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[h3][color=steelblue][i][b]Ash Holloway[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=4682b4]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M)
[i][b][color=4682b4]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A
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[right][img]https://i.ibb.co/Wnnd0Wm/Ash-FC-5.jpg[/img][/right]
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	It had been some time since Ash had given thought to Beatrice and Froggy. It was strange, seeing as he and Victor had been a trusted adviser for some time. There was a sort of kindness about the man that Ash remembered fondly. He barely remembered a time when he so much as raised his voice. But then seeing him again in Quarantine revealed a changed man. Ash was unsure as to why he did not give more of a fuss when Froggy was removed from CMB and sent out on his merry way. Or, maybe not quite "merry", persay. He looked like a shell of the man he was before, more animal than not, unpredictable and dangerous. He hoped it would be a temporary thing, a rough patch smoothed over by the passage of the week behind walls and regular meals with people he once considered friends and family. But apparently he was too far gone. It was a shame and a pity. 

	Beatrice, on the other hand, he did not have such a close relationship with. It was interesting for him to note that, out of everyone who knew her who made it down to CMB, the only ones who appeared to note her departure were those in the Eden group. Some people weren't built for society. Others voluntarily removed themselves from it, by choice or by reckless action. Ash supposed this very philosophy was why he was thinking of Victor and Beatrice. Both left because of choices they made, though one was a little more voluntary than the other. It seemed much like Hunter, in this regard. The thought persisted that he might yet be a productive member of a community, were it not for certain choices made in the heat of stresses imagines from past experiences, without giving this place a chance yet. 

	Then, the continuing testimony caught up Ash's attention, full and rapt. He was not witness to a lot of what went on. To his eyes, the sins committed could be explained away by various means; new position, sudden shock of being in a place where the Dead were not potentially lurking in every doorway and abandoned automobile, and mostly the suppression of instincts thereof. These additional pieces of information were not the best for his case. And the video. [i]Especially[/i] the video. He would have liked the opportunity to see the entire, uncut video, to fast forward through or to reference earlier bits at his leisure, rather than just look at the highlights reel. But admittedly, there wasn't a lot that one could do from a jail cell to make up for ...the things he did in the jail cell. It didn't look good to Ash. Somewhere deep down, and probably because of his own lapse into darkness, he hoped there was chance that the kid might be able to say, or not say, that which was needed to allow this community to help him. Everyone needed people now. It was just how things went. Without people, left to his own devices out in the world with this paranoid and aggressive mindset, he would die. Period. Exile might as well be a death sentence. 

	But the question Ash was sure these people were thinking (as he was thinking it, too): Was there a risk to the community if he stayed? They all knew what would happen if the answer was yes. Ash kept his thoughts to himself, sitting in his chair. Though now that Hunter himself was give the option of testifying, things got a lot more interesting. And urgent. This might save or damn him. Was his speech or his silence a batter strategy? More than that, did he even want to stay? Had anyone asked him? It looked like someone was about to. 


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[h3][color=crimson][i][b]Thalia Carmichael[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=dc143c]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M)
[i][b][color=dc143c]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A
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	Most of the testimony seemed predictable, from Thalia's point of view. Like she had seen all of this before, repeated ad infinitum, both before and after the uprising of dead people. But that was the funny thing about points of view: They tended to change with the onslaught of life experience, and the past five years had given everyone (who was still alive) more life experience than they really wanted. So when Gunny's testimony got to the portion where Hunter reacted to having his dog removed from his care, Thalia's more recent life experience colored the statement accordingly. 

	Petty. Breaking people. Abuse them as they wished. Sick. Thalia took the testimony in, her head pointed squarely at the man speaking. Her eyes slowly moved to view Hunter, looking for any kind of reaction or confirmation. Thalia had seen people like the ones Hunter was describing, with traits which he attributed to the authority in CMB. She had sunk a knife into several of them, swung a short machete into others, and shot so very many more. Thana was present and could vouch for many of the horrors that Thalia had witnessed - the blood, the viscera, rooms specially set aside for the mutilation of human bodies. Torture rooms. Zeds hung from the ceiling in a macabre mockery of tapestries, moaning and snarling at the living below. Thalia saw he cages where prisoners were kept, too. But more than this, the one thing that stuck out in her mind was a bucket. It was chock full of gouged out eyeballs, some with the optic nerve trailing along behind, all sloshing about in some dank and fetid fluid. Thalia took the opportunity to punt it as hard as she could to provide a gruesome distraction before filling the air in front of her with 9mm rounds traveling at high velocity. 

