The bullets put the Crab Brute down for sure. And if that wasn't enough, than when Donny took his axe and hacked off it's face, it was surely dead. He cracks his neck as he looks down at the creature, then back at Cat. "This is good eating." The Crab Brute had some edible meat in it's claws, legs, and around it's head area. Had they the tools for it they could even take it's shell for decent armor plating, however even Donny wasn't sure if he could work it into anything with what he has on hand. "Crab Brute shells are hella tough, like rocks. But they're stupid light too. If I had a good saw or chisel I could break down the shell into plates, maybe make some armor out of it. But since I don't we'll just have to leave it behind. Don't need the extra weight." Instead Donny hacked off the claws and legs, tying them with some of his rope. It dripped a sickening yellow liquid, the strange blood of Crab Brutes.

It didn't seem like there were any other threats down there. Most of the tunnel was collapsed, but there was still enough space for Cat and Donny to move through. Reloading his pistol Donny took the lead, mostly just to ensure that he can fit through some of the tighter spaces. The underground metro area was cold, dark, and damp. Donny couldn't see a thing so he had to use his lighter just to provide a bit of illumination. "Dammit. Should've swiped a flashlight. Can't see shit." But for Cat, her eyes adapted quickly to the darkness. While she still couldn't see far she could make out more details in the darkness than Donny could. There wasn't much to see of course, just a lot of dust, water puddles, and icicles. But one thing that you would see that Donny didn't was a maintenance closet. It looked like it was locked, but also doesn't look like anyone has tried to open it, ever. There was no telling what might've been inside.

"I know, but admittedly we could have done without the good eating, but with the bullets we had to spend to deal with this." She replied, giving him a mildly angry look." Crabs aren't creatures of cold even the mutant ones. Had you not fired the damn gun, it wouldn't have woken up for anything less than stepping on top of it." She sighed and removed her rifle's magazine, reloading the spend bullets with what she had left. Leaving the gun half loaded was even worse. One never knew when they'd need the bullets. With that she swung it back to her back on the strap and walked over to where she dropped her shotgun axe, picking it up, cracking it open, replacing the shells and putting away the spent ones in one of her small belt bags. They could reload those later. She also collected her 5.56 casings, recycling was the name of the game after all.

"Now be careful and follow my lead for real this time." She told him as htey headed underground. Similarly to her nickname's sake her eyes quickly adapted back to the darkness of the underground, perhaps it helped that she spend a lot of time in the darkness to begin with due to her training and duties, then there was the fact that it was her preferred territory. She didn't like the surface too much. It was too cold, the snow was getting into very unpleasant places( like seriously, how on earth did it get into her bra or pants?) Luckily she wore mostly water resistant or proof outer clothing, but it didn't help with her feeling it earlier when they were on the surface. Having snow melting on your skin wasn't pleasant in the sub zero temperatures. At least her boots were good and her feet weren't wet." Maybe we can scramble up an improvised handcranked one later... Now shhh... there's a maintenance closet..." She pointed it out to him in the darkness." Doesn't seem to have been opened, but you cannot be too certain. I check it out and need you to be ready to shoot anything that might come out of it and just generally keep an eye out." She told him and carefully got closer to the door to inspect it and attempt to get it open. If it was left untouched for whatever reason, it would be a great boon, the fact it was untouched however was concerning, so she made sure to be at full attention.

As Cat got closer she could make out more details on the door that she couldn't have noticed as easily in the darkness. It actually looks like someone had tried to get in a long time ago, as the lock was beaten and the edges of the door splintered, but it looks like they failed. There was ice around the door frame itself freezing it in place, but sufficient enough force could likely knock the door off it's hinges. Alternatively, if the lock itself was disabled, it would make it much easier to push open the door. Donny came over with his lighter to try and illuminate the door some more. "Locked huh? Hmm... Not much of a locksmith, but I might have something."

Turning the lighter off Donny dug through his pack before he found what he was looking for, than turned his lighter back on and handed it to Cat. it looked like a small screwdriver and a small metal hook. "Might not work but it's better than nothing. Usually we just broke open locks but this sort of pick is good for gunlocks and other small mechanisms. This is probably a basic pin tumbler, so you just need to positions the pin in place and torque the lock once they're set. I'll hold the light up so you can see, try to work it open." As Donny held the lighter close to the lock Cat could see that the tools she was given weren't the best. If she messed up opening the lock, she's liable to break the pick inside of the lock and render it effectively useless.

