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Eric yawned sitting up in his cot. The tattered blanket he used slipped from his bare chest and pooled in his lap. Rolling his shoulders to loosen the tension in them he swung his legs over the side of the cot and let the cold of the floor soak into the bottom of his feet and chase the remainder of the nights sleep from his brain. It was his night to watch the wall. Well, not all of it, he knew that every night a group of townsfolk would climb the walls of sacrifice and patrol the perimeter watching for the vampires, or the 'cured' now a word that was spoken with hatred rather than hope. It just made him feel important saying it the other way. That thought made him chuckle and he stood letting the blanket fall to the floor. Someone else would be needing it soon enough but Eric always seemed to forget that he shared his cot with half the population of Sacrifice.

He supposed that he should petition for his own dwelling but he just never got around to it. Most days there was scrounging to be done. And when he wasn't doing that, well, there was always something in town that needed fixing. A malfunctioning generator usually; and here Eric smiled as he propelled himself toward the long pole erected to hang from one end of the communal dwelling to the other. It was the pride of the carpenters and had taken nearly a week to fashion with their rough tools. He pulled a red shirt hanging from the rod down and shrugged himself into it before sitting on the wood floor to put on his boots. The floor was worn smooth from countless shuffling and dragging of tired feet. Eric could see some of those feet now, peeking from similar threadbare blankets scattered throughout the population of cots and bunk beds that took up the entirety of the other side of the dwelling. However, it was for the most part deserted.

Eric Tied his work boots and grabbed his tool belt before standing and clipping it to his waist. Some of his tools had been rearranged while he slept. He didn't mind the curiosity of strangers but he did a quick inventory anyhow. Satisfied that nothing was missing he pulled out his goggles from the inside of the breast pocket of his shirt and put them on, shoving them to the top of his head. He smoothed the collar of his shirt down, thanking his lucky stars the day the scroungers had found the cavern that it had come out of. They had been exploring some collapsed ruins several miles from Sacrifice, looking for usable lumber. If it could be found they would come back with the supplies and manpower to get it home. That would require two trips by itself. This only required one. A scroungers motto was always: "Safety first!" Or something rather crude among themselves. Now, just as they were going to call it quits that Eric had spotted a sinkhole (he fell into it but wasn't about to admit that) and inside was piles of dusty clothes in various states of decay laying scattered among debris. Air for the most part hadn't been allowed in so some was quite usable. They grabbed what they could but it was getting late so they had to grab what they could and go. This shirt was among the scraps they had recovered and he was very proud of it. Even if the buttons were gone and the pocket was sewn on there by someone else in the village.

They could never scrounge at night so they could only travel so far before they had to hurry back to the settlement. Sometimes when they returned the next day what they had been scrounging was missing, or more often ruined. They had learned that by soaking things in a crude solution of water and minced garlic the smell was enough to ward away most intruders. That just wasn't always practical. If they just left the plant itself it was usually eaten by the surrounding wildlife which for the most part found it oddly tasty. He didn't know why the vampires were taking their things but it was happening more often. He even saw an increased appearance at the wall. Whenever they happened near the settlement, which never seemed that often before (and hardly seemed to be a problem now as far as he was concerned) he would simply follow procedure. The walls, to high and sheer for them to climb and to thick to break, left them virtually helpless and in the open. And then it was as easy as flicking a switch to dispatch them. UV searchlights made this possible positioned every few feet along the wall and hooked up to their own battery. Though those had to be charged. In which case someone was always positioned there to ensure that the gap didn't give them some kind of advantage. In the extremely rare occurrence that it was one of the cured, A bullet would suffice.

