(Tim is a girl.)
Gortume Timmington hurried through the brush, shoving aggressively at the leaves, attempting to make it a quicker process. She stumbled around, stopping in mid run to look around. Left. Right. Nobody. Nothing! "F- Fuck.." She stammered out, taking a step to start up running again.
Stumbling around, she made it a little further into the forest. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for, but she was god damn determined to find it. Something cracked behind her, Her eyes widened and she whirled around to face what made the noise. Nothing was there. Someone.. or something was fucking with her. Another crack behind her. Tim hesitated to turn, trying to see what s wandering around. "I- I'll hurt you!" She squeaked out, spinning around again, to face another snap behind her. She murred, deciding to just keep running.
Tim's foot got caught on a tangle of roots hidden in the brush. She fell forward and hit the ground with a loud smack. "Mmphm.." She struggled to push herself onto her knees. "God damn." She looked to her arm then to the ground in-front of her. Something wasn't right, she glared harder, trying to clear up her vision which was shaken from the fall. Feet. Her vision shot up to look in the face of who she thought was the one that was following her around. She could only make out a Unibrow before closing her eyes and stumbling backwards onto the ground.
"BACK OFF!" She yelled out, squeezing her eyes shut further and bracing herself for whatever is to come. Tim held herself up with one hand, covering her face with the other. The strange man stepped forward but stopped when the other yelled out.
"Leave her! We have to save ourselves."
"You can't just leave her, you're such a douche."
"Fine, Just grab her. We need to go!"
Timmington didn't dare open her eyes, she shuddered violently and clenched her fists tight. The first man looked back to her, "Come on, You're safe with u-"
Tim stammered out some random words, cutting the man off from speaking and swung the clenched fist upwards. Her brain was mush but she was sure she hit something.
"Fuck!" The voice rang out, Tim opened an eye, she could make out a beard and a blue shirt, he was bent over holding his face, grumbling. Then the one with green striped shirt standing in the distance, the Unibrow. "Told you we should've just left her." He murmured, swiveling around to keep watch.
They didn't look mean but she didn't know where she was and she was scared. "I told you I'd hurt you!" After she spat that out they just looked confused.
"You.. told us that?" The guy in the blue spoke. "We've never.. seen you before."
Now Tim looked confused. She shook her head, "Don't act like you weren't the one following me around back there!" She flung a hand backwards to motion where she had come from. Her voice cracked mid-sentence and she continued, "Tell me where I am!"
"Shut your trap!" The Unibrow shot her a look from where he was standing in the distance. From what she could see it wasn't a friendly face so she scowled back.
She could hardly pick up the man with the dark beard said, "Steven!" He said in a hushed tone as he turned to look at who she now knew as Steven, then back to her. "Get up. We need to get moving." He offered her hand, a stern look covered his face.
"Who the hell are you?!" She growled out, scrambling up to her own feet, completely rejecting his help. "You should be ashamed of yourself for scaring the living shit out of me." She firmly tapped his chest and brushed the dirt off of her yellow hoodie.
He stared to shake his head but stopped, quickly looking up to her. "Wait. You said someone was following you?!" His eyes grew wide as the words clicked in his mind. He jerked his head to look to Steven, unclipping the leather strap that held his sword to his back. "Hes here, Steve!" Unibrow nodded and turned to start walking in the opposite direction. Tim tried to speak out but all she did was squeak, "Who?" She was at a lose of words, just kind of standing there with a blank look on her face. The fist man steadied his sword and his eyes flicked around, gazing into the shadows of the forest beyond.
"My name is Jeff, and we need to leave." He swung over his hand, grabbing hers (3) and intended on dragging her across the brush, over to Steven. He tugged her upwards to help her to her feet as they reached Unibrow, She had once again lost her footing while being dragged along beside Jeff.
"Whu-" Tim still was having trouble speaking, she went from being infuriated to simply confused as hell. "Duh.." Tim scrambled to keep up with the current situation.
"And his name is Steven, But you can call him dumbass, he responds to both." He continued to speak and Steve nearly backhanded Jeff to the ground, but rethought it.
Tim looked to Steven then to Jeff. "Uh.. hi?" She shook her head, jerking her hand from Jeff's. "Listen, one of you two need to tell me what the hell is going on and why Unibrow over here is being such an ass." She shot a look over to Steve, waving her hand up and down.
