Like a bird perched on a live wire.

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These mine shafts do not go deeper than a few meters into the earth before being blocked off by cave-ins of heavy boulders and splintered support beams. There are four of them in total, equidistant from each other roughly with a ten minute walk separating. The tunnels were each sizable in diameter, and even in their current collapsed state what remains of the entrances would still provide decent cover from snowstorms and the like. The road only services the closest of the tunnels to the city, and is taken over thereafter by the faint indentation of a dirt road. The conveyor belt extends further, servicing all four mine shafts.

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Yonagoda
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#16

Post by Yonagoda »

"Cool," she said, awkwardly. "Cool."

She never actually wanted to give the food out, but now that she opted in she didn't want to opt out because of some social norms that she didn't want to break. Suddenly, she regretted talking about her food. Tess actually... Really liked just eating tuna right out of the can? Her mom told her it was a weird thing but she didn't think so. So she doubted she would actually be that grossed out by it. And she waited for every single millisecond that the girl would go, "whoops, nevermind, you dont have to give anything" even when Tess was the idiot that offered it in the first place.

So she held back an actual breath of relief when neither asked anything from her.


---


He wanted to ask for something, but then he'd be obligated. So he stayed quiet. Some part of him wanted a nice warm bowl of chicken noodle soup and some other part wanted some neurotoxin so he could get rid of these fuckers
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Spindarene
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#17

Post by Spindarene »

Julia nodded in thanks as PJ gave her permission to have the tuna. He took the cheese tortellini that she offered, so she picked up the lemon pepper tuna bag and took out the packet of tuna and began heating it up with the other packet of mysterious chemicals. She might as well eat, who knows when she would get another chance. Plus, she needed her energy in case she needed to outrun the Chimera again, or deal with some other threat.

Tess still seemed a bit out of it, muttering her assent to Julia and PJ swapping food, but otherwise still awkwardly just sitting there. Julia didn’t quite know what to do with her. She felt both pity for Tess but also had a creeping sense of uneasiness around her. She mentally chastised herself for not being more understanding and supportive of someone who had clearly been through something traumatic–she was a psychology student, after all–but on the other hand, they’d all been through something traumatic. This whole thing was traumatic. However, Julia was trying to maintain some sense of control, to find some way of surviving, and it seemed like PJ was doing the same. Tess, however, seemed like she was on the verge of being too far gone mentally to to take care of herself, and that worried Julia. Part of Julia felt protective of the other girl, but she also knew on some level that Tess’s inability to pull herself together might make things worse for her and PJ.

As Julia heated up her food, she tried to think of something to say. What was polite breakfast conversation in a life or death social experiment? She thought about commenting on the mysterious chemical reaction that was heating her food, or the food itself, or just anything to break the silence. Then, a thought occurred to her.

“These are military food supplies, right?”
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Primrosette
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#18

Post by Primrosette »

PJ had been staring at his packet of food and his stomach was gurgling quietly with clear hunger. He was trying to not think about the dark, red splatter of blood, but that was still hard for him to do. He couldn't open up about that with these two. It just didn't seem right as it looked like Tess was going through something as well and even though Julia had been friendly... He just couldn't bare being a burden to anyone right now.

He decided to do the same thing as Julia with his packet as he knew that he couldn't starve himself and he was taking in the silence in the mines. He didn't mind not talking for a bit. It gave him time to start to relax and to clear his mind of all those muddled, negative thoughts.

Julia then asked a question that he hadn't even thought about before and PJ glanced over at her. Curiosity was present in his eyes.

"...I thought that they were just..." He paused briefly, really thinking about it. "I think maybe they are...? But if that's true...."

He trailed off. He wasn't sure how to process the rest into normal words.
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Yonagoda
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#19

Post by Yonagoda »

"Yeah," Tess said. To be fair, it wasn't that difficult to know? Then again, she's worked with vets before. Shadowing others, preparing for her own, now long gone future as a psychologist. Or psychiatrist.

...since when did she just start accepting that she was going to die here?

Maybe she always did. Maybe she just hid it from herself really well.


