was to save the mourners. [break][break] as a result, Erin Caulfield has died. my condolences, may you have more luck in the living world.
[attr="class","stafftemptitle"]
group d
""There is one thing that illusionists are right about. Perception in all things is key. To alter that is to alter belief itself, to alter belief is to create action, to create action is to create change. In the end, a single individual's perception matters little. But thousands of individuals make society. And as perceptions change, societies fall."[break] - Unknown, untitled grimoire [break][break] The group runs away from the mourners, and they're fast enough to leave the corpses far, far behind. The graveyards stretches for an eternity. The witches spot countless tombstones, graves of what could be theirs--but there's no end. Eventually your lungs end up burning, your legs feel weak. [break][break] The corpses do not tire, but you realize that eventually you will. [break][break] Eventually, Erin Caulfield falls. Her body flickers in and out of existence until she's gone. [break][break] You keep running, but there is a distinct feeling of emptiness that lingers in your stomach, that leeches on to your mind and stays. Why are you running? No one is there to reaffirm your existence, not even the distant cries of the mourners. [break][break] Who is there to tell you you're real? [break][break] One by one, each witch collapses. The world tilts dangerously on it's side, and you can only see the dark grey stone of your grave before everything turns dark. [break][break] the last two witches wake up in a cold sweat. the others who have died have woken up surrounded by faces of their coven members. your trinket had sensed critical levels of mana, they say, but nothing's wrong with you. [break][break] perhaps it was just a dream after all. [break][break] none of it was real. seeing as the witches woke up unharmed, it might have just been hyper realistic. they were panicking about nothing--there's no way they could have died from a simple nightmare, after all. [break][break] or was there?
[break][break]
congratulations to Zephyr Hart and Rafik Bousa'id , you have have survived the demon's nightmare. because other groups have not finished, your rewards will not be posted until everyone is done. [break][break] it is now time to wake up.
there's an old man sitting on the throne that's saying
that i should probably keep my pretty mouth shut
[attr="class","rotation"]
[attr="id","content"]
Erin has half a mind to
throw Zephyr's shoes right back at him with a contemptuous note about how they were huge (and ugly) and would not fit her in a million years, but then she realizes—Do prosthetic feet even grow? She supposes they do, because they had to support his weight as he himself grew, and it all sounds like such a bothersome chore. A terribly bothersome chore he'd been dealing with for years now. And then she also realizes, He's being sweet. So she somehow manages to put them on with an ironic, and perhaps prophetic, "They're the ones who die last."
Thankfully, it doesn't take a lot of convincing to get Zephyr running, if any at all. The other dude seems to struggle a bit against her pull, but he's also running, they're all running, and even after they reach the opposite side of the sea of hands they're still running because she's not letting them do otherwise. Their corpses are close enough that Erin can feel her own form flicker, and they're close enough to the hands. Even though she refuses to turn around now, she deems it a perfect time for an explosion. Of any kind.
She thinks she hears an explosion, in the distance. Can't tell for sure. Is it the work of one of the witches running with her, is it one from the group that was left behind?
The thud is her, it's her legs, finally failing her after the state of exhaustion they were put in. She laughs, or she means to, but Erin can't hear her own voice; and, when she looks down, she can't see her body or the expensive dress pitifully reduced to scraps of black and diamond sparkles. It happens so fast that, unless the other two were directly looking at her as it happened, they probably wouldn't notice it until way later.
