A Derelict Factory-Warehouse-Looking-Thing [Ethan]

[Reli Kain]

He smiled back at her and said, in his own way, that he wanted to know why. A breeze swung around them, probably chilly for a New Yorker but luke warm for Russian Reli. She gripped at the edges of her hood and pulled it over her head. A combination of her hood, her bangs and the darkened weather meant she accidentally cast a shadow over her face. For a moment she merely stared at him, holding her sly smile on her face. She wondered how he would take something like this, what he would think. For probably just a second or two too long she stared, before she shifted her head away and began to speak.

"What do you believe in, Ethan? What do you think is out there?" She paused, staring and smiling again. "Have you ever watched a horror film and thought - what if that was real? Have you ever met someone-" She let out a snappy laugh. "Aside from me." Her smile was wider. "That was just sorta... off? Someone who moved how they weren't meant to? Looked how they shouldn't?" She stood in one fluid motion, not bothering to hid the slight differences between her movements and a humans - so subtle really, but sometimes things added up. She stepped towards him - one... two - and gave an invasive stare. In a low voice, she asked again;

"What do you believe, Ethan?"

[robbie117]

The words took a moment to sink into Ethan's head. What did he believe? The boy had no idea how to think, or how to respond. What did believe? Ethan didn't even really know. Reli mentioned horror films. They weren't real. Ethan loved stories, but he could tell fiction from reality. And horror films relied on fictional elements. The supernatural... they didn't exist. They broke the laws of life itself. They couldn't be real... could they?

'What do you believe, Ethan?'

Ethan thought of Reli. Had he ever met someone who was just off? She had singled herself out there. Ethan hadn't noticed it before, but something about her movements did seem a little... out. The way she acted on the beam, the balance, the way she broke the glass planes of the skylights. Even right now, she'd risen from the ground far faster then he'd expect from a human of her shape. It was hardly noticeable, and no doubt he would have missed it had he not been thinking his current train of thought, but it just seemed a tad unnatural for a person, yet fluent at the same time.

And the claws, he had seen claws. That was way off. Still, it was impossible. The idea of the supernatural broke every logical thought in his head. His brain screamed at him, drumming the impossibility of the idea into him. No, there was nothing out there, nothing other then humans and animals, living their lives like they had for centuries.

Yet, he remember the night not so long ago in central park, the night he had almost lost his life. That... thing he had always assumed human, it had moved faster and with more power then anything he'd seen since. Ethan was confused.

Reli was staring at him, drawing closer, so close he could hear her whisper. He glanced sideways and down, mumbling his response. "I don't know what I believe any-more." There was confusion in his voice, he'd answered honestly. He was thankful for what didn't show in his voice. Fear. 'Maybe we aren't alone down here.' His view of the world was slowly being taken apart, and that is a scary thing to endure.

[Reli Kain]

As he looked away and mumbled his reply Reli could see the obvious confusion scratching away at him. What's running through your head, human? The rain stayed at a light but steady patter about them. She looked him over, trying her best to understand every little body movement. Gauging him. What did a human think of a non-human that was indisputably sentient? What did he even think she was? Or perhaps he wasn't up to guessing yet.

She didn't leave much time after he answered. "Good. That's a good start." Her expression remained, a sly smile and a penetrative stare. "Now - Start believing." She slinked a step closer. "Start with everything, it'll be easier to say what isn't real. Trust me. All those horror film creatures? Believe." She opened her mouth in a grin, feeling her teeth extended by feral millimeters. She was telling someone. Telling a mundane at that. And it was good.

((Um... can u mention in next post how close Reli is? Thanks.))

[robbie117]

Rain was still falling from the sky, landing hard on him, being absorbed into his hair which was being to fall heavily in front of his face. It wasn't heavy, in fact it was rather light, but it was consistent enough that it had begun to have an effect. The outside of Ethan's jacket had become damp, and he shuddered when the cool breeze made contact with his slightly wet face.

Reli was close now, a step away, perhaps too small ones. Ethan looked back at her. A sneaky grin, a stare. Unchanged, except now her mouth was slightly open. There was something different. Her teeth, Ethan realised, seemed slight out. Like they grown by a millimetre. Barely noticeable, he would have missed it had she not been so close. All of it seemed so unreal, like he'd fallen fallen into something he'd read. Surreal, some might say.

'Believe everything.' The idea was so tempting at this stage. The idea of super-naturals was floating around in his mind. Ethan had lost all sense of time, but it felt like they had been atop that roof for hours. The boy knew, deep down, they hadn't, but since the clouds had blocked out the sun he had no sense of time remaining. They were illuminated solely by the light pollution seeping from the city centre.

