The chill breeze moving through Oahu from the mountains had a good number of people restless in the very early hours of the morning. Maybe it was the fact that it hooted and hollered through the cracks of most doors. Maybe it was the fact that it literally whistled as it careened through the trees and bushes. Either way, it quite handily summoned far more than one person early from their beds. Or, conversely, might have let some of them not sleep at all. Because of this, there were an inordinate number of people that seemed to be setting themselves up on the beach to watch the sunrise. Also, a strangely large number of people out at the Kailua Beach shops, or at the restaurants, eating an ungodly early breakfast on this strange day.
Felix had gone out for another morning jog, certainly routine by now. With the air a bit chilly he'd opted for grey sweats and a burgundy hoodie, the wire of his headphones trailing under. His head bobbed as he ran to the beat of the music, his feet slapping along in time across the ground. As he approached crowds he began to slow, pulling his hood down to get the cold wind through his hair. He sniffed in the wind, both because it was cold and his nose was running, and to see what might be open for breakfast in the area.
Rick is there, too, though he doesn't seem to be about to surf right now, considering he's wearing jeans and a black hoodie with a red 'IZ' on the front, and then what seems like it's probably a tour schedule on the back. He has a backpack on, and when he gets about halfway down the beach, he shrugs it off one shoulder and gets out a blanket, spreading it on the sand and sitting down. Then he takes out a thermos, and a doughnut, setting the latter down on his knee as he unscrews the thermos cap. It's then that he catches sight of Felix, and he lifts a hand to him, calling, "Aloha, brah." He pours something that looks like milk out into the thermos cap, though he doesn't drink it, just sets it down in front of him as well, and stretches out to watch the horizon.
Shawn is usually up early and on the beach most mornings and when the wind is rocking so do the waves so the surfer dude is resting on the beach right now with his surf board handy but with the number of people on the beach right now he's deciding to wait and see if the waves pick up enough to make going out there worth it or if it'll just be a relax and watch the sunrise and enjoy people watching.
Lei is one of those out at Kailua Beach early, planning a day of business judging from the fact that she's there with her old, beat-up truck, 'Kekoa Nature Tours' printed on the side in far fresher paint than is on the rest of the vehicle. The native woman has opted to wear jeans today, rather than shorts, and has on a white spaghetti strap tank-top and a light jacket as concession to the chill of the breeze. She's standing near the hood, a map stretched out on it and a pencil in hand. She occasionally makes a mark here and there on the map, sometimes corresponding to the location of a landmark on the map, sometimes at a seemingly random place in the middle of nowhere. This is followed by occasional dire imprecation muttered under her breath when the breeze causes that map to shift about.
Distant thunder rattled down from the mountains and filtered down to be more localized until a triumph cafe racer pulled to a stop on the parking lot next to Lei's truck. Noah clearly had a death wish with his lack of helmet and only a pair of wrap sunglasses on. Yup, the man even wore sunglasses at night. Hitting the stop switch, the engine choked to a halt as he leaned the bike enough to push the kickstand out. Looking over his shoulder to Lili as he waited for her to dismount, the man smirked, "I want to say we went through a flock of birds, but they were just the biggest mosquitoes I've seen on the island." The man was more dressed for a luau than riding with his blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. "This is really the wrong beach for launching anything off, Lee. We should head farther north."
Lili, arriving on the back of Noah's bike, likely was impossible to recognize until she pulled off her full coverage helmet that looked more like it solidly matched an entirely different kind of motorcycle, even in color. She was all smiles as she shook out her long hair, letting it fall to her waist in a heavy, dark rush of filaments. The native Hawaiian gave a happy chuckle as she veritably leapt off the motorcycle and bounced in place, going up onto the balls of her feet, while putting the helmet away securely. Perhaps she'd gotten enough sleep after all. As far as clothing went, Lili was dressed to ride the motorcycle in the chilly wind, so actually had on a pair of blue jeans that fit her lean frame quite snugly. On her feet are a set of black Harley Davidson boots that come up to just below her knees, and look to be in really good shape, as she likely wore them only rarely. Whatever she was wearing as a shirt went unseen, though, as her trim-fitting, black, jacket was zipped up over it, over lapping the waistband of her jeans by just an inch or so. Flashing that wide smile over to Lei as she was nearby, Lili offered the woman a friendly, "Aloha kakahiaka!", that was filled with a spritely amount of energy. Lili turned to Noah and grinned. "Never doubt that I know where to find the little secret places on my island, No'ah'uh! I know just the place to go! And I can't believe you're not freezing." Lili shook her head and tugged her backpack over her shoulders securely before she nodded toward the beach. "Let's go for a walk, 'oki'oki."
With people milling about, there were various and sundry 'Aloha's' and 'Good Mornings' in all number of languages given as people passed in the darkness, everyone looking like they might just be praying the sun came along to put the wind down a little bit. Well, at least some of them looked that way. Others might well be looking like they were going to start salivating on the waves a the sun finally came up and called out the 'ALL CLEAR' to start the surfing morning.
As the wind moved, a strange sound could be heard. Kind of like a wet, sticky, thudding. It didn't just hit any one place, really, but seemed to be effecting the world wherever there was anything solid it could collide with. The windows on a business or vehicle. The side of the life guard shack. The outside walls of the businesses. Sometimes even at the branches or trunks of nearby trees.
Rick splits the doughnut in half, leaving one half where it is and taking a bite of the other as he watches with a little smile. He tips his head back just a bit as the sun starts to rise, and his eyes close briefly as he takes in a breath, letting it out slowly. He looks content -- until that sound starts. His eyes open again and he straightens up, looking around him as his smile fades into a look of confusion. He squints as his gaze moves among the other people on the beach, stopping for a moment on a few people as though judging their reaction -- or indeed whether they have any reaction at all -- to the sound.
The stars in the east begin to look washed out as the sapphire night sky pales.
Felix slowed as he spotted Rick, grinning as he gave the man a wave in return. He slipped his head phones off his head, saxophones and guitars playing until he shut off his Zune. Trotting over, he eyed the little glass of potential milk, shrugging. "Aloha Rick. Getting your healthy breakfast? How are you?" He cleared his throat. "Uh... hope that thing at the park didn't hit you too weird." Looking about, he spotted Shawn and gave the man an upnod. As the sun rose, Felix rummaged around in his hoodie pockets, producing a pair of sunglasses. "Wow damn... someone hired the Teletubbies sun..." At the sound of a massive motor Felix looked about, spotting the bike with raised eyebrows and a grin. He offered Noah and Lily a wave. "Aloha! Nice bike dude!" In spotting them he spotted Lei, going a bit red, but offering a small wave. He looked about, frowning at the sound. "Now what the hell? Sounds like someone's throwing that old Nickelodeon gloop stuff at the side of a tin shack." He looked about for obvious tin shacks, confused.
Shawn glances up at the sky frowning a bit and looking around for the source of the odd sounds he's hearing and well with some of the other insanity on this island he looks for the screaming there's always screaming at the start of the bad stuff right? He's not overly concerned with the noises yet though it's still early could be rain... Super thick and stickyish rain.
