The Wall {IC}

Faodaile

Indiana Jones 2.0
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{ Character Depository }
{ Recruitment Thread }
{ OOC Chat + Q&A }

OOC Rules:
↠ Don't be rude OOC. This means no fueds!
↠ At least 500 words per post. There can be exceptions to this, but no one liners, etc.!
↠ Keep character/character combat to a minimum to prevent arguments.
↠ Most importantly... Have fun!
Post Pattern:
I am going to disregard the post pattern for now. If we need it later on I'll implement it, but I was having second thoughts!
Just be sure to give others time to respond, etc. There are six people after all! Post all you want until we get into a larger group- then it will be more important to take time and let each person respond before you do.
Map:
See the tab above!
Players:

@Faodaile - {Mirabelle: Telekinetic}
@romamaro - {Alistair 'Ally' Benson: Waterbreather}
@TheGreenerGrey - {Dylan Andrews: Teleporter}
@jrusso20 - {Felicia Hardy- Night Vision}
@Bee - {Isaac Yu: Pathfinder}
@inkdragon - {Anjali Pandey: Superhuman Strength}
 
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It all began with a gasp. Not the sort that you do when you are surprised, but the kind of gasp that truly means that you are suffocating: the manner of which displays the utter inability to breathe, as your brain begins to suffocate from the lack of oxygen that it is (not) receiving.
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Normally Mirabelle would have sat upright straight away and waited for her harsh breathing to calm, but something kept her pinned down. She could feel the hairs around her forehead and the nape of her neck sticking to her skin, which was most certainly slick with sweat. She could even feel the ground beneath her- a soft dirt, giving off the aroma of earth. Through the stiff but semi-comfortable ground something sharp jabbed upwards into her side. It send pain radiating in a dull ache up her spike every time that she breathed in.
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This is what she imagined sleep paralysis to be like. Perhaps it was the pain that kept her so still; the fear that if she moved, the rock beneath her would jam farther into her soft flesh. She dug her fingertips into the ground, feeling the soft mulch that indicates many years of fallen leaves decomposing squeeze around her fingertips. Releasing a choked noise: perhaps one akin to a sob- she reached upwards to grasp whatever was causing her agony. Oddly enough, it was not a rock; but a thin wooden thing, curved lightly and polished down evenly. Slowly, her fingertips slid downwards until they met her cotton tank top, feeling around the area that had been the source of her pain. Blood oozed between her fingertips, thick and scarlet.
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Releasing a mangled cry of agony she gripped the hilt of- perhaps it was a knife? Yanking it from her body and shakily dropping it onto the mulch-covered floor. Her hands reflexively moved to the wound, caressing it with some amount of pressure, face contorting lightly into something displaying pure torture.
Blood flowed like a lazy river winding through the red-clay banks of Dublin, Georgia. But this was certainly not there. As her eyes began to focus on what lay above her as she lay huddled on the forest floor, her mind began to register this- and form a hypothesis.
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What did she last remember? Her mind whirled as she tried to scrabble up a hypothesis as to what she was doing in a place that was clearly not home.
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Car keys. The soft jingling as car keys as she walked, completely unpained, towards her car. Of course, in this day and age, she didn't need to drive. All of the cars that she knew of were automated, including her own.
Grasping her side, Mirabelle made slowly to sit up, her vision blurring briefly- if only to return to normal as she squinted upwards through the heavy leaf canopy above. Something hummed not far off- Cicadas, if she remembered correctly.
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Hesitating if only for a moment, she lowered her gaze to look around herself on the forest floor. A knife- which she had predicted correctly- lay, bloodied and dirty- on the ground beside herself. Oddly enough, five more that had been knocked askew by her brief scramble lay only a few feet to her right.
What were they meant for? Had she been kidnapped and left for dead? Surely her captors knew that a wound like this- though painful as it was- would not kill her with proper medical attention. All she had to do was go to a hospital and have one of their automated machines sew her up. It was a relatively painful experience from what she remembered of when she fell and cracked her chin open as a child.
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Mirabelle sucked in a deep breath of the oddly fresh air, noting the lack of pollutants that normally clogged her airways. Furrowing her brow, she made an attempt to stand- still clutching her bleeding side carefully. Releasing but a grunt of pain, she stumbled several steps left and leaned her shoulder against the trunk of a tall oak tree that had been so conveniently placed there.
Readying herself, she took in another deep breath of air before calling out. If her captors were nearby, they would certainly come back to finish the job. But it was worth a shot, right?
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"Hello?" Her voice echoed in the woodland, and she was met with only the faint gurgling of stream not far in the distance. Glancing downwards, she eyed up the weaponry left on the ground to her right. What would she do next?

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Dylan groaned. Moving his hand to cover his closed eyes from the light shining directly into his eyes, he swears vengeance upon whoever thought it was a good idea to turn the all the lights on and strip him of his blankets. Rolling over onto the earth he was on, he... wait.

Dylan's eyes snapped open and is greeted by the sight of hard packed earth and grass, his ears registering for the first time the sound of birdcalls that seemingly permeated the air. Panic filled Dylan's mind as he quickly tried to bolt upwards, which resulted in his body yelling at him and left him in a half standing, half crouched state, gasping in pain as his few muscles began to relax.

After about half a minute of this he found that he could finally stand with only minor amounts of trouble. Legs shaky from exertion, he looks around him. Around him all there seemed to be was durst and grass. A bit beyond that was the line of a forest. This told him all he needed to know. He had no clue where he was.

Then he turned around.

A wall the size of... well, he wasn't sure from this angle but it was massive. Just looking at it gave him vertigo. This thing had to be hundreds of feet high! Idly he wondered if someone had let former President Trump out of his special holding cell.

"Okay Dylan. This is either the most messed up dream you've had, yes including that one with the sheep, or something's really, really bad. Let's just hope this isn't like the Hunger Games." He mutters to himself, finding that he relaxes a bit at the sound of the familiar noise.

Taking a hesitant step forward Dylan feels his feet collide with a solid object. Looking down he sees the sight of a bag. But not just any bag, his bag. It had the tear in it and everything. But it had been missing for weeks. "What are you doing here?" He asks the inanimate object before crouching down and opening the pack.

