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The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

Meanwhile elsewhere ...

A silence filled the crowd of armed people, as one of them came to deliver the news. The guy approached and looked up at his leader.
“None of us managed to find her, sir.”
“Of course not. She’s a magnificent woman. Better than any of you, even in her scared moments, that’s for sure,” ManHunter answered. There was a certain calmness to his growly voice. As if discussing politics on a quiet day, not on the open streets with guts and ‘Walkers’ lying around.
“I… We fear she might be gone,” the much smaller man said.
“No one is ever really gone. People like you just stop looking for them.”
“Right… we, ehhh… will find her.”
“Oh, you will? That is excellent to hear. You had we worried there for a second, but now you’ve convinced me.” The sinister smile on ManHunter’s tattooed face almost made it look like he was being sincere. He shook his finger like a teacher. “Then you know how to find her, don’t you? Yes… exploit her one weakness. Jess is so afraid of being alone. Like a puppy she seeks coziness, she seeks company. The woman can’t help herself. Find others, find the action, and you will find her curled up in their comfort. Bring me that strong spine of hers, attached to her living, breathing body, so that I may feast tonight. Kill all the weak sheep she surrounds herself with.”

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

And I'm gonna say we're using a little writer's prerogative and saying that Sears is a grocery store in this universe.

@alexfangtalon

It's not usually that? Lol.
Well, appreciate you all are patient with little ol' uneducated me :D

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

I hope it's okay, I placed Jess in the SEARS also. I tried to make it consistent with everybody's posts. If there's a problem, I can always change it to another store ;)

Also: I was thinking that it might be highly unlikely that there would still be food left, this many weeks after the apocalypse. However, I also tried to find a way around that in my post, as I included a door to the back that no one had managed to get through. That way the group/groups could work together to open it, and supplies would be plentiful in the beginning (at least some supplies) :)

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

The teen had been right: Jess and Kiley were the exact same size, at least the jeans-part. Kiley’s black top did feel a bit too tight around the chest and arms. Overall though, Jess would not be one to complain. She quickly caught up with the others inside the mall. Entered through what was suppose to be the exit of a grocery store.

The first thing Jess noticed was the smell. The SEARS store pretty much seemed as pillaged as Jess would have imagined. At least the grocery-part of it. Empty shelves and bottles. Shattered jars of what she hoped was marmalade. Then there were things like stockings and soap which seemed completely untouched by the apocalypse.
Someone has been here. Of course, someone has already been here and cleaned it out. Damn…
Jess sighed and scratched her wrists. They had been itching for some time now. Then she saw a slightly trembling figure of a person. Bronze hair, about her size. “Kiley, right?” Jess said, walking up to her.
“Huh? Eh, yeah, yeah,” the girl answered. Seemingly occupied by staring strait ahead in the dimmed lighting.
“Thanks, for the clothing. It was a real lifesaver in this weather.”
“Sure. It… wau, it actually looks better on you.”
Jess laughed as friendly as she could. “So, what are we looking at here?”
Kiley answered her question by nodding straight ahead.
It took a moment for Jess to notice the dark shape on the floor. Quite a few rows down, next to the place all the rotten fruit and vegetables were on display. A broad Afro-American man lying perfectly still. Trying to focus on something that far away made her head hurt, as her glasses were the first victims of the apocalypse.
“Is he …” Kiley asked and didn’t breathe, until Jess had answered.
“Don’t know. Has he moved since you saw him?”
The girl shook her head in a way that would have amused Jess under different circumstances. Like a person in a hurry, who meanwhile got seasick by moving her head so fast. “Could you check? You’re good with that thing, right?”
She must have referred to the huge, Japanese sword on Jess’ back. “Actually, my teacher claimed my defense was far too unbalanced,” Jess joked. “I… eh, I’ll take a look.”
Her hesitation was real, as she approached the unknown figure. Sure, Jess was in peak condition and wanted to hide it, as it meant everybody (including enemies) would underestimate her. But the fight, she had been training so long for, hadn’t been to the death. When she punched for hours until her knuckles turned blue, she hadn’t had killing in mind. Therefor a very real fear gripped her heart in the final seconds, before she stood there, sword raised, and looked down at the guy.
Ah, the smell! I wish the bad apples would disguise his sent more! Jess thought.
“Hello. Wake up” Jess mumbled and kicked the man, who had his face in the floor. She poked him with the tip of her Nodachi.
Nothing happened.
She drew a deep breath and then leaned down, grabbed his shoulder and turned him around, only to fight in order to hold down her puke.
“Is he dead?... I mean, like, really dead?” Kiley asked from a distance.
“He’s dead alright, and then some.” But just to make really sure, Jess lined up her weapon and pressed it through the corpses head. It penetrated with a wet sound, not at all like the movies.

