Milah Balasubramanian's Story

With road stretched out for miles ahead of him, Declan could only hope for empty roads. He knew that the chances of having roads stretch out for miles without a Zygr'n in sight was something just short of a dream. The fact of the matter was that more often than not, one couldn't turn a corner without seeing at least a small group of them, let alone one of them. Declan had been driving on this stretch of road for a while now, encountering a group of the dead every couple of miles. Rather than driving by them, Declan finds it almost necessary to pull his Jeep over on the side of the road and grab the shotgun out of the back of his car. He'll brazenly walk over to the lot of them and take the shotgun to each of their heads. He makes sure to stand at a distance from them with a simple face mask over his nose and mouth. Dec has no idea how these stupid shits work. He knows as much as much as how to kill them - he learned that you have to get rid of the head otherwise you'll just be dead people food - and that if you get scratched or bit by one, you're essentially screwed.

With his Jeep filled with as many of the the materials he could find ranging from guns and ammo, and any nonperishable foods he could scavenge along the way at any of the houses he found his way into, Declan made his way to the city. Essentially he knew it was a bad idea but he was running out of materials that were really necessary, weapons and gasoline. He needed to get into an ammunition store to see if he could find anything that could help and he needed to find a gas station. Along with the material stuck in the back of his Jeep, was a radio that Declan used to try to radio to anyone who could hear. Declan kept it on often just in case but he usually only just heard static come from the device. Declan clicked it off - he was getting sick of listening to the white noise - not there was anything else to listen to, ever since the outbreak nearly everything electronic stopped working.

Declan rode to the entrance of the city, stopping as he reached the sign that read "Welcome to Chicago." Declan put the car in park and stepped out, walking around his car. He stopped to look at the sign for a quick second, ran his hand through his hair and sighed, blowing air out of his mouth loudly. "Here we go." He walked to the trunk of his car and pulled out an utility built, within the belt was a handgun, a walkie talkie, a few smoke bombs and his knife. He buckled it around his waist and got back into the driver seat of the jeep. He took the car out of park and accelerated towards the inside of the city.

Reaching the inside of the city, Declan parked his car within an alley. He turned the car off and put the keys in his utility belt. He started walking towards the inner parts of the city. He needed to get his materials as quickly as possible and then he needed to get the hell out of dodge. He walked down a street filled with dead bodies, some missing heads, all around the streets. Cars were stopped and open, debris from the looting all over the place. With each step Declan took was a crunching of glass under him, Dec walked carefully to not draw any unwanted attention to himself. Dec drew his glock from his belt and aimed it out in front of him. He needed to be ready for anything that came his way. The man peered out in front of him and noticed a police station ahead of him across the street. He quickly made his way towards the station, hoping that he'd be able to get the weapons he needed from there.

Dr Belle Attie. She didn't really have a field of medicine she preferred. She was into it all. She just worked where needed. She since the disease had been working non stop on finding a cure. Some and most other doctors with their family trying to be home and spend time with their families.

Unlike everyone else she was alone most of her life anyone. Her mother dead. Her father living with another family so that didn't matter. Though she had bought food and journals to write down what happens each time. She found it was a lot of extra work but it was worth it so the future people might read it or need it.

Belle went down the stairs of the hospital and she went into the on-call room. She had been making that into a bedroom sorts and made a bunk bed with a rack of fresh clothing for her. Mainly her lab coat and scrubs. Since she practically lived in wearing those kind of clothes anyway.

She changed into her outfit and put her gun in the back of her pants.

She wanted to save lives. But she needed to save her own because maybe out in the world there were other doctors trying to save people from the virus too but she felt alone in the matter. She felt like she was the only one who cared about her job and about doing the right thing.

She walked down the halls to an office with a microscope and looked into it looking at the mechanism that she had collected of the virus. "This is going to be a long day!"

|| PD Floor Plan ||

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Declan walked quietly but swiftly towards the stairs of the police station. He’d often do a small circle as he walked in order to get a full look of his surroundings. He was a trained marine and had learned how to do a clean sweep of the area around him without getting into too much danger. Of course when he had done this overseas it was always another gunning pointing back at him if he had done it wrong, not a half living piece of shit that wanted brains. He was also rarely alone but now alone was the only thing he knew. As Quinn does his scan of the area before retreating into the building, he notices a tall man creeping his way into the market across the street from where Quinn had just come from. He figured it was weird that this man was just casually walking around as though there was nothing wrong with the world at the moment. He left the man to his creeping and figured he’d let the guy be someone else’s problem.

