Forest Encounter

The white lynx Kara wandered through the forest looking for a place to rest. She came across a large tree and decided to lie down and lean against it. She tried to fall asleep, but was woken up by the sound of bushes rustling. She immediately knew that someone or something was present. "Who's there?" She called out.

It had been such a long time since he'd wandered. But Kal decided to do so - he had all the time in the world after all. All the time in eternity. The very thought of it made him grin, and he had been grinning for quite some time after the whole 'robot in the docks' incident. So what if he caused a scene? They'd all be dust in the wind eventually anyway!

So the yellow hedgehog, his bangs tipped blue as was his beard which lightly hung from his chin, circular rimmed glasses on his muzzle clear as day revealing the bright red eyes beneath, the left eye utterly consumed red, and the hints of the same blood-like colour corrupting its way onto the other. On his skin were little black markings, muzzle downwards, like cracks on glass. His ear twitched, as he adjusted his brown jacket, lazy eyes looking over the forest.

It cleared his head. But it didn't need clearing, did it? There was nothing wrong. All the time in the world, he had, to clear his head.

His feet trudged along, crunching the leaves beneath his heel. He pushed branches and bushes to the side with a frown, the trees rustling with each slight movement of the wind. Eventually he pushed back another, and, funnily enough, before him was a mobian. A white lynx. Rare species. He expected a fox of wolf. Met a lot of those. "I am," he replied to her question, a deep frown on his lips. Way to start a conversation there, Kal.

She got up and turned to his direction. It took her a second, but she recognized him from the dock incident. "You. I've seen you before."

He hated small talk. But, the yellow hedgehog decided, he may as well amuse this one. This child. He'd outlive her too. That was hilarious, wasn't it? "I haven't," he replied with a frown, stretching a hand out to calmly observe his fingertips, somewhat stained with the little black cracks, "Then again, should I bother knowing you?" Kalkesp asked calmly, fingers curling into a fist, "You're just a stranger, just as I am to you. We will never see each other again."

He paused, tapping his chin, fingers brushing against the blue hairs of his beard, "No. Debatable. I see many faces. Many faces, many times. None are important. Neither are you." Good. You know how to make friends, Kal. Of course. Well done.

She thought to herself "Great, another pompous fool who thinks of themself as high and mighty." She cared not to listen to more of his arrogance. She replied "Uh huh, now if you'll excuse me, I need to go do something that's actually worth my time." She sighed and crossed her arms, and began to walk away.

'But why stop there?' did the hedgehog think to himself. Let her know. Let them all know. And did he grin as he followed behind, a bounce in his step, those emotionless, dull red eyes looking over her with mild amusement on those twitching lips, "Time is a funny thing, isn't it?" he questioned, bounding ahead, stopping in front of her and leering in with his gaze, yellow fur strong and bold against the green forest, "Seconds tick tick tick by. And you have to spend them wisely, don't you?"

The hedgehog chuckled, leaning back, raising his arms up slowly as he spoke, "You'll die one day. You'll grow old. Time is your worst enemy, as it will slay you. Kill you. Your body will rot away. You will be nothing." Smooth with the ladies as per usual.

She stopped in her tracks as she took in what he said. She remembered that one fateful day that changed her entire life. She's certainly seen death before. Without turning around or looking at him, she replied "Aki sent you, didn't she?" Suspecting that her sister had sent someone to kill her. Although she thought Aki would want to kill her herself, Aki was unpredictable.

His face contorted into that of confusion with her question, tilting his head to the side, "No-one sent me. I wander, for I have the time to. Why?" Kalkesp asked, the yellow hedgehog leaning in, taking a few steps towards her, grinning very much so, "Is someone after you? Someone want you dead? Must be a shame, knowing you can die, kid." This fellow may or may not be a bit loopy. "How many people did you kill? Ten? Thousand? Ten thousand? Oohh~ share! I don't care anyway - I'd like to see you try and kill me. Try and resort to murder or maybe assault because I speak words you don't agree with!"

