InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Too many Gray area's"

Dominic Ramírez || Quetzalcoatl (plumageablaze) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2011-10-04 07:35:00

Entry tags:

quetzalcoatl, tiamat

ancient warnings forged in the void of night
Who: Karin and Dominic
What: There are foul creatures afoot, and their would-be victims (and conjurer herself) are quite unsuspecting of their arrival. A moonlight walk along the beach will no longer sound like a romantic thing to do after this night...
Where: The beachfront by Pax
When: Backdated to around 10:30 P.M., September 30th
Warnings: TBA
Notes: Sensational displays of intense rationalization! Soon. >8D

The truth was, Dominic didn't have much of an explorer's bone in his body. He'd never be an Indiana Jones, a Sir Francis Drake, or even a Don Quixote. It didn't necessarily bother him, for he was content to be a more conservative individual, and living in a realm made up of tangible, realized, and familiar truths better suited his palate. If that meant he'd always be the tortoise in comparison to another's hare--well, there were certainly worse positions in life. Slow and steady could still win the race; a calculating mind tended to notice things an impulsive one missed.

And thus driven by habit, his 'big' night out had consisted of a quiet dinner at home and a trip to the closest movie theater, where he'd seen Courageous. It was enjoyable enough, and quite unlike himself he'd actually taken a cab into the city instead of his own vehicle. Due to the pleasant evening weather, Dominic had cut his ride short on the way back, asking the cabbie to drop him off at the boardwalk, which was still a little busy. He'd made his way quietly through the throng of people, taking in the sights for a short while before leaving the area and venturing closer to the beach, on his way back to Pax. The warm breeze felt good on his skin, and he was glad there was no need for a jacket--he was quite comfortable in khaki shorts and a gray t-shirt.

He paused for a few moments to watch as the moon gently assisted the water, helping it to lap at the edges of the sand, back and forth, back and forth. There was light enough to see, shining from the boardwalk area he'd left behind and the street lamps positioned every some odd feet along the sidewalk; but artificial light was no match for natural brilliance. There, further down along the beach was a bonfire, flames reaching for the darkened sky. A small party was collected around it, no doubt enjoying themselves. Smiling, he turned and once more resumed his walk home.

Pax Letale soon loomed ahead, windows illuminated in various apartments. It was a comforting sight, and he was glad he'd found somewhere to live that felt so...familiar. There weren't enough words to describe properly that notion (which had become something he dwelt on less and less the longer he lived at Pax; he was too at ease). Due to the quieter atmosphere on this stretch of the beach, Dominic drew near to the water.

Where he'd ventured down to, the sand was soaked--he was glad he'd worn sandals tonight. He continued walking steadily towards Pax, though he was intent on staying out a bit longer before eventually going inside. However, shortly he heard the muffled sound of sand being pressed close to the Earth in quick, fluid motions much faster than his own footsteps. Alert, he looked for the source, listening over the lull of the waves. A woman was approaching at a steady pace, coming around the far corner of the apartment building. He hazarded a guess she might be a fellow Pax resident and raised a hand in greeting. "Hello," he said in a congenial tone once she was within hearing range.

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sheltering_sky
2011-10-05 01:41 am UTC (link)

Karin started, having thought herself alone. Since her brief, literal run-in with Charlie Karin had made countless trips to the beach, watching the waves, listening to the litany they spoke over the shore. In those lonely days - and nights, she corrected, too many nights to tell - she had resolved to renew her efforts to visit the island, this time without the obstacle of a fellow tenant bodily dragging her back. There were secrets there, of that she was certain: So she was told in her dreams, so she heard in the whispers that filled her apartment in the dead of night. She had been contemplating such mysteries when the interloper had so unexpectedly interrupted, shattering her careful schemes. The fragments of her plans drifted off from her at the sound of his voice; she blinked, uncertain now, almost unsure of where she was. She looked around, dazed and seemingly lost.

"Oh," she said, a breathy little word. "Hello."

Her brow furrowed; green eyes sought his darker ones, seeking any kind of recognition in their deep shadows and brilliant highlights. He seemed familiar, though from where she could not say. She cast a nervous glance over one shoulder, staring briefly but intently back into the looming shadow of Pax Letale. "Do I know you?"