Lei glances up as she's addressed, and offers a distracted, "Aloha" to Lili in return. Then her attention turns back toward the map on the hood of her truck, still fighting the wind to keep it steady as she makes her marks on it. Though her attention is drawn away from it again at the sound accompanying the wind, prompting the native woman to look around with a furrowed brow.
Noah's lips pressed into a smile, "Was I sounding doubtful? I was attempting to go for a lazy tone, but not quite whining about having to hike too far from the bike." The man grinned, "Where I grew up saw snow with some regularity, and this? These mountains have nothing on Afghanistan." The man got off the bike after Lili, taking the key from the ignition, "You know which way we're going, Lee, so lead the way." He offered a nod to Felix, "She looks good, but it's the most uncomfortable of my bikes... But she's chain drive, so I haven't put her out of her misery yet." The man chuckled at he looked back to Lei, "You know your island so well, why don't you help her with the map?" He thumbed to Lei.
Shawn looks around at the beach and the waves and shakes his head before he grabs his board and starts to head out onto the water perhaps to surf or maybe to escape the invading Night Nija attack. This might be a job for the PJ Masks!
Lili gave Felix a wave hello, along with a big smile, as she offered a bright "Aloha!" before she turned back to Noah. She snickered and moved up a little closer to the man in his Hawaiian shirt, then tugged on the fabric slightly. "Ha ha. You love her, that's why you keep her. It's not just the chain." Turning her eyes back toward Lei and her map, Lili looked over the door of the truck and grinned broadly. "I'm pretty sure that's one woman that doesn't need help with a map so much as maybe a rock to just hold it down, No'ah'uh. She works for a tour company. She probably knows this island better than I do." Lili chuckled and turned to walk, then stopped, turning back to look at the parking lot sign, before she scrunched up her nose. "Eeeeew. Someone like... spit a giant loogie on the back of the parking lot sign. That's so nasty."
Pink-gold light gilds the land as the sun creeps over the eastern horizon into a cloudless blue sky.
As the horizon starts to lighten up a little, the darkness started to take on that pale grey shade, far out to sea, the sound of people talking somewhat hushed, as a weirdly natural reaction to the sunshine starting to carve its way into the world. The sound of weird splatting could be heard consistently, if not continually. A few people kind of jumped and started wiping at their clothes, or at their skin, some of them making surprised or disgusted exclamations.
Some people were able to get out of the way of whatever seemed to be flying through the breeze toward whatever hard surface it might come across, or perhaps just the sea, but not everyone was so lucky. Along Noah's side, three impacts could be felt, the sensation of cool, sliminess kind of oozing through the side of his shorts, the shoulder of his shirt, and a spot near his lower back. Lei, likewise, would get the sensation against the thigh of her jeans, the dampness starting to seep in, and across the back of her shoulders as something skittered along her back.
Rick lets out a little huff at Felix's words, but his smile fades into a look of mild disgust at whatever it is he sees. "What the hell?" he says, squinting, before he jerks away from something that must have passed close to him. His movements nearly upset the cup on the blanket, but he doesn't seem to care about that as he stands up quickly, the now quarter of a donut falling from his hand. "You see that, right?" he says, maybe to Felix, but it may just be rhetorical.
Felix jumped as something struck his foot and he frowned down at, making a face. "Oh damn, it is gloop... what the hell is that stuff?" He started looking around rather desperately for shelter, throwing his hood back up to try and protect himself. He nodded to Rick. "Hell yeah. Hideous, flying space boogies. What is this shit?!"
Lei seems a bit too absorbed in observing the odd things flying through the air, as when some is blown toward her she doesn't manage to dodge. She lets out a disgusted sound as she feels the... Whatever it is seeping into her jeans, reaching down to try and brush it off. But before she can she stop halfway as she feels more between her shoulders, prompting her to exclaim 'Ack!' That seems to be determined as the more immediate concern as she's reaching back to try and scrape whatever it is off, with little success due to the positioning. After a few minutes she lets out a disgruntled sound and moves toward the cab of her truck, map in hand. The truck is opened, the map tossed in, and a towel pulled out.
Noah stood there in silent as he looked at his shoulder for a moment, then to his thigh. "I think I changed my mind, Lee. This beach seems like a fine pick..." The man exhaled a laugh as he pinched his shirt to try and shake off the majority of the ooze or possible slug. "Had to many belt drive break within six months, Lee. It's mostly the chain. And this is the sort of weather that reminds me to take the ram out."
Lili likely looked a little like a crazy person as she let out a surprised sound and leaned back, like she was dodging a surprise bee. "HE AHA?!" Lili seemed to likewise have forgotten to speak in English even as she'd forgotten to pretend to be sane, her feet skittering her back a step or two as she looked around and seemed positively confused. "What IS this stuff?" She turned to look at Lei as the woman exclaimed, then nodded thoughtfully as Lei pulled a towel out of her truck. Looking back to Noah, Lili came closer, eyeing his shirt, her brows raised. "It hit you? Holy crap... a bunch of it hit you... Oh man that's so gross, babe. I almost wished we did bring the truck now." She made a face that kind of demonstrated clearly what she thought of the goop on Noah's shirt, as she lifted the fabric away from his back a little and shook it, helping him as best she could to get the stuff off of him.
The sounds of spattering slowed a little, like it had been some sort of freak goop storm, so rarely heard of. People were still scraping the stuff off of themselves, and a couple of people had walked outside of their businesses to furiously clean their windows, attempting to maintain the appearance of a nice place to stop and shop or get food. Several people seemed to be moving up toward Kailua Town now, rather than staying on the beach, possibly moving out of the open.
The sun climbs into a brilliant blue sky.
The tide is low and ebbing.
Rick stays alert while the things seem to be continuing to pelt them randomly, but as they slow, his shoulders relax slightly, and then he looks around again, surveying the damage. He makes a face as he picks up the thermos, dumping the milk -- now mixed with a tiny bit of green goop -- onto the sand. "I know," he says after a moment, "but you can't. Sorry." And again, it's said quietly -- even more so than his previous words. It doesn't go with anything that Felix has said, either, so who knows who he's talking to, really. He starts to screw the cap back on, and adds, "Fucking weird, man." This is said a little louder. "I got no clue."
Felix was DEFINITELY one of the ones moving towards the town proper and off the beach, seeking shelter from sudden, soggy snot storms. At least until it slacked off a bit. He eyed his foot where it was covered in goop and sighed. "That's... ugh..." He bent down to wipe it off his foot. "Well, I've never thought about taking a Brillo pad to my skin but this is nasty!" He stood back up, only having managed to get that junk all over his hand. "Oh urgh. Yarg. Why?" He nodded to Rick, looking for something he might snag to wipe his hands off. Then he paused. Blinked. Gaped a bit. Ok... gaped a lot. His eyes were focused on a large tree not far from the Kailua Town edge, staring at it as if it'd grown horns or tits or both. "Ok I think the CIA is dropping contact acid on us or some shit because... does anyone see the light?" He pointed towards the tree. "It's... really pretty..."
