More Bits and Pieces

When a building slips down below the skyline, it's hard to process what I've just seen. Even when the next one follows suit, it doesn't really shake me. Doesn't break through the barrier of incomprehension. It takes the noise; a terrible, slippery rumble that just... doesn't stop. Ah. So -that's- where my giant rampaging demon got to.

Wholesale, unadulterated destruction. I don't know how, but this Agiel I've been tracking is tearing down an entire city, which, I'll be honest, isn't as big of a deal as it sounds. It's only an abandoned one. The Black Zone: a wonderful, untidy mess of what was once a city. Still is a city, I guess.Falling apart, certainly. Inhabited by all sorts of terrible, eldrich creatures we haven't managed to track down, sure.

And right now, it's falling apart faster than usual, and I'm in it. Falling apart as in there's a giant goddamn D-Class stalking around, knocking over buildings and generally tearing it all up. Guess who's here to clear up after it?

Taking stock of my options, I look around for a fire escape, ladder, anything. Not finding it, I shrug. Hey, today can't really get any worse, I figure, so I back up, take a second to compose myself, and take a running jump over the edge of the roof. For a second, I'm hanging above the gutted, cratered street ten stories below. Two seconds. I hit three, and I'm pretty sure I've been suspended too long. Then, four, and I hit the next roof running.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Getting closer, the rumbling only gets worse. I hop a low wall and slide down a rusting ventilation tower, only to have it shake itself apart; everything is vibrating, coming apart before my eyes. The roof below gives a lurch as I hurl myself forwards, and I find myself staring at a rapidly approaching street, cratered with debris.

It hurts, a lot. I hit the ground hard, and pancake pretty much completely. My head's fine, still mostly intact, but the arms I used to shelter it are torn off, splattered and spread along the street. What's left below the shoulders, hurts. One of my legs is still attached, but it's bent in completely the wrong way. I try, desperately, to see where my missing limbs have landed, but most of my face has been scraped off, which hurt. My eyes don't seem to be working, as would be expected when someone replaces them with a chunk of asphalt. Did I mention this hurts? Because it really does.

My ears are working fine. There's a strange chittering in the air, a morbid sound, air being sliced up and dined upon. Rasping of falling buildings. Something else? I flop blindly to the side; my head lands on something soft. Feels like my eyes. I concentrate. With an awful, gurgling -slunch- sort of sound, tendrils of flesh leap out and reattach, slapping back and reshaping what's left of my face.

My optic nerves snap into place; I wish they hadn't. Learning rapidly to see again, the white blaze fades into used book storefront that is gracefully sliding out of view. Behind it, clouds. Smoke, dust... something with wings, bursting up into the blackening sky. From where? And where the hell does that building think it's going? I torso-flop over to an arm, it reattaches like a dream, and I'm sitting up, propping myself up as my skin crawls back over the torn muscle. Oh, wonderful. The ground is caving in. Fantastic. What did I say? Oh, yeah. Isn't as big of a deal as it sounds? Yeah, this is a big deal.

Oh, oh sweet Jesus, the ground is caving in. I let the fucking Agiel out of my sight and the ground is caving in. In the midst of the fountaining dust, the flying chunks of rebar and concrete, the ground is -caving in-. I know exactly what has happened. I know exactly what those things with wings are. I know exactly what that chittering sound is, and I know exactly why the GROUND IS FUCKING CAVING IN.

Oh boy, have I really slipped up. That wasn't an Agiel. No D-Class could have managed this. The smog cloud, the black cloud, is descending. It's not smoke, it's not dust. It's got wings. I'm only an inch away from my last arm, but the street is tilting down, I'm starting to slide, my arm! Okay, okay, I've caught it. I've got my arm, it's reattaching, I'm going to get the hell out of here, the cloud is descending, the cloud is descending... oh, boy, the cloud. It's got wings. Lots of tiny, tiny wings, and tiny, tiny teeth.

No, no Agiel could have pulled this off. This goes way beyond D-Class, way beyond a rogue fucking D... we're off the scale, here. And I lost track of it, and it did this. I'm in the cloud, now. Running, god, I'm running as fast as I can but that's not very fast when the ground is at a 45-degree angle and chunks of buildings are falling down as the cloud tears through everything and the ground caves in... oh Christ, the ground is caving in! The ground is not supposed to be FUCKING CAVING IN.

My arm's not reattaching. Those little wings and teeth are snipping away at everything. Buildings, ground, abandoned car husks, me. Bits of me. Tiny bits. I can barely feel them, but they're all around. Slippery. I'm trying to grab something, anything, and the ground falls away beneath my feet and they're everywhere, covering every surface. I'm grasping, desperately, but what's left of my hands comes away slippery with blood. Oh, my finger. Oh, no, that's not good. I liked that finger. This is not how today was supposed to go.

Tearing, razor red, and they're at my eyes as I'm suspended in the air. For a second, I'm hanging above the gutted, cratered street ten stories below. But it's far worse than that. There's no street. It's caved in. Two seconds. It's all gone. I hit three, and I'm pretty sure I've been suspended too long. I know what's down there. Of course. I don't need eyes to know that. Then, four, and all I can think about is how I really thought today was going to be a nice day.