It slowly turns, head cocking one way, then the other, tail swishing slowly from one side to the other as it takes a slow, lazy step towards Roe.
This is definitely the part where Roe should run away. Very fast. Emphasis on the fast. And the very. But instead he just stands there, knife still raised, and asks, kind of blankly, "You don't fly, do you?"
This is the part where it screams. The sound is indescribable - piercing, echoing, a thing that tremors through Roe's veins and into his bones, an echo of hunger and the hunt, of predator and prey.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit. This time Roe does break into a flat out run. It isn't too far from his house, he can make it. Bar the door. Hide. He has a knife but it won't be useful against a thing like this, he thinks. Not this sort of entity. (What should I roll?)
Fleet feet make you almost fly through the brush, and you're not that far from home. You make it in, though for a moment you feel something slick tightening around your ankle before you kick your leg free and vault into the house, pulling the door closed behind you.
Roe leans heavily against the door. Okay, okay, he needs to bar it. Does he have any heavy furniture he can easy move. The thick, wooden inside door is the one that swings inward, so he can bar that. Chair. Right, he has a chair. He grabs a heavy wooden chair he hasn't done anything with yet and wedges it under the doorknob. Fuck. Fuck, fuck. He grabs his softball bat from where he's leant it by that window. He is not sleeping tonight. (I can change this if I'm doing godmod with the doors)
(( Nah, that's absolutely fine. It's your character's home - I'm absolutely giving you leeway on how it's set up. :) )) There are other sundry items you've collected over the last few years - things you thought you may need, things your parents had scavenged earlier, things you've brought in for emergency kindling in case a storm blows through and you're trapped and unable to get out or cannot find any dry kindling in the days to come. There's a soft scrabbling at the front door, and a quiet, whispering voice... https://soundcloud.com/user-709538218/hello-hello
Okay he is definitely hallucinating. The fox thing, sure, that might have been real, but he's heard voices before. He's been alone too long not to. He's certainly not opening the door. This is Maine, he's heard the ghost stories and the folk tales and it's always the fool who opens the door. It's the same in his books. But he can talk to it. Talking to hallucinations is better than talking to no one at all. And it already knows he's there. "No!" he shouts, shoving the chair tighter under the knob. "You can't come in, this is my house and I am fine alone." Not entirely what he meant to say. Oh well.
https://soundcloud.com/user-709538218/im-fine-alone Voices hum from behind the door, and his own words are thrown back at him, warped and cut into pieces. "Come in." "I'm alone." The door rattles, but the chair holds.
Okay. It's one of those hallucinations. So no talking. Okay. Does he have any more chairs within reach. No. Shit. He just has to wait. Roe back all the way to the other side of the room and stands stock still, staring at the rattling door.
The door shakes and shudders, a quiet scratching at the door. Eventually, even that becomes normal, and Roe may sleep....
Sleeplessness leads to hallucinations but he is already hearing things to instead he sticks his fingers into a can of coffee grounds and swallows about a pinch raw. He washes it down with some liquid he is mostly sure is safe for drinking. He goes back to the hall in front of the door, grabbing his most recent book along the way. The Feminine Mystique. He's not a girl anymore, but its still interesting to read. What is that thing? (Should I roll anything right now?)
The grounds are bitter and gritty, and some of the granules stick in your teeth. The thing that really comes to mind is weird lovecraftian horror, honestly... and some creepy stories about voices echoing in the woods, but there's nothing truly substantial that you've heard off.
That's gotta be it. The half clarity the grounds give you make you certain that is this thing is what you think it is, there's no point in fleeing it. You remove the chair under the door and book it to the other side of the room. You raise your bat. It will likely be useless.
...there's no scratching, anymore. Unless... There's a quiet creak on the porch, and then the doorknob turns, slowly, creaking open just a crack.
...turning? Did the thing grow hands? What has he done, why did he take the chair away? It's really, really hard not to speak.
The outer door is already open, but a moment passes.... and the door swings all the way open, helped along by a boot.
A... a person now? Or is it the weird fox thing still, except shape shifted? That's the best Roe's overtaxed brain can come up with. "Are you going to steal my voice again?" he asks, kind of stupidly.
