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 Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 7:24 pm
With the fog on the island the ocean always looked black.
The cliffs were blacker still, a slick obsidian sheen in the spray. It might have intimidated him once, these days nothing scared him. He was a Sun, death walked with him and one day the cost of being one of his harbingers would be his own life as forfeit. He'd die when it was over, when he was good and ready for it. It wouldn't be to some ******** cliff while going for a swim.
<>
The breeze was thick and humid, heavy with the island's fog and the ocean as it howled up from the rocks below. The stone underfoot was cold and slippery, barefoot wasn't ideal for climbing up the pebble and limpet strewn rocks, it took its toll. But a few cuts and scratches were nothing at all to him anymore.
Somewhere back by the trees with his clothes his phone was still set to twitter, he'd woken up to a bickering argument with Dwight, accusing both Jordan and Harrison of being blind to him.
Just a problem.
And whenever he tried to make people understand it was just pity seeking.
He leapt off into nothing, a momentary punctuation of freckled skin laced with red against the rocks.
It was like flying.
The black water came up to meet him like a wall but he hit it like a blade through butter, the sinuous line of his body slipping under. And for a moment there was no thought, no worry, just cold that strangled everything into blissful nothing. Disorientation and the roar of bubbles and waves, the surface could have been anywhere. Chaos all around, black like shadow run, lethal if he panicked.
He savoured it for a stretched moment. Chaos but a stability in the midst of it, the kind of control he couldn't find in life.
and he knew where the surface was. He kicked out, once, twice, three times.
It was like the arctic, when the ice had cracked.
Just as his lungs screamed at him, as the panic of death clenched tight beneath his ribs, he broke the surface. Nothing felt as good as that greedy gulp of air after a dive did. He tossed his hair out of his eyes. The world tasted like salt and he felt like he was looking out upon an undulating endless desert of black.
Here he was vulnerable, the water was impossibly deep, anything could rise up and pull him under. No one would know where he had gone. But that was all of life, that was every single day, you never knew the moment. Raw human fear of the unknown tugged at his mind and he exhaled, floating at the surface. Fear was what it meant to be alive. He was afraid, he was always afraid. It was momentum, it kept him moving.
Not enough. It was never enough, every time he climbed the cliff, he dove off again, just for the joy of that chaos, the power embraced in its control. Even the fear of the unknown as he struck out again for shore, feeling for the bottom with searching blind feet, that was a thrill too.
Pulling himself out of the water, he sat on one of the rocks panting, hair clinging to his skin.
He got up and did the only thing it made sense to do.
He climbed back up.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:17 pm
The beach was massive, the island was much bigger than most people realised and Rep had found a necessary sanctuary in the gently rolling fog. No one had reason to come out there, it wasn't like you could sunbathe, you couldn't gaze out on the sparkling ocean as the sun set in rampant glory in the distance. You could once. For one small brilliant moment in time when they felt like they'd made a difference to the world.
But these days all there was was grey. It might have got him down if it hadn't reminded him so much of home. You got used to your world being flat and dull when that was all you ever knew. It was just the heat that bothered him.
He walked because there was sand in front of him and behind him, because at some point he would come full circle without ever having to turn around.
The sand itched where it clung to him from swimming.
He almost stopped in his tracks, it was an unexpected comment.
<> he replied earnestly << I just keep ignoring you when I shouldn't >>
It was surprising to hear, he'd always felt like the fallen angel had to be some sort of goody two shoes, all sparkles and niceness.
It was true, bodies were mere weapons. He'd never thought Tracey might have thought the same way. It made sense in a strange sort of way, no one would ever suspect a tiny creature that looked so closely like an angel of ill intention, of carnality.
A flicker of memory.
<< You liked the charge that time? >>
The silence answered him.
Maybe it wasn't so clear cut as letting Tracey be his good conscience. Neither of them were well equipped to make staunch moral decisions. Perhaps that had been the problem all along.
Tracey stilled and fell quiet again. Rep hadn't stopped walking even through the conversation but he stopped then, looking back along the beach. His footprints left a trail all the way back until the natural curve of the island and the fog swallowed them up. They didn't look right alone. He felt like there should be more.
He never really brought anyone out here, he'd never thought about why. Maybe they'd think it was sissy walking along the beach, maybe they'd call it emo or whatever else they felt like. He hated being alone, there was a vulnerability to solitude, just being on your own let people make assumptions about why you were.
