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 Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:46 pm
Jordan had finally met the girl who'd broken up with Lauren and he wasn't sure how to feel. Not just about her. Nita had distanced herself from him as soon as the mongoose had come into the conversation, even after his attempts to be friendly. Jordan had tried to be nice, he'd even made efforts at dialog. He'd made the mistake of telling her about some things. He was careless. If the dog man wasn't careful, his descent would be extinguished before he could know the taste of freedom from the labs' control. Having parted from her company in less than a good mood, Jordan left the beach. The only way he could recover from the upset was to run. The feeling of running to his heart's content was therapeutic, the air around him whipping through his fur and his long-flowing hair in a soothing, yet thrilling, manner. It took his mind off of things, at least his human mind. He still ran like a biped, but he didn't know how much longer he'd be able to resist the growing canine urge to run on all fours.
Billy had been on one of his daily round abouts when he had dozed off along the riverbank in a coil of his own rock-hued limbs when the dog-man approached, his camouflage drifting as his consciousness drifted. From gray dull rock colors and patterns to brighten up in a rusty red and then drift into a darker black as the water rushed against him. He was too deep asleep to notice the company, and too drunk to care, the tell tail emptied bottle somewhere caught along the rocks down stream from him.
These runs killed two birds with one stone: one the practical aspect, he was back on the path to gradually improving his physique with constant daily exercise and on the more canine aspect of things, he was wasn't stressed, bothered, nor plagued as much by his problems as his human mind zoned out in free-spirited revelry. His ears twitched at the sound of rolling water. Had he been taken out this far already? He licked his drying lips and coughed from the dryness in his throat. His emotion-fueled run had left him feeling parched as he diverted his path alongside the river towards the river. Jordan knelt down at the waterside, and with difficulty, scooped water into his paws, slurping it down before it all had drained out. Due to the water dribbling out quickly, the dog had to repeat this many times before he'd sipped enough to counter-act the dry-throat.
The splashing nearby was enough to disturb the color-shifting cepholopod, and his limbs coiled and curled and slid down the rock he had been clinging to to dip into the water as he opened an eye to glance around. At the sight of the dog, his fins twitched, threatening to spread but he kept the spines flattened against his skull and back. Maybe he'd just go away and leave him alone.
After such a run, he was thirstier that he'd initially evaluated and kept slurping the water from his paws, frustrated that he was losing more through his digits than more was actually making it into his mouth. "What I wouldn't give for a cup." he grumbled at the inefficient usage of the canine paws. Jordan knelt down, lowering his face towards the water, scooping, splashing it into his mouth. It was humiliating to say the least, but his thirst was dying. If he'd realized that he'd been in the company of something unseen, he may have been more hesitant to look like a wild dog drinking from the river. But somehow, being down like that, on all fours, is what a part of him wanted.
Billy gave a disgusted grunt, glad that he was drinking down stream as he crawled along the shallows to try to ease his way away from the dog-man unseen.
Water dribbled and dripped from his fuzzy chin as he pulled back, alerted to a nearby sound. Looking back and forth, he didn't immediately see anyone. It was unnerving to have such good hearing at times like this. Canine ears enabled him to detect sounds more accureately and further away from him, but the spalshing had muffled just where it had come from. He looked back and forth, concerned for his safety. He had enemies... Newt, for example. That insane amphibian would love the chance to get him when his back was turned.
Billy was like a shifting, moving, coiling rock, the grey and brown veins across his skin full proof if he hadn't been moving. When he noticed the dog looking in his direction, though, he froze, beak pursed as he hoped he was overlooked.
The fear was difficult to mask. There were predators that could easily pick off a dog. He was rather defenseless in the scope of the food chain. His fluffy cuteness wouldnt exactly deter a surprise attack. His ears twitched more as he remained perfectly still. Was something or someone moving in the water?
Awen..? he tentatively called out. Chana? he pulled out the only other name he could think of for someone to be found in the water. Hew paused for a few seconds. Hello? Is someone there..?
Jordan kept looking around and he caught movement form the corner of his eye. Jerking his head quickly in Billys direction, he stared, for any sign of movement or someones presence. He inched closer on all fours, sniffing the riverbank for indication of scent.
When it seemed he was caught, Billy let his color drain and lighten into the bright lavender blue it usually was, and spread his spinned fins with a distasteful gurgling coo, "Wha's tha' shite comin' from yer belly?" He finally chuckled.
Jordans eyes went wide as he saw something changing color. He hunkered down defensively, rearing up- just in case this presence was unfriendly. The fins startled him as they spread, but there was no more movement than that, until it spoke. It was a he that spoke. He looked at whatever it was with cautious curiosity. He didnt appreciate that his disfigurement was found amusing by anyone.
Theyre paws. He answered softly I have a set of paws coming out of my stomach. It made him shudder to even say those words, no less acknowledge that they really were protruding from his body. From his stance, they wiggled and kicked for the ground as they hung there.
"Somet'ing wrong wit' yer serum, kid?" Billy chuckled, figuring he migth as well come closer at this rate. He crawled along the shallows to perch on a rock, flattening the fins down again once he settled, "Or are y'jes' special? Las' I checked, dogs only go' four legs."
Thats what Im afraid of. He responded, keeping himself aware of the movement in case he sprung for a surprise attack. This was funny to him? Jordan tried to keep it together. Be civil he thought to himself. Ive never heard of a six-legged dog either. Jordan eased himself to calm, sitting onto his haunches. It was a position he was more accustomed to than being down to the ground like that and if he needed to bolt, he could without falling on his face.
At the comment of being special, he bit his tongue before he could say anything stupid or incriminating on his part. He didnt want to send the wrong message, after all, he was trying to pull away from the labs.
"Y'go' any cigarettes?" He chuckled, worming his way to sit up on the bank, situating his various limbs to give the dog man a better look. He'd never seen this fellow before, but then again he hadn't seen many people. It was curious to make new acquaintances, but unnerving at the same time. More reminders to what he missed out, trapped in the water like he was.
He took a look at Billys form, but didnt stare. It was merely to familiarize who he was. Jordan knew how much of an insult it was to be stared at, gawked at like a carnival freak. He was an oddity as well. Im sorry I dont have any on me. Not that he smoked, but it was a more polite way of answering his question. He wasnt sure what to think of this guy yet. He hadnt attacked and had perched himself, which made the dog relax.
Im Jordan. he waved a paw gently in an attempt to be friendly. Sorry if I disturbed you. I didnt realize I came out this far and I needed a drink. He was embarrassed that he'd been seen slurping up the water in such a degrading way.
"So I see, so I see," the octopus nodded, the writhing mass of nubby malformed tentacles on his chin fidgeted as he gave it a rub with one of his many arms, "An'... wha' news is there from th'village?" His voice was watery and hoarse, weak from his shrunken lungs. This fellow seemed as though he had been there for a while, judging by his fur content.
Im not sure. I try to avoid the village. Im more at peace out here, where I can run free by myself. His tail wagged at that happy notion of freedom, though limited in the sense of the word. Though, his expression turned into a frown soon Ive seen two new people around, thats about it. I didnt know how to feel exactly. Ones an older lady, Thina, the others considerably younger by comparison. Dee? Yeah. I think thats it. Jordan gave sort of a shrug. Seeing humans around was odd, if they werent associated with the labs.
Apparently, theres a newspaper now, run by a guy named Richard. And theres a theatre being built. Its still in the works though. Im not sure what else there is to fill you in. Like I said, I try to avoid the village if I can.
He laughed at the mention of his own project, "Aye... I know aboo' th'theater bit there... s'my idear, tha'." He licked along the edge of his beak, regarding the dog thoughtful, "Fresh normies, eh? Aye, I met th'one called Dee. She din' seem so bad." Their meeting had been rather pleasant by Billy's standards.
He cocked a curious brow. "You're behind the theatre? Well, it's a pleasure to meet you.. uhm.. I didn't catch your name." he wagged his tail and put on a nice-guy smile in an attempt to learn the octopus' name, in his oh-so-not subtle demeanor. "A horse told me about it briefly one night I stumbled across the construction site. Wait.. I think I recall hisa name... uhm...." he strained to remember in an unintentional way that came off as comical. What a time to get an itch in his ear. He scratched and scratch like a dog, leaning pleasurably into it.
"William," He answered gruffly, wondering if the boy's brain was damaged by the influx of dog. "An th'horse is Gaius. Aye, he's a good chap. Diligant." He needed to figure out a waterproof container he could hang around his neck to carry his cigarettes in, he figured. Maybe someone could recommend something.
Looked like there was plenty to be done still. If workers are still needed, Id help out. Some hard, honest physical labor would keep me active and in shape. He continued to smile. Jordan liked this guy. William. Hed make a note to remember the name. He was being pretty nice, despite whats happened to his body. Partly, Jordan wondered if hed be able to remain in such spirits if his body contorted worse. If theres any way that I can help out, my offers good. Since youre the one in charge of it, I figure youd be the one that needed to know. Maybe you could pass the word along to Gaius. He fidgeted with his paws.
So tell me, whats planned for the theater? A play or two? He asked with genuine interest. Plays and theaters were synonymous in his mind. It could be interesting.
"Aye... o' sorts... all under construction, mind... lookin' fer new acts," He lifted a tentacle tip to give his collar a irritated rub. "Do wha'cher like. Talk t'me lad Gaius, he'll put y't'work." Get it built, get it up and get it going. "Wish I coul' ha' some physical labor t'keep me busy," He chuckled, "Aint good fer much anymore."
What sort of acts do you have in mind? Dogs leaping through flaming hoops? he jested at his own state, though Jordan was far from being a circus dog by any means. I dont know if Id be useful for any acts, but, yeah, definitely willing to lend a hand in the process.
He gave a reverent nod for his condition and situation. It was difficult to comprehend being limited to the water, but the collar grabbed his attention as it was tapped. It caused a quizzical look of curiosity. He wanted to know, but wasnt about to ask. Asking questions around this place caused problems and this meeting was running a lot smoother than most had previously. Youve put together a big project like this. Id say youre good for a lot. Youve gotten a community to rally around a common goal. Thats impressive, William.
"Funny where it all... came from, eh?" He chuckled a touch bitterly as he crawled along the bank in a bored fashion. "So wha' d'you t'ink... aboo' all this?" He wriggled a boneless limb absently, gesturing to the island around them.
At the mention of the island itself, that implied much more than Billy may have intended. To mind came the labs, what they were doing, and how he was basically owned by Doctor Moreau. It made him shiver a bit as an icy chill arched his spine. The topic caused him to look around nervously as he thought of a response. If hed been asked that question weeks ago, Jordan would have ranted and raved about how wonderful the labs were, how great a man Moreau maintained himself as, and even would have showed some rage towards anyone who felt otherwise. Now, though, Jordan couldnt bear with his actions of the past. Hed been such a fool to believe any of that, moreso to say any of that to others. He was a failure in life and he was a failure even here.
He had to pick and choose his words carefully. HE was always watching, or so hed been led to believe. Jordan was a pet project and, for that fact, he believed it. I hate this humidity- and that was before I had all this fur. Im a sled dog on a tropical island. He tugged at the plentiful fluff that had covered his chest, growling from both the pain of tugging too hard and the fact that it was hot as hell under the double-thick fur coatings. But, yeah it was this or spend the rest of my life in lock up. He shrugged. Not that I had much of a choice. The sneer widened.
Jordan sat on his rear, legs getting tired from that position. I just dont know, though.. as much as they cater to the people here, does that justify doing this? He put emphasis on that word as he tugged on the tummy paws. "As you said, most dogs don't have six legs."
"Oh, boo, bloody hoo, yur turnin' fluffy," He grunted with a chuckle, "Maybe ye're becomin' a mutated puppy, wit' an eyeball comin' out th'side o' yer head th'size o' a dinner plate an' a hunched back an'... p***y... growths an'... an'... y'know, ********. Tha'd be a coo, wouln' it? Cost 'em yer worth in serum an' yer a reject." How else did one explain spontaneous limps from the abdomen when one already had the correct amount to begin with?
He just gave William the most stunned look. He shook his head and his ears flapped against his head. The image... was somewhat disturbing, yet it made him crack a smile at the same time and then he did something completely unexpected. He laughed! It was amusing, despite how horrible that actually would be. He never thought he'd be able to laugh at something that would cause the labs suffering and regret, but he did and it felt good! "Beware the mutant puppy of dooooooom! He'll eat your soul!" That had come from nowhere, but it made him laugh even more. "No one is safe! Hide your children! Board up your homes! When the moon is full his true form terrorizes the people of the island!" he ran a paw through his hair, leaning his head back laughing. "Thanks, man. I really needed that. I guess it always could be worse. I could be a hell puppy." he gave his best wolf-imitation howl, laughing even more.
Billy's beaked mouth twisted into a mutated-toothed grin as he chuckled, amused by the hyperactive furry young man's reaction. Not many people appreciated Billy's... unique sense of humor, and it was amusing to be received in a positive light. "Shite, brother, I'll tell ya' it's a heck o' fecked up place, aint it? I wouln' put it past 'em t'do a project li' tha' on purpose-like."
Jordan found Williams blunt, in-your-face attitude amusing. It had kept him from emoting like a wuss again and for that he was grateful not to ruin a perfectly good meeting that way.
Hey, maybe theres a demon pup growing inside me and hell rip out with three heads and six arms, dripping acid from his snarling mouths. Now that would be freaky. He couldnt help but laugh and add to the wrongness. It just made it feel better, the situation that is, to know that far far worse could happen was somewhat of a relief.
Jordan rubbed his tummy. Dont worry, youll get your chance to eat all the souls you can gorge on. He cooed in a faux motherly voice, then broke into laughter again, falling over backwards.
Jordan suddenly clutched his stomach and groaned out in pain as he shook violently, hanging his tongue out of his mouth and gurgling on spittle. He flailed his paws around then stopped, grinning from ear-to-ear. Just kidding. No demon pup- today. He cracked up again.
"Now I t'ink y'crossed some sor' o' line there," Billy shook his head, chuckling before worming his way back towards the water. He wanted a cigarette, but his pack was back at his duplex, unfortunately. "Say, d'y'know anyt'in' aboo'... waterproof containers? Wanna' keep somet'in'... dry bu' li'... hang aboo' me neck o' somet'in."
Jordan hung his head a little as he himself thought he may have crossed the line there, but it didn't last all that long. He watched William move back into the water as he scratched his chin. "Hmmm.. wish I did. He paused as that inspired an idea for himself. Though, carrying a pack wouldnt be such a bad idea for me, either.. he pondered aloud, yet quieter. Then he wouldnt have to find himself detoured outdoors by thirst or hunger. He could carry such provisions on him.
"Mmm," The octopus grunted with a frown. He had been thinking of sending Maryke to find him one of those ziplock bags with the plastic slider to close the bag. if it would hold, it might work. He fidgeted with the slowly-regenerating stump that had been one of his arms at one point, regarding the dog-man still. "Well... if yer lookin' fer labor... talk t'them a' th'construction site. I want... th'damn t'ing built already," He laughed at that, a low breathy chuckle that was wet in his throat.
