Open No escape.

[Xeona]

37th of Fall 513 AV Nighttime

Welcome back.

Nothing. Pitch black. It looked like you could move anywhere, but there is no point. The darkness was infinite, or you never moved. Why was Xeona so curious about these voices? They always seemed to haunt his dreams, every single one, making him unsure or uncomfortable. Always welcoming him back, back to a new night of bad dreams.

You're awfully silent tonight.

All the other nights, he would not have been able to scream, talk or even think for himself. His mouth would move, but no words would come out. Was it different this time? Xeona tired speaking, but again, no words would escape his mouth.

Try another way.

Another way? Xeona was more confused than ever, but then his thoughts started to return. Would they respond to his thoughts? It didn't seem impossible. The voices seemed to talk to him that way... "Who are you?" Even in his head, he sounded desperate for answers.

I am just a voice in your head.

Xeona knew it wasn't the whole truth. Something had always forced him to do things, or been able to control his surroundings. He couldn't feel safe anywhere... "Can anyone else hear you? Anyone?"

No.

Oh, great. No one would believe him in this. "Am I in this alone?"

No response. Instead, the scenery changed. He was now by a river, and no matter how hard he tried to reach the voice in his head, it wouldn't answer. He kept trying. This was the only chance of reaching it again. After trying over and over, he finally got a response.

No escape.

After that, it felt like something left his mind. Was it the voice? Was it his sanity? He suddenly turned visible, and he couldn't change back to being invisible. There had to be someone else here. Someone who could help him...

Boxcode by Savio

[Tani]

All was well. Tani's eyes flicked open, the kelvic regarding her surroundings with the lazy nonchalance of a guest in a particularly expensive inn. Water lapped at the base of her stony bed, the river rock pleasantly cool against her back, even through the furs she wore. Luxuriating in human form usually left her feeling vulnerable, weak. Today she felt no such threat. Tall and majestic, the trees dotting the river dwarfed the scraggly plants of the grassland's plains. Shadows danced under their leaves, the darkness promising safety and comfort. The air was free of the smells that usually hung over such places. No faint scent of offal drifting downstream, the product of some hunter further up hill, no trails, animal or man, lead to the stream. She was, it seemed, totally and completely alone.

Something moved downstream. Tani sprung to her feet in a flurry of color, human form fading in a maelstrom of light. Predator! Hunter! Glassbeak! Fears dashed through her head, each nipping at the tails of the next. One was dominant. Run. The light retreated. She tensed her legs, preparing to jump from the rock to the opposite shore, hands stretched before her. Hands. This wasn't right, she was meant to change, to flee! Something wasn't right. A quick glance confirmed what her limbs told her. The shift hadn't taken. She was still crouched atop the rock, weak, vulnerable and irrevocably human. She couldn't run. Not like this, not housed in flesh.

With deliberate slowness she turned towards the shape, legs still crouched beneath her, barely moving. If she could not run... Her lips inched back from a set of blunt, useless, teeth in silent challenge.

OOCHey Xeona, saw the thread and couldn't resist jumping in! I'm not quite sure where you were planning to go with this, so I took a best guess at the tone. Please let me know if I break anything important.

[Xeona]

No one. There was no signs of life where he was. A thought found its way to his mind. This river must lead somewhere. Perhaps to someone or something that could help him. While he followed the stream, the last words from the voice echoed.

No escape.

It increased in strength the further he traveled downstream. Was it trying to keep him from going downstream? He kept going. If it tried to keep him out, there had to be something there that could help him.

Stop trying.

Now he was sure. There was something that could help him. The words were almost painful to hear, they tried to influence him to stop running. It did a really good job on it, to be honest. Eventually, his mind gave after for the words. He stopped trying. The voice had won.

Don't ever try that again.

It sounded quite angry now. Xeona almost became scared of disobeying it again. It left him again, and he just stood there. He couldn't proceed downstream, in fear of what the voice would do. And he refused to go back, thinking he would lose all the progress of escaping.

Looking around for an answer, he saw someone sitting on a rock, not very far away. He was afraid of it just being another illusion, but it was the only thing he had thus far. He screamed out, but the words once again wouldn't form.

She can't hear you.

"Leave me alone!" Xeona was just plain mad at the voice right now. He tried to move towards the woman, but the voice wouldn't let him. His only hope was her noticing him.

Boxcode by Savio

[Tani]

Nothing moved. Tani squinted, scanning the trees for hunters. Any trace of the welcoming nature of the forest had vanished, leaving the trees cold, cramped and unwelcoming. Rows upon rows of foliage stood, cramped together like soldiers on parade. Or gravestones. Tani banished the thought, tracing the trees for the source of the movement, still afraid to move herself.

Only silence greeted her. The woods were dark and oppressive in a way no regular forest should have been. No insects rustled in the undergrowth, no wind whispered through the trees. Despite the gurgling river beneath her, the place felt dead. All of this, she noticed, and the hairs on the back of her neck crept up. Wherever she was, it was not a place she wished to remain.

