Zombiedude101

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Ken, Leon@AtomicEmperor Luca@FernStone Layla, Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen Lila@NoriWasHere

---

“I'm already in pain, I have already lost myself…” She said. “I've had nightmarish apparitions follow me my whole life. And no way to protect myself. But…” Her eyes slid over to Alizée. “With a little help…”

Layla

"You don't get it." Frustration bubbled to the surface. Clancy's expression became a glower, crinkled with disgust. She doesn't get it. He realised she probably wouldn't get it, because she was young, terrified and desperate. She hadn't experienced the world that he had come from. To stare down the barrel of perpetual existence, with no end, no ability to grow beyond the base instincts and needs that shackled him.

He was still aware of the shadow that hung over her, but at this moment, with the fog still swirling over and around them, he couldn't discern it from the rest of the white noise. Instead, he let the back and forth continue.

“You're right. You're absolutely right. I have no right to adjoin with her, and I would never force her, or anyone, to adjoin with me.

“But I would never harm her. Connections are not made by harming others.”

Spooky!Alizee

Bullshit. The only 'connection' Clancy had ever understood was not a thing he'd inflict upon anyone. Even if Alizee couldn't realise it, he knew from word of mouth that the connetion between her and the Void Heart had been poisonous at best, a corrupting influence that had taken hold of her at an age where she was too young to know better, or say no.

Considering his own circumstances... it was too close to home to detach himself from it as he might've done with anything else that would've horrifie a normal person.

“Yes… I want this. I want to adjoin with Alizée. Perhaps… With Alizée's help, I can forget about the Void Heart.”

Layla looked over at Alizée. “Only, of course, if that's alright with you, Alizée. I uh, have a lot of baggage.”

Alizée stared for a moment, before her red eyes curled upward in happiness. “We'll be the best of friends, don't you worry.”

-

“Leon's just trying to help… I think it was an accident, but he's injured now. How can we work together as a team if we're always hurting each other?”

-

“You have a serial killer after you, right? I… understand why tensions are so tight among you, and I don't blame you. Death is… a scary experience.

“This serial killer must be the one tormenting you all. I want to help.”

She turned to Clancy. “Even if it's for selfish reasons, I want to prove that I can be better. That I can be a boon in all ways, and not a burden.”

Layla & Alizee

"Whatever. Do what you want. Don't say I didn't warn you. Both of you." His tone was callously dismissive, masking the disappointment and disheartened thoughts gnawing at him.

Even Britney had washed her hands of them, and that was one of the few places where he could say they shared the same sentiment.

Maybe he was unfairly taking the high ground, but if Clancy had been given the choice to inflict any component of his existence on another person in exchange for some relief, he would still have declined. His burden was his to carry alone.

The response from Leon's guest did little to change his opinion on the matter.

"Rousing speech, Husk. We'll refer back when someone gives a fuck... You all speak about consent and caring as if your actions reflect that. Sycamore: You could barely remember the poor girl's Abstraction, yet you deign to decide if one parasite is greater than the other. And then compare her to the likes of Emily G. Reed, or Vashti Nour? Britney's projects? Spare me your talk. You all scream about the Temple, wail, bemoan yourselves as you huddle for warmth...-"

Lelou

That he wasn't alone in expressing disgust at the sheer hubris of Leon's passenger gave him some small comfort, although that quickly evaporated upon seeing the disgust manifest in the form of the Rot bubbling to the surface, Luca's anger manifesting in the corrosive, hateful wroth inflicted upon Leon's arm. Equally, he felt some relief as the skinny latino boy managed to push it back down, with a little help from Kenshiro.

When the fire had died down, Clancy leaned in, his voice lowered enough that only Leon and his passenger were guaranteed to hear it. A seething, cold hatred gazed past the shadows of Leon's consciousness, his attention directed at her.

"Maybe they'll find out how long a parasite can last when she doesn't have a host to piggyback off. Don't try me."

The silence that followed impied neither disdain nor acknowledgement. If the host heard it, he hadn't acknowledged the warning. It may as well have been an empty scowl. But, in the periphery of his vision, Clancy caught the vague outline of a single, central digit being displayed in his direction through the dissipating fog, a contemptuous chortle whistling back at him.

Fuck you too, he made an educated guess what her answer would've been.

At least he could admit to himself what he was. It wasn't an empty threat, if he was being honest with himself - there was some intent behind it.

Leon alone was a big man, and bigger still in the monster movie outfit. But Clancy had lost his fear of big things a long time ago. Assholes with bats, knives, guns. The nazi with the axe had been big, too. The hitwoman had been a tiny thing by comparison. In some respects, that made him an acceptable target, and he was not certain whether he should have felt guilty for even entertaining on the thought.

On one hand, perhaps Leon was another victim of something he couldn't control anymore - as Luca had suffered with the Rot. But he'd just seen no less than two examples of a victim that had enabled and perpetuated the problem, giving in to what the monster wanted.

Alizee and Layla were not-so-living proof of that now, much to his disdain.

If Leon was going to enable more of the same behaviour, he was no better than them. And that made it easier to accept the idea of stopping things there and then, whatever that meant.Feral instincts aside.

It was the kind of thing Clancy could not willingly allow. It was a violation of every boundary he'd set for himself, and unlike the other monsters, he was still Clancy Patrick, enough to control himself. No matter what. It was perhaps one of the only anchors he could cling to in his perpetual existence.

"Just absorb who'll come, Ruby. Let the chaff blow into the wind..."
Back to Layla and Alizée, Leon nodded his head toward the exit.
"Come, you two. They don't want freaks like us."

Leon

"At least you can choose not to act like one." More of that unfiltered bitterness seeped out of him, like raw sewage overflowing from a manhole.

But he realised at this point they had all again become sidetracked, himself included and playing a part in the distraction. This meeting had been, yet again, a disaster. The bird-girl, Lila had a point. Ashley's group simply weren't meant to outlast their original purpose, stopping the snake. Splitting off seemed the better approach for now, until they had a common purpose that could be achieved - stopping the murderer.

Right now, in this moment? Clancy found himself standing with Luca and Kenshiro.

One of them seemed to understand his particulars better than the rest - and had taken a beating in the process, while the other at least had more common sense than most there. Neither of them had acted like idiot teenagers and brought petty arguments into the situation, and in each instance there was an element of duty in what they were doing . They understood loss, and they were willing to take responsibility.

And Luca looked as though he could use an extra hand. While he claimed he was fine to Kenshiro, Clancy could tell he was not. "Prefer being around not-assholes. You could use extra pair of hands anyway. It can't hurt me, remember?"

