everyone_takes | (no subject)

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effy

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Even now, with all her stuff prepared and the canoe pulled up onto the sand, Kate knew she wasn't exactly the camping type. It had taken her way too long to realize that she'd forgotten to pack any water, even though she'd remembered food, a sleeping bag and a flashlight. The serious lack of water was the reason she was late now, jogging along the boardwalk to where she'd left the canoe, hoping Effy hadn't been there for ages already, waiting for her. Not that she was particularly punctual most of the time, so it probably wasn't even a surprise.

And even though she knew she wasn't the camping type, she was excited for the trip. In all the time Kate had been on the island, she'd never done anything like this. Killer stuffed animals hardly counted as an adventure, since that wasn't exactly the sort of fun anyone went looking for. She hadn't been to see the dinosaurs, hadn't gone down into that underground city, hadn't changed bodies with anyone -- though she had been a dude for a few days, which had been sort of fun. This, though, was planned.

On top of that, she'd never really gone on any sort of trip with a girl friend before. She and Tara had done that weekend trip that had ended pretty okay, even if it had started off rough, but she'd never done anything like this. By eighteen, she figured it was the sort of thing everyone had done, but not Kate. Of course, by eighteen, most girls hadn't done half the shit she'd done, but that sort of wasn't the point.

"Hey!" she called as she finally made her way to the beach, breathing hard and skidding in the sand a little. She dropped her pack as she tried to catch her breath, then waved her hand absently at the canoe. "Sorry. Forgot water. Had to go all the way back."

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Effy doesn't hesitate before rounding the side of the hut, coming down from where she stands on tiptoe and looking for a door, because while it's interesting to see these faint remnants of a life long past, more than that Effy wants to feel it all, to stand in the middle and absorb whatever there is left of the people who lived here once. People who seem to leave more than anyone does on the first island, belongings all too quickly gathered away and redistributed among the people.

"Let's see if they're pissed when I step in here," Effy says with a slight lilt in her voice, hand splaying over dry wood and pushing all the way through, the scent of stale air catching under her nose.

Kate grins when Effy pushes into the hut, watching her for just a moment. There are a lot of things Kate knows she's good at and most of the time she tries to pretend she's fearless, but there's still that hint of hesitation. She'll go through with things most of the time, but sometimes she wavers. Effy never does, it seems, and Kate can't help but admire that.

"Any ghosts?" she asks, finally following her inside. The hut smells stale and salty, like it's been closed up for a long time, which she guesses it has. It's weird, though, that no one who has come over here has gone into these places.

Or maybe they have. Maybe the whole island just resets itself every time. The thought makes her shiver a little, even though the air is warm.

"Probably," Effy declares, less because she believes in ghosts, and more because the mere thought is one that spices up the moment, imagining that someone might still be lingering around protectively, watching over lives long past. The only voices that Effy fears are the ones that linger about her for no reason she can definitively ascertain, the ones that crawl around her head seemingly for the sheer sake of overwhelming her. Walking into a ghost is another matter entirely.

There's a pair of chairs by a small dining table, and Effy plants herself in one of them, legs easily crossing as she observes everything from that unmovable distance.

"S'like they were people like us," Effy murmurs thoughtfully.

"You think they were brought here, too?" Kate asks, running her hands over the furniture that's left behind. She opens a drawer, surprised to find clothes left there and she picks out an old shirt, dusty and full of holes. "Like we were, I mean? Brought here and then just sent back home again?"

It wouldn't totally surprise her, but it's strange at the same time. She knows the island wasn't always here and she wonders if it's possible for this place to create other islands. Or draw them from other places. There's mostly a lot of guesswork when it comes to how stuff happens around here, but she likes to think about it, even if she knows she'll never have an answer.

"I wonder if they disappeared one by one until there was only one person left," she says. "All alone, no idea where everyone else had gone."

"Think so," Effy says thoughtfully, drawing from things she learned in class back in college without even thinking too greatly about it. People have always been more interesting to her, though, than anything else she's learned in class. "Don't think they were born here. Don't think it was evolution. 'Cause what's the odds that starting from whatever the fuck kind of primate they were before, they'd still come up with huts and houses that look like ours?"

She finds a small stuffed animal— an elephant, if she's to guess— in the corner, constructed out of scraps of cloth.

"Dunno if this place would leave just one person, though. It'd drive anyone mad."

