The city, or, any city nowadays really, has greeted with the dull light of a gray sky, filled with all manner of radioactive or volcanic ash. The city was practically coated in a layer of sooty detritus, like a distant memory of snow. In death, the city was still. Burnt out husks of cars left to rust, shops and places that once had meaning now torn apart; most looted of anything valuable, if they had anything to begin with.

There were no animals, at least ones in the light. Only the howling of the wind could be heard through most of the ruined, now-nameless place. However, one sound began to pierce the haunting silence.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit-shit-shit, shit!"

Down a sloping hill, that must've been a freeway in some forgotten time, a lone form tumbled down the side, doing their best to absorb the shock each time their body collided with the asphalt and ash, leaving a human-shaped imprint each time.

((Not much of an opener, I know. But I promise to ramp things up soon. Feel free to introduce your characters here however you please! Hope everyone enjoys their time with this RP ^_^ ))

Lucas walked through this new city, he'd been here before the apocalypse but it was the same as the others, burnt to a crisp, desolate. The streets were the same, the buildings ruined like usual, a skeleton or two dot the sidewalks. Lucas knocks his finger against a rusted car which then caves in on itself in a pile of rust and metal pieces, he brushes off the dust on his clothes and continues on the road before hearing someone shout @scifidude47"shit shit shit shit shit shit shit", another person, Lucas makes his way to the source with urgency.

Pam was out of marks the last crowd she’d been running with having been dead set on crossing the wasteland where those few who had tried and returned from said was barren and free of even dirty water the later good enough reason for her to cut away from them to seek another group with a less suicidal mindset. This meant she once more had to fend for herself but for her that was just another day in her life and she was still breathing which was all anyone could hope for on in this world.

She didn’t waste time thinking about the idiot who had called himself Snake and the others who followed him blindly and only counted her time with him not a total waste because she’d gotten her new ALICE pack from him as a gift...well that’s what he’d called it but she thought of it as payment for services rendered her only regret that she had never gotten him to give her one of the 6 rifles his band possessed.

Her present problem was shelter from the elements and the creatures that used the darkness to hunt, not that daylight was any safer but at least she could see what wanted to eat her and stood a chance of making her hunter a meal before they did the same to her. She moved as silently as a shadow careful not to leave a trace of her passage as she looked for her temporary hidey hole and was soon rewarded by finding what looked like an old city bus that had all it’s windows somehow and forced the old rear door open then had to use all her strength to close so that she could feel safe.

Cato yawned as he awoke atop of the office building he'd recently taken residence in. He'd decided that the two story building was ideal for a man with his talents, and the height advantage it gave to him spoke to some instinct that reminded him of his time back in the canyon.

As he moved out of the corner he'd propped himself in, he edged his way over to the concrete lip that marked the edge of the roof. He looked down over the edge, seeing the pleasing sight of a sheer vertical drop onto the hard concrete below. Shuffling back he reached around until he found his rifle brining it to his shoulder whistling to himself as he did so.

Adjusting the scope of his rifle he began to pan it over the surrounding area. He was about to go back to sleep in an effort to save energy when he spied movement, rapid and shaking. He took his eye away from the scope for a moment reaching into his pocket and checking the watch he found there. He smiled as he did so before putting the watch away again and re-training the rifle scope on the moving figure watching it run along, whistling all the way. Interesting he thought to himself, someone new.

The body collided with a car that had frozen to the freeway, the body landing with a loud THUNK. It shakes, a hand reaching to its head, before it does its best to stand against the frozen vehicle.

It's apparent that the 'thing' is human. A woman, to be precise. She looks up at the top of the ruined freeway.

"Coming for me, beastie!?" She cries out, drawing a small pistol. Her voice contains a hint of a British accent.

-
At the edge of the freeway still perpendicular to the ground, a large creature drags itself toward the abandoned freeway. It is pale, almost sickly in appearance despite its large size. It seemed like an amalgamate of various creatures, dragging itself along the ash-covered road with numerous twisted limbs. Multiple mouths of varying size and shape at the front of the beast, where a face should've been, screamed in unison; a combination of a roar of rage and a shriek of agony.