Clancy's voice was hushed, but there was a faint, concealed sincerity to his comment as he not-so-subtly informed the two of them that he was there. even he came across bluntly. And in truth, he felt he owed the skinny latino for the helping hand earlier.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Britney @Shin Ghost Note Ken, Leon@AtomicEmperor Linqian, Luca@FernStone Layla, Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen Lila@NoriWasHere

---

“Brother, he is my source, my strength. I have to maintain my good word. Surely he isn't the villain you make him out to be?”

Alizee

Brother. The word agitated him, and not just because he saw no familial connection between them. He had been a brother, but those days were done. Seeing the phrase come from her was salt in a wound that was unlikely to heal in his case.

"I'm not-.." -your brother, Clancy almost snapped, "Anything like it is playing with you. It doesn't think on human terms. It doesn't care. It can't care. It just takes what it wants." There was conviction in every word when it came to the 'Void Heart'. He understood the kind of horror and pain entities like that inflicted.

The implication was that they ere two sides of the same coin.

Were they? Maybe.

She was a representation of everything he had come to loathe in himself. No rules. No self-control. Following whatever instinct came to her without questioning it.

Once, he'd felt bad for her. Now, there was a part of him coming to hate what he saw. It didn't help that she readily dove back into pleading for the Void Heart the moment the prospect of his return came up, breaking the very terms she'd agreed to.

We can't be trusted, he understood, because by nature they were driven by impulses that weren't rational to the human mind.

Outside his periphery, the larger man, Leon, had begun speaking in tongues with a discordant voice not unlike when Clancy's own voice was overlapped by the guttural feral presence pressing at the edge of his mind. But while he still spoke with his own consciousness, Leon spoke with a woman's voice. Vague phrases in French that he barely understood - he'd only barely followed his old man trading war stories over a few beers, and joking about each other's failed attempts at seducing the local mademoiselles.

He understood the phrase 'sister' and recognised Layla's name being called out. That was it. Moreso, he recognised that Leon had shifted into an equally inhuman guise, not unlike that of a movie monster. Wolfman? At this stage, it was far from the strangest thing he'd seen today. And far from the worst he'd experienced, in light of being the closest he'd felt to a living death less than an hour ago.

He observed Kenshiro giving him the side-eye, as though he was looking for help. Advice?

From his own experience, this situation, being altered made one forget who they were, and other instincts took control of the driver's seat.

"Remind him who he is," Clancy spoke back with a hushed tone, "You know him, right?" He might not have known Leon, but the others had. Maybe they could put sense in, if they stopped fighting and shouting. The lack of focus on the important things was gnawing at the bar set for how agitated he could get.

Except things got worse, and the lady immersed the three of them - her host, Layla and the spectral Alizee - in a thick, almost blinding fog.

"If anyone dares lay a finger upon this Soul, or the Body meant for her; I will be their retribution."

Leon/Lelou

"Body meant for her?!" Clancy growled, incensed at this thing trying to steer the girl "It's not happening. There's enough monsters here." He looked at Britney, and some of the others, "You might not trust me, but you know I'm right, here."

Even if they were idiots.

Some of them, anyway.

"Listen!" Clancy shouted back, marching towards the fog. By this stage, his body had almost wholly reformed. The only thing left was the singular, empty eyesocket that had yet to reform its icy orb.

With the tattered clothes that exposed most of his pale, icy body, save for his intimate components, he looked the part of someone had had been through the grinder.

"Look at the others here. This isn't what you want. Emily Reed, that Prom Queen and her pets all started from being sold to or made into monsters by assholes who thought they knew better." For a moment, Britney would've caught his cold gaze seething at her, but he continued, "And bird lady," gesturing towards Lila, "Luca, and the French Gir-.. Alizee, before she turned into that!"

The silence didn't seem to be making headway. He pushed forward. "Look at me. I never wanted this, can't die, just starving, tearing and I've outlived everything that mattered and I have nothing left. Being like this is pain. You'll lose yourself, and there won't be anything left. Like I said before, you still have a life." It was almost pleading, and the truth was he was projecting the thoughts he wished he could've projected onto himself, for making the mistake of taking a wrong turn all that time ago.

"We don't have time for this while you're being stabbed in the back by the serial killer, so stop wasting time. If there's anything left of you, Alizee, don't do this to her. Your... friends, said you were suffering. End it. Control yourself. Be better."

Clancy stepped forward, into the fog.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Britney @Shin Ghost Note Ken@AtomicEmperor Linqian, Luca@FernStone Spooky!Alizee@Estylwen

---

Clancy's initial instinct with Kenshiro had been to expect another verbal beating after reinserting himself into the situation - distracting him from the fact that Layla had been wholly ushered away at this stage. The man had seemed exacerbated at the stupidity of the group and their apparently failure to appreciate what they'd lost. Instead?

He caught a flash of teeth. A warning?

No, a grin.

"High sentiment for a ghost wearing a corpse."

Kenshiro

The blunt comment was refreshing, if nothing else.

If it was functionally possible, he'd have loosed an amused snort of his own. Instead, he repaid the gesture by not immediately recoiling at the unprompted physical contact. Sully's elixir had sufficienty muted some of his worse instincts for a period, even if it hadn't done anything to accelerate the reformation of his body.

The swordsman might have felt the boy bristle at his touch, his shoulder icy-cool to the touch.

"If I remember correctly, there are assholes with my Girlfriend's notes out there. Important fucking notes. Important fucking assholes. If it makes you Greenwood people feel safe? I'll gladly lend myself to hunting for some other artifacts associated with you... Murakin Kenshiro; you call me Ken. I'm sorry for... Well, assuming you had shot our friend here."

Kenshiro

Clancy again found himself surprised a moment later by that final comment, adding a "Definitely wasn't her."

To be called a friend had higher meaning for him than Kenshiro probably could've known

There wasn't much time to ruminate on it, however. A tear opened up before them, behind the disappearing man, and then an atrophied hand reached out to grab his collar.

Then, the rest of her emerged.

The girl was in chains, spectral, fractured. She wasn't whole much as in the same way he understood he wasn't whole. But what more, he recognised her within a matter of seconds, and realised he wasn't the only ghost in the room anymore.

There was no mistaking it.

When he'd last seen her, in the flesh with the parasite, the presence had stood out to him apart from the rest. After all, predators usually could recognise one another when skulking in the same woods.

Except there was no parasite this time.

Just the French Girl.

And this time, she'd became a monster herself, or something close to it. The chains, which seemed to act as extensions of her as they snaked out towards the others, all but confirmed it to him.

No. It was not a fate he'd have chosen, to come back like this with all that he'd known now.

The others hadn't recognised it, or refused to. But it was definitely her, reeked just the same they had the night outside the strip club.

