Hey, hey, heyyyy, Kura checking in! Sorry for the delay! Here we go! :D
P.S. *silent sobbing* I had a kickass end to my post and then you guys posted and I had to make it lame *resumes silent sobbing*
"I'm a complex yet severely uninteresting individual."
PRE-INFECTION
SEPTEMBER 23RD
YEAR 2035 "My life isn't one for you to simply toy with, mother. I'm twenty-three years old and can make my own decisions. Who are you to decide what I do or don't do?"
"You live in
my house. Therefore, you are completely under my control."
Snorting in a very unladylike manner, Astraea cast a bored look to the woman who had birthed her. "And that's supposed to give you complete control of me? Trust me, mother-dear, I could leave and live a more than comfortable life if I so wished to. However, you and father are completely and utterly incapable of caring for Prea and Juslen, seeing as you are both so cold and unfeeling. If I weren't around, I can almost guarantee that you would no longer have three children, seeing as they would undoubtedly kill themselves to be rid of
you," she practically snarled. With that said, she shoved back her chair, sending her plate across the immense table until it reached the very edge and, with a dramatic flare, toppled over the side and fell to the floor with a loud shatter. Her mother's shocked and furious gasp did nothing to stop Astraea as she strode from the room, her own seething anger fueling her rage.
However, it was as she stepped from the room that the sounds were heard. They weren't noticeable at first, mind you, but her trained ears easily picked them up. It was an instant later that the front doors to the foyer of the mansion exploded - exploded may have been a bit of an overstatement, but it was definitely a noticeable entrance - revealing a young man wearing disheveled clothing. His hands were matted in blood, and from there she could see that his entire being was caked with the red, sticky substance. When her eyes met his, his head slowly turning to face her, she felt a shiver travel down her spine.
The crazed look in his eyes was frightening enough to scare a grizzly bear into instant submission.
With a lunge, he flew at her. With barely a second to respond, she swung up her leg, her heel making instant contact with the side of his head. The brunt force of her kick didn't only make him stumble, but instead he sort of, well,
flew. As he made contact with the wall, his body dropped for only a few heartbeats before it slowly began to rise once more.
"What on earth - Astraea, what in the
world do you think you are doing? What
is that ruck-"
The voice cut off with a gasp, but her mother did not succeed in distracting her. Instead, Astraea simply moved backwards, placing her arm behind her and pushing her mother back into the dining room with an easy force. Her mother seemed to realize that she could not, in any way, defend herself, and allowed her daughter to do so.
The creature - for it was clear that the man was no longer human - let out a ferocious snarl and once again lunged. Instead of using her leg, she shot her hand out, gripped his ear, quickly moved her other hand to the side of his head, and with a sharp twist, she snapped his neck. When he dropped to the ground but continued to snarl and twitch, she stared at it with pure horror. In the next few moments, she had smashed his head to little less than a pancake with her platformed, military-style boots.
Breathing heavily, Astraea slowly straightened, relaxing slightly.
"He was out of his damned-"
She was cut off abruptly as a sharp scream erupted behind her. Whipping around, she could only watch as her mother was tackled by another creature that had launched itself from outside of the window beside her. Blood gushed from the older woman's throat as it was torn open by the creature's own teeth, and she quickly went still.
Despite her own careers as a bodyguard and killer-for-hire, Astraea had never seen a bloodbath to this caliber. Her hand trembled as she stepped back, the creature that was feasting on her mother pausing at the sound of her movement. It slowly raised its head, blood and flesh coating its lips and chin, and after a moment of dead silence, it released a deafening shriek. The sound pulled her from her stupor and immediately she took off, her hand gripping the post of the railing as she reached the stairs. Footsteps thundered behind her, but she sprinted up the stairs nonetheless, the one safe place in the house her only destination in mind.
She was a few feet from the door that she needed to reach when solid flesh slammed into her back, knocking her to the floor and slamming the breath from her lungs. She quickly rolled, her legs launching out and flipping the crazed man away from her. He stumbled to his feet, only to launch down on her, his face directly above her own and her mother's flesh and blood dripping down onto her cheeks. Grimacing, they grappled for what seemed like an endless amount of time, before she managed to elbow him in the face. The snapping of bone hinted at a broken nose, but undeterred, he dropped down to her stomach. A searing pain erupted throughout her hipbone, causing her to cry out. Fury coursed through her as she grabbed his head, ripping his face away from her side, and she twisted his head with both hands, snapping the neck. Knowing this wouldn't work completely, she scrambled to her feet and looked frantically throughout the hallway. Reaching out, her fingers curled around a flared mace that was held by a suit of armor in the elaborate mansion, and she quickly swung down, the man's head exploding with a sickening sound.
Slowly she straightened, her shoulders heaving and her breathing heavy. Glancing up, she knew she had little time to find a place to take cover until she could find out what was going on, so as her vision began to grow hazy, she turned and stumbled to the steel door, punched in a code, and quickly moved inside. The darkness overtook her as she snapped the door shut, her entire body crumpling to the floor with a loud thud.
POST-INFECTION
SEPTEMBER 23RD
YEAR 2035
The first thing she keyed in on was the bright lights above her head as she awoke. Grimacing, she quickly closed her eyes. "For fuck's sake ... I feel like I down an entire bottle of Jack and then some ..."
