songerein | [Open] Zombie apocalypse, AHOY

Entry tags:

[Open] Zombie apocalypse, AHOY

Who: Unnamed & YOU
Which: Open log
Where: Reverein & dreamscape
What: Unnamed has a dream about his home....a zombie apocalypse :')
Warnings: Pandemics, disease, undead, mild gore...bc they zombies

Dream - cw zombies, mild gore, pandemics, disease

[ The dream begins with a city of towering buildings. Skyscrapers as tall as any world of modern civilization, built so that they could touch the clouds if only the right weather permitted it. City stretches as far as they eye can see. It's a marvel and a feat of engineering, creating the impression of a cast society...until the details of the image become clearer.

The vast buildings are battered and broken. The city is not pristine, but ravaged by time and nature. Some of the skyscrapers have toppled, their inside burnt out by some long-gone calamity. Others lean precariously to one side, whole sections of its floors missing. This metropolis...is nothing more than ruins.

Roads are flooded; their signs overtaken by wild growth. There are cars, worn and rusted and broken. Dozens upon dozens litter the streets. Some have their windows smashed in. Others, it's as if something has broken its way out.

Potholes and debris are everywhere. Storefronts have been looted and lay ruined or boarded up. There are barriers over what could have once been strongholds, old stores; banks; park gates. Disrepair is everywhere.

Something has happened in the city. Something very, very wrong.

Little clues can be found here and there in the form of graffiti on the walls: NO WAY OUT some say; others read SHELTER AHEAD, long-since crossed out. Several of the houses have old Search & Rescue marks on them, the red of their paint long since faded and worn. The numbers, for those that understand them, are clear: 5DB, IF. Dead Bodies. Infection.

The dream starts there. An empty house, broken and cold; the scent of damp mildew lingering in the air. There are old photos on the walls, but their surfaces are caked with dirt and grime. Some are broken and the pictures inside are all but rotted away. The kitchen table is broken in two down the middle, as if from a large impact. The front door lies flat in the entrance. There are scratch marks in the rotted wood. Something tried to claw its way in--and succeeded.

There's a stifling, isolated feeling which permeates the dream...right up until a (perhaps familiar) sound comes from behind: ]

...Auh?

[ Unnamed blinks at your character: dishevelled and dirty, clothes in tatters...but most of all, confused. What are you doing in his world?? ]

[ ooc; WELCOME TO ZOMBOI'S HOME WORLD, Y'ALL. It sucks 8') And it's filled with zombies! (the slow-moving kind). Feel free to dreamhop as normal or as one of the infected! Wanna be a zombie? GO FOR IT. Zombies will ignore other Infected & leave them alone, but if you'd like them to respond to your character as food...that is also fine. You can also tag as if post-dream (aka your character saw the recording) and went to find him after.

FOLLOW YOUR HEART. hmu on

owlits if you have any questions/wanna plot/etc

EDIT: it is also 100% optional for dream!zombies to recognize your character as food!! they could ignore them, not notice them, be indifferent to them, etc. Horror threads are not a must c: ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[The sudden shift from midday to sunset is a minor distraction at best- it is a dream, after all- but the sudden presence of all those people is a bit more startling.

Why were they all standing there aimlessly? Why did they all look as dirty and shabby as he did? And as pale.

Was that just a thing here? A disease or condition the locals had? She'd assumed it was a disease, it certainly looked like one- Nanashi, or whatever he'd called himself, practically looked like he was on death's door. It didn't seem to trouble him, so she didn't read too much into it.]

Do they prefer the dark?

[ He certainly does give off the air of things being business as usual. Nothing is out of the ordinary as far as he's concerned. There's nothing to be worried about, even as, at the sound of Azula's voice finally out in the open...one of the people nearest to them twitches.

"I don't know. They can still see? I think. I can see. Not really good, but I usually smell stuff anyway. It's easier to find if you smell for it!" He kicks a piece of rubble just a bit too large to be comfortable smacking one's foot into, and sends it tumbling down the pavement.

Another figure turns their way. A figure far too thin, as though they've been wasting away. ]

[The empty-eyed stares of the figures, so intently gazing at her, make her extremely uncomfortable. She masks it with an expression of disdain and distaste.]

