A World Beyond Our Most Terrible Nightmares |IC|

[Sarpedon]

April 23, 2016. That was the day our lives changed forever. That was the day of The Event. No one has any idea what really happened, but suddenly, at thirteen-fourty-eight, there was a light. A blinding blue flash. It radiated outward from the approximate centre of North America, and expanded to wash over the whole continent. Not long after that it disappeared, leaving only horror in its wake. On the outer edges of The Event's area of effect, were the survivors, everyone at the centre was dead now, and those far enough away not to die, but still close enough to feel the blue light wash over them, were now horrible mutants. Some, mostly the children, have psychic powers. Most of the rest were rendered into a kind of zombified state. They retain basic motor control and muscle memory, and are capable of using weaponry to some degree, but have no memories of their lives, feel no pain, and a relentless hunger. Only destroying their brain seems to kill them, though severing the spinal column is just as effective. The animals in the aptly-named "Mutant Zone" became all kinds of horrible. They all crave flesh, preferring that of the unafflicted, and most can shrug off injuries that would drop a much larger creature. Elongated teeth and claws are common. Increased strength and heightened senses are not unheard of. Some can even pull off a chameleon-esque active camouflage. Further mutations, like extra limbs and things described as "magic powers" are not exactly rare. The world is now a dangerous place.

Even more dangerous because of the ammunition shortages. With all the fighting going on and the lack of manufacturing, ammunition is all but gone. Now there are people roaming the streets with all kinds of guns, but you never can tell who has bullets to spare and who is bluffing. And to top it all off, the light from The Event hasn't gone away. Every so often there will be another flash, more blue light. It's usually a sphere about ten feet in diameter. They show up anywhere, out of nowhere, and anything inside is dead when the light fades. For the most part, though, the danger lies in those looking to exploit this apocalypse, especially the ones who actually have ammunition, as well as with the myriad of beasts unleashed on the world. At least, that's the way it was, right up until a few days ago.

Six days ago, the radio broadcasts started. On all frequencies, the same message was repeated once each hour for the first twenty-four hours. Since then, it plays every six hours, the same message: "Come, experience the re-birth of man. The New World Order awaits you." This immediately triggered a rush of survivors toward the beacon. Everyone wanted to see the new world order, and get the hell out of this wasteland. That quickly turned into a battle royale. Everyone suddenly turned on one another, everyone. No one was safe, it was as if they were being mind-controlled. Whatever the New World Order was, it wouldn't be very large, that was clear. The remaining survivors, scattered, tired, traumatized, and running low on supplies, are all seeking some escape from this wasteland. Some head toward the beacon, others head for the coast, but even as they travel, hope is the thing in shortest supply, and with each passing day there is even less. There are some smaller groups are determined to stay where they are, however, content to scavenge from the dead, believing that someone or something with be able to rectify the chaos. To each their own...


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James groaned. It was yet another day to suffer through, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. He awoke, as always, to the radio telling him about the supposed "New World Order". What a load of crap... he thought, looking around before he got up, Probably terrorists with military tech fucking with people's heads... he was convinced that's what it was, what other explanation was there? Magic? He chuckled, the coast was clear. He slowly stood up, moving quietly. He was pretty sure there was a rat nearby, and he would really like some breakfast. Jim silently extracted the wire from his pocket, and strung it between his hands. This was something he'd figured out pretty quickly once push came to shove, and it worked for just about anything. The web of steel could catch rats, and other small animals for food, or mess up someone's face while he gave them a good beating with his knee. He wasn't worried about other people right now, though. He was more concerned with breakfast.

