Realistic or Modern 𝗙𝗜𝗥𝗦𝗧 𝗟𝗜𝗚𝗛𝗧 — at the end of the world

[Miaow]

LINCOLN
The Pit
​

Haewon had had a firm grip on her sister's shoulder for the majority of the walk to Cabrera's honeymoon suite. She wanted to trust her... but she felt like she needed one of those baby backpack leashes to keep her within a metre radius. The girl was unhinged, and not in a serial killer way, in a slightly suicidal way. In Haewon’s eyes, she wasn’t lashing out to hurt others, she simply didn’t care what the consequences were. Would she prefer it if she were a tiny serial killer?

She took a deep breath. Okay, quickly and quietly, follow the signs to the warden's office, but take a right before the stairs, fourth door on the left. God she hoped she remembered that right, now wasn't the time to be getting lost. At least they had the quiet part down, Minnie hadn't said a word since they'd split from Nari. This area of the prison itself was eerily quiet, other than the echoes from the pit following them down the halls. It was hard to understand any of the actual words coming from the pit, only muffled yells, which was pretty normal for a fight to the death.

"Fuck-- It's this one, right?" Haewon murmured as they passed door after door, pointing ahead. She looked over her shoulder, recounting how many doors they'd passed, before approaching it. She held a hand out to Minnie, signalling for her to stop, before pressing her ear to it. It sounded empty... She couldn't hear any movement, though there remained a background rumble from the pit. She'd given her weapon away, instead raising a fist as she turned the handle and pushed the door open...

Empty. She let out a soft sigh of relief, gesturing for Minnie to go in first, before shutting the door behind them.

“Nice to see how the 1% lives, I guess,” Haewon murmured as she scanned the room… They had a cushy mattress, more pillows than one human could need, and a bedside table each.
“The fuck are they doing? Making pillow forts?” She picked up a pillow, squishing it to test the firmness. She let it drop back onto the bed, pushing down on the mattress.
“You think he sent a scav team out to get this? There’s no way this is a prison mattress,” She flopped onto the bed amongst the pillows.
“Ohhhh~ I can’t possibly commit atrocities without my beauty rest~” She exclaimed, pressing the back of her hand against her forehead as she put on her best Cabrera voice, “I need the softest of mattresses in order to enslave the masses~”

Expecting to hear a laugh or, well, anything from her sister, Haewon was instead met with muffled, echoed retching. She lifted her head with a frown, finding the room empty and the bathroom door open.
“Minnie?” She called out, getting to her feet and following the noise.

Minnie sat on the bathroom floor, hunched over the toilet bowl. The images of Buster on the ground, blood spreading from his chest, and that momentary feeling of relief she felt when she realised it wasn’t Xander who was bleeding… She wretched again.

Haewon let out a soft sigh through her nose, leaning forward to hold the front of Minnie’s hair behind her head.
“You’re okay,” She murmured, taking her hair in one hand as the other rubbed her back. They stayed like that for a while, Haewon repeating the same, reassuring words, until Minnie had emptied the contents of her stomach… though it was mostly stomach acid and bile.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, sitting back against the bathroom wall, her face clammy and pale. She hugged her knees tight to her chest, picking at the dry skin on her palms, worn away by hard labour. Haewon sat across from her, legs folded awkwardly to fit in the small space as she backed up against the edge of the bath. She wasn’t sure how to start this god awful conversation. Part of her hoped Minnie would have forgotten this by the morning, but she knew that wasn’t healthy, either. She wasn’t even sure where to start.

“I’m sorry, Minnie,” Haewon murmured. It felt cliche. It was what everyone said when they found out you’d lost somebody. I’m sorry for your loss. Minnie simply didn’t respond. It wasn’t Haewon’s fault, none of this was. She didn’t make Buster call Cabrera a dickhead or whatever it was he did to get himself put in the pit. She didn’t make Xander kill Dutchess. She wasn’t there for any of those things.

She had so many thoughts in her head. She hated it here. She hated that Buster had to die. She hated the way he looked at her while he died. She hated that Xander would never really be free. She hated that Cabrera was free. She hated that half of the people around her were in the Cabrera fanclub and one wrong move could get her killed. She hated that she had to see his face every damn day when he came for lunch. She hated that she hadn’t killed him when she had the chance. Hate hate hate hate hate. She hated how much hate she felt.

Haewon let out a soft sigh, shuffling herself across the bathroom to sit against the open door, next to her sister. She didn’t touch her, purposely leaving a gap between the two.
“I’m sorry I grabbed you like that… at the pit,” She added.
“I’m sorry I hit you…” Minnie responded without missing a beat.
Haewon smiled a little. If there was one thing the two of them were good at, it was making up after a fight.
“I’m just… I’m really worried about you. Nari is, too,” She told her, her arms resting limply on top of her knees, “The people here will kill you, and we couldn’t do anything to stop them. We could get away with more at Northview. We’re outnumbered here.”
Minnie hugged her knees closer to her chest, her shoulders hunched.
“We’ve spent our whole lives looking out for each other… but I can’t keep you safe while you’re doing stupid stuff like this.”
Haewon could feel anger bubbling up inside her. God, she’d spent her whole childhood keeping this kid alive, her entire life revolved around her and she was trying her hardest to throw it all away. She wanted to scream at her, shake her. I took the bullet for you, over and over! I lost my childhood for you! Don't you get that?! She took a breath.