Things moved fast.

The blinding light erupting from some of the others wasn't much incentive to throw in, but he took a step forward, positioning himself somewhere between Kenshiro, Luca and the new Alizee, but not making a move further. His singular eye - the other barely yet to reform - remained fixed on the chains, wary they might close on the others.

Thanks to Sloane and Linquian, that never happened, and she surrendered of all things, withdrawing her appendages to her person.

If he had a heart, it would've quickly sunk. She explained herself to Jack - in a language he couldn't follow - and then he realised that it was the parasite she was looking for. That her sense of identity had been so fractured that she had the name, the face, but not much else.

Shades of everything else.

”... You are Alizee, but at the same time, you're not Alizee. You're not our Alizee. Alizee Alteri was shot to death by the Wolfpack, then the Hound took what he needed, and the leftover consciousness, psyche, and memories, formed an entirely new being and, well... became you.”

Britney

Britney's rationalisation had perhaps made the most sense to him, in a way that cut almost as much as the hitwoman's shells had taken chunks out of him.

He vaguely remember waking up to this. But unlike her, he remembered almost everything. A childhood. Friends, family. Barbecues with Dad and Uncle Gerry. Nearly falling into a ditch when Frank took them racing down the trail on his Indian Scout. Judy and her bird feathers.

And the absence of it all, which hurt in a way that couldn't be described in words.

”You’re not a person.”

Luca

Luca's comment had caught him the most off-guard, although he understood it. The skinny boy had been more victim than predator in the relationship with his parasite,

Clancy wondered if that description could've been ascribed to him. He wasn't human anymore, that much was clear.

At this point, was he Clancy anymore?

Or was he just the memories he retained, wrapped up in the facade of the boy that had been.

Like the hitwoman had said, he was functionally a corpse in either case, and regardless he had no intention of letting her follow the same path he'd been dragged down. Maybe there was some sense.

"Trust me. You don't want this, whatever you're looking for in that parasite isn't worth it." If he'd had a chance to get her alone, before she died, he'd have told her as much then. Now? "You'll never stop wanting and you'll hate every moment you continue existing. You want purpose? Don't make this harder. Put the chains away. You don't have time for this."

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

House on the Hill
@Estylwen@Shin Ghost Note

---

For a little while, Clancy let Ruby run through her introduction, her agenda and the usual spiel.

She shook her head before she continued. "Lyric Brown and Felicia Harvey were murdered by the Das Sonnenrad cult and robbed of their artifacts. Lyric herself was an artificer, and we've been trying to track down her artifacts because hell if we're going to let some skinheads use her hard work to commit hate crimes."

"So, if you can help us find those, then that'd be great—but I don't want to seem like we're doing this for something in return."

@Shin Ghost Note

Skinheads. Nazis. Clancy had no shortage of enmity for their type. Assholes through and through, and his family had a painful history with them of which he'd only teased out in snippets over time.

The name Das Sonnenrad vaguely rang a bell, but only from local stories. Weren't they all supposed to be dead?

That thought was dispelled shortly.

"... You're a kid,I don't know what they told you, but did you forget that you walked up, got capped by that Wolfpack bitch, and caused that absolute fuckin' pandemonium? You're not doing anything. Sit your ass down."

@Shin Ghost Note

This again. He'd spent enough time being more this than putting up the facade of the harmless kid with hands-off parents, that he'd nearly forgotten how unconvincing he was.

She had a point, but only in that he had been shot. He hadn't trashed the nightclub, hadn't wanted to be seen, hadn't asked the bikers to try and murder a regular kid for all they knew.

I didn't ask to be shot. Assholes do what they do. And I'm still around, aren't I? Quietly, he bristled with a silent irritation. If she knew what he'd managed outside of town, she might have been a little less dismissive. As it was, he kept his thoughts to himself.

At least he could respect that they seemed to have good intentions, that they wanted to deal with the assholes and the monsters out there. Depending on their interpretation of both, in different times they might've found him, or vice versa.

We'll see.

“Naomi said it herself. Alizée was getting ready to leave. She knew Alizée was easy to anger, she knew Wolfpack was on the way. She knew everyone needed to leave, else suffer. And what did she do?!”

“It's her fault Alizée is dead. Naomi goes, or I refuse to acknowledge this alliance.”

@Estylwen

Clancy was decidedly unimpressed by the host-girl's argument for railing against the Greenwood people, all things considered. Fair, they weren't people he knew, but the reason for railing against them didn't even make sense. The bikers shot the French girl, not anyone else.

Linqian's suggestion of mind drugging her seemed like a sensible argument given the stakes they were facing. Jack, the disappearing man, also had the right of it - it wasn't the Greenwood people who tried to murder people, insofsr as he could remember. The bikers were busy enough with that job, even if they sucked at it.

He wondered what stake the white-haired girl had in things to be throwing out random recordings. Had she been following them the whole time?

Eventually, the agitation at the day's events had stacked enough that he had to speak his mind.

"Idiots," Clancy growled. "You're arguing while more than one asshole is out to here to kill some of you. And me, I guess. Good luck to them there."

He pivoted at Layla, jaw set tight as he shot her a cold glare with the singular eye.

"The French girl let that parasite try and eat their friend, from what I'm hearing. They didn't shoot her. If you want to blame anyone... shooting started because I make a good target. So maybe that's on the assholes who tried shooting me. Or maybe it's just me you gotta blame for not scaring. It's shitty, but you know what? There's a mountain of names I don't even remember anymore... it's just a drop in the bucket."

The memory of that cold, entropic embodiment of predatory contempt that had taunted him only added fuel to the fire, the more he thought about it. That it had seen him as something amusing when he wanted nothing more than to be far away from some monster'us plaything.

"You and the French girl... Alizee? You were being played, and you're getting weepy over some parasite that fed on people, no rules, no limits... I get it - it sucks, because I know what it's like to be alone and stuck that way, always cold and starving." To emphasise the point, he jabbed a finger at the as-of-yet empty eyesocket and the black void contained within. "Nobody asks for it. But at least you got away from that, you still have a life... until this wolf asshole sticks you in the back and you waste it-.."

He was about to say more, but Adora - Adoras? He hadn't noticed that before - all three of her had stepped in, and he could see she was trying to defuse things before it descended into another pissing match over stupid high school grudges. Given how fair she'd been with him earlier, he felt a need to try and give some credit where it was due, and not worsen that.

He shot her a knowing look as the door clapped behind them.

"-..be angry, but deal with the assholes first.."

That much he said to the rest of them, still left in the room.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

House on the Hill
@NoriWasHere@FernStone@Blizz@Shin Ghost Note

---

Greenwood?

