well, it's a lonely road that you have chosen

[priorcommitment]

Ishiah appreciated the balmy weather that was the norm on Tabula Rasa. The days were sunny and warm, but hardly blisteringly so, thanks to the shores which comprised so much of the island's land mass, graced by steady winds and cycling air. Nights served as a nice reprieve from any glaring sun, light still teasing on the horizon and painting the sky in hues of blue and purple, fireflies mimicking the stars as they hovered about in the air. Although Ishiah knew that his primary objective was far from enjoying himself that night, he couldn't help but feel the tension leave his shoulder as he made his way on over to the Halloween party, intending to act as an unofficial chaperone for the night's activities.

But if the island often graced its inhabitants with ideal temperatures and climes, it still kept people on edge with its occasional and always unpredictable whims. That evening, the Compound was surrounded by a strange fog, lingering like smoke with occasional furls twisting in the air. Brow furrowing, Ishiah looked around for any possible source or cause of the damp air, running his hand through the nearest cloud, but could find nothing of special note.

So he stepped inside, and found himself burning under the sun in a flash of white feathers, barred with gold.

Comments

[radicalize]

She'd had this dream before.

It was the first thing Lucy became aware of, walking down the boardwalk on her way to the party and suddenly finding herself somewhere else. She'd had this dream before, and as such, the change in location wasn't as jarring as it probably ought to have been. The fog had unfazed her when she'd stepped into it, but in retrospect, she supposed she should have expected more from the island, which never let anyone off easily. She could be known to overreact, at times, but at the heart of it, she was a logical girl, a sensible one, and all it took was a few moments of images that turned her stomach to realize that there was particularly cruel trickery at hand here. Because she'd had the dream before. A jungle not unlike the island's, only with the occasional sound of gunfire in the distance and bodies, dressed in army fatigues, scattered everywhere, piled up and propped against trees, each and every one of them bearing the face of her brother. This was nothing new, this dream, and though tears brimmed in her overly made up eyes and her stomach turned, she drew in a deep breath, determined to keep herself composed, because there had to be some reasonable explanation. For years, she'd been plagued with this nightmare; now, she just happened to be inside it while awake.

However, it wasn't quite the same, and that was the second thing she noticed. The landscape wasn't the Vietnam she'd seen in the black and white footage on TV, though some of the trees remained, a few of its defining features, and the sun was about as bright as she'd have expected it to be. She wasn't dressed for this, she realized distantly, and pulled off her curly red wig, blonde hair tousled underneath it. Only then did she catch sight of a familiar figure in the distance, though it was more what wasn't familiar that really caught her eye. "Holy shit," she breathed, and stepped over one of the Maxes in its direction. "Ishiah? How are you —?"