T̷h̷e̸ ̵G̶a̴m̸e̵ - A VR Role-play

[fangthehunter]

Name: shade
Age:18
Gender: male
Pronouns: him
User ID: 99
Personality: kind, calm, precise, determined
Picture/Description:

Username: fangthehunter
Other (weaknesses, habits, or special abilities): He's part fox and he prefers a small bow and a curved dagger for wepons.

 

[Yowza Wowza]

Name: shade
Age:18
Gender: male
Pronouns: him
User ID: 99
Personality: kind, calm, precise, determined
Picture/Description: View attachment 2899559
Username: fangthehunter
Other (weaknesses, habits, or special abilities): He's part fox and he prefers a small bow and a curved dagger for wepons.

(Thank you for filling out a form, but I’m not accepting any new characters right now.)

 

[Yowza Wowza]

Damir hobbled along, throught the dingy alleys, deciding to take a shortcut around one of the buildings he'd passed previously with Nina.

Even though it made him anxious, he hoped the new player would essentially come to him, or at least wander close enough for him to catch up with.

Unfortunately for the pair, Damir, deep in thought, rounded the tallest building's corner right as Evan did, causing their heads to smack together painfully.

"Aha," he stumbled back, clutching the top of his nose, which had taken a stern hit from Evan's forehead. "Man... that hurt."

Damir straightened his posture, quickly realising who he had just bumped into. The guy from the train station. He held his hands up, trying to show calm and surrender. "P-Please don't run. I'm... I'm not like them."

Evan nearly collapsed from the sudden and abrupt impact of Damir’s forehead. His flung back and winced painfully, “Ach!” he exclaimed throwing a hand to his face.

His eyes flickered open as he rubbed the bridge of his nose and forehead. It was the person from earlier.

Wait wha..

“Not like who..?” he thought aloud, knitting his eyebrows before noticing the persons numbered palm. A bold and intimidating ‘100’ was etched into their skin, greatly differing his flimsy single digit seven.

Wasn’t… Lyra’s in the 60’s..?

Recoiling his right hand from his face, Evan showed Damir his own number, “I really.. don’t understand what’s going on..” his voice faltered at the revelation.

 

[HeavensHens88]

After an indefinite stretch of time passed, Pickles decided her pain had been sufficiently grieved and sized up her offending knee.
"Alright, sister, here's the dealio."

She tugged her faded Miami Dolphins tee -merch for a team she'd never even seen play, let alone rooted for- up over her head and began working it around her knee. Could you splint a bad knee? Seeing as how it wouldn't take any more than a fourth of her weight as it was, it was worth giving a try.

"You're going to make like you're functional and I'm going to fetch that bag."

She gave the lopsided balloon of fabric an affirmative nod and, without further adieu, heaved herself up.

It was by no means a fix. The misaligned, fractured ends of her patella and femur put in no uncertain terms just how utterly wrong they were set together. Even after her expertly attempted brace, her ankle was still, by far, the lesser of the two evils.

But she stayed up.
Though the bandage wasn't about to get any credit.

Not about to sit around any longer and allow the reality of her invalidity kick in, Pickles hooked the firmest grip she could muster onto the most local prominence and got herself in motion.

It was rough going. For every inch she advanced upward, she'd fall another five upon her next movement. Curtains of hazing blackness threatened to descend every time she jarred her forsaken right leg.

But, somehow, she made it to the perch from which the the infuriatingly irresistible bag had gloated at her all the while.

The outcropping upon which it sat was more significant than she'd supposed prior; for what she could get out here, it would do nicely as a hospital bed.
"I'm...just...gonna..." Pickles wheezed as she inched herself across the home stretch, only to collapse a foot short of having Holy Grail of Bags in her grasp. "...minute...need a... minute..."


Not formerly aware of having lost consciousness, being awoken by a deranged chortle was an experience.

Immediately, by instinctual reflex, she hurdled forward to seize the knapsack.
Her sigh of relief when her hands met material and hugged it to her chest was a mighty gust fresh out of a tornado.

Only now was she ready to face this...

Pickles only had to shift onto her lift hip to see her company.

Expertly situated upon the incline itself sat a bizarre-looking dog.
Covered in white shaggy hair.
Standing on hard, rounded little feet.
With horns.

No, that couldn't be right.

Pickles squinted at it in a grab for clarity.

It laughed again. With unmistakable malevolence.

No, that wasn't a laugh.

