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Gale, standing in the darkness, flickered his gaze towards Sandy, still breathing in slow, deliberate breaths to keep himself from emptying the contents of his stomach out into the water. He felt weaker than he should have, his legs feeling heavy as he traipsed around, dragging his rifle along behind him

Don't think about it.

"I have a twin sister " he said, his voice oddly strained, as though he were desperate for the distraction, reaching for something, anything to drag his mind away from the awful, horrible memories twisting inside of his head, threatening to consume him.

He could see the Incident again, in his mind, as though it had just happened the day before.

Stop it.

"I remember," Gale continued, still moving. "One day when we were both seven. Leslie wanted to go to the zoo, but I didn't want to go with her because I wanted to watch my show on the telly. She didn't want to, and when I refused to go, she left the room. I thought she had just dropped it, but she came back a few minutes later with our dog's leash, which she proceeded to tie around my wrist and physically attempt to drag me out from the house."

A small, weak and vague smile crossed his pale face, hardly visible in the darkness.

"Needless to say, she wasn't very successful - at least, not with the pulling. But I agreed to go with her to the zoo anyway."

Remembering Leslie was painful. Almost as painful as remembering The Incident, if not more.

Don't think about it.

Saya thought Sandy was a genius. Storytime to take their minds off this? It was a brilliant distraction, especially when it was too dark to see anything or make an entertaining show of hide and seek with tablets. Listening to their stories, Saya was sure they had things she could never imagine. Like Gale having a twin sister?

"I-I lived with a guardian who took care of me. He took me to a swan ride .." She moved her hands to show a paddling-bicycle handle motion but realized that few could see her. "It was a paddling sort of thing. But I was wearing light footwear and .. I tripped and fell in the water."

She remembered how mortifying it was.

"Everyone stared at me with .. Well .. You can imagine what it's like for a girl to fall into the lake and everyone laughing. I wanted to sink right then and there. But he fell into the lake with me, cell phone and all. He told me what a good swim it was."

Swimming back to shore hadn't been successful. Getting back on that swan was much less so, nearly toppling it over.

Rep listened with facination to the stories people had to tell, his mind temporarily taken off of his fear by the impromptu storytime. Sure some of the stories were a bit touchy feely and homo and s**t but he could really live with that right here and now. There was plenty of manly badass in this water to compensate. It was nice to get a little glimpse of the humanity in a lot of the hunters around him, even ones he'd never had a chance to speak to like Gale. He had never known Clerise was a circus performer either..that'd possibly come in handy later.

It took him a while to decide wether to offer any sort of story of his own, his life wasn't actually all that fun nor really endearing. Still.

"Well this one time like, well my mate used to work with his uncle, they fitted kitchens for people right? They had worked together for years. And then there was this whole awesome falling out they had, proper huge rammy argument and s**t. " He smirked at the memory, all thought of the clicking and unnerving s**t all around him forgotten, for the time being he was back at home with his friends recounting his story. "So right. They make a lot of money off this snobby job they have to do fitting a huge ******** kitchen in like a mansion just before this. And my mate bought a new car, brand spanking new, ******** sweet, sound system everything. And he parks it at the bottom of the block of flats where his mate lives. And goes up to talk it out."

He snickered. "Well, my mate goes up there and they have another fight, huge ******** falling out still. Nothing resolved. My mate says ******** this and leaves. And while he's going down in the lift, his uncle and his mate throw a ******** fridge out of the window onto his new car. Three floors up. BOOOM."

He flat out laughed. "It was ******** LEGEND man. People were taking pictures of the ******** car on their phone and everything. HE GOT FRIDGED."

Maybe it wasn't in the vein of the storytelling. But it certainly made him feel better.

Candace just stared at Marcus. Are you for real? "No s**t? I thought fuzzy forest creatures carried hunter weapons." She rolled her eyes. "That's not what I asked though, unless Sandy suddenly became a man." There was a snap in her head that made her quiet down, giving a soft nod. I'll be good. Play nice. Aria was right, they couldn't afford enemies.