For a while all Jess did was walk amongst shelves and got disappointed over and over again, until she came across some misplaced mustard in a plastic bottle. There, between some toys, it stood. In the old days she didn’t even like mustard, but now: Jess grabbed the bottle. In one clean cut from her sword the lip came off and she put the content to her lips and started pouring it down. Her eyes watered, her nostrils closed. However, it provided the energy she had needed. Amazing what a little food can do, she reminded herself.
Only then did she notice the door. A big and retractable one. In itself there was nothing special about it, but one thing separated it from all other doors: This one was locked. And a locked door meant one thing: No one had managed to get inside; no one had had a chance to pillage it. For all Jess knew, there could be enough food to last for months, maybe more.
Her smile was interrupted, when she thought, she heard something. Over by the entrance. For a second, she could have sworn, she saw a shadow slip inside. Now it was gone.
Then came the growl…
“H-Hello?” Jess called out.

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

Oh, thank you.

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

Is SEALS the only grocery store?
I'm having so much trouble figuring the mall out.

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

Are we going by the mall map that got posted? Because I'm having so much trouble reading it. I'm not familiar with the names (as I'm danish), and the quality is too low to read many of them.

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

I'm making a post. I'll have it ready by tomorrow. Jess is checking out the grocery store. And finding something REALLY interesting :)

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

@nightmare medx are we still accepting? 😊

The Walking Dead: Welcome to Portland

Jess

Name: Jessie “Jess” Goldman
Age: 26 years old.
Gender: Female

About 170 cm and certainly not a heavy weight fighter.
Still wearing her yoga pants, Mid Crossback, gym shoes, with only a slightly too big olive military field jacket to cover herself and provide some warmth.

Personality: Jess has all the reason in the Universe to be down, yet she has put on a comedic attitude; the only way to survive, she thinks. Quick witted, joyful and unable to ignore someone in need. She meditates to calm her mind and can’t imagine a day with practicing at least one talent.

Skills:

Martial arts: First Jess learned to walk in life, then she learned to kick. After a lifetime of Judo, she started branching out and training more dirty tricks. As the apocalypse started 2 weeks before her first fight, Jess has never had to pick herself up. Meaning that she has done a lot of training, a lot of technique, a lot of theory, yet never has she had to push through pain and a beating and get back up. Jess got the hands of a true warrior, just not the heart of one... yet.

Nodachi training: About 13 years of this training. Never fought on a competitive level, yet she sees fencing as a alternative form of meditation and has committed to the form.

Jess also has a fierce intelligence (maybe even a knack for leadership) that might prove useful as she accepts the world around her.

Weaknesses:
Not always the bravest, as she still has a hard time adapting to the new world. No experience with guns and she has yet to recover any glasses that can fix her eyesight. Being unable to ignore a situation or someone in need can also prove to be a major disadvantage for her.

History:
Born and raised in Tokyo. The philosophies of the mind and body has always peeked Jess’ interest. She came from a family of Judo and does not remember a time, where she didn’t practice it. Fencing and its soothing effect on the body came later and so did her quest to find inner peace.

Having grown up as a caucasian in an English-speaking home, she never really felt like she fit in Japan. Thus, by the age of 20 she moved over to the Unite states. There the Judo-teachings were more scarce and she got into mixed martial arts. Eventually she acquired a trainer and started training for the MMA. Since fighting was introduced to her at such a young age, she possessed a fluidity few can achieve by other means.

2 weeks before her first fight the apocalypse happened. Streets ran red, people screamed. Stepping out of the gym, Jess saw the mayhem and tried to help. A man was stuck at the passenger seat of a burning cop car that had been flipped over. Because of his size (he was a mountain of meat and muscle) it required both him and Jess to get him through the smashed, crooked door. Next up was getting the cuffs off him and seeing to his bleeding forehead. It was only the day later that the man showed his true colors. Now that the world had ended, he opted to turn everything into his kingdom. The desperate and the angry had already joined his and Jess’ growing group. As his plan started to involve cannibalism, Jess tried to sabotage the thing. One of the few possessions, she had managed to save, was her Nodachi. An imposing weapon. However, as she could not bring herself to kill a fellow human, she was ultimate taken prisoner by the group. The big man she had rescued started to refer to himself as Manhunter. He couldn’t bring himself to eat the woman whom had saved his life. So as his journey and madness started to begin, Jess was being transported along against her will. That’s when her story starts out: The day she escapes and must take the first few steps of loneliness amongst the walking dead.