Unsurprisingly, the smaller animals had flourished in the wake of the apocalypse, rats, mice, squirrels, bugs, really, anything smaller than a cat. They were also carnivorous now, but that was all part of adapting and flourishing. This rat, however, was rather unfortunate. Clearly it had not adapted as well, since it was letting Jimmy O sneak up on it. He grinned and decided to do this a slightly easier way. It was not as kind to the animal, but he didn't care about kindness, he cared about living. Slipping one hand free of the web of wire, he pulled out his Crater, before stepping on the rat's tail. It tried to run, and then it tried to bite him, neither worked. The survivor then crouched and neatly impaled the poor bastard, sticking it right at the base of its skull. It died instantly, and felt no pain. "Eh, maybe it does matter a little..." he muttered. In any case, here was breakfast! He grinned, and set about skinning his meal. It didn't take long to cut it open and dump out the bits he didn't want to eat. Then he just peeled the skin off, and tossed the carcass into the can that had housed last night's dinner. The can went into the still smoldering fire he had built in half an old oil barrel. After tossing some more wood on it, James figured he would be able to eat in just a few minutes. There wasn't much meat there, and the flames were hot, so it should cook quickly. As he waited he looked around.

Fucking shithole... he thought. He was in a basement, though it was more of a hole in the ground than anything else. The two-story house above him had collapsed in on itself, and looked like someone had torched it. Soot and ashes covered most of everything, and there was nothing worth saving in the house, but this one corner of the basement was safe and dry enough. The roof was stable, and didn't leak, and there were lots of small holes further over, so he could have a fire without tipping others off with a column of smoke. Combined with the fact that the house was burnt to the ground, it was pretty safe. At least it had been, until last night. As he had drifted off, Jim had heard a sound. It was far off, but it was a distinctive sound, one that everyone had come to fear in the last few months. It was a sickening cross between a wet leopard roar and a sad howl. It was the sound of a monster.

Unlike the wild variety in humans, mutations amongst animals were relatively regular. This mutation, however, made it almost impossible to tell what animal the thing had once been. Jimmy O had never seen one, but he had heard tales. Two to four heads, six limbs terminating in wicked claws, teeth like swords, scales impervious to even small-calibre bullets, eyes that burned with some unseen fire, and some could even breathe real fire, based on the tales it seemed that was just the largest ones. Regardless of size though, a machete wasn't going to kill one, and James was moving on.

He shook his head, as if disapproving of the ash-coated, rubble-strewn basement he was hiding in, and he fished his breakfast out of the fire. The can was too hot, so he left it to cool for a moment. "Come on motherfucker. I need to move." he said louder than he meant to. He winced and pulled out his machete. He made sure everything else was packed up, and got his backpack on. As soon as he was done scarfing down what he could of the rat, he'd get right the fuck out of here. Maybe he'd find those Marines. He chuckled at that, that was probably the most fantastical tale he had ever heard. What the hell would a fireteam of Marines be doing way the hell out here? He supposed you had to be able to hope for something, and Marines probably made the most sense realistically. Still, he didn't think any of the military made it, not after the rampant rioting, combined with all the mutant attacks. "Maybe I'll find a dead one with some ammo on him..." he whispered hopefully, reaching for his breakfast...

[Blazion]

Lying on the floor in some run down building long after the first rays of sun began to rise - despite the fact that she had been tossing and turning in the cold night - Zoey couldn’t help but muse how one of the things she missed most was the noise.

Maybe it was the fact one of the prominent things in her childhood was the hustle and bustle of crowds, but the silence was as unnerving as it was comforting. Noise meant solitude; no threats nearby but no companionship either. Zoey was not a person meant for isolation. It had been just a week – had it been a week? – since her other group had fallen apart. She had been with them for so long, to think that Evan could’ve just turned on them in some sort of … frenzy.

Zoey shivered, pulling her hoodie closer around herself for warmth as the haunting image of frantic eyes ringed with splashes of crimson flashed through her mind. Unbidden the memory of blood curdling, suffering screams belonging to the eyes – now engulfed in flames – was summoned up immediately after, ringing in her ears. Echoing in the silence outside her mind. It was only broken by a crackle of a discarded radio piercing the air. A familiar loathing well up in her heart with the noise; maybe the silence wasn’t so bad.

"Come, experience the re-birth of man.” The message was distorted; sounding wrong even by its usual standards by the abandoned radio’s dying batteries warping the words. “The New World Order awaits you.” The young woman’s fingers dug into her hoodie, muscles tense long after the last gnarled syllable trailed off with a sick and twisting note as the batteries gave their life for that one final message.

Zoey hated radios.

