Blind|Fold

Oh, great. Emil was hearing voices.

Well, no, that wasn't necessarily the issue. They were probably all hearing voices, in some sense of the word, it was just that Emil thought that he could understand them.

He wasn't necessarily wrong. The problem was that he wasn't experienced enough to know that not being wrong wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Zahir looked through the offered notebook, turning the pages a little to see if anything else important had been imparted there, then let it go, staring off down the path Emil wanted them to take.

"Okay. So. First fallacy: assuming that you really do understand what they're telling you. You picked up on that one, and that's good." It showed promise, anyway, it was just that Zahir knew that sometimes promises got broken.

"The second fallacy, though, that's assuming that if you are interpreting them correctly, they're not out to get you." Because that was a big problem. "'Come into my web,' said the spider to the fly. You know that one." He scanned the team - just four of them, and he didn't know if he wanted to split them up already. Doll was weighing in, offering to go along, but she seemed to have the same hesitance about splitting up unnecessarily as Zahir did.

And Henry-

Well. There were a whole lot of sentences that could start with and Henry, and Zahir wasn't sure how many of them he wanted to finish. He liked the idea of having eyes in the sky - that was generally regarded as a good idea in most of the Folds, because it could give them a little bit of advance notice if something was, say, coming up to murder them.

It was just that in this case, the eyes in the sky would be Henry, and - well, Zahir was well aware that he was definitely experiencing some prejudice here because they were weird. Not Weird, capital-W, because they were all Weird here. But Henry was also weird, and that was a thing.

Henry probably had complex PTSD and Zahir should be more tolerant, if only because if he wasn't, the Colonel's lecture when they got back was going to be scathing. She had a thing about that.

Zahir did not have a thing about that, nor did he have PTSD or anything. He did have a plant or something like it writhing under his skin, but he wasn't going to bring that up right now. She - it, it was usually quiet, outside the Folds, but it got a little spicy inside them. That let him make the bracelets and do a few other neat parlor tricks, but... well, he usually tried to keep it under wraps. He didn't know why. It wasn't like the Organization had the manpower to pull him, anyway.

Enough of that. He made a decision. "All right. Emil - telling someone was the right thing to do. Henry - wait until I tell you to before taking off." Because otherwise they were absolutely going to do that mid sentence, Zahir knew it. "But yes, let's get you airborne. I want you to stay within shouting distance, and don't shoot things without checking first unless someone is in imminent danger. We'll move as a group for now, and we're going to head down Emil's path, but carefully. Just because we don't trust the information doesn't mean we can't use it. We didn't know anything about lights, before, so that's something to be aware of, whatever it means. Emil, I want you in front-" So I can keep an eye on you "-So you can let us know if you source any new information. Dahlia, I want you in the center so you're the most protected. I'll take the rear so I can cover our exit and keep eyes on whatever's ahead."

Not ideal, but it was going to have to do. "Range out about four - no, three meters from each other, that'll be close enough that we can hear each other even with the audiostims, but hopefully far enough that we won't all get taken out together. Henry, I want you to let me know if you hear any other tones up there, or if the ones we're hearing are louder or anything changes with height." Anything else - there was always something else, but Zahir didn't know what it was. He rolled his shoulder, trying to settle his skin.

"Fine. Good enough. Henry, you can go."
 
Emil nodded, surprised, though not so much by the plan itself, but by the fact that his idea had actually been considered. He had braced for the usual dismissal: "Shut up, Emil," or, worse yet, a blank stare followed by, "Who were you again?"

But instead, the command came, sharp and clear. Zahir didn’t waste time with pleasantries, and Emil didn’t bother asking questions he suspected that they wouldn’t be answered. He scribbled the instructions down without hesitation, the motions of his hand mechanical. His face was unreadable, no sign of doubt, no protest. But deep inside, the suspicion festered: cannon fodder. That’s all he was, wasn’t he? A disposable asset meant to step where others wouldn’t. The parasite in his brain, unfortunately, didn’t grant him telepathy, knowing for certain might have been preferable to just suspecting.

And, right on cue, it twitched again. A sharp pinch at the base of his skull, its favorite way of reprimanding him whenever he called it a parasite. He exhaled through his nose, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Maybe it was time to name the damn thing. "Jerry" had a nice ring to it. Or maybe something ridiculous, like "Cupcake," just to really spite it.

The voices were still there. Mostly unintelligible, distorted whispers and laughter, disjointed, eerie, like sound coming from a warped tape. At this point, though, they were background noise, creeping static in his ears that barely warranted attention.

