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 Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:17 pm
For a moment Alec couldn't remember where his initial goal had been, the fight against the turkey riot had distracted him enough that he forgot he had just been going for a leisurely round through the Village. It was for exercise more than in hopes of meeting anyone on the way, the aching in his arms from overuse was bothering him and he figured the sooner he buffed them up then the sooner he could travel around easier. "Uh? Oh, joost... yanno, joos' when ou' fo' a wa-" He stopped himself, tightening his mouth shut before he calmed himself enough to finish. "Fo' a lil' roun'-abou' th'village. Ye?"
Now that the rafter of turkies had dispersed well enough to leave him alone, he was now more aware of the changes he hadn't noticed in Amaya before. For one, she was wearing a dress again. Seeing her in shorts and other boyish clothes made him curious to the reason. It drew his memory back to Nita's extravagant Halloween costume... and the fact that hehadn't spoken a word to Amaya at that party. "Ay...a' di'nt see much o' ye at th'alloween paw'teh." Could he blame her? Any fun he had had at that party dissipated after that little midnight trek through the twisted funhouse. "A' di'nt see ye at th'graves eitheh... a' don' blame ye though, th' labs go' a weh'd sense o' humeh wi' th'olidays i' seems, ay?" He pointed to the fat, stupid turkeys wandering about that were surely not indiginous.
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Posted: Tue Nov 28, 2006 11:22 pm
"Just headed to the cafeteria to get some food for my new pets. I adopted two of the turkeys." She said, though fell silent as he started to talk about the Halloween party. The graves...? What was he talking about?
"Graves? What graves?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:13 pm
Alec cocked his head to the side rather like a stiffened parrot as he began wracking his brain to try and remember if she had been there that night or not. She must have been, everyone was. Everyone saw that disgusting, horrible place.
"Ye... th'graveyaw'd?... Th' woon theh led us teh, them sick fooks..." He bowed his head as he trailed off in a bitter grumble though he couldn't shake the feeling that she really hadn't been there. No one would've forgotten that sort of thing. Suddenly the realization hit him and he looked back up towards her with large, grey eyes. Oh no, what if she knew someone there? It was true she'd been on the island longer, she must be able to recognize some of a names on those cold headstones. What can of worms was he opening? "Is hidd'n bu'..." He stopped short, unsure if he should go on.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:16 pm
Now she was starting to get worried. "Is it... real?" She hesitantly asked. Oh god... what if... it wasn't a joke? What if there really was a graveyard out in the jungle with people she hadn't seen in so long? Greer, Mister Dude, Hargun, Chubbs...
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:27 pm
Feeling the growing tension and desperation in her voice, Alec began wringing the cloth on his lap in his palms in a nervous reaction. The subject itself wasn't helping. Every time he thought about it-- and he had thought about it often in the first few days of his change --he felt an overwhelming sense of anxiety. "Y-Ye..." He hesitantly responded, not knowing what to do or say next. Too late to change the subject?
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:29 pm
Amaya swallowed loudly and then took a shakey breath. "Can you take me to it...?" She asked hesitantly. Despite the fact that she hated graves... she had to know if anyone she knew was there.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:37 pm
Alec winced and inside, his blood ran cold in a wave of fear. He hadn't faced that place since he left it that night on Halloween. Even though it was guaranteed to be an unhappy and potentially painful experience for Amaya, it still stung with the fear that that one day could be him. "'Maya..." The boy started in a feeble attempt at changing her mind but he found himself at a loss for words. She had a right to see that place but he heart wanted to keep her there, safe from it.
Before she could even retaliate, it was clear by his expression that he was giving in. With a small nod, he went about the task of turning himself around to lead her there himself.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 9:52 pm
As he uttered her name she just looked down at him sadly. But the hurt and sad look in her eyes one could tell she wasn't looking forward to it any more than he was. But she had to see. Maybe no one she knew was there. Maybe she would be able to tell it was fake.
As he started to wheel around towards the jungle she slowly followed him. Her heart was beating a mile a minute. It was like she was staring at the look on her grandmother's face again when she got the call that her parents had died.
"Nan-nan? What's wrong?" A tiny, eight-year-old Amaya looked up at her grandmother's back. The elderly woman was short, but to her she seemed like a hero of a woman. Always happy and with something nice to say and always cheer her up when she was sad. She had tried to go to bed, but the phone had rang before she could be tucked in. Despite being eight, she still liked to be cuddled at night before she fell asleep. Even a night-light had to be on because she was scared of the dark.
"Yes... yes. Okay. Thank you." The woman's head nodded up and down twice, her long grey hair moving with her in it's long ponytail. The phone was hung up and a moment passed where she didn't turn around... but when she finally did, the look in her eyes would never be forgotten.
When the elderly woman's normally bright brown eyes turned to look at her the brightness was gone without a trace. They were filled with despair and tears started to brim over the edge before spilling down her cheeks.
She closed the distance between them and kneeled down, wrapping her arms around the little girl's body. Not knowing the extent of the damage, Amaya hugged her back.