Ill track Gaius down and have a talk with him. Im sure he wouldnt mind another set of hands. He offered a slight shrug. Do you happen to know which duplex he resides in? Might make my task of hunting him down easier to have a starting point.
He diverted his gaze from the stump as it came into view, playing it off as he looked to the sky, shielding his eyes with a paw. I should get back to my run soon. Im feeling better after a short break. It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance.
"Aye, well, I'm sure it was," He grunted. So that was that, then. Contact with the terrestrials. He felt enlightened, only not terribly. He didn't remember Gaius's duplex number, and therefor began his crawl back to the water without saying anything further on the matter.
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Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:48 pm
Jordan was sitting on the edge of his bed. He hadn't bothered to say anything about it, not that it was much of a deal. It was too hot for him to sleep on it, with the amount of fur on his body, so it was more of just a large unusable object taking up space in his room. He'd been sleeping on the tile of his floor for the past two weeks and becoming more accustomed to that. The temperature was kept lower and that -in turn- kept the tile cold, which felt good on the blankets of fur adorning his person.
He was hunched forward, wondering if he could actually get away with what he and Seth had spoken about. After his body had mutated in such an unappealing manner, with those paws sticking out of him (not to mention being forced to inject himself because it's what HE wanted!)and the loss of the laptop as well, he was more fearful of Doctor Moreau than ever and that fear was manifesting into treasonous thoughts. Perhaps it was him, perhaps it was that rebellious side of the Samoyed DNA.. either way, the grass seemed greener on the other side. This was crazy and -yet- the risk was worth the benefits, no? He'd have to be careful around people like Lauren. He'd been careless with his words in the meeting with Nita and even that concerned him. Caution was paramount for success.
"Hello Jordan" came Moreau's dinstinctly displeased sounding voice. "I see you've failed me, it's disappointing." Moreau's bridge between anger and sadness was all over his voice.
Jordan feared the next time he’d contact him. This couldn’t go well. Surely, Moreau already knew of the pathetic display on the dog’s behalf, not to mention, involving a human and a subject who was not supposed to be there. He was instructed to take Lauren for back-up and had she been in tow, things would have progressed differently. Much differently. Jordan wanted to run, but he locked up.
“Hello, Doctor Moreau…” Jordan couldn’t mask the waver of fear in his voice.
"Do you understand why I am upset Jordan?" Moreau said sternly. "Not only did you not recover the laptop but you were anything but discreat about it. Can you do anything right?"
He cowered at the way he was being spoken to. Arms folded over his chest defensively in an ‘x’ formation, tucking his head into his chest. He knew there was no running, but there was nothing to stop him from bracing the onset of another punishment. Doctor Moreau had never spoken to him in such a terse manner with such blunt words.
There was that part of him that felt wounded by it, in spite of everything. There was that aspect that still felt responsible to perform the duties of the labs, even though Jordan wanted to pull apart. He bit his lip at the doctor’s coarse, second question. Jordan was a screw-up. He was the island’s Gilligan.
Everytime he’d been scolded, Jordan’s response had always been ‘I’m sorry.’ Like clockwork he’d said it each and every time to show the doctor he was sorry for failing him. Jordan nodded his head slightly in answer. “I’m sorry..” it came out. He scowled at the nature of the second question. It made him angry to be called a failure. Even if it was true, it hurt no less.
"Sorry isn't good enough Jordan. You've made me very very angry. You've been very very bad." Moreau sighed. "I don't mean to take this out on you... but you have no idea the position you've put me in. Perhaps I trusted you with too much, maybe it's time to take a step back."
He winced at those words. He was ‘bad’. He was always bad. He couldn’t ever do anything right for the doctor. The one time he had started doing things right, the laptop was stolen shortly afterwards.
His brow furrowed in confusion before lifting his head slightly from his chest. He couldn’t figure out what the angle was, but it made him nervous. What was Moreau getting at by ‘taking a step back’?
“I didn’t mean to make you angry again.. I haven’t been able to do anything right..”
"Well noted Jordan. Well, I'm pulling you from the project and the labwork. You can be a subject for now. Perhaps... you'll make it worth my note to trust you again. This doesn't mean you've stopped working for me... don't forget that." Moreau gave a slight huff. "But for now, just go about your business. Just don't forget who you really work for. I'm always watching Jordan." Moreau said, his tone indicating he'd likely heard some of the recent discusions.
His brow cocked to the side in an expression that left his mouth partially hung open. This was.. unexpected- to say the least. He was being taken off the project? And no more labwork? Where he wasn’t being held responsible for doing the labs’ bidding, it felt like he was still being kept on a leash, tied up outside to a tree till he could be ‘good’ in the eyes of the doctor. He honestly didn’t know how to react. He was on the level of the others. He wasn’t a grunt of the labs, but he was.. It was an unsettling thought.
Of course, the effect hadn’t been lost, as Jordan wondered just how much he’d heard or knew. Was he not far enough out when he’d spoken with Seth? But, then it hit him that he’d contacted the man from his duplex. ‘Smooth, Jordan…’ he thought to himself, sliding a paw upward to cover his face. Or had he overheard when he spoke to Nita on the beach?
“I don’t really understand what’s going on. I’m just supposed to think –and accept- that I’m like everyone else now? You already know I’ve made serious mistakes, from the time I arrived till now. I’ve foolishly put myself at odds with others, in the name of the labs, disclosed my ties to the labs, made enemies and pissed people off. Is it even possible to survive on my own anymore?” That was cause for worry more than anything, that he was no longer considered the pet project, but a common, run-of-the-mill subject. Was this to teach him his place or simply to instill a false sense of need for protection on the part of the labs.
"Yes you have... since you've been here you've had one blunder after another. Don't worry, you'll still be taken care of... as long as your good. I hope you can do that much atleast for me." Moreau's bitterness was still strong. "Just enjoy the lack of responsibility Jordan, you've never done very well with responsibility anyway."
It hurt to hear him talked down to like a scolded child. The fact that he’d been careless about a lot of things had been detrimental to relations, but the last comment dug a fire-hot blade deep into his gut. He felt it uncalled for, lips curling into a snarl of disgust, and the part of himself that still felt obligated towards Feral, Moreau, the labs was deeply wounded. It surprised Jordan to shed a tear as he still snarled, taking heavy, faster breaths in anger. The young man was feeling the inner conflict brew stronger.
"Don't forget Jordan, how much I've done for you. For now though, perhaps it's time to sleep." Moreau said, as Jordan's chip kicked in, making him take a break from the world. Moreau would also be out there with Jordan asleep to administer a new dosage of loyalty serum. Just because he wasn't responsible for it anymore, didn't mean he was stopping the project. Moreau set the subliminals to begin playing again until Jordan next woke up. He still had his test subject. and that was enough.
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Sabin Duvert Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 5:36 pm
When Jordan wakes up after the Incident!, he will very soon discover that all of his fur is a uniform 4 milimeters long. Was it shaved this short... or was it shaved altogether and just grew back in the "interem"?
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Posted: Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:05 pm
The mind is the hellish asylum of one’s own design. Reality is skewed by personal experience and reshaped by point of view, even substituted by foreign influence; however, the subconscious can just as well repress –if not omit- single moments, scenarios, nor is it unheard of for entire days to be forgotten. The mind is an enigma and, just as equally enigmatic, protects the psyche against traumatic scarring, even if it cannot prevent the four categories of stress: intellectual, emotional, physical, and behavioral.
Intellectual stress does not entail the intellect of a subject in question, but instead, how stress affects facets of the mind. Examples of intellectual stress are: memory problems, difficulty making decisions, inability to concentrate, confusion, seeing only the negative, repetitive or racing thoughts, poor judgment, loss of objectivity, desire to escape or run away.
Emotional stress can affect how a subject feels in reaction to taxing stimuli. Mood-swings and hypersensitivity, restlessness and anxiety, depression, anger and resentment, easily becoming irritated and ‘on edge’, a sense of being overwhelmed, a lack of confidence, apathy, and the urge to laugh or cry at inappropriate times constitute just a few primary samples.
Physical stress affects the body’s performance. Headaches, digestive problems, muscle tension and pain, sleep disturbances, fatigue, chest pain and irregular heartbeat, high blood pressure, weight gain or loss, asthma or shortness of breath, even skin problems are known to occur on occassion.
Behavioral stressors influence just that, a subject’s behaviors. Eating more or less, sleeping too much or too little, isolating yourself from others, neglecting your responsibilities, increasing alcohol and drug use, nervous habits, teeth grinding or jaw clenching, overdoing activities such as exercising, losing your temper, overreacting to unexpected problems.
Whereas many of these had manifested as stress-reaction conditions since coming into contact with Feral over a year ago and Jordan’s interactions with the other test subjects had begun, not to forget the incident that had occurred two months prior, some of these had intensified more than others. Conversely, symptoms of traumatic stress aren’t guaranteed to manifest immediately. Top that with the psychological damage caused by the painful and disfiguring transformations, the defective loyalty serum reacting in unforeseen ends, and the ******** subliminals, and it’s cause for concern on the part of the test subject, especially taking into account he has become aware of all these devices manipulating him mind and body.
In the weeks since being relieved of his duties, the bittersweet freedom had been spent in solitude. The isolation –initially- had been good for him: no interactions, nor influences on the part of Moreau or the motley crew of test subjects, for that matter. Being removed from his responsibilities would have been a sweeter triumph had he not been trapped on the forsaken island already. At least in prison, he would have still remained human. Irregardless that he’d committed acts in the name of the labs and Moreau, on the island, he loathed their practices, even on the mainland he’d been disgusted and outraged by their animal experimentations. He hated them and he feared them like the wrath of God. It had been a relief to avoid the other test subjects like the plague. After three and a half months of life on the insufferable rock, there was no demanding pressure from the labs nor the subjects themselves and there had been time to collect his wits and just be himself. Without alarms to waken him, he could sleep more than five hours, but it was difficult to do when his biorhythm had become accustomed to it. Sleep felt so good and with more than five hours of scripted shut-eye, he could learn to sleep a full night again, in time.
The prolonged evasion of others left him with more time to focus on personal endeavor, like physical fitness. He’d become more physically conscious in the past few weeks, like he had been in his high school days, with so much energy building in his idle body. He needed to move and flex, like an itch that wouldn’t let up. His body demanded it, to unconsciously prepare him for a life of hard labor. Running, working out, and general exercising till he succumbed to exhaustion had kept him busied. He’d been conditioning his body this way for a couple weeks prior, while dealing with distractions, but with nothing getting in his way, he’d been able to focus on his regiment.
With prolonged isolation came awareness of his vulnerability, followed by a growing sense of paranoia. His duplex was separated from the village, making his presence stand out. It was disconcerting that he was cut off from their community. He was the outcast, banished to the other side of hell’s island, and separated from the others by a dangerous jungle. Although there was the trail into the village, that bypassed the jungle, he was becoming hesitant to leave the beach if he could help it. Rustling bushes, movement out of the corners of his eye (whether it was really there or not), and even his ears deceived him into a state of acute panic. What was equally alarming was the infused canine DNA striving for dominance and quelling his humanity at a frightening pace. That’s what they wanted. It was progress in the eyes of the lab, no doubt. He was trying to keep his humanity in tact, to keep the invasive canine presence from taking control and reducing himself to a subhuman aberration.
No one would understand if Jordan told another soul. The transformations, yes, they could understand, but likely not empathize. The common apathetic response was they all went through this, but only they didn’t have the main man in charge tinkering specifically with their minds as well as administering the flesh-bending serums. Who would he tell? A demented mongoose who would resort to angered name-calling? Or perhaps a neurotic frog with psychopathic urges to carve Jordan like a jack-o-lantern? No one cared. They were looking out for number one and perhaps he –too- had to take the lesson learned to become less reliant on the others for morale support and assistance. A neocentric and, at times, self-righteous attitude, from the others, had greeted him with a kick to the groin when he wasn’t acting like a complete tool.
Amongst topics that could not be spoken in the midst of company were the nightmares plaguing his already restless mind on and off for two months. Whether his run-ins with the other subjects were detrimental or friendly, they kept his mind distracted and unfocused on the incident; but, it had already been weeks of isolation and nothing to keep his frantic mind at bay. He couldn’t divulge those horrific visions that end with him gutted like a fish and his entrails ripped out forcibly from his blood-stained and claw-marked torso, always his ‘conscious’ dream form lying in a pool of his own blood and gore while still able to ‘feel’ the pain of evisceration. Unable to scream for help with his throat ripped out, the jaws imprints of the predator indented into his flesh, he is only able to gurgle bubbles from the blood that oozes down his chest. The imagery of half his skull crushed in was enough to wake him screaming in terror, vomiting as the images, sounds, and smells etched into his terrified haze. In the nightmares, he never dies. He’s never lucky enough to be put out of that misery. Jordan’s mind screams at the images that torment him, never letting the pain stop in his sleep. It’s far too realistic to be nightmares as he pats his chest and stomach upon jarring awake to ensure that he is not mortally wounded.
The world was coming back to him when he awoke with a sneeze. Jordan stirred back to consciousness, though, maybe he was better off without the throbbing head pain. The first thing he noticed after the migraine-sized throbbing was the aching in his body as he reached for the sink, followed by the severe cottonmouth. He hadn’t remembered being tired… maybe he’d overdone it with the exercising? Jordan struggled with the faucet but managed to open the water flow as he cupped his paws under the faucet. He’d taking a few sips of water and was going for more when he looked closer at the wet paw, and gasped in shock at the realization. The back of his paw… the fur! What the hell? Where was his fur? Not that it was a bad thing it was trimmed back, that s**t was heavy and damn HOT… but… what the hell was going on?! Fur just doesn’t cut itself! He glanced down in horror and for the first time, he was seeing his distorted body… without fur… it was –to say the least- disturbing… He turned around and gagged as even his tail had been shaved.
As if on cue, his stomach grumbled, adding one more aching pain to his body’s stiffness. He was hungry as if he hadn’t eaten in about twelve hours. It wasn’t helping that he was eating less lately, so this made it all the worse. There was so much dust! How long was he out… it looked like the set of a creepy horror movie, especially with the bed that Lauren had destroyed with her claws. There was no way he wanted to seen like this.
Jordan had begrudgingly ventured out for food. Going to the cafeteria was a hassle when walking from the beach, but it was that or attempt spearing fish with a stick. He’d rather not starve. He didn’t want to be recognized so he’d taken the sheets from his gutted bed and made a makeshift cloak out of them to conceal his identity, holding it closed around his body with safety pins from his personal gear. It’d been a pain manipulating such small pins with his large, unskilled paws but after poking himself many times, he’d done it in a way that it could be slipped on or off. It even covered his head like a hood.
He’d waited so long to get food that it was getting along in the afternoon, what with wrigging up the sheet-cloak. He didn’t want to be outside when night fell. He didn’t want to be out when the creatures of the night became active. Jordan walked along the path that bypassed the jungle, taking him on the longer, but safer route around the jungle area. His stomach grumbled fearsomely and he must have looked strange, if not suspicious, walking the path looking like a white-sheet druid. The wind whipping through the trees off to his side left him jumpy and tugging on the fabric of his sheet-cloak. It hastened his step on the path as he noticed just how late it was becoming. The sun was already halfway below the horizon and it was too late to turn back. He needed to eat or he’d be awake throughout the night languishing the hunger pains.
