Welcome to Gaia! ::

After that night at his duplex Chert had resumed his aimless wandering, but he hadn't strayed far from the village. In fact, he'd made it a point to return everday at dusk despite the fact that he found it nearly impossible to sleep the whole way through the night in that room. The weak remnants of the scent of misery and decay refused to dissipate completely, haunting his dreams and coloring his thoughts with unpleasant images. But he stayed, because to do otherwise would be to concede victory to Aubrey.

That day, his feet had happened taken him to the cafeteria- or perhaps he'd been following his stomach. It growled impatiently, eager for a substantial meal. Chert had been eating about as well as he'd been sleeping. The scents that hung in the air of the building were positively heavenly, but he restrained his eagerness and entered cautiously, still wary of the "excitement" that had occured several nights ago. Luckily, there seemed to be no knife-wielding druggies present at the moment, although he was dismayed to find that there was already another islander making use of the salad bar. But though he was reluctant to talk to anyone, his stomach would tolerate no hesitation. Food. Now!

Jesus, alright. Alright! Chert grumbled at the needy organ. He entered the cafeteria, trying to not stare at the outlandish pair of horns that graced the stranger's head (the attempt was only marginally successful). What kind of reptile was decorated like that? Or had they tinkered with his serum in the same way they had Antony's?

The request caused Chert to wince internally, but his expression didn't vary from its habitual frown of guarded cynicism. He muttered something incomprehensible, annoyed at being caught staring. As much as he'd promised himself that he'd act nonchalant when he met another subject, it was difficult to remain unruffled when faced with a living example of the island's reality. Sure, he'd seen Colche and Awen already, but at that point and time he'd been a little too preoccupied to view the transformations as anything beyond disturbing and macabre anomalies. Now he had time to properly appreciate the situation. Wonderful.

Chert gathered up a ham sandwich, potato chips, coleslaw, and sat down a reasonable distance from the lizard man. The stranger's teeth looked unfriendly in every sense of the word- definitely designed for the efficient dispatch of prey animals- but his plate was heaped with greenery. Someone was in denial. Chert couldn't help but raise an ironic eyebrow at the sight.

Chert hadn't expected his expression to be noticed, but he met the stranger's golden eyes squarely and gave him a lop-sided grin. "You're a peculiar brand of a*****e, I'll admit." Though his voice was tinged with irritation, it wasn't entirely unfriendly, inhabiting that gray area between insult and playful jab.

Zach was obviously not amused, which meant that Chert definitely was. The tendency to rag on people a little during a first encounter was deeply ingrained in the stocky man; the inclination was partially due to simple curiosity at what might happen if he verbally prodded someone (much like a kid's need to poke at anything interesting with a stick), and partially due to the fact that it quickly identified the people who could tolerate Chert's questionable brand of humor and those who couldn't. Zach seemed to belong to the larger of the two groups (the latter). Normally, the chill in the lizard man's tone would have rankled enough to provoke less playful harassment, but the fight with Antony was still fresh in Chert's mind. He decided to simply shut his mouth for once. It didn't seem like the other man felt much like talking.

After a few moments of quiet, however, the stranger spoke up again. Chert looked up from his sandwich and snorted. "Too long."

The tapping diverted Chert's attention from Zach's reptilian features to the man's arm for the first time, and he realized belatedly that it seemed to be lacking a parter. Apparently, Moreau was an equal-opportunity victimizer. How admirably PC. The scientist was truly a man of the twenty-first century.

"Of course not," Chert drawled sarcastically, annoyed at what he saw as a question with only one obvious answer. "They offered to turn me into a ******** rat, and naturally I jumped at the opportunity."

Having yet to suffer any sort of change, Chert was largely unaware of the strange instincts that came along with the physical transformations. The ferocity of Zach's expression took him by surprise. It was, well... not the type of face he expected another human being to make, and the savage effect was only magnified by the large, dagger-like canines in Zach's mouth.

"What do you think my problem is?" he asked. He hadn't raised past its initial volume, but it still retained that strange mix of amusement and displeasure. "I'm hopelessly stranded on a strange island with a mad scientist who's decided to reenact what sounds like a plot from a bad b-movie horror flick, and every night I go to bed with the knowledge that tomorrow I might wake up substantially furrier than the day before." As he was talking, Chert took the opportunity to casually scoot back in his chair so that he could stand up more easily, if need be. Billy's earlier attack had made him a little paranoid, and the look Zach gave him was worrying. "Aren't you upset?"

The thought of escape was what kept Chert roaming about the island (getting away was a lot easier if you were familiar with your surroudings, after all), but matters were a lot more complicated than just "trying to escape." Like he'd still be here if it were that simple! Chert gave a wordless growl of frustration. "It's a little hard to make a proper attempt when the staff can drop you with a word." A nerve twinged unhappily in his back as he thought of that day he'd confronted Aubrey. If only he had some way of disabling whatever the hell it was they'd put in his neck, or finding out the range of its effectiveness, or escaping the cameras long enough to something useful... Not to mention, there was the matter of the flu-like illness that Antony had mentioned that affected those who went too long without an injection. Probably fatal, or at least debilitating enough to prevent a stressful ocean escape.

He tried not to think about the comment about the mirror. It was a chilling thought.

"You're just going to lie down and take it, then? Everything's fine and dandy?" There was unveiled contempt in Chert's tone. He couldn't imagine remaining passive, even if rage was a waste of energy. Maybe you bloodied yourself needlessly against the wall in your way, and maybe the wall gave. It was impossible to know unless you kept trying.