Pam heard some creatures screaming north of her position so she pulled her micro monocular from her pocket and moved to the bus windows that faced that direction and slowly moved up to look out careful to sweep the area around her shelter for any other creature that might be close enough to spot her and take an interest in her.

Clearing her zone first she then focused on the source of the noise where she spotted a creature she wouldn’t want to try and figure out how to eat or if it was even edible. Near the large beast was another woman and she appeared to be taking aim with a small pistol as she sought to face the damn thing down.

Pam would have sought an escape route away from the thing instead of trying to fight it but on the bright side she thought if the thing killed the other woman she could wait till sunrise tomorrow and go and see if there was anything left to salvage.

Lucas looked ahead and saw the woman fall to the ground, he stood quietly watching as the two monstrosities came after her, he didn't feel the need to help her but at the same time he realised the fact that she was probably the last person he'd ever see, why not extend the time until death by a few years or days at least, he'd need the company.
Lucas readied the rifle in hand and moved slowly towards the exchange, cocked back the bolt and waited for the correct moment and time to strike.
"...Wait...
...wait...
Trigger."
A bang and a bullet was sent flying towards the two headed monster hitting it smack bang in the chest. Unsure if it did much he readied another shot, bullets mean everything in this world so he has to be precise.

Nana

"What a morning. What a beautiful morning, right Patricia? Right glowing orb?" Both companions were silence in real life, but very chatty in the inside of her head.
Sing me a song. My favourite. Said glowing orb.
"Of course darling! Song would be great!" Is there a better way to greet a new day? Mornings are her favourite. One feels the energy of waking up Earth. Or better said one feels its dying agony..Sweet sweet morning idyll. Feels like retirement home.
"Always looooook on the briiiiiiight side of life."
Do you think I can eat this? Said hungry Patricia already gnawing on a mummified remains of god know what. Honestly she thought it was just a soiled and weathered toiled paper, but one man´s meal is another man´s poison, as they used to say. "Of course darling, looks good!" And she returned to her singing and whistling, though whistling inside of a gas mass was pretty droolly experience and reminds her of shrieks of ruin ghosts. Glowing orb glowed more intensively, changing intensity of its light corresponding to the rhythm.

Morning are best for finishing her craft projects. From her backpack she took set of sticks and half finished crocheted doily that was not doily at all. At closer inspection the spectator could see that what she works on is in fact set of crocheted undies.
"Crochet for my crotch." Ste interrupted her song for a second.
What a morning, what a nice and beautiful morning. Too positive to pay attention to other noises carried to her ears from the distance. Or perhaps she just have problems with hearing. She´s old woman after all.

Cato cocked the bolt on his rifle as the creature appeared. Well aren't you pretty? He thought to himself. He noted that the woman had drawn out a small pistol looked to be a home defence weapon of some sort Ain't finishing it with that, he thought as he started whistling a funeral march.

Then suddenly a round slammed into the creatures chest. From the sound of the shot and the size of the hole it put into the damn thing the weapon was clearly a higher calibre than the woman's pistol. A rifle? Thought Cato to himself ... more than one of them then?

Seeing the creature still advancing he slowed his breathing and trained the rifle at it's head. Mutants were tough to put down as one could rarely tell what their anatomy was like inside. But based on what he could see Cato didn't see any other major targets available. Squeezing the trigger slowly, there was a sudden crack as the shot rang out and the round slammed into the creature right between its various maws. It slumped backwards ceasing it's advance but still twitching. Probably not dead... hope she's seen enough to know that he thought to himself, starting to whistle the opening chords of Sinatra's Luck be a Lady.

Pam watched the show wondering if they had the ammo to spare or just had something against the creature because she herself would have run like a bunny using the local terrain to slow the creature down; after all there were no stores open that could resupply them. But baring that in mind she thought to herself they might be a good group to attach herself to in to off chance she could salvage goods off of when their bravado got them killed.

