Participants:
| Scene Title | Mirror Mirror On the Wall |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Savior or something else? Errol tries to rescue Delia only to find out that she didn't want to go that far. |
| Date | November 8, 2010 |
Brooklyn — An Abandoned House
Brooklyn, though it's not ground zero for violence, it's close enough to Queens for the riots to move this way. The neighborhoods are still aside from random shouts of supremacy, the occasional broken window, and gunshot in the distance. This block has long been abandoned by its residents and those left over were the carrion feeders of society that crept in to take things that just don't belong to them.
The little two story house was already looted, before Delia got here and she's been using it as a place to recoup for the past hour or so. She's exhausted from running and curled into the corner of a closet in which looks to be a child's bedroom. It's taking everything she can not to nod off.
Her head drops forward before jerking back up with a start, her round blue eyes fearful in expression as she glances through the slats of the closet door. Miraculously enough, whoever looted this place was nice enough to leave the little girl's bedroom mostly in tact. The mirror on the door must have been made of polished steel because the rock that was thrown through the window only chipped off the corner.
The room stays silent for several minutes, save the noise of some teenagers outside as they run along to their next target. The air hangs heavy in the room, almost as if it remembers its former life with its little girl, and how scared /she/ would be tonight.
Several minutes after the window-smashers fade from earshot, something quite peculiar begin to happen in front of the mirror on the back of the door. A shadow begins to formthe profile of a manand from that shadow something starts to grow. Over the course of a few seconds flesh extrudes from this shadow until there stands Errol, a pained look on his face.
He quickly looks around the room, taking note of all the furniture. He notes the broken window and snorts, shaking his head. He starts to walk across the room to peer out of the window.
Jolted from her hiding place by the strange vision of the man coming literally out of nowhere, a little shuffle comes from the closet where Delia's been hiding. Her breath stops and she freezes for the time that it takes the man to cross the room to the mirror.
Maybe he didn't hear her.
Closing her eyes, the redhead takes the ostrich approach and shuts out the world. There's another shuffle from inside the closet as her foot slips, this one a little more silent than the first. It gives her cause to flare her eyes open and peek out through the slat again at the man. From behind, she can't recognize his face and she knows of no one with that sort of ability.
Errol stops before he reaches the window. He stands still, frozen in place, listening. There's another sound from behind — over by the closet — but he can't quite decide what it is. He hadn't heard anybody in the room, but that didn't mean there wasn't — this mirror was new, so he didn't have much data to work with.
Slowly, he turns around and looks closely at the closet and its slatted door. It's dark, so there isn't much light to see. He squints, and then carefully approaches.
"I'm not going to hurt you," he says. "Whoever you are."
Delia squints to keep the tears threatening from spilling over. Ducking down, in order to peek between the slats, she spies a face that looks vaguely familiar. At least from photographs. A shuddering breath of air is sucked in with a hiss before the redhead pushes on the door and it triangles in front of him. Sweeping away to the side, she reveals her own form curled down on the floor of the closet, wrapped in a blanket.
The young woman looks much the same as she did in her teens, save for the thinning of her face and her hair getting longer. She's nervously chewing on her lower lip as she gazes up at him. "I — Uhm.. I… I know you from somewhere." The simple fact that she doesn't point out where is enough to lead one to believe that she either doesn't remember where, or isn't admitting as much as she knows.
Errol squints as he takes a couple of steps closer and squats down, perhaps trying to decide how she might know him. "Ye do, do ye?" He asks, his Irish accent thick. He is silent for another moment and he nods. That ginger hair is hard to miss, even in this dark light, and just as hard to forget.
But, caution is the watchword. "I get that a lot. Any idea where ye might have seen me last?" He crouches down lower, trying to get down to her level, but still stay on the balls of his feet. Just in case.
Her eyebrows knit into a tight vee and she looks down at the floor before flitting her gaze up to him. "I'm uhm.. I… uhm.. uhhh… " She clicks her teeth together and sucks in another hissing breath, only to expel it in a cloud afterward. The air in the house is only getting colder as the temperature drops.
