S A D I E
7:30-7:35 AM (7:30-7:35 MT) | 11/01/2036
Soma, San Francisco, CA; Warehouse
Direct Mentions: Christopher, Callan
Indirect Mentions: Aurora, Finley, Victoria, Carswell, Marie, Alexander

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Sadie is hungry.

Not that this is anything special. After all, she is always hungry. She knows her hunger during every moment of her waking hours. She knows her hunger in her sleep. The pain—the ache that festers and echoes, that blooms and sparks anew, that ebbs away and returns with an intensity akin to flames—is as familiar as the taste of her insanity. She has grown used to it. How could you not when it is present throughout every moment of your every memory? She has only learned to not acknowledge it, to ignore it in every sense of the word, to store its presence in the deepest recesses of her mind—hidden alongside everything else that is sick and twisted, and the things as beautiful as she’ll never be, too, because it would be hypocritical to conceal only the bad, wouldn’t it?

Sadie is a master of burying herself in blankets that won’t protect her from the world—of keeping it all in, sheltered and shielded in shadow. (Or, as much of it as she can, at least.) If she didn’t know how to make the best use of veils and cloaks; the process of taking anything and everything and locking it up in a chest not even she has the key to; the art of withholding, stifling, tucking away, then her hunger wouldn’t have existed so severely for long enough to become any other sensation. Hah! Would that have been a joy. But, Sadie is not a beast. Not entirely. Her self-control is impeccable.

Totally.

She says this as she loses her shit, as she snaps at the whore that dared wake her up, as she rasps past an acid-ruined voice and the bitter taste on her tongue, “Rooood! You’re such a bitch-ass dickloid! I’ll chew your feet off and ship your demonic soul right back to Satan himself one day—just you wait!”

When she was so tactlessly jostled into re-existence, she’d thought at first that Charlie was getting paranoid again and wanted to get going earlier than usual, and she had almost said, Suck my nonexistent cock, you wonderful excuse of an older brother, and let me sleep for five more minutes, but, fortunately, her mind caught up to her tongue and locked the very much irrelevant slip-up into the abyss. She was wrenching herself semi-upright (her limbs feel too much like overboiled Italians to do much besides sitting up) in no time, metaphorical venom dripping from her lips within moments. She doesn’t even need to open her eyes (it would be wise not to for now; the sudden influx of light would be overwhelming) to know just what vile, uncivilized creature interrupted her oh-so-glorious dream of devouring the juiciest steak the shitty pile of contaminated flesh inside her skull ever conjured. The person before her smells like everything she despises.

Christopher Kennedy—human feces personified.

Or maybe she’s just saying that because she’s not a morning kind-of-person. She gets grumpy when she’s woken too early.

Doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter.

She is partially twisted his way, so she makes to lightly bat at him with her hand to show how badly she wants to wreck his existence. When she… completely misses (she’s tired, okay?), she turns away petulantly, grumbling incoherently under her breath as she waits for the man’s footsteps to recede into the background. She lays Hulda down on the hard, cemented ground of the warehouse they’d holed up in for the night, sparing a moment to affectionately run her fingers through the stuffed fox’s matted silver fur. The sudden influx of light is the definition of bullshit; she slips her eyes closed before a headache starts to form, so searching for her makeshift shoulder-sling-bag is more complicated than it needs to be, but after a few painful seconds of groping around, her fingers find the rough strap—and in goes the black hospital gown and black trousers. She’d used the trousers as a pillow and the hospital gown as a blanket of sorts, and both, of course, didn’t make her comfortable at all. With nothing underneath to cushion her boney self against the frigid stone, who could possibly not sleep fitfully, completely human or not? She’s sure even an infected would risk early-onset arthritis if they followed her HowToBasic Sleep In a Warehouse Surrounded by Dead People™.

A sigh rips itself out of her throat, sounding so miserable one would think that she dropped an entire tub of chocolate ice cream and zombies chomped it all up right in front of her. She’s fuckin’ exhausted; she can hardly think… She’ll deal with it. She’s the miracle “child”—she should be adaptable, should be quick to get used to anything and everything. Including severe back pain.

She pulls the drawstrings of her bag closed, her left eye opening fully now that it’s done adjusting to the light (her inhuman inhuman inhuman inhuman right eye will remain closed for the rest of the day. Totally not because she doesn’t really like anyone seeing it, no, but 100% because it’ll hurt once ~le light~ comes into contact with it! Yep! That’s totally the case), grabs hold of Hulda’s little floofy paw, and gets up—

Mistake.

Blinding agony sears up, up, up from her stomach to her chest. She worries, for a moment, that her heart might’ve just given up on her and decided to die, but she discards the absurd idea before it fully comes into fruition—she knows what this is (and it's obviously not a heart attack). Hunger. It licks about like an impatient wildfire, raging onwards from deep in her belly to all the way in her lungs, squeezing every bit of invaluable air right the hell out. It’s made of knives, of bullets, of the scalpels those smart cunts back at Daedalus loved to flaunt to her face, but she knows it, she knows it, she knows it. The only signs of her… problem are the twitch of her fingers, the brief grunt her shredded voice let loose, the whimper she stifles before anyone can hear. Luckily, the painpainpainagony ebbs away into a gentle torture as quickly as it came, and Sadie finishes slinging the strap of her bag over her shoulder. She pauses again to give Hulda some attention, burying her nose in those lovely fake hairs and breathing in the smell of filth.

Hulda doesn't seem to care that Sadie is hugging it so tightly that had it been a real fox all its bones would have been pulverized, turned to worthless mush. It can't exactly blame Sadie for squishing it so harshly; now that Hulda has lost so much of its organs (cotton), it isn't as squish-able as it used to be, so Sadie has to be rougher to once again feel a façade of something lost to the past. Or so the girl likes to think.