"Goat," Pickles ascertained aloud.

The mountain goat hopped neatly onto her ledge in affirmation.
Pickles backed up against the rock face accordingly and gave it her most cordial smile. Did goats read facial expressions? This one certainly looked sentient enough to feel animosity.
"Nice goat," she pleaded as it started closing the distance between them with a stalking march. "Nice goat."

Troll's beard swaying, it kept on coming.

Pickles forgot all of her pain as it locked gazes with her.

Endless, soulless blackness penetrated her psyche in all the worst places.

She now knew no other fear, no needs, no uncertainties.
Who even was she?
What was an identity in the face of goat?

Nothing else remained.

Only goat.

And she was entirely at its mercy.

Aside from your occasional daring bird, you hardly saw any sign of life in the skies floating above the mountains. Except for the dragons, when they decided to rouse from their slumber, and search the skies looking for the next victim of their sateless hungers. Which would make those birds more suicidal than daring, really.

It wasn't a place to roam if you wanted to survive longer then a few hours. Unless you were small, quick, and smart. Birds lacked those smarts.

However, the small creature gliding through the clouds did not.

The small, winged creature had survived countless years in the mountains alone. Not without run-in with the dragons, though. It was obvious by the scars riddling its smooth wings.

If one were to look up, they would see what appeared to be a shadow lazily floating in the pale blue sky, with only the slightest movement every few seconds. That was, until it spun midair, swooping lower to the ground, floating in circles like an eagle hunting poor mice in a field.

An incredibly neon yellow shape pressed against a rockface caught its eyes, and it momentarily paused its floating to hover midair. Out in the plain open? Do they have a death wish?
It only took it a moment to realize that something had the neon creature trapped against the cliff, with no escape. A.. goat. Seriously? The goats again?

Tucking its wings in, it all but dropped from the sky, face first. It swooped down with grace, however, flying by the neon creature at top speed and taking the goat with it.

And.

Throwing the goat off the face of the cliff, hovering in midair, watching it gruesomely fall to it's demise, bleating helplessly all the way. That's what you get for being a di- a jerk. The dragons are supposed to be the problem, I thought. No, it's goats.

Goats!

How utterly stupid is that?!

Realizing that there was still the other creature to take into account, the dark-winged creature flipped backwards, back-tracking.
It landed, water droplets gliding off of it's smooth, dragon-like wings. It was much, much taller then it appeared in the air, so much taller that it indeed must have shape-shifting abilities of a sort. It had long, almost fluffy, dog-like ears protruding from the sides of it's head, and they twitched every so often. Grey horns raised from the shaved sides of its skull above each ear, though they weren't very big. The top of its hair was pulled back into a bun, starkly black against the creatures mostly pale skin.
Dark blue-green irises stood out from the rest of it's huge, owl-like black eyes, blinking at Pickles expectantly, a long, thin reptilian tail swishing back and forth.

It crouched, seeming to shrink as its wings wrapped around it's body, cautiously approaching Pickles on its hands and feet.
One, skeletal, slightly scaled, and long clawed finger reached out, eyes widening further as it touched her nose lightly for a good ten seconds in utterly silence. It blinked at her, making intense, uncomfortable eye contact. Its mouth fell open, revealing a set of razor sharp teeth and a strange, dark, forked tongue. "A..are..you..." It spoke very slowly, voice broken and rasping. "A..human..?"

Pickles took a long moment to evaluate her current situation after the events to actually make it so had transpired.

For one, she was free of goat.
For two, she was now in the presence of the thing that had relieved her of goat.

So she found it safe to figure that her level of peril had increased exponentially in the past thirty three point eight seconds. A record for her- unless she was going to count the time she'd figured out the formula to make a microwave explode while routinely cooking a packet of Ben's Original Ready Rice.

As for the identity of her savior-possibly-turning-slayer, her mind was giving her nothing. The build and hair suggested mammal, while the extremities and wings stubbornly argued reptile. The eyes swore a week of day- and nightmares.

"Yep indeedy do," she responded suddenly, having deemed that the situation couldn't be worsened by conversation. "Last time I checked, anyhow."

Since her body yet maintained its general state of life, Pickles then opted to explore the contents of the bag she had clutched to her chest like it was a gas mask after a certain roommate of hers had consumed an Amy's Gluten-Free Burrito.
She first encountered a water bottle, then a distinctly labeled food bar. Next her fingers curled around a cold tin and, curious, she pulled it out for closer inspection.
That inspection wasn't close enough, so she unscrewed the top and took a hearty whiff.