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plumageablaze
2011-10-05 10:31 pm UTC (link)

He didn't regret his greeting; better that he'd politely acknowledged the woman's existence instead of continuing along his way. But he hadn't intended to offend or startle her. His gaze followed hers when she looked towards the apartment complex, wondering what she sought in the darkness. She seemed alarmed in a manner that couldn't have been caused from his acknowledgement alone. He'd dropped his hand to his side after she'd said hello in return, and now he busied himself answering her question.

"Oh, no. I don't think so," Dominic replied. "Unless in passing. I live at Pax," he offered up, nodding towards the building. "I thought maybe you did, too." It was, of course, perfectly plausible he'd made a mistake in assuming she was a fellow denizen--she could have been anyone, really, simply out for an evening stroll, the same as he was. Given her apprehensive state, he would disengage himself courteously from their conversation if needed.

"I didn't mean to scare you," he added almost as an afterthought, though it was anything but that.

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sheltering_sky
2011-10-08 01:55 am UTC (link)

Blinking, she shook her head, her mouth working silently as she realized her rudeness. "No, no," she said, lifting one hand as if to ward off his fears. "I'm sorry." Her vision slowly seemed to clear; for the first time since joining him on the beach she seemed to truly see him. His face seemed vaguely familiar, though had had not mentioned the apartments themselves, she may never have placed it. But she smiled, now, nodding in dawning recognition. Immediately she found herself grateful for his presence, feeling somewhere deep within the niggling certainty that his being there may well have prevented something disastrous. It did not do to dwell on such things, so she forged bravely on, clutching at the threads of conversation. "I'm at Pax, too," she said. "First floor." The wind whipped her hair, drawing it hard across her upturned face; she reached up, threading the errant strand behind her ear.

"Karin Shepherd. It's always good to meet a neighbor."

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plumageablaze
2011-10-10 04:55 pm UTC (link)

There was a shift in her manner, Dominic noted, and perhaps him previously being a stranger to her was all that had caused her wariness (though it was slightly troublesome the way she'd glanced at the apartments with a sense of near foreboding, as if the complex held nothing good within its walls--or was it only the shadows playing across her face, across the sand that gave him this impression?). Whatever the reason for her mood growing lighter, he was glad.

"Dominic Ramírez," he said in turn, sharing his name as the breeze cooled his skin. "We've probably passed each other once or twice." He smiled, and although it was an obvious case of grasping at straws, he proceeded further with a common, albeit true, remark on the weather. "It's really nice out here; but even so, I hadn't expected to run into anyone." Not on this side of the beach, at least, even with the apartment a mere walk away. Maybe he'd been more lost in his thoughts than he realized. Dominic hesitated, not wanting to mention how she'd seemed so very startled. "I hope I'm not keeping you from anything."

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sheltering_sky
2011-10-11 03:47 am UTC (link)

"Not at all," she said. She swallowed hard, catching again the roiling scent of sulphur from which she had been running. It seemed as if it was following her, though she knew that simply could not be true; it waxed and waned, after all, and with no discernible correlation to the wind or to her position relative to the building. It was troubling, but Karin fought to keep her expression from showing any hint of her concern. "It's a pleasure." She smiled shakily, biting her tongue, forcing her head forward against the need to look behind her once again. Instead she deliberately studied Dominic's face, as much marking him for future meet ups as for considering if she had passed him before. It saddened her to think she lived among those she had never truly seen; in the past she had been better at getting out and meeting those around her, making some kind of impression - for good or for ill - on anyone within a few miles' radius. She cleared her throat, wondering how best to salvage this, how to appear normal when she knew she likely looked anything but.

"I guess I'm just not used to really seeing anyone out here," she said. "I walk out here often, and things like that bonfire are usually the closest I get to a friend." It sounded sadder than she'd intended; she reached for something, anything, to make it seem less so. "You know, if you're just kind of ambling, I wouldn't mind walking with someone tonight."

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plumageablaze
2011-10-12 06:56 am UTC (link)

He shrugged one shoulder, smiling faintly. "I haven't been down here, not at night, but it is kind of..." Dominic searched for the right word, in order to not cast the wrong light upon their conversation, or to stir up thoughts of the trouble she appeared to have nearly avoided, whatever it had been. "Lonely," he finished lamely, regretting that he'd even spoken on the matter. Dominic liked to think he wasn't extremely awkward around women, in fact, he knew he wasn't, though he also knew he was no casanova; but it wasn't that, though she was easily a pretty enough woman. It was the sense of unease Karin still had about her, as if she couldn't quite shrug off the shadows she had emerged from just recently. It was vexing to a certain degree, though he was trying (and partially failing) to not think much of it.

