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Realistic or Modern The Dead Hills - IC

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Milly wrapped her arms around Jennifer, giving her a hug of some sorts, albeit a side one bit appeared to Jennifer that Milly was concerned about her getting hurt. It was weird, however, for Jennifer. She wasn’t used to having a feeling like that, someone necessarily caring about her getting hurt. It’d been a long time since she felt that, especially with a sort of hug or anything. Because of this, Jennifer didn’t know how to react. She stood therefor a moment trying to register it, figure out how to react.

“I’ll be fine, don’t upu worry,” Jennifer said softly to Milly. She then put her arms around Milly, just touching her lightly for a second.

A smile briefly flashed across her face. But Jennifer didn’t know how to feel still. Things as simple as hugs she had become unused to. She hadn’t felt stuff like that in awhile. Even if it was a romantic sort of hug, she just simply didn’t know how to feel or react to it. After ten seconds or so, she let go of Milly, still unsure of how to feel. She brushed this aside for now, as The defiance of Archie was something Jennifer took note of. With his arms crossed and his eyes on her, Jennifer stared back, thinking for a moment.

“Fine,” she said, begrudgingly, “stay by the gate, preferably outside so someone is covering my exit out. I don’t want to have to be worried if the coast is clear when I get out of there. But the guns need to go somewhere secret. I’ll take your word on that one, Arch. But when I leave to go in, wait a minute or two before you walk over. Watch from a distance. It won’t look like we’re conspiring.”

Once the conversation shifted to Cali, she brought up a very valid question on her physical ability. It was no secret she was recovering from a shooting. She wasn’t at her fullest potential, and she knew that. But to get in and out without a fight, she was confident in her abilities, even in this state.

“I’ll be fine,” Jennifer said, raising a hand in protest. “I might not be the strongest right now, our close to how I was before getting shot. But I have enough ability to do what I need to do and get out. I don’t have the strength or ability to endure a battle. But I have enough to sneak in and out without raising too much of a scene.”

With the issue of her health addressed, she once more looked at everyone, beginning to speak.

“We can do this, each and every one of us can. Do your jobs, play your cards right, and we’ll pull this off. It is pivotal that we all do what we’re supposed to. The clock’s ticking, but we have time to kill. Figure out everything else amongst yourselves. When the time comes, get ready and get into position. Let’s kick ass and get this done.”

It wasn’t a speech worth remembering. It wasn’t supposed to be anything to remember. It was just a last word the leader of a small resistance group had to say before they carried out their plan. For now, Jennifer was going to rest and conserve her energy, as well as try to get some pain medication. But not for the pain she feels now. Rather, it would be for the pain she would feel during the execution of the plan. Preventative measures were necessary to make sure potential pain wouldn’t inhibit her from being successful.

“One last thing,” the girl said, her back facing the rest before turning towards them. “If one of us gets caught, do not eat out the rest. God only knows what Dave would do if he found out about this. And if he does, there’s goes any chance at a resistance against his tyranny. Keep this in mind.”

Hoping onto the bed, the girl situated herself on there comfortably, moving her pillow to satisfy her needs. One of the most important things is rest once sick and or recovering. She needed to take the time before to rest, conserve whatever energy she had for later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
9:58 p.m.

“Okay, you all know your roles, let’s get this done,” Jennifer said to her companions as she put on her backpack. “We pull this off if we all do our jobs. Cali, signal to Archie if you see anything. Archie, you take If from there. We don’t have any sort of radio to communicate with each other. You’ll have to come in, God forbid. Everyone else, do your jobs. And stay safe. And remember, if caught, we say we were the only ones. We don’t rat one another out.”

Checking the clock on the wall, the time was nearly 10 o’clock. “Showtime, people,” she said as she walked towards the door. “Good luck, everyone,” she said as she walked out the door.

Once outside, there’s still were a good handful of people outside. It seemed that people were restless. But it’s understandable. The whole Mountaintop has been on edge with the recent events. Scanning around, Jennifer saw two new guards walking to the guard towers. Taking the opportunity, she walked across the main square to near the vehicle bay. When the guard was changing, there is a brief window that there would be right back a lack of any security. This was the window Jennifer had to act during. It only lasted 20 seconds or so, but it was enough for her to slip in without being noticed. The gate to the vehicle bay was not locked. It was just a big gate that could be moved when need be. The Mountaintop only had a locked gate where the military vehicles were, given that they had considerable firepower.

Jennifer stood near the gate and watched the guard posts, leaning on a wall next to it, taking out a notebook and pretending to write every couple of seconds or so, to try and not look so suspicious at a glance, or in general. Looking up at the guards, they were changing. It was her window to go. Looking around her, she made sure no one was watching. Seeing the coast was clear, she put her hand on the gate, pulled it open slightly, and slid inside, pulling it closed slowly behind her.

Success: she was in.

While she was in, Now wasn’t that the time to keep her guard down, as she couldn’t get comfortable yet. Walking around, she looked at the various cars there. None of them were her truck. Walking through the cracks between cars, she looked and looked, and she still couldn’t find her truck. There were approximately 20-30 cars packed in there, and yet finding her truck was hard. Some cars were so close together that Jennifer couldn’t squeeze through. While there were many cars, there also were a number of trucks, yet none of them hers. She didn’t know how long it would take to find her truck, and furthermore, getting past some of them packed so close together created a further obstacle. As she searched and tried to maneuver around, she slowly started to realize that this was going to take longer than she would have liked.

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Milly McDonald​
Milly did not hold onto Jennifer long, but she was relieved that Jennifer was not annoyed with her for the gesture and even hugging her back. But something told her that Jennifer didn't like it, something that worried the young girl. Feeling rather bad for making her feel awkward, Milly pulled away, rubbing her arm anxiously. She looked around as everyone talked, Cali expressing concern over Jennifer's condition and the girl denying that it would hold her back. Milly blinked softly as she looked at the girl. Here Jennifer was, having just recovered from being shot and having her heart condition (something Milly was never going to bring it up with the woman) and here she was trying to lead them and help to bring down Dave before he destroyed the whole community. And what was she doing? Babysitting. Milly did not mind but seeing Jennifer power on despite her setbacks made her self-conscious. She just wished she had that drive in her. But she didn't.

Milly could not help but stop and think. Everybody in this room had been through some kind of trauma or grief. Even Archie and Zelda, who had said nothing about their experiences, she could still tell they were affected; Zelda especially given her vices. But from what she knew, Jennifer had been through the worst and Milly only knew part of the story. But it had made them stronger. What had she been through? Practically nothing. Why was she the weakest? If she had no experiences, how was she supposed to be useful? Despite what Archie said, Milly still had that fear that she only got in the way. She was just a load they had to drag along with them, even though she was no use to them. And after hearing what Cali had said about killing or being involved in killing, it only made her more anxious. She never had to kill or even try. And she hated how little she knew about it; she felt stupid. By all accounts, she should have been dead by now. But she wasn't. And... despite everything, she sometimes wished she was; at least that way she could not weigh on them as much as she did.

She looked towards Daniel as he took the lollipop, though he still seemed unsure of her. She gave him a gentle smile before picking up Norris who was simply pecking around and people's feet. "You... want to pet her?" she asked the boy as the silkie hen 'bawked' and tilted her head at the boy with interest. Milly just wanted this to be over with. Still, she felt pretty useless only being able to sit at the side and wait to see what happened.
Zelda Williams​
Zelda was still greatly disturbed and did not react when Archie gave her a side hug and pinched her cheek. She simply moved her eyes to look at him as he teased that he would make her "giggle like a school girl". She just blinked at him. Granted, Zelda hated her laugh and how it sounded but it was unlikely he could do anything right now to lift her spirits. "Do that and I'll make you scream like one." was all she say and give him a small and sombre smile at his attempt. She did appreciate it, seriously. She just did not know what to do. She couldn't snap at him or tell him off but at the same time she could not just act like everything was okay. She hated thinking this way, but she couldn't figure out what else she should be thinking. She just wanted this to end. And the only way it could end was with that gun Archie had taken. There just didn't seem to be a way out...

Zelda broke out of her thoughts when she then heard what Cali had said to Jennifer about her condition. Upon the mention of this, Zelda snapped out of her daze and looked at the girl with a mixture of offence and anger. Her condition? What about it? Maybe it was the alcohol or the train of thoughts running through her head, or a mix of both but something about that question infuriated the woman. She had done everything humanly possible to save Jennifer's life, and even then she still wished daily she could have done more. She wanted to help the girl. She wanted to fix her health problems, she wanted to take it all away. It was the same with Milly, she desperately wished she had the tools to help her. She had brought Jennifer back from the dead with practically nothing and this woman- who had never actually acknowledged her existence in this room or even spoke to her at any point during this whole period- was going to criticise it! Sure, she didn't know. Nobody but Jennifer herself and Archie knew, but that didn't matter!

"She'll be fine!" Zelda growled before looking back at the window, "Sure they did what they could... Besides. She's strong." she added, not looking at anyone as Jennifer continued to speak. By the way she was speaking, it was almost like she actually believed this was going to work. Zelda did not want to say this, for obvious reasons, but she had no faith in this working. It was too risky and surely Dave would catch onto what they were doing. And if she was going to distract the guards, there was no chance. She was going to get shot to pieces and fail them. That's all she did. Fail people. Before and after the Apocolypse. But... she couldn't say that. She simply shut her eyes and went quiet. She was not looking forward to this...
****
9:58pm ​
Zelda stood outside, waiting for any kind of signal that would tell her when to act. It was dark out here, and there were still people out. Nervous, she took out her flask but realised upon lifting it that it was empty. Damn it... With a huff, she put it back in her pocket. There was more in her room, hidden of course. In a sense, this was a win-win for her. If she failed, she got killed. If they succeeded, she could get more to drink. That, and the... revolution(?) would go on, of course. She let out a deep sigh as she watched as Jennifer managed to sneak past the guards. So far so good...

But just as this happened, Zelda froze as she saw that one of them turned around just when Jen vanished. The woman bit her lip. Shit! What could she do? The woman felt... weird. She was drunk, given she had been nursing that flask all day, but she had purposely stopped so she was still alert to an extent. But she felt shaky on her feet. And angry. She needed an outlet. Looking around, she saw a man walking close to her. Seeing an opportunity, she walked as if she was passing him -swaying a little as she went- and deliberately bumped into the man's shoulder.

"Hey!" She snapped, her voice slurred, "Watch where you're fuckin' going!" She gave the man a shove, which made him stop and stare at her as if in disbelief.
"What is wrong with- oh... it's you." He suddenly sounded disgusted. Typically, Zelda would not engage with people like this (which was pretty much everyone in the camp) but she could see it had got one of the guard's attention, distracting them from Jennifer.
"Oh. OH! Oh so cause it's ME ya think you can waltz on by and knock me over, ay?! How'd you like it- HUH?!" And with that she gave the man a hard shove, almost throwing herself forward onto the ground in the process. At this point in time, all she could do was hope and pray this would work...

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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
He managed to persuade Jennifer to let him help at least even if it be from a distance. Yet it was at the Doctors reply he gave a booming chuckle, shaking his head and releasing Zed with a light jab in the side. "You know how to make a good comeback, I'll give you that. But you ain't home and free yet, Missy." He tapped the side of his nose almost intimidatingly. He very well knew she wasn't going to be back to full working capacity until at least a week had passed. Give or take, maybe even longer. Zed was Zed, and it worried him to no end at what she'd attempt that evening with the excuse of a distraction. The woman was mentally unsound and he didn't mean that in any sort of derogatory term, but the straight unadulterated truth of it. Then the snappy words began, if only for a momentary exchange. "Come on girls, I don't think it's a good time for this. Hm? It's a quick in and out plan, no need to argue. I'll grab the guns when Jen returns, put them in the old barn floorspace. I found it whilst I was hay baling with the other farm lads. Originally thought it could be a good hidin' spot for a human, but it was smaller than I first thought. Would be big enough for firearms though." Archie glanced amongst them with a short nod. "Should we do that Scooby Doo thing? Hands in the middle? Anyone? Noone? Buncha losers."

9PM​
He'd been worrying about Milly the moment he left, and now the lumberjack was also concerned over Jennifer, Zelda, and Calliope. If anything he was happy that Cali would be staying in closer proximity to both Milly and Danny-boy. God forbid that anything would happen, or he might've been in the very same situation as Zed had found herself. That girl, had become quite the family to him, and it warmed his heart immeasurably to know she was safe and happy. Less could be said about the family he'd left back home, or the prior 'families' he'd lost through colonies gone tits up. Not even saving the children, much to the pain which resided in his chest. There was more blood on his hands than he cared to tell. He would be the protector, for it was the only thing he knew how to be.

Standing outside the gate, Archie cut an incognito figure partially slouched against a wall of sorts whilst he stared ahead into the building Jennifer had vanished into. Hearing the muffled sounds of a scuffle and the distinct tone of Zelda. Had it been any other time, the big labourer would've made a beeline and carried her off over his shoulder till giving the Doctor a harsh scolding. She'd hate him for it, and yet he couldn't help merely being the hero. One day, it'd get him killed -- or so they said.

Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
As they hatched the plan, Calliope felt Zelda's scorn for her question. She stared back just as cross, "It doesn't matter how strong you are and she was struggling to stand an hour ago, if someone is struggling to stand I wouldn't place my life on the belief they could carry 20-50 pound guns," She rolled her eyes, "You're upset over an illogical reason."
Daniel had been listening and stifled a chuckle, also seeing the logical fallacy in Zelda's persona, but was interrupted by Milly holding her pet. Daniel gently rubbed two fingers over the pet's head and smiled, but returned his attention to the conversation soon after. His machine was safely back in his pocket after everyone had gotten the chance to look at it, but he left it by Jennifer's bedside before the whole group disbanded. He hoped someone would remember to take it seeing as he would be stuck with Milly while the chaos went down. Seems his time to shine was still yet to come.
Before heading to sleep themselves, Calliope and Daniel packed their duffel bag for safety precautions and then laid down for sleep.

9 PM
Calliope sat on the tall roof on a nearby building. The clock tower looked unbelievably close, like she could reach out and touch it. But she didn't dare for fear of someone seeing her frame against the lights below. Her binoculars focused on Jennifer walking around looking just as dazed and drunk as the crowd around her. Men and women pushed by her in waves and then she disappeared. Calliope assumed she was in at this point and re-aimed her binoculars now at Zelda. She watched Zelda, fake drunkenly topple over on someone and then begin yelling. It drew the attention of everyone nearby but some guards on the outskirts of the crowd seemed unbothered. Calliope saw someone's back briefly as they disappeared after Jennifer. She could only assume this is why Zelda was being so loud.
Calliope signaled Archie by pointing to the building Jennifer had gone into and then raised a finger to her lips as if to stay, "Check it out quietly". There was no panic, no alarm in her body language or gestures. She hoped he had read it that way too, not a code red yet. She aimed her view back onto Zelda and raised one arm up and down, trying to communicate to Zelda to be louder to grab more attention. More distraction was needed if Archie was going to get closer.

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Squeezing through cars and wiggling her way around the vehicles, Jennifer searched. Time was of the essence here, and she couldn’t afford to be rummaging around for too long. She had at most an hour before mandatory curfew. An hour was enough time. But, as always, the sooner she could accomplish this, the better. Something Jennifer didn’t think was going to be tough was finding her truck. It was a Ram 2500, and they weren’t small trucks. She was surprised that in a sea of vehicles, that one failed to stand out amongst the rest. Alas, the young girl kept moving and looking until... bingo. She found her truck. The truck was positioned near the second gate for the other parking lot, one which housed the heavy armaments, such as the Abrams Main Battle Tank. Since it was located, all she had to do was get inside, get to her back seat storage compartment and grab what she could.

Approaching the driver side door, Jennifer took at her key. The truck was outfitted with a keyless, remote start key. By touching the door handles, the truck would unlock. But it would flash its lights, which in turn will give away any position she has, alerting others to her presence there. Luckily, there was a physical key hidden in the key remote. Popping it out, she took the key and put it in the keyhole, turning it. But as she did, she saw the bullet holes left from the fight that wound her up seriously hurt, and her father in the state he’s in now. It was eerie to her, sending chills down her spin. She shivered for a moment, observing them. But she shook it off for now, as she knew it wasn’t the time to sit and reminisce about things.

With the key turned, and the doors unlocked, she carefully opened the door, and as quickly as she could, hit the switch that controlled the interior lighting when a door was open. With the switch hit, she shit the driver side door and moved to the passenger seat. Pulling herself up, albeit with pain and little strength, she got herself up onto the floor. Quickly, she hit the releases to flip the seats up that exposed the rear under seat storage compartment. As the seat lifted, moonlight lit up the storage compartment. There weren’t many guns there, as she knew. But they would suffice for now. Jennifer first grabbed a Beretta M9A3, a 9mm handgun used by the military. With it, she grabbed a 50 box of Federal HST JHP. Next, she grabbed a Colt 1911 Government model, and a 50 round box of PMC FMJ ammo. Stuffing them, and a couple spare magazines into the backpack, she began to search again. The next grabbed was a Smith & Wesson M&P .40 Shield, with two mags and a box of Remington green and white box UMC .40 S&W JHP ammunition. The last gun she picked up was a AR-15 pistol that she had been building over the course of months from various collected parts. The AR-15 pistol she had converted into a short barreled rifle. A gun with 10.5 inch barrel, telescoping stock, and a EOTech optic on the top, it was a small package, one being a great truck gun for her if she ever were in a pinch. She grabbed three magazines, and six boxes, totaling 120 rounds, of TulAmmo JHP.

Jennifer breathed a sigh of relief as she closed the door of her truck and put her backpack on. While this wasn’t over just yet, she was relieved the guns were still there.

Just as the door closed, she heard a voice.

“What the hell is going on here,” questioned an authoritative voice from behind her.

The girl twitched in fright before turning around. When she did, she saw an armed guard with his gun drawn on her. She began to breathe heavily, eyes darting around, trying to think of an excuse, but knowing full well there wasn’t one she could come up with. The lack of an answer from her seemed to only irritate the guard.

“I said,” the man began, raising his voice, “who the fuck are you, what are you doing back here, and what the hell is in that backpack of yours.”

“Let’s just take it easy here,” Jennifer began uneasily. “Let’s just calm down a bit a-“

“Name, reason of being here, contents of the backpack now,” he said, cutting her off.

“My name is Jennifer,” she began. “I’m Mack’s daug-.”

“I know who you are,” he responded to her, becoming increasingly more angry in tone. “Bag contents, reason here. And put your fucking hands up.”

Jennifer raised her hands slowly. “This is my truck. I came to get some medication for my condition here.” Jennifer had to lie to try and potentially ease him, and appear to make her reason there seem valid. The guy however, starting walking over, and forcefully jammed the barrel of his handgun into Jennifer’s temple. The force made her recoil in pain.

“I’m taking this bag off you and we’ll see how truthful you are being.”

As the man began to remove her pack pack from her, Jennifer knew that this was going to go downhill from here if she didn’t do something-and fast. The gun the man carried was a Sig Sauer P226 handgun, or one similar to it. The gun was designed with an external hammer. If the girl could get her hand between the cocked hammer and the firing pin, she could stop him from firing the gun, if he pulled it, when she made a move.