It didn't take him long to know that it couldn't be his bag. He didn't usually carry a bunch of rope, an empty... he thinks it was called a water skin? Weren't they used back in medieval times or something? Some crackers, a featureless jacket, what looked to be a magic stone and was that... was that Teddy?

Quickly pulling the small bear out of the pack, Dylan quickly smelled the stuffed animal. "You even smell the same. Guess if I ever needed you this would be it, huh?" He says, grinning at the bear before giving it a tight cuddle. "Amazing that even after all these years you still work." He cheerily says before zipping the bag back up, shouldering the pack and carrying Teddy in one hand.

Being careful to move, he slowly makes his way towards the wall. With every step closer it seemed to become more and more foreboding. After only a few metres he reached the base of the large construct. "Welp, here goes nothing." He says to Teddy, before stepping forward and slapping his hand down on the wall. "HEY! WHAT THE FU- ack!" He cries, shaking and blowing on his now smarting hand. "What the hell is up with that? How did they electrify a wall?" He asks himself.

"Guess that's not an option. Any ideas Teddy?" He asks the bear, only to be met with silence. "What am I doing talking to you." He says after a few moments of silence. Calling up all he knew about survival he knew that the first thing he should do was figure out where the closest supply of water was.

Looking around he couldn't see any water, so he decided to rely upon his hearing. Taking a few calming breaths, he clams up, searching for the sound of rushing water. Listening, he sifted through the various sounds, noting that now that he knew what to look for he could hear the small hum of electricity through the wall.

After a period of silence from the local birds he finally managed to hear the sound of running water coming off somewhere to his right. A grin splits his face as he quickly makes his way towards it, bag on his back and Teddy in hand. Unfortunately for him he also forgot that his body wasn't in any condition to move faster than a short legged walk and he promptly tripped.

Closing his eyes just before he hit the ground, Dylan found himself filled with a sensation of weightlessness for a fraction of a second, then the feeling of the ground under his feet. Opening his eyes, he was greeted by the sight of the world from the point of view of someone standing up and not lying on the floor. "What the h-" he mutters before suddenly, his body all of a sudden plagued with exhaustion, to the point where he felt as if he was going to throw up. So he did. Or he tried to.

Bending over with his hands on his knees, he felt his stomach revolt against him as his limbs trembled, his body rejecting whatever it was that he ate last night. Wiping his mouth he slowly stood up, tears in his eyes as his limbs trembled. "What the actual fuck is happening?!" He cried, his throat uncomfortable and burning.

"Gotta get to the water. Clear my throat. See if there are any others. Come on Teddy." He mutters as he grips the bear's paw as he straightens up, the animal dangling from his side, and begins to make his way towards the direction of the stream at a far slower pace.
 
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Felicia Hardy

She awoke very suddenly, gasping and jerking to an upright position. The world around her was blurred, as if she hadn't opened her eyes in days. Felicia regretted sitting up so quickly as dizziness overtook her and she nearly fell backwards again, barely having time to catch herself with a hand on the dirt.

As her senses cleared and she started to see her immediate area more clearly, the fact that her hand was clutching dirt began to register as odd to her. Why am I on a dirt floor? Then it became clear, she was in some sort of random forest, with absolutely no idea of how she got there.

Her surroundings consisted of trees, a cave that loomed not far behind her, and the faint glimmer of what seemed to be a lake in the distance in front of her. A bag lay to her side, containing a water skin, crackers, a light jacket, and... the ruby pendant her mom gave her before she moved out to college, though the necklace string was nowhere to be found. "Momma, where am I?" She whispered to the ruby, clutching it in her hand and bringing it close to forehead.

The last thing she remembered was walking down the streets of New York late at night. A study session with her friends had run long, but she didn't feel the need to carpool with them since her dorm was only a few blocks away. That must have been her mistake. She must've been kidnapped and left for dead far outside the city.

Letting all this information process, she eventually felt strong enough to stand up. Her first order of business was to make it to that lake, she was parched. She had no light source to investigate the cave, but made an X in the dirt with her shoe to help remind her to come back to it, she'd do the same once she reached the lake.

It didn't take her that long thankfully, only about a ten minute walk. What surprised her was how big the lake was. If her captors wanted her to die out here, why would they leave her so close to a water source?

That wasn't the only thing that surprised her though. She saw what appeared to be another human on the opposite side of the lake. It was hard to tell as they were very far away, but they appeared to be male. "Hello?! Are you alright over there?!" She called out, hoping that her yells would reach the new person.
 
Jeez, it was cold. Had someone left the AC on, or something? It was probably Jared; he had some pretty bad habits like that. The cold air spiralled around Ally’s arms, making his teeth chatter and his hair stick up. His eyes flickered open at the sensation, and he came to a realisation; he wasn’t in an unpleasantly cold apartment. He was outside, with a big open sky and birds flying overhead.

He slowly sat up and looked around. Where was he? A beach? No, not that, and thank god. A beach would have been even worse. He was on the shore of a lake, with some sort of forest in every direction. He closed his eyes, trying to think back. The last thing he could remember was going out with his friends to a bar.

He could piece things together from there. A good time gone wrong, and he’d managed to stumble into a forest, somehow. No hangover, though! He went to his jean pocket for his phone, but it wasn’t there. His eyes widened and he stumbled to his feet, hoping that it hadn’t fallen into the lake.

While he was scanning the area for any sign of his phone, his eyes fell on a bag. A brown backpack, lying on it’s side, dangerously close to the water. He forgot about his phone for the moment, grabbing the bag by the strap and dragging it away from the lake. He kneeled down on the stony shore, wincing a little as the small sharp stones dug into his ankles, and opened the bag up.

He took things out one by one. Something that looked like a water bottle, crackers and some rope. When he found the jacket he decided to put it on; the wind was still getting to him. The next thing he pulled out was pretty surprising to him. A red leather notebook; his reading record! He’d lost it about a couple months ago, when he'd went home to visit his family and found that it wasn't where he'd left it when he moved to Charlottesville. He’d been pretty devastated about it. He flicked to the first page, and he knew it was definitely his; the first entry was on the 14th October, 2012, and it was a detailed review of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. He laughed a little and slipped the book into his back pocket, dedicated not to lose it again.

