Gods and Monsters [cs: torture and murder and scary stuff]

[beetlebutt]

Jaime Reyes was standing on a street in El Paso, looking very confused, and talking to himself. Well, at least it looked like he was talking to himself. Really, he was talking to the scarab, because the two of them were trying to figure out what the heck had just happened. The world had blurred, Jaime had passed out and now...

"This is so not El Paso."

Now he was in a place that was home and yet not home.

|T L[][]KS \|/E|RD. \|/HERE'S THE PUTT-PUTT?

"Exactly. And that - what is that? That building wasn't there yesterday. Neither was that bank building. And where's the El Diablo?"

/-\LTERN/-\TE D|/|\ENS|[]N?

"Are your sensors picking up anything weird?"

...SENS[]RS /-\RE |N[]PER/-\T|[]N/-\L.

After doing a systems check, the scarab trilled a little wordless cry of alarm.

"What's wrong?"

/|\UTIPLE SYSTEMS |N[]PER/-\T|[]N/-\L. []NLY B/-\S|C L|FE SUPP[]RT, B/-\SIC TR/-\NSF[]O/|\/-\T|[]N /-\B|L|T|ES, /-\ND C[]/|\/|\S /-\V/-\|L/-\BLE. D|/-\GN[]ST|CS UN/-\BLE TO DETER/|\INE WHY.

"Whoa, whoa, okay, calm down, you're kinda panicking. Stop with the brain klaxons, okay?"

|'/|\ RUNN|NG BL|ND. Y[]U C/-\LM D[]WN!

"I know this is freaky, and you're not used to being blind like this, but you're still conscious and I'm still conscious, and we're not fighting an evil death satellite or, I don't know, being shot at by aliens. We'll figure this out, okay? Just keep a cool head."

The response was a very surly, | D[]N'T H/-\VE /-\ HE/-\D.

Jaime rolled his eyes. "You know what I meant, Mr. Literal. Look, we'll figure this out, okay?"

In fact, maybe he could just talk to someone and get some answers. Some teenagers ran down the street towards him.

"Hey! Very, very lost superhero here," he said, waving them down. "Any chance you could -"

They didn't notice. In fact, with a feeling like cold mist, they ran right through him. Jaime froze up after they did, expression stricken.

"Okay, we're a ghost or something and no one can see, hear, or touch us. Time to panic."

| T[]LD Y[]U!

Comments

[putyouinstitches]

Then...ominously a shadow fell over the water and Jaimie.

Having watched the boy throw himself off the drop and plunge out of sight Harley felt cheated. Playtime was over it seemed. But at least she could say her goodbyes like the classy dame that she was.

It turned out the chainsaw wasn't broken after all, it just needed a little loving and it sprang to life as noisy and powerful as ever.

And as luck would have it, there was still an abundance of trees near the drop. Picking the largest one she carved a chunk out of it's trunk to aim it and then cut it free.

"TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMBER!"

The tree itself was a mighty and ancient thing that had grown for so many years it had seen the land before any humans settled there. Now in it's final moments it was sent tumbling over the drop and plunging into the water with enough force that the shallow pool shot water all the way back up to shower down on Harley who seemed less then amused by it.

Still it would be hard to walk away from something like that. If he really was dead that snooty princess might be upset...but Harley could care less.

Summoning up a tunnel of darkness and shadows she killed the engine on her chainsaw and swaggered away feeling ultimately satisfied.

Today had been a wonderfully fun day.

[beetlebutt]

The shadow and cry of "timber" had him looking up just in time to see he was under the tree's shadow. He tried to throw himself sideways in the water, kicking to try to get out from under it but that only served to keep him from getting hit directly on the head. The tree hit him in the torso, causing him to scream in pain because of his broken ribs right before he went under. He only stopped screaming just in time as he sunk under the water, so that he didn't breathe it in. It meant, however, that he hadn't had time to take a breath. The tree trunk weighed him down, causing him to sink under its weight all the way to the bottom where it pinned him by the waist. He tried to dig his good leg into the mud and silt of the lake bottom to kick to squirm out from under it, tried to push it off him or push himself out from under it with his handcuffed hands but it was no use. As his lungs burned, the rising panic made him thrash wildly, trying to twist his body out from where he was pinned. Finally, his lungs gave out and he couldn't stop himself from inhaling, couldn't stop himself from gulping down lake water, couldn't stop the water coming in and burning his lungs. Then the panic gave way to something else, a sort of shocked calm. As he watched particles of silt float in front of his eyes, there came a strange thought: But I was supposed to go play mini-golf with Paco and Brenda on Thursday. His mind started to drift, as he looked up at the light shining through the water. Tell my family, tell them - you know what to tell them, he thought at the scarab fuzzily. J/-\|ME! the scarab cried out in anguish, desperately trying to get the oxygen supply up but failing to because of the device attacked to the armor. The water wouldn't hurt it. Jaime dying wouldn't hurt it. It was largely immortal. It would live on. Humans were fleeting, passing things in comparison. But this human was important. As far as Khaji Da was concerned, he was the most important human in the world. It's okay. Help is coming. They'll find you. And you'll find someone else. You'll still be able to do good. It's okay, Jaime thought, comfortingly, at the scarab. You're the Blue Beetle. Just as much as Jaime was, at any rate. Then as Jaime's mind went fluttering away, as the peace and quiet settled in, the only thing that broke the calmness in Jaime's mind was the scarab screaming over and over: J/-\|ME! J/-\|ME! J/-\|ME, ST/-\Y W|TH ME! J/-\|ME! But as loud as it was, it didn't stop the darkness from taking him.