Eric left the dwelling and headed to the wall just as the sun was setting, filling the sky with brilliant hues of golden red, and purple. He climbed the ladder to the top of the wall and relieved a man who's name he failed to remember from his post. It was hard to remember someones name when the only contact you ever had with them was a nod he guessed. Stretching once more he popped his back and began pacing his section. All the while muttering to himself, "There are no humans outside the gate after dark, there are no humans outside the gate after dark." This was the rhetoric he had been taught as a child, and like everyone else, had become immune to the the occasional vampire killing. He still liked to distance himself though, and the words helped. Sighing he spoke to himself as he walked keeping a watchful eye on the land outside as the shadows lengthened with the fading of the suns rays. "It's going to be a looong night." He intoned, to no one in particular.

(O.O.C.) Feel free to join. setting and bios, as well as all further OOC chatter there!

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A dark smudge in a world filled with light.

It wasn't often that Corbin wondered why the people of Sacrifice put up with him, but when he did wonder, it started guilt burning in a spot just behind his sternum. He would have considered his heart the source of the emotion, but his father had called that a "misguided and fuzzy way of thinking". To Corbin, after years of quizzing, the heart was just a muscle situated in the left side of the chest that pumped blood to the rest of the body.

Corbin realized that it was getting dark, and that he had been reading the same page of his book for the third time. He closed it and leaned back into He rubbed his eyes and laughed weakly as that sickening feeling throbbed in his chest. So it was going to be one of those nights. Not that it really mattered if he could sleep. He had enough food left to last him a few days yet - longer if he really couldn't stand to face the people of Sacrifice and he could ignore the hunger pangs.

Corbin knew what they thought of him. He was an utter disappointment - an immature boy grown into a childish, inept man - who didn't deserve the leftovers from his father's good reputation. The private house his parents had left behind, small and sparsely furnished though it was, was a luxury that at least half the population didn't have and that Sacrifice couldn't afford. Most of the other houses that he knew of were fitted with locks on the doors and provided more private homes - for people who've earned it, his mind added.

In another brief bout of guilt months before, Corbin had tried to go the group home route, but he had barely been able to tolerate the workman's presence for as long as it took to build the first lock. Corbin had watched, though, and since then, he'd finished building the others himself - one on the door of every room that someone could use to live in. Just in case one day he stopped being chicken-shit for long enough to open his house to whoever the Housing Committee would place there.

Corbin groaned and stood, dropping the book on the table beside his chair as he stood. The table creaked loudly and one leg gave out, sending it toppling awkwardly onto the floor and taking his book with it. Corbin stared at it for a moment. He decided it he'd better ignore it and get to that room before he lost his nerve. He turned away from the fallen table and walked briskly out of the living room and down the hall to the room that had been his father's study.

In another lifetime, this room would have been his private sanctuary. The walls of the small room were lined with shelves, each one stacked with books, notebooks, and binders packed with hundreds of looseleaf papers.

The books were all fiction - mysteries, fantasy, science fiction, even a few that mirrored everyday life the way people had lived it before the first outbreak. Corbin had often wondered where his father had gotten them all, and why. Science, history, mechanics, and mathematics books were all prized - tomes of knowledge that could be learned and applied - but very few people had the time to read books for pleasure. Not even students - they had to spend time on their studies, or their lectures, or their apprenticeshps - they had to become productive members of the settlement, after all.

If it had been just the books Corbin would have been just fine ignoring them the way his mother had, except for in the brief moments they prompted his pleasant memories. But it was the notebooks and binders that drew him here whenever he felt guilty. They were evidence of his father's own guilt - pages and pages dedicated to handwritten notes on the Cured, their temperaments, their adaptations, their mental capacity, as well as utopian speculations about how humans and Cured could live side by side.

Corbin ran his fingers across a long stretch of battered binders before choosing one. He opened it, flipped through the well-read pages until he reached the section he was looking for - a few scattered articles on the original vampires, though they didn't have much information, as well as detailed notes from when there had still been Cured under observation in the laboratories. Corbin's father had tried and failed again and again to find a definite difference between those who were really helped by the vaccine, and those who became Cured. Even until the day he disappeared, the answer had eluded him.