He looked into the bag to check if there was anything else. He noticed a slight blue light. He furrowed his brow, digging his hand into the bag and wrapping his fingers around the thing. What he pulled out confused him; a small, but shining blue stone. He huffed as he turned it over. “The hell…?” He muttered.

Things weren’t adding up. Sure, he could believe he’d gotten drunk and lost, but he wouldn’t have ever let his phone out of his sight. Even when he was plastered, he wasn’t that dumb. This bag confused him even more. How the hell had it ended up here, first off? It didn’t look like there was anyone around. And with his reading record inside, no less! He wasn’t going to lie, he was pretty happy he found it, but the circumstances were extremely suspicious.

He ran a hand through his hair as he tried to make sense of it all, and as he did his wrist grazed his neck. He winced at the warm pain that started, and then got even more confused, lifting his hand to touch his neck. He could feel gaps in his skin, but they weren’t like cuts. They didn’t hurt like cuts should have, though it was still a slight, warm pain that got worse if he pressed it.

He dropped the blue stone to the ground and shuffled closer to the lake. He looked into the water and turned his neck to see better.

On either side of his neck were four slits. They weren’t bleeding, but they were pretty red like they’d just been hit. Looking into them made it look like there was nothing but black inside his neck. He stared at them for a few moments, and then screamed. He jumped back and away from the lake, falling onto his back. He panted for a few seconds, staring up at the sky, trying to quell the panic that bubbled up in his chest. What the hell was on his neck? This was not a good time gone wrong!

After calming himself down the most that he would be able to, he lifted his hand to his neck. They were still there, and he definitely wasn’t imagining them. He returned to the lake, taking a closer look. They sorta looked like…gills. That couldn’t be right. People couldn’t just grow gills. That was something out a sci-fi novel, or something. But they definitely looked like them. Maybe he should test them…

He shook his head. It was a dumb idea, but he had to test it. He took a deep breath - for some reason - and dunked his head and neck into the water. He opened his eyes, thankful that he taught himself to do that without the pain of water in his eyes. Slowly, he let out the breath, and breathed in. He felt the gills shift, shiver, and then, relax. A long, deep, cold breath, that somehow let oxygen into his lungs. Then, he laughed. It was crazy. Crazy! Deep into the lake, he saw something faintly glowing, but it didn’t bug him that much. It was probably some sort of weird fish.

He pulled his head back out of the water, his wet hair soaking his back. He rubbed his eyes and lifted his hand back to the cuts - the gills.
He came to the reality of the situation all at once. Even if he wanted it to be, this wasn’t a good thing. He was a freak. He was a lost freak, no less. It was like he’d been changed by some evil genius, failed in some way as an experiment, and was then dumped and expected just to die. It seemed like the plot of some ridiculous, but incredibly mediocre young adult novel. He ran his hands through his wet hair, and looked back to the bag. He needed to get out. Maybe he could get to a hospital and they could fix him. He had no plans on following through on the evil genius’ presumptions.

He packed the things into the backpack, apart from the blue stone, which he tucked into his pocket. He turned around, looking for some sort of guidance. There was a stream, but it was flowing the wrong way to lead to the ocean. Probably just to some smaller body of water. To the North, he could see some mountains. He couldn’t climb, so that was a no-go. The South, East, and West all looked good, however. To the south, just over the trees, he could see something. It was manmade, most definitely. Maybe it was buildings!

Before he could start off in that direction, he heard a voice calling, faint. He turned on his heel and looked across the lake. There was definitely another person over there! “H-hey!” He shouted back, voice a little hoarse. He cleared his throat. “I’m fine!” He shouted. He squinted, trying to get a better look at the person, but couldn’t quite make stuff out. “Walk around this way!” He pointed to the west side of the lake, aware of the stream to the east, and then started to walk himself. People were good! He wasn’t alone! Maybe something had been changed about them too, then. And who was to say there wasn't any more people around?
 