“I can’t go to work without worrying you’re gonna try and dunk Cabrera’s head in soup.” She murmured.
“He’d deserve it,” Minnie finally responded, staring off at nothing in particular.
“Yeah, then you’d end up just like Xander. They’d put you in the pit– and if you're lucky, they'd just kill you. Or, they keep putting you back in, again and again. As soon as you finish one punishment, they come up with another one. Do you want that?”
“At least he stood up for himself…”
“He didn’t. He got pissed off and emotional and he killed someone important,” Haewon had to pause to take another breath. Gentle parenting, gentle parenting… She was on Minnie’s side here, she needed Minnie to know that. The moment she raised her voice, she lost that trust.
“Look… I know you love Xander… and you can love him and miss him and wish he was still here… but please, just don’t look up to him. Don’t do what he did.”

Minnie swallowed a lump in her throat. Xander and Nari had been everything she’d wanted to be. Xander was quick-witted and strategic and strong, Nari was a genius, kind and creative. She paused before shuffling a little closer to her sister, resting her head on her shoulder. Haewon took this as a go-ahead to touch her, wrapping an arm around her and petting the top of her head.
“Every time we’re happy… something bad has to happen,” Minnie murmured, fidgeting with the stitching down the side of her dungarees.
“It’s not that something bad happens… It’s always the Samaritans. Every time,” Haewon responded, lowering her voice, “but… we just have to be patient. We get stronger, we prepare, and then we get our own back, yeah?”
She smiled at her sister, resting her cheek against the top of her head.
“And, in the meantime… we’ll hide some Momo shit under Cabrera’s pillow.”

@Bullyboy Squad Safton @Togy @BeyondDandy Safton NanLia @Crono @Aegis Namazu @Good_Morels @Fluffy-Kat Tool @Not Meat
​

 

[Tool]

LINCOLN
- Infirmary -​

It had been some weeks since Detective Jones had landed herself in the infirmary of Lincoln. She'd gone from being out of her mind with fever and see-sawing on the precipice of oblivion to being merely ravaged by injuries. Baby steps were still steps.

The .22 bullet that gave her a divot in the space between a lower left spot of her skull nearish her ear was long gone, and the good Doctor had done his best in putting her face mostly back together, but there was no hiding the spiderweb of neat, black stitching that peeked out from a noticeably smaller bandage that had once covered half her head. Her cheek was still mostly cheek-shaped, even if there was a matching, pencil-eraser-sized divot in her cheek where the bone had shattered into splinters. Her eye still lay in its socket....... but each black, jagged mark that burst forth from the bandage was another underline beneath the word pain, and they would all follow her for the rest of her days.

If she was lucky, the chestnut of her unseeing eye would stay brown rather than going gradually milky; getting killed because someone mistook her for one of the shuffling dead would be delightfully ironic, but still. Punk-ass way to die.

Madison recognized she was in a bed and knew where she was...... and though the particulars of why she was still alive eluded her, she chalked it up to being either unknown or underestimated or both.

How had she come to be here? Weston or Connor, probably, but how specifically? Who knew. She'd been with the Fallen Angels, ridden towards the school, waded through the ocean of dead, stumbled into the murky afterwards punctuated by moments of clarity...... and then she'd been here, as though the details between that time and this one had been cut for cinematic brevity.

Weston.

Connor.

Texas.

King.

Blondie.

Cabrera.

Fish.

Sneakers.

Mouse.

The names had congealed into reality, at least.

Madison slept an inordinate amount, both to ease her pain and (according to the Doc) help her heal. As a result, she'd been deep into dreams when the first tickles of smoke curled into her lungs.

Sputtering awake with the taste of burnt plastic on the tongue hadn't been pleasant.

Remembering she was chained up tight had been less so.

Unfortunately, being a little more sound of mind didn't translate to a sound body. Madison was with it enough to recognize that she was...... pretty much toast. Clumsy fingers still tried to make the railing of the gurney go down, still tried to get herself sitting up enough to fiddle with the cuffs......

Goddamn cuffs.

There were, in fact, worse ways to go, but this one wasn't awesome.

There she was, pale arms draped over the railing, knees bent but not crouched, curled around herself like a dying mermaid, forcing her free hand to fumble with the cuff and trying to squeeze her thumb past the metal while bracing herself with her elbows, when that damned scratch in her sternum made her dissolve into ragged coughs.


This wing of the prison, where the infirmary sat tucked away, was often a quiet one - on occasion people passed by, sometimes being noisy and rude, sometimes just going about their business. Occasionally sounds from the canteen echoed down the hall, when the music or laughter was particularly raucous. The most unnerving sounds were when voices from the pit floated down the hallway. Sometimes it sounded like there must be a sporting event going on, with cheering and chanting. Other times, between the occasional gunshot and the roars of the crowd, it was impossible to think there was anything other than bloodsport going on.

Today’s bloodsport had devolved into panicked sounds of people fleeing and shouting - sometimes orders, sometimes questions. Among it, two sets of running footsteps were approaching the infirmary from the growing smoke.