Corbin turned to the dog-eared page that held the passage he reread every time the mood moved him: I only wish there was a way to access Neville's data on these creatures, his father had written. Perhaps then we would know at least whether the vaccine was ineffective due to some mistake of our own replication process or to natural causes. If the scientists had these notes, they might have tried to do something about it - they seemed to regard Corbin's father highly enough - but Corbin doubted it. Surely the idea had occurred to them. The rest of the notes they would have no interest in. Nearly everyone in Sacrifice had been touched by the violence that seemed inherent in the vampires. No one would want to live side-by-side with them, least of all with any of the appalling compromises Corbin's father had suggested.

Corbin wasn't sure whether all this soothed his conscience because he felt like he might be remotely capable of doing something useful, or because it reminded that his father had ultimately been a failure, too.

If I could just get my hands on a cadaver at the very least... Corbin mused. But all the dissections in the world wouldn't help him find what caused the partial reactions to the vaccine. For that, he'd need live specimens, a lab where he could observe, test - some idea of what he was supposed to do couldn't hurt, either. Maybe he shouldn't have given up his apprenticeship after that first animal test.

He chuckled at his own morbid, futile train of thought, shaking his head. When he started thinking like that, he always assumed that it was time to stop thinking. He needed to get out tomorrow, sun or no sun.

He closed the binder and went to bed.

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--Rowe

Maple looked at the sky. It was dark with the moon hanging over it, pale and silver. There she sat on a stomp in the woods nearby Sacrifice, stroking her thick brown hair that draped over her t-shirt, pulling her fingers though it. She could only think about the daring deeds destiny would make her do. How she could never stand being in the constraints of the town, even though she is reminded that the vampires are out here looking for fresh blood.

The night was beautiful, the only time she felt free. That moon was pale and silver, and it was the sign of her dreams, always like that. How this evening would always seem to sooth her, unlike the harsh sun of the day making her feel hot, dry, and horrible. She had a feeling that everyone like, almost loved the sun, but ever since childhood it bothered her deeply.

She stood up, padding down her faded jeans with a smile as she walked in the direction of the city. Indeed she was bored, but maybe there was something in town that she could occupy herself with. She could never understand why everyone feared the night, for she could never feel more free. She also laughed at the policy of people not being allowed outside the city walls past sunset. Shame more people couldn't experience this feeling, for they were too afraid of the dark and what it could have lurking within it.

She finally made her way near the city gate, looking up at a guard at the gate, whom was looking onward for intruders. He wasn't a bad looking person either.

"Hiya!" she called out, "Beautiful night, ain't it?"

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Silivalne
Cromine

Those two need your clicks

Interest check for weird roleplay idea! Please look!

Vincent leaned back in his chair, the wheels squeaking beneath him as he did so. Staring up at the cieling, he watched a spider lazily trudge across the cieling and into a crack. Focusing back down at his computer, he typed another line of code for a theoretical cure, checking the percentage chance that it would even work. "Of course it's less than 2%", he thought to himself."When do any of my ideas work?"

Standing, he took one final look around his room as he scratched his head,marveling the boringness of it all. His little "bat cave" as his grandfather used to call it, was nothing more than a single bedroom apartment with a dozen of the old world's posters. He had been lucky and inherited his own room from his family, not being forced to live in cots. However, the arrangement of the room looked like he shared it with a group of crazed ITs with no manners. A person's first assumptions would probably be right.. The cieling light was a black UV light to prevent any burnings if he took photos, and the floor was littered with everything from clothes to sandwich wrappers. His computer took the bulk of the room, a behemoth sized tower with a crisp LCD screen. On the wall behind it was Vincent's favorite piece of hardware, the laptop he had built himself last month.

Walking over to it, he grabbed the side bag from his desk and quickly slipped the laptop into the holster, adding in some research papers as he went. Tonight he would have to do the responsible thing and watch the wall with the others, something he was not privy to. Setting the book bag down as he went, he realized that he had forgotten to get The Coat, as he had come to know it.

Opening the closet door, he pulled out the old aviator's jacket, covered in patches of all types. This thing still smelled like cigarsafter all these years, which made him smile sadly. Throwing it on, he grabbed his bookbag once more and walked down the cramped hallway of his apartment complex and out into the moonlight.

