Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chana shrugged. "Who knows. All I know is that I'd rather not faint again." Of course she had theories about the fainting and the fleeing...but those were more things she'd rather not think about.

"But it's been quite nice having a good conversation," she added.

"What?" Then Chana remembered her earlier...activity. "Oh...no...I'm good. I think I have another couple around here...and I've made do before. Thanks though." Yeah...she could always put a stack of laundry under her head and never know the difference. Thank you camp?

"Thanks anyway. And thanks for the afternoon." Chana moved over to the door to open it for her guest.

"Birthday? Oh! Happy birthday! Go spend it with your special someone!" Chana winked as she pulled the door open.

"Good night!" she called after Joliette, then gently closed the door. Whew. Things hadn't gone too badly at all, all things considered.

Though she'd successfully avoided thinking too much about what had happened to her last night. That was a positive at least. Chana sat down on the bed and contemplated the flames. Tonight they seemed a little brighter.

"Probably just my imagination."

That night, at 3am on the dot, there is a LOUD sound of an explosion, originating from the sky above the Island. Looking out, or anyoune outside would look up to see a brief fireball in the sky. Following that, any power that is on begins to flicker, going through a few brownouts before finally shutting down altogether. If you happen to be awake at that point - you would notice all the lights around you, any electronic equipment that wasn't battery operated flicker and die. However, within a few seconds of the final powersurge and failure, you find yourself being pulled into a forced unconsciousness.

When you wake up, it is midafternoon the following day, though it would vary within a few hours depending on the individual. You are NOT in your duplex. You wake up to find yourself floating on a small wooden raft like thing in the middle of the lake.

All of the buildings on the island are in 'shutdown' mode. This means that everything is locked tight. If you attempt to force your way into any of the buildings, your own duplex and the Town Hall included, then you will find that from the outside at the very least, they are impenetrable. If any window was broken - it is now fixed. All of the lights are off - in every building. Even the electric fence surrounding the main laboratory is turned off - though still closed. Attempts to break into the main complex will be met with equal lack of luck as breaking into a duplex or the town hall.

The only items you have on you are the items that you would have been wearing when you were asleep/fell unconscious: including clothing and perhaps a few battery-powered electronics IF You would have been wearing them. That's it. Everything else is where you left it - if it was in your duplex, it still is and you can't get to it.

There is no sign of what happened to the staff. The labs are quiet from the outside.

Welcome to the Wild.

Chana had been moving her raft around the entire lake. She'd decided to ignore most of the rivers; they headed straight into the jungle. But one was a bit closer to the village and had a good current. Exhausted, the beaver girl had pulled herself onto the raft and set its course for that river.

Now she was recovering her breath as the raft floated downriver. Up ahead there seemed to be a clearing...a disaster of a campsite...and people.

"Hello!" she called out, still a bit breathless, and waved.

Joliette looked up from the small fire and the nearly cooked boar. "Chana! Bonjour!, I'm glad to know more are safe" she called back waving at the raft riding woman. Well that made more that she could count as alive and well for the most part.

Chana waved once more and slipped off of the raft to push it safely to shore.

"Safe? Do you know what's going on?" she asked as she pushed. "All I know is that I was up late, heard an explosion, saw the lights flicker and blacked out." One more heave and the raft was beached. Chana sat on the sun-warmed wood and looked over at Joliette.

She was cooking something...that much was clear. Chana sniffed hesitantly, and nearly blanched at the smell of the animal. Ugh. There went her appetite.

Joliette herself had been making a valiant effort to keep her tongue in her mouth not wanting to smell the meat herself. She got up and walked towards Chana and her raft. "All I know is the power is out, the village is like fort knox, everyone is scattered and that tattooed Antony person says to stay away from the helipad... whereever that is..." She stopped walking a couple feet from the raft and looked down at Chana

"Isn't the helipad by the mountain? I mean...that's what I think I remember from when I got here..." she mused. No power? The village locked down? What on earth was going on?

