Game Changer

[Halved]

(Anyone with eyes...so Wy can't? He only has one eye [lol])

When he stopped looking at Crow, Wy turned to Athena and saw she was worried about something.

"Are...you all right?"

[MenaAthena]

"Huh? Y-yeah I'm just- *ahem* I-I'm gonna try and get some sleep..."

Athena walks over and gets into one of the tents as the sun sets, despite the fact that she knows she can't sleep.

 

~~~Meanwhile at the motel in a fallen tree~~~

 

All is Quiet (*snicker*) for the first minutes of night, almost peaceful. That is until the sound of bones scraping rotten wood resonates throughout the fallen tree, startling the shadow beetle inside. 

 

(btw Halved, if you still have the time to do so, making a summary would be great. Just to refresh everyone's memory and will in the new-blood's with stuff I'm sure I missed.)

Edited January 21, 2015 by MenaAthena

[Halved]

(Oh, ok.

I'm sick right now, but I will in the future.)

[Quiet]

Oxryklne is startled away by the noises.  He groans, and gets to his feet, listening for any other sounds.

[MenaAthena]

The scraping stopped when Oxryklne groaned. He could hear a single sniff, like that of an preditor picking up the sent of it's prey, and the thump of a hand on his log before the same purple eye from the night before peered through the hole he resided in. It still had the look of malice and hunger as before, but this time there was a glimmer of amusement.

"Moxie is a bit lost now, isn't he?" The voice was smooth and deep, but showed the same things it's eyes did. It was cruel, cold, ravenous, and slightly amussed. What stood out most though was the tone with witch he said the beetle's nickname, like it knew it was nothing more than a ruse.

[Quiet]

"You could say that."  Oxryklne mumbles, slightly unnerved by the cold gaze and smooth voice.  However, it wasn't anything new; he had dealt with things like this before.  The truly unsettling part was the way it said his fake name.  "Enjoying your night?"

[MenaAthena]

It chuckled.

"I am now that I have... company. It gets a bit lonely out here at night."

The eye shifted angles as the creature sat down.

"Speaking of lonely, where are your friends, Moxie?"

[Quiet]

"Away on some errands."  Oxryklne replies calmly.  "Why do you ask, if I may?"

[MenaAthena]

"Is errand another word for lazily sitting around camp? Huh, I didn't know that."

It pauses for a moment to think, or to let what it just said sink in. You can really tell.

"I just found it strange that you were sitting out here by your lonesome. You'd think they would have found you by now if they were looking, but it seems like they haven't even noticed you're gone."

[Quiet]

"Oh well.  Dunno why they'd go out looking for a random bug anyways."

[wxps350]

Wakana stood up, dropped his flint and stick, and began digging a hole with his hands.

[MenaAthena]

"Why would they bother saving you from the inside of Wekesa or promise to teach you about science if you were just a random bug? It's for the best though. That idiot scientist has been living here for years and he still knows nothing."

~~~Meanwhile~~~

(I hope you don't mind a teeny bit of controlling here. If any of you don't like it I'll edit.)

With the food prepared and eaten, each of the group goes to their respective night time activities. Wilson decides to get some sleep tonight and throws some extra logs on the fire to keep it going. He'd figure out what to do with Crow in the morning. Athena, however, hasn't had any luck sleeping. She lay in the tent quivering, the monster in the darkness and the other presence constantly wearing down on her mind. The other monster wasn't close by tonight, but she could still feel it. Why were they here? Why couldn't they just let her sleep? Why did she have this darn headache? Sleep. She was tired. So tired. She wanted sleep. Sleep. Sleep! SLEEP! She turned over and burred her head under a makeshift pillow.

[Quiet]

"Mm."  Oxryklne says, without any real response.

[wxps350]

Wakana finished digging his hole, and hopped in. He then turned to Wulfric

 

Wakana:"Wulfric, go off into the plains. Hide from the Talking Tree for the night, I don't want him dropping you in another tooth hole."

 

Wulfric then turned and started trotting off, and Wakana sunk into his hole, and allowed the surrounding dirt to collapse around him.

[CloakofCrow]

Crow went to the edge of camp and sat atop a rock, taking his hat off and throwing it into the darkness. He took his dirty trench coat off and laid it out beneath him. Taking out another cigarette and lighting it. (Close your eyes Jonathan. I've got something to show you) Crow closes his eyes and sees darkness. (Look towards the fire, the light will help) He positions his body towards the fire in the distance, still closing his eyes.