It was altogether. standard-medicinal-gel-scented.

Pickles pouted, only to finally take note of something laying alongside her, presumably dislodged in her dive for the bag.

It was a speargun, not unlike that she was used to wielding on fishing excursions. It was a bona fide AB Biller, stainless steel. Except it wasn't like any model she'd used in how it was a brilliant neon blue. Positively phosphorescent.

She turned the beautiful device over in her hands a few times, her confidence bolstered greatly. Now she could spear fish whenever it possessed her to do so.
Or maybe she wasn't confined to fish.

Ah, yes, back to her current company.

Pickles returned the thorough eye contact and, after a moment's consideration, lay the speargun back down. This creature hadn't done anything to incite an offense. But, at the same time, the matter of whether it would elect to change that in the near future was debatable.

"Alright, let's get this straight."
She had to summon all of her self-control to resist her usual iconic followup to that remark.
"Are you or are you not interested in eating me?" Again, no particular indications were presented. The staring contest of the ages continued- if it could be called that, seeing how she'd lost the moment they'd begun. "Not to be pushy, but this whole shebang could go over much easier if we clear the air here and now."

Wow, and she'd thought her ex had a violating gaze.

"Okay, then, well, in the meanwhile, I'm going to go about returning from whence I came." Having gathered her belongings, she saluted the creature for its admirable impersonation of a stone gargoyle and went about navigating her way back down the mountainside.
"Yeah," she affirmed as she worked on removing her bra strap from a protruding chunk of granite.
"Getting on that," she ascertained as she struggled with removing the good ankle from the crevice it'd wedged itself in.
"Annnnnnytime now," she vowed as she tore her shorts free from a patch of briars.
"Making headway," she declared as her eye met stick.

Well. She'd really asked for it.

With nauseating rapidity that made Pickles wish she'd remembered her capacity to close her eyes, open sky became sequestering canopy, hostile mountain became navigable marshlands, thin air became humid mugginess, and dog-dragon-deer-monkey became person.
Well, person with cat features.
She let herself focus on the person part.

"'Sup," Pickles greeted brightly, standing on both legs on solid ground for the first time since yesterday. "How's the end of the world looking for you?"

Then, without adieu, she toppled face-first into swamp dirt.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Phaedra could run fast.
Faster then most she knew, truth be told. Easily overtaking most track runners, though she had little interest in joining herself.
That was, however, on flat or mostly even ground.
Sand was an entirely different terrain, especially while carrying a back-pack, and a weapon. While the weapon wasn't quite heavy, it was awkward and made running even more of a task than it already was.


The ground shook beneath her feet, the terrain making a drastic drop downhill.
Her shriek was shrill as she slid down the hill, Jack nowhere in her sight. Struggling to her feet, she whipped her head around, searching her surroundings.

The thundering stopped.

At the top of the hill, features nearly erased by the sun, stood the creature. It resembled an elephant sized horned lizard. It's jaw hung open as it panted, purple tongue lolling out between its large teeth.
It's tail swung, akin to a dog, orange eyes narrowed on her.

Faye was paralyzed in fear, wide eyed and clutching her sword tightly.

Until the massively lizard easily cleared the hill in a single leap, sand spraying in every direction, including directly into Faye's eyes.
She stumbled backwards, rubbing her eyes furiously with one hand, other clutching her sword. Throat too tight to even scream, she staggered blindly backwards, the lizards hot breath surrounding her.

The world dark, her sword flailing blindly in attempt to rid of her attacker, the earth was suddenly removed from beneath her feet.
A ragged scream escaped her throat, pressure constricting around her waist. Tears poured down her pale cheeks as she struggled to open her eyes. She managed to make out what was happening.

Currently, she was dangling midair, clutched in a massive lizards tail, and likely seconds from becoming said lizards lunch.

And her weapon?

Conveniently stranded in the sand several feet below her.

Jack did as he was told.

He ran.

Well, sort of.

Slipping and sliding on the sand, Jack managed to stumble his way down the dune and halfway up the next one before he inevitably fell upon his face.

Jack quickly leapt to his feet. He turned his head, fully expecting to see a rhino-lizard about to make a tasty Jack-kabob. However, no such impaling took place, much to Jack’s relief.

About two second later, he heard the scream.

