Ash's head hurt. He could feel the dull throb of his pulse inside of his skull, where it seemed to magnify many times over. The Hordebuster pulled a little closer to where the outer walls used to be around the Franklin Addition. Actually pulling his vehicle inside would be foolish, seeing as the damage was only getting worse, but it was the nearest place that he found where survivors might have a chance at escaping the hell that Newnan had become. Peering out to look for people, Ash was surprised as hell to glance to the passenger's seat and see Alicia, looking just as she did in life, sitting right where Thana had earlier.
"Now that the chica is gone, why don't you just finish things and come with me? You know you ain't gonna see that gringa again," she tells Ash as she leans over and runs her finger down his cheek. He could feel heat and pressure on the side of his face. He could smell the shampoo that she used to use. She was as good as there. But to come with her? She couldn't mean...
"No!" he growled, slapping her hand away from his face. Surprise slapped back that time. He could feel his hand connect with her wrist, giving him momentary doubt as to what he was experiencing.
"I saw your corpse. I put you down. You aren't here, Alicia. Why the fuck am I arguing with you?" "Oh please, the place is burning. Stop fighting it. You've been thinking about this for a long time." The truth was, in darker moments in his recent history, he had been thinking about eating a bullet. Not all of the time, but the thought had come up more than once. Ash gripped the dog tags around his neck, both his and Thana's. People needed him now, and he had someplace to be. Where the hell were those survivors?
Niesha continued towards the hoardbuster, intent on getting there, on finding another survive, and a chance to survive. At the sound of a voice, Niesha stopped, glancing about, stumbling back slightly, as if she thought that she'd gone too far, crossed some line to hear Sophia's voice again.
"It never ends, until it does. It's okay for it to end," Was it in her head, or in her ear? For a moment, she couldn't tell.
"No... " She couldn't be hearing her voice again... could she? Part of her wanted to... the other part knew she had a job to do, and she couldn't let herself dwell on it... a figment of her imagination could wait. Couldn't it?
As the voice-
her voice whispered in her ear once more, her breath against her skin... Niesha shuddered, sure that if she turned, she'd see Sophia. She closed her eyes tightly, trying to resist, to keep herself from turning. She wasn't strong enough, and she turned, opening her eyes, She was not prepared to see Sophia standing there. Without thinking, Niesha took a step towards her, just as Sophia disappeared around the corner. Niesha hesitated, hovering where she was,
"Sophia... " She couldn't do this, even as she looked, desperately, to where Sophia had disappeared. She couldn't follow... but she couldn't make herself turn away.
Riley caught something in the corner of her eye, she turned her head to look at it she looked confused for a moment and shook her head and rubbed her eyes letting out a slight sigh.
"The fucking hell?" Riley said to herself turning her attention towards Ravi as she heard the Hordebuster starting to come down the road and approached the outer wall.
"That would be our ride out of here." Riley answered, she started to make her way over towards the Hordebuster. She was actually glad to see Captain Tight Ass for once, as she started to wave at him to get his attention.
Of course the advanced civilization (advanced by today's standards) had armored vehicles. It seemed that Newnan's residents had won the proverbial jackpot of the apocalypse. Ravi was about to head over to the heavily modified contraption when out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a face that he hadn't seen in ages, aside from his nightmares. As the funeral home collapsed behind them, Ravi spluttered a bit as dust went into his mouth, but it hardly bothered him. He had seen
her. She had the same brunette curls and bright blue eyes, filled with determination. She was healthy, whole, happy.
The last time he saw Liv, he killed her.
"Liv...?" Ravi whispered, unable to discern if she had actually been there. There was too much dust and debris from the collapsing building for him to catch another glimpse of her. But he had killed her - he remembered it, as much as he wished he didn't. There were times when if he were to close his eyes, it was all he could see - her still body, slain by his hand. He couldn't save the one person that mattered most. And now, the most he could do was stare in shock, unable to move or do much more than desperately hope to catch another glimpse of her - that somehow, she was still alive and well.
Meanwhile, back in the Hordebuster, Ash was quite busy losing what remained of his mental faculties. His headache was joined by a sense of growing anxiety, a feeling to which he was not thoroughly accustomed. The only saving grace of his condition was that he no longer saw Alicia riding shotgun and prompting him to off himself. Still, given the state of things around him, it was a token grace. The voice that he reflexively knew was a part of him seemed to have a lot to say, although in the din around him and the state Ash was in, his voice of reason only came out in muffled, unintelligible murmurs, like a voice speaking through a wall.
Ash wanted desperately wanted to keep a single thought in his head for more than three seconds. Like the voice in his head, his own thoughts betrayed him, lost in a jumble of swirling, messy obstacles that prevented them from reaching full clarity.
"Damnit..." he growled, trying like mad to piece together the last few minutes. He just couldn't right then. Frustration mounted and the confused Captain began lightly bludgeoning the steering wheel in front of himself with his forehead, over and over. The pressure was enough to set off the horn three or four times in short succession, snapping him to sit bolt upright and look around when he realized what he had done.