"I'd appreciate the company," Dominic replied, a more welcoming smile brightening his countenance. He stopped himself before the suggestion rose to his lips: that they should continue along the path he had been taking, the one she'd previously left. No doubt she wouldn't want to trace her steps back towards the darkness that surrounded the lower parts of the beach, the deep shadows the large apartment complex cast around it from this angle, despite the various windows that were yet lit. "Why don't we backtrack and get a closer look at the bonfire? I don't think they'd mind."

And maybe it'd put her more at ease for there to be other people around, even if they were strangers. He was still a stranger, he reminded himself. But the light from the fire, surely that'd help soothe her mind. She'd appeared out of the darkness, and the only reasonable way out of it was to embrace the light.

He turned, keeping nearer to the ocean so she'd not have the small waves creeping upon her, starting slowly back the way he'd came. The figures around the bonfire were mostly indistinguishable from this distance. "I moved here a couple months ago," Dominic said, not wanting their entire walk to consist of silence. Small crests of saltwater repetitively folded back in on themselves as he spoke. "Have you lived here long?"

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sheltering_sky
2011-10-18 12:05 pm UTC (link)

The suggestion of the bonfire went a remarkable way toward putting her at her ease. It was a potential imposition she would not have considered if alone - though logic told her few beachgoing partiers ever minded a bit more company than they had anticipated - but with someone else at her side it seemed not half a bad idea. So she followed him, squinting into the distance as she sought some detail in their silhouettes. For her efforts she earned only the vague and troubling impression of shapes within the tongues of flame, moving like living things as the revelers shifted before it. Quickly Karin looked away, seeking the strange comfort of the sea. Its inexorable waves brought her solace of a sort, but at the same time made her heart race; she could never have explained it, though she had tried often enough.

Her teeth worried at her lip, the idle gesture ceasing when Dominic spoke again. She looked over to him, grateful for the tangible solidness, the realness of him beside her. She smiled softly, blinking as she thought back on her move, counting the months since her arrival. "Oh," she breathed, as if surprised by the answer that came. "About a year, actually." Chuckling quietly, she shook her head. "Time flies."

She looked down to her feet, watching their soft shuffling pass through the sand. It distracted her for a moment from the feeling of eyes upon her, from the sensation of short hairs rising on the back of her neck. It was here, or soon would be - whatever it was, of course - but she could not give in yet. She swallowed hard and forged ahead. "I'm sorry I haven't met you yet," she said. "I like to be better about that. I'm a nurse, though, so if I get stuck on an odd shift it's all I can do to just see my sister."

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plumageablaze
2011-10-25 10:01 pm UTC (link)

She was the first person he'd met so far that hadn't moved to Pax within the past six months; interesting to note such a thing, that suppose a more permanent form of residency at the building did, in fact, exist. The thought of various tenants moving in only to leave shortly after was an unsettling notion at best. Considering the condition of the building and the neighborhood surrounding it, hardly did it seem right that so many of the apartments were left empty--if the parking lot was anything to go by, unless the majority of his fellow neighbors chose to utilize the public transport system.

It was possible these strange thoughts were only being touched upon due to the startled state Karin had been in when she'd approached him. Residual feelings of unease, perhaps, brought on by the darkness and the wild look in her eyes that for a split second, had absolutely nothing to do with running into another person on the beach. Dominic mentally shrugged off the irrational ideas, thinking only that his imagination clearly was getting the best of him. Strong emotions were catching, and maybe fiction writing would have been a better career for him to have pursued than an editorial, informative one.

"That's rough, but the pay off must be worth it. Helping people, I mean. It's an honorable thing to do." There was sincerity in his tone, although he couldn't imagine surviving the hectic schedules those employed in the medical line of work did. It was enough that he managed his own job, nevermind the extra hours he tacked on willingly. "I write for a local magazine and that usually keeps me busy, so I haven't met many people here, either. But it's a nice place, from what I've seen."

The people around the fire seemed a little more lively the closer Dominic and Karin got to them, but that was only natural given the hour and what could only be the hopes of new company joining in on their nightly revelry. Smoke from the fire curled upwards into the starry sky, creating vague designs before eventually disappearing. Dominic watched it for a moment before glancing towards the ocean.

"I think I've spent more time at the office or inside my apartment than outdoors," he admitted, at the risk of sounding like an overworked introvert. "Tonight's a good change from the usual."