Jack’s relief left him just as quickly as his good grades when he entered high school.

For a moment, Jack stood frozen. He had a choice- run to safety, abandoning Faye, or try to help and probably die. The moment passed, and Jack’s usual suicidal impulsiveness drove his feet towards the direction of the scream.

Kiem drawn, Jack almost made himself into a Jack-kabob several times as he slipped back up the dune he had just vacated. Managing not to murder himself, he finally reached the top and stared dumbly at the scene before him.

“HEY!” Jack shouted, a futile attempt to get the megalizard to drop Faye.

The lizard ignored him.

I’m going to die. Jack thought, possibly for the second time in the last hour. Had it been an hour? He didn’t know. What he did know was that he was about to run at a huge lizard and hopefully not die.

Jack ran forward and slashed his kiem erratically at the megalizard. The lizard, momentarily distracted, dropped Faye and hissed at Jack. He was about to swing again when the lizard whipped its tail around, hitting him, hard, in the chest and throwing him to the ground.

Jack exhaled sharply as he hit the ground and lay there, gasping, as he tried to catch his breath. The lizard approached rapidly, its legs and body moving side to side in the odd gait reptiles have.

My last thought is gonna be about zig-zag lizards. Jack thought in a strangely detached way, watching the creature’s shadow engulf him.

The shadow stopped.

Jack tensed, fully convinced he was about to be eaten. Or at least dismembered, or something.

Once again, those that may hate Jack (such as his 3rd grade english teacher) would be disappointed. The lizard was, in fact, not getting ready to feast, but was listening intently. Jack soon learned why.

The ground started to shake, a shake which rapidly became more intense. The sand was roiling like waves, becoming liquid in the throes of what must have been- an earthquake? More big freakin’ lizards?.. Something worse..?

Two.. things, the size that you’d associate with sea monsters, burst out of the sand. From what Jack could see- and he couldn’t see much, he was still pretty much laid flat on the ground -the creatures were scaleless, eyeless, white snakes. Oh, and they were really big. Did he mention that?

The desert snakes circled dunes, dipping up and down into the sand, their white, pitted bodies brushing against each other as they performed some sort of violent dance.

They seemed unaware of the lizard, Jack, and Phaedra, but the lizard was clearly afraid. It had exited the scene almost as soon as the snakes showed up. Jack sat up shakily, grabbed his kiem, and stared at Faye, at an utter loss on what to do. The snakes’ dance surrounded them, and the way the sand was shifting made escape seem an impossibility.

The snakes were closing in, their circle becoming smaller. Jack soon noticed that the sand seemed to be swallowing him. All his childhood fears of quicksand came back in an instant, and he struggled to stand up and not be engulfed.

Oh no. Was all Jack could think as he gazed around and realized that him and Faye were in the middle of what was evolving into a sand whirlpool. High walls of sand surrounded them, as terrifying as the incoming wave of a tsunami.

“Mother of mothers!” Jack yelped as he truly comprehended the size of the walls around them. They were at the bottom of a huge pit, and that pit was only stopped from collapsing by the giant snakes.

Suddenly, the snakes dove into the sand, thrashing about in the middle of the whirlpool. The sand, as promised, started to collapse. Tails and slithering bodies writhed around and below them, whipping sand into the air and conveniently into Jack’s eyes.

Watching the sand fall towards them like a horrible, dry avalanche, Jack had the worst idea. “Stab or- er- grab a snake!” He yelled. He promptly stabbed his kiem into the nearest piece of snake he could find. He could only hope that Faye had done the same, as he immediately lost sight of her.

Bad idea, BAD IDEA! Jack internally screamed as everything went black. The snake had entered the sand once again.

Jack tried to hold his breath, he really did. But he couldn’t for long. Everything was suffocating. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. Still, Jack gripped the kiem, knowing vaguely that it was his only chance.

It was too much. Too much sand. Jack felt his grip loosening as sand entered his throat. The last thing he was aware of was a jerk as the snake changed direction.

…

Jack shot up, gasping uncontrollably, only to find that there was no sand in his lungs. Wait. He had been suffocating just a moment ago- why did he feel fine?

Unknown to him, one of Jack’s three lives was gone. His hands trembling, he gripped the grass below his feet, never even thinking to check his wrist.