Why are they just... staring like that? I assumed they were like you.

[She is reminded, very uncomfortably, that the first time he met her, he insisted that raw meat tasted better. At the time it had merely been disgusting. Now, she couldn't help but wonder what they ate normally, and why they looked so... underfed.

If they were like him, that is.]

[ "No, I'm the only one like me. They don't talk or Sign. They just walk and stare and eat," he shakes his head, though now he's a bit interested as well. He's never seen them perk up like this unless they've caught a scent (or heard a sound, but it's not as if he would understand that).

He tries sniffing the air, but catches naught but Azula even as the one closest to them lolls its head to the side...revealing that it only has has a face. The rest looks to have been bitten off; torn away, leaving its jaw to hang open permanently.

"I think they smell something," he relays, unperturbed. ]

[So the rest of them weren't intelligent. They ate raw flesh, and they weren't intelligent. And they were hungry. And they were staring at her.

Clearly, they weren't interested in each other, or him, so it was a safe bet whatever was wrong with them was protecting him. She had no such protection.

She recoils, more in disgust than fear, when she sees the creature that surely couldn't be a living person, not in that condition. Just what the hell were these things? It was like corpses started walking around. Was he a corpse, too?]

They smell me, you fool!

[There were... a lot of them. Enough that, even with firebending, she didn't like her odds if they attacked.

Perhaps they'd simply be afraid of the fire, like he was. That would be ideal.]

[ "Well yeah, I smell you too." He almost always smells Azula before he sees her around Reverein (barring the whole armadillo bear incident). "Why does smelling you matter?"

There are quite a few. About a dozen, spread out intermittently. As of yet, only the first two have noticed; but they've already turned themselves fully toward Unnamed and Azula and begun to shuffle their way forward with maws opening and closing (at least, for the one who could). ]

[He... he could not seriously be this oblivious.]

I assume they, like you, eat raw meat, and I, like most people, happen to be made of it.

[And... yeah, she's done with this. She doesn't particularly feel like being anybody's dinner, even if this is just a dream. She goes into her defensive stance again, then swipes out two fingers toward the one with half its jaw missing.

And... nothing happens. Not even the humiliating spray of impotent blue sparks she'd had when her powers were stripped back in the city. It was like she wasn't a firebender at all.

Oh.

Oh.

That... that was not ideal. That was extremely less than ideal.]

[ Oh ye of little faith, he absolutely could. By the time he died and reanimated, most humans were already long gone. He's never seen anyone but the Infected, and definitely hasn't seen them hunt down a human before. He just assumes that all the people in his world--that is, the normal, general state of humans--is that of the Infected.

"But we don't eat people--" he tries to 'say', only to be stopped as Azula does...something. Some weird pose. Is she trying to mimic Featherman...? Oh man, if she knows Featherman he has to introduce her to Futaba...!

--Is what he thinks, right up until he sees the closest zombie's arms come up. He knows what that means. It's about to do The Thing, the one that makes all the others in the area come over. It should only be doing that if it smells or sees food though, and it's just Azula with him.

"No, no," he tries to tell it, breaking away from Azula to go over to the Infected and hold it up, using both hands to keep it from going forward. "Not food! Friend. Friend! Her name's Azula and she's visiting--"

Not that the zombie seems to care. Although it's stopped for the moment, its arms remain outstretched toward the young Firebender and it makes a guttural, rasping sound as it pushes against Unnamed's hands. ]

It's not listening.

[And she can't firebend. This is becoming problematic, and it's obvious he can't help.

She may not have her bending, but she's still just as athletic as ever. She backs up toward the building then sprints toward it, running along the outside wall before launching from the windowsill and pulling herself up onto the roof.

It's fine, they're not going to attack him, right?]

[ She's not wrong in thinking he'll be safe. Although the commotion has started to draw the attention of more of the Infected, all of their attention is focused on Azula. He may as well be invisible; they treat him as nothing more than another natural barrier in their environment to clumsily manoeuvre around. Even the zombie he's trying to hold back doesn't pay him any mind, no matter how he tries to convince it; ]

Auh! Ouh, auhwah...