Underneath the sheet, his paws were clasped tightly as he slunk along the trail hurriedly. Jordan was paranoid he was being watched, stalked by whomever did this to him- or worse. He broke into a full run, fearing the shadows of darkness descending upon him as the sun extinguished over the horizon. He was too far out to return home now. The village was approaching faster and faster in his panicked run. He was like a sheet ghost racing through the darkness, obviously if anyone happened to spot him it would be best to keep running than to stop and explain in a panicked state of fear.
Ironically, by the time he reached the cafeteria, he wasn’t so hungry anymore, partly for being too hungry, over-exerting himself into fatigue, and panic. He grabbed some napkins and folded food into them, popping a chicken nugget or two into his mouth for good measure. He never made it out with the food in the napkins as those few chicken nuggets reminded his stomach how hungry he was and he scarfed the contents with a sigh of relief.
There wasn’t much else to do now.. but make it home alive..
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Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 8:27 am
Where one problem had been solved, the cutting of his fur had caused another. It had been three long months wearing that dense fur coat since Jordan had felt cool and though it had come as a mixture of relief and terror to have the double-thick coating of white fur suddenly gone. That meant that someone had buzzed him and personally visited his duplex while he was out to do the deed. He looked like a damn chihuahua or a hairless rat. Humiliating. To his dismay, he could see the scars from where he stabbed his left arm with the two injections prior to his last change. What was worse was the (mostly) lack of fur reminded him of his fading humanity.
“Five months…” he stared in the mirror, propped with his arms on the sink. “Unconscious for your own birthday. Not that you’d have much to celebrate, eh, Jordan?” Believing that it was late August, as he’d inquired from the cafeteria woman, he was upset that he’d been here nine months –or so the misinformation would have him believe- and he’d even missed the opportunity to be miserable on his own birthday, the 6th of August. He would not be amused to find out it was the 3rd of April and this had been part of a labs staff April Fool’s prank.
“I wonder…” he muttered and exited his bathroom and opened his closet. There hung clothing that he hadn’t worn in some time. “I wonder…” he repeated, running a paw over a shirt. The touch of fabric seemed so foreign now, but perhaps he could still cling to his humanity if he were to dress up… at least while his fur remained short and unencumbering. He wore a pair of shorts, but that was all he could tolerate with so much fur. Could he wear a shirt, given that he had those protrusions from the front of his torso? Either way, he was going to. A little pain was enough justification if it meant concealing them from sight. He didn’t reach for a silk suit shirt, instead opting for a more casual and colorful number. It had red sleeves and was white in the center with a green star in the center. He fumbled the shirt when he slipped it off the hook and it fell to the floor. Jordan took the bottom of the shirt in both ‘forefinger and thumb’ claws, lifting it that way over his head. It hurt his ears as the ring slipped over his head and he struggled to pull it over his torso without putting a hole in it. The hard part, though, was yanking the shirt bottom over his second set of paws. They wiggled in resistance and pain as he tried to conceal them. It hurt to squash them against his body, but he hated them and they needed to be kept from the light of day. Such abominations. He pulled it over his torso as best he could, even with their continued squirming, it didn’t look so bad… well, maybe.. His navel showed as the slight increase in length/height had caused the shirt to leave his mid-drift visible. He slipped his paws into the sleeves and immediately, he ran into resistance. They were simply so big. So he shoved them through slowly, while biting back the pain. He didn’t want to ruin this shirt. The sleeves stretched out some, but with some stubbornness he won out. To finish off the ensemble, he topped his head with his baseball cap and slipped on his black sunglasses. The slope of his nose made them sag on his face and they fell off. Okay, no sunglasses.
Jordan was hesitant to step outside. Not only was he uncomfortable being seen shaven, but moreso there dangers between his beach-side home and the village colony. With a dour expression, he stepped outside and his frown softened only slightly. The sea breeze hadn’t felt this amazing on his bare skin in a long time; however, the sun didn’t feel as great. He lurched backwards out of the direct sunlight, back onto the shaded stoop, rubbing his right arm. His skin was fairer, paler than he remembered and the sun was uncomfortable on his flesh, almost too intense for comfort. For three months, his skin hadn’t been exposed to sunlight, with the exception of his face, and it had caused the already-paled skin to become sensitive to the light, like a hermit living in a dark cave. He could feel the difference from the sunlight touching his face and from where it touched everywhere else. His exposed flesh was certainly sensitive sans fur. That’s why he sat on his stoop in the shade, legs pulled up to his chest to keep them from laying in the direct light. At least he was clothed. The shirt offered protection to the majority his upper body.
“What’d I do now?” he wondered aloud, tipping the brim of his cap over his eyes. He’d kept himself distanced from others to prevent conflict.
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Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 10:35 am
(backdated for continuity issues) Jordan Essex Jordan had wanted to sit at the cliffs again, but that meant passing through the jungle, or at least a part of it, and he was afraid to venture too deep on his own. His fear was preventing himself from going too far and the isolation was eating at him. He needed to be around others and his nervous paranoia of every sound, movement, and shadow had made living down by the beach even more nightmarish. Sure, there was the dirt road into the village, but that was it. Jordan’s exercise regime was being interrupted by the seizing terror of the unknown. He didn’t want to live in fear the rest of his days. He also didn’t have much choice about what was happening to him, so he had to suck it up, which wasn’t an easy task for him. He wasn’t a rock. He wasn’t strong. Jordan was weak and pathetic, a loser. That’s why he was on the island, because he failed at life. Despite his efforts to prove himself useful, he’d ostracized many and furthered the decay of lives, potentially. The internal strife was tearing him apart. He’d become aware of what had been employed to twist his mind and despite efforts to ignore those thoughts, they remained… as a part of him, a constant struggle to control himself, to be himself once more. The churning tides of internal conflict have yet to yield whether he Jordan can reclaim what little is left of his life and his humanity.
He’d made the usual pilgrimage to the cafeteria, but he wasn’t hungry. He just wanted some company more than anything. He was lonely and despite his efforts to eradicate his past influenced behavior, wanted to have someone to talk to without the stigma of past actions shrouding who he really was when left alone by everyone. Jordan pushed the plate away, steak and mashed potatoes unappetizing for the moment, and slumped forward, resting his head onto his folded arms, staring off t the side as his bottom lip trembled. He was on the verge of tears as he remained –mostly- motionless in the otherwise quiet setting. Richard Harrison Richard on the other hand was feeling better about her life. She was looking forward to getting some clothes that actually fit. And she had a task for today, that always helped her outlook, something to accomplish, even if the task was a bit grisly. Hoping to prevent a mishap later Richard swung by the cafeteria sate her own hunger first. As she walked through the doors she savored the scents that drifted to her. Mostly the scent of fresh cooked meat, she could feel her muzzle filling with drool as she licked her chops. She advanced on the buffet a few steps before another scent caught her attention. It was new, but some how familar, and at the same time set a small part of her mind screaming: PREY! She looked around the cafe, spotting Jordan's fuzzy form. She dropped down to all fours immediately, not wanted him to spot her. She had not thought of Jordan and his mysterious serums in quite awhile. Food would wait. The information would be so much sweeter if she could wring it out of him. Feeling that he would flee if the dog caught wind of her, she pressed her tentacles flat against her back as she padded behind Jordan and pulled herself into a chair next to him. "Hello Jordan" She purred in that high voice. Jordan Essex He was wrapped up in himself at the moment, too much so to notice anyone else come in or out. As such, he wasn’t paying any attention to his surroundings as he believed himself to be alone in his quagmire. He was thinking back to the afternoon he’d met Thina, how he’d been forced to confront the loss of family for the first time since being in this abysmal hell of a floating prison. He didn’t have siblings and beyond his parents, he’d never really come to know his extended family. A picture or even some keepsake of theirs, some way to know they were alright and let them know that he wasn’t dead. He was brought from his reverie of lament- however- by an unfamiliar voice.
“Huh?” he asked, looking around but seeing no one, shrugging his shoulders and putting his head back down. It was more that he’d heard the sound of a voice than the actual words and without a trace of someone around him, he rationalized that he’d imagined it. Perhaps a figment, if nothing else. But then he lifted his head with a sigh and leaned back in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the form of someone and hesitant to see who it could be, he asked instead. “So I didn’t just imagine someone calling my name?” Richard Harrison Richard was to caught up in the moment to lament her appearence or the unfamiliarity of her own voice. She could smell the dog man's bitter sweetscent, it triggered images of coffins and flowers to flow through her mind. A month or two ago the memories would over whelm her but now, now they seemed like someone else's life, stories she had read about, not lived them. It was a heavy funk of depression she smelled as she cataloged the scent deep within her brain. Doggy Blues, she named Jordan's scent as she savored it. She reached out and closed a handpaw around his forearm as she settled into the seat besides him. She grinned at him, the saliva causing her teeth to gleam. "Is that gilded cage not working out for you any more Jordan." Jordan Essex The grasp to his arm made him uneasy in his seat, but he didn’t run, nor attempt to run. He was in no mood to flee like a coward again. Instead, he glanced over at the owner of said paw and, in his current state, didn’t overreact, but still it left him with a surprised expression at the change in Richard’s exterior. There was only one feline with tentacles that he’d met, assuming this was Richard- or had been. He was… uh… she was… oh god it made his head hurt. He didn’t say anything at first. What could he say that wouldn’t be misconstrued as some sort of offense? Her changes made Jordan self-conscious as he tried to pull the shirt lower to conceal further his wriggling paws underneath, which he tried to keep hidden under the table.
Sure, he’d been afraid of Richard for some time and that hadn’t changed, but he was in some shock. Jordan tried to ignore the obvious attempt to goad him into a shouting match. “Something like that.” He remarked. He could have told Richard so much that had given him cause to rebel, but Jordan wasn’t sure if he could trust him.. her. “I know. I acted like an a**. Just rub it in and get it over with.” He huffed in resignation that the female cat would rub salt into the open wounds. “I’ve done things that I’m not proud of and I’m very sorry for it. I know…” he beat her to the punch “That doesn’t excuse any of it, but at least I’m trying to atone for my actions.” He glared at her for a moment, he’d wanted to stare her down, but he couldn’t because even moreso she terrified him. Richard Harrison She cocked her head to the side as she listened to Jordan. This was a surprise, she would have thought the cracks in what ever brain washing Jordan had undergone would be repaired by now. That didn't appear to be the case, Jordan seemed broken but uncontrolled. Was it an act? She looked at him suspiciously, her eyes boring into him. She leaned close enough that had Jordan could feel her breath on his fur. She sniffed, as if she could smell the truth of his words. She shifted, bringing her muzzle to his ear. "Atone?" She whispered as her tail lashed with excitement. "So glad you finally see the reality of our situation. I think I know how you might atone for me." There was little menace in her voice, he hadn't mentioned her new gender, and for that she was thankful. However she was very much in his personal space but to her, prey wasn't entitled to personal space. Jordan Essex If it were an act, it was so deceitful that even he hadn’t been aware of it, but indeed he was not trying to deceive anyone. It was hard enough being a pawn of the labs up to this point, but now he was tasked with the impossible atonement phase to prove that he wasn’t attempting to stab everyone in the back once more.
Jordan was a burnt-out husk caught between factions and between the transformation process. He was unnerved by the closeness and the stares. Of course she had reason to be suspicious. They all did and it was the cross he had to bear till he could prove otherwise that he wasn’t up to another shady scheme. He pulled his head back, wrinkling his nose. She was too close for comfort and he didn’t like that at all.
Then she got too close, whispering in his ear and he froze. He was afraid to move away with her jaws so close, she could snap his neck if she so chose. Richard was going to be the hardest of all to convince. Seth had at least given him the benefit of the doubt, but there was no such luck with her. He wasn’t going to say anything self-incriminating beyond anything said so far and that made Richard twice as dangerous. She was good at getting him to say and do things out of anger. “Uh…? I’m afraid to ask.” He slumped his head back down, facing into his folded arms. Now he was going to be goaded into doing errands? “And just what do you want?” came the muffled words… eventually. Richard Harrison Richard reached across Jordan back to grab his far shoulder and pull the dog man closer to her. To an outside observer it might appear that Richard was attempting to comfort Jordan but the bolt straight tail and the tense muscles contradicted that. "What I want?" She whispered into his ear. "I want to know what they did to you to do what you did, to think what you did. I want to know about that second serum." If she could prove its existance, then she might be able to drive a wedge between Moreau and his staff. It would be a threat to their freedom of thought. Even the most loyal minion might have trouble stomaching that. Jordan Essex He was uncomfortable with her being so close. He was better off keeping his head down so he didn’t have to face that crazed expression of feline intensity. He could feel her breath closer and literally passing over his neck. It gave him goosebumps. Then came the meat and bones of it, the part that was half-expected, her continued quest to know everything and anything to use against the labs. Her request was dubious as he knew that was Pandora’s box. He wasn’t on the official roster of labs henchmen anymore, but it wasn’t like asking for a hard-kept cookie recipe from ages past. She was inquiring about something that would bring forth a world of pain and trouble for himself if he spoke on the matter. As it was, he skated on thin ice when he spoke in Richard’s presence.
Slowly, he lifted his head, as if the dead had risen, eyes wide with fear and contempt, and his hair cascading around his face. “Sorry, I don’t have your answers.” He responded in a near-whisper. He hated what Moreau was doing to him, forcing him to inject himself snapped him like a twig, telling him bold-faced what methods had been employed to control him so confidently and lording his power of control. He didn’t want to be a pawn, but he wanted to remain out of trouble at the same time. "I'm sorry...." he uttered softly, trailing off. He stared intently, eyes reflecting the terrible nature of what he'd been privvy to, what he'd done under the influence. Richard Harrison A soft growl escaped her lips. That was not what she wanted to here. "You injected yourself. You know what you injected. Don't you see? With proof of what it is, we could crack the staff's support. End this. Think of what could happen if its perfected Jordan. The consequences." There was a maddening mixture of hope and desperation in her voice. The more she thought about the loyalty serum's existance the large the consequences got and the more possiblities opened in her mind. Her grip tightened on Jordan clinging onto him. Jordan Essex She was scaring him, but that wasn’t so hard. He was equally scared by the possibilities. Was he hesitant because he was afraid of further punishment or was it that, in a sector of his mind, Jordan had been exposed to such a quantity that it was rewiring his mind to obedience despite his reluctance to be a pawn. An army of others under the sway of the loyalty serum… that could be disastrous if they were like him, trapped in a mental struggle between disobedience and subservience. Dog soldiers…
“Please don’t do this…” he choked, voice wavering. He rubbed his arm unconsciously, the spots where he’d jabbed himself when Moreau had forced him to do the dirty task of injection. “Don’t make me remember…” His eyes watered. Tears welled and rolled down his cheeks, onto the table. “I’m asking you nicely to stop…”
Richard could feel the shivers the moment they began as he was pulled closer/held tighter. Jordan- the real Jordan- had never been accepting of Feral’s practices, but he’d been manipulated to think otherwise for week and he wanted to forget that, everything that had happened in response to that accursed loyalty serum. He rubbed the pawpads of his right paw, wondering if it were even possible to stop it. “I’m trouble.. pursuing this can only result in yourself punished on my account.. I don’t want to cause any more problems..” Richard Harrison She pulls him in tighter, place her muzzle directly into his ear and whispers so low that Jorden might have difficultly hearing it if his senses were normal. "Nice? I stopped being nice when Moreau made me into a monster, a predator. I've never hurt anyone before coming here. Now its second nature to lash out, to bite to claw, I crave rare meat and I fear raw might be even taster. I've looked at people and gotten hungry. I've been degraded... feminized. Nothing about this place is nice. You've been controlled, forced to do a man's bidding like a simple minded pet. Yet for that you might have the bullet to help us all. At least start something moving. Nice my a**. Its your responsibility." Jordan Essex Unfortunately, he had little problem hanging onto the words as the descriptions elicited a shuddering cringe. Becoming a predatory creature that feasts on raw meat and views others as prey was intimidating enough as he tried not to make eye contact with her. She kept coming closer and closer with every moment and he wondered if he was going to become a target if he didn’t cooperate. Jordan was a coward in his later years, reality had crushed and molded him into that. “I don’t have responsibilities. My services for Moreau have ended and I’m free to do as I wish. Please let me have this chance to live out the rest of my life in some semblance of ‘freedom’ that you and the others of the village have enjoyed. You want to talk about the weather or shoot the breeze, that’s fine, but I’m sick of talking about the labs.”
