Forums » Fantasy Roleplay » Is It a Corpse That Wanders? (OPEN!)

It was dark.

Even the moon, as thin a sliver it was, had been hidden behind clouds so that its light could never reach the ground below. A town lay nearby, large in size and population. It was located along a busy road and surrounded by woods, which at times grew so thick it could be considered forest. At the treeline until about half a mile inward, it was just woods.

That was where this creature wandered, seeming to walk without purpose and grace. Its steps were uneven and it often ran into trees or tripped over roots or its own feet. It made not a noise though, even if it fell flat on its face. The most that could be heard from it was its footsteps and a deep exhale from time to time, mostly when it picked itself up from the ground. Once it tried to climb a tree, but it couldn't get up to the branch it saw.

Its appearance was strange. Pale gray skin tone (more or less), dark brown jaw-length hair, pitch black eyes with vivid red pupils, and several horns jutting out at all angles at its head and left shoulder. Tiny horns emerged from the flesh of her other shoulder and hips, though her hips were hidden by a mid-thigh length potato sack dress. Her feet and hands dipped into black, fingers coming to a point and feet appearing primarily human, though they were cloven where her toes were supposed to be. She looked utterly demonic, with an incredibly lacking intelligence, and the grace of something undead.

Isobel stumbled along with scratches and bruises covering her arms and legs. She hadn't seen the brier patch and accidentally walked into it. She couldn't see much of anything really, being blind. She had to hurry, had to keep moving. She'd have taken flight long ago, but they'd be searching for her in the skies and she'd be caught. She wasn't making much progress on the ground either though.

"I will not go back. I will die before I go back to that hell. I can't let them take me." She was saying desperately under her breath. She had her hands out in front of her and kept running into trees. At first, she didn't notice it. Then, she heard something stumbling through the trees as clumsily as she was. She caught her breath. Did they already catch up?

She stopped moving and listened. Now she could hear distant city noises, barely reaching her ears. And the thing was coming closer. It didn't seem like some one following her though. No, her followers would've been silent, using night vision goggles so they wouldn't be stumbling... "Hello?" She called softly into the darkness.

Words were lost when it came to communication with this creature. She understood nothing. Nothing at all. Greetings were lost. Body language, too. Tone of voice and the concept of danger were also lost. What was not, however, was the ability to learn and the immense amount of curiosity present inside her. She caught sight of the girl and was approaching clumsily, though she only wanted to see her. Nothing more. When a greeting was said (more or less), the strange creature shifted to a halt with one hand on a tree, the other hanging limp at her side.

"Hell...?" she mimicked, dropping the "o" for ease of speaking. Well, that couldn't have been intimidating at all. She didn't understood what either word meant, but that was alright. She meant no harm. She was fragile as glass (aside for those fingers and horns of hers)!

Isobel shivered. Hell? What does it mean by that? There seemed something off about the voice too, but she wasn't sure what it was. The sound of it moving had stopped somewhere in front of her. It didn't seem to want to attack her, so Isobel stepped forward slightly. "Who are you?" She had no way of knowing that the creature in front of her was anything other than a regular human.

The creature, as small as she was, made a lot of noise when she moved. That ichor had moved down her face earlier, now dried and crusted at her eyes and cheeks, and even at her lips. Her words were unfamiliar, and even if she understood language, she wouldn't be able to answer. All traces of what she was before this creature had been wiped out completely. All knowledge, all of her memories and sense of self, her personality... everything.

She was blank. A baby. A baby who learned to clumsily wander and mimic the sounds of other beings but not yet understand them.

"...You," she repeated, lifting the tone of it at the end so it could barely be recognized as a question.

Isobel came forward slowly with her arms outstretched. She kept moving forward until she touched the creature. She felt the cloth it used for a type of clothing and the horns on its shoulders. Horns?? Behind her, Isobel's wings fluttered slightly. "What are you?" She asked softly. It seemed that it couldn't piece together much of a sentence so she hardly expected it to respond with an actual answer. "Are you another experiment? I knew there were others..."

She could feel that. It was interesting, someone willingly touching her without the intent to kill or what-have-you. She almost flinched, but stopped herself. No answers were given, though her head did tilt to the side, eyes staring at the individual. She was intrigued.

An experiment? One could say that, technically, she was the product of one. But in truth, she was merely the result of a failed sacrifice-and-summoning of a demon by a man who knew too little of what he was doing. Her dying body merged with that of the demon who was coming through to possess her body (so that the demon could be tangible, hence the sacrifice) once the spell began to fail. The demon struggled, but succeeded, in returning back "home," leaving the girl's body deformed and alive again, though all traces of what she was before, mental and physical, were gone.

So perhaps she was an experiment? Though probably not by the same definition Isobel had been. The creature mimicked the others' movements with her own hands. Both needed to be careful, for her fingers were sharp at the tips, and she could easily get scratched.

Isobel felt something sharp prick her skin. She winced slightly and drew her hands back. She only had on what they'd given her at the lab, nothing more than a hospital gown really. She could feel the sharp tips of the creature's fingers on her skin. She'd have to find clothes somewhere later, when it was safer.

"Well, whether you're an experiment or not, if they find you they'll take you back too. And you don't want to go there, trust me." She shuddered, remembering the nightmare that had lasted years back at the lab. The never ending cycle of pain and tests. The scalpels cutting through her skin to observe what was underneath, the wails of others going through the same misery. The way the scientists performed their tasks in an almost bored manner.

She gently took the creature's hand in her own. "I'll call you Yuu from now on. Is that ok?" Isobel asked this more for the sake of her sanity. To interact with another, even if they couldn't fuly understand or respond in the same manner.