Chana looked up at Joliette, meaning to ask one of those questions. Instead, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"You look like an inverted Christmas tree!" Embarrassed, she flung her hands to her mouth, spraying droplets of water everywhere.

"I dont know I didn't come here by helicopter...." she peered in teh general direction of hte mountain... that is until Chana made her comment about her appearance, and her head turned quickly back then looked at herself, if it'd been possible for her to blush under that red skin it would have been possible... "Err yes, I suppose I do" she said "I kinda got cooked out on the ocean right after this all happened..."

"Whoops...I really didn't mean to...sorry," Chana apologized, though she was still smiling.

"So...who are your friends?" she asked, motioning to the two sleeping forms.

Joliette chuckled "Yeah it's ok don't worry, it'll go away eventually and I'll wind up with a dark tan..." she peered over her shoulder at the sleeping pair "The one with the blue hair is Awen, I've known her since the day I arrived here, she's really nice. And the other is Lauren, I met her a short time ago , she's cool too" she looked back at Chana "You are welcome to come ashore and camp with us, the only other camp I've seen so far is Jamal, Antony and another lady I dont know who are on the beach, David shouldn't be too far away, he went to see if he could get the supply room door open"

"I see..." Chana trailed off, thinking. She'd met Jamal and Antony...but what about all the other people she'd met? Where were they? Were they okay? Ambrose and Greer and Cassidy and crazy Ian...she couldn't help think about them.

"We should try to figure out where all the groups of people are...there have to be more than this one and the one on the beach," she said, thinking aloud.

Focus on that final view as the helicopter landed...what did I see?

"There is bound to be more, but if our scattering is any indication they could be anywhere, I heard Jamal and Kim to have been by or on the mountain, Awen I'm not sure i think the beach, dont know dont care where on Antony, Lauren in some deep hole, David in the middle of the jungle, me way out on the ocean and you, uhm whever you came from, presumeable on the water somewhere considering your raft..." She sighed and sat down next to the raft avoiding any broken glass

"The middle of the lake. Can you believe it? There's a beautiful lake on this island that we never knew was here!" Chana adored the freshwater of the lake and the rivers it fed. It wasn't likely to get salt in her hair and fur.

"I know now that there's more rivers, but they all head into the jungle. Maybe I should go down them and see if I can find anyone," she commented.

There was the mountain...that's what I really focused on. We landed near it. There was the jungle...that was most of the island...

"With this island I'm beginning to believe nearly anything and expecting the unexpected. Will have to check out this lake at a later time when circumstances are better for us all. Theres cliffs here too, they provide beautiful view and photos." She nodded and figetted in one of her vest's many pockets hoping the bits of small equipment inside the pockets had survived her day on the ocean.

"Cliffs? Where are those?" Chana asked. Don't want to end up over a waterfall...

She glanced over at the sleeping girls. They didn't look like they were too used to camping...but it was kind of hard to tell as they were asleep.

Most of the inner island is jungle. I remember seeing beaches, one long one and one smaller one. And in the middle of the island...

"Further along the same side of the isle as the smaller beach, the island comes to a point near it... " She didn't really know that much more about it, but then she hadn't adventured too far off the beaten path after having gotten lost in the jungle the one day

"Okay..." Chana made a mental note of that. It could be important later.

And in the middle of the island is...the lake!

Chana looked up abruptly. "The lake's roughly the middle of the island! The village is on the one side of the lake that no rivers go. They go everywhere else!" the beaver girl was quite excited by her discovery.

Joliette quirked a brow at the sudden exclamation "There must be a fair number of them... They certainly chose an... interesting island for our ... place to live" she was unwilling to call it home, to her it wasn't home

"Yeah..." Chana agreed, elation quashed by reality. She could easily be happy with the lake and rivers...whereas many preferred the ocean. Why not pick an island so diversified? If you were going to keep people on it for the rest of their lives...make it possible for them to be as happy as they can, right?

