He looked down on the wastes of the city with no small amount of distaste. Staring through one of the numerous windows of the monolithic tower standing sentry with it's brothers and sisters as a memoir of a capitalist world eroded down into nothing, he saw them. A small group of ragged, hungry, filthy and diseased people, staggering their way through what was once one of the super cities of the world, in search of food, water, safe haven, or a place to die, it mattered little, if at all, to their watcher. The smell of them gave it all away, they could help him no more than he them. So he watched them wander out of his peripheral vision and into oblivion, ignoring their insignificant murmuring between one another. Something creaked, hissed, screeched as it crossed the precipice of it's own personal cliff.

His gaze averted to the source of the sound, just in time to see a light post crash down in the middle of 7th Avenue near the corner of West 45th. But that was all it was. He saw no one near there, nor smelled, nor heard. Nonetheless, he moved that way, and before the dust cleared he stood at the scene of the event, looking around in 360, keeping all his senses open, taking in every sensation, sight, sound and even the taste of the disturbed air. But just as he had previously concluded, there was no one there. Live or dead. The city seemed just as empty as had been the countryside. Aside from him. And the dead or dying.

Disappointment, intermingled with a tinge of self-pity and uncertainty, coursed through him. Only for a second, but he still knew it had been there. He knew he couldn't survive without someone, and soon! But this pursuit for something that may very well no longer exist was fruitless. As void of hope as this whole damned city. He let out a mental sigh, timed with the change of the wind's direction, and for just a second, less even, he caught the most welcome scent he ever had. A person, filthy certainly, but diseased? Questionable. Worth a quick look, and the brightest ray of hope he'd had in a while. He felt his throat involuntarily swallowing, despite the utter lack of moisture within, and willed himself in the direction of that chance breeze against the distractions of hunger and thirst!

It was the worst feeling, it made him feel so small and weak. So subject to the laws of those he'd for so long considered his lessers. He couldn't live without them. Without at least one of them! It made him furious to think that he could die like this. Like a rat in a hole, afraid of it's own existence because of what striving to survive feels like. Of the work that walks hand in hand with it. But it would not stop him. His pride held him up, fed his desire to live even when his body went without nourishment for weeks at a time. He would not die. Not here, not now.

All thanks to this scent. He came to a silent halt next to a bus stop just before West 47th. His senses tore at him to just turn right, towards the Square, but he was frozen in some sensation between pain and ecstasy. This scent! It was all he could think. There was never anything so exquisite. He felt his lips lift in a satisfied smirk, but the allusion of satisfaction only made him crave the source of the beautiful perfume all the more. His mouth opened to reveal his pearly white teeth, and his parched tongue scraped across his lips in an attempt to moisten them. It was futile. His throat suddenly burned with thirst, and the urge to slake it multiplied tenfold.

It was more than his concentration could take. He was sucked away from 7th Avenue and Times Square, the world warping and distorting around him, and then finally disappearing into a haze of confused shapes. But the scent stayed with him, in his mind if not his nostrils.

His eyes fluttered open, and he was back in his physical body, outside of New York's desolate hub city, sitting cross legged and stiff-backed in an abandoned barn that reeked of the dead man in the back corner of it. Esmond fluidly rose to his feet, bid his badly decomposed host adieu with a liquid twist of his wrist and a deviant smile, and began his trek to New York proper.

She walked through the square, tip toeing through mounds of rotting corpses, and heaps of rubbish. Her long blonde hair flew about her face haphazardly, the wind whipping the curled strands about her like a golden halo. It hung down her back in a curtain of tangled, greasy wheat colored strands, but she liked it down, so she didn't bother to mess with it. Her pale face was flushed with fever and her cheeks were painted with filth and sweat.

She had spent the majority of the morning and afternoon clearing out a building on the far left of the square for her to sleep in for the next few weeks, now she had to find food and water for her supplies were dwindling dangerously low, and she had eaten the last of her food that morning.

She cautiously bent over one of the corpses, searching the pockets for a match, or a flash light, anything to take into the darkened buildings around her when she went scavenging. She refused to go into the dark buildings without a light, even if it meant starving or dying from natures other forces. Besides, the last candle she had burning at her camp had went out. With a huff, she straightened back up, smoothing her hair back, trying not to let her empty handedness discourage her.

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her why she had ventured out of her safe haven, and she continued on to the next body. This went on for several hours before she fell to her bum with a pitiful sigh. She couldn't risk traveling into the building she had yet to be inside of without a light. There could be anyone or anything in there.

