The first thing he could remember was pain. An ebbing fire lining his skin from his neck to his belly, criss-crossing his chest before festering throughout the rest of his apparition. Not that he minded -- he was quite experienced when it came to pain tolerance, after all. What did hurt was the next thing: a glaring light blinding him, filtering through despite squeezed eyelids. The boy tilted his head to one side in an attempt to dodge the bothersome light, yet to no avail. Defeated, glassy eyes blinked open to stare back at the sun -- shouldn't there have been something blotting out the sky? Not fond of having to wait for his corneas to repair themselves, he scrunched his eyes shut in frustration. He gritted his teeth to distract from the throbbing pain as he tried to pull himself into a sitting position, only for his jaw to erupt in hidden agony. For a minute, Beck was slack-jawed, afraid to touch the source of the burning yet desperate to rub at it in hopes it would be easily massaged away. All he could do was roll off his back and onto his belly, bewildered at the lack of forest floor against his soles. Sand, where did sand come from? Opening his eyes once more -- or rather eye, the swollen other refusing to open further than a slit -- the scrawny feline looked down at his blood-caked paws and mangled arms against the pearly sand. His gaze drifted to his chest, staring back at the neat sutures binding the two branches of an incision together, sorely visible and jutting out from his fur. Processing his situation agonizingly slow, Beck only blinked down at the horrid injury, blocking out memories of gloved hands digging at his insides looking for answers. After an eternity of mindless staring, he wearily reared his head to glance out over the blue horizon. It was supposed to be green, not blue. His brow furrowed at the change, not liking it at all. But where was he? Who was he?

    Everything was groggy, and he hated being trapped in this weakened state. Forcing out a rattling sigh but never inhaling back a breath, the poltergeist twisted his head to face his side, recognizing the first thing since he broke from his trance. An overturned fishing bucket, dented and rusted, with a tangle of vines coiling around it and even more struggling to push its contented back upright; said content being the monstrous plant with no bark and all bite. Audrey III. Was he this Audrey? No, Audrey was his friend -- he needed his lone friend. Beck scrabbled to stand, unable to find his footing in the sand, finally giving up after enough efforts to make his head spin, and instead dragging himself to his fly trap. Why did it seem so far away? The distance only stretched out further in between him and the flailing plant, no matter how many times Beck pulled himself forward, undoubtedly leaving a trail of his tar-like blood to poison the sand.

    It took what little energy he had left over to reach Audrey's side, and once there, he flopped onto his side, scooping Audrey III and its bucket into his bleeding arms, tightly hugging his friend close to his chest. He couldn't lose Audrey again. The boy shifted a calloused paw to gingerly brush against the plant's trap, the closest thing it had to a head, before he fell motionless, staring at his stitched chest. His dark fur was matted in a mixture of his inky blood and the crimson stain of mortals; his black was fresh, while the red had dried, clinging to his fur until it spiked and knotted and made him look like an escapee from an asylum who had fought tooth and claw for freedom. Which wasn't far from the repressed truth. Beck allowed his head to relax, letting his missing cheek rest against the thankfully soft sand -- he'd be picking grits from his teeth for weeks, wouldn't he? Yet for now, he simply wanted a break. A bad idea, but his lifeless eyes still rolled back and closed as he tried to force himself to sleep, impatiently waiting for his own recovery.

/ ohoho injuries are a y-incision across chest, a broken jaw (fractured on right side), black left eye, gashes down forearms, and dislocated left knee

    If his thoughts had been coherent enough, he could have predicted the local creatures would wind up curious over blood in the air. Like sharks drawn to a wounded seal struggling to stay afloat, to reach shore before open jaws caught up with them. But it hurt to think about the future, and even more so to delve into scratched-out memories. Beck was content as a sitting duck, the farthest end of his blood trail already disappearing into obscurity without the entity nearby.

    Audrey III, on the other hand, wasn't. It could sense the familiar cold presence pressing against its trap, and while bothersome to some degree, the cold being was seeking comfort. The fly trap released its vines' grip around its bucket, and while still using a tendrils to keep itself propped up in order to not spill any of its soil, the rest begrudgingly wrapped around the freezing boy, trying to mimic the unrecognized gesture. Beck only gave a slight puff of stale air at the plant's attempt, not minding nor registering the vines on the verge of strangling him.

    What he could discern through his hazy senses was a distant and faint thumping, steadily growing louder but never rising above a whisper. His ear swiveled to face the source -- was it footsteps? Was it a heartbeat? Something above him blocked the blinding sun, buzzing out words that rang in his ears. After a moment of deciphering the almost foreign lilts of a question, Beck peeked open a single eye and limply nodded, glare trained on the silhouette as if determining whether or not he was a threat. His suspicions were fortunately laid to rest with the next few syllables he could comprehend, and he only let out a harsh sigh in response, letting his head dip back as he resumed his waiting. Why couldn't people leave him alone? On second thought, he didn't want to be completely alone, even if the desire was uncertain.

    Two more heartbeats added to the first's slow pulse, and annoyance wrinkled his disfigured snout into a twitchy snarl. The mangy feline forced himself to sit up when the pair arrived, wobbling as he slumped and propped himself onto Audrey's makeshift pot, the oily sand he previously collapsed on undisturbed and smooth, save for the blood and where Audrey was, as if no one had been there at all. Unfocused eyes settled on the blurring figures, even as he plopped back down with a pathetic wheeze. Staring beyond the three hovering over him and up at the cloudless blue, Beck hesitantly parted his maw, croaking out with a feeble voice despite the immediate pain in his jaw, "Ya talk funny." He wasn't one to judge, his own speech severely impaired by irreparable damage and the recent shatter of bone, but all he could think about was one of the girl's warped words.