The little abandoned building fell silent once more, and for a pitiful moment Zoey considered just lying there for the rest of the day. What was the point? Finally though the circus performer dragged herself up off the hard ground and her makeshift backpack pillow, beginning to roll her joints and crack out the stiff feeling that had settled in her bones. Only when she felt sufficiently loose did Zoey begin digging in her bag to pull out her last piece of food, the bag of chips crinkling with each movement. Were it not the last piece of food she had the heart to scavenge off the bodies of her companions the young woman might’ve been content to just stay huddled in a morose ball in the dilapidated building. As it was she was in such shock she barely took anything, and now regretted it. To top it off, there were sounds the night before – worrying sounds that had pierced the quiet with a threat nipping at her heels in warning to move on.

Woefully underprepared, if only her family could see her now.

Once the short meal was done Zoey crumpled the trash up and tossed it to the side before turning her attention to the equipment set to the side. A quick look over her knife, fuel and torch to make sure nothing happened to them during the night and she reattached the items to her belt before slinging her bag over her shoulder and starting her trek with little fanfare. There was little else to do to prepare.

Outside Zoey pressed close to the building, abandoned and run down, sticking to the walls as she skirted along the edges of the empty buildings on the border of the city. From what she could tell, it was just barely out of range of The Event’s light, having not run into any of those … things. At the same time there were few other people she could find either. Solitude, with its crushing silence and loneliness was safe. Safe from those mutated monsters, and safe from the monsters hiding in human skin. Safety was really all Zoey had now, as she wandered along aimlessly without group nor purpose and only her quiet, light footsteps as company.

Silence descended once more.

[Hadrada]

Arthur needed sleep. He needed sleep as much as a man who had been deprived of drink for two days needed water. The problem was getting the darn stuff. Ever since the event the man had never slept easy or for long. Time after time something, some vauge threat, would stir him from his slumber and even if the beast never appeared the profound sense of unease it installed in Arthur meant he rarely got any rest once woken. Arthur knew what he needed to remedy the situation, saftey. He could only sleep well if he was in an area devoid of any real threats. Unfortunately such places were rare to non existant now. All he could hope for was something isolated and non descript, with heavy doors to bolt and windows that could be readily barricaded.

The lack of supplies had forced him to abandon his last bolt hole some days ago and so here he was, roaming the countryside in search of a new place to rest his head. Thankfully the man was not wandering blindly. He had good maps which showed small farms and even the ocasional lone home out in the woods, he even had a compass and he knew how to use both. Though truth be told, his compass was less reliable now than it had been. The event had done something to the earths magnatism and whilst magnetic north and south still seemed to exist there were alot more things that could confuse a compass since this nightmare had begun. Thankfully the stars were the same, clearer now with less artificial lights blanketing the night sky. Whilst Arthur was no astronomer he knew the basic constelations and could work out north and south by the stars. So, by hook and by crook, he had managed to navigate through the woods and fields to what was suposed to have been a house.

The place was a wreck, correction, the place was the burnt out shell of a wreck. Damn and blast he needed sleep! How was he supposed to get any in this place? Well, perhaps whatever manner of beast or man that was responsible for this destruction had left something useable behind. Arthur began to aproach the structure with the intention of looting when he got that strange nagging feeling that somethign was off. Something was near by and not nessecarily something nice. It was this very sensation that kept him up at night but it was also the very thing that had kept the man alive. The problem was that the whole thing was rather hit and miss and at the moment he couldn't quite peg where this ominous presence was. Eager to find what ever there was of use in the structure and then get the hell away Arthur quickened his pace towards the shell of a house. Of course it was perfectly possible that the danger lay in there, rather than the countryside about him. If that was the case well, then he would have to improvise but he was good at improvising.

As the man drew closer he noticed something else that was off, but this was not the itch in the back of his mind that he felt whenever he was being watched. No, this was an alltogether more common sensation but one that had the potential to be just as unerving. He smelt smoke. Smoke was rarely a good thing, it meant fire and fire was either uncontrolled and un safe or it was maintained by humans, a risky sect in thier own right since the end of civilization. Arthur knew men had the potential to be little more than base beasts in themselves, praying on thier fellow man and with the total colapse of the law and order he loved so well there was no longer anything to stop the worst of them praying upon him. Well, nothing but his gun.