...It doesn’t matter.

She turns, her knees cracking a little. Makes sense. The arthritis-inducing mockery of a bed does that to people. Her sleeping position certainly didn't help—curled into a tight ball around Hulda like some sort of cuddly (and adorable) sleepy puppy, it's no wonder she was wracked with such agony.

She glances around, spotting a head of dirty-blonde hair—Aurora if her memory doesn't fail her. The other girl is awake and bleary, but not because she’s recently awoken; she must've taken the last guarding shift. Aurora is blinking sleep (and something else, too. Those rings of seas are glazed over. Unfocused. Like a doctor lost in thought, wondering how one goes about hanging mutated intestines on a rack) out of her blue eyes, staring at something Sadie can't see from her angle.

Nearby is Finley (that one she gets weird vibes from. But, well, she gets those same vibes from everyone who acts as dead inside as him, so…), and it looks like he stood on guard, too. She can tell it's him by those pale golden locks, the proud posture, and the (unnerving unnerving unnerving) apathy that he all but reeks of. From her position a comfortable distance from them, she'd've thought he and Aurora were siblings (their eyes are nearly identical in shade, after all), but they'd come upon the group at different times, with the girl joining their "ranks" before Finley, and they seemed to not know each other at all. Their personalities are vastly different, too, so the theory can be easily tossed as fodder to the undead.

(Sadie refuses to acknowledge how different she was from her own brother. Personality holds no merit in the family.)

Her eye sweeps over the both of them, lingering on Aurora for longer than should be socially acceptable. Strangely, her mood shifts from agitated to curious, but she elects to focus on something else before her useless brain summons a distracting idea.

As she forces her gaze elsewhere, she thinks she briefly meets Victoria's strange (like hers, and Sadie almost thinks about opening her right eye, but decides against it for now) eyes, so she pauses to smile (creepily) a little in… greeting(? She doesn't know how humans work, exactly), then bypasses the tag-along. She does allow herself to wonder, just for a second, just why there are so many blondes in the group. Not that she is entirely against them having vibrant hair colors, no, but it is… odd. But then again, maybe there aren’t as many blondes as she assumed. A part of her thinks that Victoria's hair color is fake; the strands are all broken and dry, unhealthy and damaged, looking just like the "luxurious" curls of the bleached-blond doctor she knew once. Sadie bets that that hair is as horribly textured as the aforementioned doctor's, but she supposes that she'll never know; after all, she only knew what the doctor's hair felt like when he became a… problem to Emilia.

…It doesn't matter. There's no correlation. Why'd she even bring it up? Silly her. Heheh… heh…

When her eye inevitably falls on Christopher, she briefly transforms her (uncomfortable) stare into a semi-glare and does her best to psychically say that she'll definitely rip his tongue out and staple it to his asshole one day, but she doesn't really give a shit about him, so she decides to not waste more of her time trying to figure out how to emit gamma rays via eyeball, and hunts for someone else to victimize.

Her eye spies Carswell and Marie existing somewhere. Carswell's face is (thankfully. She doesn't want her mood to be soured so quickly by unwanted similarities) turned away, and he looks like he's just woken up. Marie also appears to have recently woken, though she looks peculiarly… shaken despite the small, rare smile on her lips. Sadie doesn't want to know why. Anyway, the girl can't bear to look at them any longer be bothered to pierce their very souls with her strangely determined almost-scrutiny. Once more, she looks elsewhere.

"Elsewhere" meaning “absolutely nothing”.

It would probably be wise to look for Alexander, their glorious leader, but knowing that he's somewhere around (she can smell him nearby) is good enough for her. She doesn’t bother with actively searching for him. To be honest, she doesn’t want to acknowledge his existence all that much for now, anyway. Totally not because his name and face bring about the wary memory of a certain remote.

She shakes her head before her thoughts begin to devolve into unwanted lands.

She decides to do a little impulsive thing. Insignificant, but impulsive nonetheless: "Good morning, everyone~!" she calls in a sing-song, irritating drawl. It's far too loud, she knows, and the gravelly scrape of her voice reverberates off the walls of the drafty, moldy warehouse. It might attract attention. There's Ones right outside, hungry as fuck knows how much. Sadie doesn't particularly care. She cares so little, she convinces herself, that she’s not even looking at the others around her when the words tear themselves out of her mouth. No; instead, she’s staring at the rows upon rows of empty, rusted racks and shelves, at the walkie stackers scattered throughout, at the platform trucks left haphazardly in every corner. She almost counts them all, but finds herself bored before she can even reach “two”.

She tests her neck’s flexibility by staring up at the ceiling. There’s only one fan up there (the rest having fallen, if the blades on the floor say anything), hanging dangerously low by only mere cords. It rotates a little, and she tilts her head, ironically entertaining the idea of a ghost making it move (because there’s no air in here. It’s so stuffy she can barely breathe. Thank the nonexistent Lord for not giving her asthma…), but then one of the six blades moves aside and shows a set of small holes on the ceiling. She deduces that some of the shitty air from outside must’ve come through those holes to mingle with the shittier air inside, causing the fan to turn a bit.

She has no idea why she suddenly found herself so fixated on the movement of a ceiling fan, of all things. There are better things to ponder about, like—

Sadie shuts her eye to prevent an upcoming existential crisis.

A mistake.

Sadie is a master of making mistakes.