I guess I am going to go hungry for tonight, she thought to herself, burying her face in her knobby knees. She looked up at the sky and noticed that it was nearly pitch black out. Without a second thought, she pushed herself off of the ground, and started toward the last building on the left of the square. This was where she had set up camp, and as she walked in, she had to smile to herself. At least she had a roof over her head for the night, and her neck was safe from the blood suckers that lingered outside of the door.

A quick once over proved the building to still be empty, and she laid down on her make shift bed. She slept near a broken window as to leave herself a quick escape if anything should happen, and the night air caught her scent like a trap, and carried it out and into the shimmering New York sky.

It was nothing more than an animal at this stage. He looked on at it impassively, a would-be god over the lessers, with some fine tuning. But it was without a master, without a guide through the dark, and so it thought itself to be the hunter, the Alpha and Omega. The stalker in the night had become apparent to Esmond from at least a hundred metres away, just before he had crossed into the city proper. It had caught a scent that an elder such as Esmond knew to be a foreshadowing of death. Abnormalities in the prey's blood were grossly obvious to those that had existed for longer. But this one, it knew nothing.

It's prey was sick, and once the hunter consumed the blood of the hunted, so too would be the hunter. The watcher in the deeper shadows would not intervene. Regardless of whether he stopped the animal or not, the humans would be dead soon. They probably didn't even know it yet, but Esmond's trained senses could pick them up from a mile away. Their pungent smell had also been obvious to this young one he followed into the city, but it was too foolish to know what awaited it.

Nor would he stop the creature to save it. It would feed on the sick, hence dooming its' own self, and then there would be one less immortal to contend with. And besides, Esmond would not risk this beast getting near his prize. That sweet scent still lingered in his mind, and he already was imagining the feeling of that covetous heartbeat wrapped in his powerful arms. Excitement coursed through him, but from outside you would never be able to tell he was anything more than careless. He wasn't within eyesight of the young vampire he stalked, but he could hear it scurrying like a rat through the dark towards it's meal. It smelled too, like the one that made it, he knew. One that was possessed of at least some cunning, he imagined.

There was another elder brethren in this city. A youngling would not have the self-control to attack any human without completely draining it. The perfume lingered in this one's trail. A seducer. Esmond leapt from the street through a broken window and onto the second story of an abandoned building. Not even the loose papers scattered across the floor stirred upon his arrival, there was no disturbance in the air as he strode past neglected cubicles and fetid bodies left to rot there. He moved like a phantom, but still, he'd felt too exposed out in the street as he had been. He couldn't risk the newborn discovering him, following him to his human.

Once it was immersed in feeding, only then would Esmond head in that direction. It couldn't be risked. Of course, he wasn't afraid he'd be unable to kill that animal if he had to, but the best way to win a fight was to avoid it altogether. He mused at how different he'd been as a mortal, so ready to jump into every conflict headfirst, damning caution as cowardice. But so much more was at stake now. Not just his life, nor his prize's, but he felt like there was so much more to his coming here. His dreams had been of New York for some time now, though of nothing specific. His dreams had led him out of starvation, or at least they would soon.

The diseased ones were now just across the street from the young hunter. Esmond was about a block away, hurtling in silence from building to building, sticking to the deepest shadows the pitch black night had to offer. He could see where the humans were now. He came to a halt, looking down on the street from behind a window that still had blinds on it, half broken as they were. With a complete lack of subtlety, the wild thing dashed from behind a vehicle stripped of it's tires and both doors on the passenger's side towards the unsuspecting two it had been seeking.

They were barricaded in a building that had once been a convenience store, but was now just a big, empty, echoing husk of what it had been. When the monster that had once been a man tore through the wooden boards that were meant to keep it's like away, a woman screamed a blood-curdling scream, probably audible from several blocks away in this ghost of a city, and a man shouted. It was meant to be a battle cry, a sign of bravery and strength, but Esmond could hear the fear intermingled with it. A grunt followed after, and the heavy thud of some blunt weapon making contact, but then there was a God-awful crack of bones, and a weak cry that seemed more a sigh. And then the death rattle.

The man shivered, Esmond knew, as the icy cold hands of his killer clasped onto him and the teeth sank into his throat. The woman screamed again. Esmond moved to gain a better view, although his intuition already had the scene well-defined. Gazing out through another window, his eyes pierced the darkness in the building. A thin boyish thing was hunched over a hulk of a man, heavily muscled, who had a carpenter's hammer still grasped in his hand. The boy-thing shuddered with every gulp of contaminated blood it took in. Esmond watched, felt his own desires claw for the surface of his being, and he subsequently snuffed them out.

