I feel the earth - move - under my feet

[dr_riley]

WHO: Drake, Echo, Aeon(?)
WHERE: The Pit
WHAT:  Having a quiet anxiety attack and finding out why the ground do like it do
WHEN: Shortly post pit rescue
WARNINGS: Language


The carabiners had worked. Not especially well, but they had improved the pulling power enough to free Echo of the dry, sandy pit that he'd been sinking into minutes ago.

It had been too close for Drake's liking and everything from the past twenty minutes was catching up to him. The desperate run, the panic, the falling trees, the pulling pulling pulling that only an adrenaline rush could have forced out of him. He took a moment to sink to the ground against a tree and hug his knees to keep from shaking too badly, and it was a good ten minutes before he got unsteadily to his feet. When he did, he wordlessly (and maybe a little viciously) snapped a dry branch off a nearby tree and began scratching deep Xs in the ground near (but not too near) the visible perimeter of the treacherously calm and solid looking clearing.

Drake had never encountered dry quicksand before, and when he was done, he threw the stick into the clearing and watched it sink with a dark, unsettled expression, quietly horrified that it was behaving just like fake B movie quicksand.

"Right..." He finally said. "What the shit was that?!"

Comments

[on_repeat]

Now that he was freed from the pit, Echo was lying face-down, too busy trying to brace himself so that he could recover from the whole ordeal. His breathing filled his ears, loud and muffled by the confines of his helmet as gloved hands slipped, then grabbed hold of it, tearing it off in one harsh motion. It tumbled across uneven ground, coming to a jolting stop at the base of a worn stump.

Gasping at the air, he breathed it in, every muscle in his body aching as he tried to relax. Those ten minutes passed like seconds before he realized Drake was already up and scratching things into the dirt, becoming very still to listen to the shaky, repetitive movement like he was still on an assigned mission.

Until Drake finally interjected.

His head jerked up, shoulders hunching. "Took the words right out of my mouth," he concurred, attempting to sit up from where he lay. "But it obviously wasn't safe."

[hooliganstatus]

Aeon had pulled harder and longer than she'd done in quite a long time. She was at Echo's side, ready to support him as he pulled off and tossed the helmet, kneeling down and putting an arm around his shoulders to help him sit.

"I've never seen anything like it," Aeon put in, reaching up with her other hand to gently brush her fingertips over the short fade of hair at Echo's temple: as if she wouldn't be sure he was okay until she touched him. "And if someone had run into it before, even somewhere else, they would have told us. Everyone's good about sharing things like that, here. Which means this is new. And there could be more."

[dr_riley]

Drake just shook a finger at the woman, and not in a condescending way for once, but in a distractedly thoughtful, you've-raised-a-very-good-point way.

"Maybe. Which begs the question 'what's caused it.' Maybe it's..." But a cursory glance at the trees surrounding the perimeter showed him that they were healthy and so it wasn't a draining away of groundwater into (or carving away) an unstable cavern.

"What if there's- no, never mind..." If there were an underground structure, like a buried building or subway that had collapsed, it would be a true sinkhole with a visible bottom.

Of course Drake wasn't voicing any of this, just letting his mouth begin a thought that his brain cut off when it became unviable.

There were several other possibilities and questions flitting through his skull that he didn't bother even opening his mouth for, like had it been especially windy, how fine were these grains, something about bacteria creating a solid looking crust, it hadn't rained a lot lately, there wasn't construction, and others that were quickly dismissed while staring thoughtfully at the surface.

Finally, he said, "I'm going to look around the perimeter. There's something I'm missing."

[on_repeat]

There was comfort in having Aeon's arm around him, adding extra weight to the fact that he was safe. He breathed a sigh, letting his eyes close as her fingertips barely touched the side of his head. She could feel him slowly relaxing in her grasp, leaning a little more into her outside of his usual straight-backed posture.

As Aeon and Drake spoke, a gloved hand rose to clasp onto her arm, loosely holding on while he quickly recomposed himself, finally reopening his eyes so that he could refocus. "I'm okay, love," he half-whispered to her, pressing a kiss against her wrist without a second thought as he watched the Doctor act out a portion of silent theories yet to be said. "I'll be fine."

Although he wouldn't mind sitting for a bit longer this way, he didn't hesitate when Riley finally came to the conclusion of searching the area. "If there is, I'm going with you."

[dr_riley]

When he happened to look over at the two, Drake froze for a moment, glancing between them with a stricken look on his face. It passed quickly, replaced by a serious frown, and he approached to hold a hand out to Echo as an offer to help him up.

"The faster the better. We need to find out what it is, if there are more, and report to the community."