Welcome to Gaia! ::

He could tell the fog was... doing something to him. It licked along his bones and made him cold from the inside out. Even Jannisari chittered uneasily in his head. Horace missed her, sometimes, but she no longer spoke to him. Maybe she had nothing more to say. He shook his head and began to work, scanning his surroundings as he slowly picked his way across the desolate, foggy landscape.

Ah, a boy. Possibly fourteen, Horace thought. He rubbed his face. Sighing, he gathered the boy up in a fireman's carry. He wasn't too far from the portal/ Just a retrieve and dump mission. Doable. Horace felt the ache that meant tired lived in his bones. He just had to get them to the portal, dump him through, dump himself through. Then do it again, and again.

The portal cast a blue light across his cheekbones and he heaved the kid off of his shoulders. Stumbling a little, he stepped through.

Horace ran, feet beating out a steady tattoo against the pavement. The buildings, the post boxes, everything behind burst into vines, their green lengths flowing out of any cracks like thing fingers. He did not look back, and instead fond himself on a stretch of long-abandoned highway. The radio crackled to life, giving him a promise of portals to come. Horace cursed and ducked into the first car he saw, flinging the boy into the passenger's seat.

Cool, it still had keys!

Horace started the engine and it turned over once, twice, then ran. He executed a neat exit of the current haphazard parallel parking pileup. And then, Horace ******** floored it.