The Fox and The Forest (EDITING)

Practicers and Pretenders (2.0)

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Where could she have gone? Are ghosts this easy to lose too?

Tom wondered, as he made his way through the people on deck- lumbering to and fro in a less than agile manner.

He was checking the stern of the ship for the Captain. For she had taken Ray with her after the commotion.

The woman's image, Ray's image, had become shrouded by the haunting smoke of her attempted suicide. Which in turn, made her even more difficult to find.

Not to mention that Tom couldn't see the Captain at all. Her blue and white cap remained undistinguished amongst the crowd.

He shook his head in frustration. The chances of finding either one of them was fraying quickly, along with Tom's patience.

The only person Tom had recognised was Kate. She was standing alone and, having seen her in the same place he just left moments ago, Tom realised that he must've ended up back to where he had started.

So he set off once again and turned to the direction that he thought was left. Though, there were too many people on the ship for Tom to be completely sure of his direction.

As he searched he hoped that the Captain could be trusted but he was uncertain of her loyalties. Of whether she truly followed the Goddess Mother Nature and the government's Laws of Redemption.

The District of Lakes housed two types of people- those who only pretended to whole heatedly conform and those who didn't have to pretend. It was the latter you had to watch out for.

The boy pushed past these practisers and pretenders and checked the bow for the ship's controller.

Ouch!

Tom's hand shot up to his partially clothed arm. The water had left small bullet shaped holes in his shirt- giving temporary sight of the raw burns, as his skin shifted beneath the cloth. Creeping back into his synapses, the pain had returned to replace the numbness- making an assault on his body receptors.

Many people hadn't even spared Tom a sideways glance for fear he would put them in danger, or even worse- cause them to be noticed. They'd retreated back into their minds that were stuffed with pastel pink fibre glass.

With everyone eager to ignore Tom, it meant that it didn't take him long to notice when someone was watching him. He didn't look up quick enough to catch the person's face. Nevertheless, he felt a gaze puncturing the already poisoned air around him.

Yet he wasn't surprised. He'd lost the capacity to be so. With the visions and echoes of his lost friend's voice, he felt like he hadn't left the facility at all.

The world had given him a whole new set of side-effects.

Tom straightened up and forced himself to keep walking, in order to ensure he was out of the gazer's sight.

"Have you seen the Captain?" he tried, aiming his question at anyone who would be kind enough to reply.

The young man with coffee coloured hair coughed and pretended he had heard no-one. No answer. The lady with wrinkles, the ghosts of a smile, frowned. No answer at all.

Tom wished he could be at home. To the home in the past. Where he was at least safer than he was now. In a place that he thought knew.

Dépaysement Tom mused, comforting himself with another government permitted word. It's the disorientation of being in a foreign country or culture. Tom pretended as though Kate and Flynn had asked him what it meant.