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sheltering_sky
2011-10-26 01:07 am UTC (link)

Her eyes followed his to the smoke, its coils dividing her attention once more. They rolled like waves, she thought, and shuddered. Her teeth nipped at her tongue as she pored over his words, repeating them one at a time in her mind. She promised herself she would be attentive to him; she would be here, now, and listening to every word he spoke. It was all that would keep her there on the shore, that much she knew for certain.

Karin reached up, tucking one long, windswept lock of hair behind her ear. She studied Dominic's face as he watched the shoreline, wondering what such a sight conjured within him. That he might find it a relief was no surprise; even she thought it such, at times, and she knew many others felt the same. But for her that sense of relief was conflicted, final, fraught with something she could not wholly name. With marked effort she shook off these troubling thoughts, latching on to the safe, light discussion of their work.

"It is good to get out," she allowed. "It's easy to take having the beach so close for granted, but it actually is... nice." She looked down to her hands, her fingers lacing tightly together; her grip grew tighter, flexing faintly as it did, until she saw streaks of flushed red and bloodless white marking her joints. "I do love my job. It's very rewarding. But every now and then you need to slip off and have some time to yourself, you know?"

She chuckled, shaking her head. She had talked enough of herself, and could feel the looming cloud above them as she droned uselessly on. So she changed her tack, and her pace as well, matching his steps as they strode down the beach. "So you write?" she asked, smiling softly. "What kind of magazine is it?"

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plumageablaze
2011-11-02 09:20 am UTC (link)

"Community awareness," he replied with a smile bordering on the edge of wryness. Dominic continued, "I write critic pieces now and then on places and events in the area, and once in awhile I write simply to promote up and coming businesses in the community. It's not so bad, actually. Kind of gets me out of the office once in awhile."

It was honest work, he thought to himself, though advertising the newest sushi place or reviewing the recent seasonal festival couldn't possible hold a candle to what Karin did for a living. Still, he wouldn't feel his career was inferior to hers in other degrees of success. There was goodness to be shared in ruling out this or that place for entertainment or other recreational purposes, though on a different level than healing the sick.

Dominic's gaze had shifted to their shared end goal as he spoke, flames ever flickering in the distance, though occasionally he glanced at Karin. It was more to assess her level of comfort than to gauge whether or not she was really listening to him. The feeling of sand repeatedly pushed downwards as he walked alongside her was a comfort in and of itself--he felt he could safely make the conjecture that it must have aided her state of mind, too. Walking often proved good for clearing the mind of errant thoughts.

Or maybe it was only the ever nearing fire and the small party gathered around it looming closer with every step--light breaking through the darkness was always a reassuring sight. He wondered if they should announce their arrival, and decided quickly it was a must. Despite evening partygoers having a reputation of being good-natured and rarely minding another body to add to their eventful bashes, now that they'd closed more of the space between them and the night's focal point, propriety decreed they announce themselves before too long.

"I apologize," he said, "I could probably spend all night talking about my job." Dominic motioned to the bonfire with one hand briefly, arm falling back to his side after he finished speaking. "We should say hello when we pass by, just in case they're a little drunk--let them know we're not patrolling for proper identification cards." His statement was meant only in light jest, and he hoped it'd be taken as such. Mentioning anything about drunks seeing things they shouldn't on the darkened beach wouldn't have gone over well.

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sheltering_sky
2011-11-04 12:36 am UTC (link)

Her lips twitched a faint but agreeable smile at his suggestion, recognizing it for the considerate course of action that it was. Her own reaction to his arrival had not been the most pleasant, after all, and it was possible her discomfited demeanor had left her newfound neighbor with a figurative bad taste in his mouth. Determined to make a better second impression on him than perhaps her first had been, she eagerly followed his lead, nodding a greeting as they closed in on the group.

"Hello," she called, one thin hand raising to wave at the group. One scantily clad reveler threw her an answering wave, but it went unnoticed. All Karin's attention was swiftly drawn away from him, from his friends, from the fire itself. Her eyes were drawn instead to the waves, where in the foamy surf a pair of eyes gleamed out at her. Slowly they winked: First one eye, then the other, like a sleeping cat languidly beginning to wake. Karin's lips parted, but no words would come. She kept walking, measuring her steps against Dominic's pace, praying he would not see, that they would pass beyond that terrible sight and soon it would fall well behind them. But then a second pair opened alongside the first, black pupils following their progress as they moved down the beach. Terror gripped her: She wanted to ask if he had seen, if she herself was hallucinating now, but she was more afraid of the answer than the question itself.