Clearly the fire was somewhere down bellow, there were no visible flames up upon the surface which meant there was likely some form of basement. If an inteligence had made the fire it was clearly a crafty one, there was no visible pillar of smoke. Aware that he might be in very real and imediate danger he put his rifle to his shoulder and momentarily brushed one finger past the saftey just to ensure his weapon was indeed ready to fire. Slowly circling the crumbled property, with a foot fall akin to a cat stalking a bird, he softly looked for an entrance to the basement. Eventually he found it, coverd by some over grown shrubbery it seemed to be a pair of double doors which lay low to the ground, like an entrance to a coal cellar. Arthur suspected that they may have been bared from the other side but he had to find what was in there, pehaps a place to sleep or better yet someone to watch over him whilst he slumberd. If not, well he had a few bullets to spare.

Picking up a chared plank from the torched remains of the home that had once stood here arthur gently wedged one end under the handle of the door and pulled. He was reluctant just to do it with his own hand incase the door was trapped. Now he would see what, if anything, would come out.

[Sarpedon]

Jimmy O had been just about ready to head out. He'd smothered the fire, and packed up his things, he was all ready to go, when his ears had detected something. There was something wandering about outside. He could hear it, hear its footfalls, the way it hesitated. It was searching. Then he heard the sound of wood on wood, and he hefted his khukri more firmly, ensuring that the lanyard was wrapped around his fingers properly, so he wouldn't slice them off. It was coming in! Was it the monster? He found a crack in the floor that gave him a decent vantage point, and silently, he observed. It was a limey! That was his first thought, the man was unmistakably British. He supposed he might not be, he could be one of those American folks that just looked British, but it was always better safe than sorry. He barely held back his instinctive cry of "Oi! Limey! Fuck off!" and instead just watched. He saw the man had a gun, he couldn't quite tell what just yet, and he was very keen on coming. "Well, for fuck's sake, of course I have to deal with the poor bastard..." he muttered. Then, with nothing really to lose, James thought he would give his first instinct a try. The worst that could happen was he got shot at. Even if the man was supremely quick, that was a bolt action rifle, not exactly the best close-range weapon.

"Oi! Limey! Fuck off!" he shouted, his accent thick, thanks to his rage. He had nothing against this man, just that he was a limey, and that he was interrupting his escape. "The limey's better armed than I am. Fucker. I'll gut him like a pig..." he muttered half-heartedly. There was a monster about, it would be nice to have someone around to distract it, the limey could do just that! He didn't know whether to kill him, or convince him to stick around. He figured he would let the limey decide. He moved quickly and quietly. He could hear the man just fine if he spoke, and he strained his ears to make sure that the limey wasn't coming after him. Jim wanted a better place to hide, somewhere the newcomer wouldn't be able to look right away, somewhere he could ambush the man from. He decided on just below the rubble that led down to the basement. Some of the pile had holes in it, so if he decided that his man was too much, he'd just cut him off at the ankles.

"What are you hear about Limey?" he called out, figuring if he was still there, it might be worth talking him down, getting him to work together. Two heads are better than one. At least that way I'll have someone to feed to the jackals... he thought to himself, liking the idea of stabbing a limey in the back. He'd get his revenge someday, if they were even still alive. An event like the one in the US, but over in England, would likely mutate just about everyone that didn't die, since that country across the pond was so much smaller. But he wasn't concerned with that, he was concerned with living through an exchange with this other survivor. He waited quietly, hoping to be able to take the other man unaware. As long as he had the edge, everything could go smoothly.

Since when does anything go smoothly with a limey? he wondered. Maybe this one would co-operate, you never could tell. He could hope though. He would hope and pray for a nice outcome, and he was already prepared for war. With a grin the survivor shifted his grip on his machete slightly, and cracked his neck...

[Blazion]

The footsteps stopped.

The rise and fall of her chest echoed the breath in Zoey’s ears as she strained her hearing, a nervous feeling settling in the pit of her stomach. She could’ve sworn she had heard – but no, it was impossible. Who else would have wandered out this far?

The answer was obvious, of course. Monsters, and men with the same idea she had.

