[center][hr][img]https://txt.1001fonts.net/img/txt/dHRmLjEwNi5mZmI2YzEuVG1WcmJ5QkRZWEppWld4c1lRLjA/fairy-mother.regular.webp[/img][/center][b]Interactions[/b]: Ophrenia [@silvermist1116] [right][b][code]Road to the Old Black Manor.[/code][/b][/right][hr]

A spotlight courtesy of Carl shone on a dark shadow in the water. Neko’s hand snapped forward like a striking cobra, her fingertips brushing the edge of something smooth and rectangular before a hand wrapped around her arm and jerked her upward. Neko was able to sandwich the phone precariously between two fingers before Lily dredged her up from the water. Lily voiced her concern that Neko was basically offering up her hand to be a free lunch for the nasty critters hanging out in the swamp before waving a flashlight at her. Neko felt her jaw tighten as she braced for the crush from a wave of embarrassment. She had just been given a lesson in safety and responsibility by the same woman who’d given everyone in the van a pleasant second-hand high. 

Neko mumbled an apology beneath her breath as Lily moved, but she did not immediately follow after the group. Instead she turned her head down to her phone and grimaced at the absolutely violent spider webbing of the cracked screen that had begun to reveal itself as the rain cleared away the mud. She wiped her hands and the phone against her shirt in a pisspoor attempt to clean it so she could fully assess the damage. The device was an unresponsive mash of kaleidoscopic fragments, a few weekends worth of tips turned into a waterlogged paperweight. 

Neko felt her stomach tighten as Ophrenia stopped by her side, coaxing her along while also reproaching her messing around in a swamp full of alligators. Neko sucked in her lip and bit it. She got it. She was the group idiot. Even admitting that she’d forgotten about the danger of their environment because she’d been too distracted by the texts from the psychopath pretending to be her daughter wouldn’t change the fact that she had acted without thinking. Neko uttered another apology, slightly louder this time, and with a thank you. She might’ve thought of herself as stupid, but even she knew it was smart to be polite to the one with a gun.

She filed in behind Ophrenia and hoped the trudge to the mansion wouldn’t be much longer. Neko quickened her pace as a skin-crawling howl cut through the ambience of their footfalls splashing through the rain, suddenly finding herself a lot less uncomfortable with their group carrying guns. She let out an involuntary shriek of her own that suddenly cut silent as her voice broke and jumped back as Lily’s light shined on the writhing mass of a dying deer. She clapped a hand over her mouth, the cries of the dying animal rattling her unable to look away or close her eyes as she drank in the horror of innards moving impossibly. Her mind was incapable of understanding what she was seeing, her brain sending her body signals to run but her frozen feet betraying the orders. 

A voice cut through the cries as Ophrenia attempted to justify the sickening sight, downplay it even. Neko’s pupils narrowed into pinpoints as she tried to speak to Ophrenia, as she tried to point out that no semis would have driven through this swamp and no hunter, hell, no human short of an absolute psychopath would’ve carved open a deer and bind it with its own squirming insides. She felt her fingers cinch down on her face even harder as Ophrenia called for a knife. Neko was muzzled by her own nails biting in her cheeks or she would’ve screamed at Ophrenia to just shoot it or just leave it. If she could’ve moved she would’ve pinned Jasmine’s hand in her pocket she couldn’t have offered Ophrenia the knife.  

If she had done anything, maybe what came next would not have happened. Instead Neko only watched in silent horror as Ophrenia stepped forward, followed by a flash off too many teeth, blood, and tearing as the deer’s mouth split and the intestines wrapped themselves around Ophrenia’s lower body and pulled her forward like a nightmare lasso. 

[color=FFB6C1]“[b]Ophrenia![/b]”[/color] screamed Neko as her fear was replaced by a different instinct. She lunged forward and wrapped her arm around Ophrenia’s waist, hoping to prevent the woman from being dragged any further. Neko pulled her pocket knife from her bag with her other hand. Neko bit down on the dull edge of the blade so she could open it with one hand and continue to try to pull Ophrenia away, painlessly slicing the inside corner of her own lip as she unfolded the blade. Immediately she began slicing at the binds wrapping themselves around Ophrenia, trying to carefully slide the blade underneath the intestines and cutting away from Ophrenia to avoid injuring her in the process. [color=FFB6C1]“[b]Somebody shoot it![/b]”[/color]