Welcome to Gaia! ::

It had taken a little convincing, but Espen had finally convinced Shane to let him explore the small 'forest' a small distance away from the house. In all fairness, it was more of small a thicket with a creek running through it, and Espen had been there before a few times with Shane, but he could feel that he was getting older and thought that he must be old enough now to go to a spot like that alone.

Shane had agreed to let Espen go there, but under the condition that Espen took a walkie-talkie with him in case of an emergency. Espen thought that was fair and after Shane helped him bundle up, he proceeded to walk the small distance towards the creek. He wanted to bring Riffraff with him, but Shane had already explained that there was the possibility of a mouse-eating creature to be in the area, so Espen promised to bring back some pine nuts for his pet instead.

Once there, Espen proceeded to pick up a stick and trail it about in the creek making ripples as he did so. The sense of freedom was fantastic, though he was a little scared, but that made the experience just that much more exciting. He didn't feel all that scared as long as he had the walkie-talkie in hand though and could see his house through the trees in the distance.

The sense of the wild heightened the beast within Espen, though he couldn't explain it. He felt like he was the master of all that was within his sight, and it felt cool. Kneeling down on all fours, he cast the stick aside to gaze into the water: he looked good. It had rained a few nights before so the creek was flowing at a slow and steady pace, making waves in the reflection as the water went over the rocks and sticks that had found their way into the muck.

The sticks looked warped and funny in the water, which gave Espen the idea to start making funny faces. He started with a snarl and growl, stuck his tongue out, stretched his face, then did all three. The last one caught him off guard as to how funny it was, and sent him into a short fit of laughter that was soon interrupted by a russling sound. It wasn't loud, but it was a little...off. Animals ran in all directions, where this sound was slow and deliberate. It could've been nothing, but just to be safe Espen picked up his stick again in his clawed hand and readied the button on the walkie in case it was a 'bad person' lurking in the woods. As he stared, tense, his eyes locked onto a pair of strange yellow objects and he felt the sudden compultion to move slowly closer towards them

Espen screamed. He couldn't help it. It wasn't a loud or long one, but a harsh little yelp of fright escaped his lips as he jumped back away from the disembodied head. Angry at himself for showing weakness, he decided to confront the head first, before running home in terror and defeat. He worked so hard to let his dad let him go out by himself, he was sure that he'd never get the chance to go out alone for the rest of his life if he told Shane that there was a scary monster-head in the woods.

Making up his mind, Espen put on his meanest looking face in an attempt to frighten the head back into the bushes and held the stick at the ready in case the rest of the body decided to appear just as suddenly as the head and hand did, or in case it flew out and decided to bite him. This might be a Scary-Swamp-Thing for all Espen knew and he needed to be ready.

"Who're you?! I'm not scared!" Espen demanded, in a voice that squeaked in fear.

Espen may've been small, but he wasn't gullible. He knew what the boogie-man looked like and the monster that was stuck in the weeds wasn't him. On closer inspection, Espen guessed that he was possibly from the Facility, like the rest of his friends, but he wasn't too sure.

With this in mind, Espen calmly put the stick down and stared at the emerging figure stuck in the reeds. The situation was familiar to a bedtime story that Shane had read to Espen when he asked for a story about a mouse for Riffraff. It was about a big scary lion that had a thorn stuck in its paw, and when the mouse helped the lion, it didn't eat him and they became friends.

Espen thought about taking this opportunity to show off just how strong and helpful he was, despite somewhat enjoying the spectacle of somebody stuck in the reeds (though of course he didn't show it, for fear of his life). Still, there was only so much struggling someone could do before it became pitiful and this was about it. He decided, once he saw that he had the upper hand, to help out this monster and see what could possibly come of it. After all, despite not having a stick, he still had his claws.

