Cloud stops scrunching his face once Rachel stops wailing, catching a glimpse of Freya's giant wings as she is blasted out of a nearby window.
Dinah Pope leaps back once the girl hits the ground harder than a bag of luggage, her eyes widening as she looks over at Cillian Black who simply stares up at the night sky.
"What was that scream?" she inquires, walking around Cillian once Freya begins to stir.
"There's an old Irish Folklore of a weeping woman whose piercing screams were a warning of death."
"Irish Folklore?" Dinah scoffs quietly, swiping away the bouncy curl glued to her forehead before tucking her hands safely away in her pockets. "I must have missed the class."
"We just heard the scream of a Banshee." he replies, tilting his head towards Freya with a hint of a smile on his lips.
He acknowledges that he has pushed his Fury to her limit and can't risk sending her back into the fight but he is proud to say that she and her growing powers have proven themselves worthy of his time.
Cillian lazily kicks her with the side of his shiny black shoe, ignoring the look of shocks etched into her face. "Get up!"
Although the invisible chains bind her to his command, her body cannot physically react when her mind threatens to shatter.
The hollowness inside of her returns, each breath feeling more and more like a burden as everything she felt only moments ago is washed away in his company.
In its place regret fills her and it's his need for revenge that keeps her suspended in this state of in-between.
In the end only the faint memories of the nothingness after existing is what she yearns for. Not quite the memories of not existing but the missing time. The nothingness. Nothing to be chained to. Nothing to fear. No pain. No memories.
The clouds release a slow drizzle, forcing her to close her eyes as the rain slides down the bridge of her nose.
Behind her closed eyes a new memory burns itself into her mind. Green eyes. His green eyes.
"Why didn't I end the suffering?"
She looks up when the rain suddenly stops pelting down on her, wondering if she should say something when she realises Cillian Black is holding an umbrella over her.
Dinah points out the deterioration of the barrier, watching as small tears in the forcefield grow into holes like cigarette burns. "What's going on in there?"
For the first time ever, Freya catches a flicker of something in Cillian's eyes. It's an emotion she's seen so often but never, ever, from him.
Fear!
"Something wicked this way comes." he mutters, finding it hard to swallow as he treads back to his car whilst continuously looking over his shoulder.
Meanwhile, Cloud's eyes twitch from person to person as the effects of the time stop begin to wear off. Chaos ensues as an all hands on deck evacuation is put into motion!
From the looks of things, there isn't a single floor that Hunter and Freya's fight didn't touch, ranging from cracks and dents in the walls to entire rooms being completely destroyed!
It's no longer safe to be here, that's for certain but Cloud forgets about his own wellbeing as he rushes back to his mother's room.
He licks his lips nervously as he makes it back to the floor that was once so quiet it actually hurt his head.
He misses it, his ears ringing now that the floor is bustling with energy as nurses and doctors swarm from room to room like buzzing bees.
He doesn't even make it across the corridor before he spots Jonathan standing outside the room with his head in his hands, standing in the doorway at something that he can't see from this angle.
But, after taking a few more steps, he hears it, a low, whining, continuous beeping, otherwise known as the dreaded flat line!
'She'd dead.' he thinks, suddenly finding himself standing very still as the people around him blur into ugly shapes. 'They took her too.'
Many miles away Hunter's eyes burst open as he senses something ancient, something dark, a power so against the natural order of things that it was never meant to exist.
He tries desperately to separate himself from the tree but his healing factor has made it so his body has sealed itself around the crooked limb.
If he pulls it out now he'll probably bleed to death but if he doesn't he suspects even more people will die before their time!
Neith's arrival is christened by the snapping of more branches after tumbling down from the highest point of the same tree.
Feather, leaves and bristles fall down like snowflakes as she holds tightly onto the trunk of the tree with her eyes sealed shut and her body presses as tightly as physically possible to it.
"Okay girl, this is not your day but it is fine, this is all just fi-" she slips further down the tree, squealing even louder than before. "-no, no, no! I can't, I can't, I can not believe her!"
For a moment Hunter thought his luck had changed for the better but he soon realises that she is just as stuck as he is.
"You're Neith right? Cloud's friend?"
"Who said that?" she shouts, forgetting herself for a second as she attempts to follow the sound of voice below her, immediately wanting to throw up once she sees the drop.
"I'm the Hellhound, Cloud's Paragon...well his temporary protector anyway."
"A Hellhound? You don't happen to be any good at climbing trees do you?"
"Actually I'm pretty great at it-"
"-oh thank god!" she sighs preemptively, trying again to spot him down below.
"Actually, no, you see, the Fury impaled me on this tree." he says as a matter of fact, tilting his head towards the sky to spot how far she is from him.
"Then speaking to you is just a massive waste of my time." she huffs, letting out a staggered breath as she tries to trick her brain into forgetting how high up she is.
He bites his tongue, fighting back the instinct to growl at her for her blatant rudeness. "Maybe we could help each other?" he calls, listening carefully for a response whilst looking out at the woods shrouded in darkness.
"Oh please, you and I aren't going anywhere fast."
"Would you just...no, nevermind!"
"Would I what?" she inquires after it becomes far too quiet for her liking.
"Are you always this bratty?"
"Bratty?" Neith echoes, choking out the word in disbelief. "You're dead to me, whatever your name is."
"Hunter." he replies, simply rolling his eyes as they both fall into an awkward silence that carries on for far too long.
"Where?"
"Where what?"
"Where are you injured?" she asks, figuring she could use something else to distract herself from her own situation.
"The right side of my chest. She punctured a lung I think."
"Your breathing sounds good to me."
"That's the healing factor. My body regenerated around the tree and now I'm stuck."
"Oh, I see you now." he hears her say before she shifts some more, sliding about a metre or two down the trunk of the tree.
"You okay?"
"Peachy." she grunts, wincing at the fresh gash on her inner thigh.
"No you're not. I can smell the blood from here."
The thought of him being able to smell her from so far down makes Neith want to throw up but after considering her options, or lack thereof, she decides to place her faith in a creature from the Dark Realm.
She exhales through her nose, realising there's no need for her to shout since he most definitely has enhanced hearing. "If you leave me up here I'll hunt you down and make you into a rug."
A flicker of a grin appears on his face but he says nothing as she loosens her grip on the tree and digs the fingers on her right hand into the trunk.
"Canis ex tenaci dimittere!"
Hunter groans once the limb snaps off the tree, his blood immediately coating his lips and chin as it gushes from his mouth.
He takes a painful moment to recover, trying to get used to the discomfort of having a giant piece of wood sticking out of his back and through his chest.
He tries his hand at shadow travelling but he is thrown off his trajectory, almost running into a separate tree trunk from the one he was just stuck to.
"God, please, don't leave me up here."
Neith truly expects him to leave her for a bear to find, getting so caught up in her own mind that she doesn't feel the small tremors as he manually climbs up to save her.
"The Gods don't hear you, but I do, and I'm not going anywhere."