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madibyrd · 2 years

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@reclusiveharry attracts her victims ( @hananzaki; @stranded-mik and @madibyrd) into the jungle and once the three find each other, they have to get out.

"The beach is no good for learning," Harry said, as she lead Student towards the Bridge. Vines lashed maliciously out towards them, just out of their reach. "If you want to learn, we need to go in." Harry looked over her shoulder to Student, shifting the weight of her pack on her shoulders.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan wasn't sure about this, it didn't feel like the right time but maybe that was just it. There would never be a good time to learn, not on Meridium. "Sure, but we're not going too far in right? Hey, Harry, can I ask you something, how do you control your headaches?" Hanan asked, sparing a glance at the vicious jungle still not sure about it, but if Harry said it was now or never, she trusted her.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

"Yeah nah," Harry replied, shrugging her shoulders. She cast a glance at Student, pursing her lips together. "Not too far, eh?" Harry promised.

"You get used to them," Harry said as Student asked about how to control the headaches that weighed constantly on Harry's brow. "Footsteps are the worst. Distracting." Thus the need to get away from the beach. "It's better in there. More peaceful," Harry said, even as the jungle floor thrashed like a rug being shaken out.

"Come on," Harry said, kicking off her clogs and flattening the earth in front of them, creating a path through sheer force of will. "There's a place I scouted out."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Yeah nah. Hanan squinted, not sure which of the two she was supposed to believe, but Harry's actions spoke far louder than her words. The promise of it being better inside the jungle, that she did believe, even if she simultaneously didn't. Hanan had found peace in the Labyrinth with Libby, but hadn't that been a different time? The jungle wasn't a sleeping beast anymore.

Maybe Hanan was a little enamoured by Harry so casually flattening out the earth before them, halo'd by the morning light through her cleared path. "I'm coming..." She affirmed, believing it as soon as she'd said the words. Except Hanan kept her sandals, on, to save her from a headache. "Where about's is this place? Does it have special powers?" Hanan asked, powered up by Harry's newfound chatter as she followed her into the jungle.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Student didn't put up much fuss once Harry had cleared their way forward, put just enough bait into the trap to ease her inch by inch forward. Harry tied her clogs to her pack and lead them into the jungle, erecting an earthen wall as a bunch of vines tried to lash at them.

"It's near a waterfall," Harry said, pulling from an old memory. A happier memory, surprising her brother with a wall of orchids. "The noise will help with your headaches. Like... getting sea legs, eh?" Harry said, just as the jungle floor groaned underneath them, rotating them 90 degrees. Harry turned her feet firmly away from the distant pitter patter of the southern beach, and trudged forward.

"Tell me when you feel the river," Harry grunted, giving Student something to focus on. Though even for her it was difficult, the trees swaying around them sending up sharp pains into her gums, like a rotting tooth.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

"Yeah like getting sea legs..." She echoed, as if to reassure herself that this was correct, and that everything all would be okay once they'd made it. Hanan glanced back over her shoulder, but realising it was best to be forward thinking powered on. "Everything is really...noisy..." Hanan said, doing her best to isolate one tremor from another, but she couldn't distinguish anything. It was a barrage of sound and a clash of cymbals in her ears.

The nausea didn't dissipate even as they delved deeper in, if anything Hanan felt more disorientated. Everything went fuzzy and she felt a tinge of dizziness as the ache married up with the chaos to pound in her temples. Hanan did her best to focus on the good. The good being that Harry was teaching her, again. "What....what are you going to teach me today?" She asked, half a step behind Harry as she cleared them a path through the jungle. Saving them from the onslaught of attacks.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Student, despite her palpable anxiety, was easy to reassure. Harry hummed as she repeated Harry's points back to her, driven forward by the promise of alleviating her headaches. "You have to tune everything else out," Harry explained, pushing them an unrelenting path forward. Without her explicit attention, the path behind Student was neatly swallowed up by the jungle.