But Jennifer was weak, too weak to get in a hand to hand brawl. And she knew this, furthermore, she only saw one was out of this: kill or be killed. As soon as the guns were discovered, she knew this could get deadly. Either she gets killed by Dave later, and she wouldn’t doubt it given his current mental state, or he would kill her if she tried to defend herself. But there was an internal battle inside of Jennifer. She didn’t want to kill this man. For as much of an ass he may be right now, he was just doing his job, in a system created by her father. And this man he’d seen before, with presumably a wife and two children. Jennifer didn’t want to kill a husband, and a father. And furthermore, she wanted to stop killing. She was trying to change. But the old desire, the twitch, the voice in her head telling her to “do it” was beginning to drown out all other thoughts and noise in her head. An internal battle began, once again, inside of Jennifer with what to do. But, when the bag came off of her, Jennifer knew she had one choice.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“The fuck did you just say,” the man responded.

“O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended you,” Jennifer began to pray, a tear rolling down her cheek, with one hand quickly reaching for a switchblade knife. She took the knife and sunk it straight into the man’s neck, while the other hand went in between the hammer and the firing pin of his gun. The man recoiled back and hit the side of the car adjacent to them. He struggled with Jennifer. She herself struggled, her weakness preventing her from killing him quickly. To counter this, she threw her weight into him, causing her and him to fall on the ground, though Jennifer catching herself with her free hand from falling flat on her face.

The man was now just clinging onto life, the life fading before Jennifer’s eyes. With the knife still in him, Jennifer grabbed the knife, and began to push forward, to collapse his airway completely.

“And I detest,” Jennifer continued praying as she pulled the knife through what was left of the man’s airway, “all my sins because I dread the loss of heaven and the pains of hell, but most of all because they have offended you, my God who are all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the help of your grace, to confess my sins, to do penance, and to amend my life. Amen.”

The man finally stopped moving, he stopped choking on blood. He was dead. Jennifer rolled off of him, turning her head towards him. She stared at the guy, knowing she just robbed a wife of her husband, and two children of their father. This was the cruel nature of life these days, but this went deeper with Jennifer. This was a community meant for people to live, love like the world before the dead rose. It’s a sanctuary for the living, even with Dave fucking up as bad as he was.

But for Jennifer, this death was more. These weren’t crazy cultists or people trying to kill her. This was a death that could have been avoided, it was something she didn’t want to do. She didn’t want to be her old self, one who loved killing. She wanted to avoid it if possible. And with the realization of a widow and fatherless children, staring into the man’s dead eyes, she began to feel the weight of her actions.

“No...,” Jennifer started to whisper, putting her hands around her head in distress as she began to cry, “no, no, no! Damn it, no!”

Jennifer curled up and took a moment to express her sorrow once again to her God, and to the man she just killed.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she repeatedly said.

As she wept, she heard a commotion outside, one that she thought must have been Zelda in her fight. This snapped the girl back into reality, remembering the mission at hand. She had the guns, but there was an issue. Now, she was covered in blood and there was a dead security member in front of her that she murdered. She had to do something. Looking around, she quickly began to assess her options. The car next to her did not have locked doors. Seeing this, she crawled to the door, still on the ground, and opened in. Pulling herself in, she found the trunk release lever and pulled it, popping the trunk open. Closing the door, she crawled her way to the trunk, grabbing and dragging the body with all strength she had in her. She felt her stitches pulling, almost as if they were going to rip. While they didn’t rip, the girl struggled with getting the man in, but she did in a span of several minutes. Adrenaline seemed to be negating pain from being worse.

With the man in the trunk, she shut the door, and took a moment to pray and say sorry to the dead man once more. But with that done, she needed to get out. But first, she needed to get rid of any blood on her. Opening up her truck once more, after struggling to pull herself up, she grabbed shirts in her storage compartment. Wiping off any blood she could with a towel, she swapped clothes, wiped blood from her hands on the doors, and hid the blood soaked ones in compartment.

Picking up the backpack, she made her way as fast as she could to the door, where Archie was. “Go, hide this now,” she said quickly, walking as fast as she could, while looking inconspicuous, to the room where her father was. When she got there, she washed any other blood off of her in the shower in the room as quickly as she could, and changed clothes once more. When she was done, she laid down on the bed in there, and began to think of what she had just done. She cursed herself and began to cry some more. She knew that this wasn’t over. She knew she’d see his wife and children. And she knew that one day, she’d have to pay for this, just as the other people she killed without true justification. The adrenaline wore off, the pain began to set in more. There was a long night ahead of her.

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Zelda could see she was getting a reaction from the guards so kept going with her act.
"Look- you're drunk, just calm down!" The man she bumped into growled as he grabbed the woman by the wrist.
"Oh IM the one who has to calm down!? OF COURSE!" Zelda shoved the man away hard, making him fall over.

"Hey! What is going on here?!" A gruff voice shouted. Zelda turned to see the guard walking towards her with his partner behind him both with their guns out. The woman looked at the guns. She really didn't know what to do. Should she do it? It felt odd now, being faced with the actual prospect of ending it all. But now she was faced with it, she was unsure of what to do. But she had to distract them long enough for them to not notice Jennifer.

"Aw nothin's going on ya know! Just shit, it'd aaaaall shit!" Zelda took her flask and pretended to take a long swig out of it.
"Ugh... thought you were dead, Williams." One of the guards said, sounding disappointed.
"Dead? Ha, I wish." Zelda fake grinned, "I'm sure Dave would love it."
"Hey!" The other guard shouted, raising his gun at her, "Dave has enough to worry about he does not need the likes of you to make it worse!"

Zelda paused, her drunk mind still swimming with thoughts. She was not thinking right. She stumbled a little on the spot, finding it harder to keep her balance. She looked at the gun that was pointed at her. She really was not sure if she could go through with it. Shr thought about what Archie had said, about her mattering. And what Jen said about people caring about her. She tried to believe it. She wanted to.

But then the thing that Cali had said played on her mind. How she was stupid for thinking Jennifer was strong enough to do this and her logic was flawed. Not to mention her bastard kid almost laughing at what she said. It weighed on her mind. If Jennifer was to die or get badly hurt dying this, she'd be responsible for her being in that condition that led to it. She really was a failure. Her logic was stupid, she was stupid. She wasn't any worth to them. She could do was make Jennifer "weak". She couldn't help them. She was stupid if she thought she could actually make anything better. She caused her family's death and now she could have killed Jennifer because of her shitty medical skills...

"Okay, I'll make it easier on you." Without another word Zelda lunged forward, grabbing the nozzle of the gun and pulling it towards her harshly. "Go on! Do it! DO IT!" She yelled, her grip still on the nozzle. The guard yelled something that she didn't hear as he yanked it out of her grip, before swinging the weapon to hit the drunk woman under the chin, forcing her onto her back with the impact.

Zelda landed on the grass with a hard thud. She felt a sharp pain within her nose and eyes. Her vision was already blurry from the drink but it was even worse from the hit. She saw the two of them looming above her. They both had their guns pointed at her. She simply blinked and stared at them, both nozzles aimed straight at her face. "...well? GET ON WITH IT!" She snapped.

The two guards looked at each other before looking back to her. Suddenly, she heard a loud bang, ringing in her ears as she suddenly felt an intense pain in her shoulder. She could smell what was clearly a freshly fired gun. She let out a howl of pain and grabbed her shoulder as the guards looked down at her with disgust.

"Just... kill me!" She hissed through her teeth. At least this distraction was working.
"We'll let Dave handle that. He'll see to you tomorrow." One of them grunted before the other the they nodded in agreement.
"Good riddance I say..." he added, spitting on the ground next to Zelda before the pair finally stalked off.

"Fuckin... cowards." She growled as she tried to get up, seeing that a crowd had gathered. She looked at them all. One of them picked up the empty flask.
"Heh... this explains it." He said as he chucked it at the woman, hitting her with it. Zelda just sighed and got to her feet with some difficulty. She gripped her shoulder. She could fix it later. She looked at the crowd before picking her flask up. She looked around before seeing that Archie had vanished, indicating that the plan was a success.

With a deep sigh, Zelda made her way to the doctor's building. Partly for a bandage for where she was shot but also to fill the flask back up. Once she was in her office, she filled it back up with some whiskey she had hidden in a basket. She couldn't believe she had failed again... she couldn't even get herself killed when she tried. The chances of anything succeeding with her involved was not likely. Taking a long drink from the flask, she topped it up before screwing the cap.

As she was about to leave, she heard a noise in one of the wards, Mack's ward. She poked her head in to see Jennifer next to Mack. She looked extremely disturbed. Sipping again, she out the flask away as she went to sit next to Jennifer. She was not worried about her shoulder wound. If anything the whiskey was dulling the pain a lot. She looked at the woman with concern despite her glazed expression.
"Jennifer?" She tried to keep her tone soft, "What happened, darling?" Something must have happened. She looked very troubled, and after everything going she through she didn't want her to suffer anymore. Her nose bled profusely from the hit and her head span from both the whiskey and the hit from her head. She couldn't stop herself from thinking about what the guard had said, about Dave dealing with her. She let out a shaky sigh. This had been her last chance, according to him. No doubt this was going to be it. He was going to put a bullet through her head after this. And at this moment, she would welcome it. But she could not dwell on it. Jennifer was suffering and she had to focus on that instead. That was more important than her stupid feelings.
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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
The big Scotsman turned his head towards the distant shape of Cali with confusion at the flash of light reflecting off her binoculars. It wasn't as if he could go any further, he was posted there to wait for Jennifer. Even so, he didn't make any movements in an attempt to reply for fear he'd be seen as suspicious. Thus he stood, arms crossed over his chest and head down. It was a little cold admittedly, feet shifting every so often to tap heat back into them, yet his gaze lifted at the noise of Zelda and her confrontation. Torn between being the saving grace and sticking to the plan, for the doctor had a deathwish, no matter how dear he called her. The Scotsman put his faith in the guards, only hoping they would be above murder even when provoked. He inhaled slowly, hand making itself into a fist, the knuckles whitening. Milly came to mind. If anything, he had her to look after; someone to keep safe for.

He was tired. For the first time in a long time, that burn of flame in his chest had dampened at the repetitive, oppressive lifestyle of the mountaintop. Worked so hard days merged together, his body ached and groaned, to where simple conversation had become nothing more than a 'Good morning' at dawn and 'Sweet dreams' at night. He didn't really know anyone, not intimately. Who they really were, what they liked to drink, what colours were the best. Whether or not they used to have the guilty pleasure of rom-coms on the weekends. Archie felt like a machine -- that was the word. Eat, sleep, care like it was a commodity, and repeat. Who would miss him for him, when he was gone? They'd only be missing the shield, the tall silhouette, not the man who liked his beer at room temperature, or always made cheese and pickle sandwiches because he knew no one else would steal them, or how he tapped the rim of his mug whilst waiting for his tea to steep. These were him, and yet nobody seemed to know.

McKeegan wasn't naive to the big wide world when it started to go downhill. He'd seen his fair share of rookies caught in lumber machines, squashed and sliced by trees and chainsaws, People who lost fingers, broke legs, or had an unlucky incident when someone threw an old aerosol into a bonfire. Even with health and safety, it was always going to be dangerous. That's why Archie did it though, it was good pay, good fun, and the closest you got to living on the edge of adventure without falling headfirst down the rabbit hole. As he said though, nobody was particularly special for the fate that befell them. He committed sin, was sinned upon, and redeemed sin. He'd seen it all. Children who starved, young women who were found stripped and beaten, infants who cried. Men who jumped; women who hung. In the end, he decided, the past didn't matter for anyone. Pity was in short supply, yet he offered it all the same. It meant a lot to people he discovered, even when he began to run out. Each story was the same on every lip: Death. None of it mattered anymore. There was too much of it to really matter. He found himself getting comfortable with it, much to his shame.

The lumberjack glanced up as the rucksack was bundled into his arms, causing him to sling it over a shoulder and momentarily noted the blood on Jennifer's attire in the dim light. It was before he could say anything that she had begun to hurry off and left him in the dark, alone. No time to linger, the big man slunk forwards and avoided most guards till he got to the barns. Wrenching up the floorboards as he'd done previously, Archie stuffed it beneath and covered it with a hessian sack before replacing the wood. Glancing about one last time, he straightened up, pulled his trucker-cap down further and began making his way toward Milly. He needed to get her back to their lodgings, otherwise, he knew she'd be tired in the morning.

In that instant, Archie seemed old. Circles about his soft hazel eyes, crows feet creeping in whilst his bearish features seemed to crumple and crease further with every smile and every day of work. Premature grey strands of hair were beginning to sprout if one looked close enough. His hands had split and cracked with labour, sore; but unfailingly strong and warm to be held in. Sun had weathered his features, survival worsening it coupled by stress. If not for the spritely twinkle in his eyes, he'd of been fitting for an older man.

Climbing the staircase to where Milly and Daniel were, he put a hand on his side and rapped his knuckles against the door before opening it. "Lass, sweetheart, come on now. It's time we go, don't want to impose ourselves."

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Daniel had been sitting in a room with Milly. It was lowly lit but the little light that did come through from street lamps outside highlighted his dusty, brown hair. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders, a slight chill falling onto the room. His gut was twisting in knots as he could just barely hear faint yelling from outside. He looked to Milly, who seemed to be off doing her own thing in the room,
"Your name was Milly, right?" He stood up, his cargo pants sagging a little at the shift of movement, "Did you want a turn with the blanket? I'm not that cold," He took it off his shoulders and held it out to her. Though he didn't know her very well, he thought she'd probably be cold by now.
As he stood, his skin prickling against the chill, sudden footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. Daniel didn't see himself as a warrior or protector, and he surely wasn't anxious like his sister, but upon hearing the quick and heavy thumping he immediately maneuvered his way in front of Milly. Whomever was about to open the door would have to go through him first.

Calliope's breathe came out in cold whisps as she watched the scene unfold. Her nose was beginning to run and her arms were numb with the constant state of holding herself up and being tensed. She couldn't exactly decipher the events that happened but her eyes caught the shadow of Jennifer handing off the book bag to Archie. No one seemed to notice and it seemed like everything had gone well enough, but Calliope couldn't say for sure. Maybe if it weren't for the glaring streetlight in her view, it'd be easier to see but then of course, it'd be easier to be seen as well.
She put her binoculars away, tucked on a clip on her belt, and stood up from her position. She no longer cared if anyone had seen her since most of them were drunk, blind, or incoherent currently. Her boots crunched on the gravel of the rooftop as she slid down an fire escape ladder and down into the building. It was eerily quiet with very little light as she made her way down the Daniel's room. She met Archie there, but was surprised at how slow she had been to meet Archie there after just seeing him outside.
Calliope adjusted her binoculars and combat knife as she closed in on him, "Everything alright?" She hoped she wouldn't startle him as the low light may make her seem like a guard.

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The pain from her stitches being pulled began to creep up on the girl more and more as the adrenaline slowly subsided. Jennifer wiped tears from her tear ducts and cheek. There was still blood on her, but thankfully there was a small shower sort of thing in the room to wash it off. But even if it washed the blood off of her, it didn’t wash the blood off her hands. This kill was different than many of her previous. It marks a time when she tried changing from who she was. The anger, the darkness that clouded her mind were no longer there. The darkness that drove her to kill still may linger, but her power to resist that side has grown. And killing people wasn’t something she wanted to do, especially the guard. He was just doing his job, regardless of how angered he may have been. She didn’t want to do that, but she had no choice but to live it.

Jennifer sat with her legs hanging off of the bed, her hands supporting her head. She stared at the floor, occasionally being blurred by tears. She saw blood remaining on her clothing, on her skin. She knew she had to get it off. But she couldn’t move. She couldn’t bring herself to budge. She was grounded, replaying over and over what she did and what she thought may happen. A wife will be a widow, children would be fatherless. She’d have to see them take the news. She’d have to sit and watch the consequences of her actions. These thoughts kept her where she was, even though she knew she had to move.

During her process of deep thought, she had zoned her surroundings out. She hadn’t heard Zelda walk in and sit next to her. Jennifer jumped slightly, being startled by a person suddenly appearing next to her. Calming down, she turned her attention to Zelda, who had a wound to her shoulder, a wound she was all too familiar with: a gunshot wound. Acting as if she weren’t shot, she proceeded to ask Jennifer what was wrong. Zelda’s tone and body language were different than she’d ever seen. Normally, she was brash, vulgar, easily annoyed, brash. But now, she was different. She had this caring demeanor Jennifer hadn’t seen from her. She seemed motherly, in a sense, as if a mother were checking on their struggling child. Jennifer never really saw any compassion from her, nor did she ever think she would. Zelda’s ways caught her by surprise, and she needed a moment to not only register it, but her own appearance that drew Zelda in. Jennifer didn’t want to say what happened. But there was no way around it. She had blood on her, she was crying, and in pain. She couldn’t lie herself out of this one. But perhaps she could avoid it by bringing up Zelda’s wound.

“I should be asking you, Zelda, you have a bullet wound in your shoulder. Never mind me, you have to get that taken care of,” the girl replied to Zelda, dodging her question. “Zelda, you need to really get that taken care of. That’s important. You’re bleeding a lot.”

Getting up, Jenifer grabbed Zelda’s hand and gave her a slight tug, indicating for her to get up.

“Zelda, please, do me a favor and go get that taken care of. We can talk later. I need to shower. Please go get fixed up now,” Jennifer gave her a pat on her non injured shoulder and began to walk to the shower, before stopping and turning to Zelda for a moment.

“If anyone asks, the blood you see on me was trying to help stop the bleeding on your shoulder. Now go, get yourself taken care of.”

Walking to the shower, the girl felt a weakness in her body. She began to loose some balance, causing her to fall slightly. She was weak, and her recovering injuries made her that way. Using whatever strength she had left, she offends the door to the shower, and began to wash off the blood on her hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A Week and a Half Later...

Jennifer paced back and forth in the room. Something was going on at the Mountaintop, and she knew it.

“Why the hell would Dave send most of the militia fighters and law enforcement officers to go do some ‘high priority’ mission after Haeredes? We haven’t had any threats from them recently. They’ve been dormant. Yeah, they massacred a bunch of our people, but we haven’t heard anything about them recently. They didn’t even take any of the heavy equipment. No tanks, nothing. What the hell is up with this? I don’t like this. I think something else is going on.”

The brunette stoped pacing back and forth, and let out a frustrated sign. She turned to her father, still in a coma, and looked at him for a moment, before walking over to him. With a hand on his cheek, she bent down and looked at him.

“Dad, damn it,” she started quietly, “wake up. We need you, the Mountaintop needs you. I need you. Please, just wake up, damn it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dave sat in the house. The room around him were dark. He had put sheets over the windows to block the light from coming in. It has been weeks and weeks since he came out of that house. He cowered inside thinking he could escape his failures. He turned to their means to try and ease his troubles. The revolts against him, the people dying because weighed heavy on his mind. Every scream, every gunshot, every cry echoed in the house. His bones vibrated from it. He’d take the pill. The voices in his head would return, reminding him of his failures, here and before. They told him what to do. But he fought them for so long, but he eventually gave in. Bad trip after bad trip, the voices in his head, in the walls, from the speakers, from the kitchen, from the bedroom all told him what to do.