After a few moments, her headache slowly faded to a dull thud. She managed to peel open her eyes, and although her vision was still a bit unclear, she rolled achingly onto her stomach. A sharp pain exploded through her right hip, causing her to gasp aloud. When her hand moved down to feel for a wound, it came away sticky with a large amount of blood on it.
"What on ... The Hell?" she rasped, knowing that if anyone heard her, she wouldn't make a lick of sense. She slowly moved to rise, limping a bit as she did so and blinking back tears of pain. In an instant she took in her surroundings, which weren't much. It was as though she were inside a steel box. The only things in there were a small cot - barely large enough for a child - a box labeled with a food sign, one labeled with a water bottle, one labeled with a large and very noticeable cross, and several large backpacks. Quickly moving to the cross box, she wrenched it open and peered inside.
"Jackpot," she whispered.
After she had patched up her wounds - she would need stitches, but due to her lack of medical training, or so she could assume, the patch job would have to do - she peered inside the bags. They were all empty, so taking advantage of that fact, she tossed some water and food packages inside of them. Despite the fact that she didn't know why she was in the odd room, or who she was, her injury and location indicated something dangerous had occurred. Who knew if or when she would need the basic necessities of life?
Rising, she tossed the half-filled bag over her shoulder. One wall of the room was completely filled with small televisions, giving her a panorama of what she had to guess was the rest of the building she was in. Nothing moved on the screens, but she saw a littering of dead bodies throughout it, coated in blood. Many of the women were dressed in maid's outfits, the men in suits, but a few were dressed in normal clothing. An older woman lay un-moving by a window, and two children were not too far away from her.
Inhaling deeply and slowly breathing it out, she glanced around the room once more. A bloodied mace lay on the floor and she quickly snatched it up. Who knew?
After summoning some more courage, she slowly opened the door, quietly peaking outside. When nothing moved and no sound was heard, she crept outside of it, quietly shutting the steel door behind her.
She made quick work of scavenging for weapons through the bedrooms in the enormous house. A few of the 'dead' bodies attempted to move, but after a while, she became used to bludgeoning their heads. In fact, the blood itself never bothered her from the beginning, leading her to believe that she was accustomed to the sight before her loss of memory.
When she made her way to a large study, she shut the door behind her and paused. In the leather rolling chair was a man, pale white in color, and a torn hole in his throat. He looked older, undoubtedly in his late forties, and he didn't even twitch as she strode inside of the room.
Suddenly she paused, her hands quickly reaching to pat the pockets of her leather black pants. When she retrieved a small black wallet from her back right pocket, she pulled it open and rifled through the contents. Very little cash, a punch card for a casino, a phone number scribbled in a neat scrawl, a few gift cards to various stores, a credit card, a picture of herself and four other people, and a driver's license.
"Astraea ... Huntington. Twenty-three years old ... Donor ... Born February 24th ... Is that ... Me?"
After placing the wallet in her backpack, she made her way over to the desk, moving the chair with the dead man away from it. It took her mere minutes to find a code written out on a notepad, and after glancing around the office, she keyed in on a safe. When she punched the code in and revealed the contents, she found several legal documents with people's names who, although she didn't recognize them, were connected to the last name of Huntington - her apparent last name. When she found her birth certificate, she frowned a bit before quickly folding it and slipping it in with the rest of the contents of her now-full backpack.
With little left to explore in the immense house, and barely a glance at the man in the leather chair, she strode from the room.
It was hot outside, leading Astraea to believe that she was in an area where the climate went little below 60 degrees on a good day. She had crossed paths with only a couple of those ... Things ... Since leaving the mansion that she had come find out was called Huntington Manor. She dealt with those quickly and efficiently, and found herself back on the road in no time.
From what she could tell, the town that she had awoken in was small and rather boring in appearance, despite the crazed creatures roaming throughout it. Although, in retrospect, if a small town like this had them, then undoubtedly the rest of the United States was under the same threat.
Stifling a sigh, she shoved a hand through her tangled, red-orange hair. Her hand jolted in a tangle in surprise as a loud explosion echoed nearby - as in the next street over - startling her and causing her heart to leap into her throat. The guttural sound of a creature dying was heard, followed by the very clear sound of a male's voice begging for someone to hurry. His voice was raspy, as though he had whispered it, but she scoffed that off and talked herself into believing he had shouted it. It was followed very quickly by a woman's voice introducing herself and some other person who had yet to speak.
The scuffled feet of a few more of those
things resonated throughout her eardrums. Her head jerked to the side. Instantly she was off, her feet carrying her quickly towards the houses that separated them - there wasn't any time to go around the block. She vaulted over the fences, dismissing the feral creatures she passed due to their enclosure inside of said fences, and skidded to a stop when her eyes landed on a very blonde, very
defenseless man. Her eyes caught fiery red hair, not very different from her own, and a large frame that she couldn't see the face of. Cursing softly, she ducked behind a nearby trashcan, hissing out as more footsteps could be heard. A jittery movement took hold of her, causing her to suddenly lurch out and hiss out at them.
"Are you all complete dumbasses? Can't you hear them coming? We need to get somewhere safe before they get here - which will be soon!" she exclaimed in a harsh whisper, quickly striding towards them.