---


The desire for food is an automatic, instinct-triggering, and fundamental response. But despite the smell of a warm meal and the promise of company did nothing to make it feel less sick.


---


"Just because it's military," they said, a little unsure of themselves and worried about being wrong, "doesn't mean the military is involved. You can buy this stuff off of Ebay. Or Amazon."

"But I think it's good to be cautious."

(I think that caution is how we survived these millions of years.)

They thought a little bit mote about the nailgun. They thought a little more blood. And then about suicide, intrusively, and about murder. And about everything that is horrific and grotesque, all at once, flashing unrecognizably through their brain.
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Spindarene
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#20

Post by Spindarene »

Julia nodded in response to Tess’s comment, though it did little to deter the theory forming in her mind.

It’s true that Janus-Heyes could have gotten these MREs off of Amazon or Ebay or, really, anywhere; they were a large corporation, that’s what they did. Still, she couldn’t help wondering. What if Janus-Heyes had gotten their supplies directly from the U.S. military? Would that mean that this sick experiment went even deeper than corporate greed? Was it being funded, or at least passively condoned, by the U.S. government?

She thought about the heavily Soviet feel of the island, and how she’d seen some signs written in cyrillic as she’d wandered around. Was this experiment some new strategy that the American government had concocted to try to fight the Russians?

All of these thoughts spun around her head as she took a few small bites of her tuna. The food definitely wasn’t good, but it was edible.

She hesitated for a moment, not sure how many of her thoughts she should share with her new companions, before finally speaking.

“That’s true,” she said slowly, in answer to Tess’s response, “but do you think that the military could have been involved? I mean, Janus-Heyes is a huge corporation and we already know that they have government ties.”

Jesus, she thought, she was starting to sound like one of those conspiracy theorists she used to scoff at. Still, when you’re trapped in a life-or-death experiment with genetically engineered monsters and the knowledge that your inevitable death will be faked to cover everything up, conspiracy theories start to make an alarming amount of sense.
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Primrosette
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#21

Post by Primrosette »

PJ glanced down at the weapon that was on his lap and he actually was thinking about it. Even if it was just some random theory that Julia came up with, it didn't mean that she was wrong. There was a strong possibility that she was right. It did make him wonder even if they did just get the food from somewhere online. There was a chance that the weapons that everyone got, was from the military. Even that strange one that Elizabeth got.... Just thinking about Elizabeth was making his heart sunk and a wave of sadness was taking over his mind again.

"I mean, you could be right. If they didn't get the food from the military, then what about the weapons? And don't tell me that you think they got them online or from like a gun shop or something. It would be too easy." He commented, rubbing a finger over his chin out of curiosity. "God, I just.... Thinking about that creature. What the heck are we supposed to do about that...?"
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Yonagoda
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#22

Post by Yonagoda »

Tahsin was at least partially an anticapitalist. Not that he was a communist, per se, and he'd always turn his ears away from those people who jump and say that it wasn't real socialism or what not, but there was some deep-seated rage deep inside him that automatically hated anything with a CFO. And also the U.S government, of course. It's really difficult not to have that hatred, when you're working alongside collegues who had to consult trumatized vets and drug addicts and the homeless and all the people that the Big Guys On Top had failed. He wasn't technically supposed to. Can't get that close to the people, after all, but he wanted to develop pills and theories and such, not to sit in a room and talk to people.

To be entirely honest, he's kind of been the theorist type. Always has been.

"It's definately government funded. I mean, the government has its reaches pretty far." Then, to flex his own knowlege a little bit, "You ever heard about the Banana Wars? Like, we are sourced from a public university. But I was- oh, right. I was being a little contrarian when I said that it might not be the military, but personally I think that the military is one aspect that's involved in this... conspiracy, I guess."

[/h]



"And, uh," She added, "I dunno about the thing. I think we should just... like, hide. In a room. And not come out. Because it's got to detect people with something, right? Unless it's remote controlled? Sight, smell, I something like that. Lots of vertibrates have specific senses that they hone in on, like dogs with smell. But ieither way, it has to track us down. And I don't know if it's predatory, or just territorial or defensive or something like that. Is it driven to hunt or is it just staying its ground? Because there's a lot to consider.