Dave was a failure. The voices told him so. He believed them. They focused on his wife, her dying, how it was his fault. He let Sal take her. He let Sal do what he did to her. She was a monster when they attacked because of him. He let them take her. He didn’t fight. He was a failure. Failure, failure, failure. Many dead because of him. Many screams from the walls, the cracks, the crevasses. They all screamed out at him. They’re dead. It was his fault. His, his, his. Many dead. Failure, failure, failure.

The voices brought him anger. It built up in him. They told him what to do, and he’d take more pills, and trip even worse. The voices told him what to do. There was only one way to end the screams. He had to take them all to the grave with him. He must kill. He must. The pills made him see this. Kill all and bring them to his grave. Drown out every last scream until silence. Silence and he could escape the pain. Silence them and he can sleep in silence. Cause more screams to quell all screams.

Order the members who could stop him out, the voices said. He had them out. He was alone with the others. Quell the screams he must, they told him. Grab the body armor, grab the rifles, walk out, and silence the screams. Silence them all. Silence.

Dave walked over to his stash of weapons in the house. He had the gun he wanted to do what the voices said. Holding a M60E4, with several hundred rounds. He had ballistic armor all over his body. He could withstand many rounds if people tried to shoot back. The voices told him to kill everyone, to reduce the Mountaintop to silence, blood drips, and bodies.

Dave strapped on all of his armor. He attached the box magazine that held the belt for the M60. Then, he charged the weapon. It was ready to fire. As he walked to the door to get to outside, a sudden eruption of screams came from around him. The screams made his ears bleed. He fell to a knee as they screamed. Children, women, men, elderly. He recognized some. Some from his past. His mother, his best friend, his wife.

“ENOUGH,” he screamed.

Dave got up, and saw figures of his past on the walls. He began to fire the weapon at them. They disappeared into s smoke cloud as they were shot at. Some went through the walls and to outside. Dave kicked open the doors in front of him. And out there, he saw more shadows. There were more screams. The voices in his head told him to shoot them to rid his mind of them.

And he began to fire. As they were hit, a person dropped to the ground, someone who Dave saw as someone else.

“SILENCE WILL FALL,” he screamed. He fired at all the ghosts of his past he saw.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Zelda,” Jennifer turned to her, “do you have any idea when my father will wake up?”

Jennifer knew the answer. She knew she had no clue. But she asked anyway. She had hoped maybe this time, she would get a different answer.

Everyone was in the room who was involved in the plan to get the firearms had one night. They had yet to use them. Jennifer kept the Glock in her room, hidden in a dresser rarely used. She didn’t like being far from a gun, not in this world, and with the state of the Mountaintop. She walked up to the dresser, and rested her arms and head on it. Jennifer was antsy, she knew something was up. And she didn’t know what. It concerned her. Glancing to her side, she saw Milly. Milly was one of the last rays of innocence in the world, something there wasn’t much of. Reaching into her pocket, Jennifer remembered that she had a smarties roll in her pocket. She didn’t want it, so she figured that she would give it to Milly, and Daniel.

“Hey, Milly and Danny Boy, I’ve got something for y’all,” Jennifer said, walking over to the two and bending down, pulling the smarties out. “I’ve got you guys a roll of smarties to share. It’s not a lot, I know. But I don’t want it. What do y-“

Gunshots.

“What the fuck,” Jennifer muttered, standing up.

The sound of gunshots were unusual. Sure, there were people revolting against Dave. But they used handguns. This gunfire wasn’t handgun gunfire. This was full auto. Jennifer knew that this was something worse.

“Archie,” Jennifer said turning to him, “get the fucking guns now,” Jennifer said with emphasis on the ‘now.’

The girl walked to her dresser and pulled out the Glock. Checking the mag, she inserted it in and pulled the slide back.

“Cali, Zelda, or both of you, get Milly and Daniel out of her and somewhere safe. I don’t care where, just hide.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ghosts kept popping up, and Dave shot them all. All around his they screamed, each worse than the last.

“ARGH,” he shouted, “I WILL SILENCE YOU ALL! SILENCE MUST FALL! BLOOD MUST DRIP! SILENCE, SILENCE, SILENCE! YOU ALL WILL BE SILENT!”

The ghostly shadows all suddenly disappeared in front of him. Dead bodies lined the outside. It was silent for seconds, until the whispers crept back. They called out to Dave, telling him “here.” Dave turned towards the doctors office. They lined a path to the door. Dozens of them, right in front of one another. Bloody ghouls of people in his past made a path to the doctors office. They all spoke in unison.

“Silence Mack. He caused you pain. He didn’t save your wife. Silence him for your revenge,” they commanded him, a glowing aurora around all of the ghosts.

Dave listened, and began to fire on the ghosts lining his way to the doctors office.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rounds filled inside the hallways. Bullets struck the walls and metal. The bullets were raining into the hallway before everyone could escape. They were trapped in the room.

“Fuck,” Jennifer yelled. She ran to the wooden door and forced it shut. The door had no lock. Jennifer instead pushed the dresser in front of it. It wasn’t quite heavy, but enough to make opening it difficult. Next, she ran to her father on the bed. She knew she had to get him out of harm’s way, but there wasn’t anything to shield him with. The only thing she could do was get him off of the bed and onto the floor. He’d be hidden from view.

“Guys, hide behind anything you can,” Jennifer yelled to everyone. She was behind the bed with her father, her Glock aimed at the door.

“Mack will be silenced,” Dave said, over and over like a mindless drone, firing into the hallway.

The gunshots stopped, and all that could be heard were footsteps. They got closer and closer to the door, until they stopped. The doorknob began to turn. As it did, the door was hitting the dresser. Dave began to try and break the door open, hitting it with his shoulders.

“YOU MUST BE SILENCED,” he screamed, before bullets ricocheted on the ground in front of Jennifer. Jennifer fired through the door as he fired, hoping it would hit him. But there was no reaction from Dave. Dave shot the small window in the door out. But as he did, his gun jammed. This gave Jennifer a shot through the window. Lining up her sites on him, she fired three shots in rapid succession. Dave stumbled back. But all rounds hit his body armor. He was unaffected.

“Put your gun down, Dave, you son of a bitch,” Jennider shouted with her gun on him, barely exposed in her concealment cover.

Dave threw his weapon on the ground. The jam was unable to be cleared. He pulled out his handgun.

“You will be silenced. He will be silenced,” he shouted.

“Silence them,” a ghost said to Dave, appearing in the middle of the room. He fired several shots at the apparition.

“YOU WILL ALL BE SILENT,” Dave shouted at it, it disappearing as he shot them.

Jennifer again fired three shots. All three hit, but two hit the body armor. One, however, hit him in the shoulder, where had had no armor. Blood splattered all over the wall behind Dave. But the LSD he was on took away any pain he felt. He stumbled, but he did not cry out in pain.

“Why the hell are you doing this, Dave,” Jennifer shouted to him. He, instead of responding to her, fired in her area. Bullets hit the surroundings. The jacket of a bullet ricocheted into Jennifer’s arm, causing Jennifer to flinch in pain, dropping her gun. A piece of copper jacket was lodged in her skin, but enough for Jennifer to grab and pull out. Though painful, she pulled it out and retrieved the gun.

“The voices in my head, the screaming from them all, you must be silenced to end it all, to end my suffering,” he shouted back to her.

“Killing us won’t stop the screams or voices,” Jennifer yelled back.

“LIKE HELL IT WONT,” Dave angrily yelled back to her, opening fire on her general area again. “NO MORE PAIN, NO MORE SCREAMS, NOTHING BUT SILENCE!”

When the bullets stopped being fired her way, Jennifer again leaked out and fired at Dave. But this time, she was angry, full of rage from Dave trying to kill her. She pulled the trigger until there were no rounds left in her magazine.

Dave felt the energy transfer from the rounds hitting his body armor, and it forced him back. Three more hit his left arm. He couldn’t move it. But he didn’t feel the pain. The drugs took away the pain. But it didn’t take away the rage and anger from him getting hit. Dave went crazy, firing a whole magazine into the room, reloading, firing several more before trying to break down the door, ramming it as much as he could. The wood on the door began to crack and splinter. It was beginning to break, and the dresser was beginning to move. Jennifer had no ammunition left. She was powerless to stop him. The only thing that they had to rely on was Archie. If he didn’t get there soon, and kill Dave, everyone in the room would be killed. Jennifer sat there and began to pray, pray that Archie could come back now and kill him, save them, pray that if she died, her God would forgive her for her sins.

“Archie, please, come on, come on, come on, get here and kill him,” she began to say over and over as Dave fired at the door and tried to break it down to get in and kill everyone in there, shouting that everyone inside will be reduced to silence and blood dripping.

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Zelda listened to the girl as she dodged her question and focused on her own wounds instead. "Oh... This doesn't even hurt that much. Don't worry about me." But the girl insisted that she got it seem to and before she could answer back, Jennifer had dragged her up and was almost pushing her out the door. Annoyed at her compassion being rejected like that, she turned around to snap at the woman but stopped when she told her just to leave it and make up some story about why Jennifer had blood on her.

"...Fine." Zelda growled lowly as she left the woman alone. Going to her office, she took the flask out and took a drink out of it before grabbing the essentials for dealing with her wounds. After patching her nose up, she got to the difficult task of dealing with the shoulder wound. Biting her lower lip, she took the bottle of alcohol (medical) and pressed it into a rag before applying it to the wound. Zed had to bite down on her forearm to stop herself from screaming from the intense pain as the alcohol seeped into the wound. The bullet had come out earlier so she didn't have that to worry about but it was the next part she was not looking forward to. Grunting from the pain, she took another swig from the flask. It could dull the pain, not to mention give her some false sense of bravado to do this. Without it she was a coward. A failure. What kind of doctor couldn't do this unless they were wasted? Or, for that matter what kind of person was she if she could not do ANYTHING without it?

Zelda spent a good five minutes simply staring into space. Everything felt so heavy yet so light at the same time. Her head hurt, she could only assume it was a mild concussion causing her lightheadedness. That and the wine of course. Why couldn't have that coward just shot her in the head and end it there? He wanted her dead, she knew he did! She could see it on his punchable face. And his pal's. And in the crowd. Despite what Archie and Jennifer had said, two people was not enough out of the many others who would rather see her dead and chuck her body down the cliff or something. A fitting funeral. They though she was worthless. Nobody said it... but Cali did. The woman's brows twitched as she rethought what she had said. Getting upset over something stupid... if caring about her fucking patients and helping them get their confidence back after it was knocked was stupid, than she would dance in the courtyard stark naked. What the fuck did she know? Nothing! But... she said what they thought. Everyone thought that. She knew that. If she was to kill herself right now nobody but this circle would care... still, she couldn't be selfish. Oh Christ... was she being selfish?

She looked at the needle and thread. Shuddering she took another drink. It was this or leave it open to infection. She wasn't willing to die that way. Tensing herself, she positioned herself in front of a mirror, ignoring her ghastly reflection and focusing on the shoulder. Taking the needle, she breathed in and out several times before forcing the needle into the skin. The pain made Zelda clench her teeth and punch the desk. "Fuckin-!" She pounded the desk again. Why did she think this was a good idea? Well... she had started it now. It would be stupid to stop. Then again, she was stupid, right? Clenching her teeth, she continued...

Stitch by painful stitch Zelda continued. Blood ran from her shoulder like a waterfall, trickling down her arm and onto the ground. Both the flask and a bottle were now empty in her attempt to curb the pain and the desk was close to snapping in half from the repeated punches. But each painful sting was warranted. Every surge of pain was just a reminder of who she had failed. It was deserved.

She did not know how long it had taken to stitch it completely, but finally it was done. The skin was red and pulsating from the trauma and for a short time Zelda could do nothing other than sitting there and shaking as the shock wore off. Everything was spinning and all she could see was red. When she finally stood up, her knees bent as they almost gave way and she was shaky on her feet. Using the wall for support, Zelda made her way along to her room, not looking to speak to anyone. Once she was in, she crawled under the covers, lying on her sore shoulder. She didn't care. She looked to the left of her bed, seeing the photo of her with her family at Nigeria Falls and the small figure given to her by Archie. In her blurred vision, she stared at them for she didn't know how long before turning away to face the wall. That was what she deserved. Nothing.
*
The last week and a half was a blur to Milly. She had no idea what had happened other than that it had been a successful mission. She was just relieved to see Archie again. She didn't go out over the last while, on Archie's advice to stay inside. All she could do was play with her bear or entertain herself with Norris. She stayed with Daniel a lot of the time. She had grown to like the younger boy, but was still anxious about Cali. The woman still made her very anxious.

On this particular day, Milly was lying on her back on the ground, hugging her bear close to her chest and keeping her feet up with Norris balanced on her feet. The hen seemed content up high and simply looked around with curious croons. She giggled as she looked around the room, seeing Daniel and Archie were still here. With everything that was going on, she was just relieved to have them here.

She sat up, seeing Jennifer pacing. The woman was deeply troubled. And for good reason. Milly sat up on a chair, watching her as she vocally wondered what was going on. Milly could not answer as she did not have an answer. She simply hugged her bear.
*
Jennifer's question broke Zelda out of her thoughts. She tiredly looked up at the girl from where she was sitting on the floor. She was holding a bottle on both hands which was placed between her legs. She let out a deep sigh, feeling drained.
"I don't know." She said reluctantly, "I checked his vitals earlier and... well, no change." She admitted as she saw Jen talking to Mack, asking him to wake up.

Why wasn't he waking up? Zelda was still trying to figure out why. It was hard without the right equipment. If he died, she would not be able to cope with it. The last thing she needed was another death on her head. Not to mention the death of someone as important as him, both a leader and a father. He was important for different reasons. Too many people would suffer from it. Taking a drink from the bottle, she looked at Jennifer "...if I could wake him up I would." She admitted.

Looking around the room, it almost felt alien to be with them again. She had not left her room over the last near fortnight. She didn't trust herself. And most of the time, she couldn't even bring herself to get up. It was only because of Archie that she hadn't starved as he'd pop by to force nourishment down her throat. And it was because of him she was here right now. Even when he had to practically drag her by her feet. She left her room once every day for a maximum of ten minutes only to check on Mack's vitals.

Zelda briefly looked up, looking at Cali. She frowned slightly before drinking more, looking away. No she hadn't forgotten that. And frankly she was going to. After a lot of pestering for an explanation, Zelda had finally admitted to what her intent was and what had caused it to Archie. But nobody else. And she made him swear not to tell anyone. Her feelings towards the woman were still very bitter. Thankfully they had only exchanged looks over the last few days, no words. And frankly she wanted to keep it that way.

Milly had noticed Zelda's seemingly worsened depression but she was still wary of the woman. Too wary to ask what was wrong. She could not help but think back to the last time she saw her mum. She was drunk and when Milly had asked if she was okay, she threw her to the ground. She doubted Zelda would react the same but... she couldn't be too careful.

Milly stopped worrying when Jennifer came over to her and Dan, talking in a more soothing voice. She saw that she was holding a roll of smarties in her hand. Milly let out a happy little squeak as she sat up and went to take them. But just as she did, she saw Jennifer turn at the sound of gunshots. She almost went into a panic as she told Archie to get the guns and to move Milly and Daniel somewhere safe. Zelda groaned as she got up off the ground, stumbling slightly as she went towards the window to look out. Narrowing her eyes a little, she jumped back as she saw Dave, in full body armour marching his way in their direction.

"Jesus Christ!" She turned around, looking at Milly, who was now alert and upset at what was happening.
"What? What is it?" She whimpered, clinging to her bear as tight as possible.
"Trouble." Zelda put the bottle on the bedside table and went to the younger girl. "But we'll sort it."
"Can...can I do anything to help?" Milly squeaked. Zelda tried to give the younger girl a soothing look, despite her own panic.
"I know you'd be a great help but not this time." With that, Milly felt Zelda gently pushing her out of the room and towards the back. Looking around, Zelda finally found somewhere suitable.

"Milly I need you to stay here for me." She gently put the young girl inside the cupboard, giving her Norris, "Don't make any noise, okay?"
As she was about to shut the door, Milly grabbed it. "N-No!"
"You have to, it won't be long."
"But it's dark! I'm scared..." she was practically crying now, which hit Zed like a punch in the gut. Great... she had to hurt someone again.
"I know you are but you have to wait here. In fact... stay there." Zed got up and ran down the hall, leaving Milly crouched in the cupboard. A few moments later, the woman reappeared with Milly's backpack.
"Okay, I checked it's got your blanket and sandwiches in here. Oh- and I left a few things in there for you." She gave the small girl a flick on the nose before softly shutting the door and locking it. Sitting in the dark, all Milly could do was try to stop herself from crying as she clung onto her bear and Norris, praying that whatever was going on would be over with soon and everyone would be okay...
*
Zelda (now equipped with a Troy's Rifle 308) made her way back into Mack's room. She looked out the window again, taking another long sip.
"Where the fuck is he- OH SHIT!" Zed yowled at a sudden explosion of bullets in the hall and the manic shouts of Dave, ranting and raving about silence. Zelda froze as Jennifer shouted at him and the rapid firing of bullets blew a hole in the door. Zed downed the rest before throwing the bottle behind her, taking a position near Jennifer.
"You better start making sense, ya mad dick!" She shouted before looking at Jennifer as she flinched in pain over something she had not seen.

Zelda aimed at the door and opened fire through the hole. What was the matter with him!? She was hitting him, but he was hardly reacting. The bastard was clearly on something! What was wrong with him!?

Zelda looked as Jen fought but she felt her stomach drop as she realised the girl was out of ammo. And Dave was close to getting in. What was she going to do!?
"...BEHIND ME!" Without letting her answer, Zed grabbed the young girl, pulling her behind her as she aimed at the door. She didn't see a way out of this. She continued to fire at the door for as long as possible. Her shoulder ached and she could feel the stitches straining as she moved but she didn't care. All she could hope was if she was hit first and it would give Jennifer a chance to escape. Her life was more important. Zelda braced herself for what was probably going to be the last few seconds of her life. What a world.
idalie idalie Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45
 
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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
He looked at Calliope's dimly lit features and only gave a tired smile. "Everything is tickedy-boo, lass." He took Milly home that night continuously glancing over his shoulder in paranoia. But soon, life returned to normal, or as normal as it could be. People died left right and centre for doing things as little as looking at Dave the wrong way. McKeegan kept his head down and continued to work as much as he could with his colleagues dropping like flies. He'd instructed and drilled into Milly the fact she couldn't play outside, not if someone trusted wasn't around. Too many things were happening to take the chance with her life above all. In the last few days, even Archie had abandoned work. It was too much strain on a single man, not to mention a close call with execution. The lumberjack had joined up with Jennifer, Zelda, and Cali not even sleeping in his own bed due to the fear that someone would kick down the door and put a bullet in his, and Milly's, heads. Mack hadn't woken up, and Archie was beginning to doubt he ever would. The Scotsman was beginning to think he was a drain on resources, not that he'd say it aloud knowing how the comatose leader of the mountaintop was a symbol of hope.