They came across a little clearing, though the tree branches ahead moved ominously without wind. "Tell me where the river is," Harry ordered, turning around to face Student. "Close your eyes and focus. Feel for it, the vibrations of it. River's like a train, deep and steady."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

It was evident there was no turning back, not unless she wanted to hack back through the jungle. Hanan watched Harry for a moment the effortless way she carved their path, no different to how she’d weeded the carrots. Harry was a marvel.

Hanan had fallen back to being quiet as if the trade off for her being out here with Harry was her silence. She mutely nodded as Harry doled out fresh instructions. Closing her eyes to try and wade through the clamour of tremors. It was like an orchestra, only no one was on tune and no one was on beat. Underneath the high pitched tremors she could feel a steady thrum. “I-I think I can feel it Harry…” She pointed towards where she thought the sound came from.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry said nothing in response to Student's question. She'd said nothing as she'd walked silently away, her footfalls melting into the jungle floor. All she had done, as the speck that was Student disappeared out of sight, was smile.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan waited. Expecting some sort of prompt from Harry. Nothing. She counted the deep vibrations as if to make her teacher proud that she could distinguish them, and then opened her eyes to find she was alone. “Harry….?”

— ✿ ❀ ✿ — — ✿ ❀ ✿ — — ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry banged her fist onto the wall of the little hut, near the doorway. As best she could tell, this was the hut closest to the boxed beehive. "Hey!" she called out, voice raspy from disuse. "The bees are swarming!"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi was out in the back, trying not to think about the carnage that her home was on the inside when she heard somebody banging on her home door, and then yelling about-- swarming? She frowned - the sounds was worried, so she headed out to see an unfamiliar, disheveled woman. "Hi. Uhm, hello, swarming isn't really a bad thing. Are you-- is it just swarming?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry blinked in surprise as the woman suddenly appeared from the gloom of the house. There was a stale smell about her, but given the dirt caked into Harry's fingernails she wasn't one to judge. Harry jutted her chin towards the beehive, bereft of bees, shrugging her shoulders. "Saw them flying towards the trees." Which was a true moment of serendipity, for Harry's gain.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi frowned, blinked, tried to process the information. "Did they just... fly in that direction? Or did they fly in there?" But even though that thought didn't sit well with her, it wasn't anything to be concerned about. "That's-- I mean, swarming isn't a bad thing, it's natural. Are you-- are you afraid of bees? It's totally okay, it's totally normal, I'm sorry if they scared you."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry pressed her lips into a tight line, quiet as she evaluated the woman in front of her. "Saw them fly in. I can show you," she offered, a slight shrug of her shoulders. "Thought you were the beekeeper," she muttered under her breath.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

"I-- yeah, I am the beekeeper, but them flying--" Madi bit the inside of her cheeks, trying not to be too rude, but also not really wanting to disturb the mechanics of the bees themselves. "Flying in doesn't mean much, it just means they are probably finding a new home on its edge. Really, swarming isn't too big of a deal, it's totally normal, I promise."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry grunted, gritting her jaw together as she always did when faced with someone stubborn who didn't do as she wanted them to. She let her annoyance show, rolling her eyes, puffing out air through her lips. "Nothing on this bloody island is normal," she sniped, letting that snide comment guide her. "They were flying in... in patterns," Harry explained, her fingers twitching as if to show what she meant. "And the vines... they were trying to smash the bees, anytime they landed."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

The woman just seemed to get all frustrated on Madi, and really, she didn't know what to do with it, how to handle it - Madi wasn't trying to be difficult, not even the slightest, but she didn't really know what to do with any of this either. Until--

"The vines were trying to smash the bees?" It was pointless and stupid and nothing they could really do about it for the most part, Madi was aware of it, but at least it was doing something and maybe-- maybe this was some kind of cover for something else the woman needed help with just couldn't quite find the right words for it. Madi just needed to tag along and then she could figure it all out once they arrived. "Okay. Okay okay, can you show me the way?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Finally, that seemed to get the woman's attention. Harry jerked her head down, a sharp nod followed by a hum. Yeah, the vines had tried to smash the bees, there wasn't any point in repeating it. "This way," Harry said, tilting her head first and then swivelling on her feet, towards the trees.

