The Driest of Seas

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] "Wir waren namenlos" Und ohne lieder An ocean of sand cut a clean horizon into Josh's vision. A straight line separated the deep blue from the orange-ish beige that was the ground he stood on. His black jacket swayed at his side, tied by the sleeves around his waist. The sun was beating down on the Earth as if this was an unholy place which could only be redeemed by the scorching heat of a thousand years. It was truly unbearable. Regardless of all this, using an ocean as comparison really was true to the area. The bleak emptiness of much of the place gave Josh a feeling of loneliness and desperation he hadn't felt in a long time. There was only Josh, the sky, and the sand. Why, after staying put for so many years, did Josh choose to go back here? It was filled with nothing but thoughts and memories Josh wanted to avoid. Yet here he was. Maybe subconsciously he needed to find a way to make peace with his past, and this is how he'd done it. He sure didn't know. Cutting through the horizon was a splinter of gray, immediately catching Josh's attention. Somehow it all seemed familiar, this old abandoned house made of gray wood. Maybe he'd past it before, one of those days all those years ago. It didn't really matter now, all he wanted to do was get out of the sun. The door wasn't completely on it's hinges, but it didn't fall off when Josh pushed on it. With a short burst of OCD, Josh re-attached the door to it's hinges the best that he could. Enough sand had already spilled onto the floor that you'd have to dig down about an inch to reveal any of the wood beneath. In the small, one-room building there was nothing but a desk and a chair, which struck Josh as quite odd. Maybe someone had taken some of the other things out that he'd liked. In the roof there was one large hole that let in sunlight, which was nice when you weren't standing in it. There was a small framed picture on the desk. The upper right part of the glass on the frame had broken and fallen in, behind the rest of the glass. After blowing off some dust, Josh saw a man and a woman, both of which seemed too old to have children. Yet still, there was a young boy in their arms, probably not any older than three. He had the oddest cowlick... Josh took a seat in the chair, grateful to finally be out of the sun.

(Wow. Finding this table again was a small adventure.)

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] The sun was as hot as any flame she had ever dared to touch that day, it felt like, the heat itself hacking away at her flesh beneath her clothes and drenching her in a foul smelling form of perspiration. The orange clothing she rarely every parted with was not aiding in her struggle at all, either, the hood pulled far over her head covering her eyes and making the flesh beneath it even more warm than usual. Not that her already painful boots, added to almost half an hour of treading through the barren wasteland was much help. If she was smart, she would have flown above the desert sands - that's what wings were made for, after all - but her self consciousness made it nearly impossible to let them be seen at all, much less used in action. She wasn't even really the best at flying, either. At this point, any shelter she could find at all would be the greatest godsend of all. For this reason alone, she nearly burst into tears of joy upon seeing a seemingly abandoned home only a few yards ahead. Of course, it seemed like someone beat her to it. While she could hardly see who through the water welling in her eyes to combat the dryness and sand, there was definitely a figure putting the door back on it's hinges up ahead and proceeding to disappear into said abode. Regardless, she imagined that, if she put her sneaky skills to uses, basking in the shade without being noticed would be a simple task . Upon entering, she managed to stay what she believed was out of eye sight just long enough to get a good look at her "partner". And, what she saw shook her to the bones. She... she knew this boy. She's seen him in the Imum base while she and her fellow gijinkas were experimented on all those years ago! She couldn't remember his name, but boy would she never forget his face. Once and Imum, always an Imum, and she would smite him down where he stood. Feeling for her trusty pocket knife, she held it out threateningly, telling herself there was no fear dancing in her eyes. With a shaky voice, she demanded, "Don't move."

