A cloud hung low over the land of the Labs. A thick fog, greatly impairing the vision of any creature. And on top of that, it was cold, and misty. A young Fae boy was out earlier that day with his pet rakai, and he still hadn't made it home. The sun had long disappeared from the sky, leaving only the moon to light his way.

But the moon only made the creepy fog that much more eerie by adding a strange, supernatural glow to the air. "Hayyel..." The Fae hissed to the little black, orange, and white rakai. But the little creature paid no heed to the boy. Hayyel had found something of interest on the side of the road, and decided that sniffing it was more important than following the boy.

Avrielle turned back to the little Hayyel. He sighed and went forth to bring the little pup back with him. When the boy knelt down and reached out a gloved hand to touch the pup. Hayyel growled and lashed with rather sharp fangs at the boy's hand.

Hayyel - 0.2

The humanish Fallingfeather shivered andpulled her wings in closer to her clammy body. The thick fog was clinging to her feathers, chilling her striped, tawny wing to the bone. She held out her hand as far as possible from her face. The fog was already blotting her hand out at that distance. "Thicker than pea soup..." she grumbled to herself. Her canvas bag of groceries sat heavily on her arm. Why in the world did I think it was smart to go grocery shopping at sunset while it was so close to Vai Min Mur? I'm so stupid! She scolded herself.

Suddenly, there was a park bench. That she promptly tripped over. She made a quick exclamation befre she, and her grocery bag, went sprawling all over the ground. "Ow... ow..." she groaned as she righted herself. "Why am I always tripping over things?" she said, as she examined her leg. A bit of the skin was scraped up, and it stung to the touch. "I'm definitely going to be having a bruise later." She remarked, gently running her fingers over the wound, wincing.

The young boy jerked backwards as the pup's sharp teeth hit his gloved hand. Even though the gloves kept his hand from being cut or scathed, they didn't stop them from being bruised when a powerful force his them, and Hayyel could put some power in his bite.

"Hayyel!" Avrielle hissed at the little Rakai, who took no notice, for he seemed to have directed his attention to something a little ways down the hill to the side of the road. With peaked interest, the little rakai bolted down the hill, disappearing from the Fae's sight instantly. "Hayyel! Come back here!" Avrielle exhaled sharply and moved with alacrity in the general direction the pup went. Mistake.

The hill sloped a bit more sharply than the boy expected. He soon foound himself tumbling down the side of a hill, finally catching himself as he hit something at the bottom of the hill. Something warm. With wings. With feathers. That was somehow familiar.

He shook his head, making the two little silver bells tied to his slicked and tied hair jingle softly. He opened his eyes to see the being beneath him. A girl with a face he recognized. And a face close enough to his that it'd be no effort to steal a kiss.

"Fallingfeather!" he gasped in surprise.

0.4

As Fallingfeather picked herself up, she was rammed into by another being. She opened her eyes groggily, the world spinning around her, and everything appeared to have a double... including the familiar fae that was sitting ontop of her. Her eyes snapped fully open. "Avrielle?" she groaned. "What... are you doing HERE?" she managed to say. SHe attempted to sit up, but the weight of the Fae was a bit too much for her right now, so she spread her wings out and sat there, watching the Rakai he had brought with him.

"Thats... an interesting little fellow." she said. "Don't most Rakai have flames?" Then she saw her bag of groceries, its contents spread on the ground. She groaned. "God, there is no way those eggs aren't broken by now." She should have been worrying about head trauma. Or bleeding. But to be honest, her mind wasn't really in the right place as of now.

Avrielle blinked, snapping into awareness, and rolled to the side. He opened his mouth in an attempt to speak. He blinked. The fog was so thick that the girl, a mere three feet away was simply a dark, winged silhouette. He backed up a bit, unsure if what he saw really was Falling Feather. He tried to stand, but he stepped on his robe, and fell. He jerked around while still in the air and put his hands out to break his fall. One hand landed on a small box of eggs, the other on the shoulder of a not-quite-happy rakai pup.

Hayyel flinched from the piece of bread that was just lying in the road as something hard and leather and hand-shaped hit him on the side. He growled angrily and backed away.

The Fae sighed and sat up. The mist was swirling around him a a strange, almost sentient way. It sent chills down his spine. "S-sorry!" He got to his feet and bolted a few yards away, which, thanks to the heavy fog, meant he was completely out of sight of the girl.