"What do you think might have happened Chana, that wound us all up out here locked from our duplexes with no signs of anyone but those we've located?" She looked thoughtful, she had been trying to piece that together herself even if she had very few pieces of the puzzle

She shrugged. "I have absolutely no clue. And frankly, I'm not sure I want to know why." A shiver ran up her spine. It was all very...creepy. And sinister.

Joliette nodded "Yeah, I guess it's the journalist in me that wants to know... Not that I could do much with that info but still..." she stood and walked to the fire a few feet away and poked it with her stick making sure it was still burning

Chana shuddered in reaction to the fire...but Joliette might see it as in reaction to the island and their situation.

"Got any edible plants around here?" she asked, her stomach reminding her how long it had been since that last bagel.

Joliette couldn't help but pity Chana even if she didn't verbalize it, the woman, not unlike herself and the others had been tricked here and now trapped in the wilderness "Plants? I haven't really had the chance to look as yet, theres got to be some around here though, I saw Emerwyn eatting some leaves a few days ago, the day the explossion happened actually..." now that she thought about it, she realized just how empty her own stomach was

"It's all right...I think I can find some things...maybe all those times I played Amazon Trail will actually help, eh?" Chana chuckled a little. She also knew what some edible water plants looked like, and maybe things would turn out okay.

Joliette chuckles "Perhaps it just might, I wouldn't mind your help at all, I'm mostly still vegan, I haven't been able to handle meat for a few years, only eat any now cause the beast inside of me demands it, eventually I know it's all i'm gonna be able to eat... but for now..." she sighed but smiled at Chana at the same time

"Well...I gave up my favorite food--shrimp--a number of years back when I became kosher. And now...well...your meat is nauseating me," she finally admitted. "I think I know how you feel."

"My meat is nauseating me too, Lauren and Awen killed it after it destroyed our camp, it's already made my loose my lunch once and I am doing my best to keep my tongue in my mouth, thats where most of my smell comes from now... I just dont want the food to go to waste if I can help it, even if I dont eat most of it. So I agreed to help cook it." she sighed

Chana gave the roast a skeptical glance. "Well then I hope that both of them eat meat, else you'll be attracting scavengers with it."

It wasn't a good thought, wondering what sort of beasts (other than those formerly human ones) were wandering around the island.

"They do far as I know, we were talking about ways to preserve it, including turning it into jerky with seasalt. Guess we'll see what they do with it once they wake" she glanced at it and winced looking away just as fast Which I can't help but hope is soon"

Chana nodded. "Maybe I should start looking for those plants...you'll keep an eye on my raft?"

If asked, Chana wouldn't be able to answer exactly why she was so attatched to the raft, but she was not going to give it up without a fight, that was for sure.

Joliette nodded "Yeah I will, dont worry, just make sure it's well beached and I'll keep an eye on it" she smiled weekly, she could understand the woman's desire to keep it, just like her own desire to keep her own raft

"Thanks." Chana rolled off of the raft and shoved it further up the bank of the river before wading back in, hunched over, examining the bottom for plants.

Joliette sat on the corner of the raft to make sure it didn't go anywhere and watched with interest, the Boar was about done so she wasn't worried about stoking the fire too much as she watched the curly haired female searching the water

Chana was finally calming down from her laughing fit into a mood where she'd normally stare out on the river for some hours. For all the water was constantly moving, there really wasn't much to attract her eyes there. The same green plants, the same gurgling water over the same grey rocks...and a brown log. Like so many others.

She sighed and looked up, wishing she could judge the time by the sunlight filtering down to her through the trees. Then she smiled to herself. What good would knowing the time do her?

Still amused she leaned forward to look at the river again and her eye fell on the log once more. Actually, the log looked kind of slick, almost like it had scales...

...and there were a couple of lumps that could be eyes...

Chana froze and suddenly wished she wasn't so close to the river. Her feet were actually dangling over it. And there was an alligator in it. Or was it a crocodile? She never could remember the difference. But that mattered as much as the time. The point was, it could eat her and she had to get away.

Slowly she pulled her legs back to her in the most nonthreatening manner possible. Even more slowly she shifted her weight to a crouch, never once taking her eyes off of the alligator.