Weston and Victor got to the doorway of the infirmary at about the same time. Victor paused at the doorway to wheeze for air, coughing into the crook of his arm and his once-white clinical jacket.

“Uncuff her!” Weston grabbed the doctor by the shoulder and arm, and shoved him inside. Victor stumbled, catching himself on a nearby empty bed, hand already going for the keys in his pocket. Weston leaned into the doorway, taking stock of who all was in the infirmary. He snapped his fingers and pointed at a young woman with her arm in a sling and splint who was sitting up, alarmed and coughing.

“Get out. Go outside, avoid the kitchen area.” Weston pointed over his shoulder. There was blood on Weston’s shirt, splattered and smeared from about stomach-height and downwards to his hip. He didn’t look or move like he was injured though - perhaps someone else’s blood? He turned his attention to Madison.

Thank God she was awake and moving, and within her right mind enough to be trying to get out of the cuffs. Fuck them all for cuffing her to the bed… even if it was necessary, for everyone’s safety. He had visited once - once - not long after he brought her here. She was out cold. Zero response to his presence. He couldn’t think of anything to say other than a quiet apology, so he held her hand for a few minutes, then left. He hadn’t had it in him to come back yet, but he should have.

“Madison, I’ll be right back. Fire system control box first.” Weston stared at Madison, hoping to hold her gaze long enough for her to understand he was coming back. Reluctantly, Weston pulled away from the door and ran down the hallway in search of this control box, praying it still worked.

“Stop, I have it.” Victor leaned over Madison’s cuffs and shooed her other hand away, unlocking the handcuffs from her wrist, letting the other end dangle from the gurney railing. When Madison was free, he leaned down and put her boots on the gurney near her legs, within reach.

“Put those on, just in case.” Victor ordered, already moving to other beds. He was pulling all the curtains open, doing a visual check to see what patients were still here and who needed help out, lowering gurney railings, handing people shoes and clothes, lowering beds and unlocking wheelchairs. He only had a real honest interest in one patient, but had responsibility over several, and he wasn’t yet in a position to abandon that responsibility. One of his nurses came flying into the room, sprinting so fast her sneakers seemed to hardly touch the floor. She went straight to Harry’s bed, unlocking the wheels and tossing his intravenous fluid bags onto the bed between his knees. Thanks to her, Harry was wheeled out of the room before anyone else, even if he wasn’t conscious enough right now to know it.

The enforcer on the walkie-talkie was right - the fire system control box was just down the hall from the infirmary. There was a small mechanical room in the corner of a hallway that Weston had never paid too much attention to, because he didn’t know what this stuff did. Now that he was in the room, it looked like hot water heaters, some big metal boxy things he couldn’t figure out, and a large bright-red metal box mounted on one wall to the right of the door. He tugged at the front panel to the red box, but it was locked shut, the shiny golden keyhole on the front smirking at him smugly.

A toolbox lay on the ground a few paces away, one of those big fancy ones that unfolded when you opened it into several layers of compartments. Weston quickly rummaged through it, saw no keys, and saw none hanging on the wall either. But, he did spot something else useful next to the toolbox - a crowbar.

“Fucker.” Weston hissed as he shoved one end of the crowbar between the panel and its front cover and shoved, arm muscles straining before the front cover popped off with a loud twanging metallic rattle. The locking mechanism had held fast, but he snapped the rusty hinges. An array of buttons and a LCD display screen stared back at him, along with fading warning stickers. He lightly ran his fingers along the buttons, reading labels, looking for something that indicated it would turn things on - or even an indication the panel still worked. He pushed what he thought was the on button and, mercifully, heard beeping as the display screen lit up. It had been such a long time since he’d seen an operational LCD screen that it was the most damn beautiful sight he’d seen in some time. Behind him, in one of the unidentified boxes, something started to whirr to life.

Checking the labels again, he realized the prison was divided into control zones. Handy, if you knew what any of the numbers or letters meant. He didn’t - so he took a guess and slammed the KTCN1 and CNTN1 buttons and prayed he was right. It made sense - KTCN for kitchen, CNTN for canteen. If he was wrong, fuck this prison and whoever built it. He didn’t dare press all the buttons, because then he’d probably be drenching everyone and everything - all their gear, all their food, all their supplies. No telling how much would get ruined.

He also couldn’t stick around and wonder if it worked. Grabbing his walkie-talkie, Weston pushed down on the talk button as he ran back to the infirmary.

“Fire control system is back on, I think, and I hit buttons for the kitchen and canteen. It should come on, if it still works.” There were garbled responses, but Weston didn’t listen, because he was already skidding back into the infirmary.

“Madison, come on, we gotta get out, there’s a fire.”


Put these on.

Right.

Sure.

The Doc fluttered away like a panicked bird, though to his eternal credit, his staff snapped to and started hustling people out and away.

Madison's hands grasped at boot number one and succeeded in lifting it from the bed and not dropping it. With an inordinate amount of concentration, her bare foot made its way...... no, genius check first...... okay, good. Left foot, left shoe. Her bare foot slipped inside her boot, its rough, dry leather scraping along her skin and being way too loose in its housing. The laces had no tension whatsoever, and the girl had lost a few pounds on a liquid diet, to say nothing of not wearing socks. Or pants. Tank-top and undies, neither of which had started out hers. Wardrobe of the stars.