Lei makes use of her towel to try and clean herself off as best she can. And while it might work on skin, all it really accomplishes on any of the goop on her clothing is smearing it around. Her movements slow a moment as something seems to catch her eyes. Frowning she looks, intently, toward a large tree at the edge of Kailua Town. After a few moments she starts toward that tree, still absently doing her best to wipe herself clean.
Noah exhaled a laugh as Lili checked his shirt, "This isn't even in the top 20 of gross things to happen to me." The man chuckled as he scrapped some of the slime off his shoulder and flipped it onto the ground. "Isn't this how you're gods communicate. What are the chances of one of them pulling off their nose and tossing it into the air." Noah tilted his head back to eye the sky for a moment, then his attention drifting over to a particular tree. "Huh... I don't think contact acid shares the same visuals, but was the sky cut?"
Lili's head turned toward Felix, her brows raising high, before she looked around, attempting to see what it was he was pointing at. If possible, she looked even more confused. Especially as Lei started off walking in the same direction. And then Noah was staring that way too, or at least his face was pointed that direction, when he asked about the sky being cut. "What on earth are you talking about? I don't see anything like that." Lili looked over and stared, really hard, like she was attempting to will something to show up. Or maybe like she was planning on lighting it on fire, either way, that place there on the edge of Kailua Towen had her undivided attention for the moment, until she blinked, and started laughing. "Oh god... can you imagine? If this is what happens if they pull their nose off and let it fly, it must have been TERRIBLE when the crater was created..."
Some of the people heading into town off of the beach started going inside, but others.... well. Others seemed to be walking purposefully toward the back edge of Kailua Town, their gazed fixed, mouths set in lines of disbelief, brows scrunched up curiously. The ones heading toward the back edge of the town all had obvious marks on them, from where the gloop had struck them somewhere. And now that the sun was coming up and illuminating the world, it was far easier to see.
Rick continues cleaning up, looking at the remains of the doughnut, before shaking his head in disappointment. Sad waste of a delicious breakfast. He picks it up carefully between thumb and forefinger and drops it back into the bag, repeating, "//No//," but it doesn't seem to be to Felix, because when the other man speaks, he looks up. "Huh?" He looks around, then toward the tree that the young man indicates. He squints, frowning as he peers in that direction. "Uh, no?" His eyes catch on the other people looking in that direction now, too, and his eyebrows raise as he turns toward the tree again, leaning forward as though that could help him discern whatever it is.
Felix was one of those headed with some purpose towards the tree. He couldn't help but stare at the tear in the sky, shimmering in front of him. A wide grin spread across his face as he started to pick up speed. Looking back to Rick, he laughed and looked back to Rick. "There's a big ol hole in the air! He sprinted towards it, determined to get a better look. Trotting close, he peered at whatever he was seeing that others might not. "Wow... this thing is... weird. Doesn't look like it's hot..." He held a hand out towards it, pushing into the light before grinning and stepping all the way through. "Like some crazy Stargate shiiiiiiiiit..."
Lei continues toward the tree, stopping a short distance away. She seems to be trying to study something, though judging from the way her eyes are darting around she's not focusing on much. She nods her head absently at Felix's words and says, "Weird, and pretty. Very pretty." Then she's blinking as her view is interrupted by Felix, watching as he passes through. After a couple of moments hesitation she's stepping through the glimmering slash in the air as well.
To read what happens in the NeverNever, the log is here: The Block Event
Felix steps through a new opening into the NeverNever.
For those watching, it literally just looks like Felix and Lei are there, and then, they are simply gone.
Noah chuckled, "Well, Lee, I trust your knowledge of all things savage..." Between the people seeing and not seeing the 'sky slash', Noah sighed. "Now, I'm debating if I need to go to the hospital instead... I think that's right about the point that after people are exposed to a strange substance and immediately start seeing things and attempting to climb trees after it. Stay off the goop, kids, the next thing you'll know is your skull being cracked on the edge of a frying pan, and your brain poured out to fry in some butter..." When Lei and Felix disappear, Noah gestured, "And people start appearing out of your life that you're not sure existed in the first place."
Lili blinked in shock as people she knew to be real suddenly winked out of where they were in reality. "Wait... Noah... Did you see them go into something? Or like.. is that where you're talking about the whole cut in the air thing?" Lili rubbed her hand down her face, staring as she started moving closer to the edge of Kailua town. She looked around, attempting to figure out what the hell was going on. "Babe... I uh... I think they stepped over, you know? Like when I fell on the edge of that volcano and ended up on the other side..." She frowned, peering at the people that were steadily moving toward the same area.
Lei steps through a new opening into the NeverNever.
Sure enough, it wasn't just Felix and Lei that had left. People seemed to be walking to the same place, looking dazed, or dazzled. Some of them reached out and were just gone, some of them kept walking, a look of amazement on their face. But all of them that strode through that place, were simply gone.
"Hey, wait," Rick says, but Felix is already going over there to whatever it is, and he starts over that way, too, but before he gets there, Felix is already disappearing. "Wait!" he calls, a little more urgently, but it's too late. "Shit!" He looks over at Lili and Noah then, the former recognized, and he gives a distracted nod and a, "Hey," but his attention is mostly on whatever it is. He hesitates, then reaches down to dip a finger into some goop that's still on the ground near the tree. He rubs it on the back of his hand, and his expression shifts. His eyes widen, and he murmurs, "Shit." The smile returns, and he starts forward again, too, stepping through as well.
Rick steps through a new opening into the NeverNever.
Noah gestured to the tree, "They went in... The tree?" The man looked more confused now that he had spoken aloud. "With the slime, I'm starting to think I need to get a tube of tennis balls and a sharpie." He watched Rick play in the goo, then go charging into the Nevernever as well. "See... And the surfer dude is gone too. I'm going to raid the life guard house... Maybe they have some rope, or something." The man jogged over to the life guard chair to try the locker for supplies.
Lili looked at Noah, watching him walk away to the lifeguard stand, then looked back at the tree, and the people steadily disappearing through it? Frowning, she moved over closer, and watched as one after another, they just disappeared. "So... Rick went and got that goop and painted it on his hand, and then he got all excited. Am I seriously missing some Disney Land shit here, Noah?!"
Noah took the rope and float from the locker, "This is all coming from a woman that has had a god kiss her? I'm not saying to go run our asses into a door that can be seen when you're high. That shit is way to Alice in Wonderland for my liking." He started walking towards the tree, bringing it a wide birth. "My plan is you staying out of the goo, and marking the way back... Unless we were all hit with saliva, and everyone is currently digesting on the other side..." The man shrugged a shoulder as he grabbed the end of the rope, slinging the float towards the tree.
