Streak looked unsure of how to begin. In the end, she just told about how she had been taken from the zoo when she was about three to a scientific-looking facility. There, she was taught to read and write. It was here that her talents were accidentally discovered...
Streak was very angry. The tall man in the dark glasses and the long beard - Dr. Randy to her, Dr. Fulson to his associates - wouldn't leave her alone until she had finished copying the paragraph he had carefully printed on the chalkboard.
My name is Streak. I am part human and part tiger. Doctor Randy is my friend. I like it here.
So the short blurb read. Streak had written through My name is Streak. I am part human and part tiger. Doctor Randy is when she stopped. Although Dr. Randy was very nice, and even sometimes gave her candy, she did not think of him as a friend. She didn't want to be friends with him. She thought he might be dangerous. And she didn't think Randy Fulson was his real name.
So, in the stubborn way young children have, she clammed up and refused to write anymore. She wouldn't speak or look at Dr. Randy, and she sat with her arms crossed.
"Come now, Streak," said Dr. Randy. "As soon as you finish this sentence, I'll give you some snacks and we can go watch some cartoons. Would you like that?"
Streak did not respond.
Dr. Randy, a little flustered, grumbled a little and turned red. "Now, don't be like that, little Streak. I'd hate to have to tell the other doctors how uncooperative you're being."
Streak uttered a short bark that those who know very young children may be familiar with: "NO!"
Dr. Randy was being very mean, as far as Streak was concerned. It's almost like he thinks he'll die if I don't write it. And when did he start looking so scary?
For Dr. Randy did, in fact, look very scary. He almot didn't look like himself any more. His face had become very pale, his eyes almost looked red, and his very skin almost seemed to look like a mask.
But when he saw Streak looking at him, he seemed to change back to normal. Streak guessed she must've imagined it, though deep down, she knew better.
"Look, Streak," Dr. Randy began. "I won't make you write what's on the board if you don't want to. But at least finish the sentence you started? Unfinished sentences look so nasty on paper, don't they?"
Streak looked up at him, daring to hope. She looked down at what she had written. "My name is Streak. I am part human and part tiger. Doctor Randy is"
Here, she wrote the first thing that came to mind, even though it wasn't true. She added: "going to take me to the circus, because he likes me a lot."
"You can probably guess tha Dr. Randy was really that guy Fisher. And he took me to the circus, all right. The day after I wrote that sentence, he came to my room, all dressed up, and told me about the circus he owned. I naturally got all excited, and asked him to take me, and he said of course. When we got there some scary looking men all grabbed me and caged me, and I lived and traveled with the circus ever since. And we'd go from town to town, and Fisher would force me to write such awful, nasty things, and I knew what I was doing, but if I ever disobeyed or wrote something he didn't tell me to write, he would hurt me." She pointed to her head. "In here. It was so awful that by my first winter with the circus I never bothered to try and do anything bad."
Blaze looked concerned. "What sort of stuff did you write?"
Streak sniffled. "Things like 'John Kennedy is going to be assassinated' at such and such a time, or 'Rhonda Johnson will slip on her stairs and crack her head, dying instantly,' other such things. People I'd never heard of. Hell, it was by accident that I even heard who John Kennedy was - I guess he was the president of some country in some other world ... I felt so guilty about these things ... and I knew that me, doing these unnatural things, was causing things to break down and fall apart."
She started crying. "And the last thing he made me write before you guys showed up was 'David B_____ it hit by a car and killed.' I think that's our friend Dave. It's Fisher's fault he's here. I'm afraid he wants him for something..."
About this point there was a cry in the mountains above, and everyone looked up to see a burst of flame erupt from a spot above. Blaze took it for what it was: Pseok turning into that phoenix.
"Damn. Hope Pseok and Dave are okay up there ..." he murmured.
After a while Art reached a good looking spot. Streak, still sniffing a little, wrote out We have appropriate camping supplies and enough food to fill us all up on one of the pages in Dave's notebook. And it was so. Art and Blaze set up the tents silently, while Streak sat with the others by a fire (OOC: hope you don't mind I shifted character positions).
---
Dave awoke as soon as he heard the thing leap out and strike Pseok. He cried out, but when Pseok caught fire, he nearly panicked. He was scrambling backwards up the rock behind him, almost cartoonishly. He toppled over the side and clattered back on to his feet. Dave ran off, for now ignoring how out of shape he was and how much his bad leg was protesting.
After a while, when Dave had found his way a bit down the mountain, he heard Pseok crying out something about being sorry and not knowing what to do.
Dave, gasping and out of breath, stopped and crawled under a large fallen tree. This was awful... but what could he do? He was alone in the mountains in a strange world ...
Starting to shudder, Dave fell into a troubled sleep.
---
Fisher knew immediately what was happening as Pseok burst into flame.
Dave was with the bird, not the others at the car. He had manipulated D'Angelo for no reason.
Some animal-thing (likely a ware, he thought) had attacked Pseok, and scared Dave away.
But Fisher couldn't track Dave down properly. At least, not in his mind. He couldn't pinpoint his location. Try as he might to see it, his mind kept going in circles, dancing towards the answer and then away from it. Damn. Something about this kid ... he was definately talented if even Fisher couldn't read him.
Fisher was now completely sure of it: Dave was a Breaker. Quite possibly the most powerful one Fisher had ever known.
And if he could get control of the boy ......
There would be time enough tomorrow. And dammit, he was the kind of man who needed some sport. It would be no fun to take him now, such easy prey.
Instead he lapsed into a state of quasi-sleep that was more meditation. For, as they say on the internet, Fisher was like Chuck Norris in one vital way: he doesn't sleep. He waits.
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. Thanks.