The woman was sobbing in some unseen corner, crying for the man, crying for a God, crying for fear. Only the latter seemed able to embrace her. Esmond felt nothing. Or so little that it meant nothing. Their souls would soon be commended to whatever afterlife awaited. The man sooner though. He was gone, a vacuum-like void left where his heart's beating had been. The woman sensed it too, and shrieked in defiance of the truth, which pulled the monster's attention away from it's meal. It scurried out of Esmond's view, and he heard it strike her, then bite her. Ravenous, like an animal, it roared before it's teeth ripped through flesh. Blood splattered from the gaping wounds caused onto the floor. No finesse, Esmond shook his head in some sign of pity, and then he began on his own way.

The creature had had it's meal, and had ensured it would have it's just desserts. In less than the blink of an eye, the watcher was gone, graciously finding his way through the tatters of civilization. In a moment, he picked up the scent he'd been waiting for. His senses were aroused immediately, nostrils tilted slightly, taking in the lovely aroma greedily, and his ears perked, attentive of the deep, regular breathing. His treasure, his insurance of life, was sleeping. His temper flared for a second, the breathing was so loud, the smell so tempting, so obvious! How could the little mortal be so careless?

But in the width of a second, he was calm again, soothed just by being so close to his objective. Besides, not many vampires had the senses he was possessed of. Only time had granted him such skills. But still, this was an absurdly lucky find. Or a fateful find. He walked slowly through the Square, savouring the anticipation. He was now only a stone's throw away from a building that housed the source of his endeavours.

A faint gust of wind made his hair flutter briefly, and his jacket billowed to his left, the unzipped flap then falling back to his side. His attire was designed to draw no special attention to him, but was still neat and clean, a high contrast to his surroundings. The jacket was a dark brown, black in the night, and somewhat loose on him, underneath he wore a plain tee shirt, white in colour, although the hem on the bottom right had a slight smudge of filth on it. He wore plain, partially faded jeans that fit comfortably, and the only otherwise noteworthy thing on his person was his ring. He'd had it forever, or for so long that it might as well have been for so long. On it was a strange sigil of a thing that resembled a man, but had serpentine legs and arms, and wore a crown and carried a shield.

But it was not gold, nor silver, just a simple steel ring, so it did not often draw any attention at all. Afterall, his face and eyes were what pulled other's eyes his way. The deep, all encompassing blue, and the pure, perfect complexion and paleness of his skin, these traits were as much weapons as his hands. His hair he'd chopped down to an average length, again, just to help him blend. It was a thick but neat mass on his head, kept clear of his eyes but sometimes falling off to the sides, of a dirty blonde colour.

He was smiling a small, sweet expression when he saw her through the broken window she slept next to. She was facing him, and despite the filth, he immediately saw that she was a beautiful young woman, with full lips, a cute little nose and chin, and lovely, flowing blonde hair. Some locks rested on her chest, the rest flung out beside her head. He was only a few feet away now, feet carrying him without a thought ever closer. One of his hands extended towards her, without his permitting it.

He noticed just before he would have reached through the window and touched her, and then pulled his hand back and clasped both behind his back in a gentlemanly manner.

Still smiling sweetly, he whispered gently, "Hello, little one." There was only the slightest hint of an English accent in his words. "Won't you open your eyes for me?"

She had been sleeping for an hour or two now, her dreams filled with a place much better than the one she was in now. She dreamed of food, and drink. She dreamed of a life before the plague, a life she couldn't remember. A small smile spread across her face before the dreams began to flee.

Faintly, in her dream world, she could hear a smooth voice talking to her, beckoning her to awaken. She stirred slightly, and rolled on to her back, mumbling something about not being ready to wake up. Abigail's eyes fluttered slightly, but otherwise remained closed, desperate to return to the marvelous world she had just left.

This went on for a few moments before a terrifying thought crossed her sleepy mind. She was traveling alone. With more energy than she thought she possessed at the moment, Abigail shot up and leaped toward the window, as was her planned escape in case of emergency. Fear froze her blood as she jumped head first into, what felt like to her, a brick wall.

With fear filled, blue-grey eyes she looked up at what she had run into, only to have her stomach drop when she realized it wasn't a something, it was a someone.

She panicked, jerking away from him with a screech and stumbling back, grasping for something, anything to assist her. She picked up a shard of glass from the ground behind her, pointing it at him.

"Wh-who are you?" she demanded, her hand shaking with the glass in it.

