2021-02-12 - Valentine Shadows

It would've been smarter for the couple to have driven out of town, as they had been doing more and more lately, to celebrate Valentine's Day. Last year, they had a cozy dinner at home that turned into something that neither of them deserved. With how much they've been absent from town, though, having left the place to celebrate both Thanksgiving and the Winter holidays. And boy was that last trip an eventful one. And they weren't even in town for Gray Harbor to fuck with them.

Back in the day as preteens, they spent one Valentine's Day picnicking in the forest. It was uncomfortably cold then too, but Byron had it all set up where they used the stump of a tree as a table covered in a picnic blanket table cloth. He'd bought all sorts of food with his allowance and asking some of the other parents (mostly Mrs. G) to help make things for the occasion. Yes, he was still in the business of feeding Lilith, so a lot of his show of friendship and affection tends to deal with food. From there, they caught a movie at the theater. It was a fun day.

And this is what Byron mimicked with her today, though rather than a tree stump, which would be far too short for the likes of their adult selves, he had an actual portable table set up, complete with table cloth, far fancier cuisine that a young Byron could afford as a child, some wine, candles and and flowers along with a pair of diamond earrings to help mark the occasion. Obviously, when he went to fetch her for the surprise, his men were guarding the set up the whole time.

They were on their way home now, sitting in the luxury of the Wraith in this wintry chill. It was already dark as Byron turns onto Oak, heading to Bayside.

Lilith was absolutely stunned and delighted by Byron's surprise, though you would think they'd be used to these kinds of surprises at this point. They're both really good at flooring each other one way or another once their minds are set to it. The woman certainly doesn't mind the chill, he'd given enough forewarning about attire and outerwear for her to know how to dress for the day. The earrings were lovely, as pieces always are from Byron-- the man has exquisite taste when it comes to knowing what jewelry balance of posh edges or simplicities suit Lilith's attire and tastes.

She's not the only one that gets a present. In fact, she claims to have two of them, but he can't have one of them until they get home. The present she brings for Byron to dinner is an engraved and swanky antique tie clip with matching cuff-links. She's gotten him such things before, restorations of precious antiques, trash to treasure, accents for his suit wardrobe that are often one of a kind. In fact, it's become a bit of a game to get him enough to wear a different set on every suit and tie combo, a bit like adding to a charm bracelet collection, but... the masculine version.

Lilith is going on about the action scene in something they've just watched and explaining why the physics wouldn't work that way. It's not that she's pedantic about those kinds of details to the point of movie ruining but... okay, she is pedantic. She just saves it for afterwards and chalks it up to entertainment value, but Byron rarely escapes the actual details of 'how' something Hollywood would or wouldn't happen.

They'd promised not to be paranoid this year, very little could rival what happened last Valentine's Day. They've been very good about it, to the point where Lilith has forgotten what trauma this holiday anniversary marks. Therefore, it's unfortunate when they come to idle at a stop sign near the corner with the old Thorne house in passing.

Maybe the house isn't actually responsible, but in a heartbeat, everything changes.

Byron was feeling pretty damned good about himself for remembering some of the little details of an event he put together when he was thirteen or so. Of course, he'd take Lilith to an action flick over a romcom on Valentine's Day and it's no surprise that he seems to have enjoyed it more than she did, but not for the obvious reasons. He doesn't mind her explaining about everything wrong with those scenes, in fact he finds it adorable, a smile at his lips when he looks at her every so often before returning his attention back on the road.

He was in high spirits until they turn onto Oak. It's almost as if he's drawn to drive down the street on which he grew up rather than taking another route. Just catching sight of the old Victorian made him nervous and now he was slowing down at the Stop sign. There was no one crossing, he probably should just floor i....

---

The sun was high in the sky, the light shining in Byron's eyes as he stops in his pushing of the lawn mower to wipe the sweat from his brow. It was his day off and was he at the beach or the board walk? Or over at the pond right about now? No, he was here in the yard, grappling with a mower. He couldn't put this task off any longer. Next weekend they had the GHPD family picnic complete with a game of softball.

"You better tend to that, Lil, before she gets dehydrated and wilts." He says as a joke to his wife. Despite her middle name, Lilith wasn't so much the plant type until now due to it being a grown up hobby. They were supposed to head out to the boardwalk and the beach after the lawn mowing, but by the looks of it, unfortunately, family weekend was about to be cancelled. At least the fun in the sun part.

