DEAD HEARTS ARE EVERYWHERE [Zombie Apocalypse AU; OPEN]

[galethewhale]

for 30 days of SA

((anyone can join!! multiple people!! zombie apocalypse ones are the best!! please join))

Everything was quiet.

Even Quinn could barely hear the sound of his heartbeat or breathing anymore, occasionally pressing his hand to his chest to check that he was still alive and not dreaming, not in a limbo he dreaded to be in. He wanted to die knowing he had a smile on his face and if he’d gone in his sleep he wouldn’t know and he can’t remember smiling, at all. The days, weeks and months had gone in some blur and he’d lost track of time and he wasn’t sure what it meant or felt like to be truly alive anymore. He’s not even sure where he is anymore, the signs blur and he feels like he can’t trust them when they are rusted and bent and sometimes gone.

Badum, badum, badum. His hand was against his chest and he could feel it beating. He’s alive and he’s not dreaming and he’s not dead. Instead, Quinn was sitting quietly in an abandoned house, pretending he was alive and that he was surviving well even though he wasn’t. He’d been looking for people for days - for Isabel, for Nate, for Faith. He’s just lost, in time, in place and in memory and it unsettles him. He felt as though he could die at any second and now he was just waiting.

Humanity was waiting, truthfully. He’d seen people over the weeks and they’d be dissolved to a state of panic, a state where they could hold up guns and shoot someone else without a second thought to survive.

Quinn didn’t know what it meant to survive anymore.

“Pull yourself together, you need to go.” - It’s a gentle reminder because there was nobody else to remind him. It couldn’t come from anybody else’s lips because he was more alone than he ever has been before and he can feel it weighing against his heart. He ran his thumb across the cuts and bruises instead to remind himself even further that he’ll die, eventually.

With enough food eaten that day and the house giving him the creeps and the last book he had already read, Quinn stood up and shouldered the small backpack, feeling as though he just put the world onto his shoulders. “Time to keep moving.” - The reminders helped him, a lot. It made him feel that little less alone, that little less lost as he had some sort of guidance moving him through life. He pushed open the cracked and splintering door slowly, glancing out onto the street. The pocket knife and gun was in reach if he needed it.

There were no zombies and no people. Debris lay across the street with no maintenance and the air was thick, the scent of death and rotting flesh in the air despite the emptiness of the town. Quinn took one step onto the concrete and shielded his eyes away from the sun, feeling as though it was dying along with the Earth.

His head and limbs ached. He’d been moving for days and now he was moving again because the town and the house were suspiciously quiet and yet broken. Broken things never truly meant good news, so Quinn knew that he needed to move on and get away. He needed to keep searching and looking for the people he’d lost at the start, had wandered from by accident and never found again.

“I’m coming.” - Another reminder, the most important.

In his books, the antagonist always won and it seemed that was the way life was, too.

[Meduzia]

Faith Flynn woke up when the propping the handle of his door topped over - the long object slipped from its spot, probably, and fell over with a thud. Flynn's eyes opened not a second later; he was still leaning against the heels of his legs, his back against the wall and his hands over his knees. He woke up like one wakes up from half-dream, with a startled gasp and feeling that he's tumbling down when he has not moved an inch. It was not a pleasant feeling. His hand was on the handle of a knife he carried around nowadays, but nothing came in. Small shack - it was not even a house, even though apparently it passed as one, or perhaps it was that he lived in three-story home that was speaking. Still, this shack served him well in past few days. It was silent now, silent in ways that could be fatal, or could be life-saving. He could save his life anyway, it turned out.

It was the others he was not happy about.

He got up and kicked the gun to the side with his leg, then leaned on the wall close to the door. And waited, and waited, until his eyes drifted closed again, but Faith was not of those people who could fall asleep standing. He had not even met somebody who could, not that he knew of it. Sleeping was dangerous, but human body required it.

That was their problem, wasn't it? Zombies - if those were zombies - did not sleep. Humans did. Zombies did not need eyes. Humans did. Faith was half-blind anyway. He was bad with weapons, not that the large gun did him any good. When the apocalypse broke out, it was concentrated, located only on few places. No big deal. Infection like any other. Nobody expected pandemic. Teams were sent out - medicine, military, anybody that could be of any use, and anybody who would not be at danger. He was not home when the outbreak happened, but he returned home after the outbreak finished.