A small noise of pain and frustration leaked from between her lips as she tensed her foot so the shoe wouldn't just fall to the floor and grasped at the laces to pull for everything she was worth. Comeon. Put on the shoe. Just..... Just put on the shoe.

Once the laces were as tight as they were going to get (not very), she tensed her leg once more so that she could put a knot somewhere in there. This wasn't any sort of loop-de-loop knot, this was a good, old-fashioned, trip-on-your-laces knot.

When her leg swung free at last, one shoe resolutely on, the effort made her eyesight blur and waver. The throb in her chest and the wire-thin pain lancing through her skull were familiar company at this point, but damned if being only halfway done didn't make her want to cry out of sheer outrage.

Boohoohoo. Save it for the Hallmark channel.

Right shoe. Right shoe, right foot. At least she didn't have to worry whether or not she'd picked the correct shoe. Tense foot. Slip on th-fuck who the hell left the laces tied??

Goddamn stupid shoes. Goddamn fingers not working like they should even though she knew goddamn well how this was supposed to work if her hands would just do what they were fucking told!

The shoe got laid in her lap, and her thumb and index finger began tugging at the knot with one hand when Weston's stupid voice called her name and told her the most obvious goddamn thing he could possibly have said, jolting her out of her task and making her head snap upwards........ and the boot clatter to the floor. A pirate-Madison, one eye covered, practically naked (by her estimation), unarmed and unremarked, her hands momentarily reaching for a shoe that wasn't there any more, so mad she could spit and so frustrated at her own body she could have wept, she made a simultaneously striking and tragic figure.

How far the mighty had fallen. "No shit." Madison said, rather flatly.


“Sorry, I - Doc, what the hell, you gave her shoes but no pants?” Weston snapped at Victor, who had darted into his office to grab a coat fit for the cold winter air outside. Shoving his arms through the sleeves, Victor motioned over his shoulder towards his office.

“Clothing donation bin’s in my office. Help yourself. I have someone to go find.” Victor didn’t even pause to make sure Weston found something useful; he was already running out of the infirmary. Madison was the last patient inside, and she wasn’t alone, so he apparently considered his duty done here. He looked more than frazzled - he was afraid. Clearly there was someone else out there he was worried more about.

Making some very colorful judgments out loud about what precisely filled Victor’s head right now (shit for brains, to start with), Weston hurriedly rummaged in the donation bin, pulling out a pair of jeans. He held them up, eyeballed the waist, eyeballed Madison, and decided it was close enough. He also found a pair of socks, rolled together so they stayed a pair, and lacking holes. Bingo.

Rolling a stool over, he sat down in front of Madison and yanked off the one boot she managed to get on. Unzipping the jeans, Weston pulled them up over Madison’s legs up as high as he could while she was sitting.

“You can either worm those on, or I’ll help you stand in a second.” He tugged the socks onto Madison’s feet, then started shoving boots on.

“Wheelchair, or gurney? Either way, you’re not walking. Also, hi, I’m glad you’re alive. You’ve been here a while. You can yell at me later when we’re out.” If Madison had any question about exactly how long she’d been bedridden that her weakened muscles wouldn’t answer, the fact that Weston’s hair was longer now probably gave some good hints.


Madison didn't know what sort of infirmary or hospital ever gave its patients pants. She'd considered herself damn lucky to get undies and a tank top and not one of those papery gowns that counted as clothing only on account of a shoelace's hypothetical ability to vaguely wrap things up and simultaneously show too much and too little. A mahogany gaze watched Weston as he berated the doctor and marched into a room before returning with...... clothes?

Who the fuck cared about clothes when there was a fuckin' fire? Either the fire wasn't that bad or Weston's priorities were way out of whack. Why, to escape the flames and the smoke, most folks wouldn't have waited for 'fully dressed' before heading for the hills. There was a reason most people milling around pre-Fall firetrucks weren't decked out in their Sunday best.

"What're you......"

Warm, calloused hands manhandled her legs without so much as an 'if you please', pulling off her shoe with a yank and lifting her legs one at a time to slide into denim, and Madison's face was flushed crimson with embarrassment at being pushed this way and that. She couldn't even rightly protest - argument would have taken time, and the trickle at the back of her throat had become constant. Besides, any verbal naysaying or denial she could have given wouldn't have made a damn bit of difference anyhow.

Madison was helpless to stop him.

Her fingers did manage to grasp the denim waistband and hold it in place as he put socks on her feet and muscled them into boots, though there was no way for her to worm her way into these pants on her own; balance just wasn't there yet, ditto for the hand strength to yank and pull things into place.

"Wheelchair."

No reason to pick a gurney when it was less maneuverable.

The length of Weston's hair did give her some valuable information. It wasn't long enough to account for lack of coordination to this extent. That meant a not insignificant portion of her body's failure to obey could be attributed to trauma or illness or both, not to the slow ravages of time. So. That was great.

Just...... just great.