"Whats wrong? Why're you cryin'?"
"... Nan-nan?"
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 10:05 pm
Alec pushed along through the grass in the best guess of the proper whereabouts of that place. It was hard to tell, not only had it been pitch-black night and oddly ornamented but his memory was almost intentionally failing him. As always the travelling was not easy and many times he considered asking Amaya to assist him in continuing on, but he refused to stoop to that level of indignity. He'd break his arms before he allowed someone to push him along like some feeble thing.
The teen tried not to notice how exceptionally quiet the iguana girl was, simply pressing onwards in a 'lets-get-this-over-with' fashion. One could tell when they were getting closer to the area. Not only did the forest change into a tightwork mesh of old, haunting vegetation but the air seemed to adopt a new chill and a new dingey, decaying smell. Or maybe it was all in his head. Regardless, the upcoming arrival was marked by a slowing of Alec's pace as he unconsciously hesitated to close the distance.
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Posted: Wed Nov 29, 2006 10:12 pm
The entire way there all Amaya could do was think about what she had felt in those horrible hours after finding out her parent were dead and would never come back. Even as Alec slowed down she almost walked into the back of his wheelchair.
Blinking yellow eyes down at him, she looked back up at the narrow pathway. She swallowed again and then followed him into the clearing...
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:40 pm
Once they'd reached the dismal clearing, Alec pulled his wheelchair off to the side to allow Amaya to wander as she saw fit. What was he going to do, give her a tour of the headstones? He could barely even lift his head for fear of staring at the names all over again, the neat text so fitting for what was possibly a very gruesome desmise for the now-rotting corpse under it. He couldn't bear to reda those names and he didn't have to; he already knew Nathan's was just to the left of him anyways.
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 10:51 pm
The girl swallowed and started to walk along the graves, reading each name she came by. She didn't recognize anyone until... headstone number four.
Sean "The Dude" Carrol, subject
Died of Complications, February 23, 2006
She kept reading it over and over again, standing there and staring at it. No... he... he couldn't be dead! Dead for almost YEAR without her knowing!? That was impossible!
Minutes ticked by as she just... stared at the grave. Then she fell to her knees in front of it. A large, clawed hand reached up and ran over the grooves that created his name. At the moment she still couldn't seem to cry, still in shock.
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:18 pm
Alec heard the rustling and glanced up to see Amaya on the ground by a headstone. He knew it was inevitable she was going to recognize one of them. She'd been here much longer than he was and considering how many different people he was still meeting, there was undoubtably countless others who were her friends. He knew he should be over there comforting her but he remembered how he felt the night he was led to this place. Not even an entire bottle of alcohol was comfort enough.
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:26 pm
"Well, Amaya, he fed all of us various lies, some better and some worse. It's not hard to lie well to people if you know which buttons to push. And the folks from Feral Labs did their homework on all of us. Well, except me and Emelyn. We are kinda freebies on this island - shipwrecked after a storm. And ya know, one should never give up hope. Life has a way of turning out alright in the end. And ya know ... one adjusts."
He looked at his flippers and smiled back at Amaya: "Like, I get to swim so much better now, ya know? I"m the Dude by the by. That's what people call me. And I am turning into a sea lion" - he introduced himself.
To this day she still used his advice. Things always turned out right in the end. People adjust. There was always a brighter side. Despite how down she had been lately, it's what she always told people when she comforted them.
But look where that advice had got him. A grave. He was dead. Dude was dead.
She leaned closer to the grave, her hands holding the top of it's curve as her head bent and pressed up against it. She shook her head. They had killed him. They would eventually kill the rest of her family, wouldn't they? Unless they had reached the end they could all just... die. Like that. Gone without a word.
They were stealing her family away from her even when that was all she wanted. It had been taken away from her when she was a little girl. She had been alone. And even after she came here she got comfort in the fact that she formed her own little family.
A family. That was all she had ever wanted. Yet still they robbed her of it along with so much more.
Her sobbing began then, her palms gripping the edge of the headstone and her shoulders shaking as tiny tearless sobs escaped her muzzle.
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Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2006 11:54 pm
He didn't want to move. He didn't want to have to smell or see or hear anything relating to this place ever again, yet there he was sitting silently amongst the tragically heroes of the island. As Alec heard the first instances of a cry from Amaya he knew he couldn't ignore it. He started to look up again towards the stone graves and his mind was automatically filled with the morbid thoughts he feared.
What was Nathan feeling? Lying in that cold ground merely feet away from the demon that started it all, the man who began the projects, the twisted ideas that would destroy lives like they were nothing.... how does one feel as the maggots chew their twisted, fleshy bodies that were no more similar to the real them than the corpse that was left behind.
How does one feel when they know... they're going to die too?
The teenager shook his head in a sudden jerky motion as if someone had pinched him hard, and with a sharp inhale of air he began wheeling himself over to Amaya. He didn't want to bring her here. She shouldn't have to know this... this horrible truth. He'd failed. Failed to protect her from this.
In a slow motion he placed a shakey hand on the center of her back and waited, giving her a moment.
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