A noise from outside has her eyes widening and scrambling to grab the door. "They're coming back… I have — I have to hide." Giving Errol an imploring look, she pauses for just a moment to consider him. "There's enough room.. to hide. If they come in we might be better together than split up." Though she hasn't exactly told him how useless she is, except to run. Even that's a tricky bit sometimes.
Errol glances back toward the window and then toward the closet. He seems to consider it for a moment and then nods, standing up straight. "Aye, better off if we stick together for now," he says. "What's your name, red?" There's a pause. "Maybe it'll help me remember you."
He motions for her to scoot away from the closet door, then steps in, closing the door in front of him. He carefully squats down again, seeming to be poised for whatever might be coming in the next few minutes.
"D-delia.." she manages to stutter in a hushed whisper. Gathering the blanket up around her again, she hunches down into a heap, and aside from that copper colored hair on her head, she could pass for a pile of clothing. A big pile. "You're running from them too?"
The wintry air blows through the hole in the window, cooling whatever warmth there was just before the rock came through. Whatever made the noise outside, it doesn't seem to be moving on, at least not yet. There's voices, male voices. A crash downstairs happens along with a few whoops of joy. They're either looters, squatters, or trouble making teens… any of the three choices could mean heaps of trouble.
Delia just closes her eyes and holds her breath, if she can't see them, maybe they won't see her.
Errol takes a deep breath and nods. His voice low, just barely above a whisper. "You're Ryans' girl, aren't you," he says. "I used to work with your da," he says. There's a pause and he looks at her more closely, a thought going through his mind.
Another crash from downstairs, this one followed by a loud whooshing sound. More whoops and yells. Errol's head snaps toward the door as he seems to listen carefully, and then back toward Delia.
"We can't stay," he says, a new urgency in his voice. "Do you trust me?"
Opening her blue eyes only to thin slits, Delia squints over to the Irish man and lifts her shoulders up in a bid to shrug, instead, she nods quickly. He knows her father, that could either mean something wonderfully good or horribly awful. Still, she crawls from out of her pile of blankets and pushes to a stand inside the closet.
When the young woman rises, she reaches a height of a couple inches shy of six feet. Delia Ryans is definitely her father's daughter rather than her mother's, aside from the hair. She doesn't pause to ask his name though, she merely points an expectant gaze at him.
Thumps coming from down the hall are a strong indicator that someone is coming up the stairs. Whatever time they had for introductions is quickly coming to an end.
"Follow me, then" Errol says, an edge of caution in his voice. He pushes open the closet door in a single, quick motion, then he walks out across the room until he's situated about halfway across it from the mirror he arrived through. He holds out a hand toward Delia, an urgent look in his eyes.
Taking the few steps over to Errol, Delia takes his hand and squeezes it tightly. "Are you going to make me invisible?" Because that would be quite handy.
From the look of the young woman, it seems as though she's been on the verge of freezing all day. Her clothing is muddy with patches burnt off in some places. Her shearling coat is caked with blood and other sludge that can't really be properly identified. The pack that she swings onto her back looks to be in about the same condition. It jangles as though it's filled with tiny bottles amidst the quiet crunch of thin plastic casing.
"Hey, I think there's someone here!" The voice sounds through the door, just as the knob begins to turn.
There isn't time to say anything. There really isn't even time to shake his head. Once she's standing beside him he looks in the mirror. There they are, both reflected back at him. He concentrates on that reflected image, and then, as the knob turns, it happens.
What appears to be a thin line of light forms on the side of Delia away from Errol. It quickly scans across her as if she were in a giant Xerox machine, it leaves nothing behind it, just air. It proceeds to scan across Errol just as quickly.
When the punks push open the door and step in, there's nothing in the room.
For Delia, the moments that follow are full of absolutely nothing. There is no light, no sound, no tactile sensation. Indeed, she is bereft of all five of her senses, left alone with only her conscious thought.
Several seconds pass — though they could just as easily have been an eternity — and then Delia's senses begin to come back to her in a rush. And just as all of that input returns, she is wracked with a migraine like none other she may have had, and muscle cramps all over her body.