Now that she isn't processing visual shit, her shitty brain, lover of giving her migraines, decides to overwhelm her remaining senses—and racks up her hearing and smell. A grimace finds its way on her face; the individual scents of everyone around her increase tenfold, and she buries her nose into Hulda's fur to block out all of… that before… the little parasites crawling around inside her do something about it. But it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, because her hearing sharpens and she just can't not have a sensory overload 24/7, can't she? Every inhale and exhale, breath, voice, shuffle of clothes, movement of anything and everything all at once echoes in her mind. Every single one of their heartbeats—the rush of blood, the pools of red. And she wonders, briefly, briefly, briefly: if she made those hearts of theirs they love so dearly stop doing their jobs, would it hurt as much as her hunger?

There's too many of them. Too many heartbeats. Too much blood. There's too many and it makes her skin crawl—

Someone is singing.

Humming (or whistling), more like. Merry little tunes. She recognizes the voice as another of the group's tag-alongs: Callan Adan Kingston, a man who she'd say was also human feces personified, but, in truth, he’s better than Christopher will ever be. She’s also more awake now, which means she’s less grumpy; so, the insulting endearment manages to flutter away into the sunset just like the last fuck she gave towards the pitiful concept of morality—for now.

Rays of light cascade through the small imperfections in the ceiling; she traces them as they go down, down, down. Some land on a mop of choppy black strands, shine into eyes that look like the sun through a bottle of whiskey.

When her green meets his browns, her eye pretends to brighten from its dull, lifeless glaze to a manic beam, and she grins at the man, teeth flashing preternaturally alabaster, the edges of her lips stretching far too wide across her face to be anything but something comfortable to glance at. She smiles at him like she'll devour him, mission to Icarus be damned—but she won't. Eating one of the ones who’ll help her achieve the one thing she exists for wouldn’t be wise. She knows her purpose.

(It's her only purpose.)

She makes her way over. (Why? She doesn’t like him that much (not to the degree that she… dislikes Callan and Finley, no, but he’s still on that list). That’s why. She wants to bother him.) She does so in such a way where it doesn't entirely look like she's directly approaching him; it’s almost like she’s just looking around in this ugly hellhole. She saunters over, glancing around at everything but him, bouncing with every step, almost skipping, but she withdraws from time to time, then inches closer, then withdraws, changes course a little, then draws closer—

Even two weeks into not having eaten shit, four days before she enters a very specific stage that the group will learn the existence of the hard way (and won't that day be fun! Maybe. It'll hurt a lot, sure, but the looks on their faces should be worth it…, right?), she's still fast, already three feet away from her target barely minutes after she spotted him. She would've stopped closer to him, just because she could, but then she remembers an important string of information: electricity.

(Her neck starts to itch. The shock collar feels heavier each time she recalls its hold on her. She almost brings her hand up, but tangles her fingers in Hulda's fur before she gets the opportunity to possibly disrupt the collar's current placement. Mom Emilia never liked it when she touched anywhere near it, so…)

"Looks like we’re gonna be challenging our legs today, huh?" she all but croons, what can only be excitement seeping into her words. She isn't exactly looking at Callan, though, so her words can be interpreted as an inquiry for everyone. "On the oh-so-magnificent I-Eighty…"

Her eye shines in a parody of something beautiful and bright and alive. She throws Hulda in the air, catches it, spins on her heel. Obnoxious, she knows, but fun.

(Her entire left side hurts.)

She adds, "Ooohhh, will we make a stop at Treasure Island? Johnson—" the only doctor who she liked, she doesn't bother to say— "always bitched about that place. Maybe it's special!"

She pauses for a moment, perhaps for dramatics, and clutches Hulda even closer to her chest, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

"There's fifty-seven Ones outside and two Twos." She giggles. It sounds wrong. "We’re fucked, but we should be fine."

Victoria

Nov 1st, 2036, 7:30AM || Location: Warehouse in Soma || Mentions: Sadie and night guards[ind.]

You would think after all Victoria’s seen she would be having more nightmares, nightmares about infected finding her in her sleep, flashbacks about her father, any of the group dying. Or maybe a dream just relating to the apocalypse, like reaching Icarus, getting the cure, yadda yadda yadda. Instead, here she lies, dreaming about getting chased by a short man with an unflattering haircut yelling something about inaudible. And then the zombies come in and eat him before the dream goes silent.

Victoria awoke startled and confused as if she had momentarily forgotten where she was and was still dreaming. She had been lying on her stomach, one leg straight back and the other bent in a position that could only be described as a flamingo pose, except she was on the ground. Her arms were wrapped around his makeshift bag thing, which was really just a hoodie with the arms tied and the drawstrings pulled tight so nothing could fall out of the bottom. Her belongings were stuffed inside and she had wrapped her arms around it and rested her head on it like a pillow. The move was partially for comfort and partially to keep track of her stuff, she was still wary of some in the group, after all, they had only been together for roughly two weeks. It had gone fast, but she had only made progress with a few of them, and it wasn't in her nature to be naturally super friendly or outgoing, so it might take a while before she would be completely comfortable with them.

Carefully she pushed herself up into a sitting position and shivered, unpacking her things and lining them up to make sure she still had everything, and then untying the drawstrings of the hoodie, slipping it over her head. She kept the arms tied in case she needed to run, then all she had to do was pull the drawstrings tight and tie them back up before she would throw whatever she had back inside and run. The navy blue hoodie was cold when she put it on, but Victoria slowly warmed back up. The next things she dealt with were body aches and a headache, sleeping on the ground was not comfortable, though as time went on it would get easier. Hopefully. Until then she would wake up in pain.