Still, perhaps the tossing and turning nights had finally begun to catch up with her. The circus performer hadn’t been sleeping not eating right and she knew it. Zoey doubted anyone had been since this whole thing started; at least those had survived. Sometimes she still wondered how she had survived even this long. Of course if she didn’t get anymore supplies soon it would be a moot point, since she wouldn’t be surviving much longer. She even lost the luxury of security in scavenging through the remains of the city she found herself occupying briefly, as while the morning was still young the young woman had been wandering along its borders there was the noise; a choked and gurgling growl echoing from further inside the city walls that sent shivers down her spine and primal fear settling like ice in her veins. Zoey had diverged almost immediately further into the countryside.

As always it seemed threats stretched behind and before her as far as she could see however, as Zoey was certain this time that she heard yelling. Human yelling.

Briefly she considered leaving, escaping while she had the chance and making off with her hide intact. More pressing than that however was Zoey’s survival instincts. Maybe she couldn’t pass a fancy test on mathematics but she wasn’t stupid. She needed food at the very least. Although there were many, many things people could be arguing about during these fucked up times those were one of the big ones. As foolhardy as it sounded maybe if she was lucky whoever was arguing would let their guard down enough that she’d be able to knick some of their provisions, or they could kill eachother…

Zoey shivered visibly as she remembered the smell of Evan’s seared flesh. Maybe they’d just be distracted.

The thoughts were shoved to the back of her mind as Zoey began to creep along the tall, untended grass to follow the noises. It was a bit of a futile effort to remain hidden with her tall frame but she attempted none the less; worse come to worse she could likely out run any pursuers, unless they had guns. Desperation was a powerful thing. Soon enough the young woman came to a stop a ways away from a burned out building, feeling the grass and dirt pressing against her knees from a crouched position where she carefully watched the movements in the distance. Human, definitely. If it was some sort of mutated human like she heard stories about was another situation entirely, but for now it was just human. That didn’t necessarily mean safe.

Shouting drifted to her ears, but not from the one she could see. The words were muffled from this far away, and for a moment Zoey wondered if there was someone stuck in the debris of the burned out house. She discarded the idea quickly – they wouldn’t have survived this long. For now she adopted the watch and wait position, settling down there with a hand resting loosely on the handle of the knife on her belt. An empty gesture, of course; Zoey doubted she could ever use it…

Then again, any threat had other ways of being burned.

[sartorous]

A sudden sharp pain in both of his temples pulled him out of his slumber. He lurched forward whilst opening his eyes at the same time, only to clench them shut against the sunlight peeking through the trees overhead. Gripping the sides of his head, Nathaniel pulled his knees up to his chest and clenched his eyes shut even harder, trying his best to ignore the pain but failing horribly. Small tears began sliding out from under his closed eyes and down his cheeks from the pain exploding in his head. Suddenly the pain spiked, causing him to fell over on his side and let out a soft moan of pain. With the spike came a sort of slideshow of random images in his head. With the pain and the speed that each image passed by, he had a difficult time telling what he was even seeing, but was able to tell what a few of them were. He saw a glimpse of a small group of people, a burned out shell of what he assumed use to be a house, a dirt road almost completely overgrown, and some kind of creature. When the images faded away, Nathan doubled over and began vomiting up what little food he had in his stomach, which is to say he threw up mostly stomach acid.

Wiping his mouth on a piece of old cloth, he made his way back to his small and hidden sleeping spot. He had his sleeping bag rolled out on the ground in the middle of a group of bushes that formed a small clearing in their midst for him to sleep unseen by passerby. His bag lay near the head of his sleeping bag along with his pistol and knife; he had kept them within close reach while he was sleeping to put his now paranoid mind at ease. He knelt down and groped around in his bag until he pulled out a water bottle filled near the brim with pure water. He looked at the water with a deep longing in his grey-brown eyes, longing for his life before this damn hell-on-earth. With a deep sigh, he undid the lid of the bottle and took a small sip to rinse his mouth out, then spat it out on the ground nearby. He replaced the bottle back in his bag before packing up his small sleeping space.

