flickermouse

In the middle of an overwhelmed street, not far from the Seajewel opera house, the strange curio army continues to advance. Its now or never. Luminar peers over the open door of his upturned carriage, seeing his wife Enid clutching her ridiculous pet for dear life. She looks up expectantly, and even makes a move to stand up and be lifted to freedom. -THUNK- Luminar slams the carriage door shut and slides the exterior lock across. "You will be safer here. I know where you are, I will come back for you when these streets are clear. Stay quiet and they won't find you," he shouts through the open panel. Without a second look back to his now trapped wife, Luminar hops down from the carriage and approaches the still tethered nykkas. If anyone asks him about this moment in his life, he would tell them that of course he could hear Enid's pleas and desperate attempts to bang on the carriage, with each thud like a stake through his heart. In reality, he moves with swift and purposeful

Enid stands at the foot of the stairs in the now derelict coffee shop, one hand gripped tightly around the scavenged bludgeon (a former chair leg) and the other hand tentatively touching the hand-rail. A few steps ahead of her is Mabel the eftlike, looking at its owner expectantly. Enid takes a last look at the ruined space. For a brief moment, she can picture what it might have looked like before all of this chaos. A strange sensation of sadness and regret and longing hits her in the chest. Her eyes stop at the prone body of the Undyre, its chest lightly rising and falling. Wrenching herself away from the daydream, she forces herself up the stairs at speed. Mabel keeps pace a few steps ahead, reaching the top first. Enid wonders if she should stop and wait for her precious pet to give the all-clear. Had Luminar or her mother been here as well, no doubt they would have ridiculed her for giving so much credit to the creature. But Enid knew differently. And had always known differently.

A once vibrant high street, bursting at the seams with shops and eateries, is reduced to a charred and smouldering wasteland. The invading forces - so much like curio yet mostly smaller and with lifeless eyes, mechanical body parts and even glowing circuitry for some - move through the city of Seajewel with dark purpose. They decimate in order to dominate. Whoever can't be captured are destroyed to reduce resistance. It's cold and calculating. And thoroughly alien. Enid cowers behind some wreckage, clutching her eftlike Mabel tightly. They had moments before just narrowly avoided running full pelt into the middle of the street, in full view of the sinister curio. She takes panicked breaths and feels whoozy. She barely moves but her eyes dart all around, looking for an escape. Many shattered and smouldering buildings line up to her left and her right. She could go back the way she came...but that would come with the risk of being seen, or walking into more trouble. Time has become hard