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Hermes tried hard not to become frustrated with his cousin. Catching the bit of attitude that coated her movements as she signed to him. He knew it was stupid, pointless to ask given that nobody knew what was going on because the government was keeping so much from them. But that didn't help stop him from asking, the panic of the unknown. His uncle suggested a military encampment as an option, but Hermes didn't trust that one bit. The government was already hiding from them, lying to them, who was to say they wouldn't just round everyone up and quarantine them by firing squad. His stomach churned like tumultuous waves as he pressed his legs to his chest trying to calm himself.

”Can we do the rural areas? I don't trust going to those encampments.” Hermes voted as they finally turned into his place. The front door cracked as others left their places around them. He called out to one of his neighbors as they made their way out. ”Did anyone catch my mom and Nonna? See why their doors open?” Hermes asked, signing with one hand to keep his family in the loop of the conversation taking place as he stood before the open doorway. The kitten left behind in the car, now placed within its carrier so that he'd have both hands free to pack and go.

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Mandy flicked her middle finger out at the mention of the government and encampments. "Agree. Let's go somewhere rural."

She parked the car and pulled the kitten and its carrier into her lap, giving the kitten pets through the open flap as her cousin ran into his home. With her other hand, she opened her phone and sent a text to her friend, Kristian. She had done a couple of projects with him the previous semester and he seemed alright. They had been texting when things started getting weird. She hoped he was following the news still.



She then sent a message to a group chat she had with several Deaf locals. He friends. It was a quick message that surmised everything that she knew. It was normal in Deaf culture to share information when one had it. During COVID a lot of information was passed around that way. It had gotten more complicated in the years since paper newspapers went out of style to keep up to date of what was going on in the news cycle. And not every president made sure they had a certified interpreter for press conferences. One of the main ways Mandy got news was through YouTube where she followed Daily Moth news.

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"That should get us by for a few days. Or at least until we get to wherever they plan for us to evacuate to. They haven't mentioned anything about shelters on the news, right?" Kali replied to Isaac, listening as she walked over to the refrigerator. She reached inside the door and grabbed a small glass jar filled with a reddish berry sauce before returning back to the living room.

"Didn't want to leave without it." Kali explained as she slipped it into her bag. "I know it's refrigerated, but if we're evacuating, one small comfort away from home won't hurt. Lingonberry isn't cheap, you know."

Once they were finally ready to leave town, Kali followed Isaac to the front door. However, her boss suddenly stopped in his tracks, and offered Kali the keys to his car. "I haven't driven in awhile," She stated, hesitant to take the keys at first. Liana was usually the one who drove the two of them around, owing to the fact that it was her car to begin with. "But I can get us there, sure."

Eventually taking the keys from Isaac, Kali followed him out the door and to his car. Placing their supplies in the back, she climbed into the driver's seat and began to drive away once the two of them were buckled and ready to go.

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Verity sat in silence again. Then she decided not to.

"Ok how are we not talking about how incredibly fucked up this all is? I mean just yesterday we were all doing our own thing like nothing and now we have the dead coming back to life and attacking people like some fucking dystopian movie. I mean Christ I get we need to move forward but can we take a minute?"

Verity put her head in her hands and took some deep breaths. "Life as we knew it is over. I mean there's no positive spin on this. The military might step in, great. But nothing will be the same. And it isn't like what happened with Covid where people will get back to some semblance of normal. This is apocalyptic. This is End Times bullshit."

"Sorry. I needed to get that out. I've been holding it in ever since the warning was sent up. The cabin sounds nice. At least it will be away from a large city with tons of people. I can only imagine what's happening everywhere else."

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Location: Beyond the Veil
Skills: N/A

Juniper felt a weird relief when he heard Waverly declare that the beings were zombies. Then he felt a little weird at the fact it brought him comfort. Probably it was just that having a label for something makes it easier. Plus, Juniper knew about zombies, though his thoughts felt a little scrambled right now, he was having difficulty recalling everything he'd spent all that time studying about zombies. Faintly he could hear Stacy talking about how the bar had some supplies that could be useful.

Juniper tuned back in more as he was told that it would be safe to stay in the bar, even if for only an hour or two. He didn't want to cause commotion while everyone was trying to rest, but his anxious thoughts were building. Eventually he did say something,

"What about after that? We have to like, figure out where else is safe....if anywhere? Or is the whole world zombie'd?"

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@Trainerblue192@Kirah Giuliano looked over at his daughter and nodded slightly, the government really wasn't trustworthy at times really. "Alright we won't go there then." He signed as he looked at Mandy and Hermes as he got out of the car, signing to Alma. "Stay here and lock the doors." He signed to her as she nodded she made sure that the doors were locked once Hermes and Mandy got out.

Mandy would get a text from Kristain. "Already getting out of the city now, the military is quarantining the entire island sometime tonight, so get out as soon as possible." Some of Mandy's other friends in the group chat texted the same thing as well to, with a news article sourcing the information.

One of the neighbors around Mandy's age looked over at Hermes and shook his head. "I got no clue." He said before going back to loading up his car and getting ready to leave. When Hermes entered his house the place seemed to be eerily quiet for some reason and it looked like the kitchen and living room were ransacked maybe it was some hoodlums that broke in?

@Carlyle "It's okay I trust you to not crash." Isaac said as he got into the car's front seat and strapped himself in, he pulled out his phone to see if there was any new. "Uh looks like they are locking down the island sometime this evening, and that Newark Liberty International Airport, and John F. Kennedy International Airports are going to be designated safe zones." Isaac said to Kali as she started to drive out of her place and towards Liana's place. Isaac stared at the jar of berry sauce and shook his head slightly, he was pretty sure it would end up going bad in a few days if it didn't get refrigerated. Kali would get a text from Liana. "How far are you out?" Was what the text asked.