"Tell me Reli," he said, "are you a horror creature?" Ethan's voice was steely determined, no emotion. He knew there was fear in his eyes, he felt scared. But he was also compelled to stay and continue talking to her, he wanted, no needed, to know. His world view had been broken. So he locked eyes with her, his an expression of several emotions. Fear yes, but also curiosity, and determination. Determination for an answer. He hoped she saw the determination.

Reli was only a step away. Ethan held his ground, hoping she'd come to him. He was drawn too her, in a way he didn't understand. 'Just one more step...'

[Reli Kain]

He asked - the direct question, as direct as one as muddled as him could be. She tilted her head to one side, paused, then tilted her head to the other. Righting her head, she grabbed her hoodie and shirt and pulled them over her head, smoothly flicking them off and over the edge of the roof. She stepped on the back of her shoes and kicked them over the edge. She grabbed off her socks which quickly followed the rest. Hopping on one foot she untangled herself from her jeans. Now standing, still about a step away, in only her sports bra and boyshort underwear she looked down at the items of clothing. Modesty! Human's have modesty, they expect modesty. She snapped her head up to look at him. Ethan's had enough shocks for one day. And he's about to have the biggest of all. I'll leave him his 'modesty'.

She stepped up to him, not quite nose to nose. She smiled a broad grin and said only one thing; "That's up to you, really." Before diving off the side of the building. She had dived sidewards, but twisted as if she were flying, Superman style, hands stretched out in front of her. Though they were hands no longer, paws ahead of her and paws behind. Her bones crunched and cracked as her skeleton morphed. For the first time she wondered if doing this in mid-air was a good idea. Her tendons snapped and fused, forming and enhancing the appropriate muscles. Her spine extended adding extra pieces of bone to itself, sliding out to form her tail, fur hurrying to cover it. The little soft hair all over her body grew and billions of other hairs pushing their way out of Reli's skin to join the rest. Soon she was covered in a thick and thin pelt. Her jaw stretched with a grinding sound, teeth retracted into her gums and a wet shucking sound as her new ones were pushed out. Her nails sunk under her skin, changed compesition, and slid out again as claws. Close to the ground now, for one terrifying moment she saw nothing, before the rapidly approaching ground appeared again in monochrome.

She touched her paws to the ground, bracing herself for the shock. Small shreds of cloth fluttered around her. Staying low for a few moments she recovered, before standing up on her own four legs and staring up at where Ethan must be. She crouched her head low to the ground, raising up her butt and waggling it to and fro. Her tail swished from side to side - a sure give away that she was inviting him to play.

[robbie117]

Ethan simply stared, mouth ajar, eyes wide, down at the fox now wagging it¡¯s tail in the air at him. No thoughts crossed him mind, no instincts told him to react. There was simply shock. Nothing in the last seventeen years of the young man¡¯s life could have possibly prepared him for what had just happened. His gaze was empty, his brain running at triple capicity as it attempted to make sense of the past moments events. And it still drew a blank.

There had been Reli. She had almost completely stripped in front of him. Ethan remembered the bewilderment, how confused he had thought he had been then. How little he¡¯d known. He¡¯d seen her jump off the roof. He remembered the sudden fear, he recalled calling out as she did. He hadn¡¯t wanted to lose his new friend. He didn¡¯t have time to make sense of it all then.

Now Reli was gone. There was only a fox, an animal that Ethan couldn¡¯t recall appearing. God was he confused.

'Wait a minute,' said the boy mentally to himself, 'shes the fox.' The realisation hit him suddenly, bringing back with it conscious thought. The impossblity of it took a moment to sink in, the fox still wagging it¡¯s tail in the air, inviting him down. Reli was wagging her tail at him.

'No.' The memory of her decent was returning to him now. Half way down the girl simply... changed. Fur burst through her skin, bones reshaped and a tail had grown out of her butt. She lept as a girl, she landed as the fox. 'That¡¯s impossable.' Ethan tried to remind himself that what he witnessed couldn¡¯t have happened, but it had. He¡¯d seen it. She was a fox. Thoughts began to circulate rapidly around in his mind, none remeberable as newer ideas replaced them all too quickly. Suddenly, in the space of a few seconds, his entire world view had been shaken. The impossable beccame real.

Reli seemed to want him to come down. Why else would she wait for him? The boy called out. ¡°Um, ok, er-¡± Never had he struggled so hard to find the right words. Focusing his energy back on the surrondings, he realised that he was shaking. Violently. ¡°I¡¯ll be down in a second. Just, um, stay there.¡± He hoped the fox could understand english, that she would wait. White faced, he turned, looking for a way down. He wasn¡¯t scared anymore. All he could feel was the shock.