So gathering her things she looked around the bus sighing because she had been looking forward to a little rest till all the turmoil started. Then as she always did she followed her nose to possible salvage and slipped off the bus. She moved slowly and stealthy through the surrounding rubble only stopping when she heard whistling.

"KITTY! Get down here!"

A boy in his early teens whispered harshly with a dry frustrated urgency. He stood alone next to a tall pylon, looking up to where it once forked out and suspended some sort of bridge but now only offered a small damaged platform.

"Get down here now it's time to go!

Pleeeaaaaasssse..."

His voice becoming something more of a whining plea. The sound of nearby gunshots had spooked him and he no longer wanted to hang around this area. It was time to move on.

With a dreaded sigh he dropped his backpack onto the floor near his feet and began his climb up the concrete column. He couldn't leave without his Kitty. His best friend. His only friend.
Skilled at climbing it wasn't long before he reached the small rocky platform he had been sleeping on earlier. There to the side next to where his head had lied was the skeleton-in-slime kitty.

The boy shoved his friend down his shirt and took a small moment of opportunity to use this vantage point and see what all the noise had been about.
He could see the people not too far away, and undoubtedly they could see him perched up there on the wide damaged concrete column.

As bullets collided with the beast, its multitude of mouths let out a choir of whines, various incomplete heads and eyes turning towards the various sources of pain. Arms and legs tried to pull it in both directions, leading to it simply staying in place, as it seemed to argue with itself.

The woman fired off two shots, aiming for some of the heads of the creature. One bullet sunk uselessly into its flesh, while another collided with the head of what might've once been a crow.

She didn't seem to pay much mind to where the other bullets came from, focused only on getting the monster to die.

Cato watched as the woman fired a couple of rounds into the beast. The shots didn't seem to do much to deter the oncoming horror, so Cato drew back the bolt on his rifle chambering another round. He didn't fire however, he wanted to see if the other shooters might have more luck. Little sense him wasting his limited rounds trying to find kill shots when they could whittle down the choices for him.

He decided that he'd pan his rifle around again see if he couldn't spot where the other shooters might be positioned. To start he saw nothing but rubble and detritus but then he saw a figure stealthily drop out of a wrecked bus on the street and start towards his position. @RumikoOhara The figure was clearly a woman and was evidently more focused on surviving the battle than doing anything heroic. She wore what looked to be black combat gear and a military style gas mask. He smiled to himself whistling all the while. Looking down to where she was moving he picked up the empty casing of the round he'd fired and lightly threw it off of the office block trying to have it land somewhere where she'd see it.

Biff trudged through the packed snow beneath him. His leathers did little to keep him warm, and he was desperate to find a place to make himself comfortable. He took the cigar from his mouth, dropping the butt into the snow, and stopped to place a fresh one into the hole of his surgical mask, before lighting it. There was a long trail of cigar butts spanning hundreds of miles behind Biff. He'd been walking for nearly a month without stopping, and he was beginning to feel the fatigue.

He perked up when he thought he heard gunshots. Could this be the action he was so starved of? He stuck a finger in his hear, doing his best to quell the constant ringing from decades of gunfire and explosions. He turned and took a few steps towards the gunfire when he heard a faint whisper, "Crochet for my crotch."

(I'm typing this on my phone, apologies for any mistakes.)

Calvin was proud of his newest fixed-up ride. Sure, it had no roof or front doors and the floor was made out of some old wooden boards he found, but it ran! The people he was with said he was crazy for wanting to fix a 1995 Ford Taurus. Well, they were crazy for wanting to go back for more supplies without a car! It's not like they could carry even a tenth of the stuff the Taurus could.

Assuming he could find anything, of course. That's why he was flooring it. Nothing at all to do with wanting to see how fast the car went. So far 80 MPH seemed to be the point where the engine started making weird noises. Not bad. Maybe he could...

Suddenly, Calvin realized he was about to crash! There was some kind of mutant creature ahead, and were those bullet noises?