Cat looked at Donny with a slightly raised eyebrow until he pulled off the improvised lockpick. Well normally one would call it improvised, but this was the post apocalypse, pretty much everything was improvised or salvaged. True new tech or gear was rarely made, mostly because the facilities required to do so were hard to find. Even setting up a smithy was very hard because of avaible resources being sparce, unless you worked with specific types. Luckily electrical grindstones weren't that rare because electricity was something a number of settlements had.

"Luckily for us then that I'm actually somewhat decent at this... Not the first time I've picked a lock." She replied flatly and took the offered tools, setting a knee in front of the door so the lock was at eye level and then very carefully and methodically got to work, being very careful to listen to the sounds it made as she moved it about extremely carefully, not wanting to risk it snapping and leaving them without the hook and the loot. As for her experience, well she had to sneak off to be able to get her smuggled goods to her safehouse/hiding place. It also helped that she had a lot easier time at hearing what happened inside the locks. Now it was all to skill, patience and luck.

"Let's see... quiet now..."She mumbled, narrowing her eyes and focusing on the sensations from the lock. Both touch and sound were important here.

It took Cat a few minutes. Minutes that felt like hours because of how careful she'd need to be. Donny kept his eyes elsewhere, watching her back as his lighter provided a scant amount of illumination. After about ten minutes there's a click, and Cat was able to open the lock. The door was still frozen shut, but all it'll take is a shoulder bump for the door popped off it's frame without much noise. "Nice work. I'll keep my eyes peeled here, take a look inside and see if you find anything useful." Donny says as he turns to watch for any danger coming.

Inside of the maintenance closet was a cabinet, a mop bucket, and a small work table. The first thing that may catch Cat's eye was that on the work table was a tool box: practically a treasure chest in this day and age. Inside was a box of nails, a roll of duct tape, two hammers, a pipe wrench, a set of screwdrivers, and a few random screws, bolts, and washers. Seemingly useless for some, but for any skilled scavenger or technician Cat may as well had found a Holy Grail. They weren't even in that bad of a condition: dusty and smelling like industrial grease perhaps but the toolbox was sealed well enough to prevent moisture from creating any rust. Looking elsewhere around the room she'd find a pair of rubber boots. More for keeping your feet dry when cleaning a spill than keeping them warm in a blizzard, but it wasn't unusual for someone to stuff these sort of boots with cloth and seal it with tape.

Finally there was the cabinet. There was a dirty mop in here that was made of wood, so it's so brittle now that just touching it might shatter it. But there were two other treasures here that Cat would most likely be interested in. The first was a three-foot long, four pound stainless steel crowbar. Though it had a layer of rust on it, it was still solid, good to bludgeon someone or pop open a stubborn door. If Cat had this when she ran into the this door she could've easily opened it by force. And the second was a true treasure. It was a box of Industrial Green Glowstick, used for emergencies where illumination is needed and the power is out. Just like right now. Thanks to the cardboard box and chemical solution, none of them were frozen either. There were twelve in total. All you had to do was crack one and it'll provide illumination for up to 10 hours, or so it says on the box.

"Thank you." Cat replied at the praise, a bit surprised and not used to being praised. Back as a slave soldier she was never praised, she was just assumed by those above her that she'd do right so if she did do a good job there were never praises and if she failed at something, she'd be punished. Now... later she understood that was a way of breaking her and the others in her situation, she had seen it, felt it and eventually broke through it because she was actually pretty smart and with strong will. Still didn't make her used to praise.

With a moderate tap with her shoulder the door snapped open from the ice and the insides were revealed." I'll be darned... how did this place not get looted sooner?" She muttered as she walked inside, looking at everything that was around." Fuck... this is... " She added in disbelieve as she spotted and opened the toolbox. It was untouched! It wasn't a specliast one in some of the specliast places like garages, but it had everything htey might need! Hammers, nails, screwdivers and wrecnhes on top of scres, bolts and washers. Only one problem, it wasn't really her thing. She could likely trade it later if it was just her, but she wasn't alone." Donny, you take the toolbox." She stated flatly." By the looks and sounds of it you've got better understanding what these could do as benefits outside of trading them." She said and moved away from the box to explore the rest of the closet. She then spotted the pair of rubber boots and nodded, picking them up, not warm, hers were better for warmth and just cross terrain, but rubber boots like these would be invaluable if they had to trduge thourgh questionable substances and liquids." Seems we might have struck the motherlode." She chuckled and put the boots aside to be picked later, continuing tosearch around. The mop she ofund in a cabinet was mostly useless... well mostly, she just pulled the cloth bit of the end off the brittle wood. It would do well as tinder. Then her eyes fell on something else.