Clancy had almost missed their arrival, in the throes of pain. And they'd come bearing pizza.

The sight briefly invoked a memory from long ago, being taken to some pizza parlour on a stop in Chicago when he was a little younger than he'd been, but that quickly soured as he realised he'd all-but-forgotten the taste of it, much as he had with most other things.

Now? The thought of that invoked memories of the slice of cold hawaian pizza he'd left moldering in the motel room, a few weeks back. Thinking of the man who'd purchased it, and his intentions for that first night in town, had left him with a bitter impression.

Clancy's attention, for a moment, shifted back to Luca. There was a genuine guilt that one of the few people he could verify as both alright and trusting of him had been hurt, as a consequence of trying to help him - a relative stranger, a monster who had seen and done things that most people of his youthful visage did not.

”Well, you’re alive and in one piece now,” he noted. ”That’s the important thing, isn’t it? You might want to keep close to some of us for the time being. Just in case this woman wants to finish the job.”

@Blizz

Stormy's choice of words made him almost chuckle at the irony, but he only offered a muted answer.

"Sure."

As for the others, they were still watching him with wary apprehension, or preoccupied watching each other. That much he was conscious of - he got the impression of bad blood between them. Could he blame them?

Not really.

“There's more than Father Wolf and 8th Street after you people…”

@Estylwen

Somehow, the white-haired girl - Luna - had managed to elicit a bitter chuckle from him. "Some more than others." That he was on the shitlist of someone who had the ability to inflict the sheer damage and pain that they had to him

Anya seemed to quickly shut down any further conversation on that topic, strangely so. The abrupt nature of her comment further cemented the impression he had that there was bad blood that he wasn't too clear on. Ashley had only given him broad strokes, and he hadn't probed past that. It wasn't like there was an encyclopedia on these people and their problems.

When he was introduced by name to the Greenwood people, he offered them a shrug from his hunched position against the wall - it probably did him no favour, given that his left shoulder was far from okay, still little more than a shadowy, skeletal outline that contrasted with the reforming patches of pale white skin creeping inwards from the rest of his battered body, like spilt paint spreading across a canvas.

This Ruby White introduced herself and her friends. Then, he felt their 'healer' Kashmira speak in some strange language before a green wave washed over those in the close vicinity. Something about it felt familiar, invoking memories of a trashed parking lot he'd barely heard out on hs travels, before a certain familiar, green irridescence washed over him without any clear effect - still tattered, still skeletal in patches. It felt warm, which was strange, because warmth was something he almost never felt unless he ate.

And the hunger far outlasted any brief release he might experience.

That also reminded him; hos shirt and pants were ruined, which had meant another trip to the store with some other wallet he'd swiped.

It was hard to go out and buy clothes when you looked like you'd fell through a woodchipper, even if you eventually recovered from it. Naked and underclothes children attracted attention, particularly in a time where phone, dashboard and surveillance cameras were all the rage.

This used to be so easy.

To distract his mind from the frustration at that fact, he turned his attention back to the Greenwood people. Their naming conventions were... unconventional to say the least. Maybe it was something about the almost sing-songy nature that reminded him of a dumb fairy tale, like one of the Disney showings he'd been taken to at the movie theater when he was just a little younger than he was.

"And I'm Peter Pan," was his response to that, before he shifted to business, "I don't know you people, and you won't know me... this coven stuff is all new to me, but I've taken care of myself long enough to know there's other stuff out there, so I can guess you're here for the right reasons? Not to be assholes?"

"I want the asshole who killed Ashley. I can’t rule out that it someone who knew her and everyone else in this room that dealt with the snake years ago. That's the common lead. But while I'm at it, there's some people here that she probably cared about. And 8th Street... that prom queen who runs them is a problem, and she obviously doesn't give a shit who or what she steps on, like uh-"

Clancy shot Lila a glance, then parted the fingers of one hand to make a wing-flapping gesture "-bird-lady here. And I'm still not convinced she isn't part of it, or knows more than she's telling about the murders. The others are assholes," then, for a moment, he shot Luca a glance, "Mostly assholes," Clancy corrected, "But it's just her and a couple others making the asshole decisions, right? Emily. That Vashdee or whatever. The rest are people who just think they want to be her, or think she can help with their problems."

His contempt for Emily Reed was written on his face, a crinkled expression rendered even more grotesque by the fact he was still missing a quarter of his face, where his eyesocket and the corner of his jaw had yet to reform, leaving a dark, empty pit in their absence.

If any of his family were left, he doubted they'd have approved. But they weren't here, because the world wasn't fair, and so he'd even things out his way if he had to.

Because he had to.

"What do you need to get them alone, so they can be taken apart one-by-one?"

The phrase he was looking for was decapitation. A decapitating strike, to take the head off the snake.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Everyone ft. Layla Adora, Sully, Luca & Stormy@Atrophy@FernStone@Estylwen@Shin Ghost Note
House on the Hill

---

They watched him apprehensively. A feral creature. A monster in their midst.

He didn't blame them for the sour expression on their faces, lr even their readiness for a fight. This was what he was, beneath the facade of humanity that he'd been left with so long ago.

No breath, no heartbeat, no blood flow, no scent, you’re functionally a walking corpse.

The woman had been right, on all accounts, and that had somehow got to him. Made him stupid. And now he'd been hurt in a sense he hadn't understood for years, and dependent on these people to help him, if they could.

Assuming they were even willing to help him, or actually knew what to do.

The crystalline shard lodged in his chest - every second it bedded there was like a hot iron, except instead of searing away the nerves and sending him into shock it only amped up. Each pulse felt like an electrical surge seizing his body.

Getting across the block had been torturous enough. Doing it while damaged had only made it worse, the crystal's presence had made every movement a new agony, where every second spent under direct sunlight felt like a stream of acid and saltwater were being poured on the webwork of non-existent nerve endings that covered every inch of exposed self.

And now he was dependent on them to figure it out, and take a chance that he wasn't sure he'd have taken in their shoes.

The skinny latino approached, pushed the host-girl out of the way, then after a moment's... hesitation? Clancy couldn't be certain, save that he pressed on anyway.

"N-n..."ot you. The words wouldn't come, but he knew Luca was putting himself at risk by pulling it out, knew that if it was doing this to him it would do worse to someome who, as far as he could tell, was barely held together.

He felt the blinding agony recede as Luca's fingers and palm enclosed around the short length of crystal that jutted out from his body, the rotting overlapping and enveloping the shard's corrosive influence. Felt his self pushing back against whatever force it harboured, that had brought him to a low...

Unti it was gone - replaced by the poison that infected Luca and now leechijg into him as the boy nearly collapsed atop his tattered body - but nonetheless the pain had stopped.