He just wanted to live in peace and not have to think about the labs anymore. Whatever information she was so adamant about wasn’t his concern and he was not obligated to give it to her, nor anyone else. He couldn’t even get a moment’s peace to be alone with his thoughts outside the miserable confines of his beachside duplex. How was one to co-exist when when someone like Richard wanted- persistently- information regarding the labs. Jordan swiveled his head to meet her gaze head-on, consequences be damned.
“I’m sorry for what he’s done to you, but to say this is my responsibility? Let’s get something straight: I don’t work for Moreau anymore and I certainly don’t have to fire the ‘silver bullet’ that ends this horror.” Richard Harrison She released him with a frustrated growl. "You've been released to do as you please and yet your still to much of a coward to do anything about it. Refusing to help who you victemized. You said you wanted to make amends, atone." She leaned in again. "I'm giving you the opportunity, but apparently you didn't really mean that." Richard had no idea exactly what Jordan's responsibilities were but was certain they did not help the islanders. Jordan Essex The moment she released Jordan, he pushed his chair out, ready to stand at any time. He didn’t want this same routine of aggravation and inevitable argument from Richard or from anyone else for that matter. He wanted nothing more to do with any of this. “You can’t place this on my head.” He scowled, upset by the accusations. “I’m not responsible for any of this, you or anyone else who’s trapped here. I’m not a martyr, nor am I the great hero who’ll save us and others from living out this fate.” Jordan shook his head as he really didn’t want to be in this position. “I’ve made my peace with Seth for what I did to him, but you’re not going to allow me to make amends with you. So be it, Richard. That’s your choice, not mine.” And with that, he stood, taking his plate with him. “I’ll finish my meal in more hospitable company.” As he turned his back on her, he raised his free hand, snapped his fingers as best he could with difficulty (which resulted in his claws clicking) and said plainly, with some annoyed attitude “I may be a coward, but fear keeps me alive.” Richard Harrison "Seth?" She giggled darkly. "Seth's a moron that's going to get himself killed and anyone else you helps him." Now that Jordan was released and the camera's could hear them Richard didn't dare say another word about the loyalty serum. Richard got up, in preparation to head towards the buffet and finally get a meal. "How reasuring, so you were moral bankrupt to begin with." She sneered. "You know where to find me if you find some manner of actual concern for others." Jordan Essex Walk away. Just. Walk. Away. She’s not worth it. This is what she wants, Jordan. She wants you to huff and puff and make a scene so you once more look like the bad guy. Just ignore the bitchy cat lady and move along!
Why’d he give a rat’s a** if she badmouthed either him or Seth? As far as she was concerned, Jordan was a neocentric coward and Seth a moron leading a death march. They were only words and he could have left at any moment, but he faltered in his step near the exit as it was eating at him to just let her get away with the last word like that. Her words irritated him- every time she spoke. He scowled once more, biting his lip. He couldn’t risk it as he sighed in resignation to her insults. He wanted no more fighting and moved along.
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Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2007 12:23 pm
Jordan Essex Jordan fidgeted to keep his secondary paws under his shirt. It was painful and inconvenient, even if the shirt didn't cover his entire torso, leaving his mid-drift exposed. That was peculiar and it hadn't occurred to him that his body had lengthened some during his last change (not enough visibly, but it had). He kept tugging on the shirt with difficulty to keep them under wraps, though the wriggling bulges moved like chest-bursters under the fabric. That wasn't all that had been on his mind, though. Five months had passed. It was late August.. he'd been unconscious for five months! He'd missed his birthday earlier in the summer month and it did feel warm out. And in that time, he'd been shaven completely of his fur and it was only now growing back.. it was crew-cut length and it left his sensitive skin exposed to the light it hadn't felt in three months. Another reason to wear more clothing. At least before his fur had given him some dignity in public. It felt so weird- and itchy- to have so little fur on him. It was not a complaint to be rid of it. Good riddance to that double-thick winter coat.
He'd gone into the village for food, but tried to keep himself elusive, as not to be seen by anyone. In daylight, that had been a difficult task. After a filling meal of whatever appealed most to him, a plate of hamburgers and hotdogs, Jordan found himself needing to work off that energy. If he was out for so long, that meant his body hadn't been worked in months and that made him feel even more self-conscious about himself. He'd begun a jog away from the village that took him towards the lake. He hadn't been to the lake in some time.. was it the last time that he, Awen, and Joliette had congregated? When he mistook her for an alligator and stupidly shouted such in warning to his friend? Maybe she was around. She was fairly upset with him following the laptop fiasco between himself and Thom, not to mention there had been a human in their midst..
Jordan picked up a pawful of pebbles and sat down, skipping rocks across the lake. This place.. it was terrible what was happening. And there was nothign they could do to stop it. At that thought, he chucked the fistful of pebbles angrilly into the lake. Alec Derring What a shock, to wake up in an unfamiliar and empty room. Alec had to force his heart back into his chest when he'd woken up lying on the edge of a generous pool -much nicer than the tub he always had to huddle in- in an entirely different duplex. Right, the duplex. This must be the one he'd requested to be changed to... but where was Amaya?
And the time. Months. It had been months?! The sharkboy was never one to keep tabs on the exact date. Days were merely numbers, the seasons changed and time went on. That's what really mattered. But this, this was too much! He knew it hadn't been late summer last time he could recall and worst yet, the lack of Amaya's presence in the duplex they were intending to stay together in only sent to boy into a renewed fit of panic.
Immediately and with little regard to his wheelchair that was parked conveniently nearby, the aquatic youngster slid off the edge of the landing and into the small pool that led into the lake. The wheelchair was cumbersome, slowing him down as he'd struggle against the jungle for mobility. The lake and its adjoining rivers were the quickest route, he realized. Fortunately it didn't take long for contact to be apparently made with a possible source of information. Although the rippling of the water itself as the small pebbles struck the surface were significantly far away from the passageway of his duplex, the sensation oddly caught his attention and urged him to go investigate. Circling and submerged, he slowly rose up with his attention focused on the surface until a rain of pebbles caught him off-guard. Coming out, the youngster's characteristic dorsal fin broke the water's surface first and lingered there like a flagpole of what lay hidden below. Jordan Essex The rock arsenal broke the lake’s surface tension, rippling into outward-moving rings. Out of ammunition, Jordan stared at the widening rings. He hadn’t stopped to consider how it was equivalent to throwing rocks at someone’s backyard window or how rude it was to throw the rocks into the lake when people were living in modified duplexes connected to the water source. Actually, it hadn’t occurred that it was bothering anyone. If someone had surfaced, that may have livened the interim period of idleness. There were worse things than idleness and he’d hoped that enough time had passed that the other subjects could have forgotten him and some of the deeds he’d done under the sway of the labs. He’d acted like a such a fool to the point he’d been relieved of his duties, tossed aside and given the brush-off.
“People pay to vacation in places like this…” he scoffed, remembering all the northern tourists- snowbirds they were called- the Floridian commerce depended on. “Except when you come here as a snowbird, you stay here as a snowbird…” he sneered at his commentary.
His mood-shift was interrupted by the surfacing of a fin. Apparently, he had disturbed someone and they couldn’t be too thrilled about it. No way that was Awen, but he hadn’t been aware of the inhabitants of the lake- unless that was a real shark and not a subject. He’d assumed it wasn’t a dolphin or porpoise since they wouldn’t have stopped like that. Either of the latter would have made more of a clatter in the water, made their presence known in a flamboyant display of attention, and would have investigated more hands-on. But, he could always be wrong. Jordan had heard that swimming with sharks wasn’t as dangerous as the hype made it to be, but he wasn’t going to test that theory today, in case that was a subject –or the real thing- in a foul mood. Instead, Jordan found one more rock. It wasn’t thrown as far as the others had been, nor was it given enough power to approach the shark’s location. It was skipped near the edge of the lake. He wanted to know who or what exactly had surfaced and luring them closer to land would achieve that end. Alec Derring He could hear the deep and clearly male voice permeate through the water despite the insulative muffling of the sound but he didn't recognize it. The figure was a rippling blob of blotchy white; not many islanders looked like that, at least among the ones he'd met. Then again there was one character it could've been and Alec hoped to God it wasn't true, seeing as white was the colour of trouble in his mind. Trouble with a capital 'J'.
Another stone was lobbed into the murky depths. Surely he could see him, why did he continue to play games with pebbles? Nevertheless the fact remained that Alec was neither a dolphin or an angry sea monster but he sure let his curiousity control his actions often enough. He tentatively approached the impact of the last projectile, gliding over until he hovered under the entry point. If there really was an ambush to be had on the unsuspecting shark, he really was making it easy for them. Then again, maybe they were just afraid to venture into shark waters. Finally the boy raised his head above the surface to stare with deep black eyes at the stranger. Shutting his gaping jaw, he forcibly expelled the water from his gills so that he could speak better. "A' neveh w's aneh good a' skippin' rocks." He commented with a small, toothy smile, relieved that he hadn't seen a giant tigerman waiting on the shoreline. Jordan Essex The reaction he’d sought was playing out with the successful bait and switch. The fin maneuvered closer to him and he wasn’t sure what to expect. Jordan remained where he was, cautious to get too close. Curiosity killed the cat after all. Jordan wondered if he’d see more than just a fin slicing through the water, mentally preparing himself in the event that it was one of the subjects. First impressions were everything in these potentially-volatile meetings, moreso when there were uncertainties like now.
As the distance closed in, Jordan was getting a better view and indeed it was a shark, but why had it stopped short? Was it waiting for him to set foot in the water or was the shark more interested in the rock that he’d thrown? When a head lifted above the water, he was still surprised this was one of the subjects. He hadn’t known there was a sharkboy on the island or in it’s waters anyway. Sometimes, no matter how much one prepares, it always manages to take them guard sometimes. He made the attempt to be casual as Alec was seemingly doing with him, but bhat a set of teeth on him! He’d never seen a shark up this close- or a human infused with shark DNA! The expelling of water from his gills took Jordan off-guard momentarily recomposing himself, watching carefully as a grin crossed the boy’s mouth. Jordan must have looked just as surprising and freakish to him. There was a sense of relief that the sharkboy was friendly with the conversation attempt. “I hope that I didn’t hit you by accident.” Jordan kept his listless expression “I didn’t know anyone but Awen lived here.”
He wanted to stay where he was for the moment. There was no need to rush in and give a false impression or worse yet startle him away. This was the first new islander that he’d seen in a very long time and an opportunity to continue just being himself. He had to do something to break his own silence as he picked up a few rocks and against his better judgment, he moved closer to the sharkboy, holding out a few of them. “Wanna toss?” Alec Derring "Neh!" The youngster cheerfully exclaimed in response with a slight jerk of his wedge-shaped head. "Theh's a few o' us n' this 'ere lake." This one seemed a little edgy, he thought. Definetly caught up amidst a very awkward change as well. He seemed to be developing a white coat of sorts to match the awkward paws that now replaced all four limbs. The fur itself was very short which allowed the pale human-coloured skin show through. It gave the overall image of some halloween costume gone wrong though he could tell by his face that he'd be a canine of sorts seeing as he reminded him almost of Ambrose. Ne'er mind the lumps on his chest, the boy thought quietly too himself in respect to the malformities clearly visible underneath his shirt. No need to ask about that, they all had their awkward looks.
Alec glanced unsurely between the strange man and the offered rock for a moment longer and back again. Skips rocks? At a time like this? Surely there was something more constructive they could be doing... besides, how was he to skips rocks on water while IN the water?
"Neh thanks, ay." He raised a webbed hand to gesture briefly before quickly turning his body toward land. With a flicker of his two leg-fins he glided effortlessly until his belly ran ashore. "Am Alec. A' d'n think a' met yes befo'?" Jordan Essex It’d be a fairly lame attempt of breaking the ice on Jordan’s part but it did it’s trick as he simply let the rocks slip from his paw, not caring about throwing any more either. He didn’t want to appear stand-offish and offend him with anti-social behavior (but if he had, it may have appeared more appropriate to what most of the others were like). Speaking of behavior, Alec’s cheerful attitude was more of a surprise than his presence. What did he have that made him so happy? Was he one of Lauren’s friends? Jordan wondered. Her infectious attitude even had Jordan acting like this was paradise early on, but she was wrong. So wrong. The possible connection to Doctor Moreau made him edgy as he backstepped in time to hear Alec announce there were others taking up residence in the water.
He was impressed by the amount of control the shark displayed running himself ashore, but still, why was he so happy? Was he so far along that he liked what he was becoming? Jordan shook his head a bit as Alec announced disclosed his name. It would be in poor taste for him to not respond, at least offer a hand shake? “I’m Jordan.” he hesitantly moved his paw back and forth slowly, wondering if he should shake hands, paws, flippers, whatever with Alec or just let it be with the named introductions. Jordan stepped closer, mustering the nerve to extend his arm in friendly greeting, quietly wondering if that was painful to maneuver himself that way.
This guy was friendly enough, he guessed, if not brimming with cheer to spare. He didn’t want to ask the wrong thing or say something idiotic, but he did closer to the water, taking his chances by sitting near Alec. “I have to know.. and I’m really sorry if this in bad taste, Alec.. but you actually seem happy.. The only other person I know around here who regularly and genuinely is happy about this is Lauren and well…” he cut himself off to avoid saying more on THAT matter “I hope I haven't already offended you, but what’s got you in such a good mood?” he peered over at him with a nonchalant blasé with the inquery, an attempted tactic employed to try and mask his troubled thoughts. Alec Derring Alec waited patiently, watching Jordan struggle with some thought or idea that translated into nervous fidgetting and unsure movements. He didn't envy him but he didn't pity him either. As a hand-paw was finally offered in an official greeting, the teen made his best effort to climb to his knees and accept the handshake with a little dignity. He also took a moment to glance at Jordan's features a bit better as now being balanced on his woody joints upright gave him a better perspective than a bugs-eye view.
