Welcome to Gaia! ::

Staying in the duplex wasn't quite so terrifying anymore. However, it had the combined effect of chasing Thom away from the village during the daylight hours and making sunbathing part of the daily routine. No matter when they did to the air conditioner, he and Natsumi inevitably woke up freezing. The girl was still wary about returning to the beach after the Annie incident, but Thom knew that was where the sun was, and not even the threat of a rabid maneating wolf was enough to keep him away.

He had been on the beach for most of the morning, had finished his own routine of sandcastles and immature doodles long before Oz had even arrived, and was dozing in the warmer sand further up the beach by the time Oz actually arrived. As a result, he completely failed to notice the 'normie' until Oz unwittingly approached the spot where he was sleeping. The cobra, wary out in the open, nagged at the back of Thom's mind until he reluctantly cracked an eye, lifting a hand to shade his face from the sun and searching for the cause of his wakening. At the sight of Oz's head sticking out above a sand dune not far to his right, Thom smirked, recognizing him almost immediately as the man he had terrified at the truth or dare party. "Oi then," he called over, not bothering to sit up. "What're you doin' on my beach?"

Aha, it was worth talking just to see the man jump around like that. Still, Thom would have preferred if Oz hadn't stared after him as if he were some serial murderer. "I'm not goin' to eat you," Thom assured him with a grimace, bidding him sit down. "Not hungry enough." It was a joke, really, but Oz didn't need to know that.

That was somewhat better, anyway. Oz's staring was still rather uncomfortable, however, and so Thom made it easier on them both by sitting up and stretching his short leg out infront of himself, as well as wrapping his tail around his side. Now he didn't feel so awkward and Oz could satisfy his curiosity.

The accent struck Thom first. It was almost bizarre hearing something so familiar after months on the island. The encounter would only be made more interesting if his name was recognized. He decided to risk it. "Thom Brinley. You are...?"

Oh, he hadn't noticed the leg already? Well lovely, Thom had just brought more staring upon himself. Thom grimaced at Oz's dumbstruck expression, glaring slightly in irritation even after the normie resumed eye contact just to let it be known that staring was not approved.

"I'd say it's a pleasure, but no one wants t' be welcomed onto this island." Recognition was to be expected, and Thom was almost disappointed when the name didn't spark anything. It did make things easier, however, and so he didn't press the issue, merely addressing Oz's question. "This is, what, November...? I've been 'ere since May. 'Owever long that's been."

"I assume they told you some story, then?" Thom raised a brow, indicating that Oz should explain. In the mean time, he offered the shortened explanation of his own arrival. "I just woke up 'ere. They told me I could leave once I was healed. Bus wreck," he added bitterly, turning his glare now towards the labs.

After a beat he sighed and returned his attention to the present, shrugging. "I b'lieve so, but I 'aven't discussed it with anyone. No one's succeeded, if they 'ave attempted it."

"Don't. Most of th' people 'ere now were lured over in some way or another." At Oz's brief explanation as to his arrival, Thom grimaced, reminded that he had been drinking more often of late than he would have liked prior to the island. It certainly wasn't anything serious, nor was it anything he couldn't control, but all the same. He would rather just avoid the stuff.

The bus wreck was not something Thom particularly wanted to go into details on, especially since he could remember only scattered details from before the crash and nothing following it until he awoke on the island days later. Frowning pointedly at the ground, he shrugged, reaching for his cane to distract himself. "I suppose. It was a big wreck. They could've easily passed me off as dead. I think, in all honesty, I was the one least injured. An' to make up for it, they take my legs." He laughed.

It was a frightening subject. The idea that he might not have any legs to speak of following his next change absolutely terrified Thom. He coped by laughing. It he laughed, it seemed less real, and the change seemed far away.

After his week of 'imprisonment', he wasn't entirely certain what was real and what was not, even having progressed so far towards normalcy. Maybe he was dead, maybe he was alive, maybe he was asleep and merely dreaming. Whatever the case, he had a leg and a half, and there was no use crying for the half that was gone. It wasn't coming back.

"They very well might," Thom pointed out, looking up and glancing towards Oz's legs. It was his turn to stare, if he could find something worth staring at. "A few of th' people 'ere are actually benefittin' from the changes, if you want to look at it that way. For example, there's a kid 'ere with, what was it, multiple sclerosis? An' th' changes could save 'is life. I think it's th' lab's way of balancin' out karma."