He had people willing to walk with him but he wasn't sure if he wanted to drag them down his path, but at the same time it was impossible to follow them on theirs. Harrison was easier, they were the same. People just perceived Harrison's directness and few words differently than they saw him. Jordan though, as much as he wanted to be the same as Jordan, respected, controlled and fair - he never would, and every time he slipped up he watched the other man dragged further through the mud.
He was a man with a dog that kept biting everyone and one day the pressure was going to be on him to put it down when all the training failed. And if he wouldn't, someone else would. It hurt to think about, he loved them both so much, it didn't make sense he couldn't do the easy thing, he couldn't just fit in, he couldn't just be nice. Jokes went awry too quickly, people took what he said to heart and when he meant them to take things to heart they cast them aside.
He walked into the shallows and left no more footprints.
He'd be better off if they kept him in a cage like a thing and just let him out for missions. He could be okay with that. Take control out of his hands because he wasn't grown up enough to have it in the first place, because all he'd ever been good at was violence and getting under people's skin.
Even if it would never bring her back.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:48 pm
There was a dead dolphin on the beach.
He'd spotted the sleek grey shape in the shallow water as he'd rounded a bend, stepping over a fallen palm in his way. At first it had looked like a rock, until he got close enough to see the sad sheen of its skin in the distilled light.
It made him think of Killzone.
It had only been a spar, he could argue that all he wanted, but deep down he knew that he had let himself lose control, embraced it and ran with it. He'd gone back to that place that led him to murder. Even if other people didn't know for sure. He knew the truth - he'd let everyone who ever trusted him down.
He wasn't sure what made him reach out to touch the thing, he could have walked on along the beach and left it. As he touched it, it gasped through the blowhole on the top of its head and he stepped back in horror, it was alive.
What did he do with ******** would be easier to walk on down the beach. Leave it to its fate. It was its own fault for beaching itself. Maybe it wanted to die. Maybe the island took it by surprise. He wanted to walk away.
He clenched his hands tightly. It would be pointless, it would probably just beach again.
He had a lump in his throat he couldn't understand.
Before he knew what he was doing he'd taken off his coat and put down his phone and was out in the shallows with the feebly thrashing dolphin. It was absurd, it was stupid, it was sappy, but he couldn't walk away. Getting hold of it was hard, too broad to lift. He slipped a few times and ended up soaked all over again, but the longer he tried the more desperation there was.
He didn't know how long he tried to get it off the beach, even the strength Tracey leant him didn't make it easy.
By the time he finally freed it, he was exhausted and the sun was gone. The water was up to his chest. It was so stupid and futile, it could have been there all day long, it could just be dying anyway.
It was too dark to see where it went once it swam away from him into the tide. Out of his potential to help.
He staggered out of the ocean and fumbled around for his things, picking up his phone. It was ******** late. The guys were probably wondering where he was, and he had no ******** idea what to tell them. He couldn't leave it. He had to try.
He texted them he was at the beach and he was okay.
It would be a while before he could get back, it was a long walk and it was dark.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 9:25 pm
The walk back was hard. He hadn't really considered trying to walk back in the dark, or the darkness itself being so absolute. His only guide he was even going the right way was the rush of the ocean by his side and keeping it there. At first it had been okay, he just walked and thought about how hungry he was - he hadn't eaten since breakfast, and dwelled as best he could on the thought of stepping out of this blackness into a warm and brightly lit dorm building, into possession of hot chocolate and then into the arms of a loved one.
But the more he didn't want to think about the dark, the more he thought about it. He went from calm to flighty, every snap of twig, every sound from the jungle making him stop and stare blindly in its direction until fear made him walk on. He couldn't even afford to run the way his body screamed at him to, because the cliffs were no longer his friends here in the dark and he had to pass them again.
He'd summoned Tracey out of anxiousness but even his runes were feeble in the dark. Rep found himself fixating on manic and useless facts. He'd heard that red light was the only kind of light that left your night vision intact, he kept running this and other bizarre things over and over in his mind, anything but thinking about what could be lurking right behind him that he couldn't see.
He felt something fly past his hand and suddenly he was thinking of wheeling swarms, of wriggling creeping things. The dark was hostile and he was blind.
He didn't expect there to be a point where he could go no further. He expected it would be easy enough to find his way back. But the roar of the cliffs was too much. The idea of stepping off into nothing and breaking his neck was too much to bear. He stopped walking and couldn't start again.
