xp_logs | Something Slender || Stalking

The group enjoys nature. They do not enjoy their apparent stalker.

"Madin! Hi." Rictor seemingly appeared out of nowhere next to the purple Australian sometimes-groundskeeper, his bare feet not making a sound on the ground. "¿Qué tal? So, I was talking with Ms. Opal yesterday about our rose bushes here, because they have been looking sad, right? She said we probably added the mulch too late, or used something that does not hold moisture well for roses. She also said to water the ground and make sure the leaves stay dry, or 'f-ing mildew will grow like s overnight.' Her words."

Madin shrugged. "Sure. I'm completely taking your word for it, because all I really know how to do is fences and raking and mowing and honestly, all that shit is different when you're not in the fucking tropics. Lawns and roses are not really something that I know much about."

"My mother grows a small rose bush at home, but what we have here is so much bigger and fancier. I sent her photos, I think she was jealous." Rictor said this with no small hint of pride and amusement in his voice.

"I mean, we live in a freaking mansion. I'm not surprised."

Rictor smiled, but an odd movement at the edge of his vision caught his attention, and he rapidly turned to try to catch it. "Weird," he muttered, "I thought I saw someone over. Not one of us."

Madin stopped walking and stared intently into the trees. "I did, too." They held up a hand and listened. There were just.... bush sounds. Birds. Small animals and leaves rustling. Silence never meant that there wasn't someone there and the noise of the rest of the group would mask anyone tracking them. "I can't hear them, but there's someone out there."

But all Rictor could feel on the ground was the two of them and their hiking companions, no one else. His smile fell into a frown as he knelt and put his hands on the ground to double-check his feet were not lying to him. But no, still nothing but them. "Maybe it's just an early warning sign of heat stroke . . ."

This wasn't any of the locations they'd deployed in. It was a fucking forest in America and sure, that meant that the chances of an insane redneck with a gun were greater than zero, there'd be more signes, right? The hikers were spread out over a few hundred meters. Did they pull together or hope that keeping distance would give the less experienced some safety? "We've seen something, though. We're not imagining it."

"Let's ask Sharon if she saw anything. Nothing gets past her . . ."

Jono, was only vaguely annoyed that he hadn't ended up with someone he actually liked on this hike. Paige or Match would have been best, hell Ashley and Liam too even if he didn't know them as well.

But no.

The asshole from the woods had ended up with him. Perfect.

He resolutely ignored her as he pushed forward and tried to tell himself that it was her eyes he felt on the back of his neck as he walked.

Mel was trying to make the best of the situation by pretending woods guy wasn’t there. This was Paige’s not boyfriend, she was gonna be nice, even if she’d much rather be with Madin or Sharon right now.

But the stupid telepathic asshole must really be testing his luck.

She’d stopped flying awhile ago, trying to slow down and enjoy nature, but she kept seeing things that should not be there. Just out of the corner of her eye. The next time it happened she stopped and wheeled around completely. There wasn’t anything there.

Stomping angrily up to Jono, Mel yelled “Alright asshole, quit messin’ with ma head! I don’ want no part in yer mind games!”

That accent was so much nicer coming out of Paige's mouth. ~~Or even Jay's.~~ Jono stared at her with blank, dead looking eyes and pulled the light writer out of his pocket. "What. The actual fuck. Are you talking about?"

“I ain’t fuckin’ crazy! Yer makin’ me see things!” She gestured behind them jerkily. “I keep seein’ someone followin’ us and there ain’t, so I know it’s you!”

"Maybe." Jono typed, raising an eyebrow. "If you stopped glaring at the back of my neck, there wouldn't be a sensation of being watched for me to somehow theoretically project to your mind. I don't even know how to do that."

It was Mel’s turn to look at him deadpan. “Why the fuck would I be lookin’ at yer neck? I’m tryin’ to enjoy the nature but you keep tryna spook me.”

"I don't care about you enough or hate you enough to try to spook you. You're a non-entity to me until you decide to become my problem." Jono replied. "You glare at me all the time- I was actually looking forward to this hike until I got paired up with you."

God, he really was an ass. Mel didn’t know what Paige saw in him. “Well you became my problem when you decided to start flirtin’ with Paige! You can’t jus’ go givin’ a girl rings an’ love songs an’ then ignore her fer weeks! That ain’t doin’ right by her an’ you ain’t doin’ yerself any favors by messin’ with ma head!”

