Swallowing Panic in the Face of Its Force

[Brackie]

((Kennedy Jackson continued from Galloping Manic to the Mouth of the Source))

In a large brush clearing, a figured kneeled beneath a dark grey hoodie, draped over her like a rock. It groaned and swayed in size, and for every swell, it made a long, gutteral sound, like it was trying to speak whale. Every so often, it made a sound like it was choking back something.

And then, the cycle repeated. Swells, sounds, and chokes. Again, and again.

[Slam]

Overhead, an orb observed Kennedy. He could see himself sat on a rock not too far away, close enough that the distance from his orb wasn’t going to make him ill. Kaine was still with him.

((Lincoln Guenther continued from Moose Egg))

He lingered at a safe distance in the air, unable to tell who it was under the hoodie. After his encounter with Crispin and his gang, Lincoln wasn’t about to take any chances. At the same time though, he was concerned. They sounded distressed, the opposite of Squirrel-Fuck’s bombastic aggression. Maybe they had been attacked too? Or maybe they were just freaking out? Understandble, he was doing his best to avoid that himself.

He floated closer, still out of arm’s reach but audible. Eight feet in the air, give or take. He called out to them.

"ℍ𝕖𝕪, 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕆𝕂?"

"There's someone in the brush." he reported to Kaine a second later, resisting the urge to poke at his swollen lip. "I can't tell who, they're under a hoodie." He said, his own hoodie tied around his waist. He knew that he was risking a sunburn without it, but it was too hot to wear right now. They had to be careful with their water supply, yeah.

[Primrosette]

Kaine had been walking back and forth for a bit while Lincoln had been searching the area with his orb and he was glad that it could be used for a bit of distance away from them. He just hoped that Crispin and the others weren't stubborn enough to follow them as Kaine was now in a calmer set of mind and he felt a bit foolish for wanting some petty revenge for himself and for Austin.

((Kaine Griffin continued from Moose Egg))

He thought about what he wanted to do next. He wanted to get Lincoln reunited with his sister and to make sure that she was doing okay as well. He needed to find Austin and his other friends to make sure that they were safe and sound and not dead. He needed to find Toma.... They had left things off on a bad note and he would regret it if he didn't sort things out with him. But most of all, he needed to survive for as long as he could. He had to make sure to note all of these things in the back of his mind for safekeeping.

Kaine glanced over at Lincoln when he mentioned that someone was in the area somewhere and he gave him a small nod of understanding. "Okay. Let's hope that they are a friendly person and not wanting to cause any trouble." He commented as he was readjusting his beanie on his head slightly and he could feel the heat of the hot weather surrounding them. "I really don't want another Crispin problem honestly."

You started it, Kaine. You hypocrite.

[Brackie]

Suddenly, Lincoln's voice echoed through the area, and a few things went through Kennedy's head. The foremost thing that went through Kennedy's head was that Lincoln's voice was coming through the speakers, and he'd been captured by the terorrists and managed to escape and he'd gotten to the speakers and was speaking to her in particular because this was a fantasy where nothing made sense and she was just huffing the copium under that hoodie. But, moments, later, she remembered his sphere, and how it sounded when he spoke through it.

Almost instinctively, Kennedy came out from under her hoodie, leaning back upwards and balling it into a pile she held on her thighs. She didn't know what she looked like right now, but she knew it was a mess. She'd been crying, real ugly-like, so her eyes hurt and blurred and she felt liquid and possibly chunks running down her philtrum. Quickly, she wiped her nose with the inside of her wrist, briefly under the impression that the sphere could somehow get distracted. She still acted as though she hadn't done anything, though, because that was how she was doing it now.

She tried to say something, but the part of her throat where speech came from wasn't working. Not sore, but tight, as though someone was currently stranging her. She took a quick inhale and exhale, which seemed to do the trick.

"Lincoln, hhhi."