Naive smile plastered on his face, the teen watched as the dog-man took a seat close by. At least now he'd be a little more settled?
"Uh?" The sharkboy blinked. Happy? He didn't think he acted overly cheerful or inappropriately optimistic. Perhaps he just didn't see the use in meeting a new islander only to sit and sulk together like a pair of rain-soaked tomcats. Was that wrong? The concept confused him a bit. "Laaauren?" The boy would've wrinkled his nose if he could at the mention of being compared to such a moody thing as the Lauren he recalled from the long-ago meeting they once had. Though even with that thought aside, the idea that Jordan's question was unexpected was an understatement. "Uh... A' d'neh?" He mumbled, feeling as if he'd been put on the spot in a spelling bee. "Am no' realleh.... a' guess a' joost don' see th'point n'..." Words failed him and all he could offer was a nervous smile and a light shrug. Jordan Essex “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He waved his paws infront of him to show he didn’t mean to attack him verbally “I’ve been a bit jumpy lately, is all. I didn’t mean any offense by it. You just seemed happier than the others is all.” He explained nervously. “Most of the people I’ve met here wouldn’t have even given a grin or a friendly greeting.” He put on a weak smile that said ‘Sorry for being an idiot, but don’t hold that against me.. please?’ He’d tried not to put his foot in his mouth, but when one is compared to a psychotic mongoose girl, there’s little room to do else.
Jordan flicked at a rock on the ground, nudging it a few inches away, trying not to let an awkward silence drag on. He wasn’t sure what to say to recover from the folly of words, so he threw caution to the wind and he’d either make it better or there’d be an even more awkward pause that followed. “At the top of that list of things keeping me on edge, five months have passed without me even knowing it. Almost half a year of my life gone by in the blink of an eye. I’m pretty sure I was buzzed, but I didn’t do anything..” he looked at Alec, in case similar had happened. Would they just randomly buzz the subjects for fun? That’d be incredibly sick..
Jordan was trying to keep himself composed, keep himself from becoming overly anxious. His stress level was at a constant level of alarm without adding undue reason to ‘flip out’. To keep himself still, he placed his paws into his lap and tried not to fidget his smei-digitgraded legs. Alec Derring Alec smirked a bit and waved off the nervous jitter than resulted from his inadequate response. To think that no one had greeted Jordan with a friendly smile was almost unbelievable. Even though most of the individuals on the island were upset, depressed or downright sour with what was being done to them, even he had managed to meet a few kind faces in the time he'd spent there so far. "Jus' try teh relax theh Jord'n." he boy began to say in attempt to calm the flustered canine but the words he spoke next only served to throw Alec himself into a frenzied fit.
"A' KNOW! Was goin' ON, man?" The sharkboy exclaimed in a thickly-accented tongue, throwing his hands up into the air in exasperation. "Fay've m'nths.... FAY'VE! 'ow s'tha' possible..." His voice trailed off as his gaze followed a pebble that had been uprooted by Jordan's foot, tumbling until it rolled into the water by his knee. He seemed to be thinking hard about something, perhaps consciously trying to calm down. Whatever it was he was doing, when he did choose to continue his voice was much more collected than before. "Ye thin' theh did anehthin?" His thoughts ran along that tangent until he remembered a very important detail of this current ordeal. "Ay." He pointed, trying to focus Jordan on this thought especially. "'ave ye seen 'Maya 'round?" Jordan Essex The response Alec gave was disconcerting at best. So it had happened to others beyond himself and for no further provocation than they could, it seemed. There was no way the labs ever did something without an ulterior motive to it. That just didn’t happen with these people in charge. He couldn’t fathom why Doctor Moreau would do that –assuming it was him who’d buzzed them all, with no prior introductions to the other labs staff. He just shook his head and had to steady his left paw with his right. It was shaking badly. This wasn’t good. This was so Not good! “Five whole months!” he reiterated fearfully, eyes wide with dread and terror. Who knew what could have been done in that time?! “I don’t know… I honestly don’t know..” he didn’t mention that his fur had been shaved off, so much that his flesh was visible again, that would be creepy and embarrassing. “I’m sorry I don’t know who that is.” Jordan responded to his inquery of Amaya, then glanced at Alec with that look of fear “Do you think this happened to everyone..? Maybe she woke up in her own duplex like I did.” And if it had, what of the people he considered friends? This opened so many confusing questions of the labs intentions with the stunt. “I’ll help you find your friend, if you want the help. This is just sick and wrong what they’re doing with this blackout..”
This was unfathomable! Why were they doing this to everyone? Was it a part of more sinister genetic research that required them to be unconscious and prone for half a year? It was insanity to think they were conducting even worse experimentations than turning lives topsy-turvy by forcing them to become human-animal hybrid abominations. Jordan shifted his terrified gaze back to the lake and had to physically hold his right arm down against his leg to keep himself from shivering. "I hope everyone is alright.." he closed his eyes momentarilly with an exasperated huffing breath. Alec Derring Alec's jaw gaped again to produce an expression comparable to a shark's version of shock-horror. What kind of sick joke was this? Then again, the labs were famous for their sick jokes now, weren't they? "Ye.... ye ye'righ'. A' bet she's n' 'er duplex." He didn't mention that Amaya was supposed to be in their duplex but when he thought about it he realized that she hadn't really officially moved her things in yet or anything else to indicate her staying. Although Jordan didn't know who the iguana girl was, he believed his theory that she was safe and sound in her duplex.
Safe and sound? Was everyone safe and sound? Jordan seemed to think the labs had taken the opportunity to do a mass examination or worse, experimentation on the population of the island. The idea seemed far-fetched and almost impossible but when he thought about it more, a length of 5 months would be ample time to intricately mess with every single one of them. Unconsciously the boy started rubbing at his grey belly as if he could feel now the affects of some fantom experimentation on himself. "A' c'nt go teh th'village like this." Alec mumbled to the dogman as he tore himself from the imaginary nightmare he was sewing in his mind. "A'd need t'get me wheelchai'. If ye still w'nneh go see pehple, a c'n go ge' i'....?" He gestured to the duplex he'd appeared from in the distance, indicating that the contraption was stowed away inside. Jordan Essex “I’m sure she’s safe.” He tried to reassure him with a confident smile to that fact. He’d woken up in his duplex and apparently so had Alec, so unless there was another cruel and senseless part to this twisted plot, so unless he’s wrong in his assumption, Amaya should be safe in her own home and hopefully none the worse for wear. Jordan figured she was either a really good friend or perhaps they were closer than that, but it wasn’t his place to vocalize such speculations. In any event, Alec was deeply concerned and that’s all that mattered. If the labs were pulling shenanigans then they had to look out for each other’s back.
It wasn’t his intent to spread hysteria, but the situation was so bizarre and reeked of foul play somewhere, somehow. He was becoming lost in his thoughts of labs foul play and unable to come to any conclusions. So disturbing and frustrating all at the same time! Jordan nodded to the sharkboy, being dragged away from the dangerous speculations of his fear. “Sounds like a plan. At least we’ll be doing something more than scaring ourselves I’m not going to be able to rest easily until I know more of what’s going on.” He rose and stood infront of Alec “Do you need any assistance into the water or do you have it under control?” Alec Derring Alec had hoped that Jordan would've known a bit more about the current situation than the case of mild hysteria the two seemed to have in common at the moment, seeing as it didn't seem very constructive. He had also hoped that he wouldn't have to venture out in a Village-wide manhunt for anyone with answers but it seemed that's exactly what had to be done, regardless of who he was with. Five missing months was too much to be ignored for the sake of being carelessly lazy. "Neh, a' go' i'." The boy responded finally with a slight wave of his hand and turned around to begin am awkward and slow shuffle towards the deeper water. He'd wait until his knees felt the muddy ground below make an expected drop-off before fallnig forwards in a loud belly-flop.
After disappearing into the dark waters again, a familiar fin broke the surface a few metres off-shore. Waving once more, Alec swam off towards his duplex only to appear shortly after in the form of a rolling grey mass travelling the parameter of the lake in order to meet up with Jordan. "Wheh to? Lead th'weh, a' guess?" Jordan Essex Keeping cool considering where they were and what was happening to everyone made things more difficult. He only feared what could be going on as Jordan paced following Alec’s departure back into the water. There was no telling what was going on and/or if something had gone wrong in the first place for them to be needed to be buzzed five months ago. He stiffened up his posture as he turned towards the trail that he’d taken from the village, fretting the possibility of some hazard that had arisen within the labs, something that could have possibly run amok and left a trail of destruction. Was there some sort of possible experiment that had been taking place, something that even Doctor Moreau had been unable to control? Perhaps Jordan had seen one too many B horror movie, but the existence of a Frankenstein’s monster on the island of Doctor Moreau wasn’t as far-fetched as it sounded. Jordan had succeeded in scaring himself in the time it had taken Alec to return with his mode of conveyance.
He jumped –spooked- when Alec called out to him, turning around defensively. Relieved that it was only Alec and not some monster, relatively speaking, since they were all aberrations of nature now. Jordan waved nervously back at Alec and hastened his movement towards him halfway. “Sure sure.” He answered quickly. “We’ll backtrack on the trail that took me here from the village.” Safety in numbers was the key rule to surviving any horror-esque setting. Unless one of them was picked off! His eyes dilated as he stepped quicker. Alec Derring Alec rested his hands back on the rims of his wheelchair as he pushed himself further towards Jordan, only to realize the frantic young man was closing the distance between the two, saving him the effort. Unfortunately as the details of his form came into sharper focus, the teen noticed the poor condition Jordan seemed to be in. He looked even more jumpy and frightened that when he left him; being paired with one of the lesser couragious youngsters on the island was probably a very bad idea. Nevertheless, there was no turnig back now. He couldn't possibly turn back now, he had to know. Had to find out what was really going on.
"Ekay" The sharkboy answered as he awkwardly maneuvered himself to a halt momentarily, though it seemed Jordan wasn't willing to stand still anymore. Once the plan had been deligated, Alec slowly edged himself into motion once again making an effort to stay in pace with the canine. After a moment of thought, he realized that might become difficult if Jordan remained as high-strung as he was now. "Don' geh runnin' off n' me though, ay? 'Am a lil' slow wi' me wheels..." Most of which was said was mumbled unsurely, marble-black eyes glancing back and forth twitchingly. Jordan Essex It was like two children creeping through a power outage with a flashlight. Who knew which coward was more chicken, but they were pretty scared alright and moving as such. Jordan had the advantage and had been placing distance between them, not purposely, but out of adrenaline-fueled fear. Jordan wanted to get back to the village and hadn’t realized he was leaving Alec in the dust till he picked up the sound of his voice, fearing something had happened. Jordan turned and ran back towards him quickly wide-eyed. “Are you alright??” he asked in frantic concern. It was becoming more unnerving by the moment as he continued thinking of the possibility of a Frankenstein-type monster experiment on the loose. Could they, would they create a subject comprised of DNA samples from various islanders. For some reason, Jordan thought way back to his childhood to an episode of GI Joe where they used genetic samples from deceased tyrants to create Serpentor and that only served to escalate his fears ten fold. What if they were using deceased subjects to create a super subject! The creepy factor made him tremble all over as if an arctic breeze had chilled him to the bone. “Calm down, Jordan… calm down, Jordan…” he chanted as a mantra and without thinking he blurted out what he was thinking “…there’s no mega-monster made from our genetic samples…” his paws trembled fiercely as they fidgeted and fumbled to keep the other steady without success. “..Franken-beast isn’t gonna find us…” He kept in line with Alec as he hadn’t realized, looking to and fro in a most paranoid fashion “..I hope…” Alec Derring Alec grumbled outloud as he watched Jordan speed off down the path before he had had the chance to voice his concerns. The guy was a dog though, he had good hearing. Right? He'd slow down soon. Right? His arms were beginning to cramp from the overexerted attempt at keeping up with the bipedal man. The burning in his muscles escalated to a point where he considered flipping Jordan the bird and turning back for home though he admitted to himself that he didn't really have the guts. Before could make up his mind at a course of action as he watched the dog-like individual disappear into the distance, Jordan had come running back in full force.
He was about to yell "WHERE'S THE FIRE" until a few words caught his attention more importantly. Eyes bulged out of his sockets as he stared up at Jordan, feeling the thumping adrenaline coursing rapidly in his veins. "Wait, wuh? WUH? Wuh WHEH? Frank'n'wuh!?" Had he seen something? Heard something? Received somesort of hint at what was going on? The teen reached out to try and snatch up Jordan's wrist in an attempt to abruptly catch his attention but ended up flailing in a panic instead. "Wha monsteh wheh wuh ye yammeh'n abou'!?" Jamal_Reedy Oh how ironic for Jordan to state what he had. The dog-taur had no idea just how real the danger was for those who wandered the jungle without real weaponry and he was about to find out. As the two men stumbled through the relative darkness beneath the canopy, they had drawn the attention of one very dangerous predator. Jamal. Jamal lifted his head, the fur mottled with fresh, sticky rabbit blood, and inhaled sharply, catching the mingled scents of human, dog, and something he couldn't recall encountering. The rabbit carcass at his feet was completely torn apart, the head the only part giving away it's identity with it's wide, clouded eyes and broken, gaping jaw. Even though it had been caught with intentions that did not involve eating, it still made him hungry...and it still made him extremely wary. Now, as he listened to movement his way, he was even more wary. Strangers, in his territory, meant only one thing to the tiger instincts. These were enemies and they shouldn't be here. He moved swiftly, leaving the carcass behind for now as he loped in the four limbed run he had adopted and nearly mastered, slipping through the underbrush towards the sounds of these invaders. He was careful to keep himself as silent as possible, but for one so large, it was impossible to be perfectly undetectable. It wouldn't take much for either Alec or Jordan to detect movement in the bushes. It was likely the growl that soon followed, rumbling deep from the unknown's chest, didn't put either at ease. Jordan Essex There hadn’t been a monster in sight, but his imagination had gotten away with him and spread that panic to Alec like an infectious plague. He still hadn’t realized that he’d been thinking aloud until the sharkboy began his sputtering exclamations that set Jordan off even more. “Nono! There’s no monster… I mean… oh god, I hope there’s no monster!” he said louder than he had been. Jordan took the handles behind Alec’s wheelchair and helped him along. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll feel better if we get out of here NOW!” And with that, Jordan used that extra, frightened adrenaline-pulsed energy to push Alec along faster than he’d been able to on his own, but not so fast that the sharkboy would topple from the mobile chair. Alec Derring Before Alec could do any more flailing his chair started on auto-pilot with a hard jerk, sending the sharkboy clutching for balance. "Wheh'ye ge' this "monsteh" idea frum wha monsteh wha'dye talkin abou?!" At this point the teen was frantic, turning himself around in jerky twists of his torso to try and look back at Jordan, who was now shoving both of them into rapid motion. He realized he probably wasn't making any sense at this point but he didn't really care either.
