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

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

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!]

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[ Natasha's been fine. She's been handling it. She's fought Chitauri, she's fought endless waves of Ultron's robotic minions. While these things are considerably uglier (which is an impressive feat in itself, let her tell you) so far they haven't started swarming quite as badly in scale as New York and Sokovia.

She's been taking it in stride. At least until a hand appears out of nowhere behind her to yank her out of the hallway and into a room and it's her instincts that are reacting before her common sense kicks in.

Which is why she spins around in a movement almost too fast to follow and pins the owner of said offensive hand to the wall, a dagger pressed to his throat. ]

Don't sneak up on me. It's unhealthy.

[He ditched his camera for a broken-off piece of what used to be his desk chair, holding it up behind his head in preparation to brain a few zombies and grab whoever might be in trouble. Only problem is, he doesn't expect to be seized and thrown against a wall with a knife to his throat in a situation eerily familiar to the way he died the second time.]

Jesus!

[Alex goes rigid, his throat bobbing nervously. What is with this place and badass chicks who can kick his ass as soon as look at him?]

Hold your damn horses, I'm trying to help!

[ She holds him there a moment longer, gaze narrowed on his face in suspicion before she lowers the knife. ]

Didn't anyone ever warn you not to grab a woman when she's fighting zombies with sharp objects?

[ Her words are utterly dry as she gives him a mildly exasperated look and sheathes the knife once more, releasing him entirely and checking the corridor outside to make sure everything was quiet again before shutting the door firmly. ]

Gee, where are my manners.

[He holds up his hands in a peaceful, hopefully placating gesture when she lets go, brow still furrowed.]

Silly me.

[He glances around cautiously, but everything's empty. None of those things that look vaguely human but aren't. Zombies, Kralie. They're zombies. Let's not sugar-coat it.]

You've done this before, or something?

Not with zombies.

[ Her answer is brusque and to the point but she takes his words as an apology whether he meant it to be or not. Aren't you lucky?

She lets her gaze scan her new surroundings, the room he'd been holed up in. ]

I take it you haven't?

[ No offense, you just seem a little jumpy. ]

Not like this, no.

[He deposits the leg of his desk chair on the ground and opens the closet like he has been every twenty minutes or so. Still empty. The mansion's being stingy this go around.

The place resembles a kind of derelict dorm room, but there's a future-y-looking gun in the corner, courtesy of Rocket's generosity. Alex hasn't been eager to use it.]

I've had practice with keeping an eye out, though. Set up a feed.

[He gestures at the phone he has propped up on his desk, displaying an imperfect picture of the empty hall. He managed to rig a camera just outside the door, even if the feed occasionally glitches out with a spray of static. Side effect of him being so close by.]

[ One eyebrow wings upwards as she saunters over to take a look, impressed. She studies the feed for a moment, curious, her mind already working over how this could be useful. ]

If you had the supplies, could you rig up more of these? Something where we could start to monitor wider areas?

I would if the closets were giving stuff like this away. Mine's bugged out on me.

[He lets the door swing shut with a sigh. He yanks out a box of tapes from beneath his bed, cards through them. He's still got a stash of additional cameras in case one breaks, but his resources are stretched thin enough as it is, and with all the chaos it's only a matter of time before his single feed breaks.]

Plus, all I've got is analog. I gotta refill the tape once it runs out.

How 1980's of you. [ Her tone is still dry, but she's still eyeing his setup with interest. ] It's a good idea, though. We might need it before this event is out. Having eyes on the corridors without having to be in them might be a lot safer for a lot of people. And also tell us where we might be needed, other than just guessing.

...Remind me to shove the two engineers I know at you after all this mess is over. Maybe we can be more prepared for next time.

[ Because from what she's learned so far about this place? There's always a next time.

She glances up at him then, straightening as she gives him a once-over. ] I'm Natasha.

I'm a film director. I was working with what I had on hand.

[From the way he's staring morosely at his stacks of unused tapes, he's not happy about it either. There goes all his equipment at the expense of a zombie apocalypse of all things. He might be overly paranoid and over-prepared compared to plenty of other people, but he's not exactly cut out for this.]

Alex. You ever done this before?

[River sat in the diner for like three seconds before she decided the crowded area was the last place she wanted to be, okay. Too many people, too many half-coherent thoughts, too much noise, too many eyes on her. Just. Too many. The zombies are quieter, she can duck from room to room, and if she finds someone, they're usually willing to put up with her until they can drop her off someplace safe so she doesn't get in the way.

And then she wanders. She tends to wander.

And that's exactly what happened a few moments before she gets cornered -- and are the zombies getting meaner? -- by a Clicker that had heard her combat boots shuffling around, and she screams, backing away, golf club in her hands largely forgotten... Until someone yells at her to get down and she ducks down as she's told, covering her head.

The infected never stood a chance. Its body crumbles to the ground, smoking, and River slowly looks back up.

To see Alex gorramn Kralie packing a laser gun.

They've only spoken over text, never shown each other their faces, never heard each other's voices, but she could still pick him out of a crowd.]

You?

[Oh, good, he ends up being the goddamn cavalry for his second-least-favorite person here (the first carries a knife and likes to gloat about killing him and is still really fucking creepy), and she recognizes him because she can step into his brain and look into all his private, uncertainly categorized, wildly disorganized, stupidly dangerous thoughts without his say-so, because she's some kind of super-freak who probably thoroughly dislikes him in return.

The barrel of his gun dips briefly as he stares at her in mounting confusion. See, wearing a gasmask was helpful right up until he meets the psychic who can read into his identity with a glance.]

You're welcome.

[Worst comes to worst, would he have rescued her if he did know who she was? ...prrrrobably he is not going to answer that question for the sake of his own sanity and sense of morality. Yeah. Sounds good.]