Kennedy had run a marathon while sitting still, so she was still trying to grab her air back.

"I'm not okay, no. I'm gonna die."

[Slam]

Despite Lincoln effectively possessing two mouths, at least as far as speaking went, he could only really manage one conversation at a time with his single consciousness. Indeed, when he was a very young boy, first learning to put words to thought, he had often spoken with both tongue and sphere simultaneously, something that seemed perfectly natural at the time. It was only through careful coaching from his parents and teacher that had he gotten better at separating the two, enabling a more socially conventional approach to dialogue, but in his most distressed moments he still fell back into his double-speak habit.

Despite this potential, holding two conversations at once was still off the table. To do otherwise would require him to process and pronounce two different scripts simultaneously, and while the lag between conversations could be almost zero thanks to his lifelong practice, Kaine would have to settle for a nod from Lincoln while his orb mouth was busy. He took a moment to note what had set Crispin off in the first place, as while he didn't blame Kaine for the nutty behaviour, his swollen lip wasn't exactly grateful for the chair throwing either. Bringing that up would probably need a longer talk though, so he decided to prioritise and wait to ask what the hell he was thinking later.

"𝕆𝕂, 𝕪𝕖𝕒𝕙, 𝕞𝕒𝕪𝕓𝕖 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕓𝕪 𝕟𝕠𝕥 𝕕𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘?" he responded to Kennedy, orb edging in slightly closer to get a better look at her while still maintaining a distance. As far as he could tell, apart from looking in severe need of a hanky, she didn't have any serious injuries that were obvious? He wasn't a doctor though, not even a nurse. Hell, he had dropped out of boy scouts before getting his first aid badge, and he assumed they pretty much just gave that one away.

"𝔻𝕠 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕟𝕖𝕖𝕕 𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕡? 𝕂𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕖'𝕤 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕞𝕖, 𝕨𝕖 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕤𝕥 𝕒𝕚𝕕 𝕤𝕥𝕦𝕗𝕗."

"It's Kennedy, she's hurt maybe." Lincoln interjected quickly, not wanting Kaine to start distracting him. He raised a finger to signal his need to focus, though something about Kennedy herself was starting to distract him just as much.

[Primrosette]

Kennedy.

Man, he really wasn't sure about seeing her right way. The girl who he crushed on from a distance and he had made sure to put those feelings to the back of his heart. He couldn't care about that right now. Hearing that she could be hurt was a big worry and it was more more important than some silly crush. He was almost tempted to run to wherever she was and to make sure that she wasn't badly hurt.

But then he remembered that she got into a fight with Moose and that he was missing a finger.

Has she cut it off with a knife somehow?

He wasn't sure how to feel if that was true.

He wanted to speak to Lincoln but it seemed like the other boy wanted to concentrate to communicating with Kennedy. So Kaine decided to keep quiet for the time being and he would have to be patient.

[Brackie]

There was something about Lincoln's sarcasm that made it sound worse when it came through the orb. There she sat, rocking and in tears, and all the comfort Lincoln provided was a careful "cool, don't die"?

Being momentarily angry didn't stop the tears, though. She was still crying. It was now just an angry, no-sob cry. Those happened, from time to time. Not to Kennedy - a lot of the time when she cried, it was because she purposefully made herself cry as a release, She'd read sad stories, watch sad scenes on The Amazing Race or Survivor, do anything to get a sweet momentary emotional release. Those weren't the angry cries - she tried to avoid those, because they mostly spiraled in on how much she hated her life and herself and anybody who ever pretended they were her friend. They let a lot more out than Kennedy was always willing to put.

But Kennedy stopped feeling the need to cry once Lincoln asked if she was hurt. Her eyes hadn't lost their water, of course. But a gear started turning in her head.