Heading to a wall, he gently gripped the steel rungs that jutted directly from the concrete and climbed up it, double checking that his revolver was still at his side. As he reached the top spoke, he felt someone's hand help him up, then pat him on the back and leave. Looking around at the structure, he saw in the distance the man who had originally been assigned for the position.

"Great... He gets the job and some pay for it, and I get to do it for free." Sighing, he put his hands behind his head and leaned against a small concrete post atop the wall, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes as he grabbed his large headphines, slipping them on and turning on the old MP3 player, ignoring the world around him.

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( -.- Don't tell me the first Advanced RP I decide to do has gone dead.)

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Eric paced up and down his section of the wall. Thinking. The watchmen were spaced every few feet apart But still far enough away from each other that at times a person could feel a little isolated. Eric didn't mind this, other people could become intimidated in the darkness though. In all actuality he relished the chance to sort his thoughts. It was quiet at the wall and standing watch was one of the only jobs in Sacrifice that didn't require you to pay attention completely to what you were doing. Just then he hadn't been thinking of anything in particular, just tracing faces in the stone underfoot. Often during these nights he imagined that he could see, forever etched in stone, the visages of those who's blood, sweat, and tears had served to construct such a brazen defiance of the night. Now his eyes merely wandered from one familiar line to the next as his brain leaped similarly from topic to topic.

His parents, both very much products of Sacrifice, felt that in their opinions, anything that didn't immediately benefit the colony was better left alone. They loved him well enough but they told him he dreamt to much anyhow. They just couldn't understand why he kept going from project to project. Whenever these accusations arose he merely ignored them and changed the subject. His head firmly in the clouds. Eric would visit them tomorrow. After all, he didn't have anything else planned. Rest days always followed night-watch (which was about the only benefit to taking this shit job) unless you were actually one of those people being paid to do it.

Looking at the night sky Eric yawned and watched for the first hint of pink to appear on the horizon. It was still late so rather than loose himself in boredom, Eric contemplated. He knew that water was scarce in Sacrifice and had to be rationed. The plumbing laid down by their ancestors, for the most part, was functional. The plants that pumped and purified the water was not. He could remember as a little boy, rising with the other school children to check the collection vats. If they had filled with enough dew, or rain from the night before, it was their job to get an adult who could transfer the precious stuff to storage. A water tower in the middle of town. If not, they would play tag or other games. Well, they would play, and Eric, who had never formed any of the bonds that were usually associated with living in such small communities, would pore over technical manuals borrowed from the library. When he grew up and began scrounging he started a meager collection of his own. One such diagram he had, laid out exactly how to produce a well.

What seemed almost common place to his ancestors looked to Eric like an insurmountable task. He had to find an aquifer, dig at least a 3 meter hole to it, line the whole thing with concrete, and fit it with a pump so that water wouldn't have to be drawn with a bucket. not to mention the purification process. A well that size would serve, at maximum capacity, the needs of 150 people. If he could produce two, the growing population of Sacrifice would have fresh water for quite some time. Ideally, Eric wanted to get the old plants running again. Then they would have to rename the town Paradise instead of it's current moniker. That thought made him chuckle but he was soon wrested out of his reverie by a sound coming from the other side of the wall. Peering into the darkness below he could just make out the shape of a person looking up at him.

With a quick curse he flicked the switch on his searchlight flooding the ground, and what turned out to be a woman wearing a green t-shirt, with the bright blue hues of the UV lamp. It had taken awhile for him to hear her, but he recognised her from town and had seen others letting her inside the gates as he went about his business. He sighed in relief, expecting a cured. Instead he got to wonder how she continually managed to find herself outside after nightfall. Privately it amused him, though she wouldn't have been able to tell from his tone of voice as he called down to her. "You know, it's dangerous out there." He said this as he made a quick scan of the area and turned the light off. Looking at the sky again he saw the beginnings of sunrise. His shift would be over soon and then he would have to escort the girl to the Oberon house. As one of the original scientists to produce the cure, Dr. Oberon was the only person in Sacrifice with the equipment to test for traces of the disease. Presumably his son knew how to use it all because otherwise the girl would have been left to fend for herself. The townsfolk weren't going to repeat the mistakes of the past.