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background- image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] [div style="width: 265px; position: absolute; text-align: justify; padding: 5px; padding-top: 0px; margin: 0; overflow: auto; height: 189px; margin-left: 197px; margin-top: -310px; color: 999999; font-family: verdana; font-size: 10px; line-height: 13px;"] Josh heard the switch blade as soon as it was drawn. If there was one thing Josh new at this point, it was danger, and he was in flee mode before he even had a chance to think about what was going on. " Don't move." By the time she'd said this, Josh already had his cut-throat razor out of his jacket. She wasn't in the room yet, and He was counting on this. He'd thought that Imum had given up on him by now, but he must have been wrong. He was ready by the door before she came in, and he was going to get a surprise attack in. "I'm here, I don't want to fight. What should I do?" He didn't know exactly how he was going to handle this situation, but he'd have to think of something fast.

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] Knives didn't usually scare her, really. Honestly, if anything, they were a bit of a comfort. Hailey never went anywhere without her own to protect her in scenarios like these when she was stuck with a random foe an dhad to fight her way out. Of course, one of the few things she feared was a knife in the hands of an Imum; they were horrifying along, but armed and dangerous? Unwanted memories flooded her brain so much, she nearly wanted to hit her forehead against one of the rotting walls until they were forced away by the pain she prevoked. Of course, this would only give him an oppritunity to strike, and that was not at all what she wanted. Over time, the female had grown rather skilled at managed to gain the upper hand in any situation. She was on top for a second there, but now they were about even. It was time for her to get back on top again. "I guess you remember me since you're so eager to put a blade through my skull, huh?" she hissed bitterly, gray eyes flashing wildly in a desperate attempt to find something to help her form a plan to kick this guy's lights out. Perminantly. She'd do anything to make them pay for the things they'd done to she and the people who had stood by her side five years ago. "So you probably also remember that I don't die so easily. Just try me, moron, see how far it gets you."

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] "Don't flatter yourself, I don't give a damn who you are!" At this point, Josh was both furious and totally terrified. Luckily for him, if there was one thing he'd learned over the years, it's not to show his emotions. He chose to sound just furious. "And I don't care how hard it is to kill you, I'll try like hell!" At least that part was truthful. If one of them had to die today, it wasn't going to be Josh. He'd spent far too long letting other people fight his battles, and now he was alone. At this point, he'd figured out that this was one of those mutants that Team Imum had been working on. He was honestly surprised they'd gotten any of them to work for them, they way they treated the poor things. He didn't care too much though. It's hard to be sympathetic when someone's threatening to kill you. Josh had to force every muscle in his body not to make a break for it. If he wasn't the first one to move, she'd kill him.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] "Don't flatter yourself, I don't give a crud who you are!" Oh, that had done it. All bets were off. This was exactly what the scum on Ms. Lorelei Ackermann's shoes would say, wouldn't it? It didn't matter who they hurt, as long as they destroyed everything they could. How many normal kids had she seen ripped from their normal lives in her time there? Too many to even count. And why? No reason at all. They weren't special. They were just there. Because they were born into the world, they were forced to suffer. Most of them were dead, killed in the uprising she, herself had played a major role in or forced to hide in shame of the things forced upon them. But no one cared. Nobody even stinking cared. Because they were all like the man standing before her. Cold. Heartless. Longing to get their hands dirty with another's blood just to feel the red liquid seep through their fingers like a trophy earned after winning a competition. And she was, already, after not even five minutes here, through with it. "And I don't care how hard it is to kill you! I'll try like heck!" "It's people like you who make me want to kill myself! Faced with justice and all you can do is save your own scrawny butt! And you know what? I've stinking had it with all you Mankeys! If no one else is gonna put you all in your place, I guess the honor's all mine!" Plan? What plan? Her raging fury andflashes of the dead in her mind made it all but impossible to concieve such a thing at this point in time. Forgetting about the knife entirely - a bad move she would likely regret momentarily - she dropped it to the ground and flung herself at him, intending to beat his ugly face until all there was to see was a broken, lumpy, blue mass with eyes and a mouth.

