[center]Collab between finalcatharsis and Exit Part I[/center] ---- Daniel yawned and rubbed his eyes. Some nights he slept like a baby, others he tossed and turned thinking about his family. His head was filled with memories of their smiling faces. He liked to imagine that somehow these past nine months for them had passed by like any other. That they were safe at the family home inside of some protective bubble. That all of this couldn't touch them. It was wishful thinking at its best. Dan had spent so many days alone he had lost count. He sighed and watched as a white cloud formed just past his lips. He pulled on his black attire, shoes, white collar, and even attached the black choir hood onto his cassock and pulled it over his head. He went into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror to examine his face. See, priests had this need to always look clean and presentable. It was hammered into them at seminary. He wondered if his teachers could overlook the beard growth given the current situation. Today Danny decided he wanted to take a break from his chores, to have a sort of educational sabbatical of his own. It had been a while since he took a day to blow off steam. Thinking he might go outside, he grabbed Lex, his guitar, put it in its soft case and tossed it over his shoulder. He put his cigarettes and matches in one pocket and grabbed a bottle of wine he had brought to his room. From there he walked to the working sacristy and up the stairs to the roof. "Buuurrrrrr," he said to himself. Something he always remembered his dad saying when he stepped outside on a cold winter's day. There had been about a half inch of snowfall in the night, which was good for his water stores. However, today he hadn't come up to the roof to collect. He propped his guitar and wine up near the door and walked over to the edge of the roof. Daniel looked out over the landscape just as he had done several times before. He was looking for any sign of change, something to give him hope again, but it was always the same. The dead shuffled along. No one alive came by anymore. Dan let his mind wander for several minutes as he contemplated his faith, the Bible, and God. The end wasn't supposed to be like this. There was supposed to be a glorious rapture. Saved souls were supposed to float to the heavens and not have to stay behind to endure all of the torment. For all he knew, the souls of these wandering things had gone to heaven and left behind empty shells of sin that became Satan's army. If these dead demons [i]were[/i] Satan's army, then shouldn't he be doing something to fight them? He had seen these things attack the living before, and choosing the side of peace had not fought back. Maybe it wasn't his decision anymore. But what could he do? He pulled the cigarettes and matches from his pocket and carefully examined the pack. Only three left. The supply had finally run out. [i]Screw it.[/i] He tucked one neatly between his chapped lips, put the pack back in his pocket, lit a match on the sole of his shoe, put it up to the cigarette and took a deep inhale. Just for today, his off day, he'd let himself have one while not playing, breaking the tradition his grandfather had started. Abel had been walking for a while now, his pants drenched in melted snow and his boots buried inches under. Each step had been harder than the last and with the cold crisp air sapping at his strength, he'd slowed considerably. His gait was awkward to say the least. As he took another step forward, his foot would bury itself in the ground and he'd have to swing his arms around his body in such a ridiculous fashion only to work the damned leg out. It was both a hideous look and a strenuous work out. Every now and again he'd have to stop to catch his breath. He'd Let his arms hang loose to the side as he craned his uppper half backwards trying to open up his lungs and get more firgid air in. After taking a few, he'd continue again. At this point he was too tired to care about anything else anymore save for the church he'd spotted up ahead. He simply had to get there... touch the walls, sit under it's roof for a moment. Nothing mattered but that. Rest, warmth.. maybe safety. Not to mention what looked like water catchers. Sure there was snow on the ground but at least it was guaranteed to be clean. No possibilities of the dead tarnishing a fresh cold glass. Speaking of which... Abel turned his head slowly to the left and right, picking out the few shufflers closest to him. [center][i]...Fuck it...[/center][/i] He was too tired to even try. He'd be safe in the church regardless. He crouched down and began shoveling some of the snow into a little mound, fingers quickly starting to shiver. When he had a sizable amount he took the mound in both palms, rose, and started to form a snowball. He took great care in making sure it was smooth, rounded, and pressed together so tightly that it wouldn't fall apart on the way to his target. He took one more drag and pulled the cigarette from his lips. It wasn't long before one of the zombies that had been aimlessly circling the campus caught his eye, and he was lucky that it was just within his range. "Fuck you, Satan." He put the cigarette back between his lips, squinted his left eye to aim with his right, then threw the snowball as hard as he could. Daniel had always been a fan of the cliche