Her fear only deepened as she looked to the friends on the beach, still laughing and prodding at the fire, oblivious to anything at all out of the ordinary. Tears pricked at the backs of her eyes, but she refused to let them fall.

"No," she said, too late. She was speaking too quickly; she could not hide the tremor in her voice. The scent of sulphur filled her nostrils, choking her every breath. "Your job sounds interesting. I should really start following your work. Fee and I both prefer finding local businesses, you know? Restaurants and that sort of thing." She swallowed hard, but the lump in her throat would not budge. The forms in the water, however, did; she saw their shapes beneath the waves, shadowed bodies cutting through the tide, keeping an even pace with the pair. "So many soulless big box places these days..."

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plumageablaze
2011-11-05 10:36 am UTC (link)

Dominic greeted their fellow beach occupants with a short wave of his own. He received a few waves in return and was satisfied there had been a general acknowledgement between others enjoying the nice weather. These vague introductions were merely a nicety, but nonetheless a necessary one. The group around the fire continued to go about their business, greetings finished, their laughter and lazy conversations providing a familiar backdrop to his and Karin's walk near the shoreline. Maybe he'd needed the added presence of other people, too, for their close adjacency was undeniably encouraging in an instinctive, purely human manner--there was safety to be had when in numbers, granted unrest and strife did not cause tempers to rise, or hearts to falter.

Not to mention the heat of the fire was carried by the breeze towards the encroaching waves, though just barely. But it was enough for the ghost of it to lightly brush against his skin, and thus served to calm down the slight, apprehensive feeling he'd been affected with ever since meeting Karin; he wondered again what had caused her to seem so troubled, especially on a night like this: the sky was clear, the waves were low, and company was amicable. He didn't want to entertain over-imaginative thoughts, but the memory of her stricken expression still bothered him, for she'd looked like something or someone had walked over her grave. It was a morbid idiom, yet nonetheless fitting.

A look towards the merriment being had by those around the burning flames sufficed to quench this potentially superstitious idea, but it was brought back in a rush by Karin's seemingly random interjection. Dominic's eyes shot to her, and he was about to ask what, exactly, she was protesting, but then Karin's words were tumbling forth, as if she no longer could hold them inside of her. He blinked, unsettled, and fixated instead on the ground beneath his feet, the beach which stretched out before them, never-ending. There was an almost extra sense of movement towards his right, seen out of peripheral vision only, but he dismissed it. Nothing would be there but the constantly moving ocean.

Fee must be the sister Karin had mentioned earlier. He pulled himself out of his thoughts and responded to his companion's quickly strung together sentences.

"I'll have to get you a copy of Along the Bay," he said, trying on a smile but finding this to be difficult in lieu of his neighbor's sudden rambling, and the unmistakable, frightened tone of her voice. "I think supporting more than just the big wigs is imperative; there's a great little coffee shop about twenty minutes from here, but it'll never be the next Starbucks. And that's okay." Dominic paused, walking a few steps more before coming to an eventual stop. His back was to the ocean after he'd turned to face Karin.

"I don't mean to intrude, but are you okay?" He posed the question to her, concerned. He'd held off long enough from directly addressing the issue, and given Karin's blatant change in disposition, felt it was now time.

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sheltering_sky
2011-11-06 04:35 am UTC (link)

She had wanted, quite desperately, to speak more on his work, to delve into the nature and means of his writing. Creativity had always been of interest to her, as she felt she exhibited so little of it herself. Where Fiona had danced - though under duress - and certainly expressed herself in countless other ways, it had been Karin's lot to toe the line, to pursue a solid, scientific career, to never try her hand at stranger and less stable seeming fields. With writing, as with art, music, and all branches of their ilk, the creative process eluded her, and had therefore been a point of curiosity to her since time out of mind. But then his final question came, pulling her back to herself from that rabbit trail's temporary comfort.

"I..." She trailed off, glancing back over her shoulder. The eyes blinked back at her, joined now by yet another pair. Their edges crinkled, as if hinting at curving smiles hidden beneath the waves. She shuddered at their glinting, gleeful looks, and turned her gaze away, seeking the solid comfort of Dominic's warm features. She bit her tongue so hard it nearly bled; with a soft and quickly checked groan of pain, she forced herself to speak.