He watched her stir to the sound of his voice, but she refused to awaken at first, instead rolling over to face away from him. She murmured something about not wanting to wake up yet. Esmond almost felt sorry for disturbing her from her dreams, but his hunger was beginning to spike, and all other feelings were numbing in comparison. She was stubbornly still asleep, but her breathing rate had changed, his voice had found it's way to her through the veil of sleep. And so he held his silence, knowing that she would stir again.

Esmond watched her shoulders rise and fall with her breath, taking in the sights and sounds of life, fueling his desire all the more. He took a step forward, just on the edge of the window, and was about to try to rouse her again, or maybe even just move within, take hold of her small, fragile looking form, and indulge himself. His thirst burned as if the sun had set in his throat, and he would be gentle, of course. He would only take as much as he needed, never risking her health, and would feed again in a few days time.

About to take another step towards her, she suddenly leapt from the ground and through the window, directly into Esmond. Her heart was suddenly racing, and in the split second before she collided into him, he saw a look of utter panic on her face. She ran into him, stopping dead in her tracks, and then stumbled backward with a little screech, then stared up at him with big, blue-grey eyes that practically overflowed with fear. Her heart rate went higher still, as if it were trying to taunt him into acting out of passion.

It seemed to take her a second to realize the situation she was in, but when she did she immediately began to reach for a weapon, finding a sharp shard of glass on the ground. When she pointed it at him, he had to contain the urge to laugh, never betraying for a second his inner thoughts through his facial expressions.

"Wh-who are you?", she stammered, her hand shaking. She had good reflexes, certainly, but if she knew what he was, then she was lacking in good judgement, but it was likely she only took him for human. He decided to completely ignore the glass in her hand, and acted naturally, and entirely at ease.

With his hands still behind his back, Esmond began by smiling apologetically and slightly lowering his eyes in a shameful visage. "I'm very sorry," he started, and brought his left hand from behind his back, raising it to his chest and holding it there in a loose fist, "I didn't mean to startle you." He extended his fingers to point to his heart, with his ears, and mind, still focused on hers', "My name is Esmond."

Instinct told him to give her a slight bow, but these weren't the Middle Ages and he knew such behaviour could very well only alienate him to her all the more, and he would have preferred that she be a willing partner, rather than an imprisoned victim. "You may have met some others like me. But, then again, there are truly few just like me. I am far older, and stronger, than the majority of my kind. You have drawn me here, little one, for without you, I will die." Whether she gathered what he was or not, he left to her intuition.

She panicked, her breath coming in short, uncertain gasps. She wanted to run from him, but from what she gathered that wasn't even a possibility.

With her free hand, she shakily pushed her overgrown bangs out of her face. She didn't want to be right in her assumptions of him, she wanted to be wrong. But she knew that she was the only healthy human around for miles, and he looked far too well dressed to be infected. Though, she noticed that his face looked a bit gaunt, and his eyes blazed with something she was all too familiar with. Hunger.

As if to confirm her point, her stomach heaved and she nearly crumpled forward with the pain that followed.

She barely noticed him introducing himself over the pain, but she heard his next words ring in her ears with a sickening clarity.

Vampireshe thought, her chest clenching in terror, teeth grinding in an attempt to keep them from chattering. Her grip on the shard tightened, drawing blood from the palm of her hand. With a sharp in take of breath she dropped the glass and brought her injured hand up to her face to inspect the damage.

She quickly brought the hand down, rubbing the sticky red blood off on her jeans and backing away from him.

"Please don't kill me..." She begged in a voice barely above a whisper. She felt a tad sorry for the creature standing before her, she knew he must be as hungry as she was, but she still didn't want today to be her last.

His eyes were scanning her entire body for any hints that could be gleaned, mostly just that she was filthy, tired, and thin. She'd probably been alone for quite some time. As he'd spoke, she seemed distracted, and Esmond noticed her cringe with pain. He hoped his words hadn't fallen on deaf ears, but then he saw the expression on her face change. Now, he knew she knew. He thought he heard her heart skip a beat, causing his throat to clench and his eyes to flicker to her chest, startled. If she died...

But her teeth were grinding, and then the sickeningly delicious smell of blood found it's way to his nose. Esmond grimaced, visibly tensed his entire body, fighting not to leap onto her and tear her delicate neck apart. But he wanted to so bad... The nape of her neck, her smooth, pale skin, the slight tint the freckles cast... Esmond clenched his fists, refraining from breathing for the moment. He was still trying to keep control, when he saw her wiping her hand on her jeans and the smear of blood left in it's trail.