The boy returned to the sky light as rain landed on the hard roof around him, although he didn¡¯t hear it. Could he even tell what rain was anymore? Ethan had no clue. Carefully, the boy lowered himself back into the hole he¡¯d come up through, moving backwards, letting his legs drop first and using his arms to keep him up. Ethan held onto the ledge with his hands, his full body dangling into the hole. After delicate aiming, he dropped onto the beam, then rolled off back onto the railings. The boy sprinted down the rusty stairs, not stopping as he reached ground level and out the large double doors they had came through. He was where his night had began. Only on his return, everything was different.

The sky was dark, Ethan¡¯s sense of time well and truely disorientated. The boy turned in the direction he remebered the fox was, hoping she had waited for him.

((I update before I got home . So you don't have to wait. It's magic.))

[Reli Kain]

Luckily for her, Ethan understood what she had wanted and called down to her, saying that he would be down where she was soon. Happy with this Reli righted herself and sat back on her haunches. It took a few minutes (in which Reli decided to commando roll on the spot), but eventually she spotted him coming out of the double doors to her left. She sat back up on her haunches again, as if she had been patiently waiting the whole time. The rain was steady now, though it had stopped really being Reli's fault - the rain caused the atmosphere to naturally start raining.

She padded over to him, calmly staring up at him. She circled around him a few times, before coming to a rest in front of him. I wonder what he's thinking...


((I couldn't think of anything. Soz.))

[robbie117]

Reli rested in-front of him, her red fur damp from the rain water. She looked up at him, a pair of grey eyes staring up at him past the tip of her brown muzzle. It was an odd thing to experience, a fox trotting around your ankles before it stops in front of you. Ethan's survival instinct tried to kick in, tried to get him to flee from the predator before him. But he didn't run.

"Hey Reli." Ethan greeted her again. His voice was shaky, as was his grin. "So, er, your a fox?" Ethan was unsure of what to add, so he stopped for a moment, rubbing his hand against his face. The boy gave a single chuckle, not because of anything funny but just to clear his nerves. Then a sigh. He spoke again, his voice low and unsure. "This is madness. I don't even know if you can understand me."

The boy squatted down, closer to her level. He began to run a hand against her back, stroking her damp but soft fur for half a second, before quickly and nervously moving his hand's away. 'You wouldn't have tried that on human Reli, so you can't do it on fox Reli.' That thought still felt strange to him.

The rain had drenched his hair, and had soaked through his jeans and jacket, wetting the shirt he wore underneath, but Ethan didn't care. He stared into the fox's eyes, seeing the same reckless, exciting person he'd explored the abandoned building with staring back. "Um, look," he added, "if you can understand me just, um, give me a sign or something?"

[Reli Kain]

He talked to her, and she answered. Unfortuantly, the subtle body language wasn't quite decipherable by humans, it turned out. He squatted next to her, rubbing her back. She semi-automatically arched into the touch, happy to be patted. But with no warning the contact disappeared. She swiveled around to face him. they stared at each others eyes for a moment, Reli seeing what she had seen in him before, when they'd started this adventure. Clouded heavily with confusion, of course. His nervousness, and fear, was in the air. It touched at Reli's nose. He asked her for a 'sign' that she could understand him. An amused thought passed her brain and she gave a laugh-bark - and odd sound that almost sounded like chokeing. With amusement in her eyes she turned tail and bolted away.

She dodged about the ground, relocating something she'd found earlier that day. Coming across it she skidded to a halt, picked it up in her mouth and half carried half dragged it back to Ethan. She dropped the metal in front of Ethan, the coloured side up blue and white with a pair of goggles on it. She had brought him a real sign. She sat back and gave her bark-laugh again, amusment ringing through her. Her tail whipping from side to side, flicking drops from the tip.

[robbie117]

Ethan broke out laughing. The boy fell backwards, landing upright, arse in the ground, limbs limp from the exhaustion of the mental strain he'd just undergone, head back, howling with laughter. He couldn't help it. It just felt so good to laugh, to be happy. All the confusion, the fear, the tension, the nerves, all of it drained from him in that moment. He laughed for a long time, head back, sitting in the rain with his eyes closed. He'd asked for a sigh. Reli had brought him a real one.

The laughter drew on for a moment, eventually coming to a halt. Grinning, Ethan turned his attention back to the fox, a wide grin on his face. There was mud on the back of his jeans, and the back of his jacket. But he didn't care, the rain would wash it off in a moment anyway. He couldn't even feel the cold. For that moment, he was just happy.

Ethan took in a few deep breaths before he spoke again, nodding his head slightly in amusement as he did so. "Ok," he chuckled, "so you can understand me." Reli wagged her tail at him, sitting upright. she seemed to be enjoying the moment as well. "What now?"

