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Though the sun had set, there was no difference between day and night for Zach. By day the world was illuminated with the sun, and by night his eyes drew in more light than a human eye could hope, leaving no such thing as darkness for him to feel masked in. He'd moved quickly and quietly to the cafeteria in the dead of night, ate what he could manage over the constant queasiness of foreboding, and made his exit. Rather than walk right through the middle of the village, he chose to skirt the jungle. Every rustle could have been Annie stalking the edge of the folaige, and he almost hoped it was. It had only been a couple hours since he'd woken up in his duplex again, and already he was tired of constantly thinking back.

Unlike most times, he was paying careful attention to everything around him, piercing their shadowy hiding places. His tail was moving as sluggishly as it could, dragging along the dirt. With such ability to see in the dark, Thom was easy to spot with his distinctive colors. When Zach was several feet away from the snake he wavered, saying nothing and just staring as though it were the first time he'd seen the snake-man. There were differences to the face, certainly, but those scales couldn't be confused with anyone else.

No emotions came forth from looking. No pity, no anger. Even the fear for his life he normally had in the presence of the would-be murderer was simply... gone.

He continued to watch as if he was some passing spectator rather than a fellow islander. For one brief moment he was siezed with the thought he'd lost his voice, after hearing Thom's. But no, it was still there, waiting in his throat for something to force it out into words.He would have felt just the slightest bit guilty staying utterly silent. If Thom wanted to kill him this time... it wouldn't matter. "No one worth mentioning."

"You changed," he commented boredly, as though he were discussing the weather. His tail gave a bit of a flick.

"Eventually." The word followed sharply on the heels of Thom's, though still utterly lacking in emotion. He moved forward about a foot, rustling the non-native grass as he did. It was hard to feel like he'd ever been human, seeing Thom in his pain and feeling nothing. He sort of wanted to feel emotion, but if he did, it would only lead to trouble. And trouble was something he couldn't afford right now. At least the detachment saved him a lot of emotional turmoil for the time being. "There's an end to everything."

For all the times Sabin had crowed about how lucky he was to be becoming a dragon, Zach couldn't buy into it again without some perspective to work from. He offered a question to Thom, one whose answer was probably obvious. "You don't... like what you're becoming, do you?"

There wasn't anything worth adding but an understanding silence.

"I'm not saying you should like it - that's more than most people here are capable of anyway." And what of himself? Was he one of that select few who had not only accepted but enjoyed their lot, still? It hadn't even been more than three hours since he'd woken up in his duplex again. The thought was too much to burden himself with. He shrugged, a useless gesture in the dark. His wings shifted and folded from the movement. "Anyway, I was just asking."

"That was fast. I guess I'm that recognizable now?" The pain between Thom's words was forgotten when the cobra said his name. "Well, you tell me. I already know the good and bad of my own... 'animal.'" There was some hesitation in classifying it an animal, but dragon always saved a lot of breath.

"What about yours?"

Ouch, that was harsh. So maybe he was still scared of Thom a little. Well, a lot. But just as Thom had failed to kill him before, it would be an impossible act to accomplish, though it would leave Zach hurting a bit regardless. Not that it was an entirely unwelcome gesture now. It would free the dragon of his problems and responsibilities. His expression grew sour for a short while, but the fear of worse things overcame it. He could not afford to get angry. Emotions only led to trouble. He averted his eyes out of standard courtesy when Thom continued changing, looking up again when the cobra-man continued to speak.

His tone was deliberately calm, though he did press a little with his emphasis at certain parts of the question. "So what would you do if you were stuck on an island with someone who tried to strangle you to death? Like, say, ending up in a room with them not too long after it happened. You know, hypothetically speaking, of course." Of course he wasn't bitter.

He knew he shouldn't try to provoke, but he couldn't stop himself. It didn't count as antagonizing if he didn't lash out physically, right? Maybe. He didn't even know any more. He was getting out of control and he didn't even feel like himself any longer. He had a name, a string of three now meaningless sets of sounds, and that was about where the definition ended. Truth was utterly meaningless; even the life he'd had before had become twisted by the repeated assertions of a certain doctor into a treacherous nightmare from which he had graciously been awakened. Even his own memories stood no chance against cleverly woven words. At least Thom knew who he'd been, whatever life he'd led before and held to, despite all that had happened. Lucky unflappable b*****d.

"Mm, well, if you can't stay out in the rain, you might not want to camp out here. There were rainclouds on the horizon this morning... at least, I think it was this morning..." His expression was momentarily puzzled, voice trailing off in a quieting confusion. Time. He didn't even have time. He just had to assume that he'd only been out for an hour or two, and not days, weeks, or months. What a leap of faith it was.

"And it's not like I've ever caught you at a good time. Have you ever thought that you don't go out of your way to make the best of things here? Or are you just..." The question wasn't posed in a mocking way, but more of a curious one, the way people investigate radically different opinions. He had personally conceded to the idea long ago. Even when he'd found himself temporarily at odds with Sabin again it had never changed. Being on the island was a permanent thing for himself. "Fighting for something you can't get back?"