He forced his gaze upward, locking onto her fearful eyes as she backed away. "Please don't kill me..." Her voice, her demeanor in general, was so pitiful that now he genuinely felt sorry for waking her at all.

Esmond shook his head slowly, almost ominously, but only because his own hunger was tearing at his conscience, trying to make him act rashly, like that newborn animal from just a while earlier. "Kill you? On the contrary, I need you to live." He stepped forward to compensate for the space she had created between them. "If I killed you now, I would have to go in search of another like you. I might not survive another hunt." He hesitated for a moment, then looked out into the dark of the street. "What I have to offer you, can be mutually beneficial to the both of us."

He looked back at her, accidentally breathed in the intoxicating scent her hand was giving off, bit his lip and continued. "Tell me, what would you do if a much less civil Vampire than I found you?" The question was rhetorical, and Esmond went on before she could answer. "I'll do whatever it takes to keep you alive. In exchange," His eyes fell to her bleeding hand. "I need you to keep me alive."

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, the words she needed to answer him seeming to allude her for a moment. Her blue eyes flitted back and forth and she worried her lip nervously.

He was right, any vampire could have stumbled upon her tonight, she was lucky it was him, glad even. Her body trembled as a cool breeze caught hold of her. She thought hard, weighing all of her options. She could refuse his offer, not knowing the outcome, or she could take it and not spend another night fending desperately to survive in the destroyed world around her.

Her body and aching stomach told her to go with him, but her natural human instinct told her that she didn't want to be someone's possession. She didn't want to be a food source, but she was only fooling herself if she believed that it was she at the top of the food chain. Abigail needed shelter, she needed to eat, and she needed someone capable of fending off the terrors the night had to offer. The horrid realization that he was her best bet at survival slapped her in the face, leaving her speechless and dizzy.

Her stomach lurched again and she suddenly felt very ill about the situation. She quickly turned away from him and expelled the meager contents of her stomach onto the ground, shaking and heaving pathetically. The blonde wiped at her mouth and face, staring blankly at the ground refusing the face him now.

"That's disgusting," she stated, her shoulders hunched and knees threatening to give out. After losing the last bit of food she had in her, she felt very light headed. She spat on the ground before she turned back around toward him. Her eyes were glazed, and her cheeks red with fever, she took one step toward him, closing the space between them.

She brushed the hair back off of her neck, and looked up at him saying quietly, "Deal."

His piercing stare continued to analyze the girl as she weighed her options, he hoped she would make the right choice. This didn't have to be a fight. She seemed to be thinking along similar lines, the fact that Esmond would make a better ally than enemy was obvious. But suddenly, she lurched away from, spun around and lost her stomach's contents to the ground. Esmond jerked forward at first, with a hand outstretched, but she spoke before he could console her in any way.

"That's disgusting," she said, but whether she meant the thought of him touching her or the vomit on the ground he was unsure. She spat on the ground and turned around to look at him with hazy eyes and a feverish expression on her face. The girl stepped forward, brushed her hair back with her hands and told him quietly, "Deal."

Esmond flashed his teeth at the girl, pleased at her decision. He glanced down over at what little she'd had in her stomach, and then brought his eyes to hers'. "We're both famished, I'm sure." His thirst was truly becoming quite the annoyance, but he wasn't sure if she could handle his feeding in her current state. "I do need to feed, but I can wait a while longer." His eyes flashed down to her hand, then back up, "Proper introductions ought to take precedence."

Now, he let his old charms flow freely, showing her a ravishing smile and bowing fluidly for her, "Esmond Linwood the second," he repeated his name for her, implying that she now introduce herself. He straightened and continued to smile politely, eyes glittering as he moved in reflection of the starlight. "I'm very pleased with your choice. Shall we see about finding you a proper meal?"

She raised an eyebrow at him when he bowed, allowing herself a small smile at the action, showing off surprisingly white teeth; not perfect, but well kept. She took a moment to appreciate his appearance, and longer to suddenly feel very self conscience of herself. He seemed so handsome and well kempt compared to her. She shook off the uncomfortable feeling and glanced at him for a moment before letting a smirk creep across her face.

"Abigail Flannery Crosse," she replied, curtsying with a little laugh, mimicking his formal introduction. She was still ever wary of him, but he somehow had a way of dispersing her fear.

The self consciousness found its way back to the fore front of her mind, and she drew into herself as she said, "I would love something to eat, Mr.Linwood."

She grabbed her massive amounts of golden hair and tied it up in a knot on the top of her head with a ribbon, hoping that getting the greasy strands away from her face made her look less repulsive. Adjusting her plain, plaid shirt she made to stand beside of him. The wind had already blown some of her hair out of place, and a few curly strands whipped about her face. The twinkling stars and moon shone down on her pale skin, making it almost glitter underneath of all the filth.