Harry lead Beekeeper towards the entrance of the Labyrinth, where a patch of lashing vines reached out at them and thrashed violently. Harry tsked and shifted the earth, parting them a path in between the vines and deeper into the Labyrinth. "In here," she said, crouching low as she moved into the jungle.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi followed the woman, feeling kind of awkward, looking around as they headed towards the treeline of the jungle. "So, umm... I'm Madi, by the way. And you are...?"

And then they arrived and the woman easily opened up the jungle and moved in. "So, where are the bees again? Is it smart for us to go in while the Labyrinth is all throwing a fuss and everything?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi, that was an easy one, one that even Harry should be able to remember. "Harry," she offered in return, mumbled over her shoulder as she guided them to the jungle.

"The bees are in there," Harry repeated, jerking her head in the direction of her path. She gritted her teeth, throwing up an earthen wall as the trees lurched back towards her path, striking at her. "Do you want to help, or not?" Harry sniped, snarling at Madi. "I can't hold this forever."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

"Harry. Harry is a nice name, it's-- it's nice to meet you," Madi gave a small smile to the woman. At least she got a name. That was something, right? She didn't seem to be that into talking in general, and the rest of the walk was quiet between them (only increased Madi's awkwardness).

Madi looked down, feeling embarrassed, "Yeah, yeah, sorry, I do wanna help." Maybe one of her friends got into trouble and that was why Harry was more snippier than-- than what, she didn't even know the woman. Maybe it really was just the bees and she was reading too much into any of this. "Let's go, sorry, I don't-- I don't want to make things difficult for you," she said and she headed in, expecting Harry to be following her.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Harry stared, her eyes hard and immovable as Madi balked in the face of Harry's order. So that was what made the woman march to attention, guilt that so easily bubbled to the surface. "Go on, then," Harry said as Madi lead the way into the darkness of the jungle. As she walked past Harry's path, Harry felt the familiar rumblings of the Labyrinth, a great shifting that foretold that this section of the jungle was about to move rapidly.

Harry smiled to herself, and let her path cease. She stepped back to the safety of the beach as the jungle hungrily closed the gap she had made. Within seconds Madi was gone, out of sight, and the Labyrinth seemed to sigh.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Something was moving, Madi could feel it, and so she instictiely turned around to get out - they could wait a bit for when it was more safe and really, she wasn't itching that hard to go into the labyrinth anyway, maybe she could help Harry some other way -, but by the time she turned around, Harry was gone, along with the beach and a clear way out.

She was stuck. She messed this up real bad, that was for sure.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ — — ✿ ❀ ✿ — — ✿ ❀ ✿ —

"Nick! Where are you?" Mik called out to the darkness of the jungle. His voice was raw and rough from shouting for the last few hours, on and off. "Nick!" he belted out, out of his mind with worry. The lady, the bird from New Zealand who didn't want to chitchat about the All Blacks, she'd come up to him out of nowhere and said something about Nick being taken by the vines... "Just answer me, Nick!" And Mik had followed her to the Bridge, followed her inside when she said this was where he had been taken. "Come on..." She'd pointed to something, and when he'd turned back there'd been no trace of her.

"Jupiter, can you hear me!?" Mik called out, desperation rising. "I can't... I can't stay in here," he muttered to himself, breath short and sharp. Mik touched a patch of moss and the dampness sizzled at his touch. "Okay, okay cool down Mik... Oh Mickey what a pity you don't understand..." Mik hummed to himself, because if he didn't hum a song he was going to burn down the jungle, which was maybe (?) the better scenario rather than losing his memories again, or going mad in a completely different way. "Is there anyone out there?" Mik bellowed, a final effort.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi needed to get out of here, she knew that, but Harry and the beach disappeared so fast, along with any signs of a way out, she didn't know where to even begin. The Labyrinth shifted and trapped her in and Madi had absolutely nothing with her.