Turning to the older children behind him, he lets them in on it, "Doesn't look like we'll be going to the beach today. How's about a movie, boardgames and ice cream inside?" He knows that this isn't enough to appease all the children, but there's little else that they can do besides head out for other indoor activities at the mall or something. At the moment, everything seems normal in his eyes, but even as he takes on this fatherly role, he can't help but stare at the children, especially the older girl right behind him. He's not sure why, but something was bothering him.

Lilith looks damn good after a set of twins and an 'oops' baby girl just three years afterwards. She jokes she ran it all off like a superhero when she had twin toddlers and a newborn, which admittedly is a feat. Honestly, she's just one of those people that has always been like that, irritatingly pretty in almost every imaginable situation in that blissfully effortless way of hers.

(Did this Lilith really bear children or is the Dream fabricating a reality for Lilith she's unaware of?)

She's wearing a red bikini top with a very short set of cut offs, feet bare with fingers and toes painted red too. She's not even close to thirty yet and radiant, mother-envy of the child pick-up line to hear it told at the Safeway. As she turns with sunglasses and a messy bun to eye Byron with his shirt off mopping at his brow, she whistles, "Keep pushing that mower like that and you'll have to spray me. You won't, though. You'll just let me tackle you. And that is how we got all these damned kids."

She clearly doesn't mind, though. After she's complimented and complained, she takes Byron's advice and sprays the little tummy-rounded toddler girl at her leg with a quick spritz right in the face that makes the girl giggle instead of cry. Thankfully, the water pressure is low while Lilith trolls her own child. The girl's name is Violet and she's so fearless, Lilith swears she's going to die sliding the banister once she can climb it. She's also the spitting baby image of her mother as she spins around with arms out when she gets a more proper rain-shower spray.

"C'mon, you heard your sexy daddy! Come get sprayed before the sun dies!"

Byron doesn't project that city slick 'cool guy' image, though he did keep his hair mostly short as opposed to the longer hairstyle he wore as a teen. Instead of pomade or gel, his dark hair is worn naturally, the bangs partially falling into his eyes to brush at his brow. Rather than sporting a neatly trimmed beard, his face is usually clean shaven, though he showing some stubble because it's the weekend. He's been working out a lot at Kelly's gym and it shows in his bared athletic physique.

Knowing full well that a storm was brewing, he starts charging ahead faster, in the hopes of getting most of the yard done before they had to pack it up. He laughs at Lilith's quip, "I don't know, hon. I'm pretty sure we got these kids because I did spray you. Doesn't mean that I'm not in the mood for some wrestling." He says this in a playful tease, forgetting that the kids were here and would take the statement a different way in their child's minds. As they should! Pausing in his work briefly, to watch Elaine's frustration, he calls out, "You're getting the hang of it. I'll help you keep form later, alright?"

He's almost done when Ethan's basketball rolls out into the street. Suddenly the mower engine is turned off. "Ethan. Hey! What did we tell you?" He calls out hurriedly, making a sprint to collect the kid and the ball. "You're not allowed into the street." At some point, he's looking up at the sky again. He thought he had more time, but it looks like the storm was almost right upon them. The lawn mower would need to be put away before they head in, but he'll worry about that later.

"Okay, fair point. You win that round."

Watching her little boy run into the road at a distance, Lilith curses the powers that be for not giving her TK abilities to yank a child backwards by the onesie, or in this case, Batman underpants. Byron is the next best thing to that, though. He's always swift with the physical grabs and interferences it takes to herd three spirited children of a certain age all at once. It's as much a test of wits, will, and reflexes as drawing gunfire at sundown, things just happen so damned quickly. Luckily, there's no cars coming and aside from an quick-admonishing 'Ethan!' that pops out of the woman, she watches Byron divert to clean swoop the child with one arm and the ball with the other.

Something about the encroaching storm bothers her, though. After she's had a moment to breathe sigh relief, she pops her sunglasses atop her head to get a better look at the movement of the clouds, brows knitting down. Suddenly, she's going to turn off the water with the faucet against the house, pulling a wet little Violet along by the hand with her. She seems suddenly wary about having the toddler disconnected from her in this wind. She doesn't bother rolling up the hose and swiftly leans to throw the little girl up with prop onto a hip, "Lainey-bug, c'mon. Inside."