 

The faint flickering of the fire dwindled within his eyes. The light twisted and distorted.

 

He sat upon the roof, a storm in the distance. "These are some mighty fine gales!" his friend Crow stated, "blowing our way too!" Jonathan nodded. "Then you'd better find some shelter, bird." The crow disappeared. Jonathan observed the oncoming storm. The ocean wavered and crashed against the rocks. Inclement weather was never a good sign for island folk. He stood up and threw his cigarette into the gutter. "Mother!" He slid down the roof and swung into the window with ease.

 

"What is it Jonathan." the elderly woman asked.

"You have to go the town hall and take shelter with the rest of the fisherman."

"But I have to keep the house safe!"

"It's alright mother, I'll be here with it. Go with Alan, he'll protect you."

 

Crow sat upon the rock, mumbling to himself; his cigarette burning his coat as he covered his eyes. 

 

[MenaAthena]

The creature continued. "I, on the other hand, am part of this world. I know things no one else could know could know other wise."

~~~Meanwhile~~~

After a few more minutes of tossing, turning, muttering, and shaking like a tower of jello in an earthquake, Athena finally gave in and decided sleep wasn't going to come tonight. Maybe she'd at least get some satisfaction out of putting some food in her stomach. After she saw that... thing she was too unnerved to grab some grub before hiding in her tent, and now her stomach felt like it was gnawing on itself. That, at least, she could fix.

[Quiet]

"Such as?"  Oxryklne asks, genuinely curious.

[Halved]

Of course Wy couldn't sleep.

All he was doing was being a ball in his tent, crawling into fetal position.

That Crow was starting to scare the worms out of him, talking to himself on a rock.

At the end, Wy takes a deep breath to peek from the entrance of his tent.

The man was still sitting there, but he was now covering his eyes.

He quickly jumps back to not be seen and sits in fetal position, staring at the entrance.

[MenaAthena]

"I know how everything here can seemingly defy all logic. I know the purpose of the islands and why everyone was brought here. I know why things are changing so suddenly."

The creature edged closer, it's eye taking up the entirety of the hole entrance.

"I. Know. Everything."

[Quiet]

"That's a pretty broad claim.  Do you know the name of my aunt's friend's mother's cousin's twice-removed husband?"

[wxps350]

Wakana was managing sleep just fine, yet wondered why the others were having trouble.

Maybe they just need dirt surrounding them, too.

Edited January 24, 2015 by wxps350

[Halved]

(We are all in different tents right [except for wakana whos in the ground and crow])

[Dara999]

{And Wekesa. She just plants herself in the ground}

Wekesa dug her roots into the soil going dormant as the moon rose.

Cypress did her best to sleep, she had listened to the new guy talk to himself for a little while before dozing off for a while only to wake with a chill running down her spine. This repeated throughout the night, needless to say she would still be tired in the morning.

[CloakofCrow]

Crow uncovered his eyes and took a deep breathe. "Why do you do this to me?" he said to himself. He looked at his arms and started plucking feathers off them, grunting in pain every once in awhile. He could see the others shifting with unrest in their tents, something he didn't expect to notice.

 

The stranger picked up his cigarette and laid back looking at the sky in his uncomfortable position on the rock; hoping someone would rid him of his solitude and keep his mind off of his mind.

[MenaAthena]

"Weston."

The creature had to pause for a moment to physically repress a sigh.

"You know what I ment."

~~~Meanwhile~~~

Athena knew that Crow at least was still awake and she did want to go out there shaking like a newborn kitten, so she started trying to get a hold of herself and stop quivering. It was going to take a minute or two.

At least it was, until the most demented jack-in-the-box music she'd ever heard made her freeze instantly.

After a minute curiosity forced her to peek out the flap of her tent to see which of the others had a jack-in-the-box straight out of a horror movie and had decided to play it in the middle of the night. She immediately regretted it. Two long, twisted hands made of the same darkness that surrounded the ring of light were inching their way across the ground toward the fire.

[They aren't real. They can't be real. Just ignore them. They can't do anything to me. Just act like they aren't there.]

And that's when one of the hands reached the fire, putting out about a third of it before retreating back to the edge of the now smaller circle of light. Without thinking, she clumsily jumped out of her tent and landed on her side with an "oof" right on top of the second hand, causing it to retreat, but not without taking a chunk of her sanity with it. She looked over her shoulder with wide eyes to see that the first hand was almost to the fire again. She scrambled over to it. Another retreat, another bit of sanity lost.