She wasn't really sure how long she stood there, trying to listen and look (maybe it would just shift back to how it was - a dumb hope, but Madi was trying to be hopeful and optimistic) but nothing. Nothing, except...

"Mik?" she muttered, looking around. Could she have heard him? She listened and then heard his voice again so Madi moved towards him automatically. "Mik? Is that you? Can you hear me? Where are you?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

This was not the first time she’d been in here, this was however, the first time she’d been this deep without any real sense of direction. Hanan had cried herself hoarse calling after Harry, she was gone, lost. Swallowed up by the jungle. Hanan had backtracked through the undergrowth, or what she had presumed to be backtracking. In the end it appeared as if she’d looped around to the same spot. Harry had spoken about a river, water, a spot where her headaches would be lessened. But now with the jungle encroaching on her she couldn’t distinguish one vibration from the next.

The jungle was heady, intense, the rumbling and ever shifting earth made her teeth chatter. Hanan walked, and then eventually crawled to stoop under a low fern, huddling up out of sight momentarily. The pain had dripped down from her temples into her jaw, and the crux of her shoulders. Her head was swimming in a humid fish tank, and through the haze of it all she thought she heard voices. “…Hello…?” She called, straining against the staccato pulse at her temples. Surely it was just her imagination, or one of the monkeys above taunting her.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Someone called back to him. That or the hallucinations were already starting, no it took more than a day for those to start, right? "Hey!" he called back to the first voice, heading towards it immediately. "Madi?" It sounded like her, hell he hadn't seen her in weeks though. As he approached, crashing through the undergrowth he thought he heard another noise, this one to his left.

Mik stopped, looking in both directions, unsure what to do next. Was this just another island trick? The same thing that had yoinked away the woman who had lead him in here? "Madi! Can you come to me? I think there's someone else..."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

For a few long, agonizing moments Madi wasn't sure if she actually heard Mik or not - maybe it was all just a hallutination, it was nothing more than the island and the jungle toying with her. But then the voice came again, familiar, even though she hasn't seen Mik for a while (honestly, she's been isolating herself pretty badly lately), and it was such a huge, overwhelming relief, she started heading towards the direction of the voice even before Mik called for her to.

"Mik?! Mik, I am coming, please keep talking," Madi called back, but even without the voice, she set on a direction and rushed over, her eyes glancing around over and over again to make sure there wasn't anything hidden in the shadows, until--

She stumbled right into Mik. "Hi, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to-- please don't take this the wrong way, but I am really glad to see you," Madi let out a small, relieved sigh. "Did you hear Harry? What direction is she in? I lost her so fast, Mik."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

There were general rules, when faced with dilemmas like these. Hanan knew deep within her that if she didn’t move then this might as well be her final resting place. She wasn’t ready to give up yet. Hanan crawled on her hands and knees despite the fact it hurt unbearably so. If she clenched her teeth she could focus on that over and above the thundering pain of the ever-shifting jungle.

It felt as if she had a live band playing over and beyond maximum volume, just a hiss of screeching white noise in her ears. The taunt of voices came again, distant, could be monkeys, could actually be someone – maybe it was Harry? “Harry?” She pleaded.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi replied to Mik, and it was intelligible and made sense to what he was saying. "I'm right here!" he called back, relieved beyond words that he'd stumbled upon another person out here. Even if the thought that thought was also terrifying. Madi crashed through the bushes to his right and practically fell into his arms. Mik helped them both right themselves, grinning madly at having someone else's help. "No, I get it. Bad scenario, good to see you." Mik's smile faltered as Madi talked about Harry (that was her name, wasn't it? She'd been pretty reserved talking to him, apart from this morning's chaos). "She said Nick was in here, she'd seen him been snatched in by the vines..." Mik looked nervously at the jungle above them, the canopy that stretched endlessly high like a super skyscraper. "I lost her... We should..."