One...two...three, she counted to herself, then took off in a sprint. She wasn't sure where she ran, only that it was away from the river. Some instinct called her a dozen kinds of fool for deserting a natural path through the forest. The rest of her was only worried about getting away from the big reptile.

When the stitch in her side became too much, Chana abruptly sat down and panted. The river was far behind her and she was...well, she was lost now. Great. As surely as the Israelites would have been lost in the desert without Moses, she was lost.

Exhausted and despairing, Chana rocked back and forth on the forest floor as she cried.

Chana glared at the rain coming down in sheets and scooted further back into her makeshift shelter. The fallen tree trunk at her back, combined with some long branches, made a nice lean-to.

Nice as long as you didn't mind getting wet. Chana didn't mind the water so much, really. It was the sitting in the mud in wet clothes part that irked her.

So she was singing to herself, trying to drown out the constant pattering and keep herself from going mad. It had worked until she started singing "Rise and Shine."

"And G-d said to Noah/There's gonna be a floody floody..." Chana sang, wishing she'd had more sense than to start a stupid song about rain.

The rain could only keep Jamal out of the jungle for so long despite the warnings of becoming sick or hurt or some other equally nasty thing. He felt way too restless being kept under the meager protection of the beach bar and when it had warmed a little, he had promptly slipped off into the protective greenery while Antony was busy.

Now he was plodding through the damp leaves and the muck, sucking in the scent of rotting wood and the smell of rain, and finding out that the rain really wasn't as bothersome as he had thought previously. Perhaps it was because he wasn't irritated about Rex's impromptu sleepover.

As he went, he caught the sound of a voice not too far away. It was fairly loud but not so familiar that he was at ease. In fact, he tensed and his lips parted some into a silent snarl, the back of his neck tingling a bit as though trying to raise some imaginary fur. This was his territory!

He moved forward as silent as he could manage, which wasn't very silent at all being that he was a clumsy black man who was used to just shooting his opposition instead of stalking them, and peered ahead for a source of the noise.

Had the rain gotten heavier? Chana thought she could hear something falling or crashing into the undergrowth not so far away, and sung louder to compensate. Her own nose was useless, with the rain and her makeshift shelter keeping all the scents (mud, wet fur, wet dirty clothes, decomposition, etc.) from dissipating.

Next came the verse that was her current source of frustration. "It rained and it rained/For forty days and nights. It rained and it rained..." she sang, annoyance coloring her tone.

As he got closer, the singing started to make more sense, coming out as actual words instead of a garbled hum through the rain. When the volume of the song increased, he growled in annoyance. What the ******** kind of song was that anyway? Was that supposed to be music? Jamal took a moment to sigh and mope about his music collection that was off in his nice, dry duplex, laying a hand on a tree trunk as he slid beside it and peered around.

It was then that he saw the woman's form there under a rather shoddy lean-tu. She was shadowed enough to where he couldn't make out anything familiar, but he could tell it was a woman from the timbre of the voice. Hmm...

"It do seem ta be rainin', don't it?" he remarked drolly from his semi-hidden position in the foliage, flicking his whiskers about idly.

Chana's song choked off abruptly in mid-phrase at the sound of another voice. It was, for all its gruffness, familiar. Vaguely.

She took a few deep and slow breaths to calm her racing heart. It was an islander. Maybe they were as lost as she was...or maybe they knew where they were going! Either way, it seemed a good idea to speak up.

"Um...yeah." She crawled to the edge of her lean-to, trying to see who it could be through the sheets of rain and the dull green bushes. "Who's out there?" Chana asked when it became clear to her that he wasn't standing where she could see him.

"Does it matta?" came the clipped, slightly curt response before he gave a rolling chuckle and leaned forward around his leaning 'post', his claws biting briefly into the bark before he finally sauntered forward with a cocky lift to his chin.

He peered into the lean-to with an indifferent manner, but did a double-take when he realized the face was familiar. Oh ******** was that girls name?

"...yer dat 'No Hell" girl, ain't you?"