Errol is there, still holding her hand. He quickly moves, grunting in pain as he does so, to catch her should she stumble and fall.
Where they are is somewhere completely different. There is a very large mirror placed on one wall, large enough to reflect several people. There are no windows. The ceiling is lit with several fluorescent bays in a dropped ceiling. There are a couple of cots. There is also heat. It's nice and warm.
Her free hand is palming her forehead as Delia's fingers dig into her scalp, trying to claw at her brainmeats to stop them from exploding inside of her head. "Aaaaahhhhh…" The muscle aches aren't nearly as horrible as the pain in her head though and the hand holding Errol's squeezes tightly.
She does stumble but not fall, it's more of a stagger of surprise than anything. Reassembly is hard.
The few minutes it takes for the agony to subside are enough for the young woman to give the room a frightened cursory examination before turning back to Errol with a terror filled expression. "Wh-where am I? Where is this?" There's heat but no windows, that alone is enough to put her into a panic that the man who knows her dad might be some sort of serial killer.
That few minutes really was more like sixty, though a headache like that can really mess with one's sense of time. Errol helped guide her to a cot, and then sat down on the other to wait.
"You're in a Ferry safehouse in Miami," he says. "You know about the Ferrymen, don't ye?" He gets up and walks over to a corner with a little minifridge and pulls it open. He pulls out a couple bottles of sports-drink — Chock Full of Electrolytes! — and extends one to her. "Drink this," he says. "You'll feel better, trust me."
He cracks open his, and takes a big swig from his. Then, by way of further explanation, "They set this room up for me. Nobody comes in here. It always looks exactly the same in the mirror. A place I can lock onto in an emergency."
Delia's jaw drops and her eyes widen to the size of saucers as she processes the news that she's not only in a different building, but she's also in a different city and a different state. "Oh.. no no no.. no no no no… I — I can't be all the way in Miami… I need to be in New York. M-my dad, my sister… I have a boyfriend… Eileen, she's counting on me to help the people who get hurt in the riots…"
Her panic doesn't end there though, not by a long shot. Rushing up to Errol, she grips his shirt with a strong hold and points a pleading look up at him. "I have to go back… If I don't, people are going to die. We only have two nurses and a couple of paramedics."
Errol takes a deep breath. When he speaks, his voice is calm and almost cold. "You wouldn't have done them any good the way I found you," he says. "If I had not come along, you'd've likely been killed or raped or who knows what. You can't save lives if you're dead."
He stands back up, and motions toward the door. "Now, I'm going to be going back to New York in the morning. You're free to leave as you like, but you won't find a faster way back." He looks her in the eye and says, "So, if you can set your worry aside for the night. We can have a meal, get some rest, and then go back to pick up the pieces in the morning."
Letting his shirt go, she stumbles backward toward a cot and begins to hyperventilate. "No.. no no no no… no no no no no…" Her hands press against her face and rub at it as she takes big gulping breaths inward. "Y-you don't understand. I have to be at the boats… She's going to die if I'm not there." It takes everything she has to keep her tears from spilling.
"I have to go… I — I have to go…" She promptly gets up and begins marching toward the door. "I can.. cell phone… I .. someone…" She's not making any sense whatsoever anymore, except in her own head, where the sentences are a little more complete. "I-it was nice meeting you. Thank you for saving my life…" The last sentence is half hearted.
Errol doesn't try to stop her. He's good to his word: she's free to go. He folds his arms over his chest and shakes his head. "Think about it for a minute, Delia," he says, his voice still cold, unmoved. "How are you going to get up there before tomorrow morning? Do you think they're letting planes land at the airports? Do you have a private helicopter? Do you know anybody else who can teleport?"
Delia simply shakes her head, "No… I can't stay. I'll — there has to be someone that can get me back… I only have…" She checks her watch and lets loose a shaky breath that's accompanied by a small squeak of panic. "Oh god… Kaylee's going to die… Why didn't you leave me in the closet? At least… I could've… You can't just… This is kidnapping!"