Byron might note the sudden shift in the woman's demeanor, but once he's close enough from doing the street-fetch, she calls out, "Byron... look at the storm."

Running out into the street, Byron is relieved that there were no incoming cars. Even though this was Oak, an upperclass residential area, you do have some yahoos speeding every so often and this storm was making him nervous. "Gotcha, Sport." He calls out to Ethan when he grabs ahold of the boy, before reaching down to pick up the stray basketball. He takes another look at into the sky, already finding himself in the middle of these howling winds.

"Lainey, follow your mother inside, we'll meet you there." He calls out to the little girl. Violet was already with Lilith.

Turning back towards the storm after Lilith tells him to look at it, his mind is already thinking of maybe covering the cars in a tarp, but what he sees quickly changes him mind. "Shit." Yeah, the little tyke heard that. Picking up speed now with Ethan under his arm, he makes for a run towards the house, "Everyone back!" What was once a nice sunny day found him being pelted by debris and heavy droplets of rain and this ominous feeling that it was going to be a terrible and long night.

"We're going to need to try and board the windows and doors up!" He calls out, pushing the child in his arm into the house before he stops to turn around to look at the changing landscape before shutting the door closed and locking it. Their supplies were all downstairs in the basement, he needed to act fast.

With the baby Violet on her hip, Lilith steps out a few paces into the yard to meet with Elaine halfway, taking her hand to pull her for the porch and front door with no more dallying. She's not quite dragging the girl, she's not trying to make the children panic, but there's an urgency about it all the same. And they should know the urgency, at least, even if they don't understand the rest as children. She gets the girls onto the porch just as Byron starts getting pelted by storm's edge and what the strong gusts of chilling wind bring.

She holds the door open for Byron to come through once she's ushered Ethan in with his twin sister and watches the man lock up and spring into preparatory action to defend against What Comes in the Storm. They'll try to get in, they always do, the two adults know that. And if this one is as bad as it looks... will they be over-run?

Nodding solidly at Byron, Lilith states echo on his plan of action, "Listen to daddy. I'm going to go help him. I need you to do the safety drill we do for storms, you remember how it goes?" While speaking to the twins, the woman crouches down to their level and tries to keep steady and calm, handing Violet over to their standing care, "Violet, you need to listen to Sissy and Bubba 'cause they're the boss right now. Just for a little bit, then I'll be the boss again. 'kay?"

Were the storms coming more frequently? Byron remembered wondering the last time this happened which was.... That was weird. He can't even remember when the last time was. Or what had happened then. Despite the confusion, there was this urgency pushing him to move with haste because the things that come with the storm were about to be upon them. Once everyone was safely within the house, both he and Lilith take quick steps around the house to gather the supplies, hauling boards, nails and a hammer and everything needed to keep the things outside out.

On passing, he ruffles Ethan's hair, knowing the boy's disappointment, before dropping down into a crouch in front the gathered children, setting a wooden board down beside him. "Once this over, you can look out the window all you want. And we might have time to wrestle. Right now, you both listen to Lainey, you here?" He smiles at his elder daughter. "In a few years, you'll be helping momma and me close up the house."

Every second reassuring the children means time wasted where he could be putting up some boards to hammer. The old Victorian was large and had many windows. Grabbing his things, he looks over at Lilith to see how she's doing before shoving a piece of wood against the window and starts to... When he passed by the stairs, something was bothering him. Something that he shakes off. "I don't know why we don't just leave these up all year long."

"... why'd momma say she was gonna be boss again when daddy is the real boss?" Violet can't help herself once Byron has taken a moment with the kids, he hears her going off with her siblings with questions unrelated to the storm. The kids don't fight or anything, they do what they're supposed to do, and in short order, they return from putting on proper clothes and shoes, little safety backpacks of supplies equipped. They sit in a huddle together on the couch in the middle of the room watching Byron and Lilith board things up while the windows are pelted with more and more wind, debris, water, and... invasive not-right noises too.

"Some have started just putting them up for the season, though most hide it behind blinds and curtains so they don't look a little doom-gloom crazy. I noticed it while doing landscaping this spring and saw some families setting up for the whole season. I mean, it makes sense, but I hate the idea of it. I wish we had money for automated storm shutters, but those are probably just as ugly as--"

"Ow." Lilith catches a nail under a hammer and about smashes her thumb in her haste, knowing they still need to run up and do upstairs after fortifying the bottom floor. The way she was carrying on about these 'Storms' sounds so familiar and normal, an ingrained part of her life as she thinks she knows it. But something feels off to her suddenly once she's finished talking about LANDSCAPING jobs she's done. Landscaping.... Lilith... and plants as a hobby and income supplement?

