Chapter One Hundred and One: Party Favors-Part Two
It looked like all of the storylines that had been running at the time the Black Snow Apocalypse was triggered were affected.
The next trailer started to play.
~~~~
Trailer #3
Intense eerie music started to build as the screen faded from black. A high-tech lab came into view with equipment scattered and alarms blaring.
A soldier armed to the gills, whom I recognized as Garrett, one of the players at the lodge, said, “You opened the door and you're surprised that they came through?"
"We followed protocol!” a scientist screamed back at him.
“We are the protocol,” Garrett responded with a smirk. He was either a great actor or he really was enjoying himself.
A rapid montage began to show with flashing lights and horrifying images of grotesque and hellish creatures. Some were skeletal with meat hanging off their flesh and weapons fused to their bones. Others were imp-like demons quickly running around with burning fangs and claws clinging to every surface. Others were large blobs that appeared to explode with fire.
There was a fiery minotaur-like creature wielding an axe that had been somehow fused to the place where its hand should have been. Its axe was sharp and powerful, able to cut through an entire stone barricade in one slash.
A group of commandos, along with one scientist, all of whom I recognized as players, charged at the demonic creatures, machine guns firing all the way.
“If they didn't want to fight, they should have stayed in hell,” Garrett said as he hurled a grenade into a mob of the red empty demons, resulting in them being splattered along the hallway.
I then saw an image of Garrett climbing up onto a gasoline tanker as a horde of various demons followed him and tried to get to him. He grabbed onto a rope that was dangling from a helicopter, which lifted him up. As it did, he dropped an incendiary device down onto the gasoline tanker.
Someone in the helicopter had a machine gun and was riddling both the tanker and the demons with holes. As the helicopter moved them away, the entire place exploded, sending demon parts every which way and killing most of the demons in the lot.
“Eat this!” someone said as they shoved a gun down a demon's gullet.
Some of the players had really taken to Carousel.
“We're going to have to touch down. A storm is approaching; it'll knock us out of the sky,” the helicopter pilot screamed back at the players.
Garrett looked confused. “What are you talking about?”
He must have played this storyline before and didn't remember a storm ever approaching.
The familiar black cloud appeared in the sky, ominous and looming.
As the helicopter landed, everything turned silent for a brief moment. The team of soldiers watched in disbelief as the black snow started to fall in the distance. The remaining hellish creatures, apparently sensing some new kind of danger, began to run around in fear and started to burrow holes. However, the holes that they dug weren't in the earth. It appeared as if they were digging holes back into their hell dimension.
“What's going on?” one of the players asked.
Garrett didn't look sure. “If it's so bad they need to flee, then we had better follow them,” he said decisively.
The team approached a giant red insectoid demon, gnawing its way through reality, creating a fiery interdimensional rift on the side of a building. They filled it with bullets and then jumped through the hole it had just created.
As they did, the portal closed shut behind them.
The screen faded to black. Large fiery letters appeared.
Parazoid Protocol.
Below them, frozen in ice, the words "The Black Snow" appeared.
Parazoid Protocol: The Black Snow.
The narrator returned. “Coming soon…”
~~~~
I could only hope that they would survive. Some kind of bravery, jumping into hell itself to avoid the black snow.
Then one of the trailers I had been waiting for started to play.
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Trailer #4
Soft uplifting music filled the air as I saw an aerial shot of Carousel looking picturesque. Families were playing in parks, children were laughing, and all of the houses were lined up neatly in rows. The footage almost made Carousel look normal. That ended quickly.
The narrator came on and said, "In a town where life was simple…"
That was a lie.
I saw a view of the chemical plant. With little warning, a massive explosion erupted, sending shockwaves throughout the town. Residents left their houses to look up and watch as a thick black cloud started to form and grow rapidly overhead.
“The old year came to a close, and a new world was born.”
Quickly, the townspeople's curiosity turned into panic. People pointed up to the sky and started to shield their children. Black snowflakes began descending, as all of the noises went eerily silent. Silent chaos ensued.
The scene cut to the image of a woman smiling as she walked her dog near the chemical plant. They were among the first to be touched by the snowflakes. They didn't just get hit with one; they were soon covered. The transformation into an amalgam, a mutant freak, was rapid and shown through quick cuts.
This was the same creature that I had seen on the red wallpaper from the bus.
I saw a man hiding out in a shed. He was a large guy. I could see sweat and fear on his face as he nursed his injured knee. It was Reggie. The light inside the shed was dim, with rays of sunshine poking through the rust holes in the metal exterior of the shed.
A creature that made the sound of a child crying was circling around the shed, blocking out the light that shone through. The screen went black. I held my breath as I waited for the worst. I didn't see anything, but I heard the sound of metal scraping.
The narrator continued, “This Christmas... The town of Carousel will unite in ways never imagined.”
Something large was walking through the streets of Carousel. The camera never actually showed what it was, but it showed its shadow on the ground beneath. I could also hear the sound of 100 people crying as it walked. Their haunting voices sounded in unison. They were one.
“Get ready for a holiday season like no other...”
The Black Snow.
“Coming this winter.”
~~~~
This apocalypse was supposed to arrive in the winter... That made sense. But why had it shown up so early?
Was Reggie the only person who had been caught by the black snow outright? The others had been in other stories. Did that make a difference?
I didn't know if I wanted that to be true. While I had no desire to see players trapped in the Black Snow Apocalypse, the more players, the more likely it was that Reggie might survive.
Where were Anna and Camden? They had been with him. Why had I not seen them in the trailer?
The next trailer started to play. This new trope was giving me more questions than answers.