When it came down to it, fear had begun to set in deeper than ever. The dead were different to a man with a gun, they couldn't think. Insane or not, Dave still could -- and unfortunately, the bastard still had enough intelligence on how to shoot a gun and how basic tactics worked. A far bigger threat than the hungering corpses outside of the Mountaintop walls.

***​
Archie had been reclining back in a chair, keeping an eye on Dan and Milly when it happened. An outdated newspaper in his lap and an air of tense, albeit sweet calm. By this point, McKeegan was really needing less of a haircut and more of a shearing. He kept it down for the most part, unless working that is, kept back by using his cap. The brim often found pulled down whilst he snoozed, with some vague logo of an unknown trucking company printed on the front. A little rag-tag but in good shape considering their apocalyptic situation.

The rapid gunfire jolted him, sitting upright and staring at Jen. Her orders got the Scotsman up to his feet in seconds flat, hesitating for only a moment as the big man dipped in and pressed a kiss to the top of Milly's head. Hands on her shoulders. "You listen to Jen well and good now." His gaze flickered to Daniel, ruffling the child's hair and for a moment placing his hand on the boy's cheek. "You too. Do what you're told." And then, he was gone. Out the door with a careful jog, watching out for any other assailants there could've been. He sprinted from the med-centre to the agricultural area where the fields were ripening for harvest and ploughed through the tall stalks of corn and wheat, reaching the old barn where he tore up the floorboards in desperation, bundling the rucksack of guns up into his arms.

McKeegan set off, weaving around the outside of buildings as he made a beeline for where the gunshots were now emitting from. Bile rose in his throat, adrenaline madly pushing through his veins as it fluttered and made his heart drop. The medical offices. Milly. Zed. Jen. Dan. Cali. His breath hitched as he threw himself down an embankment, scrambling up to his feet again; shortcutting it across the village green and entering through a fire exit on the back of the building.

Charging through the corridors and hallways, the gunfire was beginning to be exchanged. Hope flared in his chest and a red-hot burning coal of rage. It filled his head with flame and his heart pumped liquid strength. Archie saw red, and Dave would certainly not be leaving the building alive.

***​
The Scotsman found the room Jennifer and the others had holed up in, discarding the bag of firearms to the side. One massive paw of McKeegan's palm landed on the shooter's shoulder, whilst his other arm wrapped around Dave's neck. Tensing his bicep and forearm to drag Dave backwards, in a choke hold. Jaw pulled taut. The gun continued to rat-a-tat-tat with rounds wildly as both men wrestled. Managing to get out his grasp, Archie pushed the automatic down, sharp pain exploding below his shoulder to the left of the chest. The bastard was trying to hit his heart. Gritting his teeth McKeegan uppercut Dave, sending the armoured figure flying, chest heaving. "Shouldn't have done that, shouldn't have FUCKING DONE THAT --" He turned the dazed man over, stamping into the hand still curled about the gun till three fingers gave a pop and crack.

Archie dropped to his knees, shirt flooding with crimson as he brought a fist down into Dave's face. Then again. Again. Again. Teeth had embedded themselves into Archie's knuckles, knocking them from the gums as they splintered away. His fists had begun punching what sounded like wet meat, pulverising Dave's face into something unrecognisable. Again. Again. Again. McKeegan had shoved the nose up, broken the jaw clean off, sent the cheekbones so high one had popped his eye; spilling gelatin-like substance all over his swollen, split features. Seeing Dave's chest give a weak, trembling inhale, only sent McKeegan madder. Archie bowed his head, opened his mouth over Dave's quivering neck and chomped down. Hard.

He ripped backwards with another jerk, spending three attempts before a chunk of the neck and oesophagus came off. He spat it, blood running down his chin and through his beard, adding to the growing number of stains on his flannel. Archie stood up, wobbling, and continued to thrust the heel of his boot into the skull of the corpse. Putting all his weight into it the middle of Daves' face suddenly caved inwards on the weak bridge of his nose. Brain matter splattering, the gore sticking to the bottom of the lumberjacks sole. He hawked and gobbed, spitting pieces of left-over skin onto the now ex-commander's chest plate, standing victorious on the other side of the door staring at the women where Dave had threatened to break in.

"I'm back."

Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
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Calliope watched Jennifer move around the room anxiously. If she hadn't been seeing her with her own eyes, she'd be fooled into thinking she was watching herself. The last week had gone by so drearily. It was as if all the anxiety Calliope had upon arriving at the colony had burned out and numbed any further stressful situations. She was so tired of caring and being strong, and tired of extending herself to trust others' even for mere moments. She was used to being on her own, used to trusting herself and now suddenly, she had to trust others. Dark circles lined her eyes as she rubbed her face. It was like life was just becoming too heavy for her. Jennifer moved to Milly and Daniel, but her eyes could barely focus. The three were basically blurry blobs in her vision and every sound was a muffled head throb.
Daniel smiled as he was offered the sugary treat. Just like Calliope, the week had dragged on. He was left in the dark about how the gun scenario had all gone down and Calliope hadn't exactly told hi the details. He suspected it was because she didn't know herself; things were always a bit unclear for her. She had discussed leaving many times during the week but something was keeping her here that Daniel couldn't exactly place. She became more careful though during these days and forgetful. She'd leave the apartment three times in a day to grab supplies and come back with nothing. Daniel knew something was wrong.
Calliope's eyes met Daniel's as he opened the pack of smarties happily. Her little ball of sunshine even on her dreary days such as these. She leaned against the wall and then something faint echoed in her ears. A familiar thumping sound, something she'd heard once too many times. Her ears strained to make it out in more detail, but her heart began to race. And then it got closer and louder. Red flags started going off in her head and she stared at Daniel. He ripped the pack of smarties as one pink one fell to the floor with a crisp tick. Then chaos.
Gunshots pierced through the room and the hall. Calliope's adrenaline kicked in before her brain had processed what was happening. She shoved off the wall and dived toward Daniel, grabbing his wrist and pulling him to the door. She heard Jennifer give the OK to run and hide, but in all reality Calliope didn't care much for a green light. She was prepared to turn her back on them just as she had her family; she knew a loss when she saw one.
Daniel struggled at first, uselessly as Calliope was far stronger, but as he too now started to hear the shots he refrained from trying to break away. She yanked him down a hallway, only to see David making his way around the corner. He was cladded in his usual black, S.W.A.T appearance attire. This outfit that once gave her a sign of hope was now giving her the opposite effect. She took a quick breathe and turned back around, pulling Daniel with her. Bullets whizzed by her ears, making them ring in harmony with her heartbeat. Calliope ducked into a room on the other end of the hallway, close enough to hear Jennifer's room in chaos but far enough to give her time to figure out another plan. She opened the door and just as quickly slammed it behind her. She was sure she was prepared for this moment but when she turned around, Daniel's face was red with tears. In that moment time froze. It was like God had decided to take her back to when this all started, to when Daniel was 10 or 11. He stood just like that in the middle of her room back home and screamed and cried. She didn't know what to do then, how to help him, if she should just wait until help arrived. But then, she knew she had to do something, she had to turn her back on her family. She was a traitor, and she'd do it all again for him.
Calliope ran past Daniel, frozen in fear, and gripped two hands around a wooden bed frame of the only bed in the room. She took a deep, slow breathe and then yanked on it. It hissed with the snapping of the wood but didn't give. Daniel then raced to her side and pulled on it with her. His little energy had done the trick and the piece of wood gave way with a loud crack! Calliope raced back over to the door and slipped the wooden beam through the handle. She then ran back and ripped the sheets off of the large, bed and stuffed them under the door frame. All these would suffice to give her some time if need be.
Then more bullets came flying. She heard them tip-tap through the wooden walls and she turned on her heels. She ripped Daniel from his standing position and into a fetal position. She covered him with her body, huddled on the floor. Daniel screamed in terror. It was a sound Calliope never wanted to hear, ever again. She had heard it only once when the virus had first happened, and now that blood curdling, rib shattering scream had burrowed it's way back into her head. She flinched as bullets grazed by her ears, the sounds of chaos and screams.
"Shh, shh Danny," Tears fell off her cheeks onto his back, "Close your eyes, the night is falling" She sang in his ears, trying to calm him, "Morning skies will soon return again" Daniel's screams became more hushed as his body tensed and struggled to calm his body shakes. The bullets had all but stopped but Calliope refused to move from her position. She could hear the sound of Archie's voice echoing faintly through the building not far from their location. If she had been any further she wouldn't have heard it, or the sound of the aggressive pounding of contact. Daniel was huffing through spurts of tears and his body was shaking uncontrollably. Calliope wasn't sure how he'd recover from this, if he recovered. She prayed the sunshine that was her brother wouldn't disappear the way she had...



Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 idalie idalie
 
The incoming gunfire suddenly stopped, and the sounds of a brawl outside the door echoed in the room. Jennifer was able to finally get a second to piece her surroundings together. In the heat of the gunfire, when her magazine ran dry, she had moved behind her concealment even more. Though, Jennifer had known that Zelda had jumped in front of her only a second or two before the shots stop ringing out. During this time while the brawl was going on, Jennifer glanced to her side to see her father, who she had got on the ground out of sight of Dave. She looked him over in haste, running her hands along his body to see if she felt any blood or wounds. To relief, Mack was fine, and even his vital monitors, which miraculously weren’t damaged, all pinged relatively normal.

The next person she went to check on was Zelda, who was a little more out of her way, causing Jennifer to move slightly to see her. At this time, the sound of the brawl seemed to have stopped. And as she laid eyes on Zelda, all she saw was blood from multiple areas. Moving as quickly as she could over to her, Jennifer heard the sound of a familiar voice, that of Archie. She turned her head to the door to see Archie standing there.

“Archie, Zelda,” Jennifer said to him, as she was trying to catch her breath.

Jennifer quickly got up and moved the dresser in front of the door, pushing it with what energy she had from the adrenaline rushing through her body. As she opened the door, she’d seen the carnage outside of Dave, or what was left of his head. At the same time, she saw Archie’s hand, full of blood, and even some teeth which she had assumed were from Dave. Wasting no time to talk, she immediately turned and ran back to Zelda to look over her wounds.

“Hang on for me, Zelda, stay with me,” Jennifer said as calmly as she could, though she was still breathing heavily from before.

Jennifer grabbed Zelda’s hand and began to look over her. She felt her pulse first, which was beating strong. Her breathing was a little shallow at times, however. This was concerning. Looking over her, the girl know she needed medical attention from the doctors, if any were alive.

“Archie,” Jennifer started, turning her head to him quickly, “keep pressure on her wounds. She has a heavy pulse but her breathing is getting shallow more often than I’d like. I need you to stay here, I need to get whatever doctors are left. She needs immediate medical attention now. Just stay here, I’m going to get them.”

Taking a moment to stand up and catch her breath, the woman ran out of the room and down the hall to search the rooms for doctors. She had no idea if there were some, if any, who were alive.

“Hello,” Jennifer started shouting as she ran past doors, peaking in to see if there were any doctors there. “We’ve got wounded who need immediate medical attention! It’s over, you’re safe to come out!”

As she opened up a door to an office, Jennifer was greeted by two doctors, one armed with a small handgun. Jennifer immediately threw her arms up, to show no threat.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, easy, easy! Easy now, partner” Jennifer blurted out as calmly as she could, trying not to let her gone play off of the emotions of the doctor wanting to pull the trigger. “It’s over, we’re safe. We need you guys all out right now. We have wounded Inside, and I’m only assuming more are outside put the gun down and start saving lives. We need you, now.”

Looking at each other, the one lowered their gun, and nodded their head. The two got up, and Jennifer lead them down the hall. Both of them stopped and hesitated walking into the room once they saw Dave, or what was left of his head, which was practically nothing. Jennifer got their attention back and brought them into the room where Zelda and Archie were.

“I need to go get everyone else and check on whoever is outside. Stay here,” she directed the doctors as she ran out of the room. Running down the hall, she started to shout Milly, Cali, and Daniel’s names

“Milly! Cali! Daniel! It’s all safe, come on out,” she said as she walked aimlessly down the hall, hoping to get them out.

As she were walking, she heard crying from a cupboard nearby. The crying sounded like it was Milly, to which Jennifer went and investigated, finding the cupboard the noise came from. Before she opened the door to it, she walked slowly, and began to make her presence known.

“Milly, is that you,” Jennifer said calmly Ashe slowly approached the cupboard. “It’s me, it’s Jennifer. It’s all over, it’s okay. I’m going to open the door, okay? It’s just me, you’re safe now.”

Opening the door slowly, Jennifer saw the scared girl with her bear and Norris. Jennifer put her arms around her, and helped her out. Once out, Jennifer just held Milly for a moment, trying to call her down.

“It’s okay, sweetie, shhhh I got you know. It’s all over, okay? You’re safe. I’ve got you and nothing will hurt you.”

Jennifer said those sentences repeatedly, getting repetitive to a point. But it was all to calm down the scared girl. She rocked the girl in her arms until the crying went down, even kissing her a few times on the head, something Jennifer never really did much in her life.

“Okay, honey, look at me,” Jennifer said to Milly as she separated herself from Milly to look her in the eyes for a moment. “There’s people hurt, and I need to go help, okay? I’m going to put you in a room, and I’ll try to get Cali and Daniel. But people need help. They’re people who need to be saved. I need to help. I just need you to be strong right now while I go help people. Just follow me and don’t look down the hall, okay?”

Grabbing Norris for her, she began to lead Milly out of the room and down the hall. “Keep looking up the hall, not down it, okay,” Jennifer instructed her in a calm voice. Jennifer was looking at al the rooms, but saw the door to Zelda’s open. She was going to bring her in there.

“We’re going to go into Zelda’s room, okay, sweetheart,” Jennifer said as she walked her into there. She let go of her hand and gave that free hand to Norris, to which she held tightly, the bird seemingly okay with it. Jennifer knelt down and put her hands on Milly’s shoulders and looked her in the eye, pushing some hair out of Milly’s tear filled eyes so she could see Jennifer clearer.

“I’m going to call out to Cali and Daniel to tell them to come in here, okay? I have to go help the others. Archie and Zelda are,” Jennifer stopped and looked to the side, hesitating a bit before continuing, “busy. I need to go help who I can. Just stay here and don’t leave the room whatever you do, okay? I’ll be back as soon as I can, and hopefully Cali and Daniel will be in here as well. I’ll be back.”

The brunette gave her a quick hug and kiss on the head before she let go and left the room and ran down the hall to where Archie, Zelda and the doctors were.

“Are you good,” she asked them.

“Yeah we are for now. I don’t know where the other doctors are,” one replied to her.

“Shit. Well I know there’s going to be more patients. It’s going to get even busier soon. Just do what you can. I’ll do what I can to anyone else. But there may be more where this comes from. I’m going to check outside now,” Jennifer said before she ran out.

The glass doors at the entrance of the medical building were shot out. Jennifer didn’t need to use the door because of this, just stepping over the frame. Once she got outside, her eyes took a second to adjust to the little bit of sun out there. Once she did, she saw approximately 9 people on the ground, blood coming from each one. There was only two she saw movement from, but she had to make her way to them. She was the only one in site to check them.

“Hold on,” she shouted to the ones alive.

Running up to the first couple bodies, she went to check each one of their pulses. The first three had no pulse. Silently, Jennifer cursed once she felt no pulse, closing their eyelids as she got up to check the next.

Coming up to one of the people on the ground, a young girl around her age was shot directly in the shoulder. The round severed her shoulder. Looking at it, Jennifer knew there wasn’t much of a chance that they could save it.

“Okay, hold on, okay,” she said, trying to catch her own breath yet again. “I’m the only one right now who can get you in. This is going to hurt but I can’t help that. On the count of three, I’m going to life you up and bring you into the medical area.” Jennifer put her arms under the girl, she screamed in pain at the movement on her shoulder. “Ready? One, two, three!”

The girl cursed and yelped at the pain. It was excruciating, from what Jennifer could tell. But she couldn’t help that. She walked the girl into the room where everyone is.

“She’s really bad. GSW to the shoulder. I don’t know if we can save it,” she said as she walked the girl in and put her on a bed.

“No... I-I-I can’t l-lose my a-rm,” the girl struggled to say. She was getting weak due to blood loss.

“Fuck, she needs attention now,” she said turning to the doctors. “There’s one more alive out there that I know of. I don’t know if anyone else is alive. Three dead so far. I’m going to get another bed in here for the guy. Get my father back up on his if you can.”

Jennifer was barking orders. There was no one else to take control of the situation at hand. Running into an adjacent room, she rolled a bed into the room.

“I’ll be right back with another patient,” the girl shouted as she ran back outside.

When she was outside, she located the guy again. The guy was further back than the rest. “Hold on,” she shouted to him. “I’ll get to you, just let me check these people here.”

“Y-yeah, that’s fine,” he said back, albeit rather faintly. “Just please hurry.”

“I will,” she shouted back.

Running to each body, she quickly checked for a pulse. There was none. They were all dead. Closing their eyelids, she got up and ran to the guy. The guy was a little older than her, it seemed, but not by much.

“Ow shit,” he said as she ran over. “This shit hurts worse than that time I got bit by a poisonous sake I high school.”

“Where are you hit,” Jennifer asked, disregarding his comment.

“Left lower thigh,” he said in pain, “and grazed on my lower stomach.” He looked up at Jennifer and studied her for a second.

“If I’d been told, ah shit,” he said, stopping from pain, “I’d been saved by someone like you, I’d been shot earlier... yeah, corny. I know. But I’m fucking shot. Humor is my go to when shit’s rough.”

Jennifer just let out a chuckle. “Look, I’m telling you this is probably going to hurt like hell, and you’ve got some bad wounds by the looks of it, b-“”

“Oh no, this is just a flesh wound. I’ll be alright. But you’re right. This is going to hurt like getting kicked... in the nuts,” he said cutting her off.

Jennifer cocked her head in confusion for a moment as to why he kept cutting her off when he knows he needs medical attention.

“As I was saying, this’ll hurt picking you up to help you get into the medical building,” she finished.

“Alright,” the man said as he reached his arm out to Jennifer to help him up. “This is going to be fun, like I’m in the pain Olympics. And no, you don’t want to know what that is. Just help me in.”

“Come on,” she said, ignoring what he said again, figuring it was a coping mechanism, taking his hand and pulling him up.

The guy pushed himself up with what strength he had. He winched and cursed in pain as he was pulled up.

“There, wasn’t too bad. Just hurt like shit, though,” he said with a laugh, to which Jennifer let out a single chuckle. The two started walking, him limping as he held onto Jennifer.

“Don’t think I,” he said, stopping to wince from the pain, “ever saw you ‘round here really. Name’s Walter. Thanks for being my angel to save me after that fucker, whoever it was, lit us up.”

“Of course, Walt,” Jennifer responded, more focus on getting him inside than talking.

