night falls and i'm alone (open)

[flensing]

Who: flensing and You
What: Hiding.
Where: Outside town, in the woods.
When: Aftermath Friendly Reminder
Warnings: Anna is an unstable torture survivor, PTSD and otherwise full of a variety of triggers and crazy. She is from a horrific horror movie with horrific things described in gory detail beneath. SO. YEAH. WARNING WARNING. DANGER WILL ROBINSON.

It

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[flensing]

She had not lingered in her bedroll for long. There was very little reason to, Lucie was not there. It had always been such a beautiful thing, to see her asleep for a little while, free from nightmares, Anna would never have dreamed of waking her, would just lay curled into her side and watch her until she woke.

She's dead. She died in that house, and Anna's body is still waiting in torment beneath it. She thought about these things too much in idleness, and so she got up and began her chores. The loneliness of the woods was less frightening to her than the faces of others. Perhaps that's why it disturbed her so fully to hear the sound of footsteps, and a voice. Perhaps that's why she didn't listen to what that voice had to say, just pulled the heavy gun down from where it was always over her shoulder and pointed it to where she thought the sound had come.

"Stay back."

The minefield of anxiety in her thoughts has been triggered. Nothing is safe, she must always be prepared to fight for her survival, or they will bury her again. She wants nothing to do with the cruelties of her fellow man.

[aseparateworld]

At the sound of the command, N stopped. The voice coming from the tent sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it exactly, couldn't be sure. Zoroark moved to stand in front of him, walking on four legs at the moment, and N placed a hand on his friend's mane. In response to his wordless request, Zoroark dropped the illusion, but the Pokémon wasn't too sure about it.

N spoke very calmly and clearly in response. "I won't come any closer, if you don't want me to. Do you need any help?"

[flensing]

It startled her that he appeared so suddenly, and honestly she's already squeezed the trigger at him before he's spoken. She heard his words just before the shotgun jerked in her hand. He may have felt a spray of tree bark and grit, but she missed him. She took in a sobbing breath then, gun trembling in her hands.

"Stay back," she repeated, voice a bit more shrill and ragged than before. "You shouldn't be here!"

[aseparateworld]

He was shocked by the gunshot and jumped at the explosion of sound and the feel of the spray flying past him, but he remained where he was.

"Anna? Is that you? Are you hurt?" He didn't display much, if any, concern for his own safety. "It's N. I will not harm you. The monsters are gone."

[flensing]

Was that her name? Her eyes widened, the barrel of the gun dipping downward in distraction and confusion.

"...what are you doing here..." It was something she was whispering to herself. It was hard for her, to make the switch from considering this place as somewhere far away, somewhere safe, somewhere isolated, and to accept that others may have been driven from the city, just as she was. Was that N? Did she recognize his voice?

"...are you hurt?" Had the creatures hurt him? Had she hurt him? Her mind whirled with it and she took a few uneasy steps forward, although she found herself unwilling to get too close, anxiety twisting in her stomach. What if he had been followed?

She lifted the gun again suddenly, sweeping it across the treeline, eyes hardening over, intense.

[aseparateworld]

N answered her again, readily, his calm unwavering. Being around those who were injured or frightened made him more quiet and peaceful in contrast, radiating calm.

"I wanted to be away from the city. After the monsters disappeared. No one needs my help now that it's safe." He didn't think it was odd to wander off without telling anyone. He wasn't used to being beholden to anyone or giving an account of himself.

"I am unharmed, Anna." He didn't move forward or away but stood still, regarding her steadily.

[flensing]

"Disappeared?" She repeated this without any comprehension. How could they just disappear? They didn't disappear. Lucie hand't disappeared. What had they done with her? It was a thought that had haunted Anna for months--(was it months? she didn't know, there was no time in that hole)--they had probably thrown her into that hole with the other bodies... She had killed the children. Why did they have to suffer like their parents? Was it in the blood? Was it in Lucie's?

"They don't disappear," she croaked miserably, slowly convincing herself to lower that gun again. She stared at the ground then, trying to remember what it was she had been doing before she heard his voice, but she can't, even staring at the scattered bundle of firewood at her feet. "They die and they rot. Nothing disappears."

Maybe she was wrong about that. This was a dream wasn't it. She hadn't run from that, just because she had run back to nature, where things were simple and physical--(and alone.)

[aseparateworld]

"Perhaps you are right. Mass cannot be created or destroyed. But they left the city. They went somewhere else. Someone told me that these things happen in Promenade now and then, but they are temporary. I do not know what to think.

I know only that they are gone. Their voices disappeared. I can no longer hear them crying out." It was a relief. He didn't like to hear their hatefulness, their fury, but it was almost worse when they were injured, dying, and no one else seemed to care. "Maybe they have been dreamed into another place. Maybe they prefer it there."

[flensing]

"I don't..." She doesn't understand. She had left to city to avoid the sights, the smells, the reaching hands, but in avoiding it, she did not know what had transpired, had separated herself from it. It wasn't a strange feeling, she had been further and further away from everything by Lucie. Had devoted herself to a woman her lack of faith had killed.

And now she was alone.

Anna stared off, her mouth open without words, and her eyes wet. At least she didn't have her shotgun pointed at him anymore.

[aseparateworld]

He takes a step closer to her, though there's still a fair distance between them. He doesn't take his gaze off of her. "It's hard to say what happened. Maybe it was a bad dream, but one that was real. I left the city after no one else there needed my help. It was sad. I'd never seen anything like it before. It's quiet here. The birds sing so softly in the trees." He's learning the names of animals. They interest him. He's distanced himself somewhat from the violence and horror he'd seen. His tone is detached.

"Is there anyone with you here?" She doesn't look injured, and he's glad of that. It could have been dangerous if she'd been out here on her own, if the monsters had come. "I can stay with you if you'd like."

[flensing]

She stares at him. She doesn't now about that, if she would like it. It was safer to be alone, she would hurt no one, no one would hurt her. These things seemed inevitable in the evils of the world.

"I cannot tell you where you may and may not go."

It isn't really an answer, and it isn't a decision, but it is what she has the strength to give him.

[aseparateworld]

N does not care about being hurt, himself, though the thought of others being hurt pains him deeply. It is something he was drawn to, suffering. His impulse is to ease it, now as always. He doesn't need time to decide.

"I will stay." He's used to sleeping on the ground. He often does, lying curled up among his friends as he did as a child. "The dreaming works again, if you need food or water or any other thing." If she hadn't known the monsters were gone, maybe she hadn't realized that dreaming no longer produced bloody water and rotten food.

[flensing]

She was the same, really. Pained by the suffering of others, and it had drawn her to Lucie, had drawn in her and then she had somehow fallen in love with that tortured girl, madly in love, and fallen into her nightmares with her. Anna knows this, knows that the world she sees is not what others do, but she can only react to what is before her. She cannot pretend she does not have these scars--(and there some scars she does not even realize she bears.)

"I can make my own way, in the woods. It's... easier."

She did not like to dream up anything, really. After being deprived of everything for so many endless days, it somehow cheapened things. She preferred it out here, gathering firewood and food.

[aseparateworld]

For his part, N dreamed up mostly small things, like basketballs and the simple kind of food he'd been given back at the castle.

"Yes." He glances toward her tent. He can see that she's managed to care for herself, and he nods. He's not the kind of person to press his presence on others. He doesn't know how that would be done. "It was good that you left. I would not have wanted you to be harmed." His concern had been for everyone in the city, but he knew Anna, and he remembered the pain she had already experienced.

"I came here for myself and my friends." He touches Zoroark's mane, lightly. "I will remain nearby. You can call for me if I am needed. I will be your friend."