Ted gave a dry swallow. Okay. He was looking directly into the gorgons eyes. That meant his prior assumption about it being a result of looking at it was likely incorrect.

He slowly raised his arms, doing his best not to make any sudden movements. "I'm just...gonna go." He said, speaking with deliberance as he gradually walked backwards, recalling (vaguely) soke advice he had heard as a child when staying with his (extremely canadian) grandparents.

Sure, he doubted that the gorgon behaved the same way as a wild bear, but Teds expertise when it came to dealing with any wild animal was extremely limited, much less mythical beings from greco-roman legend.

Carefully stepping over the fallen shelf, Ted kept his eyes on the gorgon. I'm 90% sure my bear advice said to NOT maintain eye contact, Ted mused, but it seems to be working vis a vis the whole "preventing me from getting attacked" thing.

He noted that the upper half of the gorgon was...fairly human looking. Not entirely, not completely, but the resemblence was there.

Patches of scales covered various parts of its skin, its eyes were, as mentioned, yellow and reptilian, and where the hair would be was snakes. Ted refused to look down, but he was fairly certain that its arms ended in claws based on what he could see from the corner of his eyes. However, the face, the arms, the...chest area...looked human, albeit a human who had gone a few days without eating.

Stolen novel; please report.

Ted felt his foot come down on his bag. Stepping over it to where it was in front of him, he leaned down, maintaining eye contact with the gorgon, and began pulling out cans, watching as the gorgon slightly stiffened. "I'm going to leave these here. I'm not taking your food, just my bag. I repeat, I'm not going to take your food." He gradually emptied his bag of a fair amount of foodstuffs, and picked up his bag, continuing his distancing from the gorgon, before realizing that the gorgon was right between him and the exit. Crap.

Okay. He'd just see if the building had a back door. Most places had back doors, right? After a certain distance, however, to his dismay, the gorgon started following him.

Eventually, his back hit the wall. Crap. He couldn't turn around to find the back door. He couldn't back up further. He was trapped. Vunderbar. He kept his gaze on the gorgon, trying to figure out what to do, when, to his surprise, the gorgon began to move to the side.

I'd say things were turning up Ted, but the universe would probably just take that as an oppurtunity to smack me around again. Taking advantage of the gorgons shift in position, Ted also began to move to the side, eventually positioning himself to where his back was facing towards the FRONT of the store. Once more, he carefully started walking backwards, making sure not to trip over the fallen aisle.

The gorgon continued following him, right up until he hit the stores entrance. Once he stepped outside, it seemed content to let him go, simply staring at him as he exited the building. Ted maintained his backwards trudge until the gorgon was a fair distance away and couldn't see him, before stopping, and letting out a sigh of relief. Dear lord, that whole debacle feels like it aged me ten years. Right. Gonna go home, gonna make a meal, and then? I'm sleeping for a week, because god above that was the opposite of fun.

Turning around, he made his way back to the school.