He'd take care of it when the time came, he thought. Until then, he really would enjoy the company, however little he let onto the fact. But true to his nature, he probably came off a little brusque as the only thing he could think of to say was, "Your lucky I didn't mistake you for one of the cured..."

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A dark smudge in a world filled with light.

Sara stood at her post atop the wall over looking the forested ruins of area around them. Had this not been her night to watch she might have joined Maple as she stood in the comforting darkness of the forests. Sighing Sara pushes a strain of her thick hair back behind her hair, the one strain that always seemed to come loose no matter what she tried. Bane laid at her side sleeping soundly as always his reddish brown fur making him looking almost black in the darkness of the night.

Sara did not mind doing this part of her duties, not like she had anywhere to really be at this time anyway. Other then the local hang out with some of the other hunters or just sitting some where working on her aim or training. She was the last surviving member of her family and so had no real ties to this city other then her own sense of honor and obligation. She looked down the wall at Eric, as he flicked on the lights to shine down on Maple as she returned to the city. She could pick a few words of his exchange with her and chuckled as him and his lack of social tact. She had spoken to him a few times when she had gone out with the scroungers as a guide of sorts, he was a nice guy very little words but a nice guy. Movement on the wall down from him caught her attention as she watched someone leave and someone else take their spot. From this distance she could not tell if she recognized them or not, shrugging she went back to watching the wall just in time to notice movement in the trees. "Movement in the trees!" she called out as she took out her bow and knock an arrow, though her riffle was there it was easier to replace an arrow then to get more ammo. The shadow moved too fast and in such a way that she knew it was not an animal.

__________________

Born under the Full Moon...
... Born to kill.

You are the true warrior of Gaia,
and nothing will withstand your rage.

Maple laughed at the young man as he called down to her. "Lucky you didn't mistake me for cured?" she mockenly repeated loud enough for him to hear.

"That's the biggest oxy-moron I've ever heard," she went on, "Being cured means that you are no longer with disease, and yet when we call someone 'Cured', we are refering to light-resistance vampires. Does that make sense to you? That those 'cured' of vampirism are still vampires?"

She laughed at her joke, for she herself found that funny. She found many things about the fear around the vampires funny. She understood that he was likely worried either for herself or the well being of Sacrifice. This wasn't a surprise to her in the slightest: the people of her town were deathly afriad of vampires. She really didn't blame them, but she also found it funny.

This wasn't the first time she ever got shut out, and it would likely not be her last. She always liked the nighttime, always wanted to be out in the dark, to feel the cool breeze over her, and the pale light of the moon on certain nights, especailly the full moon. She was also able to survive outdoors, being very able to fend for herself in the dark from animals and vampires. Due to this ability becoming a vampire never scared her, it also helped that she didn't really know anyone in Sacrifice, she had always been a distant as a child, and nothing was changing that.

She appeared to pass the ultravoilant test, so today she wasn't a vampire, not that it would bother her that much, but it was important information.

__________________
Silivalne
Cromine

Those two need your clicks

Interest check for weird roleplay idea! Please look!

Eric was having a long night. Time just seemed to pass so slowly when he wasn't focused on his work. Buried up to his elbows in bits and pieces of machinery and grease. And it seemed it was about to get even longer. He stood at the wall, peering down at the girl in the green T-shirt as he waited for his night vision to readjust to the darkness. Just as he could see again she launched into a heated diatribe concerning the semantics of the word "cured."It was true that it made no sense referring to sun- tolerant vampires as cured. It made no sense when those first afflicted by the disease were called the same thing, it made no sense then either but it was just easier to refer to the creatures as cured, rather than anything else. It gave people a sense that what used to be friends and family might be so again.

