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"Look," he begins, "not that I expect I'd find this convincing in your position, but -" and then the ground shimmers under them and half a second after that it's not there at all.
They fall.
The ground they hit instead is cold and muddy. The stars are exceptionally bright, and close overhead.
" - what?" says Ryan.
Alex doesn't answer him. Alex is looking out into the darkness, horrified.
I guess.
Mostly really wanna change my name and move to Alabama and then Chicago and then enough other places until nobody knows where I am and nobody can find me. But I think probably I am not allowed to do this. And that even if I was you'd probably keep track of me anyway.
She spends a while starting to make words and not actually managing to make any words.
Don't want people to - see me.
...honestly she kind of expected someone to object to this plan, but if nobody's going to then that's fine. Easier this way. She doesn't have to have a fight with anyone.
She should probably have grabbed some of her stuff first, but if she goes to get it she might not be able to leave as cleanly, so she decides she's just gonna go. Who needs stuff.
The streets are still full of halloween costume characters. She gives them all a wide berth. Takes a weird, windy way to Zeke's crypt. Sort of waits to see whether Alex is gonna say anything to her.
I don't think you're stupid. And I know you're careful. Do you know where to find us, if you want to, someday?
Okay. That sounds - doable.
I always can come back, yeah? Not a point where it gets to be annoying?
That seems kinda dramatic, but okay.
I didn't do that much. Personally.
She ducks into an alleyway to sit behind some overturned trash cans. She hugs herself.
S'mostly that Wishbone knew the ritual. Woulda been other humans eventually.
Only you could do it, Karen, only you could remember you were supposed to. With the humans - we wouldn't have been expecting that, wouldn't have been ready -
Okay.
I think I might need to be - kinda messed up for a while. And I don't wanna be messed up around people. Not until I'm - I don't want people to see all the messed up parts. Is what it is.
I ran away, when I was a kid. It wasn't - good, but making me stay would've been so much worse. Came back a couple years later, riding a dinosaur. I love you. Go - go do whatever you need to do.
She wipes her eyes and comes out of her alleyway. She keeps heading towards Zeke's, trying to maintain a basic awareness of her surroundings. It's harder when you're crying.
She hears the Darth Vader mechanical breathing sound before she connects it to anything. She figures out where he is about a half-second before an invisible force is lifting her up by the neck, crushing her windpipe closed. And at that point she can't do anything, she doesn't have any contact with the ground and can't apply force to anything, doesn't have any air and can't make a stab at diplomacy. She frantically thinks through her options, and gets a little more frantic as she fails to think of anything.
The four-foot-tall Darth Vader berates a couple storm troopers and a pirate for having their territory insufficiently guarded.
He doesn't put her down. She realizes that he doesn't have a reason to. She's gonna suffocate. She's gonna die. She's gonna die and go to hell and she won't ever get better and she won't ever see Azalea or Alex or Wishbone or Connor ever again.
Hey Alex -
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