“I’m getting you dressed because it's cold out. Won’t do you any good to survive getting shot in the head just for you to die of frostbite.” He also wasn’t comfortable with the idea of a compromised Madison being toted around in front of others in just a tank top and underwear, even if it had been a nice day outside. He heard the shit people said about women who were entirely conscious, sober, and able to fight back - no way he wanted to hear what they’d say about her. He might actually shoot someone in the neck for it.

“Sorry,” he added as he finished tying up her laces. Probably nothing perfect or comfortable, but it’d keep the laces from being a tripping hazard. Not that he expected her to run for it. A wheeling-them-over hazard instead, then.

Giving Madison a glance to make sure she wasn’t going to teeter right off the edge of the bed, he stepped away just long enough to push the wheelchair close. He locked the wheels, then leaned in and wrapped an arm around her waist. She was surprisingly lighter than he anticipated, which was worrying. A far cry from the unstoppable war machine he remembered from the schoolyard.

Helping Madison slide off the bed, he took the opportunity to help tug her pants up the rest of the way in the least-invasive way he could manage. He left the buttoning and zipping to her to try on her own first.

“Alright, hold on.” Weston tossed the bed’s blankets around Madison’s shoulders, unlocked the wheels, and pushed her towards the doorway.

“Maybe if you ask nicely I’ll pop a wheelie in the hallway for you.” Weston joked, trying to offer her a smile, though it didn’t really work all that well…. Since it was a stupid thing to say.


It was such a small thing, an insignificant thing, in the grand scheme of all things..... but damned if pants didn't make Madison feel a little more human, a little more capable of doing something, even if it took her a few tries to button and zip. Pants, a tank top, underwear, socks, and boots. A gun and she'd be fuckin' set. Hell, maybe someday she'd get herself a titty sling and really live it up. Gun first, though.

Gun > bra.

Human contact was still something unusual, and Madison hated the feeling of being shuffled around...... no, that wasn't quite right, she hated the feeling of being weak enough to need the help...... but soon enough, her keister was in a proper wheelchair, moving forwards at a reasonable speed. Pride wasn't something she had much of these days, but damned if it didn't sting anyhow. Madison was grateful it was Weston lugging her around and not someone else at Lincoln. The list of people she trusted was short; she could count them on one hand and still have a finger left over, and some of those she trusted were too young to burden with her sorry behind. Too young by far.

The blackness off one side of her head wasn't a surprise any more, and she'd need to learn to compensate for it if she was going to do anything but jack off and die or play bait for some swarm. Blankets were tugged further onto herself, and Madison forced herself to speak. Unfortunately for them both, Madison had other things on her mind than wheelies.

"Weston...... There were..... there were kids at th'school. They're here. They're in Lincoln. One..... one of them...... came to see me.... I..... I think."

A nest of vipers was no place for children. It wasn't a place for any decent folk, but children least of all. Madison shook her head to try and clear the cobwebs away.

"What happened? How're there kids here?"


What happened?

What a hell of a question. Weston thought about that same question a lot - not just the immediate question that Madison asked, but on a grander scale: how did he wind up here? How did mankind wind up here? He didn’t have answers for those questions beyond a painful feeling he fucked up badly and was getting his punishment for it far better than the government ever planned he’d get. Same as with the rest of mankind. But as for the kids? At least he could answer that one.

“The school’s no place to live at anymore. Too many bodies. Cabrera called it quits on that place, packed everyone and everything up, and brought ‘em all back here. For… safety. They’re warm and fed. The Angels went on their way too, and left. Sorry you had to be here but it seemed like the only option other than you dying.”

Weston pushed Madison down one hallway and then another, having no difficulty navigating what might otherwise be a winding maze to someone unfamiliar. It wasn’t long before they were moving the same direction as other people being evacuated - no enforcers among this crowd, just the scared, exhausted, and frazzled regular folk who somehow wound up at the bottom of the rung at Lincoln. They gave Weston a wide berth, and by extension, Madison as well. Some people averted their eyes in fear. He took one hand off the wheelchair for a moment to take his walkie-talkie out of its holder at his hip and pressed down on one button.

“Enforcers, start doing headcounts, and let me know who’s unaccounted for. Find Doctor Braaten and make sure he got his fool ass out. He went looking for someone, not sure who.”


Too many........ bodies?

For a moment, Madison was confused, right up until Weston explained that Cabrera brought everyone from the school here....... for safety. That was such a crock of bullshit that Madison re-examined Weston's words more holistically. A totality of bullshit rather than a nonsensical statement. It was true that the schoolyard grounds had been covered in zombie corpses, but rather remarkably, corpses were, in fact, portable. God knew she'd humped enough of them in her time. Even if there had been vague fears about zombie guts contaminating the ground...... planting beds existed for a reason. It was a school, not an industrial farm - at most they'd be dealing with an acre, maybe two, and that was if all the available green space was used for growing food. Plus, the entire area was fed by municipal water, not ground water.

No....... the de facto slaves at Northview had not been brought to the prison to become literal slaves because of an overreaching concern for their safety.