religious movies that portrayed priests as these Angelic forces to be reckoned with. However, he had run out of Holy Water and had left his crucifix in the church. Poof... It missed, but hit the ground near the undead soldier drawing its attention and causing it to stop moving. The sound was unpleasant at first. Annoying even. It broke the rhythm he'd already accustomed to: A simple step... breath... twist... step... It hadn't accounted for anything distracting... especially so damn close. He almost wanted to ignore it, act like he hadn't heard anything at all but curiosity was one of the forces that drove him. Despite his efforts, his eyes flicked left. There, no more than a foot away from him was a disturbed patch of snow, a small oddly shaped crater with fresh patches of the white fluff sitting around it. It was as if something had stepped there... or landed there. [center][i]...Had that been there the whole time?...[/center][/i] Daniel repeated the process twice more, missing the second, but getting a head shot on the third. It struck Abel across the eye catching him completely off guard and causing him to stumble backwards into the snow. He landed with a hard plop, throwing snow into the air and shoving the rest in between the seams of his clothing. The cold ice pressed against his skin making him wince in both pain and surprise. "HAHAHA! Bitch!" He did the old 'gotcha' move shoving both fists up into the air before flipping the thing off with both middle fingers. Of course, if one of his parishioners had seen the display he would have been fired... but none of those tight asses were around AND it was his day off! The first thing that crossed his mind was the fact that he was on the ground. He was staring at the sun as it punched through thick white clouds... something he wasn't expecting to see. When his brain had finally caught up to him, he realized the skin around his eye burned.. and surprisingly bad. Second... Abel thought he heard a voice, something like laughter followed by an expletive... Bitch was it? His brows furrowed in confusions as he repeated the word over and over in his head. The dead couldn't talk and although he'd been having conversations with himself as of late... he'd never struck himself before. This was something entirely new. Daniel threw another. This game was getting quite fun. Why had he never thought of this before? Poof... There it was again... the same sound. Distracting... and yet... Abel picked his head up and looked over at the fresh crater. He took in the shape... the glistening ice... felt the pain in his head. [b]"The fuck?!"[/b] His head whipped around, his eyes scanning the field around him. He saw nothing but the dead, mindless and ignorant as ever but not nearly dumb enough to try something like this. He immediately struggled to his feet, the attempt looking a lot more awkward than he intended as he fought against the snow that wanted nothing more than to hold him down. [b]"Alright... who the fuck is throwing snowballs at me?... And what the fuck?!"[/b] His voice carried across the empty expanse, over soft layers of snow and between the barren branches of lonely trees. It carried, the anger and confusion expressed along with it. Abel meant to open his mouth again but stopped. His jaw hung open and his eyes widened as he realized something else entirely. Someone had just thrown a snowball at his head... a snowball. If it had been anything else, a bullet perhaps.. he'd be dead. His mouth immediately shut itself and he hit the ground where he remained perfectly motionless. His head swiveled left to right to left as he looked for anything.. something to make sense of this idiocy. [i]You're mine.[/i] Daniel had the thing on its back. He smiled mischievously looking down at it. And then.... He did a double take after he heard the words 'the fuck.' Surely it couldn't have been this zombie. Had they learned to talk? Dan looked around in all directions to make sure he was alone. When he finally turned back to his target he heard more words. Angry words. And this time he saw ITS mouth move. Danny fell to all fours and he grasped his fingertips around the corner of the roof. He pulled himself closer to get a better look and pulled his hood back. When his head had gone over the edge he finally realized what he was seeing. Although this thing had moved like a zombie, it was definitely not a zombie. His eyes widened in surprise and his lips lost their grip on the cigarette. It fell to the ground and began burning a small hole through the snow, sinking slowly. The words were slow to come at first. He hadn't had contact with another human being in months. Somehow he had managed to make this one angry before he even formally met him. Daniel cupped his hands around his mouth to amplify the volume of his voice before yelling down. “Hey man. Oh Christ... I'm so sorry! I thought you were a dead head! Are you ok? Let me come help you up!” The guy looked plum worn out. Danny didn't wait for an answer. He went back inside, down the stairs and to the side entrance that was closest to the man. His cold fingers fumbled as he pulled the keys from his cassock. When he finally pulled the door back he first located the man. He was about twenty feet away. No dumbshows between them, but he still pulled out his pocket knife and gripped it tightly in his right hand. He took a deep breath and started on his trek. He hadn't gone outside of the church in a while. When the snow hit the skin beneath his pants he cringed. Dan also hadn't imagined how difficult it would be to walk around in his robe. By then Abel had already clamored to his feet, his hands clawing away at the snow as he tried to put together some semblance of a snowball. [b]"...Gonna play games huh..."