( video )

[unharnessed]

[ he turns around. that’s all it takes. he turns around and the world as he knows it has vanished along with the little girl that’s supposed to be in his arms. he shouts her name ( and the names of the rest of his family ) until his throat burns raw and it hurts to keep yelling but he can’t stop. he doesn’t know if any of them answer him because his ears are still ringing; he can’t hear anything. the explosions rocked the field he stood in and part of him is still waiting for another bomb to drop and to engulf him in flames or another trap of the Espheni’s design.

simply one of the many reasons that drives him to do something he wouldn’t normally be proud of. normal left the building years ago when the aliens invaded his planet. if holding a young woman at knife point is the way he has to get their attention, then so be it. she’s the one he encountered first. it has to be for a reason. he hopes the fact that he found this device planted in his pocket means that it's still functioning. ]

If you can see this, then I want you to listen very carefully. [ his words are exceptionally measured and articulate. he knows what he wants to say and how to say it from years of playing the messenger. being practiced never makes delivering bad news any easier. the discomfort is obvious for those wise enough to spot it, but his duty to his family comes before everything else, even his morals. ]

This isn't what you... [ the girl currently at knifepoint tugs a bit at his arm. clearly (or clearly enough for anyone who knows her) not trying her hardest to escape. she doesn't seem to notice the fact this is being recorded, or just doesn't seem to care, her attention more on her captor than anything. ] -think it is. If you'll just listen-

I’m through listening. [ he tightens his grip around her, struggling slightly to keep her under his control. is she stupid? does she want to die? it only proves his point that maybe she isn’t real. if she keeps this up, he’s only going to press the knife harder against her throat. ] Here’s what’s going to happen: You’re going to return my sister to me and tell me where the rest of my family is, or [ and he sighs, forcibly pushes the last part of his sentence out. ] people are going to start dying. Starting with her.

[ her eyes widen, then, like it suddenly sinks in that this guy is serious. it's the death threat that does it, something shifting in the lines of her face. she moves - subtly enough, as far as the camera is concerned. a sliding of her feet for balance, her hands moving for a better hold on his arm, and then she drops low in her stance. the exact moment she does that, she tugs, hard, pulling him over her shoulder and the camera goes with him.

sorry, ben. you don't really want to put a knife to the throat of a girl who's been training with black widow.

the feed is upside, tilted, thrown off somewhere a little ways away where it only catches a canted view of her legs as she walks over to where he'd fallen - not much more than a black mass against the grass. ]

Okay, now you're going to hear me out.

[ movement, and then the feed cuts. ]

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[unharnessed]

[ there's a running theme here that's going to bring him to his knees and leave him crippled in the grass outside the mansion for hours ( if not days ). the sheer number of responses to this broadcast. it's too elaborate a design for aliens. they would have grown annoyed already and tried something else, something more excruciating, and to not have seen his family members yet ( not even as a means to torture him or persuade him ) is highly disconcerting. perhaps this girl—Allison—is telling the truth. if that's the case, then all of this is real.

he magically disappeared from his world and lost everyone in it.

that means he's never going to see any of his family again and that weight is too incapacitating to try and digest right away. to even allow into the realm of possibilities. it's one of the reasons he's so adamantly convinced he's been captured by the enemy forces and is actually unconscious. none of this matters because it's a hallucination induced by the enemy with technology he can't dream of understanding. ]

Pain is all too small of a sacrifice in the face of my other losses. [ things the Espheni have taken that he can never get back. his mother, his life before the apocalypse, Jimmy, and now his family once more. there's nothing Allison—the aliens—can do to him that hasn't already been done. ]

You're bluffing. If your race had discovered a way to bring back your fallen soldiers, this war would have been over as soon as it began.