No time to think about it. There wasn't enough time to turn and dodge the thing, so the kid simply jumped out of the Taurus and let the car crash into the mutant. With any luck, it would kill the creature and Calvin could decide what to do next from there.

With all eyes on Calvin after the crash, he simple asked "what?" as if nothing important had happened. The car was totaled, but he could just always build another one, right?

The car collided with the creature in a rather gruesome spectacle; the beast practically folding in on itself as some limbs broke and went flying. It's attention went to pulling the car out of itself as best as it could.

The woman took this chance to start scaling the steep incline she was stuck on, doing her best to find solid footing, trying to sprint up the partially-frozen ruin.

"Oi! It's a Limb-Beast! Not a brick wall! Keep shooting!" She said, hefting her way onto another frozen vehicle.

Before Cato could continue observing the woman a car screeched into the area. He watched rather confused as the shuddering, yet moving wreck slammed straight into the mutant. For a moment Cato thought that it might have died, but observing through the scope he saw as the creature started pulling the car out of itself. It was definitely hurt, the various bullets and the massive weight of the car had clearly pummelled whatever system of organs throbbed within.

Despite the tremendous racket, and the screeching of the wounded creature Cato was able to hear snippets of a shouted message from the woman. Limb beast, limb beast, limb beast he thought to himself. He whistled a few bars of yellow submarine to himself for a couple of seconds contemplating his course of action. He went to level the rifle once more ready to put more rounds into the creature, and then he spied what seemed to be a child moving near the wreckage. Something clicked in his head when he saw the small figure. He quickly slung his rifle over his shoulder, and eyeing the broken steel cable he'd used to climb up to the roof he slid down to the ground, landing in a plume of ash and snow.

"In the town where I was born lived a man who sailed the sea; and he told of us of his life, in the land of submarines" Sings Pam behind her mask with a sweet tone she's practiced just for those times when her face is masked.

Once she's decided to make a move the clever blonde acts without fear or hesitation so she makes she her walk reinforce her sexuality knowing its effect on males reduced to a primal state and even gives her an air of defenselessness to which most men respond to as a natural course of being men.

Sure there were people that looked down on her because she knew that she herself was barter and the effort easy, in fact, she had a plan to find herself a strong man whom could give her strong children because she knew from school primitive cultures and how the elderly needed to have many children around them as a means of support and protection in the fading years and that a woman married early so that having those children was easier to recover from. She wondered if they would understand that in their societal state at present all the sweetness and light of love stuff a fantasy; the happily ever after was gone replaced by hard reality.

Calvin looked back at the car; he had hoped the weird creature would be dead, but the kid wasn’t that fortunate. He then looked at some woman who was yelling and then at another man who seemed to be coming towards him. The boy could tell from the rifle on his back that this man had been one of the people shooting and that he stopped, so it was probably safer to be near a person who didn’t kill indiscriminately than the woman who wanted to shoot more.

After running away from the wreckage of his car to hide behind Cato, Calvin spoke to the man. “Thanks for not shooting, mister. I can’t fight much, but I could clean your rifle or something after this?” The boy then took his electric drill out of his toolbox just in case. He didn’t think the mutant would get this close, but just in case it did, Calvin would be ready. That or he’d just run away. Both were good options.

Then glancing at Pam, he asked Cato in a whisper “that girl’s walking kinda weird, don’t you think?”

@scifidude47@Karos@Zapdos
Lucas, being closer to the woman, heard her say "it's a limb beast, keep shooting!", Lucas wasn't keen on wasting what would be seen as his life force But this was the first person he'd seen since the apocalypse started many years ago. Lucas changed the firing mode to semi automatic, might as well waste the next six bullets for another person than let it rust for the next few years. He aimed and fired at the already wounded monstrosity, three consecutive shots at its chest and shoulders, he then moved quickly forward towards the beast firing straight at its head, a few shots later and the beast had three gaping bullet holes where it's forehead would be. That was enough, Lucas moved back and followed after the woman while the beast was stunned, it had been a very long while since the last he used his voice.
"H-hey!" He shouted after her, his voice was dry and broken, each word was pain for him.