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 Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:22 pm
Richard looked back toward the graveyard and counted the head stones again. Nine. Nobody new. Of course if this had happened yesterday then the lab could still be examining the body. On the third hand, Sabin it was doubtful the labs would leave a frenzied killer loose. He turned back to Tommy, looking far more composed.
"Just Calm down Tommy. Breath." He made a fanning gesture with is hand. "Zach is probably fine despite his stupidity." Richard wondered how the dragon could have lost to Tommy. A mountian of red muscle versus Tommy's nigh skeletal frame. "You wouldn't be out here if you'd killed him." Regardless of the truth Richard needed to get Tommy back to the village and out of the jungle.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:28 pm
Tommy's wild eyes darted around as Richard looked to the headstones. A few echolocation bursts later soothed his frenzied mind. No one else was coming. Not yet anyway...what will they do? They're coming to take me away hahah! They're coming to take me away hoho! Heeheehaha to the funny farm, where life is wonderful all day long!
Tommy grinned to himself, giving him that demented look again. "You have no idea how it felt though...I...I can feel the blood flow through people...anyone..." he eyed Richard, "I can spot out the closest arterie...like a hotknife through butter it was...yeah..." He said all this while absently scratching at the bandages on his back.
"...I never felt that way before...it was like...like a complete absence of God...no morality...no right or wrong...nothing matters anymore...and it felt...it felt amazing."
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:42 pm
Richard's face went from wary to a sneer of disapproval. "Tommy. Keep talking like that and I'm going to hit you again. You are not going to wind up like Jamal or Annie! You hear me! I won't allow it." Richard voice steadly escalated as he ranted. "So you better just pull yourself together. We've got a long hike back to the village." Richard's eyes bored into Tommy's with a feral instensity of their own. He'd be damned if he let a friend like Tommy slip away like this.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 5:50 pm
Tommy winced away from Richard, seriously contemplating whether or not to just run for it. Get away from the anger, away from civilization...back to the jungle....And then it hit him like a Mac truck going 75 and he was the armadillo. Those weeks spent outside...alone...cold...starving...was that what he wanted? Going back...he may see Zach...or one of his friends. They'd kill the bat...wouldn't they?
His decision was made for him though when Richard fixed him with his feline gaze. He couldn't look away, no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't look away. And then...he just hung his head, feeling embarrassed, foolish, scared, and cautious all at the same time. "You don't know what it's like..." he said quietly.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:07 pm
Richard never wanted to experiance Tommy's taste of the freedom. It terrified him. He knew what happened when people lived like animals, he had seen it. The had been no Moreau fiddling with DNA in the jungles of the Congo, it wasn't needed to unlock the pits of hell inside the souls of all men. Moreau had just found a short cut.
"I seen it. I saw it in Jamal. I've seen it in the Congo, in the face of men who were more feral and ruthless than anything on this island. There's no freedom in that."
Richard backed up into the clearing. "Now come on, lets go home."
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:14 pm
Tommy just stared at Richard for a moment before looking away, to the gravestones. "I've got nothing back there...all I have are human clothes I can never wear again and some pictures I never want to see again...it's just an empty duplex to me."
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:28 pm
Richard ticked off reason on his short fingers. "Well for one there is a shower. Which you are in very sore need of at the moment. Two, looks like Zach took a chunk out of your back your going to get it infected out here. Three if you surrender yourself like this then a certain Dr. wins. And fourth, I am not chasing you all over the jungle to deliver the next newsletter." Richard almost added a fifth reason, Grabbing the batman by the ankles and dragging him back.
"Alright?" Richard was getting frustrated with Tommy's emoing. Hell he was sick of listening to to his own whining. It felt good to be assertive.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:37 pm
Tommy quirks a brow at the shower comment, really unaware at his current hygiene...hell, he was unaware of many things at the moment. He glared at Richard though when he brought up the fact that he was letting the doctor win. "You don't get it...he has won..." he mutters moreso to himself as he takes a step foreward, still using his hands to help propell him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:48 pm
Richard let the comment pass without a reaction, encouraged for the moment by Tommy's forward movement. Richard saw the island as a waiting game. Personalities that were as narcissistic as Moreau were often blind to their own faults and even the brilliant miscalculate sometimes. Eventually, some where an opportunity would appear, one just had to be patient. Of course that was getting harder and harder as his own transformation date steadily creeped closer.