Sandy suddenly cut in with instructions to think of something else other than where they were. Stories? Well...okay. But what should she share? She listened quietly as Sandy started her story. It was cute how she was recalling the twin. Had he been a hunter as well or had this all been before she'd become a hunter? "That's sweet. I don't have any cute sibling or dating stories but...hm!" She hummed thoughtfully as she debated what story to tell. Something about herself? Her life hadn't been all that interesting.

"There was this guy in college who was really into me. I was never really big on dating though, I didn't give myself time for it. But we shared a lot of classes and so we saw a lot of each other." She grinned, wading through the water with her flashlight pointed down in search of anything else. "One day he surprised me for my birthday. Roses, balloons, a cake. He also got me this really nice pearl necklace." She still had it, she just didn't wear it in fear of it being wrecked while training. "And then he took me to this really nice restaurant in Boston. But the best part was the cake. He tried to reveal it in this, like, really romantic way with a drawn out reveal and getting all dramatic. After dinner he took me on a horse-drawn carriage ride, then there were like...all these candles.." Candace was laughing before even getting to the end. It was a fun memory. "He slipped on a rose petal and fell face first into the cake!" She was still laughing as she turned her flashlight up to try and find the ceiling, grinning and shaking her head. "He was so embarrassed when I started laughing, but I thought it was sweet. It makes things interesting when plans go awry like that. I don't get romanced very often, but I like it." She laughed at her own silliness and sighed, shaking her head. A glance was cast toward Jerry after she was finished. What memory would he give? Some recent? Something from his past before Deus? Some of these stories were pretty enlightening. Gale had a twin sister? She never knew that. Wilson and Emmaline knew each other before Deus...how nice!

Okay, fine. Rep's story made her laugh. HE GOT FRIDGED! PFFT!

((******** YOU GUYS ROFL I JUST MADE A 1,400 WORD POST XDDDDDD But not any more OTL))

Mercedes' objective to find a weapons tablet was unsuccessful when she thought she had found one but found.. what looked... like a bone? Of course these things that had drawn on the walls would've left bones if they were cave dwellers. She knew this from all those inaccurately portrayed primitivist movies about savage cultures. Okay well SHE knew they weren't but creatures of the dark that painted s**t like that? No.. she was pretty sure they were savage.

With a sigh she retreated to where there were more hunters with lights on them. This method while carrying Hadjoc just wasn't working out for her. She needed to engineer some sort of carrying device to keep at least one half of the set held close to her person without actually holding him.

The beast inside the weapon began to snicker to itself unpleasantly. Mercedes could feel her anxiety building once more.

As soon as she took off, Hazel made a mad dash but somehow tripped on her own foot when she tried to avoid some of the arrows. One arrow grazed her right arm.

"Ow! s**t!" Hazel cried. It seemed she wasn't the only one who got hit neither... When she finally came to a stop, their leader was gone. Suddenly, mysterious clicking sounds... Where was it coming from? She watched the other trainees shine their flashlights around the room.

HP: 25/40

The FEAR scanner? Oh, right. Hazel tapped on it a few times before going off to help the others find... tablets.

Hazel waded in the cold waters when she smelled something horrid, "Oh, GOD, I'm going to vomit..."

So…nothing down there…

Molly moved her flashlight around, and a glint caught her eye. Oh! Did she find one? Vaska seemed dubious as Molly eagerly bent to pick it up, wincing at the sharp chill of the water as she then brought the item close to her face to examine it. …Huh. Molly stared at it for a long time…and one would think she didn’t seem to know what she had picked up, or she was just really good at keeping a neutral face. Maybe it was a coping mechanism that she didn’t think about it too hard, and carefully placed it back into the puddle.

It wasn’t a tablet…she’d just…put it back where it belonged.