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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[aseparateworld]

N used to spend a great deal of time in the woods with his friends, when not living in the castle. After the monsters in Promenade disappeared, and people in the city no longer needed his help, he decided to leave. Everyone knew he was all right, so he didn't think anyone would worry about him too much. He wanted to be alone for a little while. To be quiet. He and his friends would be all right. Not only were they used to living in the woods together, but they'd survived all those attacks. So much blood and violence, so much pain and so many anguished voices in his mind. He was tired now. Tired and sad. Being in the woods with his friends improved his spirits slightly. It was more like home. Like home used to be, when he'd had one

[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.

[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!"

[dirt_heart]

[Everyone else he'd been concerned about had been accounted for after a little while. But no one had seen Anna, and really, in many ways, she'd been the one to worry about the most. He'd seen something of the place she'd come from, and seen how she panicked, how she'd been when she first arrived. Not that there was ever a good reaction to a city full of monsters, but he worried about how extreme hers might have been.

He'd gone to Eden about it, knew she had ways of tracking people down, and had got his answer soon enough. Out in the woods, and that wasn't surprising. He hadn't needed a car before, but he dreams one up for this, the same one he'd had at home, used to trips through woods and up the Hill with it. Following the directions he'd been giving, he heads out in the hopes of finding her, and at least making sure she's okay.]

[flensing]

[The sound of an approaching car does nothing to comfort her. There's some part of herself that almost thinks it's the police, coming to track her down in her mother's stolen car, to take Lucie away from her. The thoughts rise up in her head unbidden, but she clears them quickly enough.

When the car comes into view, the front lights are destroyed with a spray of buck shot and there's a girl in a clearing, a large smoking shotgun held study against her tiny shoulder.]

[dirt_heart]

[Maybe he should have been expecting something like that. Maybe. But he wasn't, and his reaction is of course to slam on the brakes, which only finds the car swerving over the mud and dirt under its wheels. He wrestles some control back, but still ends up with the car finally coming to a stop as its right side slams into a tree.

He sits in silence for a moment, staring at the recently deployed airbag in front of his face. He takes a breath, then swears to himself. He'd thought her reaction would be extreme. Next time maybe he should entertain that thread of thought a bit further.

There's a charm hanging from the rear-view mirror, swaying harshly from the recent movement, and he reaches up to snap its string free. A dreamt up replica, rather than the one Othniel actually made him, but maybe he can still gain some protection from it. He shoves it into his pocket before trying the door, ready to put his hands up if she's still nearby with the shotgun trained on him.]

[flensing]

[She is not just nearby, she has approached the car and has that shotgun stuck right into his face. Admittedly, it doesn't take her long to recognize him and her eyes go wide, but the gun doesn't lower.]

...what are you... doing out here.