Regards
Mea
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They traveled for about an hour in near silence... and by near that meant she said nothing, while he randomly stumbled to find something she would actually talk about. She hadn't said a word since she stated her name flatly, refused to answer any questions about where she was from, and silently threatened him when he asked leaving just enough to cover her breasts and her arsenal of weapons still clinking softly upon her back. And she never seemed to stop her stride for anything, not even when he managed to find some berries and fruits that were actually edible and would make the perfect breakfast for the two of them, forcing him to eat on the run which ended up upsetting his stomach more than it fixed the hunger. Eventually he simply stowed the fruits away in his pocket and continued trying to keep up with her stride.
The one time she did stop he wasn't expecting it and all but ran into her backpack before she dropped it silently to the ground. Using hand signals that made it quite clear she wanted him to 'sit and stay', much more like a pet dog than a companion, she left him and disappeared into the sparse underbrush. He sighed and grumbled silently to himself, dropping his bag right beside her's before settling down upon it and looking around, his eyes quickly landing on the mountain of steel and leather beside him. He knew he really shouldn't, that it was none of his business, with or without her present,
But her silence these last hours had only served to make him even more curious, and tentatively he reached out a hand, hesitating as he tried to name all the weaponry he could see, Her pack was like some Sort of Museum, containing treasures from every culture of the old world; firstly the Japanese Katana she'd run off with, but there was also Sai and shiruken, which he only recognised from some of his Grandfather's old War books he wasn't ever actually supposed to read. There was also several knives and bladed weapons; bowie knives and a machete, something he would later come to learn was a Kukri. Even some kind of Broadsword tucked into a special sheath on the underside of the pack, where it would lay along her spine and be out of the way, and yet easily accessible in a pinch.
All of them had seen better days, but they were clearly well looked after, despite the nicks and scratches there was evidence of each of them having been lovingly oiled and sharpened. Each of them had a sheath or a pocket, a place to belong and a "home'' to live in, and they were all strapped together in a way that would keep them safe and yet instantly access able when needed. Skye couldn't resist the urge to reach out and touch, running a single finger lovingly over the closest shiny blade he could reach, the eclectic bundle drawing his focus from one item to the next quickly.
He was so enamoured with the temultous collection that he failed to notice his surroundings until it was too late, the sound of footsteps running unsteadily towards him registering only a fraction of a second before the monster came crashing out of the bushes. Skye jumped in fright and horror as the blood-covered being came tumbling out, his mind barely registering anything other than the monumental amount of blood covering all limbs and splashed across the torso, dripping down the legs and leaving boot marks of red behind it. He did, however, notice the dead beast it dragged behind that smeared the bloody footprints into a single red line in it's wake.
He fell sideways off his bag and onto the ground again, the sting in his hand nothing more then a fleeting thought in the wake of the horror sprinting towards his numbed form, his limbs once again responding slowly to his terrified need to move in any direction. But it... she... continued running right at him, the look on her face pure determination, and for a moment he felt every muscle relax as if giving into his inevitable demise. Then he realized that beneath the bloody exterior was Fiara, dragging behind her a couple of fresh carcasses of ... something that used to be an animal of some sort. He raised one hand and opened his mouth to say something before realizing that may not be the greatest idea; she wasn't stopping.
Instead she ran right up to him and in one swift motion grabbed the strap of her pack and slung it straight onto her back, "Run. Now. Go.'' she kicked his own backpack at him and ignored the 'oof' of pain as she dragged him to his feet and pushed him ahead of her. His mind went blank as his survival instincts tried to concentrate on getting his feet moving in rhythm, his head swivelling back and forth between where he was going and what was behind them, trying to see what had her so panicked. Most of his attention had to be in the forward direction but he managed to catch a glimpse of two of people behind them.
Or what once used to be people anyway; their eyes glazed over blindly, their decaying arms outstretched as they reached out trying to grasp their prey, unsteady gait making them lope instead of actually run. But still the freshly turned managed to keep up with them for the most part, not caring about branches snaring their clothes or scraping at their flesh. Whereas Fiara and he had to watch their every step, neither could afford a major wound or a broken leg right now.
One thing his Grandparents told him about the original break out was that, despite numerous "movies" on the subject in their day and age, none of them had prepared anyone for the speed of the infected. Not the actual spread of disease from one to the next, but how individually each single undead person... body... could move. Most people thought that a"Zombie'', as they'd called them back then, would be a slow and shuffling thing. In the later stages of the disease, yes. Later on their limbs began decaying making it hard for them to move, but that was only after their internal organs basically liqufied.
First, you died. Your heart stopped, your breathing ceased, your brain shuts down. In the old days they had approximately 6 minutes to get you going again. That practice stopped relatively quickly after the outbreak couldn't be contained anymore. 10 minutes and you were clinically dead and, if you were lucky enough to be in a hospital at the time of your death, you were already on your way to the morgue before your lungs even had a chance to complete their "death rattle". Soon after your eyes became fixed and dialated, before they clouded over and your blood began to settle with the direction of gravity. If it did you ended up with a bruise the likes of which you'd never see and were thankful you were dead; you also ended up with a funeral.
Those that never hit "liver mortis" were the problem ones. They were the ones that weren't truly dead despite the lack of every clinical sign of life. No heartbeat, they didn't breathe, they couldn't even think beyond the urge to move towards the next closest living human, wherein they would try to lick, bite, scratch, claw or even kiss the living person. There was no higher function within them; no life, no soul, nothing. Whatever they once were in "life" was now completely gone. And left behind in their wake was a mindless entity that only had one task; to infect the living by any means necessary.