"Jackpot." She grinned picking up and caressing a perfect crowbar as if it was a baby." This one's mine~" She cooed and hurriedly found a place on her bags to attach it to. This baby was going to allow them to open a lot of other otherwise unaccessable places. Finally what she found else in the cabinet made her half." Hey, Donny, come here, I think we found something even better than the toolbox. Haven't seen one of these in a while." She told him and carefully picked up to show him the glowsticks." We might have to use one now honestly... unless we form a improvised torch or something which admittedly we might be able to. It will be 'night' soon on the surface and we will have to search for a place to set camp way before the 10 hours of light the stick would provide so it would be a waste to do so before resting." She told him.

Donny peeked inside the room, whistling when he spotted the tool box. "Hotdamn. Something like this would get you one hell of a gun, maybe even your own pad. Sure this might be simple shop stuff in the past but no one's making proper tools in this day and age. Shit like this is more valuable than gold."[/color] Donny made sure to examine each and every item, verifying the integrity of it before securing the toolbox on his bag. When you showed him the glowstick he also nodded in appreciation. "Funny. I remember a time where something like this was a toy you play with at the pool. Box of this would set us up for a few days, and we can just leave it strapped on our bodies or even tied to the muzzles of our guns if need be." At the mention of making a torch, Donny looked at the old mop in the cabinet. "A torch huh? I think I can think of something. I a bit of cloth, can mix it with one of my petrol bottles. Tie it to what's left of that broom stick and we got a torch, though we'll need to break the stick down a bit what with it being so brittle and shit."

Taking the mop handle, Donny was able to break it easily with just his hands. He broke it into three parts, then took out one of his Fire Bombs from his bag. He removed the cloth to bind the sticks together, and now just needed to make the torch end. So he used another length of his rope, making a large bundle around one end. Finally he soaked it in oil, and using his lighter, lit it up. The torch illuminated about twenty feet around, allowing both Cat and Donny to see their immediate surroundings. Not that there was much too see, but at least it was better than nothing. "We got about an hour, maybe hour-thirty, before this torch runs dry. With any luck we'll find a decent place to set up camp before than, if not we'll at least have those glowsticks to use." Putting his lighter away, Donny had his axe out and torch in hand. He thought he looked somewhat funny: as a kid he always wanted to be some fantasy adventurer, armed with a sword and shield looking for monsters to slay. But now he was older, wearing metal armor and armed with an axe and torch, and he just wants to find a safe play to lay down and take a nap. "Let's get moving."

"You remember?" She asked him in surprise." You were born before the cataclysm then? Huh... I guess I took you as somebody more my age, but I guess you are at least a few years older than me then." Cat sighed and looked at him." Well I will take your word for it, I was born and raised already underground hell, by the time I was old enough to remember, the new 'societies' had already began to form." She lightly growled, but calmed down moments later. Yeah born and raised in slavery wasn't especially pleasant especially after knowing who your mother was and her doesn't even caring about you anymore because she was so brainwashed and broken that she only cared to be a tool for somebody else to satisfy their desires with and to slave away, hell for all Cat knew, she might have siblings out there, but honestly she didn't care by this point.

"Sure too bad we cannot use it to make a few.." She added and proceeded to find space for the boots in her bag while he made the torche." By the way, tying the light sticks to ourselves is a bad plan, it's like signaling our location precisely in the underground. A very bad decision all things considered, better hold them or have them set in such a way they could be discarded at a moment's notice. Light doesn't really hinder quite everything, I mean some underground mutants and beasties might not like it and keep at bay, but others might just rush right at it. Torches are superior in that, not only does it provide light, it also does fire and fire is good repellent."

"I will take lead, you hold the torch." She told him with a grin and secured the light sticks in her backpack. Then she checked to confirm her shogun axe was loaded, before heading forwards, leading the way. They had a lot of ground to cover, they were currently running through some access corridors and halls underground, so if what he mentioned earlier was correct, then they should eventually find their way to the old metro tunnels. The tunnels this far out were separated from the ones closer in city because of caveins and other disasters that were results from the cataclysm. She wasn't sure exactly where the exile town was, but it was even further on, so it might not even be in the old metro tunnels, but instead in the natural caverns formed during the quakes and so on. They will have to see. As for a good spot for a camp, she wasn't sure.