"She explicitly told me she wanted to be friends and I am trying to get my feelings under control so that I'm not a fucking creep." Jono typed, glaring daggers at her. "Excuse me for trying to make sure that Paige has the kind of friend she deserves and not one who's too caught up in his own shite feelings to think about hers. And it's not like she sought me out. And for the last fucking time. I'm not fucking with your head. I don't even know how to do that."

Mel was about to retort when she saw the man again, just outside her field of vision. She whipped around again and it was gone. Turning back to Jono angrily, she started “Seriously-!”

"How am I the cause of it when I don't even know what it is you're seeing?" Jono typed, angrily turning on his heel as he pushed deeper into the woods. Maybe if he didn't look at her, she'd go away.

He closed his eyes for a moment and paused. He needed to calm down, or else he'd actually end up fucking with her head on accident. As he walked, he tuned Melody out, choosing instead to mentally sing his song, Whispers in the Woods, hoping like the speaker, that if he was lucky- he too might get swallowed up by the bramble and be taken away from the girl behind him.

Mel was fuming. The audacity of this guy. She wished she’d stayed home with Jay, wished she was anywhere but here.

And then she heard it- he was singing in her head about fucking fairies. This had to be a joke. One big cruel joke.

Up ahead, Jono spotted a tall, thin man in a suit, but just as quickly as he'd seen it, it vanished. Jono stopped, and without turning back towards Melody, typed. "Did you see that? The man?"

Mel scoffed. “Now yer jus’ messin’ with me- fuck off.”

"No, there was a tall man in a suit and he just vanished. Did a teleporter come on this trip?" Jono typed, turning to look at her. The robotic nature of the voice didn't change but his expression was far from the righteous indignation it had been several minutes before.

“No- wait, we have teleporters at the mansion?” Mel asked, before shaking the thought away. “Yer unbelievable.” She wasn’t about to let Jono gaslight her about this now.

"Of course we have bloody teleporters. That's how I got to this country." Jono typed. "But did you see the man? The only teleporter I met was a woman."

She rolled her eyes. “Yes I saw the man. I’ve been seein’ him!”

Jono's brow furrowed. "What? Is that what you were blaming on me? I just saw it."

“Well who else is gonna be doin’ all that!” What had she ever done to him? Barely anything, and not anything that warranted this. Tampering with a mind that already seemed to hate her. Mel felt like crying.

"Well obviously that thing that's been following us!" Jono typed, robotic voice of the lightwriter not at all conveying the attitude presented by his thoughts. One hand flew out to the side, gesturing vaguely at the woods around them and not even in the direction of where he had seen the thing. "Why the fuck would I even do something like that? I get it, you hate me, I'm a deformed fucking monster and you don't want me around your sister- whatever- I'm not so much of a monster that I'd do something like that!"

Mel looked at him like he had started speaking in tongues. “What? I don’ hate you, an’ if I did it wouldn’t be fer yer looks.” Did he really think that? Maybe she was being a bit much. “Nobody is good enough fer Paige, I’d treat ya the same even if you were the most normal guy in the world. It’s yer attitude.” She rolled her eyes. “An’ why wouldn’t ya? I’ve been a total bitch.”

"What fucking attitude?" Jono asked, brow furrowed and clearly incredulous. "I'll have you know that I'm perfectly pleasant to Paige because she's nice to me. I don't have any interest in messing with anyone's mind. I don't even want to be telepathic!"

Mel rolled her eyes. He was either malicious or oblivious, Paige was clearly into him and yet he kept stringing her along. “Whatever. Someone’s followin’ us- now what?”

Jono closed his eyes and tried to project to Mel, he didn't want whatever was following them to hear. Then you get behind me and I go nuclear on it if it gets closer. And I'm only saying get behind me because as much as I don't like you, I don't actually want to hurt you.

Aw, ain’t you sweet. She wished she had her staff or something right about now. Anything that could be used for self defense so she didn’t have to rely on stupid Jono.

Yes, obviously I’m the most chivalrous person you’ve ever met because I don’t to leave you permanently disabled like my ex girlfriend. Jono snarked. Unless you have a better idea that’s the only plan I’ve got.

Mel looked at him then with something on her face that couldn’t quite be placed. Alright, yer plan it is. Let’s keep walkin’ an’ see it we can find the others.

Shatterstar clearly was not that thrilled about hiking, but did so with only mild glaring before realizing that the newest kid on the block might be taking his glaring as him glaring at her, which was not at all the case. He attempted to smooth out his features.

"Is this something you do often?" He asked her. He thought he had seen something out of the corner of his eye, like a black smudge, but when he turned his head to look better it was only their fellow hikers. Maybe it had only been that Jono guy, he wore a lot of black.