Lili looked thoughtful. "Huh, it must be some sort of key, then. And what does it look like, Noah? Is it like... a big old mouth people are walking into? Or is it something else. Have you ever seen a doorway into the NeverNever?" Lili turned a curious gaze over to Noah, raising her brows as he tossed the flotation device over toward a tree. Slowly, the group of people there had gotten down to the last couple of them, and they were kind of making their way slowly up to the slash in the sky, like it wasn't something they were quite sure of, but really wanted to touch it anyway.
Noah slowly pulled back the float with the rope like he was back on the farm. With a frown, he looked up at the tree, gesturing across the sky with the float. "It's a slash across the sky... Light comes out of it. I don't know how else to describe a crack in the sky other than... Uhhh... Maybe it's eight or twelve feet?" His attention went back to Lili, and his expression grew more confused. "I'm fairly certain I have never met Peter Pan... My life has been incredibly devoid of pixie dust." The man swung the float a couple of times and made another toss for the place everyone was disappearing.
Lili laughed brightly and shook her head. "Not Neverland, babe. The NeverNever. The other reality, you know? Where Faeries live, in Faerie? But it's not all just Faerie. There are all sorts of realms over there. Different places. Lots of interesting places, some of them are really cool. Some of them are super dangerous. You remember that Island place we ended up at the other night, with Aolani? It's like that, just probably a different place, since this one isn't over at the Cove." She looked at the place people were disappearing to, and watched the last of the crowd slip away, til it was just herself and Noah there.
Noah grimaced as he leaned back onto the ground, kicking off his flipflops to dig his heels in. "No... No feeling right about feeling pull to that place..." The man groaned, kicking at the ground to find more solid ground. "I remember that place... Wasn't a big fan of that place either... And here we have people walked right in..." Gathering the float once more, he spun it overhead to get some momentum and flung it towards the mostly unseen hole...
Lili watched as Noah unsuccessfully tried to throw that flotation device at something... but seems to have missed because the float was still there. She frowned a little, looking as Noah dug his heels into the ground to hold himself where he was. "Ok, so yeah, if you're feeling a pull, probably not the place to go, I guess. I mean, there's that part of me that's like, hey, everything'll be OK! But then, I realize Ao isn't here to get us home if we get stuck over there, and then I'd have to go find somewhere to make things go boom in order for me to get us back home. Or I'd have to set something on fire. And you... you might need me to kill something WITH that fire to get the right thing going for you to step back over, and you might just end up in like, a funeral home in Chicago or something." Lili chewed her bottom lip, stepping back from the place where people had gone missing.
The rift that Noah could see shifted colors, went from white to blue to red and back to blue. And the changing colors started happening faster.
Noah grimaced at the trippy rift, "And now it's blinking colors... It's very patriotic, white to blue to red to blue... Yeah..." The man shook his head as he hauled in the float. "You want to go marching into that place, you're welcome to it, Lee... I wasn't a big fan of the swaying island to the point that the tsunami didn't seem so bad..." Bringing the float over his head, he again whirled and slung it towards the rift. "Comon you son of a bitch."
The tide is low and slack.
Lili shook her head. "No, it makes sense to avoid whatever the heck is going on, really. That's far more... I guess the smart decision. Like I said, I don't want to go setting things on fire in there. I could royally piss off a Faerie, or a dragon or something. And then where would I be? Up a serious creek. I don't want an angry dragon coming after me, unless I have people I know and trust with me, neh?" Lili clapped as the flotation device that Noah was slinging finally managed to blip out of existence, just its rope hanging there... out to nothing.
The lights inside of the rift continued to shift colors, moving faster and faster, until it was almost a colorful strobe, even as the flotation devices rope just hung through it.
Noah narrowed his eyes at the rope apparently hanging in nothing. "This is the version that results in less things being pissed off, and marks a way out for as long as the litebrite rift stays open." The man groaned as he locked onto the rope. Lee..." He glanced over his shoulder, "Try the parking lot for a jeep or anything that has a wench on it. This strong is strong enough to pull people through water, but if a ton of people panic and start climbing it, it's going to break or drag me in."
Lili nodded once to Noah, then looked over at the parking lot. This early, there aren't as many cars as there might have been, but, with the strange amount of crowd out, there were more than there usually are. As it is, a few surfers had pulled up in their essentially hollowed out jeeps and what not in order to get themselves to the breezy coastline for a nice day of surfing. "I can go ask those guys if we can tie it off to their jeep? If I hurry, that work?" Lili glanced at Noah, raising her brows.
Noah continued to dig his heels into the ground to secure his position as he held the rope. "That sounds good, Lee, but they also have a catch that will allow you to pull slack from it. It may be the quickly option than trying to track out an owner that may be on the other side right now."
Lili nodded quickly and took off at a speedy run toward the parking lot. She crouched down, searching every vehicle in her path, until a bright, happy, cheer could be heard as she obviously found what she was looking for. It took her a few minutes, really, to figure out just how to get everything unclasped, then slackened up, but Lili finally lifted up what looked like a hook and a length of cable, calling out to Noah "I GOT ONE!!!" Really loudly, so he knew.
Noah started working the back of the rope into a solid knot that would be able to be mended with the wench cable when it got to him. "Walk the cable out as straight as you can to me, and we'll get them tied off if they have the wherewithal to come back. If this thing ends up closing, we're going to have to call Aolani to try and get it open again!" Noah double checked the know to see if it will hold.
Lili nodded and started pulling loop after loop of metal length from the winch, letting it create a coiled pile at her feet. Once she got a ton of the cord pulled free, she started trotting back toward Noah. As she got to the point the line was taut, she wasn't all that far from him, and gave a grin. "Never figured my experience eyeing the length of det cord would come in so handy." She chuckled, holding the hook out for Noah to attach his rope to.
Noah looped the rope around the wench cable, then locked it into the hook. "Experience eyeing the length of det cord is always handy. It's why guys are so bad on measurements..." Once the rope was secured, he shook out the slack towards the rift so it would potentially drop down farther or otherwise be noticed. "Just make sure to keep yourself out of any goo... The place seems terribly inviting... Which farther bothers the hell out of me."
The tide is low and rising.
Lili moved over and nodded, kind of keeping herself out of the way of anything, and everything, really. "I suppose that's a good point. I won't touch it. And I'll make sure I'm the one determining the length of everything when need be." Lili chuckled and watched Noah tying everything off, nodding her head solidly. "Ok, so now, do we just wait?"
Noah gave the rope a shake as he slowly stood up with a groan. "Unless you're the sort that feels the need to jam your head inside breaks in the world, and run the risk of it mending on your head..." The man smiled at Lili, "On the other hand... I don't believe that counts as Honolulu County, so you don't need a license to launch anything in there... Maybe sending in something to grab their attention is the way to go?"
Lili looked at Noah, her eyes widening steadily, until she burst out laughing. "OH MY AKUA, NOAH!" She cackled and looked over where the rope was fallen through to nothing, raising her brows. "So... I've got a few fun little things we can toss in that should go around spinning. At the very least, if they're in there, and get hit, maybe they'll come out to tell us to knock it off, and we can stop worrying about them?" Lili thought it through out loud, much as she often did, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. "Some skippers could be fun!"
