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[plantfood]

It's been nearly a week since Mathias has seen anything and it's because of this -- this weird sense of relief that has surrounded him lately -- that he walks straight into the tumbled piles of vines without a second thought. He's too busy talking to Lucy to really notice and it isn't until his feet tangle, until he feels a vine sliding around his ankle that he stops and looks down at what they've both walked into.

"No," he says softly. There's a dull thrum of fear at the base of his skull, but that's been there almost all waking moments for the past several months. He tries to remember how they've disappeared before, how it's all proven to be nothing, but even when he closes his eyes and opens them again, the vines are still there. One has circled Lucy's leg, but when he looks at it, it stops moving.

Turning, Mathias intends on heading straight to the boardwalk and toward the Compound, but the beach doesn't look like his beach anymore and he can't see where the boardwalk comes through the trees. Instead there's a hill. A path winds through the vines that cover it, bright green leaves shaped like hands and brilliant, blood red flowers. He turns away from the hill, reaching for Lucy's hand without thinking and it isn't until he's facing the water again that the arrow whistles through the air and lands only inches from his left foot.

It isn't real. That's what he keeps trying to tell himself. None of this is real.

Another arrow arches through the air toward them and Mathias closes his eyes.

Comments

[plantfood]

"We wait," he answers quickly, which is good. It means he's still thinking clearly, that he can still see what's going on and can make decisions. Maybe Jeff was there to rely on the last time this happened, but Jeff isn't here and, more importantly, there are people here he cares about. He has to keep Lucy safe and he has to make sure they get off this hill and get back to Sam.

"It's not the same as Mexico," he says. "The island is full of people, we're not in the middle of the jungle." He turns and looks out over the beach, surprised by just how far he can see even though the hill isn't all that big. "I can see eight huts from here alone and the beach is always busy. Someone will come by and see what's happening and we'll be able to communicate with them. We can tell them to get the IPD, we'll be okay."

He breathes out, trying to calm his racing heart. "All we have to do is wait."

What he doesn't anticipate is that they'll miss the approach. That the men will force more people up onto his hill.

[kissmehardy]

We've had lunch together, and now John and I are walking home. I've got my hand tucked into the crook of his arm as we chat about nothing special, and I'm laughing when I trip over the vine. I would have fallen if I wasn't holding on to John's arm, but even with it I can hardly keep my feet.

I know it's impossible, but I would swear that the vine is wrapping itself around my ankles, trying to bring me down.

The arrow that zips through the air seems even more impossible, but it comes so close that I feel a breeze. I turn to try to see who's shooting at us, but the vine is pulling at me so it's all I can do to keep hold of John's arm.

[sunburned]

It takes a long moment to figure out what's going on at all, but then the arrow zips past and aviator's instincts kicked in and he ducked, keeping hold of her, half sprawling, somewhat inelegant, but managing to keep hold of her, all the same.

"What in hell?"

[kissmehardy]

I'm on the ground with John holding on to me, but I still don't know what's going on. It all happens so fast. I feel like I shouldn't be quite so confused, when I've been through loads of SOE training in how to deal with all kinds of attacks. It's just that none of them ever involved being shot at by arrows or vines that trip people seemingly on purpose.

Those vines have still got hold of one ankle and it seems like the harder I struggle, the tighter they grip and the more it hurts.

I look up and see Mathias and Lucy at the top of the hill, and remember a bit of story he told me about vines only he could see. I hope that means he knows how to help us.

[sunburned]

The vines - it's the bloody vines. He looks up at Mathias and Lucy, glances in the direction that the arrow came from.

"There's a blade. In my bag," he says. He uses it to cut pages from his sketchpad. "You'll have to get it, love."

Because there is no way in hell that he is letting go of her hand.

[kissmehardy]

It really isn't that hard to reach into his bag with my free hand, and I find the knife by the simple expedient of nicking my finger on the blade. It only seems to take a very long time to slice through the vine, one-handed as I am. Because I am not letting go of him either, not with the vision I have of being dragged off into the jungle by plants.

Not when I watch with sickening clarity how the vine sucks up the drops of blood from the tiny cut on my hand.

"All right," I say, finally free and clinging to both John and his knife with an equal death grip. "How do we get away from here?"

[plantfood]

More than anything, he wants to tell the two of them to get away, but the men are advancing on them, arrows readied, rifles pointed in their direction and Mathias rushes to the edge, then partway down the path. "Julie!" he calls, holding out his hand toward them. He'll find a way to get them all off, but they'll just have to be more diligent, they'll have to keep watch until someone else gets close. "John! Come this way. They're all over the place, they'll shoot you."

As if to drive this point home, the man with the rifle shoots into the ground near John's feet, then starts shouting at them in a language Mathias still can't recognize. All this time and he's never bothered to find out what it is they're speaking.