Taking out his phone he looked into a glimpse of civilisation but it wasn't enough, it was just a campfire in an endless pool of blackness. This wasn't like the city, he couldn't hear the cars, he couldn't feel the thrum of life around him. He was alone, completely alone, and he was ******** terrified.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 10:24 pm
Homesickness was a new feeling, he'd never really had a home to miss, but here and now he missed the room, he missed his guys. It was ridiculous to feel this way, he was only about half an hour, maybe a little more away from them but it felt an insurmountable distance.
<> he growled, more angrily than he meant to.
He was straining to hear anything in the silence and regretting the more he did, panic rising and falling in him like the waves. He was tense, he wanted to run, to just run until this terror was gone, run like when he was a kid and the police were behind him. Run like the time they had to move because his mum said they'd come and take him away from her. That they'd put him in a children's home.
It had always confused him what was so bad about being given a home.
<>
Tracey seemed to be thinking
Neither sounded appealing. What would he say to ask for help? I'm stuck in the dark and I can't cross some ******** sad little cliffs on my own, someone bring me a torch. That would be something he'd never live down. He hugged his jacket closer, burying his cheek against the fur of the hood. The comfortable weight of Tracey in his lap helped.
Don't think about snakes.
Don't think about snakes.
Apparently telling himself not to think about them only made it worse. Suddenly every breeze was ominous and his skin utterly crawled.
<>
Picking up his phone his hands were shaky as he typed, something, anything to not have to think about this.
He regretted asking twitter if there were snakes on the beach immediately. He'd forgotten about the traps planted all over the island, stupid. Really stupid of him.
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Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 11:33 pm
Harrison sent a tweet, and grabbed his Moon jacket.
He also took some granola bars, and his bandaid tin, because you never knew. Not that the current conversation on Twitter was encouraging for wandering around in the dark, but Rep had been gone most of the ******** day, and dinner had come and gone. And now he was asking about snakes-
Harrison wasn't really a night owl. He went to bed early, he got up early.
Right now he was tense. He couldn't have slept if he tried.
He started to pull on his boots, but hesitated, asking Jordan, "You think one of us ought to stay here? To wait on him?" He didn't know the answer to the question. Both options had their problems- that he and Jordan would wander around in the dark and Rep come home to an empty room, or that something would happen to one of them wandering around alone.
The pause to ask was killing him.
He didn't know what they needed to do, but he wanted to be doing something, and fast.
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Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 6:00 am
"No," Jordan answered shortly, already pulling on his boots and coat, hands shaking slightly from concern and anger; anger at Rep for having gone out without telling anyone where he was going, even though that wasn't fair, he wasn't a little kid, he could take care of himself, except it was late and he wasn't home yet and he was asking about snakes, anger at Dwight for needling Rep again, provoking him into ... into what? Jordan didn't know, and that was half of what pissed him off, anger at himself for not having been awake when Rep slipped out, not being able to be there, to fix it, to do something. He zipped his coat and snatched his phone off the nightstand. Baneful Text to Rep: Stay put, we're on our way. "I can't sit here and wait," he admitted. "It'd kill me." He took hold of Harrison's sleeve, rested his forehead against Harrison's shoulder, very briefly, then straightened up and squared his shoulders. "Okay."
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Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2012 8:22 am
It had taken everything he had to keep the anxiety under control after reading about the traps that he really really didn't want to think about right now. He could see nothing, he could hear almost nothing and his phone battery didn't seem like it was in a particularly great place either.
Harrison's message on twitter made his stomach twist. A mixture of relief and shame. How would he even begin to explain what the hell happened?, how he managed to lose track of time and how utterly ******** useless he was out in the night far from the city lights and familiarity of civilisation.
And how right now everything had him tense and jumping at the slightest noise, immobilised and helpless with fear but which would no doubt seem stupid and childish once people came to get him, dragged out of the warm and comfort of the dorms by his stupid escapades.
Jordan's text made him frown too, again that relief, that want for them to be here, to be home again rather than damp, cold and lost mingled with shame that he had to be so ******** pathetic in the first place.
Something brushed him fleetingly, he yelped, put his phone away and hugged himself tightly, gritting his teeth. Traps and snakes and scorpions and dragons and whatever else was in that ******** fog at night time.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 1:53 pm
"Yeah," Harrison agreed, his thoughts mirroring Jordan's. Pacing around here would kill him too. He put his hand on top of the one holding his sleeve, the tension in Harrison's arms making them feel more like metal than skin. But the hand was gentle.