"I haven't had the chance to look in any of the places around here. I have no means of lighting the way, and god only knows what is hiding out in there," she explained, a shiver going up her spine at the thought of the pitch blackness of the buildings and what lurked within it. She had a feeling that this was going to be a long night.

He smiled at her, what seemed to him, mockery of his introduction, but took no offense at it. At least she was willing to try this without him having to coax her or force her. And, if she felt comfortable enough to act playfully, then this wouldn't be an absolutely miserable experience. Her ability to simply accept the situation and choose the best possible course of action impressed him too, when he was her age he wouldn't have been capable of such a thing. But these were different times, with a society that had been far more open minded than his generation.

She confirmed his thoughts about being hungry, then massed her dirty golden hair atop her head and tried to fasten it all there, which helped to reveal her face all the more. He drank in her appearance, studying her face for the moment before she moved to his side. Already, some of her untamed hair had fought it's way free of her ribbon and now flailed around her face as the wind screamed past. His eyes dropped slightly, to her now clearly unveiled neck, just as they had while she was sleeping. How he wanted to taste her! But he refrained again, focusing once more on her face.

The night's natural lights made her skin shine in his eyes, despite the grime that had accumulated on top of it. "I haven't had the chance to look in any of the places around here. I have no means of lighting the way, and god only knows what is hiding out in there," she was saying, but Esmond had once again let his thirst dictate his gaze. He could hear her heart beating in the thick arteries of her neck.

He was silent for a little longer than he should have been, before bringing himself back to his senses. He looked to the buildings she'd indicated. He didn't hear or smell anything threatening nearby. If there had been anything so close to her, he didn't see how it hadn't found her before he had. Nonetheless, he had finally found his ray of hope in this abyss, it was no time for complacency. He wasn't going to be letting her out of his sight just now, so she would, of course, come with him in search of human food.

He had been chewing his lip, as had always been a bad habit of his, but now smiled and hoped she hadn't noticed his eyes on her vital arteries. He didn't want to frighten her or make her think that he wasn't in control. "Please, just Esmond. Mr. Linwood sounds so formal, and so old. It is truly a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Abigail. What a lovely name." He offered his hand, preparing to lead her into the night, "Now, shall we?"

She waited patiently for his reply, slightly off put by his vacant gaze at her neck, but his eyes suddenly snapped back up to her face. She lifted her eyebrow at him questioningly and lifted her hands up to her throat, checking to see if there was something abnormal lingering there. When she found nothing, she let her hands drop and shrugged, the actual reasoning for his staring going right over her head.

He offered her his hand and she stared at it for a moment before tentatively taking it in the one she hadn't cut. Her hand was small, and smooth, but her nails were dirty, broken, and bitten at, the skin around her finger tips broken and bloodied from digging through corpses, upturned cars, and the ruble of old houses for supplies.

She jerked her head toward the street and said, "Alright, Esmond, will go this way, there's an abandoned motel at the end of the street. The door is chained shut, but if you can kick it in then I am sure we will be able to find some sort of sustenance in the kitchen."

She held her finger up, asking him to wait a moment, and let go of his hand to jump back through the window. Some shuffling around could be heard, and a few minutes later she emerged again, a large black backpack resting on her shoulders.

"Now we can go," she said with a smile. In her haste when she was first awoken she had forgot her pack, but now that she had retrieved it she was ready to journey anywhere.

After a few more seconds of silent contemplation, she decided the quickest way to go was down the street, though weaving through the rows of upturned and rusted vehicles was going to be a pain.

She grabbed his hand again and pulled him in the direction that she was planning to go. They wove through cars and rubbish, before finally arriving on a sidewalk.

For a moment she stood still, getting her barrings and observing their surroundings. Her blue-grey eyes scanned over every inch of their immediate environment and beyond, taking into account anything that seemed dodgy. Abigail wasted no more time standing around, she was used to moving quickly, leaving no time for a predator or infected individual to catch hold of her.

In a few minutes time the came to stand in front of a decrepit building, it stood tall, but just barely. The roof had started to crumble, and the walk way that led up to it was over grown with weeds, and cracked. There was a large crater between them and the building where napalm had been dropped in an attempt to eliminate the infected. Without a second thought, Abigail let his hand go and slid into the crater, running on the bottom and using the velocity to propel herself on to the opposing side. She pulled herself up and stood in the lot in front of the motel.