(*Edited)

 

[Yowza Wowza]

Theodore flinched at the clang of the bow, xyr long ears twitching. Zulema removing her cloak was enough of a distraction, though, his brows raising slightly. They wolf-whistled lowly, but quickly diverted their gaze from her after doing so.
Xe preoccupied himself by observing her bus, but didn't dare to move much, just barely hearing her describe what the knife would do. "Yes, ma'am," they murmured, smirking.
The desk he had run into was less of a desk, and more of a work bench. Bladed weapons were strewn across it. Machetes, swords of several styles, more glowing knifes of different colors, some with engravings. Beside the desk there was a baseball bat, pelted with several rusty nails.
A wooden shelf danced precariously above it, seemingly built with pieces of scrap wood. It was overflowing with papers, tins of what seemed to be tea.
And jars.

Lots. And lots. Of jars.
Filled with what looked like animal eyeballs, and even something that slightly resembled a mutated pig head.
Why are the hot ones always the weird witch chicks?

Apart from the alarming jars- the weapons intrigued him. I wonder if she'd teach me to use them!

However, thinking of the fact they had almost stabbed themself with a cursed knife-

Probably not.

Theo looked down at her abruptly when she cursed softly, and he noticed the burn on her hand, and the sad amount of salve smoothed across part of it.
Xe were suddenly aware of the bag they had found still thrown over his shoulders. Wasn't there a weird tin of something in here?

He promptly dropped himself to the floor of the bus by her feet, facing her. Removing the bag from his back, they started unzipping the pockets, searching. Xe paused briefly when she mentioned spawned in, but didn't look at her.
"Spawned in," they replied, their ears twitching with every small noise he heard. "Last thing I remember.." Xyr hand paused in the bag, fingers brushing over the small, round metal tin. "I was.. stacking books at my.. uh, guardian's shop, and then.. I woke up under a tree in a field. Here. I don't even remember going to sleep."

He chuckled softly, retrieving the tin, and opening it. The cap read 'HEALING SALVE' and it smelled safe enough.
Hopefully it was.
"Who am I kidding?" They shook xyr head, looking up at her and outstretching one hand, beckoning for her to give him her burned hand. "I'm probably delusional. Maybe because I didn't sleep, maybe none of this is real, or it's all a dream."

He peered at her curiously, brows narrowed as he gaze flicked back and forth between hers. "It would be a shame, but maybe you're not even real."
After another second of silence, he beckoned for her hand again. "Give me. Your hand, I mean. Please."

(Cont past interaction to catch up to current time)
Zulema watched Theo carefully as he settled himself at her feet and recollected their last significant memory before arriving here.

She gave a weak nod, “That’s.. usually how it goes” she paused, casting her gaze away from xem. “You’re somewhat right about it being a dream though, I mean— our minds are basically trapped here in this hellish dreamscape to fend on our own.”

Returning her gaze to Theo’s when they beckoned for her hand, she remained still with hesitance and held a look of slight skepticism. Though she didn’t feel threatened by them, her trust issues certainly made her more stubborn, even in this other worldly reality.

Finally deciding to oblige, Zulema leaned forward in a hunch and extended her hands out to Theo with reluctance, careful not to poke xem with her pointed nails.

“There are real people here, like you and me. We all have numbers tattooed on our hands.. and then there are those who are just facades—nulls that don’t.” she explained, briefly turning over her right hand to show the half remnant of a 89 as Theo tended to her burns. “It used to say 89.. but things happened.” she scoffed lightly.

 

[Yowza Wowza]

Pickles took a long moment to evaluate her current situation after the events to actually make it so had transpired.

For one, she was free of goat.
For two, she was now in the presence of the thing that had relieved her of goat.

So she found it safe to figure that her level of peril had increased exponentially in the past thirty three point eight seconds. A record for her- unless she was going to count the time she'd figured out the formula to make a microwave explode while routinely cooking a packet of Ben's Original Ready Rice.

As for the identity of her savior-possibly-turning-slayer, her mind was giving her nothing. The build and hair suggested mammal, while the extremities and wings stubbornly argued reptile. The eyes swore a week of day- and nightmares.

"Yep indeedy do," she responded suddenly, having deemed that the situation couldn't be worsened by conversation. "Last time I checked, anyhow."

Since her body yet maintained its general state of life, Pickles then opted to explore the contents of the bag she had clutched to her chest like it was a gas mask after a certain roommate of hers had consumed an Amy's Gluten-Free Burrito.
She first encountered a water bottle, then a distinctly labeled food bar. Next her fingers curled around a cold tin and, curious, she pulled it out for closer inspection.
That inspection wasn't close enough, so she unscrewed the top and took a hearty whiff.