Anywhere with an executioner's pit that held not only deathmatches but man v. zombie extravaganzas could not, definitionally, be called safe. Madison had fought the dead in hollowed out pits, before. Lincoln was not unique in that regard. It was the same, banal cruelty that had existed before the Fall, laid bare and celebrated instead of shunned. Cabrera..... the name from Weston's lips filtered back to her, and Madison remembered a face with bloodshot eyes telling her this prison was full of...... fucking animals, he'd called them. People inclined towards casual rape and murder. In that fateful conversation, Cabrera had described the people he'd led in the invasion of a no-nothing school as little more than violent psychotics...... and Cabrera had brought Lincoln's newest victims close to his Scum-Sucking Raider King.

You know. For safety.

The hallways of the prison passed by unremarked and unremarkable - they were damn lucky not to encounter any trouble in their winding journey outside, but the trickle of smoke down Madison's throat stayed nothing more than a trickle, and as the pair merged with the regular people who made up the bulk of Lincoln's forced labor, the expressions on those faces were clear.

They were more afraid of Weston than of the fire that drove them outside.

For the first time, Madison wondered what, exactly, Weston had done in service to the King he wished to overthrow. Just how far had he bent the knee before realizing maybe he'd thrown in with the wrong crowd?

And it was the wrong crowd.

The wide birth these people gave her wheelchair and its navigator was evidence enough of that.

Madison kept quiet, even as her wheels came to a gradual stop. She didn't dare talk aloud around so many waiting ears, but her one eye spoke volumes as she watched Weston talk into his walkie talkie, giving short, direct, confident orders, and generally acting like he Totally Had This Under Control.

What the hell was he thinking?

Namazu
​

 

[NanLia]

THE PIT
Collab w/ Safton ​

Nari swiftly understood the critical mistake she’d made this evening agreeing to go and collect the rabbit, despite the rile of the crowds within the pit. The increase of noise hadn’t been displeasure of the results of the fight but the sounds of panicked people attempting to escape a fire somewhere in the building.


At first, she was walking against the crowds leaving the pit and getting as far away as possible but soon the acrid smell of smoke was choking the back of her throat, forcing her to pull the dirty borrowed hoodie up over her nose and mouth. It did not smell much better, now with the scent of Momo inside her shirt but it would at least it would filter most of the smoke.


She needed to get to the girls, she needed to make sure they were safe and she needed to be with them in the event that there was a chance to escape this hell during the fire. Slim as it might be, if they had to open the doors and let them all out; Nari would take her chances with the dead over with the people in this prison.


A scream of surprise was silenced in her throat by the inhalation of more smoke. She coughed, hard against the person that had grabbed her, unable to do any more than simply try and breathe again.


Momo jolted within her shirt, startling the Hispanic man who swiftly backed away. Now, able to breathe once more, she pulled the shirt back up over her nose, surprised to see who she was facing. She’d seen him before but wasn’t sure when or from where. Certainly somewhere in the prison…


It didn’t matter, if he recognized who she was it would make her problems all the worse. Nari turned and sprinted away, through the smoke onward closer to the pit. There had to be a way around the fire and back to her girls.

********​

Xander’s breath left his lungs and his knees buckled at the pain and wave of dizziness that overtook him. He very nearly fell back to the concrete floor where he likely would have stayed until the fire took him, but he managed to instead stumble over to the side of the arena and steady himself against it. There he remained, drawing in rapid shallow breaths until the pain in his ribs became more manageable and the cobwebs in his head cleared.


Soon he was staggering over to the gate of the arena. It was closed… had that Samaritan locked him in? That would be quite an end to him after all this work getting up and over here. The smoke was getting thicker and it was hard to even see the damned gate in the first place. The back of his throat was stinging, his eyes burning. He tried to fight it, but soon a barking cough escaped him – only to send another jolt of pain through his core that had him doubled over yet again.


Still, he pushed on. To what? He wasn’t sure. He had to believe Nari and Minnie and Haewon were somewhere out there… hopefully somewhere safe. Would they even still want anything to do with him? That was the million-dollar question, but right now he didn’t have an answer to it. The only thing that occupied his brain was making it to that fucking gate. Finally, his body slumped gracelessly against steel bars, pulling at them… to the sound of metal creaking obediently open. As Xander rushed through it, crouching low to avoid the worst of the smoke while moving into the interior of the prison, he allowed himself a dangerous emotion that he hadn’t dared feel in what felt like years.


Hope.



Nearing the pit she was forced to crouch, and duck beneath the black smoke as it billowed along the ceiling. She knew then she should turn back, go back to the girl's cell and wait but someone stumbled out of the pit, covered in blood and a sheer layer of sweat; at first, she thought it had to have been someone who’d died and risen but to her surprise…


“Xander!”



Xander followed the sound of the voice calling his name, whirling around to face the figure as it – she – emerged from the smoke. Even with a shirt obscuring part of her lower face, he recognized her immediately. He wondered if maybe this was some cruel hallucination sprung on him by oxygen deprivation… and, well, if it was? He could live with that. There were worse ways to go out than spending his final moments allowing himself the illusion of being reunited with his wife.


He lurched toward her on instinct, unable to fight the forces that drove his feet across the floor as he closed the distance. It was like they were two magnets of the opposite charge. Suddenly he was in front of her and he paused – almost fearful to take the final step as he lifted a hand gingerly, reaching out toward her cheek. “Nari,” he uttered her name like a prayer, trying to drink in every detail of her face even as the smoke filled the corridor around them.



