VIDEO BEGINS TRANSCRIBING — — —
Judy steps around the camera and begins walking to a camp chair set up in the center of the frame. Nobody talks or introduces themselves for a while; it is just the sound of crickets chirping and the occasional call of a frog or some other forest dweller.
It''s just dark enough to make recording difficult, so the Youtubers have lit up the clearing with the headlights of an old beat up minivan. A blanket has been thrown over the hood to diffuse the harsh light into something that casts a more even glow around the space.
Judy reaches the camp chair, slowly turns to the camera, and collapses back into the seat. She slouches down into the rough canvas, her head looking up to the sky, bunching up the back of the chair. The group stays quiet, looking off into space, as if none of them quite know what to say.
The clearing they’re recording in is surprisingly aesthetic for a bunch on the run from the law. Tim is just behind and a little to the left of Judy’s seat, leaning against a massive concrete culvert that takes up most of the background. The culvert''s cavernous maw leads into a thick darkness, a few spray paint tags of various skill adorning the sides.
A hill rises up on each side to contain the huge pipe, the plants on it weedy and unwelcoming. The green grass of the clearing stands out in comparison to the slope behind. A path cuts through it just in front of Judy’s chair; it leads to the right of the frame where the minivan idles. On top of the hood lying down star-fished is Fumushu.
The three of them are wearing comfortable clothes, Tim in his long brown robe with fluffy monster slippers on his feet, Fumushu in a red panda onesie, and Judy in the same gray sweatpants and loose tank top she was wearing in the first video at the lodge. Clearly, they had no plans other than a long road trip in the car.
Judy sits up and finally looks at the camera. “So…” The other two refocus to the camera as well, Fumushu awkwardly lifting her head up from the hood, “We almost died today.”
That statement rests, the other two YouTubers taking their time to consider it. Judy’s gaze slips past just past the camera, looking not to the audience but somewhere into the past.
“That was way closer than the lodge.” Fumushu gets tired of holding her head up and speaks the next bit to the sky, ”I… it''s a lot less cool, being an action star. You were right, Tim.”
At his name, Tim’s head snaps up, “I’m sorry I should have told you they were coming. I let you guys down.”
“No, Tim, you warned us enough. You warned us how bad this was going to be back at Grandma’s. We were expecting something would happen.” Judy is quick to come to Tim''s support. “None of us were expecting that. If you hadn’t been there, we would have driven right into it.”
That kills the conversation again. The three of them back to staring off into the distance.
“Look, Tim, I’m sorry too. I’m sorry I hit you back at the lodge. I should have apologized a while ago. This all has been happening too fast, and I’ve been so mad with everyone since Grandma died. I just– it all just” Judy leans forward and puts her face in her hands, letting out a growl of frustration and anger.
“How are we going to do this? What do we tell them!” Judy gestures at the camera. “I don’t know what happened, I don''t really even know where to start.”
It''s Tim’s turn to support,“We have the logs, we recorded the whole thing. I don’t think it needs to be perfect now. Let''s just go, say whatever, get it all off our chest. I’ll edit it all together when we’re safe.”
“Ok, ok. I can do that.” Judy takes a deep breath and sits back up. “ It was about… an hour ago, two, maybe a half an hour– Fu*k! I don’t know when.”
Fumushu lifts her phone up– its screen is bright, “An hour and forty-five minutes. I’m watching the news.”
<hr>
The scene cuts here, And it''s a much more graceful cut than before. The screen fades darker till the only light is Fumushu’s phone, then the light blurs, distorting and curving away from the rectangular shape. The color fades back in, the light is no longer a phone, it''s a car window. It’s the view out of the back seat of a minivan.
“Tim, What are you humming? It’s driving me crazy” Judy has tucked herself into the passenger seat in a way that can only be comfortable after hours of sitting in the car.
“Did you ever see that old YouTube video? The Cleveland tourism joke?” He quietly sings the tune, hesitantly, as he’s afraid he’ll be judged for the reference, “~Cleveland! At least we’re not Detroit!... We’re not Detroit!~”
Fumu speaks up from the back seat, she’s the one recording, “Tim, don’t take this the wrong way, but you''re a weird dude.”
“Hey! We just passed Cleveland like twenty minutes ago. Gimme a break. Plus I’m not the only one, don''t pretend like we can''t hear you muttering ‘I sure hope it does’ after every road work ahead sign.”
All of a sudden, Tim goes white and grips the steering wheel.
“Shit-” He lays on the horn, slamming the brakes.
Judy tries to sit up, but she’s stuck in an awkward sideways position. “TIM! WHAT THE-”Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Tim slams the car into reverse, jostling both Fumu and the camera. Fumu keeps it as steady as she can, but even as she pans through all the windows, whatever set Tim off can''t be seen. He begins to zigzag back and forth as he backs up on the highway.
Fumushu squeaks as she and the camera are thrown against the side of the minivan and are tossed away before she can brace herself. As the camera is thrown up against the window, for a brief second, a glimmer of something clear reflecting the sun flashes from the driver side mirror.
The camera recording pauses on that frame, then zooms into the small side-view mirror. The glimmer in the mirror is caused by a massive tentacle rearing up from the ground into the sky– completely clear and jelly like.
<hr>
Another transition, we fade back into the culvert as Fumushu’s phone drops back down.
“How did you know they were there, Tim? What clued you in?” Fumushu asks.