That's exactly why Kate thinks the island might do it. So far, it hasn't done anything too awful that she's seen, but she's heard the stories and she knows the sort of things that have happened in the past. Something about that makes her feel like the island just might leave only one person behind. The last one.

"It's like one of those creepy civilizations that just totally disappeared without a trace," she says. Marshall's mentioned it, probably, because that doesn't seem like the type of thing she'd go researching on her own. It seems like the basis for some weird movie that he'd make. She'll have to tell him about this place, see if he's ever come over. If nothing else, it looks like a good place to shoot a movie.

"This stuff has been here forever," she says, turning back to Effy, the shirt still in her hands. "We're probably the first people to touch this stuff in years."

"Or maybe they got the choice to leave," Effy ponders aloud, staring around at everything else in the hut, twirling lightly on her toes as she overturns everything, touches it, as though that might call back something of the people who were here before, enough for them to demand some answers to the mystery otherwise unsolved. "Maybe everyone vanished at once 'cause it was their choice."

It sounds hopelessly optimistic coming from her lips, and Effy's nose wrinkles from it.

"But we're finding them now. Parts of their lives... all this shit. Kind of romantic, leaving behind their lives for us to find."

"I wonder why no one's done anything with it before," Kate says, considering the things left behind. "I mean, I guess they're not useful by most standards, but this place has been mapped. People have been over here. You think they'd like, want to clean it up or something." She's glad they haven't, but given how ordered everyone tries to be most of the time, she's still surprised. People like things neat, they like things that they can understand.

"What's next?" she asks, still turning the shirt over in her hands. She thinks it might have been blue once, but it's so faded now that it's hard to tell. "Someone told me there's a bunch of shipwrecked boats that we can take a look at." There might be ghosts in the village, but she thinks a shipwreck is almost a guarantee.

"Because you won't know if people disappear here," Effy decides, the thought coming to her out of nowhere as she glances around, but it feels right when she thinks more about it, glances at the way everything on this island's untouched. When people disappear on Tabula Rasa, everyone sweeps in to scatter the memories among people, people still alive and well and thriving. Nothing of that would happen to anyone who vanishes from this spot, because it's too far away from the masses.

And something about the thought rends her heart.

Crossing the space and linking her hand with Kate's, Effy nods further in the direction they were originally walking. "Let's find the boats. Walk 'round the island until we're tired."

It's not normally a gesture Kate would feel comfortable with, but there's always been something different about Effy and she doesn't give their linked hands a second thought. It feels natural, really, which isn't something she's ever had with a friend before, only Marshall.

"Should we leave our stuff here?" she asks, looking around the hut. It hasn't been touched in a long time, but it doesn't feel as creepy as she thought it might. It's the sort of place she wouldn't mind camping out in, even with all the things left behind. "Just take some water and food and then we can come back here for a fire and ghost stories?" she asks, looking at Effy with a grin.

"Leave the shit," Effy grins, raised only higher when Kate's hand seems to fit so naturally against her own. It reminds her of the way things used to be with Pandora, lovely Pandora who followed after Effy because she was cool, because she needed someone, because they were right for each other in spite of all of the ways that they were wrong, too. Teeth biting down lightly on her tongue, Effy tugs in the direction of the exit.

"Find whatever we need to eat tonight, find a light, we'll make our way back before it's too late." With a smile, Effy glances in Kate's direction. "'less you think we can stay there all night. I might be too scared."

"Being scared might not be a problem, but there's no way in hell I'm sleeping outside all night," Kate answers, following Effy easily, almost as easily as she follows Marshall. It's natural, which in itself is strange sometimes, because it's never been natural for her to follow anyone. Kate's spent most of her life trying to be on her own, refusing to let anyone but her brother take care of her because, as much as she loves her parents, they've never quite done it properly.

They exit back out into the sun and Kate points to the path leading off to their left. "That way," she says, although she doesn't know if that's the right way. The island isn't that big, though, if they need to, they can walk around the whole thing in search of the wrecked boats.

Carefully, Effy glances up at the sun, makes note of its position and the shift from where it was only minutes ago. Although north and south have far less meaning on an island that looks from above to be completely flat, still it helps with picking directions; for now, they head west with the sun, and it feels to Effy like anything could happen along the way.

"Promise I won't leave you out to dry," Effy says, voice barely above her breath as they step forward.

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