(What? That's not right, is it? Why does her stomach feel funny?)

If others were already preparing for the season, why weren't they? And right now, if it wasn't already too late, they were definitely bordering on it.

While they are boarding up windows and doors, Byron makes sure that the children were in clear view of him with a fleeting gaze, before his full attention is focused on hammering those nails. He works methodically, moving from window to window and only pauses when he hears the 'Ow' when Lilith bangs up her thumb. Leaving the boards where they are at, right next to one of the remaining windows, he hurries to check on her. "Want me to get the first aid kid?" He asks, his dark eyes examining her thumb.

The crash coming from upstairs catches him by surprise, startling him. "Damn it." Grabbing the boards he left behind, he turns to Lilith before heading up the stairs, "Watch the kids, I'll check what the hell that was." His voice lowers, "If something got it, then I'm boarding it up in that room." After shutting the door of course.

Byron only has vague memories of this shadow season or the kids or Jinxie. It's hard to focus on that when he has to act and move quickly. What does begin to bother him most is the house itself. He lived here with his family and yet he could sense this dark oppressive force, something threatening. Everything from climbing those stairs to seeing the upstairs landing during his ascent. There was just something terribly about the whole thing.

"I'm okay, I'm... good, it's..." Lilith seems a bit distracted for a moment there for a beat when Byron comes to check on her. She's still feeling that funny pit in her stomach, which checks out in the face of danger, sure. But that's not quite what it is, it's more like... deja vu, but not? It's strange and it makes her really look at Byron for a moment before the crash from upstairs interrupts anything she was about to think, do, or even say. Immediately, she's teamwork and focus again, picking up where the man left off to finish securing at the foot of the stairs while he runs up them to check what's happened on the second floor.

"... yes, please be careful. It might just be a tree limb, but I.... I feel funny about this one, baby. Be careful."

The brunette woman grabs up a last stack of wood planks and the jar of nail after making quick work of finishing what Byron started. There's two windows left downstairs after that, and she runs to get to the one over the dining room table. The last is in the kitchen, but it's the smallest and highest of the windows above the sink looking into the backyard. While hammering over the larger window at the back of the house, the woman calls into the adjacent living room where the kids are partially in view on the couches, "Violet, baby, hush. That cat has nine lives and came from witches, it's fine."

It's a lie, but Violet shuts up. At least until the kitchen window blows open with shattering. Then her and the older two siblings scream and huddle up on the couch together, centrally located away from any windows. Lilith didn't get to all of the windows in time.

Despite knowing full well what this storm was like, having felt the darkness in the clouds and the fog before he and his family got inside the house, Byron had no real idea. He could imagine everything twisted that came in through the Veil, right?

Carrying the boards under his arm, the hammer held within his mouth, his gaze automatically goes to what used to be his room, the first door at the top of the stairs. Still dark, but it wasn't that. He had an idea for where the sound had come, but there's just this instinct to look. He'd spent much of his life in that room growing up for good or bad, though most of it was bad. One thing does suddenly come to mind. Where was his...

His thoughts are cut off when he reaches Violet's room, taking a quick glance through the open doorway before he prepares to set up the first plank to board it up. He would've done it too if not for the hissing coming from within. "God damnit, Jinx. Out. Get out of there!" He yells at the cat, before setting the boards off to the side. "Shit." His arms hurt, just the size of these planks made them cumbersome and he already felt the discomfort of having those boards pressing harshly into his skin as he toted them around.

Byron probably could just board the cat up in there, especially as it doesn't hurry out when he snaps at it. "Jinx!" He yells out again before moving in swiftly but cautious to grab the feline. "Damn cat!"

Lilith sees exactly what made the noise in the kitchen while crashing through the window. Unfortunately, her reflexes about getting over there to stop what's crawling in... they're slow, she's too worried about the children and suddenly hesitating about which way to go-- Byron is upstairs managing who knows what and she's having a bit of a moment again, unsure which Lilith to actually be in the moment.

Lilith Thorne. Which Lilith Thorne? The one that charges at whatever comes through that window with a fury? Or is it the one going to grab her children and lock them in the basement before even thinking about throwing herself into the line of fire? She doesn't know. She tries to do both and corners herself into non-action, yelling instructions at the children instead, "Go to the basement. NOW! Lock the door! Go!"

