Event #5: Echo and Narcissus (tag Philip)

[Nerissa Clark]

Nerissa woke up with a groan. This sucked, she wanted to go home and get the hell away from this nightmarish place. She wanted to go back to school too, she felt like her grade point average was in jeopardy while she was stuck here. But so was everyone else's she supposed. She got into a sitting position and looked around in the dark. "Anyone in here with me?" She called out loud. It seemed everytime she fell asleep and came back to she was in a different room which did not make a lick of sense to her. If she didn't move on her own someone moved her. And so if someone moved her and she was with other people that meant they were all in on this sick joke. Ha hah very funny, no one wanted to be stuck with her so they go and move her somewhere else? Well that thought made her feel a little sad and underappreciated, but also at the same time defiant and spiteful. Who cared if no one liked her, she would show them one day.

She rolled over to her knees and was about to stand up when she saw something she had not before. Someone's hand was showing just a few meters away from her. She crawled towards them carefully not to make a sound and spook them. Also if it was a corpse she would be doing it for nothing but oh well, at least she wouldn't scare the dead.

To her surprise it was Philip. She started to poke him in the shoulder without thinking about it. "Hey, you alive?" She asked as she continued to poke him.

[Phillip Pendragon]

Of course, just when things had been at least good enough for the moment, apparently someone ... or something hated him enough to once again got him to wake up at a whole new location and with someone else he had yet hoped to find safe and sound after the nightmare was over. What didn´t make things the slightest better was that he neither got to hear or feel his lover anywhere close, going along with the pain in his mouth being back. It wasn´t enough to make him scream in agony or even be unbearable yet the feeling of his missing tongue was fairly unpleasant and sadly it sure looked like that feeling wouldn´t go away anytime soon. What brought him over the edge though was the way he got woken up ... by poking him.

Turning his hands into fists, he raised his torso from the ground, glaring into the direction where he assumed the poker. As he got to see though who it was that woke him up, Phillips features softened again as he realized it was Nerissa who was with him now. To this fact he left out a long sigh and got out his phone only to see it being half empty. Great, just great now he would be mute for real unless he would use the red phone which at least at the last time he checked, had more battery than his own one.

At the thought of the ominous phone though, his anger returned. There was so much he needed to get answered. No, there was so much that he DEMANDED to get answered and in his heads there only were more question marks popping up. Dammit, he thought to himself and quickly typed in a message for Nerissa to read before he would turn his phone off and put it back into his pocket.

"I am glad you are alright but I am sad you got dragged into this hell as well. From now on sadly I can only communicate with nodding for a yes and no answer as I lost my voice quite literally. All I can say for now is that somehow Amanda or what looked like her did this to me and hurt others like Alex and Zak, possibly even more. Any more information I have yet to find out myself. Did you get to figure out anything or maybe find something? I sure would need some water and food and in the best case maybe a painkiller."

[Nerissa Clark]

When he suddenly and without warning rose up and turned to look at her she flinched a little thinking that he was going to hit her or something. But that mood vanished as soon as it had appeared in him. He didn't seem like his old self somehow. The first thing he did was sigh and take out his phone. "Are you okay?" She asked him, but he was busy typing on his phone to answer her. And that just got her so mad. "Hey I asked you a question, at the very least you could..." He then handed her the phone and she took it in her hand to read what he had written. "...answer me..." She muttered as she concentrated on reading what he had typed.
Okay this was getting weird now. He lost his voice?! Him?! The student council president and all around playboy with the silver tongue and honeyed words, he had lost his voice?! She glanced up from the message with a questioningly raised eyebrow at him before looking back at the phone. Was he pulling a prank on her or something?
Absorbing the information in the text proved out quite the task. So according to him Amanda had gone insane and was now hurting people, like Zak and Alex. Somehow she could not see the meek and mild Amanda doing that to anyone, but then again Philip, Alex and Zak were all hotties and more or less flirty, maybe they did something to her to make her snap like that. No, what was she thinking?! Amanda would have been better than that.
She looked up at him from the phone and seemed to be thinking something. She had the phone in her right hand that she rested on her lap. What would be a good way to process and verify this she pondered.
Silently she handed him his phone back and as he extended his arm to take it she grabbed it by his wrist and with her left one quickly pulled his sleeve aside a little bit so she could access to his skin. She had grown up with two sisters, she was an adept torturer when she needed to be. She grabbed a bit of skin between her thumb and index fingers and squeezed as hard as she could and to add to it she twisted the folded up skin to make it hurt more.
She had her attention at his face and when he opened his mouth to exclaim in pain she could hear the sound but it was very unintelligible, and she soon saw why. He had no tongue. With a gasp she let go just before he was about to push her away. "I apologize... That was cruel of me..." She said looking down at the ground feeling ashamed. How many times had she wished for him to shut his damn mouth and not get people hooked on his every word, and now she felt bad for the guy.
"Sorry, I don't have any medicine or food or water for you..." She said really remorseful that she didn't have anything. "Does it hurt?" She asked not at first looking at him but then remembering he could only nod or shake his head now as answer so she lifted her gaze.

[Phillip Pendragon]

Watching as Nerissa red what he had just typed he noticed her disbelieve. Yet who could blame her to doubt him? Both the fact itself that he had lost his tongue as well as the reason for it seemed far fetched unless one had seen it oneself or had exprienced the same or something brutally similar as Alex or Zak had done. As he tought about opening his mouth widely to proove his statement or not apparently his council collegue got the better of him and took things or rather his arm into her own hands and squeezed his skin hard enough to make him growl in agony. Getting caused enough pain, his mouth instinctly opened long enough for the girl to catch a glimb of his disfigured inside before he bit his teeth together. Surely he didnt need more pain at the current state.

Soon enough however lucky Nerissa withdraw and even got to apologize. With a long sigh he listened to her words and got back to type into his phone just to show her his reply right after. "No need to aplogize. I fully do understand your doubt and need for proof. If I haden´t experienced it myself I probably wouldn´t have believed it myself."

As she yet let out another question though he could only tilt his head. It wasn´t like he was in such pain that he was just about to faint. Yet he neither could say that he was truly fine. Since neither of them had anything to make things better for now though, eventually he stood up and offered a hand to the raven haired to help her up as well. They might have not been been best friends or even just friends to begin with. Yet that didn´t mean he didnt care for her or lost his manners. Once both were back on their feet he typed yet another message and once again handed over his phone. "We should look around or even get out instantly. From my latest experience there were always more than 2 people around in the same area and from my point of view it is better to be in a big group than to be split up."

[Nerissa Clark]

She was happy that he had forgiven her. She considered him her rival, but still she was not beyond empathy for his current condition. Nor did she want any bodily harm on him. Again he wrote her a message and she read it simply nodding as recognition.
He then got up and offered her help in getting up. At first she thought about denying it, she had always been able to take care of herself. But then again right now she didn't want to insult him further.
She extended her hand to touch his and got on her knees before lifting her right leg into a stepping position and using that and his help to pull herself to standing. She removed her hand when they had gotten up. "Thank you."
He then wrote another message for her and she read it. "You are right that would be smart." She looked around and then led them towards what looked like an exit from the space they were in.