It was altogether. standard-medicinal-gel-scented.

Pickles pouted, only to finally take note of something laying alongside her, presumably dislodged in her dive for the bag.

It was a speargun, not unlike that she was used to wielding on fishing excursions. It was a bona fide AB Biller, stainless steel. Except it wasn't like any model she'd used in how it was a brilliant neon blue. Positively phosphorescent.

She turned the beautiful device over in her hands a few times, her confidence bolstered greatly. Now she could spear fish whenever it possessed her to do so.
Or maybe she wasn't confined to fish.

Ah, yes, back to her current company.

Pickles returned the thorough eye contact and, after a moment's consideration, lay the speargun back down. This creature hadn't done anything to incite an offense. But, at the same time, the matter of whether it would elect to change that in the near future was debatable.

"Alright, let's get this straight."
She had to summon all of her self-control to resist her usual iconic followup to that remark.
"Are you or are you not interested in eating me?" Again, no particular indications were presented. The staring contest of the ages continued- if it could be called that, seeing how she'd lost the moment they'd begun. "Not to be pushy, but this whole shebang could go over much easier if we clear the air here and now."

Wow, and she'd thought her ex had a violating gaze.

"Okay, then, well, in the meanwhile, I'm going to go about returning from whence I came." Having gathered her belongings, she saluted the creature for its admirable impersonation of a stone gargoyle and went about navigating her way back down the mountainside.
"Yeah," she affirmed as she worked on removing her bra strap from a protruding chunk of granite.
"Getting on that," she ascertained as she struggled with removing the good ankle from the crevice it'd wedged itself in.
"Annnnnnytime now," she vowed as she tore her shorts free from a patch of briars.
"Making headway," she declared as her eye met stick.

Well. She'd really asked for it.

With nauseating rapidity that made Pickles wish she'd remembered her capacity to close her eyes, open sky became sequestering canopy, hostile mountain became navigable marshlands, thin air became humid mugginess, and dog-dragon-deer-monkey became person.
Well, person with cat features.
She let herself focus on the person part.

"'Sup," Pickles greeted brightly, standing on both legs on solid ground for the first time since yesterday. "How's the end of the world looking for you?"

Then, without adieu, she toppled face-first into swamp dirt.

Spoiler: :)

Without warning, Tem leapt in the air and spun in the direction of the person that buoyantly greeted them. Apparently they had a knack for attracting random strangers from thin air.

“FILS DE—” they exclaimed, their hair standing completely on end as they searched for the individual to give a good hissing to. Though that person was now face down in the dirt, and what good was it to yell at someone if they weren’t responsive?

Tem’s face went blank and stared at the persons colorful beachwear along with the neon blue spear weapon in their possession, but what they noticed was the obvious light portions of their skin, which Tem thought was definitely cool.

Giving a glance around for where they might’ve come from, Tem was left clueless because they didn’t hear a single footstep until they voiced their greeting. Picking up the bag the cowboy man left them and draping it across their body, they knelt down in front of Pickles and gave her a good finger flick on the head.

“Hey you, whats this end of the world stuff?” they asked curiously with a furrow of their brow.

 

[Butterscotchbitesfinger]

She watched them drink, “yeah I’m Lyra.” She nodded, “Fabian. Huh. I finally have a name and I can stop calling you the person” she laughed a little to herself.

She stopped laughing abruptly when she realised that Fabian wasn’t laughing, “um, heh.” She stood up, “so, um excuse my nosinesses but the slime? What’s that about?” She asked recalling the seizures.
While she waited for a response she looked around the cave, the stone was grey and a thin layer of moss covered parts of the stone floor and ran along the few cracks in the walls. She looked back at Fabian and studied their features, they had almost lavender hair. She frowned, she wondered if it was naturally that colour.
If it was it was sure nicer than her two tone orange- brown hair. She almost smiled at the memory of her trying to colour her hair using a cheap supermarket dye, the blonde colouring reacted badly with her natural colour and sent her hair bright orange. Thankfully the bright orange had started the fade again.
Lyra turned her attention back to Fabian pulling herself out of her memory.

 

[HeavensHens88]

Spoiler: :)

View attachment 2910352

Without warning, Tem leapt in the air and spun in the direction of the person that buoyantly greeted them. Apparently they had a knack for attracting random strangers from thin air.

