push-ups in drag

5; residentially revered

I wake up to Frank jostling me and pulling me off the couch and onto the rug, ultimately banging the back of my head on the coffee table during my fall. Frank immediately apologizes, looking up at Gerard to see if he was awake to see that. Lucky for him, they were asleep.

"shhhit.. are you okay?" Frank whispers

"fuckkk, no," I groan quietly, "what do you want?"

"there are people outside the window trying to get in. uh, i can't really explain it because i just don't know." Frank explains

I open my eyes fully and push myself off the ground to see whispy, shadowy figures outside the glass. The eyes on them are completely white, and their assumed hands are beating the window, to no affect. Only after I acknowledge them do I realize the humming coming from outside. Their lack of dimension is impressive, along with how inviting they seem, regardless of their disconcerting nature. The oddity of their formosity makes them all the more unnerving.

"that's.. new," are the only words that fall out of my mouth. I would say more, but there aren't any words to say that could label what I think of them.

The humming is low, but still audible. It starts to buzz. The repetition of seemingly white noise starts to hurt. Like a drill with a dull screw, trying to escape your skull. Frank seems to hear it, asking "...what is that? it's killing my head." He complains, raising his hands to his head to compress himself. The noise only gets louder. I look over to Gerard, and almost nothing has changed, but his eyebrows are pressed down a bit more, as if they were uncomfortable on his skin. The noise is agony now, but its only getting worse. I walk over to him and cover his ears while trying to wake him up. They open their eyes, confused, and Frank yells at us that we need to leave. The noise gets high pitched, and the mixture of frequencies, buzzing, humming, and pain only gets worse. It's unbearable, and my eyes feel like they're going to explode.

Gerard gets up, covering his own ears, gesturing for me to do the same. Suddenly, a cracking noise fills the room, adding to the torture. We run toward the doorway as fast as we can, but are quickly put off-balance. The floors shake as they catch thousands of tiny glass shards when the window finally shatters due to the pressure. When we get just barely outside of the room, Frank and I run to the right and Gerard runs to the left to slam the doors shut, causing the reverberation of the noise to be carried through the air and lack of. The noise is muffled enough to where we can uncover our ears without them bleeding.

"Follow me." Gerard demands, running down the empty hall. Frank and I aren't ones to oblige to getting the fuck away from the room, so we follow. We catch up with them toward the throne room. The noise isn't hurting us anymore, we're out of range, but the floor still shakes, even if just a little.

Once we get barely past the doorway, Gerard shouts for help to Lucifer. He stands up fast. The ground shakes more and more.

"SIR! Sir- The exanimalis." Gerard yells

"What?" Lucifer asks

"The-"

In an instant, there is a rush of blood that crashes into the room like a tsunami. Lucifer lunges with his staff into the air, barely making it to us before the metallic water does. He sheilds us into with some type of black bubble, forming around his back and curving down to us. Not a single drop gets past as the tide slams against the barricade forcing itself upward and ultimately crashing back down, shaking the floors further. The pressure of being under water hits us as we fall to the ground, still conscious but slightly dazed and mildly weak.

Even while the floor below our feet grumbles, Lucifer stays steady above us. His eyes are closed as he pinches his eyebrows together. The red substance begins to lower itself, and we watch it, looking up from the ground. It stains the barricade with a claret shade. As the blood withdrawals itself, we see the stained, now bloodied, black walls resurface as well. Frank, Gerard, and I all stand back up, looking at each other to reassure we're all alive. We look back at Lucifer, who opens his eyes to check if the blood is low enough for the shield to render useless, and once it is, he let's his arms down. The barrier dissolves itself slowly into triangle shards, evaporating into the space around us.

The stone floor below us is left with puddles of lukewarm liquid gore. Everything shines an uncomfortable yet unique glow, and even the tall ceiling rains drops of blood.

"Mr..?" A voice behind us asks. We trun around to see two people sticking their heads out on either side of his throne, their faces covered in blood. One is tall and has white, short hair, and the other is short is medium length dark brown braids.

The tall one looks around, and mumbles something to the short one. The short one giggles, pulling their sleeve up to their mouth and walks out from behind the chair, drenched in dark red. They're wearing an oversized dark blue sweater, tucked into dark gray shorts.

"Uh, hi. I'm Gemini." They say

"Oh, I'm-" Frank starts

"We know," The tall one cuts off. They walk out, showing them wearing a sleeveless, gothic cropped turtleneck and shorts with gun straps across their thighs with small compartments, "Frank, Edward, Gerard. Everyone knows." They finish, stink-eyeing Frank.

"Well fuck you too.." He mumbles, enough for likely just me to hear.

"That's Bex. They're a bit stubborn, it's nothing personal," Gemini explains

Bex throws something to Gerard, "here's your shit, by the way."

"You took this?" Gerard questions, slightly shocked

Bex licks their teeth and responds tonelessly; "you said you'd only be gone a week."