He waited for Jordan to steady.
"We'll leave him a note," he decided.
He tightened the laces on his boots, and went over to the desk, writing something short- @ Beach - H+J Anything else? Rep'd been out all day... He stopped back by the kitchen and got down the Nalgene bottle he used for workouts, filled it up at the sink, and clipped it to his belt.
Last, he took three flashlights down from the top of the closet.
"Okay," Harrison echoed. "He likes to walk along that South beach, we'll check there first."
He stayed close to Jordan as they locked up, and down the long, dark walk to the shore. He made his strides long, pace brisk.
"If we had a bucket we could hunt for crabs too," Harrison joked.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:39 pm
"I told him to stay where he is, so hopefully we just have to find where that is," Jordan said. Harrison was being steady and practical, and Jordan was grateful for that; the preparations helped calm his worries. He took one of the flashlights and followed Harrison out.
He walked briskly but quietly, listening to the night sounds on all sides, paying sharp attention for anything that might indicate that someone was out here. The roar of the ocean was a constant, but it was a sound he'd grown up with and learned to filter out, paying attention to the smaller noises underneath it. "Pretty sure we'll find at least one crab," he said; the joke didn't make him feel much better, but he was trying.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:26 pm
Rep meanwhile was doing just about everything he possibly could to not think about snakes - which of course meant that what he ended up doing was thinking about them. He kept thinking back to that awful pitch black room with the water rising and the two hunters left behind as even the snakes struggled to escape, holding the door for the useless trainees to escape. That was this kind of darkness.
He'd probably have run if he didn't feel like he was made of lead. Instead all he could do was sit entirely uselessly, holding the faint light that was Tracey to his nose and stare up the beach towards the facility, looking for torches, anything.
When he saw the distant light, he hardly believed it at first. Watching it get nearer and nearer, the reduction of his terror directly proportional to the rising shame.
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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:39 pm
"Heh," Harrison said, "we stay out too long and we'll come back with three."
The walk would have been kind of nice, if it weren't for the growing chill in he night air, worsened by the sea breeze, and the reason they were out here in the first place.
The cliffs were nothing short of unsavory. Harrison secured his light and took his time, proceeding forward with a kind of determination he didn't have any logical ground for. Rep would be this way, that's all there was to it. B0nez's circuitry and one eye socket glowed dim and uncharged.
He squinted, then reaching a part of the cliffs that gave him some room, switched his flashlight off.
"You see a light?" he asked. He cupped his hands, shouting "REP?" over the crash of waves.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 1:17 am
Jordan picked his way cautiously along the cliffs, tense with apprehension. He'd grown up near the beach, and knew all too well how dangerous sea cliffs could be. Rep was a Hunter, he reminded himself, and Hunters are a lot less breakable than normal humans, but he couldn't shake the reflexive chill of dread in the pit of his stomach.
He switched his flashlight off when Harrison did, closing his eyes for a few seconds to help them adjust to the dark, then opened them again and searched for a glow. "Yeah," he agreed, "I think I do. REP?" he yelled.
Instead of switching the flashlight back on, he summoned Ferros, letting the red glow of the hammer's runes cast a dim light on the ground.
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:42 am
He might have said nothing at all, just stayed silent and frozen with that lurking nagging shame and fear if they hadn't called out. Harrison's voice swiftly followed up by Jordan's was enough to finally snap him out of it.
The flashlights went out but in it's place was an even more reassuring sight, a hunter's weapon was like a fingerprint in the dark and the runes on Ferros and b0nez had long been committed to memory by Rep. The exact meaning of the symbols themselves was lost on him, the subject of complex Life research no doubt. But to him they held a very specific meaning - he could go home.
Using Tracey to push himself to his feet, he staggered out into the path, his own faintly glowing weapon enough to distinguish him with the very long double row of red."I'm here." he said, loud enough to carry over the sound of the breaking waves.
"It like... Night-time is really ******** dark."
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Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 10:08 am
Definitely Tracey. And Rep's usually loud voice, distant and barely discernible.
"WE'LL GET TO YOU," Harrison promised. B0nez swung from his hip. He mashed the flashlight button, and kept the same pace, taking his time along the cliffs until the steep rocks petered out, and the jungle spread in front of them.
Rep's silhouette resolved.
Harrison grinned. He didn't look like he was pinned to a tree or fighting off a nest of snakes, anyhow.
"You missed dinner," He said, offering Rep the Nalgene bottle and one of the granola bars.
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