Quinn started doing some creeping of his own now. As he stepped slowly into the police department – there was an eerie quiet to the air. There wasn’t anyone else in there with him – not that he knew of anyway. The only things that were in the department was him and maybe a few of the dead walking around aimlessly. For this Quinn put his gun back in its holster. He knew that if he shot off that gun at any moment, the dead would began their run towards the sound. They were attracted to it like a moth to a flame and would often come running to chow down on whatever produced the noise. Instead, Quinn retrieved his M9 knife from his belt and held its grip tightly. He had it in his hand combat ready, as he slowly crept forward in the dark police department building.

The floor of the front lobby of the department was scattered with a mess of loose papers, blood, bodies and even materials that Quinn needed. As he stepped over every dead body, he’d pick up a gun and check the magazine for any ammo. If the gun was empty he’d put it back down on the ground. He was only able to pick up two guns that had any ammunition in it at all. However he wasn’t completely empty handed from the looting. He was able to make off with a lot of flashlights. Quinn picked a flash light off the ground and turned it on – it worked fine. Every flashlight he found since, he’d empty out the batteries and stick them in his pockets.

The man continued down the wide hallway with flashlight and knife in hand. He turned to the left to make his way to the back of the station only to immediately encounter a group of 5 zombies walking around. Quinn quickly doubled back the corner of the hallway he had just come from and slammed his body against the wall. His heart rate had sky rocketed and he was struggling to catch his breath. “Shhh.. Breathe… You’ve got this…” Quinn whispered quietly to himself. Quinn took a deep breath before rounding the corner again and taking his knife quickly to the head of the first zombie in front of him. With the thud of the knife to the skull and then the thud of body to the ground, the other four beasts turned their attention to the living man. Quinn figured he could make a run for it but wasn’t sure where exactly to run to. His first instinct was to run into the room directly to his right side. His legs began moving as quickly as they could to get into the room but he wasn’t fast enough, tripping over the body he just put down. When Quinn attempted to close the door, one of the Zygr’ns had made their way into the doorway – Quinn beat the door against the once living police officer until it’s body just snapped in half. The door closed but the thing on the ground just lay there snarling at him. Dec beat the heel of his boots in the skull of the now dead and killed it off for sure.

Outside of the room were 3 more zombies that had witnessed the man kill two of its dead companions and escape into the room. On the inside of the door was Quinn, with little protection and even less backup – he realized he was in an interview room and pushed both the chair and the table up against the door to try to hold off from anything getting inside. Quinn knew he needed an exit plan because right now he was stuck in a small room with only one exit and one entrance. Quinn had to think quickly, he didn’t have many options. Scanning the room from top to bottom suddenly gave Quinn an idea. He mounted the chair on top of the table and climbed on top of it. He moved the tile in the ceiling away from its place and climbed in. Quinn smiled to himself as he moved through the ceiling carefully to get to the tactical storage room. He crawled through the ceiling, occasionally moving other tiles out of their place to get a sense of where he was going. He first dropped through the ceiling in the evidence drop off room – down the hall from where he was just recently looked away in hiding. There he got himself a large duffle bag to put in all the materials he picked up on his way in – two guns and a whole bunch of batteries. He checked the armory storage and only found a few scatter bullets for the guns he picked up and a few worn down bullet proof vests. He put one on and put one in the bag. He slung it over his shoulder and rounded the corner to check the weapons storage. Most people didn’t know where to go in the police station to find all that they needed. When he went around the corner he was greeted by another walker. He took his knife out quickly, he kicked the dead against the metal gate that protected the bunch of weapons held in the station and stuck the knife through its eye. He took his knife from the things head, wiping it away on his pants and sticking it back in his belt. Quinn kicked the lock of the gate a few times before it sprung open.

Quinn quickly made his way inside, grabbing whatever he could. He started with the heavier artillery – grabbing a few rifles (AR 15, An AK-47 and an M16 with Scope), putting those around his chest with each other their shoulder strap. He dumped boxes of ammo for each in the duffle and kept looking; he got some ammos for the two guns he had picked out in the lobby, a .45 caliber Colt Defender and a .45 caliber Remington. Quinn grabbed a couple of silencers, leg, ankle, shoulder and belt holsters for the hand guns and knives he has. He grabbed the last of the supplies he needed, including some homemade bombs he found in the lock up and a few more lights and radios. Quinn zipped the bag and pushed it over his shoulder.

