Re: [No. 22 -> No. 8: Hunter R & Cris M]
It all happened fast. It wasn't the cascadea dominoes falling. It wasn't a logical shift from Act I to Act II. It was nothing so coherent as that. Nah. One minute Cris was telling Hunter to run, the next a seriesa screams cut through him, through any pain-fuzziness he had, and he was watching Hunter struggle against a sinkhole's hold on him. Training, it was the training that kicked in then, distending the fractured time into longer, slower moments that allowed Cris enough time to know what he needed to do. If his knee still hurt, he didn't feel it. The scarf made his movements stiff, but that was all.
He refused to answer the door panic was knocking at in his head, the door it then started scrabbling at, breaking off nails and leaving blood behind as it tried to get in. Dealing with crises was covering your ears to that raucous and working with the adrenaline that flooded veins and capillaries, but keeping your head on straight. Fear was a numb gnawing in the Sheriff's gut, almost like a hunger pang, and he blocked that out too. He heard only the blood in his ears.
He ran the twenty yards or so the kid had crossed without so much as a wince, picking out his phone and keys from his coat pockets and hurriedly shoving them into the back pockets on his pants. Almost to Hunter, he ripped his jacket off and tossed it forward like a rope or a lifesaver. The kid would have to wriggle forward some to reach it. Cris was speaking with a tenor'd calm, the kind that resonated in the vocal cords, 'cause it was so forced. It was on the raw edge of a scream. "I got you, Hunt. Grab the sleeve."
Cris' brain wasn't trying to place the hole. It wasn't trying to figure out the hows no more. Alla its energy was diverted to the two most pressing things—getting Hunter out and not falling in himself. The moutha the sinkhole widened. He was on its lip. His skin was cold and sweat dripped into his eyes.