Rise Great Undead Lord Dread

[CondorTalon]

((Dane Lennox continued from The Hunger Artist.))

Dane's path had taken him down from the heights of the waterfall, only to bring him back up as he trekked through the dense foliage.

As he walked, he thought. The name of the game was survival. He knew, had known, and had even stated out loud that many people on the island would want him dead. Then, to survive, he'd have to stick it out on his own, right?

He was having second thoughts about that, though. Despite his own opinions on the matter, there was, in fact, strength in numbers.

Perhaps he let his attitude get the better of him, back at the waterfall. Perhaps not. He had to reaffirm to himself that their objective to find a means of escape was incompatible with his own. Maybe what he needed was to find allies that shared his mindset, as hard as that would prove to be.

Dane was right about one thing, though. There were, in fact, a lot of freaks out on the island. Dane had to be vigilant. As he maneuvered around the cliff, he heard snippets of conversation. Dane looked over, noticing three figures nearby.

Dane didn't say anything. The Uzi was still in his hand, ready to come up if need be. He stood back and simply observed.

[Deamon]

"Yeah uh, help would be good." Forrest nodded a little. Luckily for her, both Meilin and Katie seemed onboard with helping her find her stuff. She didn't know how long that process would take because she didn't know where her bag had even fallen. It had disappeared into the dark green mass that was the jungle below. That really really sucked. But, bright side, help. She needed to focus on the silver-lining because things weren't exactly going great for her.

"I mean, not like I can do much by myself with this." She waved her cast to emphasize her point. She hadn't forgotten about it, just tried to ignore it. Naturally, that plan hadn't worked very well, mainly because it ached and also because it was a big chartreuse cast on her arm that stopped it moving. As she looked between the two other girls Forrest saw a bag lying unclaimed by her feet. A glimmer of hope emerged as she realized she may have gotten lucky. Sliding herself across the wood Forrest grabbed it with her good hand and pulled it towards her upper body.

Her hands greedily went to work prying the fabric open. She looked inside and...clothes. It had her clothes in it.

"Godammit." She mumbled.

Nothing was going right.

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Meilin softly smiled at Forrest, then picked up her bag- surprisingly heavy. Maybe she'd gotten a gun? That would be something, but she doubted she could use that effectively. Though, she wasn't sure how heavy the bag would be without any weapon, either. Maybe this was pretty normal? Who knows. Right now though, she needed to focus on Forrest's bag, not hers.

Hey, this was going pretty alright. They'd gotten a group together, got a bit of a common cause going on, and they hadn't run into any axe-murderers. It wasn't any cause to celebrate, but looking on the bright side was nice.

"Okay, are we ready to go?"

[Pippi]

“Yeah,” Katie muttered. “Yeah, sure.”

She had barely been paying attention to the scene in front of her. She’d just been standing, looking through them, hearing what they said but just about, idly toying with the cardboard box holding her knife. The only thing she could focus on, until they started moving and doing something, was everything Erika had told her. The words weren’t even running through her head. They were sitting there, heavy and leaden, blocking everything else from entering.

It had, however, just about sunk in that she still hadn’t properly unsheathed her weapon. She opened the top flaps, started to tilt the box to slide the knife out, then stopped. She looked at it, boring holes through the cardboard and the metal inside. She thought about all the things you could do with a knife, all the things Danya wanted her to do with it, everything she was intended to use it for. She started to close the box, then stopped again.

“Ugh. Fuck.”

She felt blood in her mouth as she bit her lip, then slid the knife out, all wrapped in plastic. It was just practical, having her blade out. If someone came at her with a dagger or an axe or even a big fuck-off log, she wouldn’t want to fiddle about with bringing it out of hiding. The thing was clearly designed for the kitchen, but it was still wicked looking, with the serrated edge and the double prongs at the tip. It had the intimidation factor, at least.

She almost threw the box and the plastic onto the ground, but some instinct made her slip them both into her bag instead, before slipping the luggage onto her shoulders. She hung out with the other smokers at school and at the gym every now and then. She couldn’t stand the ones that chucked their cigarette butts onto the ground.

It was an odd memory to dredge up, sure, but it instinctively made her smile. It was a memory of home, and as shitty as home had been sometimes, it was miles better than this was. It took her away from everything some, away from the knives and canvas bags and the murder, away from… Erika.

The smile instantly dropped as Katie turned, and saw the guy holding the gun a few yards off.

She blinked once, twice. She saw him again. Felt her heart start up again.

“H-Hey!” She called out. Her voice was still weaker than she wanted. Still weird. Better, worse than her angry yelling? She couldn’t say.