"WAIT." He finally exclaimed and swung an arm over his head to try and get Jordan to stop for a moment. A pause followed before the youngster tentatively gripped an armrest of his chair to look to the side of him. ".... wha's tha' theh?" What he was referring to seemed to be nothing more than a few swaying branches until a clear sound affirmed that something definetly was not right. Jamal_Reedy Jamal followed, treading lightly upon his calloused pawpads, winding his way methodically through the brush as Jordan started to move faster. The evasion method triggered the tiger man's predatorial instincts further; fleeing prey urged his instincts of a chase onward. The wheelchair, although a human invention and unknown by any nature-born cat, signalled weakness, and that certainly didn't help supress the thoughts of a nice, easy kill. With the two moving so rapidly, it was becoming difficult to remain completely masked by the greenery and keep pace. They were already spooked, so it was doubtful he would retain any element of surprise for long. He took less care with hiding the patches of white fur from their view now and instead worried about keeping up, his body starting to warm with his efforts. As Alec started to flail and jerk about in his seat in an almost threatening way, Jamal drew his ears back and uttered a warning keen, rising from that same low growl given earlier before turning into a near shriek. At the same time, he began to gather himself up for a launching attack. Jordan Essex Jordan thought he’d heard something and it made him even edgier, propelling their mutual movement along the trail and towards the ever-distant village. He was running, almost without any thought put into it, fleeing for their lives from the boogey man. “There’s no monster! There’s no monster!” he was actually shrieking now, like a coward, until Alec had shouted for him to wait and he jerked the wheelchair unintentionally as their descent from speed could have been more graceful. It resulted with Jordan using his feet-paws to grind into the ground, coming to an abrupt halt.
The noises coming from the foliage made him cower more after the shriek that followed the threatening growls. He didn’t let go of the wheelchair. He wasn’t going to leave Alec alone if something was out there- and unfortunately, it seemed there was, causing him to look all around in a most frantic, horror movie style. They were far from home, in no man’s land, and there really was something out there. Te thought that rushed through his head was ‘we’re gonna die!’. He’d hoped to god it wasn’t who he thought it was, literally pissing himself as the trail ran down his trimmed-back fur. “Oh god, Alec… I think there really is a monster out there!” he shrieked in a display of anti-bravery. Alec Derring Now that his own yells were long lost from his vocal cords, Jordan's shrieking seemed even more deafening in the silent jungle. "SHH!" He hissed, twisted around in his chair, black eyes fixed on the massive wall of green that enveloped the thin dirt trail they were on. Alec slowed his breathing into shallow gasps, afraid to make even the sound of breathing noticeable. Never did he feel more vulnerable, weak, feeble in that chair of his. He never really thought about what would happen, what could, if ever he was taken by surprise while in his metal contraption. Fears were becoming reality faster than he'd ever dreamed.
"Jord'n..." He whispered, as if confirming that the canine man was still present. The beating of his heart was pounding in his ears, his entire body seeming to buzz with tension. Unconsciously he began kneading the moveable gums lined with sharp teeth as if he'd even have the chance to use them if he needed to. Please God. Lord God. Not him. Anyone but him. He teen willed his soul to pray, senses straining to identify the stalker. The flash of white fur was enough to send him into a freakish frenzy without the punctuation of a gutteral, savage roar. "GO JORD'N GO NOW RUUUUUN!!!" Jamal_Reedy Confident that he could take either down at this point, Jamal launched himself through the brush, landing on all fours with a heavy thump a couple dozen yards down the path that the two had made. He was completely exposed to both Alec and Jordan now, but he had no need to remain concealed; both looked positively petrified. He bared his elongated sabers, issuing a hissing threat before he moved forward, still on all fours. The gait lacked the perfect grace of a full tiger with how he did more of a lurch than a smooth glide, but it didn't seem to matter much. He was still moving with distinct purpose, although slow considering the circumstances, his gaze sliding from Alec to Jordan in a calculating manner. If neither had known any better, they might have though the tigerman was simply curious to judge how he was approaching. Alec, apparently, knew better. As Alec began to shout, Jamal grew more irritable. Too much attention could be drawn here. Even so, he didn't utter a single human word to either, only another snarl. Jordan Essex He couldn’t stop his panicked breathing as Alec had and before he could even react further, he’d been commanded to run. There was something out there and Alec knew what it was, which meant, shut up, don’t ask questions and haul a**! He started to move down the path when the biggest tiger he’d ever seen leaped out and scared the hell out of him. “Oh dear god…” he’d been too panicked to recall that Richard had warned him of the tiger, but somehow he uttered the name aloud “….Jamal…”
He’d swung the chair in a one-eighty maneuver as best he could, considering the size and weight of both chair and Alec, but adrenaline mixed with the fear of being mauled by Tony the tiger ala Freddy Kruger was enough to give him the strength to move it. His heart pounded against his chest painfully as he panted for breath, struggling to build up momentum to push them both back to safety, catching a glimpse of the tiger easily playing ‘stalk-the-prey’. “Hang on, Alec!” he shouted and put all his weight into it, shoving the wheelchair faster. They probably would have made it a few more feet if Jordan had seen that rock poking out of the ground. The chair hit it with such speed and force that it toppled unevenly to the right, sending the chair crashing to the ground. With Jordan’s paw-hands tightly clutched onto the handles as it took him for the spill as well, leaving him groaning in pain as the handles had jabbed him painfully in the torso, just below his secondary paws, collapsing in pain and huddled on top of the metal chair as he tried to reach for Alec. “Give me... ungh... your hand!” he cried out in exasperated breath as if he could actually do something at this point. Alec Derring Alec grunted as his body was lurched around with Jordan's attempt at fleeing the scene, jaw hung open in a perpetual look of horrified shock. They weren't going to escape. This all wasn't happening.
In reality everything was happening so fast that he could barely register a thing. They were flying at the speed of light back the way they came. Yes, the lake! The water was sanctuary, he'd be safe if he could just get to the wat-
A violent jar sent through his spine and the youngster was colliding hard with the ground, giving him just enough time to wonder why a soft bed of grass was never as soft as it seemed after you've fallen on it. His jaw hit the ground first but thankfully nothing was knocked loose, the rest of his body falling suit into a scattered pile of grey flesh lying on his stomach, dorsal fins pointing like sails of a boat. He could hear his wheelchair clatter feet away from him, Jordan yelled something, he couldn't see straight at all. Jamal_Reedy Jamal's ears pricked at the sound of Jordan muttering his name and for a second, he stopped, one hand lifted from the ground in mid-stride. Curiosity was detectable in that icy stare...he almost looked like a kitten at play. This benign posture all changed, however, when the dog man abruptly turned and sped away with Alec and his chair. Again, the fleeing prey spurred on his hunting instincts and he moved into a full-fledged run after the two, jaws parted as he gave a deafening roar of outrage. He didn't expect the two to move as fast as they did and his clumsy lope wasn't exactly a speedy method of travel, but this was neatly countered when Jordan and Alec abruptly spilled onto the path in a ball of flesh and metal. He trained his sight on Jordan, quickly noting him to be the most mobile of the two, and jumped forward with his claws extended with the intentions of pinning the mass of white fur before it could get away. A smug rumble of laughter accented the pounce. This was too easy. Jordan Essex Everything was indeed a blur. They were supposed to flee to the safety of open area at the lake, where Alec could have returned to the water and Jordan could have at least taken refuge for as long as that would have lasted. Nothing ever goes according to plan when you’re a clumsy half-beast pushing a sharkboy in a wheelchair on a dirt trail while fleeing for your life from a vicious predator. And with that, that’s how they crashed and Alec lay on the trail, Jordan in so much pain he couldn’t move, despite the attempts to pull himself to his feet with the chair as leverage.
“Hang on…” he grunted, struggling to get off his knees, but his left leg gave out from underneath and his chin smacked into the metal chair as his head banged into the ground. He didn’t even have the chance to attempt a second time, holding his head in pain while one paw struggled to keep hold on that chair. If only he could flip the chair and somehow pick up Alec… but his thoughts were interrupted.
He happened to look back in utter and complete horror, screaming in the sort of fear that’s elicited from the messenger of death looming overhead. There had been no time to move, not on a bum leg, not while in such pain, even with the adrenaline rush, there was no hope of getting out of this unscathed. And at that last thought, he stared wide-eyed in terror as Jamal was descending. Alec Derring Everything was muffled as Alec lay in a dizzy stupor, webbed hands digging their fingertips into the dirt in a rhythmic motion as if the minimal movement would be enough to bring his senses back into order. The jungle was a spinning mass of greens and browns, the shrieking roar too nearby to ignore almost shaking the dirt underneath him. Slowly he turned his head and saw the image of a large, white mass. At first he didn't even realize that it consisted of two seperate individuals until his eyes finally made the distinction.
Coming into focus, sounds flooded back in a torrent of noise. There Jamal stood towering over Jordan, the dog-man barely struggling to free himself from his helpless position. All he could do was stare dumbfoundedly. What could he do? His wheelchair was perilously close to the disaster-waiting-to-happen and even if he did manage to reunite himself with his meager motility, what good would that do? And yet he could simply lie there, playing dead, feigning injury. He was waiting for that glimpse of red; the teasing nectar that made him truly lose his control. It made him hungry, angry, ansty, violent. Perhaps it was pure adrenaline, instincts or pure madness, the boy's back puffing into a dramatic arch as he reached out tenatively dragging himself towards the two. If anything, he could provide some distraction for Jordan's escape by presenting himself as either a formidable adversary or an easy target. Jamal_Reedy Jamal landed squarely on Jordan, shoving him off the chair forcefully and latching his claws into whatever body part happened to fall beneath his grip. He sneered down, jaws parted as he panted a little from the exertion, the sickly, rotted smell of predator breath wafting down into the dog man's face. The tiger stared down, appraising his prey...looking for the fear that his human side craved. "Scream fo' me," Jamal demanded lowly, clenching his hands to drive his claws in deeper, a twisted smile making it's way on his deformed muzzle. He didn't even notice Alec's movements...at least, yet. Jordan Essex The incredible weight forced upon him, then to be slapped around like a ragdoll effortlessly by the tiger was humiliating to be so weak and terrifying to witness death incarnate. Claws that could have easily tear him sunk into the flesh of his shoulders, holding him into place. The horrid stench of death was rank on Jamal’s breath as Jordan turned his head. A wincing expression of pain and fear made him more prey than ever. He shook like a leaf, gasping for breath to even exhale with the escalating terror. Jordan couldn’t have left Alec alone. That’s not who he was. If he survived the engagement, then perhaps others could hear of the selfless act that threw him into the face of danger to save a fellow subject. Perhaps then he could prove himself to be more than a pawn to the labs. But, for all his foolishness, he was currently serving as a distraction for the shark… for as long as that could last.
He didn’t have to be told to scream as those claws dug deeper into his flesh, tearing his flesh in sadistic enjoyment to the tiger. He was on his knees, unable to beg for mercy. The searing pain shot through every nerve and he saw red, not in anger, but in the fear of his own demise. His fate was uncertain and he hoped that he wouldn’t die in the jungle.
“AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!” he screamed to the top of his lungs. Alec Derring Alec dug his fingers into the ground, ripping blades of grass with every feeble attempt to drag himself forwards. This was crazy. To think he was moving himself towards the one person he never wanted to get within visual distance of ever again, especially while he geared for one of his trademark acts of savagery.
As the boy inched closer, every painful bellow from Jordan urged him onwards. Oddly enough, he was trying to smell it now. The inevitable flush from an open wound; he wanted to feel it hit his nostrils and wake up the sleeping shark inside. It wasn't that he wanted to lose mental control but he knew it would happen and that it'd give him that little stab of strength to hopefully keep him alive. Slowly he reached out, straining to touch the armrest of his disgarded wheelchair. He looked like he was about to make a run for it but instead he kept a firm grip while turning to the crazed tigerman. Jaws clenched until fleshy gums displayed an impressive collection of razor teeth and with a forceful huff of air he let out a gurgling hiss in an attempt to speak to the animal inside the attacker, issuing a warning. Jamal_Reedy "What was dat?" Jamal practically cooed at Jordan, his claws sunk deep into his writhing flesh? "I ain't sure I hurd ya righ'..." He forced more of his weight onto his victim, holding him firmer to the ground so Jordan couldn't wriggle free. In doing so, his line of sight was not that which he could easily see Alec, but he could hear movement. An ear twisted around to face the noise of scuffling grass and the tiger growled. "You ain't learned nothin' have ya, fish?" he said, directing it to Alec but his gaze firmly locked onto Jordan's face. "Mo' fun fo' me then. Two fo' one!" Had Jamal not been so cocky, he might have realized just how close Alec was and how well along his transformation he had been. The tiger had no experience with sharks and Jamal didn't assume that Alec's teeth might be well formed by now. Jordan Essex He tried to speak through the pain, though the words translated into a twisted cacophony of tormented screams of agony. Jordan couldn’t muster the verbal foritutde to beg for mercy. No doubt that Jamal was strong, his serum had given him ungodly physical strength, but even this was unfathomable. The blood-curdling screams intensified with the incredible force applied, as if gravity was suddenly collapsing around him, crushing him.
Bones creaked under the pressure as his legs were indenting into the soil, but his body could only be pushed so far down until the ground compacted and became hard as rock. He screamed louder with the sudden loud crunching in his shoulders and his legs simotaneously. His neck craned skyward, his face directly in the gaze of the blood-thirsty tiger-man, bawling past the point his lungs burns with searing inflammation. Everywhere in between bones creaked and the sounds of snapping and fractures were like a bundle of firecrackers popping. The vexations wracking his half-canid body was blindingly white hot, firing every nerve on overdrive. His arms remained mostly unharmed at the moment, though they couldn’t be moved without terrible pangs.
It overwhelmed the senses, but he had to hold on as his body was going limp. He had to sustain consciousness or become food for this mega-predator. He couldn’t live with the guilt of letting them both down if he surrendered to physical weakness. He wanted to find the words to apologize to Alec for getting him into this, but he couldn’t manage even three measly words. Alec Derring Every sound seemed amplified to the sharkboy not as noise itself but more as the vibrations they made as they passed through air, soil, every medium surrounding them. The growls shook his ribcage and the wrenching screams his his eardrums pound. The level of fear was unspeakable but he seemed almost dulled to it. With every crunch of bones and sinister, malicious taunt from Jamal his fear was pushed farther and farther to the back of his mind. Anger was slowly creeping in to replace the vacancy, like an infection spreading in his brain that could do no good given the current situation. Finally, levels peeked.