"Unibrow? Really?" Steven looked to Jeff then back to her. "That's the best you could do?"
"Alright time to get going!" Jeff interrupted, shoving Steven onwards and assuming Tim would just follow after, and she did. She didn't really know what else to do. She wanted to find out just what exactly she was doing in this pitiful excuse for a town.
They had been walking for a while, the two seemed to know the place better than she did. Better than she ever would. Tim took careful time to just watch what they did around the abandoned ruins. In a way they were fun to watch, the way they would playfully shove each other along the way, making jokes and laughing only to quickly shush each other. Jeff easily avoided holes that looked to plum-it to the core of the earth. She had ended up daydreaming, staring at Steven and how massive the thing on his face was. She chuckled to herself and mis-stepped, falling almost into one of the said holes. Luckily Jeff was there to grab her before she slipped all the way. Tim said thanks quickly and Jeff scolded her for not paying attention, she huffed in response. They continued on, Jeff pointed out every trap or string, even a misplaced rock. He had known there whole path by heart.
"Care to explain to me what s going on?" Tim had given up on being angry, or upset. She was just scared, and worried but she couldn't help but think that they knew what they were doing and that'd she may make it through whatever this is. They had just arrived at a hedge and Jeff stopped, looking around. Steven waited silently and she looked around unsure of what was going on. She was getting used to being clueless, it didn't bother her as much now. She just did what they told her to do.
"Uh yeah, lets put it this way." Jeff stopped, pushing a wall of leaves to the side and motioning for her to walk through. Tim shoved her way past branches and leaves, taking a step forward. Steven followed. Past the thick layer of brush was a small cobblestone room, you had to step up and over a concrete wall to get inside. It looked to be a hole blown into the wall, simply hidden with the leaves. "A deranged murderer puts people in this town so he can run around playing his sick game." He entered the small room after everyone else, carefully placing everything on the outside exactly the way he found it. "The end goal of said game is to kill everyone off."
Tim quickly found herself a seat on-top of a pile of rubble and just stared at Jeff while he made his way around the small room and sat on what looked like a bed. In the middle of the room laid a massive green rock, nothing touched it, Jeff was even careful not to touch it as he wiggled around. She narrowed her eyes, not moving her gaze from his general direction. He looked over, "What?" Jeff slung the iron sword that had been strapped to his back over his shoulder and down onto the bed next to him. Tim simply looked at him like he just flew down in a tiny spaceship from Mars.
"For gods sake, What the hell is going on?!" She finally let out after simply just staring at him. Steven had made his way over to a small hole in the wall, he was shuffling through a pile of things that have been collected throughout their unwanted stay in the small village. Tim brought her hands up to her face, waiting for anyone to respond.
"I already told you." Jeff turned to rest his back against a wall and lay his legs up on the makeshift bed. "His name is Gortume. The one wandering around slaughtering people for fun." He slipped off his backpack and dropped it to the floor next to him.
Steven picked up an iron pick and smiled slightly, running his fingers along the solid mineral tool. "Mm.." He lifted it up into the beam of sun that found its way through the roof. The light struck the tool and it shimmered. Unibrow turned and pushed a stone block up next to the emerald, careful not to tap it. He sat and gently placed a hand over top the jem, brushing away any dust that had found its way there. Jeff spoke, causing Tim to lift up her head. "That there." He motioned to the rock Steven was now working on. "That keeps us alive." Her eyes flicked over to Unibrow, he had started to tap the green mineral with his pick, only chipping away a few shards. He swept the small scraps of emerald into his hand, quickly standing up to make his way back to the hole in the wall. "I wonder what it does to him." Steven said, picking up a small glass bottle and taking careful time to make sure all the emerald he mined made its way safely inside of the container.
Jeff glanced back over to Tim only to see her face buried into her hands again. "Hey.." He murmured, frowning slightly. "Don't worry, you'll be alright." Steven jammed a cork into the top of the bottle and tied a leather strap around the neck of it. He held in up to the light then looked over to Jeff. "Good?" Jeff nodded in response, "It might do something." At that, Steve looked over to Her. "Here take this." He made his way over to her and attempted to smile, holding out the bottle necklace. "We don't know if it will help you, We only know that the.. thing-" He stammered out, "hates it." Tim looked up to Unibrow, only to see him failing to smile. She chuckled, raising up her hands to take the gift.