“We see you! What do you want?”

[CondorTalon]

Oh, he'd been noticed. Though he supposed that wasn't at all surprising, given that he'd not particularly been trying to hide or anything.

One of the girls yelled out to him. What did he want? Well, he wanted to survive. He wanted to get home, so he could continue on with his life, as it should be. But he didn't say that, because he already knew how he was going to get what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let anything get in the way of his goal.

Still, though, he felt like he needed to say something. The three figures weren't currently shooting at him, but he didn't know how long that would last if he said nothing. Maybe that would cause them to become suspicious of him. He could see it happening.

At the same time, he didn't really know what to say. He wasn't one for pleasantries at the best of times. And here, saying the wrong thing could also get him shot at. He could see it happening.

"Just looking for people," he said. It wasn't really true. Well, it wasn't true at all. In fact, Dane could probably do without people. But there was still that thought in the back of his head that told him that safety in numbers was important, and even if he committed himself to surviving alone, anyone teaming up against him would have the advantage. So he perhaps hoped that he could use others as aids to reach his goal.

Or, barring that, meat shields.

[Deamon]

Another person. Sure, great. Unless they had another bag it didn't change her situation. Forrest had to go on a scavenger hunt to go and get what she already should have had in her possession because she was fucking idiot. There was a strange tension in the air, and it had been present since Erika had played Chinese whispers with Katie before leaving. It made sense though, they were trapped on an island and had clear instructions on what they had to do it. Maybe the matter of fact nature of it was the biggest issue. The way they had been instructed and it was just expected that they would all go along with it. Just like every other time.

Yeah.

She didn't have a good comeback to that.

"Luckily for you," Forrest said, somberly closing her clothes bag as she did so. "There's three of us here and we're about to go on a scavenger hunt."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

Unfortunately Meilin had missed the person eavesdropping on them until Katie (loudly) pointed him out to everybody. She blinked. Did she know this guy? Probably not, his face didn't conjure up a name for her. While Meilin might not be the best at remembering the nitty-gritty details without notes, she was pretty good at putting a name to a face. Hey, did she still have her notebooks? She had a feeling she didn't.

But yeah. Person. They had a gun. Oh dear. They want to find people. Slightly better. And yeah, Forrest was right, it was his lucky day!

Or their lucky day, if the guy wanted to do harm. Safety in numbers, probably got repeated a lot this day by a lot of people, because it was true. Then again, he did have a gun... oh well, he didn't seem hostile.

Meilin smiled.

"Looking for a group, eh?" she asked him. Why else would he be looking for people? To shoot them?

...Okay, she probably shouldn't dwell on that.

[CondorTalon]

Well, color Dane pleasantly surprised. The three girls didn't seem to react negatively to him. Or maybe they just didn't recognize him.

If that were the case, Dane couldn't help but feel a little insulted. But whatever, they weren't shooing him away, at least for now. That meant that he could at least let his guard down a little bit.

Furthermore, from what he could tell from their words and from the scene he saw before he'd gotten their attention, they were going down to look for something that one of them had dropped. Hey, they were being proactive, at least.

That only left one question.

"Alright, then," Dane said, "What are you planning to do after that?"

[Deamon]

The new person seemed friendly. That was good. Forrest was expecting him to want to rob them or something based on how her day was going. It was rude but that was how she felt. Luckily, that didn't seem to be the case. Instead, he focused on asking a more awkward question.

Forrest hadn't had time to come up with a plan before she'd lost her bag, so asking what she intended to do after she found it was a stretch. It was the equivalent of asking her what she intended to do with her life. Plans weren't really something she did. Mikki was the kind of person who had plans, she was just the one who went along with them.

She gave a shrug in response as she finally stood up. Her legs were shaky and she got instant pins and needles as a result of the movement. The amount of time she had spent on the ground wasn't something she had taken into account. She took some awkward steps off the wooden platform and onto solid ground for the first time since waking up. It felt a lot safer. She kept her bag full of clothes in her good hand as she looked around.

"I don't know." She turned a looked out over the island. Their new home for all intents and purposes.

"Find my friends I guess."

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

What was she planning to do? Was there anything to do here, other than avoid getting killed? Well, she supposed whoever this guy was meant more short term things. Alright, Meilin had a few of those to do. Though Forrest already stated one she had, so she nodded after she finished speaking.

"Yeah, me too. And my boyfriend, gotta find him," she added. "You?"

She wondered what Ace was up to at that moment- maybe he was holed up somewhere safe, that would be the best case scenario, and he would be surrounded by people who want to protect him. Why wouldn't someone want to protect Ace? Why would anyone want to hurt him? Okay, that was her own obvious bias showing through, but surely nobody's that pointlessly cruel, and Ace wouldn't resort to anything... unsavory to make people upset, not now. Right?