“FILS DE—” they exclaimed, their hair standing completely on end as they searched for the individual to give a good hissing to. Though that person was now face down in the dirt, and what good was it to yell at someone if they weren’t responsive?

Tem’s face went blank and stared at the persons colorful beachwear along with the neon blue spear weapon in their possession, but what they noticed was the obvious light portions of their skin, which Tem thought was definitely cool.

Giving a glance around for where they might’ve come from, Tem was left clueless because they didn’t hear a single footstep until they voiced their greeting. Picking up the bag the cowboy man left them and draping it across their body, they knelt down in front of Pickles and gave her a good finger flick on the head.

“Hey you, whats this end of the world stuff?” they asked curiously with a furrow of their brow.

"Honestly? No idea."
Well, at least that had proven she was very much so still injured. Spontaneous recovery would've been too frigging weird.
After being flicked, Pickles peeled herself out of the mud, propping her thoroughly spattered head up on her hands as she faced her considerably more approachable companion.
Then again, the living gargoyle could've perfectly harmless while this short, unimposing kid was waiting for the opportune moment to use their devastating eye lasers on her.

She had a |Food Bar| and a jar of Vaseline®. Bring it.

"It's just the best explanation I can dream up for this." Her eyes casually traveled the monstrously thick underbrush that lay a few paces beyond them, fully anticipating the emergence of a saber-toothed wolf or Tasmanian jaguar. Hey, she still had her speargun- and how had that happened, huh? She hadn't even been holding it when the world went and rewrote itself. "No memory of how I got here, survival pack, random teleportations between environments."

By the looks, feel, and -ew- taste of it, she couldn't even be in the same country as where she'd started. She was beginning to doubt that those peaks of peril had been North American, let alone Californian.

"Bro, I was just on a mountain," she divulged with the air of someone who hadn't just fallen off said mountain.

As her face slid further down into her hands, she abruptly became aware of the 76 tattooed into her palm. "Oh, and look! I'm branded. You too." Their hand's 4 was one of the more prominent things about them; they were dressed in neutral clothing that complimented their skin, fur, and hair tones, but didn't draw particular attention to anything. A contrast to what she was used to seeing, but valid. "Ayyyyyye, test subjects for world disasters club."

Pickles yawned. As one did in the midst of such revelations. "Sounds distinctly like a plot of one of those books from middle school. Some ancient problematic author."

She was still registering everything she came up with at pure face value, so none of these lamentable elements were hitting her with their full weight.
Or the pain was demanding the majority of her sense.
Or she was Pickles.
Imagine that.

"Although, the whole scene should encompass a little more death and destruction." She rose a little further to gesture emphatically at their surroundings, particularly the river that meandered alongside. It was murky, deep, and likely full of creatures that would be delighted to call a stock broker up for a share in her skin, but, at the same time, it was water, and definitely alive. "Meanwhile this seems weirdly...natural. Except for us. Or maybe just me."

On that note, she decided an introduction was due. "I'm Pickles, she/her, Los Angeles." Cue aggressive shaka sign. "I'd get up for a fistbump, but my ankle's kinda out of commission. Also the knee"

Note that she rambled through this entire repertoire in well under a minute.

 

[HeavensHens88]

Jack did as he was told.

He ran.

Well, sort of.

Slipping and sliding on the sand, Jack managed to stumble his way down the dune and halfway up the next one before he inevitably fell upon his face.

Jack quickly leapt to his feet. He turned his head, fully expecting to see a rhino-lizard about to make a tasty Jack-kabob. However, no such impaling took place, much to Jack’s relief.

About two second later, he heard the scream.

Jack’s relief left him just as quickly as his good grades when he entered high school.

For a moment, Jack stood frozen. He had a choice- run to safety, abandoning Faye, or try to help and probably die. The moment passed, and Jack’s usual suicidal impulsiveness drove his feet towards the direction of the scream.

Kiem drawn, Jack almost made himself into a Jack-kabob several times as he slipped back up the dune he had just vacated. Managing not to murder himself, he finally reached the top and stared dumbly at the scene before him.

“HEY!” Jack shouted, a futile attempt to get the megalizard to drop Faye.

The lizard ignored him.

I’m going to die. Jack thought, possibly for the second time in the last hour. Had it been an hour? He didn’t know. What he did know was that he was about to run at a huge lizard and hopefully not die.

