The Egg looked solid. It felt as solid as a hard, marble orb. A few seconds after Delilah knocked on, there were a sound.

knock..

knock...

knock..knock..KNOCK KNOCK!

The knocking this time came from within the egg. It started slow and then built up to a panicked frenzy of knocking as if whatever was inside wanted to get out. But there were no cracks, no fissures. No sound that the solid exterior of the egg was breaking. The egg itself wasn't even moving or shaking, such was the weight and solidness of the large, rock-like oval.

"Did..did..did..did..you hear that?" Ralph said, covering his ears and clearly still referring to the sounds that everyone had talked about earlier.

"I sure did!" Bobby replied. "Something is inside of the egg." He said excitedly, not seeming to notice that Ralph was talking about something he heard in the wind.

"It's probably chocolate!" Tiffany said, taking her hands off of her ears in excitement.

Then her excitement faded.

"no..."

"NO.."

"no..no..no..NO!" She yelled, covering her ears again and crouching onto the ground as if to ward off whatever sounds were in the air.

"We sh..sh..sh..sh..should get out of here. G..G..G..G..get moving." Ralph insisted.

"But I want to see what's in the egg." Bobby said, taking a step forward towards the knocking sound.

Shawn gripped Bobby's hand and started pulling him down the load, along with Ralph as well."Hey Bobby, do you know anything about GI Joe?" He wasn't really asking him anything, just trying to distract him long enough for him to forget where he was trying to go. He felt bad about taking advantage of him like this, but it was for Bobby's own good.

The knock on the shell surprised Delilah. She didn't want to be right beside it when it hatched. But first, she had to move Penelope out of the way. Stupid Penny.

"Hang on."

Delilah absently swatted Penelope's hand away. She crouched and took a look (and a few pokes) at her ankle. She'd seen a lot of injuries from failed vaults and tumbles. Had a few herself.

"Yeah, that's bad. If you were a horse, you'd probably be shot." With a sigh, she stood up and helped Penelope to her feet. She jerked the girl up, heedless of her pain, but stayed on the proper side to help her walk.

"Hey, Tiff! Get over here!" Maybe giving her something to do, like limp around with Penny would stop her from crying.

"Wherever we go next, it's gotta be somewhere easy to walk because we've got two babies and a gimp."
This message was last edited by the player at 15:47, Sat 23 June 2018.

"Ha! Gimp!" Penelope said. "Gimpy, gimpy, gimpy, gimp!" Penelope said, and then when she tried to put weight on it the foot.

"Ow!"

Tiffany walked down and helped Penelope up.

Soon, all of the kids were walking down that straight path.

The sun was shining along the bright colored eggs everywhere. Huge, bright yellow, pink, red, blue, green orange and purple. The stuck out like big Easter eggs along the tall grass beads of newly dried rain drops falling along their glistening sides, even though it had stopped raining.


And just as soon, every kid could now hear exactly what it was, or what it might be. Or what they might be.

Collective voices of whispers traveled along the wind. They spoke in a discordant harmony both with and against each other:

"Don't do it"

"Run"

"Stay. Stay With Us"

"Watch Out."

"It's Coming"

Delilah was on the brink of tears. Not sappy, baby tears like Tiffany's. These were the anguished tears of defeat that threatened to spill over her stubborn, hard-nosed face. Not only was she wrong about the egg patch being a good idea, but everyone knew it. She'd have to admit that she was wrong and wasted time that could have been spent getting to the mountain.

But she could ignore it for one minute longer and boss Tiffany around a bit.

"Get on that side! And get her arm and your arm over-- no, the other way!" She could shout, but it didn't make the ghostly voices any quieter.

With Penelope on her feet, they could all limp towards the mountain.

Shawn could tell that Delilah was upset - or at least he assumed she'd be. This place was awful! But he bit his tongue and didn't say anything, because the last thing he wanted was a fight right now. He just held on tight to Ralph and Bobby and kept pulling them along, looking around for any sign of danger. The voices were annoying, but they hadn't done anything yet, right? The ankle was obviously Penny's fault.

The kids were now deep within the Egg Briar patch when the strange vibrations and loud thundering sounds began to shake the earth beneath them.

Boom....