She stretched a hand out to grab her small bottle of expired aspirin, cranking the cap open, and taped out a single pill. After this, she would have 4 left. Throwing her head back she dropped the pill in her mouth and reached for her water, taking care not to be loud with the crunchy plastic as she undid the cap and took a drink before swallowing the pill. Normally taking a pill would make her nauseous if she didn't have food with it, but she was saving what she had left for when she was really hungry. Of course, it was difficult, she was hungry now and rationing wasn't her strongest skill, but if she was starving later that would be on her. Taking a look around the room she focused on the Girl, Sadie. Who was looking straight at her. Victoria stuck an arm out and did a little wave in her direction before Sadie looked away. She wasn't sure what was on the girl's mind, but she wasn't looking to get on the girl's bad side by just staring at her.

It was those who had volunteered to guard that night that got her attention next, Aurora, Callan, and Finley had been up. She had nearly volunteered herself but had done it the previous night and wanted to sleep. Which didn't really end up happening. Victoria had fallen asleep, to begin with, but the rest of her sleep was broken because she had been cold, and then the floor was too hard, and then she was thirsty. In total, she maybe got 4 hours of sleep, which is still not bad but more would have been preferred.

Her head seemed to pulse from the pain of her headache and she pulled her knees up to her chest to rest her head on them. Eyes open and staring blankly into the warehouse. Now that she could clearly see, Victoria had noticed the empty metal racks lining the majority of its inside, and couldn't help wondering what the building had been used for before the apocalypse. A “Good morning, everyone” startled her, the Girl announcing it loudly made her wince. The group had been lucky enough to not have any infected wandering in last night, but she wasn't looking to have one hear that and come running now.

A part of her now itched to move and felt like staying in a place this long had been wrong. But another part of her was still tired and wanted to stay on the ground. Eventually, she decided to sit up, and took off her hoodie, packing her stuff back inside with care to make sure certain items would be easily accessible. Though she kept out her watch, which she guessed had formerly been used by a little girl. Each number was a different color of the rainbow and the hands of the watch were bright pink. So was the actual part that would go on your wrist, though it was much too small to wear. The band also had rainbow and unicorn stickers on it, but she really just kept it for the time. Of course, she had no clue if it worked, if it did the time was 7:23 am, which seemed about right. Checking the time almost seemed to calm her down, and it gave her something to do. She just liked having it on her. Carefully placing it back at the top of her bag and standing up to stretch. Victoria sighed and placed her hands on her hips, most of the group was awake, so hopefully the others would be soon, it seemed as if Callan was making sure of that, walking around the room and giving out “Good Mornings”. The sound of it was interrupted when she heard Sadie giggle and mention something about the group being fucked. Great way to start the morning.

Carswell Gordon Gray

19 years | Male | 7:33 AM | November/1/2036 Soma, San Francisco, CA; Warehouse | Mentions: Directly: Finley, Marie, Sadie | Indirectly: Chris, Alexander, Victoria

His butt was throbbing and his back was sore. The concrete radiated cold, seeping through his clothing in sharp contrast to the hot pain. The night before he had found a nook with a nice wall so that there was one less direction someone could sneak up on him. He also had a clear shot to the exit, although it could easily be blocked.

Before going to bed, he had hesitated to unstring his bow. It was the one thing that had been constant. He had been practicing on this bow for years. His family was gone, but he still had his faithful weapon, which had provided a few meals and offered proctection. He couldn’t leave it full of tension all of the time, because he would need a new bowstring in no time if it was constantly strained, but it was useless as a weapon unstrung. Could he depend on these...teamates...people to give him enough time to weaponize his stick with a string if they were attacked? He should have grabbed a compound bow on the way out of the city, because compounds were always ready to be shot, and that haven was the main contributer to weapons, so it would be much harder to find now. Even better would have been a cross bow, as you could load an arrow ahead of time. Hopefully, the familiarity of the recurve would overcome any benefits that he could have had on another bow.

His backpack was lumpy and not suitable for a pillow. However, Carswell kept it under his head mainly because he hoped that if anyone would mess with it, he would wake up. Since it kept his head off of the floor slightly, he hoped that it might discourage bugs from creeping over his face. He stirred a little trying to find a more comfortable position, but found that he had to move slower, as he was quite stiff. He had made a consious decision to move, so he began to wake up slightly. As he became aware of his senses, he also could hear people moving around. He had no idea which sound meant who was awake, but he assumed that most of the rustling were the night guards. He tried to ignore their sounds, but he kept on expecting one of them to walk over and force him to jerk out of sleep. He tried to go back to the blissful unawareness that sleep brought, but the more he worried about it, the more aware of the moment he became. However, his eyelids continued to be very heavy, and his body felt like a lump of bricks. The gnawing in his stomach was coming back, and creating another unwelcome barrier between him and sleep. Sleep had given him a momentary respite. How had he managed to go to sleep with all of this pain? His stomach felt shriveled as he felt the fire spreading and making his limbs shaky.

He began to think over what he would need to do today, so he could be efficient: find food, keep up with the others, avoid things that would kill him. He should also keep an eye out for his brother. He was the only person in the world that he didn't have a constant fear of him trying to kill him.

His stomach sank as constant fear of someone trying to kill him reminded him of the weird creature Sadie. He still wasn't certain if he believed them when they said she wasn't an unranked mutant. Did she really look alive to everyone? It was hilarious that she was what held this group together. What if they had called her hope, because she was the only thing these people had left? He became more unwilling to open his eyes, although he still wasn't sure if he could trust them not to slit his throat or steal from his pack. It was amazing he had managed to go to sleep. At least no one knew each other, so there was a lot less chance of them banding together.

His stomach began to tighten, and he could feel himself beginning to wake up. Nope. Don’t think about that. He didn’t need to at this moment. He could deal with it once he was awake. He shouldn’t mess up his sleep worrying about something he couldn’t actively work on at the moment. He was busy. He was occupied. If he found food, he would find food, but thinking about it wasn’t going to change anything. With his luck he should give up on his brother. He had barely made it out without encountering anyone infected. It was highly unlikely his brother had managed it as well. How would he expect to find him if he didn’t hang around here? He would just have to get used to the strange creature. If he was planning on tagging along until they got to the last sanctuary, then he would have to figure out how to deal with her.