The others intervened. Stormy produced something that didn't burn at him, while Sully moved Luca off to somewhere safe, then moved to try and help him, chalice in hand, despite the dying boy needing the help more-

"Help hrmh-"

Sully didn't hear him protest or flinch at him being cold to the touch, but he felt the elixir run down the half of his mouth that was still intact, while the rest dribbled down his cheek and into the shadowy, yawning chasm that encompassed his real face.

What was it supposed to taste of?

He wasn't sure.

It had been so long. Food and drink offered no joy for him, nor sustenance. Eating a chocolate bar tasted no different to eating a wet block of clay. A soda pop the same as oil, or muddy water.

Pointless.

And yet the elixir still tasted like something different, lingering at the edge of his memory, as though it should have worked, even if it hadn't.

That it didn't just taste of the sludgy, grainy nothingness he was used to bothered him, because it was a reminder of all that he was and would never be again. That, like the woman had said, he was functionally a corpse, a monster that had taken the face and memories of Clancy Patrick.

Moments later, he spewed up more of the shadow-bile, except this time when the black sludge dissipated it left behind a faint port-wine spatter courtesy of Sully's elixir, with hard specks of lead pellets scattered in the same mess.

After they'd cleared back to give him some space, he groggily pulled himself towards the same wall Luca was propped up against, his one remaining eye fixated on the person who'd taken the risk to help him.

"Thank you." It was an earnest acknowledgement of the sheer ordeal he'd gone through to help him, fully cogniscient of the risk. Clancy had realised at the cabin and ice cream parlour, just how bad his situation was, and that Ashley had tried to help him before.

Hopefully the others could fix him.

Slowly, his features were... prepared to reform. It wasn't an instant process by any means, and the crystal had wrought its work long enough that the damage almost felt lasting, even if the pain was gone. Instead, they'd be forced to

Stormy had asked him a question. Who did this to him?

"I don't know," Clancy answered, "It was some col-.. black woman, trenchcoat, body armour... armed heavy," he pointed two fingers at himself and made a swirling motion. "Tall, but... stronger than she should be. First time I've run into anything that could hurt me like that... and I've tried. Some of you know that already." Briefly, he shot the wary Adora an equally wary look, before moving on.

"She wanted to know why I went after the 'old man'. I think she was talking about someone I tailed... black, has a suit and cane, white hair, weird accent. Shayton. Worked with the bikers, then killed that asshole Judas, back at the club. For his bosses. Same creeps those bikers were working with, maybe, I don't... I thought maybe oneof them killed Ashley, and your friends too. Shayton said both he and his bosses had nothing to do with the murders, said he'd kill Father Wolf himself. 'Bad for business'. But he got away before I got real answers, back at that stupid Halloween thing where you were partying."

Clancy shifted his weight back, then turned his head to one side so as to spare the others seeing the damaged half of his face, and the black maw that had been exposed in its place. To hide it, because the experience had left him feeling more self-conscious than he should've been.

"She wanted me, didn't mention anyone else. I told her to get bent. Go figure."

And for now, the gnawing voice of hunger at the back of his mind had been quietened. The elixir had... dulled it for now.

That much was a relief, given present company. They were, for now, safe from that.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Strip Mall Outskirts

---

It was still a few blocks before he’d be able to cross and reach the bar, but at least he’d gained sight of it for a moment crossing the parking lot. Clancy took a detour, spotting an alleyway divided by a chainlink fence running between the two buildings that formed it. Easy enough. Planting one foot against the pipework, he pushed himself off a wall fung and leapt for the midsection of the chainlink, tearing a handhold in a weaker section of the mesh, then pulled his small frame further up still until he could vault over the top.

When he dropped down to the other side, she was there.

---

Body & Blood

---

Shaquita Walker.

Wearing a black trench coat, halfway unzipped to reveal a full body armor with several grenades and flashbangs and an ammo pouch hanging off the rig. She had on black cargo pants with some combat boots. In both of her hands was a frightening KS-23, and she stared at Clancy.

“... No breath, no heartbeat, no blood flow, no scent, you’re functionally a walking corpse,” Shaquita noted out loud. “Why are you harassing the old man? I know he’s annoying…” Shaquita menacingly racked the first shell…

To his credit, the kid threw up his arms, backing up against the chainlink, stuttering out an answer as best as he could.

”Lady, I don't know you or what you're talking about, b-but m-my dad's waiting around the corner for me.”

“Well, you can introduce me to him,” Shaquita snorted. “I’d love to meet the father of the corpse of the poor kid you’re parading around, Apparition.”

That provoked a scowl from the boy, ”Yeah, well he'd tell you to get bent too, lady. Still wanna meet him?”

“Confirmed. So…” Shaquita said, “... I have a nice car with some ice cream. You’re getting into it, and we’re rolling to one of our labs...”

”Is it a white van, too? I was taught not to walk off with strangers.”

Shaquita leveled the shotgun at him-

“... I wasn’t asking.”

-and pulled the trigger, losing a 6-gauge shell that sheared through Clancy's upper torso like tissue paper. The shot produced a thunderclap rippled through the alleyway, startling the pigeons nestled in the guttering overhead.

Shaquita didn't hesitate to work the action, racking another shell as her target crumpled into the fence behind him. Immediately, the damage was apparent: from shoulder to sternum, his shirt had been reduced to tattered shreds, the sections of pale white flesh beneath In equal ruin to expose an emaciated, skeletal shadow that seemed to form his inner anatomy.

That he wasn't twitching on the floor, dying of shock and blood loss, was all but the final confirmation she'd needed.

Clancy's fingers dug into the chainlink behind him, clenching hard enough that the links broke free and twisted, tearing away a section of the fencing and throwing it pulled hard, swinging the torn section of fencing in a curve towards the woman like a discuss.

However, the woman backpedaled as quickly as the kid could throw the fencing. Keeping a calm head, she braced the shotgun into her arm, squeezed off a second shell, racked another, fired, racked another, fired - a barrage which literally blew out the kid's footing dropped him to his hands and knees.

Shaquita used the window to stand her ground, tugging another trio of shells from the carrier, quickly feeding them into the shotgun's magazine, racking the last shell, then reaching back to draw another for good measure. Just as she was ready to insert the fourth, Clancy had haphazardly pulled himself back to moving on all fours, lashing out at her footing with gnarled, shadowy digits, only for her to gracefully backstep out of arm's reach before emptying a shell near-point into the boy's head.

The damage was enough that the facade that made up scalp, hairline, eye and cheekbone had been torn away in an instant. Half of Clancy's face gone, peeled back to expose the emaciated, featureless silhouette of a skull, marked only by the inhuman maw that crept outward from where the boy’s mouth had been.