He cackled, spinning on his heel, 360 degrees before stopping, and reaching forward to place a finger onto her nose, red eyes widening as a grin spread across those lips once more, "How old are you? In your teens I bet. Master killer already, aren't you special! It's adorable! And yet..." A sneer. "...You could die right now. 'Cause I have the time to. And your clock is ticking down.. down... down... down to zero." Kal took a step back, shrugging his shoulders, "Maybe I will, maybe I won't. That's the funny thing though, isn't it? You never know what people could do. And you all live, knowing that one day you will die and become nothing."

This guy was clearly insane, almost as bad as her sister. She knew that he was implying that he's immortal, so even if she wanted to, she couldn't kill him. After what she's seen, she didn't have a hard time believing that. She said "I have no interest in you." and continued to walk away, ignoring him.

"Dust in the wind!" he called out, walking behind her, "Now answer my question, kid. How many have you killed? Everyone kills at least one - there are no exceptions." He turned, examining the trees, watching the way they calmly and slowly brushed back and forth with the occasional breeze, how the scene was serene. Quiet. There was naught but a peep if you excused the tweeting of the birds and the rustling of the trees swaying against each other.

Kal brushed his fur back, hand stroking the top of his head as he watched he not look back. He hissed under his breath. "Was it your parents? Did you kill them? Maybe your brother or sister?" Step step step behind her. "Civilians?"

She managed to control her anger from what he said. She uncrossed her arms and clenched her fists. "Not your concern. Now leave." She said coldly.

"Oh I think it is. Mass murderer, I bet," he replied with a sly smirk, "Both your parents, wasn't it? Ahhh, always the case. And people wonder why they're hesitant to have kids, right? Maybe it's because of people like you who need to be locked up, be wasted away." And the yellow one continued to walk behind her, arms behind his back, spine straightened and the smuggest grin on those lips of his, "Must be awful. You're going to die one day. Your life. Poof. Gone. Forever."

She stopped in her tracks and looked down. After a moment of silence, she mumbles "I didn't kill them..." and closed her eyes.

The yellow-furred one sneered, stepping around to face her once more leaning in and grasping her chin, yanking it towards his face as his bright red eyes bore into hers. Clearly this fellow was not one to care about 'personal space' or 'correct social interactions'; "You did, didn't you? I can see it from the way you hesitate. You feel guilt. Shame. But you'll kill again because you can. All of us can kill if we give it a shot, because we want to see that ticking clock of like turn to zero for another. We want to feel that superiority. Feel powerful. Better than the rest!"

Kal released his grip slowly and surprisingly significantly more gentle, taking a step back from the poor white lynx who had the unfortunate luck to run across him. He turned on the back of his heels, back facing her, that brown jacket fluttering lightly in an incoming breeze which passed by, and ruffled slightly as the hedgehog raised his arms as he continued to speak: "You are all dust to me! Murderers, torturers, muggers, what does it matter? What does it matter in this grand game of time, and I am the audience! I am above you all - I am eternal!" Whoa there Kal you might need to slow down.

Kara was now clearly pissed at these false accusations. She said "Listen, I don't know who you think you are, but I don't care if you're immortal or not. Living forever means nothing when your life is as pathetic and meaningless as yours. Now get out of my way, or you'll wish you could die." She roughly pushed him out of the way and kept walking.

"Are you really going to assault me over words~?" he asked with a laugh, and it was certainly a cackling, howling laugh as he shifted to the side to allow her to pass, "That's so childish! Can't handle a simple discussion, so you resort to attacking me? It's like a baby throwing a tantrum! Hitting about because it can't handle something! Hilarious!"

He wiggled his finger at her, his condescending attitude practically dripping like ooze on ever word the hedgehog uttered, "Surely you should spend your time doing something more productive! You're going to die soon, better do what you can before it does. May be cut short unexpectedly~"

"If I was going to attack you, I would have done so already." She walked off, ignoring him.

