[IC] Castaway - OC Edition

[BogeyDope]

The shit just hit the fan.

Just moments ago, the plane was airborne. The Pacific Eagle, as it was called by the airliner, was inbound towards Sydney from Seattle, where it was making a specially-contracted flight to Sydney, delivering all sorts of cargo, and carrying quite a few passengers and crew. The plane was above in clear skies, and there were no aircraft in the surrounding area. At least that's what the radar indicated...

With a loud explosion, the plane was suddenly falling out of the sky, and falling apart. It was a horrific crash, a ride down towards the ocean with the cabin pressure seriously lowering. Everyone was given masks, and even as the air was being sucked out through the many gaps starting to appear in the back, it was clear that the plane was losing altitude and altitude fast. Many people were screaming, but the sound of the plane's engines and the air depressurizing boomed over the sounds of the terrified passengers. As the plane made its decent towards the ocean, an island was seen ahead, and the plane slowed down, bracing for a crash landing. And *SLAM!!!* a massive crashing noise sounded as the plane made impact. Nearly breaking apart upon impact, the aircraft continued to slide down along the ground of the island, wings having fallen apart, one of them exploding in the process. The cabin and fuselage was starting to fall apart, but it came to a halt within the forest, with a whole lot of its parts on fire. Everything soon came to rest, and the first nightmare was over.

But the second nightmare has already begun.

The pilots, some of the passengers and some of the crew were already killed in the crash, and all that remained of who was left alive was Daniel, Helena, Mark and Adrienne, who were among the few passengers the plane had onboard. Two crew members also survived, including Sukaina and Darius, Sukaina being the only stewardess onboard the flight and Darius being a cargo handler riding among the passengers. Both Darius and Sukaina led the remaining passengers outside of the plane, and out onto the beach where it was safe, through the woods, before they would try to get back into the plane to save the passengers who they thought were unconscious. It wasn't long before they both returned, the plane having been engulfed in a fire that made it unsafe for anyone to be inside.

Standing along the beach of the island, the island was quite a beautiful scene of nature if it weren't for the fact that a large cargo plane caught on fire, and a both of its burning wings are littering the beach right now. There was a beach and a forest, but the island was quite large on its own. It was becoming obvious that the situation now called for survival, and it required the tenacity, grit and determination of those who survived.

"Alright..." Darius said, looking to the others. "... so I guess it's just us now... huh?" He asked, winded and coughing from the fire he was in recently, his uniform having the wears, tears and ashes from the crash. "... any of you guys alright?" He asked.

"Yeah... I'm fine..." Sukaina, the Stewardess, said. "... thanks." She said softly, nodding.

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

The past half hour, if one could call it that, was a living blur. From the moment things had gone abruptly wrong, they went increasingly worse with gathering speed; the sort of wrong one might know if they were to slide down a long, icy hill. Anything and everything you would or could do in between to slow? Irrelevant. It just came faster, then faster yet. It did not help that the reality at hand returned in the midst of sleep, where in one moment life was surreal and distant, then jarringly unreal but lucid... tangible. They all melted together and only now were the facts settling in, at least for Mark.

The plane had been up in the air, flying with as much ease as one would come to expect of a modern international jetliner. There had been turbulence here and there, the occasional obnoxious person making themselves even more known, but nothing that off. At least not that which was a prelude to the sudden descent and... well, this. The strangest of things Mark could remember was a man who was tall, easily the tallest person he had ever seen in his life. Not that he paid it much mind beyond the time leading up to the plane, but it was a matter of memory. The facts had to start somewhere, after all, right? Short of that, they all had boarded together, most people still having their eyes glued to their phones; hardly any even thanked the attendant checking tickets.

Mark hadn't thanked her either, he gave a nod and a look which for him was satisfactory, but what about the others? It didn't matter, at least not anymore and in the context of trying to "catch his breath" so to speak after the crash, pretty irrelevant. But settling on the plane was about as normal as anything else, too. He could have been first class, there was no lack of means to do so, but he had no reason; he did at least take the seat beside the window, because if anything that was going to be his. In and out for a short time, that's when the sleep came and the dreams too. Stranger than anything else, but even those he forgot the details of now.

The explosion, it was behind him and that was all he knew. At first it was just a dream turned nightmare, but it got too real and by the time Mark had even accepted it as a reality, the plane had hit the treeline from its dying glide and fell away into a lot of pieces. In fact, a portion of this forest was just full of them and the quickly growing black smoke. There wasn't any hesitation in preservation; Mark was not unfamiliar to fight or flight, certainly not one to freeze, and by the moment that metal husk had slid to a halt, he was gone in a clarity that wasn't anything short of pure reaction, one after another. Nothing was about to stop him from surviving, not the smoke, not the fire, not the debris, not the people...

