[2] Era of the Dragons [Thread 2]

"Like memories in cold decay,"

The melodies of his music sounded into Ian's ears as the bus chugged along. An arm resting on the window and his face buried into it, his eyes just above the sleeve of his jacket as his grey hoodie covered the back of his head. He stared out of the window vacantly as he listened to the song. He watched trees flash by in a blur, the bus not allowing him to take a good look at the contents within the forest. The 16 year old ignored the outside world, lost in his own thoughts and music.

Wasn't like the bus was interesting anyways, it was practically empty except for a few occupied seats. He was going quite far, and even though his uncle was rich, he preferred the cheap way of going places. Ian was alone on the greyhound seat, who would want to sit next to a boring boy who did nothing but stare into space with headphones in his ears anyways?

"Transmissions echoing away"

Ian wasn't depressed nor happy about this trip, simply bored. Nothing seemed to pique his interest. Just another boring trip to another boring school with boring teachers and boring students.

The boy finally heaved a sigh, if somebody had been watching him they would have noticed that this was his first movement, aside from breathing, in an hour. He didn't feel the bus begin to slope up, nor did he care. He didn't want to go on this trip, he didn't want to be here. What could he do? Run away? Where would he go? He couldn't go to his uncle's, and his parents' house was likely owned by someone else. Ian had no choice but to go and be bored in such a boring place.

Far from the world of you and I, where oceans bleed into the sky.

Up in the front, the bus driver looked onward to the dull road. Her eyes were mesmerized by the road, she had been driving for too long, but at least she would be there soon. This was her last drive before she retired. No more of this boring driving where nobody liked to talk, not like she was allowed to talk to them while driving anyways.

THUD.

The driver screamed in surprise as a small bat sized lizard with light green coloring and crazy swirling designs on its body slammed into the windshield, in her panic the lady swerved on accident as more and more of the Misfit Pygmy dragons slammed into the windshield of her bus.

Ian gave a cry as he was thrown off of his seat and into the isle, he scrambled back to his seat as the bus swerved and shook, before finally it slammed into a railing of the cliff side. It bounced back to the rocky cliff, for some reason the bus driver was still flooring it instead of breaking as they crashed into a broken bit of railing and sailed over the edge and rode down the cliff before crashing into trees.

Ian gave another cry before slamming into the seat in front of him as the bus was halted by the bark of the tree. Above the bus and back onto the road, cars had also swerved to avoid the rampaging bus, and as the pygmy dragons swarmed the area with small screeches and chitters of laughter as if this were all a funny prank. Once one spotted the bus in the crashed forest below, it gave a screech and the pygmy dragons began to clear out, realizing their little prank to scare the humans had gone bad.

Ian's eyes were wide as he slowly picked himself up. There was glass on the floor along and some of the few that were on the bus were passed out. The terrified boy stepped over the either unconscious or dead bodies, his music was still playing, but in one ear. One of his ear buds must have fallen out when he was being thrown around, he didn't pull out the other one, and picked his way through the broken glass to an emergency exit in the back of the bus, seeing as the front door was blocked by a tree.

He looked out to find no road, he followed the landscape with his eye to see the road above them with smoke rising from the roads.

"So, what are you planning to do when we arrive?"

Marcus looked up from his book for a few seconds to answer the cab driver's question. It was the first instance of social interaction that they had since he had gotten into the cab, so it had kind of come out of the blue.

"I'm actually not too sure. I didn't exactly plan very much for this trip. I'll probably just wander until it gets late, then I'll find someplace to stay. Why the sudden interest?"

The driver seemed to be rather taken aback at his response. "Er, well, it's just that my customers usually tend to strike up a conversation when they're on a long trip. Might as well pass the time, right?"

Marcus probably could have done a better job at humouring the driver, but at that point he'd much rather be reading his book, so he dismissed the driver with a simple "Hmm."
A few seconds passed before the driver attempted to start a conversation again.

"Hey, do you see that canyon over there on the side of the road?" The driver directed Marcus' attention with a point of his finger. "Some people say that dragons could be living down there. Dragons! Can you believe it?"

