theresnodoor | OOM - The Labyrinth Part I

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OOM - The Labyrinth Part I

There is boredom. There is restlessness. There is anxiety. And there is recklessness. Stages of reactions following the common phrase of There's nothing to do. If left alone for too long, this condition can result in conversation, conflict, experimentation, explosions, discovery, and death.

Among others.

But sometimes, Fate steps in. Someone looks down and notices the ever-increasing stages and says, Hey. That looks kind of dull. Let me help you out there.

The common reaction to such politeness is gratitude.

Well into the stages of boredom, Rachel opens her eyes and finds herself not in her bedroom, her apartment, or even the Bar's couch. Instead of soft fabric, there are hard, rough stones beneath her back. Instead of open space, the walls are close and dingy and the ceiling is low. And when she sits up, sharp and sudden, she is staring out of an archway that leads into the darkest of dark hallways, despite the flickering torch on the wall.

Blue eyes dart in every direction and not a single one of them makes sense - including the other person, crumpled on the stones nearby.

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"Way to make the idyllic even creeper."

Rachel says nothing, eyes on the forest. First the not-Drode, now this, after mysteriously appearing in a castle with no warning. In her experience, the thing that's behind this would be obvious.

But this is Milliways. Probably. And that means different rules.

"So."

She glances back, one eyebrow lifted. "Take it or leave it?"

"Keep the rifle shells at least."

They're tossed Jo-wards.

But Rachel doesn't get up from the crouch. She stays where she is for a moment, inspecting the bag.

You'd think, as many times as she's been lost and abandoned in the middle of nowhere, she'd have developed some sort of survival skills so far as finding and preparing food go.

Sadly, you'd be wrong. Which is why when she does stand, Rachel's still holding the satchel.

Jo caught the box and started reloading.

Having a box with the even more left in it was going to be annoying to carry. Maybe they should keep the the --

Apparently whole bag given the way Rachel's still looking at it.

Slightly distastefully, but not about to put it down. The satchel is only useful while it's in one piece and if she wears it and has to morph, that will be lost in a second.

"I'm taking it," Rachel decides after a moment, shrugging as she flips the satchel closed and slings the strap over her shoulder.

"Noted." Even if the food is still suspicious.
The same as all of this is. Will be.

"Onward and upward?"

Into that forest.

Jo can decide how appetizing the food is once they get hungry.

Rachel turns her gaze toward the cave entrance, out to leafy green and sunshine. It's much, much better than the castle. But that doesn't make it less suspicious.

What else can they do? Rachel nods and starts walking, picking her footing on rough stone carefully with bare feet.

It's strange. So completely calm.

The wind blowing through leaves.
The splash of water. The birds.

It would be refreshing, if they had walked there themselves. If they hadn't crawled their way out of a cabinet from a castle. If they could be sure the forest is at all real.

It's strange, instead. And suspicious.

Rachel's gaze is up as much as down, all around. You never know what's watching you, what's paying more attention than it should.

"Maybe I was wrong." It's ironic.

A stiffly amused ironic.

"About something specific?"

A bird calls and Rachel watches it take off, frowning lightly at the short wing span, the sweet song.

"Or are you just making conversation?"

"At least the castle walls were predictable."

Honest. Unassuming. Bland. Blank. Nothing to hide.

Rachel makes a face, but says nothing. Unprotected on all sides is a problem - but at least there's room.

A soft buzzing catches her attention, though it could have been there from before they left the cave. Something soft and innocuous with all the outside noise but there's something odd about the sudden stop-start of it. Something a little unnatural.

Stopping as her gaze moves up the trees again, Rachel says thoughtfully, "Take this." And the satchel is held out.

Beginning a trend of using Jo as a hat rack.

Jo's noticed. And it gets a disgruntled sneer.
But it's an impatiently accepting one.

She'd rather have a bear than not, over not having a bag.

Rachel's looking off, so Jo follows her gaze. Listening.

There's not much listening to do. Rachel isn't paying attention to the buzzing so much as the trees, and what Jo said earlier. No castle walls. Also, no castle ceiling. And getting a good look at where they are sounds really, really good right now.

Sometimes even morphing can be lovely. The pattern slowly starting to appear on Rachel's skin like a faint tattoo turning dark are of hundreds of individual feathers. And when they begin to pop out in a soft puffs of air, they are such dark brown as to be nearly black.

Except for the feathers replacing her hair, the skin of her neck and face. They're pure white.

Jo would not call that lovely.
Having it happen slower, in full light.
A full light coming from god knows where.

That makes it creepier. Makes trained impulses stronger.

But that noise, the one she can hear now, is getting stronger, too.

At least it doesn't take long. In less than a minute, a large bald eagle is on the ground beside Jo. Massive wings spread and pump hard to get her off the ground.

It is... well. 'Ungainly' would be a very kind word for it.

But she makes it, wings flapping, up in the air, heading for the trees. <I want to see where we a->

The buzzing increases suddenly, a sound so sharp it almost snaps and something small and gently glowing seems to go through the eagle's tail feathers, making it falter.

Jo doesn't mind the bird. Or the flying.
As much as the sudden break off in words.

"What the hell." Squinting at the light.
Aiming even though she couldn't shoot.

Not that close to Rachel.

It didn't hurt. It stung. Sharp and painful, less like a sting and more like a stab with something terribly sharp, terribly thin.

Flapping her great wings hard, Rachel tries to adjust for the bent tail feathers. But so much of flying depends on every single feather she has. <Something hit me!>

Another high-pitched buzz and three more pass in front of them. One tiny glowing light narrowly misses Rachel's wing. Another narrowly misses Jo's nose.

Jo is watching Rachel so close.
Trying to aim at the tiny balls of light.

She didn't notice the one near her. Until it was on her.
Trying to snag past her nose. Almost like a burning heat.

She jumped back, eyes widening as she saw how many there were.

Enough to make a cloud of light, buzzing down that sunlit lane.

An eagle in flight is a graceful creature, but under the tree line in a forest not twenty feet from the ground is not their best playing field.

<Augh!>

And that last sting struck home, sending the eagle spinning, careening to the ground, one wing flapping uselessly.

Jo missed that last part.

She was jumping and skittering every time one of those things touched her. Swearing. Trying to bat them off with the riffle of the bag, neither of which really was helping. They moved too fast.

And each time they crossed her skin it was like being stabbed.

Too small, too fast to be seen. Rachel can almost hear Marco shouting that it's insane, killer lightning bugs.

Almost. Amid sharp bursts of searing pain and the ground rushing up at her. At least, until she hits it with a dull thud, dazed and demorphing, stumbling to a crawl with still-forming limbs.

<Run!>

Jo hates running. Jo hates retreat.

But she's hating the stabbing more.

She take only a second, and she is. Running. Stopping only long enough to dip and grab Rachel's arm. Nails digging into her skin to drag her up and pull her forward, as the lights swarm. Crashing pains will have to wait.

Running now. Through the trees, branches wiping past her. Trying to push past the white darts of light keeping up with her. The sound of them following. The slap of her feet and the absolute unknown she's running into.

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