"I think I see something," she said. Suddenly she was grateful for the relative darkness of the night, as she felt the deep flush of embarrassment stealing across her cheeks. "In the water. They're... following us." She laughed, an unsettling and off kilter sound. "Maybe it's just stray dogs. Do you..." She swallowed hard, fear naked in her eyes as she looked to Dominic. "Do you see that?" She raised one arm, pointing into the surf, her hand visibly trembling in the firelight.

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plumageablaze
2011-11-10 12:51 am UTC (link)

Granted, he could not help questioning how stable--or not--Karin's mental state must have been when she finally confessed to what was upsetting her. But he looked nonetheless, because it was the polite thing to do, even if he was only humoring her. Despite whatever overall condition her mind might be in, she'd thus far seemed normal enough, and he had walked a distance with her. And, more to the point, he couldn't forget how shaken Karin had been when they'd originally met, and how something about her fear had unintentionally led to his brief consideration of what might possibly be lurking in the shadows.

"I'm sure it's nothing," Dominic stated, though when he turned and cast his gaze upon the waterfront to confirm this and further alleviate her fears, he quickly felt like a liar. Were those what he had seen out of the corner of his eye? The shapes were not outlined in a definite sense, be it because of the darkness or the ocean's constant movements (perhaps both), but there was something in the water. It was hard to tell exactly what the forms were, but he immediately knew that he wanted to latch onto Karin's explanation of them as nothing but stray dogs.

It wasn't an uncommon occurrence, after all, when it came to beaches. The dogs would have been attracted by the fire, by the warmth of human bodies, and would have been eager to make friends. They'd simply followed his and Karin's path along the sand--though on their part, they'd stayed in the water.

And yet this did not make sense. There was more than one set of eyes, blinking, watching, and if Dominic knew anything about dogs, he knew they weren't necessarily given to silence for long. Not in pairs, at any rate. Where were the cheerful barks? The playful growls that no doubt would have been heard had the dogs been frolicking in the surf together? Dominic squinted in an attempt to pick out their true shapes, as if that would help make things clearer, or make the set of eyes simply fade away into the ocean.

It didn't. The eyes continued to stare, and he became more certain that his eyes weren't deceiving him, and neither were Karin's. "They're watching," he said quietly, as if against the threat of them hearing and understanding his words. "But you're right, they're probably stray dogs. Maybe they're a little shy," he tried to sound firm in his statement, but there was something unsettling about this entire situation. The fire was doing nothing to shed light upon the circumstances, nor warm the chill that had begun to creep up his spine. He swallowed, thinking back to the shadows cast by the Pax apartment building, to Karin's clearly distressed visage.

"We should keep walking, maybe head back towards the fire..." He looked to Karin, to see if she agreed with his suggestion. He hoped she did.

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sheltering_sky
2011-11-16 12:20 am UTC (link)

She tried to swallow, hoping the empty gesture might serve to clear her throat, give her time to focus her thoughts. But her mouth was impossibly dry, her mind utterly bereft of anything of value. Only impressions remained, a vague sense of something that fell far too short of understanding to be of any comfort. She did not know what these creatures were, only that they were more familiar than she wanted them to be, and that they were of no good omen. They would be of no use to either of them. She could not think on putting names to their faces, nor intent to the unblinking gaze the creatures leveled at the passers-by. To make an attempt would have been to invite more madness than she already courted.

So she merely nodded, looking wide-eyed back to Dominic, willing herself to believe their comfortable lie. She fought the urge to reach out to her newfound friend, to feel the warmth of his hand in hers just for the simple reassurance it might provide. By conscious effort she turned her steps with his, guiding them both back to the feeble safety of the firelight.

"What are they?" she whispered, though she expected no response, and was yet uncertain she wanted one. And in the silence the sounds of their motions carried all the clearer to the beachgoing pair; the stench of sulphur wafted, unavoidable, toward them on the winds. She could not stop herself speaking, though later she would deeply regret this lapse in self control.

"They look familiar," she mused. Her eyes fell away from the bonfire, drifting back toward the surf in spite of the salvation so close at hand. Even a literal light at the end of the tunnel could not stop her feeling drawn to these beasts. "Sometimes I see them from the corner of my eye," she said. "Around Pax. In my apartment." She laughed, a sound increasingly unhinged the longer it wore on. "I think they took my keys..."

The creatures seemed to respond to her voice. With slow, slinking motions they crept onto the beach, taloned claws scratching deep runnels into wet sand. The trenches filled with water when the tide washed in again, but even the surf could not wholly wash away their mark; when the water rolled back the hard lines remained, evidence of the tangible, lingering presence that followed them both.

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