"Hey, ever been a witness to a cold waves?" She asked without turning, her axe ever ready to strike and her senses generally focused on the darkness ahead." Some time back when I was still a soldier trainee in the Settlement, we a team that got caught in one on the surface. When we went to search for survivors or at least retrieve their gear, in just 24 hours they had frozen to death and nearly solid. We should be weary of that, especially with the storm up top, sometimes after a snowstorm like that a rapid cold wave follows. We should take that into acount when we camp" She mentioned.

"Cold waves? Hmm... Can't say I have. At least not in recent memory." From how she described them, Donny was almost certain that his family had to deal with a Cold Wave early into the end of the world. It's what killed his father. It's why his mother had urged him and his siblings to keep running, to never stay inside of cars, and to always stay warm even when it got so stuffy it was suffocating. Donny only never went through a Cold Wave because he always made sure never to be caught in one. "Worse comes to worse, if it's stormy topside, we'll just have to make camp in the metro. Not the safest, but nothing is out there." Donny says with a sigh as he adjusted his torch and continued to follow Cat.

It was a largely uneventful walk, which could be considered a good thing. Aside from ancient, dusty ruins, there wasn't much of note. The occasional bathroom that was full of mold and rust, the occasional dead body long reduced to a skeleton and scraps, and occasional parts of the ceiling collapsed after years of no maintenance. Soon it would lead to the metro proper. It wasn't much bigger than the tunnel they took to get here, but compared to the way they came the metro seemed to have held up mostly well. Less parts of the tunnel were worn by weather and time, bit it's certainly been long abandoned. It also reeked of waste: no doubt due to nearby latrines that have backed up and contained years worth of sewage that's just been never drained. Donny fortunately couldn't smell it through his mask. "Torch is still going strong, but it's running out of rope. If we're going to make camp, I'd like to at least try to save a bit of the torch to make a fire. To cook that crab meat if nothing else."

There were two ways to go. Based off the signs there was the north line and the east line. Donny pointed his axe towards the east line. "From what I've heard, this fabled town is due east. Underhaven it's called. A place for exiles, muties, and a bunch of others who don't mind living too close to some blasted out radioactive wasteland. Not exactly what I'd call a comfy, but I'm in no position to be picky." He lowered his axe and looked to Cat. "Say if you don't mind me asking... What's your colony anyways? Like where was it at."

"There in lies the problem the cold wave can follow you underground for a long distance if there isn't anything blocking the way. It's literally freezing cold air that's spreading through tunnels." She sighed and shook her head." If we camp in the metro, it should be a a storage or maintenance room of some vareity or even a control one, though for those we usually have to go even higher since that's where the control rooms are. In any case we should be careful." She finished her statement.

"Well to the east we go then. Hopefully we come across a access door before long that leds into the maintenance tunnels." She pointed out and started walking. Sure enough as it was always with the old world metro construciton, there was a door leading into the maintenance tunnels. It would provide security from things wandering the metro tunnels themselves and also from the elements. Hell if they were lucky, they might even stumble upon something they could use to get a real fire going, because the remains of the torch wouldn't really be enough to have a fire burning for very long, she doubted that he'd be able to even cook a small part of the meat as he wanted with just the remains of a single broom handle." As long as we avoid the worst of the exposure we should be mostly alright."

"... Fourth Kingdom..." She replied eventually after a few moments of silence." Used to be Fourth Shelter at first I think. I refer to it by 'the settlement' just to not mentio nit. It wasn't a nice place, it's a military dictatorship ran on slavery and indoctrination of slaves. They don't really raid other settlements for slaves, they just demand them for protection from possible raids." Cat sighed and stopped in front of the access door, tensing her senses and then reading her weapon as she preapred to open the door." It was underneath the old military complex on the other side of the city, so it ended up with a lot of actual soldiers there after the cataclysm." She explained and opened the door, which luckily wasn't frozen because it was far enough from the surface and there wasn't that much humindity for everything to be frozen anyways. She pulled the door open and readied her shotgun axe to shoot at anything on the other side. Another properly filled maintenance closet would be too much to hope for, but she at least hoped for somethign secure they could camp at for the night and hopefully with something to burn.

Cat opened a door into a maintenance hall. It was cluttered by rocks and debris, and it was narrower than the area they were walking through before. As they continued to travel Donny spoke quietly. "Huh. A bit different from where I came from. Called themselves Valklin, we had a bunch of tools and construction stuff. Most of us were engineers and stuff." Donny didn't feel like explaining the other thing his colony did. If Cat had heard of them, than she'd know. If she didn't, than Donny wasn't going to tell her. As they walked they came across a gruesome sight. Another corpse, rotten and long dead, who had his head crushed open by falling debris. He had an unopened backpack, a broken flashlight, and a wooden baseball bat. "Huh. Poor bastard. Looks like he's been dead for a while, but no one found him. I guess that's lucky for us."

