taxonomites | 5. [Location: Hyperion] [Voice] A song of world's ending

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5. [Location: Hyperion] [Voice] A song of world's ending

It's the middle of the night, and Lorne can't sleep.

The shadows have eyes, and they are watching him.

After hours of tossing and turning, he finally gives up and rolls out of bed. Stares at his bedside clock through bleary eyes. It's well past midnight. He slips a bathrobe over his stripey pajamas, puts on a pair of fuzzy pink slippers, and shuffles out to the bar. Turns on the pink lamps, but they only make it worse, since shadows can only exist where there's light. Still, there's no way he's turning them off.

Lorne pours himself a shot of peach schnapps and downs it, reveling in the sweet burn. His eyes are drawn to the empty stage, only to discover that it's not so empty. There's something shifting behind the curtain.

The curtain ripples, and silhouettes pour out to the edges of the stage. One of them steps into the middle, where it's dimly illuminated by the lamps, but not enough to make out anything more than the moldering outline of a corpse.

Then, all at once, the ghosts begin to sing, and Lorne's world falls apart.

Caritas, a pile of colorful rubble in the street. Castle Summers in ruins, its towers torched. Even the Sanctuary is a shambles. The air reeks of smoke, decay, blood, and charred flesh.

But the streets are the worst sight of all, because the people of Taxon are tearing each other apart. Weapons fire at a car zooming through Osten. In the shadow of a wrecked building, two vampires snarl as they wrestle for dominance like wild animals. Everything is chaos. Screams rend the air like knives tearing through cloth. Piles of the dead lie rotting in open graves.

Soon, the entire city will be a grave.

The song ends, and Lorne collapses, trembling, against the bar. He catches one last glimpse of the ghost in the middle of the stage. Its face is strangely familiar. At the sight of it, he leans over a trash can and retches, bringing up black bile.

When his senses return to him at last, Lorne keys up the tablet on his wrist and sets it to voice. He feels so terrible right now he can't let all of Taxon see his face. "I got a musical message from our ghostly friends. Apocalypse. Second verse same as the first." He lets out a shuddering breath. "But I got something new to add. It's not all the hamsters' fault. The people of Taxon?" He stares grimly into the tablet. "We're all fighting each other."

"By the way, team? I'm coming to the Hyperion. I hope you'll all join me. 'Cause all that fighting I saw? Not gonna happen."

He takes off as fast as he can in his fluffy pink slippers toward the tram. No time for a snappy suit. At this time of night, the tram is mercifully empty of Extras. As he gets out of the tram and approaches the Hyperion, he feels a flutter of apprehension about seeing Angel again.

Then sets it aside. All animosities have to go.

Clad in pinstriped pajamas, a purple silk bathrobe, and slippers, he opens the doors to the Hyperion.

Threaded | Flat

Spike is driving around aimlessly when Lorne's message comes through. He's recently come out of his glitch, and he doesn't really want to talk to anyone about it. Still, if there's an apocalypse on the way, it's time to talk to face the world again. He's pretty near the Hyperion anyway.

By the time Lorne gets there, Spike is sitting on the couch, drumming his fingers on his leg impatiently.

He looks up and smirks when Lorne walks in. "Nice outfit."

She'd seen it. She'd seen it, but the hamsters were twisting and turning and doing their best to make sure that they couldn't stop it.

It seemed obvious to Drusilla. They'd taken away the Doctor and his Master. The last of the Time Lords. The only people who had stood a chance of stopping the pictures in her head.

(One evening, she might wake up to find that the Angel Beast - or Spike, or the Slayer, or her little brother - had been snatched away. How could they bear it? How could anyone bear it?)

"They're taking all the people," she said, addressing Lorne in a sharp tone. He needed to know. He needed to know and he needed to pass on the message to Angel and the others. "They're taking the people that can save us."

"What?"

Martha had missed Cordelia's initial post. (The doctor had been too busy getting used to life in Taxon and setting up the surgery she had felt obliged to start.) She'd seen the end of the world, though, and she would do everything in her power to stop it from happening again.

(Where was the Doctor? Where had he gone?)

"Lorne, what's happening? What did they tell you?"

[Don't ask what Glitch is doing up at this hour, he's not quite sure himself. Might have to do with the gaunt, gray lady with milky lavender eyes who may (or may not) have been following him around lately.]

Fighting each other? For what?

We were fighting each other? ...like a glitch, you think?

Okay, I'll be downstairs in a minute. Did you get any idea how soon, during that whole thing? I don't suppose we were that lucky.

[Mohinder's voice, when he speaks, is weary but coherent. He's been awake for awhile.]

Fighting each other? But why-?

[There's a lot of possibilities, none that he likes, so he cuts himself off.]

Is there anything I can help you with, Lorne? Anything we can do to try and stop it?

Another apocalypse? Seriously?

Threaded | Flat

[ location: hyperion hotel ]

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