Marcus, quite frankly, couldn't. From what he knew, dragons were not subtle or good at hiding. If something was living down there, he wanted to see it for himself.  Still though, he decided that there was, at least, a possibility that something was down there. Despite his best efforts, Marcus just couldn't resist the temptation to at least spare a glance over the cliff.

Perhaps if he hadn't, he would have been able to see what was coming a little bit sooner.

Suddenly, the driver cranked the wheel to the side, swerving the car in an attempt to avoid a bus that had lost control for some reason. Marcus' book dropped out of his hands as he was flung to the side, taken over by shock. Unfortunately, while the swerving had avoided most of the damage that would be caused by impact, there was still an impact that was strong enough to change the cab's direction. Also unfortunate was the direction that the cab had been been sent towards: A section of the railing that was broken. As the driver slammed on the brakes, the car started to screech to a stop... But not quick enough. As the car reached the edge of the cliff, it lurched for a few seconds before dropping over the edge.

The next few seconds went by in a flash. The car fell for a few seconds, then landed wheels down, front wheels first. Marcus' world went blurry for a moment from a combination of being dazed from impact and of his glasses falling off. He sat there in disbelief for a few moments before he "woke up" and faced reality.

Well, the situation looked pretty bad. A few windows had shattered, the front of the car was all but destroyed, and the driver beside him appeared to be unconscious. Marcus took a few seconds to take it in before deciding that he needed to get out of there. Fortunately, the door was still operational, and Marcus was able to escape. Getting his belongings that were contained in a bag on the floor, along with his glasses, Marcus departed from the car and stepped out into unknown territory.

Serah walked on an unknown route through the wood for the first time. She had never usually gotten this lost before, and it came as a surprise to her after her usual daydreams that she had walked straight into a patch of woods that she was unaware of.

"God, look what you've done now Serah... Gone and gotten yourself lost. What will the headlines say if you don't make it out of here? 'Serah Chrom, daughter of William Chrom, head of Chrom Inc. has been declared missing...' GAAHHHH I can't be in the headlines! I don't wanna be known! Just because my dad is rich and famous doesn't mean I want to be!"

As she continued to ramble to herself, she hadn't noticed the commotion taking place above on a cliff. A bus crash, and a taxi following its path. 

"I mean sure, I love him and everything but he always is like 'Oh Serah, you'll make a lovely president one day' GAH I HATE IT."

And then suddenly, a wall of fire and twisted metal appeared before her. It was a horrible sight, people lying unconscious, bodies crushed beneath sheets of iron.

"W-What happened here? Oh my god..."

She started to shiver at the scene, and she tried to walk but her legs were glued in place." 

"Why..."

It was a day like any other, a scene like any other and a commission like any other.
Yet another user on deviantart.com had asked for a boring landscape picture.
Why couldn't those people ever ask for something interesting?
Pretty much anything other than landscapes really.
But then again Reginald was not exactly in a position to complain. He needed the money.
And so it was another picture of the forest.
The artist sat at the edge of a cliff in the woods, a place from which he had drawn several times already. The view certainly was amazing, but repeateldy drawing the same scene was getting tiresome. And so he yawned, set aside his pen and sketchbook, stretching those weary bones of his.
As he directed his gaze towards the sky he noticed, that the sun had moved quite a distance from when he had started. Was it really this late already? TIme to pack up then. In this lighting he couldn-
*CRASH*
What in the name of pickled radish was that just now?!
Shocked by the sudden loud noise the artist looked behind him to see the wreck of what had once been a bus smouldering between the trees. An accident? Here? But why?
There was not really anything dangerous about the nearby road.
So how could someone - a bus driver even - have an accident here?
Reginald had little time to think about this, as he suddenly found himself face-to-headlights with a taxi, that seemed to be racing straight towards him for some reason.
Not having time to think of some other way to save his flank, Reginald found himself having jumped off of the cliff before he even realized what he was doing.
The taxi drove off of the cliff as well, right over his head. Luckily that problem had been avoided.
Not as luckily he was now in freefall and about to reach the ground.
Closer and closer the pile of leaves on the forest floor came.
And then everything went white...

Tree. Tree. Tree. Another tree. Tall tree. Tree. Tree. Tree. Tree. Short tree. Tree. Tree. Tree. Dead tree. Tree...