Mik trailed off as he heard something again, a voice calling for Harry. Wait, really? "Did you hear that?" Mik asked Madi, glancing nervously between her and the direction of the voice. Without waiting, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Are you real?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Finding Nick felt like such a huge relief, it was hard to describe, but thankfully Madi saw the same relief flash through Mik's expression, and that calmed her a bit. At least she wasn't alone. The Castaways survived for years in here, they can figure out how to get out and survive for a few hours, right? That is, if they only had to spend a few hours here...

Madi pushed the thought away, tried focusing on getting out and what Mik was telling her. "Wait, Nick is in here too? And Harry told you that...?"

Something felt off, though Madi's brain didn't quite put the pieces together yet, not before her focus was snatched away by another voice calling out. "Hello?! Who is that? Are you lost too?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan was so sure it wasn't real, that it was in her head, or really she didn't know what to think. Which way to look. Everything was just a little too intense and a little too much. She crawled though, knowing that this was it, she had no way of navigating her way out. If the voices were real. They were hope. Hanan collapsed into what seemed to be a clearing but her vision was a hazy blur. "Harry? Harry? If this...if this....is a test...can we stop..." She wasn't so fond of this.

On her knees she realised with a few blinks, it wasn't Harry, but the voices actually weren't in her head after all. Because that influencer guy, the one from the beach, was looking down on her and someone else. "Wai–-"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

There was a crashing, lumbering sound from the jungle as something came closer, a figure, a woman. Mik raced towards her, too slow to stop her collapsing to her knees. "Oh shit," Mik slowed his approach, crouching down so he was on her level. "Hey, Hanan, we found you yeah? We got you."

Mik looked up from her to Madi, confused, and struggling to put the pieces together. One part of his mind worried that Nick was still in the jungle too. "Did you say Harry? Have you seen her?" he asked Hanan.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Madi snapped her head towards the voice and saw a woman stumbling and Madi was moving towards the woman fast. She didn't recognize her, but that didn't matter. Mik at least knew the woman. "Hey, hey, we've got you, it's okay, you're going to be okay."

Her eyes met Mik's for a moment before she looked back to Hanan. "Are you hurt? What happened to you? How long have you been here?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan wavered, she felt a little silly on the floor of the jungle looking up at them but her head was still swimming. And that guy, what was his name, Mikey-something? No it was – "you're Mik?" Hanan blurted. He was the pyramid scheme guy.

She blinked, "er...I don't know..." She rubbed her temples and tried to focus her muddled thoughts into something more coherent, but everything felt like she was wading through waist-high mud. Who knew earth-sickness could be worse than elevation sickness.

"Harry was going to teach me at the waterfall... for my earth attunement but like she disappeared and I lost her? I have no idea where she's gone. Have you guys seen her?" Hanan said, quick-fire as if that was the remedy. "N-no just, my head, this place is soo loud."

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan still remembered him at least. If Mik had been in a better mood, he would have been pleased at the brand recognition. Mik instead nodded when she asked who he was, inclining his head to Madi. "This is Madi," Mik said, and before he could stop himself, he added, "Oh she's gay too." Forever the lesbian wingman, even in the worst of times.

Harry was going to take Hanan to the waterfall, Harry was going to take Mik to find Nick. "Harry said... Harry said she'd seen Nick get taken by the jungle... And Madi, you said something about losing Harry too? Do you... Do you think she's in trouble?" Mik asked the two women, because that question was nice, and was the far nicer alternative to the more sinister thread that was running through their encounters.

Mik turned to Hanan, pursing his lips together. "Can you stand? I... I could give you a piggyback?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Introductions quickly turned to Madi's face turning as red as a tomato. "I-- I am, but I-- this isn't-- hi, it's nice to meet you, sorry it has to be while you're in so much pain," she turned to Hanan instead, trying to ignore the redness of her face or that Mik was trying to play wingman right now.

Thankfully he moved on, though, and while Mik was voicing the kind, worried version of possibilities, Madi kept playing and replaying her interaction with Harry. "She wanted me to come to the jungle so much,"she muttered, instead of replying to Mik's question. "I didn't get it, but I thought-- I thought she just needed some help but she couldn't actually say it, so I followed but-- she just wanted me to come here and when I originally questioned it, she started getting frustrated."