... the last part was mostly what he rationalized now.

There weren't that many people.

Five. Five goddamned people survived.

The sweat clinging to Mark's skin left his white shirt soaked, at least more than the small swathes of blood on it. It was his own, because like a cornered animal he fought himself out of that plane; absolutely nothing got in his way. He was legitimately only here now, rather than wandering toward the beach he and the others were on as it was, because two people had stayed behind and had done their best to, well, mitigate the damage. Not for lack of trying, but only five people were "lucky" - lucky enough to survive a plane crash on an island, be mostly unscathed and left to fight the jungle.

He hadn't bothered yet seeing if anyone was fine. You can't help anyone else if you yourself die in the process, right?

But Mark's thoughts were interrupted as someone at last spoke coherently, or so he noticed at least, finally breaking the chain of continuous events.

"... so I guess it's just us now... huh?"

Mark paused in breath as he came to realize entirely what this meant on another level, the adrenaline fading and harsher realities unfolding more. His eyes shifted to those around him on the sand laden beach then back to the beat-to-hell man in the airline's uniform; Mark shook his head, side to side, still getting to fight internally with everything he did and didn't feel, but at least the distractions were breaking that matter; there were feelings inside him that could not be allowed to manifest. The most he had heard before were people screaming, to hear them talking again after this and so soon... it just felt strange, but Mark wasn't the authority on "normalcy" either. His communication skills were lacking, if one could be polite about it.

"Yeah... I'm fine..." A woman's voice came while Mark looked over his hands, seemingly accounting for the fact he was remarkably unaffected, looking to her only after she continued with a nod and the staggered word, "... thanks."

"This? This is it?" Mark's voice was a bit condemning, certainly not blaming anyone but the plane itself, that much was clear, but there wasn't any doubt that there was disbelief in it.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, the shimmering sun's rays above already working upon the survivors, he set his hands to his thighs, bent over slightly and sighed as he crouched down. Slicking back his dark hair he shook his head side to side, still coping with everything; Mark wasn't uninitiated to this being a possibility, far stranger things had happened, but it was still abrupt. Removing the palm from his head, he looked to the rest, having little more to say.

"Yeah," He mimicked the woman, lacking anything else to say, "I'm fine too."

No one was really fine, just "less worse" right now.

[Xandrya]

Helena

She was a total mess lost in her own thoughts. Some of the other passengers from her flight were claiming that they had been the only ones to survive the plane crash. But what about Alex? Just because he wasn't amongst this small group of people didn't mean he was dead, did it? Maybe he was wandering around through the forest, or maybe he was injured and couldn't get help...

"Shit!"

Helena got up in a rush, her only words to the group being "I'll be right back!" before taking off into the dense wilderness of the forest. The further in she went, the harder it was for her to keep up her current pace, so she slowed down to a jog as she continued to call her brother's name with the hope that he would eventually reply. As she made her way around a tree, she heard a familiar sound.

beep beep beep

"Alex!" Helena pushed aside some of tree branches that were blocking her field of vision, but she stopped dead in her tracks when she saw her brother's lifeless body on the ground mangled with some debris from the plane. Her initial reaction was that of total shock which was followed by a gut-wrenching scream. Helena fell down to her knees, hysterically sobbing and unable to stop her body from shaking. She called out her brother's name over and over again as she attempted to wake him up by administering some mediocre CPR, but his eyes never opened. Unable to tell how many unsuccessful attempts she had made, Helena eventually calmed down and had silent tears running down her cheeks as she laid her head down on her deceased brother's chest, hoping that maybe she would get to wake up from this terrible nightmare.

[AdobeFlash]

Atlas woke up, and immediately vomited up blood. "Christ..what happen-", he sat up, surveying the wreckage he was lodged in. "Well, if this is an alternative for being framed for murder, it's pretty garbage", he said, talking to nobody. He attempted to get out of the mess of debris, barely succeeding before the falling wreck would have crushed him. Beaten and bruised, he saw there were at least 5 others, maybe more, maybe less.

He stumbled towards the group. Had he broken bones? Who knew. He was numb. The effect of the chemical spill hadn't left his body even after 5 years. He had to think back to where it all went wrong, and realized it had been when he pissed off that Phantom Strangler, or whatever he called himself. He had been investigating some random murders, but the ghost found him first. He killed some dude who tried mugging him. Fleeing Seattle, he took a flight to Sydney. The Outback would work. Sure, odds are there were a shitload of spirits roaming for revenge, whether it be prisoners or slain Aboriginals, but it was a risk he was willing to take. He wondered if there was anything particularly violent on the island, human or otherwise.