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She felt the blade in her hand, running her thumb over the smooth wooden hilt. The metal shined, coated in a thin layer of her scarlet blood. Mira's side throbbed, and each movement that stretched her abdomen in the slightest sent a wave of pain radiating around the wound. Gulping back a wad of sticky bile that had been steadily rising in her throat, she turned to the tree that she had used so rudely as a leaning post just minutes earlier. Oddly, there was something that she had not noticed before, a burlap bag tucked between the roots. Half-leaning sideways as to not completely tear her wound farther (though not without her fair share of grimacing and arm stretching to reach) Mira collected the strange knives that had been left scattered around her... Body.
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Had they really intended to leave her for dead? If anything, who were they? This was far too cold to be Georgia- in fact, it felt more like England. Oddly enough, the thought was not very comforting. There was very little humidity in the air, and she could see that a thin fog had settled over the canopy of trees, which did very little for trapping heat to the ground. Her fingertips fumbled, near numb with cold. The fact that she was likely bleeding out didn't help much.
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She slumped, albeit carefully, against the curling roots of the large oak, just beside the rucksack. Resting the- six? Yes, that was right. Six knives, all small and of the same variety. Strange. Mirabelle rested them on the root beside herself, pulling the small sack into her lap. Had her captors left their things here? Perhaps they had been interrupted during their attack and did not have time to clean up- or finish the job.
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The thought made Mira shiver. She quickly tugged on the drawstrings and reached into the sack, pulling out the first item that she felt. A pack of crackers. Only now seeming to note her stomach grumbling in protest to its emptiness, she tore the packet open- pulling out a thin slice of cracker and resting her tongue against it. Salty. How tempting it was to devour the entire pack, but she had no idea if she had water. And she knew well that salt without water was a death sentence, especially in her condition. She was, of course, a culinary chef in training.
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Setting the torn open pack aside, she reached into the rucksack again in search of water or medical supplies. Rope. A jacket. Useful, she supposed, pulling the light windbreaker on. It provided very little insulation against the cold- but at least it kept the wind from nipping at her bare arms. Aha. A water skin. She uncorked the top and tilted it towards her dry, cracked lips- waiting for the feeling of cool, fresh water to nourish her mouth. But none came. Giving the thing a small shake, she finally lowered it. Really? Her captors thought to leave her a water canteen, but no water?
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Setting it aside, Mira continued to dig. Her fingertips found a cold, round thing rolling around in the bottom of the pack. Slowly, she pulled it out- blinking at the strange round stone. She had never known stones to glow in the dark, though she was no geologist. It clearly had no use to her, and Mirabelle set it aside- letting it roll between a crack of two roots with little care for what would come of it.
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There was nothing to help with her wound. She could tear apart her jacket and use it as bandages, but then she may as well die of exposure. She unbuckled the small front pouch that had since remained closed, peering inside.
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Mirabelle blinked. Her wishbone. How in the world had that ended up there? She had not seen it since- well- Since she was eight. She had battled with her father on Thanksgiving day about who would get to split the bone in her own little ritual. Whoever got the larger half would have good luck- and she had gotten it. A wave of confusion crashed over her. How did this end up here? How had she ended up here? It made very little sense, and yet...
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She paused, lifting her head a bit. In the distance, albeit faint- there was the sound of rushing water. In every survival show with Bear Grylls she had watched as a child, water meant civilization. More specifically- following the water downstream. Surely she would find someone that could help her... Right?
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Mirabelle collected her things in somewhat of a rush, stuffing them back into the rucksack- she was careful with the small bone, however, tucking it back into the pouch that she had found it in. Completely forgetting about the stone in its safe crevice of roots, she slung the pack over her shoulder and began to walk. It was a slow process, as she had to stop every few feet to rest against a tree and wait for the pain in her side to subside. But she would make it- she knew she would. She had to. After all, wasn't this all about survival?
{Tagging @TheGreenerGrey because our characters are just on opposite sides of the stream. From there Alistair and Felicia are on opposite sides of the lake and Issac and Anjali are fairly isolated as of yet!}
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Dylan made his way through the forest, muttering to himself under his breath about a variety of things. Where he could be, why it's so bloody cold, how he wants to go back to Australia, should he stop to put the jacket on, what he's going to do to the people responsible once he gets his hands on them, if Teddy was okay and where the bloody stream was to name a few.

He had been travelling for a small while now, slowly making his way through the forest. Occasionally he would spot signs of life beyond birds, a hoofprint here or a rustle there, but never saw any actual animals. Considering the lack of Kookaburras or Whip Birds he could at least tell he wasn't back home, although that was kind of a given considering the temperature.

Eventually a light permeated the almost cloying shade of the forest and he emerge do out onto the view of a decently sized stream. The water was clear, almost beautiful in a way. But that wasn't the beautiful thing to Dylan. Across the stream was quite possibly the most beautiful, majestic sight he had ever seen. Another person.

They were leaning against a tree and seemed to also have a pack. He didn't think that they had noticed him yet, but he would fix that. Breaking out into a stiff legged run he holds his free hand over his head. "HOI MATE! OVER HERE!" He calls out, a large grin splitting his face as he continued to speed his way towards the person until he reached the stream.

Looking at the water, then back up to the person, Dylan gives a small shrug as he placed one of Teddy's ears in his mouth and begins to hurriedly make his way through the water, large sprays erupting from where his legs power through the stream.

"Fckfckfckdazculd" he mutters through the bear's ear as he quickly exits on the other side of the stream, not stopping as he removes Teddy from its position in his mouth and makes his way over to who he now sees is a woman. "You have no bloody idea how happy I am to see another person here." He says with a large grin as he makes his way over to her.
 
Felicia Hardy

Felicia breathed a sigh of relief as the person answered her call. He was male, as she predicted, and seemed to have a friendly demeanor based off of his choice of words from earlier. She decided to follow his advice and walk over to him around the west end of the lake.

While she was walking, she took a moment to truly take in her surroundings. It certainly was beautiful around the lake, but the fog and lack of humidity in the air caught her off guard. She wasn't on the east coast anymore, that much she was certain of.

Then a thought crossed her mind. What if this guy was one of her kidnappers? It couldn't be a coincidence that they were both out here together, but as he came into focus with the distance between them shrinking, she realized that he was about her age, easy on the eyes, and seemed to look just as confused as she was. So she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Hi. I'm Felicia. Looks like you seem to have a similar pack to mine, so we must've been kidnapped by the sam- AHHH!!" She cut herself off as she finally got a closer look at the guy. He seemed to have slits in his neck, they weren't bleeding but they looked like deep cuts. "Your neck! Are you ok?! Who did this to you?" She asked, rushing over to see if they needed immediate medical attention. They appeared to be naturally forming, more like gills than cuts, but gills on a person wasn't possible, was it?
 
