𝑅𝐸𝑄𝑈𝐼𝐸𝑀 - M.R.

[REALIZE]

She doesn't recognise him at first, how could she? There's just this lean body draped in black standing stock still over his grave.

No, there's no way she can tell it's him, not from the rear profile she's given as she strides through the gates, but somehow - she knows.

She knows it's him and, equally, intrinsically, knows that it isn't.

When he veers around to look at her she feels her heart stop, because there's no denying who that face belongs to.

Part of her wants to run up and hug him, a part of her warns her not to. That part of her tells her to run too, of course, just quickly, and in the opposite direction.

She meets herself in the middle and kind of paces wearily toward him. 

It's a graveyard, so it comes as no surprise that the sense of death is heady in the air, an oppressive force that smells of ozone and sodden mud, trampled weeds and a distinct tinge of decay - well, it's mostly decay, really, but she tries to block that out in lieu of curling over on herself and heaving onto the dew-slicked grass. 

The screams of the dead are everpresent, some cognizant enough to beg for their lives, for rebirth and retribution. She just doesn't get why it peaks continually louder when she nears him.

He talks, but he doesn't sound like himself. They fight to talk over him. 

There's a ringing in her left ear like someone's walked up to her and fired a gun right past it and it takes a moment to realise that the voices aren't begging for their lives anymore, but for hers.

He looks bitter when she shushes him, and down near horrified when she approaches him further.

She doesn't know what they are trying to say, desperate whispers overlapping and spiralling into one long droning cry as the smell of rot, of dead leaves and sparking storms gets thicker - he doesn't want her to touch him. 

The cries of the voices all crescendo, their agony visceral as they all screech the same words, it sounds like a name, like a threat. She doesn't know what it means, he pretends he doesn't too, but the voices cry, liar.

They've never deceived her before. 

They beg her to run, but she's always been a curious girl and she needs to know what's got him so jumpy, why she's stood atop rows and rows of bodies that all seem to lurch in their graves - desperate to get away from him.

Because it's a graveyard, but the rusty scent of mortality and rolling thunder, bitter and biting like sulfur, come from him. 

His grip is firm and unrelenting, he could break her wrist if he wanted to, she should take it for what it is - a warning - and leave, but she's ignored too many blaring red warning signs to turn back at the last hurdle so she grabs at him where he's got a vice-like grip around her slim wrist. 

It turns out they put warning labels on dangerous products for a reason.

It feels like someone's drilling into her head (again) and yet the pressure building up inside her skull can find no release. As she sees flashes of bloody faces and loaded guns, all she can do is scream.

The voices scream with her.

()()()()()

Liam gets there first, Theo right beside him, they're flanked by Scott and Malia. 

Peter and Derek show up together, looking slightly less startled than the other four and more peeved at being disturbed by something that certainly doesn't look like an emergency.