you're on your own, in a world you've grown [open]

[rosswood]

Who: Alex Kralie and you!
Where: Fourth floor, and later outside
When: 4/16 - 4/20
Rating: PG-13 for gore and unpleasantness
Summary: Zombie apocalypse. Alex is prepared. And for once, he's not about to die.
The Story:

4/16; so show me why you're strong

By the time Max's post went up, Alex already knew something was off, because he nearly got attacked as well. He barricaded himself in his room immediately and waited for the incessant pounding to fade away. These things are smart and sensitive, and what's more, they're hungry.

He spends the first day in his room. If he hears any human-sounding shouts, he'll only sit tight for a moment before tearing the door open and trying to snatch whoever might be out there to safety with him. It's for self-preservation, he tells himself, and no other reason. The more people that get infected, the more monstrous zombie-things he'll have to worry about.

He doesn't care otherwise. He really doesn't.

4/17; ignore everybody else, we're alone now

For once, he's actually remembered the gun Rocket gave him. It's a powerful laser-shooting thing, but loud, and he's not entirely certain how to reload it, so he's vowed to only use it when necessary. It took the entire day to get himself a gas mask from his closet, which means the mansion is not going to be forthcoming with supplies in the future. Time to move on.

He pulls the gas mask on and zips up his jacket, the one from home, yanking the hood low over his head. Gloves on his hands. Not an inch of flesh showing. Can't give these sons of bitches any flesh to feast on. Blue stripes aren't great for blending into his surroundings, but it's the only jacket he's got, so he creeps along the fourth floor, hyperalert, waiting for the inevitable inhuman sound of an approaching undead ambush.

4/18 - 4/20; and your friends are gone, and your friends won't come

Thick greenish clouds have begun to creep from under doors and into the hallway. Alex has abandoned his room entirely and set off into the outside, shouldering his backpack with its scanty supplies, creeping cautiously along with his futuristic laser-gun thing in hand. He hasn't got a lot of food, or even a lot of water, but luckily he's used to running on fumes. Turns out his gun doesn't need to be reloaded. Lasers don't have mags, who knew? He's even adapted to the kickback, but the angry roar of the thing charging and then firing tends to attract lots of unpleasant noise, so he's also armed himself with a rusted shovel he located out in the garden. It's flimsy, looks like it'll fall apart any second, but it also makes much less noise.

Speaking of noise.

Someone's screaming somewhere. He's not a savior of anyone's skin, the last few events taught him that much, but the yelling will attract more packs of the things, and they're close enough to him to pose a legitimate threat. Unfortunately, the thing about gas masks is that they're awful hard to see out of at the best of times, and Alex had to discard his glasses just to get the thing on in the first place. He's half-blind and mostly operating on sound. Just like. Hah. Just like the monsters after his blood.

Luckily, screams are easy to pinpoint. He tears toward the source of the commotion, whips up his laser rifle, and braces the stock against his shoulder.

"Get down!" he yells, the warning muffled by the gas mask but hopefully coherent nonetheless.

Then he fires.

[ooc: anyone who wants to be rescued or had the situation well in hand, thank you very much, in the last prompt is more than welcome to jump in! Prose or brackets are fine, I'll match either one!]

Comments

[brainleak]

[River freezes at the sound, gripping her golf club tighter and holding it out to even... actually... use it? Well, that remains to be seen.

She looks at Alex pointedly. Don't make any noise. They can just sneak past it. It can't see. She tiptoes onward, hoping he will take the hint.]

[rosswood]

[Yeah, yeah. He's not eager to get a load of these things on their tail as it is either. He adjusts his grip on his fucking laser gun so he's holding it more like a baseball bat than a blaster, so if all else fails he can just brain one of the suckers with the butt of it rather than give away his position.

The thing clicks louder. It's definitely getting closer.

Alex stiffens and waves a hand at her impatiently. Go faster.]

[brainleak]

[River stops to take her shoes off.

She slides them off quickly, as she never ties them, and throws them each as hard as she can to draw the clicking thing's attention away from them. It clicks harder with the clatter of the shoes and the sound of it scrambling towards them follows.

She can powerwalk much more silently without her clunky boots on. She moves on the balls of her feet with greater speed, leading the way all the way down the hall to the stairway.

She knows it's far enough away now that she can risk a whisper.]

Up. Less of them up. But not none. Hide.

[rosswood]

[Shit. The sudden movement as she tosses the shoes causes him to flinch, his grip tightening reflexively on his laser rifle. But these things are attracted to sound, and it springs after the bait obligingly. He only hesitates a moment before seizing advantage of the distraction.

Now that River's shed her fucking combat boots, she should be less easy to track. He keeps after her, darting the occasional look over his shoulder nervously, but the space behind them is silent.]

Can you hear their heads too?

[He says it suspiciously, though not entirely scathingly.]

[brainleak]

Yes. Just think eat, eat, eat. Easy to tune out or not as you need.

[She leads him up the stairs and gestures at the first door on that floor.]

Empty. Promise.

[rosswood]

[Wow, guess these things really are mindless. Not that he's complaining. Easier to cut the head off something that can barely think.

This chick might be creepy, but he can grudgingly admit that she comes in handy.]