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She had begun to feel her legs grow weaker as she trekked the remarkably short distance towards the stream, and after roughly ten rest pitstops against trees and three re-checkings of her rucksack to check if she had missed anything that could help her dire situation, Mirabelle heard a voice.
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"Hoi, mate! Over here!" She froze in her tracks, a great relief for her side, gaze scanning the treeline in search for the source of the shout. And there he was. A deranged, grinning man carrying a... Was that a teddy bear?- In his mouth, splashing through the previously so pristine stream towards her. Shit.
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Finding herself frozen in place before her fight or flight responses could even kick in, Mira stepped leftwards and flattened herself against the tree that she had been near to before she had heard the call. What would she do? She was injured. If it was one of her insane captors returning... Well could she run? With her side in this condition? Fight? The knives were in her rucksack. Did she have a choice, then?
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Her plan to find civilization downriver now reasonably foiled, Mirabelle began to run. The position was awkward, sort of a half-gallop to prevent straining her side- but she made do. She heard the strange man muttering into his teddy bear as he made the rest of his way through the shallow waters of the bank, and silently thanked that the bank on the side that she had been on was a bit steeper; figuring silently that it would give her a bit more time to try and get away.
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Completely disregarding her plan to go south, she began to run northwards; upstream, though did she have a choice? She had barely caught of glimpse of the man and had no idea whether he wished to finish the job of killing her.
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And she did not intend to find out.
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During her course to the stream she had determined in some painstaking manner that her wound was not as deep as she had thought before; an inch at most. Though it still bled and her running helped her very little, the adrenaline coursing through her veins as she fled did subdue the pain a bit. She found herself focusing more on escape than on her current wounds, though knew full well that she had no chance of outrunning the man. Outsmarting him, though? What was a culinary student to do about being chased by her suspected attempted murderer through the woods? She knew better than to look back as she ran, and did not stop to see if the man had followed her; though she certainly presumed that he had. If he wasn't a deranged psychopath and just a hiker happening to pass through, well...
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Mirabelle began to slow a bit, chest heaving from the strain on her legs and lungs. She spun on her heel, gaze scanning the area from where she had come. She had only run about fifty meters, and had no idea what to expect.
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{ @TheGreenerGrey }
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The air coming off the water that morning was brisk - a nice contrast to the sweat that Isaac had worked up during his jog that morning. He'd woken up earlier than usual and as such had taken a longer variation of his normal loop around the town before heading to the marina to watch the sun rise above the dark water. Pulling the navy blue sweater he had put on that morning over his head and shaking it out a few times Isaac tied the arms around his waist, repressing a slight shiver as he crosses his arms over his chest. Goosebumps rose on his skin at the sudden change in temperature but settled just as quickly.

The smart watch on his wrist gave a soft ping, it's small screen lighting up with the 'messenger' symbol and his sister's name before falling dark again, prompting him to fish his phone out of his back pocket and take a cautionary step back from the edge of the dock. It was supposed to be water proof but he wasn't about to test that by dropping it in. Not to mention that having to jump into the cold water to fish it out of the tangle of weeds and seagrass that coated the marina floor wasn't something he wanted to do this early in the morning.

want pancakes for breakfast???

The text made him smile and Isaac typed out a quick reply;

Um, of course! On my way back r/n, be home in 15.

Isaac spared one last glance out over the water, the rising sun turning the masts of the boats docked in the marina to dark silhouetted against the reds and oranges of the steadily brightening sky. He tightened the arms of his sweater around his waist and turned around to make his way off of the dock and then...

...nothing.

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Isaac woke to the heat of the sun on his face, mumbling out a series of incomprehensible words he rolled onto his stomach which in turn led to him promptly getting a face - and mouth - full of long grass. Spitting both grass and the occasional curse Isaac righted himself and blearily looked around.

Any sleep that had been crowding his thoughts vanished as he got his first good look at his surroundings, breath catching in his throat as their strangeness hit him with the force of a sack of bricks. He wasn't at home in his bed, nor was he standing at the end of a dock watching the sun rise over the water. No, he was... in the middle of what looked to be a valley? One that he had never seen before in his life. In every direction that he looked rounded hills rose and fell for miles, a series of jagged cliffs creating a natural barrier around the furthest edges.

Immediately after taking in his surroundings Isaac went for the essentials, lifting his left wrist up and turning it toward himself in the 'wake-up-gesture' he had set for his watch, the other hand going to his back pocket to feel for his phone. Both attempts had him coming up empty. There was no phone in his pocket and the only sign that there had ever been a watch on his wrist was the faint inch-thick tan line he had procured that summer wearing it every day. Not that they would likely be that much use out here, there was little chance that an area this secluded had any sort of reception.

Another look around, this one at his much closer surroundings had Isaac locating his sweater as well as a single strap shoulder bag that was most certainly not his but had evidently been left in a place where he would find it, the grass around it pressed down so that it would be visible. A quick search through the main pocket of the shoulder bag had him finding an old-fashioned water skin, a package of what looked to be saltine crackers, a neatly coiled length of rope and a neatly folded jacket. The smaller front pocket contained a blue stone that seemed to glow even in direct sunlight and a compass. Wholly uninterested in whatever it was that was going on with the stone Isaac tucked it back into the bag and turned his attention to the compass.

It hadn't struck him at first but the longer he looked at it and turned the device in different directions the more evident it was that it was broken. The impact in the glass was also a dead giveaway but in his defence, it had been a long time since he'd seen nevermind used a compass. Hell, the last time he'd held one was on a camping trip with his dad and sister and he'd dropped that one off of a cliff on accident and that had been the end of it. It had been upsetting at the time but he'd long since gotten over it, at the time it had been special because it was his - he'd even carved a messy 'Isaac' into the back of it with a pocket knife - but at the end of the day it had just been a compass, nothing to cry about.

Feeling oddly nostalgic and a little better about his strange surroundings Isaac lifted the bag's strap over his head so it fell across his chest then pocketed the compass and stood, stretching his arms up and over his head then bending over to reach his toes. If he was going to get anywhere it was going to take a fair amount of walking and with the sun high in the sky he'd already lost a fair amount of daylight hours. Opposite of the direction he had woken up facing the peaks of several trees crested the top of one of the many hills. They seemed like his best bet, better than the cliffs and hills anyway, at least they would provide for more shelter than the openness of the valley.
 
Anjali woke slowly, like she would on a slow Saturday morning. She had always appreciated the rare days when she didn't have to set an alarm to rush out to class or work. The wind was cool on her face and she- wait. What? Wind? What wind?

A realization made in a hazy half-dream snapped Anjali Pandey back into reality. Immediately she was on her feet. She had woken not in her bed, but outdoors, on a soft forest floor. Overhead, leafy trees swayed in the breeze, a shady canopy that would have been beautiful if it hadn't been for the terror that now had her frozen. What the hell was going on? She checked her pockets. Her phone was gone, as were her wallet and keys.

A bag. There was a bag, by her feet. That was a task to do. Anjali would not panic. Not until she had opened the bag and seen what was inside. Maybe- maybe there was some sort of clue. She quickly sifted through the contents. Rope, a jacket crackers, a... water skin? Why not a bottle? An empty water skin, Anjali amended mentally as she picked it up to take a closer look. Even better. Something rattled at the bottom of the bag, and when Anjali reached for it, she pulled out a carved wooden rosary. It almost looked like- no, it was definitely the one from Daddy's dresser. Anjali had learned to talk to God on those very beads, she would recognize them anywhere. She took a deep breath, squeezing the chain tight. None of this made sense. None of it, not even the beads. When it came down to it, though, she was glad they were there.