Nari stared in shock and disbelief as Xander - XANDER! - shuffled toward her. She should have been concerned he’d turned, that she was seeing a dead version of her husband, lover and best friend coming for her but she didn’t move, not a step. If he was gone, then so was she.


Instead, he paused, raising a hand to her and she immediately pulled down the shirt over her face, stepping in toward the awaiting hand and letting the blood-soaked fingers brush over her cheek. She reached for him, grabbing the tatters remaining on his shirt.


“Xa-” She coughed, throat burning from the smoke, tears rolling down her cheek. They couldn’t stay here any longer and they couldn’t get to the girls. Nari pulled on Xander’s shirt, backing the way she’d come and away from the smoke.


They stumbled and staggered through the hall, away from the cell blocks and toward the only place she knew that would be safe: her workshop. It was unlocked, thankfully, and once they were inside she pushed the door closed, cutting off the smoke from the room, at least for now.



As soon as the heavy door slammed shut behind them, Xander leaned against the desk in the center of the room – several hacking coughs escaping his lungs and reigniting the pain in his torso. Once he managed to regain his composure, he whirled around, wrapping his arms around Nari in a swift hug before backing away to give her a once-over. “Are you okay? Where are the girls?”


He swallowed hard before speaking the next question aloud, his mouth suddenly dry for a reason that had nothing to do with the smoke and heat in the air. “Is the baby–” he began to ask, his voice trailing off before he could finish. With all the smoke and stress… they wouldn’t know until they could find a doctor…



She leaned into Xander as he pulled her close, feeling every emotion bubble up within her threatening to spill over and take control. He backed off, and she was thankful for the moment of peace before he spoke, rattling questions at her ending with one he hadn't finished.


Nari glared at the beaten man, ready to yell at him. How could he, of everyone, question her?! But a sudden sharp pain made her gasp and swiftly pulled her hoodie over her head, tossing it to the ground. “クソガキ!” She cursed, rubbing her hand over the top of her belly where Momo had delivered a swift, and hard, kick.


The bunny, now free from the confines of his prison, crawled out of the hoodie and happily hopped away to explore the new room.




Xander’s eyes widened at Nari’s outburst as she suddenly stripped off the hoodie, throwing it to the ground. He was about to ask what was wrong, wondering if the curse had been directed at him… but then he saw the hoodie move. He balked until the white, furry shape trundled out and began bounding without a care about the space.


Xander stared at the rabbit blankly. “Is that… Momo?”




Nari sighed, heavy with frustration as she moved to lean against the wall, then decided standing was too much and slowly slid to the floor to sit. Once upon a time, she could cross her legs under her, but now, nearing the end of her pregnancy, that wasn't even within the realm of possibility. She stretched her legs out in front of her, adjusting the weight of her belly so she wouldn't lose feeling in her feet and stared at her swollen ankles.


“Yes, that's Momo. Minnie and Haewon are … safe, I think. I sent them where no one will look for them. I went to get Momo so they wouldn't. And the baby…” she slowly ran her hands over her belly. “The baby is fine, as far as I know. I heard it's heartbeat after you all came here.”


She looked up at him then, a worried look crossing her features. “It's yours.” Her lips quivered, threatening to cry all over again. She felt like she'd been filled with tears since coming here. “Not his. They were going to … to … I couldn't think of anything else that would stop them.”






Xander knelt down at Nari’s side, the relief at hearing their girls were safe washing over his body like a painkiller and washing away the ache in his ribs, the agony in every breath. He gave his wife a knowing smile as he took her hand in his own, squeezing it softly. “I know. Buster told me,” he murmured, his voice hitching slightly at the mention of their friend.


He swallowed hard, his free hand moving over to rest on Nari’s belly for a moment as his smile widened. “We’ll have to start thinking of names…” he continued in little more than a whisper. Xander held her gaze for a long moment – it felt like an eternity staring into those chocolate-brown pools.

And then something popped out in the corridor – probably the fire reaching a circuit breaker – causing the lights to flicker, snapping him from his reverie. “Do you know if there is another way out of here?” he asked.




Nari marvelled at Xander's simple and gentle touch. How just a few seconds of him holding her hand and suggesting baby names managed to set her world back into motion. The months spent here first alone and then with limited access and truths with the girls had made her feel like she'd been frozen in time, with no future to be had.


He made her world spin and made her want to keep breathing. He made her hope. She nodded and squeezed his hand, her free hand reaching up to wipe away the tears streaking her spot-dusted cheeks. “Yes, a door there.” She nodded to the back of the room, beyond shelves of scraps. “It leads into the well pump and generator room. But the door is always locked.”




Xander followed her gesture toward the indicated door, scrutinizing it briefly. He turned to give Nari a parting kiss to the forehead before standing with a light grunt, cradling his midsection as he marched over to the potential exit. He placed his hand lightly on the steel body of the heavy door… it was cool to the touch. That was a good sign. He tried the handle and, sure enough, Nari was right. It didn’t budge.


He turned back to look at the interior of the room they found themselves in… he hadn’t exactly been given the grand tour of the Prison, but there was something vaguely familiar about this space all the same. It was clearly a workshop judging by the array of tools laid out across the benches and shelves. But the meticulous way in which they were arranged… Nari. This was her office. Of course; he had heard the Samaritans had taken her for her technical expertise.