Hayyel had now caught sight of the winged sentience and took a silent defensive position.

Hayyel 0.6

Claws of the Dead!

You can hear a shakey moaning from... where is it? You could swear you heard it around here somewhere... You don't even have time to investigate - instead, the very earth beneath your feet crumble, and the rotting gray flesh of those that were once living plunge out of the ground and into the air, sending specks of dirt and clods of withering grass flying as their clawed fingers grab at your legs! Everything around you seems to be screaming, and it will surely take all the courage and strength within' you to break free of this 'garden' of hands!

(the next 5 posts yield no result)

As whatever had landed on her scuttled away, she called after it "Avrielle? Wait! Where are you going?" and attempted to stand up and run after it, if only whatever was holding her leg would let go! She looked down and yelped. "OMIGOD. What is that? Omigod!" she yanked her leg, but the grey... hand it appeared to be, its blood-crusted fingernails holding her limb tight.

She squeaked and fell over from attempting to pull her leg out, but obviously, she failed. She hit the ground with a thump, and flailed her arms around. "I've got to get out of here!" she cried. "Help!" she finally called, hoping the person the thought was Avrielle would come back. Louder, she yelled "Heeeeelp!" she clawed at the rotting hand that was holding her leg tight, but more burst from the ground and started reaching towards her, scrabbling at her wing feathers as she pulled all her body parts in tight to her.

Avrielle was simply terrified of what was happening. The girl was screaming. Screaming never ever meant anything good. The boy was horrified by the thought of danger, but even more so of letting the girl who was probably his friend get hurt. He took a deep, trembling breath, and bolted back to where the girl was, and immediately figured out why she was screaming.

Dirt clumps were being scattered around, along with blades of the little grass that had survived the lack of sunlight. Something had gripped his foot, holding it fast to the ground with no apparent inclination of letting go. He twisted around, dislodging his foot from the iron grip of whatever had held him fast.

He reached to the girl, trying to grab her arm to pull her closer, to safety. His hand found the, not the arm, but the hand of the girl. Another.. thing had grabbed his foot, another latched itself to the hem of his cloak.

The feeling of another hand on her own caused Fallingfeather to let out another tiny squeak of fear- and then a sigh of relief as she realized it was warn and rough, not cold and clammy like the cold, dead things that were attempting to drag her down to wherever they came from. She spread her wings, knocking away a couple of the dead hands, and struggled to her knees, squeezing that warm, comforting hand for all it was worth. She stood up, and peered through the fog towards the dark, squirming shapes below.

A sneakered foot came up- and down on one of the zombified hands, and it recoiled with a squeal. "Step on them!" she cried, and began crushing all she could see under her large feet. She tried to ignore the sickening squeals and crunches they made as they went back down, but they still pentrated her mind, making her feel ill.

Avrielle blinked at the warm, smooth hand gripping his. It felt nice. The shriek of the stepped on hand startled the boy, and his grip loosened. Fearful that he'd lose the girl to the hands if he let go, he gripped tighter, and obeyed the voice that told him to stomp on the hands.

His smaller feet made it so that he couldn't just stomp blindly, he had to aim. The thick, misty fog made that very difficult. But he continued stomping, flinching with fear at each shriek or screech made by the undead beings.

Hayyel yelped with surprise and pain as a large, rough hand grabbed his tail and dug its cracked, crusty, rotten fingernails into the flesh. He growled and turned fast, sinking his teeth into the rotten meat. The hand snapped off from the arm that it was attached to. The little rakai took the hand, in his mouth and ran. He appeared to be just outside the edge of the 'garden' of undead hands. With a sharp growl of disgust, he spat out the rotten meat and began chewing on the grass to get the foul taste of zombie out of his mouth.

Hayyel - 0.8

By this point Fallingfeather was squeezing the life out of Avrielle's hand, hoping desperately that he wouldn't let go. If anyone could see her through that blasted fog, it would have looked like she was doing some sort of insane jig. If it was a jig, it would probably be called the hand-smasher. She heard a yelp nearby, but it drifted into her panicked mind like a dream, pushed aside by more important matters such as the zombified hands attempting to kill her.