Slowly, she straightened her spine, muscles still tensed to run. There! A figure, humanoid in shape, lurked among the trees, watching. If it hadn't been for an errant reflection from the stream she would never have seen it. No scent from the figure reached her, but that did not seem unusual in this place. None of her senses seemed to be working as they should have been. It was disconcerting, to doubt her own vision. She blinked twice. First one eye, then the other. Still, the figure did not move.

The soil made no sound as she stepped onto it, bare feet sinking into the damp dirt. Hesitantly, she took a pace toward the figure, feet all but gliding over the ground, moving with the dexterous grace of a predator. Albeit a clawless, dull, predator.

Tani crept alongside a tree she didn't recognise. Ancient, and with a smell that reminded her of a feast bonfire, the goliath easily dwarfed her. By peaking around the trunk she could finally see the figure clearly. A young man, hair shooting up from his skull like clusters of arrows from the hide of some great beast. There was no threat in those eyes, the man looked just as lost as she felt.

Caution tempered any pity she may have felt. Something here was keeping her locked in her human bones, and this man seemed to be the only other living thing in the forest. She stepped out from beneath the tree, unblinking green eyes staring at him, waiting, evaluating. She would see if this strange man would defend his territory, if it was his at all.

[Xeona]

Stop trying to resist. It won't help.

Xeona knew that was false. If he wouldn't have resisted the influence of the voice, there is no telling where he could've ended up. He looked away from the person on the rock to try what he could and couldn't. He could look around, but not move in any direction. Also, he couldn't seem to use his ghostly abilities, not even turn invisible.

When he looked back, the person was gone. He wanted to scream out, thinking that he or she or it was still around. He just ended up with one more thing to his "can't do" list. The voice seemed to enjoy this. It let out a small chuckle, followed by a laughter.

When will you learn? No one will...

And with that, it just disappeared. Xeona couldn't hear it anymore, leaving just him, finally being able to move again. He couldn't seem to turn invisible again, however. He looked around for something out of the ordinary, when he noticed her.

The person from earlier was standing right in front of him now, just looking at him. She was a tall woman, and had green eyes and long hair. Something seemed a bit off about her, but Xeona didn't notice. He was just glad to see someone else here.

Then, his hope turned to fear. Was this woman the one that had been controlling him? Forcing him to be in his most vulnerable form? He was too shocked from the recent events to think clearly, and just starting to accuse her. "Who are you? And why are you doing this to me?" It felt nice, being able to talk again.

Boxcode by Savio

[Tani]

Tani jumped at the sudden noise, harsh to her sensitive hearing, hands balling into fists. It was a long moment before she realized it was the lost man who had spoken. His words were strange, syllables too balanced and even to be a language. It was like listening to wind whistling over grass, too level to pick out individual strands. But, like the wind that warned her of an oncoming storm, it did mean something. If she listened hard enough, she could discern snatches of meaning, pieces of familiarity. Slowly, carefully, like a Strider carrying a youngling, the sounds rearranged themselves in her mind. Meaning was late in coming, but she drew some limited understanding from his words.

Both lost, then. Tani smiled, letting the tension ease from her muscles. Whoever this confusing man was, he was evidently far more lost then her. And, after all, hadn't she made a habit of finding lost things? She reclined against the tree, tapping the bark in thought.

"I've never seen this place before." Hands darted across her chest, tracing the sign for uncertainty. "I don't like it. Nothing's alive here. If I were doing this to you, I would have chosen somewhere sunnier. Somewhere with less water." She eyed the stream again, acutely aware of how close she had come to an unwitting swim.

"Do you hear it too?" The kelvic raised a cupped hand to her ear. Unnecessary, she could hear perfectly well without it, but she was unsure how well the lost man understood Pavi, if he spoke the language at all. Perhaps this place would twist her words, the same way it had his. It didn't matter. What mattered was the sound - or lack thereof. "No noise. No insects. No snakes, no horses. It's wrong." She pivoted, staring at the surrounding forest, half-expecting to see a python twisting through the undergrowth.

[Xeona]

Xeona was pretty shocked to find that he understood this weird language the woman was speaking. It took a little while to figure out the meaning, but he did understand it. Was it like this she heard him as well? It just made him more confused by thinking about it.

If she hadn't been doing this to him, then who was? He hadn't heard the voice in a while, on that note, either. Was it scared of company? Or was it something about this woman that scared it away? Either way, he was relieved to have something else to do besides listening to that haunting voice.

One question remained, however. How were they going to get out of here? The woman seemed just as lost as Xeona did. Not a single clue to follow... Or was it? Something seemed to move, far into the forest. "Hey... what's that over there?" It was only a quick glance Xeona was able to see, and he couldn't remember much about it. But it was something there, that was for sure.

Boxcode by Savio