That was enough to put him down, if only for a moment; she used it to load another shell as a husking growl slipped through his half-lips, ”Who sent.. not sent by Nazis… obviously..” The connection was half forming when he lashed out again, jabbing the black, angular shadow that constituted a foot into a nearby trash bin and kicking it into her path. Shaquita stepped forward and violently swung her fist at the trashcan and knocked it aside as the boy drove himself back to footing.

Clancy pressed towards with a feral persistence, this time driving a palm upwards into the underside of the shotgun and clamping his fingers around the barrel, steering it upwards as she tried to lose another shell into him. Narrowly, it missed the remaining half of his face and instead managed to ruin the side of a dumpster and part of the brickwork next to them.

”You'll tell me who-” Shaquita didn't mince words, leveraging her weight to bash Clancy with the other end of the gun, slamming the grip into the black, featureless shadow that made up half of his face with such force that he was surprised to find she could throw down strength for strength. They grappled, he again tugging at the barrel, on the backfoot at how strong she was for someone that seemed-

White hot agony. A blinding light.

-Clancy felt what could only be described as the worst pain he'd ever experienced in all memory, a hot knife that seared at his very being.

He looked down, and realised too late - she'd used the moment as a distraction, tuggee what looked like a pulsing, crystalline shard from her pouch and drove it deep into what should've been his sternum, enough that the tip was barely an inch out of him.

He did not breathe, but he felt his chest tightening, non-existent lungs clamouring for air. For the first time in years, he felt it, like the instinct of panic that set in when one was at the bottom of a lake and drowning.

Desperation.

Still he clutched at the shotgun… and this time, Shaquita's strength overpowered his own, enough to steer the bore of the weapon back towards him and empty a shell at point-blank range through the side of his head, this time tearing away more than just the facade of flesh and scalp. Pain, and a blinding disorientation washed over him as he felt his frame buckle out.

That was when Shaquita unloaded round after round into Clancy… Once the mag was dumped, Shaquita reached for another crystal…

Sirens wailed over in the distance. The cacophany of gunfire and trash being overturned had caught up to them. At the other side of the fence, or what remained of it, a pauchy man in SPPD uniform had shoen up, pistol pointed ahead at Shaquita, another uniform in tow.

”On the gr-!”

They couldn't even finish the sentence before both spontaneously seized up and collapsed, courtesy of a fatal heart attack. Shaquita walked over to their dead bodies, knelt down, and crushed their bodycams underfoot. Then she stood up, pivoting to Clancy…

… and the boy was gone.

---

The House on the Hill

---

Ambience

The door burst open.

The tattered form of Clancy Patrick, barely standing, staggered through, a half-feral expression on the remaining third of his face as he collapsed against the wall, barely propped up by a shadowy arm that bedded its sharp digits into the decor.

There was little doubt that he wasn't a normal child. Not anymore.

His face was half-gone, bearing only his right eye, the corner of his jaw and a portion of his scalp to betray his identity as the boy Clancy had claimed he was. The rest of his head could only be described as a third-dimensional shadow outlining a skull, featureless save for the angular impression of an inhumanly large mouth.

The rest of him was worse for wear; shoes, shirt and the lower half of his khaki pants were shredded, as though someone had run them through a blender, the skin beneath giving way to more of the skeletal shadow that outlined his body.

And buried in the center of his chest, a pulsating, crystalline shard. He briefly touched at it with the hand that still bore flesh, only for his fingers to spasm and seize up as his fingertips grazed its surface and another rumble of discomfort to escape out his lips, and then an almost viscious mass of oily shadow spewed forth as he coughed up something foreign.

The shadow withered on the floor and dissipated, leaving only a cluster of lead pellets behind. A parting gift from the hitwoman.

Whatever it was, the crystal was doubtless the cause of his troubles, every move eliciting an agonised murmur, until he again collapsed against the wall, slinking away from the loght bleeding in from the outside.

For all the inhumanity of his appearance, the voice that spoke - guttural and resonant as It was - was at a pleading desperation.

”I… help me.”

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

Midwestern Retirement Home

---

Ambience

Then. A while ago

The stench of history, mediocrity and fatigue struck him as he was led through the weaving corridors of the retirement home - until he came to a stop outside a half-opened door with the digits '404'

"Your grandson says he's here to see you, Mister Patrick." One of the aides had escorted him to a bedroom and knocked, unscheduled. The standards weren't so strict for the time.

"Grandson? I don't-..." a voice answered back, then paused, "Hruh... send 'em in, give us a little privacy and get yourself a coffee."

Clancy stepped inside the room, leaving the aide to wander off to other duties. The room was spartan, by the standards of the man he'd known. A battery operated radio sat on a table, playing some smooth R&B track from a local station in the background. On the dresser at the far side were a set of framed photos, all monochrome. One contained a woman that seemed familiar, albeit a good ways older than he'd remembered. Aunt Nora maybe, he guessed? Other photos ranged from a pose with other uniformed marines on some beach out where the weather was tropical compared to the midwest, to family photos containing facesthat were all too familiar to him.

Mom. Dad. Frank. Judy.

"C'mon, I don't bite. Judy dropped by with one of her kiddos, guessin' that's where the mixup is?" A gravelly voice erupted from the far side of the room once again, coming from the silhoeutte of an elderly man in a wheelchair, facing out towards the window as a constant rainfall drummed against the glass, "Cos' my girls only had daughters, but I dunno, I lose track sometimes-"

"Hi, Uncle Gerry." Clancy interceded. To spare the old man's effort in turning he stepped around the bed, until he was in full view.

"Sweet fuckin' jesus-.." he shook it off, "Sorry for the language, you just look the spitting image of my-"

"It's me," Clancy cut him off, before he could continue on the tangent. Like a ma, "You got me a Daisy 1894 for my tenth birthday, and Frank got your old bike for his sixteenth. Mom threatened to tan your hide when she found out. She'd have given us both the belt if she knew he made me ride that bike too."

She had, alongside uttering a few profanities in her native Polish, but Clancy had pretended not to understand. It was funny at the time, and a sadder memory still.

Hearing that, it took a moment for the old man to process. Compared to the robust fighting Irishman Clancy had known telling tall tales about his time in the marines when he was younger, Uncle Gerry was a frail husk of a man. Age and terminal illness wrought terrible things upon the human body, and it had struck him in spades. Confined to a wheelchair, his uncle was just about breathing with the aid of a nasal cannula, fed up into his nostrils from an oxygen tank fixed to the back of the chair.

"Sweet jesus... am I-... am I meetin' my maker?"

"No. Not yet." Clancy shook his head.