Hanan was still on the ground, though, and that momentarily distracted Madi from her thoughts, "Oh, yeah, that's-- that's a good idea, Mik could help." Technically she could too, but after Mik's declaration of her lesbianism, she didn't want it looking like she was hitting on Hanan or something right in the middle of things. "But yeah, did you guys-- did she try to urge you guy in here too? Try to speed things up so you guys could get close to the jungle or even in the jungle?" She paused, but she had to say it, somebody had to say it and she's been the bad guy in many people's eyes these days, so why not. "Do you guys think-- she wanted-- you know, to get us in here for some reason? Intentionally?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Between them both Hanan felt a little lost. It wasn't their fault, not at all, she just felt like she was sat on the violent end of an unruly seesaw. Hanan slowly pushed herself up to stand, a little adamant perhaps not to need a piggyback ride off of Mik. "N-no I'm all good." She rushed through, looking between them both, Mik and...he'd said her name was Madi? She seemed to be just as embarrassed as Hanan was, "hey, no all good."

"Do....do you think Harry is still out here? Wait Mik did you say someone else is out here too?" Hanan rubbed at her temple, maybe the piggyback ride wouldn't be so bad of an idea. Get her feet off the ground. Hanan just wanted to lay down in her tent, shielded by several layers of plastic, ideally face down. "I don't know, why would Harry do that though? Do you guys know a way out?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Maybe it wasn't the time to play wingman to both of the girls he'd run into whilst trapped in the jungle. But in his stress he'd fallen back to easy, old patterns, which meant making sure everyone was friends with one another. Mik smiled sheepishly at each woman, especially poor Madi, going bright red like a cherry.

Madi told of how Harry had approached her, tried to get her to come to the jungle, asked how they had come in. "I mean, she just came up to me all of a sudden and said that Nick... that Nick had been taken by the jungle." She'd been only too eager to show him where, bend the jungle to her will to let them both slip into the dark undergrowth. Mik's perpetual smile fell as he considered Madi's point, and then Hanan's tempering. Why would she do it? "I... I don't know why but... Everyone's been on edge lately." Tomas had ordered Emre to destroy his gym, Tamyra had insisted that Nova had come to the island, then there was the drama with Lina, and Ned... Mik rubbed his stubble, feeling dirty for even thinking ill of someone.

"Don't know a way out, but we're going to find one!" Mik changed tack, all insipid optimisim and charisma once more. He had to be positive, because the alternative was that he was going to lose his mind in the jungle again, and Nick was going to sulk that he'd gone missing once more. "Are you sure you don't want a piggyback?" he asked Hanan again, who looked practically green around the gills. "It might help us move faster." And moving faster meant getting out of here faster.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan insisted that she was feeling okay, but Madi still stayed close to the woman in case she had to jump in to help quickly. She wasn't the best person to go to help for these days, but she was still strong, she could catch Hanan if she was falling.

"I-- I don't know, it seems kind of impossible, but she was-- she seemed so weird, when she talked to me and asked me for help, and then I came inside and Harry was just-- gone. Quite quickly, almost like she didn't even come in and-- and you got in here while being with her and Mik did too and just-- this couldn't all be a coincidence, right?" She stopped for a moment, really thought about what she was saying. Was she really trying to suggest that some old-timer on the island suddenly felt the need to play deadly games with them by drawing them into the jungle or even the Labyrinth? Madi could never quite tell the difference. "Okay, no, never mind that thought process, I am probably just overreacting, Harry couldn't-- nobody could do such a thing, right? But that also means-- we need to find her and Nick too."

