Out Port

[orions_shadow]

The porters were known to be unpredictable, but he never would have believed he'd end up somewhere like this, and with his memory intact no less. These woods were strange, unfamiliar territory. In the distance there was the smell of industry and city, so there was a some kind of urban sprawl near by, but for now he had to navigate his way through these trees in the dead of night.

Maybe this was home after all? Was he in another city? Was this near Paragon City? He'd heard things about it but beyond word of mouth he didn't have any experience with the American mainland. Seeing a light out in the distance, he moves onward, his pads falling to the ground with near silence. Once he closed in on the light, he stopped, moving behind a tree to see a man looking down at a mound of dirt.

What's he doing all the way out here at night? Oh. Lovely. Now he's talking to himself.

Comments

[christmaspun]

There was darkness.

So much of it. Dark and cold and searing pain. Kristen could remember nothing and too much all at the same time...her consciousness coming back to her in a whirl, a blur. She shifted, feeling all at once crowded.

Immediately she met with resistance. As realization dawned, panic began to set in...she was trapped. Enclosed in a suitcase, naked, balled up into the fetal position, and - of course, of course she was bound to run out of air very quickly if she screamed. It was lucky her wits were about her...but more lucky that she couldn't quite find sound yet in the newly-reanimated vocal cords.

So instead she searched - felt around her for something, anything that she could do. What she found was cardboard, used as a stabilizer in the framework of her low-rent prison.

With all her focus, she pushed. Outward, upward, anywhere but in the dark and cold. The case buckled, the dirt shifted. Fresh mud made it easier. Edward had packed the grave so poorly.

The man standing over the grave staggered back, eyes wide, face white.

A slim, pale hand had just emerged from the mud.

[orions_shadow]

The fuck?

What was this guy, a necromancer? The lion's green eyes are on the hand emerging from the dirt the moment it emerges, having heard the sounds of shifting dirt moments before it erupted from below. The man backed up into his tree, but he hadn't been seen yet, thankfully. The undead rising from was more than enough chaos to keep his presence hidden, although if things go the way he thinks they'll go, he'll have to intervene in a moment anyway.

He simply watches, waits until the 'zombie' emerges, just to see what will happen.

[christmaspun]

And the corpse did claw her way out - bit by bit, inch by inch, until she was on her knees in the mud. Scars criss-crossed her naked skin, angry and red where the nanites still running through her blood were desperately stitching her back together.

She could see the scars on her arms.

She could also see Edward cowering against the tree, gasping her name under his breath, shaking hands raising to shield himself.

She found sound and it erupted from her in a deafening screech.

[orions_shadow]

Eyes go wide when she breaks through the turf and onto the mud, the figure instantly familiar. He rushes to her side, suddenly not caring so much for the useless human behind him and more concerned with the well being of his friend. Easily one of the few 'cool' grownups he'd ever met.

His ears pin back when she screams, he lowers himself, rumbling softly at her.

"Kristen?"

[christmaspun]

The strangeness of the situation is overwhelming - the cognitive dissonance of being alive and then dead and then alive again, body literally stitching itself together as she stands in the cold. When Shadow jumps down, she at least has the presence of mind to cover herself somewhat, trembling and covered in mud but nothing else.

"...Shadow...?"

Her voice is a strange croak - she feels lost, dissociated from her own body.

[orions_shadow]

Not that he really cared of she was naked or not. The young lion stepped forward, shifting into his more human form to reach out and help her, to her feet? Just to offer something to lean on? He wasn't sure.

"Yeah. S'mee. How'd you get down there? What's goin' on?" You okay? You hurt? Who's that guy? So many questions, so little time. Just make sure she's okay before dealing with the creeper behind him.

[christmaspun]

The nakedness didn't embarrass her - it was the vulnerability that was deepening the strangeness of the situation, the cold on her skin, the scars, the scars everywhere that she could see, clean and tidy and neat like they were cut with surgical blades -

Because they were.

Her expression shifted from one kind of horror to another, eyes sliding past Shadow and landing on Edward. She slowly drew her hand outward, pointing towards him.

"The Nanites. They're still in my system. They...they brought me back.

He killed me."

[orions_shadow]

Nanites he understood, dying and coming back? Is that what happened? It takes him a minute, ears drawing back as the idea that she'd been killed at all, even though she said something to that respect before, but now it seemed more real.

When she pointed behind him, he bares his teeth, slowly turning around to face the skinny little man. "Issat so?"

A low rumbling growl is emitted as he moves in on Edward. "Well y'know what happens to murderers..."