[For a second, or two of them, it feels like the sick shift of tearing skin means they're losing their grip. That they're going to need to brace themselves for a much messier job, in a minute. But there's no catching something that isn't there. And there's no body to hit the ground. Nothing to lose their grip on in the first place.
Knocked for a loop and suddenly relieved of Richie's weight, he rocks himself back into balance. ...physically, anyway. Just about everything else takes a little longer to adjust. Kneejerking opposite Yusuke, he lifts his head for a look around instead of down—as if expecting the body to materialize in eyeshot, or something. Then, once that impulse has passed, to see if anyone else is as surprised by this turn of events as they are.
But the locals in the background don't seem to have noticed this disappearing act at all. Going about their business without a blink.]
Um.
[So much for staying rational. As Yusuke recovers, he holds his hands up, palm out, as if in surrender, or demonstration. (Nothing up my sleeve...) Or, maybe, for the sight of the blood spotted on his fingers, soaked into the wraps on his hands, as if to prove there'd really been a body there to begin with. (There was, of course there was. There are smears of blood and worse still there to tell the story. But...nothing else. No Trace. No neat nightmare pile of Processed white blocks. No body.)
Wasn't his doing. (So what—) Dumbly, he shakes his head.]
no subject
Knocked for a loop and suddenly relieved of Richie's weight, he rocks himself back into balance. ...physically, anyway. Just about everything else takes a little longer to adjust. Kneejerking opposite Yusuke, he lifts his head for a look around instead of down—as if expecting the body to materialize in eyeshot, or something. Then, once that impulse has passed, to see if anyone else is as surprised by this turn of events as they are.
But the locals in the background don't seem to have noticed this disappearing act at all. Going about their business without a blink.]
Um.
[So much for staying rational. As Yusuke recovers, he holds his hands up, palm out, as if in surrender, or demonstration. (Nothing up my sleeve...) Or, maybe, for the sight of the blood spotted on his fingers, soaked into the wraps on his hands, as if to prove there'd really been a body there to begin with. (There was, of course there was. There are smears of blood and worse still there to tell the story. But...nothing else. No Trace. No neat nightmare pile of Processed white blocks. No body.)
Wasn't his doing. (So what—) Dumbly, he shakes his head.]
...I got nothin'.