[ The sound of his voice piques their interest, but nothing more. He doesn't smell like food.

There are six of them near the house by the time he gives up and follows them to the base of the house. They haven't entered it and are just pressed to the walls, staring up at her on the roof.

"I can't make them stop, I'm sorry! You okay??" ]

[She's beginning to suspect that avoiding the horde will be easier said than done. More and more of the things are clustering around the house below her. They don't seem to be very fast, at least, meaning avoiding them by sticking to rooftops might be an option... but they were everywhere, and they were clearly drawn to noise as much as smell.

Frustrating.]

I'm fairly certain I'll live, no thanks to you.

[Okay, that was probably needlessly vicious. He had tried to intervene, she supposed. Still, his incompetence had endangered her, that wasn't something she could just overlook.]

Can they climb?

[ "Climb?" He looks at one of the zombies as it walks into the wall, bounces off...and repeats. Several times. "No, they can't climb. I can climb though! I'll come up to you--or! Maybe I could try and call them? But that might call more here too..."

It is perhaps not the best idea to ring the dinner bell, as it were, if Azula was so close.

"I don't know why they notice you so much, I'm sorry... They never notice me no matter what I do." He's...a little envious, despite the circumstances. He's tried everything he can think of to get them to do so much as look at him. Azula shows up and she's the centre of attention immediately. ]

[She's inclined to agree about the noise, even her calling out to him is probably dangerous.

On the other hand...]

No. Call them. Get as many of them as you can to this house.

[They're so slow and clumsy that bringing them this way could make the path out safer, especially if she could get to the next roof over and bypass the crowd entirely once he's assembled it.]

[ "Okay..." He thinks that maybe he shouldn't call them right to the house--but Azula seems to know what she's doing.

Unnamed takes a few steps back to give himself a little space (and to let another zombie by) and takes a breath. The sound is innate, one he;s always been able to make despite never having heard it. His lips part and from deep in his chest rises a moan.

..If moans were guttural. Low. Unnerving in a way that makes the palms sweat and adrenaline pump. The noise is wrong, the sort that any creature with instincts would know has one meaning, and one meaning only:

Run.

The change in the the Infected is immediate. Sluggish and uncoordinated before, they rasp and paw at the building with new fervour. Several of them open their own moans and let out echoing groans laced with the same blood-curling effect. It amplifies, until near-well all of them are groaning. The sound can be heard for blocks--and from blocks away, more come.

Two blocks. Three blocks. Four blocks.

A dozen, two dozen. Four dozen.

More and more and more start to appear, drawn in by the noise as they start to converge on the house from every direction. ]

[When she hears that noise coming from him, she nearly recoils. That's... genuinely unsettling.

When the rest of them all begin to echo the sound... all of them, in a slowly growing wave that echoes through the streets...

Well. Azula doesn't frighten easily, but that was horrific.

Still, it seems to be working. And so, she waited- trying hard not to think about how decayed and neglected the house she was standing on already was, and how many hands it would take to tear it down, and the horrible claw-like grooves in the wooden door below.

Trying, being the key word there.

Just to be safe, she wordlessly backs away from the edge of the roof as she waits for more of them to gather.]

[ It's a scene quite literally out of a horror movie. It's only been a few minutes, but the number of Infected swells, and more keep coming. It's not just a scattering of them anymore. Not a group. A horde of undead in varying states of decay: some are missing limbs. Some are half-rotted away and can shamble at best. More than a couple look as though they've been half-eaten alive. There are toes, eyes, teeth, skin missing from all of them. Some have horrific injuries which render them unable to do anything but pull half a torso slowly across the ground.

Hardly any of them are intact...except for him. The lone face looking up at her from within the crowd filled not with hunger, but uncertainty. Concern. Ignored by the people that had once inhabited the world. It's abundantly clear what happened to Unnamed's world.

This.

"Azula...?"

A window shatters on the main floor. Bricks around the doorway give way as several of the undead force their way inside the house, their heavy footsteps barely audible over the rancorous moaning. ]

[And with that, it's time for her to leave.