    The poltergeist didn't have long to ponder the small quirk, drawn back to attention by the other feline wiping something away from his arm. While it did faintly sting thanks to replicated nerves, he recoiled from her touch out of instinct, expecting a blow rather than treatment. The plant entwined around him didn't take to kindly to the sharp movement, viciously-toothed trap snapping out in her direction as a warning. Beck sniffed, examining the little glimpse of torn flesh he could recognize on Goldie's back, before holding his own slashed arms out with a pout for her to continue if she wanted to help so badly. Why were they so concerned anyways? It wasn't like he was about to kick the bucket a second time. Oh -- they thought he was alive. He supposed his attempts to blend in with the living and deny a centuries-old murder weren't all too shabby, but he didn't think he was that convincing. Or maybe they just didn't care. Either way, it was better if it wasn't brought up. His apparition couldn't help but flicker into distortion as he winced, not at all liking the vulnerability of an unpredictable stranger cleaning his wounds. Yet Beck was far too disorientated to rebel, even if he was gradually gaining his sense back. The poltergeist remained numbly compliant, wordless as he tore his stare from his company to finally acknowledge his tropical surroundings, hackles bristling as paranoia crept back into his mind. The border seemed somewhat familiar, the same train tracks and same beach from a lost experience only a few months ago. While he preferred the comfort of a dark and secluded forest, a jungle was practically the same, right? Only noisier and... weirder. A vacation would be nice, though.

    Of all dangers he was on the lookout for, a massive reptile with enough spikes to put a porcupine to shame was not one of them. Beck was easily dwarfed in his shadow, a feeble wisp compared to whatever entity this beast was. Dark eyes widened as the giant approached and blurred in his filmy vision, tugging his mangled arms away from the first girl as he prepared to defend himself against a monster. Even with ears pinned to his skull and teeth exposed in a pained snarl, the threat didn't appear fazed by his laughable tactics. Thankfully, he promptly turned on his heel and flapped off, and the poltergeist caught a snippet of his muffled speech. Fetching someone? Suspicion overtook his youthful features, curling his bloodless lip as the dragon faded from his nearsighted glare. Pointedly refusing to hold out his arms for Goldie to fuss over, Beck forced himself into a slumped sit, one crooked hindleg poking out at an awkward angle.

    It took a moment for him to register that there was someone else speaking aside from his thoughts, and an unfocused yet curious squint trained on the same talkative girl. Questions. And he needed to answer again. "Dunno," was all he could offer, lifeless eyes shifting from her face to anywhere else as he unraveled Audrey’s tendrils from his next and placed the fly trap back onto the sand. How did he end up here again? Well, maybe it would be best to tackle remembering his identity first -- he chewed on an unscathed lip, searching for any clue as to what exactly his name used to be. It started with what they called a 'b', one of the hardest letters for him to pronounce... Brook? No. "Beck?" the scrawny boy murmured, repeating himself just to make sure it felt correct coming from his mouth, "Beck. Just Beck." Was he supposed to have a surname too? He shrugged the worry away, beginning to ruffle through foggy memories once more to answer the first question. He couldn't find any rhyme or reason to his actions, except for the overwhelming instinct to run. He didn't know what he had been running from, and what it did to him, but he could guess. Someone had pried into places they regretted in the carnage that followed. Which would explain why there was so much blood. Lost in the faint sensation of plunging an improvised blade over and over into a chest, the poltergeist hardly noticed when Rosemary hurried forwards. She looked cool, at least, even if Beck didn't understand what exactly she meant. Telepathy was, like, a comic book thing, right? He remembered skimming through a few scenes in a living child’s precious collection before ripping out the vintage pages, bitterly admiring from the shadows as the child discovered the remnants of his treasured possessions.

    His daydreaming was cut off by a voice pulsing throughout his being, rattling through injuries. Each one set off a lightbulb in his brain, a flicker of an incomplete puzzle disjointedly painting together a struggle. A tackle, a returned blow to the face. Stabbing a shard of tile into a padded chest. A dying gasp as he stepped away from his work. But the guard had one final move; wrenching a leg out from under his killer as he stared down at his handiwork, grabbing the entity by the matted hair and smashing his face against a wall. The final puzzle piece was a crack of bone. Yet the cuts torn into his arms and the incision remained barricaded from his memory.

    Rosemary’s next words were in no way comforting. Wiring his jaw shut? Were they going to stitch his gums together with a sharpened wire? The boy’s thoughts crumbled into a panicked buzz, jumping from assumption to assumption. Pale lips parted to blurt out his refusal, but all that came out was a strained yelp as yet another set of hands -- or paws, whatever -- were placed on him without warning and jerked his knee into a socket, disregarding any of his painstakingly-recreated tendons. It was a horrid cry, one more of fear than pain, yet still just as broken and shrill as anything one would expect from a child. The next instant, the wiry feline ripped his leg from Rosemary’s grasp, shoving aside her apprentice and teetering on three legs as the set one was held aloft. He would never admit it, but an instinctive film of tears glistened in his eyes, staring back at the medic’s four in disbelief. “Don’t, don’t touch me -- don’t ever touch me!” Nobody was allowed to touch him, and his frenzied snarl, bottom row of clenched teeth askew, delivered his message well enough.