He doesn't stop her, she doesn't stop walking. At least if she makes the attempt, she'll have done everything in her power to make sure it didn't happen. "I have to get back…" that's the last thing she says before she tugs the door open and takes the few steps out. From the hallway Errol can hear a very timid, "How do I get out?"
Errol finally walks to the door and leans against the doorjamb, looking at her. "Listen, I'm sorry," he says. "I had no way of knowing. Although, I'm not sure how you were going to be anywhere by anytime the way I found you." He shakes his head, takes a deep breath, "Okay, let's look at this a different way. Where exactly do you need to be? When do you need to be there…and functional?"
"I have to be there … I don't know. It was dark in my vision, after sunset." It could have been the same time he found her for all that she knows. Hugging the backpack tighter to her chest, the contents clink again and Delia looks down at the ground. "She's shot in the stomach, I think… so I need to be able to concentrate… Now-ish? Red Hook, in Brooklyn. I was almost there."
She's not looking forward to another one of those migraines, at all. It's with great uncertainty that she peeks back into the room but she has her father's tenacity, she'll pull through.
Errol nods, and brings a hand up to run through his fairly rigid hair. He takes a deep breath in and then lets it out. "Okay. There's a lab at NYU Poly with a huge reflecting mirror. Some of the highest grade optics I've ever used to rematerialize," he says. "That's not too far, and is our best bet."
He motions for her to come back in the room, then turns and walks over toward the mirror. "Lock the door behind you," he says. "And finish that bottle of drink I gave you. It helps with the pain, and the second trip is worse than the first."
He holds his hand out for her, when she's ready. He looks at her. "When we get there, you just get out. Don't worry about me. I'll fend for myself."
She guzzles down the drink as she's told and then looks at the mirror. There's a grimace on Delia's face as she uses it as a conduit for eying Errol. "How do you do this… I just… I wouldn't do it." Then again, there's a lot of things she wouldn't do. For the first few months after manifesting, she wouldn't use her own ability.
Peeking backward, she double checks to make certain she did lock the door. "Okay… ready… I think…"
Errol, likewise, guzzles what's left of his drink, and tosses the bottle onto one of the cots. He grabs her hand once she's beside him. "Like I said, once you can, just get out of there and get to your friend," he says. "I'll take care of myself. Maybe we'll meet up again under better circumstances."
He stares at the mirror and seems to concentrate as before, however this time the light comes much quicker and scans across them much quicker. Then, for Delia, it's all nothing but her thoughts again. That emptiness lasts just long enough to be noticeable, and then her senses come rushing back into her.
This time the headache isn't so bad, but the muscle pain is. What's worse, though, is she can't remember the last several hours. The last thing she remembers is finding that closet. It will all come back to her over the next day, but for now she's in a strange place with a strange man (who looks vaguely familiar).
Errol does not seem to be faring any better. In fact, once they re-materialize, he nearly collapses on the floor, his hands coming up to his head. It didn't seem to do this to him last time. He all but manages to yell, "Get going, Delia. Get out of here!"
They're in a science lab at NYU Polytechnic in Brooklyn, not too far from the Red Hook neighborhood. There's a very large mirror set up in the lab along with what appears to be a bunch of delicate optics equipment (e.g. lenses, lasers, etc). There's a door with a clearly marked EXIT sign, that opens onto a hallway with a similarly easy to locate EXIT sign. They're on the second floor.
The redhead doesn't need to be yelled at twice. Her eyes wide and full of fear (why is he yelling at her?) she skitters across the floor, until the pain subsides enough for her to actually come to a stand.
Before Delia disappears out of the door, she turns her head for one last look at the stranger. It's doubtless that she'll remember his face, it's not every day that you wake up somewhere completely different than the place you fell asleep in… and with someone you don't know. Well it probably happens more often than not but not to Delia.
Through the window, Delia's dark silhouette jogs across the campus. When she's halfway across to the cover of the building opposite this one, she suddenly falls down to the side in a heap.
Seconds later, men dressed in dark clothing scurry from their hiding places to gather her up and spirit her away.