His mind drifted more pleasantly in the half asleep world. Fin the man (pronounced min) he laughed in his mind. It had been one of the ways he had associated that name, so he would have an easier time remembering them. There had been a few times he had almost blurted it out instead of the name. He was glad he didn’t have to use that memory trick anymore. He also used Finley the fish. He liked fish. They would be very welcome in his stomach to ease the gnawing, or perhaps they would be hungry also and add to the gnawing and just fill it some.

There was call on Callan. Alexander the great. It might sound a little mocking but the one from history was supposed to be really smart and led his army consistently to victory. Carswell wouldn’t mind being on a winning side, which lead to Victoria. How Victoria was victorious he wasn’t sure, but that was what he had her name associated with. Ms. Aurora Solus’ names reminded him of the sun, but her demeanor was the opposite of sunshine. Since she was taller than him, like everyone was, he had a hard time remembering how young she was.

Marie was one of the later ones, so he found her easier to remember since it wasn’t quite all at once. Somewhere he had learned that the name Mara (which seemed similar to Marie) meant bitterness. That wasn't a surprising quality for someone in this situation. Chris Kennedy he kinda had him associated with Christopher Robin and Kennedy, who was assassinated. And of course sad die Sadie the only person in the group shorter than he was. That was easy enough to remember. For some reason it was hard to forget her name after he had thought she was going to try to eat him alive. He had a sinking feeling that she was going to grow taller than him out of spite, because she had plenty of orneriness. From what he had gotten in the short time of knowing her, she was young enough where she might theoretically still be able to grow upward.

Carswell was awake, as soon as Finley’s hand touched his shoulder. Very much like the teenager he was, he was trying to get as much sleep as possible, so he waited until someone came to wake him up. However, he pretended to slowly open his eyes and blink sleepily. Feeling slightly alarmed to have essentially a stranger looming over him, he shoved the feeling away. “Oh. Thanks,” he yawned, probably giving Finley a nice dose of his morning breath. He lay there for a moment letting as much of reality as he was willing to sink in. Slightly turning his head, he watched the other night watchers move around to wake people up. He became more aware of the cool weather, and slid on his leather coat, while he let his raincoat remain over his legs. While he had been super tired and sleepy, he had been unwilling to do anything, because it might make him wake up. His stomach wasn’t hurting as badly right now. Suddenly, he felt himself snap awake, and he struggled to an upright sitting position. He began to stretch out his limbs, stiff from remaining in one area.

Peering around, he dug around in his bag for his water bottle and carefully let himself have a small sip to rinse out the taste in his mouth. The bacteria in his mouth must be as hungry as he was. He didn’t eat often enough to provide them with nutrients. What did it feel like to be hungry if you were a single celled organism? Keeping one eye on everyone else, he checked that everything was in order, so he would be ready to move out. He wiggled his toes inside his socks inside his boots glad that he had those. It was hard to keep track of small articles of clothing like that, but they were keeping his feet from being icebergs.

Startled at a voice coming from somewhere, he nodded and smiled at Marie. He didn’t quite feel like speaking, but he wasn’t going to ignore her.

Feeling slightly guilty he forced his hoarse voice to vocalize, “Good morning. And you?”

He stared over at Chris, realizing he was braving Sadie. Why? He supposed it would be overreacting to wake her up from a distance using the electric collar. On one hand he wanted to avoid watching anything that happened over there, however, he deemed that it would be wise to keep an eye on how Sadie dealt with being awakened. Where was their estimable leader? He should be prepared with his finger hovering over the shocking collar button. Carswell tried to shake the dazedness out of him. Use your brain! Get up! He wanted to be facing a pissed off Sadie standing. (Not that it would make much difference for him.) He almost stared at her when she said good morning to everyone. She was full of surprises.

Sadie’s verbal abuse was something he automatically smiled and bore. “Your insults are quite colorful Girl, but they’re lacking creativity.” Why would he encourage her he couldn’t imagine! Why was his brain saying that without his permission? He didn’t directly face her not wanting to encourage a direct confrontation, but he was able to view her movements in his peripheral vision. Sadie was one of the few people that he worried whether she liked him or not. He had no idea how you got into her good books, and he wasn’t planning on trying very hard. He hoped he could remain out of her first choice to eat, but that was about as far as his goals went.

He muttered to himself that it seemed dubious that any exercise they accomplished for the day would challenge Sadie’s legs. She had a manic energy that never seemed to abate. Nobody was supposed to hear him. Now that he had everything packed and ready, he began looking around for Alexander. For a moment he stared outside wondering what time it was. He tried to guess, but he found that he didn't care to make an educated guess. It really didn't matter anymore. He had no specific plans and he was due nowhere at a certain time.

It only mattered that they used daylight hours wisely. His attention was drawn back to Sadie. This time he instinctively looked at her face unsure if she was chattering or telling the truth, and hoping he would divine the truth from her face. Could she sense something the rest of them couldn't? He had been hoping that he could travel with his bow in his backpack, but he moved efficiently using a few extra movements to string his bow with long practiced ease. He kept his larger pocket knives in sheaths in his fanny pack. He rolled his head around his shoulders trying to rid himself of the last few aches and pains, but soon realized it would be much easier if he started walking.

His voice lightly innocent, he smiled at Sadie, "Why don't you eat them? A nice meal for you, and then the rest of us will definitely be fine."

