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Alex pushed himself up and away from the now dead hunter lying upon the ground, fingers still wet and dripping blood to the floor. His lip was still pulled back from his teeth and his lone pale eye burned with undying hatred as he slowly backed away. "Maggie?" His voice was hoarse, practically a growl as he began his search for the ghoul, pausing as he heard her own voice, though it was a flat sound, almost as though the fog were muffling her words, absorbing them so that he could no longer tell just how far away she truly was. Still, he could at least tell direction, so he began towards her, stumbling upon her much more quickly then he had anticipated.

"I'm here! Sorry about that." He wiped his hands on his jeans then reached over for her hand once more, not willing to talk about what had just occurred in the fog. "Should we keep going?" He frowned, a sudden feeling of paranoia welling up inside of him, unbidden. Was somebody watching them? They clearly weren't safe out here. Maybe they should just go back to the horseman encampment....

"Do you..smell something?" Indeed, it seemed as though the air was suddenly permeating a very desirable scent, one that he couldn't help but be drawn towards. It was a warm scent, comforting, something to ease the pain inside of him. Without thinking about it any further, he was moving, tugging Maggie along with him though if she wanted to let go of his hand she could easily do so. A dark figure came into view, holding what appeared to be a tray. There was a counter with..things spread out on it, eerie white eyes staring at him in a way that was almost disconcerting.

"Help you to make....?" He was completely dumbfounded, but as he looked around they appeared to be in some kind of room, though no exit was to be found. Okay then...this was just weird. Not even considering the consequences, he reached towards the fluffy black mass with white eyes and offered it out to the woman, just wanting to get out of this place and not knowing how else to do so. The figure seemed happy to put the fluffy black thing in the bowl before shoving it into an oven. As black smoke began to pour out, however, the zomboil began to feel panic. Smoke...smoke meant fire, and fire was not something he wanted to deal with right now. Not in this enclosed space! He began to back away, and the figure just smiled at him, a flash of white in all of that darkness and grey as she told him everything would be fine.....

.....And then everything when stark and blindingly white in front of his eyes.

Stats:

The white faded, and with it, so did the room that they had moments before been standing in. He was faintly aware of Maggie giggling next to him and he turned towards her, concern clear in his single pale eye. "You...you alright, Maggie?" He asked, worried that perhaps the strain of their current situation was just now beginning to get to her. His voice was gruff, and even as he looked down at her he blinked several times, trying to get the after image from the blinding white light to disappear from his vision. She actually didn't appear too out of sorts, so he pulled on her hand gently.

"Come on. I don't think we're getting anywhere with this. Maybe we should just try and go back...." It was hard to admit that they were getting defeated by this fog, but it was true. Every few feet they seemed to encounter another vision. And that hunter, the one that Alexander had helped lay to rest...well, that just confirmed that there were more of them out there. What was he supposed to do, if they inadvertantly ran into a group of them?

And so they continued on, but Alexander was hopelessly lost. He couldn't find the light, no matter which way he looked, and he had absolutely no idea what direction to go in. Still, he didn't want to let his incompetency show, and he continued to soldier along, eye always searching for something, anything.

A door....

There was a door, just suddenly manifesting itself out of the fog in front of them. He paused in front of it, and let Maggies hand drop from his own, frowning as he stepped to the side.

The door followed.

Reaching out, he slowly brushed his fingers over it's surface, confirming it's solid texture beneath his touch.

"Well...only one way to get to the other side, I guess..." He reached out towards the handle, intent on turning it and opening the door so that they could get by, when voice called out to him.

"Waaaaait!"

The zomboil paused, his hand pulling back from the handle as if it had been burned. Somebody was putting their hand on his shoulder. A voice, and a small pressure from the touch as though whoever it was had to crane up to whisper to him.

"Don't go. Please. There's still another way. You don't have to do this!"

His mother. The voice could belong to nobody else rather then her. Again, he remembered how she wouldn't look at him earlier, when she had been behind that first figure in the mist. That mother hadn't been real, but this one...this one sounded just like her. Her hand on his shoulder added more weight to his confusion. "Mom...?" He whispered, face crumbling, but he wouldn't turn towards her. No. If he did he would break for certain.

"Mom I..." His eye locked on the door, his face set in determination once more. "I have to do this. Please, let go of me."

As the grip vanished from his shoulder, he reached out for the knob once more, and opened it.

The door disappeared.

He turned back around towards Maggie and blinked in puzzlement. Where had she gone?

"Maggie??"

They really needed to stop losing each other like this.


Stats:

Even as Alexander searched for the ghoul, the fog continued to shift and change around him. The door was gone. His mother, if she had ever really been there, was gone as well. His paranoia flared as he tried to look everywhere at once, waiting for the next apparition that the fog would bring before him, with some new and pointless task or question posed. He'd had enough, and was just ready for it all to be over now.

"Maggie!?" He called out for her again, worried, needing to find her before he could continue on because there was just no way he was leaving her behind.

He took some steps towards where he thought he'd last seen her, but still, nothing. Nothing until the fog almost seemed to sweep away, leaving him in a clearing, a rectangular open space cut into the ground like a doorway. Was that...was that a stairway leading down? He thought he caught a glimpse of movement, and his eye snapped up once more.

"Maggie..." He sighed in relief, finally seeing the ghoul on the other side of the rectangular hole from him.

"I--I'm not sure but...I think we're supposed to go down there." Could he hear voices drifting up from below? He thought that he could, and that they were familiar.

Without another word, he shuffled forward to the edged, then took his first slow step down the stairs. And then another. And another.

He needed to see what was at the bottom.

((Exit))