Eventually, the field of undead hands receded, probably deciding they weren't worth getting stepped on. She quivered and trembled, her groceries forgotten. The only sensations around her were that of the swirling, cold, lifelike mist, and the warm, rough hand in hers... which was probably losing circulation. She managed to pry her fingers away from his hands, but quickly grabbed his shoulder, as she found her legs had turned to jello.

The young boy was breathing very deeply, hard and fast when the hands stopping grabbing and clawing at them. His hart was pounding harder than he'd ever felt it do so in his life. It felt like a blind Wiurn was trashing about in his chest, beating agaisnt the ribcage, fighting to get out, struggling to find light.

The mist swirled around him, lifelike, twisting and moving as if it had somewhere to go, but having all the time in the world to get their. It moved lazily, hazily, like a pair of tired lovers caressing each other's faces, speaking soft words of poetry to each other.

The small, smooth hand let go of his rough one, moving to his shoulder. His bright golden yellow eyes glanced at the hand. With the hand which had not been gripped tight, he place dit on top of the girl's hand, feeling its warmth.

Her breaths came, slowly, long and shuddery. Her heart wasn't thrashing, but fluttering, like a bird that had been trying to escape, but was slowly losing its strength. Slowly... slowly... As she felt the hand upon hers, she suddenly felt exhausted. "Can... can we sit down somewhere? I'm tired..." She surprised herself by managing to utter those soft, slow words. She had fumbled over them like she had never spoken before. Is this what fear did to a person? She leaned herself against the man further, letting her wings go limp. She really shouldn't let her wingtips drag against the ground if she wanted to keep them looking nice, but right now, where no one could really see her, she didn't particularly care.

She looked at her shoulder, seeing as that was really all she could see clearly, and realized she was shivering visibly. She thought back to what just happened. Zombies? Really? Zombies didn't exist! But then... what had grabbed her?

"Y-yeah.. that would be good." A special skill of his; to sound perfectly in control when his heart was pounding, mind racing and fear at its height, even if he couldn't look it. He slowly led the girl to the side of the road. It wouldn't be smart to stand in the middle, would it? What if a carriage pulled by Thundergugs raced by and hit them? Certainly not a pleasant thought.

"What was that?" The young man exhaled sharply. His mind had automatically assumed zombies, but.. those didn't exist, did they? They might, but surely the Great Spirit would be able to fend them off, or at least keep them under control? They had such an easy time dealing with Hellcats and unruly Wiurns, my not zombies?

And then the all too high possibility of the Labs creating something it could not control. After all, Avrielle had heard stories of the Great War, when things were out of control for months.

When he got to the edge of the road, he continued up the steep slope a few feet, and sat down. He touched the girl's arm to let her know he had done so. He leaned back, and fell to his back against the slope, his head only inches from the chain-link fence which surrounded the City's local graveyard.

She stumbled along with him to the edge of the road, her legs still not fully wanting to obey her commands. At the touch of his arm, she collapsed on the grass, with her wings covering her shivering body. She still sensed the boy's presence nearby, and so she felt safe. She gripped the cold, green grass, trying to get herself to stop quivering. Then again... she WAS awfully cold.

"I...don't really want to know." she replied quietly. Those things HAD been terrible, but it was all over now.... right? Even so, she watched the ground carefully, just to make sure nothing was going to snatch her. Zombies were just a myth. A legend, right? Just like dragons and unicorn. She stomach flipped as she realized that those things DID exist here, as Wiurns and Equillions. So that probably meant zombies.... she pushed that unsavory thought from her mind.

"Maybe some.. demented baby Corpse Constructs?" Avrielle suggested, not sure. If people lived here... people could just as easily die here. And all the magic and wonder s they are constantly expose to, all the illusions and seemingly impossible things that were[I] possible here... The chance of the dead of these peoples who inhabited that lands of the Labs, the chance that they could return to life... It wasn't that incredible.

Hayyel sniffed at the rotten hand he'd broken off. It seemed to be.. evaporating. Vanishing from solidity into a stench filled, vile air, mixing with the mist and disappearing from existence. The young pup growled softly in confusion. He sat back, and yawned.

"Hayyel.." Avrielle called, clicking his tongue. The Rakai turned from his spot, and trotted over to the young Fae, placing his forepaws on the boy's chest, and puling himself up and over, to investigate the young girl. He sniffed her hand, and, pleased with what he smelled, began licking it with his rough tongue.

