When Alex came home to proclaim that she was trecking off into the woods for a story, there was no hesitation in Richard's answer. He was going with. There was no room for questions, complaints, or argument in his statement; there was no way he was about to let her go trecking off into the woods by herself. Especially woods that were more dangerous than anywhere that they had already been (and she had been in Turkey with a murderer and escaped mental patient). Ghosts and phantoms of the mind were nothing compared to an animal that wanted to eat you.
The apparitions, impossibly tall and seemingly pulled from memories long ignored, were easy to pass without a thought. Richard knew the figures well, after all, and had grown accustomed to dismissing them as a trick of the shadows and light. And the disbelief was like an old friend come to greet him here in the woods. He was more concerned for Alex. She wasn't used to this sort of thing. The constant presence of things that couldn't be explained if you didn't try hard enough.
When she started to not sleep on the second day, he kept a close watch over her. He'd waited too long to address the issue back home and planned not to make the same mistake a second time. Of course, this also meant taking her hand during the day. While he knew it wouldn't send the apparitions away, it would at least lend her comfort. Which was all the more reason for him to ignore them. To give her a form of comfort that they really weren't there. Better to think you were too sleep deprived than to believe that they really existed.
As the second day turned to the third, the shadows, 'Tall Pauls' as they were called by those who saw them, seemed to grow in number. It was as if they were everywhere. Shadows of a world they had tried so much to forget and leave behind them while they were here. However, when the Helvetian appeared, dark and terrifying and directly in front of them, Alex tried to cover him, but fell back in fear. He stepped in, blocking the way between them and staring the demon down as if daring it to come any closer to her. Of course, to anyone else, it looked as if he saw nothing. He was good at pretending that something was nothing after all.
"Alex, are you alright?" His words were even, questioning even, and yet, his eyes never left the Helvetian. Staring the demon down as if daring it to try and get past him.
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The apparitions, impossibly tall and seemingly pulled from memories long ignored, were easy to pass without a thought. Richard knew the figures well, after all, and had grown accustomed to dismissing them as a trick of the shadows and light. And the disbelief was like an old friend come to greet him here in the woods. He was more concerned for Alex. She wasn't used to this sort of thing. The constant presence of things that couldn't be explained if you didn't try hard enough.
When she started to not sleep on the second day, he kept a close watch over her. He'd waited too long to address the issue back home and planned not to make the same mistake a second time. Of course, this also meant taking her hand during the day. While he knew it wouldn't send the apparitions away, it would at least lend her comfort. Which was all the more reason for him to ignore them. To give her a form of comfort that they really weren't there. Better to think you were too sleep deprived than to believe that they really existed.
As the second day turned to the third, the shadows, 'Tall Pauls' as they were called by those who saw them, seemed to grow in number. It was as if they were everywhere. Shadows of a world they had tried so much to forget and leave behind them while they were here. However, when the Helvetian appeared, dark and terrifying and directly in front of them, Alex tried to cover him, but fell back in fear. He stepped in, blocking the way between them and staring the demon down as if daring it to come any closer to her. Of course, to anyone else, it looked as if he saw nothing. He was good at pretending that something was nothing after all.
"Alex, are you alright?" His words were even, questioning even, and yet, his eyes never left the Helvetian. Staring the demon down as if daring it to try and get past him.