Lena was still shaken by the news, and had half a mind to join Cathy herself. But there was really no point. She wouldn't be any safer up there, anyway.

"Water's a good idea," she said wearily. "That'll wake him up. I really don't want to be anywhere near John's grav-- wher-wherever John was... put," she paused, stumbling over her words, "I don't want to meet any more hungry animals." Especially if there was a chance that said animals could go into a feeding frenzy.

"Moving camp's probably a good idea too," she continued, regaining her composure. "Maybe we'll find a more hospitable spot than this."

Andrew headed back to the fire with five more of the strange burrowers, and began cooking them.

The others seemed to be doing fine with the first aid, and so now getting food into everyone was priority.

Trevor sat down next to Andrew's fire in an attempt to dry off. In doing so, he noticed Andrew roasting several of the scaled creatures, and gave them a look of apprehension. "I could go for a tuna fish sandwich about now..." He sighed. "Wait a minute... what am I saying? Since when do I like tuna fish?!" Noticing his ridge-patterned arm, he rolled his eyes. "Oh. Right."
Standing up again, he turned to the group. "I think we should get moving as quickly as possible."

"EEEEEEEEK!" Cathy lost her grip on the tree and fell to earth. Surprisingly, she landed perfectly on her hands and feet. She turned and glared at Thomas.
"I was FINE up there, thank you very much, and I had heaps to eat. Those leaves looked nice!"
She stood up awkwardly, dusting herself off.
"And the wolf monster will probably get bored of watching me anyway," she huffed to herself.

"Or he could only get hungrier, become more determined, and then he'd get you." Flora said, pulling the sentence together in bits and pieces as she spoke. She shrugged. "But we might be going in circles if we try to leave, so finding you again, still clinging to a tree will help us somewhat."
Flora was smiling slightly, amused by her own thoughts.

We're trying to get away from the monsters and we come across this girl again, and she tells us "You dumbasses went in a circle! Try going that way!" ...Hilarious if this wasn't a serious situation.

Thomas's stomach growled loudly. All this talk about hungry wolves was getting to him.

He reached down near the fire and grabbed one of the roasting burrowers, and dug his new fangs into the flesh. It wasn't completely cooked yet. However, Thomas didn't really care at that point. Meat that was a little rare would be good for now.

"If she did stay in the tree, then we'd know for a fact where the wolves would be. Then we wouldn't need to worry about running into any more of them."

"We can move camp later. Right now, I want to know how much longer until those things are edible." He saw Thomas grab one and start eating. That thing isn't cooked. And he has fangs now?! Jeeze, I kinda wish I was becoming inhuman like the others. Harry looked himself over again. No, hair doesn't count.

"Oh, Tom, thanks for not bringing John back here. I appreciate not having to see him again."

Andrew poked one of the burrowing creatures that were still there, and turned it over.

"They should be done for those who still have normal eating habits soon." After a few minutes, he added "Okay, they're done now"

He reached down into the fire and pulled them out, carefully removing the skins and the organs, and then putting the meat onto one set of skins and the organs on another.

"Dig in"

"Thank you very much," Flora said with one of her prettier smiles and sunk her teeth into the cooked creature. Her face froze for a few seconds.

Nah...I'm too hungry, and I'd only antagonize myself if I told him how bad it tastes.

Flora chewed. And chewed. And chewed. Then she swallowed. It wasn't tasty at all, but it was tolerable, and that meant that she could stomach the whole thing if she absolutely needed to. She absolutely needed to. She didn't know when she'd get to eat something as substantial as this so she better take in every last bite offered.

Lena grabbed one of the cooked creatures, her stomach growling loudly. She sniffed. Eeughhh... Her nose wrinkled in disgust, but her stomach frantically reminded her that she was starving.

It's this or nothing, she reasoned with herself. She took a bite. It was very hot, very tough, and very disgusting, she decided. But it was also very edible and very likely to keep her alive.

She could hear faint noises, above the sounds of her friends moving and talking. Wind, creatures moving... She could also smell a thousand different odors, each one unique and alien. It was both fascinating and disturbing, as though her every sense was on maximum overdrive. Sometimes it was so overwhelming that she feared she would go crazy.

She remembered reading about Sensory Overload and its side effects in a Psychology class once. The body has a type of 'selective hearing' for all of its senses, in order to prevent overstimulation. If a person could feel everything that touched their body in a single moment at the same intensity, or put equal emphasis on every sound that entered the ear at the same time, the body's sensory organs would overload. The person wouldn't be able to concentrate or sleep. Eventually, they could go mad. Until Lena's body adjusted to this new level of awareness, she probably ran the risk of similar side effects. She dearly hoped that insomnia would be the extent of that.

She forced herself to focus on her food rather than the whispering of the wind in various types of plants, the rustle of clothing on bodies, the rhythmic breathing of so many different people... Damn, this sucked.