[radicalize]

Lucy has never been especially good at waiting, but when Mathias tells her that's what they have to do, she means to try to listen to him. That doesn't make her attempts any more successful. Already restless, she paces back and forth nearby, pushing a hand through her hair. Someone will come by, she believes him on that count, if only because the island isn't very big and people will notice the landscape having changed, but confined to such a small space, surrounded below, without anything to do, she just hopes it doesn't take very long.

When she hears Mathias call to some others, she hurries over, thinking maybe they've got their escape. The sound of changes that all too quickly. Even so, she wants to tell them to do otherwise, to get away, instead, but she can't bring herself to. Despite what he's told her, she still isn't really the one who knows what's going on here, and she has a feeling that, if there were anything else to do, he would know it. Instead, she calls down, "Up here!"

[kissmehardy]

As much as I would prefer to be far away from all of this, it's easy to choose between the people shooting at us and Mathias and Lucy.

I close my eyes for a second, and pretends it's an air raid at Maidsend, and I'm running for a shelter there. I was never hit there, and so I won't be here; simple enough to let myself believe. Still, I give john a look, not loosening the tight grip I have on his hand.

"Don't let go, all right?"

[sunburned]

"I'm not going to let go," he promises, his fingers threaded with hers. He's already moving, dragging her with him, up the hill towards Mathias and the girl standing with him. Granby's been shot at before, and the same impulse keeps in - survive, do the job in hand, see what can be done.

He just keeps his head down and runs.

[plantfood]

The hill isn't particularly large and when the men see their latest additions are making for the top, they relax. Their bows are lowered, arrows pointed into the dirt and for a moment, only the man with the rifle remains. Mathias looks down at him, the very face he saw every day while he was trapped on that hill, then turns his attention to Julie and John.

"They've stopped shooting!" he calls to them. "Now that you're climbing."

Looking at Lucy, he rubs a hand over his face, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. If he calms down, he'll be able to figure things out.

[radicalize]

It's pretty far from promising, and Lucy hates that, all of a sudden, these are things she has to worry about. She's spent months now on edge, waiting for something to go wrong as it always, always does, but just because it has doesn't mean she's taken any more kindly to it. Their best hope — their only hope, as far as she's aware — is someone on the ground providing help, and even that, there would be a limited window for, even if it didn't seem impossible with those men shooting at anyone who gets close. Then again, the last time shit like this went down, the first Halloween she'd been here, it was all gone the next day. Waiting it out could work, but she's never been much good at waiting. Besides, there's still the matter of surviving until then.

"Are you guys alright?" she asks when they get a little closer, and it's a question she knows is relative. Nothing about this is alright, but she can at least hope that none of them are injured. This doesn't seem like the place to try to deal with that.

[kissmehardy]

I haven't felt such a surge of pure terror since just before the time I actually was shot, and it takes me some time before I'm calm enough to take stock and answer. My ankle stings where the vine grabbed me and the cut on my hand is still dripping blood, but it's small and nothing to be concerned about. "I think I'm fine."

I take off my scarf and wrap the silk around my hand. The second I'm done, I resume my grip on John. I don't feel comfortable letting go of him at all, not when there's a risk of being attacked by vines and men who don't even speak a language any of us seem to understand.

"What is this? Where did it come from? And why?"

My voice is shaking, but I hope I might be less terrified if I were less confused.

[sunburned]

"I'm alright," says Granby, grimly, tugging Julie in by her hand and wrapping his arm around her, keeping her snug against his chest. It's not just meant as comfort for her - having her so close brings comfort to him, too. His eyebrows are raised

"If you know what's happening here, Mathias, I'd like to hear it," he says.

[plantfood]

"I don't know," Mathias answers, shaking his head once as he walks across the top of the hill. He pauses briefly at the blood soaked sleeping bag, then again at the windlass, looking down into the mine for a moment. At the other side of the hill, there are men with bows and arrows, just like he thought there would be.

"I don't know where it came from," he says. "But it's here because I'm scared of it."

He can't look at the others when he says it for a long list of reasons. For one, he made a promise to Lucy that if the hallucinations got bad, he'd tell someone and he hadn't, but only because he'd known there hadn't been anything anyone could do.

"This is what I've been seeing," he admits. "The vines, the men down there. I thought I was still imagining it this morning."

[radicalize]

That much, Lucy knows already, or could at least have pieced together. It's not something they've ever really talked a lot about, but she knows what happened here, and he's mentioned a few times the things he's seen. She just never thought it was this bad, as quick to dismiss it as nothing as to be set on edge, wondering what was going to go wrong. People have been talking about this possibility for months now, but with it having actually happened, she can't pretend she isn't caught off guard.

"This happened before," she cuts in, letting out a heavy exhale. "Not... this, specifically, but this sort of thing, on Halloween five years ago. It was all gone the next day, but..." But they have to make it that long before that can mean anything, something she doesn't have the heart to say, especially if the others don't know what's going on.

[kissmehardy]

"Oh, God," I say, trying to wrap my mind around the whole thing. "This is where you died, isn't it?"