Anjali was just about to pack up the bag when one last thing caught her eye. A strange stone caught at the bottoms of the bag, glowing an electric blue. She picked it up, turning it carefully in her hands. "What the...?" The stone yielded no answers, so Anjali tucked it back in the bag, along with the rest of the supplies. The rosary she put around her neck, tucking it under her tank top so it wouldn't get lost.

"Hello?" she called cautiously, shouldering her pack and starting off in a random direction. She didn't know where she was going, so it didn't really matter which way she went, did it? "Is anyone there?" The woods offered no response. Was Anjali all alone here? There must be other people somewhere. Someone had brought her here, after all. This wasn't uncharted territory. All she had to do was find people, find civilization. Then she could call Ryann. Call Ryann and figure out what the hell had happened after that fight to land her here, wherever 'here' was.

She hadn't gone too far when she came across a huge log fallen across her path. The tree must have been huge, one of the tallest in the forest when it was alive. It would be tough to climb over, Anjali would have to go around. As she turned back, though, she caught sight of something strange sticking out from under the trunk of the tree. Some sort of carved staff.... no, Anjali realized as she knelt closer. A bow. And a quiver of arrows, too, now that she had a better angle to see. Whoever had brought her here, they had left her a weapon. They thought she would need it.

Ignoring the chill the thought sent up her spine, Anjali grabbed the bow and tried to tug it free. It was to no avail. The log pinned it down too securely. Her luck. A whole lot of good a weapon did her when she couldn't even get to it.

A scream, off to her left, made her stop what she was doing. Anjali couldn't make out the words, but the voice was definitely a woman's. She left the bow- uselessly stuck anyway- and rushed towards the sound, bursting into a large clearing with a lake.

To her great relief, she saw two people there, a man and a woman, both about her age. From her distance, she couldn't see what was going on, but the woman was staring at the man's neck in clear horror. Afraid to get closer but more afraid still to be on her own, Anjali lingered unsteadily by the treeline. "Hello?" she called, her voice small and uncertain in the wide, flat space. "What's going on? Where are we?"


@jrusso20 @romamaro
 
As they got closer, Ally could slowly work out more of the person. A pale, blonde girl, shorter than him by about five inches or so. He could tell from that distance that the skin on her neck was unchanged, so maybe she was just a normal person. Maybe she was just out on a hike, and she knew the way back to a town!

This thought made him break into a slight jog. However, as he got closer, he noticed that the girl looked pretty confused too, and not dressed the best for a hike. His hope faltered somewhat, and then fully fizzled out as soon as the word ‘kidnapped’ passed her lips. He didn’t have time to fully think on it any more before she screamed. He jumped, and nearly screamed himself, before she rushed over, fussing over his neck.

Dear God, how was he going to explain this? There wasn’t any way he could make it seem even slightly normal. All he could do was tell the truth. In any case, her reaction showed him that she seemed one hundred percent perfectly normal, which definitely poked holes in his Evil Genius Theory.

He took a deep breath, and held up both his hands, as if he was surrendering his sanity. “This is going to sound crazy,” he warned, “but they’re gills. I woke up on the shore, over there,” he pointed over towards where he had woken up and found the bag, “and they were just there. I promise, I didn’t have them before, and they’re not fake.” He took a deep breath. “I dipped my head into the water, just to see, and I could breathe fine. I don’t know what’s going on, and I don’t know who did it. And they only hurt if you touch them. I think that means they’re a couple days old, or something.”

He looked Felicia over again, trying to see if there was anything visibly different, but there wasn’t anything that he could see. “I guess there’s nothing different with you, then?” He asked, just for clarification.

He turned his head towards a voice coming from the trees. He squinted, though the person that was there wasn’t all that far away. It was a woman, dark-haired, and also looking pretty lost. She didn’t look like a hiker, either, and she was asking questions about where they were rather than what they were doing. He took a few steps forward, looking for any sort of weird features, but didn’t go too close in case she ran off. She seemed pretty cautious.

“We don’t know!” He called back with a shrug and a shake of his head. “Come over! We can figure this all out together. I think we’ve all been kidnapped, or something,” his voice tapered off at the end, sounding more unsure. He didn’t want to believe that he might have gotten himself kidnapped - kidnapped by someone who decided to experiment on him, no less - but it seemed like the only option that made any sort of sense.

@jrusso20 @inkdragon
 
Felicia was taken aback at the young man's response. Gills, actual working Gills on a human person. Such a thing shouldn't be possible, none of the medical texts she read during college had told her that such a leap in technology had been made yet.

She was a bit taken aback by his question, why he assumed something would be different with her is obvious but its not like she'd had much time to evaluate herself. "On all outward appearances, no I think I'm the same as I was." She said, now suddenly very self conscious.

Suddenly a voice flew out from the trees, and she turned with the man to see another woman in the distance asking where they were. The man answered for her, even calling her over so they could help. It seemed to be a good idea, maybe see if this new girl has the same supplies she and the guy were left with.

Felicia put her hands in the air, hoping to calm the nervous girl, and slowly approached. "It's alright, we wont harm you. I'm Felicia, and this is... I'm sorry, I never asked your name." She said to the guy with an embarrassed smile. Turning back to the girl, she continued speaking. "We appear to have both awoken randomly in this forest with few supplies. Would I be correct in assuming the same could be said for you?"

@inkdragon @romamaro
 
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As the three young adults spoke on the beach, a slow wall of fog had begun to roll in over the lakeside. It was not evident at first, though as it grew- coming from the west, where Anjali had woken up- they may have noticed a bitter chill to the air. The winds had all but ceased and the birds that had been tweeting seemed to have fled back to their nests. The beach was eerily silent, and a sense of foreboding hovered just out of reach in the darkening sky.
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It was certainly an oncoming storm. For those that had any knowledge of survival at all- or had watched Bear Grylls at least once in their lives- may know that shelter is quite important during times such as these, as exposure can lead to illness and even death.
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Thunder clapped in the sky. Perhaps it was God saying 'get to it, you lazy kids!' Or perhaps it was just the nature of the situation. Either way, time was ticking.