Emil knew it would be unpleasant, he had been stuck in places like this long enough to understand what may lay ahead, but his body still revolted against the sensation. Stomach flipping, lungs feeling like they might invert, every cell in his body screaming that this was unnatural. Maybe it was. God knew what stepping through that portal actually did to them, molecular shifts? Temporal displacement? Maybe none. He wasn’t a scientist. He wasn’t even sure the scientists fully understood it. All he knew was that the process was wretched.

But he had signed the contract, thirty pages of jargon detailing his expendability, his silence, the consequences of breaking protocol. He had agreed. Voluntarily.

Not that it mattered. Nobody listened when he returned from his first jump. He doubted it would be any different this time.

So he did what he always did. Followed orders. Logged every sound, every sight, every anomaly in meticulous detail. The notebook filled up fast, his scrawl feverish, his mind frantic in its attempt to document what his gut told him was important at the time.

Maybe, someday, it would be worth it. Maybe he’d get paid. Maybe he’d find a girl, settle down, pretend none of this ever happened.

That was, of course, if he made it out alive.
 
The note buzzed through her throat in triplicate, harmonizing with her own voice. Dahlia cut it off quickly, surprised. Then, after a glance around - nothing coming immediately to attack her, no plants trying to wrap around her ankles - she tentatively relaxed. It wasn’t hurting her, so she may as well try to figure out if it was something in the air or something about the Fold trying to creep in and change her in a more insidious way.

Digging in her bag, she pulled out a cotton swab and a small, sterile tube. She took a quick sample from the inside of her cheek, then dropped the swab into the tube and stoppered it, tucking it back into her bag afterwards. She was no chemist, but she was sure that someone back at the facility would have a microscope she could use, when she got back. If they got back.

Oh, their captain was giving orders. Dahlia nodded in response to her assignment, but couldn’t help sending a sympathetic glance Emil’s way. She felt kind of bad about sending the kid into danger ahead of her, even if she saw the merits of staying out of danger herself. It was a real shame that they didn’t have any frontliners in the group. It would be nice to have someone with that knife-swinging confidence clearing the way.

At least they would have Henry watching their backs, she thought, watching Emil start down the path. She waited until he was roughly three meters out, then started out herself. Her eyes wandered over the path, then into the forest on either side. What lights were they supposed to be ignoring? She didn’t see any lights. Unless the… did the sun count? Was that the sun? Did Folds have the same sun as the Earth, or did they have their own suns?

Oh, right, she should probably ignore the sun, just to be on the safe side. She tugged her eyes back down, focusing on the path again. Just one foot in front of the other. She hummed, absently, an old traveling song that she only half-remembered, enjoying the harmonizing buzz. Unlike Emil, she wasn’t taking any physical notes. It was difficult to write one-handed while walking. She’d just write her findings down later, when they found a place to stop for a bit.

It was strange, though - the flora was humming, but where were the birds? She kept looking into the trees, expecting to find a flutter of wings or the flash of a bushy tail, despite some part of her knowing that the Fold likely wouldn’t have the same fauna as reality. Unless it did. There were orange bushes. Maybe there were purple squirrels.

Well, at least there was one bird that she definitely knew was here.

“See anything up there, Henry?” she called, craning her neck up to try to catch a glimpse of blue.
 
Zahir was busy explaining exactly why Emil shouldn’t listen to the voices. Henry personally thought that wasn’t the greatest idea. She’d heard many voices over her life, including the three that were around her right now! But she hadn’t heard many Fold voices, and Zahir might have, so maybe he was the expert there. Regardless, she started to tune him out, switching the arrow from a pointer to a back scratcher. She’d tried other things, but nothing else could quite get the itch that buried itself between her wings.

After inspecting the arrowhead to ensure it was blood free and he hadn’t accidentally sliced himself open, Henry stowed the arrow back in his quiver and turned his attention to the sky. It was pretty, a nice lavender that occasionally threaded through with pink or blue. It looked so cool, so inviting, just begging him to fly up and be surrounded by it. Henry shifted, jumping slightly as his name was called.

Their wide black eyes locked with Zahir’s, legs crouched and azure wings spread wide. Their arms were spread too, a force of habit that they hadn’t quite gotten rid of yet. Henry liked to think it helped them take off better. Which they definitely were not going to do. Absolutely not. They wobbled a little in their half-crouch but maintained both their stance and their stare, a crescent grin creeping along their face, almost reflected in their eyes.

She gave a jerky nod as he gave the order, wings and legs and arms all moving in concert and pushing. With a loud trill that was echoed by the bushes around her, Henry soared into the air, rising higher and higher with several beats of her wings. She breathed deeply, the air tasted so much sweeter when she wasn’t tied to the ground. It wasn’t until she glanced down and saw the dots below her that Henry remembered Zahir’s orders and dropped down, letting the wind slip between her feathers.