The sound of the horn caused Niesha to turn back towards the hoardbuster, a pitiful sound escaping her. Torn between saving those that lived, and finding out where the Sophia-illusion had gone, Niesha was at a loss for what to do. What did the horn mean? Why did it cause her heart beat to quicken, her breath to come in short gasps?
What was she forgetting, what danger? It didn't seemed to come to mind... and Niesha looked back towards where Sophia had disappeared. She wanted to go after her, imagination or not, and her heart ached. With loss? Hope? But she'd seen Sophia's body... As her mind tried to figure everything out, Niesha was sationary for a moment. Why was that making her worried as well?
Walkers. The horn. A chaotic moment of clarity had Niesha turning towards Riley and Ravi,
"Oh" She shoved Sophia out of her mind for the moment- she had a job to do, and she was going to do it.
"We should get to the hoardbuster!" Riley turned and paused for a moment as she watched the funeral home starting to collapse in front of them, knowing that she had laid her sister's body in there. She sighed slightly to herself, before jumping slightly when she started to hear voices in her head again just as the Hordebuster started to make a lot of noise. Though she couldn't make any heads or tails what the voices were even saying, she shook it off as stress and seeing her sister commit suicide in front of her.
Riley started to continue to make her way towards the Hordebuster, she wasn't even paying attention to the ice that still hadn't melted yet. She started to lose her footing and eventually she landed on her ass, groaning to herself but quickly started to get back up again and made the last few steps to the hulking beast of a machine. Riley had a bit of a time getting to the door but managed to open it, looking over to Ashton.
"Thank god you are alright." Riley said as she looked at him with a concerned look.
"You okay bossman?" Ravi came to the realization that Liv was nothing more than an illusion. The guilt of not being able to save her weighed heavily on him as he sighed, preparing himself mentally to head on over to the armored vehicle to join the others. He turned his head as he heard a
thump, noting that Riley seemed to be alright. She had climbed into the truck and Ravi was about to join her when he heard the sound of shifting rubble. It might have been remnants from the wall or from the collapsing funeral home - but in the end, it doesn't matter. The result was all the same.
The debris pierced through Ravi's right lung.
Ravi dropped to the ground, gasping for breath but unable to get any air. Blood had splattered and he was spluttering. As a medical examiner, he knew that there was no hope for him - but he couldn't help but instinctively still try to fill his remaining lung with air.
Liv...I'll see you soon...for real this time he thought desperately. His body went slack as he gave up the ghost, and according to the religion he ticked on a census years ago, he became one with the Force at that moment.
At least his beard still looked banging.
Niesha watched in horror as the wall, the funeral home, whatever, came crashing down on Ravi. All thoughts of Sophia pushed to the back of her mind- she couldn't seem to push it out of her mind completely- Niesha moved towards Ravi, not concerned for her safety at the moment. She had to tried... She didn't think she could live with herself if she didn't. Part of her knew that even if she could do something, it would be too late.
She knew it was too late. She'd failed again.
it didn't matter that it was irrational, that she couldn't have done anything to stop the rumble coming down. She just knew she should have been able to do something. Was she condemning Riley to doom as well? Her gaze went to where the imaginary Sophia had disappeared, and that desire to follow became stronger.
No.
She had to know, she had to, if Kristina was alive, Victor, Tati... She couldn't go to nothingness without knowing. She turned away from the sight of Ravi, and towards the hoardbuster, making her way to it. The challenge of getting up into that monstrosity was a welcome one, even as she stood there, looking up.
"... I might need a hand... I'm tiny" Ash hadn't said anything to Riley, though he was looking over in her direction. If anything, he was looking for any subtle piece of certainty that he was actually seeing the young lady climbing up and into his truck, and that this wasn't another hallucination brought about by whatever the hell was wrong with him. He was fairly sure that he did just see a building collapse well behind Riley, depositing a random, shaggy piece of that building into the torso of the doctor he had formally met earlier that day. The mildly unhinged Captain stared dully at the scene unfolding in front of him, blanking at the sight of the people whose job it was to guide and protect.
He didn't reply to Niesha, either. He did manage to say, seemingly to the air around him,
"If you guys are really you, get in. Seat unfolds in the back. There's a bed back there, too. Try not to bleed on it." Today, Ash had lost his home, his best friend, and was separated from his love. It took a lot out of him.
"Climb in. We need to move, now." Riley turned her head to watch as a piece of debris from one of the crumbling buildings, she wasn't sure whether it was from the wall or the funeral home. And it had lodged itself right into the new guy Ravi's chest, looking away she really had no clue if she should run straight forward and grab the bugout supplies or not. But the way everything seemed right now it would just be a suicide run, at least they had Ashton's ride with them and the boss himself.
Riley took a step down and offered to help Niesha up into the massive truck, turning her attention back towards Ashton seemed that he was also going through some kind of shit.
"Of course we are real." Riley said sarcastically once Niesha got in Riley climbed in as well, tossing her pack off of her shoulders and tossed her gear into the back and climbed towards the back. Riley would look back to where the funeral home once stood where Chloe's body was left behind whipping away a few tears and then looked away.