Chana tried not to show her surprise too much when the tall, black man came out from behind a tree. He was that guy from the beach late at night! Except...oh, what was his name? He'd been a good conversationalist...but she couldn't for the life of her remember his name.

"Erm...'no Hell?' Um...I guess. I mean, Jews don't believe in Hell. Not the same way Christians do..." Chana realized she was babbling and stopped, chewing on her lip nervously. She'd forgotten, for the moment, how much that hurt with a rodent's teeth.

"Hmm," Jamal said in a semi-disgruntled manner, flicking the tip of one elongated ear in unison with the flexing of his whiskers. Yeah...it was her alright.

"Well if ya didn't believe in hell befo', you should now." He had noted that she had changed....when, he wasn't sure...but she ought to catch the insinuation in his voice of what he meant. "Why ain't you off wit' da otha's? There's a camp somewhere 'round herr, so I heard."

What was his name...Jack? James? She was sure it started with a J...

She frowned a little as he hinted that they were in Hell. While unpleasant, Chana couldn't quite bring herself to call the Island by that name. Not yet at least.

"I got lost," she admitted, blushing. "I found Joliette's camp...there were others there..two girls whose names both started with 'A's...and I left to look for herbs and I got lost." She ended her statements at high-speed, as if that could somehow erase her foolishness. And her raft was there! Her freedom...all left there.

Resolutely turning from the memories, she looked Jamal over critically. He'd changed, duh, but it was odd how his skin seemed to be lightening. Chana studied him, trying to figure out what he was turning into.

"There's camps all ova' da damn island," he said flatly, but shrugged nonchalantly before he noticed her staring at his lower arms where the skin had turned that slight shade of paler brown. That made his brows narrow and he bared his mini-fangs in warning; he wasn't comfortable with people staring at him for any reason.

"Don't ask what I'm turnin' inta cause I ain't got no ********' idea," said the black man icily before she could ask him. "I don't care ta know right now anyway."

Chana blushed again. She hadn't meant to be rude, but it seemed that it was a much touchier subject than she'd realized. "Well, it's pretty obvious what I'm turning into...at least, when you see the tail." She turned slightly to glare at the her butt, knowing precisely where she'd tucked the stupid thing into her jeans.

But...wait...before that... "You mean there's other camps? Do you know how to get to any of them?" The raw need in her voice surprised Chana. She'd thought she was stronger than that.

"I ain't so good at animals, so I ain't got no idea you look like, but I ain't concerned wit' dat," he muttered, tapping his claws together anxiously. He was hardly an expert on wildlife unless it was something like a pigeon or a rat...something you find in a city.

The mention of the camps made him shrug. "Yeah..dat one you mentioned at da river....I got one wit' Antony at da beach, 'n' I guess there be one mo' dat got lots of people at it. I ain't sure -'zactly where dat big one be, but I know it ain't far."

"Obviously," Chana muttered. How hard was it really to figure out...ah, never mind.

"Not far? Do you think you could find it from here?" she asked, instead, desperate to sleep in a "safe" environment...to be able to sleep without worrying about being investigated by various creatures.

"I dunno," he said without any sort of commitment to his voice, his eyes wandering skyward at the brightening sky. "I think ya gotta go through da village ta get to it though, 'n' I think we ain't far from it... If you wanna try, I kin get ya dat far fo' sho..."

Normally he didn't feel like being helpful to someone he didn't know that well, but Chana had never really gave him a reason to dislike her. Plus she was a woman and despite how...unconventional...she was, the tiger instincts were forever looming in the background of his mind with his slightly sleezy human ideals...

The village!? Chana's mind raced. She knew that no one had been living in the village...they'd been locked out, or so she'd been told. She hadn't set foot in the place since waking up.

"If you could just help me to the village, that would be wonderful," she confessed to Jamal. "I don't even know how to get there, let alone which direction it's in." And even if she couldn't get into her duplex, she'd at least be able to take some shelter from the wind and...lessening...rain.

"Well, lets go then 'cause I got s**t da do."