Noah nodded sagely to Lili, "Were you kissed by the god on jumping jacks? How is it possible that you didn't bring anything that pops and cracks? The point is to draw their attention, so I'd go with some sort of bottle rockets, then for the jumping jacks." Noah shrugged a shoulder, "You can definitely say to warned them first at that point."
Lili pondered this and nodded, taking her backpack from over her shoulders and setting it down on the sand ahead of her as she crouched. "I've got tons of stuff that makes a big boom or ten, really. We can start with that. I've got a solid mortar that will sound like a damn canon going off, it should really get their attention. But I can't see the rift, so can you aim it in there and let it go off kind of high? And I guess hope they're not like.... giants or something over there?" Lili gave Noah a little grin, then started pulling out what he'd need. A big ass mortar about as big around as Noah's thigh came out and she held it up to him. "Here you go, 'oki'oki."
A little kid suddenly ran across the sand, crying, screaming. Heading right for Kailua Town. She seemed to have come from just... nowhere. suddenly... 5 more kids ran by, all together, one of them older, attempting to keep the rest in line, as they went toward the town like they'd just come from a fire. But somehow, they had come from just...thin air.
Noah took the mortar and started aiming it when the children started coming out. The man looked more confused. "Maybe we don't want to start with a big one, Lee... And it seems like they can find the way out... What if it's like a small cave on the other side or something? I think we should go with class c only? And you should be able to toss them right over top of the rope there... But I'll keep the mortar ready, just in case..." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his zippo.
Lili's eyes went wide in shock, AGAIN, as she saw children running by, crying. "Poor little keiki... What on earth is going on, Noah? They just... appeared from nowhere." Worry had her searching through her bags, looking for something else that would give a loud POP without possibly also blowing off a limb in passing. "Here, I've got a good one that you can use. Those Roman Candle things, they glow, they also sparkle though, so they should get some solid attention if people see them." Lili handed them up to Noah, then pulled out a box of Matches, before she reached out to take them back. "Ok... so just over the rope?" She started her walk down along the rope, sorting out which one to fire off first as she moved closer to the rift.
Noah grimaced as he watched the children head off, "The worst part here is I can't recall if children headed inside there or not..." The man frowned as he pointed out the spot. "Over the rope it is... And we have the mortar ready to go if anything inhuman decides to come through." Once the placement was pointed out, Noah started aiming the mortar, digging out a bit of hole to displace the kick."
Lili took a slow breath, then nodded. "Ok... I can do that." She had herself prepped, so it was just down to getting it all to go smoothly. But Lili, well, she'd been setting up fireworks shows as long as she could nearly remember. She organized them along the ground, all pointing toward the right place, then, she set them off one at a time, lighting them with a match, so that they fired out into the rift, and disappeared. While she didn't get to watch the pretties, she DID get to enjoy the small explosion of the payload being sent away, and she nearly vibrated with glee at that, grinning ear to ear. "Did they make it?!" She called back to Noah.
Noah, of course, could see the light of the fireworks going off as it reflected in the rift itself, though Lili could not.
Noah smiled at he watched Lili set off the fireworks that rushed into the rift. He nodded, "The fact they aren't popping off here means that went somewhere." The man chuckled, "We really need to upgrade you from matches... I think I'm going to pick you up one of those butane blowtorches they use for cakes... It just feels more your speed, you know? Sure, you have cheat out fire, but there's something about a lighter that has weight to it. Feels right in the hand."
The sun blazes overhead in the clear blue sky.
Felix returns from the NeverNever
Lili gave a happy laugh, turning her head to look at Noah, then nodding. "I'd love that. I always stopped myself from buying one, because it was such a nono for years. But I don't think I'm planning on burning down the house or anything. And I'd kind of like to have something I can play with that doesn't require me buying a whole new box of matches every time." She grinned, then went about setting up the other three fireworks ahead of herself. "Should I set these off now, too, do you think? Or should we give them a minute to try to get back to us?" Lili still carried her smile, as she waited a moment to hear Noah's opinion on the matter.
Back in the real world, Noah and Lili had apparently been busy. There is a long, winch line that's strung from the back of a jeep in the parking lot, attached to the end of a rope. That rope is actually fed out into the world, and then disappears into mid air, or into the rift to the other side, depending on whether or not the person looking at it could see it. Lili was all set up with fireworks bases near her, three of them already lit and gone, three more ready to go, all aimed at the rift. And Noah was holding what looked like an insanely huge mortar-style firework in case it was needed.
There was... well... a pop would be the best way to describe it, but only if it was then qualified by being 'very, very loud'. Which is presumably what happens when a gigantic monster simply appears out of nowhere, displacing rather a lot of air all at once. And looking exceedingly stupefied at that. Felix landed rather hard on the ground off to the side of where Lili and Noah were standing, sending up a great plume of dust and sand as he impacted on the beach. Out of the cloud came a strangled, roaring cry of "What the fuck just happened?!"
Noah grinned as he listened to Lili, "The statement may have been true, if you hadn't added in 'or anything'." Petting the large mortar set up and pointed towards the rift, which also had a long rope that lead back to a jeep's wench. When Felix poofed into existence, Noah frowned, "You need an explanation? You saw a tear in the world, and decided it was a good idea to walk into it. Lee and I were trying to give you a way out, then we started launching fireworks into the rift for..." His eyebrows came over top his sunglasses, "Reasons?" His head turned towards Lili as she may have something to add.
Rick returns from the NeverNever
Lili cackled brightly, shrugging her shoulders. "You know me too well, ko'u aloha, but I don't mind. At least you know how to use a fire extinguisher." The incoming form of the rather MASSIVE Felix caused Lili to jump backward, then scramble in crab position as she stared at the behemoth that simply came to be. "He aha?!" She gulped a breath, or maybe it was her heart, as it was up pretty high in her throat, and tried to maintain a little semblance of control so she didn't just light him on fire. He certainly didn't look like Felix normally looked. And Lili maintained a wary eye on him as she nodded her agreement with Noah. "To let them know we could help them, or so they could let us know everything was ok."
A couple seconds after Felix's new and rather large form, Rick pops out from the same place. About six feet up above the ground, it seems. And right on top of Felix. Oops. "Fuck!" he exclaims as he tumbles down from the sky and onto the dark shape below him, which evokes another yell. He rolls off with a rather unpleasant thud onto the ground, and lies there for a few moments, looking up at the sky as he tries to regain the wind that was knocked out of him from the fall.
As the dust settled it left Felix blinking yellow eyes at the two. The behemoth shifted it's enormous bulk to stand, carrying a look on it's face that could only be described as both confused and annoyed. "A giant sarlac monster ate me..." The creature, all fur and scales and feathers was clearly some sort of bizarre chimera, tail lashing in the sand as it made another attempt to stand. "Is that what that was? Thanks." He grinned a very toothy grin at Noah and Lili, bobbing his head. "It was weird..." Then Rick came popping out of the sky, landing on Felix's midsection with a thud. "OOF fuck!" He turned a yellow eye on the recently reappeared Rick. "You too huh?"