He wasn’t sure if her abilities extended that far, but it would be nice to know for future reference. He would be glad to be out of here. Unless it rained, he didn't really care for this as a shelter. It had too many hidey holes and crannies where anything could lurk. There also weren't an abundance of exits, making him feel more tense if they were cornered by Walkers, trapped by traitorous travelers, or hunted by Sadie. After watching her tear into her food, he was reminded that no one was safe around her. It made it easier not to treat her like a normal human. Looking at her should have been enough, but every now and then she could do something humanish, that made him remember she was a young girl. How far would they want to get from here? Would they only hunt if they saw something worth trying for, or would they take some time specifically to scavenge for something edible?

He remembered the time he had tried to eat grass. It hadn't worked well, and he didn't think he had gotten any nutrients out of it. However, at least he had had something in his stomach to give his acid something to eat besides his lining.

He stole a glance toward Marie. He was pretty sure it was her who had woken up gasping. Since there was no trust between them, he felt that it would be unwise to make more personal inquiries. She might see it as him wanting to try to find her weakness. Part of his social abilities was knowing when to not bother someone.

If they didn't start leaving soon, he might try to go back to sleep.

“Are we ready to go?” he asked no one in particular.

Even though they were pretty much all up, nobody looked like they had gotten enough sleep.

Aurora Solus | 16 | Female | Nov 1st, 2036. 7:30AM | M: Alex, Sadie(ind.)

Aurora Solus’s mind was like a flurry of rushing thoughts and emotions. Her feelings were like pulling a lever. One moment it was one way- inactive and nothing more than a material, but when it was pulled, that was when the excitement happened. But in Aurora’s case, the rush that went through her when that lever was pulled was her social anxiety and the unfightable urge to pull away from everybody that came near her. Making physical contact with even one person for little more than a single second for Aurora was like asking a baby to run a marathon. Impossible. If only the girl was as good at handling her social anxiety as she was fighting zombies. That would be nothing short of an accomplishment for her.

When Aurora was aware that the rest of the group was up, she was on her feet almost immediately. The sixteen-year-old girl could hear a raspy, gravelly voice which she automatically recognized as Sadie’s screaming out insults at some unlucky individual. Aurora laughed a little bit at that, covering her smile with her hand. Her laugh was high-pitched and almost sounded like a child’s, but Aurora’s happiness was extremely short-lived as she took in her surroundings. Her bright blue eyes which used to look like a cloudless sky on a sunny day but now appeared as a dull gray flitted around from place to place, noticing everything that was going on around them. Aurora fidgeted with the ends of her hair, twirling and twisting it in order to express her extreme and absurd amount of anxiety that she was experiencing. She began to bite her dry lips, making them bleed which caused blood to trickle down her chin. To Aurora, people were worse than zombies.

Aurora was only with the group for her own survival, really. Nothing else mattered but that, though some could argue that getting Sadie to Icarus was of some priority as well. Actually, to Aurora, nothing would make her happier than to see the world drown in blood, destroyed by the ones who’d formerly enslaved it and bended it to their will. Humanity had gotten the punishment that they deserved for all of the shitty things that they had done, turned into a race of mindless freaks that think of nothing but how to obtain themselves a surfeit of human flesh to take the edge off of their hunger. Why Aurora hated the world so much was not only a mystery to her, but also to those around her. But, she didn’t want to lie. She didn’t want to pretend that she cared about it. Because she didn’t.

What if another nation’s military force came and wiped zombies off the face of the earth single handedly with exceptional weapons and outstanding gear? Or, maybe when the group reached Icarus, they’d find it like they did Daedalus. In absolute ruins. Aurora giggled, her thoughts going astray from reality. That was until she was snapped back to it when she was alerted that the group was getting ready to leave. She heard Sadie mention something about there being around sixty zombies outside of the warehouse, which was an amount that Aurora didn’t even want to imagine fighting on her own. Of course, she didn’t have to, because the girl knew that if they were forced to fight the horde then she’d have help from her comrades. But, Ones and Twos were sluggish in the day, so that likely wouldn’t end up happening. Aurora heaved herself to her feet, double-checking to make sure that her backpack had everything in its place before strapping it onto her back. The first step that Aurora took forward as her foot came down on the hard concrete floor of the warehouse hurt. The teenager’s feet had been aching for countless nights, and now the pain had gotten worse. Of course, she wasn’t going to show that. No, otherwise her group would think that she was weak. And she wanted to be thought of as anything but weak. In Aurora’s mind, weak people had no place in this shitshow of a world. Only the strong made it out alive with their minds in check.

Aurora took more steps forward, her feet feeling heavy with exhaustion, her eyes half-closed, and her mind barely awake. She let out a yawn, her mouth opening wide. Aurora looked around the dark, open warehouse, her eyes wandering almost as much as her mind. She was careful not to bump into anybody or to trample over any of their stuff. Occasionally Aurora stared down one of many of the warehouse’s countless isles, wondering what lay in the darkness beyond where the group was at.

The girl had almost forgotten, but Aurora was planning on asking Alex where the group was going to go next. Again, she thought that loot was the best option, but heading straight to I-80 might’ve been Alex’s idea. If so, Aurora wouldn’t protest. Not when the rest of the group would probably side with their leader and Aurora’s reputation was being put in danger of getting shattered as easily and quickly as glass. The teenager had trouble finding him at first due to the dimness of the warehouse, but soon she was able to make out the man’s tall figure as clear as day.