She may have missed her window to stop it all from happening, but now she's standing between their children (do they really have kids?) and the monster clicking and slithering with shadow-stretched limbs in through the broken kitchen window.

They were all already in a highly stressful situation so any yelling coming from anywhere is to be expected. If he heard the crash coming from downstairs, it doesn't completely register because he's right about to enter a room with an unknown thing in it, something that Smaug was frantically hissing at. Byron's mind goes to the angry looking incredibly furry cat, but the feline in his arms is different. "If you listened the first time.." He practically snaps at the cat who is all too happy to be in his arms, "Don't give me that! We wouldn't be in this situation if..."

That's when he comes face to face with mantis thing. Without a second thought, he starts to back away and with the cat cradled in one hand, his other raises to send a jolt of electricity into the shadowy monster. Scrambling back out of the room, he quickly deposits (tosses) Jinx onto the floor as he makes a grab for the boards, setting it up against the doorway as he reaches for the hammer that was slipped into his pocket earlier to try and shut that thing in.

The jolt may stunned the creature, giving him some time, but by the time the boards were up, he could feel it pressing against the wood. With a few nails held between his lips down, he struggles against the force to try and continue to hammer the thing in.

Lilith has to trust the kids to listen to her, she can't step away to herd them to the basement herself. There's too much threat in those clicking claws and too much venomous intent in the monster's shadowy sneer. It's also floating, so it might be very fast to give chase and stab her in the back, quite literally, while herding the little Thorne ducklings. She lashes out with a furious attack, quick offense as defense for the time being and tries to snap the creature's neck.

Luckily, only one of the children starts to pitch a fit and argue with the basement plan, and oddly, it's Violet. Usually, it's Ethan that argues with Lilith, the toddler girl tends to be more fearless than she should be. It's not her mother's tone that scares her, or what's in the kitchen, it's... the fact that she's suddenly being pulled between the kindergarten twins following mommy's orders to the basement door with launch from the couch.

"NO BASEMENT! NO BASEMENT, MOMMY!" She's giving the other two kiddos a run for their money with fear tantrum and screeching that would be alarming if Byron and Lilith weren't so damn busy with direct threats at the moment, "Stooop, it's gonna eat us, noooo. DADDY!" Violet is such a screaming frightshow and struggle, it's starting to scare the twins as they get her to the door. In fact, they seem a little afraid to go down there themselves once they get there.

Lilith can't focus on the terrible screams from her child about the house's basement. She broke the creature's neck with a horrible crack, sending it out of float into clack and sprawl of ferocious spasm pinching on the kitchen tile. But it's not dead. It starts to crunch with new noises of self-repair to her horror.

Taking nail after nail out from beneath his lips, Byron works to keep the door to Violet's room securely shut and boarded up, hammering away. The threat of the mantis-creature breaking through the door has him working as efficiently as possible, though he does fumble with a nail or two during the process. The sounds coming downstairs and then Violet's shrill shrieks did not help things, but it did spur him to work even faster.

Once he's remotely satisfied that the boards would hold, he grabs the remaining ones, in the case that they are needed and sprints across the upstairs hall. The thought of boarding up all of the windows upstairs did come to mind, but there was no time. They might have to hole themselves up in the basement right now, because there was no way they'd be able to effectively board up the stairway.

Once down the stairs, he quickly checks to see where everyone was. "Lilith! Lainey!" He calls the child who was in charge of the others even though it's Violet who he heard screaming.

Lilith has to shake off the stare of fixated, semi-fascinated horror she has for the hybrid-crab-shadow-woman as it cracks and pops itself back functional with a series of disgusting chitin-esque snaps. Then the monster rises straight back up off of the floor into hover and mobility once more after it's put itself back in action. The woman is tempted to run and make sure the kids get locked downstairs before this thing gets through her to them, it's the only place without windows and a solid door for them to hole up for the duration of this wretchedly unnatural storm.

But then she hears Byron coming back downstairs and calling out to her and the children. She hears Elaine pipe up to her father's call. In her bones, she knows he'll see them safe, one way or another. Violet has stopped screaming too, it lets the woman focus on what she's trying to do to break this terrible creature in front of her in the kitchen. Her ferocity and power doesn't matter as much this time around, though. One of the pincer arms snaps with break and dangle, but there's three more that come snapping her way when the thing finally charges, not stunned or broken in the least.