Noah maintained his befuddled look as he flipped open and stuck the zippo in his hand. "Compared to the number of people that went into the rift, I think we're short..." Noah kept the mortar trained on the rift as if he were manning at old style artillery cannon. "Six kids came out a few minutes ago... They seemed a tad upset. Then again, so do both of you." Indicating the rope, "Did no one see the float that we put through the portal?"
The tide is high and rising.
Lili pushed to get herself back up to her feet, staring at Felix for a long few moments, then let out a surprised sound as down came Rick. Onto the monstrous form of Felix. "Oh my Akua... are you guys... Wait, Noah's right, where's everyone else?" Worry came through her voice as she spoke... coloring her tone rather obviously as Lili moved back to the fireworks, reaching out to set the next 3 off, which fired into the rift, and disappeared entirely from reality into whatever was on the other side.
As Rick and Felix had come through, soon, a shorter woman, followed by a taller, very athletic looking young man, came to just kind of plop into existence right near them, landing to the sandy beach with breathes forced from their bodies. At the sight of Felix and his monstrous shape, they screamed, then started running, it didn't seem to matter where they were running to, only that they were running away from this new Monster. Panic didn't make their screams any quieter.
Rick turns his head to look at Felix's new face, and he nods, then starts pushing himself up to sitting. He winces, rubbing his back, and replies, "We saw it. But it's weird as hell over there. We shoulda taken it right at first." He stands up then, brushing himself off and moving a little bit out of the way of any potential falling people. "It's like...this Lego-land or something. And you gotta get yourself eaten by a giant sand worm thing straight out of Beetlejuice to get back. There's a ton of people over there. More than when in with us." He reaches up to rub his face then, "Man, I might be getting too old for this." And then he just starts away to sit down, contemplating life in the real world. Or something.
Felix let out a huffing breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding at Noah's words. "Oh thank god. I was going to ask..." He looked to Noah and shrugged his shoulders, a rolling motion along the hump of his back. "We did... but there was an Event." As if that explained it. As Lili fired off a few more fireworks, Felix flinched at the noise, ducking his head down. He flinched further as two people appeared and IMMEDIATELY bolted from him. "Ouch..." Sighing, he shook himself all over, his mass simply... contracting in a rather crunchy fashion until a tired and confused looking Felix was still sitting there. "The weird voice running things said 33 people would get out... dunno how many were actually there." He got to his feet, brushing dust off of himself. "That place sucked..." He snapped his fingers and pointed at Rick. "Beetlejuice! That what it was!" He walked over to the fireworks. "Can I help with that? I dunno if anyone will be coming out this way though. Apparently if you aren't at the event trying to get eaten by sand-worms, you're choking on your own breath." He shuddered.
Noah grimaced as he looked back to his triumph racer, "I'm trying to remember how many went over in the first place... It seemed like..." The man tried to count in his head how many people that he saw wander in this direction, then disappear once more. "Unless we want to charge over there... Lee, just keep firing them into the rift. Hopefully they can see them." He frowned as he looked to Felix, "Could you guys see or hear any of them going off on the other side?"
Lili looked at Rick, nodding to him, worry on her brow as the man went over to take a serious breather, and actually looked like he'd fallen asleep after so much stress. When Felix shifted down to his normal self, she let out a soft sigh, relaxing a bit, as she fully recognized him now. "That sounds... so bad, Felix." She nibbled slightly on her lower lip, then turned a worried gaze over to Noah. "I don't think us going in there is going to help anything, really. I'll set off another couple of fireworks, though, if it'll help anyone on the other side." She jogged her ass over to where she'd set her backpack near Noah, and started riffling through it. "I'm just going to send the skippers now, I'm out of the other ones. And I don't want to use the huge mortar yet, if they're like... dying or something. That seems really mean."
While Lili rambled on and started to sort herself out, another couple of people came walking out of the woods, this time, looking completely confused. They weren't necessarily old, but they looked exhausted. And their clothes didn't quite seem right. Like, they were wearing something from the 80's, complete with bright colors, fanny packs, and terrible shoes that were decidedly a few decades behind the times. The started walking, though, heading toward Kailua Town, speaking to one another in German.
Lei returns from the NeverNever, this is the end of the The Block Event log
Felix nodded to Noah. "Yeah but... by the time you guys through the rope through most people were already going to this "let's get eaten by a monster" event. And trying to get out of it was apparently the worst option. And if you DON'T get eaten... apparently you just turn into part of the city?" He shook his head. "It was like a sociopath's Lego set..." He looked to Lili, nodding sadly. "We can only hope they come out again. But I think... I think some of those people have been there for a long time." He nodded towards the Germans heading off towards town. "And you only get three chances too. Shit..."
Lei claws her way up the rope and out of the rift, tumbling to the ground with a roll. She takes a deep breath, sucking in a huge lungful of air. Once that's done she's standing up and, spotting the wench that the rope is tied to she calls out, voice ragged from having held her breath for a while, "Reel that in! I've got a couple people tied to the the other end, and they don't have the strength to climb it on their own! And if any of you know first aid, be ready, 'cause I don't know what condition they're in." That said the, apparently bootless, woman is falling back to sit on the ground, still breathing heavily and absently flexing her fingers. Either to return feeling after the climb, or to just enjoy having fingers rather than blocks.
After Lei climbs out, two more follow her... both male, both looking like they just about wanted to die. While Lei had the ability to suck in breath and talk, these two seemed almost ready to fall over and curl into balls, gasping like they'd not breathed in a year or more. The red at least began fading from their faces and their eyes looked less like they'd come popping out of their heads once they arrived, and had air.
Noah's eyes were scanning towards the movement, mostly the people that came stumbling out of the woods. As he nodded when Felix explained the lateness of the rope. "And the time it took to get it... How the fuck is Neverland Ranch on the other side of Kailua Beach? I can sort of understand how the tower island is on the wind--" When Lei came dropping in, Noah nodded as he dropped the mortar, and broke into a run to chase the wench line back to the jeep. He slammed into the front of the jeep without so much of a groan as he knelt down. It only took a few seconds to get the wench working at its sluggish pace.
Lili quickly pulled up her fireworks and moved back to the backpack, dropping the unlit ones into it so that she wasn't tempted to set them off. "Oh my akua, I can't believe what you guys were dealing with, we were hoping you'd see the float thing and the fireworks, so you could get back out!" Pulling out bottles of water from her backpack, just small ones, but they were water none the less, she carried the armful over and set one near each of the men that were gasping for air on the sand, then moved over to Lei after making sure both men were breathing, holding out the water bottle to her. In her worry or possibly in her rush, she spoke in rapid fire Hawaiian to Lei.
The two guys on the ground moved around a little, one of them plucking up the water bottle left behind and cracking it open to drain it like it was nothing, before he laid on his back, just happy to be alive. The other one kind of just laid there, attempting to possibly remember that he was alive.
As the line was pulled taut, it started to make its slow move, but it had a few yards of line to get through before it would even get the flotation device up to the portal exit.