"Your turn," she said with a smirk.

Rather than him leading her through the dark, she led him. Esmond was even more surprised at her supposed comfort around him than he had been before. But, desperate times led to desperate measures. When she'd taken his hand, of course he noticed the dirt, the blood, the broken nails. And yet she still seemed delicate. Clean, in a strange way. But she was pulling him along through the debris of the street before he had much time to contemplate further on her qualities, instead his mind and eyes focused on the ruinous scenery around him.

His ears perked to pick up any hint of danger, and with every breath he took a new scan of his surroundings. For the most part though, everything was still except for the two of them. Only the light breeze occasionally disturbed bits of trash in the street, disrupting the sound of the girls' heart beating. Trying not to let it distract him, he kept up his guard while she led him along.

There was a smell of old, burnt flesh, and it wasn't long before he saw why. In front of a formerly tall building, there was a crater of large proportion. He'd seen the bombs fall one night, but had been well away from the city at that time. He'd known it would come to that sooner or later, so Esmond captured a human, left with him, and kept as far from all others as possible. In time, the plague would die out with it's last victims. But the time hadn't come soon enough. Fire rained down on cities all through the United States, as far as he knew, in a final attempt to save what little life remained.

The evidence was here before him. Hidden behind some overgrown weeds and brush, Esmond could smell the bodies. They were far enough away to be faint, if at all noticeable, to Abigail. But to him, they were practically still screaming. He could only imagine what it had been like to die that way. He'd seen people burn alive, vampire or human, but fortunately he'd always managed to avoid the torch, and the sun.

To his relief, Abigail didn't seem to notice the nearby corpses. She let go of his hand, then let herself slide down the side of the crater, and shortly after he saw her propel up and over the other side. He smirked at her, again finding himself in some form of awe of her ability to adapt.

"Your turn." She said with a smile, and he took it as a challenge.

Straight faced, Esmond took one long stride towards the edge of the crater, until his foot was half over the edge. And then jumped. His body flew through the air, clothing whipping around him, clear over the crater. And just like that, he was on the other side, looking down on the little human girl. He took her small, dirty hand in his own, and then proceeded towards the motel. Without hesitation, he barreled his leg through the door, breaking it off the hinges, chain and all. He turned, looking into Abigail's eyes, "If you'll please, just stay close."

He then loosed his grip on her hand, as a sign that she had free reign within the building. But only as long as she was nearby. He went on into the dark, in no need of light, towards another smell. This place had been largely abandoned, and then locked from inside, judging by the chains. Windows on the lower level had been barricaded, also from within. But judging from this pungent stench, whoever had taken all of these precautions was now dead.

He'd smelled it before, many times in his life, but he considered Abigail. "You may not want to come this way." He turned to glance back at her, only giving her a look and no explanation. Of course, she was free to choose for herself, but somewhere further on down this dark hall was a dead man. By what means, Esmond couldn't yet discern, but he could tell that, as bad as the stench was now, it would be worse once he opened the room the man was in.

He pressed on, keeping an ear on Abigail and the front door to ensure that no one was trying to sneak up on them, and shortly came to the door he'd been looking for. It too, was barricaded from within, but not with just a chain. It was a steel door, to a kitchen or a freezer maybe, and padlocked from the other side. Undaunted, Esmond pressed his hand against it, then pressed on it against its hinges. With a crack and a screech, steel broke and then slid apart, and Esmond pushed the door over to the side, making it topple over and fall on its face.

The smell was pungent. It swarmed around him and out of the room. The source was sitting in a corner of the room, propped against an open cabinet with his head hanging and chin resting on his chest. He was badly decomposed, features completely unrecognizable, bone showing through flesh here and there. There was a journal sitting on top of a metal table on the right side of the room, several empty water bottles scattered all about, and medical gauze unfurled across the left side of the room, close to where the dead man was.

The cabinets were stuffed with preserved goods. Esmond wasted no time in striding over to the nearest and beginning to unload it of it's precious contents. "Abigail!" He shouted, continuing to grab food and setting it on top of a stove.

Her jaw dropped unceremoniously when he landed beside of her and she mumbled something about him being a show off. She let his fingers interlace hers when he grabbed her hand, and followed him studiously. As soon as the door was opened and they walked in, Abigail covered her nose and mouth with her forearm.

"Oh my god, what is that smell?" she asked rhetorically, walking the opposite direction of Esmond, but making sure she stayed relatively within sight.

When she heard him yell for her, she came running down the hall and into the room he was in.

