Honey and Saliva

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"Adonis!"

A bird called back in reply.

"Adonis!!"

No call this time, but the telltale fluttering in the canopy above. A skittering in the underbrush that might have been insects or small animals.

"...Angie?"

Myles's voice didn't even echo, thanks to how densely packed the trees were.

This sucked.

((Myles Roux continued from "Sing us a song of the century..."))

Once upon a time, Myles had read a book. He wasn't exactly the read-for-pleasure type, but they'd had to keep reading journals in freshman English. One of the books he'd settled on was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It was by Stephen King, whose works Myles had never read before, but whom he had heard was responsible for a bunch of weird and spooky stuff, and this novel was invitingly slim compared to most of the others with King's name on them.

It had been... okay. There was some cool imagery and stuff that Myles had filed away, some scenes that played out nicely in his head, all that jazz that people said they liked in books. He hadn't loved it, and he also hadn't found it that scary, but he'd finished reading it, and those few things had stuck with him.

One thing that he remembered was a passage right around the beginning of the book which suggested that you could get hopelessly lost after going just a few feet off of the beaten path. Step into the trees, get turned around, and you'll never find your way back.

Yeah, he was buying that right about now.

He'd had everything all figured out. Things were going to be easy, which was to say that Adonis was going to be easy, thanks to Adonis being fresh off a play straight out of the Bad Breakup Handbook. Adonis was sweet and silly and believed in things like The Power of Love and people being fundamentally good. He wanted to help Myles out, and Myles hadn't been lying when he said he was glad for the company.

Angie was more of an unknown, and it hadn't taken long for Myles to be certain that he wasn't comfortable with her being the one in their little trio who held the gun, but he could deal. She'd probably find people she knew better and go off with them, or get uncomfortable with Myles and Adonis being close because she was one of those religious types, and it'd be fine. It would be easier, with Adonis all to himself and no potential for dissent from an outsider.

Myles had been all set to lead them around until he found the weird sculptures that marked the edge of the spot where he'd first woken up, and then they could dig some of his scattered supplies out of the bushes, and he'd gush about how glad he was that they were there to help, and they'd say how glad they were that he had gotten away from his first dangerous encounter unhurt, and everything would be all peachy until he could come up with a step two to the plan he had tentatively titled Let's Not Die.

And then Angie and Adonis freaking ditched him.

They had stopped for a rest, and he'd had no objections to that. It was hot and humid, and he was wearing a hat and a jacket. He wasn't going to take them off, because he was dedicated to his look, but he was going to complain and mooch off Adonis's bottled water. So he'd done all that, and it had been fine, and then Adonis had said he needed to go do something. Myles had been fine with that too; if Adonis needed to duck around a tree to go pee, it wasn't like Myles wanted to go along and hold his hand. He guessed he'd dozed off a little while waiting for Adonis to come back, because when he zoned back in, Angie was gone too. He hadn't initially had a problem with that, since he'd wanted to lose her sooner or later unless she proved unexpectedly useful, but Adonis hadn't responded to his calls. He wasn't even sure now how far he was from where they'd stopped to rest, if the other two decided to head back from wherever they'd gone off to.

Honestly, people just kept disappointing him.

Occasionally calling out for Adonis and Angie, mostly just quietly seething, Myles wove his way through the trees. All the stupid trees looked the same, and tromping around in all the plants and probably spreading pollen everywhere wasn't helping his allergies either. He hated nature.

When the scenery finally started to change, Myles sighed with relief. He hadn't found his way out of the woods, but he had found his way back to the weird, creepy art. He slowed down from the aggravated pace he'd been keeping to more closely study the things he passed.

When he had first woken up, he had been met with the sight of a twisted piece of dark, shiny wood, spiraling up from the ground and splitting into two grasping hands that reached towards him. He had panicked, and cried, and then he had huddled up on the ground in misery. And as he'd slowly come back to himself, Myles had started to plan.

He wasn't some kind of sicko, so he'd never watched SOTF. Even so, you'd have to be dumb and living under a rock to not grasp the idea. Most people couldn't be trusted, not in the long run. Myles knew that, but he also knew that he didn't want to try hacking it alone at the start. His plan hadn't changed: make himself the one protected from threats, not viewed as a threat. That would go a long way. He'd been willing to sacrifice his supplies in the short term for that, but it hadn't worked out. He'd have to try again.

The dark, polished hands slid into view from between the leaves. Myles sighed at them, and then dropped to his knees in the dirt. He could see the parts of the brush he'd trampled in staging his scene, the edge of the canvas bag peeking out from some of the more tangled undergrowth. All the effort he'd put into making his story extra believable, and nobody even came with him to see it.

Myles wiped at his eyes. He'd always been an angry crier. It usually annoyed him, but now maybe it would be helpful. Between that and the allergies, he wasn't going to have a shortage of tears anytime soon.

At least if he managed to find Adonis, Myles could probably just cry at him for leaving, and Adonis would fall all over himself apologizing and promising to help again. He was sweet and dumb like that. Myles had always liked him.

He guessed he would be sad when Adonis eventually died.

Myles sighed once more, third time's the charm, and began to root around in the bushes and fallen leaves for his belongings.

((Myles Roux continued in Rakshasa Country))