Fortunately, even in their disturbingly agitated state, they don't seem to be nearly as fast as she can be, and she expects they lack the coordination as well.

For once, it was him who she could speak to out loud, confident that the rest wouldn't understand it. At least they had that going for them.]

Meet me at the end of the road.

[With that, she quickly turns and sprints across the roof, leaping gracefully through the air before landing in a crouch on the roof of the next house over.]

[ End of the road.

"Okay...!"

He really hopes she has a plan. It's hard for even him to move around now, having to worm his way through an ever-thickening throng of bodies. He ducks, squeezes by, and even pushes at some point, to make his way through the crowd. More than once he makes contact with a stray elbow or the back of a hand--but he keeps going, forcing his way past the Infected until he reaches a less-crowded bit of street.

The areas around the first house is quickly becoming packed, but it hasn't become impassible over here. He's able to break into a sluggish jog (the sort one would be reduced to if they'd run for a much, much longer time) and reach the end of the road.

"Azula??" he 'calls' out, looking this way and that and sniffing at the air to try and catch her scent. ]

[She makes her way across the rooftops until she finally comes to a clear yard, then carefully lowers herself to the ground to avoid making as much noise, opting to run across the softer overgrown lawns to reach the end of the road, approaching him as quickly as she can.

She presses her finger to her lips in a silencing gesture as she approaches him, then firmly grabs his elbow and starts leading him away, trying to find a place where she thinks no other walking corpses will hear her.]

[ With the majority of the zombies draw to the clamour in the distance, even those that did see her escape will have a hard time following. They have nowhere near the problem-solving skills or ability to make their way through the thick crowd of bodies. For the moment, their retreat is safe.

It occurs to him after a moment of being pulled along and stumbling that if they go this way, eventually the other zombies will smell her again because of the wind. He digs his heels in just about halfway through their journey to get her attention, pointing to his nose and then to her--and then to the direction downwind.

Go that way! he tries to insist. ]

[At first, she nearly responds to his resistance with anger- but as she wheels on him, he makes... a good point, actually. She'd keyed into sound as a difference between him and them, but the smell would still give her away.

Fine. She'll change her direction, at his urging. She is nothing if not reasonable.

~~Sometimes.~~

Once she's gotten them a good distance away from the gathered horde, she finally turns toward him and... smiles, a venomous smile, her hand still on his arm, gripping a bit more firmly.]

Your carelessness almost got me eaten.

[Her voice was... superficially polite- calm, even, not loud. But there was a dangerous edge to it.]

[ Oh...boy. This is another one of those moments. The ones he only seems to have around Azula, where the smile never seems to to reach her eyes and he's filled with the sense that somehow, he's done something wrong.

"But...I didn't know!" he says, looking taken aback. "They've never done that to another person before, I promise!" ]

[She stares at him for a long time at that, scrutinizing him... then releases his elbow, dropping her arm back to her side.]

Fine.

[She looks around, then back at him.]

You don't remember being alive, do you?

[ He pulls his arm back to himself and holds it close, giving it a small rub. It doesn't hurt--nothing ever hurts--but he still feels a little bit guarded.

Right up until the moment she makes that comment and he has to pause, confused.

"...Alive? What's that?"

He hasn't encountered that word before. ]

[What-

Uh.

Okay. Well. No, that made sense, actually. If he had only just learned to communicate with others, after becoming... whatever he was... then the distinction would be lost on him. Her voice loses the irritated edge, instead becoming more dismissive.]

Most animals and plants are alive. They grow, change, and age. If they're damaged, they stop. They die. Like the animals you eat.

[She's guessing here, based on the raw meat wrap he offered her and the behavior of his less intelligent brethren.]

You, and the others like you, clearly don't have such limits. You can keep moving despite damage that would kill a human. You're cold, I assume because your blood no longer warms your body. It's like a human that should have died kept moving for some reason. And, in your case, kept thinking, despite forgetting your time as a human.

[She's being uncharacteristically patient and non-judgemental about it, but that's mostly because she's trying to figure it out for herself, and hoping he can confirm or deny the assumptions.

Though, if he chooses to interpret the explanation as helpful, so much the better.]

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