For how long?

Meilin took a deep breath, and clutched her bag. She looked behind her- Forrest had gotten up. She tried to keep smiling reassuringly at her, show her things were going to be okay.

For now.

That reminded her, she should look through her own bag before setting out. There could be something useful for their journey in there. She set it on the ground and rested on one knee, then opened it. Sure enough, the first thing she saw was a map and a compass, which she took out. She then noticed something underneath it.

She set the map and compass to the side and quietly unwrapped the weapon, untangling it from the other things in the bag. It was a strange blade, one with a handle and two blades sticking out. Like a double-knife almost. A slip of paper identified it as a haladie.

Meilin closed her bag again, and shook her head. She'd use that when she needed- for now, she'd hold onto the map, which she took back into her hands and looked over, standing up and muttering.

"Now, where are we..."

[Pippi]

Ugh. Well, she recognised the guy now. Now that he had opened his mouth, now that she could properly focus on his face and clothes, and now that it was way too late for her to tell him to fuck off.

Katie didn’t like Dane, and she didn’t even feel a twinge of guilt about it, because it was real hard to like him. Being a fancy-ass rich kid was one thing; her family was pretty well-off, after all, thanks to her dad. But parading it around the place like it instantly made you better than everyone, like they should be worshipping the ground you walked on? Yeah, that was something fucking else entirely.

A ghost of a scowl flashed across Katie’s face, as she turned the knife over in her hand. Whatever. She would deal, mostly because she didn’t have any other choice. He didn’t seem to be acting like his old self, anyway, and that was probably the closest she’d ever come to sympathising with Dane Lennox in her lifetime. It was pretty damn hard to act your old self anymore. Current events and all.

Meilin had gotten her map out and was currently checking it out. That was good. Katie was still finding her way back into the facade of normalcy, and the sooner they got onto the road, the sooner she’d be able to do so. She hoped. Having someone with the initiative to plan ahead and make sure they weren’t just wandering in circles was a promising sign. She didn’t blame Forrest for not doing so. The girl had looked like she was about ready to just roll off the edge of the platform a few minutes ago.

Plus she had a cast on. Made it kinda fucking hard to hold a map.

“I’m probably gonna peace out after this,” Katie said. There. That was much closer to her actual voice. She was getting back, slowly but surely.

“Nothing personal, nothing against you guys. I’ve just gotta-”

Erika’s words flashed in her mind once more, and her expression froze for a moment, mouth slightly open, eyes suddenly glassy. She blinked, twice, and she was back.

“... Gotta… uh… Gotta find my girlfriend. It’d take too long to do that in a group if we’re all searching for individual people.”

Once again, her voice hadn’t fully come back with her, though.

[CondorTalon]

Finding friends was, he supposed, at least a noble goal. Increase your chances of survival by sticking by those you could trust. It may not have been perfect, but it was better than allying with people that weren't friends. There was an element of uncertainly that always came if you couldn't explicitly put your faith in someone who held your life in their hands.

Him? He didn't really have any friends. Not really. Sure, there were some that he tolerated, and some even that he... dare he say, actually enjoyed the company of. And those were few and far between, anyway.

Dane had to consider what was the best of the three.. no, two options here. The one that he'd intended to stick with when he left the waterfall, where trusting no one and sticking to yourself was the optimal choice, or the one presented here to him right now. Sure, they weren't friends, but they weren't, for now, enemies either.

The one girl... Katie, if he recalled, stated that she wasn't going to stick around for long. The sentiment was agreeable. After all, Dane had, until just moments ago, would have done the same. However, her reasoning was... well, kind of stupid. No, really stupid.

"That's not-" he started with a growl, before shutting himself up.

That's not how it works, is what Dane meant to say. Splitting up didn't make you any more likely to find specific people you were looking for, especially if you didn't know where the hell they were. All it did was... well, split people up. But did Dane really have any right to call her out on it, especially considering that had been his mindset, or at least... his plan?

"Nevermind," he grumbled, before sighing. He had to be more diplomatic about this. At the very least, even if he wasn't planning on allying with them for longer than a day, he certainly didn't need to make enemies of them either.

"I'm going to try to survive as long as possible. Stay out of danger, ration my stuff, conserve energy, that kind of thing," he said, in answer to Meilin's question.

[Deamon]

That didn't make any sense.

That was what Forrest thought.

"That doesn't make any sense?" Forrest said as she turned to face Katie.

