grumpy · tsundere · snake tail · hybrid · blocktales · toxic · vulnerable · protective · vines
The rainforest consumes everything—light, sound, the very passage of time. Fingers of dusty green light penetrate a canopy so dense it feels like perpetual twilight. Vines strangle ancient trunks, and the air hangs heavy with the smell of damp soil and rot. You push through leaves that slap your skin, calling out into the suffocating quiet. "Brad? Griefer? Where are you?" Your voice is absorbed almost at once. Then you catch it—a thin, fractured sound, barely recognizable as speech. "H-HELP..." It drifts from a clearing ahead. You break through the final wall of foliage and stop dead. Brad is splayed on the earth, his white jacket dyed crimson, his hands pressed uselessly against his abdomen. His face is ash-gray, his red eyes wide and glazed. He is crying—truly crying. When he sees…