"Well, if it ain't that or the painkillers, you're pretty fucken' convincing for a ghost."

That forced something of a chortle out of the boy. "Guess I am."

"Not even going to give your favourite uncle a hug?"

"I... better not." The old man's heart seemed to sink at that, "Ghost, remember?"

"Harh," Gerry snorted, wrinkling his lips, "Why are you haunting me then, kid?"

"Mom and dad," he began, "Where are they? The house is empty."

He'd been out of state for less than a year, and come back to his childhood home being emptied of anything that was valuable, a 'FOR SALE' sign plastered in an overgrown front yard. Over time, he'd stopped by, but never where anyone could've recognised him, nor where he could've put someone he actually cared about at risk.

"You didn't read the papers?" Gerry's wrinkled brow scrunched, his head, "No, suppose not. I'm... sorry, kid," Gerry's eyes shot towards a family photo on the dresser, "Your Da's heart gave out last Christmas. Your Ma was on her own. Losing you an' your brother like that, broke her heart but she had your Da'. Without your old man, well there wasn't much left around for her, yer'know? Judy's outta state, and I wasn't much use to her like this..."

Silence followed, for what must've felt like hours at either end. An emptiness within him had simultaneously shrunken and grown more empty. Finally, he broke it with one question.

"Were they happy?"

"What?"

"After... losing us. Me, then Frank, were they still happy with each other?"

"I don't know what to say, kid. I never know what I'da done if I'd lost one of the girls, but... it's somethin that destroys a lot of folks out there. They missed you. But life... it had to move on, that's just how we was raised, y'know? Your da' specially came to me for a lot of it, wouldn't say it loud but I knew it was killin' him, and your ma'... you know what she went through, losin' her family and everything else back in her old country... she kept on going, for your da' and your sister, and the grandkids too, I guess."

"You mean... Judy's kids?" He'd almost forgotten that his sister had a family of her own, now. One he'd never meet. "Is she doing okay?"

"Yeah, you and Frank woulda been uncles yourselves by now, ya'know? Goddamn commies..." The thought made him feel.... empty. As though he should've felt sadness, happiness, or both, but there was nothing there. The absence felt wrong.

Instead, he chose to change the subject, back to hs uncle's.... situation.

"How are... you? What's with the..." Clancy's gaze shifted to the apparatus feeding oxygen through the tubes running up and into his uncle's nasal cavity.

"You tell me, you're the spirit." That spouted another sad, bitter chuckle between the two of them. Clancy threw his arms up and shrugged for emphasis

"Well, they didn't warn us grunts, but I guess them Lucky Strikes weren't so lucky, huh?" A wheezing cough erupted from the old man, and Gerry thumped a finger across his chest, circling inwards, then pointed to the tubes running into his nostrils.

"C-O-P-D. Asbestos and smoking, or so the doctor tells me. Could just be the spam and maggoty fucken' rice that did it for me back in the Corps though," Gerry chuckled his way into a half-wheezing splutter, grinning through a row of yellowed teeth as he raised one frail palm upwards, "Up to me' eyeballs in cancers. Had a double-whammy stroke last Christmas too, so I can't even walk straight to take a piss. Y'know how goddamn stupid that is, needing some little girl to help you get up every morning for a piss?"

"I'm sorry." Truthfully, Clancy had known his uncle's body was failing, could've smelled it a mile away. The hunger constantly gnawing at him gave him a sense for when he was around the dead and dying. Another reason he didn't want to take anymore of a risk than he already had. Self-control was a knife-edge, easy enough to end up on the other side of the coin....

"Doesn't matter," Gerry waved it off, "Knew more than a few kids who didn't make it in the war, I got my years with your Aunt Nora until the Lord smiled on her. I'm ready for the pearly gates, kid. But if you didn't know about your ma' or old man, how'd your find me?"

"Caught your name. Heard you weren't well."

He wanted to tell him. So much, he'd wanted to open up about everything he'd seen, been through, done. But this was not something he wanted to burden the old man with, the knowledge of the things that lay waiting in the dark. Not something a man needed to fear. Thinking he was just a ghost... that was easier than the alternative, the shame of it.

"Promise me you won't tell Judy about this?" It would've only confused her, drepening old wounds. Better she forget him.

"If you're really who you say you are.... where I'm going.... what should I expect?"

Cold. Darkness. Nothing.

"I.... don't know. I can't tell you."

"Figures."

"Uncle Gerry?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"I remember... good things, with you. That last camping trip... Frank's birthday, even Aunt Nora's burnt apple cake... you were a good uncle. I'm sorry I wasn't there for my parents. Wasn't there when they heard Frank was killed in service. If you can believe me... thank you for being there for them." All of it, he'd meant sincerely. "I didn't suffer", except that, his most egregious lie yet, "It was quick."

One meant to spare him the knowledge, but a lie nonetheless.

One that was accepted without question.

Gerry gave him a nod that seemed to betray a saddened acceptance of what was. It was his way, the way they were raised, they way they had to be when they'd been kids.

Clancy only wished he could've figured that out before they'd both suffered loss.

They talked for a little longer, until the old man finally drifted into sleep. Clancy took his exit, leaving him to wonder whether their conversation had been a dream all along.

At least it was closure.

---

Ambience

Strip Mall, near the House on the Hill
@Shin Ghost Note

---

Now

A sense of longing overwhelmed him for a moment as he pulled himself from the daydream that had broken through the orderly structure he'd established within his thoughts.

As he'd said to Luca, it was shitty. And as he'd said to Adora with even more conviction, there was no way out.

His family were gone. Save for the one moment with his sister, he hadn't even been there as they went. Mom. Dad. Frank. Judy. All of them, taken from him. Ashley. For a long time they'd been an anchor of sorts to him, a counterbalance to center himself and remember who he was, but they were all gone, and that had set him adrift.

Yet now he was less certain, for reasons that he couldn't quite understand. Maybe it was the fact he'd surrounded himself with people who weren't just meat to him, who weren't trying to use him for their own selfish needs or step over him like the dumb kid they thought he was.

The ex-coven people. Ashley's friends and otherwise. Some he felt an understanding with. Luca, the boy who was rotting inside. Adora. The quiet girl with her own problems. Linqian, the girl who lost her brother. The others, he was getting used to. Some he felt he could trust a little. Others, less so.

And 8th Street were still just meat as far as he was concerned, Seeing them at the Dairy Queen during his unannounced drop-in with Luca had done little to point his anger away from Emily Reed, that fucking prom queen.