Rather than walking out of the front like he had wanted to do to get to his car faster, Quinn cut through the bathroom that connected to a training room that had a door on the opposite side that led to the outside. He ran down the stairs of the outside patio that led to a parking deck. He bust through a door in the parking deck that would essentially lead to his security and victory in his scavenge – if only there weren’t a car with someone very clearly sitting in it blocking his clean getaway. “Shit.”

Running out through the door into the parking deck, Quinn quickly stopped short. “Shit.” He sees the pick up ahead of him and stops dead in his tracks. He can see two people sitting in the cabin of the truck and he freezes. He knows he has to be on guard at all times when he encounters other survivors – most other survivors were just that – survivors. They would steal, fight, they’d kill if they had to in order to survive. He slowly reached back into his bag that rest around his shoulder and pulled out one of the glocks he had collected from the department. He didn’t know whether he should try to attack or to merely stand his ground. He pulled the gun in front of him, turned off the safety and cocked the gun. He kept the gun pointed to the ground waiting for something to happen.

As soon as the truck started moving in reverse, Quinn pointed the gun up at the truck as he waited to see what the driver would do next. Seconds later a girl popped out of the trucks cabin. She walked alongside the truck bed, carefully scoping out the situation in front of her. Quinn stood his ground, he knew there was someone else in the truck cabin and knew that two against one wasn’t the best of odds – especially when there are thousands of dead just waiting to pick people off. “Have you been bit?” The woman shouted out to him. It took a few seconds to register what was happening and before he was able to answer, the girl kept speaking. "Guess not. Well, we're going to O'Malley's up the block, the guy with me claims to have supplies there....says you can come with if you want. We're going to walk though, since it's quieter that way, but I'll have the keys on me if we need it later."

Quinn thought about his options. He could go with them and have shelter, maybe even food, for the night or a couple of days or he could stay by himself. He knows the regardless of what he decides he’s going to end up on his own again. Secondly he has a list of duties that he needs to complete; syphon gas, collect materials, survive. He knows that with others his chances of survival are slightly better but then he’ll have to watch his back at all times to make sure that his life and his things are always safe. “I travel on my own.” Quinn put the safety on his gun and it put it in its holster. He stepped away from the dog that sniffed at his feet and he walked out of the parking garage, making his way back to his car to unload his new supplies. He needed to grab a tube of some sort to start syphoning gas into his gallons to refill his car. A full city of empty cars would certainly be of some help. As he walked he kept going over everything that just happened in the parking garage. It boggled his mind that it all happened – every other encounter with survivors he had were much more aggressive.

Quinn proceeded to walk down the street on his own. He’d follow the road back the way he came from. Stepping quickly into the market once he saw a few supplies hanging off the shelves. He picked up a funnel that lay in the midst of broken glass, fallen shelves, and store bought debris. He searched around the still standing shelves for any type of rubber tubing that he could use to syphon gasoline with in order to fuel his car. He was running empty but could still had enough to get through the city and out – Quinn had just figured it was better safe than sorry when it came to traveling. He would have much rathered be in a car that could make a quick getaway then on his two feet that could easily slow him down enough to be attacked.

Gathering the little materials he could find, including the funnel, a few cans of soup, a small box of nails, and a small matchbook, Quinn started his way back over to his car. Without stepping more than ten feet out of the market, Quinn could hear a stampede of groaning monsters cornering the street. When he saw them herding around the corner, Quinn cursed quietly under his breath and booked it in the opposite direction. He removed his baton from the bag that beat down on his hips with every step and whipped it downward to extend it. He swung the baton towards every walking dead head that was caught in his way as he ran.

Beating heads as he runs, escaping several times within inches of being grabbed Quinn sneaks away into an alleyway about a block and a half down from where he was originally. He knew he had to get to his car as soon as he could but right now his best option was to hide out otherwise he’d be dead meat. Literally.