Hayyel - 1

A tiny whelp-like howl comes from across the graves. A short while later, a much more sinister one more snarls in kind than howls at a great distance.

(Nothing significant happens)

"Whatever they were, they were demented alright." She wondered if those hands were something worse though. A lab freak accident released into the wild. She almost laughed at the thought of rabid, man eating HANDS. The horror! She realized, to her surprise, that that was the closest she had ever been to death before. Sure, back home, she was treated like something less than the dirt she slept on, but they never tried to KILL her. Not on purpose, anyways.

She jolted back to the present, which at the moment, she wasn't sure was any safer than the past. She was drawn back to now by the mysterious howls from across the graveyard. "We're... not going to go towards those howls, right?" she whimpered, clinging to the mesh, looking for the source of the howls. The turned around, the metal chilling her shivering wings more. Those moving black shapes... that was all mist and her imagination, right?

The young boy had heard the howls, but with all the vultici he lived around, a howl was nothing; he heard them day and night and as an alarm clock. To the Fae, howls were a sound that triggered annoyance, not fear. "Graveyard?" He questioned.

Avrielle barely knew the layout of the labs. He knew how to get from his kennel to the park and back. This was the first time he'd ever tried exploring and had never even heard of anything even resembling a graveyard before. But that would be his fault, being such a social schizophrenic sure had its drawbacks. The girl fazed out for a moment, seeming to be reflecting on past events...

He sat up, moving backwards, pulling himself with his gloved hands. His back brushed against the chain link fence. He jumped and turned around, but seeing nothing thanks to the thick fog, which actually seemed to be letting up a bit.

Fallingfeather was slightly scared of the howls, as it reminded her of the terrible nights she had spent in alleyways and forests. She nodded, looking through the chain link fence again "Yeah... yeah, I think it's a graveyard." she unclasped her shaky hands from the fence, and leaned against it.

She knew the entire city like the back of her hand, as one of her favorite past times was exploring this place. However, she had never seen even a mention of a graveyard, which struck her as quite odd now that she thought of it. After all, people must die here, right? And therefore they would have to be buried somewhere, correct? After all, she had never heard about a crematory here, either. She blinked a bit, thinking it to be a trick of the light, but realized the fog DID appear to be letting up a bit. "Well..." she said, straightening her back a bit. "It doesn't seem to be as foggy now... perhaps we should give those graves a visit?"

Avrielle's golden eyes followed every motion of the girl. She was a beautiful young girl... Some thing about her just.. It made him feel uneasy, like little faeron were dancing in his stomach. He stood, following the winged girl to the ominous looking gate to the graveyard.

The Fae felt something drawing him into the graveyard, something he was once looking for, but had long forgotten. He shook the feeling, dismissing it as nothing. Falling wished to see what was here, so Avrielle would follow her. He pulled his cape a bit tighter around himself in a vain attempt at escaping from the chill in the air.

The trees in the little graveyard were small, nearly barren of leaves wiht five or six still clinging to the branches for dear life. The two were wandering down the main path. The boy stopped. Something was here. He looked to the right side of the path, and could not believe what he saw.

FF felt nothing toward the Fae, except for friendship. She didn't have many friends, you see, and it was nice to see one in him. Not to mention, it was nice to have someone / something to cling to while going through this. Not that she was clinging now, as she strode towards the gate, looking almost like she was dancing through the dewy grass. Two gargoyles sat on concrete pots on either side of the gate, claring down at her hatefully. "Well aren't you two pleasant..." she whispered to herself as she tugged on the gate.

To her instinctual dismay, it creaked open on rusty hinges. She signaled for Avrielle to come in, and examined her surroundings. Graves everywhere, of course, with the occasional half dead tree. She supposed the trees were placed to spruce it up a bit, but they weren't working well. Autumn had hit this place hard, or perhaps it had always been here, as the remaining leaves looked shriveled and bent.

Suddenly, she heard a gasp, and she turned. "Avrielle?" she said "You okay?"

Avrielle could just see the letters on the tombstone, but they were enough. Tears began to fill his eyes. Those tears were of longing for a loved one, but also of guilt from forgetting his search. The salty water on his retinas marred his vision, even though the official, uncaring letters remained in his mind.

Nisroc Forfax Prismason

The person who went missing all those years ago, the one after whom Avrielle searched for, forgetting his search almost instantaneously as he found the labs. The Fae felt terrible. How had he forgotten so easily?