Yuu, which is what she'll be called from here on out, recoiled her hand when she felt her finger jab at flesh in an unpleasant manner. She looked at her finger, then to the girl's skin, and was interrupted by speech. Completely forgetting the fact she had poked her, she now focused on what was being said.

If she knew what Yuu meant and what Isobel meant when she said what she had, the creature would likely approve. She seemed sweet enough. "Yuu... now okay?" She just picked words Isobel had said and repeated them, though coincidentally, it was a slightly coherent sentence. Maybe these coincidences would benefit Isobel since, whether Yuu knew what she was saying or not, replies were being made. If they began to walk, she would follow, half because her hand was within the other's and half because she was curious of the girl.

Isobel's sensitive ears heard the distant sound of many boots, coming their way. And fast. They came from the direction of the lab, and even if they hadn't, she wouldn't have stuck around to see who it was.

"Come on Yuu, let's go." Isobel stumbled through the woods in a northerly direction. She wasn't sure how but she seemed to know which direction was which. The lab was south, so she went north. With her free hand out in front of her, she led the way.

Yuu was sort of slow and very wobbly. Imagine a toddler walking with legs she'd sat on for hours, depriving them of bloodflow and feeling, the stage of pins and needles never to come. That was much how she walked - unbalanced, unevel, wobbly, clumsily... almost zombie-like. Isobel was going to have a blast leading her new friend! (Hooray for sarcasm!)

The creature heard the noises and almost went toward them, but her hand was still held onto, so she wound up just walking along with Isobel. She had no sense of danger, no feelings of fear, no concept of pain... She just wanted to see what it was making that noise, why it was approaching, what it intended to do. Could they be friends?

Her makeshift dress kept getting snagged on twigs and branches that reached out toward them from the mess of trees. It sent her into a state of even more wobbliness, but she kept walking, muttering the word "go" in a sing-song voice repeatedly.

The pair would've made quite the sight to any night time wanderers. A blind winged girl in a hospital gown stumbling through the trees leading a creature clothed in a potato sack behind her that was even more clumsy. Indeed, even the night life in the woods seemed dumbfounded at this sight. A wolf eyed them warily, unsure if they were possible prey. An owl in the tree they ran into moved its head all the way around to keep them in its vision.

Suddenly, the ground Isobel was walking on wasn't there anymore and she felt herself falling. She'd led them off a cliff. [Way to go Isobel ಠ_ಠ]

The dangers of cliffs and falling didn't occur to her yet. She'd never been presented with something like that. However, now that she found herself falling, staring at the ground below closing in fast, some form of terror surged through her. Depending on how high the cliff was determined Yuu's reaction, however.

If it was fairly high, a quiet, almost inhuman noise escaped her in the form of some sort of squeal or scream. Despite its lack of volume, it was still loud enough to be heard by Isobel until her voice cracked and it was much, much louder than before.

If it was a short drop, she'd likely just hit the ground with a loud THUD! and lay there for a while because pain sucked and was completely foreign to her as it stands now.

Isobel grabbed on tighter to Yuu's hand and her wings snapped out. The added weight was too much for her to fly with so she glided down to the ground. It seemed a long time before they reached the ground and Isobel was glad she had wings. If she hadn't...well it was a long way down. The two fell and rolled into a heap when they reached the ground. "...Sorry about that Yuu." She said as she detatched herself. "I'm not good at landings."

Alright! So it was a longer fall. That was good, as that meant no going ker-splat, but also not so good if they just kept plummeting toward the Earth like that. When they tumbled and fell, at the last roll, poor Yuu had the horns on her head stuck deep into the ground, and the two longest on her shoulder had been buried a few inches as well. Some minor grunting noises could be heard as she tried to free herself, and really it was probably a funny sight, but she couldn't rightly get up.

Isobel heard the grunts and felt her way over to Yuu. "Oh, here, let me help you." She pulled a little and freed her horns from the ground. "Better?" Isobel turned her head towards the cliff they'd fallen off of. "At least that oughtta slow them down."

When Yuu was freed, she reached up to touch her horns, feeling remnants of dirt slide off them. Her eyes, the same hue as the dark world around them, watched Isobel for a moment when she spoke. She might have looked like she understood, because when the girl finished speaking, the creature looked up to the cliff and searched around for those who had chased the duo. Of course, Isobel couldn't see that, and Yuu thought nothing of it, so instead of mimicking her again, she got up to her feet. She really, really needed to learn language skills.

Isobel felt around on the surface of the cliff. There was sounds from a river nearby so there should be some kind of den or cave animals would use for a shelter... She found the winter den of a bear after a few minutes of searching and went in. There had been leaves on the branches that scratched her and it wasn't too cold outside, so Isobel figured it was closer to spring and that they'd be safe. "We can hide in here Yuu. Do you sleep?" She hadn't really thought of it before but she didn't know much of anything at all about Yuu, other than her lack of language skills. What did she eat? If she ate at all?

Yuu both slept and ate. She had no special abilities such as strength, stamina, or speed, and required sleep to function well and food to stay alive. She sat at the entrance of the cave and picked the dirt out from between the space that split the top of her foot in two separate points. She repeated her by saying, "Hide. Sleep? Do you? Yuu." Wait, huh? That made no sense. Eh, she wasn't trying to. She just liked to be vocal. Making noises was entertaining and fun. Oftentimes she repeated words she'd never said before!

Isobel smiled. Yuu seemed to be having fun repeating words. Isobel curled her wings around her and picked off dirt and sticks that had gotten stuck in them during her escape. "Do you have a job Yuu? A favorite bird or beast Yuu?" She said in a sing-songy voice.