She could have yelled at him. Them, in fact, since if Lincoln was to be believed then Kaine was also with him. She, in fact, wanted to yell at him, or them, and her next round of choking was, in fact, holding back that urge, shame and cringe be damned. But as socially inept as she was, she only saw that conversation going one way - uncomfortable silence, and moving on. The moving on would involve them leaving her alone.

But if she followed Lincoln's train of thought...

"I, I yeah. I hurt myself, I-I'm sorry."

Kennedy took some more deep breaths, struggling to swallow her excess spit.

"I rolled my ankle and I can't walk. I'm sorry."

Kennedy wiped her nose again, remaining as needlessly surreptitious in the action as before. She knew why she was doing this. It was stupid. She wanted help, and she could get it here. They just needed to never know she was lying. She didn't know what everyone else was going through, but she knew what happened when people found out other people were lying. She felt like shit, but it was the only way forward.

[Slam]

Oh, right. That’s why he remembered Kennedy, he realised as he lowered his own, still attached finger. It was weird how he had made the connection from twisted ankle to severed digit, but that’s the brain for you.

His orb floated backwards, up and away.

“𝕋𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕤𝕦𝕔𝕜𝕤.” he replied, as much sympathy in his voice as if Kennedy was talking about it raining on her day out. His cautionary nature was coming into play, as he preferred to keep all his fingers intact. It was a tad suspect how someone with a rolled ankle wasn’t like, rubbing it or something as well. At the very least you’d think she’d be sat on her ass to get the weight off it, not on her knees where it was still pressed against the floor. Was that how it worked? It stuck out at him, regardless.

However, Moose was part of Crispin’s crew, and they were all fucks. Maybe he was jumping to conclusions? Or maybe he was trying to keep from getting more injured than he already was, you know? Not unreasonable, he didn’t think.

“𝕃𝕖𝕥 𝕞𝕖 𝕥𝕒𝕝𝕜 𝕥𝕠 𝕂𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕖. ℙ𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕖 𝕙𝕠𝕝𝕕.” he said, shifting his focus to his companion.

“So she says she rolled her ankle, but I’m not so sure. Yeah, maybe I’m being paranoid, but can you blame me?

“On the other hand, I don’t know if we should just ignore her? She might be in trouble. But I don’t want to lose a finger either. ‘cause she took off Moose’s, remember?"

He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. Where was Mercy when you had a decision like this? Hopefully in the shade by now, he considered.

"What do you think?”

[Spindarene]

((Leila Merin continued from In Shock))

Leila wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking across the flatlands, sometimes coming back to the road but then always veering off of it again. She felt empty and aimless, like nothing she did really mattered and she was just killing time until she died.

She’d been staring at the ground as she walked, but her head jerked upwards when she heard voices. In front of her she could clearly see two people standing, and possibly one other sitting on the ground, although the perspective she was at made it hard to tell. One of them was the tall boy who could disappear, and the other was a smaller boy that always had that weird orb with him. Leila had never understood exactly what that thing was or how it worked, although she knew that that boy could see and talk with it.

She stopped walking and watched them. She wasn’t sure if they’d seen her. She wanted to avoid other people if she could, but she figured that the smaller boy’s orb might have already seen her. She wasn’t sure who the third person on the ground was, but the two boys’ gifts seemed to be pretty harmless. She hadn’t heard of anyone getting killed yet, and she couldn’t see any weapons anywhere.

Slowly, cautiously, she walked up to them. She realized that she didn’t know what to say in a situation like this, so she just said the first thing that came to mind.

“Uh, hi.”

[Primrosette]

Ah, so Kennedy hurt her ankle, huh? Maybe in her fight with Moose? Kaine clicked his tongue and he could feel the heat beaming down on him, warming him up like a firestorm. He knew that his instinct was telling him to jump right in to help her out, but Lincoln's words were making him pause and hesitate on taking action.