{@romamaro @TheGreenerGrey @jrusso20 @Bee @inkdragon }
 
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The moment the woman (the beautiful, beautiful woman who meant he wasn't alone) flattened herself against the tree, Dylan knew something was up. The moment she bolted before he could even properly step out of the water, he knew something was very, very wrong. "He- hey! Wait!" He calls out, letting go of Teddy and catching him in his hands before he hit the ground. Unfortunately his stunningly articulate cry went unanswered as the chick had bolted. He had no idea why. How scary could a guy holding a teddy bear be?

Quickly leaving the rest of the stream and stumbling a little on the slope, his eyes caught the sight of a small splotch of .. of something on the ground, where the woman had been standing before she made a break for it. Eyes following the woman's path, he could just make our similar glistening splotches. Oh. Oh. He wasn't a doctor, but he could put two and two together. Maybe a teddy bear could be scary, in a psychopathic sort of way. Slowly, he rises, just in time to see the woman turn to face him from where she had stopped. She was pretty quick, although with a frame like that she was probably pretty light.

Raising hands above his head, he slowly shoulders off his bag and places Teddy on it, before stepping away from the item with his hands once again raised. Taking a few small steps forward, which he did not do again the moment she turned a bit in response, he sinks to his knees. "My name is Dylan. Dylan Andrews. I woke up here only an hour ago with a pack, some random junk and an old bear of mine. I have no clue what is happening and frankly I'm fucking terrified. But I do know you're hurt, and that you need help. Now I'm not a doctor but I took a first aid class recently and I remember a few bits and pieces.." He calls out as he placed his hands on the back of his head.

He had to admit, it wasn't one of his best speeches. Then again, this wasn't an army he was trying to motivate, but rather someone obviously hurt and scared. That was when he noticed the chill in the air and the thunder clap. "Also, it's gonna rain and I think it's better to be with others in the creepy unknown place with the massive wall locking us in."
 
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Mirabelle's hand gripped at her side, some blood seeping between her fingertips. If she was in a vast amount of pain she did not display it, though she did look paler than what might be considered her normal- then again, did a random guy in the woods know her normal? He didn't know what shade of blue she was. She squinted as the man lowered himself onto his knees, beginning to relax.
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Unfortunately, with relaxation comes the return of pain. The sort that feels like someone stabbed you in th- oh, wait. Someone did stab her in the side. Mira took a moment to listen to his impromptu speech, though her mind was far too occupied with thoughts of imminent doom to even consider his valiant surrender. Taking a deep breath in, she exhaled- releasing a hiss of a word.
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"Ow-" She paused to hear the last of his words, her brow furrowing. "Wait- where.. Where are we? There-" Closing her eyes briefly, she tried her best to make sense of his words. "There is a wall?" Still a tad bit our of breath, her nose had begun to redden from the cold nip to the air.
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Shaking her head a bit, Mira shifted her hand from her wound. "Do you.. Have bandages? It isn't deep, I don't think, I-" Unable to comprehend what the man had meant by a wall, and clearly not being a doctor (what would a culinary student know about stab wounds, anyways?) Mira peered in a wholly uncertain manner at Dylan.
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"Or do you at least know who put us here? This can't be an accident, it.." Trailing off, Mirabelle had little else to say. She had been berating him with questions and was unsure herself how many she had asked. Placing her hand back against her side, she began to cautiously step towards Dylan. He clearly was not one of her kidnappers- unless he was an elaborate liar- and seemed to want to help her. He looked relatively harmless compared to the people that she had imagined, anyways- no burly muscles, black suits with ties, and no shaded sunglasses.
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"You can.. Stand up, I am not scared of you.."
 
Heaving a sigh of defeat, Dylan slowly stood up. Walking over to where he had dropped Teddy and his pack, he opens his mouth to speak to the woman. "Oh good. If you were scared of a guy like me then it would have been worse than I thought." He cracks a small grin, which quickly dissapears. "Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, I have no fucking clue what the fuck is going on and frankly I feel the stress is beginning to get to me." He says, a feeling of anxiety washing over him before he calms himself down.

"Sorry, didn't mean to swear. Anyway, I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say you also woke up with no idea were you were in a strange place?" He says, shrugging his pack on and holding Teddy a big tighter for comfort. It helped. "Yeah, there's a wall and it's massive. I'm talking Great Wall of china, President Trump sized. Gotta be at least a couple hundred feet. And it's also electrified." He continues, holding up his hand which was still kind of red.

"I don't have bandages but there's a jacket in here we can use to fashion some. I've always been a bit more resistant to the weather so as long as it doesn't start snowing I should be good. Also, depending on where you're hurt there's some rope we can use to try and slow the flow of blood, at least until it's healed over. Not to mention, this river should help. It's pretty clear and, while probably not drinkable it will most likely be helpful to the healing process." He was at this point making his way towards her.

"By the way, what's your name? If we're both in this situation we should stick together, and that's means being able to call for one another."
 
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Mirabelle eyes the young man from where she stands, pulling the light jacket a bit tighter around her small frame.
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"Yes, I woke up in a strange place- and there was a knife in my side. Someone must have tried to stab me-" She blinks as he begins to speak about the wall, taking half a step forward. "Electrified? Where are we? I was- This can't be Georgia. And no, keep the jacket. You should wear it- there must be something around here that we can use. I am not sure if tying a rope around my waist is a good idea.."
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She trails off as he comes closer, backpedaling a step- clearly not quite trusting Dylan yet; but then again, if you woke up in a strange forest with a knife in your side, would you really trust anyone?
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"There has to be a gap in whatever wall you are talking about-" She tilted her head upwards to try and peer through the canopy, but was left with only the sight of the canopy above and some spotty dark grey sky. Mira began to contemplate if heading towards the giant electrified wall was such a good idea in the first place. Figuring that it was in the general direction of which he had come, (southwest, though she had no idea which way was which), Mirabelle turned and began to trek painstakingly northwards.
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"Look, I am not going near that wall. Whoever or whatever dumped us here is likely looking for us, and I don't want to take any chances. Maybe there is a town upstream." Survival was certainly not one of her strong suits. She had never really thought what would happen if she was stranded in strange woods with such limited supplies. She had always had a roof over her head and at least decent food to keep her stomach warm- and it began to grumble again. She almost wished that she had eaten those crackers, but she knew that they would have made her thirsty- and she also knew that drinking dirty stream water was likely just as bad as drinking your own pee. Well, not quite. Maybe not at all. But to her it was just the same.
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God, how she would kill for a vanilla milkshake right about now.