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"It really is fucked up people biting each other, and who knows how well the government and military are going to handle the rest of it." Flynn said as he looked around, seeing a number of buses as well driving past them which made him wonder if the buses were bringing people away or if they were just single drivers getting out of the city. Everything was going to shit very quickly in a matter of hours it felt like. "Just yesterday I was riding my bike and going up here." Flynn said to Verity.

"The military is gonna do a pretty shitty job with them safety zones it'll take a few pissed off people to ruin everything." Gus said as he continued to drive they were nearing the George Washington Bridge. Gus started to notice that the traffic was getting congested as he looked at the others. "Well shit." Gus said as he rolled down the window sticking his head out of the window and started to beep the horn he really didn't like the idea of being trapped near or on the bridge. "Hey can you ask your friend if there is another route or something?" Flynn asked looking at Verity.

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Ameer turned to look at Waverly. "Mind turning on that old tin can of yours and see if theres any news or whatever?" He asked as he went over towards the window, he started to notice Joe on the outside being chased by a group of zombies. "Theres a guy out there." Ameer said looking at Juniper, Waverly, Stacy and Kaitlyn. "We should help him." Stacy said as she went under the bar table pulling out a handgun she kept for protection in case some druggie or hoodlum would try and rob the bar which has happened more than a few times as well to.

Kaitlyn turned to Juniper, from what her knowledge on zombie stuff. "The city itself is a deathtrap which we need to get out as soon as possible. Rural areas would be the best." Kaitlyn said as she started to look uncomfortable as Stacy grabbed a handgun from under the bar and started to make her way towards the back door of the bar.

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As their group discussed supplies, Waverley felt a buzzing in her pocket. She quickly slipped her phone out, her attention immediately shifting to it. It was Riley. She quickly opened it, firing a text back, fingers practically blurring as she typed on the keyboard. 'At Beyond the Veil. Can you get here within an hour? Or do you need me to come get you?' Waverley kept the phone in hand, anxiously eyeing the screen, waiting for it to light up with another text. Absentmindedly - and with a practiced hand - she reached behind her to turn on her radio at Ameer's request. She kept her phone in hand even as she stepped out of the back area and over to the bar, placing her backpack between Stacy and Kaitlyn.

"We should start packing up - and arm ourselves too. As a group, I think we've got two guns, but these things seem to respond to sound, so...we might want to be careful. NYC has enough noise pollution for now that we might be safe, but we don't want to risk it. I've got this-" Waverley pulled the bench arm rest from her bag, something she was now looking at as a slightly stubby improvised weapon rather than a piece of evidence of her own vandalizing. "If zombie movies are to be believed, blunt weapons with relatively long range should work best for close quarters combat."

As Stacy began gearing up to head outside, Waverley straightened up. She glanced once more down at her phone, chewing the inside of her lip. On one hand, she needed to make sure Riley was okay. But on the other, someone needed to help save the guy outside. With a sigh, she slipped her phone into her pocket, following behind Stacy with her arm rest in one hand and the gun in the other. Passing Juniper, she nodded towards Kaitlyn.

"Kait said she knew somewhere we might be able to hunker down - the fewer the people, the better."

Joe Yamakami

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He was never going to forget hearing the screech of sirens in tandem with the panicked barking of orders that careened upward from the sidewalk through the slightly cracked windows of his fifth story studio apartment. Joe had lived in New York for over twenty years and had heard a variety of sounds assault his senses, but what he heard earlier that day was different; it had panic laced with desperation that was confirmed by his flipping through various local news sites that proclaimed very, very strange things: cannibalistic behavior, sudden accidents and parts of the city being prompted to evacuate. He had checked his phone for notifications several times in-between the news scrolling, texting a few friends only to be greeted with affirmations that the news reports were indeed real, that something was enveloping the city that he called home.

There was an option to stay behind, of course; after all, as someone who came from a country that experienced disasters quite often, he was leery of becoming someone that gave into mass panic, but then again…the behavior that was being reported and exhibited from the brief conversations he had with friends across the city were indicative of a genuine fear response to a dangerous piece of stimuli; in other words, he felt the urge to take action, to which he did. A packed backpack later, he found himself on street level, where denizens zoomed by, traffic gridlocked, some cars abandoned in the helter skelter. His brow had furrowed, eyes narrowing; it would be difficult to utilize any of the normal modes of transportation to get off the island, but he did know of a way he could take on foot, past a bar that he had frequented several times due to a friend that insisted one of the regulars knew what good sakes was (she did not, but she knew about many other things, including how to hold a great conversation and…well, many other things).

Joe had managed to weave through the majority of trouble without a single spotting of what some were calling “zombies” (the behavioral analyst snorting a derisive chuckle at the idea of Resident Evil come to life), getting to within a hundred yards or so of Beyond the Veil. He thought he could spy forms inside the bar from windows positioned in the facade of the building, giving him some hope that he could talk to people abou-

A trash can behind him rattled, then slowly rolled towards him.

Joe turned his head, brow rising, nostrils flaring at the sight of a man (or what was once a man), tattered clothing exposing oozing sores and dried blood, a guttural moan passing through his (or it’s, now) lips. He turned back towards the bar, breaking into a trot as other figures emerged from behind him, converging on his location. Joe was about fifty yards away, but the former humans had gone from shambling to speedily pursuing.

He could only hope there were individuals in the bar who had some form of defense. Otherwise, he would be leading these creatures to more prey.