A few minutes later, he was strapping his sleeping bag to his pack and stopped in the middle of clipping it down; some kind of guttural, animalistic roar drifted on the air currents to Nathan's ears and froze him in place. He couldn't tell what the thing that made that sound was, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to know or not. Along with the collapse of society came the birth of new creatures and the awakening of humans' natural instinct to survive, meaning that humans would now slit each other's throat over a small piece of dried meat. Nathan quickly snapped the strap over his sleeping bag and slipped his pistol and knife back around his waist and set out for the day.

After walking for maybe an hour or so, Nathan pulled out a small piece of jerky and nibbled on it as he passed more broken buildings, trying his best to stay hidden among the treeline near the husk of a city. Soon after finishing the small piece of jerky, Nathan saw something that stopped him in the tracks. It was a thin dirt road that was almost completely overgrown with shrubbery and other flora. He took a tentative step on to the road and looked down the shaded lane. It appeared to be baron, so he decided to explore, which could prove to be a dangerous mindset nowadays. Halfway down the road, he heard what sounded like muffled shouting and stopped in his tracks again, then dropped down into a low crouch. What he saw sent his head reeling; a man was hefting a charred plank of wood up and seemed to be attempting to pry open the door to a cellar of a burned out shell of a house. Keeping his eyes on the man with the plank of wood, Nathan ducked into the bushes next to the road and watched the events unfold before him.

[Hadrada]

Well the abusive comments emerging from the wrecked basement solved one problem, whatever was in there was indeed human. Arthur had devised a series of tests to determine the nature of the thing in there without actually having to go in but that was now unnecessary. Alas the human in there seemed aggressive to say the least. Stepping to the side so as to be well out of the eye line of anything staring up the stairs to the door he then rummaged around for a pair of loose bricks from the wrecked house. It was the work of a moment to lay on his hands on them but whilst he did so he called out down the stairs.

"Limey bastard? Now I ask you is that very nice?" His mocking and tongue in cheek tones concealed a very real concern, that the man down there would rather gut him than guard him. Arthur needed friends not racist lunatics. But he was tired, so very tired. He would have to take anything he could get. After a few moments he got that odd feeling again, deeply unpleasant and one that made him shiver for just a moment as it clawed in the back of his mind. He was being watched. Damn it, damn it! He needed to get in cover and fast! Still he must not let the Irishman know. Stress and worry might frighten him like or force him into rash action.

"Now watch your feet Paddy." Two could play at the name game. "I'm throwing something down, don't worry it doesn't go bang." Arthur continued to hope his humour established levity. A few moments latter one of the bricks would come thunking and crashing down the stairwell, then the second came shortly afterwards. Arthur had thrown them down to prematurely set off any traps that may have been set.

"Now tell me Mick, have we met? Last I checked we Brits weren't so distinctive as to be readily identifiable by sight and it's not like I'm wearing my favorite set of tweeds so how did you know I was from Blighty before I even spoke?" It was a genuine question. Not really an important one but a real one. Even he couldn't spot a fellow Brit until they actually opened their mouths. Just like he would not have been able to identify his new friend as an Irishman until he spoke. At this juncture Arthur did not have any clue as to this man's somewhat sensitive ancestry, all the accent told him was that he was Irish but not protestant Irish.

"Not that any of that really matters now. You're human and your brain's not rotten. Now tell me are you a decent sort of cove or are you just going to jump me because I have a pulse?" He then added in as something of an aside, but in answer to the question put to him. "As for why I am here, well. I originally came here hoping to find a standing house in which to sleep. Alas all I find is this wreck. However, upon a casual inspection I found smoke and decided to probe further, resulting in this pleasant exchange. I want food, sleep and protection. This place might do for a night but there is something out there and I don't care to be around here for much longer than a day. But damn it man I need to sleep. I cant remember the last time I was in a safe enough place to nod off. It's been too long. Soon I'll get sloppy, make mistakes."

Shuffling closer to the hole he continue to call down. "Now then my charming Gallic friend. I'd place money on you being alone down there. You are presented with a choice. Let me come down and let me sleep. When I wake you will have a bright, alert and surprisingly useful man by your side. I'm a good shot, I can more than hold my own in the countryside, I can navigate and well..... I can often spot danger some way off. You and I surviving the zone together! Or you tell me to fuck off again and off I go. Perhaps I will die out there and perhaps you would like that. But the odds of your death go up as well. The next man with a scoped rifle may not be so friendly."