Donny went over and carefully checked the body, poking it with his axe. Once he confirmed it was dead, he grabbed the bat which was in surprisingly decent condition. The flashlight was scratched up but good too, though with two dead batteries. Looking through the backpack revealed some extra socks, underwear, expired sanitary products, a towel, and four MRE's. There was also a broken canteen: whatever was inside of it dried up a long time ago. "Nice." As he checked the pockets he found something else too. A note, and a map of the underground. "Jackpot. Let's see what we have here... Looks like a note about some places to get supplies. Couple names marked off already but there's a 7-11, a place call Cassie's, and Jeb's Sports that's still on the list. A code too. 44, 72, 40. Probably codes to a combination lock." Donny showed the map to Cat as well, using the torch light to illuminate it. There were some areas circled, some areas X'd out, and some parts of the map scribbled. There was one spot with a pentagon drawn on it, and based on where it was at it was somewhere within this maintenance hall.

"Ahhh THAT place." Cat made a grunting sound when she heard where Donny was from. She grumbled some impossible to understand sounds and hisses, rolling her eyes." Had more than a few run ins with the folk from your former home then while still a soldier. Fierce fighters that lot, in the end they died just the same anyways. Hope you never lost any friends while fighting 'the settlement', because I refuse to call it by the name they gave it, but they knew what they were getting into when raiding." She added, throwing him a look. It was obvious that she had killed before, she was a soldier in a post apocalyptic world, she had killed mutant creatures, crazed mutated humans who in some cases barely resembled humans anymore and had killed her fair share of humans too. Hell her first kill was just a year into training. They made them all kill somebnody.

Then they found something rather grimm, if it wasn't for the fact they lived in a hellhole of a world and everything was grimm. There was a rather old body half burried under rubble with a lot of goodies. She let Donny be the one to loot the thing, since she was keepign guard, ready to shoot anything that shows up. Sure enough what they got was rather good." MREs? Pre-cata MREs?!" She asked in disbelieve, seeing the food. She has had normal food only a few times in her life and MREs were about as normal food as you can get in this world. Sure you could be on occasion eating proper meat or veggies if a settlemetn produced those, but those were rare and in general it was just nutrient blocks for all the 'lesser people'. What's more there was also spare underwear, not for women, but clean sets of underwear and socks in the wild were hard to find." We can probably fix that flashlight into proper workign order if we are lucky." She mused and looked at the illuminated map.

"The fool seems to have been here for a good while, the chill in the air would have slowed down decay and it's not really touched by bugs since there aren't any... Must have been here for months, if not longer. Hmm, probably a scavenger, given we are at the edge of the known territories with only the Underhaven nearby, probably from there, hoping to score some good haul to trade." Cat mused, studying the map.

"... What's with the pentagon?" She asked, tossing a look at him, now she was curious." I now want to know, afterwards we can probably hit some of the others at a later date if anything, it would be a good thing to have places to loot after we reach the Underhaven. We will need to establish ourselves there and for that we will need things to trade, that is if you want to team up even after we arrive of course." She told him and decided to head off to very carefully check out the marked area of the maintenance hall. SHe also looked at the walls and narrowed her eyes." We should strip some of hte cabling for those dead lights that line the walls." She pointed out to him.

Donny nods as Cat lays out a plan of action. He was honestly just going to keep moving forward, but it'll be worth investigating this mysterious location. When she offered the idea of teaming up, Donny was notably withdrawn. He didn't say anything but even Cat could sense that Donny was hesitating to respond. "... Right. Anyways. For these cables maybe later. I'm already carrying a bunch of stuff right now, don't need to be weighed down by wiring. This place looks fairly untouched so with any luck next time we stop by we can do that." Putting the plunder away, Donny hefted his axe onto his shoulder and continued down the maintenance all.