You know there's safer places to be, right?

Apparently safe enough right here. [She nods at his fucking laser gun, because that's still a thing.

She doesn't address the fact that he's right. She doesn't like the diner right now, okay. It's too much.

Distant clicking interrupts her thoughts. She suddenly jerks her head down the hallway.]

More coming.

[They must have heard her scream. She nods at him again. After you.

There are people she'd pick before Alex Kralie as someone to follow around in a zombie apocalypse situation. But she's got Alex Kralie.]

[Alex sighs, a supremely odd sound when heard from behind a gas mask.]

Of course there are.

[Because this gun is loud, and he hadn't the foresight to ask Rocket for something quieter because a) a raccoon dressed as Santa had given him a gun out of nowhere, and b) a raccoon dressed as Santa had given him a gun out of nowhere. So you know there were reasons.]

Do you have a place to hide? Like, at all?

[He's not interested in getting surrounded by a progressively increasing pile of ex-zombie corpses until one of them gets a lucky shot in, so he opts to move in the direction opposite from which those clicktastic things are coming.]

[She follows him.]

Safest place ain't a place. 'S people.

[And River is a prime example of being able to survive on people alone without a gas mask or a proper weapon. She hasn't even properly used her golf club yet. She's too scared to. She wants to keep her humanity, and when she's killing she loses it. She's recognized the pattern. She hugs the golf club to her chest.

She laughs to herself at the image of a raccoon dressed as Santa giving out guns, but she doesn't verbally address it. Just hugs that driver.]

Do you? [Have a place to hide, that is. She can't help but notice that he's alone, alive, and not in one of the guarded safe spaces. He's not exactly some kind of badass like most of the people she's attached herself to these past few days. Smart, maybe. Maybe that's enough.]

What, like me?

[Ugh. He is so not on board for an escort mission. Plus, they both know he's not what anyone would call safe by any stretch of the imagination, a fact he admits quite readily. Sure, he's got this fucking...laser gun thing, but that was little more than a convenience.]

I've just kept moving. And you're gonna want a mask, or something.

[Did she even get the memo? He has no clue. He's not interested. He doesn't care, oh my god he doesn't care. And he's doing a poor job of convincing himself of that.]

[She wrinkles her face up at that. She likes the idea about as much as he does. But it's true she'd do better with him than alone. Even if he isn't quite safe.]

Safer than them. You might burn me, leave me, you can still decide. They can't. Spreading. Species' success relies on spread. Reproduction. That's all they think about.

[When there's so many people thinking the same thing, it gets so much easier to ignore. Even if sometimes their goal sounds almost harmless, coming directly from them.

When he mentions the mask, she shrugs.] Haven't been able to find one. [So she just avoids the clouds of spores. Avoids breathing in the stench of the infected. It makes some areas inaccessible, but she's lucky the spores are so visible.]

Oh my god, will you quit it?

[Burn her. Like he's some kind of monster. She doesn't get it. Or - or she does, but she wasn't there to experience that screaming horror in his head. Only way to quiet it all down in there. Only way to make it stop.

For all his attempts to be some kind of quiet, stony badass, he can't quite contain his annoyance at that.]

I did what I had to. You weren't there. You don't get to judge. All right?

[He drags his brain back to the present. Focus, Kralie. Focus on what's important right now. Namely, survival.]

Yeah. All right. Fine. [Deep breath.] Mansion stopped coughing up supplies, I guess.

Not judging. [Just saying it's a possibility. There's no way she's going to trust Kralie not to kill her. Not with the way he reacts to her.

Could be the paranoid schizophrenia talking. Could not be.]

Mom hates to make it easy for us. She lets us get complacent, warns us, takes our things away. Had a mask before the spores came. Gone now. [She folds her arms. She might be pouting, a little.] Mom's being rude.

Mom...?

[Oh. Oh, okay, she means the mansion. Yeah. All right. Makes sense.

He scoffs quietly. Mom.

Another round of inhuman clicking rattles somewhere to the left. He stops dead, hand going to the trigger of his stupid future-gun. He can't tell how far away it is. Is this girl even any good in a fight? She'd just be crouching there waiting to be devoured when he found her.]

You did a good job with what you had on hand.

[ She's quick to praise that, because it is a good idea, and well done. her mind is just already halfway racing on how they can maybe improve this in the future if - when? - another disaster like this strikes. ]

Gotten overrun by a horde of mutated fungal zombies? No, can't say that I have. [ Her tone goes back to being wry again. ] I was in New York City when it got invaded and overrun by aliens once. And just before I came here, a maniacal AI made himself an army of robotic minions and tried to turn a small country into a meteor to make a new extinction event. Not quite the same, but still fairly massive in scale. The numbers have felt similar a time or two.

Oh.

[He blinks.]

Jesus.

[She seems fairly frank about the whole thing. So - this is typical for her, in a manner of speaking. Sort of. Kind of. Sort of kind of. He's not really the one to judge. All his disasters have been small-scale.]

So I guess these are...kinda more mindless than your run-of-the-mill aliens or robots. Which is good.

[Is there even a metric for this sort of thing?]

Seem to like loud noises, though.

[As something reaches out and grabs her, dragging her out of the hallway, Beatrice flails and hits whoever it was with the rock clutched tightly in her hand.]

Let go you undead creep!

[Sorry Alex.....]

[That rock scores a hit right under his eye and manages to knock his glasses halfway off his face. Alex yelps in pain, forgetting for a moment that loud noises cause these things to flock to the source of the sound like moths to a porchlight.]

Ow! Jesus!

[He lets go of her at once, and one hand flies to his throbbing cheekbone.]

[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.]

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

4/16 I'm so sorry >.>

AMAZING

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4/18

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4/16

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