~~~~
Trailer #5
The deafening roar of a plane engine under duress filled the air. Inside, alarms blared, and the plane shook violently. A team of firefighters—the players who had loaded into the storyline, including Travis' team—were strapped down, hoping to survive.
The pilot turned his head to the passengers and screamed, “The storm damaged our engines. We're overweight. We can't stay in the sky much longer..."
After a few moments, "Brace for impact!”
The screen started to shake as the sounds of metal screeching and trees breaking were heard. The scene of the plane crashing into the forest started to play. It sent up a cloud of dust and debris.
Players were crawling from the wreckage. They had to help each other because some were so injured that they had to limp or crawl. The smoke and the red-orange hues of the nearby fires painted them a grim backdrop.
They were starting out this storyline injured already. That spelled disaster.
The scene transitioned to a makeshift forest firefighter encampment. A nurse ran over to help with the injured and give out orders as the players arrived.
After many of them had received some treatment, the nurse ran to them urgently and said, “We need to evacuate! The fires are coming this way!”
The camp quickly turned to chaos. As they started to evacuate, a thick wall of fire and smoke started to separate the group. Shouts and cries were muffled by the roaring flames.
Some unspecified time later, a lone firefighter, an NPC, soot-covered and exhausted, trudged through the charred remains of the forest. He stumbled upon a large metal plate emerging from the ground. It was covered in bizarre etchings. He crouched down to inspect it.
“What is this?” he asked. His voice sounded delirious.
As he touched one of the symbols on the metal plate, it began to tremble, and it started to lift. It was a door. The firefighter stumbled back, and from the dark void, a figure emerged.
This trailer didn't try to hide anything. The thing that came out of the dark hole was a robot. It was advanced and covered in alien markings. It appeared to be equipped with all sorts of weaponry, including a prehensile tail with a saw blade on it.
The screen cut to black at the moment the robot made contact with the NPC.
A few quick shots came by—firefighters screaming and running as the robot chased and attacked them. Fires burned brighter in the distance.
One of the players, I couldn't tell which one, said, “Something was awakened.”
Their voice was raspy and damaged from smoke. A quick shot of their face revealed that the voice I heard was Vernon's, Travis' brother. Not only had he been slightly injured in the plane crash, but he had also been burned by the fire and clearly gotten smoke damage to his lungs.
Vernon was a tank. And getting injured that early into the storyline was not a good sign.
An aerial shot of the forest was shown. Most of it was burned down. Smoke still rose from the ashes.
A voice I recognized, Tori, cried out, “What does it want from us?”
The scene transitioned to a shot of the robot placing something into a yellow metal box. There was fogged-up glass on the side of the box. As the robot stacked it neatly on top of a row of boxes just like it, the camera zoomed in to show that they were filled with cryogenically frozen human body parts.
The narrator's voice came over, “When nature's wrath meets an ancient terror, the fight isn't just against the flames.”
The screen faded to black, and then a title emerged over it.
Preservation.
“Coming soon. Preserve your seats now.”
~~~~
I didn't want to make any predictions. I was afraid to follow my natural inclinations because, to me, they looked doomed. I could only hope that the trailer was more dire than the reality.
The final trailer started to play. As soon as it did, my heart broke.
~~~~
Trailer #6
Dark atmospheric music filled my head.
Shots of teenagers having fun at a roller rink. Everything looked happy. They were having a blast. The music, though, stayed dark and dreary.
The screen faded to black as I heard an explosion and then a sound that I couldn't place, which sounded almost like a building falling down but worse.
I saw a close-up shot of Anna. She looked worried as she spoke.
“You mean he's been traveling to places in time where people get killed?”
The room was dimly lit. I could barely see Camden shaking his head.
“No. He's using this book to target tragic events. His amulets can only move him to and from points in time where humans have suffered. The roller rink, the bridge collapse... He's even orchestrating his own mass casualty events now.”
I saw a brief glimpse of a beat-up paperback book in Camden's hand. Its cover was splattered with blood, as was Camden's hand and clothes. The title of the book read, “The Town of Carousel: Horrific Events Through the Ages.”
Cut to frantic running through dirty alleyways and darkened streets as Anna and Camden tried to escape from a menacing figure in an overcoat. I could see the faint glimmer of some kind of amulet around the figure's neck.
Cut to a shocking scene that hit me right in the gut.
Camden bound to a table. He was screaming in agony. His right arm was missing below the elbow. The mysterious figure from the alleyway stood over him. In one hand, he held the pendant that I had seen glowing earlier. And in the other, he held some sort of ice pick that he was using to inflict pain on Camden.
As he did, the pendant started to glow in sync with Camden's cries.
The camera panned over a table covered in newspaper clippings with black-and-white photos of various disasters—fires, floods, mass killings. All things from Carousel's grim history.
In the next scene, Camden was even more banged up, but it appeared he had somehow escaped from the unknown assailant.
“If we stand any chance, we have to get a step ahead of him! Do it!” Camden screamed.
There was a close-up shot of Anna holding a power drill. Her eyes were filled with tears and uncertainty.
“Do it!” Camden shouted in desperation.
Next, I could only see Anna's back as the drill whirred and Camden screamed. The amulet, or one that looked very similar to it, was around Anna's neck. As Camden screamed, it began to flicker and pulse, showing that their desperate plan was taking effect.
The screen faded to black.
The title card appeared: Post-Traumatic.
The narrator's voice came over. “Some scars don’t fade in time.”
~~~~
Post-Traumatic! That had been the title of the storyline that I had seen at the roller rink. After they got off the helicopter, they must have run there to avoid the Black Snow.
I just hoped that it was enough to save them.
After the last trailer played, I fell to my knees. I was in shock.
As the others gathered around me to ask what had happened, I couldn't answer.
I felt helpless.
I didn't know what to do.
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