“Fuck,” Walter said as he walked back the bodies of people, tearing up a bit. “I knew all of them. Who was the fucker who did this?”

“Dave,” she replied promptly.

“That fucker knob gobbler did this shit? Well fuck,” he said we a slight laugh, “I ain’t surprised. That fucker was going off the edge. He dead?”

“He’s more than dead.”

“Good, fucking asshole.”

Walking to inside the medical building, Jennifer helped Walt towards where the doctors were. They were split between Zelda and the girl.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Walt muttered as he walked past Dave. “He sure as shit is more than dead.” As he walked by, he spit on Dave’s mess of what once was a head. “Fucker.”

Once inside, Jennifer helped him into a bed. She turned to the doctors to update them.

“He’s all that’s left. More are dead out there. He has a graze to the side of his stomach and one in the lower left thigh,” she said, turning to the hectic doctors.

“We can’t spare each other right now, we’re busy. You’ll have to tend to him. First stop bleeding. Check to see if the bullet passed through. Clean whatever you need to. Get any fragments out. Sanitize it. Stitch shut.”

“Fuck,” Jennifer muttered. “Alright.”

“Don’t worry,” Walt said, “I won’t flinch too much. I’ll make it easy for you. Just don’t fucking kill me, please,” he said with a slight grin, and pain showing through his eyes he was concealing.

“I’ll try,” she said hesitantly, grabbing supplies.

After about an hour of working on Walt, with direction of the doctors helping when they could, Walt was patched up. He wasn’t as bad as the other girl. He got lucky, with mere grazes and nothing major hit. But he did lose a bit of blood, and he was showing it, being sluggish.

“Well,” he said, coughing, “you didn’t manage to kill me.” He let his tone drop to serious and looked her in the eyes, grabbing her arm. “Thank you. Really. I wasn’t as bad as others. But you came to my aid. You helped me. Thank you, miss..?”

“Jennifer,” she replied. “And you’re welcome.”

Jennifer smiled, stepping back and turning t the doctors. “You all good? Need another hand?”

“No, thank you,” they replied.

Jennifer nodded back, and then walked out of the room. There was a radio on Dave’s body, and a voice was coming from it.

“Dave, where the hell are you? There were no Helios here at all. Do we come back or what? Please, respond,” a voice on it said. Jennifer picked it up off of his body, and walked outside, and put her back against the wall of the doctors office, and slid down to a sitting position. The voice came back on.

“Dave, where are you? Dave,” it said.

Jennifer picked it up, and took a deep breath before hitting the talk button.

“Dave is dead. This is Jennifer Barnett, Mack’s daughter. Dave came out with a M60 and started shooting residents. He killed nearly 10. He’s dead now.”

There was silence. Jennifer waited for a second for a response.

“Mother fucker,” the voice said. “Do you need us back there right now?”

“Situation is under control. But you can come back. I’m guessing Dave sent you all out so that we’d be defenseless so he could mow us down. He just kept screaming about silencing us and shit,” Jennifer replied.

“He told us that Helios was going to be at this spot and we could take them all out. They were never here.”

“It wasn’t true. It was just to get you away to kill us without you killing him,” she replied, wiping a tear that started to emerge from her eye.

“We’re coming back as fast as we can. ETA is an hour. We’ll do all we can to help,” the voice replied. “And for the record, I, nor any of us, ever trusted that fucker. We’ll be back soon.”

“Roger that,” she said, putting the radio down.

It was at this moment that everything that just happened hit Jennifer. She began to cry, something she barely did months ago. But why was she now? Why was she changing this way? She didn’t know. But after seeing all this death, this needless death, she cried. It was the only way to feel better. And it sure felt good for her to cry. But she knew it would only get harder after this. There was a lot to sort out. Mack wasn’t awake yet, leadership was dead, many people in the community killed... there was so much wrong in a place that was supposed to be so good. But it wasn’t. Jennifer pushed this aside for now and just cried. She needed to after the events of today.

Rumble Fish Rumble Fish idalie idalie Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
Zelda bared her teeth as she shot through the door. It seemed to not work as the door came crashing down as Dave came in.
"KILL ME!" Zelda yelled at him but just as she did, she felt intense pain in her lower abdomen, causing her to double over in pain and feeling pain in her shoulder which made her fall backwards onto the ground. She didn't have to look to see she had been shot in the stomach a number of times. Everything felt like it was spinning, her heart was pounding and she could hardly breathe.

"Fucking..." she hissed as she tried to move away but she couldn't. She lied on her back, taking the flask from her pocket, her hand shaking as she took it out, not even having the strength to open it. She just shut her eyes. This was it...

But there was a sudden flurry of activity as a massive shape lunged at the man, and from what Zelda could see, the man was being brutally pummelled into the ground. Raising her head, she just managed to catch view of... Dave's head refused to mush, stripped to the bone with teeth scattered. A mixture of the agony from the gunshots, drunkenness and that sight caused Zelda to gag and she just managed to roll onto her side and vomit into the ground. All that came out was a liquid coloured a scary dark red from both a mix of blood and wine, causing a raging hot sensation in her chest and throat. Despite not lasting long, it left the woman exhausted as she rolled back onto her back. She stared up at the ceiling, feeling everything slipping away. She just wanted it to be quick.

She couldn't see anything but she could still feel, she felt somebody grab her hand. She could tell it was Jennifer as she talked to her, telling her to hold on.
"No... please..." she managed to get out, everything felt so heavy and she could not breath. She gasped a few times, trying to regain her breath. Despite the pain, she didn't want them to do anything. She knew other people were hurt and they needed medical help better than she did. "Help... them..." she managed to get out, managing to get her flask open and trying to drink some of it, only to lose her grip on it and causing it to fall, spilling the whisky over her face. The woman simply sighed and kept her eyes shut. She just wanted the others to be okay...

She couldn't be open her eyes, but she suddenly felt something putting pressure on her wounds, sending shots of pain from her wounds and up her spine.
"STOP!" She howled, trying to get up, "LEAVE ME ALONE!" She tried to shake the person off, she could not pay attention to what was going on, they could move her into a bed but that was all she wanted.

Just as whoever it was had left, she suddenly felt that she was surrounded by people. Being so badly hurt, she felt overwhelmed and being surrounded made it worse.

"Please... just leave me!" She kept trying to push them off, only to get pinned by them. Why couldn't they just let her die? It was all she wanted, why couldn't they just respect that!? She wasn't worth their effort! She was completely worthless to people and deserved it. There were more people who deserved life than she did. Despite what she said to Archie, it didn't help. Cali was right to call her stupid. The woman sighed and squeezed her eyes tighter, feeling tears leaking from them. She just hoped Mark and Jason would take her back... it was the only thing she had left which could make her happy...
*
Milly could not cope with the idea of potentially losing her... family again. She had lost her mother before, losing Jennifer, Archie and even Zelda would be too much for her to cope with. She couldn't do anything other than cry and cling to her teddy. Even the candy in her rucksack could not comfort her. She just wanted to go home to her mother. She wanted her room, her bed, she wanted to curl up on the sofa with her mum, watching Disney movies and eating macaroni and cheese. She just wanted to go home...

The sound of the door opening made Milly jump violently and cover her head with her arms in an attempt to protect herself. She desperately tried to stop crying but couldn't not. She felt so weak and hopeless. Everything hurt, but she did not know why. She just wanted a hug. Why couldn't the apocalypse just end and everything go back to normal?

She felt someone put an arm around her and a soothing voice speak to her. She looked to see it was Jennifer. She was talking in a soothing tone and trying to assure her she was okay. She wanted to believe her but she didn't know. But when Jennifer took Norris away from her, Milly squeaked and jumped up.
"N-No give her back!" She reached her arms out, despite Norris not being bothered at all to being grabbed by another person. Jennifer was telling her to look up the hall, not down it. She didn't know why but she decided to simply follow what she said. Keeping her gaze up, she followed Jennifer, still crying a little. She couldn't stop.

They went into Zelda's room and Jennifer told her that she was going to get Cali and Daniel. All Milly could do was nod, but she still curled up under Zed's desk anxiously. She didn't want to see anyone. Well, she did. She wanted Archie. When Jennifer left, Milly just buried her head into her bear, hoping that Archie, Cali and Daniel were all okay.
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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
He didn't even have time to catch his breath after the bloodthirsty brawl before again, he was called upon. This time, to Zelda's side by appointment of Jennifer. Grabbing a handkerchief, he stripped off his shirt and twisted the little cotton square till he could stuff it in his own wound -- as much as he could without tearing the skin further. Archie, however, glanced down to his hand and one by one plucked the incisors from his knuckles, letting them pop out onto the floor with fresh streams of crimson that trickled down his wrists and forearms. Although, he did keep just one tooth as a reminder.

Kneeling down beside Zed, the moment Jennifer leapt up in fact, McKeegan bundled up the fabric of his top and pushed it down upon the freely bleeding bullet-holes in her willowy, underfed figure. Her reaction was violent, Archie's palms slick with his own blood as he attempted to restrain the woman and retain the downward force he had. He gripped her arms and forced them back, pinning her legs using his own as he began stroking her cheek and hair, leaving wide strokes of red staining her pale, deathly complexion. "Hus-Hush, it's only me. It's only me, Zelda please. Calm down, -- It's all over. You don't want to die on me, do you? Huh? Come on, sweetheart. You gotta be my Lilypad for another few years yet." His hands were shaking with a tremor attributed to adrenaline and pain, considering you could see right down to the bone. One or two knuckles popping out from the skin, bare of flesh which had scraped off against punching Dave's mouth in.

Even as she fought back, Arch pressed his face to her collarbone and continued to not ask, but beg, for her to remain. As much as she may've ignored it, he tried and succeeded to an extent. Hoisting her up into his arms and putting her on the nearest available hospital bed, McKeegan remained as long as he could beside her. Kissing the side of her temple, he clumsily tried to wipe the tears, smearing rose-coloured water over her melancholy expression. "Stay with me, Zelda. Stay with me." It was, eventually when the doctors swarmed that the lumberjack had to be driven off by the surgeons so they could work.

Snagging a bottle of medicinal alcohol, he doused his hands; crying like a newborn bairn at the sting as he did his best to bandage and pad them before he could find a doctor who wasn't busy. With his makeshift series of cobbled A&E talents, McKeegan began the hunt for Milly. A feverish sheen of perspiration making his features glow with malaise, cracking open Zelda's room as per the passing comment of a nurse. "Milly? Milly are you in here?" He rested heavily against the corner of the desk, swiping at his brow a secondary time. "Milly--" He could hear the sniffly breathing, and got down on his knees to peer under the tabletop, relief flooding his expression. "Oh lass, I thought I lost you--" The Scotsman's voice cracked, beginning to sob a secondary time -- but this wasn't in pain. It was pure, unadulterated joy. He half scooped her up, half ducked beneath the desk to hold Milly tight.

"I should've taken you with me to get the guns, I should've put you somewhere safe." He inhaled, still tasting copper on his tongue, ears ringing. "Ach, I'm a stupid man but I'll pray to God just for this." Arch laughed, half weeping still. Cradling the back of Milly's head into his shoulder he patted her down for any sort of injury, ensuring she was fine from head to toe. "I promise you, never again. You stick with me. Alright? Next time this happens, you stick with me."

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Calliope achingly removed herself from on top of Daniel who had passed out under her after silence had fallen. Calliope could hear Jennifer's calls, but didn't make any immediate attempts to answer back. Instead, she gently cradled Daniel in her arms, "Danny, Danny," She whispered, trying to awake him, but he did not respond. This was probably the calmest she had ever seen him. Even when they had slept he seemed tense but now, it was like he was completely carefree. Calliope maneuvered him onto her back, his little legs resting on her knife which began to stab into her thigh. She kicked at the towel under the door and used her knee to push the wooden slab free. The door opened with a loud creak and Calliope witnessed everyone leaving the building. Instead of following them however, she instead turned and went home.
The apartment held a cold, weary feel. She figured it was because she was used to coming home to Daniel smiling or laughing, or somehow bringing life to the place. But now, he was asleep and thus the warmth was gone. She set him down on the mattress gingerly, feeling his forehead briefly and then covering him up with a blanket. She wasted no time and left the apartment once she was sure he was still asleep soundly. She met the group at the hospital only to be greeted with a chaos of people frantically moving. She barely made out Milly's meek figure and the mixture of cries and sobs in the broken room. By now, Calliope's heartbeat had slowed down but not out of solace; lack of energy. Her eyes darted around the room fixating on a man on table or hospital bed, blood dripping from a wound and pooling on the floor below him. This seemed to bring all her fears back to life as she backed away. Her hand rested on her knife and a familiar pain throbbed on her thigh and lower back.
"J-Jennifer?" Her visions began to blur as her endorphins pumped through her veins. If there was one thing her and Daniel shared, it would be their bodies' inability to keep running under the immense pressure of bodily chemicals like adrenaline. In most cases, they have fared just fine. But this was unlike their previous cases.
Calliope rested a hand on the wall trying to maintain balance as specs of darkness in her vision turned into large blurs. She took deep breathes, "I just need to calm down," She told herself. If she could fool her mind into a false respite, then maybe she could fight off the black out. Unfortunately, the chaos was so blaring in her ears. The screams reminded her when she lost her family, how little she did to save them.

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Later the night...

“Okay, everyone, calm down please,” Jennifer pleaded to a crowd in front of her.

“Calm down,” a protester shouted at her in disbelief. “Who the fuck are you to tell us to ‘calm down’? Our leader ain’t waking up, our last one just killed a bunch of people on his own, after leading our families into a massacre, and this place, this sanctuary we were promised is going to hell, and you want us to just simply calm down? You have no qualifications to tell us what to do.”

Some of the crowd, lit by the streetlights, seemed to agree with the man. Jennifer outstretched her hand, holding it as if signaling to stop, and hush the crowd.

“Look,” Jennifer started, “I know that..”

“You don’t know shit,” shouted another protester.

“Let the girl fucking talk, you jackass,” replied another member of the crowd.

“What does she have to say? That she’s sorry and we have to stick together and that everything’s okay? Bullshit!”

“What’s your plan, Mr. Know-it-Fucking-All?”

“My plan? It’s better than what this dumb bitch has said.”

“Quite slandering this poor girl. You barely let her even speak to evaluate a damn thing she’s said!”

The crowd started to quite as the two men kept shouting at one another. The tension was building, and Jennifer was losing control of the situation, not that she ever had it in the first place. As the two men began to get closer, and the tones became even more upset, people tried to break it up and calm them down. But this went to no avail. The man against Jennifer pushed a man out of his way and went for a shot with his fist at the man giving Jennifer the benefit of the doubt. The blow landed the man on his back, as the crowd attempted to subdue the chaos. But this attempt ended up with even more fists being thrown. But this was stopped by the sound of a gunshot. Everyone jumped, stopping to look around.

“I said enough, God damn it,” Jennifer yelled to the crowd, holstering her handgun. The crowd focused on her. “This shit, what you’re doing right now, isn’t helping the damn situation. This division, this being at each other’s throats, pointing fingers, that isn’t going to fix what is going on here, what happened. Now I know I’m not my dad. And I know some of you probably loathe me because I’ve had some special treatment. But you need to put that all aside and look at the bigger picture right now.”

Jennifer took a deep breath, and took another step forward. She was standing on the porch of her father’s house, the one she had been closed out of for so long, where Dave used it to do his drugs and avoid all the problems he created. Leaning on the fence around the porch, she lowered her head momentarily, interchanging her finger between one another. When her thoughts completed, she backed off of it.

“This place has been about surviving. It’s been about hope, a place where lucky individuals can call sanctuary from the perils that lurk outside these walls. My father built this place to what it is now. We are a powerhouse. We have bountiful food, water, guns, medicine. We are four steps above the rest. We are a force to reckon with, one enough to make the enemy shake at their knees. We are still that. We can come back and overcome the challenges we face. But we must stand, man and women, shoulder to shoulder, and work and fight to keep this place up and running. The time isn’t now to create civil war and fight each other. Instead, now is the time to fight together. We can, and we will, overcome this.”

There was some response from the crowd, mostly positive. There still were doubters. Jennifer caught a few stone faced ones. The man who caused the commotion walked away, shaking his head. Jennifer waited for some silence from the crowd before she continued, making the major announcement she knew she had to make.

“As per the way this colony works, the second and in command would take over should Mack be killed or MIA. Well, he’s dead now. And third in the chain of command is gone as well. As per the way this community works, chain of command falls on the next highest ranking member on the roster to take over. Because of this, I’ll be assuming role of leader until my father wakes up. And tomorrow, I’m ordering burial preparations be conducted in for the victims of today. We’ll resume all necessary activities immediately. Family of those who were lost today will get time off to properly mourn their lost loved ones.”

Jennifer felt a heavy weight fall upon her shoulders. She knew that she took a heavy burden, one that perhaps would be too much for her to handle. But just as life has forced her to do, she simply did it. Because she had to. While neither a proven nor disproven as a leader, she had to assume the role and clean up the mess that Dave left behind, for herself, her friends, and the people now under her control. Jennifer again paused for a moment, bowing her head.

“That’ll be all, everyone. Goodnight,” she said, sounding rather burdened.

The people from there began to talk to one another, walking away. Jennifer didn’t care to pay attention to the words they said to one another. She put a heavy burden on her shoulders that she was starting to already feel the weight of. All that mattered was making sure this place survived and was safe. That was all that mattered.

“You sure seem damper after being so emotional from that speech you gave,” came a voice from below.

Jennifer raised her head slowly, trying to pick out the person who spoke.

“Yeah, well, taking this role isn’t necessarily the most easy thing in the world,” Jennifer replied to the voice, which she soon was able to identify. It was the man she helped earlier, Walter. Walter had been on his legs a bit faster than she had expected. The crutches, boot and casts seemed to help. “You’re on your legs sooner that I expected.”

“Yeah,” he started with a chuckle, “well when you’re a stubborn son of a bitch who hates laying down on my ass all day while all the commotion is going on without me, you piss the doctors off until one of them agrees to get you on your feet.”

Jennifer let out a small chortle, but didn’t say anything.

“I was just going to come by,” Walt continued, “and thank you again for what you did. But I got caught in the mix of wannabe rioters and a good speech. Seems like you attract attention, not all the good kind though.”

“Hah, you have no idea. I always attract all the shit attention all my life,” Jennifer replied, lowering her head again to look at her hands, which she was playing with as a way to ease some stress.

“Well, miss Jennifer,” Walt responded after several seconds, “I just wanted to thank you, for what you did after Dave went banana apeshit. You came and helped me, and that other girl, Hazel, when no one else could. You might not be a leader. But in that moment, when there needed to be an answer to that call of help, you became a leader. And you took action. And you saved some people in the process, including me. So, thank you, again. I owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Walt. I was just doing what needed to be done. My job, I suppose, if you will.”

“You might think that, Jennifer, but I do.”

Jennifer just hung her head low for a moment. She didn’t want the thanks. She didn’t feel like she deserved it. But here she was getting praise for just being her, doing her “job.”

“Go get some rest, Walt. I’ve been shot up more than enough times. Rest is important for healing,” Jennifer said, wanting to just close the night out.