Following the map the two would eventually come to the location that was marked with the pentagon. It looked like a regular red metal door, dusty and frozen in place. It was obviously locked, but fortunately with the crowbar it would only take a few minutes of wedging and pulling before the door popped open. This area looked like a breakroom, or what was the remains of one. There was a row of lockers on one side of the wall, three empty vending machines near the door, old busted appliances on the counter tops, and a few wooden tables that are covered in dust and debris. But the most gristly sight was two corpses in the corner, huddled together in layers of jackets. Very small corpses, likely children. They were surrounded by wrappers, bottles, and cans, likely from the broken vending machines. There were faded drawings on the wall that Donny and Cat could still see: a man and women with two children running across a snowy city. The man had a bat while the women was holding onto the hands of the children. Another picture showed a big home with a fire and a table full of food. There was even a dog here, and one thing that Cat likely has never seen and Donny has likely forgotten: The Sun.

"Damn." Donny said quietly as he turned away. It was a sad sight to see. "Guessing this family didn't make it." Donny tried not to think too much about it. It wasn't as if he was surprised: he's seen a lot of families trying to survive and die before his eyes, and that was before he arrived to the colony. And yet it still affected him even after all of these years. He tried to take his mind off of it by looking through the lockers for anything of note, but all he found was the occasional moldy lunch bag and useless paper money. He did find a book with some dried markers next to it but he didn't want to read it. He had an idea of what was inside and he didn't want to think about it too much. Or at all for that matter.

"No worries, no rush." Cat replied calmly, giving the man a studying look for a moment." Cabling is one of those things that people don't ask for until they need it or it's delivered to them. Places usually have a stock salvaged from all around, but always buy more. The more technological the settlement, the more their need for cables and even less advanced ones use them since as long as they can provide energy, network of lamps is a great thing to have, good for defense also. Heck, we were required to know how to set up a lightpost when we were going through training." She mused as they started moving again, she didn't bring up the topic of teaming up again. It was something she casually mentioned to him cause it would likely coem into play sooner or later. Maybe he'd be able to settle down and never venture out again or maybe not, but they did survive now some hours or so of chaos and they worked off each other well enough.

The location marked with a pentagon turned out to be an improvised home or shelter. She put her new tool to good use, forcing the frozen door open through it's locked state and they entered, looking around through the light of the torch. She metaphorically froze at the sight an sighed, studyign the two tiny bodies and then looked at the pictures on the wall. It told a grim and morbid story."I suppose I was off with my original estimation for his death... the frost, lack of humidity and bugs must have mummified him... If that picture of a bat is anything to go by... that was likely these two's father. The mother either didn't manage to survive till this place or she tried going in search for her husband and never made it back." She said and gave the two small bodies a polite bow and salute. They must have died out here alone, huddling for warmth when their parents never returned. They ran out of food eventually and then passed away in their sleep. Her eyes lingered on the picture of a sun now. She walked off to it, touching it with the tip of her fingers, like it would fracture and vanish of she pushed harder. She had never seen the sun, by the time she waqs born the cataclysm had struck and the skies were blocked off in perpetual clouds and storms. She had heard rumors that at very rare cases you could see the blue skies before you die. Wondered how much that was true, but she found herself fascinated with the drawing of a sun for a good while longer.

"Alright, Donny, we've got two choices, we try to push through and go even further on, or we can camp here for the night. This break room is secure enough once we close the door, that even a Brute Crab wouldn't be able to breakt through it in one go." She told him, looking around for possible things to use as fuel for a campfire. There were the wooden tables that would burn rather nicely. Sadly in this kind of world, the bodies of the dead didn't matter. Still out of politeness, she used one of the jackets to cover the heads and upper torsos. A final late gesture of kindness to allow them to rest in piece.

Picking through the remains of the electronics in the room, the only thing Donny found salvageable were some wires and an internal battery in the vending machine. Too big to fit in the flashlight, but given some time, Donny could "recharge" the batteries in the old flashlight and give it some juice. Of course he'd have to wait here for that to happen, which he really didn't want to do. Not because the room wasn't a safe place: as Cat pointed out, this was the perfect place to bunker down. Aside from the fact there are two corpses of children here. Donny did his best not to look even in their direction: unlike Cat who's no doubt used to seeing dead bodies, Donny hasn't quite gotten familiar with seeing the corpses of people and children. Sure, he's picked from dead bodies before. But it's just different when they're so young. "I.... I guess. Not like we know what's ahead of us anyways. And I'm not one to waste good material if we can. I can spend some time breaking down this table, making new torches. Enough to cook some food."

