Chapter Text
The world was being torn apart.
The threads of their very universe seemed to unspool at the reckless hand of a grinning child god.
The sky was so, so light , as if the stars themselves were reaching down to give the Collector all their luster. They might as well have had the power of them all, too, for how freely they unwound a world that was not theirs to command.
Willow missed when the sky of the Boiling Isles was not blood-red and draining the Isles of its magic. She missed when it was bleached an impossible white with a power no witch, demon, or human could comprehend.
Willow’s head spun like the giant pieces of the Titan spiraling high above them, but amid the fray of her mind, she searched it for one thing: an escape. To get everyone off this trembling platform and to safety, away from this Collector and away from the debris.
The ground underfoot gave another mighty tremor, and instinctively Willow took a step backward, avoiding falling through a crack that had bloomed and yawned to reveal the darkness below them. This platform was being pulled apart and they needed to move now . But where? Where , when the Titan itself was being torn apart?
She spun, to where the giant doors of the head’s hidden chamber had been blown open. There, at its heart: the portal.
“I think there’s a way out!” Willow exclaimed, gesturing to the door. Hunter and Gus rushed by her, wasting no time, and she followed after. She hoped Amity, Luz, and King were just behind.
Fleeing the platform felt impossibly long, as if the door was getting farther away from them the closer they actually got. Hunter led, but Willow had to narrowly avoid running into both him and Gus. Alarmed, thinking he had been hurt as Gus cried his name, Willow turned ready to help them- but Hunter’s lips pulled into a resolute line as he stomped through what remained of Belos on the trembling ground.
No part of Willow could even feel relief at the demise of Emperor Belos. No part of her could feel relief for the draining spell being ended, for the safety of Hunter and her dads and every other witch on the Isles with a sigil emblazoned to their wrists.
There was only room for getting to that portal door and getting out, out, out before their world fell apart on them.
They reached the flickering portal, its powers flickering in and out as its supports struggled to brave the quaking. Willow’s lungs strained with frantic breath until the portal’s eye gleams to life again, and Hunter rushes forward to tear the door open.
A dark and swirling vortex looks back at them, swirling with motes of starshine. Then it fizzled, and in its place, dark rain pelted down from a sky Willow couldn’t see.
“It’s human rain,” Gus gasped. “It’s okay!”
She had no time to consider what this meant as Gus rushed into the rain on the other side. She followed Hunter through the door, onto sodden wood that shouted in protest beneath their boots and she startled when raindrops scattered on her skin.
But the raindrops did not sting. They ran cold and wet down the scores on her arms and cheeks.
Amity cried for Luz behind her and they all turned, eyes wide.
Luz had ensnared herself deeper into the chamber. Vines bloomed from glyphs scattered at her feet, wound around her arms and legs, creating a web of green that splices the light flooding in from outside. Backlight glowed like an ethereal halo around Luz and King as more of the skull is destroyed beyond them.
Suddenly the doorway glowed gold, and Willow’s heart dropped into her icy stomach. She rushed back, ready to throw her hands into the vortex as if to pull Amity and Luz to safety herself-
Luz was crying, wailing for Amity to go through, for them all to run to freedom while she goes back for the others. She can’t hold the portal for much longer, she needs Amity to go so she will be safe from the Collector, she’ll be fine, just go-
Willow’s breath hitched in her chest as Amity stumbled down the steps and back into the lair, calling in desperation for Luz.
She held onto that breath as she scrambled in after Amity- the sanctuary of the Human Realm forgotten once realizing it came at the expense of Luz and King.
And in that same breath, everything went wrong.
A stray boulder plummeted from high above, and Willow could only watch in slack-jawed horror as it hurtled directly for Amity.
It happened so suddenly. Luz cried out, Amity stopped in bewilderment, and King belted a sonic wail over their heads that crumbled the boulder to pebbles a mere heartbeat before it could crush Amity. But the sonic waves continued, heading straight towards the portal door.
Willow was only vaguely aware of the sensation of ozone that bolted across her skin as she took one step through the portal before it imploded directly on top of her.
The sheer force blew her backwards, and she felt the fabric of her very soul shiver as it was forced back through the dimensional door. She felt herself crash into someone behind her, her glasses flying off as she twisted mid-air in an attempt to catch her fall.
The ground rushed up to meet her far too quickly and she landed awkwardly on her left arm, her cry of pain muffled by the tight clenching of her jaw. She arched her shoulders, bracing herself up on trembling elbows as groans escaped the mouths of Gus and Hunter to her sides.
At the same time, they all turned to face the closed portal door. Hunter was the first to scramble to his feet, mud flurrying in his wake as he stomped towards the door. His hand fastened around the knob, flinging the door open with fearsome force.
The door swung open to reveal the dark interior of the rotted shack.
Willow’s skin flushed cold with dread, overriding the heat splintering the nerves of her left arm. Hunter’s back remained stiff as a determined hand reached again for the rusted doorknob, swinging the door shut as its hinges shrieked from the exertion after weeks of dormancy.
And again Hunter reopened it, greeted once again by the darkness that yawned back at him, silent and indifferent to the horror that was quickly dawning on the three teenagers.
Willow had no time to let that harsh reality sink in, no time to consider how her bile sac twinged painfully from its abrupt severance from her home - not when she heard Gus sniffling immediately to her right.
He collapsed first to his knees, splashing mud onto his pale top and Willow’s leggings as small scratched hands clutched at the padding of his elbows. The redness quickly staining his eyes betrayed that the wet tracks down his cheeks were not this foreign realm’s rain, but his own tears. He folded over before Willow could muster the strength to wrap him up in her arms, the sob erupting from his throat drenching her colder than the human rain could ever possibly conceive to.
She sat up taller to reach for him, unable to withhold her hiss of pain as pain shot up the length of her arm. Hunter, standing still and silent at the mouth of the shack, slowly turned to face the witches behind him. He hollowly found Willow’s eyes, and Willow swore she could see her own question reflected in the taut lines of his face.
What do we do now?