"Hide them downstairs!"

A claw catches Lilith on the calf. It cleaves through and bloodies the flesh of her leg while she's trying to dart and use the dining room table for scrambling cover.

Byron's still carrying these heavy planks in one arm, but when Violet comes to greet him in her terror, he easily scoops her up to cradle in the crook of the arm that's still holding the hammer. Lilith wasn't with them. The horrific sounds coming from the kitchen more than tells him where she is even before Ethan brings up the monster. He's about to set Violet down to help Lil deal with her foe. It was a much easier task if they worked together.

Running a mental scan of the kitchen, his dark eyes focused in that area, the man starts to tell his kids, "Your mother wants you all down in the base--" Then something that Elaine says makes him turn to look on her, seeing himself, as a child, with her deep dark eyes. Just those words made his heart drop into stomach and his blood ran cold. He didn't want to go to the basement either now.

"I'm going to help mommy okay?" He doesn't tell them that they didn't have to go to the basement or that they weren't all going to the basement, but for now that's all he can muster. Then something comes to him, he's not sure what and from where this knowledge was pulled from. Sunlight? "Lilith, be ready! I'm going to try something, alright, babe?" He calls out, before with a furrowed brow he tries to fill the creature's head with this bright light. A blinding illusion? It was something. "Now, Lil!"

They were all huddled in the middle of the room, probably with the cat somewhere. The way to the basement was just down the hall and whatever he trapped up in Violet's room, well, so far he hasn't reared its ugly head just yet.

Hearing Byron call to her, Lilith is able to stop scrambling to yank chairs in her path on way around the table with a bleeding leg suddenly slowing her down. She's aiming to use the surface as cover or... flip it or... something, but the chitinous crab-clawed hybrid woman is floating and therefore quick behind her without any real regard for obstacles like chairs and such. The woman's escape to keep her body intact from powerful, snapping inky crab claws is pretty desperate, but Lilith and Byron have worked together to dodge death how many times now?

The strange sense of two lives, deja vu, it happens again even though Lilith is still firmly believing this Dream reality as her own. For a moment, she wonders... a lifetime. Two lifetimes? This life. That life. Does it matter? She knows what comes next.

Now, Lil!

Byron's words bid reflex response. There's horrible shrieking and Lilith unleashes a torrent of focused destruction with her teeth grit while backed against the table. The monstrous hybrid is terrified and recoiling as the man surges the creature's senses with something it despises, hides from in the rain and storms and fogs. It stops short of charging the prone woman, just shy of a swoop to crack and crush the brunette between claws. It breaks again, this time across the abdomen at an unnatural angle with a horribl noise that's akin to the hollow crunch of stepping on a bug shell.

But then there's more cracking as the thing stirs on the tile where it fell abruptly silent. Lilith goes pale and starts running fast for Byron to warn him, "It won't... die. We have to get in the basement, baby. There could be more and I don't know how to..." If she can't break it to make it stay down, what the hell else does she have? She can't use fire. Lilith doesn't seem to be afraid of the basement.

From what Byron could tell, Lilith just crippled the creature in the kitchen. So when she hurried out of there, her leg covered in blood with that frantic look in her eyes, he looks from his beautiful wife, then back towards the kitchen. "What is that thing?" He could hear the chittering and the sound of the creature's bones cracking and adjusting. Those noises on top of the banging on the boarded up bedroom door and then the sounds of more windows being destroyed in the various room upstairs, the man knew they needed to move.

His father was dead and had been dead for years now. Just as he's having a difficult time determining whether this Lilith was his Lilith or just something that the Dream or the Veil had concocted, or whichever time line this was supposed to be, he also has memories of his father, covered in blood, by Byron's hand. For a brief shell-shocked moment the man seems overwhelmed by these thoughts, memories. Whatever they were. Not only that, his own fear of his father was trying to suffocate him, filling him with terror.

But he killed the man. That what one of Byron's biggest regrets. That he wasn't the one who killed his father.

Still holding several large planks in one arm, while both of his daughters occupy the other now, he nods slowly in Lilith's direction. "Right, the basement." Looking down at Elaine first, then to Violet in his arms, he tells them, "We're going down to the basement now. We won't let anything hurt you." There's a firmness to his tone, but in truth, he was having a hard time convincing himself of this.