And suddenly, her brain was full of ideas. Ideas about the brain, the occipital lobe and the somatosensory cortex and the pheromone trails and-


[/h]


Without knowing, its body leaned closer forward, facing the two-


[/h]


-it's the only thing she's good at.
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Spindarene
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#23

Post by Spindarene »

Julia’s stomach sank when PJ brought up the Chimera. If she never thought about her encounter with that thing again it would be too soon. She shivered slightly as PJ and Tess talked about it, although the fear that was coursing its way through her body was punctuated by annoyance at Tess’s suggestion. The other girl clearly hadn’t encountered that thing before and had no idea what she was talking about.

Julia took a couple of deep breaths before she spoke, trying to remind herself that it was a good thing that neither of her companions had encountered the monster so far, although somewhere in the back of her mind a voice was screaming that it was incredibly unfair that she of all people had been the unlucky one to have come across its path.

“It’s a hunter,” she said quietly. “I think it probably smells its prey, but it can see it too. It’s not remote-controlled, that’s for sure, but it is a predator. It’s kind of like…” she shuddered involuntarily. “It moves kind of like a cat when it’s hunting. Except worse, way worse. It can climb stairs, but I don’t think it can jump very far. I think that’s how I was able to get away.”

She paused for a second, then picked up the spine next to her that she’d set down while she was eating.

“It threw these at me. I was climbing through scaffolding in the warehouse, and somehow none of them hit me. It’s not very precise, it just kind of throws them all at once. They’re poisoned on the end, although the poison might not hurt the creature since it secretes it in the first place.”

She kept her eyes cast downwards at the spine, on her food, because she knew that looking anyone in the eye right now would be too much and she would crack.

“If you see it, hide, but don’t let it trap you. If you’re trapped you will die. It’ll chase you if you run, but if you can get to a place where it’s inconvenient for it to follow you that will give you the best chance of survival.”
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Primrosette
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#24

Post by Primrosette »

PJ felt himself going a bit pale and he was trying to not show any fear on the outside. Inside, he was just screaming and shouting. He was honestly horrified that Julia had actually encountered the creature that was a threat to all of them. What the heck was he supposed to do about something like that? He could only squirm a little from where he was currently sitting.

"God.... I can't even imagine..." He thought back to the video that they all watched when the chimera had been in action and he gulped nervously. Normally he would be able to keep himself calm in a situation like this. But it was some kind of monster. An experiment that needed to be tested...? "Are we being tested? Or do they just want to see what the chimera can do...?"

He paused as he thought about what Julia was saying about the spine and about hiding. He then briefly thought about Elizabeth and he frowned slightly. He was worried about her, even if he could never forgive her for what she did to Daniella. He still loved Elizabeth deeply. Even if she didn't feel the same way anymore. He needed to find her and make sure that she was okay. He... He really didn't have anyone else out here. He was glad that none of his friends were here and that they were all safe back at home.

"...If I got trapped by it, I would just..." He trailed off quickly; he pointed down at the gun and then pointed at his temple. "So we should definitely not stay in this place, right? We should think about moving onwards to somewhere else. There.... There's someone that I would like to find. I... I need to make sure that she's safe and doing okay out there."

He couldn't tell Julia and Tess what had happened. He just couldn't.
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Yonagoda
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#25

Post by Yonagoda »

"..."

Tess's mind was whirling like a machine.

"Is it more likely to find us if we are together?" Because three people's scents/signals/whatever are stronger?

She pulled out her PDA thing and scrolled through it. She has been jumping between obsessively checking it and trying her best to ignore it for the past few hours. Every time she pulled it out, she became more and more anxi-

Wait.

"Does..." She gestured towards her meager belongings- "did they put trackers into the devices they put on or gave us? Could that be how they find us?"