"I heard... what Sabin did to you," he said almost casually, though there was a falter of uneasiness when he said the doctor's name. Sabin had shared the little punishment of sorts when asked, and Zach had laughed. Laughed at the twist of justice that had made Thom mad. It was power one could not replicate in the outside world, a breach of so many levels of morality that it was doubtful Sabin ever had any to begin with and that Zach had any left. However, he himself was not above being dealt the same cards as Thom. That was the last thing he needed.

"Forget? I don't know. But what can you do?" The emotionless charade was up. The subject grated too harshly against his thoughts to be ignored. Zach's approach was reversed as Thom's voice rose in its intensity, taking several steps back and out of some imaginary range around the cobra that would leave him open to another strangling. His words were tinged with bitterness and confusion. He hated Thom's resolve, envied it even. It was hard to imagine why anyone would stay adamant against their fate for so long if they were suffering all the while. "What good is getting stuck on the past if all it does is leave you upset? Why are you torturing yourself like that?"

"And assuming you want to leave the island - hopefully you don't - you've got to remember we're surrounded by an ocean. The doctors are-" He hesitated to say anything like 'untouchable', balling his hands into fists slightly at his lack of memory over that incident. It felt dangerous to even talk about escape, but it wasn't like he'd never considered it. Everyone had to have, at one point or another, wishing for what could never happen. The changes had gradually destroyed all his desire to escape, leaving him desperately seeking reason for his existence instead. He'd been momentarily disillusioned while in the lab, but out of renewed fear he was already trying to gather the lies back and cast another veil of self-importance and apathy over his perceptions. "They're pretty much invincible..."

His own frill was partially spread, though it gradually dropped. He couldn't blame Sabin for the lesson in humility, he couldn't blame Gaius for standing up for himself, he wouldn't blame himself for the trouble he'd found himself in, so tossing his pent-up anger at Thom seemed like a decent alternative. The fact that Thom was still dealing with a change was almost forgotten. "Why do you bother?"

"You were brutally trying to choke the life out of me once. I'm sure you'd do the same to Sabin if you had the opportunity." He scratched the side of his neck lightly with a set of claws. He waited, took in the words and was immediately sickened by their superior air, casting aside any dissent as being wrong. It was the absolute epitome of a noble cause. And what a pointless fight it would serve to be. The way Thom described his little battle, the cobra would forever be against the labs by sitting idly by and occasionally raising a fist and shouting a curse when the whim struck him. As purposeful as it sounded, there was nothing promising to it, nothing Zach would give his all to. Hardly a life. "You don't want them to win? But they've already won. Look at you. How many times have you changed? How many times have others changed? They've won. Opposing the changes doesn't stop them. All you're getting out of this is some delusion you're doing 'the right thing'. Whatever that is here." He rolled his eyes, though the gesture was masked by the darkness.

"You know, for a short time I thought maybe it was a... a mistake to ask Sabin to do what he did to you. That maybe that had been a little too much. You almost had me feeling guilty I'd asked..." He gave a sigh that ended in a faint hiss, trying to once again force down his feelings and leave himself with a little bit of clarity. Not to say it was sane, but it seemed to make sense to him. Many vestiges of his humanity of mind had been stripped from him by so many people and situations, and at this point he hardly noticed these changes. Attacked, interrogated, chided, humiliated, being thrown out into the jungle, he could hold up to none of it for very long. No person in this day and age was made to stand the sorts of degrading he'd suffered in the span of about a year. He was growing weary of the struggle to be both human and animal (or in his own case, animals), some oxymoron of a noble beast. The less he associated himself with such human concepts like morality, the less he'd be bothered by them. Right and wrong - they were relative and nonexistent, self-imposed rules that anyone could free themselves of. If 'people' such as Thom were the embodiment of that humanity he'd once had, he wanted none of it any more. "Forget that, though. You deserved what you got for going after me - both times. I thanked him before already, but I could stand to thank him a second time."

In actuality it was a rather forced retort, maintaining the illusion of something that didn't exist for the moment. Sabin... he wasn't really sure what to think of Sabin now. He knew what he wanted to think, but it would take more than that to really seal things for him. There were two sides to the issue, one of dignity and one of survival. What was worth more, his life or his sanity? He still had fears, fear for himself and fear for things that could happen that almost had. They hadn't been so pronounced before the ladder-building exercise with Gaius, but they'd been there, always, festering off to the side like much of his growing paranoia. There was nothing he could do but hope he never saw Gaius or Sabin again. It was wishful thinking that simply didn't adhere to logic.

"I'm sick of this." He said to no one in particular. Even he was beginning to feel mental exhaustion creep up on himself. He'd had too long a day, or several days. His tail twitched in the grass as he made to move away, back toward his duplex like he'd intended earlier. He twisted his neck part of the way over one shoulder as he walked, glancing at Thom's still-changing form with no sympathy. He spoke as distantly as possible, trying to both appease his need for revenge and hide from the fact that there was something very circular to what he was doing. "If your changes are too much to handle, you can always ask the doctors for help..."

And he was off again, back to hide himself in his duplex and agonize over his situation. He had a schedule to maintain.