Walter hovered for a second, accepting that Jennifer didn’t want to take credit or praise. He realized she was being humble, something he’s done many times in the past. He was able to understand how she felt.

“Okay, Jennifer. Well good luck leading this place. You’ll do just fine. And, if you ever need to talk to someone about anything, I’m here. Room 5, second floor of the housing building. I’ll be bored as hell while I heal. Come entertain me when you have a chance, or maybe I’ll entertain you with how annoyed I get not having my normal maneuverability. But really, if you ever need to talk, come see me. I owe you that much. Goodnight, Jennifer.”

“Goodnight, Walt,” Jennifer replied as Walt began to walk his way with the crutches to the housing building, the sound of his crutches getting fainter the farther away he was. Jennifer sighed, still playing with her hands. She finally had her father’s house back, which she earlier cleaned out with some milita members, getting Dave’s drugs and filth out. With a yawn erupting from her mouth, Jennifer took a step away from the balcony, and headed inside. Finding her bed, she put what remaining stuff she had in her pants on the dresser, and laid down. The sleep would be hard to catch, this she knew. But she was tired. It was a stressful day. And sleep needed to repair the damage done during it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One week later...

The week had gone by somewhat rough. The day following the incident with Dave was one of sorrow and solace. It was a day of mourning needed, especially for those who lost family at the massacre at the Marina colony, who never had a chance to. Jennifer put in a special request with the chefs to cook up a big dinner that night to feast on. They did as asked. The feast that night was one the community needed to have. There were small games, like cornhole. While there was still tension between some members and Jennifer leading in general, the night was needed to get people’s minds off of things.

As the week went on, Jennifer assumed control of the operations of the Mountaintop. She began to keep detailed notes of everything going on in the Mountaintop, which she reviewed and came up with suggestions to improve things. Though, the week was one that was quieter than normal. They were a community in need of healing. Jennifer tried to strike a balance between that and being productive. It wasn’t to say that the week was without tension, however. Jennifer knew there was a group of individuals upset with not necessarily just her, but the state of the Mountaintop. She just happened to be their scapegoat. While this did bother Jennifer, she had no choice to just live with it. No leader would be loved by all people in their rule.

Jennifer had ordered a repair of a small radio tower that hadn’t been service in the past year. Jennifer wanted to tap into this to see if they could tap into any potential com channels that any groups might be using, as well as seeing if they could pick up on any survivors who were broadcasting. While they listened, Jennifer refused to broadcast or communicate to anyone. She didn’t want the Mountaintop to be found, but kept hidden.

As always, Jennifer spent time in the medical area, checking on her father frequently, hoping that the next time she walked in, he’d be awake. And while a part of her knew he wouldn’t, she still went in. This day were no different. But there wasn’t an improvement in Mack. He was no better than a month ago.

“Damn it, dad,” Jennifer said under breath. “Why can’t you just wake up?”

It was beginning to feel like Mack would never awake from his coma for Jennifer. Her leadership was built upon a a hope that her father would wake soon. But she knew she may have to remain in that position indefinitely. She didn’t know, and began to think, Mack would never wake up again.

As Jennifer sat there, with her hand on her father’s, the sound of a verbal argument broke out, and Jennifer was able to make out the voices: Zelda and Emma. Zelda had been particularly on edge after the incident with Dave. She’d been getting more and more bitter as time went on, at a rate faster than Jennifer would like.

“Geez, and here we go again,” Jennifer mutter. She got up and began to walk towards the commotion, sighing before she reached the door coming from Zelda’s office. Jennifer couldn’t quite make out the words being spoken. But, what she could tell was that Zelda’s speech was slurred, indicating she were drunk. Jennifer sighed yet again before she grabbed the doorknob and opened the doir

“Alright you two, what the hell is the pr-,” Jennifer began as she entered the room, only to be greeted with the site of Selda pulling her gun out and pointing it at Emma.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Jennifer shouted before calming her ton as she began to move closer to Zelda. “Zelda, I know you are upset right now, I know you have problems, but this isn’t going to help.”

Jennifer slowly began to walk in front of the muzzle of the gun, putting herself between Zelda and Emma. She knew that Zelda wouldn’t shoot her. Jennifer kept her hands up, and eased her postured and muscle tension. She wanted to come across as relaxed to Zelda, and not threatening.

“You’re upset, Zelda, and so am I. But let’s just put the gun down okay? We don’t want to cause more death here. Whatever your issues are right now, killing Emma won’t help solve anything. Now just put your gun down and we’ll talk. Talking can relieve these issues much more than killing someone can. Let’s just put it down, okay? Let’s just put it down.”

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The last week was nothing but a blur of pain, flashing lights and beeping sounds. Zelda was barely aware of anything that had been happening. Trapped in a perpetually confused, angry and frightened state of mind, she kept shouting at anyone who came close, regardless of who it was, and had more than once woken up screaming for Mark or on lesser occasions, her mother. But all that was done was to up her dosage of what she could only assume was morphine and antidepressants to stop it from happening.

In her few brief moments of lucidity allowed, Zelda couldn't hold back her frustration and anger towards the world. Rather than abide by her wishes and letting her die, they kept her alive! And for what!? Just for her to keep suffering longer? Granted she deserved to be in the shit hole she was stuck in. But why couldn't they just let her die? She was no worth to them and only made things worse so why do it!? It made no sense! And nonsense was one thing that always drove Zelda mad. She'd snarl at anyone who even came close, especially the doctors led by Emma, which was the ultimate insult. Still, as far as the rest of the community knew, she was the genius who saved Mack and Jen's lives so what could she do? This made Emma her primary target, leading to many shouting matches that would inevitably lead to Zelda being pumped full of drugs and rendered unconscious.

There were only a couple of people who seemed to actually give more than a shit about her, one who she knew was Archie as she could only just make out his face and hear his Scottish burr. He'd just sit and talk. That was it. She couldn't tell who the other person was. But whoever they were, she was grateful to them too. She didn't see Cali or Daniel throughout it all, but she didn't care.

At this particular moment, Zelda had been given the all clear and allowed to leave the ward. She was still in pain from the stitches but that was the least of her problems. It had been at least five days since her last drink, something that was not agreeing with the woman whatsoever. Sitting in her office, she felt intensely shaky, and like there were ants running all around her body. It made her feel more ill than any hangover. She was sitting in her office, the door slightly ajar to see into Mack's ward. She took a bottle from under the desk, uncapped it and took a long swig from it. She couldn't handle that feeling anymore. And she didn't want to be so angry and bitter for reasons and people she could clearly remember...

Zelda wasn't aware of how much time had passed or how many she had drank but it did the job. Everything felt looser, keeping her balance was more difficult and the feeling of ants running over her had gone. Good. At least one thing was going her way.

"What are you doing?" A bitchy and sadly familiar voice barked, jolting Zelda out of her dreamlike state.

"Fuck off!" She snarled, taking her wine again, "Haven't had breakfast."

"Breakfast- You've only been discharged a hour and you're ALREADY drunk!?" Emma came further into her office, something that Zelda never allowed. Nobody was allowed in here without her say so. This was her space!

"Get out! And I can do what I want, Emma! Isn't like you're in charge of me!" Zelda took another drink, glaring at Emma over the bottle.

"You're being a brat! 'I can do what I want' are you even listening to yourself?" She snapped, putting her arms akimbo.

"Yes! And I make sense! OUT!" Zelda got up from her chair to look out the window, "...And we both know I am in charge of you retards."

"Big words from a woman who's sobriety lasts two minutes after waking up! You should be grateful for us keeping you alive!" Zelda turned around, her eyes darkening with anger.

"Grateful? GRATEFUL!? You pump me full of god knows what and leave me there in a panic and you want ME to be grateful to YOU!?" She stormed closer so she was up in the woman's face, "I've seen your bedside manner before, where was it there?"

"What are you on about?" Emma bluffed, her nose scrunching bitchily at Zelda being so close.

"bedside manners!? You know, making people feel safe and telling them it's going to be okay and there's nothing to be afraid of? WHERE WAS THAT WITH ME!?" She gave the woman a hard shove almost out the door, "Oh I know! It's because it's ME! Isn't it!?"

"Look, you're drunk!" Emma tried to fight back, "You don't know what you-"

"SHUT UP!" Zelda gave her another hard shove, "Think I don't know!? Do I matter THAT LITTLE that I don't deserve anything!? I gave you the option to kill me, multiple times! And yet you kept me alive... WHY!?"

"Because you're being stupid. You think you're the only one with problems? There are people here who have gone through far worse than you! You can't complain!" Emma barked, causing Zelda to freeze at this. That struck a nerve.

"...You're saying... I don't matter?"

"YES! You don't! And why should you? You know what everyone says about you, don't you?" Zelda didn't even get a chance to nod before it continued, "You might have saved Jennifer's life but what about Mack's, huh? Why hasn't he woken up, Zelda? You're the great doctor around here, why isn't he waking up?"

"I..." Zelda felt panic rise in her chest, "I don't know! I tried but I don't have the equip-"

"Don't have equipment or maybe you're just a failure, ever considered that?"

"No- stop!" Zelda tried putting a hand out, feeling shaky.

"Maybe you can't admit that you're skills are useless and you've just killed a girl's father."

"STOP IT!" Zelda grabbed her head, she could feel pressure building behind her eyes, but she couldn't break down now, not in front of Emma! Not in front of anybody! The thought of causing Mack's death was one too painful to bear. Shakily she grabbed the wine again and took a long drink from it in a futile effort to curb her growing distress and fury.

"No! You need to hear this!"

"No I don't, just go away!" Zelda answered so quick it caused some wine to dribble out of her mouth, but she didn't care.

"You killed Mack. The same way you killed your husband and son!" Emma noticed the look of shock on the woman's face and smirked, "Yeah I know about that."

Zelda's distress instantly switched to fury. "...Don't talk about them." She growled dangerously as she stood up, her hand reaching slowly into her back pocket.

"Or what?"

"Just... stop." Zelda was gripping her gun behind her back, just waiting for Emma to continue. She wasn't even aware of what she was about to do. But it felt right. The only way to get rid of the problem.

"If you think you're so brilliant, why are they dead? Why didn't you save them? Maybe it was just bad luck... or maybe you're just a cowardly drunk who doesnt give a shit about anything or anybody! Not even your own son! If you really loved him like you claimed, you would have saved him."

At this point Zelda was shaking with rage and despair. She gripped the gun behind her. Fine... if she was not going to be allowed to die, she was going to make them feel the same pain she felt!

"Don't talk about MY FUCKING SON!!!" And with that she whipped the gun out in front of her. Emma instantly lost her smug demeanour as she was faced with the weapon.

"Oh my god-! Zelda, you're drunk just-"

"I KNOW IM FUCKING DRUNK, GET ON THE FLOOR NOW!!!" Emma dropped to her knees, now shaking.

"Okay, okay Just don't shoot-!"

"I'LL KILL YOUR FUCKING DAUGHTER , THEN YOU'LL GET IT! THEY ALL WILL!!!" Zelda roared so loud she felt like her vocal cords were being torn. She meant it! She fucking meant it! She'd kill all their children, only then they would fucking understand!

"My daughter- No! Please!"

"YES! YOUR DAUGHTER AND ANY OTHER KIDS HERE! DONT THINK I WONT!"

Just as she was about to fire the weapon, she heard Jennifer's voice speak out. But Zelda was too far down a pit of rage and anguish to notice her, she kept it pointed at the woman. Jennifer was telling her to rethink her actions. And how this was not the answer.

"FUCK OFF! SHE DESERVES THIS!" She shouted, trying to aim around Jennifer as the girl put herself between Zelda and Emma but Jennifer would not allow it.

Zelda did not know how long the standoff took but the more time it took, the more the fury within her died out. Suddenly everything became clearer. Jennifer's softly spoken words seeped into her. All the thoughts of killing Emma, her daughter and any other children suddenly stopped sounding like the answer and the realisation of what she had just been thinking made Zelda seize up, the gun falling from her grip. She listened to Jennifer as she told her they could talk about it. Something Zelda was not expecting.

"Yeah... Talk." She mumbled drunkenly as she finally turned away from the pair of them. She put her hands on her desk. Shakily, she grabbed one of the wine bottles on her desk, taking a long drink from it. She just wanted relief...

Emma had gotten up from the floor and scuttled to the door, only stopping to look at Zelda.

"Go on. Drink it away as always. And you wonder why you're useless."

"CANT!!!" Emma yowled and fled just as the bottle flew from Zelda's hand and just missed her as it exploded in the hall, its red contents going everywhere.

Zelda stood shakily as she simply stared at it before letting out a deep sigh and, grabbing her flask, slid down the wall to sit on the ground. She let out a heavy sigh as she unscrewed the top of the flask.
"I'll... clean that." She said as she looked up at Jennifer, afraid of what she was going to say. But Jennifer wasn't like Emma, or any of them. But whether she trusted her to tell her anything she didn't know.

"Ugh... shower of bastards." She growled, still breathing shallowly from her anger, her voice sounding more gravelly from shouting. She looked at Jennifer and sighed. "Yeah well... I just proved her point there." She huffed, sipping out her flask. At this point she didn't care what she said. Her hands were shaking as she held the flask, rethought everything she had said, breathing shakily. "I... I wanted to kill her daughter, and all other kids. I'm a monster..."
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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
He'd divided his time between the people who needed him most, sitting with Zelda for sometimes hours talking -- even if she was in one of her induced comas. His hands had needed special attention after everything had cooled down, alongside them digging for the bullet which had thankfully not strayed far. Since the incident, McKeegan had become quite withdrawn, taking most his time to rest and heal; avoiding work and the people who looked at him with some amount of admiration and fear. He'd punched a man's face to mush, it wasn't hard to work out why people were warier than usual. Focusing on Milly, he only wanted the girl to have opportunities in the future and was set on showing her how to use a gun sooner or later.

The Scotsman still smiled and went about his cheery way, yet something had ultimately changed. Not only around him but within as well. Some nights he'd lie awake, replaying how Dave had gurgled and wheezed, clutching at the lumberjacks forearms till deep grooves remained where his nails had made their last-ditch attempt. He sat alone on the porch in front of the accommodation units, apartments stretching up and across to make him feel smaller than his stature would oft allow, watching the world go on around him whilst he sipped on a bottle of homebrew cider from one of the fellow farmhands. The Scrumpy, as they called it, was enough to knock your socks off if you put a bottle straight down the hatch. He was relaxed about it though, taking his time and nursing it between both big palms.

It was a nice day overall, the birds above acting as if the world hadn't changed, trees above still swaying in a melodic rhythm nobody could listen in to. Clouds lazily crossing the sky above as he bathed in the suns warmth. His hair was pulled back for once, cleaner than it had been with a wash down at the lake -- topped by his trucker cap to keep the glare out his eyes. He tapped his feet and brought his lips to a circle with a whistle, glancing across at the medical centre. He would've made a visit, but for that moment, he was content. Zelda would be up and about sooner or later, and Archie dreaded to think how that was working out. The woman was as stubborn as a mule, it'd take a long time to get her to kick any sort of habit. He didn't like being pessimistic, but he saw her bordering on a lost cause. He'd keep trying, God knows he would for her sake, but death was too much for some. Death and a wish for it.

[Open]

PRZEMYSŁAW "TESLA" WAWRZASZEK​
As the radio tower was being fixed and fine-tuned, there was a low buzzing for a while. Then, from the ocean of white-noise came the voice, "--I think, the last human I saw, was two years ago by now. Some fuckin' crazy person, y'know? Absolutely off his fuckin' rocker when I arrived. Called himself Ted, and if Ted is still out there; I dedicate this to you fella. Remember kids, blow your brains out but clean the carpets." A strumming guitar could be heard, followed by a familiar recording of old-world music.

Tesla, in his own station miles from the Mountaintop, reclined in his chair and put the headphones down, puffing lazily on a cigarette whilst meeting the eyes of a terrier. "Don't give me none of that, Duke. I ain't the one who got stuck in this fuckin' place. That's on you." He tapped the ashes into a tray, rolling back his shoulders whilst he stood and peered through the decaying blinds over the windows, spotting the mass of walkers who continued to amble about without a real thought. Too many to get past without being seen, too many to risk being smelt or heard too. This was a horde he'd not been prepared to pass through.

The song came to an end, Tesla returning to his seat. "For all of y'all out there, just be warned we got a nasty-lookin' weather forecast of rotters comin' down through Burnsville. I dunno how many but there must be a couple o' thousand out here guys. I ain't got a chance in hell, so I'm gonna need a prayer or two to keep quiet. I'll report in with regular updates of who I think would win the rugby league, whether or not Katy Perry really kissed a girl, and how long does it take for one man and one dog to starve before he pulls the trigger. This is your host, depressed and scared for his life, Tesla signing off on today's reasons why humanity is doomed and I don't give a shit." The channel reverted back to a looping set of 80s-90s songs on albums that had all but been relics.

Since arriving in Burnsville, Przemek had settled up in the radio station due to it's elevated nature -- and found it something to tinker with whilst he was in town. Shame was, now he couldn't leave. And rations were getting lower by the day. He'd even managed to make powdered egg, scrambling it, and deciding that he'd rather starve than eat something which tasted fouler than he ususally made. Duke, the terrier, adored it. Probably the only person who ever appreciated his cooking -- which was a nice sentiment. He'd stick to sugared coffee and granola for lunch.

Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma Rumble Fish Rumble Fish
 
Jennifer’s attempt to de-escalate the situation seemed to be futile at first. Zelda still held the gun up, and wasn’t backing down. Even with her yelling and pointing the gun, Jennifer kept a cool and even head. Her tone stayed the same, and she kept trying to softly de-escalate a dangerous situation. But thankfully, Zelda listened to her, and she put the gun down. While that ended the standoff, the spat between Emma and Zelda didn’t quite end. A continued back and forth resulted in Zelda throwing a wine bottle that hit the wall outside her room and shattered, spilling its contents on the floor.

Jennifer put her hand over her head and took a deep breath in. While she seemed calm on the outside, internally she was angry, annoyed st what was going on. But she was the leader now. She couldn’t let these emotions drive her to make stupid errors. She’d become a professional over the years at hiding her emotions, regardless of the stress in the current moment. She released her stress with her breath out, something she’d learned and become proficient at through the years at relieving and stress or anger. Jennifer took a seat in front of Zelda’s desk. She nodded her head at Zelda saying she would clean the mess up. She was in thought, her hands on her head, searching for where to begin a conversation about this fight between Zelda and Emma, and with Zelda saying she wanted to kill kids, which Jennifer didn’t believe was serious. Her conversation with Zelda had to be more than one to explain the events that happened for. Instead, she needed to find out what has been going on, what is under a pile of rubble that you’d have to dig to find.

“Okay,” she said under her breath, leaning back and her chair and looking at Zelda with concern on her face. “Zelda, what is going on? You’re so bitter towards everyone every since Dave did what he did. I saw you jump in front of his fire towards me. Were you trying to save me, or kill yourself, or both?”

The girl turned her head to the side for a moment to think of what else she had to ask. “What’s this spat with Emma? Why do you two always go at each other’s throats?”