	Maybe Manny could better educate them in the ways of a petty, abusive, sick collective of sub-humans who treated people as they wanted. That's where they found him. Eden. Hunter's reactions might have been more in place there, were he to have ever been a guest of theirs. Of course, that kind of reaction might have gotten him flayed, or his nonvital organs peeled out of his body, or his manhood split and quartered back like a hot dog stuck in a microwave for far too long. His screams would have been legendary. Maybe his dog would have been forcibly fed to him. Maybe they would keep the dog alive for a long as possible as the process went on. At least then, a piece of it would be with him for as long as they allowed him to draw breath. Yes, Hunter in Eden. That might have been a sight. Instead, he had the opportunity to speak ill of his hosts while given regular meals and his canine well treated, albeit not in his presence for some of that time.

	So Thalia looked to Hunter surreptitiously, not tipping her hand that she was sizing the guy up yet again. She was still not a huge fan of organized civilization, nor the rules which imposed on her freedom to do certain things just because she might feel the need to do them. She might wish to leave the place, climb a tree, or sink a float hook into water to catch something for supper. She may want to feel the wind on her face from someplace high, smell pine sap close up and personal, perhaps. Keep her weapons on her at all times, certainly, and train whenever she felt like it. While these things were inconvenient to her, things like regular meals were certainly not. By the time the recording of him in his jail cell came about, Thalia was only looking at it to catch the highlights. She had seen and heard enough. Her opinion meant nothing in this instance anyway, and she was not testifying at this time. There were too many similarities between herself and Hunter; glaring ones at that. The one thing that made them very different were the choices made. Thalia knew that she was damaged and probably always would be. It was no reason to fall to pieces. Deep down, she hoped Hunter would turn a corner here, that maybe all he needed was time. But in the end, whatever decision the community came to, it wasn't going to affect her in the least.



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[h3][color=burlywood][i][b]Hank Wright[/b][/i][/color][/h3][i][b][color=deb887]Location:[/color][/b][/i] Education Center (M)
[i][b][color=deb887]Skills:[/color][/b][/i] N/A
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	While the phrase, [color=deb887][i]"This is better than pay-per-view,"[/i][/color] might have been uttered by Hank from time to time since their inclusion in the Camp Mexico Beach community, he truly meant it this time. Hank didn't give a more or less decent rat's hindparts about reality TV back in the day, preferring a good WWII documentary or anything Western, but damn if this wasn't some good, old-fashioned, family style entertainment. Not the parts where things were mentioned in monotone voices and points got repetitive, but the shiny, new bombshells that were dropped every so often really gave Hanktholomew Patrick Wright a deep down sense of unfolding drama, and right in front of him, too. Every so often, he would give Wayne a quick nudge and point out little nuances coming from people on the stage, defendant, council, or witnesses, as they spoke or reacted to the speech of others. It felt good to flex his intuitive nature again, and in a capacity that was not life and death. 

	But it was when the video played that he leaned forward in his seat and clapped once, giving a quick exclamation that he cut off out of a sense of propriety, [color=deb887]"Hey! - <coughcoughcough> ...um, sorry."[/color] It was pretty obvious that he got a little excited by the novelty of video evidence and not exactly the content therein, seeing as it had scarcely begun. Hank would have to apologize, or at least something like it, later on. When he found out to whom it should go, of course. But the real moment of suspense came when he waited to see what Hunter's answer was going to be when called upon for his own defense, or keeping quiet and letting them pass judgement. If he was in the kid's shoes right then, Hank would probably have opted to remain silent, but this? This might wind up being both edifying and diverting, both. He just wished he had some popcorn. Or a beer. Some Chex Mix might do in a pinch, but not the kind with those dark brown, dehydrated pumpernickel bits (or whatever the hell they were) in it. The good stuff. Ah, but it was as much a pipe dream as any other. So he settled back and let the trial continue without further distraction on his part. When he saw the actual content of the video, he only had one thought on it, which he voiced significantly quieter than his first outburst. [color=deb887]"Oh, shit..."[/color] It seemed to fit the situation well enough.