From the trees, another 3 people started walking. One of them had a bloody nose, and the one next to them had an eye that was swollen shut, but they seemed to be walking all rather closely together, and peering around like they weren't quite sure of what was happening. At least these three, two men and one woman, didn't look like they were from the wrong decade. In face, they would be easily recognizable from the group that had wandered into the rift earlier that morning.
Felix moved into action as Lei came through, bringing others with her. His eyes were wide at the condition of all of them. "Holy shit you went back out there? What the hell was it like?" He went to help the others coming through, going to the man who could barely move and doing his best to help him, or at least help him sit up and drink if he could. He looked to Noah, nodding. "Yeah... floating... shit I need a drink." He sighed in relief as more people came out, looking to the sky. "Well... I guess we hope more just pop out of nowhere...."
Lei shakes her head and waves a hand in a dismissive motion when Lili speaks to her in Hawaiian, replying to the other woman in the same language. She starts to relax as the winch starts to move before groaning out, "Too slow!" She pushes herself to her feet and takes a couple of quick steps toward the rope, grabbing it in her hands and starting to pull, trying to haul it in faster than the winch is reeling it in. As she does she replies to Felix's questions, "Oh, you know. No air. Or weird air. Now help me haul this in quicker."
Noah kept an eye on the wench line as it slowly pulled the weight that was on it. His hand hovered right next to the control for the first sign of anything going wrong. "Lee! Switch places with me to cut it off!" The man ran back down the line pulling to join Lei where it became rope to help lift it with her.
Lili nodded at Lei, then moved over to the line. "Noah! I'll help pull up, then go shut it off, we need to get them up here, first!" And it would seem that Lili was quite into that pulling. Jerking down the ends of her jacket over her palms, she wrapped her hands around the line and started to do just that, putting all of the body mechanics she could shove into the movement and using her long, dancer's limbs to fullest advantage. Lili, it would seem, was on point for helping to get people outta the hole of not breathing.
As people all moved to help pull on the cable line leading into the rift, it decidedly moved faster. So fast, in fact, that there was a growing pile of slack coiling on the ground, that the winch was slowly easing back onto the roll. It didn't take long once all hands were on deck giving it their all for the flotation device and two completely unconscious people to pop out of the tear in the world and fall the foot down onto the softer bed of the sand. Or, for those that couldn't see the tear, they simply appeared in the air and dropped. Both were in stages of hypoxia, red to purple, and neither looked to be moving.
Felix barely paused for a moment, nodding. "Right!" Scrambling to his feet, he went for the metal cable, gripping it with both hands. He started a hand over hand tugging, dragging as much of the cable through as he could, his teeth gritting. "Should have... fucking... stayed a monster..." Still, he gave it is all, muscles straining as he heaved backwards on the line. He found a good rhythm with the others, dragging the cable as quickly as possible. "O-S! O-S!" Why? Only he might know. But it did set a good pace... As two came through that were unmoving, Felix swore. "Shit... I do NOT know first aid..." So he just kept pulling.
Lei continues to haul in the line and growls out, "Seriously, no idea what you are saying!" when Felix starts his... Chanting. When both the men are through the rent in the air and on the ground she lets go of the rope and rushes over, starting to unwrap the rope from around them. She looks up and asks, "Does anyone know first aid? Enough to make sure they're breathing or something?"
Once the two people had made it through and poured onto the ground, Noah broke from the hauling team to unfasten the rope from the two people. "You don't know first aid, what you can do is run inside to one of the buildings and call an ambulance." Noah groaned as he pulled the rope free, and dragged the man aside. He immediately went into check for heartbeat and breathing, losing the man's clothes, checking and opening airways to start rescue breathing.
Lili let go of the line as it was drawn out enough to free the guys. She went over to the man that Noah wasn't helping and fell to her knees, unwrapping the rope from around him that Lei had tied. She reached out and tried to get his pulse, his head flopping a little bonelessly as she did so, which made her shudder all the way down her spine, her hand moving to cover her mouth. "SHIT... I don't know if this one's OK, someone else needs to look at him." She backed away from the dude like he was on fire, or maybe she was just nervous of setting him on fire in her state of unease.
The man Noah was working on seemed to be fairly pliant and easy to move, nothing in his airways, so nothing stopping Noah when he began rescue breathing. The other man was still painfully reddish purple.
A scream of fright can be heard in the woods, this time a female voice, but instead of moving toward Kailua beach, it moved farther, apparently not coming toward the rest of the 'survivors' of the giant, Sarlac worm.
As the last of the people came through Felix let go of the rope, scrambling around in his pockets for his cellphone. "Shit, receptions always a little weird after I shift but here goes...." He frantically dialed 911, speaking as soon as someone answered. Soon he was giving their rough location on Kailua beach by way of the parking lot they were closest to. He stayed on the phone, watching the others as he kept in contact with the dispatcher. People couldn't breath he said. Some sort of problem on the beach he said. His eyes kept glancing back to the injured and unmoving, trying to make sense of things.
Lei shakes her head and steps away when Noah starts to tend to one of the men. "I know effectively nothing about first aid." She glances over as Felix starts to make a call then starts to sit back down on the ground to relax, only to pause halfway down when she hears the scream coming from the woods. With a groan she pushes herself back fully upright and turns to look toward the woods where the scream came from. "Right. Wonder what that was," her voice is a bit weary, but she seems, at least, willing to investigate.
Noah finished checking the man's airways, tilting the man's head back as he pinched off the nose and sealed his lips over his mouth to breath in a lungful of air. "Lay him down like this, tilt his head back... You want to check for a pulse first. So your fingers on the inside of his wrist along the thumb side. Even if that's all you can do, it's something." Noah took another breath to exhale it into the man, watching to make sure the chest rose.
Lili took in a few deep breaths, watching Felix dial on the phone, and Lei stand up to peer into the woods. She eyed the man who looked like he might well die or have died already, and frowned sharply. "Dammit." Lili grumbled the word and moved back over to the side of the downed fellow, and moved her gaze to watch as Noah told her what to do. She nodded, following his movements as closely as possible, then adjusted the man's windpipe so it was open and able to accept breath again. She checked for the pulse, keeping her eyes glued onto Noah and what he was doing, so she could start doing the same for the dude laid out in front of her after she thought she might have felt a heartbeat. "I don't know if that's my heartbeat or his, I can't hardly feel it."
A few solid breaths into the man that Noah was working on, and the guy promptly tried to suck Noah's face off while trying to take in more air. He thrashed his head to the side and started gasping, his color almost immediately returning to something more akin to that of a living person, a bit more pale, even though his face was still a touch cherried at the cheeks.
The sound of screaming in the woods had died down, though a couple of thuds could be heard, kind of at inconsistent timing, like something large was being dropped onto the earth. But the screaming had stopped, or at least had gone far enough away that it was so faint the breeze carried it away.