Monsters like the crab-hybrid would be enough to make anyone who viewed them go mad with their grotesque and unnatural movements to go with that image of horror. Byron tries his best to keep the children from seeing the creature in full as he shields Violet's eyes and helps to usher all of the little Thornes down the steps to the basement.

Even as a child, the basement was scary; but in that childhood way. Then again, the Thorne House was always filled with shadows in its every nook and cranny.

Their descent into the basement was like a descent into madness; the way their minds should have snapped just by just laying eyes on the creatures that now hunt them. Thank God for the darkness, right? The Thorne House was always full of darkness and that's what engulfs them, as a family, now. His hold tightens on Violet, hearing the children panic and Lilith scream. Though he can no longer see any of them, he could still feel his youngest's grip against his shoulder while his oldest squeezes at his hand. Or is that what he's really feeling? It was as if all of the air in his lungs had been drawn out and he was suffocating.

He told them that he wouldn't let anything happen to them. He tried to reassure them.

---

Byron Thorne's body jolts awake to take in several quick breaths, his brow moist with panicked sweat and his hands... they weren't gripping his children, his fingers were tightly wound around the steering wheel. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust and for him to catch his breath. Somehow, as they were turning onto Oak, at some point, they came to a stop right outside of the Thorne House. The Wraith, with its engines was right there in the middle of the road, while a car behind them blared its horn. Who knows how long they'd kept that up, but before Byron has the time to react, the other driver pulls into the lane going in the opposite direction just to pass the luxury car by.

For now, the Thorne House was in darkness. There were no lights to be seen shining through those windows and while Lilith might not feel it, Byron has a sense of eyes upon them.

Lilith. Hearing a gasp from the passenger seat, he turns to her, but not without moving the car forward to distance themselves as far away from the old house as possible. The sky had opened up with heavy rain in this darkness while a thick fog rolled through the town.

Did Lilith experience the same thing he had? He heard her scream. What about the children? What were their names again?

"Lil." He swallows deeply, his heart was still racing.

A choking gasp comes out of Lilith that seems transitional, a cut off scream where she's taking the breath for the next. She never gets that breath in full, though, she's winded by being pitched out of the Dream in such a confusing, traumatizing way. There's the disorientation of dark rain and car lights and horn, a dashboard with electronic lights, the soft purr of the motor as Byron pulls forward from idle stop in the street by the old Thorne house.

It smells like leather and his cologne in here, her expensive Italian perfume she wears explicitly for date nights to keep it special. She knows what happened, it happens often, these things that steal them away, hurt them in so many ways when they're least suspecting. Her leg burns and feels tender and raw, but she knows it's superficial and she doesn't think about it right now.

What's really bothering her as she pants for breath and comes to is... the fact that her hands and arms are... empty. Lilith can't help but look in the back of the car for a moment, then back at Byron, then all around for an utterly haunted moment.

"Byron?" She sounds a little gutted now that she's realizing how very real and unreal their 'children' in the Dream were. Suddenly, she's gripping with both of her hands for one of his for the sake of holding something, "That..."

It was utterly stakes-raised terrifying is what it was. It wasn't just about the two of them. Lilith has no words for the stark separation anxiety that lingers now that it's just her and Byron again, no children. She's remembering their names very clearly, but she won't say them. They were just constructs of love and hope, right? Tools to increase the suffering, and so it goes...

Lilith was bleeding and in agony within the Dream, so that's what Byron looks for now that he's driven the car out of Oak to head towards Downtown. They were far enough away from the Thorne House that they can stop for a second. It's not just Lilith's leg that he's examining by the grace of the car's ceiling light, but just Lilith as a whole. He knows full well what happened in that Dream, if she was there with him. He's still not entirely convinced. There is a chance that she was pulled into a different Dream entirely, separate from his. But simultaneously? When they were both together? Has that ever happened?

He knew that Lilith had been physically hurt by that crazy crustacean freak. But there was also the children. Their life together in some made up construct of a world. That wasn't their life. It was never their life.

They were still dressed in their Valentine's Day Date Night attire, which is fitting, because those bastards (The Dark Men) seemed to enjoy toying with them viciously during this particular holiday. At least this time, he wasn't forced to kill Lilith, right?

Stroking at her hair, he tells her that everything was okay now before starting up the car again and driving her home so that he can make them some Kahlua hot chocolate while tending to her leg.