He finally made it to the group. As he stumbled over, he said,"At least it can't get any worse", before screaming in pain and doub

[Thundercrash]

Warmth. Warmth, brightness, and a pain that was pulsating steadily throughout her body. That was the first set of sensations Adrienne became aware of as she was roused to conciousness. She groaned, or at least she would have if she still had the proper set of vocal cords.

Ugh... What the hell happened? Her memories were fuzzy, and the sand warming her belly scales was pleasantly distracting. I remember... I was at the parlour, finishing up with a client. Some dude who had wanted the exotic package. Then... a box? I was in a box? Ugh, I'm starving, can't think straight. She lifted her head, looking around. Her body felt... weird, not hers. Something was missing. He left, Alice came down, said there was a walk-in. A chick. She came down, and then... oh. Right. She let out an angry hiss. Of course her body felt weird, it wasn't even hers. No arms, no tits, no face, not even eyelids, which was really weird. Alright, steady Adrienne, worry about That later. So, dead bitch used magic, knocked me out, I woke up in a box as a full snake. She twisted around, looking over herself. Well, at least she kept my scale pattern. I think. Ugh, snake eyes are so weird. Okay, next thing. There was a lot of shaking, I was being moved somewhere. Ugh, what is that? Never mind. Where was I taken?

Casting about, she caught sight of a large object gleaming in the sunlight. Is that... a plane? Or at least what's left of one. Memory clicked into place. Wait... yeah. I remember a plane, I remember the engine shaking the box. Bleugh, just thinking about it is making me queasy. So...ugh, fuck that hurts... we crashed, I guess? Owww... this is why I hate flying... ugh... Okay, what the hell is wrong...with...me...oh. Shit.

Shrinking spells are tricky things. When done properly, like the one imprinted into Adrienne's bracelet, the change would happen at a controlled rate and involved a minimum of disorientation as the subject aclimated to their new size and perspective. When done poorly, it was usually both very painful, traumatizing, and nausiating. In both cases, if the spell was improperly dispelled (such as, for example, smashing the box which Adrienne's new shrink spell and the transformation spell were attached to), then the victim would rapidly expand to their original size. This is an extremely painful ordeal, and depending on the size differential and their constitution, could potentially kill the victim from the sheer amount of stress placed on their body. Which was never a pretty sight, as the body literally tore itself apart and exploded.

Fortunately, this is not what happenend to Adrienne. It was, however, excrutiating, and left her very, very, pissed.

Her scream of pain could be heard clear across the beach. As she expanded her torso, or at least what most humans would refer to as her torso, dug a furrow in the sand, while her thrashing tail threw up showers of grit. By the time the transformation was complete, Adrienne was easily the largest four-armed naga the island had ever seen since it had been born. Not to mention probably the only four-armed naga, or naga period, it had ever seen.

For a few seconds, Adrienne laid on her back, chest heaving as she panted, eyes screwed up in pain. Then, she screamed again. "FFFUUUCCCKKK!!!" Slowly, gingerly, she pushed herself up with her lower arms, clasping her head with her upper. "Dammit! I'm gonna kill that fucking bitch!" After a moment, she looked at herself, and a broad smile broke across her face. "Wait... Ha ha! I'm free! HA HA! SUCK IT, BITCH, YOUR SPELLWORK IS SHIT!" Immediately she interlaced both tiers of arms, stretched them out in front of her, and cracked her knuckles. "Ohhh, that feels sooo gooooood."

Planting all four hands in the sand, she began twisting around, cracking the vertebrae in her back. It was a bad habit, she knew, especially for a "masseuse", but fuck if she cared. As she made the second pass on her back, she caught sight of the other survivors, reminding her that she hadn't been the only on the plane. It also reminded her of how hungry she was.

For a moment, she stared at them, and they stared at her. Finally she scowled. "What?"

[AdobeFlash]

Atlas recovered from the pain, not noticing the giant snake person. "Bloody hell. The dead on this island are all screaming. Nobody has died peacefully here.", he coughed, and made the mistake of turning around. The creature loomed.

"Christ! Christ! Wait, you aren't...him. Shit.", Atlas mutters as he runs into the jungle. He trips over roots and vines, and notices a girl mourning. The spirit of whoever she's crying over is nowhere to be seen, probably with the others. He realizes there is safety in numbers, and seems to be cornered. He runs off to the beach, to see what he can do to get off this shithole island.

[Thundercrash]

(reposting this, just so everyone else can have something proper to react to)

Warmth. Warmth, brightness, and a pain that was pulsating steadily throughout her body. That was the first set of sensations Adrienne became aware of as she was roused to conciousness. She groaned, or at least she would have if she still had the proper set of vocal cords.