Closing her eyes, she squeezed them in another moment of thought before opening them and continue her questioning, leaning forward in her chair.

“I know something is wrong, Zelda. I know there is, and I want to help. I’m the leader of this place, for now at least. And all of the people under my roof I care about. I need you to be okay for myself and this community. I care about you. You’re a valuable member of this place. No matter how much of a failure you feel you are, or how others may make you put to be, you saved me, you saved my father. He ain’t alive yet, but that’s not your fault, and no one, Emma included, should blame you for that.”

Jennifer ran her hand through her hair, pushing aside any hair obstructing her view of Zelda.

“I want you to talk to me. Tell me anything you are willing to say. I want to help. Let me help you in anyway I can. You’re under my roof. You saved my life. I owe you that in the very least. Talk to me. Let me help you. I care about you and your wellbeing. I know you’ve had a rough life. I’ve been able to piece things together. I’ve had a rough life as well. I get struggles, I get suicide, I get anger and hate, I get the depression and that feeling of worthlessness, mad the world and everyone around them for your struggles, your misfortune. I get it, because I’ve been there. But the thing I didn’t do then was talk. I realize now that I could’ve saved myself so much pain, sadness and anger if I had just had someone to talk to. Don’t make the mistake I made, and talk when you’re ready. Say whatever you’re willing to, omit whatever you don’t want said. Talk, and I’ll listen and try to help however I can.”

Jennifer finally leaned back in her chair, her fingers crossed. She looked Zelda in the eye with true concern. Zelda was one of her own, one who saved her. She needed to help her, and try to prevent her from going down the path that she herself went and took so long to pull out of.

“I know you don’t want to kill kids. You are no monster. You’re far from it. So speak, Zelda. You deserve to be listened to. You’re one of my people. I care about you. Let me help you. I truly want to.”

Jennifer had every intent on trying to help Zelda. Jennifer’s heart was changing from where she was months ago. Back then, she wouldn’t care. But now she is going through a rebirth of herself. And her compassion came back. She was becoming more of her old self before the incident at the hospital, or even before the dead rose. With that side of her back, she feels such a drive to help Zelda, a broken woman who needed help. Whatever it was she could do, Jennifer would try to help Zelda and make her life better, for herself and everyone else.

Rumble Fish Rumble Fish idalie idalie Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
Zelda Williams​
Zelda kept very silent as she sat on the floor, keeping her eyes down and trying to ignore Jennifer. She didn't want to speak to anyone about this. It wouldn't change anything. If anything it would make it worse. She took a sip from her flask, listening to Jennifer as she then began to speak, asking her questions about... everything. The woman sighed deeply as she could only listen. She wanted to snap at Jennifer, make her leave. But she couldn't. Jennifer was their leader now. She had to listen to her.

She asked about everything. Dave, Emma, whether or not she was suicidal, things that left Zelda deeply uncomfortable. She really didn't want to talk. But the more she listened, she looked up at the woman who was sitting at her desk. Groaning slightly, the woman got unsteadily to her feet and sat on the other seat.

She wanted to believe Jennifer but it was almost impossible when she said that she was a value to them. She couldn't understand it. The fact she was exposing herself to someone didn't help. Zelda didn't want to look vulnerable or weak. But that seemed to have done more harm than good. Maybe... maybe if she did speak to Jennifer, it might relieve some of her pain. She made a mental note not to mention her family though. She wasn't ready to talk about that yet.

She let out a heavy sigh, drank more out of her flask and finally decided to answer Jennifer's questions. But she wasn't happy about it.

"Well... you'd be pretty fucking bitter if you got shot up and all they did was pump you full of so much morphine you couldn't move and was stitched up with no anaesthetic." She started, looking away from the woman before sighing deeply, "They only did that because it was me." She added bitterly. She wasn't exaggerating. She KNEW this for a fact! She had been shot or hurt in the past and it was the exact same.

On the topic of whether or not her jumping in front of Jen was a suicide attempt or not, Zelda shuddered. She didn't want to talk about it. But she had to. That or she would keep pestering her about it. She glanced away for a moment before sighing shakily. This was going to be difficult.

"...Alright. Fine. It was both. I wanted to protect you. Cause, big shock, I might give a shit about you. But... yes I wanted it to kill me." She glanced away for a moment before continuing.

"And... I don't know if Archie had told you before but about a month ago, I tried to shoot myself. The night before you told us about your plan to get the guns. Would have done it if Archie didn't show up. He's got a fucking habit of showing up out of nowhere. Dave and I had a... pretty big fight if you know what I mean. He said some things and it got to me."

Zelda grabbed the wine quickly, taking a long drink out of it. She was feeling shaky and quite sick from talking about it. It felt unnatural and wrong. Jennifer had her own problems and she didn't want to add her strain onto what the woman already had. But what Jennifer had said was getting to the woman so she continued, simply so she could satisfy the woman.

"And when I got shot by the guard... I was trying to get him to kill me." Her face darkened, "it's stupid. I know. But... when Cali said you didn't seem strong enough and told me my logic was 'stupid' for believing otherwise, it just made me feel so... worthless and stupid! I mean... who the fuck is she to tell me that my logic is stupid!? From what I've seen and heard about her all she does is act like she's like... superior! We sat in the same room for over two hours and not once did she even acknowledge I was there! And the one time, the one! Fucking! Time! She talks to me, it's to say I'm stupid! She basically said what everyone thinks... it's pathetic... I know. But it got to me..."

Zelda sighed angrily and put her face in her hands, aggressively scratching her head with her nails. She really didn't like this. But... as much as she hated to admit it, it was somewhat helping to get it all out.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have ranted like that..." she sighed in a slurred manner, looking away anxiously as she took another sip. The fact she was actually talking about it rather than keeping it all in was probably due to the fact that so drunk at this point she just couldn't hold it back anymore. She was starting to feel quite sick at this point. Her speech was still very slurred and she couldn't keep still. She didn't want to talk about it anymore. The fact that all three attempts were failures made the woman feel much worse. She couldn't even do that right...

"And Emma... well." She paused for another sip, "We've never gotten along. From the start. I don't even seek her out or nothing." She was finding it hard to speak so was trying to keep it shorter so she could focus on each word. The fact she was drunk in front of Jennifer, her superior who had a clear destain for people like her didn't help. It made her feel weak. But it the only thing that kept her together. Without it she'd cease to function.

"Anyways. Never got along. I want to help people. She wants to look good for people. Not a bad doctor, but anyway. After I did you and Mack's surgeries, she helped me... I passed out. Was just exhausted, hadn't eaten and... yknow." She gave the bottle in her hand a brief and uncomfortable glance, "She took credit." The woman shrugged.

"I just let it happen. Doubt people'd believe me." She shrugged again before looking out the door where there were still red stains on the walls, "Always uses it against me though. Saying Mack not waking up is my fault." Becoming annoyed, Zelda got up from her seat and began pacing, albeit in a stumbly and unfocused manner.

"Urgh!" She groaned suddenly, grabbing her face. She couldn't hold it back anymore, if she didn't say anything now, she never would. As she walked past her desk, she spotted the picture of her, Jason and Mark at Niagara Falls and roughly put the picture face down. She didn't want Jennifer to question her about it.

"Shower of bastards! I spent my whole adult life, after I was twenty three, trying to save people! I want to help! Didn't matter who! I'd do my damnedest to save em! I'd do anything! But... but..." she could feel herself becoming very upset so turned away from Jennifer, grabbing the bottle from the desk first.

"Just... I helped people. I saved em. But when I needed help, when things went badly for me, when I needed support, what did I get!? FUCK ALL! Oh, and this was BEFORE those fucking undead fuckers showed up! Just... left on my own! I tried! Really! But... doing it on my own? Couldn't. I didn't judge... everyone judges me on first glance. Don't blame them." She gave Jennifer a brief, rather angry glance. Despite everything, she couldn't let go of what the woman had first said to her. While Jen clearly felt different now, it still hurt. Everything hurt.

"Doesn't matter. Wasted your time. Sorry."

Once her slurred, rather clumsily given rant was done, Zelda just sat on the surgical bed, facing away from Jennifer. She hated herself so much for saying all of this. She didn't like being this exposed to anyone.

"Just want it to end..." she sighed deeply, still facing away from Jennifer. She had managed to avoid talking about her family, or the source of her misery, that being her mother suddenly dying and then her daughter being a stillborn. Just the thought of her daughter almost caused Zelda to break down right there. She dropped her head into her hand, covering her eyes as she let out a very quiet sob, hopefully too quiet for the younger woman to hear. She took a very long drink, hoping that would be enough to dull it for now, despite feeling pretty ill at this point.

She thought long and hard about what Jennifer had said about her not being a monster like she claimed. Zelda couldn't bring herself to talk about that. She had said too much at this point...
***
Milly McDonald​
Thankfully, Milly had not experienced much distress after Dave's death. She knew he died, but not what had killed him. She assumed it was a gunshot or maybe he got overwhelmed by protesters. But things seemed somewhat calmer with Jennifer in charge. At least, that's what Milly saw.

Milly was outside the medical centre with Norris. She was simply sitting on a patch of grass, watching Norris pecking around happily. Milly blinked softly as she looked around. She fixed her glasses, trying to get a better view. She liked being outside now. She remembered being terrified of being outdoors before, having never left her home before. But now she enjoyed being outside, seeing everything.

But upon thinking about all of this, Milly felt her good mood falter slightly. Despite Archie's care and the safety he and Jennifer provided she could not help but still be homesick. It was such a sudden change, what had happened. Milly didn't like change, she wanted things to stay the same. But... if this never happened she would never have met Archie. But... she still missed her mother terribly. She missed her voice, her hugs, the food she would make, the way she would hold her when she was scared...

Milly felt some tears leak down from her eyes as she thought about it. She quickly brushed them away. No, she couldn't be upset now! She looked for something to distract her from her thoughts.

She heard aggressive pecking from Norris, she saw the silkie hen pecking away at the ground, like she was trying to catch something. Upon further inspection, she saw that it was actually a large bumblebee scurrying along the ground to escape Norris's pecks. For some reason it wasn't flying.

"Norris! No!" Milly squeaked as she batted away the hen, gently picking up the bumblebee and putting it in her hand. It flapped its wings, making the distinct "Bzzzz" sound but it wasn't flying. It thankfully didn't sting her and just wandered around her hand. She brought it up close to her face, looking at it. Milly didn't like insects but she always found bees cute. And this little guy was no exception. He had a white collar around his head and a white tuft on his rear. He was flicking his long and skinny tongue in and out, brushing her hand as he looked for nectar.

Milly blinked gently and got out her bottle of water Archie had given her. There was not much left in it, so she took a long gulp of it and then poured the rest into her hand where the bee was. The small bumblebee instantly went to the water, flicking his little tongue in and out as he drank. Milly squeaked happily before taking out the tub that had had her sandwiches in and gently putting the bee in it before putting the lid on it slightly ajar so he could breath.

She got up, groaning slightly from the pain in her knees. Holding the tub in her gentle grip. She looked around before spotting Archie sitting outside the medical office. Milly had seen that the large man seemed quite down. She didn't know why and he wouldn't tell her. It made her anxious. He helped her so much, she wanted him to be happy too.

Still holding the tub as steadily as she could, she gently jogged to the man, sitting down on the step and snuggling up against the man, nuzzling him on his shoulder as she gave him a side hug.

"Hi!" She chirped sweetly, giving him another squeeze before grabbing the tub that contained the bumblebee, which Norris was still trying to peck. She put it on her lap, looking at the man eagerly. She hoped this would help him.

"I found a bumblebee!" She chirped, opening the lid up. The bee was still stumbling around and not trying to fly, "I gave him water but I think he needs nectar, or sugar. We used to have bees in our back garden, mum said nectar is like sugar and they like it." She rambled slightly. It had been some time since she had seen a bee. After saying this, she was momentarily distracted by a fluffy moth that had fluttered by and landed on one of her knees. While she was often unwilling to have Norris rest on her knees, because of the chronic pain within them, when the moth landed on her she felt nothing. Milly cooed and gently gave the moth a soft poke. It didn't move and continued to wander around her leg. She smiled a little before looking at Archie, "Think it likes me!"
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ARCHIE "THE SCOTSMAN" MCKEEGAN​
McKeegan had been blindly staring into space when Milly snuck up on him, winding her arms around him with a nuzzle and squeeze. Archie appeared surprised but not too shocked, returning it partially with a tired genuine smile. "Hello, love." He replied, momentarily patting her cheek with a distracted kiss on the top of her head. The Lumberjack's gaze was then drawn to the Tupperware box she'd excitedly put her bee in. "We'll have to get our little bumble friend some sugar-water from the canteen then, hm? I wouldn't want the fella to be stranded out here." Funny choice of words. His stomach twisted without the aid of alcohol this time, throat tightening.

"What do you mean I missed the last plane out?!" Archie roared over the pay-phone, putting hand to brow. "Sir, please calm down, you know we can't make flights at this--"
"CALM DOWN? THIS WHOLE COUNTRY IS GOIN' TO SHIT AND I NEED TO GET HOME." He interrupted, leaning up against the cool metal and glass of the tiny box, staring across the street at the illuminated neon sign of the bar, 'Champs' the 's' flickering in and out till the bulb fizzled out.
"Sir, the last flight to the United Kingdom was yesterday. You missed it. We can't get you another one." McKeegan slammed down the black, wired telephone and sank low. Chest heaving with wrath and half-hearted sobs. Fists throwing themselves against the door and the top of the machine. Leaning on it, he sniffled and croaked, fishing for a tissue. He pushed a few cents in, punching an international number and waiting as it dialled through.
"Hey, ma, I ain't gonna be home like I thought. Yeah? I'll be safe. You know how these things are. They had that whole ebola panic a few years back ... -- it's just Americans bein' American. When the quarantine is all lifted, I'm on the plane straight to Glasgow -- yeah yeah -- you better meet me there! ... I know I ain't been the best. Missed out on one too many holidays, birthdays too. Ain't had a proper Christmas since I left. These yanks don't know how to get a good party goin' like pa did down at the pub." The big man let out a choked laugh, "Kiss everyone for me. I'll be home soon. Put the kettle on and all that, keep the fires burnin'. Love you, mum."

He gave an uncharacteristic watery-eyed sniff, righting himself. "Now, you be careful with that, lass. Don't touch those wings." McKeegan wrapped an arm around Milly in return, "Of course the moth likes you. I bet he's a big fan. I know I would be if I were a moth." Archie grinned. "Come on, how about we fix this bee up and play a game? Any game and you get to choose this time. Hm? I think I can guess what It might be." He gave the spindly girl a nudge. "Hide an' Seek? But its where I'm the Seeker, right?" Archie inhaled and shook his head amusingly, drawing a hand over his features and across his beard with a bristle against the calloused skin.

"I ain't no holy man. I'm just another one out here, alright? And if you ain't gonna give me what I need, I'm gonna blow your face across this fuckin' wall." He hissed to the wide-eyed employees in the log cabin offices. "Arch, calm down! The military'll roll through, clear it all up --" Spoke up a fellow, albeit meeker chokerman till the Scotsman's angered gaze now wore him down. Weighing the value of life.
"GIVE ME WHAT I FUCKING NEED." The Lumberer yelled, shotgun primed and cocked as a black duffel bag was thrown to his feet. Snatching it up, McKeegan moved backwards, out the door and down the steps. Hitching the duffle over his shoulder, he glanced about and vanished into the wilderness. One foot after another, breathing heavy. Half the supplies for a group of men, now belonigng to one. Unfair but he wasn't going to wait around for the sickness to take them. Or the dead.

"You ready for me to keep my high score? Huh? Ah, but I have somethin' for you. Just like I had somethin' for Zed." Retrieving two birds from his oversized jean pockets. "Now this one is a bluebird; but this one? It's a duck. I know how much you miss your rubber ones."

Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
Calliope sat outside on the ground. Since the Dave scenario and hospital event with her anxiety attack, she was trying to keep herself calmer. Daniel had slept through everything for the most part but he still changed a little. He jumped at the simplest details, laughed off obvious anxious tendencies. There was no denying he was difference since the incident. Calliope tried to give him the best life possible given their circumstances but it seemed it wouldn't be enough.
Daniel tossed a red bouncy ball on the open pavement. He wasn't sure what to think of how everything happened. He wasn't even sure what exactly had happened. He remembered fear and gunshots and then waking up in the apartment with his sister gone. She had re-appeared later that day but all she had said was everyone was alive, which was great considering. The sun shown down on his darkened hair as he threw the ball. It bounced off a wall and back to his hands.
"Hey Cali," His tossed the ball again as Calliope looked up from chopping the heads off a daisies with her combat knife, "My birthday is coming up,"
It had completely slipped her mind that it had been another year. Daniel was growing up so fast. He was taller now, his hair longer.
"Yeah? You've been keeping track?" She smiled to him, surprised he had actually known what day of the year it was today, as calendars weren't exactly a priority anymore, "What do you want to do?" The year prior, Calliope had searched a hotel for snacks and set up a fire on the roof. They watched the stars and ate s'mores like they used to when they were kids but that time it held a much different nostalgia in her heart.
Daniel shrugged, "I don't know. Maybe we can throw a party for once with music," He looked back at her, "..And people," It was another burn to her emotions. She had kept him away from people for so long in fear of what they could or would do to him. All he wanted to have friends and family again.
"Yeah, that sounds like a possibility," She popped the head off another daisy as he went back to throwing his ball. Hopefully Archie would help her set it up, she was no good with people. Or parties. The parties she had on her birthdays consisted of body shots and mind numbing sex.

Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 idalie idalie
 
The whole conversation Jennifer had with Zelda was a weighty one. Her questions made Zelda vulnerable, to some extent. While it wasn’t her intent to, Jennifer put her in that position. Zelda tried to hide her displeasure of this, but it stood out to the girl. She’d become capable of reading body language. Surviving this long and coming across people who there was no way of knowing their intentions, body language became a key factor for an individual to learn. While words may say one thing, body language could tell a different story, one that could spell out whether to expect danger or not. While Zelda’s body language didn’t display this, it did show her unease with the questions, and even at times her anger.

There was nothing that Jennifer did but listen intently to Zelda talk about a wide range of things, something Jennifer wasn’t sure if she could respond to everything. She tried keeping a mental note in her head of some important things Zelda said, while trying to think of how she should respond. It was coming apparent to her that Zelda had a difficult life, even though she could tell that Zelda was holding back some things, more personal things, things that were making her tear up. Jennifer wasn’t sure if approaching her and reassuring her was the best idea. Zelda wasn’t necessarily in a receptive mood, and she felt that approaching her and putting a hand on her shoulder, the one not shot, would be bad idea. She needed some space (or so it seemed to her), and that was something she could grant her. The approach she was going to take, however, before she left, was going to be one of sympathy, perhaps giving Zelda a thing or two to ponder.

“Zelda,” Jennifer began, her voice low but sympathetic, “I understand life not being fair. I understand the desire to wish you were dead.”

