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[hider=ambience][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ZGQ2PES7s[/youtube][/hider]
[@Punished GN][@Atrophy][@FernStone]
[code]Halloween Festival - Kid's Section[/code]
[hr]

[i]Worthless.[/i]

Clancy seethed, shards of broken plastic compressed into his palm. The phone had been a [i]dud[/i]. Functionally and practically worthless to him in every sense. And one of the few people in this town that seemed to have [i]any[/i] leaning towards where he needed to be had disappeared on him in the blink of an eye.  one person of interest had [i]disappeared[/i] on him, leaving more questions and-

"Holy-... are you OK, son?" A voice in his blindspot, some probably-middle-aged dad, acutely aware of the [i]cane[/i] lodged through his eye.

"Hey, call the first aiders-" another voice, a woman - this time in his vision, an expression of horror spread across her features. He ignored them, pacing forward. "Fuck that, kid needs nine-one-one!"

[b]"It's part of the costume."[/b] Clancy growled, working to maintain his composure. He was acutely aware of the cane's presence, not least because - while he was [i]himself[/i] - it rendered him half-blind. Pain was a [i]non-issue[/i], something he did not and never would fear. He was [i]past[/i] that point. But he had [i]failed[/i], and left with more answers than he came from.

"Jesus, he's in shock-" the same, masculine voice chattered away in the background, just [i]noise[/i] to him in the midst of it all. With only a peripheral view of the cane's ornate handle spearing out in front of his nose, he reached upwards, fumbling for the length of it, and tightened his fingers around the shaft. When he tried to pull, he felt the [i]strangest[/i] sensation of cracking [i]inside[/i] his head.

"Woah-woah stop, you'll make it worse!" [i]Someone[/i] stepped in front of him, and their voice matched one of those that had been talking about him; a bearded man with a faux-fur and leather jacket that [i]almost[/i] resembled the leathers that his brother had once worn, in a memory stored away from what now felt like [i]years[/i] ago. That same man reached out to him, trying to shop his hand away from the handle, a [i]well-intentioned[/i] irritation encroaching on the boundaries he set for himself, until one of those meaty hands gripped around his wrist.

[b]"Do [i]not[/i] touch-"[/b] he growled, his [url=https://voca.ro/1aS1FrSyV2ob]voice[/url] briefly shifting away from what it [i]should[/i] have been that primal, inhuman pitch that overlapped his own, and for a moment he felt the illusion of self and self-control slipping. Clancy twisted and pushed back hard enough that, amidst the sound of splintering wood, he [i]felt[/i] the man's wrist strain under the force of it, and sent him doubling over in agony as nerves caught up to damaged bones and muscle tissues.

[b]"-just leave me alone."[/b] A warning, uttered in his own voice. In the struggle, he'd broken off the end of the cane, leaving a splintered stake spearing out through his eye socket. As if to emphasise his point, he threw the broken-off handle at the feet of his would-be samaritans, then paced off.


Trying to get the remaining length out of his eye would mean doing this in front of [i]dozens[/i] of witnesses, potentially unmasking himself in the process, and he recognised that he was not the only one in the neighbourhood, let alone the whole town, that had [i]strength[/i] and [i]power[/i]. He needed to leave, there was nothing of use for him here, and plenty of opportunity for things to get worse. For the most part, he'd cleared a small path, pacing through a crush of sugar-addled kids, teenagers and eventually some half-drunken "adults". 

[color=goldenrod][h3][b][i]"Toga! Toga! Toga! Toga!"[/i][/b][/h3][/color]

A hint of [i]reefer[/i] intermingled with the collective pungence of sugar-barbecue[i]fLeSh[/i]-liquor-[i]mEaT![/i], and it was there that he spotted some familiar faces amond the intoxicated as he moved through the explicitly [i]21's only[/i] pavilions, although he had to squint with his one good eye to see through the eyehole of his partially-torn hood. The faint chanting of [i]"Toga!"[/i] was hitting him in a way he couldn't quite understand, as the drunken revelers speared through the crowd in a disorderly conga line. A sense of a loss he hadn't felt. Was this something he would miss out on?

The thought withdrew as he recalled what he'd witnessed that night at the cemetary.

[i]"Fuck off."[/i]

Were they really Ashley's friends? Could he trust them? That he doubted in spades. He wondered if things would've been different if he'd been there. Maybe so, but for different reasons than most would've guessed.

[i]Remember.[/i]

Pushing the thought to one side, he was also conscious that some of their [i]circle[/i] had broken away from, or never been involved with the celebrations, and instead were preoccupied by the [i]G-Men[/i] from the church, talking to them. Although they weren't uniformed, he'd been close enough to get a glimpse of their facess on [i]two[/i] occasions now, and the impression had stuck with him.

[i]These aren't your friends,[/i] he reminded himself, [i]not family, either.[/i] 

There was [i]nothing[/i] for him here. He pushed on through the crowd, past the line of [i]"Toga!"[/i] chants, in the direction of the dock. 

Off on the horizon, the silhouette of a ferry awaited a small crowd of people waiting a return to the mainland, mostly younger families. He stopped in his tracks, then reconsidered.

Of course, crowds consisted of people, who asked [i]questions[/i] when things seemed out of place. Like the jadded end of the cane, still protruding from his skull. Questions that led to the same people [i]bothering[/i] him again, like the one he left nursing a broken wrist.

[i]No.[/i]

Agitated, [i]hungry[/i] and about as close to [i]tired[/i] as he'd felt in a long time, he thought it better to take the direct route this time. Clancy tore the canvas hood from his costume, irritated [i]enough[/i] by the situation that he could tolerate the poor visibility no longer.

Then, approaching an elevated section of the beachfront, he found a smaller fisherman's dock that wasn't swarming with departures and arrivals, where the lights were dimmed and pnly a few idle visitors slumped in various states of fatigue and intoxication. 

Clancy stepped out as far as the structure extended into the sea, until he reached the very edge, then continued forward, his costumed form disappearing into the black water with little more than a splash amidst the raucous celebrations and ambient noise of waves lapping against the shore.