alternate universe where Lockwood and Lucy kiss before she leaves Lockwood and Co, after their argument in the Cafe. There's also a sad twist in the end so stay around for that
the start of this fic is basically the Creeping Shadow's plot, except th...
We ran out of the portal, the room was empty, but we didn't stay for long. We kept running all the way out the institute, out the double doors, through the hole in the fence we had cut earlier, along the grass. As we slowed our pace i noticed, the grass crunched under my feet. I briefly looked down to where ice had cracked under my boot. Ice now formed on the edge of my rapier, i put it back on my belt and ran alongside Lucy again.
"Lockwood..?" Lucy murmured next to me, when she spoke air rose up in the dark sky. "Yes?" I stood there next to her on the frosted slope. "Look. Look at the institute." She pointed a pale finger at the looming building. The flood lights were off, the lights from the buildings windows were off. It stood there, a wall of concrete in the dark clearing.
"Maybe time warped. When we were in the portal. It's some nerdy thing like George talks about, right? Like maybe we spent an hour or something and all the other's have gone home?" "An hour..?" Lucy echoed, staring at the distance. "Yeah.." "But Lockwood," She slowly turned her eyes back on me, her hood was dotted with snow. "What if it was more than an hour?" "Well.. then the others will be waiting up for us. Come on." I strode up the hill and through another fence out of proximity to the dark institute. Lucy followed close behind. We walked through the woods in silence, the only noise came from the ice crunching under our boots and the sound of the feathers on the spirit capes moving.
"Why is it so dark?" I didn't answer. Lucy walked up next to me and slipped her hand in mine. "Lockwood... Turn on your torch." With a free hand I pulled my torch from my belt and switched it on. Nothing happened, no light came out. I hit the torch against my hand. Nothing happened. "Must be the batteries." I put it back on my belt. Lucy quickly pulled away, manically reaching for her own torch. Switching it on and off, on and off, on and off, yet no light came from it. She started breathing heavy.
"Lucy.. Lucy.." She threw the torch on the ground, and slowly began to fall to her knees, "Lucy!" I grabbed her arms, her knees moments away from the frosted ground. "Lockwood.. where are we? This isn't.. it isn't.." "I know, i know." I let go of her arms and crouched down in front of her, held her freezing cold hands. "I know it's scary. But we just need to get back to the inn. Tell me we will. We will get back to the inn, won't we?" She nodded, tuffs of her hair showed beneath her hood.
"Okay.. come on." I pulled at her hands slowly helping her stand up with me. I gave her my best grin and, she tried a shaky smile back. But her shaking smile didn't last long as she pointed to something behind me, with utter horror on her face. "Lockwood!" I turned around just in time to see the shadowy figure of a ghost stood behind us.
"Shit. Run!" I gripped her arm and ran as fast as I could. We has left out flares at the inn, what a mistake that was. We clung to each other as we ran down the dirt path, where the ghost-lamps were supposed to be.
"Is it still following us??" Lucy gasped, she put her hand on a tree to catch her breath. I looked behind us. We were on the edge of another wooded area, one where animals were supposed to be. "No... we're okay." She sighed and slid down the tree to sit on the ground. I sat in front of her leaning my arms out behind me. "Lucy, do you think.. we never left the.." I looked around at the drab landscape, "Whatever that was." "If George was here he would be off his nut right now." She laughed and reach for her water bottle, only to find all the water had frozen.
"Ugh!! What is this?!" She threw the bottle, it made a weird sound on the ground, then something rustled behind us. She didn't even need to reach out, i held her hand so fast. Slowly we got to our feet. "What was that..?" I put my other hand over her mouth staring down at her hooded face. A glow started to show through the woods. I got a glimpse of a old straw hat. Dark lifeless eyes. "Run!" I didn't have to say it twice. We ran down the hill, all around us more shadows started following us. More lifeless eyes, some dressed in armour, dressed in overalls or bonnets. We ran through dirt paths and woods, our boots crunching on frozen sticks. Till we reached a clearing, a small hill rose up on the opposite side.
"I need," Lucy gasped, "a second." Her hand slipped out of mine and she fell to the ground heaving. I stayed standing, staring all around me. The air was shrouded with thick fog, the fog carried tiny knives of cold air, that cut at my pink fingers and my nose. But somehow the cape kept me warm.
It's powers against the other-side kept us from dying of hypothermia, or ghost-lock. I pulled it even closer around me. Grateful for my parents, who brought the capes back from their expeditions around the world. Suddenly the shadows broke through the woods we had just ran through, they were on the edge of the hill behind us. Growing closer, grass under their floating bodies turned brown, whatever flowers were there before, died after the ghosts went passe.
"Come on, we got to go." I picked her up from the grass and we started running again. At the bottom of the hill in front of us there was a pack of brambles. But i didn't assume anything of it. How stupid I was. Lucy, who had been breathing heavy and clutching her side, tripped over a particularly icy patch of grass. She got caught in the brambles. I heard her scream. I heard her cape rip.
I had been so stupid, so stupid, to let go of her hand. I was on the other side of the brambles. Before that moment, my legs were dead from the cold, my knees probably couldn't hold out any longer. But i moved as fast as a cold maiden. I leaped, my cheek caught a bramble, cutting at the pink skin. Small spikes cut into my fingers as I grabbed Lucy's thrashing body. Glancing behind me, the luminous shadows drew closer.
"Lockwood!" I saw tears falling down her icy face, she was pale, but paler than i'd ever seen her. Ice grew on her air. I noticed her cape had been completely ripped off her, it was torn in half and lay on the brambles. "A-Anthony!" She murmured, her eyes stopped darting around, the light slowly dying. I dug furiously, more spikes meeting my fingers. I didn't even register the pain at that point, i needed to save her, save her before it was too late. Just like...
Finally i got a grasp of her body, colder than ice, deader than dead.
I picked her body up, carried her in my arms. The shadows were almost upon us. I ran, ran as far as i could up the hill. With Lucy's dead body in my arms.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