"Well, the thing is, is that we don't actually know the truth about Kennedy taking Moose's finger or not. He did get blinded after all. What if it had been someone else? I could be wrong, but maybe someone used a gift or something on Moose's finger." He commented as he kicked at a small rock on the ground and he was still feeling uncertain. "We could just check on her from a distance if you feel unsafe about getting closer to her and then we can see where things could go from there with her."

He then noticed someone out of the corner of his eye.

Leila.

He barely knew her at all.

"Uh, hey, Leila. You doing okay?" He asked as he turned to face her and he offered her a small, friendly smile to show that he was not hostile or anything like that. "Well, as okay as you can be, I mean."

[Brackie]

Kennedy wasn't what the people she talked with online called an "emotional vampire" or anything, since that term was mostly used on Big Brother contestants who cried a lot to manipulate people. But whenever Kennedy got sympathy from anyone, even if she wasn't lying to get help, she always felt guilty. Right now was no exception, because when Lincoln said what he said, she felt her heartbeat slow and a warmth spread through her gut. In spite of it all, she felt something. And then she felt bad about feeling something, almost immediately afterwards, because she'd just lied through her snotty teeth to get it.

But then she remembered the fence.

As Lincoln shifted his focus, or at least that's what he said he'd be doing, Kennedy wiped down her face with her arm again. She knew Lincoln was stil there, and could still see here, so she couldn't do anything to make herself look more like someone who'd rolled her ankle. She could make herself look presentable, though, or at least her best guess at presentable since she didn't have a mirror.

If this didn't work, she didn't know what she'd do next. Worst case scenario, she'd have to run. She'd expose herself to two people as a liar. Maybe she'd be stuck here on the ground until the orb left, and she didn't know how far that would be. Either way, she just needed to get enough sympathy from people who weren't her friends, and parlay that into some sort of safety.

[Slam]

Lincoln had in fact seen Leila approaching. In a wide open space like this, with his orb suspended in the air, there was very little he couldn’t see at that exact moment.

He could see the landscape surrounding them, including the layout of the brush Kennedy was sitting in. He could see the skyline above them, the sun bearing down ominously amidst the endless sea of blue, lacking any reference points beyond the great ball of fire. If he really squinted (so to speak), he could probably make out even more people in the distance, though too far to tell specifics, or even confirm that they weren’t just tricks of the light.

That was the double edged nature of his vision. With so much going on, while also trying to juggle two conversations, it was easy to not really pay attention to Leila until she started getting close. Just because Lincoln could see so much at once didn’t mean he reacted to everything that passed into his sphere of vision. In practice when wanting to use his sphere for surveillance, Lincoln would have to find a distinct, well defined area to concentrate on, like he was doing now with Kennedy in the brush clearing. The open desert, in comparison, simply had too much scope and not enough landmarks for the sphere to pay attention to everything at once, at least until something started heading towards him or his body. That was a safety reflex, it could be reasoned.

So while he had seen Leila coming towards him, it hadn’t really been any sooner than anyone could’ve noticed her. He just had the advantage of not needing to look in her direction to do so.

“Hey.” Lincoln said, his flow of thought interrupted. He wanted to challenge Kaine on his reasoning, because what were the chances someone else would show up after Moose had been blinded, remove a finger, and leave before the others arrived? It seemed pretty far-fetched, but he didn’t want to just ignore Leila to argue with Kaine.

He didn’t have much of an opinion on her. Quiet, in his grade...yup, that was pretty much it. He wasn’t even sure what her Gift was. Under normal circumstances, they would’ve just passed each other by in the corridor without much fuss. In their current scenario though, he had to be more careful.

“Hang on, I’m just talking to Kennedy at the moment. She's in that brush over there.” he continued, trusting Kaine to spearhead this conversation. He kept his eyes on Leila all the same, ready to defend himself if he had to. His throbbing face was a poignant reminder of what happened if he let his guard down.