Donny accidentally looked at the corpses as Cat covered their bodies. It didn't really make him feel any better. If anything, it was worse; now his mind began to wonder what would happen if the jacket fell off at any point. Would it be because the children were alive? Or worse, undead? Donny has heard rumors of the radiation from the surface mutated even corpses to live again, but not like any human. Something even worse. He just shook his head and took out his axe, focusing on the task at hand. "I... Let's move those bodies out of here. It's just... Not a fan of resting next to a couple of corpses. Leave them outside or... With their father. Or something." Donny finally said his thoughts as he used his axe to pull out the nails and rusty screws on the table. He would use a small metal trash can to help contain the flames, cutting a hole in the side to allow ventilation as he piled some of the old wood into the can and used that journal he saw as tinder.

Cat wasn't minding the bodies much, they were practically mummifed, nothign could really happen, but when she heard Donny's desire to move them since he didn't want to spend the night with them nearby, she nodded. She forgot that not everybody was trained to not mind bodies." Very well." She finally sighed and walked over to the bodies, making sure htey were neatly wrapped in the jackets and she carefully picked them up all wrapped up like htat was easier. They were light... there wans't much to weight anymore.

"I will be back in a little while, will bring them to to their father indeed. They deserve at least this much." She nodded and carefully left the confines of the room, heading down the halls again towards the cave-in. It wasn't hard, once she was by the cavein, she placed the two small bodies next to the man and started to pull rocks and rubble from the cavein, covering them. It took a bit of time, but it would ensure nobody looted them anymore. About half an hour later, she was done, pulling a piece of concrete, she took her knife and scratched a cross into it, placing it onto the pile, iwth the cross down before heading back to the secure room.

"It's me, Cat. I'm back. "She carefully warned him first before she entered." How goes the cooking? Anything for dinner?" The soldier woman asked, walking over and sitting on the floor next to him." I left them with their father and covered the bodies with the rubble, it's a way to bury them. I hear it's the way they did things back before the cataclysm. In my settlemetn we just used to cremate bodies or they were droped one specific shaft where probably they were devoured by beasts." She added.

Donny would carefully open the door, gun in hand, making sure Cat was actually Cat and not some mutant playing tricks on him. But once he verified it was her, he would let her in quickly before securing the door again. "That's good. Burying the dead is... It's something we still did. Back at the colony. Before stuff happened. Anyways go ahead and take a seat. Food's almost ready."

By the time Cat settled in, Donny had a sizable little fire going. He had built it near a vent so the smoke wouldn't fill the room, and used some rubble to contain the wood. He basically broke up the table into firewood and used what remained of his torch to ignite the tinder. He made quick work of the table, piling what wood he didn't use nearby so it could be warmed up by the flames. As for food, he simply roasted the mutant crab meat in it's shell over a flame. Nothing too fancy about it. However it would provide some much needed substance to the nutrient bricks: Donny took his and smashed it inside of a bowl until it was grainy, and then mixed it with mosswine to turn it into a gruel. He made enough for himself and Cat, and to top it off, Donny took out something worth more than bullets: A spice pack.

"Swiped one of these from a ration pack. Back at the old colony for a job well done some of the... Soldiers were given old world rations. Damned fools tossed out the accessory packets. Wasn't planning on teaching them a lesson though, so I pocketed them. Now we got salt and pepper." Donny chuckles as he liberally spices up his gruel with bits of crab meat. It was... Not terrible, certainly better than plain nutrient bricks. And for Donny that was good enough. He notably ate with his mask still on, only slightly adjusted to make an opening for his mouth. He ate the fool while it was still hot, almost ravenously so. He either really liked it or this was just a bad habit of his. "This is good stuff. Old world really knew how to make these things last. Salt and pepper's probably older than I am, but it still tastes the same."

Cat slowly settled down next to the fire, warming up. It had been a while since she last had a warm safe place to camp. After she fled her old home, she never rested much at one place, nor risked making up proper camp, least anybody followed her from there or if anybody saw her from their subservient settlements. THis meant for the first time in days she was warmed up from the enjoyable sensation of heat from flames. She smiled and actually relaxed a bit, especially since she had spend a good deal of time moving rocks to bury the kids and the man.

Now she wanted nothing else, but just call it a night and rest, but food first. What followed next, snapped her almost wide awake and she looked with wide open eyes the spice pack." How...?" She asked, looking at him and hearing the answer. Cat then laughed, she just burst out in laughter to the point she had to lay down for a moment." They literally wanted to throw something that other settlements would have traded everythign for. This is priceless! My old place would have likely given them people for it even." She shook her head, snapping out of the laughter and taking carefully her gruel. She also picked a piece of the meat and pulling an improvised spoon from her bag, began eating slowly without hurrying. She knew rushing eating usually was a bad idea since it sometimes brought bad effects.