It took Emily a moment to answer, fascinated as she was by a series of wildflowers that had bloomed near the path they were currently walking. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, intent on bringing up her nature app to identify them before she realized it was a new phone and she hadn’t loaded it yet.

“Do you think they’re native?” she asked, before remembering he’d asked her a question. She blushed slightly and smiled. “Kind of. There wasn’t as much um, Forest where I lived. I mean, there were trees and scrub but it wasn’t as close packed.”

Shatterstar knelt down to look at the flowers with her. He didn't know much about plants, but he had always liked public gardens and he'd spent a lot of his free time at the nursery where Rictor worked. If he was able to recognize them he might know. "They might be," he said, after listening to Emily's explanation. It was hard to imagine living in such a wide open space. "I recognize them at least, but I'm not from New York either, so I don't know for sure."

Emily smiled again before reaching out to softly boop one of the flowers. There wasn't a purpose to it really, just an acknowledgement of reality being real rather than a hellscape VR scenario.

“Come on, we should keep up with the others or they'll leave us behind. Um, have you been here long?”

Shatterstar nodded, but let Emily set the pace. He didn't want to leave the new girl behind accidentally, especially when he felt like they were being watched. Maybe it was leftover paranoia from the VR experience.

"A year in May," he responded. "You get used to things here quickly."

“I don’t know how I would,” Emily admitted softly with a sigh as she left the flowers behind and started walking again. “It’s not just the…” Emily made a gesture with her hands, trying to encompass everything she couldn’t quite say about what had been so far. “You know, that stuff but this stuff too?” She gestured to the woods and stopped for a moment, her hand touching Shatterstar’s before she pointed to a small brown furry creature currently peering at them from a tree branch. “Is that a Squirrel?”

"I think it's a chipmunk, actually," Shatterstar said, pointing to the lack of bushy tail. "Squirrels have bigger tails...." He trailed off, thinking he saw a man in black in the corner of his eye and moved to look. This time he could have sworn he saw one.

“Oh! So it is, it’s adorable,” Emily gushed before she took a step closer to try and get a better look. It took her a moment to realise Shatterstar had paused, or that the bird noise had quietness slightly. She looked back at him, a small light of fear in her eyes. “I think we should really go now.”

Shatterstar tore his eyes away from the figure he thought he saw. "Agreed. Let's get back to the others."

"What you think?" Liam asked, moving at a more sedate pace compared to the scamper he'd had. He was even walking on two legs instead of bouncing off everything on all four. Taking a sip from his water bottle, he flipped the top closed and dropped it back in its holder.

"I think sixteen dollars for four apps that will let me know exactly what mushroom or rock or tree I'm looking at was a great deal." Ashley was crouched down with her phone taking a picture of a three petaled red flower. She waited, her phone made a delicate warble, and then she stood up. "Red trillium. T Erectum." She laughed a little snorty laugh. "Looks like an alien, has nothing but terrible names. Stinking benjamin, wake robintrillium erectum. No winners there, and it's not even phallic."

Was that a good deal? "It's...a flower," Liam agreed, "If you want to eat something, I can probably tell you. My mom goes foraging in the summer with her friends," while the men went fishing. He'd been forced to go with her until he was old enough to not be a menace to fish. "Generally, everything is edible, just not necessarily raw. Or tasty to us. But very little will outright kill."

"All mushrooms are edible." Ashley said, with a laugh. "Some of them are just only edible one time." She sent a picture of the flower and it's identification page to the Gen-X group text captioned "all bad names not even *eggplant emoji*". "I'm not eating anything out here, but I am spamming the group chat with weird mushrooms."

"As one does," he agreed, his phone vibrating, but not making noise. He didn't like it going ping ping ping all the time. "Did you knows that mushrooms have a mycorrhizal network? Basically, all mushrooms are connected by these microscopic threads called mycelium that dig into tree roots and take water, carbon, and various minerals and stuff. They can be miles and miles long. "

"I learned that on the Magic School Bus." Ashley said. "Ms Frizzle is one of my lesbian icons." She bent down to look at a cluster of mushrooms and took a few photos. "I love this one, it's a little mushroom guy! He's cute. She? They? Do mushrooms have gender? Like, plants have plant sex, do mushrooms have mushroom sex? I don't think either of the Miz Frizzles would've covered mushroom sex..."