They wouldn't even really eat though some had been known to take chunks of flesh in their haste, and originally this had lead to the original Zombie panic in the first few months of the outbreak, but since then science had had a chance to learn more about those infected with lxxium. Though every function vital to a humans continued existence has ceased, the infected retained every muscle necessary to continue movement and for a while that included the ability to run as fast as the body could have moved in life.
Eventually the fact they didn't breathe and their hearts didn't beat, thus did not provide the supply of oxygen and energy the muscles vitally needed, caught up with them and slowed them to a crawl. To this day scientists couldn't figure out what kept the rate of decay from it's usual timeline and allowed every thing to continue working against all logic. But that's what happened to all dead these days, and that's why they were in their current predicament.
He and Fiara were being chased by a couple of recently deceased; no more than a few hours at most, as they were able to (for the most part) move their asses quick enough to give the living a good run for their money. Though their hallowed sunken eyes theoretically couldn't see, the infected somehow managed to set their sights on the two of them and keep steadily chasing their tails, ignoring every bush and tree branch that stood in between.
Unfortunately he wasn't so lucky, as every obstacle was simply another death trap hell bent on converting the both of them to the opposition's team. Shouldering his pack mid- stride he pushed himself onwards, no time for miss-stepping or idle chatter they simply plowed onwards through the scrub heading towards the morning Sun, while trying not to be too blinded by it's occasional glare through the naturally beautiful landscape all around them.
It took all his effort to keep his hands up in front of him for protection, whist simultaneously watching both where he was going as well as where he was placing each hurried step of his feet, he couldn't worry about where Fiara was or where they were actually going. Though every now and again he'd catch glimpses behind and between the trees behind him, and after what felt like hours but was in reality probably only a few minutes, the trees began to clear. Despite his laboured and hectic breathing she seemed to be keeping up just fine; in fact she seemed to be keeping a slower pace than what she was normally used to.
He focused his attention forward, ducking and weaving between the trees of the rapidly thinning forest, before suddenly staggering out into the bright light of a clearing he hadn't expected. He stumbled to a halt and raised his hands further to shield his eyes, gasping to catch his breath as he took in the sight of the large crumbled building before him. In its heyday it probably would have housed over a thousand people, a hundred families or more, but now all that was left was a rotting structure surrounded by decaying red bricks and broken glass. Now nothing more than another obstacle for nature to reclaim year by year until there was nothing left of the civilization that once was.
His awestruck contemplation of what that building would have been like at the height of it is glory was interrupted by a rustle in the bushes behind him, and he quickly whirled to face the sound, heart leaping into his throat as his first thought was the lnfected persuers he'd momentarily forgotten. Instead it was just Fiara calmly walking over to join him, suddenly free of her dead cargo though still trailed by her pack, and he noticed that she wasn't even breathing-heavily.
She came to stand beside him, briefly glancing up at the building before them, before letting go of her bag and grasping the bottom of her shirt. In one smooth motion she ripped a strip about two inches wide from it leaving her bare but clean stomach exposed. Skye started to turn away in embarrassment but she grabbed his hand before he could move away. Her grip was stronger than he expected and he yelped in surprised, the sting unexpected pain travelling up his arm. "Ow! what the...?" he exlaimed, looking down to see an inch long shallow gash crossing his palm, before she quickly and expertly wrapped his hand tight enough to stop the bleeding. He had no idea how or when he'd gotten that, and even less of an idea how she'd known he was cut, but there was definately a clean slash across his palm.
"Stay still, you baby." She commanded, as she tied the makeshift bandage into place. "We need to stop the bleeding before we go anywhere else, Otherwise they'll just catch wind of your scent and give up on the carcass they think is mine" He had no idea what she meant by that and looked at her confusedly as she pulled the knot tight, before tearing another strip off her shirt leaving just enough to cover her breasts. This time he did turn away as she began wrapping her own forearm to stem the fresh flow from a three inch gash. Once done she grabbed her bag and slung it over her good shoulder, and again he was astounded by how easily she threw that bulky thing around like it was nothing, before gently shoving him in the direction of the apartment complex.
He stumbled forward and began making a bee-line to the unhinged door carefully looking left and right to make sure they werent being followed. He hesitated at the threshold suddenly unsure about this idea, and glanced back at her for reassurance, suddenly noticing that she'd somehow managed to put the katana away and draw a smaller blade of some sort. "Inside." she muttered gruffly gently shoving him again.
He felt like he should be offended by her attitude or something, but he was too bewildered to verbalize the thought right away, and instead found himself slipping through the narrow gap. The inside was in a much more dilapitaled state than the outside; the walls had crumbled into something much more skeletal than the outside depicted, remnants of the hurried evacuations of all the families that once inhabited the place were strewn everywhere. From creepy abandoned toys to the rags of what once used to be estately clothes, all of them singed with the stain of fires long put out it was... eerie to say the least.
While he was busy looking at the junk on the floor he didn't notice the framework of the stairwell he was heading for until she grabbed his shoulder to stop him in his tracks. He blinked and looked back at her, but before he could open his mouth to thank her she simply pointed up, and he noticed that she did even that in an "authoritative tone". He quickly closed his mouth and shuffled around to the first step, placing one foot on it and testing his weight tentatively upon the rusted metal holding up the cement slab, but it seemed unfazed despite it's inactivity for... who knew how long. Several other steps, however, protested at his weight though they too held to the test without an issue.
Upstairs wasn't in much better condition, but had the added difficulty of having to dodge through holes in the floor created by parts of the structure collapsing to the floor below. On the upside it allowed them to see the sky above through holes in the roof, but the streams of light in an otherwise dead environment caused a shiver to go through him, the place taking on an unnatural eeriness about it. Only one of the rooms seemed inhabi table in any way, and quickly they set up camp of sorts, carefully dragging a dresser in front of the door to give them so reprieve as they settled down on their packs to rest and recover.
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