No spores or anything? You sure?

[brainleak]

Well I'm not a fungus-detector, Kralie, what do you expect? Less when you go up, and we're up. You've got a mask. You figure it out.

[She makes a face at him and nods towards the door meaningfully.]

[rosswood]

[Ugh god. He rolls his eyes. Point taken.]

All right, all right. Fine. I get it.

[He nudges the door open and peers inside. No thick greenish clouds hover menacingly in the vicinity, so he slips inside and gestures for her to follow.]

Looks clear.

[brainleak]

[She nods and follows him in. She immediately heads for the closet.]

Gas mask, gas mask, gas mask.

[She opens the door again and again, to find nothing, nothing, and nothing.]

Respirator. Respirator.

[She opens the door twice more, and instead of a respirator, she's treated to a respiratory medical face mask. She makes a face and sticks her tongue out like it's grossing her out.]

Very funny.

[She takes the mask and puts it on and now looks like something out of a horror movie about hospitals. But she doesn't leave it on; she pulls it down to her neck.]

Ugh.

[rosswood]

Wonderland doesn't care about us anymore.

[He stopped asking the closets for anything after he managed to score his gas mask, which he sure as hell is not about to trade in place for a flimsy paper thing. He indicates her acquired "mask" with an inclination of his chin.]

That might do in a pinch, if we get in a scuffle. Otherwise, don't bother. Just hold your breath if you see green.

[brainleak]

Mom's never cared. That's just the kind of mom she is.

[She shrugs and sits on the bed to rest a bit.]

Have you eaten?

[She reaches into her pocket and pulls out two wrapped hard candies with a picture of a longan fruit on the packaging. She holds them out to him and stares at him expectantly.]

[rosswood]

[Maybe she's right. And it feels fucked-up to even think it, that the girl who rants and rambles and reads minds is at all right about this place. But, hey, girl's gotta point - they're all basically Wonderland's cosmic chewtoys, or pawns, or something along those lines. There's a general controller-puppet theme.

That little turn of generosity is unexpected, and he blinks at her in surprise. Hard candies. Truly the best for nutrition.]

Uh. Thanks.

[But he takes one anyway. Might as well, right? Hasn't eaten since yesterday, but he's used to getting by on empty.]

Where'd you score these?

[brainleak]

[She doesn't eat the other one, just puts it back in her pocket for later.]

Had them since before. She didn't take them away like all the other things.

[She smiles to herself. Of course River's right about this place. She's right about everything, thank you very much.]

Don't eat a lot usually. Sometimes meat's coal and water turns to worms. But candies are easy to eat.

[rosswood]

[Aaaaand they're back to the rambling again. Great.]

Whatever floats your boat, weird girl.

[He sucks on the candy contemplatively for a moment, in silence. Good to stock up on things before an event without relying on the closets. He'll keep that in mind for next time. Assuming there will be a next time, but hey, it's Wonderland: of course there will be.]

Well, I'm good to chill here for the rest of, oh, ever. Guess there's worse roomies to have for the next couple days.

[Or however long it takes for things to go back to normal, or whatever counts for "normal" around here.]

[brainleak]

I'm a very good roommate. Won't even hear me ramble.

[She puts the medical mask on in defiance of the mansion's little trick and lays back in the bed, staring up at the ceiling.]

We'll have to sleep in shifts.

[rosswood]

[Yeah. Getting stuck in the same spot as mind-reading girl is probably the most benign thing to happen to him in a while, which is saying kind of a lot. But it could be worse. It could be the preteen who stabs people.]

You can go first, then. I'll wake you if the boogeymen show up.

[Partly because he's the one with the gun, and like hell he's handing it over to her. And partly because he's not one for sleeping anyway.

Sleep is overrated.

Plus, it's for people whose dreams aren't fucking awful all the time.]

[brainleak]

[River just continues staring at the ceiling.

She doesn't want to sleep either. She usually doesn't sleep unless she passes out or Simon's new medication knocks her out. Whenever she sleeps, she dreams of no anesthesia... blue hands reaching for her...

She just silently lies on the bed for several minutes, pretending like maybe she'll sleep, when she decides to forget it.]

Kralie? [...] Maybe we can just both stay awake.

[rosswood]

[Maybe it was too optimistic to assume they could both sleep during a literal zombie apocalypse. Ha, wow, as if Alex manages to sleep more than four hours on a normal night. How does a girl with telepathy manage to fall asleep, anyway?

He shifts, leaned up against the wall with his rifle-thingy laid out across his knees. "Kralie," like he's a professional.

Weird. It's all just so...weird.]

Yeah.

[Maybe it's for the best. This sleeping business isn't any good for either of them.]

...yeah. That works too.

[brainleak]

[She doesn't want to discuss it, and she doubts he wants to either. The reasons neither of them can sleep. She could tell him the voices get tired when she gets tired, how the hallucinations get more visual the sleepier she gets. She could tell him her record of how many days she's stayed awake since she got here.

But she'd rather just silently stare at the ceiling. Listen to the shuffle below of infected running around one story down. Think about how neither of them are really qualified to keep the other safe.

Well. It's worked out so far. Maybe they're both just paranoid enough to get through this.]