[/b] He whispered to himself, half out of breath and half too angry to talk. [b]"...Call me a bitch..."[/b] He kept his eyes on Daniel as he approached him, watched his robes flap in the wind, his twisting form pushing through the snow. As soon as he had what he thought to be a good ball, he wound his arm back and tossed it at him with a wild throw. It was way off... too much emotion behind it to fly straight and not enough care to hold it together. The ice began to separate midair and halfway to it's intended target, it fell apart and turned into a cloud. It sprinkled back to the ground harmlessly between the two men. [b]"...The fuck...?"[/b] He was bent over now. The snowball taking more energy out of him than he expected. His fingers were numb, his legs as well. His body felt weak and there was this lightheaded feeling that slowly shadowed him. Although he was too angry to notice it, his body began to lean a little too far to the left, the world before him tilting to the right as he tumbled back into the snow. He landed on his back. Between shallow breaths of ice air, he would glance at the sun. The cloud had parted just above him allowing a warm ray of light to touch his face. He closed his eyes as he let his body sink into the snow. It felt good to just lay there.. forget that nothing made sense right now... maybe give himself some time to think. He closed his eyes for a little while as his body fought to keep himself awake. His time without ample food or water had been doing a number on his body and despite his enduring fight to ignore his urges, he knew it was about time to call it quites. This last escapade.. whatever you wanted to call it: A snowball fight... a rude awakening... a game in the middle of the apocalypse... Whatever it was had drained him of anything he had left in him. He wasn't going to make it to the church on his own and his only hope was to submit. Whoever it was running at him would be there soon and he swore he heard the man say something... nice... or at least he hoped. He was too tired to care anymore. All he could feel now was the numbing sensation crawling under his skin... up his legs and arms into his spine. He could feel the sting over his eyes... on the tip of his nose... the ice covering his throat... He could feel warmth of the sun. [center][i]...That's good...[/center][/i] It felt nice... the warmth. Like a blanket... If he could just lay here for a while longer... maybe sleep. Then it was cold. Abel opened his eyes to see the man over him... A knife in his hands. Suddenly everything flooded back to him. His eyes flew open, blood rushed to his arm and hands as he shoved his fingers through the snow and pulled the gun resting on his hip from it's holster. He yanked it into the air between them and pulled the trigger. Click... [center][i]...Fuck...[/center][/i] Adrenaline coursed through his body, pushing through his veins but with nowhere to go and nothing left to do, he simply dropped the gun and let his arms fall to the side in defeat. His eyes closed. Whatever happened next happened. All he knew was that this game of snowball was over. Daniel saw the man assembling the snowball, but didn't stop walking. He merely put out his hand in an attempt to stop the thing from hitting his face, but it barely made it halfway. “All right man! I deserve that!” He called out, nodding his head. He kept his eye on him and then a few moments later watched as he plummeted into the snow. “Shit.” Daniel grunted and picked up the pace for the remaining ten feet, pulling up his knees as fast as he could to get his feet up and over the snow. If he had more time, he would have gone back to the church and tried to assemble some sort of sled to get the guy back in doors. He started to pump his free fist to try and get his blood flowing. He was going to need every ounce of strength he could muster if he was going to carry this guy the twenty feet back to the church. Daniel's eyes stayed focused on him. He wasn't moving. When Danny got there he stood over him for a few seconds to try and see if he was still breathing. He hadn't thought about how the man might perceive a stranger walking up to him with a knife. Daniel was a pretty innocent guy compared to most that would have been around. “Can you move?” The man didn't answer, but did manage to pull his arm free from the heavy snow. Danny started to smile, but his expression quickly turned to horror when he saw what the man was holding. A gun? He didn't even have time to react before he heard a very distinct 'click.' Daniel fell back onto his ass, hands and forearms plunging into the snow. He looked down to examine his body. He wasn't hurting anywhere. He didn't see any blood. Had the gun misfired? Had it not been loaded? If his adrenaline wasn't pumping before, it was now. Not only that, but he had learned a valuable lesson. [i]Don't approach people with a knife in your hand, idiot.