Richard offers Tommy a hand as he approaches him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 6:54 pm
Tommy just kept on walking as Richard offered him his hand. "...lost my walker...'sides, I'm gunna have to get used to walking like this...doesn't hurt my hips as much."
Tommy's views on the island, unlike Richard's, have changed radically though. From denial to anger...he was snubbed...depression...didn't work for him either. Now all that's left is acceptance. The greiving process...grief for a dead son, a dead cadet...a dead human being.
"Wonder if they'll still deliver my food to the duplex...heh...food..." he begins to trail off, but "******** cold blood...like diet coke...*muttermutter*" can be heard.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 7:11 pm
Richard looked at his hand for a moment before retracting it. He watches the Batman get some distance ahead of him before hurrying to catch up.
The two walk in silence. Richard is lost on in his own thoughts... and fears. He had thought he had conquered fear before coming to the island, too old to care about silly things like death. But the island continued to show him that death was minor thing compared to the gradual transformation of the body and mind. He had less than a month left till the next one. How much of himself would be left after that?
This dark train of thoughts followed Richard until they arrived at the door of Tommy's duplex. He opened the door and smiled weakly at his friend.
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Posted: Tue Jan 30, 2007 8:52 pm
As Tommy walked, the dull pain in his hands began to become a sharp one. He'll have to bandage up his knuckles sometime soon. He didn't show this pain though. It was his own damn choice. Every now and then he glanced at Richard, wondering what the older man was thinking.
Tommy couldn't get the feeling of blood off of his mind...every moment, his thoughts drifted toward the feel of it coursing down his throat as he lapped it up. Tommy shakes his head, trying to get rid of these thoughts. It didn't help.
At the door to his duplex, Tommy glanced up at Richard with his own bloodstained visage. Tommy looked much older than he once did, only seven months ago. He didn't return the smile, but only nodded and looked into his duplex. It was indeed barren. Not only did he not have a bed, but the monolith piano was also gone. The only furnishing was an armchair, a desk, and about twenty pictures strewn about on his floor. If Richard had decent eyes, he could probably see Tommy in one. He's decked out in his service dress uniform on top of a moutain that's overlooking a valley. He has this smirk on his face that tells of an infinite amount of potential. This picture was slightly torn at the corner.
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Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 6:57 pm
Richard peered into the room. "Well thats roomier than I last saw it." He flashed a bit of a teasing grin. He tried to act as if nothing was wrong. Normalacy, thats what Tommy needed, something to keep him busy and sane. Richard stepped into the room looking around thoughtfully as he chewed on his knuckle. "Well its a little spartan maybe." He looked down at the pictures. Was that what had set him off? Think about home. He bent down to pick one up.
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Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:09 pm
"I need a goddamn pullupbar in here..." he mutters to himself as he crutched his way in on his knuckles...and then his eyes lit up. There, in the corner was a styrofoam cooler with a "Biohazard" sticker on it. He quickly made his way over to that direction, not noticing Richard picking up a picture.
Some of the other pictures included himself dressed in civilian attire surrounded by friends and family. Almost none were present that didn't have a family member in them, telling of a very close family unit. And about half of them showed Tommy drunk with his older brother...someone he held as a hero.
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Posted: Wed Jan 31, 2007 7:24 pm
Richard extracted his glasses from his pocket and slipped them around his ears. He examined the picture while he held the glasses to his face with his other hand. Glasses were not made for flat noses.
The picture was of some one Richard supposed might have been a human Tommy or rather two people that might have been Tommy. Brothers mayhaps? The thought really didn't occur to him that Tommy might not like him looking at it. He took the silence as assent in any case and picked up the next one.
"Been looking into the past?" The tone was conversational, maybe Tommy needed to talk about something?
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