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background- image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] [div style="width: 265px; position: absolute; text-align: justify; padding: 5px; padding-top: 0px; margin: 0; overflow: auto; height: 189px; margin-left: 197px; margin-top: -310px; color: 999999; font-family: verdana; font-size: 10px; line-height: 13px;"]" Much to Josh's surprise, he was tackled from the side. She'd been inside the whole time. Suddenly on the ground, Josh's lungs were emptied of air. He was able to regain enough strength go flip on top of her though, she was lighter than he'd expected, frankly. On top of the girl, He put his knife up to her throat. "You call THIS justice!? Josh wasn't really screaming, he didn't have the air to scream. It was more of a whisper, but it was obvious that he was totally enraged. This was the most angry Josh had ever been in his entire life. " NO!!! Justice isn't stealing kids off the street and forcing them into your dirty plans! Justice isn't Lying to people to give them false hopes!" He then spit out a long line of curses even I won't bother to put into writing. He was so angry that he was literally spitting onto the face of a girl he'd never met before, nose less than three inches away from hers. In his rage, he stabbed the knife through her left hand and ran out of the building.

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[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] The upper hand was once more gained in a flawless display of superiority. Well, almost, had it not been that, if she still had that knife on the ground, she would have actually had the gain for more than fifteen seconds. She'd succeeded in pinning him down, only to easily be won over, flipped over, and put into a position where there was little she could do. In addition, her wings, folded and pressed against her back in an attempt to hide them from the public eye nearly seemed to crunch under both her momentum, her weight, and his weight. In other words, it hurt. A lot. She had very little options, but she knew what to do in these situations and she was never afraid to play dirty. Go for the week spots. Always. If she kneed there just hard enough and aimed correctly from her position, she could stagger him and the raven-haired female could easy - "You call this justice...?" the Imum member half whispered, half screamed. It was an interesting combination of the two. "No! Justice isn't stealing kids off the street and forcing them into your dirty plans! Justice isn't lying to people to give them false hopes!" What was this idiot blabbing on about? "No," she hissed, feeling the hood that hid a portion of her mutilated head from the world begin to slip, gravity trying to tear it to the ground. "Justice is making maggots who steal little girl's childhoods and turn them into freaks of nature pay." By then, there they were. Gray skin, yellow retinas, distorted horns and all for everyone to see. He and his people thought they could enslave she and other children, turn them into monsters, force them to work for them, and kill half of them off and still get away with making her suffer in this way. Her knee was poised for a fatal upward motion when horrible pain pierced through her left hand and a vicious howl of agony escaped her throat. His weight disappeared from her own body, he fleeing. Fighting back tears at this point, she took a moment to get over the shock of his knife dangling from her hand before doing the gruesome and painful deed of tearing it back out herself. She wasn't new to this concept. This wasn't the first time she'd had to pull out the object impaling her in some way before. Giving chase and pressing the new wound to her shirt hoping that the small amount of pressure would aid in halting the amount of blood loss, she threw the knife skillfully at his retreating figure, screaming, "Hey, you forgot something! No Imum's ever gonna get caught seen without something to torture someone with!"

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] Josh was sprinting full speed away from that place. His brain was yet to fully understand what that girl had just said. He just needed to get out of here. He should never had come back to this desert. Dead memories should stay dead. Enemies should stay enemies. A cold knife quickly appeared in his warm body. Yet again, Josh was on the ground, but this time it was much, much harder to get any air back into his lungs. There was a knife in his back. He was coughing up blood again. Maybe this desert was an unholy place. Josh, once again, was filled with burning hatred for Team Imum. They'd all but left his life entirely, and then here they were. He would never be free. He would never know peace. It wasn't meant to be. Josh wondered what horrible sin he'd committed. Finally what the girl had said made sense to him. This all could have been avoided. They were on the same side. He'd have to wait here for her to come back, and he'd tell her... When he tried to speak, he only coughed more. More blood on the sand. More corruption Diluting the parallel of sand against the sky. More salt in an ocean of sand.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] And just like that, it was all over. She hadn't spent more than fifteen minutes in the desert and already she was bleeding everywhere and she was about to put one of the monsters who made her life miserable down for good. It was over. By now, her hand was throbbing, aching even more as the winds picked up the outside sand and dug grains deep into her wounds. But, at the moment, Hailey was doing a pretty good job of ignoring the pain. It wasn't until she didn't have a dieing man on her hands that she would truly experience what the wound had to offer, and boy could she wait until then. It took her a minute or so to finally stagger up towards where he was layed collapsed in the sand and she told herself, one last time that... It was over. Everywhere was all over. And she never did like stories that ended to quickly. "Give me... one good reason why I shouldn't put you out of your misery now," she said, ignoring the drops of blood splattering from her hand and outfit onto the sand below and fiddling with the knive she had retreived with her good hand, "and Ms. Fairy or Troll Girl or whatever you Imum runts liked to call me might just let you go." She hated him. She hated him so, so much. In some ways, it was wrong to blame a person for what the people around them did, but he had to have at least some ill-will and malice toward the human race to be accepted into the group, which made him bad all on his own. And, even worse than that, he could have done something. And yet... And yet he just stood there and watched. "Atone." By this point in time, tears were falling down her face, a mixture of the pain, the emotions, and the sand whipping in her face every second. "Atone. Gosh dangit, atone! Atone so I know that maybe I can too!"