...which was a lie unless you counted lying in a tree or tromping about the jungle solo to be 's**t to do".

He waited only a moment for her to get up, then started off into the brush at a swift pace that one might find to be surprising for someone walking barefoot through the jungle. Thankfully he had been walking barefoot for so long (since this lab shutdownstarted, actually) that the soles of his feet had toughened so that whatever was underfoot posed little problem. Jamal had also grown a little more wirey than he used to be, thanks to the poor nutrition that had been available and the lack of weight training, but he was far from weak. Jamal didn't even consider how easily Chana might be able to keep up.

Chana followed him relatively well. He was big enough that he made a decent path for her to follow, and she was used to hiking. Or at least, she was used to keeping up with people. She winced though, at the sound her ruined Birkenstocks made against the jungle floor.

That's not important...focus on what matters. Like keeping him in sight, she told herself, hurrying her step a little more to keep up. He was pretty fast, but as long as she kept close it was all good.

Jamal kept a brisk pace for quite some time...at least twenty minutes or so. He did pause eventually though to allow Chana a breather if she wanted it. While they were stopped, he tried to use his sense of smell to help give him direction towards where he remembered the village to be. The sense wasn't that greatly enhanced in comparison to what it would eventually become, but it was much easier to scent things now that he'd normally never have smelt.

As he took in a deep breath, he caught something so faint that he was sure his mind was playing tricks on him. It...smelt like food. Like a hamburger or steak or...He inhaled sharply again and once more was greeted with the aroma of cooking food.

Suddenly he charged into a run without a word to Chana, his eyes wide and whiskers bristled with anxiety. Oh gods, if this was his mind playing tricks with him...

Chana had braced herself against a tree and was waiting for her heart to finish slowing down. Jamal's pace was more than she'd been prepared for...thank goodness he remembered she was there.

Or...not. "Jamal!" she called out as he started running full-out in the direction they'd been heading. What had come over him? One moment he'd been sniffing...the next he was off like a rocket.

Well...why not try it. Chana sniffed the air hesitantly. It smelled like...like...barbeque? Her mouth started watering and she ran toward the scent as well, though at a much slower pace.

"FOOD. ********' FOOD!" He bellowed as he ran, clawing through the unbroken foliage towards the blessed smells of edible goodness. If there was food, that meant the cafeteria was open...and if that was open then the duplexes were open...and that meant his stuff was accessible!

He didn't care that Chana was struggling to keep up. No. He was selfishly thinking about himself. He didn't even think about Antony and how she'd need to be told that things were operational again, if that was the case.

Food! What a wonderful word to hear! And if Jamal was sure...it was probably there. Chana ignored the stitch in her side and kept running. She didn't trust her own nose enough to let Jamal out of her sight.

If there was food...perhaps the duplexes were open? Then she could get clean, put on fresh clothes...the possibilities were heavenly!

He ran...and ran...and ran...and as he went, the smells intensified so much that his stomach started to ache painfully and he almost started to drool. The smell of meat was so welcoming, both to his human side and his tiger side.

Perhaps fifteen minutes later, he finally burst from the jungle's enclosure and found himself among the duplexes and it was then that the glimmer of lights about in each building combined with the smells of food nearly made him cry out in absolute, raw relief.

"THANK YA JESUS CHRIST GOD ALMIGHTY," he whooped with glee, running to the nearest duplex (even if it wasn't his) and testing to see if the door would open. When it swung open easily on it's hinge, he shouted again and nearly fell down the stairs in his haste.

Where was his duplex?! He had almost forgotten his assignment...but then he saw tell-tale signs of where a broken window had been and he headed for it like a shark after a wounded fish.

Almost ten minutes after Jamal, Chana made it out of the jungle. Seeing the lights on, smelling the food...it brought tears to her eyes. It was...it was how the Hebrews must have felt when the first saw Israel from the desert, on the other side of the Jordan River.

Running through prayers in her head, Chana walked towards duplex 26. She'd never been so happy to think of getting clean in her life.