[/i] He folded the blade back into the grip and returned it to his pocket. A minute passed and the initial shock wore off. Daniel pulled himself back up with some effort, his clothes now soaked. He was shivering. “I don't want to hurt you, ok? I'm a priest. I want to help you.” Dan put his hands out to the side and flipped them palm up so the man could see they were empty. Daniel was fairly tall and lean, but he knew this was going to be difficult and didn't want to waste his adrenaline. “Let me get you inside, ok?” He crouched to the right side of the man and took his right wrist. He sat him up, bending him at the waist. “Now, I'm gonna need your help.” He tried to talk in a somewhat soothing tone. Maybe the southern accent would help. He put the same arm around his shoulders and rose from his squatted position trying to lift the guy out of the snow. His cheeks ballooned out and his eyes went into a squint. He released his breath when he was standing again. Daniel looked around to see some of the zombies had moved closer. Still not close enough to do any harm, but they needed to move. He started to move forward, back to the door. “I've got plenty of food and water in there.” He tried to offer the man some incentive to get them inside quicker. By now everything Abel tried to do seemed automatic. His legs moved on their own, trudging through the snow a little too slow for both their comforts. His arm had found a way around the man's back with his help and now the two of them were walking... or staggering.. in tandem. He almost hadn't heard what was being said to him. Words slipped into his ears, bouncing around in his head with no place to go. Hurt...priest...food...water. The last two stood out. They played back continously. His tin was nearly empty and he'd consumed the last of his supplies hiding away after... He would have shook his head to clear his thoughts but he couldn't even do that. If it wasn't for the man next to him he doubt he'd have gotten back up at all. He'd either been killed outright or eaten. On their way back to the church he too had noticed the dead closing in and although he hadn't said anything aloud, his mind did indeed register that they were there and they were close. Perhaps picking up the pace wasn't a bad idea. After a few painful steps, the adrenaline that had pushed through his body finally subsided and he could finally think again. He made conscious efforts to move faster and at the same time, craned his head a little to his left to get a better look at who almost stabbed him. He was young looking.. younger than him at least. A hard chin covered in stubble, thick wavy hair, bone framing a handsome face... not the face of a priest or at least the ones he'd imagined. In fact... upon staring at him a while longer, he realized this man wasn't anything he was expecting to see months into surviving the undead. He was far too clean... far too... nice. That snowball should have been a bullet and yet... here he was being dragged inside a church of all places by the priest himself. His weary mind was boggled... and distracted. His empty stomach and weak limbs telling him to shut up and keep moving. Nearly to the doors of the church, he finally decided to say something... something more so for himself than for the man he was clinging to. He had to make sure he was indeed awake and wasn't in fact being carved into. He parted his dried lips and let slip a single word he hadn't said in a very long time. [b]"Thanks..."[/b] It was an unintentional whisper, the words more of gasp then anything else. Although it was too soon to trust him completely, he was still alive when he could have already been dead. Daniel was out of breath in no time flat. He huffed the first ten feet back, but was able to keep up a pretty decent pace. This cold air was harder to take in. His lungs were burning. Was the door getting farther away or was it just his imagination? He forced whatever thoughts he had out of his head and kept pushing forward, re-positioning the man across his back as needed. The Reverend looked at the man when he thought he heard him whisper something, but it was lost to the wind. “We're almost there. Keep pushing. You're doing great.” Daniel forced himself to crack a slight smile. These past few months had been bleak. Often times he had wondered if he himself was turning into one of those things by default, but this changed everything. He felt alive again. They were under the door frame when Dan felt something tug at the back of his cassock. When he looked back, he saw a zombie clinging to it. It had fallen onto its stomach, barely able to move in the snow. He unlatched the man and gave him a rather violent push inside to get him out of harms way. He was in no condition to fight. After that, Daniel took to playing tug-of-war with the thing. He became panicked and eventually fell back yet again. However, it put him in a good position to kick the thing in its face, and soon enough its grip loosened and he scrambled on all fours back inside. He slammed the door behind him and quickly locked it. He put his back to the door and slowly sunk down to the floor, taking in deep breaths. Dan pulled his knees up and put his head between them. When he caught his breath he stood with some effort and made his way to the working sacristy where he had the stopped sink filled with water he'd collected. He grabbed his drinking can next to it, dunked it in and walked it back to the man.