Fucking trees.

That's all I fucking remember are the trees. Then black. After that, guess fucking what? I'm looking at another fucking tree. This one is on fire though... I guess that's an improvement. Slightly. I start to laugh. For some reason, I can't help it. Out of all those shit-green things I rode past for hours, this unlucky son of a bitch just happens to be the one who gets set on fire. Fucking trees.

I groan as a throbbing head ache hits me like a bus. It takes me a moment to figure out if that pun is incredibly apropo or terribly inappropriate. As I grab my head, it feels warm. I look at my fingers. Is that blood? My blood? Is that what my blood looks like? I must be light-headed.

I look down and realize I'm missing a shoe. This does not strike me as odd. In fact, it seems perfectly normal, though I am sorry for the loss. People loose shoes all the time. I'm sure I'll find it later, under my bed or in my closet, somewhere like that. Shoes always end up in places like that.

How did I get here? The bus crashed? How could the driver let that happen? I should ask. As I unbuckle my seatbelt and shuffle up the walkway, I notice the lack of people. I could have sworn there were more of us. I touch the drivers shoulder. She doesn't move. Is she unconscious. I roll her over. Her face is bloodied. Eyes wide open. Dead.

Fuck. Why'd she have to be fucking dead. It wasn't enough to crash the bus, but now she was dead. Screw me. Blood keeps getting in my eyes. I don't need this. I remember a first aid kit. Under her seat. Get some gauze and wrap it around my head. It feels tight. I look up and, without a doubt, the driver is still dead. I just can't catch a break.

I feel like I should say something, but I'm not particularly religious. The least I could do was close her eyes. I reach out, but something stops me. I can't do it with her looking at me like that. I tell her to stop it. I then proceed to feel like an idiot. Come on Garett, you can do this. It's just a bunch of skin and bones. God, that really didn't help. Force myself. Wipe down her eyes. Proceed to throw up, partially on her lap. I'm really not good with this whole, "Honoring the Dead" thing, apparently.

I need to get out. I practically crawl out the back of the bus. I fall onto the ground below. Ow. My back. I groan. I can't tell now if I can't move or just don't want to move. I really want to close my eyes and go to sleep right now. Something tells me that's a bad idea. Could be my conscious, that little voice in the back of my head. Then again, last time I checked, people who listen to voices in their heads end up in padded rooms, dressed in straight jackets.

Relatively, that sounds like some sort of amazing right now...

Ian blinked, looking up at the column of smoke above as the small dragons seemed to flee the sight of the prank gone wrong. He didn't quite know how to react to this, sure he had been bored, but being bored was better than this at least.

He looked back inside the bus from where he stood, a man was interacting with the bus driver. Was she okay? Why was the man puking unless-ooooh... Ian looked away, deciding that the bus was an unfriendly place. Now that he had figured out what was going on with the busdriver, he seemed to notice more of the people like the driver around.

Ian picked up his other headphone and shoved it back into his ear, his other hand reaching into his pocket and turning up the music. His body shivered a bit at the thought, he backed up a bit, feeling his foot kick something. He turned to see a charred body of someone who had been set on fire. He froze, wondering if that was how his parents had appeared in the burning building.

He tore his eyes away from the burnt corpse and dashed to a tree, leaning back against it and taking a seat. He wanted to calm down, finding himself actually wanting to go back to being bored in the bus.

Ian didn't feel it, due to adrenaline still coursing through him from the entire situation, but he had a bleeding cut on his forehead. It was covered by his hair, and the liquid was slowly making its way down his face.

"Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

Who was that? It sounded as if it was in his headphones, how was that possible? This wasn't part of this song. Why did it sound muffled? Was something wrong with his headphones?

((Note: Everyone can hear it but its still distant and a bit muffled :P))

Is something like this even possible? Sure, horrible accidents happen all the time, Serah saw them a lot on the news. Plane crashes, oil spills, natural disasters... 

No...

This was no accident. Something caused this. Serah felt more terrified then before. She just couldn't take all of this in at once. She slowly made her way over toward the wreckage, and tried to help anyone she could. 

"Are you all okay...? I was lost in the woods when I came across this carnage... what happened...?"