“The feeling, I’ll bet Judy felt it too. Magic of any type has a way of… This is actually really hard to describe. It… Tugs? You''re mucking about in the fabric of reality, creating things that didn’t or shouldn’t exist. Other magic users who operate on that level can feel you changing the world, like someone tugging on a massive blanket in your brain.” Tim talks with his hands, making sweeping gestures as he struggles to describe the sensation.
“That''s what that was? It felt like a little bump running around in the back of my head, just under my scalp.” Judy is a bit weirded out, “Thought I was just tired or crazy, I’d been feeling it for miles.”
“Miles? Sh*t, I should have told you to watch out for this stuff.” Tim looks guiltily at Judy, “We were lucky though, Summoners aren’t the stealthiest magic users. Their pets tend to… stand out in the magical sense.”
As he says this the video jump cuts back to the highway.
<hr>
“Shit, We’re surrounded– what is that?” Judy is beginning to untangle herself in the seat, bracing against the glove box.
Whoever had planned this ambush must have realized the game was up. A clear wall of slime rises up to surround them, clear tentacles waving stubbly out from every angle of the massive barrier.
A pickup truck slams into the slimy beast, going from sixty to zero after plowing just a few feet into the ooze. With a casual flick of a tentacle, the white truck is sucked up ten feet to the top of the wall and tossed into the grass, rolling end over end then coming to rest with a crunch against the trees far from the road.
This scene happens again and again around the circumference of the ooze wall, in seconds the quiet highway transformed by the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass.
Then the ooze starts moving, slowly rolling forward and grinding the unlucky cars against the concrete barriers on the left side of the highway. That was when the screaming started. Until then, It had all been too sudden for anyone to really understand what was going on.
Tim turns around and begins to drive the car in reverse, “Judy, watch our front. Fumu, open the sunroof– Make sure nothing’s above us. If Rick is here, there’s no telling who else the MWF sent with him.”
Fumu’s voice squeaks, the highest we’ve ever heard it, “That thing’s name is Rick?”
“No,” Tim says, “that is Yun’gthax the Unseen Current. Rick is the a**hole who summoned him”
Tim is not having an easy time staying in the middle of the ooze circle. The thing has started ripping out parts of the asphalt and throwing it at the minivan, forcing him to weave between potholes and chunks of rock.
People are flooding out of their cars now, running off to the sides of the highway. A few brave souls trying to save the people crushed in their cars between the dividers and the ooze, most people just barely running to safety then pulling their phones out.
<hr>
A silence falls in the clearing as Tim’s voice trails off after mentioning the other people who had been sharing the road with them so recently.
“I can’t believe the MWF just summoned sh*t right there on the highway. In broad daylight, there were people there.” his voice breaks, “What were they thinking? What could make them so scared, make them go so far to stop us?”
The van’s headlights flicker briefly as Fumushu sits up on the hood.
“Tim, no. Don’t go there. I don''t think there’s going to be any kind of good answer. From what you’ve told us they’ve had a stranglehold on all of the magic going back and forth between worlds for years. And now as soon as they lose just a bit of control they go crazy and start attacking innocent people? No offense but something is deeply wrong with the people at MWF.” Fumu sounds pissed, and just as heartbroken as Tim.
<hr>
The camera holds still through a side window, unfocused on the chaos. Fumu has checked out from the situation, holding herself and the camera static in shock. Her teammates are a bit more dynamic in the madness.
“Tim, Fumu’s seriously out of it, what am I looking for?” Judy is standing on her seat, buckle undone, the car frantically beeping at her to reattach the restraint.
She’s got the sunroof slowly crawling open as she whips her head around to all the angles. It''s hard to see exactly what''s going on as she is just on the edge of the camera''s frame.
“Could be anything, but look for birds. Summons are local, they have to be here somehow. Most of the summoners refuse to use a car.” Tim''s voice comes out terse and clipped as he wrenches the minivan around between the words.
A chunk of asphalt slams into the car across from Fumu, the interior plastic of the door popping off of its fittings with the impact. She jumps and lets out a squeak, it''s the first time she’s moved since the ooze appeared.
“What do you mean refuse to use a car, how is a bird–” Judy’s voice is stolen by the wind as she pokes her head out the open sunroof.
Fumushu begins to move, slowly, numbly panning the camera. She sets the camera on the seat as she crawls over into the trunk, her torso slamming between the headrests as the car twists and turns. A hard yank, another crunch, a tilt of the car, and Fumushu finds what she was looking for and drags it back over the seat– a black duffle. She unzips it, her red panda onesie twisted on her body, the hood covering most of her face– she’s laser focused on the bag. Clothes, the zipper opens to reveal nothing but clothes. Not even hesitating to zip the bag up, Fumu dives back into the trunk.
“OH SHIT.” Judy’s voice calls back into the car over the wind, then we hear her as she ducks back inside, “I see them– big blue bird– seems like they just wheeled around for another pass, Tim what do we do?”
“A Roc. Not the worst” Tim is running out of space to doge the asphalt more pothole than road now.
“Here” Fumushu shoves a different black duffle between Judy and Tim.
She finally picks the camera back up to show the two looking at the open bag full of magical artifacts. A small smile and a mischievous glint can be seen growing in Tim’s magenta eyes. He grabs a tightly wrapped net and pulls the e-break, sending the car into a sharp drift and bringing a majestic blue bird into view in the front windshield.
>>>PAUSE<<<