"Is everything al-" she started, but stopped when she saw what he was holding, ignoring the stench and the body in the storage room for the moment while her sight focused on the food. Her eyes glistened and her stomach lurched in anticipation as she reached out and grabbed a can.

Propping its neck against the counter she bashed it as hard as she could, causing the syrup inside to leak out and the top to burst with a 'pop'. Tipping the can against her mouth, she let its contents fall in, swallowing the preserved, mushy fruit whole. She knew she would make herself sick eating this fast after this long, but she couldn't help it. Stopping just long enough to breathe, she tipped the rest back, falling to the ground with a satisfied sigh. She wanted more, but she dared not take more than she needed to barely survive. She didn't know when the next time was she'd find a stash like this, and she had to save it.

Finally taking time to observe her other surroundings and use her other senses, she discovered the body. With a wretch she covered her nose and mouth again, but approached the corpse, picking through his pockets, coming out with a few worthless coins. She threw the coins down, picking up the only other thing he had on him, the journal.

She couldn't read well, and she was fairly certain she couldn't write. Her mom had tried to teach her after the school systems shut down, but she wasn't patient enough to learn, she was, however, curious about what the journal could contain.

With a soft sigh, she tucked the book into her backpack after attempting to decipher what was written on the front unsuccessfully. She made a mental promise to sit down and look at it later when she had the time to sound out the words.

Looking back up at Esmond she said, "We can stay here for now, or risk you getting trapped out in the sun to try to find another place. Dawn is in.." she thought for a minute, estimating how long they'd been in the building and what time she had gone to bed, "Approximately an hour."

Esmond was relieved to see her eat, it meant that his turn would hopefully be soon. Despite all the courtesy, the truth of the situation was that he had helped her only so that she could help him. His throat burned with thirst. As he watched her scavenge the body, with an unmarked can still in his hand, he had to fight not to jump on her right then and there. He knew he needed to contain himself, so as to not frighten her away. During the day, he would be helpless to keep her near him if she chose to flee. "That sounds like a good idea, why don't you go and find some corner of this place that doesn't smell quite so offensive?"

"In the meantime, I'll see about disposing of... Him." He inclined his head to the corpse. "I'll bring food with me after I'm done, shout if you need anything, Abigail." With that, he spun around, trying to keep his mind off her and his thirst for the time being, and inspected the room further. There were dried puddles of wax on many of the counters, empty food containers, and it seemed that the closet in the far corner of the room had been made into a makeshift lavatory. As there were no windows in this room, the man had had no means of disposing of his waste.

He wrinkled his nose at it, imagining living in this way, and wondering what had made him hole up in this room all by himself. Hording all the food, the water. It wasn't particularly normal to see a human surviving alone. Had he been with others? It was clearly plague that killed him, but would it have been the same for the rest of his group? Perhaps he wasn't the only dead man in this building.

Esmond would have to go and make sure there were no others, live or dead, though he hadn't heard anything, so assumed they would only be the latter. He would also need to ensure that this place was secured properly. Creatures of the night wouldn't be a problem in about an hour, but roving bands of humans could be a risk. Especially if Esmond went to sleep, leaving Abigail essentially alone. He moved to the body, lifted it one-handed, and then carried it outside, trying his best not to rub off too much of it's scent on himself. Upon re-entering the building, he did a quick inspection of it, ensuring there were no ways for potential enemies to sneak in, and once satisfied, he returned to the safe room, loaded up a large box with preserved food, and carried it to where Abigail had gone. He placed the heavy box gently in a corner of the room, "Please, eat Abigail. Until you are quite sated." And then, I need to take my turn.

She did as she was so politely told, and ate. She ate two cans, and then three, and soon she had a nice pile of empty cans next to her. Her stomach ached happily with its fullness, and her eyes felt heavy with sleep. Abigail knew what came next. It was his turn to eat.

She looked up at him nervously from her seated position, and bit at her full lips.

This is going to hurt, she thought, pushing her tied up hair back, trying to tame it. She took her overshirt off, leaving her in her white camisole and ripped up jeans. She used the plaid shirt to wipe the excess sweat and dirt off of her face and neck before bracing her hands on her knees and breathing in deeply.

"Alright, your turn," she said shakily, standing up and walking to him, nearly flush against him now. She stared up at him, her blue eyes sparkling with fear. She balled one hand up in the front of his shirt, tilting her head to the side to give him better access. Her heart beat, hard and fast, against her rib cage, and her breath came in shallow gasps. She could feel her arms trembling, and she'd hoped he wouldn't notice. With one last breath, she closed her eyes, waiting for the pain she knew would come.