[network] @crescent; to die historic on the furry road [open]

[lancingintherain]

[usually, the worst thing about waking up is remembering how hungry she is. But this morning, as Day 45 breaks cold and overcast as usual, the worst thing about waking up is remembering that last night, her friend got literally eaten by a monster.

She has to warn people. She couldn't save Mami, but maybe she can help others. So once she's mostly talked herself down from numb grief and fear, she turns on her tablet's video function. At first, it's aiming at a wooden tabletop, but she tilts it to show a drawing. For having been drawn last night in the dark in the hazy, panicky aftermath of mortal peril, it's pretty decent:



She clears her throat and starts to speak, her voice low and breaking despite her efforts to keep it steady.]

Four days ago, I was traveling with Alphonse Elric's group. We were attacked by this monster here. [a gray-furred, four-fingered hand moves into the video to tap at the top left of the picture with one sharp claw.] It was... well, if you've seen Alphonse, you know how tall he is. This one was taller. It had... light, instead of skin. Like what we see on the videos, sometimes. I'm not explaining it quite right, but... we got away.

[she swallows, then takes a shaky breath and points to the drawing on the right.]

Mami Tomoe and I—she's a young human girl; some of you have met her—we were on our own, yesterday. This monster attacked us last night. We—I tried to...

[she breaks off, planting her hand flat on the table to stop it from shaking. When she speaks again, her voice is hard.]

...It swallowed her. It ate her whole. That's what they do. Now we know.

[she points to the bottom drawing.]

It said things to me, before it—before it ate her. Spoke right into my head. "I want it"; "I am here"; I wrote down what I could remember. And there's something else. All of the other monsters I've seen have looked, well, they've looked human, or something like it. But this one... oh, it's easiest to just show it.

[the video swings dizzyingly as she picks up the tablet, and she taps on the screen to turn the camera. At once, the view of the tabletop and wall becomes a view of her very inhuman face, framed by her pale, tangled hair and large ears. Her eyes are tired, and her muzzle is streaked with dark, dried blood.]

...It looked like me. Like one of my people. But it... it ran on all fours, like an animal. ...I don't know what any of it means. But one thing's the same—and if anyone who's just arrived is watching this, you'd better listen. [her voice turns cold, and she looks straight into the camera.] If you see a monster, you run, got it? You run away as fast as you can, and get inside, and block the door. There's no fighting them. No fighting them at all.

[OOC: HOT GOLLY DAMN, there are enough threads here to feed a whole village of cute, thread-starved orphans. I'm capping the number of threads where it is. No more replies please, you beautiful people.]

Comments

[deus_ex_phs]

[Kunsel doesn't necessarily know the details of what Freya's referring to, but she's referring to it like something that Zack already knows about. That means that all the things she can remember as things that could have gone wrong for her recently are things that he can rule out. If those rounds of injections had caused anyone's appearance to change, any significant mutations, Zack would probably have heard about it at the time.

So. Freya accepts whatever she looks like as normal in her eyes. Kunsel releases a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. It's not definitive proof, but it's all the proof that they can get, and at some point you have to just trust people. She doesn't sound like she's trying to hide anything, just anxious and uncertain, sick at heart and maybe a little scared.

Besides, just what she is telling them is enough to worry about right now.

He doesn't bother replying through text, giving Zack a mildly exasperated look for turning his audio on, but since it's on now and they're sitting side by side, he might as well just talk.]

Yeah, Zack's here, too. I waved him over because what you're saying hits pretty close to home for us. This isn't the first time we've dealt with monsters that were cloned from someone else. [His voice is sober and serious, even a little bit grim.] The person who got cloned didn't always come out unscathed, either. That's why I asked about your condition.

[Well, that and worrying that she might be a clone, too, but that worry's been laid to rest as well as it can.]

[heroproceeding]

[ Everything Freya mentions... Nothing seems amiss. There's nothing he hasn't heard of before. The beacons... the madness that one night... the injections... and that storm. The hospital, he's heard about from Al... Talked possessions with him. But... although there's fear in her voice, there's also certainty about all this. If something bad had happened... Something they're considering... certainly, she would have been more reluctant to talk about it, right? Unless she's got a pretty good poker face...

Kunsel seems to be satisfied with what she has to say, too. Especially when he starts laying down the real talk. Zack ignores the look he gets. He understands why he's getting it, but this is Freya- his friend. Even if... he never expected to ever befriend a giant rat. At this point though... Well. There's a first for everything? ...So, he can't help but still stare at his tablet incredulously as Kunsel talks to her. But he's listening. Definitely listening. This is important.

And then shortly after Kunsel's finished talking, he tacks on: ] So, you're sure you're okay? They didn't do anything to you at the hospital? [ There's that edge to his voice again. He knows things had gotten really out of hand over there. And while Al had shared some details, he hadn't mentioned Freya's involvement... ]