((Check the OOC for character submission and rules: Infection OOC Thread


Kira swung the door inwards slowly, her heart pounding uncomfortably inside of her chest as the first hints of the room became clear to her, the creaking of the door seeming far to loud in her ears. Surely they'd hear it... along with her heart, and her breathing. They all seemed so loud right now. Her free hand was already gripping her trusty pistol; she was sure there'd be nothing to worry about here. It was at least ten floors off of the ground, and she'd never known those... creatures... to be good stair climbers.

Leaning forward, she gave the door a final light push, and sighed as the room became visible to her; it was empty. Her rigid body immediately relaxed, and she stepped into the room with an almost casual air about her, her anxiousness now gone. She quietly shut the door behind her as she walked in, slipped the gun back under the waistband of her torn-up jeans (It would be nice to get a new pair... she thought randomly to herself), and was about to take her boots off, but paused. As she looked down at the floor, old, probably nice at one point, hardwood, she saw a couple needles lying there. "Hmph..." She frowned and made a tiny 'tsk' noise, then continued inside, keeping her shoes on. The first room looked like a living room; an old moth-eaten couch was placed against the wall she was facing, with a little coffee table in front of it. Littering the tabletop, as well as the floor around it, were more needles, and plenty of used up cigarettes and small pills; she saw remnants of a white powder that she thought might be cocaine. As she sat down with a sigh on the couch, she picked up one of the needles gingerly and examined it, turning it in her fingers. "Damn druggies.." she murmured quietly to herself before letting it fall back down again. She'd clean them up later, maybe, if this place proved to be a more permanent residence than the last. She leaned back slightly, still eyeing the needles. "Wonder if they're still around here.." She quietly mused; she'd gotten into the bad habit of talking to herself, lately. I'll end up insane, she thought with a smirk. Whatever, at least I won't get lonely. She turned her eyes away, to her right, where a small hallway extended from the room. There were three doors there; she could see a corner of a bed poking through in the one in front of her.

Deciding she may as well get to know her new home, she stood up, dusting herself off, and walked off towards the hallway, her boots unpleasantly noisy on this floor. Sure enough, the room at the end of the hall was a bedroom; it was small and crappy, with a small bed in one corner, a dresser against the wall, and a full-length mirror on the other wall; that was all, unless you counted the empty beer bottles and cigarette ashtrays. She backed out and peeked her head into the room to the right of it; another bedroom, almost exactly like the first. She then opened the door and looked into the last room; a bathroom, with one of those corner showers, a basin sink, and a rather dirty toilet that looked like it might be home to some new species'. In fact, the whole room was rather dirty. "Ugh.." She left that room quickly and walked back into the first bedroom, the events of the day finally catching up with her; she was getting very tired. As she walked over to the bed, she happened to catch a glance of herself in the mirror. She stopped, looked herself over, and frowned. Her frame was thinner than usual; she hadn't been able to eat much lately. Her clothing, a pair of badly torn jeans and a dark black, fitted tank-top, was all worn out and dirty; she needed to get something new to wear. Her hair was a mess, falling in choppy crimson strands to her shoulders; very unkept. Her eyes... her entire expression, was worn out and tired. "I look... like a homeless bum, or something." As she thought it, she laughed to herself; it sounded strange after so long. "Haha... I guess I am kind of a homeless bum, huh? ...I'm talking to a mirror...".

With a sigh and a shake of her head, she left the room and headed back into the living room, where she first noticed the fact that there was a kitchen attached. Hopeful, she walked over. What was she hoping for? She had no clue. Anything would be nice though. Of course, all of the cupboards and the fridge were empty, and the room was filthy. She tried the taps, and no water came out. She sighed. "Figures..." She headed back to the living room and crashed on the couch. As she let herself fall silent, she could hear a desperate scream, coming from outside, somewhere not far away. Her eyes opened for a moment, then she closed them again, her arms stretched up and resting above her head as she lay there. Those sounds were too common now. She no longer cared. Besides, she'd had enough fighting for today, and tomorrow hadn't even gotten here yet.

