[hr][center][color=808B96][color=8493ca][h2][b]X e l l[/b][/h2][/color]Marshland [b]-[/b] The Fall[/color][/center]
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Xell had to rub his dry eyes as he watched the events unfold. A tree capsizing which narrowly missed squashing Taffy had it not been for the swift actions of the Nekomi girl. That being said, he was also relieved to see she was ok. Even cracked a joked about her momentary disappearance and her heroic move.

Still, it became too clear too soon that the trunk failing and giving away was all but a deliberate act. The coulprit who was revealed by Taffy’s flashlight just after she demanded the whereabouts made Xell’s blood pressure drop to nauseating levels. His knees and legs were riveting violently and beads of sweat began to streak their way down his face.

“…it’s Jack… it’s Jack the ripper…!” he uttered softly, the 2nd phrase drowning out with a defeated laugh.

[i]’Jack’s dead you idiot![/i]’

“No… I can’t hear you!” he writhed, shaking his head to momentarily escape the lapse into the dark subconscious.

He listened on as Taffy continued to talk to the scythe carrying hulk. His tone belittling them as soft, furry little animals. The scythe swinging back and forth which would cast glints of moonlight in their direction.  He proceeded to ask which of them was Max Stone. 
Xell looked on with a pained look and mouth ajar at the attitude Taffy gave him with her response.

‘Who wants to know? She says…’ he thought drearily. Her tone giving away her real emotion.

It appeared after the negative answer that the hulking Miran was about allow it and let them be. All but for the pause and feigned wounded laugh that followed which made Xell step back a bit. His breath contained in his throat which knotted it up painfully.

He suddenly turned on them. A wild look with a voice declaring that there were to be no witnesses. Not people. Not animals. 
[i[But witnesses of what?[/i] Xell thought with a panicked look.
Everyone’s faces mirrored that of a hare staring back at car headlights.

The Draconi groaned as everyone turned around like fleeing antelope in attempt to escape the murderous Miran who was out for blood.

[i]‘Xelly Xelly Xelly.’[/i]

His mind was spinning as the panorama of fields and ugly branches appeared as blurred and distorted decaying shapes for his vision. Eyes plummeting another shade of red as the constricted pupils darted all around.
He wasn’t sure what the others were thinking but somehow knew no one would make that mistake to look back and slow down their pace. One slip up really could cost their lives.

He could begin to taste acrid lactic acid in his throat whilst his lungs felt taut. Being beat like counting bodies like sheep to the rhythm of the war drum.

"Don't stop!" the Lotori shouted. "Jump, it's the only way to be safe!"

The rest happened in slow motion as Xell’s feet gave way to gravity. He would be stumbling head first into the void below would it not be for the fact he was able to flex his ulcerated wings and glide with a gradual descent.
He could not make any head or tail, nor shape or form of what was below them. All but for a few splashes of what sounded like viscous ground matter.

[i]‘You’re such a fool. Jumping off a cliff because your friend would gives this all a new meaning,’[/i] he heard the voice again.

He felt his wings tremble. The ulcerated lesions suddenly opened up to multiple red corneas with slit like irises. The glare of red illuminating the way to his damning fall. 

Xell gasped as he turned to look at either wing mid-flight. And then down again. Seeing where, or rather, what it was everyone had landed in. 

Just one pothole amongst a horizon of indefinite marshy swampland. Even during this hour he could see clusters of mosquitoes buzzing around and swimming slug like leeches in some areas where the water was more dilute.

[i]Things are only going to go downhill from here. Once you see what really lurks beneath.[/i] The voice taunted.

Xell snarled as his feet slowly but surely sank with his feet knee high into the bulbous mud. The smell causing him to pinch his nostrils. 
He folded his wings in. No one needed to see the monstrosity that spawned from his failed accessory limbs.

He looked on and shone a torch on Yonath. Listening as he asked who pushed him off the cliff. He then looked on as Nikki responded with saying that no one had pushed him off the cliff. Adding that she admired his courage.

“Glad you’re ok…” Xell walked over to offer him a hand. He felt somewhat guilty. Maybe if he hadn’t offered him a drink earlier, his landing would’ve been smoother. Although he wasn’t sure what happened just after they ran off from Carrion.

“So, I hear there are bigger things to be scared of down here,” Xell said after he heard Taffy talk about vine like creatures that could invade every bodily orifice and ensure a painful death “is our fate really better down here than it was up there?” he turned his head upwards towards the cliff.
“Seriously… an hour to your Uncle's house? With all due respect, do you even know where to go from here? The rest of you guys are a bit unnervingly calm considering we’re in the dark, treading through 2 feet high tripe water in the middle of a fucking swamp with maggot tentacles out to violate our insides!!!”