Once upon a time, in a land not so far away...
You wake to the feeling of being watched. Of a set of unfamiliar eyes, of warm breath on the back of your neck. A jolt back to the land of the living, and it's gone. No matter how quick you are, how sneaky, the source of the disruption has long since disappeared, so you have no choice but to try and ignore it. To continue on with your day and try to set that moment of strangeness aside.
You eat, drink, speak with others. Perhaps you explore a little. Whatever it is you choose to do for the day, that feeling from the morning won't return. And by the time the sun sets and the moon glows brightly above, you've likely set those moments of strangeness aside. It's not like it's anything new, after all.
It's the same again for the next few days. No better, no worse. Something best ignored, right?
A speck of blood on the doorframe. That wasn't there before, was it?
A snap of twigs in the distance. A crunch of leaves.
Claw marks gouged deeply into the door.
Into the wall above your bed.
Scraps of red fabric, turned darker with blood. Pieces of fur. Of flesh.
Do you run and hide? Do you fight? Whatever you choose, it's definitely time to make sure your body parts aren't scattered next...
...what a horribly big mouth you have.
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Since first waking up on the island, characters have been stuck with that feeling of being watched. It isn't a constant. Isn't more than a few seconds at a time, dotted throughout the day. Investigation has never turned up much, and there's never been any sightings of the cause of it all.
Until now.
Throughout the first half of the week, characters will find themselves suffering from that feeling of being watched on a far more constant basis. Rather than it being a one-off, few seconds occurrence each day, that feeling will last for minutes at a time, and on multiple occasions.
However, it isn't until the fifth day that they'll start stumbling across physical signs of their monitoring. There are claw marks on doors. Spots of blood on the paths outside. A crack of twigs in the forests, or the imprint of bloodied paws in the snow.
Ten days in and those signs start finding their way indoors. Wet footprints, tinged with red. Claw marks in the walls, the floor. Torn sheets and the smell of wet...something. Whatever it is that's been watching you, its finally decided to come and say hello.
Two weeks in and characters will begin to have sightings of the creature, its fur dark and its eyes a glowing yellow. At times it looks like a wolf, prowling in the distance. At other times, it's walking on its hind legs, almost human were it not for the muzzle full of gleaming sharp teeth. Get too close, and it slips away like a shadow, gone between one blink and the next. It decides when to reach out to characters, not the other way round.
It's after characters finally get a good look at the creature that it starts leaving...gifts. Characters will start to find familiar items from their home worlds amidst the mess. The remains of a childhood pet, perhaps. Photographs of loved ones, faces torn almost beyond recognition. It's only once it delivers its final gift that the creature retreats to the trees again: a blood-splattered item of clothing that clearly belongs to the person the character misses the most at the time, alive or dead.
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Johannes Cabal | The Johannes Cabal series | OTA, will match format
Upon waking, Cabal quickly assess his situation. On the bright side, his body was human and it no longer felt like he was dying. On the less bright side, this was most certainly not where he passed out. Was he somehow back in the Dreamlands, or someplace else entirely? Cabal was used to all things odd and supernatural, so he wasn't surprised, but he did just have a very trying experience and he really wasn't in the mood for another one so soon.
The distant rustling sounds send him on his way before he gets to fully examine the bag, which only adds to his annoyance. At least they (whoever "they" are) had left him the Webley.
When the rustling returns, much closer this time, Cabal immediately turns around toward the sound, gun at hand.
"Who's there? I'll have you know my patience is worn so thin it long since snapped; if you do not step out this instance, I will shoot."
A real charmer, this one.
WISHING WELL
It seems simply enough – pay a coin, make a wish. However, Cabal knows such things have always some sort of trick, like backfiring horribly if one doesn't use precise words. So he makes sure to phrase his request succinctly and carefully:
"My Gladstone bag, and its entire content as I had with me before I ended up here."
Unfortunately, using precise work didn't work, and Cabal is now convinced that the after mentioned "they" are most likely playing a joke on him and everybody else.
""Oi! Is that you again, Cabal? And who's there with you?"
The well gave him one item that was in his bag. Said item is a flaming, chatty skull.
TWO WEEKS IN
Cabal hates being toyed with; he wishes the creature would come out and get it over with. He'd like to say a few things to it, mainly that its provocations are obvious and clichéd.
Then he'll kill it. It's only rational to eliminate this thing before it gets sick of playing and kills them first, but also - the obvious and clichéd provocations have the nerve to work. Cabal refuses to believe this is really her blood stained scarf, but that doesn't make it any less insulting.
You as well?" He nods at someone else picking at a chewed-on souvenir. "I wonder if ignoring it will make it show itself faster? It seems to be aiming for a reaction."
Arrival
He doesn't like that gun. From the way his eyes are trained on it, it's clear that the wolf knows exactly what that is and what it does. He snarls softly, ears flattened back. He's not coming out until he puts that thing away. Tsume's gotten shot at too many times in his life to trust human beings that point guns at him.
no subject
It also might be more than just a wolf. Its hostile wariness may simply be the mark of a clever animal, but Cabal has just been spirited away somewhere, so he's not about to rule out any options.
"I would hate to shoot you," he says sincerely, if dryly. He detests unnecessary killing and besides, he doesn't have extra rounds. "However, I'd hate even more to have my arm bitten off."
Cabal takes a slow step back, eyes still on Tsume, and while he doesn't put the gun away he does retract his arm experimently, until the barrel points upwards rather than at the wolf.
no subject
In any case, it's clear that Tsume definitely understands the man's words, or at least his intentions. He stops snarling and waits to see what Cabal will do next, golden eyes still watching him carefully.