When they were only slightly above the requested altitude, Henry began looking around. This was the first Fold they’d been in since they were fully human, and there was so much to look at. The shrubbery was certainly an interesting color, even if it contained red. Orange and red had a tumultuous relationship with each other, vacillating between allies and enemies quite frequently. They shifted their focus, something drawing them towards it. It was like trying to get a good look at the light that danced across her eyes when they were closed. Something shifting kept pulling Henry’s attention towards the shrubs, but she couldn’t quite pin it down. Every time she focused on a cluster of growth that she was positive was moving, it remained still. It shuddered and shifted when it was at the corner of her vision, but when she attempted to focus, it was stubbornly still.

Henry let out a squawk as Dahlia’s voice appeared right next to him, dropping about a foot or so before catching himself. He glanced around haphazardly before catching sight of his bracelet. Oh right, those. He brought his wrist to his mouth, unsure how close he had to be in order for his voice to carry.

“See anything? No.” He started, warily eyeing the nearest patch of shrubbery. “See something? Maybe. Bushes up ahead. They’re not-moving moving is very distracting. Can I shoot?” Figuring he could probably hear the response just fine, Henry drew his bow and nocked an arrow, drawing it and pointing it directly at one of the bushes that he knew moved, he had seen it, the bush was just hiding it from him. Nothing could hide from him, and Henry was ready to prove it.
 
Zahir had no confidence that Henry had heard a single word he had said - and if Henry had heard any of them, he wasn't sure they hadn't just gone in one ear and out the other with no processing time between the two. Emil seemed subdued, Dahlia seemed distracted, and this was all just going swimmingly, wasn't it?

Actually, since none of them had gotten eaten yet, he was still considering this one of the better runs. Still, they had to find out what was going on and do something about it. He hadn't forgotten that they were here for a reason. Sometimes the Search teams liked to come in and just wander around, but Zahir's team was here to close the fold, and that meant finding out what had led to the breaking rift in the first place.

Walking wasn't exactly getting them nowhere, but he wasn't sure it was getting them somewhere that they needed to be. Usually the instigating event was somewhere close by, unless it was something mobile. With Henry going off about bushes not moving or moving or whatever it was they were trying to communicate, it was possible that the instigator had moved somewhere else - but given the nature of this particular fold, it was also possible that the instigator was or had moved somewhen else, and they hadn't even checked that avenue.

Henry wanted to shoot the shrubbery. Of course they did. The worst thing was that it wasn't exactly a terrible idea, as far as ideas went. Well, no, it was a terrible idea, it was just that it could have been worse. Zahir squinted at the bushes. He wasn't sure they were bushes, but if Henry wanted to call them that, then he supposed that was fine. They did seem... well... Weird.

His shoulder itched, again. The flower in the middle of his forehead extended a stamen, contemplatively. He tried to pretend that wasn't happening, even if he could feel it.

"Emil, pull back a little," he made a decision, "Beside me, and Dahlia, step back between the two of us. If something happens with those... things... I want us ready to fight." He really wished that the armory had had a shotgun. Lacking one, he armed himself with a knife and hoped it was good for hacking off whatever those things were, and added his flashlight into the other hand. Some things didn't like light - and some things just didn't like being hit with a big heavy flashlight.

"Go ahead, Henry. Be ready to fire again if it starts coming our way."
 
Tap, tap, tap.

Less annoying than biting, but definitely twitchier. Cupcake- Yes, that was the name he settled for, just to be petty- Was on edge. Which was weird, considering it had come from here. Then the gears started turning.

Of course it was nervous.

It was part of his brain now. If his brain stopped working, Cupcake was in for a bad time. That made things worse. They were in danger, but from what? The freaky plants? Something lurking nearby? Or- Someone in the team? Admittedly, that last option sounded dumb… Unless one of them was secretly a puppet for something inside the rift, a sleeper agent waiting to strike and end them all right there and then? An amazing theory, coming from the guy with an alien centipede hooked onto his brainstem.

Regardless, he followed orders, breathing quietly as he observed the things ahead. Stay close. No heroics.

Not like Emil was much of a fighter anyway. Sure, give him a bat or a knife, he could swing it. But actually, taking someone down? Most likely not happening unless he fought a papier-mâché monster or something. He’d spent years trying to get in shape, trying to be decent at sports, trying to toughen up. It never worked- He suspected his own body was against the idea. At least he could take a hit, or several. Then again, a schoolyard punch wasn’t the same as reality-bending lasers or whatever danger was ahead.