"Mushrooms have like... hundreds of genders," Liam told her. He didn't remember much about the Magic School Bus other than watching some episodes in school, but he knew the reference. "They don't have sex though. Kinda hard given that they are sorta stationary. But the part you can see is only the top quarter or so. Kinda like icebergs." Liam didn't get a chance to infodump too often and he was going to take advantage.

"dada-da-Magic-School Bus!" Ashley sang. She hauled herself up and took a picture of the entire cluster of mushrooms and then caught sight of a black-clad figure ahead. "I think Jono's just ahead, I thought he was with Paige? Wasn't he walking with Paige?"

Right, maybe less info dumping. "They're kinda attached, I think," they smelled a lot like each other anyways. More than most people who hung out together anyways. "But I don't smell him. Or hear him."

Ashley inhaled, and shouted Jono's name, but the figure ahead didn't react. She shouted again, and then gestured wildly. "Like, what? Is he totally ignoring us?" She bent down and grabbed a little pinecone off the ground and tossed it towards the black-clad figure.

They kept walking, and popped out an umbrella at the last second before the pinecone would have hit them. It was grey and ribbed and ragged at the edges, and glistened wetly in the patches of sunlight that came through the trees. The pinecone hit the umbrella and sunk in slightly before rolling off the side. Ashley stopped walking and looked at Liam, mouthed "um what" - and then looked back, and the figure was gone.

"I'm.... gonna text the group," Liam offered, looking around and not seeing anyone else. How had they gotten separated?

Jessie was a little more awake now, and had her phone out to take pictures. Yes, she lived behind her phone. But she'd have photos of the great outdoors to look back fondly on later, and that was worth way more to her.

"Ooooooh." She knelt to examine a vibrantly red flower, and her hair started changing to match it. She snapped a quick picture, then jumped up to show it to the closest person - Paige. "Look at this! It's so pretty!"

Paige glanced at the photo. “Yeah, it’s nice. Wonder what it is.” She continued to hike on, focused more on getting her exercise in for the day than admiring the flora. “Does your hair always change color to match what you’re looking at?”

"Huh?" Jessie grabbed a strand of hair to hold in front of her eyes, and sighed. "My mutation is kind of reactive. If I see something I like - a color or a hair style or a particularly cute nose - it tries to find a way to express it, and hair color is the easiest thing to change. Sometimes my eye colors change too. I've been experimenting with changing my nails, but I'm not very good at that yet. There's a shapeshifter in the mansion who's apparently an expert and I've been told I should ask him about training, but school was so busy I didn't have a chance. Maybe now that it's summer...."

“So you’re a shape shifter? Me too. Kind of, I think that’s what I’m classified as.” Holding her hands up, Paige stripped of the skin on then to reveal a wooden form underneath. “It’s not quite as flashy, and I can’t change shape, but it comes in handy at least.”

"Ooooooooooooooh." Jessie stared at the hands, amazed. "Can you like, give yourself reptile skin? That's so cool."

"Uh I don't think so? It's mostly inorganic materials." Paige ripped her skin off once again to reveal a metallic skin this time. "See?"

"Cooooooool," Jessie said, wide-eyed. "Does it make you impervious to things? Or like, extra sensitive? Would your arm burn off if it was wood and caught fire?"

“Uh, probably? Haven’t tried burning my arms off yet.” After she had broken her leg trying to figure out if she was a mutant, Paige had been a bit more careful about experimenting with her powers. “Is yours limited to just the appearance of your features?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Paige saw something moving through the trees, but when she turned her head, nothing was there. Must have been some of the wildlife.

Jessie followed Paige's gaze. "Yeah, just my features as far as I know... did you see something?"

"Thought I did. Must have just been a bird or something." Paige shrugged. A twig snapped behind them, drawing her attention back over her shoulder. "What is that?"

"Probably just an animal or something?" Although now that Jessie thought about it, she didn't hear any normal animal noises, not even birds. Didn't animals go silent when there was a predator in the area? She looked around... and swore she saw something hovering behind a tree. She whipped back to look, but it was gone. "Someone... must be playing a joke." Because there was no way she saw what she thought she saw, right? Right???

“Yeah…” Paige trailed off and looked down the path again. With all the talking about powers, she hadn’t noticed the rest of the group breaking away from them. That would explain why everything was so silent now. But that wouldn’t fit with someone trying to play a joke on them. Behind one of the trees up ahead loomed a tall, thin shadow that didn’t match the rest of the trees. “Maybe we should head back to the house and wait to meet up with everyone else.”

"Yeah," Jessie agreed slowly, turning around. "Let's go."