Arthur left a few moments of charged silence, truth be told he was more nervous than his confident and relaxed tones portrayed. He was afraid he would be rejected and he would have to slink off alone once more. Thankfully his court room training kept his tones in check. His mind began planing what to do next in the event of rejection. He would have to find shelter soon, a tree perhaps? Maybe he could...... argh he couldn't even think of any good ideas any more! So tired! After leaving what the thought was enough time for the man down the hole to make his mind up he called down.

"So my good man. What is it to be? Turn me away or let the brave and noble Arthur down into your basement. That's my name by the way, Arthur...... God Damn it I'm tired, I barely remembered to introduce my self. What sort of an Englishman would I be if I forgot my manners ehh?" He then chuckled slightly at his own remark but you could tell there was no energy behind it. Truth be told Arthu was amazed he was still standing let alone cracking, even somewhat substandard, jokes. After the somewhat pathetic chuckle was over he awaited the reply nervously.

[Sarpedon]

Jimmy O did his best to ignore the condescending tone coming from the man above him, knowing that despite the fact that he was British, they were a long way from northern Ireland, and he would probably have to work together with this one if he wanted to keep on living. He was warned that something was coming down the stairs, and he just about flipped, until he realized what they were. Bricks came tumbling down, making a great racket, and he figured they were likely intended to spring any traps he might have set, but he knew much better ways to set traps if he really wanted to. He'd been taught the finer points of messing people up by the very best of the IRA ex-patriots. Then the Limey spoke again, asking about how James knew that he was a British man. "Of course we haven't met, I'd have killed you. The IRA know a Limey motherfucker when they see one." was Jim's reply, his accent was still thick with his rage. He still hated the other survivor with a passion born in the fires of conflict. This one seemed to like talking an awful lot, and there were more questions to answer. He ignored the next one, it didn't matter what sort of person he was, he didn't have much choice at this point. The man kept talking, then, offering suggestions.

He was awfully persuasive. The man was probably some white collar softie who was lucky enough to like the outdoors or something. All the claims of experience and even his willingness to just walk away were promising. Maybe not all Limeys were so bad, but still, this was a new variable he would have to allow for, and he didn't like allowing for variables. The survivor sighed, and he thought about it seriously. He could let this man come down and have a nap and they could go on their way. He could let him down, kill him, eat him, and got on his own way, or he could just tell him to fuck off and be on his own way. With another sigh, he almost spoke up again. The man suddenly introduced himself, and he sounded wiped. He had kept it together until now, but it was getting clearer that Jimmy had the upper hand.

"Okay, Arthur, come on down..." he said, his words more intelligible now that he was a bit calmer. He still had his khukri out, and he moved silently out from behind the stairs. He was still hidden from view though, and if this Arthur tried to pull anything, he should be able to do some damage before things went bad for him. And at this point, just about any kind of injury was just about a death sentence. Look at me, working with a Limey. Fuck, what's this world coming to? he thought as he waited for his potential ally to descend into the stable corner of the basement. Tense was putting his current state mildly, Jimmy O was wound tighter than any steel spring ever could be. He was going to be working with a Limey, and that pissed him right off. And then there was the fact that this man was descending into this mostly-burnt-out basement, and neither of them were really in a position to trust the other.

His heart beat loudly, and he was ready to swing with all of his might. He didn't make it too obvious though, he didn't want to provoke an attack. He kept his blade relatively low, though he maintained a fighting crouch. He was prepared to attack violently, or quietly back off. "Hold that gun straight out in front of you." he ordered as he heard feet on the stairs, "Keep it pointed up, and move slowly." he added. Hopefully they could get along okay, hopefully this wouldn't be some shit-storm, and hopefully no one would get shot. It really would be nice to have someone to trust for once, even if they were a Limey bastard. Part of him did hope that the man wasn't being totally truthful, that he'd be able to kill him with plenty of justification, but that part of him was rarely helpful, and he didn't listen to it too much any more...