Boom....

Boom....

It suddenly felt like an earthquake as the ground shook in strange, two-second intervals, force Ralph to topple sideways, before leaning on one of the eggs to catch his balance.

"An earthquake!" Bobby yelled.

"No it isn't!" Penelope objected, already leaning against a yellow egg for balance. "An earthquake makes the whole ground shake all at once, dummy!" She yelled at Bobby, though it seemed that her anger was based more on fear than genuine dislike for Bobby in that moment.

It was true. If it was an earthquake it would be one that Shawn had never quite felt before. Earthquakes made the whole ground shake violently. This felt more like someone dropping or hammering the earth every few seconds. Delilah knew this as well, even though, she never experienced it in her 'real' memories that seemed ever more out of place, outside of LA.

...the hammering noise got louder still as if it was getting closer, the earth shaking more violently.

"Ehh!" Ralph squealed, dropping to one knee as the shaking put him off balance.

Shawn looked all around, as if the source of the shaking would suddenly reveal itself. Then, seeing that Ralph had fallen over, went over to help him up. "We gotta keep moving!"

"Quit yelling!" Delilah yelled at the group. "We gotta be quiet!"

She tugged on Penelope, hoping to out-shout her so they could start being quiet. In case they needed to hide.

The noise seemed to be coming closer and the ground shook like and earthquake.

Boom....

Boom....

Boom....

The earth underneath everyone's feet was moving and the noise was like extended thunder, only worse because the vibrations seemed to be coming from everywhere. Then, like a switch that had been flicked, everyone started to move to grab a hold of something. Bobby clutched his arm around a large pink egg. Ralph clutched onto Shawn. Penelope leaned her back against a green egg. Pebbles on the ground were hopping around like they had a mind of their own.

Boom....

Boom....

Boom....

Two, pink, fuzzy ears the size of long corn stalks could be seen emerging from the horizon. It was some kind of Rabbit. With each hop, the ground shook. It wasn't just any Rabbit. This Rabbit was at least sixteen feet tall and as it got closer, terrifying details of its body and shape came into view. It's ears curved off to each side in comical arcs, fuzzy, pink fur covering all of its body. It seemed to not have a nose or a snout. The nostrils were located at the top of it's head instead of in between its beady, red eyes. The eyes themselves were surrounded by skeletal cheekbones that made the skin tight, threatening almost to poke out. It's mouth was elongated and two, large buck teeth protruded outward, giving it a somewhat stupid, predatory look.

The pink monstrosity was chewing the at the air, cutting against its red tongue with its sharp incisors at front. Then suddenly, reacting to the sound of the kids, it stood on its hind legs. Then it thumped a warning on the ground with its long hind foot

Boom....

Boom....

Boom....

Then it started to charge, or rather, hop furiously towards the kids.

Shawn ran over and grabbed Bobby, taking the hand of Ralph as he did. He tried to pull them off the path, into the egg patch. He hissed "Quiet and don't move..." as he did.

"Wh...what is that thing?" Bobby asked in a whisper, ducking down low.

Shawn quietly shook his head, having no idea... There were eggs, this was a rabbit, so maybe it was the Easter Bunny? But there was no way that thing had ever been in his house to hide eggs.

"Crugh!"

"Crough!"

The huge rabbit thumped its way towards the party of kids knocking over large eggs as it moved forward. It's large foot stomped on a yellow egg, shards flying across the grass, spraying other nearby eggs and raining down.

Shawn ducked behind his own egg as the shards rained down, forcibly moving Bobby and Ralph's heads down too if they didn't think of it themselves. He tried to keep quiet and judge if the rabbit was heading towards them. Certainly, running wasn't going to be an option; it'd be trying to outpace a massive creature while the earth shook underneath them and they were sprayed by egg shrapnel. Shawn was certain their only hope for salvation was that the rabbit's senses were limited, or that against all odds, somehow it was friendly.

OOC: Shawn Rolls Dexterity + Stealth with the following results

0 Successes: Caught! The Rabbit sees Shawn

1 Success: hidden, the Rabbit does not see Shawn, but it does catch a glance at either Bobby or Ralph

2+ Successes: Ralph, Bobby and Shawn are all hidden