"And a way out. Which I am not proficient in, never really could navigate these places, but we can just--" hope for the best, Maid wanted to say, but that would have probably sounded way too stupid. So instead she wrapped her arms around herself, tried to hide the twitching of her fingers, and said. "There are some moss on the trees there, that shows the way to North, right? So we gotta go the exact opposite to get to the South Beach? Or is the moss thing not actually even a thing?" She didn't know, but she needed to get out of here. Fast. "No chance either of you guys have a flask with some alcohol with you, right?" No harm in asking at this point.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan really, really, didn’t want to lean on Mik for a piggyback. Part out of stubbornness, part because she didn't want to be a hindrance. Then again, no matter which way she was going to be deadweight. A bleak thought. She didn’t know who Nick was unable to sift through old memories that linked him and Mik together, but she could agree that they needed to find Harry. Even if Madi was suggesting something altogether more sinister. “Harry wouldn’t do that, would she?” Intentionally luring them into the Labyrinth – what did she have to gain from that?

No, Hanan believed it had to be some freak accident, but even if she clung to that optimism it felt foolishly naive. “That’s just a myth…moss will grow anywhere that has water.” Hanan recited, when she’d been little her baba had told her the story that moss only grew on the northern side. Only for her to find out later he’d spun that myth to have a story to tell on hikes. “You…do either of you per chance have an air attunement?” Or an earth attunement that wasn’t sporadic and untamed.

"No...I don't have anything on me." She'd left her day pack at camp, wait – Hanan's brows knitted together. Was Madi asking for alcohol? Hanan put it down to a blip, she must've misheard it, the tremors messing with her hearing.

“Okay…” Hanan said, just as worried if not more worried that Madi seemed terrified, or freaked out by all of this. “Maybe if we start walking? Nick and Harry can’t be too far can they? If we’re altogether maybe we can figure this out.” As determined as she was to walk on her own two feet, every shift never mind step sent a thundering ache up through her jaw. “I-I…might take you up on that piggyback Mik. If I’m too much though just say.”

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Mik didn't like the way Madi was insisting that there were too many coincidences, and how she had a point. Bugger it, but they'd all been lead in here by Harry. He'd been so worried about Nick, ruled by a base-level of anxiety unhelped by the fact that Nick had yet again failed to leave a message saying where he was going. All it had taken was for Harry to come up to him and tell him what she'd seen for him to follow her blindly, trusting. "Madi if you're right... Maybe Nick isn't even here?" Mik suggested, only because it was a positive thought. Nick wasn't here, Harry was playing some kind of sick game on them all... Mik brightened. "You know... She seems a sandwich short of a picnic, yeah?" All animalistic grunts and... she did kinda smell. Worse than everyone else on this island with no deodorant.

Mik stayed quiet as Madi and Hanan bickered about moss on trees, which wasn't apparetnly a thing. Mik hadn't even known it was a thing that needed to be fact checked. That was the trouble with being a city boy. "Right... We're both fire attuned," Mik supplied for Madi, trying to keep the nerves from his voice. "So we have a few days before we start like losing our memories and and hallucinating and..." Mik trailed off, breathing slowly out from his nose as he felt his temperature spike. "But we're going to get out before that happenens-"

Mik turned to look at Madi as she asked for a drink. He didn't blame her, really. She did look a little peaky, now that he was looking at her. "I don't drink, and I left my water bottle on the beach." Mik smiled tightly, because he was so fucking unprepared for surviving the Labyrinth and he didn't want to fucking die.

"No, you won't be too much," Mik said with forced cheerfulness, slapping his thighs as he crouched before Hanan. The sooner they got out of here the better-

The noise stopped. There had been so much noise before, bugs and frogs and birds, branches and leaves moving in the wind, creaking of tree trunks, the rumbling shifting of the ground far away. Now, it was silent. Eerily so. Mik felt fear prickle cold at the back of his neck. "Right, I think I've had enough nature for today, what about you guys?"

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Hanan dismissed her original idea like Madi did, but Mik found some merrit in it, and Madi wasn't sure how she felt - somebody intentionally luring people into the jungle. It had to be-- some kind of bad horror movie trope thing, not true, right? "Let's just-- let's keep our eyes out, make sure we aren't leaving them in here." Except if this place wanted to, it could keep anyone hidden from them and they would never know, right? She didn't want to think about that.