Jack ran forward and slashed his kiem erratically at the megalizard. The lizard, momentarily distracted, dropped Faye and hissed at Jack. He was about to swing again when the lizard whipped its tail around, hitting him, hard, in the chest and throwing him to the ground.

Jack exhaled sharply as he hit the ground and lay there, gasping, as he tried to catch his breath. The lizard approached rapidly, its legs and body moving side to side in the odd gait reptiles have.

My last thought is gonna be about zig-zag lizards. Jack thought in a strangely detached way, watching the creature’s shadow engulf him.

The shadow stopped.

Jack tensed, fully convinced he was about to be eaten. Or at least dismembered, or something.

Once again, those that may hate Jack (such as his 3rd grade english teacher) would be disappointed. The lizard was, in fact, not getting ready to feast, but was listening intently. Jack soon learned why.

The ground started to shake, a shake which rapidly became more intense. The sand was roiling like waves, becoming liquid in the throes of what must have been- an earthquake? More big freakin’ lizards?.. Something worse..?

Two.. things, the size that you’d associate with sea monsters, burst out of the sand. From what Jack could see- and he couldn’t see much, he was still pretty much laid flat on the ground -the creatures were scaleless, eyeless, white snakes. Oh, and they were really big. Did he mention that?

The desert snakes circled dunes, dipping up and down into the sand, their white, pitted bodies brushing against each other as they performed some sort of violent dance.

They seemed unaware of the lizard, Jack, and Phaedra, but the lizard was clearly afraid. It had exited the scene almost as soon as the snakes showed up. Jack sat up shakily, grabbed his kiem, and stared at Faye, at an utter loss on what to do. The snakes’ dance surrounded them, and the way the sand was shifting made escape seem an impossibility.

The snakes were closing in, their circle becoming smaller. Jack soon noticed that the sand seemed to be swallowing him. All his childhood fears of quicksand came back in an instant, and he struggled to stand up and not be engulfed.

Oh no. Was all Jack could think as he gazed around and realized that him and Faye were in the middle of what was evolving into a sand whirlpool. High walls of sand surrounded them, as terrifying as the incoming wave of a tsunami.

“Mother of mothers!” Jack yelped as he truly comprehended the size of the walls around them. They were at the bottom of a huge pit, and that pit was only stopped from collapsing by the giant snakes.

Suddenly, the snakes dove into the sand, thrashing about in the middle of the whirlpool. The sand, as promised, started to collapse. Tails and slithering bodies writhed around and below them, whipping sand into the air and conveniently into Jack’s eyes.

Watching the sand fall towards them like a horrible, dry avalanche, Jack had the worst idea. “Stab or- er- grab a snake!” He yelled. He promptly stabbed his kiem into the nearest piece of snake he could find. He could only hope that Faye had done the same, as he immediately lost sight of her.

Bad idea, BAD IDEA! Jack internally screamed as everything went black. The snake had entered the sand once again.

Jack tried to hold his breath, he really did. But he couldn’t for long. Everything was suffocating. He couldn’t breath, couldn’t think. Still, Jack gripped the kiem, knowing vaguely that it was his only chance.

It was too much. Too much sand. Jack felt his grip loosening as sand entered his throat. The last thing he was aware of was a jerk as the snake changed direction.

…

Jack shot up, gasping uncontrollably, only to find that there was no sand in his lungs. Wait. He had been suffocating just a moment ago- why did he feel fine?

Unknown to him, one of Jack’s three lives was gone. His hands trembling, he gripped the grass below his feet, never even thinking to check his wrist.

(*Edited)

Ibu had been traveling for awhile.
There had been dunes and abysses, buried hollows and sequestered yardangs.
There still was sand, sand, and a lot more sand.

Frankly, her own essence had much sand to offer.
She wore more sand than clothing. She breathed sand. She smelled sand. She saw sand.
However, she was not sand.
That much she was firm on.

As the greenery barrier to this wasteland laid itself out before her, Ibu jerked her accelerator into the highest speed available. Her patience was miles beyond running low and she knew purple sweet potato pancakes were due to her.

There was a person there. Shivering. Looking clueless. Generally being pathetic.
No doubt of the male variety.
Laboriously braking, Ibu physically did this and lowered her halberd.

This dream had yee'd its last haw.

In fact, so much so that she outright flung her weapon down and threw her arms up as an admission of absolute defeat to the psyche branch of the patriarchy's agenda. "Alright, just try to kill me and get it over with so I can wake up."