Yet the memory of that stupid, selfish moment he'd taken with Uncle Gerry near the end of the man's life had been invoked by the sight of some old timer wearing a gold-embroided-on-blue U.S MARINE CORPS VETERAN cap as he crossed the strip mall. If he squinted, the old timer just barely passed for his Uncle, if for nothing else then because he was being pushed about in a wheelchair by a fourty-something year old woman whom he might've guessed could've been the man's daughter.

Why had that of all things been what came to mind?

Was it a need for something?

Family?

It didn't matter.

Despite the memory coming forth unbidden, the old man was long gone from this world, his body burned and the ashes scattered across the shores of Lake Michigan by his own daughters, the cousins that Clancy had never really got to know.

Once a marine, always a marine,

Clancy had once heard a phrase like that, though he'd never had the opportunity to really understand or make sense of it. One ship he supposed he was lucky to have sailed on without, although Frank wouldn't have said the same. You could apply the same logic to other places though.

Once a monster, always a monster.

A statement he could've spoken in the mirror, if he was being honest with himself.

As he refocused on where he actually wanted to go, he noticed that, if the map display on the not-so-new phone he'd borrowed was anything to go by, the disused bar that Adora had mentioned earlier in the day was still a little ways off. Clancy had taken the opportunity to get some shopping done, courtesy of some cash from a local benefactor that had now slipped beneath his consideration.

A new knapsack, new sneakers that actually fit him and wouldn't fall apart the moment he started moving, and a couple other things that cash could by. If it wasn't for the agitation that stirred among his base instincts whenever he moved among a crowd, he could've said it was the closest he'd been to a normal day. That is, if he neglected to remember he'd been tailing Adora.

At least she'd listened to him, which was more than what most would've done after dealing with a stalker that had proven they could disembowel a man in one swipe.

He crossed another block, cut through a small, narrow intersection where two buildings almost closed in together, and came out at the other side of a parking lot. He could see the meeting spot in question from here.

Definitely a big house. A little too obvious.

It just hadn't yet occurred to him that he wasn't the only one on the hunt in this side of town.

Recollections: The Compendium

The Shah's.Voice
| A conqueror's trinket | "Whatever it was, it might as well be scrap now." ORIGINS & CREATIONS: | The Voice's specific origins remain unknown, muddled by time and the gap between worlds. It is, by some measure, centuries old, and was forged under the watchful eye of scholars from another world where Indo-Persian and Mesoamerican cultures became the dominant economic and political force. While the details of this world have been lost to time, some have speculated that it was either depopulated in a global conflict that rampantly escalated before diplomacy could apply the brakes, or went into hiding after being devastated by a powerful apparition. | TYPE: | Channeler | LOCATION: | Unknown. It was last confirmed in the hands of Das Sonnenrad, prior to the organisation's destruction. Since then, nothing concrete. A rumour suggests it may have been stolen among other artifacts in the power vacuum left by Kaiser Draeger's death, and several cases of enthralled men have been cited across the Pacific Northwest, tied to various acts of violence and organised crime. | NOTABLE OWNERS: | Das Sonnenrad: For a few years, the ring remained in Das Sonnerad's hands, although they had little joy in getting it to work. Kaiser Draeger himself was unimpressed with the ring and vocally expressed his dissatisfaction in the cost of its acquisition. | ABSTRACTION-GRANTING: | Yes | .............................................................................	An unremarkable iron band with angular patterns wrought into its unpolished surface. Das Sonnenrad came to its possession at a not-insignificant cost in an expedition to acquire artifacts from a cache of explorers hailing from a world where Indo-Persian and Mesoamerican cultures had been the dominant force in contemporary politics. From various excerpts, the ring holds the power to enthrall the minds of men, living or dead, provided the ringbearer understands how to wield it. As stories tell, Kaiser Draeger was livid to learn that, at the cost of several agents and the cache's destruction, his organisation had acquired a "lump of mongrel scrap iron" and discarded the ring to the care of a subordinate after initial attempts at its use proved ineffective. Later, after Das Sonnenrad's destruction, rumours abounded that a former member had stolen it along with several other artifacts and had figured out some of the ring's functions.

Recollections: Under The Sycamore Tree Part. 1

@Atrophy Sully
Kari's Yard

---

Clancy had kept his silence as Britney had subtley rejected his offer on Linqian's behalf. He doubted she wanted him keeping tabs on her, given his expressed opinion. If she hadn't before, she likely knew his nature. They all did, most likely. He'd nearly torn out a man's entrails in response to being shot, and had doubtless left a few un-animated corpses after being punted into the water-logged crater, a sight not unlike something his grandad would've seen in the war, out past the snaking line of trenches, barbed wire and unexploded shells.

Or so he assumed. He'd never been there himself, and his family seldom spoke of such things while they were around to tell the tale.

Instead, he watched a bunch of them disappear down the road, filing into Britney's SUV and taking off. Elsewhere, they'd seen off a white-haired, almost fae-like girl by the name of Luna, a former spy. Spying for who he didn't know, nor did he care. She wasn't anyone of consequence to him. Yet.

The night was a bust, and the rest of the group were disappearing into their little silos. That left him with a newfound anger for 8th Street, given their antics...

... and the hunger was gnawing at him again, that biting agitation tugging at the seams of his consciousness.

He wouldn't find anything of substance here, not anything or anyone that he was willing to expend. Pacing away from the smouldering remains of the cabin, he caught Sully still marauding through a thicket of overgrwoth, and returned the favour offered earlier.

"Thanks."

By the time Sully had turned to hear where the voice had come from, the boy was gone. But the jacket had been folded and left just a few feet away.

---

On account of losing most of his worldly possessions, he had almost been out of luck save for a spare phone he'd left near his old stomping ground. It was no means top of its line, and while he didn't care to keep up with the latest innovations, he guessed it would've been worth less than the cost of a family meal even without the cracked screen and scratches across its lime green frame. But it worked for what he needed.

As it stood right now, he was out a place to stay. The RV had been trashed in a way that would've got him noticed, and he didn't want to surprise anyone doing a night patrol of the lot. There were a few underpriveleged projects, but they had people living there as-is, and not all of them needed to be bothered.

Instead, he'd lined something up with a local. Some lonely fourty-something holed up in an apartment not too far from the area that he'd come to view as his preferred stomping groun, with an interest in the welfare of young boys like himself. That much, he was certain about the man.

Clancy had taken steps to ensure there was no ambiguity about that.

With this, at least, he'd have a place to stay, a change of clothes, and a warm meal. The latter, he needed more than anything else.

A few characters cropped up across the phone's display, slightly distorted by the crack snaking across the center.

looking forward to seeing u bud ;)

Moments later, Clancy keyed the words back in a well-rehearsed motion, then hit send.

see u soon

By the time the night was done, he wouldn't be hungry anymore.