Jennifer opened her mouth, eyes closed, about to say something. But words didn’t escape her mouth. She closed it and took a deep breath in, playing with her hands before continuing. “When I was nine, my brother, who was my best friend as a child, contracted a brain eating amoeba. He died and I was just 9. Dad went insane after. Lost his job, became abusive. He had two choices when the law got involved, and he took the right one. Moved to Indiana, he became a better man. Then I get an enterovirus, causing myocarditis. And my heart didn’t take it well. A heart transplant later, I was alive, but at the mercy of immunosuppressants. Still am to this day. I was just 17. I was just a child.”

Looking back at her life, she saw where it all went wrong. She saw where God put her. Even looking back now bothered her to some extent. Some of those memories still hurt her. And she hadn’t even got to some of the worse. And quite frankly, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to.

“Then the dead rose. Things were... worse. I’ll spare you the details for now, but stuff happened that... changed me, made me dark, made me a murderer, a soul astray from the path. I had things done to me that...” Jennifer stopped for a moment and had to wipe tears from her own eyes. The memories and pain were just so vivid. It hurt her immensely to think of what Sal did to her, what those captors did to her, what she had to do to survive, how it changed her. She didn’t want to go into detail. It hurt too much.

“I ju-... I just...,” the girl buried her head in her hands for a moment. “I had so much happened that changed me. And I tried taking my life many times, but someone or something stopped me. And I just remem-..”

Jennifer leaned back in her chair, and took a deep breath, simultaneously cleaning her eyes with her sleeve. She’d felt vulnerable herself in this conversation, by her own doing. And she didn’t even go into detail about the sexual abuse, the assault. The rapes, what they robbed her of. Her being the Virgin Mary equivalent to Sal and his radicalized group called the Disciples. None of it. Yet, she was so vulnerable right now. But the why was what she couldn’t figure out. The conversation had taken a different route than she thought it would once she began to reply to Zelda.

“Hell, what I’m say is I had a shitty life. I get your pain, your pain to all of this. I get wanting to take your life. I tried so many times. But damn it, Zelda, someone stopped me. And only now do I see reasons as to why they did. I don’t know about how you feel about God, but I see why He stopped me from doing it. I’m here now for a reason, and I’m starting to see it now, even if it’s just bits of it. I’m more than that tormented person I was, that failure that I’d been at one point. We all get lost along the path, but we somehow always make our way back to it.”

“There’s something, I don’t know what it is, but there’s something, a reason why you’re here. You’re worth something. If you weren’t, you’d be dead. And you’re not. You’re worth something to people here, Zelda. Maybe not everyone, but to me, Archie, and hell, I bet even Milly, you mean something. I know you want to die, but there’s more to this picture than you see. I think you’re just not looking at things here. I get that you have issues with people here, Emma specifically, who I will have a word with. But you need to keep track of those who see the use others don’t. It can make that pain lessen. I was just an angry, dark soul. But I was saved. I changed. Look at me now. My life ain’t easy. I have troubling finding the worth in my existence at times, but I remember everything that I do have worth for, what I’m needed for. Not just for myself, but for others. It just turns out that my worth has lead me to leadership here. I think yours is to save people. What I’m trying to say is you have worth. You just need to see it in others, not yourself. Forget the bad, focus on the good. That’s where your worth is. And you have tremendous worth to me and this community. I just think you need to know this. And maybe things will suck less.”

The conversation got emotional for Jennifer. Some topics she didn’t intend to cover come up, and they made her herself think about long buried feelings, the pain being too much for her to let out. Even to this day, the pain radiated in her. She thought she’d done a good job of riding it, or hiding at the very least. But it seems that it had to come out. And it did. She had got so off track of where she originally was going with this, that she needed to take a moment to regain her composure and thoughts herself.

“I thank you that you wanted to protect me, but don’t throw your life away. I know it doesn’t seem like, but people do care about you. I know I do. And I also understand that you feel hated or ignored by so many here. But to hell with those who do. They don’t matter. The ones who care about you do matter. This talk was also not a waste of time. You’re under my leadership now. I make decisions for people like you. I care about those under my rule.”

Jennifer closed her eyes momentarily, turning her head to the side, staring at an empty wall. For some reason, her eyes were fixated on it as they slowly went out of focus. It was an oddly relaxing feeling as she sat there, with her head a sea of emotions that she couldn’t quite control, nor could she even piece thoughts together. What she knew is, however, that she was going to leave Zelda to be for a bit, not for her but for herself. Jennifer needed some time alone to think for herself. These old forgotten and buried feelings needed to be dealt with on her own. Jennifer returned her focus to Zelda, after realizing she was lost in thought. She cleared her throat, shifting uneasily in her chair.

“Hey, Zelda,” she started to speak, the internal conflict raging in her head. “I need to go get to some things. But I’m always around if you need to talk. You matter to me. Your well-being matters to me. Come to me at anytime you need me. You know where I am.”

Jennifer got up, flashing a smile to Zelda. She walked out, and instructed Emma to clean up the wine bottle mess Zelda made. She wanted to give Zelda a little payback to see Emma cleaning that up, per her order. While it was that, it was also a momentary distraction from the internal conflict in her head. She walked out of the medical building and into the house, where she went upstairs and laid on her bed, her mind at war with feelings of the past she thought were buried, but in fact weren’t. She closed her eyes, and tried to let the peace of birds chirping outside her window settle her. It was unfortunately to no avail. She continued laying there, trying to settle her mind. But, when the feelings you thought were buried come back, and you’re in a position like hers, your mind doesn’t let you win or give you a break. It was a battle. And she had to conquer it. Though, this time, she didn’t know how to.

idalie idalie Rumble Fish Rumble Fish Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
Zelda Williams​
Zelda sighed and turned her head a little as Jennifer spoke, telling her she understood her feelings.

“Hmm… do you now?” she growled, hunching her shoulders. No she didn't. She had heard this before, from so many people and from what she knew they did not understand. She didn't want to hear it. But before she could say anything, the younger woman began speaking again.

Zelda did not move or turn around when Jennifer started talking again. If anything, she just wanted the girl to go. But at the same time, she wanted her to stay. This was just an extremely uncomfortable situation for her. But she listened. She listened as Jennifer… basically poured her heart out. Zelda tried to keep up her angry facade up, but the longer the girl talked, the more she told her, the more she felt it melt away. When she mentioned her heart problems, that was when Zelda turned around to look at her. She didn't want to say it but she knew about her heart. She was a doctor after all.

But then she described what happened after the dead rose. Awful things. She talked about wanting and trying to kill herself, stopping as she seemed to become upset about the topic. Guilt hit Zelda like a train. She caused Jennifer to feel that way. She shouldn't have said anything in the first place. This was why she didn't want to talk to people. She would hurt them. And right now she was hurting Jennifer by making her remember.

“Don’t talk. If it hurts.” She grunted, shutting her heavy eyes for a few long minutes. Everything felt both heavy and light at the same time, like she was behind held up by strings. She just wanted to collapse and die on the spot. Despite feeling so dull and sick she wanted to drop on the spot, she still took a drink from the bottle. Maybe if she drank enough of it, it’d finish her off.

When Jennifer spoke again, now in a more positive tone, Zelda looked towards her as she described how she moved on from those feelings. But as soon as she mentioned God, the woman sharply turned her head away. She used to believe in God. It took her a few moments to remember that, yes, she was technically a Catholic. She was baptised, took communion, did confession, went weekly to mass, everything. That was one of the reasons she wanted to be a doctor. To help people, given that was something she was taught from the start. But… what kind of God takes away everything that ever meant to someone, and leaves them with nothing to comfort them or help them? She gave up on praying a long, long time ago… what was the point? Not even God gave a shit. And if He didn’t care… what was the point? She could not see how this was supposed to be part of His plan.

Zelda didn't want to talk about it. So she said nothing. She just kept repeating what Jennifer had been telling her over and over again in her head. Wow… Jennifer really did understand it. But in the long run, that was little consolation. She had every right to feel that way after everything she had been through before and after the dead rose. More of a right than she did… she really didn't have a right to think that way. She was stupid for thinking this way… Zelda wanted to scream, all it was was a vicious cycle! There was no end! Jennifer had told her so much and she had told her nothing at all… how was that fair? She wanted nothing more than to talk to someone fully but… she just couldn't trust them like that. The few people who did know about her family including Dave and Emma used it against her. How was she supposed to know they were not going to do the same thing?

Zelda glanced at Jennifer as she thanked her for wanting to protect her, but told her she didn't want her to put herself in danger like that again. And she told her that there were indeed people that cared about her. Zelda was blinking back tears now. She didn't want to cry. Not in front of Jennifer. Seemed the alcohol was taking effect, pushing her to do so. There was still seeds of doubt in the drunk woman’s mind. Jennifer, Archie and even Milly… she didn't want to put complete trust into them. The thought of letting everything out to them… scared her! That was it! She was scared. Terrified! After years of being unloved, hated and alone, even before the dead rose, the thought of doing that was too frightening for Zelda to consider it.

When Jennifer left, after making sure to tell her that she indeed mattered, Zelda was left alone in her office. She was still troubled by all of her thoughts and the emotional turmoil. With a heavy sigh, she slid down against the wall, sitting on the ground after locking her door. She wanted to die. But they didn't want her to. So she was making them worry about her, the one thing she wanted to avoid. She may “matter” to them but she was also a burden, something Zelda did not want to be. She just wanted it to be over. Even if she got to the point where she trusted them completely, it wasn't going to fill the void. At all.

Zelda’s hands shook as she tried to hold herself back from bursting into tears. In an attempt to calm it, she tried to drink more wine. But just as it started to go down her throat, she released an involuntary sob, causing it to come back up through her nose. Coughing, she just managed to put the thing down as she brought her hands up to her face, unable to stop the gasps and tears flowing freely down her face like a waterfall as all her grief poured out into harsh sobs that she desperately tried to suppress but failed miserably. She wished Jennifer was still here. Part of her had wanted to beg the woman to stay. She needed something to hold onto… a shoulder to cry on. She didn't want to be alone anymore. But what choice did she have? At least this way she couldn't hurt another person…
***​
“Mum?” Jason’s voice asked, his voice cutting through her sore head. Zelda suppressed a groan and adjusted her sunglasses.

“Jason?” She asked back, her usual response to the question “mum?” Sort of like an inside joke between them.

“Can I have my friends sleep over on my birthday?” He asked, his big green eyes widening into his signature puppy dog look. Zelda bit her lip anxiously.

“We’ll… we’ll talk about it, sonnyjim.” She answered, squinting her eyes to try and focus on the road as they approached his school. Her head hurt so much and her stomach felt like it was full of acid. She wanted to go home and sleep.

“Please? It’s been so long since I’ve had my friends over…” he asked sadly. It was true, it had been a long time. It was not just Jason. Zelda had not seen her own friends for a long time. She didn't want people in the house… it was embarrassing. They’d open the recycling bin or the fridge and find them full of bottles. She didn't want people seeing that… especially her son’s friends. Thankfully, Jason was still innocent towards the whole thing. He didn't need that stress.

“...Y’know what? Sure.” Zelda ruffled his fluffy brown hair, “I’ll make enchiladas for you all. Get lots of chocolate. Maybe we’ll go see a movie too. Get one of those big Costco cakes, huh? Like the sound of that?” Jason’s eyes gleamed at the very idea, earning him a brief smile from the woman. She pulled the car to a stop at the gates.

“Alright, I’ll be here at three to get you.” She said as she let him out.

“Can we walk home again?” The boy chirped, still on a high from what Zelda had said.

“Definitely.” Zelda smiled widely, whereas inside, she felt terrible. The walk was not long, but at that point in the afternoon she would already be so inebriated that she could not focus on what they were talking about, Jason would just ramble on about his day, blissfully unaware of what was going on.

“Yes!” He first pumped the air, “I’m glad you’re home more now, mum, we can do more!” Before heading off, he jumped back into the car, giving Zelda a quick kiss on her hot cheek before practically prancing through the gates, clearly excited for his birthday.

“Yeah… me too.” She sighed deeply as she watched him leave. Now Jason was gone, all the happy aura vanished in the car, leaving Zelda on her own again… Mark was at work and finished very late today and she had nothing to do until three… Zelda sighed heavily, she wished she could come up with some kind of plan. But it wouldn't have mattered. She would instantly fall back into her usual routine…
***​
Zelda was not sure how long she had blacked out for. But when she finally came to, her neck and front of her oversized black shirt was wet. Her eyes hurt, her throat felt dry and her head was pounding. She shivered terribly, still feeling very dizzy and unsettled. She felt like she was going to go insane. Before she could think of anything else, she suddenly felt a rush of heat and pain come from her stomach up her throat.

“Oh fu-” she just managed to grab her bin in time to vomit violently into it. It was empty thankfully. It stung her nose and caused her head to pound painfully. Thankfully it did not last long, but even after it was all done, she was still dry heaving. She just felt like shit. Once she was certain it was all over, she got up, still shaky and pale. She grabbed her toothbrush (she always kept it here for this exact situation) and brushed at her teeth vigorously, using a bottle of water to help clean her teeth and tongue. Even after that, she still felt terrible. She drank the rest of the water, having felt very dehydrated. Maybe if she went outside for a moment she would feel better. She took the empty water bottle and filled it with wine from the bottle. The last thing she needed was being seen with that thing. She took the water bottle that now looked like it was full of some kind of grape juice as well as her flask.

As she went to open the door, Zelda stopped as she suddenly noticed her mirror on the wall. It had been there as long as she could… well not really remember but it was definitely there before! She stopped right in front of it, causing her to see her reflection fully, something she actively avoided doing. She paused for several minutes, just staring. Well… she didn't look too unhealthy. Granted her liver probably looked like a shrivelled pickle but at least it meant she wasn't going to an old age. Not that anyone was going to in this universe. She could see that despite her pale skin, around her eyes it was dark and not just under her eyes but on her eyelids too, and her nose was… purple? It wouldn't have shocked her. Her eyes were both pink and bloodshot at the same time and her greasy fringe fell over them, causing spots on her forehead. The last time she had had a bath was… when Archie had done it while she was on another planet. She tried rubbing her eyes since they felt extremely sore and tired. She didn't even bother putting shoes on as she left her office, only giving Emma a sharp glare as she saw the woman gingerly picking up pieces of glass. This time the woman stayed quiet, being smart for once.

Opening the door to the medical office, Zelda groaned at the sudden bright light. She wished she brought sunglasses with her. All she could do was squint her sore eyes as she walked further out, she couldn't keep herself straight and kept bumping into the walls. Once she was finally outside, the woman sipped out her water bottle (though it wasn't water in it) and looked around. She inhaled deeply. The fresh air instantly took away some of her illness. But just as she felt slightly better, she felt her chest tighten as she suddenly dry heaved though nothing came up. The woman let out a quiet groan as she went to go back inside. This was a waste of time. Sure it had been her first time being outside in… longer than deemed healthy for a human being, that was for sure, but still. She just wanted to go back inside, switch her lights off and go to sleep. Or drink. Or drink and sleep. Whatever… She had seen that Milly and Archie were sitting on the steps but didnt acknowledge them. They didnt need her to drag them down...
***
Milly McDonald​
Milly looked at the man as he advised her not to touch the moth’s wings, she looked back to the creature as it was still crawling around her knee quite contently. She turned to look at the man as he then suggested playing hide and seek. Milly’s eyes gleamed and she straightened up from her hunched position at the mention of it. Since there had been so much happening lately, it had been some time since they were able to play that game. Archie was too good at that game, he always found her no matter where she hid! But, it was still a fun game. She clapped her hands happily at the prospect.

She turned her attention back to the moth as it fluttered its wings, she was about to try and hold it when Archie’s Scottish burr got her attention again. She looked at him just as he handed her two small figures made of wood. She had to bring them up close to her only good eye to get a proper look at them. As she did, Archie described what they were. One of them was a bluebird, something that made Milly smile widely, she loved bluebirds. And the colour blue in general. The woolly jumper she was wearing right now was a lovely cyan colour, and her joggers were very, very, very light blue almost white. The few clothes Milly had were like this, making her look more ready for bed rather than surviving the apocalypse.

As she was admiring the bluebird, she then noticed the second one Archie gave her. A duck. She looked at the man as he mentioned how she missed her rubber duck. She had told him one night after she had, again, had a nightmare and was feeling intensely homesick. He had her describe everything she missed, her rubber duck being one of them. Like her teddy, she had her duck since she was tiny and missed having it. The fact he went to lengths to replace it meant a lot to the younger girl. She leaned against him, putting her arms around the man and nuzzling him lovingly. She wanted to tell him how thankful she was but Milly was never very good with words. As she moved, the moth jumped off of her knee. Milly watched the moth flutter away before turning her attention to the large bumblebee in her Tupperware. He was scuttling around so the water must have perked him up a little, but he needed sugar water like Archie had said.

“Oooh… okay, I’ll be back in a second!” She chirped as she handed the man the Tupperware containing the bee. After giving him another hug, she got up from her sitting position and headed to the canteen. But after sitting for a while, her knees were sore and a bit weak so she stumbled a little as she walked, coupled with her limp. It probably looked quite bizarre to some people but she was more interested in getting sugar for the bee…

After a few moments, the girl had returned with the sugary substance. She snuggled up next to Archie again before gently dropping the liquid into the tupperware. The bee instantly scuttled towards it, lapping it up with his long tongue. Milly giggled at the bee, little thing must have been famished. She looked back up towards Archie. She had seen sadness on his face, and had seen him wipe his eyes. She tilted her head at him, worryingly. What had upset him? She shimmied closer to the man, lifting herself up a little to give him a quick and little kiss on the cheek, hoping that would help him feel better. The man had done so much for her, she wanted to do something in return but she didnt know what.

She looked at the bee again, now seeing he seemed to have finished his sugar water and was now more active. He was trying to fly out but she still had the lid on. She heard a quiet snapping sound and she turned to see Norris staring at the bee, snapping her beak clearly still interested in eating the poor creature. She simply picked up Norris and placed her on Archie’s lap. The chicken bawked as if confused.

“Stay! Come on, Bumble.” she barked at the chicken before cooing to the bee as she picked the tupperware up and took it a few feet away from them in a patch of grass. She opened up the tupperware and as she did, the bumblebee rose unsteadily into the sky, like he was confused before happily buzzing away. Milly watched it go, waving slightly before she went to go back to Archie.

As she stood back up, she shook her head slightly as she saw something small and red bounce near her. One of the few colours Milly could see clearly was red, so it really caught her attention. As she watch it, she could hear both Cali and Daniel’s voices. She instantly thought back to what Archie said about playing hide and seek. The thought of having possibly another playmate excited the young girl. She practically skipped back to the Scotsman, grabbing her teddy from the porch next to him as she sat next to him.

“Archie, can Daniel play too? It’s more fun with three people.” she chirped as she looked at him with her eyes still gleaming. She was really quite excited. It was simple but she was still excited about finally having some fun. She cuddled her bear as she waited for the man’s response, while holding both her bluebird and her duck in her grip. She wasnt going to let these out of her sight, ever!

idalie idalie Peacemaker .45 Peacemaker .45 Emotional Enigma Emotional Enigma
 
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