ParadoxiiNight
That awkward, sleep-deprived one
So here's my code. I don't know what's going wrong and if something isn't going wrong here but it is on the thread I'm using this it's going to be very annoying, but I can't seem to get this all in one box?
Cordelia didn't know what was going on – an understandable issue when stuck in a situation such as hers – and really wasn't quite ready for what she was confronted with. Death after life, and life after death. There was some kind of irony in that which she was too preoccupied to pick up on, but she felt amused nonetheless.
In front of her, some kind of interface hovered. She observed it, stuck her hand through it – there was no physical sensation – and walked around it. It moved with her. Musing over the phenomena, as humanity had decidedly not mastered such a helpful little thing like this, she sighed and moved on. Having observed the most prominent object of her surroundings – and left reading the text to a later time – she looked around.
She was on the roof of a skyscraper. There were rusted old AC units and piping, and rain spots everywhere – 'Poor engineering,' came an echo of her mother's voice. 'The material will absorb the rain, and thus weakened, the building will eventually collapse.' She sighed. What did one expect her anyway? She could see other buildings over the walls that surrounded this place. They were much nicer, not covered in rust, rain spots and looking to collapse at any moment. It took her only a few moments to surmise what kind of place she was in.
Slums.
Of course. The irony was depressing. Her family had risen from such slums, but never left their roots behind. She herself still felt the unfairness of such a past despite having been raised upper-middle class all her life. Her parents still acted according to the financial and social constraints of their childhoods, and she certainly felt that. It had been her ambition to adopt and raise children in such a way as to take them away from such things, given that she herself had experienced the pains of that kind of childhood, but for the moment, it was too late.
That's right. She was dead. Or she had been. Maybe still was? The mechanics of her situation escaped her, but she could make some logical guesses. She sighed aloud. "Nevermind that, though. It does not bear thinking about now. Firstly, I should check out the available resources. There was some kind of task mentioned before."
Adjusting her glasses, she walked around the rooftop and looked more closely at the city spread out around her. To the north, there was a circular area with nice, sizeable buildings that had official logos and such affixed to them. To her north-east and -west, there were countless houses and apartments. 'Not too shabby,' she thought.
Despite seemingly civilised appearances though, there were glaring discrepancies. The cars on the roads were still, no one was walking anywhere and there was no noise at all, not even the twittering of birds or the whisper of wind-tossed vegetation. She couldn't see into the distance with enough detail to tell, but something seemed... off. Her instincts were screaming at her, too, even more so than they did when she went anywhere outside her house. She shivered as she stared around. If this was some kind of test, like a computer game, then this must be the starting area, and everywhere else down... there, would be filled with potential dangers. Perhaps even the other levels of this building held dangers untold.
Stepping back from the railing, she walked back over to the interface, having surmised as much from her surroundings as she could with being told anything. Walking straight through the thing – why bother walking around it when it didn't seem to being anything more than some light projected into the air in some kind of futuristic manner? – she turned and read it to herself.
The further she read, the more her blood thundered through her veins. What had she done to deserve this? She had always made an effort to be kind, to keep promises and work hard. Was coming back to life really worth this trauma shitshake that someone was serving her? What kind of tutorial asks a person to begin with surviving a zombie apocalypse? Granted, she vaguely remembered a warning, but had been too busy theorising about the white space to actually pay much attention. Oops.
Shaking and pale, she turned away from the interface and looked around for anything she could use to defend herself, but there was nothing. The AC units and piping was too firmly attached and there wasn't even a loose bit of concrete. At least, she sighed, there was a heavy door that only opened by pulling it open from the inside. Zombies weren't intelligent enough to pull on things, and thank the Gods for that.
She went back to the railing and stared at the ground. She would hole up here for now and wait until nightfall. There didn't appear to be any zombies out and about, so she would to see if they came out at night. And then, she would await the dawn and observe their behaviour again. Did these zombies burn during the day? Did they just dislike sunlight? Or were they being given a day one reprieve to gather materials and equipment? If it were the latter, then she was wasting, but if it weren't...
Well, she didn't fancy being slowly consumed by the mindless, devouring undead.
created by junie.