OOC: I keep leaving this lying for far too long. I keep thinking no-one's interested or panicking that its not moving forwards on its own. I'd rather have to be pulling events back than push them along. That and there's probably a fair bit of everyone waiting on me. Ah well...

A voice drops itself into the conversation, soft but bearing conviction. "What we must do now is track down the wolf and stop from ever being a threat to us again." Alex has woken up, lying on the ground with his eyes half open as he finishes.

"Are you crazy?"

Alex chuckles weakly, "I think we passed the borders of sanity some time ago now." He sits up, "I'm not going to allow it to kill anyone else."

OOC: You can decide if its your character who said that middle part if you like. I couldn't really pick out anyone.

Thomas smiled, the blood from the undercooked burrower dribbling down his chin.

"NOW someone is making some sense!"

Flora shrugged, forcing another strip of meat down her throat. "I think insanity is where we're wanted to go. Someone or something is really just out to get us, and the moment we descend below any measure of hope, they'll have us."
Flora leaned back enough to touch the ground, which helped her force some more of the cooked creature down her esophagus. "I don't remember much at all. Hell, I still don't even know my real name, but I know that I wasn't born into or didn't even live in a place like this all my life. I think it's the same with you all, right? Someone's screwing us and they're getting some sick little kick out of seeing us make compromises and suffer. I think that's how it is. I don't remember being an evil person or one who would have powerful enemies."
She sat back up and stared at the half eaten creature she held. "Then again, that's probably my insanity talking."

"I'm not quite as badly off as you," Hareton said to Flora. "I distinctly remember going to bed at my house the night before last. I wonder how they moved us so far between going to sleep and waking up." He picked at his badgersnake. "Unless we were unconscious for more than a day. But that leads to scary stuff like not knowing what day it is and stuff like that." He pinched some meat and put it in his mouth. He swallowed it without chewing. No point in prolonging it... "So, are we going to hunt down that monster, or are we going to see if we can find where the walls touch the ground?"

"That's about what happened to me," Trevor said to Harry. "I wonder what's special about Flora here that she lost her memory in the process of being abducted, while the rest of us didn't..."
"Anyhow, I think going looking for sonething that dangerous is a bad idea. We'd be putting ourselves at a greater risk than seems necessary. We should head for the edge of this place, this... gigantic dome, and see if we can't find out more about it."

"Then it's settled," Flora stood up and posed dramatically, pointing her index finger vaguely to the north. "We venture...to the edge of the world!"
After several seconds, she sat back down and bit once more into the meat, finding herself tolerating the flavor as she ate more and more. "Sorry. I'm just a little depressed about our new lot in life and figured a pick-me-up would be nice."

"I'm with Trevor and Flora," Lena said. "I don't want anyone else to get killed by that wolf, but at the same time I can't really see us taking it down with pointed sticks." She set the remnants of her dinner down on the grass and stood, stretching her arms to the sky.

"I wanna know what happened to us," she said grimly. "And I wanna find the guy who's in charge of this shindig and I want to kick him in the... Yeah."

"Finding the edge sounds like a good plan; we're unlikely to get lost that way."

Flora raised an eyebrow. "Of course it's unlikely. All we do is travel in a straight line."

Andrew began to open his mouth to speak, but changed his mind and closed it again.

The last thing that they needed right now was some of his camping stories.

Alex feels disappointed by the other's reactions. Do they know how much of a threat that beast is? Perhaps his judgement is impaired by his... experience. The only one who had shown support for removing the threat it poses had been Thomas and that makes Alex doubt his judgement even more. Maybe he's only being paranoid.

No, he can't let doubts and second thoughts plague him. He has to be decisive. The wolf is a threat. The others don't want to try and track it down and he is fairly certain he couldn't take it out by himself. Still, he should be prepared. He doesn't think it'll back down. For now at least, there's probably no threat from it.

It takes him a moment to catch back up with what the others are saying. Talking about the creators of this place - it can't have happened naturally. Still, they can't just sit around around here all day. Decisive, he reminds himself. "We can talk about this as we walk," he says, "We won't get anything done by just sitting here. Let's go!"

OOC: We do seem to be having a pacing problem. I suppose I should have anticipated it in an RP with a lot of talking. Well, getting better ideas of how each other's characters would react should help this. Anyway, to the walls!

"All right," Lena agreed. "Let's get out of here." She looked around. There was nothing to pack; nothing to clean up. All they had to do was start walking. "Which way should we go first?"

OOC: I think we could use a new chapter here.

"Well, I assumed we would head wherever the wall looks closest, but it's hard to tell from here because of the trees. If someone could climb one and relay the view from the top, we might get a better idea of our relative location, but that's about the best we can do without a map and compass." Recalling how Cathy seemed more than able to scale trees, Trevor turned to her. "Do you think you could climb up there and give us a guess as to where the closest wall seems to be?"