Open this FUCKING DOOR

DEIMOS And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame It was the screaming that roused him from any drunken stupor; he’d gone through lifetimes of hellish howling, funeral dirges, requiems unleashed from grief, from anguish, from absolute rage. This one echoing beyond the wooden frame coiled in his gut, and he narrowed his eyes, following the traces of backdrop echoes and bestial glows; rising from his favored stool and listening to the bellows from outside. It wasn’t a haunting, melancholy call, made by sirens or monsters lurking in the midnight threads. It was a demand, a command, and the more he listened to the words bounding back and forth, the alarm fizzled against his brain. Apprehension wasn’t an agreeable thought pulsing and winding through his mind; he much preferred the cold-blooded machinations and intentions, the meticulous grind of calculations clawing their way down his spine; but this, this was not a preference, and if he wasn’t so damned curious he might’ve ignored it altogether. But it festered there, too long, and he could feel the consternation building in his fists as he curled and uncurled them, at the pieces of dread making their way through his veins. Quickly, he was behind Bastien as the other was undoing the locks, scrambling to get the ones he might’ve missed. He was swift, but the terror grabbing hold of him (eerily familiar, a beast he thought he’d pushed back ages before), made everything seem slow, cumbersome, and overbearing, and he grit his teeth against the onslaught pervading his thoughts. What happened? Because he knew who the librarian was, but he was so painfully, stupidly unaware of what had lurked between the annals and columns of the Long Night’s stretch; of the veils and dangers, of the treacheries lurking behind teeth, tongue, and hope. Bastien asked for him anyway. His piercing stare simply took in the scene. He didn’t say anything. In truth, it didn’t really matter what had occurred. Amalia was lifeless. Edrei was screaming. The world had battered and bruised another set of individuals, and he didn’t have the skills to mend, heal, or assuage. He could only drain life away, and that wasn’t needed or required here. The Reaper swallowed, offered his arms, his bulk, his might, to carry Amalia in further, and tried to clear out an area to lay her down. “What needs to be done?” His voice was calm, betraying naught of the twist and turns in his throat; he breathed, he inhaled, sharp and distinct, as if he’d seen this a hundred times before. master of nothing place of recoil and grace