There was nobody there. His siblings, Nate, Isabel and the rest of his friends - even Teter Sevan was gone, and Ramiel could not tell him where she was, although that was still when he could reach Ramiel. Faith still carried a cell-phone with him, cardless, because the things - zombies - must've broken the central, or something crucial. He needed to find another cell phone provider, and soon. He needed to contact his family, if they lived.

And they lived. They had to live, otherwise Faith wouldn't know why he'd do what he's doing. He could merely sit at home and pretend like this is not happening until a zombie hoard knocks on his door, why not. It sounds like awfully painful way to die, but he'd endure it, somehow.

With a sigh, he thinks it safe enough to leave - he is silent, he learnt how to be silent, because he needs to hear the others, but not be heard. Undead are zombies, that's alright, but the people are animals. They've become wild, uncontrolled, and Faith has no desire to get in any contact with them, more than possible. People were once zombies, and it makes him think that destruction was probably in their veins all along, only shown when they die.

Blood and glory, his father would preach like the lunatic he was, and Faith is sure the old man is having a laugh right now, no matter in what part of the world he is. He is not dead, that much is clear. Richard just doesn't want to die. All we do is for blood, he would say, make a dramatic pause, and glory.

On his way out, he grabs an axe, checks the weight of it in his hand - perhaps he'd need to work on the handle when he has time, but that's it. He does not stay there any longer.

City is silent and the streets are empty. His eyes flitter over the nearby buildings, even though he does not see as well he could. He lost a contact during first week, then took the other one out. He managed to find other contacts, but they were not all-too-well on his eyes. They could do, despite the itching and tearing up when he blinks too many times. He doesn't think there are people out there, but he doesn't want to be wrong. He sits on the threshold and waits.

Waiting is what he can do. Waiting is what saves lives, but he's afraid that waiting is what ends them, too. He doesn't know. He'll decide, later.

[chocofer]

can i play too? ovo oh and aw/sammy dont know anyone from the academy yet))

It's peaceful, in it's own way. Sammy, if he were the kind of person to think about this kind of stuff, never would have thought it would be peaceful. 

Maybe quiet, still, as if the entire world was holding it's breath, but sitting on the roof of one of the many abandoned houses with an axe in his hands, Samuel feels peaceful. There's birds chirping somewhere to his left, there's no noise of traffic, or artificial lights from the streets, and the man wonders how fucked up it is that he thinks this way.

It's really fucked up.

He hasn't smoked since all this began. He thinks it dumb, but there you have it. 

His fingers twitch for a cigarette. He sighs.

He's hungry. Really hungry. He was always someone who seemed to have been thrown into the world with no idea what to do, always somewhat hungry and tired and itching for a cigarette, always the man in the corner of the bar or the party because he didn't think he'd fit anywhere else.

But he's never been hungry like this. He's afraid to go into stores. He's never been tired like this. He's been sleeping less and less as the days weeks pass by. He's never felt as alone as he feels right now, peaceful with the birds and the breeze. 

He's so fucking lonely. He's hungry and tired and dirty, but it's the loneliness that bothers him most.

He flops his back down on the roof swearing under his breath. He covers his eyes from the sun with the arm that is not carrying the axe.

This is bullshit. This is so much bullshit it's impossible to see where the bullshit begins.

-----------

Áine doesn't know how he's survived so far. 

He's not even /trying/ anymore, for god's sake. He enters houses without checking for zombies - this is so stupid - he sleeps during the night and during the day and wonders which one is better then comes to the conclusion that, sigh, does it matter? No, it doesn't.

(He has to press his hands to his heart sometimes, just to make sure, just to make sure he's alive.)

His mother and his sister wounded his heart so much he couldn't think of them without curling into a ball until the precise moment it didn't anymore. For weeks without end he couldn't think of anything else, couldn't stop replaying it in his mind. He had just left to search for supplies, food, toothpaste, anything - /10 minutes tops, Aw, please come back soon/ - and when he came back the entire living room was painted red. He poked and prodded his own heart so much thinking of them, promising he wouldn't forget, that it scarred, closed, and it doesn't hurt unless he presses.

And he doesn't. Sod his promise.

(He does, sometimes at night. He remembers their bodies in the floor of the flat they shared and thinks maybe maybe maybe he should be there on the floor with them instead of alone here on god knows where.)

He thinks about his abusive grandmother and he laughs. He feels cruel doing it, but he's not doing anything she wouldn't have done, were him among the dead.

Aw is resigned. To his fate, to what happened, to his eventual but undoubtfully early death. So he just sighs like he's always done and opens the door to the pantry, because maybe /this/ house has something that hasn't grown mushrooms yet.

Yeah, right.