"Hey, you." Espen said as he approached "I'm gonna help you, butcha haveta promise nodda move, or else ya might get hurt kay?" Grabbing a fistfull of reeds in hand, he demonstrated the prowess of his claws by cutting through them like a small knife through a couch. It wasn't fast, but it was effective and clean cuts and once he was finished he cautiously approached the red thing further.

Espen was fascinated by the new creature he had discovered. He wasn't quite sure what to call it just yet. He stared at its eyes as he recived his praise and wondered if his eyes could do the same thing that the creature's was.

He was about to widen them to try and draw in light, but instead they narrowed as his blood began to boil at the thought of a challenge. Hadn't he just shown how powerful his claws were by freeing this creature when the creature itself couldn't do a thing itself? He wasn't going to be talked down to just because he was little. He knew that his claws were sharper than even those of a dinosaur!

"I don tink so. Yors not sharp nuff ta..Rah! free you." Espen retorted matter-of-factly, accidentally producing one of his guttural growls into his phrase, a bad habit he had when frustrated or threatened. He wasn't being rude, he was defending his own honor.

"I'll show ya," Espen said cheerfully, always happy to show off. He walked up to the closest tree he could find (an old hollow, dead one, probably suffering from wood-rot) and rammed his claws straight through the bark, creating five toothpick-sized slits in it and then backed off to let the creature marvel at his capability.

((Side note: Espen is wearing shoes, but his right shoe has grungy sorta slots for his claws to poke out of, because otherwise they'd be insanely uncomfortable.))

Surprisingly, Espen wasn't hurt at all by the fact that this guy could dig just as deep as Espen. On the contrary, it made him feel great to know that the other didn't get any further than he had, showing that indeed, Espen's claws were strong. It was a good thing too, because for a moment Espen felt that if the creature had been right, he would've probably cried and gone home.

At the question of what he was, Espen wasn't entirely sure just yet. Ebony had said that he probably came from The Facility too, which made sense but Shane had refused to expand on the matter and instead told him that they'd talk about it more together when he was older. Still, he didn't want to admit that he had no idea what he was, so instead gave an abridged answer of what he thought about himself so far.

"Umm...likya said, I guess Imma monster too an I useta be in a darknscary place bu noweye live he-re wi dad an Im Espen an happy ta meetcha." he spoke quickly to convince himself that he was saying everything properly so that he wouldn't have to answer anything further that he might not know about.

He...lived in the dark and scary place?

Suddenly, everything around Espen began to slow down and his breathing was rapid. His eyes grew wide and fierce in terror, and he bounded back as he realized why this person was really here.

"NOOO!" Espen roared "Go away! I'm not gonna go back! You can't make me!" he pinched himself through his jacket with both his fingers and claws to make sure he wasn't dreaming. He wasn't. The dark-and-scary place or The Facility as Ebony had called it...he wasn't sure if it had even existed or if he had dreamed the whole thing.

Was it a place or a state of being? Was it death? He couldn't remember, or he had made himself forget. What was certain though, was that it was a place that made him feel, different...and it wasn't a place that he ever wanted to go back to. Now he didn't care about seeming foolish, if this stranger made one false move, Espen was running home.

Espen's head hurt. The rush of information and oxygen to his brain made him woozy and he backed another couple paces away further from...whatever this thing was before sitting himself against a tree on slightly higher ground. He wasn't sure who he could trust anymore and he needed to calm down. The white coats? Espen vaguely remembered white, but maybe they were scared of this thing because it was a meaner part of the Facility, that he was fortunate enough not to have encountered.

Protection though. Espen hated being afraid; seeing other people that were braver than he was frustrated him. Still, he wasn't even sure if he wanted this thing to teach him any habits, let alone give him protection. After all it lived in the dark-and-scary place.

"If y-yo not mean, oh a liar," Espen reasoned "Den you either very scary, brave, oh cwazy. What egsaxtly are you?" Espen shot the question back, bracing himself for the answer. Or, Espen thought maybe those three things are the same.