“Y-yeah...I know him. He’s alright.” Abigail reached out for the little plastic wrapper, sorting herself out. There was something a bit grounding about listening to someone else talk about their experiences and realising she wasn’t alone in all of this. Strange, she thought, recalling Brooks saying that exact sort of thing a few minutes ago when she was showing off her teenage angst by kicking the crap out the stall door. She was offered help, offered protection, offered a man with plants for hands- “Wait. What kinda plant? Very important.” 

Deciding that she couldn’t mope in a bathroom stall forever (though acknowledging that it was hands down the safest and most private place she’s been in for the last 72hrs), Abigail pulled up her pants and flushed the toilet. Then a gypsy walked in. She looked like what Abigail assumed gypsies looked like and sounded foreign. Scrunching her nose in distaste, Abigail went to wash her hands as the foreigner tried to make contact. She felt uncomfortable and wasn't quite sure how to behave around her so she quickly used some toilet paper to dry her hands. “Ye-ah, but I gotta get back with the others,” Abigail replied quickly and dismissively. She was glad to get out of there and away from the situation and felt a bit of relief when Brooks fell into step beside her as usual; a quiet, sad, lumbering presence in her periphery.

“Hey, uh, Brooks?” Abigail asked, far away enough from the bathroom, but not too close to the throng of disorientated new arrivals. “Are there a lot of immigrants with magic? Like...is it common with coloured folk?” 

“What?” Brooks hadn’t been properly listening to whatever it was Abigail was rambling on about, only catching the back end of it. “What? No. I mean yes, coloured folk can be afflicted too.”

"Yeah but are there more of them than normal people?" Abigail asked again, peering sceptically into the crowd. 

“Jesus Christ, girl. Who gives a shit?! You’re not normal no more either! You’ll be lynched and hung no matter!”

Abigail went quiet for a moment as she mulled over it. "...Huh. I mean I guess," she decided with some uncertainty. "I was just curious, that's all. 'Cause some black folk don't even believe in God." 

“Don’t get mouthy.” he shook a finger at her. He went silent, not in the mood for further lectures. “Go make some friends. I need to talk to my boss.”

"Wuh-you're leaving?" The thought never occurred to Abigail that he'd actually have other things to do. "I-I mean, sure, but what do I do? Is there anything I gotta do?"

“No, not until I’m back. Just make sure you don’t have anyone in -here- try to kill you too.”

Abigail slowed to a halt, watching him leave. She folded her arms and huffed. She kicked around a little piece of broken tile, indignant after her scolding and indulging in some more self-pity as she reflected upon the grand injustices that were committed against her these past few days. Still, it just wasn't quite as gratifying as it was [I]before[/I] she realised that she wasn't the only one going through hell right now…

"...Big centipede, gnashing fangs filled with poison. It would have bitten my head off if I hadn't blown it up a little…"

All predominant thoughts about her current situation took a back seat as Abi immediately looked up and started squirming through the crowd. Big centipedes? Explosions? Now [I]that[/I] was the kind of guy she could reasonably see herself being friends with. She didn't want to come off as too excited though so she lingered somewhere close by, munching on her cereal bar, taking stock of the conversation and becoming painfully aware of how young she was compared to everybody else. But it was like Brooks said: in some fucked up way everyone was on equal footing. More-or-less. 

"I don't know if it was another wizard or some kind of violet radiation doing weird things." The cool guy said. He looked way older up close. Abigail was intimidated. "You get any weird complications like that? Like, you know, weirder than what you expected?" Since the vast majority of her grand escape from the FOE involved eating candy and being locked in a trunk, Abigail had nothing that was sufficiently cool enough to outdo a massive centipede and tried to maintain her quiet, demure and stoic demeanor. In reality, she came off as a very nervous, too-shy-to-talk spotty teenager in sweaty gym clothes and a muddy baseball cap.