Maybe now it was time to put that expertise – and these tools – to good use. Xander toward his wife with a hopeful smirk. “I watched you turn an abandoned high school into a colony with power and running water.” He shook his head. “A locked door is no match for you, Ms. Font.”




Nari smiled faintly at Xander as he left her; surprised at how quickly she could fall back into old roles and feelings. For so long she’d had to be the image of someone else and it pained her to think that she’d have to go back to him…


She watched as Momo, done with exploring beneath the desks and shelves, meandered back toward her, pausing at her leg and flopping against it. The rabbit seemed at ease, somehow, after being assaulted by a stranger and then flung to the floor. If she hurt the beast it would be the end of any kind of relationship with her daughters.


Nari peered up at Xander as he returned, his tone of voice light and meant to tease her like old times. She inhaled and immediately regretted it, coughing for several seconds before regaining her composure. “I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t looked at it the first week I was in here.”


With effort, she slid her legs beneath her and used the nearby self to haul herself back up to her feet. “I know I can unlock it.” She said, shuffling closer to her desk, collecting makeshift replacement tools, selecting a flathead screwdriver and a mallet. “The problem is, the people running this place will know too.”




Xander nodded gravely, his lips thinning. “I know. But…” he turned to wander back toward the door they had entered from, pressing his palm against its body. A distinct warmth radiated through the core and he drew his hand back, glancing down at the bottom of the door where a few faint wisps of smoke were beginning to make their way in.


“...I don’t think we have much of a choice,” he finished. “If it comes to it, if we run into them... I’ll tell them I opened the door. Okay?” he said, his tone almost pleading.



Nari nodded slowly, as Xander insisted they break through the door; she didn’t like the idea of him taking the blame for something she was doing. Honestly, she wouldn’t let him tell their captors it was him; he wasn’t yet free from his fate because he’d won that fight - she knew plenty of other stories that, despite having won their freedom, they’d continued to fight.


She shuffled back to the door, it wasn’t anything spectacular. A steel door, hollow save for the struts. A simple tumbler lock. She didn’t know anything about lock picking, but she had previously considered how to get into the room. She took the flat edge of the screwdriver and pressed it to the top of the pin within the door's hinge. Using the mallet, she tapped upward until the pin slipped out of the slots.


Twice more the door groaned, no longer resting on the hinges but on the brackets and now on the tumbler lock.


With the same screwdriver, she wedged the tip between the doorframe and the lock where the latch sat and tapped again, this time harder until the screwdriver moved the door back far enough in the frame that the deadbolt no longer sat inside the strike plate.


Once again the door groaned, this time sliding toward her, and the room she was within, as it was freed from the frame.



Xander rested back against the workbench, an arm hanging loosely around his midsection as he watched Nari work. Even considering just how dire their situation was, he couldn't help but smile faintly at the sight. The methodical way in which the woman went about solving a task in front of her never ceased to amaze him. She rarely seemed more peaceful and at ease than when she was at work.


Suddenly there was the groaning creak of metal-on-metal as the door gave way to Nari’s efforts and Xander's smile broke into a grin. He hobbled over and embraced her quickly, planting a kiss on her forehead. “Great job, babe,” he murmured. He glanced around before grabbing a pipe wrench off the nearby table and hefting it in front of him like a sword and stepping forth into the darkness.



Nari leaned into Xander’s, heedless of and blood and grime transferable between them. It was a simple gesture, something that would or could have happened a hundred times if they were home. But they weren’t, they were here and she didn’t know the next time she’d get another. If it would be their last.


She watched as she stepped over the door and into the darkness beyond; she knew what he’d find: the mechanical room - a broiler, the water pump to the prison, pipes and wires leading in all directions and a long corridor that led… she didn’t know where.


Nari knew they couldn’t stay here, already smoke was seeping through the gaps of the door they’d come in. She hurried to pull the dirty hoodie back over her head and was thankful Momo seemed to understand now wasn’t the time to keep his distance and was underfoot. She scooped him up and stuffed him back inside the hoodie and followed Xander through to the door and down the corridor.


She didn’t know how long they travelled along, though it felt like an eternity of silence between them, Xander at the lead, ready to take on anything and her behind, cautiously looking back the way they had come; expecting fire or Samaritans to be chasing them down.


Instead, they came to another door and after Xander checked for heat they found it unlocked and it led into a hallway that was entirely void of people.


Nari paused, looking both ways down the hall as Xander leaned against the wall to catch his breath. “I think I know where I am.” She said quietly, “This way.” She turned, reaching for Xander’s hand and started down the hall to where she believed they needed to go.


“We’re in the admin building.” She said softly, pausing at an intersection to look down the various halls to make sure the coast was clear before leading him onward. “The girls are over here.” She sped up, as fast as her oversized belly with a bunny balancing on top of it would allow and nearly dragged him down the hall to Cabrera’s room.


She pushed through the door, pulling Xander in behind her and slamming it closed behind her.

Miaow @Bullyboy Squad Namazu @BeyondDandy @Crono @Togy @Aegis @Good_Morels Tool ​