Without any warning, Serah suddenly heard a voice call on the wind.

"Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"


The voice felt soft and kind. Serah shivered at the sound. It sounded very familiar.

Mother?

She shook her head. No. That wasn't her mother. Her mother had been dead for 15 years. Still, it made her feel a sense of safety. She removed her glasses to clean off the ash inside of it. As she put them back on, she had forgotten that the other people had still been with her. She wondered if they had heard the voice as well.

"Did you all hear that?"

Slowly everything came together again.
He had jumped. He fell. He landed.
And with the memory, the pain returned.
Every single bone in his body burned like fire, and he probably had more of them now than he had before he fell. And then Reginald remembered, that he was still lying in that pile of leaves.
Slowly he pushed himself up again, immediately collapsing back to the ground, wincing in pain.
Arms definitely were not supposed to bend that way and even less in that place.
So...his left arm was broken, he was lying in a pile of leaves at the bottom of a cliff somewhere in the forest and the weather forecast wasn't all that great either. Perfect.
Groaning in pain the artist then somehow managed to roll over his right side, landing on the ground with another thud.
"Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"
What in the world was that?
Had he hit his head when he had fallen?
Dumb question. Of course he had hit his head. The real issue was whether he had hit his head hard enough to cause auditory hallucinations.
Just to be on the safe side, Reginald sputtered a pained answer:
"The answer to your first question is no. The answer to your second question is obvious."
Who was that? What was that? Why was that?
And most importantly - what was Reginald supposed to do now?
He could wait here for the voice he might have heard and risk some infections as he probably had wounds he didn't even know of. He could force himself up and try to find someone else to help him.
Why did he have to be an artist again? Art was useless! If only he had been a paramedic or something of the sort. Something useful!

The world around Marcus started to look more clear to him as he came to grips with reality. He took in his surroundings. A few metres away was a bus, presumably the one he had made contact with. To say it was a mess would be an understatement. It looked like that vehicle hadn't fared any better than the one he had been riding in, and he didn't really expect too many survivors, but Marcus deciding that it was worth the risk to at least take a peek.

At least, he would have, if he had fully recovered from the fall.

Not too surprisingly, Marcus didn't get too far along before collapsing back onto the ground on his back. Crap, that accident must have taken a lot out of me. Maybe I should take it easy for now...
At this point, Marcus' sense of sight was no longer disoriented, and his other senses were making progress. His ears were ringing, but he could take in the smell of smoke and the plants of the surrounding area. He also started to feel a new sensation coming on...
Pain.
He had suddenly become aware that his arm was killing him. He slowly raised his right arm to examine it, and it wasn't exactly very pretty. It seemed that some of the glass from the shattered side window had collided with it on the way down, and now it was covered in cuts of various sizes. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but the bigger cuts still hurt like hell and he didn't really want to leave them untreated for too long. Of course it had to be my dominant arm.
Deciding to try moving again, Marcus pulled himself into an upright sitting position, but something interrupted him before he made the transition to standing up.

"Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?"

"What the..." Marcus muttered in surprise. Was someone speaking to him? Looking around once more, he was able to confirm that there was, in fact, some survivors from the crash, but his ears were still ringing to the point that he wouldn't be able to hear them at that range. He couldn't find anyone in his immediate proximity, either.
Was it just my imagination? After all, there doesn't seem to be any other reason for hearing it. Everyone else is too far away. Maybe I'm just still a bit rattled from the crash...

"Hello? Are you okay? Can you hear me?

Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up.

No. No, I'm not okay. I'm siting outside a bus with a dead woman inside, watching trees burn to the ground. This could only be worse if I suddenly started to hear voices. Oh, wait. Never-mind. Congratulations, Strange Voice, you've officially brought my day to a new low. I suspect sometime soon I'll be digging through to China.

I feel like I should get up to my feet. Check for anyone who's still alive. Then again, I don't quite feel like puking again. I think I'll stay here. The ground is nice. The alternate solution.

I yell, "Hey! Anyone besides me who isn't dead, say something. If you are dead, feel free to keep to yourself."