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] ... Atone It might have been the blood loss, or just the oddness of the word, but Josh couldn't put a finger on what the term meant. He didn't have time to wonder though, he had to do something. He tried again to speak, with no avail. There was a good chance his lung was punctured. He just couldn't get a break, could he? He realized it was useless. With every breath he took he was filled with pain. There was still a knife in his back. His hands clutched his stomach. There was still a knife in his back. A sledgehammer was pounding against the back of his skull. THERE WAS STILL A KNIFE IN HIS BACK. Josh removed one of the hands from his stomach. Josh Resisted every urge to pull the knife from his back- to have a weapon again. Josh wrote in the sand. " SAME ENEMY" He prayed that she'd get the message.

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] It was at this point in time that the woman was left with two very different options. The first was simple, easily, and would take a very short amount of time to carry out. The poor young man was sprawled across the desert sand with a knife jutting out of his back and bleeding as heavily as she if not morel it would only take her five seconds to take the dagger her fingers were grabbing a hold of so tightly and slight his throat, hastily putting an end to his miserable life. He probably deserved it, guessing as he was a former Imum, and not Imum could possibly be less than an absolute villain... right? The second option was to leave him there and let him slowly bleed out on his own or make a miraculous recovery. At that very moment, the idea seemed to tickle her fancy and proved to be the more fitting of a punishment, and, blieve you me, she was all about serving judgement onto those that proved sinful. Let him try to drag himself to safety only to bleed out with nothing to embrace but his own misery. Grip on the weapon laxing in just the slightest, her red boots began to carry her away as her sharp teeth played with her lower lip. Of course, it was then that his hand started moving and words were drawn in the sand. SAME ENEMY. Hailey paused and, while she didn't quite like to admit, her interest was piqued. Same enemy, he said? Was he implying that their hatred was both directed at a similar thing? The organization that had ripped her childhood from her and set it ablaze before her very eyes? Now that she thought of it, he had blabbered something about lying and kidnapping children, a subject that caused her teeth to sink deep enough into her flesh to break the skin. Really, she hadn't really thought about that until now, but that was absurd! He was an Imum by choice. Why on Earth would he be against them? That was about as foolish as... as... Well, with her mind in a daze, she couldn't really think of anything foolish enough to compare. Letting out a bitter sigh and pressing her heavily bleeding hand even harder against her side - wincing all the same despite the obviously numbed pain - she removed one of her boots with her free hand, took off her sock, proceeded to do the same with the other boot and sock, and pressed the material against his own opened injury. Of course, after ripping the blade from his flesh, that was. She still wasn't sure whether or not to believe him, but he probably was in little a state to fight back and she now had both knives. The least she could do was interrogate him after providing the small amount of medical help she knew how to provide. Picking him up under his arms, cursing under her breath multiple times at the pain her left hand was exposed to, and wondering how anyone could be so heavy, she began to careful drag him back to the still nearby abandoned home, hoping that getting him out of the heat would help her situation at least a little. "Don't... Don't get too comfortable... Imum..." she hissed at him through pants. "Once an Imum... always an Imum... And I ain't quick to trust you... just yet..."