Weak-kneed, the boy fell to the ground. He did not hear the winged girl asking if he were okay. The golden tear-soaked eyes were focused on those letters, as was his full attention. He placed his hands on the ground, where six feet beneath, the boy's oldest brother was lying, and probably had been for years. Who knows how long, for there were no dates on the grave, just the name and a small carving of a baby murp...

The wind picks up suddenly, whipping leaves around and causing the trees to creak and moan, making it seem like all the spirits are rising up out of their graves. The wind creates a pressure, enough to feel like you're being watched.

It keeps up for almost a minute, then it dies away and things return to normal.

(nothing of significance happens)

Fallingfeather didn't care for the leaves flying across her face, making her pale skin sting as if it was slapped. All she cared for was her friend, who appeared to be grieving for the one in the grave. She almost felt her own tears come out. She could not empathize, as no one that she had cared for had died, but she could certainly sympathize. This Nisroc appeared very close to the fae, and the last name....

She kneeled down, and put arm arms around him. "...He was a family member, wasn't he?" she said, more like a statement than a question. She knew he may not have heard her, but she didn't care. Grief wasn't like sadness. It wasn't like any other emotion. It could take over your body, your mind, and squeeze almost all other thoughts out of you except for They're gone... I knew them and they're dead...

The fae's tears were bound to fall on the arms of the humanish girl embracing the boy. There was no way around that. "My.. brother." Avrielle's voice sounded weak, depressed but not riddled with sobs. "He... he disappeared almost seven years ago... I went after him... only... only three years ago." The fae's delicate accent was filled with regret, remorse, and thoughts that if he'd just left.. just a year earlier, maybe even a month... He just might have made it in time to see Nisroc... just one last time.

"He was here. HERE!" Now the sobs started. "Why the hell couldn't I feel him? I always could feel his presence back home!" His voice took on a rather low pitch, but very strong intensity, which was probably extremely frightening to the girl next to him. Who wouldn't be terrified if a tiny man in a cloak as smooth as shadow suddenly began cursing himself?

Fallingfeather listened intently to the Fae's story, and wasn't scared at all. She had heard worse, and instead, she was listening. Not ignoring. Not interrupting. Listening. She gripped him tighter. Hey...hey. It wasn't your fault. Don't blame yourself. Look at the gravestone. No dates. You don't know when he died. You don't know if leaving a day or a decade earlier would have made a difference. He might have... might have been gone for a while now. That's why you didn't sense him."

Tell the truth, she didn't know how these Fae relations usally went along, but she hoped she was helping. She knew it must hurt as if his very soul had cracked. And the way she was holding him, it was as if she was trying to keep him from shattering. To this day, the winged girl coulden't remember how long she had sat there holding Avrielle.

"Ev... everyone loved Nisroc... he had no enemies. No one from home could've caused this..." The initial shock is what hurt the most. He hadn't seen Nisroc in, what? Ten years? Maybe more, but probably less. How could he forget his search for more than three years? How powerful was the magic of the Labs, if it could erase one's sense of direction, of duty for so long? Could that very magic be what kept the boy's brother away for so long?

The Fae's golden, tear soaked eyes stared blankly at the gravestone. No dates.. no dates. They didn't know when he died. "Master of trickery, he was... maybe... maybe he staged it..." The fae's voiced waivered slightly from the shock of the fact that his brother had died, yet it was filled with assurance and determination and refusal to believe he was really dead. But it didn't help any. Avrielle didn't believe a single word of it.

She released her death grip, and squeezed Avrielle's shoulder. "We don't know if it was someone from your home. It would have just been... a guy in an alley way, that wanted his money." She immediately regretting saying such a thing, as it was disrespectful to think that his brother would have passed in such a way, but she didn't take back her words. As terrible as if was a way to die, in big cities like this, it was common.

Fallingfeather didn't have anyone back home she wanted to remember- and everyone there, she wanted to forget. But Avrielle's next sentence struck her. "Maybe he did... after all, such a "popular guy" must have been good at SOMETHING to get people's attentions, right? If he was a trickster he might have... but what reason would he have?" she babbled, willing his brother to be alive as much as he did.

Somewhere, there was a canine creature barking. It was loud but...didn't seem to be coming closer. No danger (yet).

(Nothing of significance happens)