It does occur to me that I ought to go to Mathias, to offer him whatever support or comfort I might, but I am overcome by the realization that if this can happen, there's nothing to stop me being returned to that cold riverbank in France. In my imagination, just for a moment, I'm on my face in the mud, hands bound behind me with wire and a Nazi guard's boot heavy on the back of my neck.

Though I like Mathias very much, it's John I trust completely with my life and I can't move an inch. Instead of doing anything useful, I just lean against him and shiver, coward that I am.

[sunburned]

It may not be the worst situation that he's ever found himself in, but it's definitely close. For a moment, standing there with his arms around Julie, he feels like he's standing onto dragon-back, not latched on, teetering in the wind.

He drags in a deep breath, his hand stroking against Julie's back, small, comforting touches.

"So," he says, ever practical. "What do we for the best?"

[plantfood]

Mathias can't look at Lucy or Julie when he nods in answer to her question, so he looks at John. "Yes," he says. "This is where I died." Where they all died. His brother, Pablo, Eric and Jeff, Amy and Stacy. This is where they all died because he'd brought them there and he isn't going to let that happen again. No one is going to die.

"I think we need to be on the lookout for others," he says. "If anyone gets near enough, we can warn them away, ask them to bring help. We are not in the middle of nowhere like I was the last time. Someone is going to see this hill and if we can catch them, then we'll be fine." Even as he says it, though, there's a vine snaking across the small clearing, going straight for Lucy.

[radicalize]

It's too unsettling to think about. This isn't the first time Lucy has found herself in a potentially life-threatening situation, but somehow, she thinks this one might be more frightening. The time to stop and think makes all the difference. If everything were happening at once, she thinks she could handle it, but this, the silences, the questions, it drives home just how much danger they're really in, and she hates it. Just because they aren't isolated here like Mathias does last time doesn't make her any less eager to get the hell out of here, never one to sit and wait.

She means to agree with what Mathias has said, but she doesn't get a chance. The vine, gone unnoticed by her before now, wraps itself around her ankle, coiling tightly, and she lets out a faint cry as she struggles to stay upright, attempting to kick it off, though she knows it will be useless. "Mathias --"

[kissmehardy]

John's steady presence is a comfort, and so is the knowledge that this isn't exactly the same situation. We aren't entirely isolated here, and there's hope that someone might help us. Even lacking that, if history is repeating at all, we have only to keep ourselves alive until this all goes away and things return to normal.

I can almost believe that it's only the men with the arrows and the guns that we have to be afraid of until I'm reminded of the uncanny vines.

I hardly even take a breath to think about it before I've crossed over to Lucy, John's knife in my hand to hack at the vine.

[sunburned]

"Jesus, Julie, don't," he snaps, launching himself after her without even thinking about - the way he used to launch himself after Laurence on dragon-back. He misses his harness. He misses feeling held.

Without much else to do, hampered by the lack of one hand, he stamps one booted foot down on the vine, trying to stop it from going anywhere.

[plantfood]

It won't take her, not until she's weak or dead, Mathias knows that, but even so, he wraps his arm around Lucy to hold her steady. "It's alright," he says and around them the vines quiver, almost as if they're responding to what he's said. Almost as if they're laughing.

"Be careful," he says to Julie. "The sap will burn if you get it on your skin. If you cut it, it might retreat." Or more will come out to help, as it did with Henrich's body, but he doesn't want to say that. He doesn't even want to think it. All he wants it to be off this hill, somewhere safe with these people.

[radicalize]

It's instinctive, holding on to Mathias to steady herself, though Lucy doesn't quite feel like she's going to be pulled anywhere just yet. She needs it beyond just the physical. Awful as she knew being up here had been from what he's told her, being here, seeing these vines for herself, the way they're practically fucking alive, is something else entirely. Logic says that they'll be fine, but that doesn't do her any good now, her ankle stinging where the vine's curled around it. She doesn't want to get out of here later. She wants it to be done now.

"Thanks," she says weakly, swallowing hard. She's lived through a lot, she's even fucking died before, albeit in someone's memory, but those were all things that happened quickly. This is different, more real. "And they just do this? Come at us like this?"

[kissmehardy]

When I was a prisoner of the Gestapo I was afraid all the time, but at least I knew what I was dealing with. I don't understand this situation, and that scares me more than anything. I watch the vines I cut slither under John's boot, and think about the men shooting at us to keep us here, and it just makes me angry.

"Who are they to make us stay here with vines that laugh?" I stalk to the edge of the hill and glare down at the men there. I am a Wallace and a Stuart and I am not about to be subject to the whims of anonymous bullies just because they're armed. "I'm not staying here just because they say so."

It only strikes my arm, a glancing blow, but I only make it a couple of steps down the hill before the arrow drives me back.

I am so shocked that someone would actually shoot me with an arrow that it doesn't even hurt at first.