SOTF Archive/SOTF Classic

Hannah took a couple quick steps back. Maybe Noah had a point with telling her to stay back. Hearing Ben talk to himself wasn't exactly reassuring. Sure it was stressful, but it was possible that he was unstable. She bit her lip. It was terrible to think that way, but she couldn't help but think it could be the truth.

"Uh. Not great."

Silently she seethed. She agreed to talk to him and that's what she went with?

Not a great start to things.

Noah stood to the side as Hannah made her speech with Ben. Ben sounded pretty crazy, mostly from the way he spoke to himself. It was the kind of talk Noah would have done if he was impersonating Crazy Eyes from Orange is the New Black. It had been a few days here, and Noah could believe some people would be getting so stressed they'd start talking to themselves.

Noah leaned close to Hannah.

"Hey, Hannah," he said, "we might need to consider moving out. Squirrelfriend seems fine, but we can say we need to go somewhere."

It seemed bad to abandon someone who could use the help, but even Noah had to admit he was finding Ben a bit too skeevy for his liking.

Hannah took a few steps back. Then she said she wasn't great. Ben's smile receded. That was... well, what kind of answer could he have expected to a question like that? Even disregarding the being stuck on a island with killer classmates - chances were, the answer people here would give would always be "Not great.", or worse.

"Uh, right.", he replied, and took a tentative step back up the stairs. "I guess no one is. Here. So... what have you been doing these past few days?"

Squirrelfriend. Hannah wasn't familiar enough with Ben to know if he was a squirrel like she was a chipmunk, of if it was some other sort of thing. She wasn't going to ask. It wasn't the time, and well, a lot of people would be disturbed by being called a furry when they weren't. Even though that was super silly, she had to acknowledge that it could make things worse.

But they needed to go. Noah must have been made uncomfortable by Ben talking to himself as she was.

"Nothing good, um, sorry Ben but Noah and I have to check up on some things."

She hoped Noah would back her up, or knew of another way down. She wasn't sure if there was a way out of the wards other than going past Ben and he might get upset.

She really hoped he didn't.

"Yeah," Noah said to Ben. "We've got some places to check out, so we're about to move out."

Noah looked down the hall. There had to be another flight of stairs somewhere nearby. He and Hannah could surely find one.

"There's plenty of rooms up here if you need a place to hideout. We've got to bounce though."

Noah turned away from the steps and began to walk down the hall. They had done enough to recharge for the day, and dealing with a potentially crazy person wouldn't be conducive for their survival. They had people to find, and sitting around was something they could only do for a short time. Now they had to be seriously.

((Noah Whitley continued in Forklift Driver Klaus))

"Oh. Ok. I understand", said Ben as Noah left. "Thanks anyway." They didn't really want to talk with him. They had just tried to be nice. He hung his head. Was it his fault? He hadn't been twitchy and paranoid, like with the the girl with the eye-patch. Perhaps... perhaps they were being careful, like he was. And since they had each other, they didn't feel as lonely as he did.

Ben envied them.

He turned around again and trudged down the stairs, a glum expression on his face. He would get back to the only thing that might resolve his loneliness - finding Maxim.

Speaking of which... He turned back to Hannah. "Hey, um, you haven't seen a guy called Maxim, have you? Maxim Kehlenbrink?" They might be done talking, but she could still answer this question, right?

Hannah started to follow Noah down the hall when she heard the question.

Maxim? Not at all.

"No, I haven't, sorry."

She started walking faster. They needed to get out of there.

(Hannah Kendrickstone continued in Forklift Driver Klaus)

Ben nodded, though no one could see him. "Thanks!" he replied. It had been worth a shot.

Then he turned, and continued on his way.

(Benjamin Lichter continues in The show starts at five. Bring snacks.)