"Burn n' Hell, J'mal!" The boy spat out, sneering as the tigerman directed a comment towards him. He was no longer thinking straight, back puffing in a display to communicate his clear aggitation. Before he knew it, he was up on his knees, flinging the metal contraption at Jamal's side with inhuman capability. He knew it would do little good but if nothing else, it would hopefully get him off of Jordan long enough for the man to recover. No thought was given to what could or would happen as a result of the thoughtless counter-attack. Jamal_Reedy Jamal laughed at Jordan's shrieks and felt the breaking sensation beneath his massive paws. The smell of blood was so tantalizing that it was becoming even more difficult to not tear out his victims throat then and there, regardless of the obvious consequences of that. Even as he stood there, he was well aware that guards had to be on their way. If there weren't cameras, the chips in Alec and Jordan's necks would be relaying their stressed vitals to the labs. He didn't have much time. However, his thoughts on guard appearance were cut short as he was neatly launched off the crippled dog-taur by the colliding wheelchair. He yelped in surprise, clumsily falling off Jordan, and became momentarily entangled in the metal frame. His call of surprise was quickly overridden by a bellow of pure outrage when he realized the source, having seen Alec in a position to do something like that. "If I wasn't gonna kill ya in da first place, I'm ********' gonna do it now!" he screamed as he bucked the chair off and tried to right himself back onto all fours. Jordan Essex Jamal was a sick b*****d for taking such sadistic delight in the wanton act against what had been perceived as prey, even laughing as so many bones gave way to the ever-increasing pressure. The pain had surpassed any conceivable threshold, with the force compacting his insides, vital organs compressed against fracturing ribs. Truly, he was helpless against the monster tiger- all three knew that. Undoubtedly, the vital statistics received by the monitoring guards, from within the safety labs would be alarming, as he was losing the battle to hold onto consciousness. His eyes fluttered and his head felt clouded. Jordan’s vision blurred, stricken by wooziness. The world was fading. He wasn’t coherent by this point, nor did he realize how or why he’d been released, only feeling his body collapse under the weight and on broken, shattered bones throughout his battered body. The last thing that he would see before passing out was Alec, as Jordan tried to reach out for him, only to have his arm fall limply with a thud as he gasped a wordless breath, coughing up blood that trailed down his face, when unconsciousness took him. Alec Derring Alec could've cheered as he saw the wheelchair strikes its target, after he realized what he had just done. He knew only too well however, that although his efforts were successful, there was no reason to smile. Jordan looked terrible now that he could see the broken man in clear view, the puncture wounds seeping with blood and several parts of his body angled in directions that could never be considered comfortable. Dumbfoundedly the boy remained upright on his knees staring at the enraged tiger as he struggled and worked himself into a greater frenzy while trying to free himself from the comparitively heavy metal wheelchair. The first thought that struck him was "What now?" though what could he expect? Of course he knew what would come next.
You can't fool yourself while standing infront of an oncoming train.
Slowly his lips formed another sneer, bitterly snarling as best as the youngster could manage with how little he had to work with. He'd retained his humanity within his mind for so long despite his changes that now he couldn't help but feel as if he were playing a fake facade to match the image of a feral beast. Jamal_Reedy Jamal managed to free himself with a great deal of fuss and heaved the chair furiously to the side with a loud bang and clatter, his chest heaving as he swiped at his face to clear the dirt from his eyes. "Gonna...tear ya ta pieces...bone b' bone..." he threatened in low tones, his english sounding even more broken than it had originally been when he first arrived. The disuse of human speech combined with his enlarged teeth and changed jaw structure made conversation tedious; it hardly mattered, who was there to talk to out in the jungle anyway? Still, the meaning was quite clear. He wiped his muzzle with the back of a bloody hand, checking for injury and smearing frothed saliva against stray dirt before shifting fully to a four-legged crouch. Jamal only rested a moment in this position, then began a slow, methodical approach, claws biting firmly into the dirt for traction as he headed for Alec. His shadow ominously threw itself over the shark boy. "Gonna start wit' yer eyes...pick 'em out wit' ma claws..." he muttered in a strange calm, almost conversational-like. Alec Derring Alec watched in mute horror as the gargantuan mass of fur slowly rose to tower over him, a pronunced tremble passing through all his limbs. A twitch of his eyes darted his view between the oncoming attacker and the body of Jordan who seemed asleep in some unsettling dream-like state. Oh God what had he gotten himself into? They were completey alone in the jungle, even if he screamed the loudest he possibly could he didn't think a soul would ever hear him. Options were running thin. He was really going to die.
The slow stalk had begun, the claws unsheathed, that glaring dead-on look of a prey item within his sights. The sharkboy's shaking was most likely visible but he did his best to remained tufted, arched and defensive. His eyes almost hurt to the very pit of their cavities as he listened to Jamal's taunting.
"B....Bring i'..."
His voice barely escaped his vocal cords though the look on his face was pure, desperate and strained with adrenaline. Jamal_Reedy Jamal offered no verbal response to Alec's challenge, opting instead for action over words. Claws out, teeth bared, muscles taut, he flew abruptly at the sharkboy with furious snarl, aiming for the other's face to sink his weaponry into. The thin hold of reason that Jamal had left had long ago snapped, leaving him crazed and murderous. Alec Derring "Why th'ELL t'deh tha' fuh boy? Uh? Ay, SHPEAK UP." Hands on his waist band as always. It brings your eyes to focus on the shiny belt buckle in the center of his waist. It used to make me start crying just by seeing it but we all know I'm too old for that anymore. No answer. He doesn't deserve one. "Yez a slimey lil' maggot. " Voice was lowered to a sneering, hissing, snarling. Smells of stale ale and an empty stomach. "LOOKIT ME WHEN AM TALKIN' TEH YEZ." Stop looking at me like that. Like I'm the trash under your feet. A failure. Just another boy that isn't your son.
"She shoulda taken ye wit' 'er. Sssstupid. Look a' yez. Good f'nothin'.... joos' like th'good f'nothin' b***h."Whiteness.
Pure white.
Was this what death felt like? Silent. Kinda nice. A light cool breeze and a whiteness that isn't too bright, isn't too frightening like a thick fog on an irish morn. Right now was a nice moment. Too bad it isn't heaven. It can't be, it doesn't feel like it inside.
That moment seemed to drag on forever as Alec lost perception, or at leas he thought he did. The whiteness, the opaque eyelids covering his shark eyes. Shark's skin protecting the shark flesh. The sensation of going blind couldn't be described with words even if he tried. He was blinded but his sense were lit up like a Christmas tree. He knew where Jamal was, where he'd be in a split second, where the blood laced his razor-sharp claws and drenched down his gaping mouth. His breath was a vapor of blood and it drove him to forget.
That fleeting millisecond of peace was interrupted by a violent jarring like a tidal wave exploding onto a rock shore or an avalanche burying him immediately. He felt himself recoil but he wasn't fast enough to avoid any of the impact but his jaws were already acting without command, working themselves into a frenzy as his hands grappled for somesort of hold and the heat of a sweet area to really tear into. The confusion he was experiencing was overpowering and he was running on autopilot. Jamal_Reedy Alec was rewarded both with wrenching claws into his body, not without difficulty, but also a snarling yowl of pain as the boy's sharp teeth buried themselves into a thigh. This was extremely unexpected and an entirely new sensation. He had never been latched onto like this. Shot at, yes...bitten, no. He spasmed in pain, releasing his holds, and instinctively slapped one of his skillet-sized hands into Alec's face with the claws out, trying to get him to release the hold by going for the eyes. Alec Derring Alec felt the claws first, sinking in easily into various points of his fleshy body like a knife through a soft, clay medium. Surprisingly, they weren't the worst feelngs of pain he'd ever experienced. He'd been bitten by dogs before, sunk down straight to the bone. He'd have been able to deal with the somewhat insignificant injuries better if more pressing matters hadn't drowned out all nervous response.
As soon as his teeth touched flesh, the two jaws clamped like a vice and stuck. The give of the tense muscle was enough to send him into a thrashing fit, producing more of the entoxicating blood with every swing of his neck that ground the teeth deeper. It was all well until a strong burning like hot coals being dragged across his face sent him into a body-wide spasm, the sound of scraping, tearing flesh nauseating to his senses. The special eyelids worked well to protect the sight-bearing organs but they too were being quickly shredded so that the blood pouring from his mouth mixed in with a steady stream from his eyes and face. Regardless of the pain he didn't want to let go, he refused. Holding tight, he gave another weak thrash of his head. Energy was being sapped from his quickly so that he resorted to pounding with his fists into the tiger's wounded leg. Jamal_Reedy Jamal screamed as the thrashing started to tear at his leg muscle and he beat Alec in the face again with his open hand. When that didn't seem to be affective at getting the boy to release, he could only think of one other thing. With the shark lower than he, he had full access to the back of the boy's neck. It was really the only place left he could get a grip on at this point and so, Jamal parted his saber fanged jaw and tried to dig his fangs into that broad surface. The boy's neck wasn't exactly shaped well for this, what with sharks not really having a neck...it was too flat to get his mouth down around that far, but he still tried. If anything, he might be able to stop the thrashing. Alec's arm banging rewarded the boy with swift cuts of his clawed foot upwards in a raking motion towards his stomach, struggling to find purchase there as well.
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Posted: Mon Apr 16, 2007 10:07 pm
(cont'd) Alec Derring It was a miracle he'd been able to hold out for so long, given the sheer strength and violent capability of Jamal. The realization was becoming more shocking the longer it was drawn out, with seconds turning to minutes, turning into eternity itself. He had no taste for blood anymore. His actions were of desperate rage when all options had run out. Alec's head was in a swoon from the blood loss and constant overflow that kept his senses alert and extremely sensitive but this adrenaline rush was starting to give way to the pain.
His forearm ached and he had to stop pounding, his neck for whatever reason, felt like it was the next target of the tigerman's assault so that his strength failed him; he stopped thrashing. It was the kicking claws streaking down his stomach to slice open neat rows of his tender underside that finally forced him to let go. In a sudden gasp the boy's head detached and he tried to shove Jamal away, letting out a gurgling scream of agony as all wounds compounded into a torrent of pain. Was NO ONE watching? Didn't they CARE that two people were being slaughtered by one of their failed experiments?!
Oh God. Are you even listening anymore? Jamal_Reedy Jamal was all too willing for once to move away from his target. His blood-stained hands moved to clench the lips of the wound on his leg together, snarls and hisses of intense pain slipping through his teeth. Oh gods, it hurt...he was having difficulty in moving that one limb with how the muscle was torn. In the distance, he was sure he could hear the noise of an engine and tires on dirt and became keenly aware of his newest issue: getting out of here before he got snagged. He had to fight his brain that demanded he finish the job first. Island of Moreau Despite the ages that the attack seemed to take, like most fights, it really was only a matter of a handfull of seconds since Jamal's first pounce on Jordan and subsequent battle with Alec. And mens' reactions, unfortunately, are only human. The flashing of warning flags on Jordan and Alec began to go off in the monitering rooms. There was a fight going on off camera, and in the jungle. And the fact that ones' vitals still seemed to be flashing a warning even after the other's seemed to indicate unconsciousness only spelled one of a few things: one of the chipless islanders, invisible to the montiering devices and the invisible presence behind the attack. Immediately, any of the patrols nearby were rerouted post haste, and Alec's and Jordan's chips deployed hoping to minimize the chance for damage. It wouldn't be long at all until Jamal hears clumsy crashing through the brush as first one squad of four guards approaches his ambush site. another wasn't far off, headed from the opposite direction. EDIT - If Jamal was quick, and flees the scene before they arrive, then both Jordan and Alec are carefully collected and brought back to the labs for immediate medical attention by the first, lucky squadron while the second attempts a pursuit, following any trail through the brush that Jamal leaves - be it blood or broken trail.
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Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2007 8:18 pm
Disjointed dreaming “As I told you on the phone, your son has been suspended for fighting, pending legal action and expulsion.”
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. He’s always been a quiet, well-mannered boy till now. He's fourteen and at an age of rowdy hormones and myself and his father work continually to provide a stable home for him, which means we can’t always be there to monitor him 24/7. I work two jobs, myself.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Essex, but this isn’t an isolated incident. Jordan has been picking fights left and right, but this is the first time we’ve had reports that he actually beat one of his classmates senseless. His behavior has continued to decline and we’re concerned. You should be so fortunate he’s not been outright expelled.”
“Please, Principal Moss, I’m pleading with you as a parent.. suspending Jordan isn’t the answer. He’s always been a good boy till now. It’s teenage hormones causing him to act out like this. If you suspend him, he’ll be home alone to do what he wants instead of being in a structured environment. I want the best for him, but what you’re proposing will cause more problems.”
“My hands are tied. The parents of the victim are furious and threatening legal action. Their son has a skull fracture because Jordan lost control. He’s become violent and aggressive. Most fourteen year-old boys don’t resort to this level of aggression for no reason.”
“There has to be another way to resolve this.”
A sigh came from Principal Moss. He hated me. He always hated me! I wanted to hurt him so much! I hated him as much as I hated Jeff. They hadn’t noticed me eavesdropping on them talking about me, until the receptionist had noticed the door ajar and promptly closed it. I couldn’t hear anything but muffled voices arguing back and forth after that. Drugs, therapy… he wanted to have me locked away or sent to some alternative middle school for criminals. The more I heard, the more I hated him.
***
So much blood… I’m bleeding… my shirt is stained with blood. I didn’t start this. Jeff had thrown the first punch.. blond-haired, blue-eyed junior varsity a*****e. He kept punching me repeatedly, in the face, while his boys held me against the wall, yelling such disparaging things as ‘dirty f*****t’, ‘homo’, ‘queer-bait’, ‘slut’, ‘c**k-whore’ and spitting into my face
***
“He pushed me too far! He deserved it! Stupid redneck ********! I’m the one who’s the bad guy when he’s been tormenting me for two years? Bullshit!” That’s what I yelled at the psychologist. “Jeff Harding… made himself my enemy.”
He and his buddies delighted in beating the s**t out of me on a daily basis. We shared a common bus stop. I was quiet and kept to myself so I was instantly a threat to everyone. They thought I was going to do something drastic. I later found out one of the coaches had told him and the others on the team to harass me.. to beat me ritualistically..
***
His face had turned a discolored shade of blue, a contrast to the white of my knuckles clenched on his throttle neck. It’d taken five students (his friends as well as his teammates) to pull me off him. I liked the feeing of power over him, strangling him, depriving him of breath. I didn’t let go. I wanted to keep thrashing his head against the concrete floor of the locker room. He and his friends had beaten me, spat in my face, and degraded me… how dare they deprive me doing the same to him…
***
Ten days suspension, the maximum they could slap me with without expelling me. Mom was right. They couldn’t stop me. No one could keep me locked up at home. It was a vacation from that awful school and the idiots didn’t even press charges! I had money stashed away and I lived it up! They couldn’t stop me and there was nothing to do at home. I spent my suspension hanging out at the local comic book store. There was always someone there to talk to, even if I didn’t really know what they were talking about and the owners were really cool. As long as I had money and bought stuff, he never asked nosey questions like why I wasn’t in school. All I had to do was make sure I was home before mom and dad got there, they couldn’t prove I wasn’t home. So what if I wound up with a few Superman comics and some pewter figurines that just got stashed away.
***
I was just putting my gym clothes into my backpack and leaving the locker room for my next class when I bumped into him. My gaze had been on the ground so I didn’t see him step out of the shower.. the impact caused me to fall on my a** and for Jeff’s hand to be jostled from his towel. I… I… stared. I’d known that I was gay for two years now.. and he had an athletic body.. it wasn’t my fault what happened next..
