Witches Reign Logs

Characters: Sturme and Ragille, Winhill farmers
Location: Winhill
Rating: PG
Open/Closed/Finished: Finished.
Summary: ...time compression...

As Ragille came over the crest of the broad hill, the words he'd heard in the air resolved into a long, half-muttered, half-snarled chain of profanity that a sailor might applaud. The old farmer sighed, but didn't slow his pace as he trudged down the road towards the gates of the fence that ran parallel to his path.

"...damn!" Sturme spat as Ragille approached, shoving the last of the desks aside. Spotting his older peer, he straightened up and without any appreciable pause for breath, continued, "If I catch them I'll spit-roast them over coals so they can feel their skin split as they cook! Those damn kids, piling desks all over our roads, driving an honest man out of business..."

Ragille tuned out the tirade, only nodding absently here and there to keep the other farmer talking instead of acting, because his actions would surely be irrational and stupid. In the meantime, he bent down to examine the desks Sturme had pushed aside. Same as the ones that'd clogged up the road to his farm, he concluded -- make, model, and no sign of the method that had brought them here. He swiped a thumb over the surface, came away with nothing funny at all about them save some dust kicked up from the road.

"Wasn't kids," he finally said, interrupting Sturme's rant with a grunt as he straightened up. "Probably some company trying to drum up business. Kids don't got the time or the motivation for a stunt like this."

"Sure they do!" Sturme was only arguing for the sake of not being wrong, and they both knew it, but that wouldn't ever stop him. "Now you look at this desk here and tell me what company would even make a damn thing like it! No back support, where do you plug in anything, and it isn't even big enough to read on!"

"I'm just saying," Ragille began, but then a rusted, broken 1950 Cadillac Fleetwood Series 60 Special interrupted him by slamming into the ground exactly two feet from where he stood. A younger man -- like Sturme -- might have screamed and flung themselves away in sheer pants-wetting terror, but at Ragille's age the reflexes didn't quite fire like they used to. In stunned silence, he stared at the car, while his heart hammered in his chest and his knees trembled beneath him, only the sturdy support of his walking stick keeping him from tumbling to the ground.

When the 1996 Ford Contour slammed down on top of the Cadillac, its jagged edges and battered frame fitting into the crumbled top of the other car like two pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, then he fell down.

From their cowering positions on the ground, the two men endured what seemed like a lifetime of vehicles falling from the sky. Dozens, if not hundreds, crashing down around them into mighty towers of metal and shattered glass, stack after stack of cars, trucks, vans, and the occasional motorcycle piled like a maze or a city forged of vehicular skyscrapers. Strangely, none of the impacts seemed to cause harm to the already wrecked cars; no metal deformed, no glass shards spattered outwards. They were falling from the sky, but only as a way to return to a pattern that had been present long before they moved.

With a final earth-shaking thud, an electromagnetic crane slammed into place, its long arm stretched out over the cars and the men both. Ragille turned his head to look at Sturme, though neither of them had words; the terror left them shaking and desperate for breath, their muscles unresponsive and adrenaline racing through their bodies.

After a long, long time in which silence reigned and nothing stirred, Ragille finally though he could speak. "Told ya it weren't kids..."