She tried for several minutes to drift off to sleep, but she couldn't. She sighed and sat up again, propping herself up on one elbow, and reached into one pocket of her belt. She gripped something, a handle of some sort, and pulled it out. What she held was a long, eight-inch knife, double edged, and seraded on one side. She examined it for a moment; it was still covered in blood. Chances were, so was the inside of the pocket. Sighing, she wiped the blade against the musty old couch, figuring that a little bloodstain wouldn't make much difference now. "Sorry Jess..." She murmured quietly, thinking of the girl that had once been her friend. So happy and optimistic.. even when all of the horrible things began to happen. It was what had kept Kira herself going for a while. But eventually even her friend's optimism hadn't been enough. They'd been attacked, she'd been infected... Kira remembered crouching low behind one of the broken pews in the church across town, not even six hours ago, listening to the shuffling of the creature as it tried to sniff her out. She'd hoped that maybe she could leave this one alone and make her way out, but once she'd moved, she'd immediately been seen. Snapping it's head around, the creature that had once been Jessica spotted her, and immediately rushd at her with inhuman speed. Contact was made, and Kira was knocked onto her back by the force. The creature was slashing, trying to maul her; she growled and twisted; somehow she managed to knock it off. She didn't hesitate. In a second, her M9 was out. One, two, shots to the thing's forehead, clean and well-aimed. It fell, but she knew by now that it wasn't dead. She moved over and pulled out her blade. She set to work sawing the creature's head off, repeating to herself over and over in her mind, It's a monster, it's a monster, it's a monster. She managed to remove the head after a couple of painstakingly slow moments, scared that any moment it would revive itself. Then she stood and gazed down at the corpse, realizing she'd just lost her last friend. She'd forced herself to leave, and washed her arms clean of blood in a chair that had filled with a puddle of dirty water. Not long after, she'd found this place.

Pulling herself out of her memories, she replaced the now-clean blade in her pocket and lay down again. She should at least try and get some rest. Tomorrow, she'd try and find some food.

Taking comfort from the steady sway of his sidearm rubbing against his leg, Jason walked onward through the night. Before he could catch himself, his hand found the cold metal that was the latch on his holster. Clicking it open he removed the weapon from its black prison and fingered the safety off. This had become habitual over the last year. He suddenly got the urge to fire the weapon. He hadnt heard it in far too long. He felt alone. Giving in to his urge, he squeezed off one round. He was fully aware it was stupid to do. "You moron. You may as well hang a steak from your neck. Dumb ass," he thought to himself. He decided he didn't like the way he talked to himself. It was at this point that he decided if he didn't change his attitude, he would have to teach himself a lesson. His shoe landed with a light splash in a puddle. The sound reminded him of a small child clapping. Looking down at his now wet leg, he noticed his hand shake. He most certainly did not take kindly to the way the mud matted his leg. He would have to have his pants dry cleaned now. But who would be open at this hour?

Forcing himself to refrain from stopping to clean his pants, he continued on toward the building he had seen in the distance. He liked this building. He would name it Shirley. He didn't know why he chose this building... or why it needed a name for that matter... but it felt right.

He entered through the front door to a loud crunch as his shoe met a syringe. "FUCK! Sorry old friend... you are getting quite the treatment today," he found himself thinking as he looked down at his now wet and glass-ladened shoe.

Kira jerked out of the uneasy sleep she’d just hardly realized she’d slipped into as she heard the sound of crackling glass and a loud, very human shout from nearby. In an instant, several things crossed her mind: firstly, that whoever the intruder was, they weren’t infected, or at least not severely. Second, that she must have been asleep for at least a while, since she hadn’t seen any living thing nearby since she’d arrived in this city, and certainly nothing in this vicinity. Lastly, that although this person was certainly human, that didn’t mean they weren’t dangerous. She’d seen more than a few people grow insane and violent with the atrocities that ran rampant nowadays. Silently cursing herself for her carelessness, she pushed up and was on her feet in an instant; she’d never let go of her M9, even in sleep, and it was now levelled at the newcomer’s head, her face grim.

“Can I help you?” She asked, her voice betraying the fact that she was now badly on-edge. It was clearly not a question of what she could actually do for this person, but what he was doing here. She took advantage of the moment to get a look at him, and a note of surprise registered on her face for a brief moment. An officer’s uniform... but there wasn’t any police force nowadays, at least not really. So he must have been involved before the outbreak got bad. Still, it meant nothing aside from that he was once respectable. Didn’t stay anything about his state now.

“I repeat.” She said, watching him carefully and ever-so-gently applying the tiniest bit of pressure to the trigger. “What the fuck do you want?”

Briefly caught off guard by her blatent use of the word "Fuck," Jason, VERY uncharacteristically, flinched. He immediately holstered his pistol and took on the standard "calm down" pose that came so naturally to the men in blue. Knees bent, left hand held out and open, right hand on the grip of his weapon. "You need to calm down. Don't be irrational and doing anything we might regret. I feel the need to stress the fact that I have grown rather fond of living and have worked too hard at it to stop now. Just lower the weapon and we can try this again. I might even pretend you didn't just raise a gun to me. We can be friends."

