NOT SAFE. DEAD INSIDE. MOVED TO EASTON. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO JOURNEY THERE ALONE.
Sylvia sighed.
Despite the unnerving things she had been subjected to seeing, and indeed dealing with during the past week-- and at a greater length, the past month, it was still little notes like this that disturbed her the most. Staring into the curdled milk that became the eyes of those afflicted was... unnerving, at first. But now, she merely saw them as unfortunate threats. They didn't quite cause the same trauma in her that seeing their notes did.
They were permanent reminders that an anonymous survivor, in context no different than herself, was here, perhaps even still alive. They emanated a certain humanity, an existential testament that someone had been alive, that someone had been trying... even if it was a suicide note. They carried in their scrawled letters, a tragic optimism.
The shamblers, those who had their humanity utterly corrupted by some... virus? Sickness? Parasite? Whatever it was... they were certainly tragic to see. They had their mind extinguished and they were robbed of life and humanity, while their corrupted shell had only the goal to continue the bloodshed. To Sylvia, at least, that exuded tragedy, but their sickly growls didn't carry that same...
hope... that a note sans author may exude.
A sickness can be hoped to be cured, and Sylvia certainly hoped there would be one. She hoped dearly some doctor somewhere was already synthesizing the needed anti-biotic or antidote...
But after a month of running, she felt that hope secondary in relation to her own desire to survive when she was confronted with rotting forms.
From further in the school, three of the sick could be heard walking, making their presence know from behind a cupboard. Sylvia readied her screwdriver, an odd weapon that had proven effective at planned shambler clearing. She just needed to think, as she'd always done.
3 were simple for the group. The people she'd been traveling with for the past week had proven themselves more than capable. Sylvia began to take slow steps back, calculating a plan of action. The child would by far be the easiest, especially without that arm--
Aaaand Angie got that oneOkay, that left the two. The man was tall, but he seemed to have trouble standing up. Sylvia could take advantage of that. The other one, closer than the male, seemed to to pose the biggest threat, with girth like that, fighting up close was dangerous, if it fell on top of you, it'd pretty much be all over.
"Good job," Sylvia quipped to Angie, sarcastic morbidity filled her voice as she smirked, "You've beheaded a small, decomposing, one-armed child."
"Will!" The sarcasm dissipated as she yelled to the younger, bespectacled man, "Can you try to goad that fat one away, towards the benches?" She turned again to Angie, "Back Will? I'm going to try and get the man when he slips."
Brandishing her screwdriver, she cast something resembling a sympathetic glance to Sophia, "Stay put, sweetie." Before moving closer to the shell of the man who, apparently, once worked for FEMA.
As she approached him, he started following her, instead of going in the general direction of the group. She backtracked a bit, heading for the benches opposite where she'd directed William. Her arm was raised with her screwdriver clenched in hand, waiting for the shambler to slip on it's own entrails, giving her the perfect opportunity to drive her tool through it's skull.
kapuchu