 
Dylan frowned, stopping as she back-pedalled a step. Maybe it was just because of the amount of books he had read, but he was pretty sure that there would be nothing even resembling civilisation up stream. Then again, he didn't have any better ideas really. "You... were stabbed? What the hell? What's the point in stabbing what I'm going to assume is a test subject." He asks, frown increasing as he waited for her to pass him, then followed off a couple metres to her side.

"Well I'm certainly not going to leave you, not when you're the only person I've seen and certainly not when you're injured. I do suggest, however, that you try and stay clear of the forest. I'm not sure what's in there but a lot of predators can smell blood from very far off and I'm pretty sure that I, even with all these muscles I so clearly have, couldn't take on a bear." He says as he nervously peers into the forest.

Looking at the stream, he pauses for a second before stepping over to the water, crouching down and sipping a small amount from it, before spitting it all out. Hurrying to catch up to the woman, who had gotten concerningly far in the small amount of time that took, he wipes his mouth. "Well the water tastes fresh at least, so we might, might be able to drink it. Only for a few days at most though, and sparingly at that. Who knows what sort of things are in it." He mutters as he lulls into silence, frown relaxing a bit but not gone completely as he goes over what he knew about water purification. Really he only remembered two ways, both of which he learnt in primary so he wasn't sure If he was missing something crucial.

The first was boiling the water in order to kill the various organisms floating in it. While a fire large enough would be hard to create, it wouldn't be impossible. The real problem was something to hold the water in while it boiled, as he had nothing on him capable of withstanding that kind of heat. The other was the filtration system, which as he remembered it involved filtering the water through a series of increasingly smaller objects such as pebbles, gravel and sand. He wasn't sure how he felt about that one, because it seemed like all it would do was further contaminate the water. Then again, it would be better if they could just find a freshwater source that wouldn't kill them.
 
Within a few minutes of walking Isaac fell into a comfortable rhythm, he could almost pretend that he hadn’t woken up in the middle of nowhere. Almost.

As he walked Isaac pulled the broken compass out of his pocket in order to get a better look at it. Everything else in the bag had some sort obvious use - aside from the glowing blue stone which he had decided to ignore for the time being - but what use was a broken compass? He couldn’t even use it to gain his bearings with the needle not having gotten stuck but instead moving every which way no matter which direction he turned.

Another uneventful few minutes were spent fiddling with it, turning it every which way and even giving it a shake but with no results. On a whim, Isaac flipped the compass over and stopped dead in his tracks, dark eyes wide and a look that was somewhere in between shock and horror dawning over his features. Scratched into the dark metal was a name, his name. ‘Isaac’. Written messily in sharp letters, each of the lines different lengths, some gone over several times in order to make them more prominent. The more sensory parts of the memory hit him hard then as he recalled scratching each line in, getting impatient when he had gotten to the 'c' and slicing the pad of his thumb open. The iron-rich taste of blood coating the roof of his mouth as he had instinctively stuck his thumb in there as though it would stop the bleeding. It hadn't.

The revelation had Isaac wanting to drop the compass right there, to chuck it as far as he could back in the direction that he had woken up. Part of him found the idea of whoever it was that had left the bag for him and had not only found the compass he had dropped off of a cliff years ago but had been able to trace it back to him to be more horrifying than waking up in the middle of a valley with no memory of how he had gotten there.

Well over an hour of walking later Isaac had finally reached the trees. They were tall and old, the vast majority of them arching up high into the steadily darkening sky. His trek across the valley had given him a clear view of the inclement weather that was rolling in from the direction that he was headed, not to mention that once he had crested one of the larger hills a gust of much cooler air had hit him, prompting him to untie the sweater from around his waist and pull it on. The jacket was an option also but using something from the bag felt a bit like giving in, to what he wasn't sure of just yet, but that didn't change the fact that he was decidedly not going to do it.

Walking through the forest soon negated any sense of direction that Isaac had gotten, he'd had to take several detours and maneuver his way around dense brush and felled trees and soon enough he'd lost sight of the rolling hills behind him. Though there was nothing familiar about any of this there had been a moment of panic when Isaac had realised that he'd walked into a completely different terrain, one that likely held a lot more pitfalls and dangers than the open valley had. From what little he could see through the leafy canopy the sky was still getting darker, and faintly in the distance he heard a grinding roll of thunder.

With the forest silent aside from the rustling of leaves overhead Isaac caught the faint sound of voices from ahead, or rather one voice that was speaking in a pattern that could only suggest its owner was speaking to someone else. Whoever it was, they certainly did not seem to care about being heard. Picking up his pace Isaac changed direction to head toward the voice. People were usually a good thing, though it wasn't uncommon for them to be a bad thing either. Whatever the case hopefully he'd be able to at least get a better sense of where he was out of talking to them if not a specific location.

The trees thinned quickly with his increased pace and Isaac son found himself at the edge of a stream. It was wide, too wide to get across without taking a dip and without a change of clothes that was the last thing he wanted to do. It seemed as though it was going to be inevitable that he was going to be rained on but that didn't mean that he wasn't going to try and stay dry for as long as possible. A quick survey of his surroundings had him spotting the figures of two people a dozen meters upstream and continuing away from where he was currently standing, their backs turned to him.

"Hey!" He called out, having to raise his voice to be heard over the steady gurgling of the stream and the distance. "Either of you speak English?"

 
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