Evariste Wolvord

In almost no time, a series of mysteries presented themselves to Evariste, and he reeled mentally with the shock of them even as his instincts for self-preservation took over. He could deal effectively with the most immediate consequences, but coping with—let alone solving—the gaping questions in front of him was just too much of a strain on his surprised, horrified conscious. He was glad to retreat into the protective un-mindset of not thinking and just acting, usually so inaccessible to his constantly-chattering brain.

The first shock to Ev's system was a keen whistle, the sort made by a thin projectile zooming through the air. Even as his head snapped up and his eyes widened at the sight of a dark thing flying towards him, Evariste was frantically trying to come up with a reason for the existence and behavior of the spear rushing towards him. Long before he came up with an answer—relative to the speed of the projectile—he stopped it from reaching its destination. A repulsive gravitational burst was coordinated perfectly with a blast of adrenaline. Evariste saw the spear reverse, just a fraction of an inch from piercing his skin, then fall along with a considerable cloud of dust and rubble also caught in the pulse.

But given his very near-miss, that was not where he was focused. He had found the source of the spear, but that only raised a greater question than it answered. There was a figure standing at a distance, perhaps two or three hundred feet away. The figure was near a wall, so Evariste could understand why he hadn't seen it before. What didn't make sense was why he hadn't caught its aura; he should have had some awareness of it, even if the person was standing behind a wall.

In a fraction of a second, Evariste realized why he hadn't known there was someone there: The figure had no aura. For a moment, his mind rested on the idea that a figure was a walker. Ev cursed himself—why wasn't he paying more attention?—he was looking for walkers, and he knew he would have to rely on his conventional senses to find them. The mindless carnivores usually made at least a little noise to alert him though, he excused himself. Maybe this thing wasn't a walker.

In his attempts to exonerate himself from any responsibility for the near-mishap, Evariste hit on an even more terrifying possibility, even probability. After all, walkers didn't throw spears, especially not with such accurate aim and deadly force. The figure attacking him wasn't a walker, and it wasn't a human. Ev cast about wildly for ideas. Was it a robot? A marionette? A golem?

The fear and confusion permeating his consciousness brought him back to the reality of his situation. He was standing, immobile, in front of an unknown enemy who had already come extremely close to killing him. As much as he wished to relax and berate himself for such unbridled stupidity, he still had a fight to win. Though he didn't know the most effective way to deal with his mysterious opponent, Ev figured brute force should do the trick. He couldn't get overconfident, of course, but collapsing a wall on the figure's head should—at the very least—slow it down. In Evariste's experience, very few things respond well to being crushed, especially not when he is doing the crushing.

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