" Indeed, if we could ahve properly washed the meat, it would have been even better." She smiled, enjoying the taste of meat as she ate." Still good though and I agree, they did make things very well back then by the looks of it, but I think it's also teh fact that salt and pepper don't really have experiation dates? That's what it was called, wasn't it? On that note, I think my old place had located a massive source of salt at one point, but weren't able to collect it since it was on the surface. They couldn't actually organize a proper expedition to gather much of it, it was too far away from the nearest surface entrance we could locate and to begin with it was very far form the settlement." She mused.

Once she was done with the food, to the point the bowl was completely and uttrely cleared of any food remains, she poured a bit of water in, swished it around and drank it. They didn't really ahve enough water to wash the bowls so this owuld have to do. With that done, she found herself the most comfortable place possible near the fire, kept her gun trained and the doorway and relaxed down properly, hand not moving away from the rifle handle." I will take first shift and wake you later?" She suggested.

”Yeah, turns out guys who are good at fighting aren’t good at being soldiers. Who’s a thought?” Donny says as he and Cat finish off the rest of the food. Once there was nothing left, Donny did his best to clean his dishes before putting them away. He handed a few dry logs onto the fire and took off his boots. He meticulously cleaned his socks with a rock, squeezing out any sweat and gunk as he checked his leg. As he thought: he still had a bruise where that pseudogiant nearly tore his leg off. Donny could only sigh as he did his best to patch it up, using some spare cloth as a bandage as she settled in.

Donny sat in the opposite side of the fire, taking his pistol out and leaving it within arms reach. He hugged his legs to his chest and looked to you. ”Sound good to me. Wake me up if you’re going to leave. If you need to take a shit or something, I moved those lockers so you won’t have to.., You know... You’ll have some privacy. Anyways I’m going to get some shut eye...” Donny curls up on the floor and goes to sleep, his Gun near his hand in case he needs to fight at a moment’s notice.

The watch goes uneventfully for a while. However soon Cat could sense a change in air pressure. A sound of rattling in a distance. Something she was very familiar with: a Cold Wave. They should be safe in this room, relatively speaking, but who knows what sort of damage this Cold Wave could do down the line.

"Will do, thank you for the gesture." She told him with a smile. She was used to running with no privacy. In the military unit they were arranged in, there were no privacy arranged. Men and women slept in teh same rooms, and granted usually the only women in her squad were all slave soldiers. The others weren't slaves so they had all the right to bed them, none did cause also as a soldier she was exempt from having to spread her legs. The simple fact was that a pregnant woman didn't make for a good soldier and they needed her at hte time to fight. Now she ahd escaped because the situation ahd changed, but still.

After he went to sleep, she made her best to maintain the fire, withotu wasthing all the fuel at the same time. So she just calmly tossed a piece of decayed wood now and then. It burned fast because ofh ow decayed it was. Still it was pleasant to see a nice crackling fire. She wanted to sleep too, but it wasn't meant to be. She had tkaen teh first shift and she'd wait as a true soldier. Some time into the shift, she suddenly felt something off. First was the odd feelign of wrongness in her eers then came the sounds. The feeling of wrongness must have been the air pressure. The distant noises of rattling were... a COLD WAVE! She jolted up and stared at the door that was blocked. THe temepratures quickly lowered even iwth a closed door. The heat was being sucked through the door, she realized, possibly some of the walls too. The young owman tossed a few pieces of wood and moved away from teh door as much as she could, seeing it being covered by frost gradually. It must be way bellow zero tright now. She wondered if this meant a eye of the storm was above them on the surface. HTey used to say that under the eye of the storm the sky was clear and that the cold was the owrst imaninable.

SHe wrapped herself as tightly as she coudl in her clothign and moved over to Donny." Donny, wake up, it's nearly your time, but something happened anyways, so waking you a bit earlier." She told him waiting for him to get aware enough." A cold wave struck as the worst estimations I gave." She informed him, pointing at hte wall that was now covered in frost." We will need to hope that what ever's causing it to pass us over before leaving. Might take a few hours to days, but hte temperatures in teh room will continue to drop as the room's not graded for this kind of cold tha'ts about to hit us as time progresses. But at least nobody's going to enter the door while that storm's up. THe halls are a death trap and even most mutant won't survie long unless they are burried or have some other method of surviving sub zero temepratures. We should hope sure we've got enough kindling and firestuff to last us the night, otherwise, we might have a repeat of the scene we found in this room to begin with." She indicated, pointing at hwere the bodies used to be."