"𝕃𝕖𝕚𝕝𝕒 𝕛𝕦𝕤𝕥 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕕 𝕦𝕡. 𝕊𝕙𝕖 𝕕𝕠𝕖𝕤𝕟'𝕥 𝕝𝕠𝕠𝕜 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕤𝕙𝕖 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥𝕤 𝕥𝕠 𝕗𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥, 𝕒𝕥 𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕤𝕥. 𝕂𝕒𝕚𝕟𝕖'𝕤 𝕤𝕒𝕪𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕨𝕖 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕖 𝕗𝕚𝕟𝕕 𝕪𝕠𝕦, 𝕚𝕤 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕥 𝕔𝕠𝕠𝕝?"

There was, after all, no reason they couldn't do what Kaine said and check on her from a distance. Not unless she could shoot ink out like a water jet cutter.

[Spindarene]

Leila shrugged in response to Kaine's inquiry. He seemed to know as well as she did that it was a stupid question.

Lincoln informed her that he was talking to Kennedy, who was apparently hiding in a bush nearby. Leila had seen Kennedy's inking gift in action a few times, and actually thought it was pretty cool. More than once, she'd wished that she could have a gift like that.

Leila felt relieved. None of the people she was with had dangerous gifts, at least not as far as she could tell. You never know what creative ways people can think of to use their gifts, but Disappearing Boy, Orb Boy, and Ink Girl all seemed to be pretty safe to stay with for now. Although it was unnerving to Leila how Lincoln's eyes never left her, even as he seemed to be conversing with Kennedy who she couldn't really see. She'd always been a little creeped out by him, to be honest. It wasn't like he was a bad guy or anything, just something about how he worked with the orb or how it worked with him...she could never put her finger on it but it made her uncomfortable. Still, right now she could take Weird Orb Boy over someone who could spit fire or had knives for fingers, or any of the other people with dangerous gifts out there.

Taking her eyes off of Lincoln, she turned to Kaine.

"So, have you met anyone else out here so far, or is it just you three?"

[Primrosette]

Kaine knew that he had to be more cautious around other people, especially after the drama with Crispin and his friends. But being on high alert and being paranoid all the time would not help anyone. He wasn't even sure what he was hoping to do after he found Toma and his friends. He was just hoping and praying that no one that he cared about were dead right now. Like Ms. Duffy, like Spencer.

He was going to trust that Leila was genuine and truly friendly for now. He could already feeling himself relax in her presence and he was thankful for a bit of normalcy. Even if darker thoughts were nagging at the back of his mind. He needed to focus more clearly on the current matters at hand.

He felt like his throat was shutting up for a brief moment and he let out a small, steady-paced breath.

Focus...

"Well, Lincoln and his orb have only just found Kennedy right now. Me and Lincoln had an bad encounter with Crispin, Alan and Moose and Jenelle was there briefly before taking off." He was keeping it vague for now unless Leila wanted to hear about what happened and he really didn't want to talk about it out in the open too much. "You're the first person, kinda, that we've seen out here actually. Have you seen anyone else so far? Maybe Toma or.... Austin or any others?"

He didn't mention his other friends as those two were his most wanted priorities right now. He still hoped that his other friends were all safe and sound and he waited with a hopeful look on his face for Leila's answer.

[Brackie]

Leila. Was that Leila Merin? She liked Leila. She was never interested if she ever talked about psychology, but they were basically the same person apart from that. Except for the fact Leila was skinny, and Kennedy was a fat tub of lard, that kind of thing differentiated them. Plus their gifts. And their hair colour. And their eye colour. So they weren't actually the same person, Kennedy just wished they were.

Moving on, apparently they wanted to come find her. Wait, find?

"Wait, find? Do you not know where I am? Do you n-need me to shout?"

Without waiting for an answer, Kennedy moved up slightly, still on her knees but her torso in the air, waving and suddenly shouting.

"HEY! I'M OVER HERE! I'M WITH YOUR ORB!"

Kennedy would be embarassed later; a teenager's guarentee.