Christopher Warrington (waltzlikeanarmy) wrote in regulation, @ 2008-04-10 00:44:00 |
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Current mood: | frantic |
Current music: | "The (After) Life Of The Party" - Fall Out Boy |
Entry tags: | cb:mathwall, christopher warrington, narrative |
[OUTSIDE] ...i'm a stitch away from making it - and a scar away from falling apart...
Who: Christopher Warrington and a random NPC
What: Boom?
When: Wednesday, April 9, near dawn/thereafter
Where: Outside Scamander Park/Mathwell, London
Rating: PG-13? Vague descriptions of violent death.
Status: Closed, complete.
The marks on Baddock’s map had been indistinct, but after walking a bit away from the camp, Chris found the spot. And then he waited again, watching. All the theories in the world wouldn’t get him inside that wall, no matter what he tried. But he watched anyway, waited. Because there was nothing else he could do.
Wild Magic was a law unto itself and, from what he’d seen before the journals on the inside went dead, it seemed magic itself was wrecking havoc on those who typically wielded it. This was a trend he’d seen in other places, smaller places – never on a scale such as this. Battlefields reeked of this sort of thing, spells that rebounded, rebelled, twisted and changed until the effects were no longer recognisable. What was happening inside? What was being done to innocents? To Muggles and Wizards alike? Where were his sister and his niece? Smith and his daughter?
Chris watched the wall through the night, kept awake by a series of potions as well as sheer adrenalin. By the time dawn broke through the hazy clouds covering London, he had bags beneath his eyes and he was dizzy from lack of food, lack of sleep. He thought he imagined it, initially. He thought he was seeing things. A flicker, a shift – the wall appeared to have become slightly translucent, but he was well aware of the tricks the eye could play on one in such a state as he was in.
As the sun rose, he took another potion, suddenly glad that he kept enough in the cabinet at home to have supplied him thus far. And then he realised he was seeing movement beyond the wall. Movement – he could see people. “Link,” he called, motioning to one of the many assistants running back and forth from the city to Scamander Park. “Link, look at the wall, tell me what you see.”
Chris could feel the frenetic energy in himself, knew it was coiled tight – he told himself to stay calm. “Mr. Warrington?” The younger man blinked at him in confusion.
“Look at the wall, Link – look at it. Do you see anything… anything at all?”
“Aye, well – I see…” Chris looked at Link’s face, watched as it drained of colour. He couldn’t risk looking at the wall himself, couldn’t let himself believe it might be weakening.
“What do you see?”
“Blood.”
Chris’ head snapped up, eyes flashing, flaring. “What?”
“It’s – it’s everywhere. I can see right through and it’s – oh Jesus, that’s Oplia Little. What are they – ”
Looking at the wall, Chris could see that it was no longer opaque. There was a strip going upward as far as he could see that had actually gone rather transparent – enough, anyway, that they could see through it what was happening on the other side of the wall.
“She’s got a baby – a little boy. Asbury – what are they – oh sweet Mary, mother of Christ, they just slit her – ”
Link turned to the side, vomiting all over his shoes, but Chris couldn’t take his eyes off of the scene playing out before him. It was the worst sort of picture, the type of thing you expected to see in paintings of Hell. A fire burned, he could see it flickering, and a woman’s body had just been pushed into it – a man moved toward the wall again. He held another woman’s hair in one hand, dragging her forward, shouting over his shoulder.
She was short, a brunette, pale-skinned – she looked like Jacqueline. There was just enough of a cloud between him and the people on the other side, just enough distance, that he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t. His eyes were too bleary to make sense of what he was seeing – but then the man who’d been shouting pulled the woman up, yanked her head back, and slit her throat.
Blood sprayed over the wall and Chris watched as she slumped. The man shoved her body toward the fire as well, turning to gesture at those behind him. And then Chris saw them – saw all of them. A crowd of people, ragged and dirty, pushing women – pushing children – toward the man with the knife and the blood-stained wall.
Only it wasn’t stained. It wasn’t, because the blood disappeared moments after the splatters first made contact.
“Tell Baddock,” he said, unable to recognise his own voice. “Tell Baddock what you’ve seen – go.” Chris pushed Link in the direction of Scamander Park and took a hesitant step forward.
A little boy was dragged forward and suddenly Chris found himself moving forward. It wasn’t a calm that settled over him, but a frantic need to stop what he was seeing, to just make it stop. He didn’t even reach for his wand, just ran forward.
“Stop,” he shouted, knowing the people on the other side of the wall couldn’t hear him. He waved his arms, still running forward. “STOP!” It had no affect. Chris watched as the man with the knife, a manic expression on his face, sliced a deep gash across that tiny throat. The boy’s blood coated the wall, obscuring Chris’ view of the man, the knife, the crowd. “No,” he yelled, hitting the wall at full-force, he felt something inside him break and then a flood of uncontrolled power that would have frightened him had he not been sent flying through the air by the backlash.
Light sparked behind his eyes, then in front of them, and Chris wasn’t sure if he was seeing it, imagining it, or if the sky had actually caught fire. He didn’t have time to find the answer before blacking out entirely.