He smiled reassuringly at her and removed his hand from his hip. Taking a step forward, he politely requested the name of the young girl in front of him. He couldn't help but feel his heart rate pick up as he looked down the barrel. He felt alive. At home. There was always something about a girl with a gun... "Wait. Did I just say that out..." He thought to himself, accidently finishing the sentence vocally. "Loud?" he asked, realizing he probably now looked insane. "So much for first impressions" he thought to himself. He decided he would deal with this snide remark at a later date. Preferably a time when he was not in the process of being threatened.

Kira watched his state go from annoyance at the syringe he’d stepped on and the broken glass in his shoe (although she couldn’t for the life of her understand why; they looked ratty enough as it was, though she supposed she wasn’t one to judge), to surprise at her threat, and then the deliberate calm of those trying to calm others. Something she’d never herself been very skilled with, calming people down. She’d much rather give them a quick smack to the head and tell them to quit their whining. No, Jessica had always been the one for that, when hysteria and fear would come over one of the members of their ever-dwindling little group of survivors. There was just something about her that made you feel calm, relaxed, like everything would be fine; she felt her throat tighten, the emotion paining her as it only ever did about Jessica now, and even that would dim like the rest, she was sure. She collected herself just as quickly though, and watched as the man spoke.

He requested something; her name. She didn’t see the harm. He seemed sane enough, and truth be told she’d thought she was the only one left here. Beneath the suspicion, she was relived to at least have another human around. “Kira Walker.” She responded, but didn’t ask for his in return. Apparently he was speaking again, and apparently it was addressed at himself. She was silent, her expression turning to bewilderment, then a sort of amused disbelief. She didn’t speak for a moment, and then she sighed and with a shake of her head that seemed to say, “Whatever”, she lowered her pistol and walked over to him. Without a word, she pressed her hand to his face, feeling for even the smallest hints of a fever. After a second or so, she seemed to be satisfied, and went to sit on the couch again. “I’m guessing you need a place to crash. There’s a bed over there, no water or food or anything though, just to let you know. And it probably won’t be safe here long, so don’t expect much.”

Satisfied with this response and back in a neutral state, the voices seemed to fade rather abruptly. He toyed around with the idea of attempting to disarm her and cuff her for a while. Make sure she was sane. The hypocrisy of the situation was not lost on him. But there was something about her. A certain fire in her eyes, if you believe in that kind of thing. He felt as though disarming, if at all possible, would probably get him into trouble. He couldn't quite put his finger on why. He had disarmed plenty of people before. It wasn't due to lack of experience. He liked this feeling. He felt he was among an equal.

"You the only one here?" he asked in a deep voice, attempting to sound the part of the officer he took himself for. It sounded almost robotic. Like a programed query. He walked up to her and placed his hand on her head. He smiled at her and said "I have no idea why I am doing this. I just didn't want to look like the only one who didn't know what I was doing." This was more true than he intended it to be. He caught himself worrying that the thin wall that filtered his thoughts was coming down. He shrugged the idea off as another spell and immediately felt more comfortable with his sanity.

She was silent in response to his question as to whether or not their were others; she thought it an obvious one. In her mind, anyone who heard that sort of noise would have been out here from the other rooms in an instant (of course, that was just her opinion. In fact most people, with the way things were these days, would probably have locked themselves away even tighter). She deeply wished that she was still asleep. Although the dreams (when she did dream) disturbed and frightened her and sent what was left of her good nature to struggle with itself before returning, slightly smaller, she hadn’t slept properly in nearly four days now, and her eyes were beginning to itch and her limbs ache with weariness.

The newcomer was brought to her attention again though as she felt a worn hand placed on the top of her head. She blinked, and slowly turned to look up at him, one eyebrow raised slightly in a picture perfect “What the fuck” expression of confusion. Then he smiled and spoke, and Kira couldn’t help but be caught off guard a bit; she didn’t expect to see anyone smiling nowadays. It put her a bit more at ease, and shrugged a little in response. “I was checking your temperature...the first symptom in the early stages of infection is a high fever.” She didn’t bother saying what sort of infection; it was obvious. Only one sort mattered nowadays. She was quiet again, then she looked back up at him. “So what’s your name?”

"Jason," he replied. Nice and blunt. "I knew all about that... fever... thing too. Just so you know." As he spoke, he spun his hand in a circle as though he were recalling a distant, insignificant detail. Looking back down at his shoes, the events of the night thus-far came rushing back. He stooped over and started picking glass out of his shoe. "You are an asshole man," his shoe said to him. He would have to think of a witty response later. Standing up straight again, he snapped the clasp on his holster back in place. To him, this screamed "I trust you immensely. Enough to render myself useless around you. You better appreciate this." He hoped she heard the same.

"How many infected have you seen since entering the premises?"