Aurora walked up to the group’s leader, her steps slow and hesitant. What if talking to him went wrong, or, Aurora messed up? She couldn’t get any of those thoughts out of her head, they were harder to do than speak a foreign language. Not that Aurora knew how to speak any language but english. “H-h-hi,” Aurora said in a voice that was almost like a whisper. She made no eye contact with Alex when she approached him, instead staring at her feet on the cold, hard ground. “I-I was wondering where we’re going to be heading when we leave th-the warehouse. Are we heading southeast for loot, or, east straight to I-80?”

S A D I E

7:35-7:40 AM (7:35-7:40 MT) | 11/01/2036
Soma, San Francisco, CA; Warehouse
Direct Mentions: Callan, Carswell
Brief Mentions: Aurora, Alexander
Indirect Mentions: Finley, Victoria, Marie

________________________________

To think that Sadie had been certain her mood had improved! Oh, what a shame; she was sure she was past the point of naivety, of believing that creatures like her are given the privilege of good things. She learned a long time ago, in the hardest way possible, that she will never know relief—only its lying counterpart. Still, it’s disappointing. Her shitty start to the day (go to HELL, Chris!) had brought about an equally shittier mood, but one that had just begun to level off to something more manageable… then the little anus of a human being came along, casually existing and screwing her over.

Admittedly, she’s in one of her Carswell-Deserves-to-Die moods. How could she not be? First, he insults her choice of language (she is very creative, not just colorful, go fuck yourself… And her name is Sadie), then goes on to prove his lack of brain cells by saying, "Why don't you eat them? A nice meal for you, and then the rest of us will definitely be fine."

Idiot.

Her stomach would explode. If she was to eat them all, she'd die. Unless that's what he wants, like the fucker he is. She has to get to Icarus first, dammit, and she'd rather happily split his skull open and rewire all his neurons into ordering every vital organ to cha-cha real smooth into the thirteenth circle of hell than let him decide her mortality. And then there's the fact that even if her intestines were superior at metabolizing copious amounts of flesh, she doesn't eat zombies. They taste disgusting. Worse than that apple she tried to shove down her throat after she "turned" during the first few days she spent wandering around starving like hell. And, ohohohoho, that "then the rest of us will definitely be fine"? Yeah, you definition of turd, "the rest of us"—not including you.

God, why is she even entertaining his dumbassery? She already knows he's a load of moronocy. He's stupid whacked into a singular pile of idiotic cells. Shitface. How dare he have a place on this hell of a universe. How dare he be some sick knockoff of Char—

Sadie stops thinking.

And then proceeds to completely ignore Carswell. As he deserves.

Because he's a fucking—

"Who are you talking to?" Callan asks. Sadie almost says that she's talking to Hulda and that she'll tell it very, very soon just how badly she wants to make both the Shittier C (Chris, obviously) and the Shittiest C (Carswell. Who else?) her first meal in infinity, but the Shitty C (Callan. Her nicknames are astounding) cuts her off before she gets the chance. "It's not a crime to make eye-contact when you talk, you know."

She knows. She'll never humor him, though. He can go gouge his own eyes out before he can get her to look his way, especially now that she thinks he has a problem with her not looking at him. She'll totally never make eye-contact with him just for the sake of pissing him off. Totally. One hundred percent. That's definitely the case, the only reason. No other reason behind her avoiding eye-contact with everyone at all times. It's just to make them all pissed. Yep.

(The scientists hated it when she met their eyes. Hated. They hated looking at her eyes.

"Take them out," one of them said once. He was pacing, heart racing, breath shaking.

A scalpel poked her lungs. Ouch.

"Take them out, take them out, take them out."

Gentle words did not calm him.

"Take them out!"

Firm commands did not calm him.

"I can't do it."

Someone was crying.

"I can't fucking do it. It keeps looking at me. It keeps looking at me—"

A bullet calmed him.)

Sadie wishes she could stop thinking. But that can only be achieved in death. She can't die yet. She has to get to Icarus. She—

Callan is closer to her than he has any right to be.

Her body freezes, muscles seizing, every fiber of her being going taut and tight. She can't help it. He shouldn't be so close. He should leave. He needs to back off now. Sadie will make him. Sadie should not have been so close. Sadie has made a mistake. Sadie had thought he would move away. Sadie was wrong. Sadie had thought he would leave. Sadie was wrong. Sadie had thought he would be uncomfortable by her proximity and go somewhere else. Somewhere far from her. She was wrong. Sadie was wrong. Sadie is not moving. Sadie should move. Sadie cannot move. Sadie can only hug Hulda tight to her chest. She cannot do anything else. She cannot react. Girl cannot do anything. Girl is not permitted to do anything. He needs to go. He needs to go. He needs to go. He—

"And, kid…," he is daring to say. The valves of his heart open and close in perfect, ordered synchrony. His pulse is faster than everyone else's. Thump, thump, thump—his heart thinks it can live outside his chest. He's afraid. She can hear it, smell it, feel it.

So why is he drawing nearer? Why are his footsteps getting louder? Why is he letting his scent fill her senses? He knows what she is. He knows what he can be to her. Everyone does. Will she need to snap off that hand he's lifting to her head for him to understand his -1000 IQ? Will she need to show him that intestines move like eels when hung from a rack? Will she need to make him bleed? Will she need to smile so wide that she swallows everything he is, was, and ever will be right down her throat? Will she need to kill—

Callan presses two fingers to her head. (Why does she lean into his touch?)

No one touches Girl. Not on purpose. Not like this.

(She must look pretty shooketh right now. Hopefully, Shitty C doesn't notice.)

"C'mon, ghostie—" his voice sounds far away, hardly clear enough; she has to strain her mind to hear, to process, to be able to think, albeit distantly, My name is Sadie, shitlips— "you know better than to be loud. They target you, too, you know; don't be reckless."