Okay, so the moss thing wasn't a real thing, good to know. They still had to start walking, though - and now without any sort of guidance. But standing still felt even worse than going the wrong direction. Madi looked up - some sunshine was shining through, it wasn't pitch black. "I think-- I am not an expert, but I think on some degree we should be okay a little bit longer. I mean, the Castaways had fire attuned among them and they didn't go totally crazy either, so you know, maybe, hopefully, we can get out of here before that becomes an issue." She didn't even think about the sun madness, if she was being honest, but she was trying to be optimistic. She wanted a drink, but she could keep being optimistic while wanting one.

No water, no alcohol, nothing. Nothing on them. This was going to be rough. "It's fine, we'll be fine," she reassured them and then hovered over Hanan while she gotten up onto Mik's back for that piggyback ride. "If you get too tired, I can-- I can take over, too," she offered to Mik as they started walking.

They didn't get too far, though, because suddenly there was silence, and Madi stopped too, listening. One, two, three moments of long, aggravating nothing and then almost like something was bulldozering towards them, a loud ruckuss started and Madi's eyes widened. "RUN. RUN RUN RUN," she screamed and pulled Mik along with her. She wasn't sure what was behind them, but they needed to get to safety and fast, because it was absolutely faster than they were.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

No sooner than Mik had offered, and she had gotten onto his back, did the jungle turn into an eerie awful silence. If Hanan knew anything she knew that total silence was rarely good – most especially here. The island was constantly chattering back and forth. Hanan slid her arms around him feeling slightly awkward to being clung to his back, but it was better. So, soooo, so much better on his back than it had been on the ground. Mik seemed to act a little like a buffer. Absorbing all the shockwaves that would’ve sent her into a mind-numbing fizz.

That was until the silence gave way for something altogether monstrous. The sound of the unknown tearing through the jungle behind them was enough to make her scream. Hanan would only be a hindrance like this. “Please! I can run!” She urged, desperate for Mik to drop her and let her run for herself. Even if the second her feet touched the floor it sent an instant jolt through her. There wasn’t time to be deterred by pain, and perhaps that was one thing Hanan was adept at. Pushing through pain. She ran, following the other two and either it was some miracle, or the jungle literally pushing and spitting them out – they tumbled into sunshine.

Hanan did so, quite literally, it was as if her legs had simply given up as the dense overhead jungle grew lighter and lighter, until fluorescent moss turned to sand. Hanan collapsed, exhaustion and the pressing weight of feeling everything so sharply, the thunder of their collective feet, the jungle and the island screaming. “Are…” She pushed herself up, feeling once again useless curled up on the floor. “Are you two okay?” Either the earth-sickness was playing with her fitness, or she was more unfit than she thought she was, as she practically doubled over to catch her breath.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

Mik let Hanan down as soon as she asked him to. He did look back over his shoulder to make sure she did keep up, that he hadn't abandoned her to whatever was chasing them. It sounded huge, the size of a house, a bulldozer. Mik's body knew what to do, the nimble, zippy run of having the rugby ball tucked under one arm and the try line right in front of you.

Except it wasn't a try line this time, it was light through the trees, a beach of golden sand. Mik slowed down as they emerged, turning to wait for Hanan and Madi to come out. "I... I think we're free," Mik said, breathlessly laughing, giddy at the thought.

— ✿ ❀ ✿ —

It almost felt too easy - the three of them running and running and running right out of the jungle and onto the beach. Hanan switched over to running herself somewhere in the middle of running but they mostly all made it out of the jungle all okay and free and Madi felt like collapsing, but instead she just leaned against a tree. And then after a few moments, she jumped back up and took several steps away from the tree and the jungle. She could stand or collapse but she wanted to stay away from the jungle.

"Yeah, I think-- I think we got lucky this time," Madi summed it up. Things were weird on the island, sure, but the jungle and the Labyrinth was the worst. It didn't even occur to her that the island might have wanted them out here, on the beach, while the dopplegangers were running around. They were ready for the picking.

#hanan #hanan 001 #mik #mik 002 #chapter 11: the mirror #thanks for this guys this was fun

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