Ugh... What the hell happened? Her memories were fuzzy, and the sand warming her belly scales was pleasantly distracting. I remember... I was at the parlour, finishing up with a client. Some dude who had wanted the exotic package. Then... a box? I was in a box? Ugh, I'm starving, can't think straight. She lifted her head, looking around. Her body felt... weird, not hers. Something was missing. He left, Alice came down, said there was a walk-in. A chick. She came down, and then... oh. Right. She let out an angry hiss. Of course her body felt weird, it wasn't even hers. No arms, no tits, no face, not even eyelids, which was really weird. Alright, steady Adrienne, worry about That later. So, dead bitch used magic, knocked me out, I woke up in a box as a full snake. She twisted around, looking over herself. Well, at least she kept my scale pattern. I think. Ugh, snake eyes are so weird. Okay, next thing. There was a lot of shaking, I was being moved somewhere. Ugh, what is that? Never mind. Where was I taken?

Casting about, she caught sight of a large object gleaming in the sunlight. Is that... a plane? Or at least what's left of one. Memory clicked into place. Wait... yeah. I remember a plane, I remember the engine shaking the box. Bleugh, just thinking about it is making me queasy. So...ugh, fuck that hurts... we crashed, I guess? Owww... this is why I hate flying... ugh... Okay, what the hell is wrong...with...me...oh. Shit.

Shrinking spells are tricky things. When done properly, like the one imprinted into Adrienne's bracelet, the change would happen at a controlled rate and involved a minimum of disorientation as the subject aclimated to their new size and perspective. When done poorly, it was usually both very painful, traumatizing, and nausiating. In both cases, if the spell was improperly dispelled (such as, for example, smashing the box which Adrienne's new shrink spell and the transformation spell were attached to), then the victim would rapidly expand to their original size. This is an extremely painful ordeal, and depending on the size differential and their constitution, could potentially kill the victim from the sheer amount of stress placed on their body. Which was never a pretty sight, as the body literally tore itself apart and exploded.

Fortunately, this is not what happenend to Adrienne. It was, however, excrutiating, and left her very, very, pissed.

Her scream of pain could be heard clear across the beach. As she expanded her torso, or at least what most humans would refer to as her torso, dug a furrow in the sand, while her thrashing tail threw up showers of grit. By the time the transformation was complete, Adrienne was easily the largest four-armed naga the island had ever seen since it had been born. Not to mention probably the only four-armed naga, or naga period, it had ever seen.

For a few seconds, Adrienne laid on her back, chest heaving as she panted, eyes screwed up in pain. Then, she screamed again. "FFFUUUCCCKKK!!!" Slowly, gingerly, she pushed herself up with her lower arms, clasping her head with her upper. "Dammit! I'm gonna kill that fucking bitch!" After a moment, she looked at herself, and a broad smile broke across her face. "Wait... Ha ha! I'm free! HA HA! SUCK IT, BITCH, YOUR SPELLWORK IS SHIT!" Immediately she interlaced both tiers of arms, stretched them out in front of her, and cracked her knuckles. "Ohhh, that feels sooo gooooood."

Planting all four hands in the sand, she began twisting around, cracking the vertebrae in her back. It was a bad habit, she knew, especially for a "masseuse", but fuck if she cared. As she made the second pass on her back, she caught sight of the other survivors, reminding her that she hadn't been the only on the plane. It also reminded her of how hungry she was.

For a moment, she stared at them, and they stared at her. Finally she scowled. "What?"

[The Harbinger of Ferocity]

@Thundercrash@AdobeFlash@Xandrya, posting may resume, treat the turn of events as following:

---

The ambiance shifted from an air of discomfort to an atmosphere of pause. A long pause, one that seemed to stretch for minutes, maybe hours, but in truth was no longer than some seconds, born witness to by those who were outside the edge of the jungle itself, of which was made up by Atlas, Darius, Sukaina, and Mark, only one other member of whom had withdrawn to the other side of the plane, deeper yet. Unsurprisingly, the dark smoke of the plane's idly burning hulk made things more difficult, as tame as the fire was; content to burn that which it did not consider its own, but in any circumstance, it made vision obscured to those who were no more than a hundred feet away upon the beach.

The sort of scenario where one could have willed it a trick of the eye, an illusion. It would have been easy, too, to disbelieve it then - the figure that was, somewhere between snake and woman. The sound was... what made that impossible. It wasn't human, to say the least, not until it presented a question, accusatory to the people who set eyes upon it.

"What?"

That was this moment, that long pause.

"Is that... a snake-woman?" Darius asked to those nearest, sincere enough in his confusion that he wasn't even sure what he was looking at. Sukaina however, found herself frozen to the point of not breathing, not so much a gasp escaping her lips as she stood where she was almost like a statue.

"Yeah," Mark started in the same pattern before, "Yeah, that is a snake-woman."

Rising back to his full height, his green eyes kept to Darius who was actively disbelieving.