"And yet you threatened me if I were to continue. Certainly says something about you, doesn't it?" he asked, pausing in his footsteps to adjust those small glasses on his nose with a light smirk on those bearded lips, "If I were to continue, would you attack me? If I were to get in your way, would you try to kill me? My my, so aggressive. I may need to, mm, alert the police of such rash and dangerous behavior!"

Needless to say, this man's ego very much needed to be toned down. It was funny really, he used to be so dead and emotionless a mere month ago, and these days he laughed with that creepy monotone voice of his, had a bounce in his step, exclaimed to the world his thoughts and feelings (or rather, lack thereof). And the man continued to follow her, arms open as he continued to speak, continued to try and reduce her to dust like he thought she was; "But what would it matter? I don't care if you kill hundreds, thousands like the monster you are! You are no threat to me, you're just a ticking time bomb to your utter demise!"

She couldn't take it anymore. She stopped walking and stood there for a few seconds, trying to hold back her anger. She turned around aggresively and yelled "What the hell do you want from me?!"

Oh my, such an outburst from the little child! Her yelling, her shouting, only caused his lips to twitch upwards and his smile to grow, "No need to shout, I'm simply stating the facts," he replied cold and calmly, that monotone voice a constant ringing in the ear like a buzzing of many bees in a nest, "I want you to realise just how unimportant you are in the grand scheme of the world."

The man shrugged, raising those bony shoulders of his, that red piercing gaze never blinking and simply continued to stare and bore into hers, "You will live and you will die," he repeated rather firmly, "And survey says you won't do anything useful with your life. And no matter what you try to do, no matter where you try to go and explore, no matter how 'powerful' you become, you will die. And all you've accomplished, and all those who love you, will die too." He laughed.

"How does that make you feel?"

She stood there in silence for a minute or two. She had accepted years ago that she would one day die. It doesn't matter to her, though. She only had one thing to live for: vengeance. She may end up taking her own life, and she may not even succeed, but it was a risk she had to take. She simply responded "I couldn't care less. I don't want to live forever."

He smirked at that comment. But the twitch of the frown slowly trying to force its way to dominance, the furrowing the the brow, the slightest hint of the twitch of an eye certainly said otherwise that her comment bothered him. Even if it were a slight bother, it still proved to be of some effect. He began to grind his teeth together lightly, clicking and clacking his tongue as he waiting for her to continue, and was rather displeased when that was all she wished to say.

"And why not?" he asked, "Would you rather be cast down to the pits of Hell, be bathed in the acids of the river Styx due to your sins? Tortured eternally, when you could be spending it alive and well? We've all done terrible, terrible things in our lives," the yellow hedgehog hissed lightly, leering down on her, "To be eternally damned in the Underworld. Heaven is empty. Or at least, none of us deserve to be there. Not I, not you, not anyone!"

This guy would not leave her alone. No matter what she did, she could not get him to piss off. She turned to him, put her hands on her hips and said stearnly "Like you said, there's nothing I can do about it. I'm going to die one way or another. Might as well accept it."

(Whoops sorry :c Post got lost under the rest)

"You could die today. You could die tomorrow," the yellow hedgehog darkly chuckled to himself, giving a stretch and leaning on the nearest tree to their company, arms folded and head nodding slowly in agreement with himself, "Now you see, that I am superior? That you are nothing? The dirt at the bottom of my heel? A blade of grass within a grand forest?"

He was really nailing that point home and, for a minuscule split second, that white eye was ever so slightly devoured a tiny bit more by that consuming red. "It's funny, isn't it?" Kal asked with a wry smile, "How the cycle of life and death, the natural order, the laws which bind our existence, have been broken so many times, defiled under the so-called gods. Does that not... make me... higher, mightier, than those who created us?" He grinned.

"Does that, in essence, make me a god?"

She crossed her arms, unimpressed. "Do you just go around making empty-handed threats and trying to convince people how much better you are than them? What a waste." She turned around. "Even if you are immortal, you won't live forever. One day, the universe will end, and you will be able to do nothing but perish with it. And even if somehow you don't die, you'll just be stuck in an infinite empty void for all eternity."