Eric thought about what he was going to say. He could have told her what they both already knew. He could repeat the rhetoric that had been shoved down all the villagers throats since they could understand the words. He could tell her that they were called "cured" because Robert Neville's solution to the first virus did indeed return to them a semblance of humanity. It cured some of them completely, some it left untouched, and for a few others it rebuilt tissue and restored cognitive thought but little else. They're bodies rejected normal food and the blood lust remained. When they descended on them the original settlers didn't stand a chance. Luckily, amazingly, a handful of them were able to survive and beat them back behind the walls and into the surrounding forest and beyond. They were lost twice to the night. Occasionally throughout the years they would come to the walls to harass the villagers or sometimes to entice one of them over the wall. It has been so many years now, that if the cured and vampires making an appearance at the wall today were the same ones as then, Eric was sure there was no one alive today who would recognise them. He could have told the girl all of this in the same mocking tone of voice that she had used to ridicule him. What he was going to say was, "They can't call them vampires like the others, they're different." As if that would explain things. But just as he opened his mouth to speak them he was interrupted by Sara's cry of, "Movement in the trees!" and they froze in his throat. Eric knew her to be a competent guide so if she was concerned enough to raise the alarm then it had to be serious.

His first instinct was to save the girl below. Caught out in the open like that, and, at least to his eye, unarmed she would be defenseless to the approach of whatever it was coming out of the forest. He was just about to jump down from the wall, his foot hanging in midair when he realised what he was doing. A drop like that would probably kill him, or at the very least, break his legs. And besides that, he didn't have a weapon tonight so if by some miracle he did make it, they would be just as defenseless as before. He was no wimp, but he seriously doubted whatever it was would hold still long enough for him to club it to death with his wrench. Remembering his light Eric went back to his place and aimed it at the girl below again, turning it on and locking it in place. If it wasn't one of the cured coming through, the light would keep her safe until he could get the gate open. Running the few feet to the ladder down he started climbing and shouting, "Human over the wall! Get those fucking gates open!"

When he hit the ground his intentions were to go to the operater. There was always someone that manned what was probably the oldest bit of technology in Sacrifce. Cranks were attached to a system of pulleys and giant chains. Those chains were tied to a large beam, basically the equivalent of a small tree, and the only thing keeping the walls locked. It was slow but it was effective. It had served it's purpose for many years. He didn't think he would be able to convince them but he had to try. Town law stated that the girl outside the walls should be considered dead. But she wasn't and Eric couldn't stand to leave her, images of her mangled corpse dancing before his eyes.

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A dark smudge in a world filled with light.

Bane's low growl was enough to convince Sara that she was correct in her assumption that this was not a human or animal. She watched the movement, drew back the arrow, sighted along its shaft and then let it fly. There was a whisper in the air as the arrow left her bow, a slight rustle of leaves followed by an out cry as the arrow struck home. Smiling she knocked another arrow as she watched as the movement began again this time slower more cautious. She was about to release her second arrow when the slightest of movement out of the corner of her eye, "Shit!" she said as she changed her target and shot at the one that came rushing from the darkness toward Maple. The arrow flew straight and true catching the 'cured' in its skull causing it to stumble a bit but then drop down to the ground dead. "Get those gates open!" she shouted as she knocked yet another arrow and took aim again this time at the tree line as the one she shot earlier came stumbling out, its leg bleeding from where her arrow protruded out. Taking aim she let fly another arrow but the creature stumbled at just the right moment and she missed the arrow landing in the ground right where it had just been. "Damnit!" she says as she moved along the wall trying to get a better shot another arrow knocked as she came to a stop and drew back again, "Those gates now!" she says again as she prepares to fire another arrow, movement in the tree line again causing her the most concern as she release the arrow just as the creature rushes to tackle Maple, its hope to knock her out of the UV light.

__________________

Born under the Full Moon...
... Born to kill.

You are the true warrior of Gaia,
and nothing will withstand your rage.