Welcome to Gaia! ::

Zach woke up with a jolt. Light was flooding into the cave from the entrance, and the sound of jungle birds squawking and singing floated over on the warm breezes. There was an odd smell mixed with that of the ocean, like rotten meat, but it was faint. Everything seemed so undisturbed that the night before could almost have been just a bad dream. But his neck and lungs still ached, and he was lying right where he had when he'd been strangled. His attacker was, luckily, nowhere in sight. He reached up to his neck and felt pain wherever his fingers touched skin and scale. So he'd been attacked, almost killed.

Somehow, in hindsight, it seemed so obvious that it would happen. There was no joke to what he'd said to the cobra - suspicion had turned into fact in his mind even before the snake-man had tried to strangle him. Everyone on the island but two were after him, out to spill his blood. Why? Why not? They had reasons. Reasons he didn't even fully understand. Reasons that if he did know could drive him as mad as the rest of them. He didn't want to die, not by their hands. He just couldn't. But they'd be back eventually, one way or another. Hoping to catch him sleeping so they could drive their claws into him like so many needles into a pincushion till he bled to death. Trying to strangle the last of his breath from him with hands or tails or tentacles or rope. The fear was like quicksand, dragging him down with gruesome scenarios, vivid portents of murder.

He snapped out of it long enough to realize he'd been spacing out staring at the ceiling of the cave. Rolling over onto his stomach, his wings ached as they were finally freed from under his back. While they seemed sore and stiff, they hadn't been broken. Gradually he pulled his body up into a hunched-over mockery of sitting, letting his stunted wings fall loosely behind him. Priorities would have to be made. No place on the island was safe. He needed protection. Sabin could only help him so much. If he didn't do anything to protect himself, he'd just be a sitting duck for whatever the other islanders planned to do to him. It didn't matter who they were, but he wasn't going to rest until he was sure no one would ever be able to hurt him again.

The sunlight was beckoning, though. If he didn't bask he'd feel off all day. He glanced over at the skull of the buck he'd killed, its empty eye sockets leering at him. With an expression of worry he turned away, and wordlessly trudged out of the cave.

[:: End RP]