Felix hung up the phone, looking to the others. "They should be here soon..." In the meantime, he'd been listening as best he could to Noah, and at Lili's confession of problems, went over to help. Kneeling in the sand by the unconscious man, he moved to feel for a pulse like he'd been told to do. He frowned. "I found it but... it's just barely there." He took a deep breath and opened the man's mouth with his fingers, going on a mix of what he remembered from lessons in his youth and the advice from Noah. Rescue breathing begun, he focused on that.
The tide is high and slack.
Lei lets out another sigh and says, "Right. Might be bringing back others in need of help." With that Lei jogs off into the woods. Then she pauses and glances down at her feet and lets out a soft curse. "Wonderful. I left my boots behind." She glances at the woods, then back at her feet, before letting out an aggrieved sigh, resuming her jogging and muttering curses under her breath.
Noah exchanged several breaths with the man laying before him, and rechecking the man's pulse to see if he needed to start into chest compressions or not. "Alright, Lee, it's a matter of time before you lose the pulse completely because he isn't breathing. You want to get a seal over his mouth when you breath into it while you pinch his nose closed. Watch for his chest to raise as you breath into him, if it's not you need to hold the nose tighter. 2 to 3 breaths for 15 seconds." Noah cut himself off to give the man another breath, showing the rise and fall. When the man tried to suck off his face, Noah broke away and helped the man to his side to hit him on the back a couple of times. "One down..." He nodded to Lei, "If they're screaming, they're probably in better shape..." Noah rolled his eyes as he ran to the life guard tower and the locker beyond to get the first aid hand pump.
Lili just nodded to Felix, watching him as he breathed into the dude that she'd started setting up. When Noah's guy started to take huge breaths in, Lili let out a subtle chuckle. "Heck yeah, one down, another one to go." She shifted back a bit, to be out of the way entirely while Felix breathed for the dead or dying fellow. There was a little bit of a shell shocked look to her face, with this situation being a bit outside her normal. Instead of doing much of anything else, she sat and waited, kind of glancing around to see if some monster would come out of the woods, or if people would start falling back into the other side of reality.
With the sun now fully up in the world of the real, all of the green stuff that had collected on the sand, on the sides of buildings, or in fact on people, seems to have evaporated. With it, any sign of the rift that had been used to cross over into the strange Block world in the NeverNever. Not even those that could see it before can see it any longer. It's simply gone.
Felix kept at it, breathing in steady rhythm for the man. Every so often he'd check his pulse again, or lay an ear to his chest and listen. It wouldn't be long before he returned to rescue breathing however, a frown crossing his face. "Come on buddy... I had a 175 pounds of dude fall out of the sky on my squeedliespoog. The least you can do is breath." He didn't bother to see if his lambasting did the job before returning to his efforts.
Lei disappears into the woods, and is gone for a fair bit of time. Shortly after she disappears some people leave the woods from the direction she'd gone, though she is not among them. This group is in decent condition, with a couple small injuries. But they're all alive and breathing. A bit more time passes and Leilani emerges, escorting another woman, one who doesn't look too badly off. When they get back to the others she ushers the woman over toward Noah, as he's the one who seemed to know what they were doing with the first aid stuff. Then Lei is sitting down again with a sigh, and examining the bottoms of her poor, unshod feet.
Noah checked his shirt for a split second as he ran the hand pump back to where Felix had the man as he double checked the respirator. "Seal it over his mouth and nose, and keep your eyes on his chest to make sure it rises." He passed it over to Felix as his attention moved to the woman that Lei brought in. He nodded to Lei, and started checking the woman over.
Lili seemed to be just fine, watching people come closer, watching as they moved to Kailua Town. Watching as Noah brought the breathing gear over for Felix to use. Then, her eyes caught on something... something red. And Lili's dark blue eyes went rather wide. "OH SHIT!" With that, the lithe dancer was up on her feet, and running, heading toward the parking lot, making it there just ahead of the flotation device as the winch wheeled it up, dragging it along the sand. She shut the winch off, then unhooked the rope from the red floater, before she turned it back on to get the wire line pulled back in all the way.
The sound of emergency vehicles starts to approach, coming from a nearby hospital most likely.
The man that Felix was rescue breathing for seemed to respond well to the air he was getting, his color coming back to his face, and a color that wasn't red or purple, but more in line with normal flesh tones of peach and tan. After the apparatus was placed over his face, and he started to get even more air, his back arched up and he flopped a bit to the side, tearing his face away from the plastic cone of the respirator. He was alive, but miserable, as he coughed and tried to breath at the same time.
The stragglers Lei had found were now wandering into Kailua Town, where most of the others had gone. The woman that had been a bit deeper into the woods still looked a little wide eyed, but it was fear, not pain, she was sitting solidly in. She was among one of those in the crowd crossing over this morning, so likely it was just a serious shock to her system. Much as the whole situation would have been for almost anyone. After Noah looked her over, she just patted him on the arm, then cleared her throat. "I need to go check on my kids." She murmured the words, then started off toward Kailua Town in a bit of a hurry.
As the man he was working on started to breath and the device was on his face, Felix sat back in the sad with a deep breath and a sigh. "Wow... holy shit. I think that was a little more intense than getting eaten." He looked to Noah, relief on his face. "Thanks man. I really appreciate it." He looked over to Lei, giving a sheepish smile. "That was incredible. Sorry I was out of the picture so fast." He chuckled a little wearily, watching as Lili scrabbled to get the floater. As the signs of emergency vehicles came to his ear, he flopped down on the sand. "Oh thank god... I need a drink."
Lei blinks and looks over as Lili cries out, and watches as she rushes toward the winch. She lets out a soft chuckle, then shakes her head slightly. Her head tilts too one side as she hears the sirens approach, then pushes herself back to her feet. At Felix's words she lifts a hand and waves it in dismissal. "Yeah. Incredible." She looks about to continue before shaking her head slightly and starting to move back toward her truck. "Still don't know what a Sarlac tastes like. And now I need to get some new boots. I am going to go home. After canceling the tour I was going to run. Because for some strange reason, I just don't feel like leading people around the woods right now."
Noah nodded to the woman as she headed out to find her kids, exhaling a laugh as he checked on the two men that were enjoying breathing again. Noah stood up and patted Felix on the shoulder, "Go get your drink, man, thanks for helping out." The ex-soldier looked back to Lei, and he chuckled, "Completely forgot the wench, it's all good." He gave Lei a nod as well, "Thanks for getting who you could out of there... Sorry about your boots." The man stood out, and sent a sharp whistle in the direction of emergency services and waved them over.
The tide is high and ebbing.
Lili jogged back over toward Noah, Lei, and Felix, along with the recovering breathers, carrying the red flotation device. She held it up over her head as if she'd successfully achieved something. And hey, at least she saved that guy's winch, right? Giving Noah a wink, she then looked between Felix and Lei, nodding her head. "You guys... seriously know how to have a morning." She let out a long breath, and dropped the flotation device onto the ground, so she could firmly plant her ass on it. "We're gonna be here for a while, probably, if you two want to take off, please do. I'd get out of here myself, but I'd feel a little awkward leaving my ride behind while I stole his bike to get back to the house."
|