Turns out she said it as well. Alright.

Forrest was confused. She'd run a spectrum of emotions since waking and it was starting to really take hold. But Katie's declaration that she was going to split off from them had thrown her. Just like Katie had been throwing things earlier, girl was good at that. The tension that had been created after Erika had done her drama and dash hadn't lifted. Forrest could still feel it hanging over them like another layer of humidity. She was at once curious and unenthusiastic about finding out more. Katie had been high level angry when she had first arrived and Forrest didn't want to have that turned against her specifically. It was fine if that stayed focused on sticks.

"Or by this," Forrest emphasized her point by pointing down with both hands. "Do you mean helping me find my stuff?"

[BlizzardeyeWonder]

It took a while for Meilin to orient herself on the map, but from what she could observe, they were on the north side of the island- that's where the nature's lookout thingy was. It didn't seem like too difficult of a job to find their way into the wilderness below and-

She lowered the map, and looked to her could-be-companions. Katie wanted to go it on her own? Meilin frowned, but she wasn't disappointed or anything, and she hoped Katie wouldn't take it personally. It's just that she agreed to help find Forrest's bag earlier, right? And besides, it seemed everybody's reaction to this guy here was a bit... off? Tense? It wasn't friendly, at least. Then again, there was probably something she was missing.

"Aw, you're gonna go it alone, Katie?" she said. "I mean, the more the merrier and all, and uh... I dunno, you have your reasoning?"

Meilin doubted that going it alone was any better than being in a team when it came to finding people. But hey, she wasn't here to control Katie's life and anyone who did was- she really needed to get her mind off that. It was a ridiculous idea, nobody could be doing that this early. Not seriously, in any case.

Though, maybe Katie would still help find Forrest's bag. Hopefully.

She began to fold up the map, anticipating the group would be off on their little adventure soon. Yep, just a merry little adventure to find a new friend's bag and then they could all relax and tell jokes and all that. Oh, who was she kidding?!

[Pippi]

“What? No, I’m… What?”

Katie frowned at Forrest, sharing that annoyed look with the other two, fist instinctively clenching around her knife. Where was this all coming from? The idea that she was just gonna up and abandon them all, out of the blue? Sure, Dane was a shithead, but he was being as tolerable as he could be right now; she wasn’t gonna just up and leave people she’d pledged to help as soon as he arrived. Had she not made that clear? That she was gonna help them find Forrest’s bags before she split?

Maybe she hadn’t. She’d still been finding her voice again, so maybe, when she’d outlined her plan, it hadn’t come across correctly at all. But maybe it had, and she couldn’t fucking tell, and she was just confused and it was really pissing her off now, and god fucking damnit she wanted to see Saffron again.

She was just wasting time here, to put no finer point on it. Ever since she’d first woken up, and up until the point Erika had rolled up, the only thing that had been on her mind had been finding Saffron. But she still wanted to help Forrest, of course she did; both because it would give her something to do other than ruminate and dwell on things she’d heard and thought, and because, hell, Forrest was a decent person, and losing your bags instantly sucked.

The part of her that was desperate to find her girlfriend, the part that was amplified by the anger and confusion wracking her mind, wanted her to make some petty, terse comment and then run off, something like “Well I was gonna help out but considering it seems you all want me gone I might as well fuck off.” But making three people bitter towards you, and hold resentment against you for the rest of their lives, for nobody’s gain, including herself? Yeah that was just fucking dumb.

Part of her, that was still lagging behind back home in America, was also telling her not to kick up a fuss in case it tanked her social standings. She almost smiled. Yeah, that was the real priority she needed to focus on. Whether people would tape ‘Kick Me’ signs to her back when this was all said and done.

Instead of immediately saying anything, she kneaded her forehead, raising her other hand up, a gesture for everyone to give her a little bit of space, a little moment of time. She dragged the emotions she wanted to spill deeper inside of herself, bottling them up. It was something she’d tried to stop doing, but had never quite managed to abandon entirely. Just so long as she remembered there was anger fermenting inside of her, then things would be okay. There had to be some replacement for her punching bag out here, right? There had to be. It was more important than ever that there was.

“I’m… staying. I’m staying with you and I wanna help you find your bags. Okay?”

Katie chose her words carefully, speaking slowly, both to make sure everyone understood her, and to make sure she stayed steady and even, not wanting to move too fast and make her heart start beating faster and for her anger to churn and rise to the surface again.

“And hey, if you think it’d be in all of our interests to stick together after that then, like, maybe I can be swayed. Just… I can run faster than I can walk with a group.”

She shrugged.

“I just wanna find Saffron more than anything.”