Ian heard none of the other voices of the humans, as they were drowned out by the music of his Ipod. He took a deep breath, a dull ache surfacing on his head, he reached up and touched the spot gingerly, and found a liquid on his forehead. He pulled up his sleeve a bit more and used it to block the wound from releasing more of the precious liquid.

"This way! Quickly! I can give you help over here!" the voice sounded once more with more urgency.

Ian pulled out a single headphone, irritated with the voice, "Stupid voice..." he mumbled. Was this some kind of normal thing after a car crash? Was he going insane?

"You all have to trust me!"

Ian stood up and returned to the burning corpse party, he approached the nearest person, which seemed to be somebody who had just hopped out of the bus and taken a seat on the ground, it was the man that had been sick earlier. He took a quick look around the area, there was a man in a pile of leaves who's arm was bent the wrong way. Dead perhaps? No, his chest was still moving. He definitely would need help. A woman with glasses not far off, seemed to have a confused look on her face, did she hear the voice too? There was another man that seemed to get up and fall over again not too far from the bus, he wasn't dead yet at least.

"Hearing voices asking you to go into a forest and offering help isn't normal is it?" Ian asked the man who had been on the bus with him, his tone making it obvious that he doubted it was normal.

"This way! Quickly! I can give you help over here!"

The voice continued to call out, this time with seemingly more purpose. This time, it also seemed to draw Marcus' attention to a particular direction, towards the forest. It seemed to want Marcus to start moving over there. Although Marcus still hadn't determined whether it was just his imagination or not, he couldn't help but wonder if there was something else working, something that he hadn't experienced before. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to listen to the voice for now. After all, there wasn't any risk if it was his imagination, and if it was something else, well, it would probably do him good to listen. Sitting around here probably wouldn't do him too much good at this point. Heck, maybe he'd even find something interesting in there.

"You all have to trust me!"

...What? "You all?" Was there others that were hearing the voice, or was it just another trick that his mind was playing on him? Maybe there really was something else behind the voice that he was hearing. After all, some of the survivors looked pretty confused... But maybe that was to be expected. After all, they were just in a crash. Maybe I'll just take a quick look, then I'll come back here if I don't see anything worthy of further exploration. Pushing himself back onto his feet (using his left arm, of course), Marcus slowly trudged over to the edge of the forest, hoping to find something that would take his mind off of this mess.

"This way, quickly!"


The more this voice called out to her, the more it reminded her of her mother. She needed to get a move on and find the source of this voice. She wanted answers.

"Others seemed to have left as well... I should get a move on also."

She looked away from the carnage in front of her and walked away, as if taken over by a spirit. as she followed the voice, she could see a few others coming along with her. 

"You all have to trust me!"


That confirmed it. Others had been hearing it as well. Good. If this mysterious voice could help these poor people, Serah would be happy.

(Kinda short post, sorry ^^;)

"This way! Quickly! I can give you help over here!"

Okay, so the voice wasn't some one-time phenomenon. Still, this exclamation just raised further questions. Where was "this way"? And what kind of help was the voice offering?
Concluding that he didn't have much of a choice in the matter, the artist slowly. painfully got himself on his feet again, looking around. The scene definitely was not looking pretty, no matter which angle you chose to look at it. All around him there was death and destruction. A few pained moans were emanating from who-knows-where and some of the bodies on the ground were still moving.
But with his lack of medical training and the condition he was in, Reginald definitely wouldn't be of much help to any of these people.
So...where did that voice want him to go?
Even though it had not given the slightest clue, somehow the man felt a slight tug in his mind. Somehow a specific direction made itself known to him.

"You all have to trust me!"

You all? So there were at least two others involved. But who? No, that didn't matter right now.
If he didn't get his hindquarters moving right now, his situation would only get worse. Slowly, dazedly he trotted into the direction his mind had shown him. What would await him there? Was it a trap?

Another man was talking to him. More voices. Going crazy. Or a dream. Oh please God let this be a dream. I've fallen asleep and I'm going to wake up any second, still on the bus, drool all over my pillow. I'll go back to watching the trees go by and that driver will still be...

Come on. Wake up. Wake up!

I open my eyes again. Still here...

GOD DAMNIT!

"Depends. I think I hit my head really hard. That could do it... What? You hit your head too? We should get a doctor to look at that..."