Before he could help himself, Ethan broke down into another laugh, closing his eyes, covering them with his palm. He couldn't stop grinning, there was too much joy. 'You did ask for a sign.'

[Reli Kain]

Ethan laughed, falling backwards in the process. Reli jumped about a bit, yipping along with him. The laughter stopped after a while and Reli saw him draw in a few breaths. He responded to her stop sign before asking what next. But just after he got the words out he began laughing again. Reli cocked her head to one side, amused but not understanding the joke. After a moment of letting him laugh she gave a solid bark, attempting to draw his attention. She then turned and trotted off around the side of the building.

Walking around the corner, she broke into a slow run (detouring with a frequent playful jumps to the sides) towards the back of the compound. Away from where she, and later Ethan, had entered. She advanced on a tall corrugated iron fence, painted in an unappealing grey-green which pealed off in circles. There was various construction debris in front of the fence. She slowed to a trot as she approached, sniffing the air.


((Short and with no purpose. ))

[robbie117]

Ethan's chuckling came to an end as Reli barked at him, trotting
around the building. Pulling himself to his feet, the boy wiped the
mud off his arse before following the fox.

He pulled around the corner after her, observing Reli playfully hop
from side to side. He managed to catch up as the fox slowed neared piles of construction material and debris that had been left to waste for some time. Reli seemed to be scanning the area, not with her eyes but her other senses. 'Sound', Ethan though,' or smell'.

The boy was still grinning from before, fear and confusion had fled for the time being. He was overcome with the moment, as illogical as the moment was to his rational mind. His thoughts were entirely on the moment, on having fun. And damned if he wasn't going to have fun. Nothing would stop him from having that.

As if to prove it, Ethan attempted a quick hop over a pile of waste. Apperantly distracted by his joy, he misjudged the leap, his foot coming down lower then he had hoped and colliding with the debris. The boy fell forwards over the heap, landing on his chest with a thud. Embarassed, he hastily regathered himself, standing and wiping the dirt off his jacket. Ethan hoped Reli hadn't noticed.

[Reli Kain]

Reli snapped her head around to watch as Ethan approached at the pile, attempting to jump it. About a step or two from the pile she knew he wasn't going to make it, his timing was all wrong. She watched him miss his footing and fall through the mess. She jumped about, yipping her fox's laugh. She bounded over closer, still yipping. He stood and brushed himself off and she dived right past him, into the very mess he just got out of. Debris slipped around her and she unsheathed her back claws, kicking away the rubbish, burrowing under the pile.

Using her forepaws to pull herself forward, she dug her way under the old building material. Thankfully, the debris were mainly large bits of wood and metal, making for a rather stable 'tunnel'. She pushed her way through until her nose hit the wall and she found the hole under it. She had been around the other side of this wall earlier today, and had scratched away at the dirt on the other side. On the inside, she wouldn't be able to get through, but if she dug she might be able to make it bigger.

She backed her way out of the tunnel, her tail dusting the walls. She emerged at the entrance, spotted Ethan, looked him up and down, blinked in confirmation and dashed down the burrow once more. At the wall again she started audibly digging away at the dirt, forming a hole large enough for her and Ethan to fit through. That is, if Ethan could get to the wall in the first place.

[robbie117]

Ethan could feel his embarassment burning on his cheeks as he noticed the fox's playful laugh at his fall, Reli had noticed his footing mistake and seen him tumble. Head down, Ethan still grinned at his friend, wishing the red to disappear from his face. He shugged, trying to throw off the mistake.

The fox finished her laugh, dashing past him as she landed and into the pile. Ethan could only watch in amazement as Reli dug a hole into the pile, a hole wide enough for both him and her to fit down. Expecting it to collapse, Ethan stood back and watched for Reli's return.

After a moment, she did, but suprisingly the hole didn't crumble behind her. With a nod of her head she beackoned him to follow as she plunged back underground and into the darkness. For a second Ethan watched, realizing how stupid the thought of following her was. But the exictment of the idea was enough to make him forget, and so he dived in after her.

It was dark down the hole. Ethan scrambled in the dirt for a foothold, something to steady him. Dust kicked up around him. Reli was before him, digging deeper into the ground. "Wow," Ethan said, amazed the fox had been able to dig a gap in the ground so deep and wide so fast. "This is really amazing." Ethan's face was centimetres below the top of the pile.

The dirt began to darken as rain fell into the hole, making the ground slowly heavier. Ethan worried the rain would collaspe the pile, trapping him, he didn't get out. Reli continued digging. Seeing nothing better to do, Ethan flipped on his stomach and started to help, although his human hands could only do so much.