Still, Cupcake was scared. And if it was scared, maybe he should be too.
 
Zahir was taking too long. Henry was sure that she could hit not one, not two, but at least three of those plant-not-plants in the time it took him to tell her to fire at one. But she was trying to be responsible, to listen to orders, to look at the sky and watch the pretty shifting colors. It didn’t bother her as much when the colors bled together like they typically did at sunrise and sunset outside of the rift. They faded and swirled together, no clear lines or distinctions between them. It was almost relaxing, and her wings felt a bit heavier, flapping a little slower. Her arm relaxed a little bit, her bow falling from full draw to three-quarters.

They didn’t hear anything that Zahir said outside of their own name, but it was enough to shock them out of their stupor. Henry let out a short squawk as their wings pumped harder, trying to return them to their previous elevation. Their arm snapped back, their shoulder and bicep protesting as they abruptly pulled the bow back. The string slipped from their fingers just as quickly as it had come back, Henry’s hand falling to the quiver at their side and pulling out a second arrow.

This one they loosed without warning, aiming for a different spot in the cluster of things that were becoming less plantlike the more Henry focused on them. This was why they never focused on things, it made them too complicated and fractal. They finally pulled a third and rested it on the bowstring, not yet drawing the string in order to give their poor bow, Edward, they’d decided to name him, a break from the two rapid shots. And they watched, with eager black eyes, to see what the tangles would do about their arrows.
 
Arrows buried themselves into the foliage with a leafy crunch. Zahir held his breath, tense and ready for whatever came next, knowing that the rest of the team would be as well, and knowing that the rest of them probably didn't know what they were doing, which was why he especially had to be ready for the moment when-

-nothing happened.

Precisely nothing. The arrows had fallen into the bushes in the exact way that he'd have expected an arrow to fall into a bush in the ourside world, and presumably lay there tangled in the leaves or buried in the dirt or doing whatever it was arrows did in bushes because the bushes simply did not care, at all.

He released a breath. He'd known he was holding it, and acknowledged now that he probably shouldn't have been, but... well, Zahir had tangled with weird plants before, and he knew all too well where that could lead. He relaxed his shoulders, or tried to, as much as he could with the infuriating itching anyway, and then started to take a step forward.

Halfway through it, he stopped, and set his foot back where it had been. The bushes... were still there. Doing nothing. The closer he looked, the more normal they seemed. And yet... the less close he looked, the half-glance he'd gotten in his peripheral vision when he was taking a step... the bushes were not moving.

The bushes were not moving.

They were just sitting there, being bushes. The space between the leaves stretched, lazily, like a cat, rippling through the foliage in little creeping tendrils of emptiness, a place where something could have been but wasn't. Of course it wasn't - there was nothing there. Nothing was watching them from the empty places where a million eyes could have been, if there were anything there. Nothing was even aware that they were there, interlopers in this rift, strange things that didn't fit in. Nothing at all was stirring itself to fill the available empty space left by the passage of the arrow, nothing at all was reaching forward into the space beyond the leaves, questing along the trail left by the arrow, empty and forward.

"Henry, drop. Now." Zahir didn't yell. He didn't want to end up with nothing coming towards him.
 
Sure, Cupcake was scared before, but now? Now it was horrified, but silently, in fact, that is how Emil realized that his companion was disturbed. Not a chirp, not a bite or squirm it was still, as if pretending it was dead, as if hoping for whatever that was haunting it to pass and let it continue its existence.

The host wanted to mock it, but he felt it to, oh he did. His stomach was empty thankfully, because otherwise, he suspected his body would now be getting rid of his meal. It was a threatening feeling, as if staring into a predator's maw, and yet, there was nothing? He could not explain it, nor did he speak out loud. He focused as much as he could. His thoughts, his eyes, well, all of him.

He lowered his sight to the notebook in his hands, prying his eyes away from the nothing, and began to write again, battling his own brain. Resilience, that was the importance of his presence. The rest could fight, or had medical or military understanding of things, but if he was specifically chosen for this, he supposed it would be an important asset regardless of what he thought of himself.


Scribble, after scribble, after another scribble. Precise and mindful. Somehow, out of the emptiness, he managed to draw what, wasn't there?

The idea of doing this, was like looking at a sound, or trying to explain the emotion a color conveyed. Drawing an abstract concept, or well, the lack of it. Emil felt as if he was losing his mind, and yet he didn't, he managed to look back up, and take a big, long look at the emptiness that almost seemed to crawl towards them in an agonizing pace.
 
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