Quinn had narrowly escaped by pulling open a door in one of the alleyways he found himself in. He shut the door quickly behind him – he knew that these dead pieces of shit couldn’t open doors so he’d be alright in there as long as there weren’t visitors already in there. Quinn sighed a huge sigh of relief once he had the door closed behind him. He pulled a flashlight from his new bag of materials and clicked it on. He took a gun from its holster and added a silencer to it, which he got from the police department. If he was going to protect himself, he wanted to do it quietly. As the man started his search through the new place he found himself in, he noticed it to be a restaurant of some sort. He made his way through the back and led himself to the front of the building. So far he was the only one in there. As he walked through a set of doors, he realized he had been in the kitchen of a pub. He looked out ahead of him – two people turned their attention to him once his light caught their attentions. “Fuck." Quinn uttered. He looked at the two and dropped his gun from the targets. "Well, I guess we’re roommates now.” Quinn muttered almost angrily. He didn’t want to get stuck with some lady and her dipshit sidekick. He wanted to survive and he wasn’t sure these two were the way to do it.

"Look, you're not the only one in a shitty predicament. This isn'tjust happening to you, you're no special snowflake, we're ALL stuck in a hell hole of a city that's overrun with the walking dead. So do us all a favor, drop the attitude, be happy you're not dead, and appreciate the fact you have a place to stay, Okay? Okay - great! Now excuse me while I go and check the exit - try not to whine or cry too much in the meantime, we're fresh out of tissues."

A blow up of emotion spit into Quinn’s face. He watched quietly as the woman in front of him let go of every ounce of emotion she had left in her. He moved away from the woman when she excused herself to check the back exit. Quinn was a little surprised to say the least. He had expected anything like that to happen – much less than he expect to be spoken to like that by a complete stranger. Of course situations were shitty right now – and that was true for everyone – but Quinn hadn’t thought that he was complaining more than was acceptable given the fact that they were surviving the world that they lived in now.

Declan looked at the man who spoke to him. He rolled his eyes slightly and walked off in the opposite direction of the man. He set himself up in a corner underneath the bar, resting his guns and his bags against the wall. Declan Quinn walked around the bar, searching for something strong to drink to take off the edge. The man who had already annoyed Quinn without trying hard made a comment about the military and that caught Quinn’s attention. His eyes shot away from the bar, hitting the man’s eyes that stared back at him. “What’d you say about the military? Who the hell are you? What the hell gives you the right to think you know anything about me?”

Quinn was pissed off. He refused to allow his name to be left in anyone’s mouth, lingering like a bitter taste. He walked around the bar and B-lined for the man. With a bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand, Quinn extended his index finger and poked it roughly into the man’s chest. He glared into the man’s eyes – his own eyes burned with anger and hatred. “I don’t know who the fuck you are but you better back the hell up and mind your fucking life. You don’t know me. You don’t know shit.” Quinn turned his attention away from the man and walked back to his corner. He hated having to stay here with this fucking dumb ass who thinks he’s a know it all and little miss princess in the back but he knew that right now he didn’t have any other option until the dead on the outside dispersed a little more so that he could escape. He sighed, shaking his head, and took a big slug of whiskey straight from the bottle in his hand.

Declan sat angrily in his corner. He wasn't really in the mood to be friendly with anyone at the moment. He could hear in the back of his mind the voice of his passed wife, "Dec, you have to be nice. Not everyone knows your backstory, more so not everyone cares. Is it really so hard for you to just try to get along?" Those were the exact words of his wife when he had gotten into an argument with a coworker over something so trivial. It brought a short lived smile to his face. He had freaked out too much in his own opinion and it was too late to beg for apologies so he figured he'd just start playing nice from now own.

He looked up at this two new roommates - Lukas was playing with the dog, almost as if it were a human and he was making yet another friend easily. He looked up to hear the girls snarky remarks. He bit his tongue to keep from snapping at anyone else again. He was as good as dead if it weren't for these two at the moment so he knew he had to keep his mouth shut. "Hey, weren't you supposed to cook dinner tonight? We're waiting. Maybe if you feed the Raging Bull over there you'll lighten him up...by like .1%" Declan watched as the two interacted lightly, and Lukas had himself a laugh. Quinn stood up from his corner on the floor and sarcastically laughed. "Ha. Ha. Very funny." Quinn joked as he dusted himself off. He looked at Lukas once the man offered soup. "Soup is fine by me. Thanks." He cringed at the thought of having to be nice to the kid. It simply wasn't in Declan's nature - not after so many years spent as a Marine. Right now wasn't about being a marine though, right now was about gritting his teeth and surviving. He sat on top of the bar by the woman as Lukas went to the back room to get soup. "Quinn. My name is Declan Quinn." He put his hand out for a handshake not really knowing what to expect.