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] Josh was seriously getting sick of not being able to talk. Of not being able to breath. Seriously, how many times had this actually happened to him? Five? He didn't know. Cutting through the horizon was a splinter of gray- somehow it all seemed familiar, this old abandoned house made of gray wood. Crimson streaks broke the peace of the beige sand, Splintering wood broke the solitude of the blue slate firmament. "Once an Imum, always an Imum..." The words echoed in his chest. He suddenly felt heavier, and he had a queer pain in his abdomen. (apart from all of the other pain, that is.)Why did he feel bad for this? He should know that he wasn't like them, that he'd been tricked, that he'd been given false hopes. Yet still, this comment made him feel like a horrible person. The evil of Imum truly was unending. Disregarding the orders of the mutant girl, Josh decided he was going to try to get as comfortable as he could. Of course, that would never really be "too comfortable" in this situation. Still, being more comfortable, his adrenalin died down a bit. This allowed Josh to feel just how bad getting stabbed in the back (literally) felt. It also allowed him to realize that having sweaty socks as bandages was far from ideal. Getting sweat into an open wound stings. It stings a lot. Josh winced. At this point he was totally certain that there was indeed a hole in one of his lungs, but he wasn't aware how big it was. The size of a quarter maybe. It didn't really matter, any hole in your lungs is too big, regardless of how big it is. This sucked. This sucked a lot.

(Short post is short and I'm sorry.)

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=width,450,true] Well, this was lovely. In her arms was the half conscious body of a man she did not want to be touching solely for the fact that he was most definitely her enemy and the scum of the earth. Or, as he must have been implying, once was, having deemed the organization as much an enemy to himself as she viewed it as her's. This was not the most believable story, however, in her eyes. A shame, truly. A person couldn't just up and leave a group like that, could they? It must have been some plan to catch her off guard. But the poor guy didn't look so good. ... Er, scratch that about "the poor guy". She most certainly was not taking pity on him. He pretty much deserved it, after all... right? I mean, he was a member of Imum... right? Gosh darnit, his helpless frame was distracting her from what was important, and that was trying to fathom how he could be tricking her and how to stay prepared even when her hand was throbbing with an intense pain, obviously numbed or not. Gosh, today was not her day, was it? By this point in time, Hailey and the mystery boy were passing through the doorway and headed on inside where she promptly dropped him to the floor and started running through first aid actions in her head. She came up with nothing. Running her good hand's fingers through her long, raven locks, not even caring about how her hood fell awkwardly down her back, she tried to think of something she could do. Wash the wound? Canteen, canteen... Poop, where did she put it? Whatever. At this point in time, it looked like their best option was she flying him over the desert. Thank goodness they were too deep in. It would certainly do a number on her health, pushing her stamina to the limit, but something felt wrong about leaving him here to die. "... you gotta name?"

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style,padding:0; margin: 0; background-image:url(http://i45.tinypic.com/2ma5ap.jpg);background-repeat:repeat-y;width: 500px;height:675px;] Josh was dropped on the floor. Obviously, this wasn't the first thing he wanted to happen, but it wasn't the hardest he'd been dropped on the floor, either. It was, however, the hardest he'd been dropped on the floor with a hole in his back and a puncture in his lung. So it still wasn't necessarily fun. Still, he managed to wheeze out a soft chuckle at the situation he was in. Odd, really, that he could find it funny. But here he was, in the desert, and his only chance of survival was a grey lady with orange horns. He'd been in quite a few ridiculous situations, but this one might just take the cake. "... you gotta name?" The question caught Josh off guard. ...Well, at least this meant that she was probably warming up to him a little. Luckily, his name wasn't very much more that a vowel and a hissing noise at it's core, and he managed to wheeze it out weakly. "...Josh..." At this point, he was doing what was probably the most inappropriate thing he could've been doing at the time: smiling. For some reason, he didn't really feel the danger he was in. -WIP-

I really need to think of something to happen here. This thread is without happens.