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Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 12:05 am
Depth of Madness The screams kept him awake. They were his screams. Hour after hour of tormented, maddening screams for freedom were degraded into canine howls of despair. His human voice had been taken away to demoralize the humanity that remained. A month of this had driven him insane. He’d been kept barely within an inch of his life, to prove a point. He was force-fed a disgusting, watered-down mash through a tube inserted down his esophagus every four or five days. It kept him alive, though there was no buzzing the subject during the painful process. His spirit was being shattered, much like his bones had been, in order to remake him what he was intended to be. He held no control over his life and the point was being made harshly clear with every passing day he spent in total darkness.
He’d been locked away from everyone ‘for his own good’, sealed away in his duplex like a tomb, or more accurately, the cell of an asylum. He’d been helpless to move, wrapped in a straight-jacket and strapped down to his bed with three leather belts to restrain his legs, torso, and feet. It was for his own good Dr. Moreau had told him again and again as he often taunted the helpless canine islander over the intercom.
“You’re a proven failure in life and you’re a proven failure as an experiment.” An awkward pause of sadistic chuckling. “Your only salvation is obedience to Moreau. You will become what I’ve slated you for. You will become my loyal puppet without question. You are nothing more than the pawn in my grand design. The longer you fight this reality, the longer your suffering is prolonged.”
The pouring rain prevented anyone from hearing his anguished cries. He was isolated, so far from anyone, though he cried mournfully in hopes of being heard. The thunder cracked ominously and the darkness illuminated brilliantly white for only the briefest moment. He knew what he was saying. In his mind it was all clear, but the words were lost in translation, coming out as barks and growls. He was just a noisy dog barking to go outside as far as the doctor was concerned. Noisy dogs were to be ignored. Ill-mannered mongrels were to be punished till they could learn otherwise to remain silent when master speaks. He’d been told this before. The verbal torment wouldn’t end. He was being broken, mentally conditioned to be what he struggled against.
“You’ve forgotten your place. They have lied to you, deceived your feeble mind. Allow me to refresh your memory: you’re a vagrant stray who will surely die without guidance and protection. My protection.”
Jordan thrashed wildly the more Moreau’s angering words were spoken. He hated him, but there was no escape. There would never be escape. Trapped within his own mind, Jordan would never again be able to verbalize words anyone would understand.
“Disobedience is not tolerated. Surrender while a facet of your human mind remains. Fight me and you will be nothing more than the husk of a common dog. There won’t be enough of your untethering psyche to allow you recognition of those who have turned you against me.”
Trapped within his fragile mind, Jordan was a prisoner of a madman’s design, shackled at his wrists and ankles to a slab of rock floating in an ethereal sea of limbo. The atmosphere surrounding him was a hellish metaphor for the inner turmoil tearing him apart. Jordan had been weakening on a daily basis as the tempest raged ever-more violently. Bolts of destructive energy arced throughout the maelstrom, devastating everything in its path. It was only a matter of time till the inevitable moment he was struck and destroyed as well, erasing the last bastion that connected him with his fleeting humanity.
Thoughts echoed like thunderclaps. The subliminals employed to erode his mind remained a part of him now, even though he was fighting Moreau’s control. "Feral Labs is my employer" "I am loyal to Feral Labs." "Feral Labs supports me." "Feral Labs is my owner." "Moreau is Feral Labs." "Moreau protects me." "I deserve whatever happens to me for betraying them." "I serve Moreau." "Moreau is my owner." Repeatedly they echoed in his mind, threatening to deafen him.
The red-headed devil had wormed his way into Jordan’s psyche, leaving behind a manifested fragment of his programming. Like a holographic projection, Moreau was there to torment him even in the recesses of his mind. “Your defiance will be your undoing! I control your every action, your every word!” red eyes gleamed with intensity found only in homicidal instability. “You’ll kill each and every one of them if that’s what it takes to break you! Nothing is beyond my power!” and with that, a shimmering blade of multi-colored energy manifested in Jordan’s human hand. With a level of frightening mastery, Moreau lowered his open-palmed hand with one swift motion and accordingly, Jordan’s hand wielding the blade moved in every way till that blade buried into his stomach, piercing vital organs. The entry wound cauterized around the blade’s heat. Jordan coughed up blood as his insides burned.
“You can stop this while you still have a choice. Work with me, not against me.”
Jordan sputtered, expelling more blood as he ripped the blade from his body and stabbed at the phantom Moreau with futility. The blade passed through the apparition harmlessly. He laughed at the pathetic human memory that Jordan still clung to with the last of his draining life. The human memory that had manifested itself into the human that Jordan had once been.
“What a bad dog. Your continued disobedience will be tolerated no further. This is the end of free will. I will break you, then you’ll obey me without fail.” The deathblow had been delivered and in an instant, Jordan was vaporized, the final words echoing in his mind "Moreau is my owner."
Strapped to his bed in the reality constructed within the nightmare, the dogman’s protests had ceased. Silence. Only the sounds of the rain could be heard. The good doctor’s tauntings had ended for now. A shattered psyche’s legacy reflected in the dull, vacant eyes staring into space.
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Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 8:08 pm
Homecoming It had taken four weeks of constant medical attention before the labs’ technicians could discharge Jordan back to the confines of his isolated duplex. Unaware of the excruciating month that had passed, Jordan had lain prone in a foreign bed, a prisoner of his subconscious mind- and at the lab’s mercy.
He’d been delivered into their care in fading health. So many broken bones had to be mended and punctured flesh knitted. The scapula and clavicle had taken the initial brunt of the attack’s force… and cracked under the strain. His legs had become pin cushions of bone and flesh under the great weight upon him and in between, further internal damage had been sustained.
Jordan had been kept alive in his comatic state via hydrating nutrient solution and a steady sedative drip, making that first week of intensive care crucial to survival. The system shock of that ferocious attack had surpassed any sane threshold of white hot pain. It was in his interest to remain sedated while they worked reconstruction on his body. However, his legs had sustained quite an amount of damage and even though he’d been patched up, without some serious physical therapy, he wasn’t going to walk anytime soon. Jordan would be bound to a wheelchair.
Sight and sound were blurred and skewed. He was sedated even as the jeep drove along the bumpy trail with the dogman hanging onto the metal frame loosely from the backseat. He was unaware of the current loss of his legs or even why there was a folded wheelchair back there with him. If it hadn’t been for the dosage of vicodin keeping his mind and body numbed, he would have been writhing in horrible seeing agony. His arms hadn’t suffered breakages like the rest of his body, but still it would hurt like hell in his shoulders, neck, and rotator cuffs.
Jordan wasn’t coherent enough to know that he’d soon be in his own bed once more, a new bed that had replaced the one Lauren shredded in a fit of emotional rage weeks before. As far as he knew, this was another dream. He wouldn’t recall being escorted into his duplex, nor would he remember who’d placed a wheelchair in the corner next to his bed. Too bad it wasn’t just another dream, but this nightmare was real.
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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 1:11 pm
Jordan groaned in discomfort as he stirred to, shifting uncomfortably. His drug-induced medicated sleep was at an abrupt end as the pain meds had run their course. His thoughts were diluted with a disorienting haze. This was the most coherent he’d been in a month, save for the briefest moments that he’d weakly opened his eyes to behold grey blobs and hazy outlines, subsequently passing out once more.
“nnnnnNNNnnnnnnngh….”
Jordan coughed with an attempt to speak. His vocal chords hadn’t been used in weeks and they were sore, producing only muffled mutterings. He was alone, so far out and isolated. No one would know if something happened to him. No one could get to him in time if he screamed for help. He was just as well without a voice. No one can hear you scream in the jungle… That was already proven.
It was quiet. Why did that seem important..? His hearing was fuzzy from the drug’s after-effect, but still, it was too quiet. The quiet… it was too quiet before… before what? Had something happened? His body ached terribly and attempts to move himself proved futile in his weakened condition. Where was he? Heavy eyelids fluttered, fighting to open under the sway of medicated slumber. The quiet was making him nervous. Jordan breathed sharply through his blackened nose. Something had happened just before the quiet had died. His hazy mind struggled to remember. He couldn’t be alone. He wasn’t alone before. Before what? He wanted his paw-like digits to move, willing them to do so, but Jordan felt separated from his body and control of such.
He shivered with a terrifying feeling. An ominous figure shrouded in his mind. Something terrible had happened. He shouldn’t be alone. He was outside. Water…. There was water… the lake! Something.. after that… something happened after the lake. On… a…. trail. His digits gripped the bed sheets as Jordan’s mind was struggling to recall the events that had led to this. A monster. There hadn’t been a prayer of survival and yet… He was so exhausted. His every part ached with pain. Grey outlines were all he could see at first. He squinted, wanting to focus through the blurriness.
Jordan gasped, suddenly sobbing as it rushed at him. The attack against him and a sharkboy… what was his name…. Allen… Alex… Alec! Oh god, was Alec dead?! His eyes shot open as his lips trembled with frightened breaths passing swiftly across them. He’d blacked out from the pain of his body being broken by Jamal.
He struggled to move. He had regained some control in his arms, though, their response time was delayed and his appendages felt like lead weights. The pain shot through his shoulders as his arms moved, lifting his paws to cover his face, to wipe the tears.
The last thing he could remember was being left for dead in the middle f nowhere.
His torso twisted as he pushed himself up and cried out in pain. He hurt so much, even sitting up was a difficult chore. He had to know if Alec survived the attack. Gritting his fanged teeth, he bit down hard as he pushed himself up into a sitting position, yelling as his arm had given out underneath his weight, pushing him backwards into collision with the wall. He had no choice but to rest like that for the moment till he got his wind back. The simplest task was becoming an ordeal to perform. His legs felt numb. They wouldn’t move. Maybe it was the medication doing that, he rationalized.
“Move.” He said to his legs, wanting them to show any sign of movement.
Frustrated when nothing happened he closed his eyes, gritting his teeth once more. “Move damn you. Move.”
Nothing.
“Move. Your. Foot.” He commanded his lame leg. “MOVE!” he shouted loudly, a shuddering breath of horror escaping him as he still couldn’t feel his legs. He was scared. It wasn’t safe out here. He needed to be in the protection of others. He was an easy target if in his condition.
Jordan noticed the wheelchair in the corner. It was within reach if he could lean over and pull it against the bed. Sitting up had left him in much pain. His sides ached, especially his ribs. He’d be stuck in this bed if he did nothing. Taking increasingly faster breaths, he closed his eyes in attempt to mentally brace himself for the coming agony as he leaned himself over, falling onto his arm with another cry of suffering. His fingers were just out of reach as he cried, dragging himself across the sheets, grasping at the arm of the wheelchair. Securing it, Jordan pulled towards him.
Now came the harder part: getting into the chair without hurting himself. With it against the bed now, he took hold of each leg, lowering them carefully to the floor- with a thud. Jordan was now sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to figure how to make the bold ‘leap’ from bed to chair.
Jordan couldn’t muster the leverage required to heft his body up with his lame legs. Was he paralyzed from the waist down? His legs had taken the bunt of the tiger-man’s ungodly force. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be true. He needed his legs. He needed to be able to walk around. Jordan didn’t want to be reliant on a metallic device to get around. And that’s why he stupidly thrusted himself off the bed and his legs wobbled, buckling underneath him the moment he was off the bed. He grabbed for the wheelchair’s arm and pulled himself towards it before he could fall on his a**. He still fell with a resounding crash and a louder scream. This was proving near impossible. Now, instead of being limited to the comfortable bed, he was on the hard floor, holding onto the chair air desperately as his eyes went wide with the seering pain throughout his person.
He pushed back against the chair, gripping the armrest and pushing off the bed in another feeble attempt to get up. He was desperate and hellbound to do this as he slowly, painstakingly pushed his rear onto the seat. Then he realized…. His tail was in the way. He settled into the chair, pushing back gently and hoping that it would move out of the way by the time he was in the wheelchair.
“Now… what…?” he huffed, out of breath. Believe it or not… that was the easy part! Jordan was more drained than when he’d woken. He was in the wheelchair, at least.. His arms hurt so much now. The pain radiating in his shoulders traveled down his arms. He just stared at the wheels and then at his paws. “Riiiiiight…” he sardonically quipped.
Sighing, he tried to wrap his large paws around the wheels while pushing forward so they’d get into motion. It moved surprisingly well indoors, despite everything and he maneuvered –slowly- around the bed with effort.
The door stood between him and the ‘world’. That door was the only thing keeping monsters out. Monsters like Jamal. His arm trembled in mid-air, outstretched for the knob… he was petrified. Frozen terror seized him. Jordan couldn’t do it. He couldn’t go out there, defenseless, prey. He couldn’t do it. Raggedly sharp breaths spiked in his burning lungs. He was alone, traumatized, and scared as hell of what lies outside. They were all dangerous.
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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:30 pm
There was no question of the fear. The traumatized expression on his face when he’d reached for that door handle spoke volumes on the subject of psychological scarring, a perfect match to the physical scars across his body. His fear had trapped him like a rat in a cage. He’d been a prisoner of his mind during his time in the labs. Released to his own devices, Jordan was a prisoner of his own reality. He’d become a man faced with his failings. Jamal had broken more than his body. Pride, ego, and spirit had been assassinated when he was unable to protect himself, nor Alec. Admitting ones failings eliminated any illusion to the contrary. He was powerless to defend himself, even now, as he’d become restrained to a metallic conveyance. His own legs refused to respond as they had before the attack.
His paw shook as he hesitated infront of the intercom. He was terrified to leave and terrified to be alone. Jordan needed contact. Who would he contact? Would anyone care? He felt so alone. So defeated. He grit his fangs in disgust at his pathetic weakness, clenching his eyes tightly as he smashed his paw into the keyboard. Little would he realize that he’d managed to patch through to someone. An unlikely person. Someone who would hear the tormented sobs coming through his end of the comm..
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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 5:48 pm
Victor had just gotten done bringing the duffle bag over to Tommy's duplex and left it in front of his door, and decided that he would take a nap when the intercom in his room went off. Who could be calling him now?
the lizardman crawled over to the intercom and hit the button to connect to whoever was calling him. "Hhello?" Victor asked the person on the other end
"Whho'ssss ccallingg?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 30, 2007 6:00 pm
He continued to sob, unaware that he’d actually patched through to someone else. The voice hadn’t registered to his ears initially with the ‘hello’, but when Victor spoke again, he snapped his eyes open, removing his paw from the keyboard. “Oh..! Oh, I’m sorry…!” he said shakily, his voice wavering. It took him a moment to realize that he’d heard this voice before. Not in a few months, but… who was that on the other end…?
“Victor?” he tried to control his sobbing. “It’s… Jordan…” He sniffled, wiping his black nose with the back of a paw as he made an attempt to control his spiked breathing. Jordan had reached out to someone by accident, but even an accident held a silver lining. The last time that he’d seen Victor was in the gym… and he wasn’t looking so well… would he be able to help? He played it off as if he’d intended to call Victor in the first place. “I didn’t know who else to call…” The distress was thick in his hoarse voice.
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