Asshole C-name #1 thinks that he's her dad, it seems. Dumby. Like he’ll ever be. Sadie's father was a stereotypical Asian eagle dad who turned everything he touched into a mentally ill nerd—the complete opposite of Callan. And she doesn't need a father. She's perfectly (not) fine on her own.

If they keep this baloney up, all three of the Shit Cs™ will end up as her first meal…

"Besides, you can defend yourself just fine, can't you?"

A part of her, strangely, feels… warm at his words. Another part of her wants to eat him. Another part is tense as a pile of rotten maggots and wants to jump to the moon. The second part is more digestible (hah) and makes more sense, so she decides that that is the only thing she wants. But Sadie can't move, so she only smiles up at him.

"So long as you survive, it isn't a problem,” he goes on.

What the hell is that even supposed to mean? Sadie sure as hell doesn’t know. All she knows is to morph her smile into a bright grin.

"If you try to scare the people around you with shit like that, it'll never work."

Some corner of her mind not drowning in an emotion she will never acknowledge thinks that maybe if he stares really long, really hard at her face, he might find something that gives a fuck.

Callan finally backs away.

Sadie can breathe now.

And what a big step that was, too. He was eager to get away. Look at him, slipping the hand he touched her with into his pocket like he can't handle the thought of looking at something that came into contact with her. And just… look at him, looking all cool and unaffected, and she would have been convinced of his No Shits Given Energy had he not been radiating with the stink of fear.

He was frightened, daunted, afraid of her (what else would he be scared of?), and then approached her and touched her and spoke with her in a kind of voice she did not deserve.

…Sadie doesn't understand.

Luckily, she doesn’t get the opportunity to try to understand, because Callan proceeds to thwack her neurons back into doing their jobs when he boldly declares, "Treasure Island is a novel, not a real place. If you know how to read, you’ll probably get to see it, sometime."

One, she is more than certain that Treasure Island is a place. Johnson never lied. If he said that Treasure Island was a home to bitches and it’s on the I-80, then Treasure Island was a home to bitches and it’s on the I-80. It is there. She knows it is. Why would Johnson talk so… passionately… about a place that doesn’t exist? And why is there a novel called “Treasure Island—” Doesn’t matter. Sadie’s more focused on the fact that Shitty C just implied that she doesn’t know how to read (or that he’s unsure she knows how to read, which is probably the case, but… same thing, same thing. She’ll find a nonexistent meaning just to get offended). She can read, thank you very much. She may have been called stupid for 99% of her time in this hell, but she isn’t illiterate. She had two dictionaries back in Daedalus; the sheer amount of language stuffed in the useless pile of mush inside her skull is so dumbfounding that it’s confounding.

She’s not gonna let this ignorance continue to bloom right in her face. Nah, nah, nah. She’s gonna tell him. She’s gonna open her mouth and blast his acumen into a black hole. She takes a deep breath—

“Are we ready to go?” Mr. Shittiest C asks. To absolutely nothing, she adds. Psychopath.

Sadie will gut him.

Their Glorious Leader (she steals a glance at him. He’s drowning in shadow, thinking he’s some sort of Batman) finally makes himself known. “Fifty-nine zombies, is it?” Technically a couple hundred, but there’s only fifty-nine closest to them. “Everyone, make sure you’re alert and quick on your feet.” Each word is delivered in an impassive drawl. Emo fuckface… “We’ll move out in five minutes.”

WHAT.

Nuuuuuuuuu, Sadie needs more time— Dammit, she wanted more time. She wants to stretch her legs, to hop around, to drown in mold, to question the cosmos. And the rest of them don’t even look ready! Finley’s out doing Finley things, so he’s not ready. Victoria is… existing, so she’s not ready. Callan is a Shitty C, so Sadie doesn’t care what he does. Carswell deserves to die. Christopher needs to be fed a knife. Marie doesn’t ever look ready. And Aurora…

…is approaching their Glorious Leader (she should really just start calling him Stalin at this point), which is honestly a surprise. Aurora doesn’t ever approach anyone. She doesn’t even seem to like people even though she’s a person herself. Prolly ‘cause she’s got a screw loose up there. How does Sadie know? ‘Cause she’s got ten screws loose.

Or maybe Sadie’s just being mean. Eh.

“H-h-hi,” the other girl says. If it weren’t for Sadie’s 10/10 ears, the weak breeze in this musty warehouse would’ve swept that word away. “I-I was wondering where we’re going to be heading when we leave th-the warehouse.” What’s with her staring at the ground? Is she incapable of looking people in the eye? What a coward, Sadie thinks, ignoring how much of a hypocrite she herself is. “Are we heading southeast for loot,” Aurora continues, “or east straight to I-80?”

Huh. Maybe Sadie’s just socially inept, but aren’t you not supposed to question the leader? You’re just supposed to let him make all the decisions, right? Emilia considered the ones who couldn’t keep their damn mouths shut to be problems—and problems went to a hungry Girl. Why is Alexander even letting the chick approach? Why didn’t he shut her up three seconds after she greeted him so lamely? Why—

Ugh, it doesn’t matter. This is human stuff. Sadie doesn’t have a place here. She’ll keep to herself and to Hulda. She does hope, though, that their Glorious Leader makes for the I-80 as soon as possible. The very much existent Treasure Island should have the loot they need. It would be a waste of time to trek all the way down to the southeast, get some worthless shit, go all the way back, and go on the I-80 only to find another place to loot. Besides, even if Treasure Island doesn’t exist, there should be something on the other side of the interstate—the impending doom of inevitable death, of course! Among other goodies, obviously.

Sadie casts one last look at Callan, narrowing her eye, then lackadaisically makes her way to Alexander. She keeps her distance, standing farther than usual from them all. Hulda's fur tickles her neck comfortingly.

She waits.