Conway & Summer
IDN:
CN-13035772,
UT-06211554
<~★~>
As Conway slammed into the creature, his world erupted into darkness and chaos, momentarily losing all sense of up or down, left or right, and anything that wasn't the victorious warmth of Jaycie's arms in his hands and the weight of Summer's grip around his waist. Before any relief could creep in, tempted by the reassuring sensation of Jaycie's fingers wrapping around his wrists, they were falling once more, and the Hedgehog gripped his friend tighter, teeth clenched. So this was it, then. The end.
Luckily, he didn't get a chance to get too melancholy before he slammed into the ladder with the side of his body, the sudden force taking him utterly by surprise. A groan pushed its way out of his mouth, tension treading on pain from his shoulders up his arms. It took a few moments to get ahold of his conscious thoughts enough to process what was happening. Jaycie seemed to have grabbed onto the ladder with her feet. She and Conway were still holding on to each other for dear life. Weight still dragged at his hips, and the Hedgehog chanced a glance downward, relief mingling with dismay when he saw that it was the Guinea Pig clutching him, and that the many-armed creature hung onto her with two long, metallic appendages wrapped around her arms.
Great, this is great, Summer thought to herself, a little sardonically. Strong as she was, she knew she couldn't hold onto Conway with just one arm—at least, not with this stupid, heavy octopus attached to her. But it had a tendril wrapped around each bicep, hanging from her like an industrial garbage bag. There was no way to shake it loose without letting go. Looking up, she met Conway's stricken gaze with a forced grin, then looked up past him to the tearful, upside down Jay, feeling the abrupt little jerks in the chain of dexes that indicated they were slipping.
At Jaycie's distressed apology, Summer felt mirroring tears slide down her cheeks.
"It's alright, sugar," she said, a weak attempt at playfulness that ended in a sharp inhale as they slid down just a little more. She was about to say something else, lips parting, but the sound that whispered up the passage stopped her, fear trickling down her spine. It was the same sound from earlier, the sound that had preceded the release of these awful octopial robots.
Conway shut his eyes briefly, dread rolling through his stomach at the sound. When he looked down again, he saw Summer wrinkle her nose a second before the scent hit him, and he swallowed the bile that rose in his throat, wishing he had a hand free to cover his face. So
this was it. The
actual end. He drew a reluctant breath in preparation of perhaps a quiet goodbye, but— wait. Something was different about the smell. Sniffing the air as gingerly as he could, doing his best to ignore the pungent smell of decay, he realized that he recognized another smell alongside it.
The memory of a lab coat and an ink black feather struck him, and his eyes widened.
"Bird of prey," he said numbly, quiet horror chilling his skin. Then, louder,
"There's a bird of prey—"
And then they were falling. Conway would've thought that after doing it so many times that day, he might've started to get used to it, but that didn't seem to be the case. His heart was pounding in his throat, instincts screaming in his head, and he closed his eyes against the tears.
Summer wriggled fruitlessly as they began to fall, terror fueling muscles already tired from hanging on. Maybe if she let go, she could free herself, but the Guinea Pig couldn't bring herself to separate from her friends, especially when it was starting to look like the last few moments she'd get to spend with them. Gripping the fabric of Conway's onesie with her hands, she shook her shoulders aggressively from side to side, but the creature held on.
Until, for some reason, it didn't. The plated arms, now warm from her body, relaxed their grip on her, sliding bonelessly off until she was gloriously, and confusingly, free. Quickly wrapping one arm around Conway's waist in the odd buoyance of freefall, she reached wildly for the ladder with the other.
"It let go!" she shouted up, her hand slipping off the rung she had put her fingers on.
"Grab the ladder! Grab the ladder!" Desperately, Summer tried again, and this time she managed to get a grip on a rung, bracing herself for the pain that shot through her wrist as gravity dragged at the Hedgehog in her other arm, and she clenched her fist around the fabric of his onesie with desperate panic, feeling him slip downward.
Conway almost couldn't believe it, when Summer screamed to grab the ladder, and he wasted a precious moment glancing downwards to confirm the shadowy silhouette of the last nightmarish creature plummeting separately into the darkness, arms lifeless. The abrupt stop jarred him, the shock rippling through his whole body from the point where Summer maintained her hold on him, and the force pulled one of Jaycie's arms free of his grasp. Clenching his other hand even tighter, he reached out and seized a rung, dangling precariously as he gently tried to swing Jaycie to the ladder. Conway waited in breathless tension until he no longer felt the full weight of Jaycie, then let go and placed both hands on the ladder.
>>Quick<< he transmitted, those horribly familiar scents still curling around them,
>>more coming.<<
Shaking in a light-headed combination of terror and hope, Summer immediately started scrambling upward, Conway close below her. With no idea which landing was nearest, and consequently no idea which landing they had initially been trying to get to, she flung herself onto the nearest one and hurriedly turned around, taking Conway's hand and hauling him the rest of the way up before extending an arm to do the same for Jaycie.
"You good, darlin'?" Summer asked quietly, getting a good look at the rattled dex.