[[[[L.h.-,]


..
S



I wonder what it looks like.
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Spindarene
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#26

Post by Spindarene »

Julia had to suppress another jolt of annoyance at Tess, who was still asking if the monsters could track them through their GPS devices. If Tess wanted to stay in her conspiracy theories, whatever, but Julia knew what she saw. What she’d seen was a predator; genetically engineered, maybe, but with a natural instinct to hunt.

She barely suppressed an eye roll as Tess suggested that staying together could potentially attract the monster, since there were more people for it to sniff out. She could see why Tess would think that, based on the conversation, but it was not a smart survival tactic. However, she could see PJ’s point, that they should leave. Julia glanced around the small cavern with a sinking feeling. Yeah, if it found them in here, they’d be trapped. They should find somewhere with at least two exits to hole up in. Plus, PJ mentioned that there was someone he wanted to find.

Julia surprised herself slightly with how resistant she was to splitting up. She’d been so resistant–afraid even–of interacting with the other students for most of the game. However, now that she’d found a couple of people who seemed okay, who didn’t want to kill her, the thought of leaving them and wandering around out there by herself again filled her with fear.

Looking down at her food, Julia spoke.

“I think that if we stay together, we’ll have a better chance of fighting it. However, I do think you’re right,” she glanced over at PJ. “If it finds us in here, we’re trapped. We should find somewhere else to stay.” She paused for a moment, thinking, before turning to PJ. “Do you have any idea where your friend might be?”
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Primrosette
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#27

Post by Primrosette »

PJ glanced at Tess with a thoughtful expression and he hummed softly. "I don't think that it matters if we're together or if we were alone... It would still try to attack people regardless." He frowned a little over the next questions. "I don't think so. I feel like it would have found people more quicker if that was true. Man, this is just so messed up."

PJ was picking at his food a bit and he was trying to think about where Elizabeth would have went. He hoped that she was safe. His head and his heart was in a disastrous mixture of crumbled, crushed sand. He wondered if finding to look for her was a dumb idea, but.... He felt like he would regret it if he didn't. Even if she could end up being the death of him. He suddenly found himself not caring about that. He just... He just wanted to see Elizabeth. He couldn't let it go.

He blinked a little as it seemed that Julia was talking to him and he made sure to concentrate on what she was saying to him. "I guess you are right. If we get a bigger group with better weapons, we can fight back. But we need to make sure that we are all on the same page..." His expression changed to a sadder one and even his smile looked like it was faltering a little. "...Yeah, we need to find somewhere with exits if we need an easy escape. I don't even know if my gun would be useful against the chimera, but I might have to try if it finds us."

My girlfriend actually.... Not a friend.

Or was she really his ex-girlfriend...? He did leave her while his mind was broken up about Daniella. God, he felt more lost than before.

He didn't bother to correct Julia as it was not the time for that. "I think she might be at the school. I don't think she would go to the village, I think I would feel unsafe that so..." He glanced at his two companions. "Should we all head there together?"
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Spindarene
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#28

Post by Spindarene »

"Sure," Julia replied, in response to PJ's question. The school was as good a place to stay as any, she guessed. It had more exits, and although that meant more potential for unwanted company, it also meant less likelihood of being cornered. She never wanted to be cornered by that thing again.

Julia finished off the last of the lemon tuna in a couple large gulps, then hastily stuffed the rest of the MRE contents into her bag. She picked up the spine from the Chimera that she'd laid down by her side, stood up, and hoisted the bag over her shoulder.

"Let's go."

((Julia Raymond continued in Tequila Skies, Gray Goodbyes))
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Primrosette
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#29

Post by Primrosette »

PJ was glad that Julia seemed to be up for going to the school and he wondered if they could try to set up some traps there for the chimera. He still needed to make sure that if he did see Elizabeth again, well, he just needed to try and talk to her and to see if she was willing to help out with the creature. If not.... He wasn't sure what he would do about that. He would have to deal with it whenever he had to.

"Alrighty then!" He commented making sure that he had everything and his weapon before leaving finally.

((PJ Summers continued in Tequila Skies, Gray Goodbyes))
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Yonagoda
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#30

Post by Yonagoda »

...
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